By Michael Ledeen

Source:

June 25, 2010

As a while back, they’re not going to take on Israel by sending ships–with or without the Revolutionary Guards–to challenge the Gaza blockade.  The details are delicious.

() Iran has cancelled sending an aid ship to the Gaza Strip which had been scheduled to set sail for the Palestinian territory on Sunday, state news agency IRNA reported. Skip related content

“The trip is not going to happen,” Hossein Sheikholeslam, secretary general of the International Conference for the Support of the “Palestinian” Intifada, an Iranian body set up by parliament, told reporters on Thursday, IRNA said.

He said the ship had originally been due to depart on Thursday, but “due to restrictions from the occupying Zionist regime, it was decided that this ship would leave on Sunday. But now the trip is not going to happen.”

Sheikholeslam, speaking in the northern Iranian city of Rasht, said that the aid supplies that had been collected for the voyage will be sent by other means to Gaza.

“The Zionist regime has made the blockade a political issue and we do not wish to politicise this kind of humanitarian aid because the most important thing for us is to break the blockade of Gaza,” he said.

He said the voyage was cancelled as Israel “had sent a letter to the United Nations saying that the presence of Iranian and Lebanese ships in the Gaza area will be considered a declaration of war on that regime and it will confront it,” IRNA quoted him as saying.

“In order to deprive the Zionist regime of any excuse, the aid collected for the oppressed people of Gaza will be delivered to them by other means without mentioning the name of Iran.”

That’s clear enough, isn’t it?  Israel said that if any Iranian ship tries to enter Israeli waters, it will be treated as an act of war.  So the Iranians bagged it.

Now ask yourself this question:  how would the regime react if the tough guy in the White House said “if we find any evidence of Iranian support for the terrorists killing Americans in Iraq or Afghanistan, we’ll consider it an act of war and will react accordingly”?

Which Bushitlercheney should have done years ago.  It’s still the right thing to do.

Lots of lessons here:

1.  They talk a lot but they’re afraid, profoundly afraid  (can you imagine the RG generals talking to the Supreme Leader?  “But Excellency, they will kill us all…”);

2.  They will not risk direct confrontation, because any defeat will encourage the Iranian people to bring them down;

3.  They talk a lot about the glories of martyrdom, but the martyrs they have in mind are the Arabs they send into battle or on suicide missions against us;

4.  The trouble with American leaders is that they want to be loved, whereas a healthy dose of fear will do wonders for the region.

Sigh.  Dare I say it?  Yes I can:  Faster, please.