Informed Speculation

Mark that date on your calendar, if this article by Michael Ledeeon at National Review Online is true (how I wish he gave his source!):

Sometime in late November or early December, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei gathered his top advisers for an overall strategic review. The atmosphere was highly charged, because Khamenei’s doctors have diagnosed a serious cancer, and do not expect the Supreme Leader to live much more than a year. A succession struggle is already under way, with the apparently unsinkable Hashemi Rafsanjani in the thick of it, even though Khamenei, and his increasingly powerful son Mushtaba, is opposed to the perennial candidate-for-whatever.

Despite this disquieting news, the overall tone of the conversation was upbeat, because the Iranians believe they see many positive developments, above all, the declaration that “it has been promised that by 8 April, we will be in a position to show the entire world that ‘we are members of the club.’” This presumably refers to nuclear weapons.

Ledeen goes on to give a bone-chilling overview of the Iranian position. More validation of Ledeen’s claims is necessary, for mystelf, at least, before I starting beating the war drum, but if there is truth to this, it might explain the renewed urgency we are seeing from, for example, France.

In other disquieting news, Hamas immediately struck a belligerent pose upon assuming power in the Palestinian parliament:

Hamas began its majority rule in the Palestinian parliament on Saturday and quickly rejected President Mahmoud Abbas’ call to negotiate with the Israelis and respect existing peace agreements.

Abbas spoke at the opening session of the new Hamas-dominated Palestinian parliament, after the new legislators were sworn in. Hamas controls 74 of 132 seats, but Abbas has considerable powers as Palestinian Authority president.

A showdown seems inevitable, and unfortunately, I’m not at all confident that Abbas has the popular support to prevail…