PLANTATION IRAQ: TICK...TICK...TICK...

. . .a p e r s p e c t i v e about the f u t u r e

second rough draft


A. SAUDI ARABIA: DO PUBLIC TRIALS SCARE THEM?

How many members of the Saudi opposition are languishing without trial in the Kingdom’s jails?

Roula Khalaf provides an answer in “Saudi activist who refuses to give in." (Financial Times, November 20, 2007, at 6): the interior ministry says there are
3000 prisoners; the activists put the number at more than 7000.



B. PLANTATION IRAQ: IT’S ALL ABOUT RUSES

The harmful idiots are speeding through their colonialist project -- the construction of their four “super bases” and their fortress-embassy in once Arab Iraq, the one they and their Jewish Right had dismantled, while their Arab cronies watched.

The colonialist scheme -- super bases and a fortress embassy to watch over the pumping of crude from Plantation Iraq -- entails (logically) an ominous fostering of a nasty and deadly colonialist course. The twenty first century colonialists, with the aid of Jordan and Kuwait as extra “super bases,” and Saudi Arabia as aider and abettor, will now by necessity preside over the fostering of sectarian and ethnic division in that country once known as Iraq and once Arab. (The latest divide-and-conquer stratagem -- “counter-insurgency” -- is a petition, signed by 600 Shia tribal leaders and personalities, that complains about Iranian meddling in the south and Iranian proxies there. Wonder how many tens of millions this cost our Central Intelligence Agency!) To remain in Iraq, the harmful idiots should be expected to further their policy of divide-and-conquer. This policy should be meant in good part to scuttle any and all attempts by Iraqi grassroots organizers to evolve a new Arab Iraqi consensus, likely Islamic (see prior post: “The (Eventual and Inescapable) Rise of Iraqi Arab Islamic Nationalism.”)

Oddly and likely, this divide-and-conquer policy might speed up the evolution of the very force the harmful idiots should be trying to eliminate -- Iraqi nationalism. (Where is it, that nationalism, ask the clueless idiots who are harmful.) The stratagem to exclude and repress the Iraqi young, the revolutionaries, should speed up the maturing of these. With political maturity these should come to the realization that only an Arab front, Shia and Sunni, could re-build a united Iraq. That the early civil war had achieved its purpose -- to defeat the invaders’ plans -- and that, now, sectarianism for sectarianism’s sake will only delay the eventual fusion of Iraqi nationalist and anti-colonial forces. In short the harmful idiots by their very presence if not by their fostering of divide-and-conquer tribal/ethnic/sectarian differences may be lending a hand to the very force they should be dreading the most: a new “Baath,” unmistakably Islamic , and made up of both the Shia and the Sunni young. (In reality, the harmful idiots should be thankful for that force; but that’s another subject.)

The harmful idiots know through their Jordanians and their Kuwaitis that a relatively solid Iraqi national consensus is bound to include (by definition) the demand that the colonialists depart and that their vestige (e.g., oil laws and contracts) be erased. The harmful idiots will (and do) try to build bridges among their tribal/sectarian/ethnic stooges -- Shia, Sunni, and Kurdish. But these bridges should remain unsatisfactory to the greater majority of the Arab Iraqis -- the Arab Sunnis and the Arab Shias. These would want a strong and united Iraq, not a shadow of a country, divided, under the tutelage of foreign harmful idiots, directly and through proxies.

Fear not anyway. For even at the level of the harmful idiots’ Iraqi tribal/sectarian/ethnic stooges, the relations among these carry within them contradictions that should explode them. Where does the oil money go? Who gets what? In short, there will remain a bitter aftertaste in the mouth of all Arab Iraqis (and all Arabs) about the state of affairs which the harmful idiots sponsor and foster.

Hence the eventual ceaseless attempts to evolve a uniting Iraqi nationalism.

To blunt the rise of an Arab Islamic Iraqi consensus, in part, the harmful idiots have resorted to drawing closer to the Islamic Republic. Negotiations between the harmful idiots’ ambassador to Baghdad and Iran’s ambassador should soon resume. Iran has lowered its supply of weapons to the Shia -- by the admission most recently of a U.S. general (11/22/07.) Why? To buy time, I believe, to produce its Bomb and to await the ebbing of the number of U.S. troops in Iraq. Meanwhile, the harmful idiots are riding a similar ruse: they’re buying time for themselves by staging the face-to-face conference with the Iranians. Their colonialist (“counter insurgency”) hope is to have the super-bases completed -- to unleash their new brand of supervisory colonialism over Plantation Iraq, using a lower level of troops that would be acceptable at home, and to keep an eye on the Islamic Republic while the oil administration’s friends and former employers pump crude to no end.

The goals of both players, Iran and the harmful idiots, are chimerical.


IRAN

The Bomb will change nothing for the Islamic Republic. The balance of power will remain the same. If anything, the bomb is an albatross, as is Israel’s nuclear arsenal. The Islamic Republic had successfully changed the rules of the game in wars in the Middle East when it took unconventional warfare to new heights, and when it sought the aid of the Islamic Street, including and especially the Arab. It loses this ability to its own detriment. And it will lose this ability when it becomes obvious to the Arab public that Iran prefers coziness with the Israel-centric harmful idiots than with an Iraqi Arab and Islamic nationalism.

Iran currently is falling into the trap of believing that the Bomb will make it safe and give its Islamic government glamor and added legitimacy. That’s illusory. If anything, by pursuing a Shia-only policy in Iraq, the Islamic Republic should eventually lose its foothold in that country. Such -- the Shia-only policy -- would placate it into the very corner sought after by the Saudis and the harmful idiots: to isolate it as a Shia power using a Sunni damn. That damn, it should be noted, would only be effective if it were grassroots. Accordingly, Iran would be playing into the hands of the Saudis, the harmful idiots, and the Jordanians if it fears a fused Shia-Sunni (Islamic) Arab nationalism in Iraq. In other words, in its Shia-only defensive posture, Iran is showing that it is as scared of a new brand of Iraqi Arab Islamic nationalism as are the harmful idiots. As such, it is more willing to negotiate with these than to allow Iraqi nationalism, albeit Islamic and friendly to Iran, from rising and liberating Iraq. In the end, should the fused nationalism rise and defeat its many detractors its leaders should not forget Iranian treachery. And should the fused nationalism fail to rise because of the very same detractors the Arab Street should not forget the same treachery. It would be then that the Sunni damn sponsored in good part by Saudi Arabia to contain the Islamic Republic would gain its grassroots cement.

The Islamic Republic loses when to play it safe it bets on those Iraqi Shias who are on the harmful idiots’ payroll. These double agents (the Hakim-Dawa crowd, the bridge between the harmful idiots and the Islamic Republic) should prove most willing to abandon the Islamic Republic as soon as the opportunity arises. The harmful idiots are taking advantage of this Iranian perceived safe bet. The harmful idiots, with the assistance of the Maliki-Hakim governmental establishment, are going after the Sadrists. But from an Iraqi nationalist perspective the Sadrists should be the prime grassroots candidates on whose backs should evolve an Islamic Iraqi Arab nationalism. And it is that force which would be able to regain Iraq’s sovereignty from the Israel-centric colonialists. This Sadrist lumpenproletariat constitutes the most likely Shia force to unite with the Arab Sunnis and liberate the country from all vestiges of colonialism. It is this very force that the colonialists’ “counter-insurgency” policy is trying to eliminate before the numbers of the troops is reduced and those left behind are pulled into the super-bases.

Saddam Hussein’s eight-year proxy war against the Iranians still is on their mind and likely determines a good portion of their policy in Iraq. Hence in part the Iranian reluctance to aid the Sadrists, at times perceived as Arab nationalists first and Islamic second. This Iranian reluctance is rooted in that country’s aversion to anything akin to Iraqi nationalism. The aversion I’m outlining isn’t merely theory and speculation. The Iranians at best want a castrated Hizbollah force in Iraq, one that has no Arab nationalist content whatsoever, to execute orders. It doesn’t want a Mahdi Army which, though friendly to it, would have in it too much of an Arab nationalist drive.

Jawad Hasnawi, Deputy Governor of Karbala, and one of the leaders of the Sadrist Movement, recently hit back at the Dawa-SCIRI (Hakim) establishment. He, not so implicitly, said that this establishment was behind the death squads which had hunted down “our brothers, the Sunnis.” Hasnawi’s declarations were unmistakably anti-Iranian. He said that the death squads murdered those who were “of Arab origin” for “opposing Iran’s influence.” Hasnawi and the Sadrists are becoming increasingly aware that an American-Iranian noose is being tightened around their neck. That the Islamic Republic would rather be in bed with the harmful idiots than allow any form of Iraqi Arab nationalism to emerge, even one that is friendly to Iran.

(Counter-argument:

Iran’s reluctance to lend a hand to the Sadrists (as Arab Islamists, not as a pliant tool of Iranian foreign policy), first for fear that these would help evolve an Iraqi nationalism and, second, to avoid a military confrontation with the U.S> at a time not of the Islamic Republic’s choosing, could be an intricate ruse -- a mukhada3ah (I’ve been seeing this term often now in the some of the Arab press). Iran would be waiting until such time when the harmful idiots had diminished the number of their troops in Iraq. As a corollary, this means that the Iranians have assessed that they should not be too worried about U.S. troops stationed in super-bases -- that these can be extricated relatively easily if the U.S. refuses to accept the Islamic Republic as Islamic Republic. (Get it?) If this is what the Iranians are up to, then wow! Kudos to their strategists. Once again, they would have had the harmful idiots do so much of their work for them. Iran would yet again have turned American troops into an extension of the Iranian armed forces. I’m not explaining.)


THE HARMFUL IDIOTS

The harmful idiots aren’t faring much better. They’re working against the clock--the ticking clock where domestic pressure turns the surge in troops into an ebb. The clock where a nauseated tax base had supported the invasion as an “investment” which would translate into money in its pockets. No money materialized -- only higher oil prices. The tax base’s money -- the investment principal from exhausting hyper-consumption -- went instead into the pockets of the Halliburtons and the Bechtels -- the oil administration oily friends and former employers. Not to mention that the upper middle class section of the tax base is infuriated by the dollar tailspinning downward. It’ll blame its sudden inability to float about the globe on the Iraqi project. This class matters. Ask Bill Clinton: It was this very class that he watched to divine what direction to take to keep his administration popular and thwart the right-wing’s vicious, poisonous, and sleazy “moral” campaign against him and his family. (Al Gore made the mistake of focusing on the views of the lower middle class, not realizing that these, I suspect, had joined the ranks of the Caucasian Christian Right and had been so well organized in Evangelist–Baptist and nouveau Presbyterian procreative and nouveau Republican churches.)

The harmful idiots and the Iranians now are partners in Plantation Iraq, in more ways than I can count. But, in one way -- the scuttling of Iraqi Arab Islamic nationalism -- they are akin to identical twins. Totally united.

SYRIA

But things could change. They could change rapidly. Syria is key.

Arab Syria likely is getting impatient with the Islamic Republic, in particular that Republic’s defensive Shia-only policies in Iraq and its increased coordination with the harmful idiots. Syria likely sees this policy as delaying the formation of what is necessary to dislodge Israel’s strategic ally from next door. The harmful idiots’ divide -and-conquer strategy -- e.g.,the Sahwas -- and the detention of at least 24,000 young Sunni–and over 70,000 Iraqis in total–has taken some of the wind out of the Sunni resistance’s sail. (There are other crucial factors involved–please refer to prior posts.) But it’s a matter of time, all know that, before the harmful idiots begin withdrawing troops and the 70,000 detained Iraqis are either murdered or released to return to their wars. Syria, however, seems to be getting impatient with waiting, probably because of the many schemes being cooked up against it from Lebanon. Not to mention the Saudi active effort to weaken Syria, as in the current visit by Crown Prince Sultan to Russia where he should be expected to pay that government off (arms contracts, yet again, for a no-army) in exchange for Russia accepting to help in the emaciation of Syria. Here, Saudi Arabia and Israel are the closest of allies.

Syria should be less scared of an Arab Iraqi Islamic nationalism than Iran. That Sahnawi would make an anti-Iran statement is indication that this Syrian impatience with Iran is spreading deep inside the ranks of the anti-colonialist forces in Iraq. Wait for Iran to develop the bomb? For how long? And isn’t the bomb just a symbolic achievement, with hardly an effect on the balance of power or on wedging Israel’s strategic ally out of next door?

Syria can’t shift to the other camp, the Israeli-centered, however much this camp lures it, albeit feeling the leaden foot of Saudis Arabia and its money. Luring was likely at the heart of Jordan’s King Abdallah’s recent and sudden visit to Damascus. (Abdallah is the harmful idiots’ proxy-in-chief, and the carrier of Israeli letters and messages, always willing to serve both even when they unleash dazzling amounts of harm and sadism against his own people. He has little choice. He needs the cargo to keep the Islamists at peace or to outdo them with the cargo he is able to secure. Take a stroll in Amman and tell me that the Islamists aren’t all over the place.) Soon after his visit, the Syrian foreign minister headed to Tehran. Ahmadi Nejad then stated that solidarity among Iran, Syria, and Lebanon is the sure road to victory.

Nejad was declaring to the world that the alliance will remain solid and assuring Syria of the same -- that Iran will keep Syria’s interests in mind. Patience, he seemed to be saying. Iran needs Syria for the more successful parts of its foreign policy: dominating the Arab and Muslim Street first and, second, keeping missiles directed at Israel to deter the harmful idiots and the Israelis from bombing Iran. Iran, in short, couldn’t do it without Syria. Iran knows it. The harmful idiots know it. The question yet again: will Syria split? Highly unlikely. Why would it? Syria looks around and sees Arab countries that are so unprepared to defend the Arab nation -- fat weaklings, obese-d by so much oil money, with hardly an army to conduct the smallest of operations. Saudi Arabia for instance, with its young having shown themselves to be scary, fearless and suicidal executioners of terror, buys expensive weaponry not to build an effective army made up of these young ( which would eliminate them as a terror factor! ), but to pass on protection money to Britain in response to outright blackmail, especially that Britain cannot protect anyone -- though its soldiers love to wolf down Persian food when “fighting” and “patrolling.” (See post, “Of British Blackmail and Saudi Manhood.”)

What’s Arab Syria to do? It has to remain vigilant lest the Arab nation loses any and all backbone. That’s how Syria thinks, something difficult for the harmful idiots to appreciate since they don’t believe that nationalism is a phenomenon, let alone a force to reckon with.

Without Syria, the harmful idiots should remain nervous. Why? The surge will ebb. The tax base will revolt. And the Europeans -- including Sarkozi , an asset or not of the US-Israeli strategic alliance--should be expected to jump ship or lose office. The harmful idiots know that; they need Syria as an ally to strengthen their hold over Iraq before having to reduce the number of troops. Without Syria, and with European defections, the super bases should turn into archeological curiosities.


PLANTATION IRAQ: THE EUROPEANS, WILL THEY JUMP SHIP? WHEN?

Why would the Europeans jump ship? Because the lower dollar will be hurting them more than it would be hurting China. The harmful idiots had launched the Iraq war without taxing the American public, with the idea of achieving multiple goals, among which:

(1) To grab Iraq’s oil “on the cheap” (by printing money) and help along the way the Bush Administration’s friends and former employers.

(2) To spend a lot of money on Project Iraq and, once again, benefit the Administration’s friends and former employers.

(3) To create employment is such places as Ohio and win an election for the President.

(4) To push down the value of the dollar by not taxing the public (in effect: to print money). It seems that the idea was to outmaneuver the Chinese. These had stubbornly resisted raising the value of the Renmimbi enough to jump-start American manufacturing. It wouldn’t surprise me the least that a memo exists somewhere which outlines how the imperial grab of Iraq’s oil could be done “on the cheap,” that is, without taxation, while lowering the value of the dollar. The hope in that memo would be that such would fire up American industry and exports. Nor would it surprise me that Europe too, and not only China, was a target of speeding up the lowering of the dollar via war without taxation.

(5) To control China’s foreign policy (e.g., Taiwan) and keep united Europe accepting of U.S. leadership.


The Iraq oil grab therefore has to work for the Bush people and the Republican party, or else these would be blamed for generations to come for the total fiasco and for depreciating American power in the unipolar world. (Of course, the Bush administration will let the Democrats bear that responsibility by leaving to them the decision to withdraw the troops. But perhaps the Democrats will not need to worry that much. If industry fires up as a result of the cheap dollar -- and it does it in the U.S. not in China! -- the next Democratic Administration should preside over some good times and most would forget about Iraq.) Understandably, the same grab by the U.S. has to fail for the others—China, Russia as a given, and the Europeans if the United States takes too long to get the oil flowing at full volume from Iraq, cut the Europeans in on it, and see the dollar’s value rise vis-a-vis the Euro.

Competing by lowering the value of the dollar against the Renmimbi is unlikely to have any significant impact on China. China has a couple hundred million laborers to go -- to integrate into the global economy. (In a recent trip to Wal-Mart I bought a watch for less than $7.00–and people think it looks good! Its brand name is “Quartz.!”) It’s Europe–and especially industrial Germany (a lean and mean industrial export machine) -- which should see companies exit to build factories in America’s south. The U.S. therefore should be robbing Europe of employment and affluence, not China. China’s factories should continue to hum, with less exports to Europe and more to the re-industrializing (one hopes) United States.



NOT YET


Bashar Asad recently made a statement which could be interpreted as ominous, warning about upcoming events. A Russian emissary was present in Damascus at that time, allegedly to discuss holding a conference in Russia that would address the “Syrian course” which revolves around the quest to regain the Arab Joulan. And there was the trip by Mouallem to Tehran. Is it possible that the three -- Russia, Iran, and Syria -- have decided to support a new breed of resistance in Iraq? One that fuses Sunni and Shia? Will Iran turn its back on the double agents and re-focus on the Sadrists? Could it be that Russia is getting nervous about the success of the harmful idiots in dividing the Iraqis by sect and within sect -- to stay in Iraq indefinitely and control its oil? Will Saudi Arabia succeed in paying off the Russians to emaciate Syria? If not, will Russia and Syria wait for Iran to decide on the timing of the counter-attack, and trust Iran on picking the most auspicious time and date?

PlantationIraq: it’s a time bomb.