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Ex-CIA Director: Iran a Huge Threat After Mubarak
Saturday, 12 Feb 2011
By Hiram Reisner

Former CIA Director James Woolsey says institutions and people will try to undermine the chance for freedom in a post-Hosni Mubarak Egypt, and he fears Iran will try and seize the opportunity to promote an Islamic fundamentalist state.

“Well, your reporter just quoted an Egyptian there on the street as saying Egypt now has a chance for freedom and democracy. And I think that is exactly the right way to phrase it, because there will be institutions and people trying to undermine that chance,” Woolsey told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Friday. “I think first among them will be Iran, and Iran working with the Muslim Brotherhood, the way they work with Hamas in Gaza.

“We all have to do everything we possibly can to work with the forces of stability and change, in a democratic and law-abiding direction in Egypt, to help them economically, help them politically, and see to it that this does not become an Islamist operation – the way Iran has, and Gaza has, and, I'm afraid, Lebanon may be on the way to being," he said.

Cooper noted immediate elections could thwart Egypt’s possibilities for freedom and democracy, because there really aren't many organized opposition forces, other than the Muslim Brotherhood.

“Right, and that's what happened in Gaza,” Woolsey said. “Hamas called for immediate elections, and we got one vote, one man – and it's now a theocratic dictatorship.

“We need to be on the side of the rule of law, and a quick evolution toward democracy, but not necessarily in favor of really quick votes,” he said. “We do not want more Gazas, with Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood organization running” the country.


Ex-Israeli Official: Mideast Dominoes Point to War
Friday, 11 Feb 2011
By David A. Patten

George Birnbaum, an international political consultant who once served as chief of staff to former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is warning that a domino-style collapse of moderate Arab regimes could lead Israel to war.

Birnbaum, an expert in global politics, cited Friday’s collapse of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and the growing turmoil in nearby Jordan as ominous signs for Israel.

Israel’s neighbor on the other side of the West Bank is ruled by King Abdullah II, a constitutional monarch who is Hashemite, a minority. Abdullah reigns over a population that is 70 percent Palestinian.

“He had to relieve his government a few weeks ago,” Birnbaum told host Stuart Varney of Fox News on Friday. “If that country goes, and in Bahrain and other countries, suddenly you’re going to find Israel in a similar position it was in 1948, where it’ll be isolated, surrounded by Islamic countries looking to see its destruction -- with the one exception that Israel has the ability to defend itself this time.

“But that creates another problem,” he added, “which is a regional if not greater war that the world will have to face.”

Birnbaum said Israel could be “in great danger.”