If I were an Iranian intelligence official I’d be following very closely the travel schedule of Tamir Pardo, Israel’s Mossad chief. Last month, he visited his Turkish counterpart. Four weeks later, Israeli bombers flew from a Turkish airbase to attack the Syrian government weapons depot at Latakia, where they destroyed advanced Russian Yakhont anti-ship missiles.
Two Israeli TV news reports affirm that Pardo recently visited the United Arab Emirates. UAE is one of the bastions of the anti-Iran resistance among the Gulf states. I revealed a few weeks ago that the Israeli budget contains a secret allocation for establishing a military-intelligence coordination facility in the UAE. It would place Israeli agents and analysts in the Gulf so they can devise aggressive operations against Iran, together with their Arab peers from the Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, etc.
The strategy Pardo adopted during his visit to Turkey and the attack on Latakia is very similar to the one devised for the Israel-UAE mission. Israel sent a clear signal to Assad with the attack that Israel and Turkey were united against him, despite whatever other differences they may have. This was meant to have a sort of psy-ops impact on the Syrian dictator.
Similarly, the new anti-Iran alliance Israel is organizing is meant to increase the former’s isolation and deal it a psychological blow, in addition to any tangible acts of sabotage or overt attack it may organize.
Interestingly, UAE is the very same place where Pardo’s predecessor orchestrated the assassination of Mahmoud al Mabouh, who was Hamas’ leading arms dealer with Iran. Dubai made a point of loudly declaring Bibi Netanyahu and Meir Dagan to be criminals and added them to the Interpol red list. But Pardo appears to have emerged unscathed as he was on leave from intelligence service at the time.
All this proves that alliances and allegiances are quite malleable in the Middle East. Someone who is your enemy one day is your ally the next. In this region, there appears to be no such thing as values, only interests. And the latter evolve constantly. This may explain why so much of the region, including Israel is in the mess it is.
Dubai isn’t really the senior partner in the UAE, despite the skyscrapers. The Customer of Abu Dhabi has cash rather than debts and has more say over foreign and defence policy.
What he won’t do, however, is meddle with a Dubai police investigation into a crime that happened in Dubai.
Even the Customer of Dubai wouldn’t meddle with the investigation: he has his chance to intervene if a case ever gets to the sentencing stage, and it’s no worth any political capital to fiddle with a case which hasn’t got that far yet. As in Thailand, cases are allowed to grind through the system and then get tidied up with a Royal pardon, if convenient, at the end. The Customer’s chosen path is always to tread on the minimum number of toes. And to set a minimum of precedents.
It just can’t be the UAE, especially after the recent assassination of Mahmoud Mabhouh in Dubai. I can’t find Arab media where Pardo’s visit is mentioned. Israel is supportive of the axis Turkey – Iraqi Kurds – Qatar and Iraqi VP al-Hashimi (in exile). It looks like the Iraqi VP and Pardo are visiting the identical cities, Washington DC included.
Dubai has too many economical links with Iran to become part of any sort of conspiracy to strike Iran’s nuclear facility.
For Israeli media to launch false information could be part of the psy-ops to put pressure on the new Iranian President. Iran won’t go it alone to strike Iran. Pardo must have discussed other issues with the young emir of Qatar. Search for Mossad link to GCC states.
Which all goes to say that Turks, Egyptians and Gulf Arabs are erstwhile allies for the Palestinians. A friend who worked in one of the emirates tells me that Palestinians are the object of scorn and derision there, the butt of jokes and this kind of thing. Jeezzz…..(so to speak!)
It’s partly the legacy of Palestinian leaders having taken Saddam’s side during the invasion of Kuwait. This dropped a lot of innocent Palestinians deep in it the mire.
Palestinian leaders were, and still are, looking for a bigger bully than Israel to bully Israel back for what’s been done to them. Since those bullies tend to have all tried to bully the Gulf Arabs at some stage, it’s a natural mechanism for creating friction.
Richard,
Eventually these gulf state ‘leaders’ will face blow back for what they are doing. The oil rich monarchs want us to believe that their people fear and hate the prospect of Shia revolution more than they fear and hate the Israeli/US alliance. I don’t believe it. It is the monarchies themselves that are the targets, targeted not by merely by Shia radicals, but by their own people. Since the fortuitously timed Gulf War One, the kingdoms began using massive militarization offered them by the US; supposedly, to protect them from tyrants like Saddam; but really, to fortify the police state so that the great and frustrated mob did not rush the palaces. But Iran was such a place, under the US sponsored Shah. You push aside the secret police, and there is nothing left, no legitimacy whatsoever. Helping the Israelis to kill Muslims is not going to give you legitimacy with your own people, or in the history books — not that any of these guys read history books.
Shepard
All I can say if this information is true, that some of this Arab countries/leaders are as stupid as their reputation proceeding them and very short sighted. No wonder, Israel have a free hand to do what ever it wants, in the region and with the Palestinians.