Other Than Apartments in Jerusalem, What Else is Going on in the Middle East?

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
21 March '10

While the Obama Administration is fiddling over the construction of apartments in Jerusalem, the Middle East is burning. Yet these other issues don’t attract the attention—and certainly not the action—required.

1. Iran is now allied with al-Qaida: General David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, revealed a bombshell story that has been ignored: Iran is helping al-Qaida attack Americans.

Iran, he said in military-speak, provides "a key facilitation hub, where facilitators connect al Qaida's senior leadership to regional affiliates." Translation: Tehran is letting al-Qaida leaders travel freely back and forth to Pakistan and Afghanistan, using its territory as a safe haven, while permitting them to hold meetings to plan terrorist attacks for attacking U.S. targets and killing Americans. While nominally Iran sometimes takes these people into custody, that seems, Petraeus says, a fiction to fool foreigners.

Oh, and Petraeus added that Iran also helps the Taliban fight America in Afghanistan. Regarding Iraq, the general explains, "The Qods Force [an elite Iranian military group within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] also maintains its lethal support to Shia Iraqi militia groups, providing them with weapons, funding and training,"

So, Petraeus pointed out that Iran is helping al-Qaida against the United States and also, at times, Shia groups intended to be Iran’s proxies for spreading its influence in Iraq. In effect, the Tehran regime is at war with the United States. Yet this point is not being highlighted, nor does it stir rage in the hearts of White House officials or strenuous attempts to counter this threat.

Meanwhile, Iran isn’t just building apartments but nuclear weapons’ facilities.

2. Lebanon being further integrated into Iran-Syria alliance

In an interview with al-Jazira television, Walid Jumblatt, formerly the roaring lion of the opposition, turns into a mouse and apologizes to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Asad:

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