VOA: "Protests in Iraq and Lebanon Pose a Challenge to Iran"

Not true. Iran has sought for a long time to control Iraq.
Iran seeks to put its own forces on the Israeli border.
Should there be a war with Iran then Iran will direct its
"ally" Lebanon to unleash the 130,000 missiles Iran has
illegally smuggled into Lebanon in violation of the UN.
And if asked then Lebanon will have little choice but to
fire those missiles - though they know what Israel will
do to them.

 

Sometimes all your choices are bad ones..

We go thru these head trips without ever going to the source.

Look at Clean Break Strategy.... I mean REALLY. Who plots to take down all the neighbors ????

We should be talking to Israel … Instead we are dealing with the results of their strategies in Iraq, Iran and Syria. It really is the tail wagging the dog all the way back to Operation Susannah, the Suez Crisis, the Six Day war and the oil embargo.

Regime change in Iraq.... check
Destabilize and Isolate Syria... check
Regime change in Iran... pending

 

The Taliban have NEVER done anything outside of Afghanistan. They have no interest outside of Afghanistan.

If Pakistan launches a nuclear weapon, India will launch nukes at them instantly. They know that. Why don't you?

 

What you call 'control', I call something else. I don't want to get bogged down in semantics, but at the end of the day, when you see Iran takeover a country by force (i.e., by invading them), you can call it Iran trying to 'control them'. In Iraq, the political parties with close ties to Iran, and which oversee the forces close to Iran, participate in Iraqi elections. If the Iraqis don't like them, they can refuse to vote for them. Unlike the US, which repeatedly throws tinter tantrums whenever an election it (or a close ally such as Israel) even oversees produces a result it doesn't like (e.g., when the "Iranian list" beat the "US list" in various Iraqi elections between 2004-06 period, or when Hamas won the elections in Gaza etc, or when Hezbollah and its allies won the elections in Lebanon etc), Iran has accepted the elections results in these countries and sought to work with those who won.

 

The Pakistan Taliban is quite deadly.
And they have the same aspirations for Pakistan as their Afghan brothers.
Yes, the Jihadis know what will happen if they fire nuclear missiles at India
or the West - and its a battle they welcome. As they say of us "You love life
and we love death."

 

Chasing them out of Afghanistan across the border into Pakistan is not a very good example of their territorial ambitions.

 

You think a jihadist gives a damn? They would welcome it. They want the end of the world.

For America, an important objective should be detach from the Muslim world and stop all Muslim immigration. In an ideal world, Muslims could be transported to their homelands and to a culture that is receptive to them. The Muslim experiment in the West has failed horrifically and with catastrophic damage to Western secular democratic institutions. Islam hasn't posed a real threat to the West for centuries. Nobody can deny that it does now.

 

I didn't respond to this before, but as more evidence emerges and as the unrest in Iraq continues, the foreign hands behind the protests are becoming clearer. There is a very extremist, very un-Shia junior "Shia cleric" whose name I don't recall right now (he is virtually unknown outside the radical fringes among Shia Iraqis) who is being propelled into acting as the principal ringleader behind these protests. This is not to suggest that establishment Shia clerics in Iraq are all supportive of Iran. Ayatollah Sistani tries to steer a middle ground, while Muqtada Al Sadr has for some time now assumed a more nationalistic, Iraqi, stance and while he sometimes still visits Iran, he also has tried to work with the Saudis and other foreign powers (with the Iraqi communist party the main political group in Iraq that backs his group in the Iraqi parliament). But this particular so-called Shia cleric is something like an Al Baghdadi type figure and seems to be funded and supported to take the most extremist positions while focusing all his diatribes on Iran!

Anyway, Trump tweeted scenes of Iran's consulate in Karbala being burned by these protesters today and he got the video and pictures from Saudi owned newspapers. Which should itself tell you who is behind what is going on in Iraq.
https://www.businessinsider.com/tru...consulate-stormed-by-iraqi-protesters-2019-11
Trump shared video footage of Iraqi demonstrators storming an Iranian consulate on the 40th anniversary of the US-Iran hostage crisis

The attack on the Iranian consulate has left several Iraqis dead, with anti-Iran reports trying to blame Iraqi security forces for the deaths but other reports indicating that the protesters were fired at by unknown assailants within the crowd to further inflame the situation in Iraq.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-50287644
Iraq unrest: Protesters attack Iranian consulate in Karbala

 

I doubt there's anyone left who respects Trump.
He speaks for himself, not America.
But the Iraqi protests, astonishingly violent, seem to be about the corruption
of the Iraqi political classes. There's an anti-American and anti-Iranian element
to be sure.
Let's be clear. Iran getting The Bomb is going to be very bad news for everyone,
including Iran. When Iran gets the bomb I think nuclear non-proliferation will be
over. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey go nuclear overnight. It's been said that in
the Middle East they have oil and religion, and tomorrow, when no-one wants the
oil anymore they will only have religion. Watch out.

 

Interesting comment, as I had imagined that you support Trump. Somehow I must have confused you with some other posters here.

I agree.

I totally disagree, but I also totally regret that Iran's policy is not (and has not been, at least since 2003) about building nuclear weapons. At most, Iran sought to have 'surge capacity' -- i.e., the capacity to build nukes quickly if the need arose. Otherwise, Iran would actually have the bomb already. And it would be actually better, not worse, for peace and security in the region. I know that is not something you will agree with me on, nor is this akin to 'math' that I can prove. But this is something I believe to be true.

Whether Iran gets the bomb or not, some of these countries are already planning to get the bomb anyway. Of course, already Pakistan has nukes and Israel has them too. And there are many more states with nukes still, including a few who aren't from the region or its vicinity but quite involved in its affairs. Not just the US, but also Russia and some others.

I wish we could have total nuclear disarmament as promised by the NPT, but that is a pipe dream for now. The best alternative is unfortunately MAD.

 

In the meantime, there is a reform package which Iran and a diverse group of Iraqi political parties have rallied behind to respond to some of the legitimate demands of the protesters in Iraq, while saving Iraq from the intended chaos and the radicalized elements sponsored and cheered by foreign powers.

This report by Reuters, while tinged by quotes and comments intended to undermine the reform package being agreed by the various Iraqi parties, nonetheless mentions the fact that the package has managed to win the support of a wide range of parties within Iraq's political establishment. Even those who had built their careers in recent years railing against so-called "Iranian influence" over Iraq. Many of them have been persuaded to agree to this package after seeing how the foreign hands I have alluded to were sponsoring some very deranged, extremist, personalities within Iraq Shia community and how others were simply being encouraged to riot and loot without any clear political agenda except causing chaos and upheaval in Iraq.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...backed-plan-to-hang-on-to-power-idUSKBN1XM17D
Iraq's elite rallies around Iran-backed plan to hang on to power

 

I am sure the protestors themselves would take offense at what you say.

This al-Ata killed in Gaza. He's an Iranian man. At a time when war weary
Hamas mulls making peace with Israel he is there, as head of Islamic Jihad,
to gradually take over the fight.
Now if Iran spoke to Hamas about doing another deal with Israel, offered
genuine humanitarian relief, sought to de-escalate the situation and generally
take a moral and peaceful leadership then Iran would be respected by Israel,
the West and the Sunni world. But no, it's all about rockets, bombs, anti-tank
grenades, support for the 70,000 strong army, more rockets, more bombs etc..

The most offensive thing about the Iranian government is its religious nature.
It does all this violence IN THE NAME OF GOD.

 

People in Iraq can vote for parties that represent their viewpoints. To be sure, those who are protesting include a large number who represent Iraq's poor underclass with legitimate grievances. But there are many implanted agents and saboteurs doing foreign bidding and who are trying to steer them towards foreign agendas. I am not sure how they would react to what I say is relevant.

Is that what you are told by the "news sources' peddling bible prophesy and pro Israel nonsense which you apparently read for your window on world events?
If you mean he was a commander in a Palestinian group which Iran has allegedly supported and financed in the past, you would be correct. But his ethnic background, nationality and religion are known and I am not aware of any disputes about it.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad has been around pretty much as long as Hamas and it has followed a path that sometimes fits the agenda of Hamas and is sometimes separate and different from it. Hamas is ideologically more allied to the Sunni Islamic Muslim Brotherhood, while Palestinian Islamic Jihad (despite having similar Muslim Brotherhood origins) is mainly distinguishable ideologically from Hamas by being part of Sunni Islamist movements which do not subscribe to the same anti-Shia and anti-Iran sentiments that some other Sunni Muslim brotherhood sects are influenced by. (Even Hamas, despite receiving assistance from Iran, includes many figures that are ultimately quite anti-Shia and their own relationship with Iran was antogonistic during the Syrian civil war, where they supported the anti-Assad Sunni jihadists).

The guy assassinated by Israel (along with his wife) was a commander in the group, not its head or even top commander despite misleading headlines you read.
The Israelis who were tracking this guy for some time, and trying to assassinate him, also know that he followed his own agendas and wasn't taking orders from anyone in Iran.

Iran's government has its own judgment on what works best against the Israelis and whether talking and negotiating with them would get the Palestinians anywhere. A judgment born from experience seeing what has happened to those who followed the path you suggest. At the end, however, it is up to the Palestinian people to decide how to best confront what they face. Iran (based on its own judgment of its interests) will also decide whether to support what they choose or not, For Iran, this Israeli regime is inherently aggressive, expansionist, imbued with (ironically) a Nazi-inspired ideology (despite all their talk about Hitler and the Nazis and what was done to the Jews) that is inherently racist and which inherently promotes lies, propaganda and falsehood. It is a foreign colonial implant and there can be no real peace with it until it changes the nature and ideology of its regime. (Iran would have no problems with a Jewish state and has no problem with Jews, but has plenty of problems with Israel. A Jewish state imbued with the true tenants of their history, and not what they picked up from their Western colonial masers, would even be an ally of Iran and a force that could have helped an eastern renaissance in the region).

Israel, in the meantime, engaged in these acts (which saw even a young child killed in Damascus) during a truce with Hamas which Hamas was observing. Even many Israelis are questioning whether these acts by Israel weren't a political gambit by Netanyahu in light of domestic politics in Israel. Regardless of what motivated Israel, if a Palestinian group had done the same, pictures of the child killed by Israel's actions would be plastered all over the western media and all sorts of condemnation would be issued by various leaders and spokesmen who aid and abet Israel's crimes and are silent about them.

Anyway, these acts of terror by Israel are utterly immoral because they really achieve nothing except bring more bloodshed and suffering. They don't even serve Israel's interests, but I will leave that for the Israelis to decide for themselves.

 

I cannot comment on whether Israel "achieves" anything by targeted assassination.
Guess its a case of cutting off the head of the snake.
Most of the allegations made by Iran against Israel are also made by Israel and most
Western nations against Iran.

But a thought experiment. Antisemitism is rising in Western nations now. (Nothing much
has changed in the Israeli-Arab equation for over a hundred years BTW.)
The tragedy for the Jew since the exile 2,000 years ago is the Jew lives under the rule
of his host culture. And Jewish hate is the most ancient of all hates. Only in Israel can a
Jew be safe, and defend himself. Now hand this ancient Jewish land back to the Arabs
and Persians - and we are right back where we started with the pogroms, crusades,
genocides and holocausts. This is not to say these will happen - but it will be up to the
ruling Muslims to decide that.