TORTURE, WARS, AND AMERICAN BASES IN KURDISTAN.

secondandmuchimprovedroughdraft

I headed to northern Virginia to hang out with Zein al-Irban (pseudonym). I needed a sounding board for this and that, and Zein was as good as they come.

What follows is a summary of the evening’s long conversation.


1. OF SNOOPS , SNITCHES, TORTURE...AND OLD FRIENDS

No, Zein. They’re no longer after me. At least not that I can see. I need to check my computer for snooping software. I’ll do it, eventually.

And yes, one foreign intelligence service and its right-wing Israel cult now have a full file on me. It’s an intelligence service infamous for assassinations. And it’s allied to two others, rendition countries, infamous for torture. Yes, the snitches and snoops have done their harm. The snitches and snoops had assisted some unsavory foreigners in owning my file. These foreigners have no qualms about (even enjoy) hearing captives scream during beating sessions, grunt from pain, pray for death when electrical currents are applied to their private parts..and what have you of what the mix of sadism-in-the-extreme and a paycheck can produce.

The unfortunate part, Zein, is that some long-time friends, solid ones, are now aloof. They saw themselves probably in my fiction. Though it was fiction, I did write fast and posted fast, since that was my best defense against the foreign intelligence service. I should’ve waited a little longer. But the chance encounters, especially one of them, was a message of violence by that intelligence service. And my defense against it and the accusation of paranoia was to document happenings--to write and post fast.

Zein said:

Zein was dismissive. No worry, he seemed to be saying. Everything has a way of working out. Stay out of the assassination and torture people’s countries. Don’t tell people where you’re going. You have your personal problems, and the old and solid friends have theirs. You and they will come around when you’re ready. Go fishing.


2. ABOUT THE SHAPE OF THINGS, POST-IRAQ

Things look dismal, immediately for Lebanon, the powder keg, but for all in the long run, as well.

Iran and Syria are not about to let their people in Lebanon be tried by a tribunal that’s the product of American diplomacy. In their mind, the American-Israeli alliance has been defeated in Lebanon (true) and the U.S. is living a nightmare in Iraq (also true.) Iran owns the Arab Street and its proxies are fighting natives, not simply recipients of money who have no one willing to fight. The natives on Iran’s payroll fight unconventional and are effective. The United States can flex its diplomatic and economic muscle at the United Nations, but Iran and Syria can flex their muscle in Lebanon, in that sad battlefield, so to speak.

(I have a strong suspicion that the U.S. embassy in Lebanon has organized assassination teams to counter those of Hezbollah/Syria. Blood may flow soon.)

If the U.S. pushes forward with the international tribunal (of those who murdered Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri and others), Iran and Syria will have no choice but to increase the level of tension in Lebanon. One should be reluctant to condemn these two countries, as the Bush Administration repeatedly does. Such condemnation, post-Iraq, is meaningless as a mobilization tool. It reveals de facto weakness. Besides, Americans are no longer listening to an administration that prevaricated and misused the events of September 11.

Moral condemnation, on the other hand, is deserved by all, including the United States. For it’s nothing short of grossly irresponsible for the United States to pull against Iran and Syria in Lebanon at a time when the United States lacks the troops to back its threats against the two. Lebanon will pay the price for the mediocrity of the harmful idiots, as it had for the past thirty years. We’ve had a glimpse already of this moral irresponsibility, when the Bush Administration pushed for time for Israel to destroy Hezbollah, Instead, Israel murdered 1200 civilians and devastated a defenseless country. All in all, nothing much has changed in Hezbollah’s capabilities, though much misery was left behind.

As for the Lebanese leaders, hardly any of them can claim the patriotic and moral high ground. All the Lebanese politicians of note–except perhaps for one or two-- are on the foreign payroll. Those who point the finger at Hezbollah as an arm of Iranian foreign policy (true) conveniently ignore that their own are an arm of U.S. foreign policy, of Israeli intelligence , of Saudi intelligence. In Lebanon, you have the Iranian/Syrian proxies, the Israeli, the Saudi, the American. The country makes for a spy and civil war thriller like no other.


It’s surprising that, in spite of all of this, Lebanon still possesses a national consensus which is quite solid, in a bizarre kind of way. This consensus takes the country to the brink of civil war, retreating at the last minute. Must be nerve- wreaking to be living there with no visa to escape!


3. ABOUT THE GULF, POST IRAQ.

There are signs that the United States is entrenching itself in the security apparatus of the Gulf countries. For instance, one Iranian newspaper complained that at the Dubai airport Iranian citizens are singled out and are being strictly scrutinized, including the fingerprinting of their eyes. (I don’t know how this works; my source is an Arabic publication.) The Iranian newspaper accused the Americans of being behind the increased scrutiny of the Iranian travelers.

Prince Khaled bin Sultan, Saudi Deputy Minister of Defense, visited the U.S. recently to discuss the coordination of defense between the two countries. This takes place at a time when Saudi Arabia and the other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are intensifying their cooperation. It’s safe to see much of this activity as meant to keep an eye on Iran.

The United States holds naval maneuvers; Iran holds counter-maneuvers. And Iranian Defense Minister Mustapha Muhammad Najjar invites the Gulf countries to establish, with Iran, a collective defense and security alliance. In other words, Mr. Najjar is inviting the Gulf countries to shed the United States, so unrealistic it’s a near impossibility.

Iran plays the Palestine card, to the point where its President calls Saudi King Abdallah and urges him to support the Palestinians. It’s such an odd time that an Iranian President (Persian) has outbid a Saudi King (Arab) on the plight of the Palestinians (Arab.)

Shows you how potent is the absence of a Palestinian state in the mobilization war of the public.

And the Israelis, in their high-tech murderous streaks, are willing to oblige, decimating an extended family in Gaza, 1200 civilians in Lebanon. The Islamic Republic milks Israel’s criminality to the hilt. No one else does, since the Gulf Arabs, mercantile to the bone, are busy fattening themselves with oil money, and the other Arabs are on the payroll of U.S. intelligence.

But the Islamic Republic is not without its Achilles’ heel. Its own Persian nationalism constrains its Islamic ability to maneuver.

For instance, the Gulf Arabs are reviving the issue of the three islands in the Gulf--Abu Musa, Greater Tumb and Smaller Tumb--which belong to the United Arab Emirates but which had been occupied by the Shah’s troops in 1971. Two of the islands are known to be rich in oil and the three are strategically well-placed to control the oil traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, which sees 20% of the world oil pass through it. Persian nationalism stands in the way of accepting arbitration on the islands with an Islamic country, the UAE. In this way, Persian nationalism trumps the Islamic, and reveals an Iran that is not true to its propaganda.

Zein adds:

Short of a public relations stunt, such as promising to give fifty percent of the proceeds of the oil in and around these islands to the Palestinians and to Lebanon, Iran should increasingly hit a wall in its attempt to appeal to Islamic solidarity among the Arabs. It can counter the Gulf campaign against it about the islands by offering a portion of the islands’ yield in oil to the Palestinians and to Lebanon. And it can, as well, remind the non-oil Arabs that they are not of the same ilk as the rich royals. That they have more in common with the modest Iranians (Ahmadinejad is said to live in a small and modest house in a working class neighborhood and to drive a 1979 Peugeot) than with the Kuwaiti or Saudi royal family, or the emirs of the UAE or Bahrain or Qatar.


4. THE UNITED STATES IN THE MIDDLE EAST.

The United States doesn’t have the troops to fight the Iranians, nor the troops to pacify Lebanon should the Hariri tribunal gain a life of its own. The Bush Administration has destroyed the one military power that could balance out the Iranian. And, worse of all, having mobilized its Arab-hating Jewish and Christian right for war on Iraq, the United States has become eminently incapable of fighting the more important war--the war for the hearts of those populating the oil fields and the areas around these. (Not that it could ever--but invading Iraq made a bad situation much worse.)

To be effective in its goal to dominate Middle Eastern oil, the United States would need to help create a viable Palestinian state and patch up Lebanon financially. But it can’t. Such is its Achilles’ heel. Worse, in Iraq, it doesn’t really have any constituency left but the Kurds. But sticking to these doesn’t help it in controlling Iraqi oil, and alienates its more important ally, Turkey. It’s supplying that country with modern jet fighters to appease it and hire its services. But it’s a matter of time before the Kurds face the big let down by the harmful idiots and have to face Turkish troops.

(The Kurds are trying to avert this by lobbying for American bases in Kurdistan. Should the U.S. open bases in Iraqi Kurdistan, it would be pitting itself against all Arabs since it would have in effect divided an Arab country--Iraq. It would have stolen, so to speak, yet another piece of the Arab World. Accordingly, the linkage between the United States and Israel in the region would become that much more entrenched in the minds of all, people and governments. In other words, the U.S faces severe limitations in its ability to maneuver: It cannot sponsor Israeli expansion and destruction of the Palestinians while opening bases in yet-another-to-be-Israel: Iraqi Kurdistan. Such would cement the linkage between it and Israel in the minds of all Arabs, and probably most Muslims.)

In Lebanon the U.S. and France are resisting the enlargement of the Lebanese cabinet to become more representative of the political powers in the country. The Saudis are doing the opposite, trying to avert violence by enlarging that cabinet. Frankly, once again, I don’t know what the U.S. and France are counting on. Lest France be confused: present smooth relations with Hezbollah do not mean that Hezbollah will allow itself to be smashed by no troops–that it would fold under the weight of French political arrogance and the strategic blindness of the American and French idiots. In other words, Hezbollah has proven that its formula of religious education, secrecy, and modest weapons is supremely effective. Hezbollah--

–Has beaten Israel twice, and has acted less criminally towards Israeli civilians than Israel had towards Lebanese and Palestinian civilians;

–Has the fighting troops and no one else in Lebanon does;

–Has the strategic depth of Syria;

–Has the ability to arm the Palestinian refugees, multiplying its power many times over, and turning the situation into a true revolution.

Will the French fight it out to return the country to pre-1975? Will the United States? (I’m being rhetorical.) Hezbollah was willing to forgive Saudi Arabia and forget its probable financing (in effect, through arms contracts to BAE Systems, which has an office in Tel Aviv) of the Israeli war on Lebanon. (Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon met with Hasan Nasrallah for four hours recently.) So why not let the Saudis make the call in the Lebanon, since their policy here (and now) is eminently realistic?

Zein adds:

There are those who believe that negotiating with Syria and Iran would ease America’s problem in Iraq. That is true--but only modestly. To Syria, Iraq is linked to its Joulan and a Palestinian national rights--one constant in Arab and Islamic nationalism--, and the Iranians know that. To Iran, Iraq is linked to their nuclear program and their status as regional power, and the Syrians know that.

Opening up to Iran and Syria, to be effective, therefore should mean a wide-range resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Israeli-Syrian, and acceptance of Iran as an Islamic Republic and regional leader. Neither Iran nor Syria trust the United States. They know that the United States and its proxies will stab them in the back as soon as it becomes possible. That U.S. domestic politics are such that the United States cannot and will not cross certain lines in the Middle East. Therefore, Iran and Syria could not trust any proposed confidence-building steps that the U.S. might propose. If they do, it’ll be while keeping their proxies in a state of constant alert.

Sensing that negotiations among the United States, Iran and Syria might be recommended by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister recently (on or about November 10) stated that there can be no wide range settlement of the Middle East conflict without Syria. In other words, don’t even think about wrapping up a deal with Abu Mazin, without more. It’ll not work.


Should the United States conclude a successful deal with Iran and Syria--highly unlikely for now-–the proxies of the Israelis and the Americans in Lebanon should see the United States diminish its support of them. It would be part of the deal, so to speak.

In any event, the United States, after withdrawing from Arab Iraq, will remain in al-Adeed in Qatar, in Kuwait, in Iraqi Kurdistan (possibly), and in Turkey. So, in essence, nothing really will have changed. Not. Iraq would be in a state of war, turbulence, and misery for the next thirty-to-fifty years. Nothing will save it but an efficient decision by the Sunni and Shiites to go Islamic all the way and regain their country’s north, where the U.S. would have (possibly) established bases.

It’ll be a never-ending war.