WEEKEND TALK

phirst rugh draught

[NOTE: what’s wrong with General Petraeus? He’s making statements in Kuwait about shifts in movements by Iran in Iraq. Too, he said that the use of IEDs had increased in the first ten days of 2008. Not that one can base statistical conclusions on ten days versus the 365 days which preceded them. But he is, though reluctantly. Is he issuing his own counter-ultimatum? Does he know about the Iranian ultimatum? Is he feigning ignorance? Has he read or not this newsletter? Is he covering up for our surge’s-fine-‘n-dandy president, so perceptive, so seeking of knowledge to protect the troops? ]




fictionalized


S: So, where are we? This last incident between the Iranian speed boats and the US ships.

Saudi Politics (SPC–moi): I stopped reading or watching or listening. The harmful idiots have tried to set up the Iranians so many times that all their noise now amounts to crying wolf. They’re dying to convince the Gulf Arabs that Iran is a real threat. The Gulf Arabs don’t trust Iran, but anything that smacks of an alliance (that’s not far and remote and unstated) with Israel would threaten their domestic stability. Bahrain is predominately Shia. The rest have sizeable Shia minorities. But it’s not only the Shia; the Sunni population isn’t about to accept seeing their governments ally themselves with Israel. Not unless the latter opens up to Hamas, which isn’t about to happen any time soon–in spite of the fact that a majority of the Israelis believe that they’d be no real and lasting peace without Hamas. Al-Qaeda in Iraq has seen an eclipse, having paid the price in part for its own ruthless practices. But it’s rebounding. It knows that each and every successful operation in Iraq against the US occupation forces stirs shockwaves of popularity for itself among the Gulf Arab middle classes. These aren’t about to accept an American domination of Iraq. To them it’s tantamount to Israeli domination. To the Gulf Arabs -- to all Arabs -- Israel’s people in the US had been instrumental in moving that country’s humongous military establishment to invade and dismantle an arab (and Sunni-governed) country. The harmful idiots, the Saudis, and the Israel lobby can put so many Arab reporters, Arab and Arab-American personalities on the payroll directly or indirectly to counter that impression. But the Islamists who dominate the Arab Street have their own network and circles of public influence which may or may not be visible and which find these stooges hilariously insignificant.

S: But that incident again? The Fifth Fleet doesn’t think the voice threatening the fleet had come from speed boats Who was it then?

SPC: There’s a huge coterie, I strongly suspect, a cabal, of Arab intelligence operatives who work for the harmful idiots. This administration’s policy is to seek an iron-clad anti-Iran coalition among at least the Gulf Arabs and Israel. But they would need to convince the Gulf Arabs that Iran is such an imminent danger to them, and that Israel is not. The Iranians have been so smart and have not played along. The harmful idiots wink at their Arab intelligence cabal (Jordanian, Emirati, Kuwaiti, Egyptian) to hatch this or that to bring about a violent act by the Iranians which would persuade the Gulf governments to jump into the laps of the harmful idiots, in full. Sophomoric when one considers the shrewdness of the Iranians and the fact that all now know not to fall for the entrapment schemes by the harmful idiots. These had gone on entrapping with abandon until they entrapped us, their own people–

S: “Man 7afara 7ufratan li-akheehee, waqa3a fiha” (“Whoever digs a trap for his brother will fall [himself] into that trap”–an Arabic proverb.)


SPC: Very wise, S.; like I haven’t heard this proverb 1.4 million times. Anyway, all in the Arab World are absolutely convinced (as I am) that the harmful idiots had entrapped Saddam Hussein into invading Kuwait. No one’s gonna get fooled again. The Iranians know that their points of strength are not in using that great navy of theirs, but on the ground in the American-made plantations -- Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Palestine. Why would they want to fall for a trap in the waters of the Gulf where US ships can blow them with a push of the bottom? It could be that the harmful idiots meant the incident as an ultimatum of their own. How lame.

At any rate, it’s now all about Iraq, the bottomless pit for the US.

S: And where’s everyone heading in Iraq?

SPC: The US is stuck. The harmful idiots want to portray things as this or that. But the fact is that they have lost so much flexibility. They’re -- that’s we --in a hell hole and they refuse to see it. They’re so busy doing public relations at home and pushing the presidential candidates into accepting future Iraq involvement as a fait accompli, both as such and to improve the US bargaining position with Iran. But were one sane, one would want to get the hell out. Forget American prestige. That can be rebuilt by a policy where US politicians are not running away from tending to our garden (“cultiver son jardin.” Candide), and enacting a foreign policy which lynchpin would be mediating among enemies and rivals, with honesty, and shifting to true progressivism that would allow the likes of the ACLU and environmental groups to have a say. I’m not kidding. At any rate, even without a high casualty rate in Iraq, this occupation’s cost hasn’t diminished. And while the harmful idiots may have aimed for the high expense to cause a run on the dollar to gain a global trade advantage, the likely outcome of this policy is to sink everyone for a while–us and the trade partners.

S: Recession?

SPC: Yes. And no end in sight for cost. The chief of the harmful idiots should soon be in Saudi Arabia where some think he’ll be asking them to help shoulder the burden of cost.

S: Will they do it?

SPC: I don’t think he’ll ask. Why should he? He’ll unload the entire problem on the next administration, including the option of forcing the Saudis and other Gulf Arab governments to pay the cost of the Iraq Project. You got nuts who want to stay there for one hundred years, pushing the non-debate in a right wing bottomless pit direction. And the Gulf rulers may not have a choice.

S: Because?

SPC: Because it’ll get ugly. The harmful idiots I suspect have so much dirt on these rulers and control so many of their princes that they should be able to stir things up bad enough to make life uncomfortable to all. They should be able to virtually stage relatively bloodless coups in these countries and bring into office their people, their princes. Especially that the Gulf rulers, the Saudis in particular, have no place to go in the US to influence that country’s foreign policy as it applies to them. Their hope, I’m sure, was that the old guard of the Republican Party would reclaim that party and balance out Israeli influence. But with the right-wing Jewish Senator Lieberman lending his support to one of the old guard–Senator McCain–the Saudis don’t have anywhere to turn to prevent the American state from pressuring them to the point of near-total subjugation. George W., after having been humiliated in Iraq, is now their best friend. But he’s useless. The Democratic Party isn’t going to be sympathetic to them; the right wing Christian crazies of the Republican party sit in Israel’s lap.

S: What would you do if you were Saudi?

SPC: The only community left which the Saudis and all Arabs can approach is the African-American. The Hispanic is too disparate. The farther to the right the mainstream Jewish community goes, the more it will steer away -- by definition -- from the African-American community and its concerns. As the American Jewish community slides rightward, to be expected with relative per capita affluence, it seems to try to raise issues meant to keep passable the bridges which once united it with the African-American community during the civil right’s heyday. Darfur is one such issue–which should appeal to the African-American community, the Jewish young (who likely are disgusted with the old right-wing farts), and to the American left. Not to mention that raising such issues requires relatively little actual commitment. (It’s like Pat Robertson calling on his followers, who many amongst them live economically precarious lives, to pray for people suffering from this or that disease. What about taking on job insecurity and the need for a single-payer health insurance instead of the cheap prayers? That would be real work -- marshaling the efforts of his empire to achieve these? It's cheaper to pray.) Darfur too has the advantage of being an anti-Arab issue since it works to dismantle yet another Arab country -- Sudan. (I got the last idea from the Arab press.) But Darfur shouldn’t block close relations between the Arabs and the leaders of the African-American community should the Arabs seek that closeness. They don’t have a choice anyway. Israel’s monopolized all venues of influence on the Middle East in this country. They have bought out even Arab-Americans. Israel wants the Arab governments to go through Israel for anything related to American foreign policy in the Middle East. Arab leaders cannot afford to do that, being watched by their Streets. And Anglo foreign agents which Arab government hire have no popular base to have any influence.

S: Back to the entanglement–to Iran to the troops. What’s to be done?

SPC: I think we should open up to Iran piecemeal -- first by allowing our energy comapanies to sign a contract, then two, then three with the Islamic Republic --

S: What you’ve said in one of your posts.

SPC: Yes; there’s nothing like trade and mutual economic dependence to achieve peaceful relations. But here again, Congress should stand in the way of launching trade relations with Iran without that country accepting to be subjugated. Not to mention that the harmful idiots are into dominating and eliminating the government of Iran, not into having peace in the Gulf. The harmful idiots have now retreated on their threats of war with Iran, a tactical retreat, since this President cannot mobilize the American public to engage us in another bottomless pit war, yet again. He wants to leave with Iraq pacified under the illusion that his surge and the US military’s counter-insurgency have worked. Accordingly, the harmful idiots have instructed their asset, Nicola Sarkozy, to quiet down on calls of war–which US troops would be fighting. (They all want to fight using US troops! Go figure.) Bush has approached the Israelis asking them to tone down calls for war with Iran where, once again., US troops would be the canon’s fodder. Not that he needed to do too much persuasion. Israel bombs Iran and it’ll have its cities visited with hundreds if not thousands of missiles. Defeat after defeat The Arab Gulf leaders should be praying that Iran’s tarwidh (see prior posts) of the harmful idiots will succeed. Why? Because if Iran is able to force itself onto the American domestic scene, with oil companies having entered its market, it would revive the oil lobby for all -- the Saudis and the Iranians -- and the Gulf Arabs, especially the Saudis, should regain some influence in the US.

S: So why is there less casualties in Iraq?

SPC: You want the main–really the main–reason?

S: Yes.

SPC: Because the Baath -- and I mean the core of the party, though divided between the Syria faction and the Douri faction -- including the former armed forces (the ones who had populated the Arab Sunni resistance)– are still able to get things through among the Arab Sunni. Under the leadership of that network of party operatives and former army officers, though spread across a large array of groups and factions, the Baath old guard had decided to pull back, go on the dole -- both American and Saudi -- and wait for an intra-Shia civil war. That’s quite a cunning strategy, though it likely wouldn’t have a lasting effect–because it’s so difficult to keep a united front when you’re not resisting. Still, you have to hand it to that network -- to have turned the legions and armadas of the harmful idiots practically into their protector and benefactor. Quite an achievement -- for now.

S: So it’s not the surge?

SPC: Surge, my ass. Had the Arab Sunni resistance not have made the political decision to quiet things down, which decision had nothing to do with the surge, but with the tactic of awaiting an intra-Shia civil war, the surge would’ve provided that resistance with yet more targets. It’s almost as if the Arab Sunni are now enjoying being on the dole. Hey, not bad: the harmful idiots and the Saudis are feeding us, since the Shia who now control the oil are not. We’ll take a brake and procreate and enjoy the fruit of our once historic resistance. Then we’ll go at it when the money is cut off. But --

S: But?

SPC: They may not have that luxury for too long. All good thing come to an end. Al-Qaeda is once again proving effective. And I agree with Harith al-Dhari, the Head of the Islamic Ulama–al-Qaeda in Iraq is 90 percent Iraqi. I’ve even heard on Charlie Rose one of those Anglo (likely Australian) so called “adviser” to the US occupation of Iraq say it’s 95% Iraqi. Don’t you love it? Unemployed morons from all over the world advising in Iraq on how to subjugate Arabs! Where the f----do these people come from, anointing themselves civilizers of Muslims and Arabs? And what about this one ugly person updating the counter-insurgency manual based on the destruction of a country and the endless bloodbath this has caused? So al-Qaeda in Iraq is pure resistance and a revolution by a younger generation. The problem for the Arab Sunni is that al-Qaeda’s success against occupation forces is bound to make more intense the civil war between they and it–the intra-Sunni civil war. Because every time the Iraqi al-Qaeda stages a successful operation against the foreign occupying forces (that’s us), and if it has some money, the young should flock to it and away from the dole of the harmful idiots. Reproductively, it’s a hell of a deal for young men and women. Not to mention that al-Qaeda’s ability to infiltrate those Sunni allied to the harmful idiots, already excellent, should markedly become more so. But al-Qaeda would have to cease and desist from its earlier ruthless practices. I think it will, because it’s essentially Iraqi. And, don’t forget that unlike the harmful idiots other groups learn from their mistakes.

S: What do the Americans -- sorry, the idiots -- now have in Iraq?

SPC: Not “idiots.” Idiots can be fun. The Far Side had its best when it came to pure idiots. These are harmful idiots. Okay, what they have. They think they have the Hakim/Dawa government. In addition, they have troops within the Iraq armed forces who likely respond to them and not to that government–what I call the ancillary state. They hope that through these troops they can gain control of the entire Iraqi armed forces. Too, they have the Sahwas -- anywhere between 77,000 and 100,000 on the US payroll. And possibly many, many more. (I keep on spotting higher numbers.)

But it’s a house of cards. The Hakim/Dawa state is so infiltrated by Iran. So much so that I can’t even believe that Hakim when he visits brings with him an entourage who are either double agents or pure Iranian intelligence. The Hakim people can turn on you the moment you decrease the level of troops or the payments–or stop being useful to them on the world stage. The ancillary state: these really want to live in San Diego, join the Iraqi community there. (I don’t blame them. I wish I were living there, even though I once called it a city without a soul. But that bay! And that excellent zoo! And when I was there last, years ago, they had a system where they used recycled water to irrigate public space.) The officers that is. The rank-and-file each will join his respective group once there’s a break with the Americans. And the Sahwas will get enmeshed in internal fighting and war with the young ones in al-Qaeda. When the harmful idiots cease payments, expect all the news about the so called “turkey-shoot”–a scary massacre from the air by US pilots against the Iraqi troops (Sunni and Shia) who were retreating from Kuwait and who were defenseless–to come out. They will use it to ban together, Sunni and Shia. They can put together a terrific campaign based only that incident; they should add to it for good measure the Israeli colonial settlements, the racism of the Democrats when their Secretary of State proved agreeable to wiping out 500,000 Arab children, Abu Ghraib, Haditha, and what have you.

The problem for the harmful idiots is that they really, really want to defeat the Islamic Republic and impose their Israel-anchored scheme on all. That’s not stated so clearly anymore, as it was on the eve of the invasion. But it impregnates their entire being. They want Saudi King Abdallah to visit Sharon on his death bed and shed tears over him for having planned the murder with cold blood of over 900 desperate and defenseless Palestinian women, children and old men at Sabra and Shatila. The fact that they want to “balance” Iranian power, when considered in tandem with the fact that their military power is way superior to that of Iran, is really tantamount to wanting to defeat Iran. It’ll lead in that direction, come what may, unlesss US energy companies enter the Iranian market as assurance otherwise. For now, the harmful idiots are at a loss on how to defeat the Islamic Republic. They don’t have the flexibility Iran (and Russia) have because they’re mired in a messy situation of plugging holes in Iraq which they know will go berserk as soon as they leave and/or stop payments.

The harmful idiots can no longer even define the goal of their mission. If it isn’t the defeat of the Islamic Republic – what is it? Okay, so it’s control of Iraqi oil. They’ve been trying to have oil legislation passed which, according to al-Dhari, would give US corporations 88 percent control over Iraqi oil. Sounds good – right? But if I were an oil executive, I’d be darn reluctant to invest a penny in Iraq if Iran isn’t on board. It’s f—ing easy to blow up oil installations and with that my company stock should sink to no end. If the federal government offers insurance for my investment–then maybe I’ll jump in. But that’s a big if since the cost of Iraq has tired out the tax base.

S: And does Iraq have anything to do with Israeli-Palestinian peace?

SPC: You’re drunk, aren’t you. What kind of question is that? Okay, the harmful idiots want to defuse the Arab-Israeli thing in the hope of buttressing their delusional front against Iran. But for virtual Israeli protection Abbas and his people would be dragged through the streets of Ramallah. Yes, the Palestinian public gives Abbas some support now because he’s able to obtain cargo for them. He’s a version of King Abdallah the Second, next door. The difference is that Abdallah doesn’t have Israel building and expanding colonial settlements in his backyard. At any rate, the Palestinians are no fools. Peace to them would require at a minimum the return of the 1967 lands, all of them–and I mean all not an inch given away--a state, and the return of the refugees. Time was, is, and will be on their side. The Israelis better wrap a deal with one generation and run with it. And it can’t be the Abbas generation. It’s over for that one. Can’t keep on wiping out one generation politically and then heading back to it
for a deal.

S: Realistic – the Right of Return?

SPC: I think in the end the Right of Return is an issue that would lend itself to bargaining. But it’s not for me to say. It’s for the Palestinian people.

S: I’m a refugee, you know.

SPC: I know you are, S. And you shall be able to rake in a few more millions and move out of this hell hole called Potomac--when reparations are paid, that is. Your family’s property in Haifa should fetch a lot. Not to mention the pain and suffering, the alienation, your four failed marriages.

S: I blame these on the Israelis.

SPC: As well you should.

S: But I want to return.

SPC: Okay. Return or two millions.

S: Return.

SPC: three millions.

S: Return.

SPC: I’m talking Euros not trashy dollars–4 million.

S: Return.

SPC: 12 million.

S: Umm.

SPC: Okay: you’re honest.