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The Mullahs’ Psychological Gamble: A Mind Game Against Israel and Iranians
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting with a group of students in Tehran, Iran, Nov. 2, 2022. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
In this era of pronounced geopolitical volatility, the Middle Eastern theatre is poised at a juncture full of apprehension and indeterminacy. Now, a discernible escalation in psychological warfare is underway, spearheaded by Iran’s theocratic elite, who appear resolute in their quest to amplify regional discord.
The populations of Iran and Israel find themselves ensnared in this maelstrom. Within Iran, a palpable tension pervades, as citizens — encumbered by the specter of imminent conflict — grapple with an overarching fear of their collective destiny. Central to this crisis are the clerical overseers of Iran, whose machinations have not only imperiled regional equilibrium, but have also flirted with catastrophe.
The Iranian leadership’s tripartite strategy of missile deployments, the instigation of surrogate militant entities, and the orchestration of a vehement informational offensive, betrays a regime more preoccupied with the preservation of its facade than the attainment of authentic triumphs. Such maneuvers, indicative of a regime ostracized and denounced on the global stage, betray a desperate adherence to power.
The tumult is exacerbated by the intricate ballet of international relations. Notwithstanding the erstwhile Soviet dominion over Iran’s military stratagem, Tehran’s prevailing motive remains the perpetuation of the clerical hegemony, an intent that the United States appears to reciprocate ambiguously. Across successive administrations, the US has exhibited hesitance towards advocating for a regime transition, preferring instead to navigate a precarious liaison with a government that has sustained a legacy of terror and subjugation for more than four decades. Such US inertia has only served to embolden the clerical regime, thereby aggravating regional volatility.
The Islamic Republic of Iran’s ideological crusade, anchored in the doctrines of Khomeinism, represents an existential menace to Israel — but also to the very fabric of global peace and equilibrium. Iran appears poised to strike Israel directly, putting not only the Jewish State, but the entire world in danger of a growing conflict.
The exodus of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi signified the dawn of a period in Iran characterized by tumult and conflict. Through its unyielding quest for conflict and disorder, the clerical regime not only alienates itself internationally but also imperils Iran’s future.
However, in the event of an Israeli reprisal, it remains unknown if the Iranian citizenry would rally behind their government, particularly given the regime’s notorious history of domestic oppression — which is starkly divergent from the democratic and peaceful aspirations of the majority.
Yet, as the shadow of conflict between Israel, Iran, and the West becomes increasingly palpable, the global collective remains fragmented on the issue of Islamic militancy, unlike the unity that dismantled apartheid and communism.
Iran, seemingly heedless of the dire consequences, appears intent on intensifying tensions. In this somber narrative, the clerical regime emerges as the architect of its own undoing, clinging to authority through a campaign of intimidation and subjugation, even as its actions seed the eventual collapse.
As we bear witness to this unfolding calamity, one truth persists: the indomitable spirit of the Iranian people, undeterred by decades of despotism. Their quest for liberation stands as a beacon of hope in a region overshadowed by conflict. It is this undying spirit that ultimately heralds a future not delineated by the whims of tyrants, but by the collective aspiration of a populace yearning for tranquility, stability, and prosperity.
Erfan Fard is a counterterrorism analyst and Middle East Studies researcher based in Washington, DC. Twitter@EQFARD.
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Israel Destroyed Top Secret Iranian Nuclear Weapons Site
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
JNS.org – The Israeli airstrikes on Iran last month destroyed a secret nuclear weapons research facility in Parchin, 19 miles southeast of Tehran, Axios reported on Friday.
The clandestine site held sophisticated equipment used for testing explosives needed to detonate nuclear devices, the report read, citing three US officials, one current Israeli official and one former Israeli official.
The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security acquired high-resolution satellite imagery of the facility, which showed that it was completely destroyed in Israel’s Oct. 26 attack.
Israeli and US intelligence agencies began noticing activity in the Taleghan 2 facility in the Parchin military complex in early 2024, which had been largely inactive since 2003, when the Islamic Republic froze its military nuclear program, according to Axios.
One unnamed US official quoted in the report said: “[The Iranians] conducted scientific activity that could lay the ground for the production of a nuclear weapon. It was a top secret thing. A small part of the Iranian government knew about this, but most of the Iranian government didn’t.”
Although President Joe Biden asked Jerusalem not to target Tehran’s nuclear facilities, the site in Parchin was chosen as a target because it was not part of Iran’s declared nuclear program.
This placed the mullah regime in a position where admitting a hit to the site would expose its efforts to resume activity forbidden by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Moreover, “The strike was a not so subtle message that the Israelis have significant insight into the Iranian system even when it comes to things that were kept top secret and known to a very small group of people in the Iranian government,” the report cited a US official as saying.
Last week, Rafael Grossi, the director of the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency, visited Iran for the first time since May.
He is expected to meet with his agency’s board of governors in Vienna this week for a vote on a resolution to censure Tehran for its lack of cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
Speaking about the tensions between Israel and Iran, Grossi said during a news conference in Tehran on Thursday that the Islamic Republic’s “nuclear installations should not be attacked.”
Earlier in the week, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz suggested that Iran’s nuclear facilities may be targeted.
Iran is “more exposed than ever to strikes on its nuclear facilities. We have the opportunity to achieve our most important goal—to thwart and eliminate the existential threat to the State of Israel,” Katz said.
Israel’s two assaults against Iran’s air defense system this year have left the country vulnerable to future attacks, with all four of Tehran’s Russian-made S-300 surface-to-air missile batteries destroyed, according to U.S. media.
On April 19, Israel took out one of the S-300 systems in response to Tehran’s first-ever direct attack against the Jewish state. On Oct. 26, in response to a second Iranian attack, Israel targeted 20 sites in Iran, destroying the remaining three.
“The majority of Iran’s air defense was taken out,” a senior Israeli official told Fox News.
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Yemen’s Houthis Say They Attacked ‘Vital Target’ in Israel’s Eilat
Houthi-mobilized fighters ride atop a car in Sanaa, Yemen, Sept. 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
Yemen’s Houthi forces attacked “a vital target” in Israel’s Red Sea port city of Eilat with a number of drones, the Iran-aligned group’s military spokesperson Yahya Saree said on Saturday.
The terrorist group has launched dozens of attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea region since November in solidarity with Hamas.
“These operations will not stop until the aggression stops, the siege on the Gaza Strip is lifted, and the aggression on Lebanon stops,” Saree added in a televised speech.
The Houthi attacks have upended global trade by forcing ship owners to reroute vessels away from the vital Suez Canal shortcut, and drawn retaliatory U.S. and British strikes since February.
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Muslims from ‘Abandon Harris’ Campaign Gutted by Pro-Israel Cabinet Picks
US Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US, Sept. 10, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
JNS.org – Muslim leaders in the United Stated who called for supporting President-elect Donald Trump at the expense of Democrat runner Kamala Harris are deeply disappointed with the former president’s Cabinet nominees, Reuters reported on Thursday.
“It’s like he’s going on Zionist overdrive,” Abandon Harris campaign co-founder Hassan Abdel Salam, a former professor at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, said about Trump’s recently announced picks.
“We were always extremely skeptical. … Obviously we’re still waiting to see where the administration will go, but it does look like our community has been played,” Abdel Salam told Reuters.
Rabiul Chowdhury, a Philadelphia investor who chaired the Abandon Harris campaign in Pennsylvania and co-founded Muslims for Trump, was cited as saying: “Trump won because of us and we’re not happy with his secretary of state pick and others.”
Some political strategists believe that the Muslim vote for Trump, or the renunciation of Harris, helped tilt several swing states such as Michigan in the favor of the Republican candidate.
“It seems like this administration has been packed entirely with neoconservatives and extremely pro-Israel, pro-war people, which is a failure on the side of President Trump, to the pro-peace and anti-war movement,” said Rexhinaldo Nazarko, executive director of the American Muslim Engagement and Empowerment Network.
On Wednesday, Trump named Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) as his choice to be secretary of state.
Rubio is known for his staunch pro-Israel stance, including calling on Jerusalem earlier this year to destroy “every element” of Hamas and dubbing the Gaza-based terrorist organization as “vicious animals.”
Rubio joins a slew of pro-Israel officials Trump has tapped since he won the U.S. election, including former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) as his U.N. ambassador with a seat in the Cabinet.
Blaise Misztal, vice president for policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), told JNS that Trump’s focus so early in the transition process on Israel-related foreign policy picks is a mark of how his second administration will approach the region.
“That, in and of itself, signals that President Trump and his administration are going to take the region, the Middle East, the threats confronting Israel, seriously and take the U.S. friendship with Israel seriously,” Misztal said.
“The people that we’ve seen are known to be tremendously strong friends of Israel, first and foremost, but also very clear-eyed about the threats that the United States and Israel face together in the region.”
Before the election on Nov. 5, Trump promised Arab and Muslim voters he would restore stability in Lebanon and the Middle East, while criticizing the current administration’s regional policies during campaign stops targeting Muslim communities in Michigan.
Trump recently addressed Lebanese Americans, stating, “Your friends and family in Lebanon deserve to live in peace, prosperity and harmony with their neighbors, and this can only happen when there is peace and stability in the Middle East.”
Israel has been at war for more than a year on its southern and northern borders, ever since Hamas led a surprise attack on communities near the Gaza Strip border on Oct. 7, 2023, murdering some 1,200 people and abducting 251 more into the Palestinian enclave. A day later, Hezbollah joined Hamas’s efforts by firing rockets into Israel’s north.
The post Muslims from ‘Abandon Harris’ Campaign Gutted by Pro-Israel Cabinet Picks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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