Saturday, June 16, 2007

Hamas in control in Gaza or is it the mullahs...

The civil fight appears to be over, for now at least, in the Gaza strip. And, as would have been expected, if for nothing than shear veracity of religious fundamentalism, the Hamas faction has won the day on the ground, by obliterating the Fatah's armed movement. This bears considerable watching on how the Iranian mullahs have muscled their way into the Palestinian state and split their ranks down the middle.

The mullahs claim not only Iraq, western Afghanistan, and southern Lebanon, as their territories, the Gaza strip has been added to this infamous list. The de'tente with Israel, long in the making, by beefing up the Hezbollah in Lebanon, has come full circle by taking over the Gaza. Hamas will not have a short term fear of an international backlash, as it is nearly fully supported by the Iranian mullahs. Its main headquarters are in Damascus, far removed from the international reach.

We called the Lebanon war last year and Hezbollah's emergence from that war, a fundamental strategic shift in the middle East. It is now spreading.

Four down, one more to go...

The detention of Haleh Esfandiari of the Smithsonian Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Kian Tajbaksh of The Open Society foundation, Parnaz Azima of Radio Farda, and Ali Shakeri, a so-called peace activist (read BBC report here) nearly completes the list in the tick-tack-toe the mullhas have been playing against the United States. As by their admission, these arrests are in "retaliatory" response to the arrests in January 2007 of the mullahs' five "diplomats" in Arbil, Iraq by the US forces. This, of course, means that the mullahs have one more arrest to go before the tally is even- if one also counts the former FBI agent, Robert Levinson, as detainee, yet to be acknowledged by the mullahs- then the list is complete.

Another common thread which appears from the above four-person list is that all have been unapologetic supporters of "civil dialogue" with the fanatical mullahs, ala their support for the ill-winded "promoting (the elusive) moderates" from the within the Iranian regime. Those in the know recall the efforts of like-minded intellectuals in the late 1990's and early 2000's in chasing after Khatami in hoping to score points with the mullahs. Now, they know better, of course.

The facts are clear: all four must be freed without conditions and immediately. It is an uncomforting thought that the new detainees are being held in the same infamous prison, The Evin Prison, where many political enemies of the mullahs were being tortured and executed during the Khatami reign and while the then-free Mrs. Esfandiari, and Messrs. Tajbakhsh and Shakeri, were admiringly chasing after the smiling face of the murdering mullahs.

Nevertheless, for those Iranian expats, who long ago forfeited their right of return until the genocidal mullahs are removed from Iran, this is a small, albeit painful, measure of redemption.