The IDF has released this video regarding the recent seizure of Iran-origin arms that was shipped to Egypt, with the intended destination being the Gazan terrorists, for use against Israeli civilians:

This is one hilarious story.

Iranians have only just recently discovered that for the last 3-4 decades, their national airline’s headquarters has been sporting a giant Star of David on its roof! This rude awakening for the Iranians came courtesy of Google Earth… and, wow, are they pissed!

The building itself was built by Israeli engineers before the Iranian Revolution pitted the country against Israel and all ties were severed, and apparently, the Israelis left a little memento of their visit.

You can see the full story here.

Here’s the latest conspiracy theory video from the Iranian regime. Need I say more?

In this breaking news video, Netanyahu clearly explains the situation involving the Mavi Marmara, the motives of Israel, and the dangers that Israel (and the rest of the world) face. Also in this video is new footage of yet more damning evidence of the activist/terrorist savages part in instigating the violence.

Ronen Bergman wrote a great analytical piece in the WSJ yesterday regarding Hezbollah’s strength. Following the 2006 Lebanon War, all indications were that Hezbollah came out the winner and was only growing in military strength and political clout. Bergman gives us several reasons why this semi-victory was very short-lived and why Hezbollah appears to be losing strength, significance, and clout daily. This curious dynamic when combined with Iran’s instability and the relationship between the two, ends up being a major focus of Israeli analysts in many concerns: fighting Hezbollah’s terrorism, relationship with Lebanon, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, etc.

The article is a great read in full, but for those who don’t have the time, here’s an excerpt from the back half of the article:

…all is not rosy for Hezbollah. After the war, considerable dissatisfaction with the organization was voiced inside Lebanon. Many blamed its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, for Israel’s retaliatory bombardments that caused widespread damage. Nasrallah stated that had he known Israel would respond as forcefully as it did, he would have thought twice before ordering the abduction of the two Israeli soldiers—the act that sparked the conflict.

Harsh criticism of Hezbollah also came from an unexpected source: Tehran. The Iranian strategy calls for Hezbollah to play two roles. One is to instigate minor border provocations. The other is to launch, on Tehran’s command, a full-scale retaliatory attack should Israel target Iran’s nuclear facilities. The 2006 war met neither criterion, and, as the Iranians complained, merely served to reveal the extent of Hezbollah’s military capabilities.

Then, in February 2008, Imad Mughniyeh, the organization’s military commander and Nasrallah’s close associate, was killed in a car bomb in Damascus. The assassination of the man who topped the FBI’s most-wanted list prior to Osama bin Laden was a severe blow to morale, as well as to Hezbollah’s strategic capabilities. Nasrallah was convinced that the Mossad was responsible, and vowed to take revenge “outside of the Israel-Lebanon arena.”

The Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, which is also responsible for protecting the country’s legations abroad, has been on high alert ever since. But as of today, Hezbollah has not exacted its revenge. This fact was a topic of discussions at a high-level secret forum of Israel’s intelligence services that took place from late July to early September.

Israeli officials raised four possible reasons for Hezbollah’s failure to act, all of which reflect its current weakness.

First, no replacement has been found for Mughniyeh, whose strategic brilliance, originality and powers of execution are sorely missed by Hezbollah.

Second, Israel’s intelligence coverage of Iran and Hezbollah is far superior today to what it was in the past. Planned attacks, including one targeting the Israeli Embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan, have all been foiled. The Israeli security services have warned Israeli businessmen abroad of possible abduction attempts by Hezbollah. They also shared information with Egyptian authorities that led to the arrest of members of a Hezbollah network who intended to kill Israeli tourists in Sinai. The arrest of these operatives resulted in sharp public exchanges between Egypt, Hezbollah and its Iranian masters, when Nasrallah admitted that these, in fact, were his men.

Third, Nasrallah cannot afford to be viewed domestically as the cause of yet another retaliation against Lebanon. Any act of revenge that he contemplates needs to be carefully calibrated. On the one hand, it needs to hurt the enemy and be spectacular enough to stoke Hezbollah pride. On the other hand, it cannot be so murderous as to cause Israel to respond with force. To complicate matters further, Israel has made it clear that because Hezbollah is part of the Lebanese government, despite the fact that the party that it backed lost in the recent election, any Hezbollah action against Israel would be viewed as an action taken by the Lebanese government. Thus Israel would regard Lebanese infrastructure as a legitimate target for a military response.

Finally, there are the Iranians. Their primary focus is on proceeding with their nuclear program without unnecessary distractions. Tehran’s main concern is that a terror attack that can be linked to Iran would result in the arrest of its agents overseas, who are currently procuring equipment for its uranium-enrichment centrifuges.

Tehran has avoided direct involvement in foreign terrorism ever since 1996, when a group of Iranians were convicted in Germany of murdering political opponents of the Iranian regime. And unlike in the past (as, for instance, in the case of the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires in retaliation for the assassination of Nasrallah’s predecessor), it is now reluctant to place intelligence resources at Hezbollah’s disposal. This is a serious blow to Hezbollah, which is not yet able to function as a full-fledged independent operational organization internationally.

Hezbollah is also clearly aware of the severe blow in terms of power and prestige that the Iranian mullahs suffered as a result of the massive protests following June’s presidential election. Automatic support from Tehran is no longer a certainty. For now, at least, the Iranian hardliners have troubles of their own.

In short, despite the fact that Hezbollah today is substantially stronger in purely military terms than it was three years ago, its political stature and its autonomy have been significantly reduced. It is clear that Nasrallah is cautious and he will weigh his options very carefully before embarking on any course of action that might lead to all-out war with Israel. There are some experts in Israel who believe that even Hezbollah’s retaliatory role in the Iranian game plan is currently in question.

Whether or not this is the case, all of this is being considered in Jerusalem as part of Israel’s calculations about whether to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The cojones on these Iranian loudmouths is always good for some chuckles.

YNet is reporting that Iran’s ambassador to UN is demanding that the Security Council take action in response to Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh’s recent comments that Israel would attack Iran if sanctions weren’t in place by Christmas.

Iran’s ambassador to the UN, Mohammad Khazaee, sent a letter of protest to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moonin which he wrote that “there is no explanation for Israel’s continuing threats against Tehran”.

No explanation… other than the fact that Iran’s President continually threatens to wipe Israel off the face of the map without warning.

I almost wish I can go back to bed and wake up this morning all over again in the hope that doing so might actually bring about a more normal day the second time around, because the day I woke up to this morning—the upside-down, Alice-in-Wonderland world that smiled back at me today like one big spooky Cheshire cat—is a very, very strange and bizarre world. I feel as though I went to sleep in Normal Universe and woke up in the Twilight Zone. And, quite frankly, I wonder if I’ll ever get back to Normal Universe again.

I’m sure that by now I don’t even have to explain myself. After all, it’s all over the news, and it’s not only me who’s completely taken by surprise. Hell, even the folks around me here in super-liberal NYC are somewhat confused by what happened! Here’s one perfect example of one Manhattanite’s reaction, as reported by Reuters:

“It would be wonderful if I could think why he won,” said Claire Sprague, 82, a retired English professor as she walked her dog in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. “They wanted to give him an honor I guess, but I can’t think what for.”

You also have those who, while clearly dumbfounded, try to phrase it somewhat diplomatically, as though Obama might at least be on track to earning it, but hasn’t gotten there yet. For example, the Wall Street Journal described the following reactions:

“So soon? Too early. He has no contribution so far,” former Polish President Lech Walesa, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, said Friday. “He is still at an early stage.”

and:

Even in Norway [home of the Nobel Committee], where Mr. Obama enjoys huge popularity, the decision raised eyebrows among some. “It is just too soon,” said Siv Jensen, leader of Norway’s main opposition party, the Progress Party. “It is wrong to give him the peace prize for his ambition. You should receive it for results.”

And, then you have those whose reactions are more straightforward and blunt:

Issam al-Khazraji, a day laborer in Baghdad, said of Obama: “He doesn’t deserve this prize. All these problems — Iraq, Afghanistan — have not been solved … man of ‘change’ hasn’t changed anything yet.”

Liaqat Baluch, a senior leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami, a conservative religious party in Pakistan, called the award an embarrassing “joke.”

London Times’ Michael Binyon comments that

the prize risks looking preposterous in its claims, patronising in its intentions and demeaning in its attempt to build up a man who has barely begun his period in office, let alone achieved any tangible outcome for peace.

The pretext for the prize was Mr Obama’s decision to “strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples”. Many people will point out that, while the President has indeed promised to “reset” relations with Russia and offer a fresh start to relations with the Muslim world, there is little so far to show for his fine words.

…There is a further irony in offering a peace prize to a president whose principal preoccupation at the moment is when and how to expand the war in Afghanistan.

Even the President’s own men thought it was a big joke, as ABC News reports:

Two key White House aides were both convinced they were being punked when they heard the news, reported ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. “It’s not April 1, is it?” one said.

And, finally, here’s none other than Michael Moore, monolith (almost literally) of the left, telling Obama:

Congratulations President Obama on the Nobel Peace Prize — Now Please Earn it!

To put it simply: what has Obama done? Nothing! He has exactly zero accomplishments to date in the pursuit of global peace. He hasn’t laid out any grand plans for the world, other than his usual fuzzy, vague expressions of “hope”. In fact, he has gone out of his way to antagonize democracies, while bowing down to dictators and tyrants (literally, in some cases) and legitimizing them.

But—wait—here’s the kicker, which most people either don’t know, or haven’t realized yet:  The deadline for nominations for the prize was February 1—a mere two weeks after Mr. Obama was inaugurated.

Naturally, there is a lot of speculation as to whether or not the world has lost its mind in their worship of Obama. But, here’s the most sound and shrewd theory I’ve heard all day (from my politics-savvy uncle):

This prize was essentially a way for the international community to guarantee that the United States is going to stand down on Iran and not invade the country over their nuclear ambitions. After all, now that Obama was given the Nobel Peace Prize, there’s no way he would then go and invade another country!

So, this was essentially one big payoff to Obama, one big buyout of the President of the United States… and, like an idiot, he took the bait. Despite the wide-eyed stupor of a reaction across every spectrum around the globe, he didn’t stop to wonder what the motive was behind a prize rewarding no accomplishments; he didn’t cautiously decline the prize like he should have done, at least out of respect for previous winners and their accomplishments (hold the laughter, please); instead, like the predictably arrogant, big-headed buffoon that he is, he swallowed it hook, line, and sinker, all the while throwing out words like “humbled” and “honored”, when all that really happened was the U.S. President getting played, his ego as his Achilles’ heel.

What a sad, sad joke.

I guess when they say, “you never know what tomorrow brings”… they mean that it sometimes brings you a big jarring anvil upside the head.

Bret Stephens writes a very poignant piece in today’s WSJ, bringing us “news from the future”… a mock news report from next January recounting how Iran, with the help of the UN, turned the tables on Israel and brought the spotlight of nuclear development to shine suddenly into Israel’s long-dark corner of the world.

Judging by the souring relations between Obama and Israel and by the Twilight Zone/Alice In Wonderland nature of the United Nations, this is not nearly as far-fetched as one would hope it to be.

Jan. 20, 2010

NEW YORK—When American diplomats sat down for the first in a series of face-to-face talks with their Iranian counterparts last October in Geneva, few would have predicted that what began as a negotiation over Tehran’s nuclear programs would wind up in a stunning demand by the Security Council that Israel give up its atomic weapons.

Yet that’s just what the U.N. body did this morning, in a resolution that was as striking for the way member states voted as it was for its substance. All 10 nonpermanent members voted for the resolution, along with permanent members Russia, China and the United Kingdom. France and the United States abstained. By U.N. rules, that means the resolution passes.

The U.S. abstention is sending shock waves through the international community, which has long been accustomed to the U.S. acting as Israel’s de facto protector on the Council. It also appears to reverse a decades-old understanding between Washington and Tel Aviv that the U.S. would acquiesce in Israel’s nuclear arsenal as long as that arsenal remained undeclared. The Jewish state is believed to possess as many as 200 weapons.

Tehran reacted positively to the U.S. abstention. “For a long time we have said about Mr. Obama that we see change but no improvement,” said Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki. “Now we can say there has been an improvement.”

The resolution calls for a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East. It also demands that Israel sign the 1970 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and submit its nuclear facilities to international inspection. Two similar, albeit nonbinding, resolutions were approved last September by the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.

…But the factors that chiefly seemed to drive the administration’s decision to abstain from this morning’s vote were more strategic than personal. Western negotiators have been pressing Iran to make good on its previous agreement in principle to ship its nuclear fuel to third countries so it could be rendered usable in Iran’s civilian nuclear facilities. The Iranians, in turn, have been adamant that they would not do so unless progress were made on international disarmament.

“The Iranians have a point,” said one senior administration official. “The U.S. can’t forever be the enforcer of a double standard where Israel gets a nuclear free ride but Iran has to abide by every letter in the NPT. President Obama has put the issue of nuclear disarmament at the center of his foreign policy agenda. His credibility is at stake and so is U.S. credibility in the Muslim world. How can we tell Tehran that they’re better off without nukes if we won’t make the same point to our Israeli friends?”

Based on Israel’s experience with the Palestinians, where they keep making concessions and getting nothing in return, one can easily see how a scenario like this would end: with Israel completely disarming to please the United States and pacify the anti-Semitic hypocrites of the world while Iran continues to develop nuclear weapons under those impotent “threats” of “harsh sanctions”… until Iran is the one with hundreds of nuclear warheads and Israel remains defenseless when Iran is finally ready to use them.

Scary thought, but—again—not nearly as far-fetched as one would hope.

Earlier this week, Ali Akbar Salehi, the chief of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, announced that he and his colleagues were “working out a timetable for the inspection” of the recently-revealed nuclear site outside of Qum. Then, he was preparing a letter for international inspectors in Vienna “about the location of the facility… and others.”

Obviously, the entire world is now hanging on those last two words and wondering: how many secret nuclear facilities does Iran have?

Let’s hope that Israeli and American intelligence were not the least bit surprised by those last two words.

Arutz Sheva is reporting on the latest bombshell advice (literally) that Obama is getting: Zbigniew Brzezinski is calling for Obama to order Israeli planes to be shot down if flying over U.S.-controlled airspace in Iraq en route to bomb Iran:

Zbigniew Brzezinski, who enthusiastically campaigned for U.S. President Barack Obama, has called on the president to shoot down Israeli planes if they attack Iran. “They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch?” said the former national security advisor to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter in an interview with the Daily Beast. Brzezinski, who served in the Carter administration from 1977 to 1981, is currently a professor of American foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Maryland.

“We have to be serious about denying them that right,” he said. “If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not. No one wishes for this but it could be a ‘Liberty’ in reverse.’” Israel mistakenly attacked the American Liberty ship during the Six-Day War in 1967.

Brzezinski was a top candidate to become an official advisor to President Obama, but he was downgraded after Republican and pro-Israel Democratic charges during the campaign that Brzezinski’s anti-Israel attitude would damage Obama at the polls.

In some pretty astounding news, Haaretz and Arutz 7 are reporting that the United Nation’s International Atomic Energy Agency under Director General Mohamed ElBaradei has been making considerable efforts to hide damning data which shows Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons.

Haaretz reports that:

senior Western diplomats and Israeli officials… said that the International Atomic Energy Agency under Director General Mohamed ElBaradei was refraining from publishing evidence obtained by its inspectors over the past few months that indicate Iran was pursuing information about weaponization efforts and a military nuclear program…

The classified report, according to the sources, was not incorporated into the agency’s published reports. The details, they said, were censored by senior officials of the IAEA in the organization’s Vienna headquarters.

American, French, British and German senior officials have recently pressured ElBaradei to publish the information next month in a report due to be released at the organization’s general conference.

“We expect the details to appear in the new report and to be made public,” a senior Western diplomat told Haaretz.

Arutz 7 writes:

IAEA director-general Mohamed ElBaredei denies that Iran is developing nuclear weaponry. However, the latest IAEA report stated that Iran has made it difficult for inspectors to verify Iran’s non-military use of nuclear energy. “At the end of 2008, there remained a number of outstanding issues that need to be clarified since they give rise to concern about possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program,” the July 28 report stated.

Andrew C. McCarthy of National Review Online has posted something quite shocking, considering you generally haven’t heard anything about this in the mainstream media. Well, you might have heard from AP that Obama has freed five imprisoned Iranian “diplomats”. What AP and the rest of the media is conveniently forgetting to mention is that these five Iranians are imprisoned because they are responsible for the deaths of over 400 American soldiers in Iraq!

Now, while the country is fixated on all the other pressing issues, Obama is using the distraction to make deals with Iranian mullahs and to appease Iranian terrorist demands by freeing these terrorist leaders. If his motives for this were on the up-and-up, there should be no reason for Obama and the MSM to whitewash this and try to sneak it past the American people. Yet, that’s exactly what has been done. McCarthy writes:

Right now, politics will allow quite a lot: With unemployment creeping toward 10 percent, the auto industry nationalized, the stimulus revealed as history’s biggest redistribution racket (so far), and Democrats bent on heaping ruinous carbon taxes and socialized medicine atop an economy already crushed by tens of trillions in unfunded welfare-state liabilities, Iran is barely on anyone’s radar screen.

So Obama is pouring it on while his trusty media idles. When they are not looking the other way from the carnage in Iran’s streets, they are dutifully reporting — as the AP did — that the Irbil Five are mere “diplomats.” Obama frees a terrorist with the blood of American troops on his hands, and the press yawns.

And in the true Obama style of not learning from history, this comes immediately following another Iranian terrorist release gone awry, which was also conveniently whitewashed by the press, that time as “an effort to further Iraqi reconciliation”. McCarthy explains:

Obama has already released a leader of the Iran-backed Asaib al-Haq terror network in Iraq, a jihadist who is among those responsible for the 2007 murders of five American troops in Karbala. While the release was ludicrously portrayed as an effort to further “Iraqi reconciliation” (as if that would be a valid reason to spring a terrorist who had killed Americans), it was in actuality a naïve attempt to secure the reciprocal release of five British hostages — and a predictably disastrous one: The terror network released only the corpses of two of the hostages, threatening to kill the remaining three (and who knows whether they still are alive?) unless other terror leaders were released.

It is truly incredible and mind-boggling, just how much the MSM lets Obama get away with unscathed.

Reuters today filed a very interesting report on the possibility of Israel launching a covert cyberwar on Iran, where they would be able to target strategic sites by infecting the computers at such locations with malware.

Some sites might have computers linked to a larger national network (perhaps an oil pipeline), while other more secretive sites (like a nuclear plant) would have no ties to any outside networks and would therefore be harder to infect. But, the report indicates that the Israelis are quite capable of infiltrating those sites using some basic methods, such as an infected USB stick being brought in by either an unknowing employee or even a willing agent.

In fact, although Israel hasn’t taken any responsibility for it, there appears to have been an incident last year where Iran captured and executed one of their own citizens and accused him of “spying for Israel” and for supplying infected equipment which caused “irreversible damage”.

As I posted recently, Peter Berkowitz wrote an exceptionally detailed and informed article on Israel’s considerations for a raid on Iran in the latest Weekly Standard, including details of possible outcomes and how Israel might be preparing for them, and political and military costs. In it, he alludes to this exact sort of warfare, indicating that it has already been underway for some time now. He writes:

Short of a full-scale military strike, Israel also has a clandestine option involving the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, sabotage of Iranian facilities, and targeted killings. Nor would this represent a new policy. As [head of research and development in the Israel Defense Forces and the ministry of defense, Air Force Major General Isaac] Ben-Israel, choosing his words carefully, pointed out, Israeli national security experts have been warning that Iran was 5 years away from producing a nuclear weapon for the last 20. Why do you suppose, he asked, it has taken Iran so long? After all, he observed, 60 years ago in the middle of World War II, it took the United States only a few years to produce the first atomic bomb, and no country that has set its mind to it has taken more than 5 to 10 years. Leaving me to draw the proper inference, Ben-Israel emphasized that clandestine operations can delay but will not destroy Iran’s nuclear program. And the experts agree that time is running out: Absent dramatic action–by the United States, the international community, Israel, or some combination–Iran is on track to join the nuclear club sometime between 2011 and 2014.

As you can see from his analysis, though, this type of warfare is certainly helpful in delaying the Iranians from reaching their goal, but in all likelihood will not be enough to prevent them from reaching their goal.

Therefore, while this is certainly a necessary tactic, the idea of an outright attack (a la Osirak, but larger-scale) is still very much in play.

Looks like Sunday has been a good day for some interesting developments regarding Israel’s potential strike on Iran’s nuclear targets. After seeing the outcome of Israel’s destruction of Iraq’s nuclear facilities in 1981 and their destruction of Syria’s nuclear facilities in 2007, I firmly believe that if they don’t do the same with Iran soon, it will be too late.

The first stunning news item is the report by the Times Online of London that Saudi Arabia has apparently given Israel the “unofficial” green light to use its airspace to carry out a raid. This is coming from a country that doesn’t officially even recognize Israel, so this is some very serious news, and is extremely useful to the Israelis who are I am sure already making several plans on how to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The second news item is the AP report that despite recent harsh rhetoric by the current administration towards Israel, Joe Biden has stated today that Israel is effectively free to set its own course on Iran, i.e., free to carry out a raid, if the Israeli government feels it necessary. This is also some pretty serious news, considering the Obama administration’s strong push for diplomacy all this time, as well as their strong efforts to keep an unusually firm grip on Israel’s activities. Now, of course, this is coming from Biden, so there’s no telling whether or not this was a gaffe to be retracted tomorrow or the day after. But, assuming this does really come from the top, that is also incredibly significant to Israel in terms of moving forward with their plans, which I strongly believe they should be doing before it’s too late.

UPDATE:
Peter Berkowitz writes an exceptionally detailed and informed article on Israel’s considerations for a raid on Iran in the latest Weekly Standard, including details of possible outcomes and how Israel might be preparing for them, and political and military costs. Read it!

Similar to what I’ve been saying all, while democratic revolution is a noble initiative and a cause worth fighting for, we should not to too excited just yet about what’s going on in Iran until we know what they plan to do with that democracy, and if their intention really is a true democracy to begin with or just something different than what they have now.

Case in point: the Palestinians. Everyone jumped the gun in lauding their new democracy, their “free” elections, etc., only to watch as they swept Hamas, one of the most notorious terrorist organizations in the world, into power. And, interestingly enough, they’re still in power because they found that having terms and periodic new elections are just not convenient for them.

So, here we are, cheering on the Iranian revolution. Are we going to make the same mistake? Don’t get me wrong; I do support this revolution and I do hope for the best, but I’m just saying that we shouldn’t be overly optimistic until we know what they plan to set up in place of the mullocracy that they are trying to sweep out.

Distinguished and accomplished journalist, Tom Gross, debunks a very popular misconception regarding Mousavi on his web site. What he writes is:

MOUSAVI IS NEITHER A LIBERAL NOR AN OPPONENT OF THE ISLAMIST STATE.

The “opposition” candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi is one of the fathers of Iran’s nuclear program, and was prime minister during the Iran-Iraq war, directing his army to send waves of teenage suicide bombers against Iraqi forces. (He is incidentally a cousin of Ayatollah Khamenei.) He is almost as much a hardliner of the regime as the “victor” President Ahmadinejad is. That is why he was one of just four candidates (out of over 4000 people who applied) allowed by the regime to stand in this stage-managed presidential election.

All four regime-approved candidates have long been involved in the regime’s reign of terror. For example, Mousavi was responsible for ordering the execution of 30,000 Iraqi prisoners.

THE TRUE IRANIAN OPPOSITION IS STILL BEING IGNORED

The BBC and others continue to ignore real opposition to the dictatorship, supported by many of the demonstrators, such as the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a political umbrella coalition of five Iranian opposition political organizations, including secular democrats, led by Mrs. Maryam Rajavi from exile in Paris. Several times last week, the Supreme Leader acknowledged this in his public statements. But the Western media has hardly mentioned the NCRI, even though in Paris on Saturday, tens of thousands of its supporters staged the largest ever demonstration by Iranians outside Iran.

As usual, the BBC, the world’s largest news broadcaster, gets so much of its Middle East reporting wrong. This is not a battle between a hard-line reactionary Ahmadinejad and a “moderate reformist” Mousavi. It is a battle between rival factions of a ruthless and dangerous regime.

So, again, just how much will change as a result of this bloody revolution is yet to be determined, but don’t be surprised if most of the changes are internal sociotheological changes that have little to do with their foreign policy, especially regarding nukes and regarding Israel.