Turkex: Time for NATO to wake up and smell the coffee; Moscow was the winner in coup drama

It is unsurprising that the world should be incredulous at the explanations given by the Turkish Government as to the origins, sponsors, and actions of the putsch which was attempted against it on the night of July 15-16, 2016. Indeed, the great difficulty is to avoid considering the “conspiracy theory” that the entire event had been orchestrated by President Reçep Tayyip Erdoğan himself.

The event was cut from whole cloth. It was too perfect, and the responses too complete. Its outcome could not have been more favorable to the president and his ambitions.

Secret Iranian team in Beirut to counter suicide attacks and upgrade Hizballah intelligence

DEBKAfile Exclusive: Iran has embarked on an urgent project for rebuilding Hizballah’s intelligence and security mechanisms from scratch, to repair the ravages inflicted by the spate of suicide attacks on its strongholds in Beirut and other parts of Lebanon, since the Shiite militia joined the Syrian war.

A top team of senior officials from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Al Qods Brigades intelligence and Ministry of Intelligence and Security, landed secretly in Beirut last week. They arrived under cover of a delegation, headed by Deputy Justice Minister Abdol-Ali Mirkoohi, which came to collect information from the interrogation of Majid al Majid, the Saudi Arabian leader of the Abdallah Azzam Brigades terrorist group, who died in a Lebanese prison on Jan. 4.

Saudi Arabia’s proxy wars

Saudi Arabia appears resolute: It wants Bashar Al-Assad out of Damascus. The Saudis view the fighting in Syria with the same intensity that they did the civil war in Yemen that raged in the 1960s—as a conflict with wide and serious repercussions that will shape the political trajectory of the Middle East for years to come.

The Syrian war presents the Saudis with a chance to hit three birds with one stone: Iran, its rival for regional dominance, Tehran’s ally Assad and his Hezbollah supporters. But Riyadh’s policy makers are wary. They know that once fully committed, it will be difficult to disengage. And so they are taking to heart the lessons of another regional war that flared on their border 50 years ago.

Obama uses EU to confront Israel with tough interlinked choices: borders or nuclear-armed Iran

It doesn’t take a political genius to see how US Secretary of State John Kerry’s arrival in Amman Tuesday, July 16, for his sixth bid to bring Israelis and the Palestinians to the table, ties in with the new EU anti-Israel funding guidelines published on the same day. To avoid a head-on clash with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, the US president has loosed the Europeans in full cry against Jerusalem and its policies. European Union foreign affairs executive Catherine Ashton chairs the international negotiating forum with Iran. And so, the EU has given Tehran a broad wink that it is worth its while to come to a fresh round of nuclear diplomacy while Israel is kept on the run in the settlements-cum-borders dispute.

Israel is further weakened by its own internal political difficulties.

Former Hizbullah Leader Subhi Al-Tufayli: Iran Forces Hizbullah to Participate in the Syrian War

Subhi Al-Tufayli: I know for a fact that the vast majority within Hizbullah strongly oppose [joining] the Syrian war. However, a resolute decision to participate [in the war] has been imposed upon them.

Interviewer: By Iran?

Subhi Al-Tufayli: Yes.

Interviewer: Even Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah opposes this?

Subhi Al-Tufayli: I don’t want to name names, but I’m talking about the situation at hand. Everyone realizes how dangerous this is. First, of all, this is internal strife among Muslims, which will be devastating to all. This is the beginning of things to come. I say to the Shiites, to Hizbullah, and to the non-Shiites as well: We are heading towards a horrific war, which will destroy everything. The fatalities will be numbered by the millions.