DEBKAfile Special Analysis
November 29, 2009
Reduced Iranian cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency is the least of the troubles Tehran has in store for the West. The Iranians are incandescent over the nuclear watchdog’s rebuke Friday, Nov. 27 for its cover-up of the uranium enrichment plant at Fordo and demand to halt its construction.
Its latest gesture of defiance was the approval late Sunday, Nov. 29 of 10 new uranium enrichment installations, with construction on five starting immediately.
DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources report that earlier Sunday, Tehran moved toward a military confrontation with the United Sates and Britain when its parliament earmarked $20 million to support “progressive currents which resist US and UK illegal activities.” The motion also ordered an investigation of alleged “US and British plots against the Islamic Republic.”
Our Iranian and counter-terror sources report that Tehran is acting to broaden its support of terrorist movements by bringing additional armed Islamist and insurgent groups into its support cycle as a means of forcing Washington and London to ease the pressure on its uranium enrichment projects and nuclear bomb program. Tehran classifies the groups combating the West in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia as “progressive.” The West may therefore be faced with newly-empowered armed groups in those places including possibly Taliban and al Qaeda allies.
The US and UK are specifically targeted by the new measure, which is separate from Iran’s sponsorship of Hizballah and the Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad Islam and their armed confrontation against Israel.
Until now, Washington acted on the assumption that Iran would resort to military action only in reprisal for an attack on its nuclear installations. The main argument against an Israeli strike centered on it exposing US interests to the danger of Iranian retaliation.
The Iranian parliamentary motion is therefore an eye-opener because it means that Tehran is not waiting idly to be attacked but is already on the move to pre-empt international pressure on its nuclear activities by setting in motion covert and subversion operations against its foremost adversaries.
The new law authorizes clandestine Iranian agents to funnel funds directly to “progressive” armed groups willing to directly confront the US and Britain.
The bill also taps funds to “confront plots and unjust restrictions” by the Washington and London against Tehran and to disclose “human rights abuses by the two countries.”
The article continues at DEBKAfile
