Nukes & Spooks
Posted by Warren Strobel
Vice President Joe Biden went a bit off message Tuesday, virtually predicting the collapse of the Iranian regime during an interview with Andrea Mitchell at MSNBC news.
Leaders of the theocratic regime in Tehran “are sowing the seeds of their own destruction,” Biden said – he used that phrase twice – “in terms of their ability to hold on to power.” He also opined that “the people of Iran … they’re thinking about regime change.”
The vice president seemed to be saying that the violent crackdown by Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei is boomeranging badly, spurring on the “Green Movement” – as the opposition is known – and further delegitimizing Iran’s current leaders.
Fair ‘nuf. But Biden’s comments mark a departure from the Obama administration’s generally cautious approach to the political turmoil inside Iran. President Barack Obama has been careful not to completely embrace the Iranian opposition (which could tarnish their image as a home-grown movement). And the words “regime change” have not escaped any White House officials’ lips. Indeed, senior U.S. officials say an offer to negotiate with Tehran over its nuclear program is still on the table whenever Iran wants to pick it up.
Was Biden signalling a policy shift? Voicing his own opinion? Engaging in wishful thinking? Unclear.
Iraq, Iran, IRAM
Middle East Diary
Posted by Hannah Allam
Militants launched another IRAM attack against a joint U.S.-Iraqi compound in the southern Iraqi city of Amarah, near the Iranian border, according to the U.S. military. No one was injured.
A couple weeks ago, I wrote a story about the reappearance of the IRAM, or Improvised Rocket-Assisted Munition, a rarely used weapon that U.S. intelligence officials say is connected to Iran.
Sometimes called “flying IEDs,” IRAMs are a potentially deadlier incarnation of the garden-variety IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan – they’re short-range projectiles that catapult toward unsuspecting targets.
In the latest incident, militants launched three IRAMs toward Camp Sparrowhawk, a joint Iraqi-American base in Amarah, according to a U.S. military statement with few details of the attack. Most IRAM information is classified as the U.S. military studies the device’s components and origins.
There were no casualties and no major equipment damage. Lucky for them, because if you want to know what an IRAM can do, just listen to this American soldier who survived one and was awarded the Purple Heart.
“I’d never heard of it – not before it blew up on us,” said Spc. Robert B. Walsh, 27, of Venice, Fla., who survived an IRAM blast last summer at the same place as the latest attack.
Walsh, who’s still in Iraq, said he was on duty in a guard tower on the American side of the joint outpost at 6 a.m. last June 30, which was supposed to have been a day of celebration as the new U.S.-Iraqi security pact took effect.
Walsh said his only clue before the blast was “a poof sound.” In the seconds before impact, Walsh used his radio to alert other soldiers to possible incoming fire.
The IRAM zipped over the wall “like a big bottle rocket,” Walsh said. It passed his guard tower and blew up next to a kitchen and barracks where American troops were sleeping.
Two other Purple Heart recipients suffered shrapnel wounds when windows and doors blew into their quarters, cutting their faces and hands. Several vehicles were damaged or destroyed, and the force of the explosion cracked the foundation and shifted the roof of the concrete building.
“It threw me about three or four feet and knocked me unconscious,” Walsh said. “When I woke up, everything was on fire and there was debris all over the ground. It left a hole with a 15-foot radius, and it was 4 1/2 feet deep.”