DAILY ALERT

In-Depth Issues:

Attack on U.S. Embassy in Damascus (Reuters/Washington Post)
    Four armed men attacked the U.S. embassy in Damascus on Tuesday, but the assault was repelled and Syrian officials said all diplomats were safe.
    The four attackers shouted religious slogans and threw a grenade into the embassy yard. The four were killed as well as at least one Syrian guard.

Iran Closes Top Reformist Paper after "Insulting" Cartoon - Nazila Fathi (New York Times)
    Iran's press monitoring agency shut down four publications on Monday including a major reformist newspaper.
    The reformist daily Shargh was shut down indefinitely because it refused to replace its director and because it published a cartoon considered insulting to the government, state-run television said.

Khatami Served with Summons at Gala Dinner - Eli Lake (New York Sun)
    When Iran's ex-president Mohammed Khatami was having his picture taken with admirers at a gala dinner sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, he received an unexpected summons to appear at the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York in Manhattan.
    On Thursday, lawyers representing seven Iranian Jewish families living in Los Angeles filed a lawsuit demanding that Khatami pay compensation for the disappearance of 12 of their relatives who were detained, imprisoned, and in some cases tortured as they tried to leave Iran for Pakistan between 1994 and 1997.

Dichter: Ahmadinejad Should Be Viewed as a Hitler with Nuclear Weapons (Ha'aretz)
    Public Security Minister Avi Dichter on Monday said that Iranian President Ahmadinejad should be viewed as a new Adolf Hitler with nuclear weapons.
    Speaking at the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center, he said: "My recommendation to various countries is to ask themselves: 'How would Europe and the entire world look if, God forbid, Hitler had also had nuclear capability?' Ahmadinejad must be evaluated on the basis of these parameters. This is how the threat that this country [Iran] and this leader poses should be seen."
    See also Iran's Imperial Vision - Yaakov Lappin (Ynet News)

Paintball Imams Spread Militancy - Abul Taher and Ali Hussain (Sunday Times-UK)
    The young men who pursued each other last Sunday through the wooded grounds of Delta Force's paintballing park near Congleton, Cheshire, were instructed by an imam dressed in fatigues on the need to unite Muslims worldwide in an international empire.
    As undercover Sunday Times reporters were present, imam Ahsraf Bader, 34, described Osama Bin Laden as a "Muslim brother" and said it was the "responsibility" of every Muslim to bring back the Islamic caliphate.

News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:

Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):

Observations:

Proxy Terrorism from Iran - Natan Sharansky (Los Angeles Times)

• This summer, Hizballah launched an unprovoked attack on Israel. It is clear that Hizballah is a proxy of Iran. It is public knowledge that Hizballah receives more than $100 million a year from the Iranian regime, as well as sophisticated weapons and training. Yet the international community's weak response dealt the global war on terror a severe blow.
• Iran has paid no price for its proxy's actions. No military strikes on Iranian targets, no sanctions, no threat whatsoever to Iranian interests. On the contrary, in the wake of the war, there have been renewed calls in the democratic world to "engage" Iran.
• Symptomatic of the moral myopia in the West is a farce worthy of Orwell: Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, under whom students were tortured after a 1999 crackdown at Tehran University and whose rule was marked by the continued stifling of dissent, spoke Sunday at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government on "Ethics of Tolerance in the Age of Violence."
• The Iranian regime calls for "wiping Israel off the map" and tells its followers to "imagine a world without America." It seeks to dominate the Middle East. By failing to hold Iran accountable for its brazen support of Hizballah, the free world has undermined a central pillar in the war on terror. Now the mullahs know they can attack a democratic country with impunity.
• Considering the apocalyptic fanaticism of Iran's leader, it is an open question whether the current regime in Tehran is capable of being deterred through the threat of mutually assured destruction. But given how the world has responded to Hizballah, the point may be academic. For surely Iran would be better served by using proxies to wage a nuclear war against Israel. And if there is no accountability, why stop with Israel?