STALEMATE II: “KNOCKING DOWN WALLS”.

second (and sober) rough draft

In the last post I let my mind roam. I drew a rough comparison between the thinking of the Iraqi resistance and the silly “ideas” about counter-insurgency of the harmful idiots. My thoughts were about long-term, not about tit-for-tat and such dumb reactionary ideas as reviving the Hashemites, or relying on the Egyptian Uncle Toms, or eternally hoping the apple of America’s eye would no longer be so sour.

MUHAMMAD AL-ZO3BI IS BEATEN UP. KUWAIT ONCE AGAIN SCHEMES AGAINST A NEIGHBOR.

I needed some insight. I picked up my father to take him to the Maronite Church. Along the way, I told him I could see Iran and the harmful idiots preparing for war, the various moves each was making to inflict the highest possible damage , while diminishing damage to itself. On a somewhat humorous note, I told him that the Iranians recently beat up a Kuwaiti “diplomat, ” Muhammad al-Zo3bi, so close to his embassy. Why, he asked. That’s nearly a standard tool used to sideline a spy. (Usually you stage something like a vicious car accident with the spy, as the Egyptians did to sideline a diplomat spying for Israel prior to the 1973 war, when the Egyptians were men.) The Kuwaiti “diplomat” probably had been spying for the Brits or the harmful idiots.

The harmful idiots control Kuwaiti intelligence, fully I suspect. The two sets of harmful idiots, working together, had set up Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait. Then they staged the testimony before a congressional committee by the Kuwaiti Ambassador’s daughter, who said she had been a nurse in occupied Kuwait. That she had witnessed Iraqi soldiers do unspeakable stuff to the newborn.

The beating of the Kuwaiti spy/aka/diplomat was only the latest in a series of Iranian campaigns against embassies working for the harmful idiots. The Iranians seem to want to restrict to the minimum the flow of intelligence to the harmful idiots. The idea, again, is to diminish the harmful idiots’ ability to wage an effective war or destabilize Iran’s government.

In the meanwhile, the harmful idiots have been unleashing the troops against the Iranian “shops” in Iraq. These shops (We called them so–“dakakin”–during Lebanon’s war) are run by Islamic entrepreneurs (think, by analogy, the American Enterprise Institute–get it? No you don’t) within Mahdi and the Sunni resistance. These are expected to unleash against U.S. troops should the harmful idiots order an assault on Iran.

“KNOCKING DOWN WALLS” WHILE IRAN FLIRTS WITH THE U.S.

My father’s answer: “The Americans and the Iranians are knocking down walls.” What’s that, I asked; I never had heard this Arabic metaphor. Using an American metaphor, he said something to the effect: “It means that they’re spinning their wheels over nothing. No one’s going to war with anyone.”

It hit me a short while later. I was in the church’s lower lobby, writing this post while fighting off the voices of the priest and choir, being carried over by the loudspeakers throughout the church property. It hit me: the no war postulate had once been mine.

(The loudspeakers probably are meant to punish the men who leave their families inside the church attending mass, while they retreat to corners around the property with their portable television sets to watch the sports games.)

Could it be then that, eventually, the harmful idiots, or a Democratic version thereof, would accept to partner with the Islamic Republic? It’s possible, fairly–to the disgruntlement of the Israelis, U.S. Senator Lieberman, and right-wing Jewish-American organizations. There are certainly flirtatious statements by the Iranians. On or about June 20, the Iranian representative to OPEC, Hossein Kazempour Asdebili, asserted that the “oil weapon” will be available so long as there exists a U.S. threat to strike Iran. If that’s not flirting, I don’t know what is. But that wasn’t all he said. He had added that American oil companies were welcome to return to Iran and invest in the oil sector. Not bad, huh? If I were Exxon-Mobil, I’d rush over there and start digging and totally ignore Cheney’s failed promises of an Iraq bonanza. You will get to Iraqi oil through the resistance and Iran. You won’t through the Vice President’s Office.

At any rate, the harmful idiots have their channels open with the Islamic Republic. They’re making use of Jalal Talabani, before he explodes, probably from a love affair with meat, affordable now that his pockets are full of our tax dollars. Too, they’re prepping Jordan’s King Abdallah, the harmful idiots’ all-purpose assistant, forever willing to go along with them whatever their harmful idiocy-du-jour. They’re prepping him, it seems, to be yet another intermediary, should Talabani explode.

Recently, King Abdallah had become more conciliatory towards Iran. He's no longer touting his cry for war (with American blood and treasure, of course) against Iran, having devised this terrifically silly Shia Crescent Rising formula. So impressed were the harmful idiots with this formula--which they themselves had devised with Jordanian intelligence--that they had brought him here to popularize the idea . He met up with the Washington Worst editorial board, at a time when the latter was hooraying war, to orphan other people’s children. And, as the King's ideas had entailed the orphaning of yet more children--other people's--the editorial board was justifiably impressed.

Anyway, fear not. Neither Iran nor anyone with money would want to take over Jordan, lest they go bankrupt feeding a few million hungry mouths. (The only worse scenario would be conquering Egypt.)


BURNING DOWN THE NEIGHBORHOOD–THE STATE OF THINGS.

The harmful idiots have burnt down the neighborhood.

The Gulf Arabs have escaped, unscathed. They’re the lucky ones. If anything, the harmful idiots’ invasion has made them sinfully wealthy, as oil prices peaked. They can thank the Bush-Cheney oil administration for the booty. Mind my words, they will thank the two men personally, when these leave office. Not right away. It’ll be too obvious. But they will be paying them back a la Carlysle Group, or some inventive financial scheme meant to make them yet more money and to pay off the Blairs, the Bushes, and the Cheneys for the new wealth these have given them. Hey, nothing’s for free, okay? You make us rich, and we make you rich. Fair enough?

But the Iraqis, the Palestinians, and the Lebanese...they be damned.

THE IRAQIS

The Iraqi government is not. It controls next-to-nothing of the troops that matter. These are under the control of the harmful idiots.

No one knows what the future holds for these ancillary troops. Will they end up in San Diego as refugees? Their numbers should be large, when one includes their immediate families. (Unless, of course, the flirtation becomes a love affair between the harmful idiots and the Islamic Republic, in which case the Gulfies better start kissing Ahmadi-Nejad’s ass.)

The Gulf governments detest Maliki’s. They dread Shia political power, for the rise of this power should spill over into their own Shia population. Saddam Hussein once kept that power in check. No longer. He got some good old Texas Evangelical lynching. That American justice!

Maliki and Hakim have resorted to begging to save Maliki’s government. They have been reminding the Gulf Arabs that Maliki’s government has been fighting al Qaeda on their behalf. Which is not true. The ones fighting the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI) are the Americans and the Iraqi troops under their control.

For all practical purposes, these (American troops and ancillary Iraqi) are now mercenaries of the Gulf Arab rulers. The main function of these troops, at present, is to undo the revolution that has unleashed with the invasion. These troops are repressing (or trying to) the new generation, the young, the poor, and push them back into enslavement and total submission–to return them to their former status as the untouchables of Iraq and the Arab World. To teach them to repeat the mantra, “Yes Masta’”

Yes Virginia: Our troops are being used to teach the young and the poor a thing or two about submission.

But why are Maliki and Hakim begging? Because the Gulf governments have been passing along money to nearly each and every Sunni resistance group that has sought their assistance. These Arab Sunni groups have been pushing along the civil war and making the Maliki/Hakim government even more irrelevant.

To add to the irrelevance of Maliki and Hakim, consider the effort by the harmful idiots to split Sunni ranks and create yet another Sunni voice–that of the clans. To make matters worse for the Maliki/Hakim government, the harmful idiots are arming these clans (and denying it) while the Iranians arm their shops (or "franchises") within the Shia and the Sunni communities (and deny it.) What’s Maliki to do? Mouth off?

The political operatives in the Sunni Street likely are offended by the increasingly prominent role being played by the clans and the tribes, now on the payroll of the harmful idiots and the Gulf countries. Where do you think you’re going with this, they seem to be asking. Can’t you see that the harmful idiots hardly have a plan? And what plan they have would entail a less-than-historic role for us, Arab Sunni? Are we to become yet another Mubarak, or Abbas–living off the bread crumbs thrown at them by the harmful idiots and their silly Gulf assets--Emirs, Sheiks, and Kings? Can’t you see that a federal Iraq would be a non-entity, an oil pump for the harmful idiots to fuel their quest for global dominance? Give up or else... (“Else” would be the amazing recent suicide bombing at the Mansour Hotel. “Else” would be the amazing ability to infiltrate the forces sponsored by the harmful idiots.) You’re but silly tribal sheiks who know how to resolve disputes among your own. Stick to what you know. Leave the harmful idiots and the Shia to us.

THE HARMFUL IDIOTS.

The U.S. can regain its world leadership relatively easily. All it needs is to raise taxes and invest public money in energy alternatives–and protect the resulting technology. Are you crazy? But, as a seasoned friend commented, “there’s hope yet. The Democrats should raise taxes.”

That the harmful idiots will order withdrawal of the troops is all but certain. Unless operations against the troops and sectarian violence cease–an unlikely scenario.

The harmful idiots are concerned that withdrawal will concede Iraq to Iran and, indirectly, to Russia and China. Though the harmful idiots control the larger number of Iraqi troops (the ancillary forces), withdrawal could see these seek refuge in neighboring countries or, more likely, join in their majority their respective sects in the all-out civil war.

Melvin Lair, Secretary of Defense from 1969 to 1972, recently proposed what superficially looks like a cogent program:

“The plan was [after the Paris Peace Accords of 1973] for continuing U.S. logistical support and keeping the American commitment until North and South Vietnam would reach a peace accord of their own. But the United States failed to live up to the promises and logisital aid made in Paris, and without that aid the south was doomed.”

The Washington (let’s orphan other people’s children) Worst, June 29, 2007.


Fine. Comparing and contrasting is a heck of a way to gain clarity. The problem is that Mr. Lair doesn’t do that. He finds the Vietnam analogy insightful, by comparison, without contrasting. It tells him as follows: Do not cut and go; instead, keep the logistical support going; the Middle East (he means oil) is way too important to cut and go, cold, as we did in Vietnam.

If one does an actual exercise of comparing and contrasting–as opposed to comparing only, and not even that–one would come up with ideas such as the following:

1) In Iraq, there’s no government to support. The harmful idiots lead their own Iraqi ancillary forces and are reluctant to deliver these–including intelligence services–to the Iran-tied Maliki government. In other words, the harmful idiots are running their own de facto government.


2) How’s a de facto government which follows the orders of the harmful idiots going to survive the withdrawal of U.S. troops? What piece of real estate will it control? Will it withdraw into Kuwait and try from there? Draw the wagons into a circle and fire away at attacking revolutionaries?


3) The sectarian civil war in Iraq is a method of war meant to fail any and all puppet governments. The harmful idiots have ordered the troops to put a stop to that war (the “surge”) to protect the ancillary forces they’re training. This should allow American troops to withdraw to so-called lily pads. But, as events unfurl, we’re seeing that the sectarian war hasn’t calmed down much. If it had, as has recently been asserted, it’s because the resistance is killing more U.S. troops, as these have to do the tough policing. Lose Iraqi civilians or lose U.S. troops? Is this a way to go? Can one trust the harmful idiots in their hope-spring-eternal convictions? And for how long?


4) The Iraqi resistance knows that it needs to keep the pressure on. One way: keep the sectarian killings going as a way of preventing the de facto ancillary state from becoming strong. As a complement, the resistance should be expected to continue to attack the military pillars of that state and infiltrate it. (I’m surprised it hasn’t been attacking oil installations. I don't buy the idea that these are so well-defended. I think the resistance likely is concerned that it may lose popular support if it did attack a source of income. Could it be that some of the oil money is filtering through to the resistance itself? It is to the Shia. But could the Sunni resistance be benefitting as well?)

I may be wrong, but I don’t think there was anything as sectarian in Vietnam to use as a tool to fail the invader and its de facto ancillary state in the south.

(Note: I’m distinguishing between the puppet state–Maliki’s–and the de facto ancillary state–the Iraqi troops under the control of the harmful idiots.)

5) Should American logistical support of South Vietnam have continued, the government there would’ve withstood an all-out assault by the north, says (practically) Mr. Lair. But he provides no objective and independent study to that effect. I find his assertion highly doubtful. The Viet Cong were nationalists who weren’t the sort who would’ve wanted to emigrate to the West. Accordingly, they had ample motivation to fight. In contrast, the southern Vietnamese, especially the leaders and the middle classes, were interested in getting to the West. These were enamored by cargo and were going to follow it to its source: the United States. (D.C. Notes: Head to Eden Village–Vietnam Village, really-- by Seven Corners in Virginia, and order a Vietnamese soup, any soup. Don’t bother with anything else. Along the way, watch the relative affluence; you’d realize why the southern Vietnamese wanted to be here, where cargo originates.)

And herein lies one possibly helpful comparison: the leaders of the American ancillary de facto state likely would love to be in San Diego, sooner or later, much like the leaders of South Vietnam. The ISI and Sadrist leaders, in contrast, like the Viet Cong, don’t seem to be the kind who want to emigrate to the U.S.–not this generation, anyway.


6) American involvement in Iraq, in any form, including logistical support for a puppet government or ancillary de facto one, is a formula for fueling the revolution by the sanctions generation–ISI-ists and Sadrists. Without getting into how this war for oil had turned into a Anglo-Saxon Jewish and Evangelical crusade against a Muslim country, that in fact is now the case and is being used successfully as a potent tool of mass mobilization. Staying involved in Iraq is bound to keep this schism (Jewish/Evangelical v. Muslim) alive and well as a mobilization tool and a source of long-term instability.

(Stalemate III: The Palestinians and the Lebanese--coming soon. Maybe.)