SAUDI ARABIA'S BIND AND THE LIMIT OF THINGS: THE HARMFUL IDIOTS IN PLANTATION LEBANON.

Added analysis in a FIFTH d r a f t

[Note:
I wrote up a lengthy treatment about Lebanon. Then deleted most of it. Didn’t like it. It looked as if it had been written by someone who was burnt out. Which I think I am. I’ve kept and am posting the part which is most apropos.]

THE LIMIT OF THINGS: JUMBLATT AND THE LEBANESE FORCES.

Two proxies of the harmful idiots in Lebanon are Walid Jumblatt and Samir Geagea. Though I'm giving them space, it's important -- even crucial -- to remember that both are hollow and passe; but that's what the harmful idiots have.

Geagea is the head of the Lebanese Forces, once trained and armed by the Israelis. (They’ve always insisted that they had paid for each and every weapon they had received from these.) A pro-Syrian website (I'm not telling you which one!) recently reported that Jumblatt’s chief of intelligence had recently visited Israel. Soon after that visit, the same e-publication reported that Olmert announced new regulations opening the door to Druze members of the Israeli armed forces to benefits which hitherto had been denied them. If true, this indicates:

-- That Jumblatt has gone all the way as an ally of Israel. (The Syrians had assassinated his father; but for years afterwards he had cooperated with them with no qualm.)

-- That he wouldn't do this without approval by Saudi intelligence, since they're (highly) likely, almost certainly, funding him.


-- Which means that there exists a hidden alliance/working relationship between Saudi Arabia and Israel -- which the Saudis nurse via third parties, as Jumblatt. The Saudis would like those who suspect the presence of this alliance to think that it is limited to Lebanon; no one in his right analytical mind would think that.

[SAUDI ARABIA'S BIND:

The Saudi government is forced to work with Israel for one major reason: the Saudi government runs scared of the influence of Israel's lobby in that lobby's ability to mobilize the larger part of the American Jewish community and its allies against them in Congress. Not to mention that lobby's ability to mobilize the US public via "studies" and publications and political campaigns -- the product of "think tanks" and allied or sponsored propagandists.

As a corollary, the Saudi government likely is concerned about the wealth, its own but especially that of its princes, and the ability of the Israel lobby to influence US government agencies to launch investigations against this or that prince or merchant -- or to tip the balance in that direction. Last summer, for instance, witnessed the start of an investigation by the US Department of Justice of BAE Systems and its alleged payments totaling two billion dollars to Prince Bandar bin Sultan. (The princes know about Israel's influence in the country of the harmful idiots; hence the many rumors about Prince Bandar's visit(s) to Israel.)

In other words, while the Saudi public is anti-Israel to the bone, as it is forever mobilized by Israel's expansion of settlements and violent assaults on Gaza -- the nearly sixty-year studied failures to erect an independent and viable Palestinian state, including Israel's active role in the dismantlement of Arab Lebanon and Arab Iraq -- the Saudi government cannot afford to go along with those feelings lest the Israel lobby retaliates inside the US.

Finally, Iran's ascendancy forces the Saudi government to look for security because, de facto, the Saudi government has no effective armed forces. (It's a policy so that these wouldn't stage a coup against the extended royal family. Not a bad policy then; but idiotic after the disappearance of Iraq as the balancer of Iranian power.) One obvious shelter: The US -- the country most able to squeeze the Iranians. However, seeking shelter in full with the US would've been that much easier had it not been for the fact that Iran is aware of Saudi Arabia's bind. Accordingly, Iran is too smart to ignite trouble for Saudi Arabia domestically lest it helps its government persuade its public to accept "protection" from the harmful idiots -- though the rational calculations of all may not withstand a Shia rebellion in the Eastern Province, motivated by the Saudi government's reported policy of settling Yemeni Sunnis in the Najran region. Iran as a consequence focuses on Israel and its expansionism as a way of keeping a check on the Saudi government in the extent to which that government would allow its working relationship with Israel to evovle.]


-- That israel now has anointed him the leader of the Druze the region over. By accepting Israel's anointment, Jublatt has placed himself as far away from the Arab identity as is possible, not even giving it lip service. But for Saudi money, he likely would shed even the semblance of Arab culture. Sadly, the dismantlement of Iraq, which was followed by disintegration, ethnically and by sect , now has spilled over into post-civil war Lebanon and is threatening to spread into other Arab countries.

(Saudi Arabia is reported to have been settling Yemeni Sunnis from one particular tribe in its Najran region on the Yemen border to weaken the Saudi Yazedi Shia majority there. I doubt that the Shia of the Eastern Province would remain silent for too long about this. Kuwait has recently arrested prominent Shia for having attended a memorial for Imad Mughniyah, and on suspicion of belonging to Kuwaiti Hizbollah.) And:

-- That a number of political forces, including those Druze who follow Jumblatt, are using the Israelis as the reactionary power to help them against the new majorities in their countries -- in this case, the Shia majority in Lebanon. (Saudi Arabia itself in the summer of 2006, and its Saudi state in Lebanon, all but hoorayed Israel's war on Lebanon and Hizbollah. They paved the way for Jumblatt.) Lebanon's Christians had tried the Israel route during the civil war. The result: the harmful idiots and their Israelis stabbed them in the back, more than once.

Jumblatt has been to the White House and visits Saudi Arabia frequently. Regularly he is given an audience with King Abdallah. That, in analytical parlance, means he is getting money from the US and from Saudi Arabia. Analytically: No two questions about it.

THE LEBANESE FORCES

A few month ago, Geagea was said to have gloated that he didn’t bother dealing with the Saudis -- that he talked to their “masters,” the Americans, instead -- his masters, too. He recently has been to the US. Najah Wakim in his book The Soiled Hands (Arabic) (Al-Ayadi al-Sud) produces circumstantial evidence that the Lebanese Forces had been a paid proxy ("asset"--I use the words interchangeably) of the harmful idiots and did their bidding. I don’t need that much caution.

Analytically, in view of the fact that present-day Lebanon is made up of cargo cults, and based on the fact that Geagea (who many among the Christians perceive as a murderer of Christians and blame the Lebanese Forces for taking the sectarian battles into the Shouf, bringing untold misery unto the Christians of that region) had been invited to the US, and his recent statements in defense of US naval presence off the coast of Lebanon -- Geagea is a paid proxy of the harmful idiots.

(The late Bashir Gemayyel, the founder of the Lebanese Forces, had been a paid proxy of the harmful idiots. See Woodward’s Veil: the Secret Wars of the CIA.)

What can these two men do to deserve the money and affection being bestowed on them, the first by the Saudis and the harmful idiots, the second by the harmful idiots and likely Hariri AKA Saudi intelligence? Frankly, yet again, the harmful idiots are being delusional, swimming as they are in Eliott Abrams’ Jewish Right wishful thinking.

BOTH PROXIES -- JUMBLATT AND GEAGEA -- ARE PASSE

Be mindful that neither proxy is able any longer to field militias. The Jumblatts, father and son, had fought the larger battles of the Lebanese civil war (against Geagea's Lebanese Forces!) mostly with Palestinians dressed up as fighters of the Lebanese Socialist Party, who were dispatched to Lebanon by Syrian intelligence. The Lebanese Forces once had the fighters. But had it not been for Hafez al-Asad’s intervention in 1976, the Palestinian resistance movement would’ve taken over all of Mount Lebanon . The Lebanese Forces had been easily overwhelmed and the Lebanese army, splintered thanks in part to the money Kamal Jumblatt had obtained from Libya, could no longer come to their help. Asad did, for his own reasons.


ELIOTT ABRAMS'S "STRATEGY."

What the two politicians can field are assassination teams, to balance those of Hizbollah (HB) and Syria. They too can be the conduit for foreign assassination teams and may have done just that in the recent Mughniyah assassination in Damascus. [The alleged visit by Jumblatt's intelligence chief to Israel and Geagea's visit to the White House smack of a payoff for the possible assistance the two had provided the Israeli/harmful idiots' team which assassinated Imad Mughniyyah in Damascus. If this observation is half-true, expect hell to light up in Lebanon, but only after the conclusion of the Arab summit convening in Syria.] Involving Jumblatt and Geagea, actively, now more than earlier, is likely another stupid and dangerous idea of Abrams, the Jewish Right’s personality at the White House. Trying to think like a desperate right wing American Jewish idiot, I can perhaps divine his hope: to preoccupy Hizbollah by attacking its rear to allow Israel to “win” a round against it and dispel the aura surrounding HB as the best guerrilla army in the world, one which has twice defeated the Israelis.

But I don’t need to speculate too far. The non-Saudi funded Arab press is chock full of stories about a recent Vanity Fair article which points to Abrams and the White House as the instigators of the recent Palestinian civil war between Hamas and Fatah. That Abrams put to use Dahlan (I'm not sure whether the Vanity Fair article includes Abbas as an asset -- haven't read it yet), an "asset" of the harmful idiots, arming his men, to ignite a civil war and reverse Hamas’s electoral win. Abrams likely is aiming for the same in Lebanon. He may or may not know (dependng on what his Israeli advisers are telling him--and I mean this. Are the Cheney people going over the head of the CIA? Straight to Israeli intelligence?) that the harmful idiots’ assets will lose that war, and likely will pay a price with their life or be forced into exile. But Abrams doesn't care. It’ll be a price worth paying -- since he’s not the one paying it -- to assure security for Israel.

"THE WINDS WILL BLOW NOT IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE WISHES OF THE SHIPS' [CAPTAINS]" (Part of an extremely popular Arabic poetry verse.)

The drums of war being beaten by the proxies of the harmful idiots in Lebanon, the Mughniyah assassination, and the movement of warships off the coast of Lebanon may just be yet another campaign of psychological warfare to force Syria to relinquish control in Lebanon -- which Syria will never do, not before a comprehensive settlement with Israel is implemented. But it may be for real, or it could evolve that way.

The harmfully idiotic idea it seems is for Israel to wage war on Hizbollah (HB) (and Syria) likely before the Bush term ends, though one doesn’t know what could happen which would stand in the way -- such as more success by the Palestinian Islamic nationalists at piercing the Israeli security shield, leading Israel to re-invade Gaza and not Lebanon. In addition, as with other projects of the harmful idiots, these and their Israelis likely will lose control of their freshman-like harmfully idiotic schemes, as when an intifadha on the West Bank is set off by the mass killing of Gazans. Or -- a possiblity -- when the Iraqi resistance, in accordance with the theory of linkage (!), re-ignites things in Iraq to steal the war initiative away from the harmful idiots and their Israelis who are gathering for war in Lebanon only to get busy once again in Iraq. (Too early to tell but do note the recent upssurge in violence against US troops in Iraq.)

In a war against HB and Syria, US ships off the coast of Lebanon would be given the task of intercepting Hizbollah (HB) missiles launched against Israel. The Israeli armed forces would re-invade to “eradicate” Hizbollah -- and hope does forever spring eternal. UNIFIL troops, NATO’s really, would be expected to join forces with the Israelis.

In this scenario -- a full-scale war -- I don’t see the relatively few men of Geagea or Jumblatt making much of a difference. Syria and Hizbollah should be expected to unleash Palestinian and Sunni Islamist forces throughout Lebanon and the Geagea men should once again be overwhelmed, especially now that they’re way fewer than they once had been. If Aoun had trained his own militia, it’d be for the limited purpose of helping to defend Christian towns and Beirut neighborhoods against the Sunni Islamists.

[Note: To those who wanted to test me to see whether I favored Aoun – I don’t favor anyone. I’ve worked too hard for my independence to invest it for this or that party. My duties, rights, and privileges are here not in little Lebanon. Else, I would’ve issued this newsletter in Arabic; which I still may do if only to get on people’s nerves and feel alive. I may have an “empathy-for-fiction surplus” which allows me at times to think from within a group. But that doesn’t mean I favor that group. Oh, as an afterthought: do I think Aoun or one of his followers is best for bankrupt Lebanon? You bet. Neither he nor his people have murdered any Lebanese (as did Geagea and Jumblatt), let alone Christians (as did Geagea and Jumblatt), nor did they rob the national treasury blind ( as did Hariri, Hrawi, and Mur--See The Soiled Hands). ]

If Israel fails to dispatch troops to Jumblatt’s “palace,” and if he remains there, then he could kiss his life good bye. Which really means he should leave the palace. Hizbollah likely has contingency plans to get him, if only because of his mouthy tirades against it, but more likely because of his cooperation with Israel and the fact that the Arab Street would cheer Hizbollah for doing that. HB, Iran, and Syria should not be expected to have given up on fighting off the Sunni-Shia rift. Getting Jumblatt should be hoorayed by the Arab Street which has been solidly in that alliance’s corner.

Geagea, in the Christian heartland, would have to field his few men to stop the Sunni Islamists here and repel them there. Unlike the days of the civil war, he’s unlikely to be able to mobilize the Christian public. These -- what’s left of them -- don’t want to fight anymore. Every time they fought for Israel they lost ground politically and economically and have been stabbed in the back by that country and by the harmful idiots. They’ve learned their lesson. A majority among them has a strong distaste for Geagea. (Can't begin to tell you how strong that distaste is.) And they may resent him even more when his work for Eliott Abrams results in yet more instability for Lebanon, and their life, and the appearance on the scene of Sunni Islamists who mention him by name. Their country, the one they built with the Beirut Sunni families, had been driven into the ground in instability first by the harmful idiots, Jordan, and their Israel, and later financially by Hariri and the Saudi royals -- the allies of the harmful idiots and at times the Israelis.

The Lebanese army, if it makes any move against Hizbollah, should be expected to be neutralized with Shia soldiers and officers (the majority) going AWOL and joining the HB and Amal forces. In this scenario, you can expect HB to arm the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon faster than Eliott Abrams can say “Oh my beloved Israel.” (Hizbollah will follow a scale-of-tension approach; it wouldn't disintegrate the army unless it's left no choice.) (I don't need intelligence to tell me that HB must've started to intensify the arming of the Pelstinians to prepare them for an Israeli invasion and the possible involvement of UNIFIL troops against HB. Be mindful that HB is looking for an epic which mixes together Sunni (Palestinian) and Shia (Lebanese) blood. There's no losing in this scenario. Only epic Islamic heroism.)

On a lesser scale, if Eliott Abrams and his Jewish Right (and US intelligence which has to execute the college freshman schemes of Eliott Abrams and the Jewish Right since these schemes are orders from the White House) are of a mind to preoccupy HB with assassinations staged by the operatives of the Lebanese Forces, Jumblatt, and Hariri, HB wouldn’t even bother with these. It’ll unleash Sunni Islamists and others against them. It’ll, too, ignite more than one Nahr al-Bared, likely in the north yet again, and preoccupy them with trying to encircle each and every refugee camp. (A Palestinian lady, on returning from Palestine, told me that the word was that Shia soldiers in the Lebanese army showed kindness towards the Palestinian civilians at Nahr el-Bared, and that the Sunni soldiers did not. That tells me is that the Shia troops of the Lebanese army are listening to HB.)

In short, the battle the harmful idiots, their Israelis, and Saudi intelligence (through Hariri/Jumblatt) are playing for isn’t one they can win. It’ll overwhelm their hollow assets. Not that Eliott Abrams cares. His first concern is to secure Israel by reversing HB’s achievements, and paid proxies such as Jumblatt and Geagea are disposable. (I mean this about his capitalist at-will employment thinking which is common in our culture: we’re paying them and they’re adults who should know the risk. The same capitalist/free enterprise feeling likely applies to those assets who earlier had been assassinated by HB/Syria.) If it goes full scale, it could portend such instability for Lebanon and could splinter its army yet again. Not to mention that its banking system and its central bank might just not be able to cut it any longer. Argentina's example looms large, with one (fatal) difference: Lebanon's Hariri-and-his-family-and-friends' induced debt (See The Soiled Hands), which the harmful idiots didn't mind thinking that that would assure them control over that piece of real estate, is mostly owed to local banks, not to international creditors.

Israel might want Lebanon to fall yet again into anarchy with the hope that Saudi Arabia would save it financially and own it as a consequence -- to have the Saudi ally next door to Israel. They can pressure the Saudis via the Israel lobby in the US; but they can't pressure Iran. But Saudi control would be the farthest possibility. The more likely possibility is decently-financed cargo cults within the space called Lebanon -- in a state of inertia, but for HB's missiles directed at the Israelis. They invade, HB will retreat after bleeding them, then return.

YOU DID IT BEFORE IDIOTS; AND IT DIDN'T WORK!

Besides, the Israeli/harmful idiots' option of handing Lebanon over to the Saudis, by wiping it out financially, has been tried before. And it failed miserably. That option had been tried when the country was handed over to the Saudis via Hariri. Lucky for Iran (and the poor Lebanese!) Hariri's epic corruption screwed it up for the harmful idiots and for the Israelis. Don't you love it? The very corruption of the harmful idiots' assets trips the idiots. Go figure. At any rate, one would have to re-define "idiot" in view of the fact that the harmful idiots and their Israelis are trying yet again a failed plan. Or maybe re-define "desperate?"

In the presence of Iranian funding, nothing should take HB’s eyes off the Israeli prize. And the source of funding doens't have to be Iran. Only an idiot thinks exclusively and statically. Someone out there will finance Syria and HB for, as with reactionary militaristic Israel, HB now can provide Islamic military services and advisers, having developed so much experience thanks to the Israelis and the harmful idiots. The more likely instability in Lebanon will be the result of confrontation between the harmful idiots’ assets in one camp, and Sunni Islamists and Palestinian fighters and others in the other -- not with HB.


NOT A GLOWING PROSPECT FOR THE ASSETS

The financial and credit crisis in the US is looming severe. We should be entering a time of equally severe retrenchment, economic and likely military, and high taxation to pay for the mess the Federal Reserve allowed when it failed to supervise its buddies at banks and in the financial sector. Not to mention keeping interest rates so low for such a long time. With a new Administration, assets in Lebanon may find themselves on their own, in the cold, having to fight without the fancy albeit useless support of warships and a couple thousand Marines. They’ll be fighting those who are used to battles without fancy support or a visa to cargo countries -- those who have to remain there, with no other place to go; those who are way more numerous than they; those who already have won two wars with Israel. Those who have a terrific amount of recent military experience and are well-funded to boot. For Eliott Abrams, as for others of the American Jewish Right, the cost is in other people’s life and limb. If there were any possibility that his schemes would have an iota of a chance for success, I would say it. But they don’t.

Are those Lebanese, Jumblatt adn Geagea, the hollow proxies they are, and those Arab intelligence services involved, as Saudi Arabia’s, willing to see Lebanon tailspin again into yet a higher level of instability for sophomoric and dangerous schemes by a Jewish right-winger at the White House -- all because the harmful idiots have failed for sixty years to set up a Palestinian state? Do they really want to fight that kind of war and pay such a dear price so that Israel can avoid the formation of a Palestinian state on all of the pre-1967 territory and withdraw from Arab lands, including the Joulan? Shouldn’t all of them take advantage of the fact that for the first time since 1948, one country (which they don’t like, nor am I crazy about either) has established a true balance of power and of terror with a state that once would dispatch well-equipped troops against poor and ill-equipped Egyptian peasant soldiers stationed at the border, practically defenseless, and murder them en masse ? Eliott Abrams’s schemes for Lebanon have no chance in hell. Jumblatt and Geagea can escape and live in Saudi intelligence-funded “palaces” in Paris, with Abdel Halim Khaddam. But there are Druze and Christians -- the majority -- who don’t have the luxury of an escape, let alone to palaces.

(A friend just returned from Lebanon and reported about poverty --among Christians --she had never seen before. Lebanese Christian women are heading in substantial numbers to the Gulf to prostitute. No Saudi palaces in Paris for the unfortunate and the hungry.)