Disrupting Iran's Weapons Smuggling
By Matthew Levitt
Even as the West seeks to engage Iran in negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program, Iran continues to arm rogue regimes and terrorist groups in blatant violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1747. Such aggressive behavior on the part of Iran in support of terrorist groups and rogue regimes highlights a critical shortcoming of current international sanctions on Iran. In the latest case, last week, the Israeli Navy intercepted the Francop, a vessel carrying five hundred tons of weapons, including thousands of mortar shells and long range rockets believed to be bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israeli officials released photographs of Katyusha rockets seized last week by UNIFIL forces in Lebanon that are the same make as those seized on board the Francop. According to U.S. officials, the arms shipment was "clearly manifested from Iran to Syria" in violation of a March 2007 UN arms embargo and provides "unambiguous evidence of the destabilizing proliferation of arms in the region."
It is high time to back up the tough talk with action. The good news is that there are ways to effectively disrupt Iran's international weapons smuggling. The question is whether the Francop episode will provide the political impetus for the international community to take action. Previous cases of Iranian arms smuggling prompted no such action.
The full article, written for Middle East Strategy at Harvard (MESH), is available here.
