Now that Syria’s Chemical Weapon use confirmed, what does that tell us about Iran?
Mideast Media Sampler 09/24/2013
In addition to last week’s Wall Street Journal article about Iran’s role in training Shi’ites to fight in Syria, there was another important article.
The New York Times reported U.N. Data on Gas Attack Point to Assad’s Top Forces.
The inspectors, instructed to investigate the attack but not to assign blame, nonetheless listed the precise compass directions of flight for two rocket strikes that appeared to lead back toward the government’s elite redoubt in Damascus, Mount Qasioun, which overlooks and protects neighborhoods and Mr. Assad’s presidential palace and where his Republican Guard and the army’s powerful Fourth Division are entrenched.
“It is the center of gravity of the regime,” said Elias Hanna, a retired general in the Lebanese Army and a lecturer on strategy and geopolitics at the American University of Beirut. “It is the core of the regime.”
In presenting the data concerning two rocket strikes — the significance of which was not commented upon by the United Nations itself — the report provides a stronger indication than the public statements of intelligence services of the United States, France or Britain that the Syrian military not only carried out the attack, but apparently did so brazenly, firing from the same neighborhoods or ridges from which it has been firing high-explosive conventional munitions for much of the war.
The U.N. report on Syria actually DID implicitly finger the Assad regime, @cjchivers says http://t.co/GCEI317M7R
— Blake News (@blakehounshell) September 18, 2013
In addition to using the data from the two rocket strikes, the New York Times reporters added:
A senior American intelligence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the United States, via satellite, had confirmed rocket launches that corroborated the United Nations data and the Human Rights Watch analysis for one of the strikes.
In the wake of the attack it was reported:
According to reports from the scene, four large rockets landed in the Damascus suburb of East Ghouta at just after 2 A.M.
I figured that with all the surveillance the United States has, if this was true, the firing of those rockets would have been detected. Presumably the confirmation reported by the New York Times, is the detection I was thinking of.
This last detail is further confirmation of the Syrian government’s guilt. Inspectors gathered evidence of sarin in the August 21 attacks in Ghouta. Rocket trajectories placed the point of origin of the deadly weapons at a base of the Syrian army. Israeli intelligence reportedly picked up “chatter” of the government’s usage of chemical agents. And American intelligence picked up the signatures of the rockets being fired.
MT @micahzenko: Iran crossed 7 redlines on its nukes. http://t.co/UftMx62AUh Why would Syria CW redline inform their decisionmaking at all?
— Council on Foreign Relations (@CFR_org) September 19, 2013
Together with yesterday’s post about Iran’s involvement in the Syrian civil war tie the Iranian regime – the power behind Iran’s Revolutionary Guards – to the Assad regime. Iran’s involvement in that war belies the moderate image cultivated by Iran’s new president but also ties Iran to a regime that uses weapons proscribed by international convention.
What does that say about Iran’s likelihood of adhering to international standards and agreements when it comes to its own quest to develop nuclear weapons?
Rouhani's speech & video of Iranians training for Syria point to Iran's dueling interests. #ActionsLouderThanWords http://t.co/LtDKNs3ar0
— UANI (@UANI) September 17, 2013
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Comments
Sadly, I no longer believe a word of what comes out of our government’s mouth. Be they administration, intelligence, the Pentagon, congress, etc. As far as I can tell, they’ll all lie.
And even if Syria did use Chemical weapons against the FSA, the US still has no dog in this fight. The alternative to Assad is some version of al Qaeda/ Muslim Brotherhood. Might as well purge the Christians ourselves.
Obama had already chosen sides in the gassing question but evidence presented actually showed the U.N. that both sides had access and both sides likely used chemical weapons. Remember that Russia took Assads side in the dispute. However the idiots from Human Rights Watch gathered conflicting information provided by the opposition forces! Turkey and the CIA have already armed the Al Qaeda rebels and have likely taught them to make sarin from readily available compounds.
What in Hell was Obama doing in front of the U.N. Security Council today? Is he afraid that Samantha Power will call him a “monster devoted to political opportunism.”
When all the data one has available is rubbish, it’s tempting to grab whatever one can – knowing it to be rubbish – but using it because it’s “the only game in town”. But as a useful matter there’s no such thing as better rubbish. Rubbish is rubbish, and it all stinks. Some rubbish may stink slightly less than other rubbish, but it remains rubbish.
Which leaves us in the annoying position that we simply don’t know who is using what poison gasses on whom. Over the last few years none of the parties involved – the UN, the Obamites, the NYT, Israeli intelligence, or anyone at all in Syria or Iran – have earned decent reputations for both competence and integrity. And that means that everything we’re being fed about this is rubbish. Everything. Total, unmitigated rubbish. And don’t count on that getting better any time soon.
Why are we being fed rubbish? Somebody wants us to do something. Or, perhaps more accurately, wants to stampede us into doing something which will be to their advantage. And to make us decide to do something, they feed us news and data, hoping that we will take some sort of action based on this information. Unfortunately for them, we know that it’s not information, it’s rubbish.
When no particular action can be justified on the basis of fact, then no action is justified. Period. Hard for some to accept, but anything else is intellectually vacuous.
That still leaves the Rahm E. approach – don’t let a good crisis go to waste. Want to attack Syria? This is as good a smokescreen as any. But attacking, say, France would probably do as much good so far as chemical homicide is concerned – that is, not much, but at least one gets to attack France while feeling good about it.
Was it Tallyrand who said, “Above all, no excessive enthusiasm”? He was on to something.
You ask the strangest questions, David.
Bombings in Argentina, Hezbollah, common cause with Al Qaeda during the Iraq War, terrorists in Venezuela and up the land to the US, death to America, death to Israel, threats to annihilate/bomb/ slaughter/etc., oppression and imprisonment of Christians, oppression and killing of women, quest for the nuclear bomb … all of these things have long told us everything we need to know about Iran.
Chemical weapons in Syria is but a minute and insignificant piece of a puzzle well understood by those who have long been paying attention to Iran.
It is? I keep thinking the saud’s provided the gas to the rebels. Who took pictures of this “event.” And, shifted all the blame to Assad, because the REBELS are losing their war against the syrian army.
The least likely suspects are those who are winning.
But if you’re looking for propaganda, look no further than the saud’s.
Syria’s the last place for them to carve out some territory.
Libya’s a mess. But so far is not friendly territory to the saud’s. Ditto Irak. Especially those oil fields areound Basra. The Kuwaitis held onto Kuwait. But at great expense to the USA, in terms of blood, and treasure.
Egypt? Saud’s have no foothold, here.
Hatred for sunnis has climbed higher and higher in the Mideast? Sure. But the saud’s are only interested in keeping American politicians in their pockets.
When will we reach the point of “no return?”