THE THREATS II: RECOGNIZE ISRAEL OR WE’LL PARTNER WITH IRAN.

stillreallysecondrughdrapht

THE LAST POST

In the last foray, I discussed the public revelations made to a NYTImes.com reporter by senior U.S. officials criticizing the role Saudi Arabia was playing in Iraq. Saudi suicide bombers, and Saudi funding of politicians and insurgent groups in Iraq, were two of the more specific accusations made against the Kingdom. More generally, in the NYTimes.com article, the institutional architects of our defeat/fiasco in Iraq showed heightened irritation with the Saudis for refusing to back the Maliki government.

THE THREAT–THE FIRST TAKE

In the latter part of the last post (“Recognize Israel or Else!”), I wrote that the public anti-Saudi revelations in essence were a threat. This threat, I assessed, was meant to scare the Saudis-- to force them to tow the line in Iraq, or risk a public campaign against them in the United States. I drew a parallel between the recent public revelations about the role of Saudi Arabia in Iraq to the ceaseless public revelations about Iran’s role in that country. Just as the harmful idiots point to Iran for responsibility for the death of a specific number of U.S. troops in Iraq , they're now an inch away from pointing to Saudi Arabia for doing the same.

THE THREAT: THE SECOND TAKE

A NYTimes.com news story on July 29, 2007-- that the Administration will be seeking congressional approval for a $20 bn arms sale to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries-- confirms this blog’s interpretation that the earlier public criticism of Saudi Arabia’s role in Iraq was in fact a threat. The threat, as I had interpreted it in the last post, would've been to invoke the ire of the American public against the Kingdom. But the arms sale revelation adds yet another element to the threat, more concrete: The senior officials’ statements to the NYTimes.com communicated to the Saudis that their failure to tow the line in Iraq should endanger congressional approval of the arms sales package.

I'm not finished: it's more than that. Already one pro-Israel voice in Congress has threatened to block the arms sale proposed deal. And the NYTimes.com article makes it clear that the pro-Israel U.S. Congress may not be too approving of the export of high-tech weaponry to Saudi Arabia. The threat, therefore, isn't only about towing the line in Iraq. It's about the Saudis realizing that keeping up the historic protection by this country of Saudi Arabia and its system of government entails a rapprochement between it and Israel--recognition and normalization. It entails Israeli apporval of the Kingdom. To put it bluntly: it entails that the Saudis go through Israel to reach the U.S. Congress. And how would they reach Congress without hugging Israel and kissing its ass?

This fits into the general scheme of the harmful idiots, sophomoric at best, to consolidate an anti-Iran Arab-Israeli front. It portrays an Administration that's misjudging yet again: that the Arabs and their governments see Iran as such a huge threat that they would be willing to partner with Israel against it. It assumes idiocy by Iran, overreaching as the harmful idiots had when they invaded Iraq. Persian chauvinism could lead to overreaching. But I doubt the Iranian government will allow for that to happen. Perhaps the Iraqi Sunni share in the anti-Iran perspective; but you're not going to find them calling for Israeli participation in a mostly Arab front against Iran. Besides, the Iraqis can't trust the harmful idiots nor evven the saudis who had stabbed them in the back. (Being weak is no excuse. It's a choice.)


In other words, the Iraqi Sunni can be anti-Iranian, possibly even in their entirety. But it's too late for that. To be anti-Iranian is to have a base of operation and allies who can be trusted. The Iraqi Sunni can't trust the harmful idiots. How could they? These have only recently devastated them and their country and lynched their leaders. These have executed the wishes of the American Jewish Right which hates Arabs and Muslims and forever wages anti-Arab and anti-Muslim campaigns to keep Israel on top. As to the Arab Street, good luck. The Street knows who screwed and continues to screw the Arabs, including the Sunni.

You can feed the Street for a while, as Tony Blair wants to do on the West Bank, to screw Hamas. The Street will eat the food then turn around and do what it has to do. I have serious doubts that the Street, including the Palestinian, even well-fed on the West Bank, will turn against Hamas. I think the Street will give Mahmoud Abbas a chance to obtain cargo. Then it'll get rid of him. To the Street, he's but another Anwar al-Sadat, a dopehead, one of the biggest traitors in Arab history.

Hey, you might scream, what’s the big deal? The Saudis, after all, don’t have a track record of fighting wars, and therefore the denial of congressional approval of the arms deal shouldn't be that significant. (See below: A NOTE–TO REGRESS.) True, I would answer. But I would add that the Saudis would be worried not so much about the arms deal itself but, as importantly, about its symbolic significance.

The arms deal would represent to the Saudis the commitment, historic, by the United States to protect Kingdom and royal system of government. We pay you for weapons we don’t use, you protect us; we keep the oil relatively cheap, you protect us. A failed arms deal would mean that the commitment to protect Kingdom and political system is being withdrawn, little by little. The Bush Administration , aware of this Saudi fear, is playing on the same to force the Kingdom to recognize Israel and normalize relations with it–without the apple of the eye meeting such elemental conditions as withdrawing its nearly half-a-million colonial settlers from the narrow West Bank and the thousands of other colonial settlers from the Arab Joulan.

A NOTE–TO REGRESS.

It should be noted that, historically, arms sales to the Kingdom are hardly about fighting wars or deterring Iran. Arms sales to the kingdom represent the following:

–They’re protection money that the Kingdom pays to its chosen allies. This secures not only protection for the Kingdom but, too, protection for the royal government itself. (What Tony Blair, our oh-so-ambitious-I-need-to-orphan-Arab-children-to-get-an-erection-asset, had called “regime” when the Saudis were re-thinking the up-to-$80 billion arms sales deal with his country, only to have his foreign secretary describe the same government as a “democracy” soon after the Saudis caved in to British blackmail and approved of the continuation of the gargantuan arms contract. Refer to earlier post, “Of British Blackmail and Saudi Manhood.” )

(Can you fathom how much this Saudi government caves in to all threats and blackmail? They're running scared all the time--and are apologetic even about elemental patriotism.)

–The arms sales historically have been yet another means for the princes to pocket commissions. The more means (e.g., construction projects, intelligence slush funds), the merrier.

–The weapons to be shipped to Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf countries will be shipped there anyway, congressional approval or not. The Pentagon will need these weapons in any confrontation with the Iranians. The only genuine difference is about who will foot the bill: the Pentagon or the rich Gulf Arabs.


--These weapons will likely rust in the desert, as most such weapons before it.

And herein lies a most idiotic and hilarious fact: Wars in the Middle East should no longer be of the pure conventional variety, or the silly counter-insurgency. These could happen more because the Israelis and the harmful idiots for their own reasons (military-industrial jobs in both) don’t want to appreciate (hence, “idiots”) that the conflicts now are more about politics and not about conventional weapons. Grant it, no one should doubt that the harmful idiots can order the troops to hurt the Iranians with these weapons; but, thinking long-term, hurting the Iranians is bound to create yet more chaos, not less, and such chaos could spread like wildfire across the region. The harmful idiots, it should be noted, don’t have the troops to contain that chaos.


THE REAL THREAT: THE KINGDOM BETTER RECOGNIZE ISRAEL OR ELSE FACE AN AMERICAN-IRANIAN PARTNERSHIP IN THE GULF.

And so, as I was driving, it occurred to me. Yes, Virginia, the harmful idiots may have issued another threat (three in total) to Saudi Arabia–a new and improved kind of threat:

If you don’t recognize Israel, and normalize relations with it, we will coordinate with the Iranians.

What? Yes. Absolutely.

What do we care if the Iranians have primacy in the Gulf? They already do, anyway. It’ll only mean that you’ll need us even more, and we will be able to call the shots inside your very countries. No more stubbornness. Total subjugation. We would’ve lost in Iraq, but won big in Saudi Arabia–the biggest win of them all-- and the other Gulf countries. We will own you as never before. We can force discount oil contracts in exchange for protection. We can partner with the Iranians so long as these stay away from the apple of our eye. What do we care? And they’d be glad to keep away from the apple of our eye so long as they can sit on top of you in the Gulf. Along with us, that is.

Does this threat make sense? Can the U.S. really partner with Iran? I think it can; I think it will, de facto, of course. And would normalizing relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel prevent the United States from partnering with Iran? Doubtful. Very. Why should it? The harmful idiots will do what serves their interests, not the Saudi. They will do what will allow them to stay in the Gulf. Partnering with the Iranians, de facto, might just fit the bill to allow a stay, though not directly in Iraq, but by proxy, which would be fine. But in Kuwait (with Iran's permission), Qatar, the U.A.E., Bahrain (with Iran’s permission); and even the Kingdom. The quid pro quo with the Iranians would be struck in such places as Syria (returning the Joulan, while Syria eases up in Lebanon), Palestine (Hamas as a silent not so vocal partner, and accepting of Israel), and Iraq (the harmful idiots’ puppets allowed a significant role)–not in the Gulf itself. In the Gulf, the harmful idiots should accept some level of Iranian influence, including among the Shia Arabs. It’ll be a partnership of continued negotiations and coordination: You’ve stepped over my foot here; you withdraw your foot there. But a partnership notwithstanding.

Saudi Arabia recognizing Israel would have no impact whatsoever on the evolving U.S.-Iranian partnership. If the Iranians play their cards well (i.e., balance the economic draining of the U.S. in Iraq with steps that tame the self-styled terrific strategists I call the harmful idiots), the partnership could evolve into positive coordination. An opportunity of a lifetime for the Iranians.

THE WEAKNESS OF SAUDI ARABIA

The problem for the Saudis: They have partnered with the harmful idiots in finishing those Arabs who can fight, and are partnering with them to finish those Arabs who still are standing on their feet. Along with the harmful idiots, the Saudis have used such methods as fueling an intra-Sunni Arab civil war (Iraq–with Jordan’s help), a Sunni-Shia Arab civil war (Lebanon), and have tried for an intra-Shia Arab civil war (Lebanon). In Palestine, though they were not partners with the harmful idiots in igniting what could become an intra-Sunni Arab civil war, they nonetheless seem to be packpedaling on the Mecca Accord. As I've said earlier, they're running scared--of the harmful idiots, of the American Jewish Right, and of Israel because of the latter's infulence in Congress.

With yet another and newer American threat hanging over their head (the first was the Jewish Right’s Defense Policy Board threat to break up the kingdom into smaller states) some of the Saudis probably are asking themselves: Should domestic forces, especially in the U.S., dictate a change in alliances in the region (I will not explain), who would be the ones defending the Arab World, the Kingdom included? These Saudis unavoidably are asking : Is weakening those Arabs who can fight, those who are still standing on their feet, not a prescription to hurting the Kingdom and in the end our always threatening friends, the harmful idiots? The harmful idiots cannot see–by definition–beyond their nose. But should we share in their short-sightedness and cave in to yet another threat? Should we not lose in the long run by having all turn into useless Arabs who are unable to fight, as Egypt?

(The Saudis and Egyptians have formed a permanent entity to coordinate politically. Watch out Iran! Not. Expect the Islamists to intensify their infiltration of Egyptian troops. No one knows when these will be shipped to Bahrain, to Saudi Arabia, to Yemen--not again, oh no! Not Yemen. Not another Nasser-like fiasco.)

In the long run–not the immediate tit-for-tat harmful idiots time–maybe the real government in Saudi Arabia (the intelligence service) should assess what Arabs can defend the Arab World, the Kingdom included– not what Israelis or harmful idiots.

RECOGNIZE ISRAEL OR ELSE!

second very rough and funnier(?)draft

THE SAUDIS AND THE ISRAELIS ARE DRAWING CLOSER. MAYBE NOT THAT CLOSE.


In my last foray (“Score Yet More Civil Wars for the Harmful Idiots”) I came down hard on the Saudis. I sensed increased cooperation between their intelligence service and the Israeli. Such cooperation, I judged, was uncalled for in view of the starving by the Israeli government of Gaza. Not to mention that, strategically, jumping over the parties directly affected (the Palestinians, the Syrians, and the Lebanese), robs these of the opportunity to obtain some real long-term compensation from the Europeans. In addition, it exposes the royal family to the accusation of having sold down the Arab Street--the Palestinians, the Lebanese, and the Syrians, in particular. Finally, drawing closer to Israel hardly achieves any protection for the Kingdom from Iran. Israel in the end is useless when it come to Iran, even harmful when one considers unconventional warfare and the mobilization value to Iran and the Street of Saudi-Israeli coziness. I even made light of the Saudis’ commitment to the Mecca Accord between Mahmoud Abbas and the Hamas leadership, as I sensed a retreat from that commitment (e.g., allowing Israeli Prime Minister Olmert to address Syria on al-Arabiyyah while Israeli troops starve Gaza.)

In essence, I was right about Saudi Arabia and Israel drawing closer. But I didn’t appreciate , nor could I now assess, the relative permanence or non- of this rapprochement. I can assess with a fair amount of certainty that this rapprochement doesn’t make sense strategically for the Kingdom. (Nor would it change things much for for the wishful thinking Israelis, who are forever trying to avoid their predicament: historic brotherhood/sisterhood with the Palestinians, in one secular and democratic state which would be the envy of the world.) But the Saudi government may assess otherwise.

What I didn't appreciate was the amount of pressure being exerted by the harmful idiots on the Saudis. A NYTImes.com article (see below) came to the rescue, so to speak, to complement my earlier analytial foray.


THE HARMFUL IDIOTS TIGHTEN THE SCREWS ON THE SAUDIS–OR THEY THINK THEY ARE.

An article today’s NYTimes.com indirectly provides an explanation for the seeming back-pedaling by Saudi Arabia about some of its (more-or-less) independent policies in Iraq and Palestine–independent of the policies of the harmful idiots.

It turns out that the harmful idiots have been tightening the screws on the Saudis to achieve one concrete policy objective ( a Saudi recognition of Israel and normalization of relations with that state, before and without total Israeli withdrawal and without addressing the grievances of hte refugees and of Lebanon) and another not-so-concrete objective (achievement of peace in Iraq by trusting the Maliki government.)

To explain to the Arab readers of this blog: the first objective would steal the Jewish community away from the Democratic Party, once and for all. The second would show the semblance of success for the Republican harmful idiots before these order withdrawal.

This tightening of the screws explains in part the seeming backpedaling by the Saudis on such policies as the Mecca Accord. The Saudis are trying to please the harmful idiots. They may not be scared. But they likely are concerned. They know this administration has hardly any credibility left, domestically and overseas. They can wait it out. But they would like to accommodate it for the balance of its term, if only to keep it from causing yet more harm, as a separated couple would accommodate their grieving child–by overdoing it. After which: good riddance to it and the Jewish Right, Kissinger and the Defense Policy Board--all those who wanted to break up the Kingdom and orphan children to test their brillant Israel-on-top schemes. (This is how I feel; the Saudi leaders probably want to kiss their ass.)

CAN SAUDI ARABIA AFFORD TO LOSE THE CONVENTIONAL DEFENSE PROTECTION FROM THE UNITED STATES?

When all’s said and done, Saudi Arabia can ill-afford to lose the conventional defense protection afforded by the United States. Or can it not? Such (conventional military protection) is now increasingly proving to be counter-productive. Iraq has made it abundantly clear. The lesson: unconventional warfare is the only way to defeat the United States. Consider the expenses we go through for total security, to defend against individuals who should be the purview mostly of intelligence overseas and close cooperation with other governments. Only a fool therefore would battle the U.S. conventionally. Which makes it that American protection, conventional, isn’t that effective. To make things so much worse, the very presence of the U.S. military in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, if extensive, to provide conventional military protection, should become a mobilization theme, powerful and effective, against the harmful idiots and the pearl of their eye. And, by extension, the Uncle Tom Arab leaders on their payroll.

THE THREAT. BUT NO ONE CARES.

The NYTimes.com’s article is by Helene Cooper et al.: “U.S. Officials Voice Frustrations With Saudis’ Role in Iraq.” (July 27, 2007)

The article is nothing more than a public communication by the harmful idiots to the Saudis, a threat. It’s similar to the repeated and not so subtle threats made against Iran, the most recent being that the Iranians have been training Iraqis to target better their shells on the Green Zone. (Yeah, so?) In good part the idea is to mobilize the U.S. public against Iran; and now Saudi Arabia. What’s missing is the following calculation: the American tax base (“the public”) has given up on Iraq and its surrounding. It doesn’t care. It had lent its support in the hope (in good part) of scoring an economic bonanza. It turned out that the bonanza was scored by the friends and families of the harmful idiots, by the Iraqi “assets,” and not by the tax base. And now, simply put, the Iraq investment has gone bad. Time to cut our economic losses and get the hell out. We don’t care about Iran’s role, nor that of Saudi Arabia. Neither is putting money in our pockets. Both and their Iraq are drawing money out of our pockets. If anything, Iraq is draining us economically.

EXCERPTS

Here are some excerpts from Ms. Cooper's article:

“Saudi Arabia has also stymied a number of other American foreign policy initiatives, including a hoped-for Saudi embrace of Israel.” (Emphasis added.)


“One senior administration official says he has seen evidence that Saudi Arabia is providing financial support to opponents of Mr. Maliki. He [meaning it’s not she, Rice, but likely Gates] declined to say whether that support was going to Sunni insurgents because, he said, ‘That would get into disagreements over who is an insurgent and who is not.’”


“...Bush administration officials are voicing increasing anger at what they say has been Saudis Arabia’s counterproductive role in the Iraq war...[T]he Saudis have offered financial support to Sunni groups in Iraq. Of an estimated 60 to 80 foreign fighters who enter Iraq each month, American military and intelligence officials say that nearly half are coming from Saudi Arabia and that the Saudis have not done enough to stem the flow.”

SCORE YET MORE CIVIL WARS FOR THE HARMFUL IDIOTS. ATTEMPTED REALIGNMENTS IN IRAQ?

third draft

WITHDRAWING

The talk now is about how to withdraw from Iraq. One missing ingredient in this talk is that neither the harmful idiots nor any influential country is working to bring into Iraq troops organized by the United Nations, if only to build fortified camps inside the country to protect refugees.

The U.N. already has expressed its intent to return to Iraq. But what’s needed is not only an administrative/humanitarian return. Needed are U.N. troops to establish protected camps. These camps should be havens for the civilians who will be displaced by the raging civil wars, once he harmful idiots order U.S. troops to withdraw.

CIVIL WAR: PALESTINE

These civil wars in Iraq will be taking place in a country that many believe is the heart of the Arab World. Iraq is the very heart of Arabism. Congratulations to the Israelis and the American Jewish Right. They got what they wanted.

Engineering civil wars, purposely but mostly by harmful idiocy, is nothing new for the harmful idiots. They’re now working hard for a civil war in Palestine. They may succeed, especially if Saudi King Abdallah doesn’t exert the pressure necessary to force Fatah to accept partnership with Hamas. It’ll be difficult for the King, for many reasons:


First, Mr. Abbas, to obtain cargo, is placing himself at the mercy not of an Arab power, but of Israel and the harmful idiots. (The Sadat phenomenon.)

Second, Saudi intelligence and the princes may just be swimming in yet another slush fund meant to enrich the princes, screw Iran and, along the way, screw Hamas and Syria and cause yet more misery in Lebanon and Palestine. In other words, Saudi intelligence seems to be running the real foreign policy of the Kingdom, one where the King is given a limited role (visit here, smile there) while Saudi intelligence goes its own way in coordinating with Israel and the United States.

Third, some scandal could erupt about a secret meeting between the Saudi King and a senior Israeli official during the king’s recent visit to Jordan. Such would diminish Saudi influence significantly.

All in all, signs are present that the Saudis, in spite of alleged differences with the harmful idiots (e.g., the Mecca Accord), are nonetheless coordinating closely with them and the Israelis. On or about July 10, 2007, Israeli Prime Minister Olmert was allowed to target an address to Syria's President Bashar al-Asad using al-Arabiyyah, the Saudi satellite television station formed to compete with Qatar’s al-Jazeerah. This appearance added quite a lot of credibility to the this blog’s speculation that the Saudi king may after all have met with a senior Israeli official on his visit to Amman. It would take a decision at the King’s level to allow for an Israeli Prime Minister, one who's starving Arab and Muslim Gaza, and torpedoing the Mecca Accord (allegedly dear to the Saudis), to appear on Saudi television and make a flirtatious address to Syria. This was nothing less than a Saudi-Israeli message to Syria, that the two are now coordinating closely, that they are in the same trench facing off with Iran. Another sign of coordination: On or about July 17, 2007, Saudi Arabia praised President Bush’s initiative to re-start the peace initiative his administration had for so long dismissed. The non Saudi-financed Arab press (usually financed by Qatar or Iran) was abuzz with speculation that the proposed peace conference was meant to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia and not to create a Palestinian state.

I don’t know where the Saudis think they're going with all of this. It’s one thing to have the Palestinians and the Syrians wrap up a peace agreement with Israel. It’s another altogether for the Saudis to jump over the starved, oppressed, and humilated Palestinians, the agonizing Lebanese, and the occupation for four decades of the Arab Joulan and its colonization, to effect peace with Israel on behalf of the entire Arab World. Is it because the Kingdom has so much money that it’s swimming in a false sense of confidence? And all of that to contain Iran? Saudi Arabia plays up to Iran by coordinating with it on Lebanon, yet it makes every move possible to screw it in the not-so-hidden agenda to form an all-Sunni front to contain it. Don’t the Saudi decision-makers realize that the Islamic Republic is way too sophisticated and alert (and on war footing)to fall for the silly act by Saudi Arabia? Serious: How sophomoric can Saudi decision-makers be? Is the royal family (since, in the end, the blame will be on that family and not on the intelligence service or the incongruous--superficially, as in an act-- Saudi government) willing to take on all the bitterness and hatred of the Palestinians, the Lebanese and the Sunni Arab Street--the bitterness and hatred which are bound to follow the imperfect peace agreement they’re working for? Any peace agreement that doesn’t return all Arab land (1967) and pay reparations to the Palestinians and to Lebanon? Not a few million dollars here, a few there from what’s left over from slush funds in the Kingdom. I’m talking about real long-term money from Germany, and Europe. The Saudis are taking on more than they can chew, if one looks long-term. Israel should be made to go through the Arab parties most affected by its policies, not jump over their heads to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the U.A.E.


(Note: The Saudis, the harmful idiots and all involved should stop thinking that the Islamists are only a tool of Islamic Iran. The Islamists have terrific popular support, if only because they’ve introduced relative non-corruption to the Middle East. This relative freedom from corruption is a revolutionary phenomenon. What will come after the Islamists, should these be “defeated” --a huge if-- will certainly not be a warm adoption of the United States and Israel. It’ll likely be yet a higher level of secret and sophisticated organizing, inspired by religion, and meant to defeat those who defeated the non-corrupt elements in Arab society. It’ll mean terror galore.)

CIVIL WAR: LEBANON

Fortunately for Lebanon’s exhausted population, the harmful idiots have all but given up on civil wars in that country, especially intra-Shia. They’ve failed, miserably. In Lebanon, their efforts have backfired. Syria scored a major success when it turned the harmful idiots/Jordanian intelligence/Saudi intelligence dumb Sunni solidarity campaign against the campaign’s Lebanese sponsors: the non-Islamist corrupt proxies of the Saudis and the harmful idiots.

On a wider scale, to refresh the reader's memory, those working under the umbrella of the harmful idiots, by launching the Sunni solidarity campaign to contain Iran and the Arab Shia, have conceded the Arab Shia to Iran. Congrats to Iran. The Islamic Republic doesn’t seem to need to do much to multiply its power. The harmful idiots are willing to serve (conquer Arab Iraq) as are the Saudi and Jordanian intelligence services (the Sunni solidarity campaign.) Israel meanwhile does what Israel does best–trade intelligence–including with the Saudis, intelligence such as the social security number, fingerprints, DNA profile, and all sorts of personal information about the editor of this blog.

FINESSING LEBANESE POLITICS

Syria scored big in Lebanon, yet again. Nahr al-Bared was a masterpiece of political retaliation against the campaign for an all-Sunni front to contain Iran and the Arab Shia and isolate Syria from its Arab environment. Here’s why: Soldiers in the Lebanese army mostly serve in their region of residence, a way to lessen the cost of commuting for the soldiers and to allow them to help out in tending their orchards, caring for their families, saving on rent, and so on of other savings. Lebanon’s north is predominately Sunni. The army there is too. Igniting trouble in the Palestinian camp of Nahr al-Bared, located in the north, would mean that most of those killed would be Sunni–predominately Sunni troops fighting exclusively Sunni Islamists at the camp, a number of whom come from Lebanon’s north, Tripoli in particular. If you haven’t noticed, Sunni politicians in the north (e.g., Karami–no reputation for corruption--and Miqati) haven’t said much about the Nahr al-Bared affair. Why? Their constituencies are fighting each other! The Christian soldiers whose towns of origins are located in the northern Akkar region (Qubayyat, ‘Andqit, Shadrah) mostly reside in the Jounieh area and work out of the nearby Sarba barracks. Hence the relative un-involvement of these in the Nahr al-Bared battles.

Compare and contrast with Ain el-Helweh, in Saida, in the south, a predominately Shia region, though the city of Saida is predominately Sunni. Should Syria and its allies have ignited trouble there, the Lebanese troops attending to the trouble would’ve been predominately Shia. And Ain el-Helweh is way more troublesome and would be a far more deadly challenge to the Lebanese army than Nahr al-Bared. Isbat al-Ansar, Jund el-Sham, Islamic Fatah, you name it...they’re all there. Pitting predominately-Shia Lebanese troops against the Palestinian, Lebanese, and other Sunni Islamists in Ain el-Helweh could turn into a Shia (Lebanese army)-Sunni (Palestinian and other Islamists) mini civil war. That would empty into the campaign by the Lebanese proxies of the Saudis and the harmful idiots–the ones who were able to rob the public purse by promising a peace treaty with Israel. I’m not saying it couldn’t be done. It could , especially if it can be staged as a battle within Ain el-Helweh between Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah (now funded, I suspect, by Hariri and the Saudis in the hope that it would become a Hariri millitia and balance out Hizbollah) and the Sunni Islamists in the camp. Still, it’d been a risky gamble. Nahr al-Bared was way safer.


CIVIL WARS: THE MODUS OPERANDI OF THE HARMFUL IDIOTS.

Igniting civil wars is the modus operandi of the harmful idiots and their reactionary allies. They had destroyed already one Arab country, Lebanon. They destroyed it to avoid the formation of a Palestinian state so that the apple of their eye could bask in the glory of its Hey-I-Can-Be-A-Base-For-Imperial-Aggression-Against-Arabs-And-Use-the-Right-Wing-Within-My-Diaspora-For-The-Same-Can-You-Give-Me-Some-Cargo(strategic alliance) victory in the six-day war. Neither the harmful idiots nor the apple of their eye, both full of themselves, would look beyond the immediate future. The harmful idiots went into Iraq with the same attitude, borrowed from Israel’s right wing and its colonialists: arrogant, self-styled superior, full of themselves. They had bought into the fiction that Israel was superior to Arabs and Muslims. They had failed to consider that Israel had scrammed from Lebanon with its tail between its legs, all thanks to a little political party called Hizbollah. That party used such simple methods as road-side bombs and suicide bombings. (Earth to harmful idiots: Do these methods ring a bell? Iraq, maybe?) Hizbollah did it patiently, conducting a war of liberation that spanned nearly two decades. Instead of mulling over the experience of the apple of their eye in south Lebanon in the 1980s and 1990s, the harmful idiots took us into a huge defeat in Iraq, so full of themselves about their expensive war technology. And such defeat is not without repercussions.

DEFEAT: NO ONE OF SIGNIFICANCE NOW LISTENS TO THE HARMFUL IDIOTS.

(Note: I find the Financial Times’ coverage of the intricacies of the energy wars to be quite adequate. I would've liked to have access to the petroleum publications; but I don't; they’re too expensive.)

Consider the following:

1. Turkey, once a reliable ally, thinks we’ve become a burden. Not only have we stoked the fires of Kurdish nationalism, which threatens the unity of its territory or, at a minimum, the country’s stability; we did it to an extent that seems rather difficult to reverse.

Turkey has recently told off American policy-makers who had objected to a memorandum of understanding between it and Iran. The memo would entail the construction of a natural gas pipeline between Iran and Turkey for the benefit of the European markets. The backlash in Ankara against the American opposition was loud and widespread. Turkey, the harmful idiots were told, will do what is in its national interest.


2. Russia, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan, ignoring opposition by the United States, have agreed to build a pipeline for natural gas across central Asia which will lead to Russia, and from Russia to Europe. This plan should increase Russia’s influence by many folds.


3. Less recently, Iran, India, and the most dangerous country in the world–Pakistan–agreed as follows:

“ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN. Pakistan, India, and Iran came one step closer this week to realizing a $7 billion natural gas pipeline, a project that is likely to irk US policymakers trying to contain Tehran’s nuclear ambition.”

The Christian Science Monitor (online), May 31, 2007. Emphasis added.

4. “An escalating crackdown by the US on foreign companies and banks doing business with Iran is provoking opposition in Britain and Europe, where diplomats say the action could lead to a trade war.

“...The British, along with other European governments, see the US approach [referring to an anti-Iran bill making its way in Congress] as draconian and are lobbying against it."


Ewen MacAskill, “ US steps up efforts to stop EU firms trading with Iran,” Guardian (online), July 20, 2007.

(To be continued.)

A SAUDI SLUSH FUND AND LIBYA

firrst drafft

DEFINTITION

Slush Fund n [...] 2: a fund for bribing public officials or carrying on corruptive propaganda." Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary

A MODEL

An Arab friend, a city planner, commenting about Rafiq Hariri’s humongous construction projects in Lebanon, would say, “The only way politicians in this part of the world become billionaires is by launching huge construction projects.” The late Rafiq Hariri, may God bless his soul, had imported this practice from Saudi Arabia. Poor Lebanon. It never stood a chance.

Another way for politicians to skim billions away is to create intelligence-related slush funds. In the Saudi case, oil made it that much easier, since an oil company, working in cahoot with the royals and British intelligence, could pump hundreds of thousands of barrels per day and not have these numbers reflected in the official government accounting.

SLUSH FUNDS: A MODEL FOR THE NEAR FUTURE

Theoretically, this model can be repeated with other governments and other oil companies. Younger princes should be eager to see the creation of similar slush funds. These would be meant to defeat Iran and defeat or lure Syria. But the same slush fuunds, along the way, should make billions for the younger princes. These funds should make up for the eventual withdrwal of U.S. troops from Iraq now that the American tax base is sending yet clearer signals that it no longer believes the Iraq investment is worthwhile. I'd expect Kuwait and the U.A.E. to create their own version of such funds.

SAUDI ARABIA V. LIBYA

An article by Stephen Fidler ( “Al-Yamamah: the Saudi foreign policy connection” (Financial Times, Monday July 2, 2007, at 3) explains, maybe only in part, the reason behind the enmity between Libya’s leadership and that of Saudi Arabia. Only a couple of years ago Muammar al-Qadhafi was alleged to have engineered an assassination attempt against Saudi King Abdallah.

Here are some excerpts from the Financial Times’ article:

“The Al-Yamamah agreement, originally signed in 1985 by the Saudi and British governments to pay for the Saudi purchase of Tornado jets, was employed to distribute Saudi oil revenues outside the country’s official budget. ‘It was a way of Saudis paying money to Saudis,' said one person involved in the deal.

“The mechanism has been used to pay for more than combat aircraft. According to one account, it bought arms from Egypt to the Mujahideen fighting Soviet forces in Afghanistan and paid for clandestine purchases of Russian arms to oust Libyan troops from Chad.” (Emphasis added.)

[...]

“[A special account at the Bank of England] would receive funds from the sale of Saudi oil lifted and sold by BP and Royal Dutch Shell, which took a commission. [...] [O]ver nearly two decades, tens of billions of dollars were directed through [the special account.]”

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.)