Day Fifteen

Always one to read between the lines and see what usually isn't there, I have an uncontrollable urge to figure what might be behind these ones:

Arab sources also say Shalit to be handed over to Egypt soon

"The Arabic language newspaper Asharq al-Awsat on Saturday quoted Arab officials as saying that abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit will be moved to Egypt soon as part of a deal with Hamas to secure his release -- in exchange for the release of 400 Palestinian prisoners by Israel, most of whom women and children, as well as some Hamas members of parliament."

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"Israel is expected to release a total of 1,100 Palestinian prisoners under the deal, according to the sources."

Aside from the fact that it takes 1,100 Palestinians to equal one Israeli, which is pretty funny, I wonder if this was on the agenda at Obama's recent visit to Cairo? Would it explain his reluctance to speak forcefully about the Iranian situation for fear of upsetting a delicately balanced diplomatic deal? Certainly Egypt and other Arab countries seem to have softened their anti-American/Israel stance in recent months, primarily because of their growing concern about Iran's nuclear program, just as Washington has been distancing itself from the US's longstanding support for Israel. Perhaps Obama's fear of confronting the Iranian regime with a clear and strong message my have actually been a fear of foiling some backroom intrigue worked out with the Arabs to weaken Iran. Cozying up to a cabal of dictators while confronting a brutal theocracy may not have been in the Democrats' best foreign policy interests.

Now this one, of course, isn't really directly related to whatever may have transpired in Cairo, but it's part of the realpolitik that world leaders have to deal with:

Hariri steps out of his father's shadow

Hariri is pro-Western and is promising to unite Lebanon (read: quash Hezbollah).

All this leads me to suspect that (and here comes the "reading between the lines and finding what isn't there") a pincer operation meant to isolate and de-legitimize both Hezbollah and Hamas may be at play.

Further fueling this speculation are these articles:

PA to release Hamas prisoners in unity gesture

Hamas loses it's sugar daddy

"The infighting in Iran since its contested election has made it a “weaker patron” of Hamas and Hezbollah, the two principal terrorist groups abutting Israel, but it is too early to know the ramifications, according to an Israeli political analyst.

“Iran was weakened by the Gaza war [in January between Israel and Hamas] and Hezbollah’s loss in the Lebanese elections,” said Gerald Steinberg, a political science professor at Bar-Ilan University. “Now Iran is going to be totally absorbed in its own internal issues.

“They may try to foment incidents to create nationalist support in Iran, and some of their targets may be Israeli. But Iran as a source of power behind Hamas and Hezbollah is going to be weakened, and it will take a long time to see how that plays out."

Is Fatah hoping to absorb Hamas and deflate the influence of the pigs that run it? If so, and if successful, which I doubt, will such a feat ultimately fracture the terrorist network funded and assisted by Iran?

And what does Iran have to do with all this? Could it be the recent spate of bombings in Iraq are meant to draw attention away from its own troubles, deflect their people's attention elsewhere while plotting the election coup d'etat and the rally the troops in Hamas and Hezbollah? We've heard many accounts over recent days that among the goons on the streets charged with crushing the revolt are many who speak Arabic.

Whether any of this speculation is true or not, and I'm sure it could be spun in a variety of other ways, it all goes to show that the Middle East has received a very big shaking, both by the liberation of Iraq and by the turmoil in Iran, and when the dust settles, we could end up with a very different dynamic than the one which has prevailed for the last thirty years, or even the last sixty years. And if Obama knows stuff that the rest of us don't, which one must assume to be true of all heads of state, maybe his reluctance to "rock the boat" so to speak, can be forgiven - somewhat.

Meanwhile, we all wait to see whether and when Iranians can join the free world and kick radical Islam out of the country for good. I, for one, would like to see Ahmadinejad and Khamenei hanging on a rope at the top of a crane.
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While the Iranian revolt has slipped off the radar/YouTube screen a multitude of editorials are appearing analyzing the events of the past two weeks and including an historical summary. A good one by one of my favourite political scientists, Salim Mansur, is up on the Proud to Be Canadian website.

Ironically, he also compares the Mullahocracy to the Bolsheviks and their record of human carnage.

"Since 1979 Iran has been held in the tyrannical grip of the Shia Muslim version of the Russian Bolsheviks. Like their Russian counterparts, the turbaned Iranian Bolsheviks, led by the late Ayatollah Khomeini, rode the slipstream of a popular revolt against the monarchical rule of the late shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Being better organized and more ruthless, they seized power.

The 1979 revolution provided legitimacy to Khomeini and his clerical vanguard in the making of the Islamic Republic of Iran. However, the sheer brutality of the regime, the fascistic nature of the Islamist ideology and widespread corruption among the elite revealed over the years, had washed away the gloss of the republic some time ago."

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"Iran’s tyrants likely will meet the same fate of Russia’s Bolsheviks, overthrown by their own people. The reason is simple.

More than two-thirds of Iranians were born after the 1979 revolution or were not yet adults then. They have known only the clenched-fist ineptness of the regime, the squandering of their future through war, support for terrorism and bigotry and expect more of the same unless the regime is overthrown.

Seyyed Hossein Khomeini, grandson of Khomeini, visited the holy city of Najaf in southern Iraq a few months after American troops liberated the country in April 2003 and gave a public interview.

He said, “There is absolutely no freedom in Iran, people are suffering from a totalitarian religious rule. Just like the Iraqis, the Iranians are desperate to be free and if all other methods fail they may welcome American military intervention.”"

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"The recent election was designed to show the world Islamic democracy at work. But the quarrels among regime players let the Iranian people break through existing cracks in the regime’s facade to tell the world they are restless for freedom."

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Iranian protesters avoid censorship with Navy technology

"Iranians seeking to share videos and other eyewitness accounts of the demonstrations that have roiled their country since disputed elections two weeks ago are using an Internet encryption program originally developed by and for the U.S. Navy.

Designed a decade ago to secure Internet communications between U.S. ships at sea, The Onion Router, or TOR, has become one of the most important proxies in Iran for gaining access to Web sites such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook."

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"According to the Tor Project, connections to TOR have gone up by 600 percent since mass protests erupted after the June 12 vote, which gave a purported landslide victory to incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."

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"Iran, a country of 70 million people, has more than 20 million Internet users - the highest percentage in the region outside Israel - and a well-developed blogosphere."