THE SIX-TRILLION DOLLAR PROJECT TO DISMANTLE ARAB IRAQ.

First (really) rough draft


MAYADA’S WORLD

You’re crossing an avenue at around noon. It’s such a gorgeous day. You’re reciting the poetry of Ahmad Shawqi and humming the lyrics of “Ya Jarat’l Wadi” to Fairouz’s imagined voice. All is peaceful. It’s not the best of all worlds; but you believe in God and his Prophet. You interrupt the humming, you murmur, “La Ilah Illa-l-LLah; ash-shukru wal-7amdu laka ya Rabb 'lalameen.”

You’re carrying a couple of grocery bags. You have two children and the bags are heavier. You smile thinking about your daughter, Mayada, how she rules the household. An American truck, a sixteen-wheeler, full of tonnage, driven by a maniac high on the drug PCP, from another culture, the culture of mental health, yet whose very President had needed treatment but had refused to address various personality disorders, some innate, others borne out of untreated alcoholism, resulting in a character which hallmarks were sadism and banality, and a Vice-President who exhibited his own traits of sadism, added to an autocratic and paranoid character, the truck comes out of nowhere, is now so close, going at unmeasurable speed, without a sound, so heavy it's tilting lightly sideways, shining under the noon sun, it really is so close, you have no time to think, still you find the time, you think about Mayada’s smile, it breaks your heart, you think about how much she will cry, and whether she will remember her father, and about who will take care of her and her brother.


The American sixteen wheeler is a six trillion dollar behemoth “invested” to dismantle Arab Iraq – 6,000 billion dollars, 6,000,000 million dollars.

600,000 dead; 5,000,000 orphans.

“La-Ilaha illa’llah”
“,,,Taribtu wa’3adani--” Ahmad Shawqi.



ISSUES:

1. Why not account for the skyrocketing oil prices as a tax, computing the difference between the price of oil before the invasion stage of the Project to Dismantle Arab Iraq and the higher price at present and as forecast into the future, for as long as US troops occupy Iraq, and adding that difference to the cost of the war?

2. Would a financial take-over by the Gulf oil protectorates of the cost to the harmful idiots of the Project to Dismantle Arab Iraq, using the backdoor tax we’ve paid them as higher prices for oil, extend the life of that Project and allow the harmful idiots to bring Iran to its knees?



AN AD REVIVES THE ISSUE OF COST

I was shopping in Virginia. I saw an ad posted on the lawn at the entrance of a strip plaza, not far from a Starbucks where men (mostly) from Sudan, Eritrea, and Morocco congregate. The ad asked Arabic-speaking people to call a certain number or access a website. It promised a yearly income of over $170,000 for interpreting – as “linguists” – realistic based on what I know. This made me think of the cost of the Project to Dismantle Arab Iraq , once again. For a while now it had seemed to me that the various ways of calculating the cost of the Project to Dismantle Arab Iraq , now at the occupation stage, had been ignoring the skyrocketing rise in oil prices. A good part of the aloofness towards that aspect of the cost of dismantling yet another Arab country (the higher-oil-prices-as-backdoor-tax aspect) has to do with the fact that the Project to Dismantle Arab Iraq didn’t lend itself to numbers as would China’s consumption of oil, for instance.

But it’s more than that. I would say that the talk about the rising oil needs of China and India has served to obfuscate, and may have been meant as such by environmentally-conscious people and parties.

A recent report, one that didn’t mean to link the Project to Dismantle Arab Iraq to the rise in oil prices, does exactly that. The McKinsey Global Institute report , for instance, makes it clear that the revenues of the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) had DOUBLED between 2003, the year of the launching of the invasion part of the Project to Dismantle Arab Iraq , and 2006. Put differently, the invasion part of the Project to Dismantle Arab Iraq was instrumental in doubling the oil income of the GCC countries. Logically, since oil is economically fungible, the invasion has done the same for all oil-producing countries. Unwittingly perhaps, McKinsey has told us that the invasion part of the Project to Dismantle Arab Iraq connected directly to the rise in oil prices. Causation or correlation–what does it matter?


WHY DO THEY IGNORE THE RISE IN OIL PRICES AS A BACKDOOR TAX AND AS PART OF THE COST OF THE PROJECT TO DISMANTLE ARAB IRAQ?

Not accounting for the Project to Dismantle Arab Iraq as one major reason for the rise in oil prices, and the imposition of an backdoor tax on the consumer, likely is due to various reasons:

(1) The difficulty empirically to prove that the Project to Dismantle Arab Iraq is directly connected to the rise in oil prices. We do know that oil prices did go up, skyrocketed, after the invasion part of the Project to Dismantle Arab Iraq had been launched. But we also know that China and India needed more oil; we knew about the role of speculators who took advantage of the regional insecurity the invasion part of the Project to Dismantle Arab Iraq had caused, and what have you. But we didn’t know how to calculate these aspects of the rise in oil prices and the concomitant consumer tax on oil consumption which the rise in price in fact was.


(2) The difficulty for reporters to understand the power of seignorage –the imperial ability to go to war without taxing , by printing money -- and connecting the use of that power to the inflation that became the prices of oil. After all, Europe is paying roughly one-third less for an oil barrel because its currency is worth one third more against the dollar. It was the dollar which sank, not the Euro which rose, on the printing and glutting of the American currency to fund the oil grab and the associated Project to Dismantle Arab Iraq. The printing of money (e.g., intimidate a cowardly Congress to pass war spending bills without taxing) therefore could be said to be responsible for one third of the rise in oil prices. In addition, we do know that speculators got in on the act as soon as it became clear that the US Project to Dismantle Arab Iraq was in trouble, as Iraq wasn’t lending itself to easy subjugation. Roughly, let’s say that speculation -- ongoing since the infamous date of the invasion -- has added another one third to the price of each barrel. Net result: an oil barrel which two-third of its price can be accounted for by the dollar glut and the speculation of war with Iran, or what have you of regional insecurity caused by the invasion part of the oil grab.


(3) the clamoring by well-meaning environmentally-conscious people to make use of the rise in oil prices to get some legislation off the ground for alternative energy -- an impossible task for them on such grounds as the purely looming dangers of the continued use of fossil fuel. That the consumer/taxpayer would be more amenable to adopt the alternative energy route if she’s reminded that oil prices will continue to go up.

Which they could unless the recession digs in. Still, the fact is that they started skyrocketing only after the invasion part of the Project to Dismantle Arab Iraq was launched.


(4) Not wanting to blame the two domestic communities which played such a pivotal role in taking us into the invasion part of the Project to Dismantle Arab Iraq: the Jewish Right and Jewish liberals (the “thinking” crowd whose judgement all trust) , and the Christian Right (the “warrior” crowd which aches for war against Muslims).

(Anecdote: One of my roommates in college turned Evangelist or Baptist or something. When he visited, carrying the Bible –and giving me one as gift–, and since I hadn’t seen him in years, I humored him by going to an Evangelist or Baptist church or something with him. He had insisted. And I can act at times–not always. The first thing I noticed: no handsome women. These were likely so in demand they didn’t have time for the Bible, especially here in the Northeast. Then they started the service. I was impressed by how all knew the verses of the Bible, so much so that they could finish the pastor’s recitation. But then a visiting pastor took the podium and launched on one diatribe after another against Muslims. It freaked me out. I couldn’t believe my ears. Why would anyone need to prove his or her faith by debasing another’s? And this was before September 11. Outside I asked my former roommate about this. The Muslims do it, too, he said; worse they’re persecuting the Christians. Look at Egypt. Fine, I said, if you open the immigration doors for Egyptian Christians, eighty percent of them will be here and you can enjoy their company in this very country–you miss them so much. My argument didn’t impress him.)

What I’m proposing here is a new way to calculate the cost of the Project to Dismantle Arab Iraq, including the occupation. I believe the Project to Dismantle Arab Iraq is way more costly than we’re told, even by respected economists. This proposal of mine -- on re-calculating more realistically -- remains in the realm of an idea that needs developing. I don’t have the time or the resources to do it. A non-ideological economist with a posh office and graduate assistants–well she can do it.


TWO TRILLION

In April of last year, I wrote up a post titled, “ Staying Power: the Harmful Idiots v. the [Iraqi] Resistance.” I wanted to get an idea about the relative cost of occupation versus that of resistance. My comparison wasn’t scientific. I was acting on a hunch: that the occupation would bankrupt us, pure and simple, what with salaries such as the one above for people without much experience in interpreting or degrees as “linguists.” (The ad for “linguists” wasn’t a ruse; I know my fair number of semi-unemployed immigrants from northern Virginia who were recruited as “linguists” to Iraq. They make more than the 170,000 figure above. Only a few weeks ago I had assisted one of them in drafting the appeal of the denial of his application for unemployment benefits. After a labored appeal, pro bono, he informed me he was leaving to Iraq to make money -- more than $170,000 -- so he could afford to get married.) The looming bankruptcy, it seemed to me, was a goal of the resistance. And the resistance knew it because it knew that it was costing way less than the fancy occupation. (What the resistance likely didn’t know, and perhaps even the Iranians, was the power of seignorage Empire carries, which makes it that bankruptcy is a longer journey than a straightforward crunching of the numbers would portray.)

Now I’m aware that the war had been waged under the power of seignorage–the power to print money and avoid burdening the tax base, or angering it, or creating instant opposition to the war while seeking supremacy or a grab somewhere. And the tax base is too dumb to figure out that it’s paying taxes when it’s paying its oil and heating bills -- that it had been taxed for the war the backdoor way. (God forbid a politician should offer to add $2 to the $1 price of a gallon of gasoline, making the total price $3–which is what it is now. And financing a single-payer health insurance system and housing for effectively homeless men, and so on of civilized measures. As a former Congressman once told me, “people [he meant Caucasian] don’t want to pay for other people’s [he meant blacks and recent Hispanic immigrants] insurance.” ) But it seems that we now have reached the tipping point in money-printing, what with the credit crunch which has followed the years of dollar glut. Politicians don’t want to tax; the Federal Reserve wants to dodge recessions by keeping interest rates low; and the harmful idiots want to wage an unnecessary (not to mention sleazy and immoral) war, built on Israel-centered precepts, therefore morally and practically questionable by definition–all without taxing.

Now the (financial) chickens have come home to roost. The treatment: More of the same – more glutting.

About the cost of the war: Let’s go with the Bilmes/Stiglitz figure of over $2 trillion by the year 2016. This would be the higher estimate. I’ve chosen it because, if McCain/Lieberman are elected, two silly war mongers, we’ll be there for one hundred years as John McCain has made it clear. The electorate might not want to vote for a black man or a woman. So McCain might just make it.


PLUS THREE TRILLION

The McKinsey Global Institute tells us that the six countries of the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) , at $100 per barrel, would reap $9 trillion in oil revenues by the year 2022. To conform to Bilmes/Stiglitz’ s cutoff of 2016, we can estimate that the GCC countries by that year – 2016-- would reap around $6 trillion in oil revenues, at $100 per barrel. Divide that by half to discount for the rise in oil prices that was occasioned by the invasion and occupation part of the Project to Dismantle Arab Iraq. Result: three trillion.

Why divide it by half? Key to this is the fact that the McKinsey Global Institute report makes it clear that the revenues of the GCC countries had DOUBLED between 2003, the year the Jewish/Christian Right decided to invade an Arab country (my words not McKinsey’s) , and 2006.


Why is this key? Correlation or causation, the war is connected to the skyrocketing rise of oil prices. We know from McKinsey that the oil revenues of the GCC countries had doubled between the year of the invasion part of the Project to Dismantle Arab Iraq and 2006. That rise is tantamount to a tax we pay, not to the federal government, so despised by the right wing, but to the GCC , to Russia, to Iran, to Venezuela, to Nigeria. And to boost the future money careers of Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney who, I assure you with every instinct in my being, would be benefitting from the oil price bonanza they caused. (No one is foolish enough to make it obvious. Their children might be the ones to benefit. Many ways to re-route a few tens of millions of dollars.)



(NATIONAL SECURITY ALERT:

The oil price bonanza should have repercussions even on the Washington D.C. scene. Recall the observation by this newsletter that a coterie/cabal of Arab intelligence service officers likely are behind nearly all the attempts to entrap Iran, mobilize the Gulf Arabs against it, and ignite armed conflict between that country and the US. I have no doubt whatsoever that US intelligence is in on this, likely a silent partner. After all the orders from the White House is to entrap Iran. Kuwaiti intelligence, for one, has been taken over by the US -- hence the role it had played with "our boys" in entrapping the former President of Iraq and its attempts to entrap Iran -- Refer to prior posts: the incident of Barazani from the Kuwait Airport calling for the opening of an Israeli consulate in Arab Kurdistan; the beating of a Kuwaiti diplomat, forgot his name, Zibbi or something, by Iranian intelligence operatives, likely for spying for the harmful idiots. The oil price bonanza should allow this coterie/cabal to recruit people in Washington, DC, who would push the agenda of encircling (if not outright war) with Iran. Now I don’t mind them doing that so long as these people register as foreign agents. But who am I kidding? Anytime you hear or read anyone who directly or indirectly is calling for war against Iran or the encirclement of that country -- think Jewish Right, an ally of the Jewish Right, one whose career had been spomsored byt he Jewish Right, or look into her background and deduce, or all of the above.)


Grant it, we’re not the only ones paying this “tax” on oil -- the sheep we are, being put out to graze by groups and personalities with ideological, financial, and foreign interests which have nothing to do with national security – but by the entire world. Out of want of time, however, I’m not factoring in the revenues of oil countries other than the GCC, which would increase the cumulative oil “tax” paid by the world, including us, tremendously. My hunch: it could triple it. In other words, a serious economist would factor in all the rise in oil prices the world over thanks to the Project to Dismantle Arab Iraq, would slice off America’s share of oil consumption, and what have you. I’m not doing that.




EQUALS FIVE-TO-SIX TRILLION.

Going out on a limb, as I am throughout all of this (and feel free to discredit me, using this admission), I’ll add Bilmes/Stiglitz’s figure of $2 trillion to the $3 trillion (half of the GCC estimated total revenues by 2016, which can be attributed to the war) and we have a figure of $5 trillion. Add a one trillion dollars from the war-engineered rise in oil prices for non-GCC countries (Iran, Russia, Iraq, Namibia, Nigeria, Venezuela, Sudan, Algeria, Libya, Yemen, Brunei . . .) – which would be our share of that non-GCC tax, and you get $6 trillion.

The Project to Dismantle Arab Iraq by 2016 should have cost us $5-to-$6 trillion.

Can a non-ideological economist please elaborate, confirm or refute – p l e a s e.



THE POLITICAL REPERCUSSIONS

I can’t begin to enumerate the political repercussions of the Project to Dismantle Arab Iraq, now that the power of seignorage has come home to roost. Here are a couple of likely effects:

EXPECT THE HARMFUL IDIOTS TO FORCE THE GCC TO TAKE ON THE FINANCIAL BURDEN OF THE AMERICAN OCCUPATION OF PLANTATION IRAQ.

For one, the new administration is bound to seek help from the GCC countries for the continued occupation of Iraq. The house of cards we’re building there is that – a house of cards. We leave – it’ll crumble. Nothing’s wrong with leaving and letting it crumble. Likely, it’d be one of the best options, especially if we stop ruses and push US oil companies into Iran. But the Gulfies don’t want us to leave–hence the royal treatment they gave George W. when he visited. Our army now is their army. We now are truly fighting their war against Iran. They never bothered to develop decent armies of their own, lest the extended families lose power to these armies and have to live in Switzerland over their heaps and heaps of billions, maybe trillions. Too, our army is Israel’s army, checking Iranian power on behalf of the apple of our eye which likes to grab other people’s lands and mistreat them as inferior, true to its colonial nature.

Every time a US soldier dies in Iraq, consider that he/se isn’t dying for the US.


If the Gulfies refuse to pay, we shall unleash a campaign against them, run by an office at the Pentagon similar to the Office of Special Plans. We shall engineer coups against those who don’t want to cooperate and pay -- what we want, not what they want. But we may not have to do much since the princes, especially in Saudi Arabia, have been jockeying about for our support to become King. They’re doing it under the mis-impression that Israel can help them meet their ambition. So they’re flirting with Israel -- in statements, in secret visits, in attending Jewish-American even (s), in hints at investment in Israel -- as a means to get to the heart of policy decision in the US. (Most Arabs believe that Israel, via the American Jewish community, monopolizes US policy in the Middle East. The princes are no different.)

But I have news for the princes : they’re barking up the wrong tree. The Pentagon should be running the show in their region for the foreseeable future, and the Pentagon had been burned badly by Israel’s ambassadors (e.g., Kissinger, Wolfowitz, Perle, Edelman, Feith–the Defense Policy Board).

Note, for instance, that in mid-January, according to the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronot, via al-Quds al-Arabi (on or about 1/25/08–the Arab press covers the Israeli quite thoroughly), a US intelligence delegation traveled to Israel to discuss the NIE findings. Yedioth Ahronot reported that this delegation told the Israelis that the US would be willing to revise the NIE estimates if Israel provided convincing evidence about Iran that would contradict the NIE findings.

Soon afterwards, this Administration appointed Paul Wolfowitz as adviser to the US State Department to handle, among other things, the nuclear files of Iran and North Korea – a seeming concession to the Israelis. But it really wasn’t much of a concession. What’s telling about this appointment is that it was an appointment to State, not to the Pentagon where he once belonged. Foreign policy Paul wasn’t sent to the Pentagon to handle these files, but to insignificant State. There, insignificant he can work under the equally insignificant and incompetent she – the Secretary of State, another foreign policy and national security disaster who seemed to be always behind, unable to define the task in a timely fashion (including te task of resigning after September 11), a symptom of some mental pathology. No strategic alliance boys of the Jewish Right (Israel-US-Turkish Generals aching to topple the civilian government, and likely Russia as indirect beneficiary) need apply for Pentagon jobs for a while.


IRAN FACES THE EXTENSION OF THE LIFE OF ITS ENCIRCLEMENT

For another: What’s Iran to do?

Iran now is beyond the stage of talking to the US to coordinate in Iraq. It knows that actions speak louder than words. And it sees that the harmful idiots still are intent on crippling it economically. The more time it spends to tarwidh (condition/tame wild and impulsive animals--see prior posts) the harmful idiots the more it’ll see the Gulf governments crumble one by one to either accept to finance US occupation of Iraq, and an eventual war on Iran, or be replaced by outright “assets” of the harmful idiots. In other words, the takeover by the GCC states of the financing of the Project to Dismantle Arab Iraq should give the project to encircle and suffocate Iran, if not outright war on the Islamic Republic, a new life. The threat of bankruptcy which the Iraqi resistance had banked on (before the network of Baathists and former army officers put out the word among their sect to re-align tactically with the harmful idiots to await an intra-Shia civil war) would now be off the table. A Shia insurgency would be quelled by US troops financed by the oil surplus money of the Arab Gulf protectorates. And Iran would be in for serious trouble. (You see, even a war with Iran can now be financed by the backdoor tax on oil–the higher prices–since the GCC would be taking on the expense of the Project to Dismantle Arab Iraq and the concomitant policy of encircling Iran and bringing it to its knees.)


Would the harmful idiots, now that seignorage has gotten us into real trouble, and once they stop sapping US resources and rely instead on Gulf countries’ resources, be able to wage a better war against Iran? Not really. The more likely scenario is one where the “new” governments in the Gulf -- the ones which would be the result of Pentagon-instigated coups or the old/new ones, more willing to accept dictates by the harmful idiots as quid pro quo to avoiding being replaced–would set off on a campaign of purging the Gulf of any and all Iranians or Iranian influence. The idea would be to encircle the Islamic Republic. All the while, the harmful idiots would continue to unleash the troops in Iraq to exorcize it of any Iranian Hizbollah-like Iraqi cells which could be unleashed against US troops. A stupid strategy, long term, one where the harmful idiots are trying to reverse the damage they’ve done. One of plugging holes in a damn on a violent river. The mini-states they’re building in dismantled Iraq aren’t theirs, and will never be.


Move now? Move later? Iranian strategists are likely mulling this over. Any sign that the Gulf Arabs will be sharing the burden of the US occupation of Iraq in any significant fashion, or any launching of a true and effective campaign to purge the Gulf countries of Iranians and Iranian influence (this has begun but still is timid), would be key to the Iranians that they would need to ignite insurgencies
against the US in Iraq – before the plans by the harmful idiots to coax the Gulf governments, or change them to encircle and suffocate Iran, materialize.


( Note: Iran may not have the luxury of waiting. The Saudi mini-state in Lebanon is now moving full-force to demarcate the lines between the Sunni and the Shia, by spilling blood between the two communities, in retaliation for the assassination of its operatives. The Syrian/Iranian mini-state in Lebanon should try not to allow this to happen. But it may not be successful. Retaliation: Coax the Saudis toe ease and desist from their plan and do it in Plantation Iraq, where Saudi Arabia has placed all of its weight behind the harmful idiots. If they want blood spilled between Shia and Sunni, we certainly can do it in Iraq, would go the Iranian thinking. Let’s give them a taste of it. Let the Temple crumble on all, not only us.)


Oddly, in that sense, Iran, if successful at kicking ass with the harmful idiots, especially in domestic repercussions in the US, should be the current Gulf governments’ best hope to stay in power and keep a modicum of independence. Otherwise: expect the militarization of the Gulf societies, a la once Latin and Central Americas -- all to defeat the Islamic Republic.

THE WOMEN THE HARMFUL IDIOTS HARMED.

Second rough draft.

U P D A T E D


No, I don’t mean their Israel-anchored mostly Anglo women who hoorayed them for invading and occupying. I mean Iraqi women. A long time ago, this newsletter had concluded that the chief losers of the invasion of Iraq would be--

(1) Israel -- balance of power.

Never mind that it, the American Jewish Right, and a wide array of Jewish liberals had gambled on George Bush and the invasion and dismantling of the Arab country to assure supremacy (“security”) for their dear Israel. And

(2) Iraqi women -- raw, barbaric repression.

AL-HAYAT

Yasin Muhammad Sidqi on January 10 in the Saudi-owned and funded al-Hayat (Daralhayat.com) portrays a bleak and depressing picture of the state of women in Basra in his “The Militias of Basra Don’t Hesitate at Killing Women and [They Dare Paint] Their Threatening Slogans [Against Women] on the Walls of Police Stations.”

(A note of caution:

al-Hayat, while probably the most intellectually-motivated daily in the Arab World, is used periodically by Saudi intelligence who, in practical effect, own it and all other Saudi papers. This practical ownership is due to the fact that most of Saudi media is owned by members of the ruling extended family, whose wealth comes from the government on a rather continuous basis. These members are by definition open to instructions from their country's intelligence serive.

It never ceases to amaze me how similar the condition of the press is in the US and in places like Saudi Arabia. In the US, without any direct ownership by the government, media outlets go to war -- unjust, nakedly aggressive, barbaric war -- along with their government (e.g., The Wahington Post, The New York Times) even though no one's putting the gun to their head. In a place like Saudi Arabia, the influence of government is direct, via ownership and/or censorship. But the results in a so-called democracy (that's us) and in an autocratic kingdom (Saudi Arabia), in crucial instances, turn out to be quite similar.

At any rate, Saudi intelligence plants articles in newspapers such as al-Hayat meant to achieve this or that end of the shadow and true government of the Kingdom. (Does this remind you of Judith Miller and of our shadow government under the Bush regime?) Accordingly, the focus on the plight of Iraqi women could be a reflection of the genuine concern of the editors of that paper or of good reporting. Al-Hayat , after all, has done some of the best reporting from Iraq and recently from Pakistan. But it could also be a part of a new Saudi propaganda war against he Maliki government which the Saudis despise, with good reason, for its sectarian pettiness.)

HELP!

Still, there’s no question that the women of Iraq are in trouble. And there’s no question -- in my mind -- that yet more harm would be visited on these women should “help” come from narcissistic Iraqi women in the US who had worked with the harmful idiots or had hoorayed the invasion by the Israel-anchored crusades of the Christian Right, under the terrifically perceptive theorizing of the Jewish Right's luminaries and the hooraying by the Jewish liberals. These camera-loving narcissistic Iraqi expatriates are so beloved by the Israel-anchored mostly Anglo women -- Anglo but for Soaprah and the national security genius at State, who aren't Anglo, but who adore these women.

Accordingly, any “help” the Iraqi expats and their Israel-anchored hosts should extend from their organizations, which are funded by the harmful idiots' Israel-anchored Arab and Palestinian-despising institutions, should backfire and hurt the Iraqi women in Iraq.

Help for Iraqi women both in the south and the Sunni middle should only be effective if it came from the Islamic and Arab World.

THE IRAQI WOMEN OF THE SOUTH

In October alone of last year, one Iraqi women’s organization logged more than 30 murders of women in Basra.

Here’s an excerpt from Sidqi’s article:

“Ms. Meysoon [an activist defending women] wonders how one can explain [but for conscious abetting by the authorities] the murder of an attorney [a woman] . . . in the middle of the largest market in the city, at high noon? A student at the University of Basra said, ‘I had to stay home after a letter threatening to kill me (if I didn’t wear a veil) from students at the university. . .who [because I’d refused to wear a veil] would shout dirty words at me, would curse me, and would spit on my dresses, and would call me pig.”

(My translation.)

UPDATE

Kudos to al-Hayat for doing it yet again: Yesterday (1/25/08) that Arab newspaper included an investigative article about the state of women in Iraqi Kurdistan, the harmful idiots' nouveau Israel, which they had showered with billions upon billions of dollars, making Masoud Barazani a billionaire, to help out in the dismantling of Arab Iraq.

Well, it turns out that the women of the harmful idiots' beloved -- the Kurds --aren't faring much better than the women of the Shia south and Sunni middle.

The question for al-Hayat: when will it turn its attention to the state of women in the Kingdom, its home country? (No, you can't convince me that al-Hayat 's home country is Lebanon. It's Saudi Arabia, and it's published in London.) Or will it ever? My money is on . . . never.

FLASHBACK: FRANCE'S FORCE DE FRAPPE IN SAUDI ARABIA? FEBRUARY 2006.

f l a s h b a c k


WILL FRANCE PROVIDE SAUDI ARABIA NUCLEAR DETERRENCE AGAINST IRAN?

AND

WILL FRANCE SOON BE CELEBRATING THE RISE OF A PRO-FRENCH WING WITHIN THE FOREIGN POLICY ESTABLISHMENT OF SAUDI ARABIA?



BACKGROUND

Articles in SaudiPolitics (the latest being “Micro Strategies and the Security of Saudi Arabia” --Tuesday, February 7, 2006) have discussed the floating of the idea of a gargantuan defense contract between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Britain. The contract would cost $70 billion.

SaudiPolitics has speculated that the $70 billion contract will include the United States as the major beneficiary. It will go through British defense contractors to avoid a public outcry in the Kingdom. The United States, after all, is probably one of the least popular countries there, especially after it had dismantled an Arab country. Britain is more acceptable (maybe -- there are really not that many choices) since its role in Iraq has been quite limited -- though this is far from being a sure thing. Many months earlier -- I have it, but I’m too lazy to look it up -- Tony Blair referred to the Kingdom’s government as “regime.” He in effect was blackmailing the Kingdom. Was that before oil prices soared and he, once again, needed the Kingdom’s money?)

Actual contracts: one with Britain for $10 billion and one with the United States for $2 billion.

France was not mentioned, neither in the $70 billion floated idea nor in the actual two contracts.

President Jacques Chirac recently has sent two letters, separate, to Saudi King Abdullah. These were hand-delivered on or about February 11, 2006. In addition, the French President will visit Saudi Arabia in March.

What will his visit be about?


FIRST SCENARIO: FRANCE IS SEEKING KING ABDULLAH’S INTERVENTION TO INCLUDE IT IN ON THE $70 BILLION DEFENSE CONTRACT

President Chirac will ask the Saudi King to factor France into the arms contracts with the Kingdom. France opposed the invasion of Iraq, he would tell him. But in no way had it intended to stand in opposition to the Kingdom which had eased that invasion. Maybe, in retrospect, France was right, since the invasion has hardly made any country in the region more secure.

We do know one thing: Soaring oil prices after the invasion of Iraq made the Kingdom safer -- not U.S. troops. In the long run, unless Iran or al-Qaeda make a big terror splash that would so mobilize the U.S. public as to dispatch more troops, Iran is on the winning streak, not the U.S. and not Britain. If anything, the Iraqi invasion made smaller Gulf countries with large Shia minorities less safe, since the Iraqi Arab Shias, now powerful and in control of Iraqi state institutions, could lend a voice to their Arab brethren within Gulf countries. It’s a matter of time.

France’s long-term problem has been that the Saudi foreign policy establishment probably has lacked a pro-French wing. We know it has a huge pro-American wing (See SPC’s earlier article, “Side-Stepping King Abdullah,”) and probably a decent-size pro-British. (The “wings”’ stand to make a lot of money on defense contracts in kickbacks--hidden contingency fees.) The U.S. and Britain, along with their “wings” within the Saudi foreign policy establishment, would not want to share the bounty with any other country, including France.

And that could explain France’s recent tilt towards Hamas, siding with Saudi Arabia (the non-American and non-British wings) and Russia. France is now possibly regretting the trust it had placed in the U.S. and Britain: That, if it sided with them all the way, they would give it a slice of the Saudi defense contracts. They’re haven’t.

France probably made the mistake earlier (and deeper) when it quit its role as the Western “bridge-to-the-Third World,” including the Arab, by siding all the way with the alliance of the United States and Britain. Even the U.S. should appreciate the role of France as a bridge to the Arab public. But the Bush people’s world view (“Either you’re with us or against us”) hardly gives them the ability to act intricately. And there’s a price to pay for a non-intricate world view. For instance, when France quit its historic role as bridge via-a-vis the Arab public, it opened the door wide for Russia to replace it. And China shouldn’t be far behind.

In short, the U.S.-U.K. alliance is on a losing course in Iraq, though winning defense contracts in Saudi Arabia. France wants a share of these contracts. But it had weakened itself when it quit its role as bridge. Hence its corrective tilt in favor of world acceptance of Hamas. In effect, France is reverting to its traditional role, having discovered that the U.S. and Britain will not give it a share of Saudi defense contracts. President Chirac hopes King Abdullah will force France onto the American and British contract grabbers.

Would Saudi Arabia ignore France? Of course not. For one, Saudi Arabia probably has asked France to once again step on its pro-Arab foot more actively–to regain its role as a Western bridge to the Arab public, and should compensate it (and its Saudi-Lebanese wing) with a share of its defense contracts. Why? There’s a dire need for a European country to balance the truly awesome popularity the Islamic Republic. The hope would be that an “Arab France” would sway this public in a reasonable direction. (Arab governments have very limited sway over their own public -- the Arab Street -- while Islamic Iran knows how to push each and every buttom to keep the Arab Street in awe of it.) (See the earlier article “The Arab Street Marches Forward.”) The Kingdom should benefit from an “Arab France,” as should the United States and Britain


SECOND (AND COMPLEMENTARY?) SCENARIO: PRESIDENT CHIRAC WILL INAUGURATE A HARIRI-FRENCH WING WITHIN THE SAUDI FOREIGN POLICY ESTABLISHMENT.

WILL THE KINGDOM HAVE A FRENCH NUCLEAR FORCE DE FRAPPE ON ITS SOIL OR IN ITS WATERS?

In fact, France may already have changed course in coordination with the Kingdom.

It has titled towards Hamas, as had the Kingdom; it has threatened to retaliate against Islamic Iran using nuclear weapons, a reflection of its willingness to join the contain-Iran choir, not an unpleasant occurrence to the Kingdom. (See earlier SPC article : “Iran to Saud al-Faisal: We Hear You Loud and Clear.”) And, possibly, it could have agreed to base nuclear weapons and delivery systems in the Kingdom, under French control, to provide it with a force de frappe to deter a nuclear Iran. (You see: Charles de Gaulle was right. The nuclear force-de-frappe is in fact helping -- commercially.)

France would have thus used its Hariri/Lebanon connection very skillfully to evolve a French wing within the Saudi foreign policy establishment, and break into the Saudi market for defense contracts.

President Chirac’s visit may un-officially inaugurate the launch of this wing. Expect a sizeable Saudi-French contract.

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.

ONCE MORE: THE IRANIAN ULTIMATUM.

fifth rough draft

_______________________________________________________________________________
CAUTION (Update):

The Iranians have just said that the harmful idiots had "manufactured" the encounter/clash in the Strait of Hormuz. How's one to deal with this denial? On the one hand, it's clear that the Iranians had issued an ultimatum. On the other, the harmful idiots have had a decent track record of trying to entrap the Iranians. (The old "let's lure Saddam Hussein into Kuwait" scheme.) So, frankly, I'm at a loss on who to believe.

(Note: On or about May 1, 2007, less than two weeks before a planned visit by the Iranian President to the UAE, that country's navy detained 12 Iranian divers in contested waters. The harmful idiots, through their "assets" within the UAE military, seemed to have been playing for an Iranian reaction that would jeopardize the planned visit and convince the Gulf Arabs that they needed US protection. There were quite a few other entrapment schemes of the kind, meant to engineer an Arab backlash against Iran and perhaps a like backlash in the US Congress.)

Why would the Iranians dare the US Navy in a place where the US military is far superior? Are the Iranians entrapping the US military instead of the other way around, as a way of firing up their domestic front? In meeting their ultimatum the Iranians could more productively (excuse the word) respond in Plantation Iraq or Plantation Lebanon -- or even in Plantation Afghanistan.

I disagree with a number of Arab observers that the US is getting ready for war with Iran. The Saudi foreign Minister is correct: the region's stability is too crucial to the health of the world economy. And even idiots who are harmful by now understand that. Unless, that is, the harmful idiots are using the Strait of Hormuz incident as a bluff (no more) to once again pressure the Iranians to cooperate in Plantation Iraq.

The entire thing is a no-win situation for the US which, by occupying Iraq, has lost all flexibility militarily and politically. The Iranians know that.
_________________________________________________________________________________

In the last few posts this newsletter built on an Iranian ultimatum to the harmful idiots issued via the Lebanese As-Safir.

I wasn’t clear about whether the Iranians had meant as deadline the New Year according to the Gregorian or the Islamic calendar. That New Year date would've been the deadline by which they would act out if the harmful idiots hadn't made relevant concessions.

The recent encounter between Iranian small boats and US Navy ships should be seen from that perspectiv -- the perspective of the ultimatum.

I looked it up: 8/9 January is the first day of the Islamic New Year. (So it was the Islamic New Year.)

The harmful idiots likely have not made the needed concessions. A President wants to leave office having “succeeded” in Iraq. Never mind

(1)all the begging he's done(e.g., to Russia, Turkey, and likely to Israel) which if anything has further devalued American prestige, now non-existent;

(2) all the silly ruses against the Iranians which spoke of helplessness, an established fact in Iraq -- appearances and spin to the contrary; and

(3) all the colonial schemes on the ground ("counter-insurgency") which in the end likely will set up Iraq for the most vicious civil wars ever in that country's history.

Will the Islamic Republic be that kind?

THAW IV: IRAN’S FRONTS -- U P D A T E D.

2nd and so much better draft

NOTE:

SaudiPolitics will try from now on to include policy recommendations. Not that anyone listens. (Just decided: No; won't do it again.)

POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS

Develop economic relations with Iran. This would be a better and surer venue for peace than war, sanctions, or the threat of war.

Unleash US energy corporations to sign contracts with the Islamic Republic. It could be that the harmful idiots already have induced foreign energy corporations such as the Malaysian SKS Ventures to execute contracts signed with Iran as incentive for Iran to cooperate in Plantation Iraq. If this is the case, then it’d be eminently restrictive economically to not allow US energy corporations the same privilege. But this isn't about fairness. More to the point: US energy corporations should be allowed to engage the Iranian market and the classes tied to that market to reel this generation of the Iranian government into normalcy--to tarwidh it in a most effective fashion, instead of the other way around.

If the harmful idiots and their kin in Congress are concerned about Israel’s “security” : it should be eminently obvious that trade relations and mutual economic dependence are the best assurances for that “security.” Ditto for the Gulf. The trade approach would avoid (almost certainly) some dismal scenarios. The outcome of armed confrontation with Iran, or even severe sanctions, would hardly be some pro-Western Iran, where its military is allied to ours. (Where do these reactionary people get these delusional ideas? Are they basing their wishful conclusions on the reporting by a couple of Iranian generals who defected? Haven't they learned from Iraq not to allow "intelligence" to supplant analysis?) But even short of war with Iran, the approach being pursued in Plantation Iraq sets up that country for long-term (very long-term) paralysis at best and bloody civil wars at worse. The harmful idiots assume too much when they assume that the US tax base will let them stay in Iraq to supervise long-term paralysis or help out in the civil wars. In the end, it'll likely be chaos and more Islamism.


INTRODUCTION

This series about the thaw in relations between the Iranians and the harmful idiots wouldn’t be complete without an attempt at examining some of Iran’s more important fronts in its face-off with, and tarwidh (see prior post) of, the harmful idiots.


IRAN’S MOST IMPORTANT FRONT: THE HOUSE OF THE HARMFUL IDIOTS–HOW IT ALL ENTWINES.


SOME (NOT SO CAVALIER) HISTORY

The harmful idiots wanted control of Iraq’s oil as leverage against China and Europe. In that quest the harmful idiots mobilized two powerful domestic political forces which stood to benefit from the assault on the (defenseless) Arab and mostly-Muslim country: the American Christian Right and the American Jewish Right.

The procreative troops of the Christian Right, having lost the ability to organize in unions, had found refuge in Evangelical churches. They welcomed war in good part because war provided better remuneration than their “service economy” jobs. (Recall the Rand Corporation study a couple of years ago which brought out the fact that a majority of the troops deployed gained better salaries at war than in civilian life.)

The Jewish Right was promised (and promised itself) supremacy for Israel (“security”), long term, once the harmful idiots had tightened their control over Iraq’s oil by controlling that country. The Jewish Right easily recruited Jewish liberals – the Thomas Friedman types. Iraq at any rate has revealed that the line between the Jewish Right and the Jewish liberals was non-existent. Both are consumed, obssessed (preoccupied abnormally) really, with Israel and blinded by the obssession. Both distort experience to fit their obssession.

From a balance of power perspective, it would’ve stood to reason that on the eve of the American invasion of defenseless Iraq, Iran would bury the hatchet and draw an alliance with the Baathist state. Why? For one, Iran would’ve ruled the entire Arab and Islamic World had it stood by Iraq’s side. (For a while, at least. In the long run, perhaps not, and that's where Iranian strategists are good.) For another, why want Israel’s sponsor next door? The common reason cited for failing to bury the hatchet was that Iran couldn’t get over its deep hostility towards the Baath government. That government had invaded its territory and had engaged it in an unnecessary, bloody, and costly war on behalf of the harmful idiots and the Gulf Sunni governments. More likely, however, the Iranians relented because they could see that the harmful idiots were basing their plans for invading Arab Iraq on the cooperation of Iraqi forces over which the Islamic Republic held sway. Iranian intelligence had reared these.

(I had predicted a mutual defense treaty based on a balance of power perspective and some facts on the ground. I was wrong.)

The Iranians likely assessed that at best Iraq would be governed by Shia forces beholden to the Islamic Republic; at worse, Iraq would be in a state of chaos, forever neutralized as a potential threat against the Islamic Republic. In-between these two scenarios Iran likely was hopeful that the Shia forces beholden to it, especially the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) – now the Supreme Islamic Council (SIC) –, which Iranian intelligence had reared and almost certainly keeps under a state of intensive infiltration, would act as a bridge between it and the United States.


THE HARMFUL IDIOTS REALIGN


No one knows whether the Iranians expected or were surprised that the harmful idiots would change course in Iraq and re-align themselves with the Sunni. (I want to brag: I did tell more than one person that the Baath would outsmart the harmful idiots.) This process of re-alignment took hold soon after the Vice President, an oil man, visited the Gulf in May, 2007. The invasion of Iraq had sent energy prices soaring. This new bonanza had given the Arab Gulf countries a new sense of confidence. They no longer were on the defensive vis-a-vis the US, having gotten their house in order and reined in the venues of al-Qaeda terror. They confronted the Vice-President (my guess: away from his “neocons”) and queried him about the weird policy of his country in Iraq. They explained to him that his harmful idiots’ policies in the end were emptying into the Iranian course; that the harmful idiots were assisting Iran in consolidating its hold over Plantation Iraq. These Gulf countries, it should be reminded, are ruled by Sunni extended families but have significant Shia populations in their midst. In some, these Shia are still referred to as “the Persians.”

The vice President listened. In part because both he and his chief are oil businessmen with interest in post-tenure careers, the Arab Gulf oil countries, now so rich, have their ear. These Arab Gulf governments awoke the Vice President to the fact that practically speaking his harmful idiots had done Iran’s bidding by invading, had continued to do the same during the colonial occupation, and were assisting Iran in consolidating its hold over Plantation Iraq. The Gulf countries, on their part, especially Saudi Arabia, had been sending money to the Sunni in Iraq and allowing the Saudi young to head to Iraq to become suicide bombers at the beck and call of the Baath establishment, now no longer secular but mostly Sunni Islamic.

I don’t think Iran expected this American U-turn. The US now would be pursuing an alliance with the Sunni, arming them, and paying the salaries of thousands of them (71,000 at a minimum -- likely many, many more). In addition, the harmful idiots would now try to divide the Shia camp between Hakim and Sadr–the very camp the Iranians had so reared and controlled.

I think it was in May 2007 that Iran began to lose the relative full control it once had over the course of events which mattered to Iran. Until then, the Iranians could hope that the Hakim people, double-agents, would act as bridge between them and the harmful idiots, which would assist the Iranians in their policy of tarwidh of these. Even though the Hakim people (the Badr Corps/organization which controls so much of the police and security services) still are well-disposed towards Iran, it’s looking increasingly obvious that their rivalry with the Sadr people (the Mahdi Army) is being used by the harmful idiots to weaken Iran’s hold over the Shia. For now it’s unclear how much (political/military) sway Iran still holds in Iraq. We’ll know in the new year if the harmful idiots fail to concede/deliver. (See prior two posts.) I suspect Iran still holds as much sway as before. But, in case of activating genuine domestic armed opposition to US occupation, that sway likely would be gradual , as a crescendo. Meaning: Iran will have to regain its place in Iraq, and it should be able to achieve that goal. The only question: what method (s) will it use?

Starting in May 2007 Iran should have begun to realize that it could no longer hope to be favored by the harmful idiots. The highlight of its partnership had come when Iran watched gleefully as the harmful idiots delivered an Arab President for lynching, while other Arab cowards called Presidents, Sheiks and Kings (yes mastah) stood silent, watching one of their own be lynched. A page from America’s history and Texas current practice (they now call it the death penalty) to repeat itself against the darker one, yet again. Now the Iranians and the harmful idiots would meet here and there, but only to avoid disaster . (See previous posts.) The harmful idiots would negotiate with the Iranians, but mostly away from the public eye and likely in a limited fashion. Now the harmful idiots were trying to reverse their own harmfully idiotic mistake of invading and try as best they can to balance Iranian power. To that end they launched a worldwide campaign against the Iranians. They used Iran’s nuclear program as the lynchpin for that campaign. As a result, the Islamic Republic lost any hope of seeing its partnership with the harmful idiots in ending Baathist rule blossom into the recognition by these of Iran’s regional leadership and usefulness in the Gulf. That Iran could police the region and assure security, a second-tier goal of the harmful idiots, short of the first-tier goal of total dominance over the oil region.

Could the Iranians have been so naive as to think that the Israel-anchored Middle East policy of the United States would allow for a genuine partnership between them and the harmful idiots? There’s quite a lot of evidence that the Iranians were willing to concede quite a lot, including on Hizbollah and Israel, in exchange for acceptance by the harmful idiots of the Islamic Republic’s leadership in the Gulf region. But the harmful idiots were now victorious and delusional in the extreme. They had fallen for their own propaganda. They had convinced themselves that they had won a war against an equal, not a defenseless country which had been emaciated by years of sanctions, racist and greedy humiliation. (Recall the landing of the President on the aircraft carrier and Tony Blair’s strutting along in his white shirt surrounded by his valiant troops, all manly and testosterone-filled for having fucked the real Arabs–not the yes mastah Arabs who they fuck all the time.) (See “Of British Blackmail and Saudi Manhood.”)

Not to mention that the harmful idiots had come from an Israel-centric background. The very men who inspired them were of the Jewish Right, and these wouldn’t want Iran to eclipse Israeli power and force Israel to compromise and partner with the Palestinians. God forbid. (Oh, my God, really; no, please not.)

Hence the non-responsiveness by the Bush Administration to Iran’s offers of compromise. What’s hilariously ironic about this was that Iran made these concessions at a time when it had thought that the harmful idiots were all-powerful. Even more hilariously ironic was that, soon, it was the Iraqi (Arab Sunni) resistance–not even Shia–which proved otherwise. As U.S. troops fought that Arab Sunni resistance the Iranians watched, with gleeful disbelief. Until May 2007, that is.


FIGHTING WARS FOR THE JEWISH RIGHT, ISRAEL, AND THE GULF OIL ARABS

After that date, the harmful idiots had to devise a policy that would be responsive to the right wing Jewish domestic constituency, to Israel, and to the Arab oil Gulf states. The first two wanted an all-out US war on Iran; the third wanted disaster avoidance, while maintaining constant pressure on the Islamic Republic. As a result, US troops would now be fighting the war for these three constituencies to assure that Plantation Iraq doesn’t turn into an Arab ally of Iran, threatening Israel’s supremacy and increasing the ability of the Islamic Republic to influence the politics of the Gulf Arabs.

Gone were Iranian hopes of getting business done as cooperating partner with the armful idiots.

What’s Iran to do? Or, more to the point, is Iran still confident that it can dictate things on the ground in Iraq, using resistance, likely by the Shia, now that the harmful idiots have so totally turned against it? Iran had issued an ultimatum, post NIE estimate, giving the harmful idiots until the end of 2007 to concede to Iran, especially on the nuclear file. (Could it have been the Islamic calendar year?) Does this mean that such concessions would sway Iran to allow the harmful idiots to stay in Iraq? I think yes; US troops in Iraq, at a number known only to the Iranians, are one of the best venues the Islamic Republic has in tarwidh-ing the harmful idiots. Conceding on the nuclear file, I would presume, would mean the softening of sanctions against the Islamic Republic – a must for that Republic.

Lifting the sanctions -- and not imposing more of the same -- for Iran would require more than just an actual but cold and hesitant suspension of efforts by the harmful idiots and their European proxies in that domain. Such could be -- and likely would be -- a ruse: to gain time for the self-deluded harmful idiots to increase the number and reliability of the Iraqi troops they are training, the troops of their ancillary state, and the Sahwas. Pay them well, really well, and they will fight for you. (What a pipedream.) And to sanitize Plantation Iraq. The harmful idiots have been trying to sanitize Iraq to rob the Islamic Republic of its ability to pursue its policy of tarwidh towards them. Hence the ceaseless campaign against the Mahdi Army . (See below.)

ONLY GUARANTEE: US OIL COMPANIES TO IRAN

To assure long-term US cooperation, and not one ruse after another, Iran would want to see American oil/energy corporations enter the bidding for the development of its oil and gas fields. It strikes me that reliance on countries such as China and Malaysia to fuel that sector in Iran has been rather unsatisfactory for the Islamic Republic. And Japan and the Europeans have been too hesitant, under pressure from the harmful idiots. With the entry into Iran of US oil corporations the European and other giant oil corporations would follow suit. (I think they would clamor there like there’s no tomorrow.) That’s the only brand name assurance I can think of which would lead Iran to accept the presence of US troops in Plantation Iraq at a number that’s substantial enough to make some difference, yet small enough not to threaten the security of the Islamic Republic. But the harmful idiots may not be able to deliver on investments by US oil/energy corporations in Iran, even if they wanted. Such isn’t fully in the hands of the Executive Branch. The Israel-centric US Congress should be expected to stand in the way. Which would mean that the Islamic Republic would have to go through Israel to reach that Congress. This foray would be fraught with costly political risks and would have at best uncertain results.

But there’s a way out, generic. The US President can signal friendly non-European countries (they may have already–e.g., Malaysia) to do it -- to enter the Iranian oil and gas exploration market. Such entry into that market by US-induced foreign companies, however, may or may not do it for the Islamic Republic. It could be yet another ruse–though the Republic might play along. I don’t know. The question: for how long? The other question: Will Congress allow it if it were anything other than a ruse?

There’s a distinct possibility that the harmful idiots have in fact induced the entry into the Iranian natural gas market of at least one oil company, the Malaysian SKS Ventures. This could be a tactic by the harmful idiots to secure Iranian cooperation in Plantation Iraq. In other words, the harmful idiots are giving the Iranians a taste of what could come should they not disturb their efforts to reach a stage of full control of Iraq and its oil.

(Once again, will the US Congress allow the taste to become a meal? Bush is heading to Israel; and a US aircraft carrier is visiting the Haifa port. All of this seems to be meant to obtain Israeli coopearation to (1) not attack Iran and embroil as a result US troops into a war not of thier choosing--and fail the Bush Administration which has deluded everyone about the surge and its alleged achievements; and (2) have Israel exert pressure on the US Congress not to stand in the way of a deal -- likely an oil deal, could be SKS -- between the harmful idiots and Iran. Hence President Perez's recent statements to the effect that war wasn't necessary with Iran and that sanctions can be effective. Much easier to hide behind sanctions and dilute these to face-save than behind a bloody and intractable war, a Tet-like outburst. Hence, too, Mr. Khamenei's recent statements that a relationship with the US is possible if beneficial to Iran.)

On or about December 26, 2007, Iran (Pars Oil and Gas Co) signed one part of a $16 bn dollar contract with Malaysia (SKS Ventures) for development of Golshan and Ferdos gas fields –both offshore. Iran’s Oil Minister Gholam Hussein Nozari said the full agreement with Malysia would be worth $16 bn in total when the final contract is signed. SKS Ventures is a privately-held company of Seyed Mokhtar al-Bukhary. It seems that Mr. al-Bukhary hasn’t yet gathered the capital necessary to go through the entire project. An internet search revealed him saying that there’s so much liquidity around the globe (I agree fully–the harmful idiots have created a HUGE dollar glut to dodge taxation at home and to win elections) that he wouldn’t need to go to New York to raise the money. (Iran is estimated to have the world’s second largest gas reserves, after Russia.) Months earlier, Steven R. Weisman (“U.S. Cautions Foreign oil Companies on Iran Deals,” nytimes.com, March 21, 2007) had reported that “[t]he Bush administration has quietly been warning energy companies, including Shell, Repsol and SKS, the Malaysian oil company ...that penalties are possible if they pursue energy deals with Iran.” (Emphasis added.) Has the Bush administration reversed itself on SKS?

The Malaysian announcement came after the Iranians had dispatched what possibly was their price for continued cooperation in Plantation Iraq. On or about December 5, Iran’s Oil Minister said that his country would need about $150 billion in investments in the oil and gas sectors to increase production. I think his message likely was larger than just a one-time stop-gap concession ( e.g., SKS, possibly) from the harmful idiots. He was sending a message to the United States–and to its oil/energy corporations. The message to the harmful idiots: only US investment in our oil sector would be incentive enough for us to partner with you in Plantation Iraq. The message to US oil/energy corporations: Can the American oil/energy corporations neutralize the Israel-centric US Congress so as to allow US investment in Iran?

It’s possible that not opposing the SKS deal, or winking at it, was the harmful idiots’ way of responding to the Iranians’ request. We’ll know soon whether it was and whether it does satisfy the Iranians enough to withdraw their ultimatum and allow the Bush administration to “succeed” in Iraq. After all, Mr. Al-Bukhari has yet to raise the money. Which means that the bone thrown at the Iranians, if in fact it was intended as such, may have no meat on it.

“REGIME CHANGE”

Politically, too, as part of tarwidh, the Islamic Republic would need to persuade the harmful idiots that “regime change” in Iran wouldn’t lead to a country which military would be allied to the US. This is such a common and foolish conclusion in the US media by academics and intelligence-financed think tanks, or think tanks which financing is highly suspect. (What a stew!)

I believe that the likely outcome of so-called “regime change” would be chaos and more Islamism and extremism, not an Iranian military that is allied to the US. A foe should always be seen as smarter than oneself, right? Accordingly this newsletter has repeatedly brought to the fore the highly likely possibility that the Iranian and Syrian governments have, after Iraq, developed plans to disintegrate their own states should the US launch a serious attack against them. I would go further: the Guard of the Islamic Revolution (GIR), with the money it has, could easily spin off groups to its left to counter those financed by the intelligence services of the harmful idiots. Accordingly, GIR would look acceptable to all. GIR could also create groups to its right; it could infiltrate. At any rate, revolutions and change don’t start from conceptual scratch. The only people who would succeed against a force like GIR would be those who would fight it on its own ideological and conceptual grounds: those who are more Islamist than it is.

Ditto for Syria. The more the government feels threatened the more Arab nationalist it should go (which is good), possibly with an Islamic twist (which is bad, bad, bad), as Saddam Hussein did. The more entrenched it’ll be. Its challengers would have to face-off with it on its own ideological and conceptual grounds: Arab nationalism, defined at a minimum as the liberation in full of the Joulan and the establishment of a Palestinian state. The current Syrian opposition, funded likely by the harmful idiots and the Saudis, is prisoner to its funding and is unable to be Arab nationalist. The Islamist part of this opposition -- though a joke through and through, as are the rest -- is dangerous in that it should easily be infiltrated by al-Qaeda types and by Iranian and Syrian intelligence. In short, the outcome of an American war on Iran or Syria, or even sanctions, if severe, should push those governments deeper in an Islamist direction, and any genuine and effective opposition to these should follow suit. Too, to break a siege if severe, Iran and Syria may be left without a choice but to seek an all out confrontation in Iraq.

(I’m telling you: by the time the harmful idiots and their Israelis are finished with the Middle East, the entire place would have become fully Islamist. Get the visas ready for all Middle Eastern Christians. After Iraq–it’s practically over. Not that it's a bad thing; life in the cargo countries is fine. But the transition period is awful -- to be a refugee in Damascus; to resort to prostitution to meet basic material needs, having being forced to leave the cover of security Iraq once provided. Oh well.)

HOW THINGS LOOK

Things look mixed for the Islamic Republic in the United States. The majority of the presidential candidates, Democrat and Republican, don’t want a hasty withdrawal from Iraq. Which is good for the Islamic Republic since such should allow it to continue its policy of tarwidh. The question will remain: What troop level would be ideal for tarwidh? Only the Iranians know that figure.

It’d be bad for the Islamic Republic if there were a total withdrawal of US troops from Iraq because it would lose an arena where the US needs it, giving it hopes that US oil/energy corporations and not only proxies would return to Iran.

The other extreme, the one championed by the Jewish Right (Sen. Joe Lieberman) and parts of the defense establishment ( Sen John McCain), would mean the dispatch of yet more troops to Iraq and all-out war with the Islamic Republic. It would also mean the enactment of the draft in the US.

Hence the importance of the American front for the Iranians.


THE RUSSIA FRONT

It seems that Russia is half-hearted about full and total support of Iran. I don’t think it’s the missile defense shield that the US is planning to set up in the former Eastern Europe which accounts for the hesitation -- this US project having been launched to obtain concessions from Russia on Iran. Likely, Russia isn’t fully on board to accept the idea of yet another nuclear power to its south. Likely, too, Russia is aware that the Islamic Republic would like nothing more than to associate itself with the US, especially in trade, and buy Boeing and the European Airbus. Likely, too, Israel has something to do with it.

Russia needs Iran. It needs it for cooperation in the Caspian Sea region; it needs it to defeat the American Iraq Project, which superficially has gained a new elan with the realignment with the Sunni (too little, too late); it needs it as a lever in the oil supply-demand formula. But it seems that Russia will try to get away with only a moderate amount of military and especially nuclear aid to Iran. The above reasons aside, it still beats me why Russia would be so hesitant. Could it be concern by the Russians that the harmful idiots are capable of re-igniting the Russians’ Chechnya front? (I don’t know enough about it.)

When it comes to Iran, Russia has working for it the stiff Israel-anchored US foreign policy. So it can relax about such possibilities as US oil/energy corporations entering the Iranian market. (If they do, they would too enter the Iraq market from the widest of doors.) Russia knows that should US corporations enter the Iranian/Iraqi market, one could expect (one way or another) oil and gas prices to moderate – not a good thing for Russia, neither economically nor politically. But since this is off the table anyway, Russia holds the upper hand in its relationship with Iran.

Iran’s relationship with Russia therefore likely will remain marred by Russian hesitation, and should remain uncertain unless and until the harmful idiots allow their corporations to invest in Iran. (If the recent Malaysian oil deal with Iran has been winked at by the harmful idiots, and it’s a bone with actual meat on it, then one should expect Russia to become less hesitant in its supply of weapons and aid to Iran. Besides, even without any meat on the bone the Russians may not want to afford the luxury of interpretation and set themselves on the course of losing Iran.) Should the harmful idiots be able to overcome their Israel-centric world view, sway the Israel-centric US Congress, and allow their energy corporations to invest in Iran, one should expect the US to beat the Russians hands down, both in Iran and in Iraq, and to reverse the Chinese near take-over of the Iranian market. One day this will define the new American offensive to dominate the Gulf region–an energy trade offensive.

(It’ll be called the Greater Newer Gobble Gobble GoGo Gulf (GREN-GOGO-GU). The harmful idiots will have to provide assurances on topless sunbathing for the GREN-GOGO-GU to work, and will have to dispatch the harmful idiot at State to lecture Arabs of the GREN-GOGO-GU and the mullahs of the Islamic Republic about it, perhaps while Israel is raining cluster bombs on Lebanon's south. Please refer to Greater Middle East, New Improved Middle East, Divide-and-Conquer-to-Smithereens Middle East.)

Hence the importance to Israel that the Lieberman approach succeed. This approach: to ally a part of the mainstream Jewish community with a part of the old Republican Party, which McCain represents. Israel can count on the Democrats to not open up to Iran in any significant fashion. It can count on the Christian Right to want war with Iran, since war pays its members better. And now Israel can neutralize the old guard of the Republican Party by drawing an alliance with McCain. Not a bad strategy. (Only that the last time Lieberman lent his support to a presidential candidate, that one . . . sank like a rock. Okay: so he did win the Nobel Peace Prize, but it was no thanks to running on the same ticket with a warmonger.)

Even on the Russia front American politics and Israel loom large for Iran.


THE SHIA FRONT IN IRAQ: CAN IRAN AFFORD TO SEE SADR EMACIATED; CAN SADR?


The harmful idiots continue to dispatch both their troops, the troops of their ancillary state (the We-Shall-Live-in-San Diego Brigades), and the troops of the Hakim/Dawa state against Sadr’s men. The harmful idiots claim that the men they are killing or arresting are unruly offshoots of the Mahdi Army. Which in effect means that they are doing a favor for Sadr who had declared a truce vis-a-vis the American occupying forces. How considerate.

No one's fooled. What’s going on?

The harmful idiots are working against the clock of the Iranian ultimatum. They’re trying to sanitize Plantation Iraq, to rid it of Iranian influence. This would rob the Islamic Republic of the ability to push tarwidh against them. But Iran loses every time US troops kill or arrest a Sadr man. Why? If Sadr and his people cannot rely on Iran, then maybe they should change alliances. Either Sadr himself will draw closer to the Americans and their Sunni proteges –and by extension the Gulf Arab Sunni governments– (and there are signs of that–see prior posts), or his men will exit and join the Hakim and Dawa crowd where they can obtain employment and other perks from the harmful idiots and from the oil revenue-rich Hakim/Dawa state. The Mahdi Army wouldn’t disappear. But it would no longer be the force it once was when twice it had engaged US troops.

Iran’s passivity at the American effort to sanitize Iraq is therefore surprising–unless one considers that it is abiding by its own ultimatum. Time is hurting it. It likely knows that it cannot rely on Hakim in the long run, not unless US oil corporations enter its market. (See above.) Until then Hakim should be dangerous to Iran for three reasons: (1) he has leaned way too much in the direction of the US ; (2) he is using the American troops to eliminate an Iranian ally, Sadr; and (3) by doing what he is doing –see 1 and 2– he’s leaving Iran no choice but to consider fueling an intra-Shia civil war as a way of tarwidh-ing the harmful idiots.

(I don't think they really want to defeat US troops. They want to tarwidh the harmful idiots. It could be that the Russians are on to what the Iranians are up to, and are dissatisfied by their strategy of tarwidh; that the Russians may favor a continued military uprising until such time when the harmful idiots order withdrawal. And it could be that the Russians are uncomfortable with the "flirtation" by the Iranians with the harmful idiots, with the hope of establishing a long-erm relationship with them. This could explain the Russians' hesitation when it comes to going all the way with the Iranians in supporting them in their military and nuclear endeavors. That could explain Mr. Bush's Christmas call to Mr. Putin. Was he begging for time to allow his harmful idiots to face-save? You bet. Mr. Bush wants to leave office with Iraq "pacified"--then let his Chrisitan Right blame someone else for "losing" Iraq. Hence the begging.)

So why is the Islamic Republic waiting? And what is it waiting for? There’s nothing on the horizon showing any readiness by the American Israel-centric foreign policy culture to allow ExxonMobil to develop oil and gas fields in Iran. And the Malaysian deal may or may not be US-motivated, or may be yet another ruse.

I think the ultimatum issued via as-Safir (see two posts ago) – that the Islamic Republic is giving the harmful idiots until the end of 2007 (or the end of the Muslim calendar year?) to make concessions – may explain the overall hesitancy of that Republic to come to Sadr’s assistance before it’s time. That’s the more likely explanation.

The less likely explanation is that Iran may be waiting for the American political process to react to the profligate cost of the war. Unconvincing. For one, the US can print –and is printing –money. (Seignorage?) Cost therefore is not an issue. Confirming this is the fact that the more recent polls reveal that the economy has now surpassed Iraq as a concern for the electorate, the cost of the war not having diminished. In other words, the American elector is not connecting the cost of the war to the looming recession. It could be that the loss of human life in Iraq, especially American but also Iraqi, helps link the economic cost of the war in the mind of the American elector to the state of the economy. But that in the absence of loss in human life the same elector would tend to ignore the cost altogether since she’s not being taxed for the war – since the war is being waged with printed money.

(She’s actually being “taxed;” that tax is going to the oil-producing countries, including Iran and Russia. It’s a hidden and concealed and treacherous tax where some of her money will later be transferred to the pockets of the oil administration , after the two oil men leave office, in something akin to the Carlyle Group, and the world will be ruled by these people. There’ll be oil tankers called The Cheney and The BushBush and the CheneyBush and the BushCheneyBushBush. Oh, the classiest: the W. Advice: the names cannot contain a "p." Arabs cannot pronouce "P;" they say it as "b." It’s a "biss-ing" global conspiracy, man.)

Or would Iran’s interpretation be that igniting strife now would get in the way of the ongoing thaw and lead to more not less US troops in Iraq–perhaps even the draft?

In the absence of genuine US concessions, Iran would have to determine how best to increase tension in Iraq: fuel an intra-Shia civil war, with the harmful idiots backing Hakim and they Sadr? A Sunni-Shia civil war which would lead to a large unofficial mass AWOL by Shia and Sunni soldiers to assist their religious compatriots? Try and hammer an Islamic alliance between Sadr and the Sunni, albeit the majority of the Sunni seem to have lost interest in this and in politics having gone on the payroll of the American taxpayer and the Saudis. ( They’ll sit this one out.) Fuel a civil war in the north, already in place, joining together Arab Sunni and Arab Shia against the seceding Kurds?

(Other fronts of the Islamic Republic:

-- the Arab Shia of the Gulf;

-- Syria and Plantation Lebanon;

-- Palestine; and

-- topless beaches.)