Last month U.S. and French navies intercepted cargo ships smuggling thousands of weapons from Iran to Yemen. According to the Washington Post, these shipments are in defiance of a U.N. Security decision which prohibits supplying weapons to the Houthis, Iran's Yemeni partners.
The navy seized thousands of Russian-style assault rifles and machine guns, dozens of anti-tank missiles, and more than half a million rounds of ammunitions. Similarly, last summer the British Navy impeded an Iranian ship carrying surface-to- air missiles and engines for land attack cruise missiles. Instead of allowing these weapons to build up, should Washington and its allies send them to Ukraine ??? The Post goes on; the U.S. Central Command through work with its European allies and Gulf partners, are on their way to turning important waterways around the Arabian peninsula into a panopticon, i.e. monitoring all, making it increasingly difficult for the Islamic revolutionary guards Corp navy.
While undetected, U.S. Naval forces set the course for innovation in maritime domain awareness and surveillance, enabling more and more seizures of Iranian weapons smuggled at sea, and left huge stores of weapons under the command of the U.S. Central Command. These which were examined and recorded by the United Nations as evidence of Iran's violations of UN Security council resolution 2624, are being placed at U.S. military facilities throughout the region.
The time has come to put these weapons to use for a good cause, support Ukraine. The ministry of Defence and NATO allies are mobilized to deliver various weapons to Ukraine, everything from guns to missiles to ammunitions, and soon tanks. In January the Pentagon went so far as to raid its stockpiles of weapons in Israel to support Kyiv, and the need and appetite are still there. The Pentagon for example, seeks to increase its production of artillery shells by 500% within two years. While stockpiling thousands of usable Iranian munitions, while these captured Iranian weapons will not meet every requirement of the Ukrainian military, many of them will certainly help, now that we've passed the first anniversary of the brutal and illegal Russian invasion and annihilation of Ukraine and it people.
According to the Post, "In addition to meeting immediate military needs, the transfer of these weapons will have other positive effects, sending Iran weapons to Ukraine to be used against Russia, will stir up discord between Moscow and Teheran, at a time when their interests converge. Iran trained and equipped the Russian army with drones, which the Russians launched on mostly civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, in a blatant attempt to leave the Ukrainian civilian population in the dark and cold this winter, and now there's fresh talk of Iranian tanks to Russia as well.
It should help limiting and redirecting Russian and Iranian destabilizing efforts in Europe and the Middle-East. The redirection of Iran's weapons, may prompt Moscow to put pressure on Teheran to stop arms smuggling into Yemen, especially when more and more shipments are being intercepted.
There may be legal obstacles preventing the U.S. administration from treating these confiscated Iranian weapons as U.S. stocks, and simply authorizing their transfer under presidential withdrawal authority, as Mr. Biden has done 31 times so far in the past 18 months . The Biden administration and its European allies, continues the Post, have already shown tremendous creativity in implementing new policy tools to support Kyiv. Congressional support to authorize sending confiscated assets of the Russian oligarch to support the reconstruction of Ukraine, it should be there with confiscated weaponry, even if technically they are owned by Teheran.
Iran and Russia are nowadays practically the main culprits who sought to bully their way by abusing their neighbors, Israel is just behind them, and for longer times, but that's another story to be discussed under different circumstance. The Post concluded, that the sending of Iran's weapons to Ukraine, moves the mission forward in tangible and symbolic ways. It must move without delay.
As always, my many thanks to all....
No comments:
Post a Comment