OUT OF IRAQ: 2008

the best of all rough, acerbic, and angry drafts

NEW AND I M P R O V E D 4/11/08, WITH HIDDEN GEMS IN THE TEXT.

INTRODUCTION: THE JEWISH RIGHT AS AN ESSENTIAL CONSTITUENCY TO LEGITIMIZE AGGRESSION BY THE IMPERIAL STATE, ESPECIALLY AGAINST ARABS AND MUSLIMS.

Perhaps it’s too early for those forces which had taken us into Iraq to sit back and ponder over their biases, arrogance, self-absorption, mediocrity, and resulting national tragedies -- for us and for Iraq. They have gone on the offensive again and have left for others to assess where the imperial state had gone wrong. The imperial state in the seemingly unipolar world, we now have learned, needs domestic pillars for aggression overseas. In the case of Arab Iraq, one such pillar has been the American Jewish Right. Its anti-Arab and anti-Muslim animus is so deep-seated that the imperial state could rely on it to legitimize harmful and unnecessary -- to the point of absurdity -- policies against Arabs and Muslims.

There's a tragic aspect to allowing blind and obsessed special interests to have such a significant say in the decisions of the imperial state. For one, there's no countervailing force. For another, the consensus within these forces (e.g., Jewish- American Right, Cuban-American Right) is so powerful that it doesn't seem to allow for self-restraint. These special interests, so obsessed, don’t seem to realize --nor do they care, so obsessed they are -- that the imperial state isn’t really all-powerful. That there are limitations to its power. Iraq has shown that. The imperial state needs help; we need help; it needs good advice; we need good advice. And it certainly doesn’t need to be fighting other peoples' wars, as the Jewish Right is asking.

The imperial state cannot afford these wars since, for one, it doesn’t know how to go to war without spreading perks so lavishly on its friends and supporters, to the point of bankrupting itself. The imperial state needs good and wise advice on using its power. Iraq has weakened it. If it continues to squander its power away, as in an all-out war with Iran, it’s liable to be displaced the globe over. Its printing of money -- the power of seignorage -- can go so far. Have pity for the imperial state. Have pity for the rest of us.

DISINTEGRATING ONE'S STATE AS BEST DEFENSE

The scenario which reappears often in my mind relates to how Iran and Syria likely have prepared for an all-out US assault on Iran and an all-out Israeli assault on Syria. Our military, for instance, went into Iraq without having studied how Hizbollah had forced the Israelis out of south Lebanon when Israel had occupied that part of the country, starting in the early 1980s. Hizbollah had used roadside bombs and suicide bombings. Yet it seems that our military hadn’t prepared for these. I mention this to highlight the possibility that our military may not have prepared for the strong likelihood that the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRG) very likely has evolved a strategy to disintegrate the Iranian state following an all-out US war on Iran. These are smart people fighting for survival. Their plans likely are so intricate that they’re beyond me, since I haven’t made it my career to study and assess these things. But my instinct tells me to expect a complex and well-planned war of liberation by IRG that will reach into Iraq.

While Iraq hasn’t yet turned into a Vietnam, I assure you that an all-out war on Iran would turn Iraq into a Vietnam. Iraq for now is a different beast. It’s one where the forces that could turn it into a bloodier-than-bloody state of affairs are waiting, lying in wait, or are laughing to themselves since they see the imperial state doing the work for them. No need to squander resources if the harmful idiots are doing the work for you. Iraq sits between two prior posts of this newsletter: the post about the effort by Iran to tarwidh (tame/condition) the harmful idiots and the post about Iraq as a ticking time-bomb.


THE ILLUSION ABOUT AN ARMY THAT'S SEPARATE-AND-APART FROM ITS SOCIETY

Basra had a precedent, just as roadside bombs and suicide bombings. But the harmful idiots, when they’re swimming in printed money, do war as an uproarious party of happy drunkards and, in their arrogance and self-absorption, don’t see. Basra’s precedent took place in civil war Lebanon. There, the harmful idiots and the Jordanians, on behalf of Israel (not wanting a Palestinian state) had calculated that they could use the Lebanese army, aided by the militias of the Christian-Right, to rein in the Palestinian resistance movement in Lebanon. The harmful idiots had assessed that the Lebanese army, chock-full of perks for its officer corps, would have an identity separate-and-apart from the divisions, sectarian and political, whirling around it. The harmful idiots failed to consider that the PLO in Lebanon was rich – a state within a state. In addition, the harmful idiots didn’t consider that the late Kamal Jumblatt was shuttling to Libya and likely bringing back oodles of money. The result: a good number of Muslim Lebanese army officers and their troops left that army, paid off by the PLO and Jumblatt AKA Libya. The harmful idiots didn't consider that Lebanon's region had lots and lots of oil money, even before the days of the super dollar glut, which money -- some of it, as the Libyan to Jumblatt and the Saudi/Kuwaiti to the PLO -- was bound to support this or that faction in Lebanon. In short, the defecting officers and their troops turned their guns on their old institution. The army disintegrated.

The current Lebanese army is said to be eighty percent Shia. Go after Shia Hizbollah and let’s see what’ll happen!


In Basra, some in the Arab press have estimated that one third of Maliki’s troops, the troops of the ancillary/puppet state the harmful idiots are building, refused to shoot at their co-religionists. Some in the Arab press have estimated that the harmful idiots have spent $25 bn on these troops. One third refused to follow orders! I’m confident that if the fighting had spread wider and taken longer, more than one third would’ve joined the mutiny. So the idea of evolving an army that’s separate-and-apart from its society is illusion – as has been the entire Iraqi thing. Iran had to intervene–the commander of the Quds Force, declared terrorist by the harmful idiots – to mediate to re-establish peace in Basra and other towns.

The days of imperial hegemony are over for as long as the dollar is weak. Others have money and can put on the payroll a defecting army. The harmful idiots no longer have monopoly over largesse. They’ve printed way too much money and glutted the globe to the point where our very own money checkmates the harmful idiots’ imperial schemes of aggression (e.g., the "Iraq Project.") Who would’ve said? The harmful idiots have printed so much money that even allies are crying uncle from the inflation that has hit the prices of wheat and rice, essential staples in so many poor countries. The resistance against taxation, including of oil, and the flight of manufacturing overseas under the excuse of "globalization," have left no outlet to creating employment but for the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates low. In so doing, it hopes to move the country from one bubble to another -- create "wealth" to keep people happy and consuming. The only solid industry left is war. But even here, we now learn, contracts are being given to foreign companies. What's an American to do? Apply for a job in Afghanistan?

What should concern wise and thinking people about the affair of Basra is the real possibility of miscalculation by the harmful idiots, yet again. Basra happened soon after Bald Samson had visited and was reported to have yelled at Maliki and other politicians for failing to pass the oil privatization law–to suck the blood out of the Iraqi people by monopolizing their only precious material resource. But Bald Samson’s tour was about something else. He seemed to be preparing the ground for war on Iran, either waged under his watch, or by McCain-Lieberman. I think there’s a possibility that Maliki and the Americans moved Iraqi troops into Basra and other places to flush out Mahdi’s operatives as a way of assessing the cost US troops will pay in Iraq when the US begins its carpet bombing of Iran.

Miscalculation: the very army you’re building in Iraq contains Iranian operatives, vetting or no vetting. (It’s a culture that loves this verb.) The Badr Organization contains Iranian operatives. In other words: you’re mis-calculating yet again. Basra has shown that Iran knows that its best defense is the Shia realm. And southern Iraq is part of that realm. Donna Quixote isn’t allowed in two walk-in closets. My eyes are on her every time I open one of these. Yet, unavoidably and to an absolute certainty, I still find her operatives (toy mice) hidden all around those two closets.


IRAQ AS A NAGGING NIGHTMARE

Prince Hassan of Jordan recently announced (likely with glee) that the US is now Jordan’s neighbor, that it is and will remain in Iraq. When Prince Hassan says anything, to this analytical newsletter, it’s the CIA saying it. Accordingly, our CIA now is on board for a lengthy US military tenure in Iraq. Likely the CIA is providing assurances to an old asset that the harmful idiots will not leave the Jordanian royal family exposed. That US troops cannot defend that family from Jordan, since the Islamists in Jordan -- Hamas’s allies -- will not allow the extensive US presence required. And the Israelis cannot defend that family from Jordan since the Islamists -- Hamas’s allies -- will not allow it. So the most convenient base for defending the royal system of government in Jordan is Iraq. That entire matter would be solved – essentially – if Israel withdraws to pre-1967 borders and allows a Palestinian state to form, with Hamas as part of it. But neither the harmful idiots nor the Jordanians dare cross that bridge. (The Jordanians actually do dare cross a version of that bridge, but neither the harmful idiots nor the Israelis listen.)

Tellingly and importantly about Prince Hasan’s statement is the fact that the imperial state now has evolved a new intervention mandate: to shore up the governments that became exposed thanks to the invasion and the dismembering of Arab Iraq. This, badly played (count on that), should lead to yet deeper involvement. There’s no question whatsoever in my mind -- analytically -- that a coterie of Israeli and Arab intelligence officers have tried and will try to spark a war between the US and Iran; there’s no question whatsoever in my mind --analytically -- that our CIA knows about that coterie – at a minimum. Is it then that the CIA is working at cross-purposes with the resigning Admiral Fallon – the Pentagon? (I’ve alluded to this in an earlier post.) Could that be the reason why he has resigned? Bureaucratic politics or not, the imperial state is finding a way -- any way -- to careen fast towards a Vietnam-like precipice without a care about what will transpire after, including the loss of influence and ability in other parts of the world. And including total bankruptcy. Strange, or maybe not for idiots, that we would be falling into the very trap the expat Arab opposition, united under al-Qaeda and chosing terror as means, had set up for us. To bankrupt us. How smart! How dumb!

NO FOOTHOLD. ONLY THE ILLUSION OF SUCH.

The problem with staying in Iraq is that in the end the US has no one there, but Barazani’s Kurds – and these live under the de facto mandate/watchful eye of the Turks.

The harmful idiots’ deal with the Arab Sunnis is temporary and precarious.

The Arab Sunnis are going through their own civil war, pitting the sahwas, on the payroll of the harmful idiots, against the Islamists. We don’t know the source of the funding for the Islamists. It helps to recall, however, a once running theme in this newsletter: that in the age of the dollar glut, all have money. And intelligence services are masters at funding a group without a trace of the source of the funding. I suspect many a businessman has made a fortune laundering intelligence service money, many times over (many merchants), taking cuts, to get that money to its destination. So any country or party which doesn’t want the US in Iraq or wants an intra-Sunni civil war -- and there are so many of these -- can be behind the funding of the Islamists. At the extreme limit, the harmful idiots could themselves be funding the Islamists (“al-Qaeda”) as part of “counter-insurgency” since, when the Islamists blow up Shias, they deepen the rift between the two sects. That rift is necessary for the harmful idiots to be needed in Iraq, itself necessary for permanent bases there -- a work in progress.

Much of the sahwa phenomenon is made up of former resistance fighters who have trusted Jordan when that country told them that the harmful idiots would be able to engineer an intra-Shia civil war. That the harmful idiots would lead the Shias into self-destruction; that the Arab Sunnis would once again be on top. At a minimum, the Arab Sunni establishment has given itself time to see if this would occur. In other words, it didn’t take that much convincing by Jordan.

The Arab Sunnis also had believed Jordan when it likely assured them that “the Jews” are powerful in the US and therefore should be able to lead the US into an all-out war on Iran. With that war, the Arab Sunnis can get back on top. After all, the harmful idiots are aware that when it comes to Iran, the Arab Sunnis of Iraq could be the most trustworthily anti-Iranian force. Again, at a minimum, the Arab Sunnis are waiting for that wished-for American war on Iran, promises from Jordan or no promises -- they have their own mind.

But these Jordanian assurances are hollow and the Arab Sunnis should soon realize that the matter is way more complex and unpredictable than it looks. That they can only rely on themselves. They should come to realize, while they wait, that forfeiting their independence vis-a-vis the harmful idiots, if not armed resistance, should weaken them as a political community. Accordingly, all else being equal when it comes to money, their young should flock over to the Islamists in increasingly larger numbers or they themselves (the old goats) could do a volte face – after they become desperate about their prospect on the harmful idiots’ dole.

Not to be too simplistic about things: Many among the Sunnis might join Moqtadha. The harmful idiots, through their Iraqi and Jordanian operatives, might retaliate with car bombs against Shias. Too, Iran might become alarmed, not wanting to see an Iraqi nationalism evolve. I can’t cover all the possibilities. I just want to highlight what a nightmare Iraq is – that what looks like a manageable un-Vietnam like situation now, is not.

In a manner that is similar to the idea of an army-separate-and-apart-from-its-society, the harmful idiots seem to believe that integrating the Arab Sunnis into the Shia state would end their flightiness as allies of the idiots. Here again, the harmful idiots are dreaming. Incredibly , they are discounting the power of nationalism -- that the Arab Sunnis in the end will not accept a fractured Iraq, one where it’s all about making a paycheck. Google nationalism. If the Islamists or Moqtadha raise the issue of the de facto secession of the north, then all others would have a choice: fight to regain the north or be assassinated once the harmful idiots depart – or before.

A reason to stay, you might stay. To protect our “friends," -- read: those on our payroll -- those who will privatize Iraq's oil for bald Samson, accept permanent bases for the harmful idiots in Iraq, and join eventually in the war on Iran. If that’s why you want to stay, by all means, be my guests. Have tens of thousands of troops there busied with protecting morons who know that they could have a wonderful life in San Diego and likely are already shipping their children to the US. Those who already have robbed Iraq blind of a couple of hundreds of billions of dollars. Those who dont' stand a chance in managing Project Iraq for the Jewish Right AKA imperial state-in-Iraq when Iran decides to pull together the Shia realm to defend itself.

Tellingly, again, the harmful idiots are forever looking for reasons to deepen their involvement in Iraq so that Israel would be safer. Protecting assets is yet another reason on the road to greater disaster.

The commanders and leaders of the sahwas are the same people who brought in the foreign fighters. I recall seeing in the Arab press an article where Iraqi Sunni women were marrying into the ranks of these foreign fighters. In other words, these had been prize-worthy when the Arab Sunni “establishment” had been in a mode of armed resistance. Now they’re not. But a reversal can take place at any time that the Arab Sunni establishment deems it necessary.

Iraqi Arab Sunni tacticians likely are as sophisticated as anyone. (After all they're the ones who started the civil war to complicate beyond belief the Jewish Right/Christian Zionists(Bush)/Oil (Bush/Bald Samson) Iraq Project.) So they're likely aware that resisting brings you a higher form of organization and concomitant military and political power. My suspicion is that they’re doing exactly that -- getting ready for the next round -- but they’re doing it through the sahwas, as secret networks within these. The decision to revert to armed resistance likely would take the factor of diminishing returns into account. And there’s little that I can think of that would amount to increasing returns for the Arab Sunnis. As things stand, they’re on a steady course of diminishing returns. They will get to a point when they’d realize that even when an armed group loses battles, is arrested wholesale – in short, is subjected to all the principles found in occupation manuals – it still would come up ahead than when it’s on the dole and waiting for Lieberman-McCain to get into the White House and wage war on Iran.

Another problem: if the harmful idiots do wage the promised war on Iran, there’s no assurance that the Arab Sunnis would find themselves on top, anyway. The Shias might wage such a successful war of liberation that half of the Sunnis, if not more, would join them. Put differently, the Arab Sunnis are likely aware and would become more so as the time passes that, without independence from the harmful idiots, they’re finished as a political community. That there’s no reason for the harmful idiots to place them on top -- as if they can!

(I’m inspired by the Lebanese Christian reactionaries who for the longest time thought the harmful idiots would necessarily go through them on anything related to Lebanon. They found out later that the harmful idiots were going through Hariri, mostly, thinking there’s nothing like a Sunni (and practically Saudi royal, to boot) to sign a peace treaty with their Israel. The harmful idiots will likely later go through Hizbollah and through Hamas directly, once populist forces form which are to these organizations' left. And suddenly the harmful idiots and their Israelis would clamor to negotiate with the “moderates,” the same people who they had once declared as terrorist. One of the Christian Lebanese junior commanders would tell me that to reach the Shia the harmful idiots would necessarily go through the right wing Maronites. Who says? I have little patience with political naivete and baseless wishful thinking.)


When it comes to the Arab Sunnis, therefore, their alliance with the harmful idiots is precarious at best. The harmful idiots will end up either in another full-fledged war with these or the harmful idiots will end up as a simpleton security guard living among the Sunni and marking time until retirement.

*****

The Shias. The field here is rich, especially after Sadr achieved his victory in Basra. Sadr more than anyone else in Iraq understands that keeping up the resistance tempo widens his popularity as a patriot among de facto traitors. In short, he’s not about to make the mistake the Arab Sunnis have made. If anything, likely he could capture the Arab Sunni Street once these get over the lynching of Saddam Hussein – and all will blame it on “the Jews” and “their puppet” – the Americans. (The faction/wing of the Jewish Right that is part of the American imperial class has done such a huge favor for the rest of that class since it took on the visible responsibility for the destruction of an Arab country and the lynching of an Arab President -- think: Arlen Specter. By so doing, it allowed Bush/Cheney and the other WASPS to get off easy in the Arab World. I have a feeling --actually I'd bet money -- that these whisper in King Abdallah’s ear, “We didn’t want to; it’s the Jews.”) The problem for Moqtadha would be the suicide bombings against the Shias by the Sunni Islamists. Another problem: the harmful idiots through their proxies should explode a car bomb now and then against the Shias, retaliation by these -- all to prevent Moqtadha from appealing to the Arab Sunnis.

The Basra episode has revealed that the Badr Brigade/Organization is akin to Fateh -- useless. Hamas routed Fateh in no time at all in Gaza. (Was it only four days?) And if it weren’t for Israeli troops, Fateh would stand no chance on the West Bank either, Eliott Abrams or no Eliott Abrams. In contrast (to uselessness), the Mahdi Army has learned the importance of being useful -- providing services as a way of buttressing ranks. Providing services, it seems, can be an antidote to corruption -- the hallmark of each and every asset of the harmful idiots. I haven’t heard or read anywhere that the Badr Organization was providing services. Its members strike me as similar to Fateh: how can I syphon off the largest amount of national purse money into my account for as long as I have the opportunity. Abu Mazin (Mahmoud Abbas) is called “Abu Business” by some on the West Bank in reference to his son's involvement in a tele-communication deal.

At any rate, Iran brokered the cease fire in Basra. In so doing, it has shown all that the Shia realm belongs to it. That the harmful idiots are dumping money and time into training an Iraqi army that, in the end, will likely be an Iranian proxy, not a harmful idiot one. Put differently, viewing the seemingly terrific level of infiltration of the Iraqi armed forces and police, and the ease with which potentially Iran can fail that army by brokering sectarian massacres via car bombs (the harmful idiots and their proxies don’t have a monopoly on igniting sectarian wars) – the Iranians could very well pluck that gorgeous peace of American training – the Iraqi army.

Let me re-phrase this, once more: The harmful idiots are training an Iraqi army that is not, and cannot be, insulated from its surrounding. That a skillful manipulation of Iraqi society could very well result in that army becoming a proxy of Iran, albeit trained and paid for by the harmful idiots. (Hence the “idiot” in harmful idiots.)


In conclusion: the tenure of the harmful idiots among the Shias is precarious at best.

*****

The Kurds. Think Turkey. Think the Shia and Sunni Arab Iraqis. Think nationalism. Think nationalism defined at a minimum as the effort to re-acquire the north which now is de facto independent. Think the Shias. Think they would sooner or later lend support to the Sunni Islamists (their nemesis) in and around Mosul in their civil war with the Peshmergas, to regain the north. Think Jalal Talabani. Think that he would never dream of crossing Iran lest he wants his realm -- closest to Iran geographically -- to explode in bombings of various sorts. Think Turkey. Think that it would gladly finish Barazani and his son if these push the envelope on Kurdish independence.

In conclusion: the harmful idiots can move north, to Barazani’s chunk of Iraqi Kurdistan, and there, with their beloved Israelis, can sit in each other’s lap. What would it be that they would achieve but the wrath of the entire Arab and Muslim Worlds for destroying Arab and Muslim Iraq?