Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

What did the Syrian Mufti tell the EU parliament?

The Syrian Grand Mufti addressed the EU parliament on Tuesday and said some pretty moderate things. According to the EU report:

The Grand Mufti of Syria, Ahmad Badr Al-Din Hassoun, yesterday (15 January) told Parliament's Strasbourg plenary that perceived clashes of culture were instead conflicts of "ignorance, terrorism and backwardness".
He stressed that although religion gave culture its moral values, "it is we who build civilisation", arguing that "we must create states on a civil basis" rather than a religious one. Moreover, he said there was "no such thing" as a holy war [but only a "holy peace"].

MEMRI translates an article from champress.com that goes much further:

In a speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Syrian Mufti Sheikh Ahmad Badr Al-Din Hassoun came out with a surprising call: "May Allah curse anyone who kills a Palestinian, Israeli, or Iraqi child or man, because he is killing a person whom Allah honored without connection to his religious belief."
The mufti added that if the Ka'ba, the Church of the Nativity, or the Al-Aqsa Mosque were to be destroyed, someone would rise up to rebuild them, but when a person was killed no one could bring them back to life.

The autotranslation of the champress.com report indicates that the speech was unusually moderate:

«We must rearing of our children and future generations on the basis of human values and the dignity of each individual and we must start here Palestine, the land of peace, if we could objectively, Israelis and Palestinians together, will live peacefully», recalling the words of the late Pope John Paul II,« instead of building the wall, Build trust and understanding with you »...

However, the Brussels Journal quotes a Dutch blogger, translating an article in a Dutch news site that says that when the Syrian Mufti addressed the EU parliament, he said (among other things):

Should it come to riots, bloodshed and violence after broadcating the Quran movie by PVV-leader Geert Wilders, then Wilders will be responsible.

This was said by the Grand Mufti of Syria, Ahmad Badr Al-Din Hassoun, Tuesday in teh European Parliament, where he gave a speech at the invitation of the fraction presidents.

If Wilders tears up or burn a Quran in his film 'this will simply mean he is inciting wars and bloodshed. And he will be responsible', according to te Grand Mufti.

Al Hassoun thinks it is 'the responsibility of the Dutch people to stop Wilders'.

So we have the Arabic press and the EU stressing the Mufti's moderate tone, and a Dutch newspaper saying otherwise - that the Mufti made an implicit threat against the Netherlands if they don't stop Wilders' anti-Muslim film. I could not find any media outlet that reported that part of his speech outside this reference to the Dutch-language site. (The Champress site mentions the Danish cartoons but I couldn't discern the threats mentioned here in the autotranslation.)

It is certainly plausible that he said those threatening words, but it is equally newsworthy to hear him say explicitly that terrorists who kill Israelis should be cursed. This is a way more peaceful position than most Islamic clerics are willing to say publicly. Whether it is his true belief or just politics I do not know, and it is intriguing to see both differing accounts of the same speech.

The limits of reliance

In the waning days of the Clinton presidency, Clinton presented his peace plan to Yasir Arafat with its well known concessions on the part of Israel (94-96% of the West Bank plus 1-3% of Israel proper, all of Gaza, splitting Jerusalem, destroying dozens of settlements.) Part of Clinton's intent was that if Arafat would not accept this offer it could not be a basis for future negotiations - as Dennis Ross wrote, “to be sure that it couldn’t be a floor for [future] negotiations... It couldn’t be a ceiling. It was the roof.”

This was an extremely extremely important point for Israel. Even so, Israel is now negotiating based pretty much on the same terms that were intended then by the US President to not be a basis for future negotiations.

In 2002, President Bush helped write the "roadmap" for peace, and he made it very clear that nothing would happen until Palestinian Arabs stopped their terror and incitement - cessation of violence was a precondition of every other part of the roadmap.

Again, this was a terrifically important point for Israel, the realization that a mindset of peace was a precondition for Israeli concessions, rather than the wishful thinking that peace will naturally come after Israel already gave up its own security. And yet, last week, COndoleeza Rice abrogated the roadmap and this condition. As Jeff Jacoby quotes Rice:

The reason that we haven't really been able to move forward on the peace process for a number of years is that we were stuck in the sequentiality of the road map. So you had to do the first phase of the road map before you moved on to the third phase of the road map, which was the actual negotiations of final status," Rice said. . . . What the US-hosted November peace summit in Annapolis did was "break that tight sequentiality. . . You don't want people to get hung up on settlement activity or the fact that the Palestinians haven't fully been able to deal with the terrorist infrastructure. . ."

In 2004, Ariel Sharon used a letter from President Bush as a major victory in the withdrawal from Gaza, showing that the US was against a withdrawal to the Green Line:

In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion.

Yet again, this was a crucial point in Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, knowing that the US supports Israel keeping some of the major settlement blocs in the West Bank. However, now the US government disagrees with this interpretation of the letter:

The United States clarified to Israel during U.S. President George Bush's visit this week that it disapproves of all building in East Jerusalem and the West Bank including in the large settlement blocs, a senior Western diplomat said Tuesday.

The diplomat added that Israel and the U.S. differ on their interpretation of the letter President Bush sent to former prime minister Ariel Sharon in April, 2004.

"The letter refers to major population centers and not the settlement blocs, while stressing that everything must also be decided in the negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians," the diplomat said.

According to the diplomat, Bush is steadfast in his objection of building in West Bank settlements and East Jerusalem.

"The American government also opposes construction due to the natural growth of the present settlers", he said. He added, however, that if progress is made on border issues it may help to resolve the settlement issue. "When the route of the permanent border becomes clearer, the locations where Israel can and cannot build will also be clearer."

These three times Israel trusted her friends in the White House to help guarantee its security, and in each of these times the promises and understandings that Israel relied on turned out to be ephemeral.

It is clear that both Bill Clinton and George Bush have great affinity and feelings for Israel. But it is equally clear that it is a mistake for Israel to rely on any promises, letters, or understandings from a third party when the subject is Israel's security. In the end, countries act in their own interests, and in the case of the current administration the Arab world has fooled the White House into thinking that they would support the West against Iran if only the Palestinian Arabs get what they want, no strings attached. Since the Iranian problem is truly a geopolitical threat to the West, the false linkage to Israel turns into something that Washington needs to address.

Of course, the current Israeli government has more than its share of blame for this situation - it is unreasonable for Israel's supporters to ask the White House to be more Zionist than Israel's own leaders. Beyond that, though, Israel's dependence on US largesse also means that Israel is no longer free to make its own decisions for her own security without "consulting" (getting permission from) Washington.

Israel's relationship with the US should be one of mutual self-interest, not of dependence.

Joke of the day

From Jay Leno:

Today President Bush said the Saudis are fully enlisted in the war on terror.

Yeah - so fully, they're on both sides.

Saudi "love children"

From Arab News:

She looked Arab but spoke, in addition to English, a Southeast Asian language. When asked about her origin, she said her father was Saudi, who left her mother and returned to the Kingdom, said Najeeb Al-Zamil, a businessman and Saudi columnist, who met the girl by chance while abroad.
The girl worked as a masseuse, serving tourists at their private accommodations. “She was not the only Saudi-origin girl abandoned in that country or in other countries,” he said.
“Unfortunately, after four years the girl died at the age of 17 with HIV. ... She was not the only victim in the family. Her mother also had Arab features and she too was abandoned by her Saudi father as well,” Al-Zamil said.
“We tried to reunite them with their family in Saudi Arabia but both Saudi fathers left no trace and we failed to help them... The only thing we managed to do was to move them to a better home,” he added.
Al-Zamil said it was a reality that many Saudis fly to the Far East, get married, have children and then simply leave.
Another heartrending tale is that of a 14-year-old girl called Salma, not her real name. At the age of seven her Saudi father left both her and her mother, and returned to the Kingdom.
Salma left school early and began working at a bar and as a model featuring in low budget advertisements. She was nicknamed the queen of advertisements. However, life’s experience has left her bitter about men, Saudi Arabia and Islam.
In spite of everything, Salma’s mother, who had converted to Islam to marry her father, had still brought her daughter up as a Muslim.

Israellycool is liveblogging

Between Israel's offensive yesterday against Gaza terror, the huge increase in Qassams and the latest political news of Israel Beiteinu quitting the government (so what's the deal with Shas?), the news comes too fast to keep up with.

But Aussie Dave at Israellycool is doing the job, as he does during every crisis. Check it out!

30 rockets and counting

It has been very hard to keep track of the number of rockets hitting Sderot today, but my best guess right now is 30: 24 that Ha'aretz counted (plus 24 mortars) at 9:00 PM, plus six more in YNet's updates after that time. (And another two for 32, and another two for 34 if I am counting correctly.)

Four people were injured in Sderot, including a 5-year old girl. And earlier an Ecuadorian kibbutz volunteer was shot and killed by a Hamas Gaza sniper.

Hamas has taken credit for the majority of rockets and mortars as well as that murder, reversing its policy of pretending not to support attacks by its PRC partners.

As far as keeping track on my Qassam calendar, I'll be a bit more conservative for now. Over the past few days a number of rockets were claimed to be shot by Palestinian terror groups in Gaza but I could not find any mention of them landing in the Israeli press.

According to my numbers, this is certainly the worst day for rockets since May but it might end up being the worst ever.

UPDATE: YNet says over 40 rockets on Tuesday. JPost counted 28 plus a Katyusha.

UPDATE 2: 30 already on Wednesday. (Now 50.)

Torture victim of Hamas dies

From Palpress (autotranslated):

Local Palestinian sources said today that "a citizen of the Maghazi camp central Gaza Strip died in an Israeli hospital as a result of serious wounds he had sustained a month ago after the tortured and thrown from the roof of one of the security buildings of the Hamas militia in the central region."

The sources added that Mustafa Ezz El-Shafei, 24, "died from wounds he suffered after being tortured by the militias of Hamas and thrown from the top of one of the security purpose of the killers and after his confession to one of the leaders of the Qassam Brigades, a charge of theft and looting of the property of citizens center of the Gaza Strip."

Sources confirmed that Shafei had nothing to do with the theft.

Our 2008 PalArab self-death count rises to 7.

American wives in Saudi Arabia

Here is what life is like for American women who marry Saudi men:

Teresa Malof knew she wasn't in Kentucky anymore when a cleric issued a fatwa against her secret Santa gift exchange.

Malof proposed the idea at the King Fahad National Guard Hospital, where she has worked for more than a decade. It was supposed to be discreet, but rumors were whispered amid veils and hijabs that the lithe, blond nurse, raised on farmland at the edge of Appalachia, was planning to celebrate a Christian tradition in an Islamic kingdom that forbids the practicing of other religions.

"Even though I'm a Muslim too, I like to celebrate the holidays and have gift exchanges," said Malof, a convert to Islam who is married to the son of a former Saudi ambassador. "But word got out, and the religious people came with a fatwa (or edict) against the Santa party. My husband was having a heart attack. He was worried I'd be in a lot of trouble."

For American women married to Saudi men, such is life in this exotic, repressive and often beguiling society where tribal customs and religious fervor rub against oil wealth and the tinted-glass skyscrapers that rise Oz-like in the blurry desert heat. This is not a land of the First Amendment and voting rights; it is a kingdom run by the strict interpretation of Wahhabi Islam, where abayas hang in foyers, servants linger like ghosts, minarets glow in green neon and, as a recent court case showed, a woman who is raped can also be sentenced to 200 lashes for un-Islamic behavior.

"Haram, haram" (forbidden, forbidden). American wives know the phrase well. It is learned over years of peeking through veils at supermarkets or sitting in the back of SUVs while Filipinos behind the wheel glide through traffic. Their adopted Arab home is a traditionally close American ally. But like much of the Islamic world, Saudi Arabia's relations with Washington have been strained since the rise of global jihad. Terrorist bombings, which have killed nearly 150 people here in recent years, have kept many American families in gated communities that have the aura of golf courses protected by small armies.

Most non-Muslim women convert to Islam as a prerequisite for marrying a Saudi and living in the kingdom. Many American women, including those who converted before they arrived, have embraced the Quran; for others, the adoption of Islam is a pantomime act, the disguise of a second self to hold them over until they peel off their head scarves and travel to the U.S. for summer vacations.

For both kinds of women, it is a life of sacrifices and measured victories: Women can't drive or vote in Saudi Arabia, but their children are largely safe from street crime and drugs; a wife can't leave the country without her husband's written permission, but tribal and religious codes instill a strong sense of family.

Freedom lies behind courtyard walls, where private swimming pools glimmer and the eyes of the religious police, known as the mutaween, do not venture. Rock 'n' roll (haram) is played, smuggled whiskey (haram) is sipped, and Christianity (haram) sometimes is practiced. This sequestered, contradictory experience, a number of American wives noted, can turn an expat into an alcoholic or a born-again Christian, and sometimes both.

"American women get together and we talk," said Lori Baker, a mother of two who met her Saudi husband at Ohio State University in 1982. "We ask one another, 'Where are you on your curve now? Have you hit bottom yet?' We all go through the highs and lows when it comes to moods and tolerance. . . . When I first got here, I felt naked without my head scarf.

"Then after the terrorist bombings in 2003, I even covered my face. Foreigners were a target then. I became very comfortable with my face covered. I felt safe. Nobody knows me. They can't see me, and if you're covered, they respect you. Sometimes without a covered face it's like walking down Main Street wearing a bikini."

One American wife, who asked not to be named, said the country's repression of women led her to counseling sessions with a psychiatrist. When she was contacted for an interview, she said she was worried that her husband would object; she struggled with the decision for an hour before finally agreeing. "I told my husband I'm coming to this interview. I'm trying to be respectful, but I'm going to go. Is that haram?" she said, sitting in a black abaya. "It's only women who have to be perfect here. A woman. A woman. A woman. They're always making an issue of it. It's a sick pastime. I feel like I'm being bullied. This is not Islam. Where in Islam does it say this? This is tribal."

She paused and sipped a cappuccino. She grew up in Pittsburgh, the latchkey daughter of a working mother and a laid-off steelworker who abandoned his family and ended up homeless. She was 16 when she met a 27-year-old Saudi who was studying English at the University of Pittsburgh. He offered her stability and religion. They married two years later, first in a mosque and then before a justice of the peace. She said she hasn't spoken to her husband's family in six years.

UPDATE: In the comments, Soccer Dad reminds us of a similar tragic case where the US was complicit in the behavior of the Saudis.

The stupidity of the "smarter bombs"

Reuters reports:

The United States has agreed in principle to provide Israel with better "smart bombs" than those it plans to sell Saudi Arabia under a regional defense package, senior Israeli security sources said on Sunday.
Keen to bolster Middle East allies against an ascendant Iran, the Bush administration last year proposed supplying Gulf Arab states with some $20 billion in new weapons, including Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bomb kits for the Saudis.

The plan has angered Israel's backers in Washington, who say the JDAMs, which give satellite guidance for bombs, may one day be used against the Jewish state or at least blunt its power to deter potential foes. Israel has had JDAMs since 1990 and has used them extensively in a 2006 offensive in Lebanon.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government dropped its objections to the proposed Saudi deal in July after securing U.S. military aid grants worth $30 billion over the next decade.

Two Israeli security sources said the United States further mollified the Olmert government with an "understanding in principle" that future JDAM sales to Israel would include advanced technologies not on offer to Saudi Arabia.

"We are checking which of the top-of-the-line JDAMs will become available to us. The agreement is that Israel's qualitative edge will be preserved," one source said.

This is idiotic on a number of levels.

First of all, Saudi Arabia can have a trillion dollars' worth of weapons; they are useless in a kingdom that has no decent army, no military expertise, and utterly no ability to deter any Iranian offenses. If Iran would decide for some reason to attack Saudi Arabia, it would be the US that defends it anyway - the Saudis would crumple on their own no matter what advanced weaponry they own (and they already own quite a bit of it.)

The Saudi arsenal is nothing more than a tempting target for terrorists to get their own hands on advanced weaponry for uses that are far from their conventional intent.

Moreover, in a world where asymmetric warfare is the prevailing wisdom, giving Israel a "qualitative edge" in having "smarter" bombs doesn't help Israel's defense a bit. Is there any chance that the Islamists who might end up with Saudi weaponry would care that Israel is somewhat better at hitting back purely military targets? They'll be using this advanced weaponry against population centers in Israel. As Lebanon showed, Geneva no longer applies in the Arab wars against Israel and giving Israel better offensive weapons does not help much against an enemy for whom death is desirable.

Now, if the US would give Israel technology that can defend against the Saudi bombs - if an encrypted backdoor was placed in the JDAM software that could disable the weapons remotely, for example - then this might make sense. But the fact that Israel's theoretical future versions of JDAMs might have an accuracy of 3 meters rather than 6 meters is pretty much meaningless.

None of this makes sense. Iran is not deterred in the least by these moves, on the contrary it gives them even more incentive to build nuclear bombs. This might benefit defense contractors but pretty much no one else.

Muslim bookstore employee refuses to touch "unclean" Bible story book

From the Daily Express:

A MUSLIM store worker refused to serve a customer buying a children’s book on Christianity because she said it was “unclean”.

Shopper Sally Friday felt publicly humiliated at a branch of Marks & Spencer when she tried to pay for First Bible Stories as a gift for her young grandson.

When she put the book on the check-out counter, the young assistant refused to touch it, declared it was unclean and summoned another member of staff to serve instead.

Mrs Friday said her trip to the sales in Reading, Berks, with her daughter had been ruined.

“I went to the till and heard the girl say it was unclean and then she got someone else to serve me,” said Mrs Friday.

“At first I wasn’t sure what was going on and then I realised she was wearing a headdress and I clicked that the title of the book had Bible in it. I felt very humiliated and immediately left the store.”

How could she have felt humiliated? That emotion only applies to one set of people.

HuffPo ordains a rabbi

The Huffington Post has another insufferably self-righteous piece by "Rabbi" Michael Lerner, far-left editor of Tikkun magazine, titled "A Rabbi at a Mosque," where he describes his experience speaking at a mosque in Denver (and why it was "controversial" - because he is too Zionist.)

A little research shows that Lerner was never ordained as a rabbi by any recognized rabbinical school (he was accepted to the conservative Jewish Theological Seminary rabbinical school but never attended). He claims his "ordination" came from Zalman Schachter Shalomi and two other rabbis who he never named. Schachter-Shlomi had broken with his Lubavitch upbringing and created his own Judaic pseudo-cult which includes his own Hebrew translations of Buddhist and Sufi prayers.

I guess calling the article "A Leftist Jew who Pretends to Be a Rabbi at a Mosque" doesn't have the same zing.

See also Judeopundit's takedown of one of the incredibly stupid things Lerner actually wrote in the article.

How Mecca became a holy city

Some history that I was unaware of:

Mecca: 1st - 6th century AD

The town of Mecca, in a rocky valley with no agricultural resources, develops into a place of considerable prosperity. There are two good reasons. It is a trading post on the caravan route from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean. And it is Arabia's most important place of pilgrimage.

During the centuries before Islam, large numbers of pilgrims arrive in Mecca to perform a ritual act of walking seven times round a small square building known as the Kaaba (Arabic for 'cube'). The building is full of idols, which are the objects of worship. It also includes a sacred black stone, possibly in origin a meteorite.

The Muslims and Mecca: AD 624-630

Relations with Mecca deteriorate to the point of pitched battles between the two sides, with Muhammad leading his troops in the field. But in the end it is his diplomacy which wins the day.

He persuades the Meccans to allow his followers back into the city, in 629, to make a pilgrimage to the Kaaba and the Black Stone.

On this first Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, Muhammad's followers impress the local citizens both by their show of strength and by their self-control, departing peacefully after the agreed three days. But the following year the Meccans break a truce, provoking the Muslims to march on the city.

They take Mecca almost without resistance. The inhabitants accept Islam. And Muhammad sweeps the idols out of the Kaaba, leaving only the sacred Black Stone.

An important element in Mecca's peaceful acceptance of the change has been Muhammad's promise that pilgrimage to the Kaaba will remain a central feature of the new religion.

So Mecca becomes, as it has remained ever since, the holy city of Islam.

Mecca was a holy city for idolators, and Mohammed used its status - and its pre-existing customs - to help grow his new religion.

New weapon against Gaza rocket terrorists

From Israel's Channel 2 (I converted it for use in all browsers):

I don't understand all the Hebrew, and saw the link originally in a Palestinian Arabic site which I couldn't decipher completely. Here is the English description from the PalArab site:

The southern leadership of the Israeli army revealed for the first time a new weapon said to be for use against rockets fired from Gaza strip.

UPDATE: Commenter Annie translates:

A rough outline of what was said: At the beginning of the clip you hear a female soldier reporting in coded language what she is seeing. Then the missile is shot at the terrorist. Afterwards the narrator reports that the latest method to combat the kassam and other terrorists is by anti-tank units shooting anti-tank missiles which are much more efficient in hitting their targets. The terrorists are spotted by a combination of ground checkpoints, and balloons and drones operated by the IAF. Their findings are sent straight to a computerized intelligence centre who send out the anti-tank brigades with pinpoint information.

Channel two of the Israeli TV. broadcasted a video tape im which Israeli air and land units are using anti missile grenades against Palestinian activists in Gaza strip specially those who fire rockets at Israel.

The video tape shows a Palestinian activist trying to fire a rocket in direction of the Israeli towns, the activist was being monitored ever since he walked out , then an Israeli rocket targets him directly and when his friend approached to rescue him another Israeli rocket was being fired leaving both of them dead.

More humanitarian explosives

From YNet:

Security workers of the Israel Airport Authority uncovered 2 tons of material used for the manufacturing of Qassam rockets and explosives inside a truck attempting to enter the Gaza Strip through the Kerem Shalom crossing.

This is the second time in the past week in which such materials are brought into Gaza under the disguise of humanitarian equipment.

Meanwhile, Egypt also found some of those much-needed explosives on their way to the starving people of Gaza:

Egyptian security forces have found a smuggling tunnel linking Egypt with the Gaza Strip and containing explosives, security sources said on Monday.
The sources said the tunnel, north of the Rafah crossing, contained four artillery shells and 20 bombs, as well as electrical circuits.

But in the peaceful West Bank, in contrast:

The Palestinian intelligence service said on Monday that they discovered a bag containing 16 kilograms of explosives and a homemade projectile ready to be launched in the northern West Bank city of Nablus.

Director of Nablus intelligence, Abu Al-Abbas, told Ma'an that the bag was found inside a bigger bag with three detonators in the old city of Nablus.

However, the PA has had a less than stellar record of reliability when they report finds like these. Pretty much anything they "discover" during serious negotiations with Israel can be regarded as either fabrications or gross exaggerations.

UPDATE: Nablus' mayor denied that it was a rocket that they found, saying it was a pipe bomb.

Was the NIE report a brilliant piece of misinformation?

A report in the IHT last week brings up an interesting consequence of the NIE report:

A rift is emerging between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iran's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, suggesting that the president no longer enjoys the full backing of Khamenei, as he did in the years after his election in 2005.

In the past, when Ahmadinejad was attacked by political opponents, the criticisms were usually silenced by Khamenei, who has the final word on state matters and who regularly endorsed the president in public speeches. But that public support has been conspicuously absent in recent months.

There are numerous possible reasons for Ahmadinejad's loss of support, but analysts here all point to one overriding factor: the U.S. National Intelligence Report last month, which said that Iran suspended its nuclear weapons program in 2003 in response to international pressure. The report sharply decreased the threat of a military strike against Iran, allowing the authorities to focus on domestic issues, with important parliamentary elections looming in March.

"Now that Iran is not under the threat of a military attack, all contradictions within the establishment are surfacing," said Saeed Leylaz, an economic and political analyst. "The biggest mistake that Americans have constantly made toward Iran was adopting radical approaches, which provided the ground for radicals in the country to take control."

While the pressure was on, the leadership was reluctant to let any internal disagreements show. Senior officials, including Khamenei, constantly called for unity and warned that the enemy, a common reference to the United States, could take advantage of such differences.

The Iranian presidency is a largely ceremonial post. But Ahmadinejad used the office as a bully pulpit, espousing an economic populism that built a strong following among the middle and lower classes and made him a political force to be reckoned with. That popularity won him the strong backing of the supreme leader.

But the relationship began to sour even before the National Intelligence Report was released. A source close to Khamenei, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, said Khamenei had been especially disappointed by Ahmadinejad's economic performance, which had led to steep inflation in basic necessities, from food to property values.

"Mr. Khamenei supported Mr. Ahmadinejad because he believed in his slogans of helping the poor," the source said. "But his economic performance has been disastrous. Their honeymoon is certainly over."

Economists have long criticized Ahmadinejad's economic policies, warning that his reliance on oil revenues to finance loans to the poor and to buy cheap imports would lead to inflation and cripple local industries. Inflation has risen from 12 percent in October 2006 to 19 percent this year, according to figures released by the Iranian Central Bank.

The rift between Khameni and Ahmadinejad has been obvious for months and the external threat was the major factor keeping it from becoming blatant. Bush couldn't backtrack on his approach to Iran without raising eyebrows, but the NIE was a neat way to get the US to back off on pressuring Iran - the press seized on the document, misinterpreting it to be far more damning to the Bush administration than it really is.

The idea of backing off from a belligerent tone with Iran for the purpose of weakening it was raised in another IHT article by academic Roger Stern:

Tehran seems unimpressed by administration war talk, perhaps because it has confidence in its navy. Lots of other people are scared, though. Take oil traders. Oil prices used to have a tight relationship with Saudi spare capacity. When capacity went up, prices went down. After two years of escalating threats between Tehran and Washington, however, new capacity no longer calms the market.

Under the old market rules, prices would be $50, not $100. So war talk sends an extra $20 billion a year to Tehran. The Bush administration's bellicose rhetoric thus makes a mockery of the president's pledge to "do everything in our power to defeat the terrorists."

If it wanted to honor this commitment, the administration would stop saying things that drive up oil prices. As it is, the long parade of threats just makes the mullahs richer.

Yet they spend their $90 a barrel windfall faster than ever, trying to buy legitimacy with pork. Deeply unpopular, the Iranian regime now relies on constantly rising oil prices for survival.

Its spending has quadrupled in the last six years, a remarkable rise that's evolved in lockstep with oil prices. Here, at last, is our adversary's weakness: An oil price decline would be a mortal threat.

If Bush wants to hit the regime where it hurts, conciliation should become his byword. In the price collapse that would follow, he'd find a brand new Iranian appetite for negotiation.

This is because, unlike sanctions that might take years bite, a peace initiative would threaten the mullahs tomorrow. Talking peace, which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will certainly scorn, would also help reformers in the approaching Iranian elections.

So before the president begins another war whose risks may be greater than he thinks, General Van Riper should be heard. And if the president really wants to regime change, he should talk peace, now.

He doesn't even have to mean it. At today's oil prices, just the threat of peace will do.

It is somewhat possible, although I wouldn't judge it as likely, that the Bush administration was one step ahead of this analysis, using the NIE report as a backhanded way to cool things off. Bush will still be quoted as being intransigent and as disavowing the NIE memo, but all the while wheels are in motion that could hurt Iran economically far more and far faster than any sanctions can.

Of course, oil price have risen since the NIE report, not dropped, so this wishful thinking is somewhat lacking. But there still may be more behind the scenes than is being "leaked."