In an article titled “Attacking Iran May Trigger Terrorism” in the Washington Post, journalist Dana Priest says “U.S. Experts wary of Military Action over Nuclear Program.” The gist of the piece is clear: If –or when the US- will engage in military activities against the Iranian regime over the nuclear crisis, one has to expect that Tehran would use its assets to respond against US targets in the region and beyond. The article goes on to explain the mechanisms of this equation.
While I certainly agree that Iran will respond to American measures, I believe that the piece follows what the French calls une verite de la palice (a fact so well accepted). In short, of course Tehran will respond; obviously it had already considered, planned and even deployed its assets in that regard; and mais bien sur it will use its own intelligence services, Hizbollah and its other allies. From that angle, the sources the article refers to seem to fall a little bit behind in the strategic analysis, or at least this would be what their quotes seems to show. Priest writes: “Citing prohibitions against discussing classified information, U.S. intelligence officials declined to say whether they have detected preparatory measures, such as increased surveillance, counter-surveillance or message traffic, on the part of Iran's foreign-based intelligence operatives.”
Here again, five years after al Qaida’s 9/11, the talk in America is about “potential Iranian action” against the US and its allies, and the questions are about “detection of preparatory measures, and message –traffic, etc.” While a future Jihad analysis leads directly to a conclusion asserting the inevitability of an Iranian counter-strike, my concern is that Washington is still struggling with its possibility not with its certainty. That a Washington Post article is raising media eye brows just because it is warning about that “possibility,” raises our eye brows about the readiness to the Iran noises of War. In short: we should not allow another 9/11 to surprise us, let alone to even occur. In shorter: The Khumeinists are preparing for it, and that shouldn’t surprise us.
And in this line of thinking, another reality shouldn’t be vague in our minds: If Tehran wants to confront the US and the international community over nuclear power, Hizbollah is its prime weapon of mass terror.
In that regard, few months ago I wrote:
This recent visit to Tehran (by Nasrallah) aims at redrawing defensive red lines in Lebanon and preparing for future offensives against US interest and presence. Ahmedinijad was clear: Hizbollah's militia are Iran's most Western forces along the Mediterranean sea. Strategists in Washington and Brussels should understand the meaning of the message. Nasrallah is not just a Lebanese politician with a dozen members in the parliament, he is the commander of 20,000 militiamen, 5,000 fighters, and around a 1,000 suicide bombers ready to engage battle in the region and around the world.
In another post on the Counter Terrorism Blog I wrote:
But if that is the case, should Washington -and especially its politicians- worry about the "other" terrorist threat? Logically they should. Nothing can guarantee Americans that the next Jihadi blitz on American soil or against US interests may not be Hezbollah's. The 9/11 Commission showered current and former officials with blame for not "projecting" al Qaida's attacks. Are we projecting a Hizbollah potential adventure or aren't we?
And from Canada, the Globe and Mail wrote:
Hezbollah successfully recruits computer scientists and is very effective in telecommunications and in encrypting their messages in order to defeat national security agents in Canada and the U.S.," he said." Globe and Mail (Canada). December 20, 2005
Months before the publication of the Washington Post’s article, voices in the US have already issued a warning to the world: It is not if Iran would strike at US and coalition targets, if Iran’s regime is squeezed, but it is how and which means the Khumeinists will use, when this confrontation will take place. And to zoom on Hizbollah’s preparedness one can only observe the readying of its bases in Lebanon: Trucks are crossing the 62 (or so) open passages on the Lebanese-Syrian borders almost on a daily basis. Hizbollah has solidified its connections to Ahmad Jibril’s group, to the Jihadi Salafists inside the Palestinian camps and in various neighborhoods. Nasrallah is warning Lebanese politicians including the current Prime Minister not to “collaborate with the Americans.” Just last week, he stated that he would “chop off the hands, legs and extract the soul” (sic) of anyone who would dare attempt to disarm his militia. Few months ago, his deputy Sheikh Naim Qassim has threatened Lebanese MPs not to attend a US Congress forum, organized by a pro-Lebanon NGO, because “the US is preparing a plan against the region (including Iran).” In early December, a car bomb killed MP Jubran Tueni, who was invited to Washington and Brussels to brief the West on Hizbollah’s blocking of the implementation of UNSCR 1559, calling for Syrian withdrawal and Hizbollah’s disarming.
The Terror War in Lebanon is a prelude to the upcoming (or highly likely) Hizbollahi Jihad against the US and other democracies, in the same way the Taliban preempted against the Northern Alliance and assassinated Masoud Shah before al Qaida perpetrated September 11. Let’s review the sequences telegraphically: Tehran wants the bomb(s) built and deployed: There are no other options in the Mullahs mind. The US and its allies can’t tolerate this development. Iran knows that. Tehran is preparing for the confrontation. It has ordered all its assets to prepare for battle. Hizbollah, Tehran’s main strategic weapon is on a full steam campaign to “saturate the battlefield” ahead of time.
It is only through this prism that one can understand Hizbollah’s current moves inside Lebanon, in Gaza and the West Bank, in Iraq and across its bases around the world: Elimination of the Cedars Revolution’s cadres in Beirut; deploying units to Palestine; activating its assets in Iraq, along with Iran’s resources; and more importantly readying its cells in West Africa, Europe, Latin America and North America. Hizbollah is not initiating its planning on future chores overseas, including in the US. That is not its logic or modus operandi. Hizbollah has already prepared its resources on American soil and across the Atlantic. By the time the Iranian Navy is showing the world its “fast torpedoes in action in the Persian Gulf,” the architects of the 1983 attacks on the Marines in Beirut have absorbed al Qaida’s experience around the world and here at home.
Let’s not be naïve when we analyze an organization that receives 120 million dollars annually from Tehran and that operates activities from the tri-border area in Brazil-Paraguay to Virginia in the US. A non-state actor that has infiltrated the Lebanese Government during the past decade, and is protected today by Lebanon’s pro-Syrian President and the institutions he still controls. More troubling is Hizbollah’s penetration of many political factions in Beirut, with ramifications in the Diaspora, including in the United States. The last so-called “agreement of understanding” with General Michel Aoun is flabbergasting: from an ally of Washington and a vocal supporter to the Syria Accountability Act, the former commander of the Lebanese Army has shifted far away from his past positions. Recently he has joined Hizbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah in his political mobilization against America. The recruitment by Hizbollah of various politicians, including those with partisans operating within the US and other countries is to be addressed.
For while some among us are still pondering about Ahmedinijad’s future counter-strikes against the international alliance Hizbollah has already deployed its resources around the globe, including its media and psychological operations structures. However, one cannot but note that a series of small steps has been implemented by Washington in prevention for what is to come: Last week, the Treasury Department designated al Manar TV, Hizbollah satellite channel, as a terrorist tool. A US-based NGO, the “Coalition Against Terrorist Media” was credited for these efforts: “Hizbollah’s worldwide netting relied on the Jihadi messages of al Manar,” said a spokesperson of CATM. “Al Manar was bringing the psychological training on suicide bombing and hatred deep into America and Europe’s communities.” That tool is pinned down for now: But what about the rest?
According to Barbara Newman, a former ABC’s 20/20 producer and a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, cells are omnipresent within the US. In her book Hizbollah: Terrorists on American Soil, Newman warns from the “other army” ready to engage us. In my book Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies Against America, I not only project a Hizbollah upcoming wave, but I argue that it has already acquired its strategic targets. Like al Qaida, Hizbollah won’t warn America first. If you listen to or watch Nasrallah’s speeches and his Iranian inspirer Ahmedinijad’s, their rhetoric is already a battlefield one. Furthermore, Hizbollah will attempt to paint its future strikes as “legitimate responses to aggression.” Signs of this approach are abundant. Last week, on al Jazeera I shared a panel with an Islamist activist who shouted loud that “America is preparing its massive invasion of Iran by sending its Secretary of State to Baghdad!” The propaganda preparation for “striking the upcoming invasion” is widening. The show of force –and of weapons- in the Gulf is on. The machine is moving. It all depends on when and how will the Mullahs, in consultation with their Jihadi allies, unleash the wrath onto the Kuffars (infidels). Short of a change in Western posture on a nuclear Iran, the collision is bound to happen.
The calculations of the strategy planners from Tehran to Beirut’s southern suburbs are very meticulous and above all, very patient. As in the cold war era, it is all about brinkmanship. So, back to those who are “surprised” today that Iran may retaliate fully, we say make sure the Iranian regime won’t pull a surprise attack on unexpected targets. Don’t let the Khumeinist Jihadis duplicate the 9/11 of the Salafi Jihadists: Make sure Hizbollah doesn’t surpass al Qaida in preemptive Terror.
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