PLANTATION IRAQ II: THE IRANIANS ARE (WAY) AHEAD OF ME.

2nd nut so rugh draght

1. THE BOMB IS NOT.


In the last post, I made hay analytically of the fact that the Bomb would not change the balance of power in favor of the Islamic Republic; that the balance of power would remain the same; and that nuclear weapons, if anything, are an albatross. That the forte of the Islamic Republic were unconventional warfare and the influence that Republic exerts over the Muslim Street, the Arab in particular.

The recent finding drawn from a consensus National Intelligence Estimate, that Iran had halted in 2003 its bid to acquire nuclear weapons, places the Islamic Republic analysts four years ahead of me. They must’ve drawn conclusions similar to my recent ones -- but years earlier!

2. ONE RUSE

In addition, the Islamic Republic is ahead of me in my analysis of Iranian policy in Iraq. In the last post, too, I made hay of the fact that Iran could no longer rely solely on the Palestine cause to keep the Arab public mobilized; that present-day Plantation Iraq, dismantled as an Arab country by the harmful idiots and their American Jewish Right, has become yet another cause celebre for the Arab Street. I recall that my analysis had assessed that Iran was making a mistake when it supported the Dawa-Supreme Council (SC) axis and had diminished its support of Sadr and his Mahdi Army. For two reasons -- and I’m being somewhat superficial:

(1) the Dawa-Supreme Council (SC) axis is leaping towards total and full alliance with the harmful idiots. Note the recent verbal memorandum of understanding between President Bush and Prime Minister Maliki to assure U.S. colonialist presence in Iraq for the foreseeable future. And,

(2) Iraqi Arab Islamic nationalism is bound to re-emerge -- or, more correctly, emerge -- as an Arab Iraqi Sunni-Shia consensus force, and that Iran better be on the Arab public’s side of history, not the harmful idiots’, as it is at times when it nurses hopes that these would cease and desist from trying to “win” against the Islamic Republic.

Here again the Islamic Republic's analysts proved ahead of me. How?

In the last post I noted the anti-Iranian statements of the Sadrist Deputy Governor of Karbala. Not only were Jawad Hasnawi’s statements anti-Iranian; they too packed serious and likely true accusations against the once-double agents -- the Supreme Council and Dawa: that these had dispatched from Karbala death squads to murder “our brothers, the Sunni.” More recently, Mr. Hasnawi even accused these two parties of seeking to “Persian-ize” Holy Karbala and cleanse it of “the real and authentic Arabs.”

For a while I thought that Hasnawi’s anti-Iranian statements were indication that the Mahdi Army had gone on the payroll of the harmful idiots. Not too strange a thought since the harmful idiots had in the past paid off Moqtadha as-Sadr and his Mahdi Army handsomely. But then it hit me:

Very possibly, even highly likely, Hasnawi’s anti-Iranian statements, which were followed by criticism by Sadr of the Badr Organization (SC) and Dawa for not calling for the withdrawal of the American occupying forces, were a ruse. Hasnawi and Sadr couldn’t have unleashed against Iran without the approval of the Islamic Republic. The idea: For the Islamic Republic through Sadr to pluck the new Islamic Arab Iraqi nationalism when such evolves, as it is bound to rise, sooner or later. In other words, Iran has accepted that Hasnawi make anti-Iranian statements to appeal to the Iraqi Arab Sunni (“our Sunni brothers”), now mostly on the US payroll. (Around 70,000 Sahwa tribal militiamen get their monthly salary from the American taxpayer.)

(This ruse isn’t new in the region. Hizbollah had taught it to Walid Jumblatt years earlier. Then both Jumblatt and Hizbollah had been trusted proxies of Syria. The ruse: Jumblatt sought to draw the Christians into his camp by criticizing (feigning to) Syria, giving them the hope that he would split from that country. Syria understood. And the Christian Lebanese gullibly voted for Jumblatt and his men leading to his parliamentary electoral victory. Soon after he won he again “re-aligned” back with Syria, doing a volte face on the Lebanese Christians. He executed this ruse at a time when he had been allied to Hizbollah. Hizbollah was/is way too close to Sadr in particular and the Iraqi Shia in general. Hizbollah could’ve taught the same ruse it had taught Jumblatt to Mahdi and Sadr.)

On a more immediate level: Iran knows with full certainly that its hold over the Supreme Council and Dawa is slipping. The Iraqi state which the SC and Dawa control is bringing in tens of billions of dollars in yearly oil revenues. SC and Dawa, the needy proxies of yesteryears, no longer are. They have hopes of independence. And Iran could not hope to appeal to them using the standard mobilizer: the Palestine cause. Palestine means nothing to these creations of the Islamic Republic. (Things could change and likely will.) True, they still are tied to the Islamic Republic, but these ties are fraying, day-by-day. Time to work out a new anti-colonial and nationalist opposition to the colonial occupation and the S.C.-Dawa American puppet state. Sadr and Iran here are on the same wavelength.

Al-Vefagh

I admit that I may be pushing the envelop. Reading al-Vefagh, the Iranian government’s Arabic daily, especially the front page editorials of Mussib Naimi (or Nuaimi), its Editor-in-Chief, one gets no hint whatsoever of that ruse. Mr. Naimi is fairly one-dimensional: Palestine is it. True: Palestine packs quite a punch with the Arab and Muslim public. But so does Iraq. Could Mr. Naimi be so naive politically as to ignore the importance of Iraq to an Arab public over which the Islamic Republic exerts so much influence? Highly unlikely. After all, his paper is meant for the Arab public. Or is it of the nature of a ruse not to be hinted at, not even to analysts, including this writer?

Iran knows -- or should know -- that Iraqi Arab nationalism is its best weapon against isolation in the region. (It missed its chance when it couldn’t overcome its animosity towards the Baath before the invasion.) That it is losing its appeal to and control of the S.C.-Dawa Shia state; that the Gulf Arabs will mistrust it come what may -- holding hands between Saudi King Abdallah and the Iranian President notwithstanding; that it now faces not only U.S. cheap printed money and huge Gulf surplus money but, too, the money that the Dawa-Supreme Council Shia state controls.

Can Mahdi do it? Can Sadr and Iran fire up an Islamic Arab nationalism which would join together anti-colonial Sunni and Shia forces in Iraq? The skeptics are many, including most recently the Chairman of the Politburo of the Sunni Brigades of the Revolution of the Twentieth. In a likely response to Sahnawi he condemned al-Qaeda but said his group feels closer to that organization than to Mahdi

The challenge for the Islamic Republic is immense now that it did what it did: assist the harmful idiots and the American Jewish Right in dismantling Arab Iraq while it created two monsters: the Supreme Council and Dawa. These should end up hounding Iran, especially if the American troop level remains high. Iran had early on seen in the SC-Dawa axis government a bridge to the harmful idiots -- to tame them and lead them in a Pavolvian-like fashion to accept the Islamic Republic and break the US campaign to isolate it -- to condition the harmful idiots, so to speak. But it's looking increasingly evident that this Shia government is slipping through Iran's fingers, and the high level of US troops should make that slippage yet more pronounced.

The Arab public should draw farther from Iran the more Sadr delays his confrontation with SC and Dawa and the longer it takes it to build an alliance with Arab Sunni anti-colonial forces. The farther the Arab public draws from Iran the more entrenched the harmful idiots become in Iraq.

Can Sadr and Iran afford to wait until the time when the number of U.S. troops had decreased to a manageable level -- manageable for a nationalist military confrontation with them that fires up the entire Muslim and Arab World, diminish Iran’s isolation, and empower it yet again as the country which leads the region? Mahdi needs Sunnis for that. The longer the delay the more matters should slip away from the hands of Sadr and Iran. (For instance, the Syrian Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs recently said that Syria needed $35 billion in foreign investments in the coming few years to keep up its current level of economic development. Was he hinting at the price tag for splitting from Iran and Russia? Or is he hinting to the two that they better increase their aid to Syria?)

Let’s watch to see if Sadr can hammer together his Sunni-Shia anti-colonialist coalition.