Iran Blasts U.S. Intervention in Libya While Escalating Its Meddling in Neighbors’ Affairs

James Phillips / March 23, 2011

Iran predictably has lambasted the U.N.-backed intervention in Libya, which it regards as a front for western neo-colonial efforts to seize Libyan oil resources. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, gave a televised speech on Monday that criticized the military intervention in Libya and accused President Barack Obama of lying: “The US and Western (allies) claim they want to defend the people by carrying out military operations or by entering Libya … You did not come to defend the people, you’ve come after Libyan oil.” He accused the United States of trying to foment an uprising in the Islamic Republic similar to those roiling the Arab Middle East, saying this was a “doomed and grotesque plan.”

Meanwhile, new evidence has surfaced about Iran’s plans for destabilizing an increasingly volatile Middle East. Last week Israel seized a German freighter that was carrying almost 50 tons of Iranian-supplied arms bound for the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. The ship, which picked up the arms in the Syrian port of Latakia, was transporting the arms hidden in cargo bound for Egypt, from which the arms would be smuggled into Gaza. (more…)