Hamas, Iran, And The Villagers

By Cernig

Today Rupert Murdoch's Jerusalem Post ran a story that quoted an officially unofficial official from Egypt as saying that "Iran is exerting heavy pressure on Hamas not to accept the Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire with Israel" and the pro-Israel, anti-Iranian wingnuts went nuts.

There's no indication of why an Egyptian official, from a nation largely unloved by either Hamas or Iran since both see it as toeing the US regional line, would know this.

But assume it's true. The important part is that Iran has to "pressure" rather than just order. Doesn't that somewhat undermine the prevailing VSP story that Hamas is a mere subsiduary, entirely owned as a proxy by Iran?

Oh, that must be because it's all just part of the "threat of war" pressure that's all the rage among the Villagers. The neo-whatevers will say anything, contradict themselves in a heartbeat, if it advances their "Faster Please" agenda.

For years, it has been a commonplace among neoconservatives that Iran is the real source of opposition to the U.S. and Israel throughout the Middle East, from Palestine to Lebanon to Iraq. During Israel's 2006 war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, prominent neoconservatives urged the West to focus "less on Hamas and Hezbollah, and more on their paymasters and real commanders in Syria and Iran", as William Kristol wrote in the Weekly Standard.

However, the belief that Hamas is merely an Iranian proxy has spread beyond neoconservative circles to be voiced by opinion-makers closer to the political centre. Self-described realist Robert Kaplan wrote in the Atlantic on Monday that "Israel's attack on Gaza is, in effect, an attack on Iran's empire...Our own diplomacy with Iran now rests on whether or not Israel succeeds."

In the New York Times, influential neoliberal Thomas Friedman implied that Iran was to blame for the outbreak of hostilities in Gaza, writing that Tehran can "stop and start the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at will". In the Los Angeles Times, Israeli commentators Yossi Klein Halevi and Michael B. Oren wrote an op-ed titled "In Gaza, the real enemy is Iran", which warned that if Hamas "manipulat[es] world opinion into the imposition of a premature ceasefire...[it] would mean another triumph for Iran".

And in the literature released by hawkish advocacy groups such as the Israel Project, Hamas is rarely mentioned without the adjective "Iran-backed".

It is widely accepted that Iran has in fact provided weaponry and other operational assistance to Hamas in recent years. However, there are few reliable estimates of the scope of this aid.

"I'm very sceptical whenever I see figures in the media," former State Department intelligence official Wayne White, now of the Middle East Institute, told IPS. "Even when I was in the intelligence community, exact details were often elusive."

Many feel that those blaming Iran for the Gaza crisis attach too much importance to Iran's operational aid to Hamas when they suggest that Hamas is nothing more than an Iranian "proxy".

White suggested that Iran's relationship with Hamas is "more symbiotic than dictatorial", and that its influence with Hamas is more limited than is portrayed in the media. "Iranian inspiration is being given far too much weight in the overall Israeli-Hamas equation. Hamas has every reason to make its own decisions, most of which are sufficiently militant to please the Iranians," he said.

Critics charge that framing the Gaza conflict as an U.S.-Iran proxy war is a tendentious move that is meant to advance several covert political goals.

The most obvious of these goals is to increase hostilities with Iran. Unsurprisingly, many of those espousing the "proxy war" argument, such as Ledeen, are advocates of regime change in Tehran, backed if necessary by military force.

These are the same Wormtongues who backed regime change in Baghdad and convinced America to invade based on WMD lies. Why are we still listening to them?

Comments

[Peter G.]

Which is not to say that Hamas does not enjoy the patronage of the Iranian regime. It is likely that they have many patrons besides Iran in the proxy war against Israel. I think it rather likely that none of the surrounding Islamic states can resist the delicious opportunity to discomfit Israel at no significant cost to anyone but the unfortunate Palestinians. Someone is supplying Hamas with munitions to Hamas are they not?

[Steve Hynd]

Oh agreed, Peter. Although that "someone" may well be private entrepreneurs or "off the records" corrupt officials. There's a massive black market in arms in the region, helped along by old Silk Road smuggling routes through uncloseable borders.

Regards, C

[tp]

Hamas is not an Iranian proxy, and Iran's contribution to Hamas is small in comparison to Saudi aid.

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/hamas_is_not_an_iranian_proxy/

[Peter G.]

True Cernig, yet such trade must have tacit approval of governments at some level. I can't imagine any government not keeping a wary eye on the traffic in arms. Certainly the Egyptian government would want to know exactly into whose hands weapons passing through their territory are actually going. They have their own security to consider.

[Steve Hynd]

Peter,

"such trade must have tacit approval of governments at some level"

Would you extend that to the 180,000 weapons the US lost or had stolen by corruption in Iraq?

Regards, C

[Peter G.]

Absolutely no question about that Cernig.Somebody had to be carefully looking the other way for that quantity of munitions to "disappear". The arms trade is one of those businesses that governments both need and mistrust. They're damned useful when you want to secretly fund an insurgency but sometimes the sons of bitches sell to the "wrong" side. Of course there is always a certain amount supply Sargent venality. There are a lot of people in Iraq who have no 401(k)s and have their retirement plans to consider. If any of those weapons were actually "lost" for any length of time I'll eat 'em. My money's on stolen.

[Steve Hynd]

Somebody had to be carefully looking the other way for that quantity of munitions to "disappear".

Well, the guy in charge of tracking weapons supplies to Iraq at the time was one General David Petraeus...

[Peter G.]

Somehow I doubt the "buck" ever made it to his desk.