Middle East Report 17 Oct. 2015 WR15-325

Click the video below to watch Iran shows off its secret ballistic missiles
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS9Ymm9-Hqg


   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xM1kevVVVok


     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYxmB7YGIK8

In footage filmed in an undisclosed location, Iran unveiled a secret underground missile base on state TV this week, showing off medium- and long-range ballistic missiles. In the pictures, members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard are seen with an assortment of Shahab missiles, capable of reaching a variety of targets in the Middle East. The station aired footage of long tunnels with ready-to-fire missiles on the back of trucks. The broadcast said the facility is one of hundreds of underground missile bases around the country. It didn’t disclose the location but said it was 500 meters (1,600 feet) underground. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, head of the Guard’s aerospace branch, boasted that the facility is the “tip of the iceberg” of the Guard’s military might. The missiles “are stationed and ready under the high mountains in all the country’s provinces and cities,” he said. The footage also shows commanders saluting before some sort of shrine and stepping on American and Israeli flags painted onto the ground. The broadcast appeared aimed at showing that the Guard will continue its missile program despite UN Security Council resolutions and despite Iran’s nuclear deal with the West. Days earlier, Iran said it successfully test-fired a new "Emad" long-range surface-to-surface missile. On Monday, a US official said Iran over the weekend “likely” violated a UN Security Council resolution which prohibits the Islamic Republic from carrying out any military activity related to the use of ballistic missiles. Based on information gathered by the White House so far, the Iranian regime appeared to have violated the international body’s Resolution 1929 when it recently conducted testing on a new, long-range, surface-to-surface ballistic missile, the official told US news outlet CNN. Nevertheless, the US believes the Islamic Republic’s illegal activity does not breach the terms of a nuclear accord between Iran, the US and five other major world powers. (Yeah, sure) The official indicated that the July agreement did not place restrictions on Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities, as it was aimed at blocking the regime from acquiring nuclear weapons. On Sunday, Iran said it had successfully tested a new domestically produced long-range missile, claiming the weapon was the first of its kind that could be guided all the way to targets.

     My sources reveal that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are laying out large wads of cash to various Palestinian groups, especially the Fatah’s Tanzim militia, logo above, to stay out of the terror offensive. The money is channeled through Israel and Jordan, which also provide intelligence on which groups are worth financing to counter the efforts of Tehran and Beirut to keep the violent flames high. Israeli and Jordanian government and security officialdom at the highest levels are working hard to remove bureaucratic obstacles and keep the money flowing in the right direction.

Along with aid, Iran and Hizbollah are sending directives to the Palestinian recipients on how and when to ratchet up the terror offensive. For instance, Saturday morning, Oct. 17, following Israel’s partial success in slowing the flood of Palestinian knife attacks, Hamas media instructed terror activists to switch from stabbing attacks to running people down with vehicles, as a more effective way of killing larger numbers.
The backstage cash contest between the Saudi-UAE partners and the Iranian-Hizbollah duo is strongly determining the course of the Palestinian terror offensive, with the effect of sidelining Washington and further dis-empowering Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
The Obama administration had in any case given up on leverage to sway these events by declining to ask Tehran to restrain extremist Palestinian violence. That was part of the price exacted from Israel for its failed fight to stop Obama obtaining a nuclear accord with Iran.
Hence, Washington’s comments which so incensed Jerusalem this week, when Secretary John Kerry linked the outbreak of violence to “massive settlement building” and the State Department referred to Israel’s resort to “excessive force.”
Still, President Obama and Kerry Friday, Oct. 16 backtracked up to a point after being taxed with unprecedented heat by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and charged with utterances that could be construed as support for terrorism.

Obama and Kerry then turned around and leaked to mainstream media negative innuendo about over-the-top Israeli actions for reining in terror. One report, for instance, noted that “both sides have traded blame about who is responsible for the spate of violence;” others highlighted the deaths of Palestinian terrorists and vindicated their violence.

Israel’s international reputation undoubtedly suffers from this stratagem, while at the same time, it contributes nothing constructive toward solving the crisis.

Mahmoud Abbas, even if he for once dispensed with prior conditions for a meeting with Netanyahu, has even less to contribute. His influence on the Palestinian street is at rock bottom, even after his stuttering support for the ongoing Palestinian “Al Aqsa struggle.”

His presence in Ramallah is ignored by the two Arab governments working to stifle Palestinian terror. They prefer to go directly to Jordan’s King Abdullah and Netanyahu and leave him in the cold. The stakes of the contest between Saudi Arabia Jordan and the UAE, on the one hand, and Iran and Hizbollah, on the other, are high, not just for the security of Israel but also of Jordan as well as its stability, if radicalized Palestinians are not subdued quickly.
The Obama administration’s policy of disengagement from the burning conflicts of the region and its lost points in Jerusalem have left the US empty-handed for taking any hand in the current Israel-Palestinian crisis of terror. It’s just as well that the government in Jerusalem entertains no illusions about anything useful coming out of from Netanyahu’s encounter with Kerry in Berlin next Wednesday, Oct. 21.