IRAN RESPONDS.

Very rough draft.

Ali AL-Haj Yousef writes for the Lebanese assafir.com (Arab nationalist/left/Shia/pro-Syrian) from Iran. I find his reporting refreshing. Be mindful, though, that he seems to be (over-) impressed with Iran. What follows is a summary of his latest article in Arabic: “Iran: The Life of its People is Quite Ordinary and the Finger of its Military is on The Trigger.”

Here are some of the points he highlights:

1. That Tehran is brimming with life -- tourism external and internal, and markets brimming with commerce.

2. That it’s unlikely the US would be foolish enough to attack Iran when it should know that the relative quiet in Iraq is due in no small part to Iran’s intervention.

3. That Israel’s domestic political conditions aren’t conducive to war, especially that Israel has failed repeatedly in “mini-wars” in Lebanon and Gaza.

4. That much of the saber-rattling against Iran is meant to pressure that country to respond to the latest European Union’s basket of proposals about Iran’s nuclear program, and to respond swiftly.

5. “Defense sources” agree with the above but would not discount the possibility that Crusader and Bald Samson (my description, not Yousef’s) would actually attack because they have nothing to lose.

6. Iranian observers point to quite a lot of harassment by the Americans inside Iran. These point to the increase in activities by armed secessionist elements, Kurdish and Sunni in northwestern Iran and southeastern Iran, respectively. These observers refer to the Kurdish party known as Bijak (Party for the Free Life) based in Iraqi Kurdistan, which has entered Iran as deep as Tibriz.

Another place for US “harassment” of Iran is in the province of Sistan-Balushistan where the group knows as “Jund Allah” (Soldiers of God) had kidnaped 16 Iranian policemen and recently has executed two.

These groups and the bombing in Shiraz which killed 12 people and a car bomb explosion in the western part of Tehran (or west of Tehran) -- that the investigation indicate that all these events and groups have US intelligence behind them.

7. The “defense sources” stressed that their strategy is to be ready for all scenarios and not be swayed by this or that move by the US an Israel, such as the sophomoric acrobatics (my words) of the Israeli Air Force in its air show above the Mediterranean. That the job of the Iranian armed forces is to keep the finger on the trigger.