AN IRANIAN MESSAGE

third draft

Ali al-Haj Yusef writes for the Lebanese Assafir.com, from Tehran. I’ve covered his reporting in the past in part because the Western press doesn’t have the inroads he does in Tehran.

BACKGROUND/UPDATE: SAUDI ARABIA AND THE U.A.E. TIGHTEN THE NOOSE AROUND IRAN’S NECK

Although the West is bankrupt, it’s able to use the money the Arab Gulf countries had amassed from the recent oil bonanza to tighten the screws on Iran. Saudi Arabia stands out in this endeavor.

The endeavor by the Saudi ruling elite to encircle Iran includes a tightening of relations between that elite on the one hand and on the other Israel and its lobby in Washington, D.C. This tightening of relations likely reflects itself in the pumping of Saudi money into the Israel lobby. Most recently, a part of the Israel lobby in town hired what otherwise would’ve been an Arabist. (I learned about it from a Syrian e-newspaper.) There are too many interpretation as to why an Arabist would accept to be hired by the Israel lobby. My interpretation draws on two phenomena:

(1) the Israel lobby is swimming in Saudi money (see prior posts) and can pay a delicious salary for the once-hungry Arabist; and

(2) the Arabist likely felt as if he were working for a Saudi outfit since Saudi Arabia now is partner with the Israel lobby. The Saudi ruling elite, as part of the encirclement effort of Iran, likely (I strongly suspect) has flooded the Israel lobby with money to work to assure the continued presence of US troops in Iraq and for an eventual harmful idiot war on Iran. In other words, the Arabist may have gotten a green light from the Saudi ruling elite, or been imposed on the Israel lobby by that elite.

(Saudi payments to the Israel lobby likely, too, are a response to the campaign waged by that lobby, soon after September 11, to subdue the royal family by threatening to unseat it and dismember the Kingdom. This campaign had been waged through the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board. Call Saudi payments to the Israel lobby protection money.)

At any rate, others before this Arabist, Arabs and Arab-Americans, who once had been styled progressive, had too been recruited by the Israel lobby and its Saudi ally. Money and stage-managed prominence likely figured highly in these recruitments. In the end, what stands out is that the Saudi alliance with the Israel lobby (with Israel, really) and its funding of that lobby, likely started years ago, soon after that lobby had succeeded at subduing the royal family in the aftermath of September 11.

More importantly, it seems that the Israel lobby, during the Bush years, had melted into U.S. government agencies (e.g., the Pentagon, possibly the CIA), either directly or through Israel-centric think tanks as the American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution.

This Saudi alliance with (and funding of) the Israel lobby in Washington, D.C. is a reflection of a wider and deeper realignment in the region of the Middle East. The Israel-Saudi axis aims to encircle Iran. Laughable, if it weren’t appealing (and therefore dangerously harmful) to harmful idiots.

Even the United Arab Emirates, once a lifeline for the Iranians-under-sanctions, is now veering in a distinctly anti-Iran direction and is becoming increasingly a part of the sanctions’ regime against that country. Hence in part what I suspect is the fleeing of Iranian capital to bankrupt Lebanon -- and the appreciative visit by that country’s President, Michel Suleiman, and by the former General Michel Aoun, to Tehran. The U.A.E. has gone so astray, the Iranians feel, that recently it had deserved a warning from Tehran -- not to become a launchpad for “those who want to divide the region.”

(Lebanon had once hoped that a full-scale Middle East settlement would result in tens of billions of dollars of compensation money to the exhausted and direly bankrupt country. It wasn’t to be, and it’s even less likely now. An Israel-centric perspective in the United States and Europe had led in good part to the destruction of Lebanon, as it had to the dismemberment of Arab Iraq. Until further notice, both “countries” should steer away from the Israel-obsessed West -- and I mean Iraq, in the end, too -- U.S. troops or no U.S. troops.)

The questions are as follows:

-- At what point would Iran retaliate against the U.A.E. -- the once soft belly of the sanctions’ regime? Until the U.A.E. wears out its usefulness? At a point where harm from those Emirates overtakes usefulness? Remember what this newsletter had said in an earlier post: it’s like the Mafia; we trusted you with our money. We lose a penny...

-- Would Iran still wait for Mr. Obama, as once it said it would?

-- Would it reformulate its strategy in Iraq to bring together an Arab Islamic front, Sunni and Shia, to allow it to enter the Arab Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia, to counter the schemes of that country against it, from an Arab door, not a Shia?

-- Would Arab Syria help out, as in mirroring that Iraqi front in a semi-secret network of elite across the Gulf (a la once the Organization of Arab Nationalists) to expose the penetration by Israel of Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E. and Oman? To nurse an alternative elite to the ruling?

-- Would Russia help out and ignore the opening towards it of the Arab protectorates of the United States, as recently as has Sunni-governed but Shia-majority Bahrain, such openings meant to eat away at the Russian-Iranian alliance?

Have no doubt: Israel’s lobby in Washington D.C. has a mission: to use Saudi Arabia, an Arab country with resources, to re-claim Iraq’s oil for the American empire* -- a hilarious proposition, what with resource nationalism in a heavily armed country. Still, hilarious or not, there are uses to be made of the Saudi ruling elite (“Saudi Arabia”). For one, the lobby can draw on unlimited Saudi funds. For another, the use by this lobby of Saudi Arabia should reclaim for that lobby a sense of relevance now that the Iraq oil grab it worked so hard for (to show its usefulness and that of Israel to the American society at large) has resulted in our abject bankruptcy. (*Just finished reading Duncan Clarke, Empires of Oil. Great book. I would hire the guy.)

ALI AL-HAJ YUSEF–ASSAFIR , 12/8/08: THE IRANIAN MESSAGE

Here’s Ali al-Haj Yusef from Tehran:

Mr. Yusef’s article is titled, “After the Appointment of Clinton and [after] Keeping Gates [at Defense]: Iran Doesn’t Expect Much of Obama’s Administration.”

The first few paragraphs in the article reveal that a modicum of Iranian optimism that had accompanied the election of Mr. Obama soon dissipated thanks to Iran witnessing Mr. Obama’s choice of appointments -- of the White House chief-of-staff, of the secretary of state, and of the secretary of defense. There’s also a modicum of regret for having dispatched a letter of congratulation by Ahmadinejad to the new U.S. president.

As things stand now, “[t]he positions of the Iranian officials are ones which require that the new American administration initiate the first step.”

Yusef begins with Ali Larijani, Speaker of Parliament, whose prominence (Yusef says) has eclipsed that of the President and that of the Foreign Minister. For the most part, the description given Larijani’s position lacks specificity, likely because Larijani meant it this way. Larijani welcomes any positive change in U.S. foreign policy. (Who wouldn’t?) And he calls on the new administration to steer away from arrogance and obstinance.

Larijani’s most specific position seems to take the form of a seductive offer. Here are Yusef’s words for what Larijani had said: “Tehran wouldn’t hesitate in providing help/assistance to support the positive changes be they on the level of the nuclear file [Iran’s] or the matters of Iraq and Afghanistan.” Get it? You lay off our nuclear file and we’ll help you out in Iraq and Afghanistan.

(Editor’s note: Mr. Larijani is dreaming, isn’t he? What with Israel’s boys, now with unlimited Saudi financing, shooting off one encircle-Iran-idea after another?)

The paragraph that follows is mostly about Hillary Clinton. Iranian officials believe that when it comes to foreign policy, Hilary Clinton should displace “the young President.” Not good, we’re led to conclude. Clinton to the Iranians isn’t a welcome appointment since they know her as “flaunting her allegiance to Jewish special groups and for her absolute support for Israel. And they haven’t forgotten her promise during her campaign that ‘she would erase Iran [off the map] should [Iran] attack Israel.’”

Still, Iranian officials would await U.S. initiatives and policies. They wouldn’t build their approach on the fact that appearances seem to indicate no change from the Bush administration’s approach towards them. These officials point out that the American President will be so preoccupied in pulling the country out of the deep recession and financial crisis, and likely would not give the region top priority early on. Then, later or around the same time, he would be preoccupied in trying to correct the damage Bush had done to multilateral effort in foreign policy; and he would too be busy trying to define an approach to dealing with the up-and-coming powers, such as Russia, China, India, and others.

Iranian academicians warn not to expect but a variation of the status quo when it comes to Iraq, Iran, and Palestine. In addition, they warn not to conclude that American dominance has passed -- that the American economy is flexible enough to eventually whither the current crisis.

These academicians also warn that , in the end, the West would find new methods to try to achieve what the neo-conservatives have failed to achieve. Different faces, same goal.