A lethal leak -- or a boomerang?
Remember all those stories which were so prominent in the media coverage of wars between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah/ Hamas, that Israel committed war crimes by targeting for missile strikes ambulances carrying the wounded? Remember Israel’s answer, that the Red Crescent ambulances were transporting arms and missiles under the camouflage of being ambulances? Remember the reaction of the western media, to assume that Hezbollah/Hamas were telling the truth while Israel was lying? Well, through Wikileaks we now learn that, er, Iran used the Red Crescent in war zones:
Iran abused the strict neutrality of the Iranian Red Crescent (IRC) society to smuggle intelligence agents and weapons into other countries, including Lebanon during the 2006 war with Israel, according to claims in a leaked US embassy cable.
The society, which is supposed to be independent of government, is alleged to have provided cover for members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRG), the most powerful military force in Iran, to infiltrate a number of countries, including Iraq and Lebanon, according to a well-placed Iranian source who spoke to US diplomats.
The Iranian Red Crescent has strongly denied the allegations... The Iranian source, who had knowledge of the Red Crescent’s overseas operations, said the Iranian intelligence service breached the society’s rules of neutrality to send members into Lebanon to support the Shia militia force, Hezbollah militia during the Israel-Lebanon war. Among those allegedly sent in were members of the IRG's elite al-Quds force, a covert group of intelligence officers and special forces chosen to export the Iranian revolution.
The source said: ‘The only true Iranian Red Crescent officers dispatched to Lebanon were the doctors and drivers. Shipments of medical supplies served also to facilitate weapons shipments.’
The source said IRC staff in Iran had seen missiles on a plane destined for Lebanon while delivering medical supplies to the airport. The plane was already half full of weapons before the medical supplies arrived. American diplomats regard the source as credible.
More has yet to seep out from this cache of hitherto concealed diplomatic traffic. But so far, the excited expectation on the left that the Wikileaks treasure trove would hammer the final nails in the coffin of the right-wing/neocon/Zionist conspiracy has gone belly-up in rather spectacular fashion. An American emperor has indeed been shown to have no clothes – but his name is Barack Obama. As Spengler observes:
The initial reports suggest that the US State Department has massive evidence that Obama’s approach – ‘engaging’ Iran and coddling Pakistan - has failed catastrophically. The crisis in diplomatic relations heralded by the press headlines is not so much a diplomatic problem - America's friends and allies in Western and Central Asia have been shouting themselves hoarse for two years - but a crisis of American credibility.
Not one Muslim government official so much as mentioned the issues that have occupied the bulk of Washington's attention during the past year, for example, Israeli settlements. The Saudis, to be sure, would prefer the elimination of all Israeli settlements; for that matter, they would prefer the eventual elimination of the state of Israel. In one conversation with a senior White House official, Saudi King Abdullah stated categorically that Iran, not Palestine, was his main concern; while a solution to the Arab/Israeli conflict would be a great achievement, Iran would find other ways to cause trouble.
…The cables, in sum, reveal an American administration that refuses to look at the facts on the ground, even when friendly governments rub the noses of American diplomats into them.
Yet true to form – since they know that everything they believe is the Received Truth and so reality has to be wrenched to fit – the latter-day Gnostics of the left are frantically trying to spin the Wikileaks revelations to prove that the right was wrong all along. Thus in the Guardian Britain’s grandest Gnostic, Sir Simon Jenkins, concluded from the leaked cables:
America’s foreign policy is revealed as a slave to rightwing drift, terrified of a bomb exploding abroad or of a pro-Israeli congressman at home.
As Lee Smith observes:
For instance, leftwing academic specialists on the Middle East who have argued that the peace process is the key issue in the region and that the Gulf Arab states do not want the United States or Israel to bomb Iran are nonetheless celebrating the Wikileaks documents, even as their argument is now vitiated. Some university professors claim that their analysis is better than those of Washington’s Arab allies anyway. The New York Times is trying to make the case that in the wake of George W. Bush’s mismanagement the Obama Administration has managed to build a strong sanctions regime against Iran that includes Russia and China. Unfortunately, the cables prove only that Russian envoys are working to frustrate the U.S. effort by selling the Iranian position to the Arabs.
What comes through most strongly from the Wikileaks documents, however, is that U.S. Middle East policy is premised on a web of self-justifying fictions that are flatly contradicted by the assessments of American diplomats and allies in the region. Starting with Bush’s second term and continuing through the Obama Administration, Washington has ignored the strong and repeated pleas of its regional allies—from Jerusalem to Riyadh—to stop the Iranian nuclear program. Perhaps the most disturbing revelation in the documents is the extent to which both the Bush and Obama Administrations have concealed Iran’s war against the United States and its allies in Iraq, Lebanon, Israel, and the Arab Gulf states, even as those same allies have been candid in their diplomatic exchanges with us. U.S. servicemen and -women are being dispatched to combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan where they are fighting Iranian soldiers and assets in a regional war with the Islamic Republic that our officials dare not discuss, lest they have to do something about it.
Absolutely. As I have argued here over and over again, the refusal of first the Bush administration and then Obama -- along with successive British governments -- to acknowledge that Iran has been waging war upon the west in a wide range of theatres, to the extent of refusing to allow any military response to Iranian aggression against their own forces in the field, has been the equivalent of fighting with both hands tied behind our backs. And while thus ignoring the principal aggressor, the Americans and the rest of the west have been beating up instead on its prime victim, Israel, on the ludicrous basis that stopping home extensions for Jewish residents in the territories is the key to peace throughout the region. Now we can see that for the Arabs who actually inhabit this region this utterly spurious issue – the obsession which drives every 'progressive' in the west from Tony Blair leftwards -- doesn’t even figure in their thinking.
And meanwhile the monster unleashed by rampaging Islamism, which is so unconscionably ignored by the left or blamed in turn on its victims, roars unchecked across Europe. As the Italian MP Fiamma Nirenstein writes:
Thousands of antisemitic attacks that are sweeping Europe, especially since immigration has brought into Europe a great influx of political Islamism. which is ready to join a common front with the neo-Nazis in their antisemitism, even when the far right is xenophobic. All the studies confirm, and the German police have made it a basic premise, that the neo-Nazi and Jihadist groups work together in the antisemitic field, with exponential results. One Jewish cemetery a week is vandalized, and grafitti and violence have increased from 36 to 183; synagogues are attacked; recently, in Hanover, at the international Fest in which everyone sang, from Afghans to Turks, a Jewish chorus barely escaped the mob's murderous rage.
Antisemitic incidents in the world in 2009 reached the highest number since World War II: in 2009 there were 1129 violent attacks compared to 78 in 1989; also, there is a genocidal antisemitism in the world now exactly like that enacted by Hitler. Moreover, Ahmadinejad advocates destroying the Jewish State; and the Hamas declaration explains how it is essential to kill Jews everywhere in the world. Young Ilan Halimi was killed after 24 days of torture to the rhythm of the Qoran readings, merely because he was Jewish; this happened in civilized Paris. Even there, it is not a good idea to wear a star of David on a chain around one's neck. In Amsterdam one risks being stabbed; in Sweden, many Jewish families have already moved out of Malmo; and neo-Nazism is increasing in the Ukraine.
And while we’re looking at some notable recent pieces, here’s one from Daniel Pipes which turns another bit of conventional wisdom on its head:
Looking ahead, Iran represents the Middle East’s greatest danger and its greatest hope. Its nuclear buildup, terrorism, ideological aggressiveness, and formation of a ‘resistance bloc’ present a truly global threat, ranging from jumping the price of oil and gas to an electro-magnetic pulse attack on the United States. But if these dangers can be navigated, controlled, and subdued, Iran has a unique potential to lead Muslims out of the dark night of Islamism toward a more modern, moderate, and good neighborly form of Islam. As in 1979, that achievement will likely affect Muslims far and wide.
Contrarily, while the Turkish government presents few immediate dangers, its more subtle application of Islamism's hideous principles makes it loom large as future threat. Long after Khomeini and Osama bin Laden are forgotten, I venture, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his colleagues will be remembered as the inventors of a more lasting and insidious form of Islamism.
Thus may today’s most urgent Middle Eastern problem country become tomorrow's leader of sanity and creativity while the West's most stalwart Muslim ally over five decades turn into the greatest source of hostility and reaction. Extrapolation is a mug's game, the wheel turns, and history springs surprises.
As Wikileaks has just demonstrated.
Previous
Blogs: Martin Bright | Susan Hill | Alex Massie | Coffee House | Faith Based
Actions: Print this article | Email to a friend | Permalink | Comments (21)
Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit
Advertisement
Popular Blog Posts
1 Osborne accidentally makes the case for more savings - Fraser Nelson
2 The Tories desert Cable in the Commons - James Forsyth
3 Balls the tax-cutter? - Fraser Nelson
4 The depressing appointment of Les Ebdon - James Forsyth
5 The tax debate at the heart of the Budget - edited by Graham Storey, Margaret Brown and Kathle
1 The implications of today's border security report - Frank Monaco (76)
2 The green squeeze - James Forsyth (56)
3 Hague's ‘Cold War’ warning - edited by Graham Storey, Margaret Brown and Kathle (54)
4 Letts for DG - Quentin Letts (36)
5 50p tax rate is raising less than expected - James Forsyth (34)
Search this blog
Melanie Phillips is a Daily Mail columnist. She also writes for the Jewish Chronicle and is a panellist on BBC Radio Four's Moral Maze. Her most recent book is 'The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle over God, Truth and Power', published by Encounter.
For a complete set of Melanie's articles click here
Melanie Phillips blog archive
sponsored links
THE PRESENT FINDER
1,700 Unusual Christmas Presents Request Catalogue 01935 815 195 Quote SPEC10 for 10% discount www.presentfinder.co.uk
OLIVE BRANCH FLORISTS
Pimilco based Florist with online ordering Web: www.olivebranch.net Tel: 020 7630 1868 Fax: 020 7233 8844
RUFFS Bespoke Signet rings
62 Shore Road, Warsash, Southampton, SO31 9FT Telephone: 01489 578867 Web site: www.ruffs.co.uk
Apollo Magazine | Corporate | Advertising | Privacy | Terms
Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London, SW1H 9HP
All Articles and Content Copyright ©2012 by The Spectator | All Rights Reserved
jim comfort
November 30th, 2010 6:24pmAs always Melanie, you know how to put the issue to the test, and let us all know what is going on. This is one of your best comments.
Mladen Andrijasevic
November 30th, 2010 6:42pmHerb Keinon of the Jerusalem Post has written a piece that stands out in its clarity:
http://www.jpost.com/home/article.aspx?id=197286
“And that position, that progress on the Israeli-Palestinian issue – that stopping settlement construction – would somehow magically mollify the Arab world and get it to put its shoulder to the wheel regarding Iran has been a constant thread throughout the Obama regime. Here it was popularly dubbed “Yitzhar for Bushehr.”
What the WikiLeaks cache revealed, however, was that this argument was a fabrication. There was no need to crack the Palestinian-Israeli nut before getting the “moderate” Arab nations in the region – Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf states, Egypt and Jordan – on board regarding Iran, because those nations were already fully camped out on board the deck of the ship, just waiting for action against Iran.
…
Obama was obviously well aware of the views of these leaders, most of whom he personally met, yet he continued to propagate what he must have known to be a falsehood – that these countries would only sign on to sanctions and otherwise support efforts to neutralize Iran if there were progress on the Israeli-Palestinian track.”
Derek BLADES
November 30th, 2010 7:36pmHere is the Wikileaks revelation on which this latest blog is based. It comes from the Guardian's Wikileaks website to which Ms Phillips has, very correctly, directed readers who wish to learn more. It is the fifteenth in a series of leaks on related topics.
"15. (S) The IRC again facilitated the entry of Qods force officers to Lebanon during the Israel-Hezbollah war in summer 2006. Although [NAME REMOVED] did not travel to Lebanon during the conflict, he reiterated that the only true IRC officers dispatched to Lebanon were [DETAILS REMOVED] all others were IRGC and MOIS officials. [NAME REMOVED] further said that the IRC shipments of medical supplies served also to facilitate weapons shipments. He said that IRC [DETAILS REMOVED] had seen missiles in the planes destined for Lebanon when delivering medical supplies to the plane. The plane was allegedly "half full" prior to the arrival of any medical supplies."
If the [NAME REMOVED] person was not mistaken, a plane carrying Red Crescent medical supplies to Lebanon during Israel's bombing campaign against that country also carried weapons. There is no suggestion that it was an IRC plane nor that the IRC in anyway aided or sanctioned the arms shipment. The obvious interpretation is that the IRC was using whatever transport was available to get needed medical supplies to the wounded.
Are we in at the birth of an urban myth?
R Stewart
November 30th, 2010 8:12pmNo wonder then that on Monday night Israel expressed “satisfaction” over the latest Wikileaks disclosures (http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=15333). Because the fact is that while Britain, America, the Royal Family and just about everything else has been affected to some extent, Israel hasn’t been touched by Wikileaks at all (http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=15342). This in turn has led to speculation that Israel was actually behind the disclosures. For in the wake of the latest disclosure it’s worth remembering that the most effective disinformation is that which is comprised of falsehood as well as facts. Over a month back, Jonathan Azaziah argued that Wikileaks fits this description perfectly (http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=15318).
Archie
November 30th, 2010 8:55pmWell quite, Miss Phillips, and what a joy to have the lefty, Israel-haters put firmly in their place! I confess that I was at first angry at the very idea of these leaks, but what a revelation they've turned out to be.
zibby
November 30th, 2010 10:28pmIf you want to understand why wiki leaks are coming out now and the smoke and mirrors game being played please watch Glenn Beck:
http://www.watchglennbeck.com/video/2010/November/glenn-beck-show-november-29-2010-wikileaks-questions/
Adam B.
November 30th, 2010 11:05pmThe information from Wikileaks regarding Arab consternation about the Iranian bomb, and the use of the Red Crescent by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard helping Hizbollah, merely confirms what you have been writing all along Melanie - information which was never brought to light by our useless propagandists in the mainstream media. Not that they will ever change.
Interesting that the Saudis are extremely worried about Iran, but would never dream of doing anything about the Iranian nuclear bomb themselves, preferring to let Israel or America do their dirty work and take the blame.
Simon
December 1st, 2010 8:28amWon't be hearing anything about this from the "British" Broadcasting Corporation....
Mitranda Rose Smith
December 1st, 2010 11:39amThe howls of indignation, the finger-pointing, the accusations of war crimes, any time Jews try to stay alive, in this instance, by Israelis firing on Red Crescent amulences that were carrying arms, is pretty hypocritical and pretty par for the course. But it's also hypocritical to suggest that the Red Crescent was doing something uniquely horrible. Come on, folks, do you think no Red Cross ambulence or medevac helicopter ever gave a lift to a soldier?
Brian Moshe
December 1st, 2010 2:40pmThank you for this superb article, Melanie.
This is the first time that I have read a view that I have myself been holding for at least four years: that is that Iran has the future potential to be a force for positive change in the Muslim (and wider) world if its people can seize the reins of government, while Turkey is the greatest emerging threat to Europe and the West (and the territories it may claim as part of a revived Ottoman-type empire).
There could soon be two Islamic empires - Shia Iran and Sunni Turkey.
An English Tory MP said on TV news recently that in the future Britain wouldn't need tanks (mere relics of the Cold War) so we needed to slash tank numbers and save money.
The day Turkey overuns Europe (aided by millions of fifth columnist Europe-domiciled Muslims) in the unexpected equivalent of Hitler's invasion of Russia, but without them having the Red Army or the Russian winter to face, we are going to wish we had a few more tanks.
Watching Jon Snow interviewing Lindsey Hilsum on C4 tv News the other evening I was struck by how difficult it is for left-wing correspondents and news casters to deal with the contents of the Wikileaks when they destroy so much of the sacred narrative.
alan stoddart
December 1st, 2010 4:58pm'Perhaps the most disturbing revelation in the documents is the extent to which both the Bush and Obama Administrations have concealed Iran’s war against the United States and its allies in Iraq, Lebanon, Israel, and the Arab Gulf states, even as those same allies have been candid in their diplomatic exchanges with us. U.S. servicemen and -women are being dispatched to combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan where they are fighting Iranian soldiers and assets in a regional war with the Islamic Republic that our officials dare not discuss, lest they have to do something about it.'
Is this not the exact position we are in with Islamic 'extremists'. The government and media and police deny any link to Islam and continue the refrain that Islam is a religion of peace precisely because otherwise they would have to do something about it....and if Islam. the theo political ideology, is the problem, what's the answer?
Reports that the Turkish Red Cross were being used to ferry arms from Iran, transferring them to Syrian ambulances and transporting them to Lebanion were made by Kurdish newspapers in 2006. Why were these ignored?
liamjq
December 1st, 2010 6:01pmhave to agree with brian moshe @2.30ish the event which catapult us back to the middle ages is a turkish annexation of a broke ageing greece then up through the pacified by nato,ruined balkans all the way to the prize of prizes...vienna!Who's going going to stop them david cammeron? Barack obama? ruined
Adam B.
December 1st, 2010 11:20pmalan stoddart, the reports were ignored because they didn't fit "the narrative" (of evil Israelis and freedom fighting Hizbollah).
Talking of the Kurds, when was the last time the mainstream media ever reported on them? They are suffering a genocide at the hands of the Syrian dictator at the moment, with mass arrests and killings, with Turkish and Iranian military assistance. Israel can't be blamed, so why bother reporting it?
How about the 4-7 million (yes, million) killed in the war in the DRC? I've seen more on TV news about footballers visiting prostitutes. The mainstream media is a sick joke.
Adam B.
December 1st, 2010 11:24pmTo take it further alan stoddart, at the same time the world was jumping up and down about 9 Turkish jihadists of the IHH being killed on their propaganda flotilla, Turkish warplanes were bombing Kurdish villages in northern Iraq, killing dozens of innocent people.
No reports.
celato
December 2nd, 2010 8:05pmMelanie Phillips is meticulous in quoting 'claims' and 'allegations'relating to the Iranian Red Crescent's air freighting of medical supplies to Lebanon.
Yet somehow she can state with supreme confidence: '... we now LEARN that Iran ... USED the Red Crescent IN war zones.' (My capitals.)
When her quoted passages from Wikileaks are read in conjunction with those offered as a supplement by Derek Blades (Nov 30th) all anyone can state with certainty is that an unnamed source gave US diplomats an unsubstantiated second-hand account (maybe even third- or fourth-hand, who knows?) about planes ferrying a mixture of Iranian military personnel/missiles and Red Crescent officers/medical supplies TO a war zone.
Nothing is claimed or alleged about joint medical-military operations within the zone itself; not a word is said by the source about ambulances.
Even supposing the source to have been 100% reliable, how Melanie can cite his allegations - relating entirely to air cargo - as vindication for Israel targeting Red Crescent vehicles carrying wounded people in the field is utterly baffling.
Si, N
December 3rd, 2010 9:30amWell said Celato.
The fact remains, the IDF is guilty of targeting ambulances carrying the sick and wounded as a matter of course - not just in Lebanon during the 2006 assault on that country - but also in Gaza and the West Bank.
Worse, the contagion is spreading – April this year saw ‘settler’ thugs attack a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance in Hebron whilst IDF gunmen stood by.
That MP, Adam B et al attempt to press this particular bit of tittle tattle into service to get Israel off the hook for serious crimes is desperate indeed.
Si, N
December 3rd, 2010 3:22pmSo ‘the Arabs who actually inhabit’ the Middle East view Iran as the major threat to the region do they? Tripe.
An October 2010 Brookings Institute poll reveals a different picture. The poll surveyed 3,976 people (that’s normal people, not corrupt flunkeys of dodgy potentates) in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Jordan, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates. Asked to name 2 countries that pose the biggest threat 88% said Israel – 77% said USA - - 10% said Iran. http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2010/0805_arab_opinion_poll_telhami.aspx
Spin that
Si, N
December 4th, 2010 10:50amWhen Adam B speaks of ‘9 Turkish jihadists of the IHH being killed on their propaganda flotilla’, he hatefully besmirches the memory of:
Furkan Dogan (19)
Ibrahim Bilgen (60)
Fahri Yaldiz (42)
Ali Heyder Bengi (38)
Cevdet Kiliçlar (38)
Cengiz Akyüz (41)
Cengiz Songür (46)
Çetin Topçuoglu (54)
Necdet Yildirim (31).
These 9 murdered humanitarian souls ought to lionised – not maligned in such a brute manner.
Shame on you
Adam B.
December 4th, 2010 11:52pmSin, I would rather the remember the names of the British servicemen who are being killed by jihadists supported by the IHH, of which these men were members. the IHH also attempted to blow up innocent men women and children at LA airport.
The shame lies with you, and apologists for jihadi terror groups.
Si, N
December 5th, 2010 3:31pmAdam B says, ‘I would rather remember the names of the British servicemen who are being killed by jihadists supported by the IHH’.
Well go ahead – name one ‘British servicem[a]n’ ‘killed by jihadists supported by the IHH’ – and also provide evidence for your claims of IHH involvement. Bear it in mind that the IDF were forced by Max Blumenthal to back-peddle on their allegation of IHH involvement with Al Quaeda – when asked to provide evidence for the claim the IDF shamefacedly had to admit, ‘we do not have any evidence’.
The fact is Israel is the only country in the world that terms the IHH a ‘terrorist organisation’ – and then only since 2008 following the IHH’s liaising with the democratically elected Palestinian government – a necessary condition for the IHH to bring relief to devastated Palestine.
Your insistence on defaming these dead men is to be deplored
Adam B.
December 5th, 2010 11:14pmSin, absolute rubbish.
It was France, not Israel, which found evidence of the IHH's complicity in the attempted blowing up of Los Angeles airport. Also, it is a French counter intelligence magistrate who said that the IHH has close affiliations to Hamas, an organization, if you need reminding, which advocates in its founding charter its intent to exterminate every Jew on earth. Indeed, the IHH is openly supportive of Hamas, and makes no secret of this. Other investigations by the Turks themselves have raised questions about the purchase of arms, and volunteers going to Bosnia and Afghanistan as part of the global jihad.
The IHH is a jihadist supporting organization. Did you not see the antisemitic chanting of its members, freely available on Youtube, whilst they declared their intentions to become "shaheeds" or martyrs before even sailing - clearly intent on premeditated violence.
You laughingly call these men "humanitarians" - this despite the fact that the Mavi Marmara was carrying no "aid" whatsoever - not a thing, Sin. Such humanitarians. Your defence of such a racist and jihadist terror supporting organizaion is to be deplored.