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

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

second rough draft


A. SAUDI ARABIA: DO PUBLIC TRIALS SCARE THEM?

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

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



B. PLANTATION IRAQ: IT’S ALL ABOUT RUSES

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


IRAN

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

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

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

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

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

(Counter-argument:

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


THE HARMFUL IDIOTS

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

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

SYRIA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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



NOT YET


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

PlantationIraq: it’s a time bomb.

NEITHER NELSON MANDELA NOR ARAB NATIONALISM

Somewhat of a rough draft

BACKGROUND

One is dizzied by the many fronts the harmful idiots have opened to manage their occupation of Iraq. For instance: watch the harmful idiot Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs go mad. Watch his manic campaign across the globe, working against a clock that should soon usher the non-glamorous end of the Bush Administration. Desperate? You bet. The harmful idiots want to secure a permanent place in Iraq before the Bush Administration departs and without going to war with Iran. So a lot of what they’re doing is sheer bluff. But they may have to. They may have to go to war, yet again, as a gambler would double her bet in the hope of recouping her losses. Iran is playing it relatively calm. But one never knows.

Most recently, the harmful idiots have unleashed the crown prince of Bahrain to warn against Iran prepping for a nuclear weapon. No one of import in the Gulf would do it; so he had to do. The harmful idiots would do anything to persuade the Gulf and other Arabs that the Iranians are a danger to the Arabs, and they’ll take what they can get, including a statement by a relative unknown.

But first and foremost the harmful idiots are trying to keep Iran and Syria on the defensive. Why? The immediate reason is to buy themselves time to tighten their hold over Iraq. They want to beef up the shadow state (Baath born-again) they sponsor. In addition, they need to further penetrate the Shia state by pouring lots and lots of money into the pockets of Shia tribes and operatives and what have you. Finally, they want to weld the Shia state and the shadow state together into one government which will be theirs and which is able to withstand their withdrawal.

Attack Syria to Show Iran

As part of keeping Iran and Syria on the defensive, the Under Secretary’s counterparts at the Pentagon according to an Israeli daily had dispatched planes, with Israeli protection and Turkish help, to bomb a Syrian site which we’re told was meant to become a North Korea-built nuclear reactor. I have serious (very serious) doubts about their story. As things stand now Turkey is allowing the most it ever had of water into Syria, water which Syria needs badly. Accordingly, Syria -- the most cunning governing elite around -- couldn’t be that foolish to be building a nuclear reactor so close to the Turkish border, under Turkey’s very nose. Syria would be risking the very life Turkey is currently allowing to flow into Syria. In short: I don’t buy it; not for a moment.

(I do buy the highly likely possibility that the US had bombed a missile storage/set up site. This newsletter had said in the past that the next Israeli-Syrian war should be a missile war against the cities. And Syria is preparing for this likelihood.)


The true target of the US raid, once again, likely was Iran. According to the Israeli daily, the American planes dropped a “tactical nuclear” bomb on the site and destroyed it. Clearly another message to Iran: that it cannot hide its installations underground. The harmful idiots’ “tactical nuclear” weapons will reach these, however deep they are.

Locked into the Culture of Fancy Weapons

What the harmful idiots don’t seem to understand is that conventional and fancy weapons are no longer it. “It” has been for a good while now about the ability to mobilize -- about issues, the Street and its prepping for guerilla and terror warfare. “It” is about what brand of nationalism will re-unite Iraq and retrieve the lands occupied by the Israeli colonialists to build the Palestinian state and regain the Arab Joulan to Arab Syria. That quest will not end, shock’n awe or shock ‘ n blow. Whatever.


Saud al-Faisal Offers a (Stale) Way Out.

Saud al-Faisal, most definitely in coordination with the harmful idiots (in my modest opinion not his averment), recently floated the idea of a Gulf consortium which would provide (and monitor) the needed nuclear material for civilian use to any and all in the region who demand it. This is the harmful idiots’ carrot. (Iran just said no–11/3/07.) Saud al-Faisal had in the past floated another idea in the same vein to rein in nuclear Iran; he did it with Flynt Everett, one of the few WASPS left who has not joined ranks or forces with the Jewish Right that sits at the center of the American-Israeli strategic alliance and that defines US foreign policy in the Middle East.

(The US-Israel strategic alliance has robbed all Arabs, including the harmful idiots’ favored reactionary governments, of think tanks with which they can work without looking like they’re kissing Israel’s ass. Which they don’t mind doing but (I’m lowering my voice): n o t in p u b l i c ! Prince Faisal himself likely has run out of Washington think tanks with which he can work since mostly all have been taken over. Our harmful idiots are likely studying the possibility of affording him and other Arabs a think tank which has not been taken over by the strategic alliance boys of the Jewish Right and their Christian Right allies. The poor man needs an outlet in this country and not be limited only to Flynt Everett and Anthony Cordsman. )

It’s unclear whether Faisal’s nuclear consortium includes the jewel of them all. I doubt it. But stopping Iran from developing the Bomb, containing it, which is on the mind of Faisal and Everett, isn’t really what’s on the mind of the harmful idiots at the Pentagon. The Pentagon recently confirmed that it’s not Iran’s nuclear program which is preoccupying it but Iran’s meddling in Iraq. (This newsletter had reached this conclusion without access to the Pentagon and before the L.A Times had reported it.) The nuclear issue seems to be yet another point of pressure the harmful idiots are using to assure an some sort of acceptable outcome in Iraq.

Not that there’s not a vacuum in the regional balance of power. There is. But this vacuum had existed for years after 1991, when the Baath had still been in power. Iran hadn’t made a single move to occupy Iraq. Iran could’ve: the Baath government had been so weakened first by the destruction of the Iraqi military by the US armed forces and later by the sanctions. Iran could’ve valsed in. But it didn’t.


A NEW FORM FOR A BALANCE OF POWER: A BALANCE OF BRANDS OF NATIONALISM?

The power vacuum in the region is (and has been for a good while) not of a conventional nature -- shock n’ awe, “tactical nuclear,” bunker busters, and what have you. The salient vacuum isn’t military; it’s about identity and belief system -- about nationalism. And it’s about the ability to fail the projects of those who want to dominate When the harmful idiots eliminated the Iraqi Baath government, they in effect had eliminated nearly the last vestige of a common Arab political identity. Only Syria is left to represent that political commonality. The rest are busy fattening themselves, are waiting for the next delivery of wheat, or have gone Islamic first , and Arab third or fourth.


The Saudis: Sedated by Money

The Saudis cannot fill the nationalism gap. They have the money; that’s all they really have. Historically they’ve run scared of Arab nationalism, albeit pretending otherwise. And Islamism nearly destroyed them. (To be fair, one of their Kings, the late Faisal, had courage and was not corrupt, to boot. Even though he fought off Nasser’s Arab nationalism, he nonetheless came to the aid of Egypt and Syria in the 1973 war.) The Pentagon itself -- in the Defense Policy Board, with Henry Kissinger included and other luminaries of the American Jewish Right -- wanted the Saudis’ ass. They will now claim it was a bluff. Bluff or not, it scared the wits out of the Saudi government and should have stayed in their memory, come what may. But, suddenly, in large part thanks to the Iraq invasion, money flowed into the Kingdom with such abundance, and all became history. Money, so much of it, has sedated the Saudi leadership and has dulled its senses. The Saudi public, including most of the militants, are now preoccupied with consuming and reproducing in preparation for the next era when oil revenues would diminish. For now, the opposition in Saudi Arabia has all but evaporated. Some reformists do exist but they sit in jail, no charges filed, and are mostly forgotten. Not even the harmful idiots dare tell the Saudis to release them because the harmful idiots need the Saudis’ cooperation among the Sunnis of Iraq.


The Egyptians: They're Not Celiacs.

As for the Egyptians, these had quit the realm of Arab identity and nationalism when Anwar Sadat had turned his back on that identity and chose instead to cozy up to the American Jewish community. All to get enough wheat to feed Egypt’s wheat-dependent population.


All We Have Left is Iraq

And so the harmful idiots thought to themselves: what about Iraq? Can’t we revive Arab nationalism from that divided country -- to mobilize the Sunni Street against Iran? (Stop it! You’re killing us. They’re s t r a t e g i s t s !) If we can, the shadow state we created there would be that much safer and would become appealing to so many in the Shia state. (See prior recent posts.)

Ayad Alawi, the harmful idiots’ man in Iraq, and the man once most favored by the Saudis, the Kuwaitis and the other rich Arabs, recently (on or about 11/1/07) answered some questions in a media interview. (Most favored now for the Saudis is Tariq al-Hashimi.) Mr. Alawi is trying to do that–to revive a sense of Arab nationalism to provide balance to Iran’s Islamism which has sprouted the Shia state in Iraq and Sunni Islamist groups.


In that interview Alawi spoke about the “strategic mistakes” the harmful idiots had made in Iraq: dismantling the state institutions, taking Iraq in a sectarian direction (he couldn’t have seen it the great physician he is) , and not dealing with the intervention of “neighbors” (he meant Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia) at the outset of the colonial occupation. (Invading in-and-of-itself was a mistake. But hey, It’s HIS interview.)

Mr. Alawi reminded the Arab governments that Iraq wanted to preserve its Arab identity. That he and his cohorts had gone to the Arab governments for help to unseat Saddam Hussein, but that these didn’t respond. So what’s a physician to do? He did what he did: he went over to the harmful idiots. He didn’t say that within the ranks of the harmful idiots, those who became most excited about his ideas and those of his Iran cohorts were the luminaries of the American Jewish Right -- the Israel-obsessed crowd of right wing self-referential simpletons. He allied himself to the strategic alliance boys losing any credibility he might have had. But hey, again: it’s HIS interview.

So, on the one hand, we have the harmful idiots through Alawi in Iraq trying to jump start a timid Arab nationalism -- or bemoaning it, it’s not fully clear. Either way, the idea is to have some sort of nationalism, one that’s less-than-Islamic, to balance the Islamic brand of nationalism nurtured by Iran. All to contain the Islamic Republic, of course. (The harmful idiots and their Gulf proxies are pumping money into re-defining Islamic concepts such as Jihad.)


The Sunni Damn to Contain the Arab Shia Flood

On the other hand, and in a stark contrast, in Lebanon, we have the harmful idiots in effect working at cross-purpose with Alawi. The harmful idiots had recently brought to France Saad Hariri and the former army general, Michel Aoun, the most popular leader among the Lebanese Christian Arabs, to agree on a deal for the election of a President.

(Note to self: float your name as a possibility for Presindent. You’re Maronite. Head to Lebanon: meet with Patriarch Sfeir. But first secure a few photos with you aunt the nun. Show them to the Patriarch and talk about forgiveness. Drop in on the Vatican on the way there. Show them the photos with you and your aunt. Swing by Damascus and tell them you’ll have lunch at Souq al-Hamidiyyah in Damascus each and every weekend. Stop calling them harmful idiots and write an article praising Rice's amazing national security talents. Write a post in French praising the historic relationship between the compassionate mother -- France -- and Lebanon, and one in Arabic, calling for brotherhood among the Arab governments. Head to Saudi Arabia but only after you praise King Abdallah and Crown Prince Sultan in a few posts--something about the success of the King's current European tour. Cover some cute stories happening in the Kingdom such as the one where the Kingdom is allowing an inmate to marry the daughter of another inmate. Write up a poem praising Prince Nayef -- no one’s done this yet; you’d be first. Write up another post praising the late Rafiq Hariri for ridding Beirut of rats for a cool $17 billion only, and asking that that expertise be brought over to Dupont Circle in Washington D.C. where I’ve seen rats as large as deer. The rats on Wisconsin Avenue in contrast are way smaller and cuter, especially near Van Ness. We’ll keep these and use the Hariri method only for the deer-sized ones.)

The real idea of this meeting in France for the harmful idiots is to contain Hizbollah, now that Hariri and Saudi intelligence had failed to erect a Sunni front against the Shia. (Nahr al-Bared failed them.) Mind you: neither the harmful idiots nor Saudi intelligence have given up on the idea of a Sunni damn to contain the Arab Shia flood. Adding Aoun and the Christians is only meant to plug a leak they (and only they) detect in that damn. The reality is that they need to have their eyes and their brains checked because the damn doesn’t exist. Whatever exists is leaking so badly that it amounts to nothing. The deal, in short, couldn’t be but a way to encircle Hizbollah and turn Lebanon into a U.S. base. In fact, a Pentagon delegation had only recently visited Lebanon and discussed the possibility of bases. Hope, harmfully idiotic or not, still springs eternal.


In Lebanon, therefore, the harmful idiots are not going the Arab nationalism route. Instead, they are trying to buttress the Sunni front against the Shias, by adding on an a Christian ally–Aoun. Why? To contain Syria and the Shias, and to limit the influence of the Islamic Republic.


NELSON MANDELA OR ARAB NATIONALISM


This newsletter (I believe) was first to bring out the absence of a Nelson Mandela in Iraq. It did it while commenting on the lynching (in effect) by America’s right wing–Jewish and Christian–of an Arab leader. Later, and relatively recently, the chief of the harmful idiots lectured us on the absence of a Nelson Mandela in Iraq. As if there were a Nelson Mandela among his crowd of self-referential and Israel-obsessed sadists!

Compare and contrast the harmful idiots (pick any of them) to Nelson Mandela. Mandela forgives. The harmful idiots kill Mr. Saddam Hussein’s sons and gloat. Mandela heals; the harmful idiot-in-chief lands on an aircraft carrier in celebration of crushing Arabs and Muslims. Mandela’s ability to forgive is so rare. The harmful idiots’ sadism is not. In recent memory I can only think of the Amish of Pennsylvania as deserving to lay a claim to this sainthood. In their ability to forgive Nelson Mandela and the Amish showed us not only their generous souls and magnanimity; they too showed us their terrific and superior intelligence. In contrast, the harmful idiots showed us sick and pathological sadism in the extreme.

To forgive is to move forward, as individuals, as groups, and as nations. How dare harmful idiots mention the name of Mandela and forget the death, destruction and the orphans they created? What kind of introspection -- sick if ever -- had they never had?

We do know that neither the harmful idiots -- the sadistic champions of the death penalty and the naked aggressors against a country that had done us no harm, all prepped for by the Israel-obsessed hateful and mediocre theoreticians -- the strategic alliance boys -- nor the Iraqis are capable of fielding a Nelson Mandela. If they were, and if the Iranians were capable of such, no one would have to worry about the future.


An American-Israeli Leadership of the Arabs

What’s the alternative? What’s been consuming the harmful idiots for a long while is the following: How can the Arab World stand behind the American sadists to fight off Iran? The harmful idiots tried and tried again to draw the Iranians into some hostile action against Arabs. The idea would’ve been for the US to defend these to convince the Arabs to accept American leadership. (They’ve given up on giving the Israeli colonialists that leadership.) But Iran repeatedly has dodged all the traps which the harmful idiots had set up for it.

Why have the harmful idiots failed? For one, as outlined above, they were and are no Nelson Mandela. They’re a bunch of sadistic, self-absorbed, self-referential, and Israel-obsessed people -- hating of Arabs and Muslims by definition. For another: Alawi himself in the interview admitted (in so many words) that the United States had played a role in igniting the sectarian flames in Iraq. He didn’t explain, but I think he was referring to the policy of pursuing a consociational system, instead of an all-inclusive Arab system of government, where all are equal as Arabs, including any and all willing Kurds. Instead, the harmful idiots, inspired by the Jewish Right and the Israelis, who would like to break up the Arab World into sects, dealt with Iraq as Sunni, Shia, Christian, and what have you. Not to mention that the harmful idiots, prisoners of their racist legacy and particular cultural experience, thought affirmative action was the way to deal with the sectarian divisions they themselves had played such a huge part in furthering.



IN CONCLUSION

Iranian conventional military power can be balanced from the Gulf. The harmful idiots had done that between 1991 (following the trap which they and Kuwait had set up for the Iraqi Baathist government) and 2003 (prior to falling into the trap they set up for themselves.) I know: the harmful idiots have built a virtual Baath-born-again shadow state and would not want to leave it all alone to face off with the Shia state and Iran. Hence, I say. the amazing prospect of life in San Diego–and perhaps even Detroit, where the auto industry and the UAW seem quite intent on regaining market share. (Both cities have sizeable Iraqi immigrant communities. My advice: pick San Diego where you can go fishing for Mackerel in Mission Bay.)

The harmful idiots cannot balance Iranian power in the field of identity/nationalism. Too much stands in the way. The harmful idiots had unleashed the pearl of their eye against Jamal Abdel Nasser to defeat Arab nationalism (Abu-Khaled really really really had liked the United States but the racist harmful idiots of those days weren’t about to like a darker leader who dared.) In addition, the harmful idiots are the main sponsors of Israeli colonialism against the Palestinian and Syrian Arabs. Too, the harmful idiots, inspired in good part by the Jewish Right of the strategic alliance, had invaded an Arab country, dismantled it, and orphaned its children. To cite a few examples.

In comparison, frankly, Iran had done so little harm to the Arabs. Until (and if) it does, the harmful idiots can forget leadership of the Arabs. They will always have their reactionary governments, albeit not fully, not when these governments are swimming in oil money which escaped here by not being taxed.

(The Iranians had hurt us in 1983 by blowing up the US marines in Beirut. But I assure you that the ones to blame for that were the harmful idiots of the Reagan Administration first and foremost. Their incompetence in their inability to read loud and clear signals from the region, which would have mandated the transfer of the Marines away from their location, sits at the heart of the tragedy.)

No Nelson Mandela. Good luck with a timid Arab nationalism. Good luck with furthering the Sunni-Shia rift in Lebanon and inside and outside Iraq.

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(Note:

The Iranians should by now be regretting not having mended their relationship with the Baath government before the American invasion. Watch them squirm about as the US armada breathes down their neck. This newsletter, using a balance of power angle and some facts on the ground, had predicted a mutual defense treaty between Iran and Baathist Iraq prior to the invasion. Such would have made sense for the Iranians and likely would’ve scuttled the plans for the invasion. But, once again, my efficiency got the best of me. Instead of dealing with a needy and weak Baathist government, the Iranians at present are dealing with an unstable, unsure, and eminently confused superpower–a very dangerous situation for Iran and, I might add, for us all.)