NO WAR. (Revised and Updated, 4/21/06.)

In memory: J.A, my uncle--always a realist; always an Arab.

SAUDI ARABIA MEETS EVERYONE’S EXPECTATIONS

THE REGIONAL FRAMEWORK: IS IRAN A STRATEGIC THREAT?

After shooting the United States in the foot and Iraq in the back, the Bush Administration is clamoring to balance Iranian power in the Gulf, as it prepares to change (eventually) Iran’s government. It is nervously knocking on the Gulf countries’ doors, trying to rally them to unite behind it. Ominously, no political coalition of consequence is watching the Bush Administration. As with the decision to invade Arab Iraq, there hardly is any serious debate about Iran and whether in fact it constitutes a threat to the security of the United States. It seems as if the American body politic is taking the word of the Bush Administration as fiat.

Is Iran really a threat to the Gulf? Or to the United States? Or even to Empire’s favored protectorate? Or are the Bush Administration and its Uncle Toms in the region concocting a bogeyman to satisfy Empire’s ill-defined and self-destructive ambitions, and the protectorates’ insatiable quest for more dollars?

IRAN: THAT STRATEGIC THREAT...NOT

Robert Joseph, Undersecretary of State, is visiting the Gulf states. He’s trying to rally them to pursue strict export controls to assure that no components for nuclear weapons make their way to Iran. The background for this visit is a Presidential decision (or, more likely, Vice-Presidential) to rally the bureaucracy to face the “strategic threat”–Iran. How is Iran a strategic threat? We’re given no answer. We’re being coaxed, once again, to trust the administration.

Trust not a dog that limps. (Portuguese proverb.)

If Iran does acquire a nuclear arsenal, how will that change the balance of power? Say it dispatches a missile carrying a nuclear warhead against Israel. Israel, deploying its German-supplied submarines, would be certain to use its second-strike capability to wipe out Iran. A balance of terror, not nuclear war, likely will be the outcome of Iran's acquisition of nuclear technology.

Maybe (just maybe) Iran wants a nuclear arsenal to deter a sooner-or-later invasion by a better-prepared Empire. That, perhaps, is the only scenario where a rational Iran (and it is rational) would use its nuclear arsenal.

For how could Iran be a “strategic threat” when all Western experts seem to agree that its conventional weapons are obsolete.

Perhaps therefore, just perhaps, Empire has come to realize (finally) that it cannot fight unconventional warfare since a huge number of Muslims are ready candidates for recruitment against an invading Empire. And it is here–in unconventional warfare–that Empire sees Iran as a strategic threat, not in its acquisition of a nuclear arsenal. In other words, the Bush Administration is using Iran’s attempts to acquire nuclear weapons as a pretense to finish it as an Islamic state, as a reference to Muslims the world over, that vast sea of Muslims who are dissatisfied with Empire’s aggressive intrusion into their lives.

But how’s Empire to change Iran? Thinking as a true reactionary, Empire has bought into the terrifically asinine idea that setting up a client state in Iran is its only option. Moronic. Because the chaos that should precede the hoped-for puppet government should produce an unpredictable outcome. Here, a strong case can be made that a client-state (a puppet government) could be the least likely probability.

After the Iraq debacle, one wonders whether Empire will ever see a reasoned debate about Iran instead of the sadistic, anti-Muslim, hateful, biased, and mediocre blabber that preceded the aggression against and invasion of a defenseless Iraq. Having mobilized its heartland Bible Christians and its right-wing Jews for war on Arab Iraq, one wonders whether the U.S. has become a rabid anti-Muslim power, a true crusader state.

Mr. Joseph (you remember him?) will get nowhere in the Gulf. No, they won’t kick him out. They’ll promise to keep a watchful eye. But these countries are hyper-mercantile and the lure of trade, even in components for a nuclear arsenal, should trump imperial concerns. It would matter little that the U.S. is planning to turn Dubai into a huge intelligence center directed at the Islamic Republic, according to the Iranian press. The Gulf fiefdoms’ mercantile culture, the presence of significant Shiite minorities in these fiefdoms, and Sunni sympathy with the country that is defending Muslims, should keep trade flowing, even in sensitive material.


THE CAMP OF THE DESPERATE GANGS UP ON IRAN: TURKEY TO THE RESCUE.

Empire has prodded the regional desperate (minus Turkey), those who eased the invasion of a fellow Arab country (non-Arab Turkey excepted), to meet. The Judases. They’re looking for ways to contain Iran. They’re lying to their people. Nothing new. And their people know it–they know them to be traitors, Judases. These “leaders” would like their people to think that they’re doing this to trump an Iranian-American deal that would compromise the Arab identity of Iraq. But that’s a ruse. Empire, exhausted and helpless, wants them to do something –anything, including the stoking of Shia-Sunni strife--to help out.

And so, the camp of the desperate convened in Cairo early this month. Representatives of the intelligence services of Turkey, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) met in the Egyptian capital to draft a strategy to counter Iran’s influence in Iraq. This camp, of course, includes Israel as silent partner.

(Midway into the Iraq occupation, Empire was able to silence its favored protectorate’s politicians, whose child-like show-off (to their imperial benefactor) and machismo blabber was fueling even more the anger and indignation of the Muslim public. And now Seymour Hersh tells us in his most recent (and yet another explosive) article that Empire is so worried about Israel bombing Iran, and causing a backlash in the Muslim world, that the American President in Cleveland recently asserted that the U.S. will use military might to protect Israel. Comment: It’s hilarious, isn’t it? Do the imperials really think that the Muslim street and its allies within Muslim governments draw a difference between Israel and Empire? Hello!)

Turkey is the only country in the group of the desperate which has capable and sufficient armed forces. No other country in the group can send effective troops into Iraq to fight the Shiite militias, some of the Arab Sunni ones, and Iranian Guards of the Islamic Revolution–and the Kurds!

Empire is compensating Turkey handsomely: It has promised to give it new F-16 fighter jets, but only if it proves a good servant.

One wonders therefore whether Turkey is offering its troops to protect these governments or, more likely, to re-establish an Arab Sunni regime in Iraq, on behalf of Empire? It matters little, anyway.

For Turkey is once again preoccupied with an insurgency of its own, Kurdish, in the southeastern part of the country. This, after a pleasant lull that lasted over a decade. Clashes with KDP guerrillas and demonstrations have once again shown Turkey to have a burden that’s onerous enough to keep it preoccupied away from the Arab Middle East.

The most recent clashes took place in mountains on the border with Iraq. Five Turkish troops were killed and six were wounded. To make a point, Iran’s ambassador to Ankara commented that the American plan for a Greater Middle East includes an independent Kurdistan as an American base. Comforting words for Turkey. Not. He announced this to highlight the importance of cooperation among his country, Turkey, and Syria as the only means to thwart the formation of a Kurdish thorn in Turkey’s side.

Kurdish alienation in Turkey (very deep and possessing complex socio-economic justification) should complicate that country’s application for membership in the European community. One condition for membership is that Turkey give its Kurds their full cultural rights. You get the point.

All of this by way of saying that the Turkish house is made of glass. Hence Abdullah Gul’s statement to Turkish Television early in April that Iran and Syria have been pursuing the PKK guerrillas--the armed separatists of the Kurdistan Workers' Party. He wished Iraq would do the same in the north. What he is saying is that Iran and Syria are able to support the PKK to wreak havoc in his country. And that the United States has created a protectorate in northern Iraq which unavoidably is a source of severe trouble for Turkey. So much so that Turkey needs the cooperation of Iran and Syria.

Turkey’s interest in assisting the camp of the Arab Judases possibly conceals a Turkish intention to go into Iraq and finish the Kurdish armed rebellion once and for all. Not to complicate things for the United States. But Turkey has had it. The United States is incapable of stopping the PKK. If it tries, it’ll lose the allegiance of the Kurdish militias, the Besh Merga, the only solid pillar left in the Pentagon’s disastrous Iraq Project.

And maybe, just maybe, Empire is getting ready to turn its back on its Kurdish allies and to offer Turkey a (more-or-less) free hand in northern Iraq, as a quid pro quo for its assistance. It’d place limits on its forays. But things don’t always work as planned, F-16s or not. Bye Mr. Talabani. Time to put to work that vivid opportunism.

(Update: On or about 4/19/06, Kurdish sources in Baghdad said that Iran and Turkey had dispatched troops to their border areas with Kurdish Iraq. On or about 4/21/06, it was revealed that Turkey had dispatched over 40,000 troops to the Kurdish southeastern part of the country. Earlier, the United States had vetoed a Turkish agreement with Israel to have the latter refurbish Turkish F-16s, and had said that it would be considering giving Turkey new ones. There's a distinct possibility therefore that the U.S. is using the F-16s as a bargaining chip with Turkey, to control any military activities it is planning to conduct in northern Iraq, or to block them altogether. It's unclear why Iran had moved troops to its Kurdish border with Iraq. Was it in tandem with Turkey? In reaction? It's being said that the U.S. has been using Kurdish separatists against Iran. Was Iran moving troops to retaliate against the Kurds?)

SAUDI ARABIA PLAYS UP TO ALL PARTIES.

In this state of real desperation and affected Gulf concern about Iran, Saudi Arabia is playing up to all sides. It’s unclear whether it is hedging its bets or whether it is confused. Likely the first.

CONTAIN IRAN COUNCIL (CIC)–A CIA-SAUDI PROJECT.

Retreating (seemingly) from his idea of evolving a Contain Iran Council (CIC) (Please refer to January 29, 2006: “IRAN TO SAUD AL-FAISAL: WE HEAR YOU , LOUD AND CLEAR.”), Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Kingdom’s Foreign Minister, recently stated that Iran’s military maneuvers in the Gulf and its civilian nuclear program were not a threat to the Kingdom. He said that it was Israel’s monopoly of nuclear weapons that posed the greatest threat to the region.

He is planning to visit Teheran soon.

Are we to interpret the foreign minister’s statements to mean that the Kingdom has abandoned its policy to contain Iran–the CIC project? Hardly. Crown Prince Sultan has recently completed a visit to Japan. The true motivation behind the visit likely was to bring Japan into the fold of the CIC. Al-Hayat, a tool of Saudi intelligence (when needed), featured an article (4/6/06) by Abdel-Aziz bin Othman bin Saqr, President of the Khaleej Center for Research about the visit. Hidden in the lengthy article was one of the main reasons why CP Sultan was visiting Japan: To recruit it into the CIC.

Thus, Saud al-Faisal’s idea of creating a contain Iran global council is not dead. (The idea is really a CIA-Saudi idea, floated by a former CIA at the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution–please refer to January 29, 2006: “IRAN TO SAUD AL-FAISAL: WE HEAR YOU LOUD AND CLEAR.” ) CP Sultan has been drafted to help out in that effort. CP Sultan’s visit likely was coordinated with the United States. The U.S., in the second half of March, had denied that it had been placing pressure on Japan not to invest in the development in an Iranian oil field which is expected to be the second largest in the world. What is denied usually is closer to the truth.

CP Sultan spoke in the name of the Kingdom and the other members of he Gulf Cooperation Council. All were said to be concerned about a nuclear Iran. Japan was all ears. Why? Saudi Arabia has financial clout and can use it with Japan: It’s estimated that the Kingdom’s income this year will be about $160 billion, compared to an equally hefty $150 billion last year. Japan, therefore, would have to listen.

SAUDI ARABIA: UNDER EMPIRE’S BOOT, NOT FULLY, NOT YET.

Not that the Japanese (according to the Iranians) have not being doing their share. Jomhouri-yi Islami, an Iranian daily, in early April, accused the staff of the Japanese embassy in Tehran of collecting information on behalf of the West to sow strife among Iran’s various groups. In addition, the Iranian daily said that the Japanese embassy had paid hefty amounts of money to Iranians to supply it with secrets. A threat against Japan?

The Saudis have little choice but to accommodate Empire for fear that Empire would unleash an anti-Saudi campaign among its public and Congress. Stuart Levey, U.S. Treasury’s Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, recently testified before the Senate Banking Committee. He said that the Kingdom was “doing an excellent job” fighting operatives of Osama bin Laden. He said, however, that American concerns have remained about such matters as the existence of “deep-donor pockets” and the abuse of charities, both to support terrorism in Iraq and other places.

He said that there was a lag between Saudi rhetoric and Saudi implementation of anti-terror financial policies. His threat: We’ll see if there’s a gap.

In other words, Empire is giving Saudi Arabia more time to rein in the private financial network that mostly funds Iraqi Arab Sunnis. But Saudi Arabia faces a severe constraint in reining in this network: The Arab Sunnis of Iraq were once the Arab World’s most efficient and dedicated balancer of Iranian power who Empire stabbed in the back and sadistically tortured them at Abu Ghraib. How can the Saudi government ask its people not to stand by their side? Has Empire ever heard of nationalism?

Hence (probably) CP Sultan’s compensatory proxy work on behalf of Empire in Japan. True, we can’t rein in fully the private financial network that finances our brethren in Iraq; but we can help in other ways, he seemed to be saying.

WILL IT WORK?

Playing up to all sides (Iran, Empire, and the Saudi public) may not be such a bad policy. Iran, which can exact revenge inside the Kingdom, probably will not. It’s to its advantage to not implement any policy that would give Empire a reason to enact the draft and dispatch to the Gulf and Iraq a million troops. That Iranian restraint provides Saudi Arabia room to maneuver.

And the Kingdom needs Iran:

(1) Iran is the Kingdom’s only hope to place pressure on Israel to resolve its differences with the Palestinians and return the Arab Joulan to Syria. Palestinian misery is felt in the Kingdom more than it is in Kuwait or the other Gulf countries. These are highly mercantile cultures which have little patience with matters that are outside the realm of material gain, food, and biological reproduction.

In effect, the Iranian army has now become the Arab and Muslim public’s army. And no public wants its army defeated. If anything, some Arab analysts have expressed concern that Iran’s flaunting of its conventional weaponry (obsolete according to all analysts) would result in its conventional defeat, a la Nasser. It seems as if they are sending the message to Iran to stay true to its specialty: To appeal to rallying issues within the larger Arab and Muslim World: Israel-Palestine; the Joulan; and to focus on using its Muslim appeal with the street. That it would make a mistake to be drawn into a conventional war with the United States.


(2) Iran keeps the little principalities (and even Yemen) in check and needing Saudi Arabia. The principalities (UAE, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman ) have found solace in America’s direct intervention in the region. America’s presence has allowed them to free themselves from a servile state vis a vis Saudi Arabia. In their excitement about their new-found freedom, and to curry favor with their imperial protector, they’ve reached out to Israel, before the latter had made any significant concessions to the Palestinians and the Syrians. (For instance, in mid-March, 2006, Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifah, Crown Prince of Bahrain, advised Hamas publicly to recognize Israel.) Iran possesses the club to keep these mercantile principalities on their toes. (Please refer to March 02, 2006: “IT’S GETTING NASTY, DIRTY, AND QUITE UGLY.” And: October 07, 2004: “UPPING THE ANTE WITH IRAN...”)

(3) An Iranian “defeat” would mean that Empire would have Saudi Arabia totally (not partially) under the imperial boot. Many here are aching to reach that goal. Once under the boot, fully, little know-it-all imperial liberals, racist Christian-right supremacists, and Jewish right-wing Arab-hating fascists, would flood the Saudi protectorate and teach its people a lesson or two about proper behavior. (It’s a huge network of imperial employment.)

Thomas Friedman of The New York Times would visit to lecture about how to hooray wars against Arabs and orphan American and Arab children, and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy would open offices across the Kingdom and teach Arabs how to bow in the presence of its fellows, and how to kiss Empire’s ass by Kissing Israel’s.

In addition, a few repulsive-looking “3Arab” power-kiss-ass would visit and teach Arabs how to deliver one’s own people to the torture chambers at Abu Ghraib, cloaking themselves with the American flag and claiming that no one really knew Iraq before the invasion.

Not to mention that a sector of influential and venomous Arab and Muslim-hating imperials (centric entrepreneurs) still wants to break up Saudi Arabia. (Refer to Laurent Murawiec, Princes of Darkness, The Saudi Assault on the West. The book is such a mediocre treatise which purpose is to create a Saudi boogeyman to replace the Soviet. The author seems to have once specialized in the affairs of the Soviet Union and has since been searching for a country to which he can apply his obsolete expertise.)

In short, the Saudi Kingdom can look forward to a rich experience in kissing ass once Iran is "defeated."

To avoid alienating Iran therefore is a policy goal for the Saudis. Hence Saud al-Faisal conciliatory statements. Accordingly, the Saudis are stepping in a minefield when they work to further their Contain-Iran-Council (CIC) project, even if only to please Empire. But they’re equally concerned with any backlash in the U.S. Congress. Their solution: Accommodate all. Besides, what do they care if Iran possesses nuclear weapons. In this age of unconventional warfare, these would be a burden and hardly an advantage. In Iran’s case, their only benefit would be to deter Empire from invading if ever Empire is able to muster the forces needed after the Iraq debacle.

In the meanwhile, the Arab public, including the Saudi, finds solace in Iran’s ability to stand up to Empire and its Israeli protectorate. Even if Iran is defeated conventionally, that public knows that it has plans that improve on the Baath’s survival strategy: To be prepared for a long haul war of attrition with Empire and its favored protectorate.

Countries do learn from experience, theirs and that of others. Empire had ignored Israel's defeat by unconventional methods in south Lebanon, moving into Iraq without a worry and an abundance of arrogance. Let's hope, at a minimum, that it'll now leave military planning to discriminating generals. Perhaps then we would have avoided quagmire altogether.