blog.Tribulationperiod.com

A Little propaganda here, And a Little truth There

Will Make It Confusing When Entering Enemies Lair

And the next time Israel Invades into Lebanon So Fair

It may Well make Israel’s IDF Leaders Pull out their Hair

They may well discover they have attacked the wrong Bear

“Bear went over the Mountain” is a tune the IDF will not Hear

August 16, 2008

Some of the “truth” coming out of the Middle East is true, but is issued for propaganda purposes in such an exaggerated format it is a joke, and little military importance is attached to it. Such is the case with the Excerpt 1 from the Jerusalem Post.

Excerpt 2 is not exaggerated.

It would be foolish of Iran not to prepare to take over the Iraqi government after American troops are pulled out. The Hizbullah is expert in successful

assassinations within all Islamic groups, and I have no doubt that in a very short period after American troops are gone, we will see an Islamic Republic in Iraq.

Neither is the “truth” in the third Excerpt from the Jerusalem Post an exaggerated format in what is stated about the great strengthening of Hizbullah. I am afraid that Israel will go into Lebanon on her next trip with military hardware designed to “root out” imbedded Islamic forces, but will not be equipped with mechanized equipment designed for a full retreat.

Begin Excerpt 1 from Jerusalem Post

Iran builds new, smart submarine

August 12, 2008

Associated Press , THE JERUSALEM POST

Iran’s military capabilities have “increased remarkably” after the construction of a new submarine, Iranian state radio quoted the country’s defense minister as saying Tuesday.

Gene

ral Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said

the submarine was “smart,” unmanned and had radar-evading capabilities.

Tuesday’s report did not elaborate on its size and technical specifics, and did not say whether the submarine had been tested.

Iran occasionally announces production of advanced weapons. Since 1992, it has been active in producing military tanks, missiles, torpedoes, as well as guided bombs and airplanes.

But little is known about Iranian submarines, beyond announcements years ago that Teheran bought some Russian subs and was to produce its own, smaller-sized ones.

Begin Excerpt 2 from Persian Journal

Iran training Iraqi hit squads: US military

Aug 15, 2008, 19:58

(AFP) — Iraqi assassination squads are being trained in Iran by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Quds Force and Lebanese Hezbollah for attacks in Iraq, a US military official said

Friday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Shiite “special groups” were being trained in Qom, Tehran, Mashad and Ahvaz in assassination and bombing techniques to target specific Iraqis as well as US troops and Iraqi security forces.

“We have intelligence reports confirming Iranian-sponsored groups are planning to return back to Iraq and are targeting specific coalition forces, ISF (Iraqi Security Forces) and Iraqi citizens,” the official said.

The intelligence, if it proves out, raises the prospect of a deadly new security challenge at a time when the US military is hoping to make further cuts in its forces.

The official, who spoke from Iraq, said the information has been turned over to the Iraqi government “and they are taking the lead in handling the situation.”

The groups were being trained in “reconnaissance, small arms, small unit tactics, cellular operations, EFPs and other IEDs, RPGs and assassination techniques,” the official said.

EFPs, which stands for explosively formed projectiles, are armor-piercing bombs that have proven highly effective against US armored vehicles. The US military charges that components for the bombs are made in Iran.

The official said the special groups were being deployed to carry out “terrorist acts” against specific individuals as well as US and Iraqi forces.

The special groups have been associated in the past with radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi army, but the official would not link those being trained to Sadr.

Among the Iraqi groups identified as involved in the training were Kitaib Hezbollah, which he described as a criminal group supported by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard that has claimed a number of sophisticated attacks since 2005.

The official identified a second Iraqi group as As Said Al-Haq.

“They are being trained by Quds Force under the leadership of Qassim Suleimani and Lebanese Hezbollah,” the official said.

Begin Excerpt 3 from Jerusalem Post

‘Hizbullah and Syria gaining strength’

August 12, 2008

Yaakov Lappin , THE JERUSALEM POST

The flow of arms reaching Hizbullah from Syria could disrupt a “balance” between the Shi’ite terror organization and the IDF, Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned on Tuesday while touring a large drill held by the military in the Golan Heights.

Barak was accompanied by IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, the commander of the army’s ground forces, Gen. Avi Mizrahi, and other senior military brass.

Barak has repeatedly warned in recent days that Hizbullah’s ambitious rearming program formed an immediate threat to Israel’ s national

security.

“The other side is getting stronger. It is not a coincidence that we are holding a large-scale intensive exercise here in the Golan,” Barak said.

“[UN] Resolution 1701 has not succeeded in its mission.

There is a very significant strengthening of Hizbullah in recent years.

We are monitoring the possibility of a violation of a balance by the transfer of advanced weapons systems from the Syrians to Hizbullah,” he added. “What needs to be done in the field of preparations is being done. As for the rest – I prefer to not always talk about this, but, if and when there will be a need, to act.”

The exercise involved soldiers using live ammunition and missiles, and was described by Barak as “changing from the foundation up the IDF’s state of readiness and the ability of units to afterwards carry out missions in [actual] fighting, if and when this is forced on them.”

Asked to address the ceasefire in Gaza, Barak said the truce was holding up. “Until now the truce has been successful. There were around ten incidents of firing over the past six weeks.

But this must
be compared to the hundreds of incidents in the past. Every passing week of calm allows us to become stronger,” he said.

The defense minister also commented on the Georgian-Russian conflict, saying Israel should not look to abandon Georgia in its time of need.

“We can’t influence what is happening in Georgia,” he said. “We view in Russia an important element in the regional and global existence, while we view Georgia as a country with which we have friendly relations. Because of its experiences, the State of Israel should ensure that it does not intervene, and that it does not abandon friends during their hour of need. This is what we expected of our friends, and this is what our friends expect of us, and we all hope that matters there will be straightened out quickly.”

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When War Breaks Out in the Middle East

Naval Forces of all the Major World Powers

Will let Islam and Israel Slug it as they Watch

As Israel pours into Negev a truce will be Called

Navies have done it in the Past and will do it Again

The U.S., EU, Russia, and China do not Want a WW-3

The Next War Will be a Conventional War, Not a Nuclear

I believe it is most likely to begin between 2010 and 2015!

August 16, 2008

http://www.tribulationperiod.com/

The five major world military powers leaders have learned the political price they pay at home when the body bags come rolling in from their conflicts on foreign soul.

But the Americans, British, French, Russian, and Chinese leaders have learned to exert their naval force’s powers to end conflicts by truces, which is precisely what I expect them to do in the eventual Middle East war between Islamic and Israelis.

Begin Excerpt from DEBKAfile

Russia masses naval force oppo site

Georgia’s third sensitive region, Ajaria

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

August 12, 2008, 11:41 PM (GMT+2:00)

While the world’s attention was fixed on the Russian-Georgian contest over two breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, DEBKAfile’s exclusive military sources reveal that Russia has massed a fleet of warships and marine forces opposite the Gerogia’s semi-autonomous Black Sea region of Ajaria.

Moscow is preparing to punish what it regards as Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili’s further provocations by occupying this coastal strip on Georgia’s southwestern border with Turkey.

The appearance of Ukraine’s president Viktor Yushchenko alongside Saakashvili, leaders of the pro-Western Orange and Rose Revolutions, at a huge national rally outside the Georgian parliament in Tbilisi Tuesday night, Aug. 12, may well be seen by the Kremlin as over the top.

It came hours after Russian President Dimitry Medvedev’s gesture to the European mediation bid of ordering the Russian military operation in Georgia halted there and then.

Half of Ajaria’s ethnically Georgian population professes Islam, in contrast to the country’ s Chri

stian majority. The other half is Russian.

Ajarian has come to mean a Georgian Muslim.

The Russian Black Sea buildup is deployed opposite the Ajurian capital of Batumi, an important port for the shipment of oil from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Its oil refinery handles Caspian oil from Azerbaijan.

When Saakashvili was elected president five years ago, the region’s leaders refused to recognize his authority and maintained close ties with Moscow up until May 2004 when, after Ajurians demonstrated against Tbilisi, he ordered them to obey the Georgian constitution and disarm.

Russia maintained a military base at Batumi which it agreed to close by November 2007.

DEBKAfile’s sources report that by recovering the base, Moscow will not only punish the Georgian president, but also profit from the turmoil of the past week in three ways:

1. A third semi-autonomous province will be hacked off Georgian territory after the loss of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

2. Russia will gain a strategic Black Sea foothold at Turkey’s back door.

3. It will also control a gateway to Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Armenia.

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U.S. returning to Pre Pearl Harbor Status

U.S. Days of Land Force Intervention Over

Don’t expect the U.S. to commit Land Forces

To New Foreign Zones to help pro-U.S. Nations

From now on it’s going to be U.S. foreign Support

Of logistical and humanitarian nature till 2nd Advent

This is the likely scenario regardless of election Result

It Will be for Sure if Obama Wins the November Election

August 15, 2008

http://www.tribulationperiod.com/

General Douglas Mac Arthur said we could never win a war on the Asian mainland.

I have always assumed one of the MANY reasons he believed that, was because of its size and our inability to defend against a large scale internal waging of guerilla warfare by those conquered. In reality the Asian, Middle East, and European land mass is one gigantic continental land mass. No matter how hard we try to be the world policeman in this area we will fail if the American people are not willing to pay the price in body bags and terrorist attacks.

Before Pearl Harbor we supported those fighting against Nazi terror by giving them logistical and humanitarian support. We did not enter the great WW-2 until our nation was directly attacked. We are currently moving into that mode.

The U.S., Great Britain, France, China, and Russia DO NOT WANT WW-3, but they all want to have influence in the Middle East because of its oil reserves.

When war finally does break out in the Middle East, and I think it is quite likely to do so at some point in time between 2010 and 2015, I expect the U.S., Great Britain, France, and Australia to support Israel, while Russia and China support Islamic forces, but I expect all of them to keep their military forces out of it, as they watch Israel being driven into the Negev. They will all be for a truce once Israel has been driven to Beersheba, which will last for some three and one-half years.

The Second Advent of Jesus will occur to end the final battle of Armageddon and his kingdom will cover

the entire earth under the whole heaven.

Revelation 12:6 – And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.

Daniel 7:24-27 – And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings. [25] And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time. [26] But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume

and to destroy it unto the end. [27] And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.

Luke 21:27 – And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

Daniel 7:13,14 – I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven,

and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. [14] And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.

Zechariah 14:8,9 – And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be.

[9] And the Lord shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one Lord, and his name one.

Begin DEBKAfile Excerpt

Russians prepare two security strips in Georgia as Rice lands in Tbilisi

DEBKAfile Special Report

August 15, 2008, 11:05 AM (GMT+02:00)

On arrival in Tbilisi from France Friday, Aug. 15, a week after thousands of Russian troops entered South Ossetia and the rest of Georgia, US secretary of state urged Russia and Georgian to sign the European-brokered truce without delay.

Russian troops and armor were still in Georgia Friday morning and destroying Georgian military equipment and ammo.

A US State Department official said Rice was bringing to Tbilisi “clarifying explanations” in the six-point truce agreement, including the questions of territorial integrity and “residual security arrangements that the Russians would be able to maintain.”

DEBKAfile’s military sources disclose that the Russians are working frantically to create two narrow security belts 300-500 meters deep along the South Ossetian and Abkhazian borders with Georgia.

They are working against the clock to finish the work before ceasefire negotiations begin so as to confront Georgia and the United States with a fait accompli. Some of the Russian crews are working several hundred meters inside Georgian territory.

Unexplained explosions heard by correspondents during the day appear to be connected with these Russian projects.

Thursday night, at a Pentagon briefing with vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen.

James Cartwright, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said Russia seems to be withdrawing from Georgia.

He warned that US-Russia ties could be “adversely affected” for years unless Moscow adjusted its “aggressive posture and actions”.

Highlighting the “profound implications” for the entire US-Russia security relationship, Gates said Russia would have to pay “some consequences” for its attacks on Georgia.

Gates and Cartwright put an end to the rumors during the day that the Russians had poured fresh reinforcements into Georgia

and were blowing up Georgian military bases, ammunition dumps and air facilities. The general said they appear to be moving back into a position where they can start to exit in an orderly fashion.

Asked about the use of US military force in the conflict, Gates replied: “I don’t see any prospect for the use of military force by the United States in this situation. Is that clear enough?”

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Bye! Bye! BLACKBIRD

Syrian word is Heard!

Lebanese humble Pie,

Under A Darkened Sky!

Hizbullah Is Standing By,

So The World Knows Why,

And what Shiites are Doing,

That will cause a lot of Dying!

After Diplomacy Of Much Lying,

The West Will Simply quit Trying,

And Iran will just keep on Denying,

A great lie the world will keep Buying,

Until it hears the wounded in their Crying,

Lying on a battlefield as the world is Sighing,

Which Prophets Say Very Few Will Be Surviving!

August 15, 2008

http://www.tribulaionperiod.com/

Begin DEBKAfile Excerpt

Jumblatt deserts Lebanon’s pro-Western camp, signs pact with pro-Iranian Hizballah

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

August 13, 2008, 6:28 PM (GMT+02:00)

The fervently pro-US, pro-Israeli Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt, has decided to hold out no longer. He has thrown in his lot with the most extreme pro-Syrian, pro-Iranian, anti-Israel force in Lebanon, the Shiite Hizballah, which has gained veto power over the government in Beirut unopposed.

DEBKAfile’s Middle East sources disclose that over last weekend, Jumblatt quietly signed a “defense cooperation pact” with Hassan Nasrallah, affording Hizballah a strong foothold in the Lebanese Druze bastion of Mt. Chouf.

Drawing the hostile noose around northern Israel ever tighter, Lebanese president Michel Sleiman was due in Damascus Wednesday, Aug. 13, to celebrate the thaw in relations between the two countries.

Neither Israeli ministers, sunk in an acrimonious contest over the succession to Ehud Olmert, nor the United States in the dying days of the Bush presidency, have lifted a finger to arrest Lebanon’s swift slide into the Iranian-Syrian orbit.

Jumblatt, after watching pro-Western strategic positions crumble in his country, decided to join forces with Hizballah to shield his ancestral mountain domain from Syrian domination.

The Druze and Hizballah militias agreed to set up a joint commission for coordinating military operations. Hizballah is represented by its security and intelligence commander, Wafiq Shafa (who was in change of the recent prisoner swap with Israel) and the Druzes by Akram Shahaib.

The joint security patrols for the Druze communities of the Chouf, will also give Hizballah a military presence on its third strategic Lebanese peak, after Mt. Sannine and Jebel Barukh.

Begin Jerusalem Post Excerpt

Growing Syrian influence part of the new Lebanese political reality

August 12, 2008

brenda gazzar , THE JERUSALEM POST

Lebanese President Michel Suleiman’s visit to Syria this week and his recent comments about liberating the Shaba Farms (Mount Dov) by force if diplomacy fails reflect a new political reality in Lebanon in which both the Iranian-backed Hizbullah and Syrian influence have gained strength, an Israeli expert on Lebanon said this week.

Suleiman is scheduled to arrive Wednesday in what is being called “a historic” two-day visit to Syria, where the two countries are expected to discuss exchanging embassies and establishing full diplomatic ties for the first time since their establishment more than six decades ago.

“It’s recognition of Syrian power in Lebanon,” said Asher Kaufman, an Israeli scholar and assistant professor at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. “In 2005, Syria withdrew its forces from Lebanon and since then it has made every possible effort to regain its strength, and it

has done so.

“The Doha Agreement (which marked the end of an 18-month political crisis in Lebanon last May) was endorsed by Syria, and by making this trip, Suleiman recognizes that nothing can be achieved in Lebanon today without Syrian involvement and Syrian approval.”

Syrian troops first entered Lebanon in 1976, shortly after the eruption of the Lebanese civil war, and remained in the country for nearly 30 years.

One of the ways that Syria has exerted its influence recently over the country, he said, is by arming Hizbullah “to its teeth,” mainly through convoys via the Syria-Lebanese border.

In addition, assassinations and attempted assassinations of prominent anti-Syrian figures also send a clear message that “you don’t want to be an anti-Syrian voice” in Lebanon, Kaufman said.

Political rhetoric about liberating the Shaba Farms, including from Suleiman, has also taken on a more aggressive tone. In recent weeks Suleiman has been quoted in the Lebanese media as saying that “if diplomacy failed, then it’s time for military operations,” and adding that Lebanon “is committed to regaining its full sovereignty over the Sheba Farms.”

On Tuesday, following days of heated debates, Lebanon’s parliament approved the national unity cabinet and its policy statement, which upholds Hizbullah’ s right to keep it

s weapons.

“It’s all part of the domestic political reality in Lebanon,” Kaufman said.

“Hizbullah has turned out to be the stronger party in Lebanon today as a result of the last two years of developments, from [the] 2006 war to the creation of the new government in Lebanon, and I think the political parties in Lebanon are responding to this reality.”

When the new Lebanese president makes statements about regaining Shaba Farms, if not by negotiations then by military confrontation with Israel, “he basically responds to the fact that Hizbullah has become the most powerful player in Lebanese politics”.

Suleiman knows that the Lebanese Army is incapable of making any serious move against Israel, Kaufman added, and perhaps the president believes he will be able to co-opt Hizbullah into the Lebanese political scene by making such statements.

Such comments concerning the liberation of Shaba Farms are for “purely internal consumption,” and are related to the political debate that erupted over the draft policy statement on Hizbullah’s arms, which is in turn linked to the issue of Shaba Farms, says Nadim Shehadi, associate fellow of

the Middle Eastern Program at the London-based Chatham House.

What lies at the heart of the debate in this country is how to “survive” with Israel as a neighbor, he said.

The internal debate, he said, goes like this: “Do you rely on the international community and the UN or on having an armed resistance like Hizbullah vis-a-vis the Israel threat and occupation, etc…

“And if violence is the only language that Israel understands and responds to, than whose decision is it to use violence?”

Should Hizbullah, for example, be able to take unilateral action without consultation

?

Shehadi argues that the policy statement does not allow Hizbullah to do so but says the language is vague and various factions are interpreting it to their own liking.

“It clearly prevents them from using (their weapons) basically, but it does not prevent them from having them,” he said. “But they can always act unilaterally and blame Israel.”

The dispute over the Shaba Farms – and whether they belong to Lebanon, as Lebanon

and Syria claim, or to Syria, as Israel and the UN have claimed – arose from the fact that the French colonial authorities never conducted an official border demarcation between Lebanon and Syria between 1920 and 1946, Kaufman said.

While French maps located the Shaba Farms within Syria, the population that lived there believed and acted as if they were part of Lebanon, paying taxes to Lebanon and conducting all their official activities vis-a-vis the Lebanese state rather than Syria.

This anomaly, which continued after the two countries became independent in the 1940s, hadn’t become a problem until Israel captured the Golan Heights and the Shaba Farms in 1967, and Lebanese farmers were no longer able to cultivate this land, he said.

Although the Shaba Farms had been mentioned in the Lebanese press as early as the late 1970s and early 80s – mainly by Hizbullah – it only became a significant issue following Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000, he said.

“Israel simply inherited the territorial problem when it occupied the Golan Heights and in 2000; when they withdrew, nobody in Israel was even thinking that this would be a problem,” Kaufman said. “As far as Israel was concerned, there were maps, the UN endorsed these maps… I don’t think it was intentional that we’re going to stick and stay there. Now it has become a principle to stay there.”

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the included information for research and educational purposes. For more detailed information go to:

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Forgive Me, BUT I TOLD YOU SO!

For Turkey, Islam Is No Longer NO!

Turning From Secular Is NOW GO, GO!

For the rest of the Middle East it is Woe!

Turkey is signing on to become a new Toe!

Daniel’s toes are getting ready for their Foes!

Once They are ready All of the World Will Know!

August 14, 2008

http://www.tribulationperiod.com/

The article which follows by Caroline Glick in the Jerusalem Post is truly a scenario we are now watching come to pass in “Our World.” I have listed Turkey as one of the ten toes for a long time, even though they were pro-Western and members of NATO, because one could see the spirit of Jihad spreading its radical influence across the Muslim world in ever increasing larger doses.

Our World: Turkey’s abandonment of the West

August 11, 2008

Caroline Glick , THE JERUSALEM POST

Russia’s invasion of Georgia should serve as proof that there are some regimes that simply cannot be considered strategic allies of the West. And as the US and NATO try to assess the wreckage of their attempt to forge a post-Soviet alliance with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, another erstwhile ally is showing that it too, cannot be trusted.

On Wednesday, Iran’s genocidal, nuclear weapons-seeking leader, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, will arrive in Istanbul for a “working visit” with Turkish leaders. This visit represents a diplomatic triumph for Teheran.

Since assuming office three years ago, Ahmadinejad has feverishly pursued diplomatic ties with Western-allied states in an effort to weaken the West’s will to take action to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Turkey is the first NATO member to welcome him to its territory.

According to media reports, during his visit Ahmadinejad is scheduled to meet with President Abdullah Gul and with Prime Minister Recip Tayyip Erdogan. On the agenda are Iran’s nuclear program and Turkish-Iranian financial ties. Turkey favors advancing both.

In recent months, the Turkish government has become one of the most outspoken advocates of Iran’s nuclear program. At least publicly, Turkish leaders credulously accept Iran’s dubious assertions about the peaceful intent of its nuclear program – which it refuses to fully expose to the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspectors.

As for financial ties with Iran, Turkey is working feverishly to expand them. From 2002, when Erdogan’s and Gul’s Islamic fundamentalist AKP party first assumed leadership of the country through 2007, Turkey’s trade with Iran expanded from $1.2 billion to $6.7 billion. In July 2007, Turkey signed a $3.5 billion deal to develop one of Iran’s oil fields. Over US objections, Turkey is planning to finalize that deal with Ahmadinejad this week. Trade between the two countries is expanding so quickly that most Turkish businessmen will tell you that Iran is their hottest market.

TURKEY’S WARM ties with Iran are matched by its embrace of Iranian satellites and proxies like Syria and Hizbullah. Turkey was the first Western-allied state and NATO member to host Syrian President Bashar Assad on a state visit after Assad’s regime assassinated former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri in 2005. In 2006, Turkey sided with Hizbullah in its war against Israel. It even allowed Iran to transfer weapons to Hizbullah through Turkey.

Then there is Turkey’s open support for Hamas.

After Hamas’s victory in the January 2006 Palestinian legislative elections, Turkey became the third non-Arab state after Iran and Russia to openly embrace Hamas.

Hamas’s Syrian-based leader Khaled Mashaal paid an official visit to Ankara where he met with then foreign minister Gul and senior AKP party officials a month after his Iranian-sponsored terror group’s electoral victory.

The Turkish government’s support for Hamas is complemented by its support for al Qaida financiers. In the summer of 2006, Erdogan endorsed his top advisor’s donations to senior al Qaida financier Yasin al-Qadi after they were exposed in the Turkish media. And since entering office, Erdogan, Gul and their AKP colleagues have repeatedly accused Israel and the US of committing genocide against Muslims in Gaza, Lebanon and Iraq.

While both the US and Israel have voiced their displeasure with Turkey’s embrace of their enemies, neither country has taken any steps to either discredit Ankara or to distance themselves from the Turkish government. To the contrary, both Israel and the US continue to praise Turkey as a strategic ally. Both insist that under the AKP, Turkey is demonstrating that it is possible to be Islamic fundamentalist and pro-Western. And both are enabling and indeed encouraging Turkey to act as an intermediary between them and their sworn enemies.

In Israel’s case, Turkey has been mediating the Olmert-Livni-Barak government’s negotiations with Syria. And in the US’s case, it appears that Turkey has played a mediation role between Washington and Teheran. On July 17, both US National Security Advisor Steven Hadley and Iranian Foreign Minister Manoucher Mouttaki just happened to be visiting Ankara on the same day. Two days later, US Assistant Secretary of State William Burns met with Iran’s nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili in Geneva.

In both cases, it is far from clear that either Israel or the US have benefitted from Turkey’s increasingly prominent role in their foreign policy. In fact, in both cases, Israel and the US have weakened their position by allowing Turkey to serve as a mediator between them and their adversaries.

IN THE case of Syria, as Assad’s recent visit to Teheran showed clearly, Israel’s attempt to use negotiations with Syria to pry Damascus away from its strategic alliance with Teheran has failed. To date, the only thing its decision to hold indirect negotiations with Syria in Turkey has done is end Syria’s isolation from the West.

As for Iran, the Bush administration’s decision to allow Turkey to mediate between it and the ayatollahs has arguably emboldened Turkey to move forward with its Iranian oil deal. Beyond that, Turkey’s success in convincing the Americans to actively pursue diplomacy with the Iranians paved the way for the US’s humiliation in Geneva last month.

During that meeting, Jalili made no attempt to reach an agreement with the US and its partners.

And by joining the Europeans and the Russians in directly engaging Iran, the US facilitated Russia’s announcement last week that it sees no reason to impose additional UN Security Council sanctions against Iran for its failure to agree to temporarily suspend of its uranium enrichment activities.

Like Russia under Putin, Turkey under Erdogan’s leadership has masked its rapid transformation from a flawed but pro-Western democracy under its previous governments into an anti-Western – and in Turkey’s case Islamist – regime by paying lip service to the West even as it has taken steps to purge its power structure of pro-Western voices.

Just as Putin’s popular government has taken brutal action against his political, intellectual and financial foes, so too, Erdogan’s popularly elected Islamic fundamentalist regime has worked steadily to discredit, criminalize and intimidate its pro-Western rivals.

SINCE TAKING office in 2002, the AKP under Erdogan has taken control over Turkey’s bureaucracy. It has weakened women’s rights. It has launched brutal campaigns against its foes in the media, taking over opposition television stations and arresting and intimidating anti-Islamic editors and reporters.

It has taken over the Turkish secret police and regular police forces. It has stacked the Turkish courts with its loyalists. It has enabled the opening of radical Islamic madrassas. It has penetrated the military and demoralized and intimidated the senior officer corps.

It has ignored court judgments against it.

Through the police, it has launched a massive wire tapping campaign against its political opponents and has leaked embarrassing transcripts of these tapped phone calls to its loyalist press to humiliate and intimidate its rivals. It has used wiretaps of opposition journalists in police interrogations of their editors.

The only remaining secular check on Erdogan’s government is Turkey’s Constitutional Court. Last week, the court narrowly rejected the court’s chief prosecutor’s lawsuit calling for the outlawing of the AKP party on the grounds that it is seeking to overthrow Turkey’s secular constitutional order. In their ruling, ten out of eleven judges did agree that the AKP is seeking to weaken Turkey’s secular identity and ruled that it be denied government funding.

In an apparent bid to both distract the public from the court case and to further delegitimize its opponents, the government claims that it uncovered a conspiracy by senior opposition officials, including leading journalists, businessmen and generals, called the Ergenekon plot to overthrow the government. It alleges that most of the terror attacks carried out by Islamic terrorists over the past several years were actually carried out by members of this secularist cabal. Last month the police arrested two retired generals, a prominent industrialist and a respected journalist along with 17 others in its prosecution of the Ergenekon plot.

In all of this, of course, Erdogan and his associates are mirroring Putin’s actions in Russia since he assumed office in 2000. Like Putin, the AKP replaced a deeply corrupt, unpopular pro-Western government. While Putin has built his popularity on xenophobia and hatred of the West, Erdogan and the AKP have built their popularity on a rejection of secular Turkish nationalism in favor of pan-Islamism and hatred of the US and Israel. And as they have moved their countries away from the West, both Putin and Erdogan have managed to maintain good relations with Washington by going through the motions of supporting its war against terror even as they have both embraced terrorists and their state sponsors.

THE LESSON moving forward from all of is not that Israel and the US should turn their backs on Turkey. In an international environment that is increasingly hostile to liberal democracies, there is no reason to cut off ties with hostile regimes just because they are hostile. But at the same time, neither the US nor Israel should delude themselves by thinking that Turkey remains their strategic ally. It is not. And there are consequences to this fact.

For the US, beyond ending immediately Turkey’s role as an intermediary with Iran, it would make sense to float the notion of removing Turkey from NATO due to its expanding ties with Iran. Just the suggestion of such a move would no doubt have a profound effect on the Turks.

Certainly, the US should be reaching out to regime opponents and calling for Erdogan and his associates to end their attempts to repress the anti-Islamic media and secular politicians, businessmen and military commanders.

If the US is concerned about inflaming Turkish sentiment against it through such moves it should consider that since Erdogan took power, and as the US has bent over backwards to be nice to him, anti-US sentiment in Turkey has risen steeply. According to a recent Pew international opinion poll, today the Turks are the most anti-American society in the world.

For its part, Israel should reassess its willingness to sell sensitive military equipment to Turkey given its close ties to Israel’s enemies. It should certainly stop its Turkish-mediated talks with Syria and reject Turkish offers to mediate between Israel and the Palestinians.

Like Russia, Turkey’s anti-Western regime is promoting itself to the West by pretending not to be anti-Western.

And as was the case with Russia up until it decided to invade defenseless Georgia over the weekend, the US and its allies have been willing to endanger their strategic interests to believe this lie.

It can only be hoped that the West will abandon this policy before it inadvertently paves the way for a new Iranian-allied axis of evil populated by the likes of Russia, Turkey and Pakistan. All of these governments owe much of their power to the West’s willingness to believe that their anti-Western regimes could be trusted as strategic allies until it was too late.

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