SPY EYES ANALYSIS

A week back steamy headlines made it to the front pages and Security News Alerts: Iran may act as negotiator with Assad, Syrian President. It is no secret that Rouhani’s government has been deemed friendly, forward looking, and less fanatical than its predecessors. So must Iran with a freshly signed nuclear deal, our new member on the bandwagon for global peace, play a role in convincing Syria’s Assad to hop aboard too? Possibly yes. But will the Arab League, Turkey and Washington’s other allies allow for such bold acceptance of the pariah state? While Putin was able to pen his  plea for caution  in ‘The’ New York Times; and Wikileaks, Bradley Manning, and the latest NSA spying scandal courtesy Edward Snowden had raised question marks in blindly trusting audience; the Syrian imbroglio remains perturbed and unchecked. Ticking like a time bomb, with dozens killed on a weekly basis, the state of war in Syria needs to be addressed. Then who must step in? So far the Iran...

To begin to make sense of the escalating conflict in Gaza, we need to go back to the night of Oct. 23 in Khartoum. Around 11 p.m. that night, the Yarmouk weapons facility in the Sudanese capital was attacked, presumably by the Israeli air force. There were indications that Iran had been using this facility to stockpile and possibly assemble weapons, including anti-aircraft missiles, guided anti-tank missiles and long-range Fajr-5 rockets capable of reaching Tel Aviv and Jerusalem from Gaza.  One of the major drivers behind Israel's latest air and assassination campaign is its belief that Hamas has a large cache of long-range Fajr-3 and Fajr-5 rockets in its possession. Israel's primary intent in this military campaign is to deny Hamas the ability to use these rockets or keep them as a constant threat to Israel's population centers. This likely explains why in early October, when short-range rocket attacks from Gaza were still at a low level, Israeli officials began conditi...