More Mughniyeh fallout

Unlike the fanciful account in the Times of London, AP has an interesting view of what it would have taken to kill Imad Mughniyeh, provided by an ex-Mossad agent who saw the results of Mughniyeh’s work first hand.Although Israel and the U.S. perhaps top the list of suspects in Mughniyeh’s assassination, Tsafrir said, France, Germany, and Saudi Arabia are also among countries that had “unsettled accounts” with him. And he likely had internal opponents.

“A person like this makes a lot of enemies,” Tsafrir said.An operation like the one that killed Mughniyeh last week would have been extremely complex, requiring years of intelligence work and dozens of people, he said. “It’s not a matter of just pressing the button,” he said.

“An operation like this would take tremendous amounts of intelligence _ human intelligence, not electronic intelligence,” he said. “You need the ability to find people, to check the location, to install the device, and to escape” _ no simple task in the middle of a hostile capital.

“The agents could be recruited, or infiltrated into the organization, or both. But there would be dozens involved, and everything would be compartmentalized: People wouldn’t know what the others were doing, and would only know what they needed to know,” Tsafrir said.

Clearly, if Israel carried out the hit, it would suggest that it is acting with a surprising amount of freedom in Syria.

But Tsafrir points out that Mughniyeh wasn’t disliked only by the Israelis. Nor were his enemies only non-Muslims.

It’s been reported Kuwaiti parliamentarians are initiating legal proceedings against other Kuwaiti lawmakers for their eulogy of Mughniyeh.

The opposition Popular Action Bloc yesterday expelled its members Adnan Abdulsamad and Ahmad Lari over their participation in a mourning rally for top Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyah who was killed last week. The surprising decision came as pressure mounted on the two lawmakers, with some MPs either urging the government to take legal action against them and others already preparing for lifting their immunity to allow their prosecution.The Popular Action Bloc, headed by veteran MP Ahmad Al-Saadoun, strongly condemned in a statement that the participation of the two MPs in “the rally to mourn terrorist Imad Mughniyah who brutally killed two Kuwaitis during the hijacking of the Jabriya plane” in 1988. It added that the rally was held on Kuwaiti territory after 20 years of the hijacking “which has hurt the feelings of Kuwaitis”. The expulsion came following a lengthy meeting of the group and after consultations with all members, the statement said. Besides Abdulsamad and Lari, the group comprises of five MPs.

Though Israelly Cool points out that the Kuwaitis who deplored the eulogy weren’t much interest in Israelis killed, it does point to a Shi’ite/Sunni rift that may have some significance.

Barry Rubin noticed

Yet, wait a minute; it reveals a major shift from what has been true for the last 60 years or more.Jafari, and other Iranians, don’t want to say that Iran itself is going to do the wiping out. After all, such hints in the past strengthened international resolve against Iran getting the nuclear weapons that it might use to destroy Israel. Such a posture also justifies an Israeli attack on Iran, since that country is openly threatening genocide against it.

In effect, though, Jafari is erasing all the historical actors in the conflict: Arab states, Arab nationalist groups, Sunni Muslims, and–most remarkably of all–the Palestinians.

The battle is being waged by the heroes of today and the victors of tomorrow–Shia Muslims, and Lebanese ones at that. It is not even a Muslim-Jewish battle (which is in general the Islamist line), because the great majority of Muslims are also not included.

So perhaps that’s why the Kuwaiti lawmakers are reacting so strongly. What’s going on is a Shi’ite/Iranian war for hegemony in the Middle East. The Kuwaitis scared to challenge Iran directly (Kuwait has been swallowed up once already) so they focus their rage on its proxy instead.

(This Iranian war might also explain why PM Olmert and DM Barak have refused to budge. A motivation other than, or in addition to, arrogance, may be a sense that with the Iranian threat, continuity is important. h/t judeopundit)

As I’ve mentioned before there seems to be a lot hidden from view right now. I suspect that we’ll see a lot more action in the coming months on the Israeli/Iranian front that seems disconnected but would really be part of this ongoing conflict.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.