Obama Welcome Wagon knocks on Iran’s Door,
Nothing like a little Bypass Help from Friends,
For The Sake of Dialogue And Cooperation,
Which Will Lead to Israelis Being done In,
By Our New DIALOGING Persian
Friends,
Since Iran Plans TO ANNIHILATE Them!
April 29, 2009
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
Begin Excerpt 1 from DEBKAfile
Talks on Iranian corridor for US troops, supplies to Afghanistan on fast track
From DEBKA-Net-Weekly updated by DEBKAfile
April 28, 2009, 3:45 PM (GMT+02:00)
On March 27, DEBKA-Net-Weekly 390 revealed exclusively Barack Obama’s plans “to transform the Khomeinist Islamic Republic’s clenched fist against America into a helping hand by formally asking Tehran to permit the passage to Afghanistan of fresh US troops, weapons and supplies across Iranian territory.”
In its follow-up of April 3, our military sources reported that US defense secretary Robert Gates, Chief of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen and transport command chief Gen. Duncan J. McNabb, have laid before the president a detailed plan, which had been cleared in back-door meetings between US and Iranian officers.
DEBKAfile’s sources ask how much leverage against Iran’s drive for a nuclear bomb will be left to Washington when the US becomes dependent on Tehran for its war supplies to Afghanistan.
Tuesday, April 28, US envoy Dennis Ross set out on an extensive tour for pouring oil on troubled waters in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, Bahrain and Qatar. He is accompanied by the deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, Lt. Gen. John R. Allen, and National Security Council official Puneet Talwar.
Like secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who promised in Beirut this week that the US was not selling Lebanon out by dealing with Syria, Ross will try and reassure America’s Arab friends that Washington’s new ties of friendship and strategic cooperation with Tehran will not be at their expense.
According to DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s April 3 report, the US Air Base at Al Udeid in Qatar would be the main hub for the air corridor taking US transport planes over the Persian Gulf, crossing the Iranian border and flying over southern and central Iran up to their destination, the US airbase near Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.
The sea route would hinge on the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ main naval base at Chah-Bahar, which is situated on the Arabian Sea near Iran’ s border with Paki
stan.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Iranian sources note that Chah-Bahar has two sections, a small, run-down civilian harbor for small craft arriving from India and Pakistan, and a spanking new, modern military facility, home to Iran’s main submarine force.
The US planners rated this section of Chah-Bahar an ideal port of call for US provisions to reach Afghanistan by a predominantly sea route. From this Arabian Sea port, consignments would head north through Iran’s Sistan-va-Baluchistan up to the Iran-Pakistan-Afghanistan border intersection and then turn east by convoy to their destination at Kandahar.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly will continue to track the progress of US-Iran deals in future exclusive reporting and analysis.
Begin Excerpt 2 from DEBKAfile
Washington to cut Iran in on Nabucco pipeline
DEBKA-Net-Weekly Exclusive
April 28, 2009, 11:26 AM (GMT+02:00)
Iran is about to become a major fuel supplier to the West, DEBKA-Net-Weekly reports.
For the sake of dialogue and cooperation, Washington is ceding Tehran the chance to feed its natural gas into the 3,000 kilometer-long Nabucco pipeline project (from the Caspian to the EU via Turkey).
Begin Excerpt from Asian Times
A new order emerges in Lebanon
By Sami Moubayed
DAMASCUS – Last week, one of America’s top allies in Lebanon, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, caused a row when he made remarks – off the record – criticizing his allies in the pro-Western March 14 Coalition.
Among other things, Jumblatt scoffed at his patron Saad al-Hariri, the head of the largest bloc in the Lebanese parliament, for having tried – and failed – to combat Hezbollah on the streets of Beirut last May.
[…….]
Jumblatt is a political animal, however, who knows how to get off a ship before it sinks. The US is simply no longer interested in battle, either with Damascus or with Hezbollah. On the contrary, it is trying to find common ground with the Syrians to solve a basket of problems in the region, like Iran’s nuclear file, Palestinian reconciliation and the future of Hezbollah.
If March 14 continues to challenge Syria, it should not except much support from the Barack Obama administration. That is why, according to some observers, Jumblatt might be toying with the idea of a u-turn – which from where the Syrians see it, is close to impossible, given the aggressive stance he took against Damascus during the difficult years in Syrian-American relations.
Why would the US continue to support March 14 if it is cooperating fully with the Syrians? March 14 was useful, after all, during the war against Syria in 2005-2008 – mainly to punish the Syrians for having worked against US interests in Iraq.
Jumblatt realizes that for all practical purposes, its only a matter of time until the United States begins dialogue with two arch-enemies of the former Bush White House – Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah. Delaying his own rapprochement with Hezbollah would harm nobody but him.
During the recent Summit of the Americas, Obama said that he would respect the “legitimacy” of all democratically elected governments, even if the US “might not be happy” with the results of any elections. He added that the US “condemns any efforts at a violent overthrow of democratically elected governments, wherever it happens in the hemisphere”. Talks with Hamas have already begun in Europe and it is only a matter of time until they are expanded to include Hezbollah.
Earlier this year, Britain announced that it would commence political dialogue with Hezbollah, much to the displeasure of March 14. In early April, British parliamentarians came to Damascus and met with Hamas political chief Khaled Meshaal.
Certain American political figures, like former president Jimmy Carter, also met with the Hamas chief in Syria last December.
According to a January 9 article in The Guardian, “sources close to the [Obama] transition team” will change course via Hamas, and “initiate low-level clandestine approaches”. For that to be done, not only would there be a need for a change in US mentality – both in the media level, on the street and in American officialdom – but it would also require changing a 2006 Congressional law banning any kind of assistance to the Islamic group.
Recently, however, P aul Volker,
a senior economic advisor to Obama, was among those who authored a letter calling for a more rational approach to dealing with Hamas. Martin Indyk, the former US ambassador to Israel, who is close to Clinton, recently wrote that any peace deal without Hamas was destined to fail.
Additionally, former British prime minister Tony Blair in his capacity as international envoy for the Middle East warned of the dangers of continuing to ignore the Gaza Strip, which effectively is under the command of Hamas. He was quoted saying, “I think it is important to find a way to engage Hamas in dialogue.”
Richard Hass, a diplomat under both president George H W Bush and George W Bush, who was earmarked to become Obama’s Middle East envoy, also supports low-level contacts with Hamas. James A Baker, former secretary of state now based at the Baker Institute at Rice University in Houston, was quoted
in Newsweek as saying that Obama must involve Hamas in any peace process in the Middle East.
Baker said, “You cannot negotiate peace with only half the Palestinian polity at the table.”
Richard W Murphy, a veteran American diplomat and former ambassador to Syria, added, “I don’t think it will happen quickly but I think it is inevitable.
Hamas is, in my opinion, a legitimate representative of part of the Palestinian community.”
Taking all of that into account, many raised questions about Clinton’s weekend visit to Beirut ahead of parliamentary elections in June, which are expected to bring about a smashing victory for Hezbollah. Already, France has said that it will not boycott any Lebanese government, even if it is packed with members of the Islamic group.
With loud voices coming out of Washington calling for engagement with Hezbollah, Obama promising to respect any election, Britain taking the lead in dialogue with non-state players, and the Syrians back in the international arena, times are not good for leftovers of the Bush era in the Middle East.
Decision-makers around the world have reasoned that not talking to Hezbollah or Hamas will not make them disappear. On the contrary, it will only lead them to radicalize.
Looking back at the Hamas tenure in government, everybody realizes that the Bush administration missed a golden opportunity when the Palestinian group said that it was willing to accept a long-term truce with Israel, and abide by the borders of 1967. Israel couldn’ t ge
t them to disarm by force, clearly demonstrated by the results of the December 2008 war on Gaza.
The United Nations couldn’t disarm them, nor could Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat or the United States. The same applies to Hezbollah, which emerged victorious from the war of 2006. Obama, a practical leader by all accounts, realizes that if these groups are voted into power, it would be sheer hypocrisy not to deal with them and repeat what was committed by Bush.
Walid Jumblatt – and anti-Hamas figures in Palestine like President Mahmud Abbas – is among the first to fully grasp this new attitude in Washington.
Sami Moubayed is editor-in-chief of Forward Magazine in Syria.
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