TELLTALES, TWIRLED AND TWISTED.

firstroughdraft

1. GOING BANKRUPT : SIGNS. (Or: some anthropology.)

The American taxpayer is getting wise about her lousy investment in Iraq. She’s screaming: SUCH A TERRIFICALLY BAD INVESTMENT! What "returns" on that investment weren’t returns at all. They were the investments themselves, channeled mostly to corporations, their shareholders, and the revolving-door Defense Department bureaucrats and officers, their siblings, cousins...and any and all family members. Not to mention the "assets" in Iraq.

The American taxpayer, trained in a culture which expects returns on investment as the money supply is forever being increased, is angry. Seething. Where’s my share, damn it!

Here’s an illustrative conversation (fictionalized) I heard in a hallway.

Government employee: Can I bum a pen from you?

Judicial employee: Sure.

Second government employee (jokingly) : I don‘t know if that’s proper: the executive branch borrowing from the judicial branch.

Judicial employee: The executive branch is spending all of it money on Iraq.

Government employee: True, but you’re not doing much better. You’re running out of money too--for drug programs, for instance.

Judicial employee: Sad but true. Which means more homelessness ahead for men, and more crime as a consequence.


2. (LOW LEVEL?) NUCLEAR WASTE HEADS OUR WAY FROM KUWAIT. (AND THE COMING "IRAQ WAR SYNDROME.")

The Kuwaiti daily, al-Watan (online), reported on or about February 17 that 18,000 barrels of nuclear/uranium-tainted soil (unclear whether it’s depleted uranium or something more, or less, potent) and 200 nuclear (probably uranium)-tainted tanks and other vehicles are being shipped by the harmful idiots from storage in Kuwait to the U.S. The multi-generation lethal cargo was a byproduct of the first (manufactured, by the harmful idiots via April Glaspie--unwittingly or not--and their Kuwaiti assets) Gulf war.

Wonder what nuclear/uranium waste will be heading our way from Iraq. Too, wonder how many U.S. troops, Iraqi children, and Iraqi civilians have been exposed to depleted uranium shells, soil, and dust. Wonder whether we will be facing an Iraq War Syndrome. Wonder about these poor Arab children: uranium in Iraq and cluster bombs in Lebanon!



3. ANOTHER SAUDI PRINCE SEEKS ISRAEL’S HELP TO BECOME KING.

(For background, please refer to earlier blog, "Israel Says Who Will Be Saudi King.")

Another Saudi prince has executed a PISM (PleaseIsraelManeuver). On or about mid-February, an Israeli newspaper reported that Prince Waleed bin Talal is planning to build a hotel in Tel Aviv. Al-Waleed, whose mother is Lebanese, seems to have given up on Premiership in Lebanon, a sunk ship. King-to-be of Saudi Arabia, a state with a $200 billion income per year surely beats Premiership in Lebanon, a state that’s $40 billion in the red–

--a state which has hardly any net income, servicing debt, always;

--a state which own leaders, assets of the Saudis and the harmful idiots, have pillaged.

--a state where the Iranian assets had contributed to its bankruptcy by giving each and every available Lebanese Arab Shia a government job, or by providing each and every Lebanese Arab Shia social security coverage, even when these lacked the legal qualifications;

--a state that survives on crumbs from the West and the oil countries–whose very "assets" had pillaged that state!

(A twirled note: The twirled harmful idiots have been after Syria since 1967, four decades ago. The same idiots have been after the Islamic Republic since 1979, twenty eight years ago–nearly three decades. Most of what had been needed then was a Palestinian state and reparations. That would’ve saved Lebanon near-total annihilation. And Syria would’ve been thrilled to have become an American plantation. But, God forbid a fair and realistic approach should be adopted by the then arrogant (now twirling) Israelis (before their repeated defeats) and the idiots. The harmful idiots and their favorite protectorate would rather burn down the entire neighborhood, lose thousands of U.S. troops, see maimed thousands of others, devastate an Arab country, and waste a couple of trillion dollars--eventually--than have a viable Palestinian state. Unless, of course, they can have some Palestinian Uncle Tom keep his people down and compliant on a reduced plantation.

But, for now, it's neither here nor there. The twirling Israelis lost that chance when they assassinated Yasser Arafat, a Palestinian leader with historic credentials, who would’ve been able to get things done for his people and for the love of Israel. Now, they will never get their way. They’re trying to annul the Mecca Accord between Hamas and Fatah, a stellar achievement (for a change) for the twirling Saudis. The Israelis may succeed since there’s so much in the press about the Saudis (read: those in Saudi Arabia who are assets of the harmful idiots and kiss-ass with the Israelis, wanting their blessing to become Kings) are regretting having brokered the Mecca Accord.)

Meanwhile, the twirled and twirling chief harmful idiot at the U.S. Department of State is said to have instructed the Israelis not to even think about approaching Syria for a deal. The twirling Israelis, following their defeats, can’t afford but to be obedient even to an administration which has lost all credibility domestically and globally.)

4. VLADIMIR PUTIN, UNENCUMBERED BY IDIOTIC AND HARMFUL FOREIGN ENTANGLEMENTS, DOES A VICTORY TOUR THAT INCLUDED SAUDI ARABIA


Don’t believe a word about the Bush Administration not negotiating with Iran. It is. It’s used Bandar bin Sultan, an extension of right-wing Republican administrations. Don’t ask me how good he is as negotiator. I don’t know. All I know is that he can offer one thing and one thing only: Saudi cash.

Which happened, as predicted by this blog. Talk of purchasing 150 Russian tanks; of Russia launching Saudi satellites; of involvement of Russian companies in oil and gas in Saudi Arabia; of nuclear cooperation for peaceful tasks. A lucrative relationship through and through for the Russians.

But for these contracts to materialize in full, Russia would have to give the harmful idiots some room to breathe in Iraq. It can do that through Iran and Syria. Hence in part the new willingness to compromise by Iran’s Supreme Spiritual Guide via his spokesman, ayatollah Ali Akbar Wilayati. Using accommodating language, in mid-February, the ayatollah said that Iran is willing to suspend some of its uranium processing activities.

Put differently: The Bush Administration, right-wing Judeo-Evangelical, twirled and twirling violently, driven by an anti-Semitic animus, where Muslims and Arabs have replaced Jews as the target of historic scapegoat and mass-hysterical hate, cannot afford to look as if it is negotiating with Iran. It would mean that it has accepted defeat. (By the way, this non-twirled but eminently twisted--today only--blog presumed defeat years ago.) It’d lose its base. Using Bandar bin Sultan and the promise of profitable Saudi arms and other contracts with Russia, the Bush Administration hopes to obtain some cooperation in Iraq from that now-all-too-flexible country.

Enough, that is, to "stabilize" the situation and rule that place, darn it, with the heavy hand of an ass-et-general, someone comme their once-asset, the Arab dictator they lynched, in cold blood.

Once events scream at them (they are idiots!) that they are unsuccessful (the highly likely outcome), they will deliver the country to any devil–pro-Iranian or not–, face-save before the world and the Arab-and-Muslim-hating Judeo-Evangelical right-wing base--and the Jewish liberals who adore them-- and get the hell out. (Meanwhile: Hide your money. Should they attack Iran, the credit crunch will make you wish you did. I am NOT a certified financial advisor. Don't listen to me. I'm a lawyer with a sudden and horrific back ache.)


5. SQUANDERING MY TIME

And, here, I’ve "squandered another hour listening to Cartalk." Not. I drafted this post while the Cartalk hosts (extremely twirled and twisted) were...oh well, allegedly dispensing advice about cars.

WHY I CALL THEM HARMFUL IDIOTS: A CASE STUDY

part one of seven --rough draft

Shortly after dawn on October 23, 1983, at around 6:22 AM, a truck, laden with explosives, crashed into the Marine compound located near the Beirut International Airport. It drove into the center of the building where it exploded, bringing down the entire four-story structure. In that building slept some 300 U.S. troops.

241 soldiers, mostly Marines, were killed.


I’ve always wondered who advises the harmful idiots about the Middle East. The Iraq war brought this out, at last, crisp and clear. The bevy of Arab "assets," the Jewish Right, Jewish liberals, and this strange political force called Evangelical! Of all of these, however, the funniest (if it weren’t tragic) were the "assets"–all these corrupt snake oil salesmen who sold the Pentagon, its war-on-Arabs council--the infamous Judeo-Evangelical Defense Policy Board--the Jewish Right, their liberal Jewish adorers–these assets and the White House marketed the Iraq invasion as good for Israel.

Iraq has crystallized the fact that corruption is the harmful idiots’ hallmark in picking "assets." Do I have dreams about my country developing as foreign assets modernist and forward-looking people! Instead, it’s the most corrupt, the thieves of their respective countries’ resources, the insignificant, the con-artists, the double agents, the triple agents...these are my country’s foreign assets! And they don’t steal small. They steal in the tens of billions, and never ever are they satiated. As far as the harmful idiots are concerned: All that these unsavory figures need to do to become American assets is to declare their love for Israel. Once they do, they can become kings and Prime Ministers–and pillage larger shares of heir countries’ resources. And leave us hated by all the oppressed and struggling people in the Arab world.

A few years after the death of the Marines, my curiosity took me back to the library. I wanted to learn more about the events surrounding their demise. I had thought, throughout the Marines’ tenure, that events had been racing about them. But that their strategists were not keeping up with what these events had meant for their tenure in Lebanon. I wasn’t following things closely. I was too busy making a living and paying off loans. And the internet wasn’t so convenient to provide me with such a huge selection of primary sources to assess matters independently.

At the library, I discovered seven signals, loud and clear, that should’ve alerted U.S. decision-makers that the Marines stationed near the Airport were a target. But these signals, deafening though they were, failed to awaken the harmful idiots. Where were their analysts?

Here’s what I wrote then, probably in the late 1980's or early 1990's.

The seven signals:

The first regional signal: Syria declares war on the U.S.

Throughout the Lebanon war Syria had been capable of successfully manipulating events. Though it historically had always been a player in Lebanese domestic politics, starting in 1967, it had intensified it meddling in Lebanese affairs. It sponsored the entry into Lebanon of the various armies of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Syria, a less divided state than Lebanon, knew how to manipulate Lebanese pluralism to its advantage. Moreover, as master of unconventional warfare, it showed during its military intervention in Lebanon that it had terrific patience and endurance. It had an abundance of troops, well-mobilized and motivated. Its intelligence services could do what they pleased, without fear of punishment. To have been an intelligence service officer in Syria must’ve truly been the privilege of privileges. These people were ruthless and creative. When I wrote my dissertation on the Lebanese civil war, I had read volumes of primary sources, mostly press reports. I was stunned at the number of newly-found organizations that emerged daily while Syria was spreading its troops in Lebanon. The only conclusion I could draw was that these organizations were dummy creations by Syrian intelligence.

In essence, Syria didn’t need any help in Lebanon. It had the men, the wherewithal, the patience, the endurance. But it did have some significant limitations. Unlike Iran, it couldn’t unleash against the United States. Iran had oil and a large population to fall back on. Syria was a poor country which specialized in the production and export of labor. It couldn’t alienate the United States and Saudi Arabia, two of the markets for its chief export. But it needed to dislodge Israel’s ally, the United States, out of Lebanon, and here Iran was godsend.

On November 21, 1982, an armed rebellion flared up in the predominately Shia city of Baalbek, in the Beqaa valley, under Syrian occupation, a city that’s close to the Syrian-Lebanese border. The rebellion, staged against the national government of President Amin Gemayyel, [a likely "asset" of the harmful idiots], involved around 500 armed men. These took control of the government building and the town’s center. It was thought that a majority of the rebels were Iranian soldiers of the Guard of the Islamic Revolution (GIR).

Most telling about the rebellion was not that it took place at all (itself a sign that Syria now meant to de-stabilize the pro-American Gemayyel government) or that the GIR was involved.
Most telling was that Syria had allowed the GIR to enter Lebanon and mix with its Shia population. It meant that Syrian strategy had now shifted to allowing for an unconventional defensive war to stop Israeli domination of Lebanon and the concomitant isolation of Syria. Such war to be led not by Palestinians, but by native Lebanese: the Shia.

By introducing the vehemently anti-American GIR into Lebanon, Syria was sending the U.S. a message: that unconventional warfare by GIR against the United States in Lebanon would begin in earnest. Isn't that to be expected from GIR ? What else would Iranian intelligence do? [Remember: the U.S. was working with Saddam Hussein's--the lynched Arab--Iraq in its war against Iran.] It was for the U.S. to read the [Syrian] message correctly.

(...)

Syria had upped the ante, sending a clear message to Washington. Not only have we given up on the possibility that you, the United States, would bring Syria relief from Israel, said the message; but now we have drawn closer to Iran and have allowed into Lebanon U.S.-hating GIR soldiers. Allowing the vehemently anti-American GIR into Lebanon (and Iranian intelligence) could only have meant that Syria had declared U.S. presence in Lebanon to be a legitimate war target. I found no evidence that Washington picked up on that message.

Syria could read the signs on the wall: that the new Lebanon would be an American-Israeli preserve. That meant Syria would lose yet another ally, Arab Lebanon, as a front against Israel. In contrast, Syria read our messages correctly. The United States would announce that it would rebuild Lebanon’s army, doubling its size to 40,000, and Israel and Lebanon could begin face-to-face talks. This spelled isolation for Syria in its attempts to regain it Joulan heights.

In the meanwhile, Syria had for a good while stopped trusting Arafat [who, by then, was becoming another Anwar Sadat] and clashes between proxy militias–Syria’s and Arafat’s–raged in the northern city of Tripoli. [I’m not clear on things now but I believe that Syria had begun to consolidate its control over the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, sponsoring alternative leaders to Arafat; these refugees could provide yet more fighters to control the ground in Lebanon.]

Talks between Lebanon and Israel, brokered by the United States, were soon to elicit a verbal reaction from Syria. (Remember: Syria already had pronounced itself when it had allowed the GIR into Lebanon.) As if to make the message to the Americans louder and clearer, Syrian President Hafez al-Asad issued a warning to Lebanon not to make concessions to Israel, and reminding everyone that no agreement between Lebanon and Israel would be feasible if Syria disapproved.

There was no specific American response to Syria’s opposition. Our leaders had made some foolish assumptions, most grievous of which was that Syria’s attitude could be softened by repeated visits by American officials and likely promises to return the Arab Joulan to its rightful owner–promises only fools would believe. And wise and cunning Syria didn’t. One wonders whether our officials had stopped reading balance of power literature . They were running foreign policy as a public relations event. For, on the ground, Israel had proved incapable of dislodging Syria. [In retrospect, Syria looked even more cunning. It seemed to understand U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East as the product of a Judeo-Evangelical and colonial mind set.]

Accordingly, from a balance of power perspective, this failure should’ve cued us to the fact that Syria was truly more powerful than Israel, and therefore should be included in any peace agreement in the region. (Abdel-Halim Khaddam, Syria’s foreign minister, was known for giving advice to Syria’s Lebanese allies to "control the ground"–that, by so doing, they secured themselves a political role.). [With the huge flow of money from oil and money from the American taxpayer, Mr. Khaddam looks like he has become an asset of the harmful idiots and the Saudis. Truth be told: he is eminently insignificant.]

to be continued

ISRAEL SAYS WHO CAN BE SAUDI KING

firstroughdraft
munjaz kamu7awalah ulah
premierbrouillon

Score another victory for the U.S. Israel lobby. It now has a say on who becomes King in Saudi Arabia.

Barbara Slavin revealed on 2/12/07 in USA Today that Prince Turki al-Faisal, the departing Saudi ambassador, had attended a Washington reception sponsored by American Jewish organizations to honor a State Department diplomat appointed to combat anti-Semitism.

A host called the attendance of such a senior Saudi official "unprecedented."

How ‘s one to interpret this?

THE LESS IMMEDIATE BACKGROUND

Here’s the less immediate background:

-- The harmful idiots have been pressuring the Gulf Arabs, including the Saudis, to ally with Israel in an anti-Iran camp.

-- Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar have colluded with the harmful idiots to entrap Iran. They have failed. Even defeated for Saudi Arabia's current ruling team.

-- Iran, having remained cool and collected, and therefore still on its feet, made the Gulf leaders nervous. Accordingly, these remained uncertain about being too patently anti-Iranian--about adopting in full the harmful idiots’ plans. Unlike Jordan, which has no Shias, the Gulf countries have Shia minorities. They are therefore half-hearted about adopting the strategy devised by the harmful idiots and Jordan: to heighten the Shia-Sunni rift in Iraq and Lebanon. Such rift, the Gulf Arabs believe, is bound to spill into their countries.

--To subdue these leaders and make them compliant (so as adopt the harmful idiots’ plans against Iran, lock, stock, and barrel) the harmful idiots lynched an Arab leader. It hasn’t worked. If anything, it created a new phenomenon in the Middle East: The SaddamNooseAvoidanceManeuver–SANAM. Kuwait’s foreign minister, member of the ruling family, was recently in Tehran on a SANAM mission. Ain’t gonna have an American noose around my neck!

--Israel is cooperating. It wanted to derail the Hamas-Fatah reconciliation meeting in Mecca by re-starting construction on-or-near the Aqsa Mosque–to ignite yet another intifadha. No can do, said the harmful idiots. The Egyptian ruling party (in coordination with the harmful idiots, of course, since Egypt is a plantation and its leaders superintendents) unleashed a couple of its members of parliament. These made statements to the effect that they wouldn’t mind seeing Israel wiped out by a nuclear explosion. It worked. The Israelis stopped the construction. The harmful idiots succeeded at something.

-- In another maneuver by the harmful idiots to subdue the neighborhood, they committed a substantial naval buildup to the Perabesian Gulf. Many reasons. In part, this was a not-so-subtle kind and courteous message to Israel. The naval buildup is meant in part as a measure of assurance to, and begging of, the Israeli protectorate. Assurance: we the harmful idiots are committed to stopping Iran’s nuclear program and curtailing its increasing regional influence. Begging: please, O dearest protectorate, do not attack Iran and leave us exposed in Iraq. This is called the PleasingIsraelManeuver–PISM.

THE MORE IMMEDIATE BACKGROUND

Still, for a Saudi personality such as Turki al-Faisal to attend an event by pro-Israel Jewish organizations was indeed ...."unprecedented." and cannot be fully explained by the factors outline above. What then?

Turki’s "unprecedented" attendance of the reception should be seen from the vantage point of two men (Turki and Bandar) competing over who will be nominated by the recently established Succession/Allegiance Council (SAC) as Crown Prince-in-waiting. As with all Arabs, to the person, they probably believe that the Israel lobby controls U.S. foreign policy and controls the harmful idiots in the Middle East. And the two princes know that these harmful idiots have a large say in who becomes king in Saudi Arabia. How? The harmful idiots have tons of dirt on the members of the royal family and, I suspect, own a number of them as "assets." Knowing that, Bandar met with Israeli Prime Minister Olmert in Jordan–executing the SadatUncleTomManeuver–SAUTOM–his own PISM.

Here’s his logic: To get to influence the American choice of king-in-waiting in Saudi Arabia, you need to appeal to Israel, as to appeal to the Israel-obsessed Jewish organizations in the U.S., as to appeal to U.S. foreign policy makers who are influenced by all the info churned by the Israel-obsessed ones and their Israel-obsessed political activism. Get it? Can I be clearer about Bandar's thinking? He needs to distinguish himself from the other members of the royal family who are "assets," as he likely is, too. And he needs to secure the support of the Israel lobby, since his horse--the extreme right-wing Judeo-Evangelical Administration–will have left in two years, and the Jewish liberals will likely come in with a Democratic administration. Executing a SAUTOM should assure him of the support of the Jewish liberals in the Democratic Party, and any new Democratic administration--he hopes.

Turki–a likely competitor-- couldn’t afford to be outdone. He needed to neutralize Bandar’s influence among the Israel-obsessed communities and organizations in the United States--the Israel lobby. He needed his own PISM. He could parallel Bandar’s SAUTOM and head to Jordan to meet with the Israeli Prime Minister. But that would be logistically difficult and fraught with political risks. So he adopted a version of SAUTOM that is less cumbersome and would appeal to the entire Jewish community, including the liberals who are expected to flood a new Democratic administration.

How did he do it? Simple: He attended an Israel lobby event in Washington D.C., one that had a U.S. State Department cover. A smart PISM? A cunning SAUTOM?

FOOL'S GOLD

by: zein el-irban* (*pseudonym)

secondroughdraft

"Min ayna ja'ou...?"

Mahmoud Darwish

LEAVING IRAQ

This newsletter had in the past laid out the reasons why we should leave Iraq. It did so by highlighting how the dynamics of Iraqi politics produce a hostile environment for US troops, and that this environment is highly unlikely to reverse.

I do understand the perceived need to assure a balance of power in the region, Iran having been the beneficiary of the American Right-Wing Judeo-Christian invasion of the Arab country. But staying in Iraq should be costly and, in the end, should fail to produce any decent result.

We can't stay. It finally is seeping into the consciousness of the country that the Iraq affair is a colonialist enterprise and that the age of colonialism was over decades ago. Zbignew Brezinsky should be credited with educating the country on that, and with bringing up the analogy of the Algeria war of liberation. Others are senile latecomers who had served on the failed Defense Policy Board.

We really have no friends of substance in Iraq. We're on the wrong side of history. The "friends" we have--the Abdel Aziz Hakim-Maliki camp–are, at worst, agents of Iran and, at best, double agents. In other words, we are doing in Iraq the work for the camp which balance of allegiance --when all’s said and done--is heavily tilted towards Iran. We've even lost the option to draw an alliance with the od Baath, as an anti-Iranian pillar, once the harmful idiots handed Saddam Hussein over to the lynch mob, murdered him in effect, with intent and aforethought. Now, we’re just marking time, while hemorrhaging in blood and treasure.


ESCALATING: THE SECRET AND IDIOT PLAN.

The secret plan of the American Judeo-Christian Right (their secret hope) is to use Maliki temporarily as a Shia cover to eliminate Muqtadha as-Sadr. Afterwards, the harmful idiots should rid themselves of Maliki. In other words, Maliki should provide a Shia cover for the military assault on the Mahdi Army. After defeating that army, the American colonial power should bring in its strong man--either Ayad Allawi or, more likely, one of his old former Baathist generals. Then we can have a little banana republic dictator run the country for the harmful idiots as a bulwark against Iran and as a plantation for the harmful idiots, a la Egypt.

I couldn't begin to describe the problems with this strategy. It’s so sophomoric it’s hilarious--if it weren’t so tragic in results. It'll certainly fail, one hundred percent. But only after costing us so much in blood and treasure.

For one, the Sadr people should melt away in the many towns in the south. For another, the Sunni targets of the American escalation should change the venue of their operations, from Baghdad to other towns--as they did recently by blowing up the innocent en masse in the Shia town of Hillah.

I don't really buy the idea that Baghdad is key to the stability of Iraq. It's fool's gold. Putting out fires in Baghdad will only produce fires in other cities and towns: blowing up Shia by Sunni, and massacring Sunni wholesale by Shia death squads. It'll only happen less in Baghdad and more in other places. The recent Hillah market bombing likely was a message from the Sunni camp to the American Judeo-Christian establishment: that the planned military campaign to secure Baghdad will fail. (As I write this post, a suicide truck bombing of a Shia part of Baghdad has resulted in the death of over 130 people.)

IT’S OVER FOR THE UNITED STATES IN IRAQ

The United States cannot be effective in Iraq.

Please accept the following representation: the United States has been an anti-Arab and an anti-Muslim country ever since it began to lend uncritical support for Israel. It has been an anti-Arab country ever since it started to fund the colonization of Arab Palestinian lands. If you can comprehend this, if you can come to terms with it and shed your Judeo-Christian right-wing imperial burden, you would come to the realization that the United States has been an aggressor against Arabs for decades. How can it now expect to be accepted (physically!) in the heart of the Arab world? In the once most pan-Arab and patriotic country in that world?

In other words, the Street in Iraq--the possessor of real power in that country, unleashed by the invasion–will not be pacified by a country that for decades on end has been financing the theft of Arab land and causing the Arab Palestinians and Lebanon so much misery. The same country that’s playing for the shedding of intra-Palestinian blood. How can Arabs and Muslims, the Iraqis in particular, trust this Judeo-Christian hater of Arabs and Muslims? How can they trust the arrogant and callous country that dashed their pan Arab dreams when it unleashed its Israeli protectorate, armed with the latest American weapons, on the Arab Street’s favorite son, Gamal Abdel Nasser? The same country which paid off that (once) bedrock of Arabism, Egypt, and turned it into a plantation, its leader into “yes master” Uncle Toms?

Sooner or later the Iraqi Street will unite, Sunni and Shia. Sooner, if the harmful idiots leave Arabs and Muslims alone and stop buying up their leaders and instigating civil wars. All of this so that the Israelis will not have a Palestinian state next door, or shed the lands they’ve stolen since June 4, 1967, or pay reparations for the other lands and for waging wars and massacres and igniting civil wars in Lebanon. The colonial puppet state will not succeed, and the Allawi strong man will never be strong. The Arab Sunni regimes which are assisting the harmful idiots will never be able to reverse what had taken place in Iraq. Consider the Algerian example: had it not been for the West coming to the aid of the old guard, the younger Islamists would’ve been ruling that country, fair and square, having won elections. There’s a new generation that has taken over in Iraq and the older crowd carries little influence, I strongly suspect. The American escalation, if anything, should produce further polarization, galvanizing camps and concentrating yet more power in the hands of the younger Islamists.

In a strange sort of way, sectarianism is the Iraqis' best weapon against occupation and the appropriation of their resources. It gives the resistance a way to assure that the allegiance of the troops in the puppet state would forever be with their sect. Sectarian massacres are key to destroying the puppet state. They assure that at least a part of the troops the occupier is training will always provide intelligence to the sects, to the resistance. And some of them should leave their posts and join the resistance should the battles heat up--to, for instance, defeat the Mahdi Army.

The assistance by the Sunni Arab regimes (e.g., Jordan) to the harmful idiots should at best cause an intra-Sunni civil war. That should strengthen the Shia Street-and Iran. So, in essence, whatever the harmful idiots and their Arab plantation managers do will not work. It’s over.

A NEW SAUDI TEAM

Saudi Arabia is currently run by King Abdallah and Crown Prince Sultan. The Crown Prince’s son, Bandar bin Sultan, an extension of the Judeo-Christian right wing team at the White House, is playing a prominent role negotiating for the Bush Administration—with Iran, with Russia.

Arab Sunni governments, Saudi Arabia’s in particular, are worried about the outcome in Iraq. That worry has been adopted by the Judeo-Christian right-wing oil team at the White House. Hence the escalation and the dispatch of an American armada to the Gulf. The tragic part about this (for all) is that the very people at the top in Saudi Arabia have gotten away with their abject failure and strategic mediocrity. They failed when they lent uncritical support for the American invasion.

But have they really gotten away with the disastrous failure? It would be unthinkable to me that the elite in Saudi Arabia is not communicating among themselves, hush hush, about this--about the abject failure of the current Saudi leadership which had supported the invasion of a fellow Arab, Muslim, and Sunni-led country. And about the strait this leadership has created for its own country, as a result of acting so obediently and so uncritically.

What about the present and the future? Would a new American administration be willing to work with this failed leadership, which is so intimately linked to Bush and Cheney, and which likely will allow the two failed men to call some of the shots in US-Saudi relations even after the two had left the White House?

Saudi Arabia’s role is so critical to America's Arab policy, but not for the common reason of the Arab rich paying for the recruitment of the Arab poor to support the plans drafted by the harmful idiots. The new American administration will need leaders in the Gulf, Saudi Arabia in particular, who have credibility both with the Saudi elite and the Arab. The current leadership team in Saudi Arabia has lost its credibility when it allowed for its territory to be used as launchpad for the invasion of Iraq, a fellow Sunni-led country. My suspicion is that the Saudi elite and the Arab know this with certainty but remain hush hush about it, since so many of them are on the Saudi payroll.

The question then for the new American administration will be whether this Saudi team, which had turned its back on the Sunni by assisting the harmful idiots in the invasion, is the right team to help the new administration extricate itself from another Vietnam.

Will this Saudi team for instance be able to secure the allegiance of the Arab Shia, as Arab, not only in Saudi Arabia, but all over the Arab world? Negotiations with Iran on controlling the sectarian rift, while helpful, hardly assure the allegiance of the Arab Shia to Arab goals. If anything, these negotations reveal that Iran (or Sunni regimes, such as Lebanon's) can at any time ignite sectarian tensions to protect itself from American bombing and invasion. The Arab Shia therefore will need an Arab ledership in Saudi Arabia. That, by definition, means a leadership that did not collude in the invasion of a fellow Arab country; that, by definition, means a leadership that does not meet in secret with the Israelis and draw plans behind the backs of the Arab Palestinians. The current Saudi team fails this test.


To deal with Iran and eventually co-opt it, the United States would need to appreciate the importance of being progressive and Arab in orientation. (Editor’s note: I've laughed enough.) In other words, U.S. foreign policy will need allied teams in the Gulf that portray an image of pan-Arabism (inclusive of the Arab Shia), transparence and straightforwardness in public life. In the Saudi context, this perspective cries out for either the Faisals (haven’t heard of corruption associated to their names) or the Talals (the father was an Arab nationalist)--or a melange of the two. It’ll need people acceptable to Iran, who the Islamic Republic could trust. Prince Bandar, though welcome in Tehran as an extension of the Judeo-Christian team manning the White House for another two years, may not be after this team departs. As a Saudi, he's not trusted by the Iranians. The al-Manar online takes a stab at him every once in a while as the champion of jumping over the heads of the Palestinian Arabs to embrace the Israelis, and as part of the strategy for an American-dominated Middle East.

True, Bandar bin Sultan could be an American asset. So what? This would not be the first time the harmful idiots shed assets. They turned their back on the Iraqi Shia after they had called on them to rebel. Saddam's men slaughtered them while the harmful idiots watched. They turned their back on the Iraqi Sunni after Saddam Hussein had done them the favor of warring with Iran. They turned their back on the Lebanese of Mount Lebanon, allowing Syria to conquer that Mount, to secure from Syria an Arab cover for the Kuwait war. (The only people they haven't turned their back on are the Israelis.)

Thinking strategically and into the future, the new administration will have to assess what assets are needed to limit Iranian influence in the region, or negotiate regionally with the Islamic Republic? War with Iran, I believe, should not be an option. It'll be disastrous for all. But limiting Iranian influence is fair game.

To limit Iranian influence, the United States will need allied teams that are pan-Arab in orientation and non-corrupt, as Hamas and Hezbollah--two Iranian assets-- are not corrupt.

Not only is the current team in Saudi Arabia non-Arab in orientation (it did collude against Sunni!), it too lives and will continue to live under the weight of the BAE Systems’ scandal-–of payoffs said to have been dispatched to Saudi leaders with Swiss bank accounts. This scandal, unavoidably, should have the Saudi elite wondering. I have no doubt that this elite knows with certainty the identity of the paid-off leaders. These leaders are obviously high and powerful enough to have been able to sway the Saudi state. After all, pressure by these leaders caused the British government to scuttle the investigation by the Serious Fraud Office. Any legitimacy left?

But that’s only money. (The entire BAE Systems contract is a waste of money, anyway.) Worse of all for this leadership has been its defeat in Iraq, along with the American Judeo-Christian Right, its ally.

It’s nothing short of shameful that this leadership would cave in to the American Jewish Right’s threats to divide up the Kingdom and approve of the invasion of a fellow Arab country--such being the common interpretation. (This was the interpretation of the editor of this blog.) More likely, however, is the interpretation that says that this leadershipp was not running scared and did not cave in. It just happened that it wanted Saddam Hussein out, too, and did not have the troops to do it. So it allied itself with the devil, or, more correctly, signed on to the invasion plans of the harmful idiots. In other words, this leadership let its personal vendetta trump healthy strategic thinking, and therefore compromised the security of all.

Even more shameful, from an Arab perspective, is the fact that this leadership would now embrace the American Jewish Right, its tormentor, and act obedient to it, dispatching secret envoys to negotiate with those who have been stealing Palestinian Arab land, spreading over a million cluster bomblets across south Lebanon–-an Arab country!--and committing a Sabra and Shatila massacre from the air against fleeing civilians. The secret negotiations were at best a kiss-ass to the Jewish Right and, at worse, a collusion with the Israelis against Iran. Can you blame Iran for re-enforcing its bridges with the Arab Shia, as its immediate neighbor, Saudi Arabia, a Muslim country, colludes with the tormentors of Palestinian Muslims, to entrap it? Face it: that's how the Islamic Republic sees things. And there's a modicum of truth to this perspective.

Not to mention the strategic mediocrity of the current Saudi leadership, not to have seen the repercussions for the Kingdom and the Arab World of the invasion of Iraq. Not to mention the callousness of this leadership towards the Arabs–the Sunni in particular–-in that once Arab country-–Iraq.

Now all were defeated–-the Americans, the Israelis and the current Saudi leadership. All those who have presided over this defeat should do the honorable thing–-what honorable men who are proud men and honorable women who are proud women would do: quit office and let less tainted candidates take over. (Or, after the worse national security disaster in American history, these can move to the U.S. Department of State and talk about the new and improved Middle East while the Israelis rain American-made bombs on Lebanese Arab children.)

The teams need to change here and there. Here, they are changing, slowly but surely, though the new team will not do much unless Iraqi resistance continues on. But the team in Saudi Arabia is not.

A JUDEO-CHRISTIAN CAMP, JEWISH LIBERALS, AND THE RISE OF ANTI-SEMITISM

Soon after the September 11 terror attacks on the U.S., every Arab-American and Muslim-American I know seemed to want to volunteer one way or another, to change jobs, to help out in the war on the bin-Laden cult and its tentacles. It wasn’t to be: all of us were taken aback by the invasion of an Arab country that had nothing to do with terrorism against the United States. The Judeo-Christian team at the White House and at the Pentagon relied on two influential communities for consistent and eager support of the invasion:

(1) the Evangelical; and
(2) the Jewish--

...large swaths of these, anyway. Neither community had any love lost towards Arabs and Muslims and both communities seemed to have been working on their alliance for a while prior to September 11. One was a Crusader community, looking for a higher-paying work and revenge, the other a help-for-Israel-is-on-the-way community. This invasion, and these two communities, unleashed a horrific wave of hatred against Arabs and Muslims, one that seemed to be egged along by a coterie of Jewish liberals at the New York Times, the New Republic, the Washington Post, Slate, the Saban Center at Brookings, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. So we stepped back. This couldn’t be our American war. This was a war for Israel; a war for oil; a war for an imperial grab; a war for Jewish liberals to civilize Arabs and Muslims. We'll watch it on television and weep.

This right wing Jewish-Christian force brought onto the stage shady Arab Uncle Toms–-their buddies-- to give legitimacy to the invasion. We now know how harmful, opportunistic, and useless these were, and how more harmful those who sponsored them. Worse of all, September 11 and the invasion of Iraq have revealed that anti-Semitism in this country was alive and well ; but the one I saw and experienced was anti-Semitism against Muslims and Arabs–-not against Jews. (In fact, I have yet to see any anti-Semitism against Jews on the east coast of the United States.) This Bush/Cheney Administration has brought back that nefarious and deadly phenomenon. But it’s not the classic and historic anti-Semitism. With the help of the Jewish Right and many Jewish liberals. (Huge exception: The Nation magazine, principled to the bone, shone and continues to shine.) A society-wide "transference" seemed to have taken place. (Transference, a Freudian concept, refers to any distortion of a present relationship because of unresolved and unconscious issues left over from early relationships. It usually applies to the pshychiatrist-patient relationship, but can apply outside of that context.)

This American transference, so to speak, has made it such that a new brand of anti-Semitism has replaced the old. The new anti-Semitism is aimed at Muslims and Arabs. It explains the near-total absence of Christian anti-Semitism directed at Jews, as transference has shifted the focus fully and totally onto Muslims and Arabs, the other Semites. (Not to mention the poor among African-Americans-but that's another subject.) Only Uncle Toms were now acceptable to the Judeo-Christian Right and to the Jewish liberals: those Arabs and Muslims who were more concerned, even obsessed, or acting as if they were, about Israel's welfare, and callous to the suffering of the Palestinians, the Lebanese, the Iraqis-- the Uncle Toms whose minds were preoccupied with money, careers, and tenure. The other Arabs and Muslims, those who remained true to their Arab and Muslim heritage, and refused to dye their hair blond and wear blue contact lenses, became untrustworthy--a fifth column.

(The idea of the new anti-Semitism, without more, directed at Arabs and Muslims, is not mine. I believe it originated with Michael Kinsley in the 1980s.)

Perhaps the fact that Jewish liberals would hooray the invasion is a reflection of their effort to re-direct anti-Semitism, instead of fighting it. The very fact that they adopted a view that Arabs needed to be civilized, and therefore invaded and humiliated, especially the Sunni, and integrated into the society-at-large is, to me, compelling evidence that these people are either anti-Semites (read anti-Arab and anti-Muslim) or are, consciously or not, re-directing anti-Semisitsm away from their community and onto the Muslim and Arab. How else explain that their community has not chastised them? How else explain their shamelessness, appearing on television programs, in newspapers? I believe that the explanation lies in the fact that their work is appreciated. They have, haven’t they, re-directed anti-Semitism successfully away from their community and onto another Semitic community.


CAN THE HARMFUL IDIOTS CONTINUE TO PURSUE THE OLD PATH?

But a new U.S. foreign policy can no longer afford to rely on "Arabs" of the minority ilk–Jordanian double agents (of Jordan and the U.S.), Saudi double agents (of Saudi Arabia and the U.S.), Lebanese double agents (of the Lebanese Forces, now likely a front for Israel, and the U.S.), and Israeli double agents(of Israel and the U.S.) These people offer no credibility whatsoever for a new US foreign policy in the Arab World. Showing them off is naive and eminently pathetic. Ditto for any and all State Department officials. The fact that a few speak Arabic, albeit like retards, while cute and endearing, doesn't make U.S. foreign policy more Arab and less Israeli or reactionary. (Really, one and the same these days.)

The policy itself has to change. And its representatives in the Arab World, Saudi Arabia in particular, cannot be the same. U.S. foreign policy should no longer focus on trying to coax Gulf countries to adopt Israel. This destroys any legitimacy they can garner. The Emir of Qatar can afford to sit in the lap of the Israelis. His country is small and relatively easy to run--so small that the allegiance of all can be bought many times over.


Besides, the Qatari, as the other Gulf Arabs on the eastern side of the Peninsula, are mercantile to the bone, living as they do by the sea and trade routes. Not so for a large part of the Saudi population. The Saudi leadership rules a much larger country, birthplace of Islam, one that has a part of its populace living inland, not by the sea, and is therefore less mercantile. Saudi modernists and Saudi traditionalists can agree to support the Arab Palestinians and the Arab Lebanese and the Arab Syrians--but their country will blow up in smoke should their King invite Shimon Peres over and promise, as did the Emir of Qatar, to visit Israel soon.

The new Arab team, ancillary of a new American foreign policy (no choice, really), would lend its support to the Palestinians and have these negotiate with the Israelis--but would otherwise stay out of playing a direct role. In other words, the new Arab team would let the Palestinians do their own bidding, while supporting them as the Americans support Israel, and be concerned less about the welfare of Israel (a la Sadat) an more about the welfare of the Palestinian Arabs. The Gulf Arabs need to think more about their legitimacy as Arabs and Muslims and less about adopting policies drafted by Judceo-Christian harmful idiots.

The Gulf Arabs should be mindful that the Israelis can bid for their own welfare by adopting the right policies towards their partners, the Palestinians. They will need to go through them to reach the Qatari and the Saudis, not jump over their head. The Qatari and the Saudis should empower the Palestinian Arabs by insisting that the Israelis go through the Palestinians to reach Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Reparations in the trillions of euros, maybe in the hundreds of billions, from Europe and the United States, could and should be coming the way of the Palestinans and Lebanon. Accordingly, the Saudis and the Qatari should stay out of the way lest they screw the Palestinans and the Lebanese by replacing pittance for the reparations of the century.


OTHER STEPS

Back to the troops and long term policy.

Defeating Muqtadha as-Sadr and those of the Sunni camp (a doubtful proposition) will not take Iraq out of the Iranian orbit and could actually give yet another free boost to Iran. Iran owns the Shia in Iraq, and no Allawi nor any of his generals should be able to reverse this. In blunt terms, and in a nutshell, the only way to take Iraq out of Iran's orbit is to do as follows:

1. Withdraw to Adid and Kuwait; bring in the United Nations. Cut U.S. losses.

2. Use Saudi Arabia as a pan-Arab force. For this you'd need a ruling team that did not favor the invasion of an Arab country, that’s least tainted by corruption, and that's not an extension of a foreign political force as the Amerrican Judeo-Christian Right.

3. Pump money and support into peace groups within Israel. Withdraw from the Joulan without demanding that Syria become an American/Israeli plantation. Once the Israelis withdraw, Syrians and Israelis will work out their differences.

4. Co-opt Iran economically. Going nuclear, without a second strike capability, is extremely dangerous. Defusing tension therefore will be supremely important until such time when Iran develops a second strike capability. Economic normalization is the United States’s best weapon. It creates Iranian dependence on the United States, giving the latter influence in Iranian politics. Economic co-opting should also help reverse (voluntarily) any advances made towards the development of an Iranian nuclear weapon.


5. At any rate, no pressure should be exerted on Iran to reverse its nuclear program without exerting equal pressure on Israel. Only by including Israel can the United States persuade Iranian nationalists that it is not singling out their country, to keep it down.

BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS

And, by all means, go ahead, spend a couple of trillion dollars more in short term wars, and get stuck with long term ones.

As to those Jewish liberals who wanted to civilize Arabs: Be shameless. Self-promote. Appear on television, write articles, have your photos on the front pages of newspapers...

So you have blood on your hands, the blood of the innocent; so you have orphaned tens of thousands of children; so you have helped destroy an Arab country; so you've never felt sorry; so you've never done anything to atone; so you've blamed things on the Christian crusaders you helped dispatch; on the mediocrity of Bremer; backpedal or not.

I understand. Really--I do. It’s clear to me: it’s not your blood. And they're not your orphans.