THE DEFEAT OF SAUDI ARABIA – AND THE KINGDOM PREPARES ITS POPULACE FOR CHRISTIAN TROOPS.

first rough draft

BY: ZEIN AL-IRBAN (pseudonym) and Tony Khater.

Summary:

Twenty-four years into a rather successful Saudi policy of containing Islamic Iran, and defeating it using Arab Iraq, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, through the Bandar/Bush/Cheney team, over-reached. Now the Kingdom stands defeated and Iran victorious.

Fear not, the Jewish Right and its allies want victory and Mr. Lieberman will seek it out through Mr. McCain. Lieberman-McCain are having Cheney ready the Gulf for the promised all-out American war on Iran. (See the last post.) They’re certain McCain will win against an African-American man or a Caucasian woman. The Saudi government is part of the preparation. McCain-Lieberman will need to station US and other Christian (and possibly Israeli) troops on Saudi territory.

Do they have scenarios for what will follow “victory?” Or do they think others are as harmfully idiotic -- dumb, really -- as they are and haven’t readied themselves for various alternatives?


POEM

(By Zein al-Irban*, with help from this Editor.)

(*Pseudonym)


Our man Bandar assured us all
Said he and Bush-father were on the ball
That all they wanted was to lynch the boy
Who strayed from his scripted role
So that all will know their place
And kiss their ass as should a slave
And tickle their balls

So we said: then GO!
He means nothing to us royal all
We’re but self-hating Arabs
With no pride –
We live and eat in money stalls.
Yes we’re your slaves
You’re our love and only joy
But for pro forma appearances
We’ll gladly accept you fuck us all:
Arabs and Muslims –
Your white ass
And Israel’s boys’
We’ll kiss
In a Bandar world of greedy bliss
And billion-skimming ploys.


TO DEFEAT AND CONTAIN IRAN: THE CONSTANT THEME IN SAUDI FOREIGN POLICY.

Have no doubt, Saudi foreign policy since 1979 has aimed at containing the Islamic Republic, and it still aims for the same. Even the bloody Iran-Iraq war which Saddam Hussein started was in essence a war by Saudi Arabia, leading the Arab Gulf countries, and supported by the harmful idiots, to defeat and contain revolutionary Iran. Narcissistic and paranoid Saddam Hussein, the former Arab President of Iraq who the harmful idiots delivered for the lynching, while the Saudi and Kuwaiti governments celebrated, was an easy and unwitting tool.

Extending this logic one can surmise that Saudi Arabia didn’t mind the Clinton Administration-led sanctions, severe and debilitating to the civilian population, against Arab Iraq. Saudi Arabia didn’t because it had wanted to clip Arab Iraq’s wings after that country’s “victory” over Iran. It clipped them so thoroughly that it over-reached. Now it’s trying to do the same to Syria. But the Syrians are too smart and know that any divergence from full coordination with Iran – and they’re finished.. (You really have to read their e-newspapers to realize how strategically savvy they are.) Saddam Hussein was too narcissistic and delusional to realize that hitching his wagon to the Saudi horse would’ve meant -- and has in fact meant -- lynching by their sponsors. All have learned the lesson, including Bashar Asad and likely many others -- including some in Lebanon. The harmful idiots only respect the Israelis. All others, including the Saudis, if the opportunity exists, would be subject to good old American justice. Say “Yes master” to the right wing Jews . . . or you’re dead meat.

Extending that logic even further, one can surmise that the Kingdom’s government didn’t mind the Bush-Cheney devastating assault on Arab Iraq. The Bandar bin Sultan wing, that is. This wing, closely connected to the harmful idiots, dominated Saudi foreign policy and politics and still dominates. (The leaders of protectorates such as Saudi Arabia and Israel, as cargo cults, will allow those among them who are assets of the harmful idiots to define their policy during the term of an American administration. The process is such that those assets are the ones with a particular affinity with that particular US administration. In the case of the Bush-Cheney Administration, Bandar bin Sultan seems to be the one.) Consider that which we’re repeatedly told: that Bandar was and is George W.’s adopted brother. Consider that amazing piece of photographic evidence of Bandar sitting on the arm of a couch with the man who hammered the last nail in the coffin of Arab Iraq, the natural defender of Saudi Arabia. (Talk about shooting oneself in the foot!) Consider him at some time calling then Crown Prince Abdallah to announce that the US military assault on Iraq should soon begin.

THE BANDAR WING: HARDLY ARAB. HENCE THE PROBLEM.

The Bandar wing of Saudi foreign policy, which includes King Abdallah, was in on the invasion of Arab Iraq. (That poor king.) Not so much to finish that country as a bulwark of Arab nationalism. That had been over for a while. And not because the right wing boys of Israel’s diaspora had taken over the Pentagon and were threatening to dismember the Kingdom. The photograph of Bandar sitting on the arm of the couch, with his step-brother George W. Bush in the same room, likely had been meant as assurance to the Saudi government against the background of the Jewish Right’s boys directing the Pentagon and making threats against the Kingdom.

“We’ll use these right wing Jews against the Arabs of Iraq to fully subdue you, the Saudis, since your failed governance produced September 11. Once we’re dug in on the Euphrates, and all are subdued, the Iraqis and you, we shall unleash against the Islamic Republic, our real target. For war on Muslims and Arabs we need the Jewish boys. Not many others have the expertise and the necessary hatred and spirit of vengeance. Hope you understand. See: Bandar’s sitting on the arm of my couch. He’s a good man. And that’s how we want you all.” Such seemed to be Bush’s message to the Saudi government.

MISCALCULATION AS DEFEAT

The Bandar wing in Saudi politics has meant the US invasion of Iraq as yet another strategic move to put an end to the Islamic Republic’s government, once and for all. It miscalculated, as did its boss the Bush-Cheney team. True, no one knows how things will evolve over, say, one hundred or one thousand years. So the Bandar wing can go on forever parroting its masters in Washington : give us time and you’ll see we were right (e.g., the Gates-Rice “trust us” op.ed. message in the Washington Post on or about February 13.) But for now the picture is crystal clear: Iran has won big time. In countries where there’s a modicum of common sense and a say for an alternative elite the Bandar team, after leading its country into disastrous defeat and exposing it wide open, would’ve been yesterday’s news. Not in Saudi Arabia. Bandar likely feeds the elite from the alleged billions the Serious Fraud Office in London was investigating before Tony Blair scuttled that investigation. (Go to the Guardian’s website and search. I think I have a post on that.)


HAVE OTHERS FIGHT OUR WARS

Reeling the US into Iraq -- actively or passively – therefore can be seen as the continuation of the Saudi government’s policy of having others fight its wars, Iraq once, the US later. They’ve learned that from the Israelis who now are freaking out that the harmful idiots have gotten cold feet on waging war on Iran. Hence Lieberman’s involvement. (Not that the harmful idiots need an excuse to intervene anywhere they can.) What’s hiding the Saudi government’s abject defeat is the sum of about $225 billion the Kingdom’s government is collecting per year, thanks to the rise in oil prices. But Iran is relatively wealthy too; its government has brought in $71 bn in oil revenues last year. And just as Saudi Arabia’s wealth hides its disastrous defeat, Iran’s wealth magnifies its victories. It makes its achievements on the ground (Bush’s achievements on Iran’s behalf, that is) much more stunning.

Please be mindful that this newsletter had talked about Iran’s victory and America’s defeat way before anyone else. So this newsletter isn’t a Johnny-come-lately to the subject. What this newsletter is adding in this post is that the harmful idiots’ defeat is a defeat for their chief protectorate -- the current Saudi government. The harmful idiots will get over their defeat as soon as interest rates go up and the economy rises from the ashes – cyclically bound to happen. But the Saudis will not. Their money in the US should make them an income, but it’ll be nothing compared to their present income. Things should therefore get bad when oil prices fall. Bandar bin Sultan has put the Kingdom on a rather rocky course, without an Arab Iraq to stand in-between it and Shia Iraq – possibly. (See below.)

Magnifying the defeat that the Bandar wing brought onto Saudi Arabia is the fact that Iran has been able to force Saudi Arabia in Israel’s corner. Such had been the demand of Saudi Arabia’s “protectors,” Bandar’s bosses. As a consequence, Iran now is in Arab Iraq and has a say in the direction the Arab World will take. It uses the Israel factor skillfully. Colonialist Israel helps out with periodic announcements of expansion of this or that colonial settlement. It helps out by refusing to negotiate with Hamas, under the guise that the latter wouldn’t recognize its existence. As if such would matter to the Israelis who, with the Jewish Right luminary at the White House, have aimed to ignite the Palestinian civil war to reverse Hamas’s electoral victory.


HOW MUCH OF A DEFEAT?

Recent announcements and at least one development (see below) reveal that the kingdom is now struggling to comprehend the extent of its defeat, and reverse it.

The hope for reversal is tied to McCain-Lieberman getting into the White House. The problem for the Saudis (and the Israelis) is that McCain, if he wins, may not go to war. He might be facing a Democratic and hugely skeptical Congress and an intelligence community that has learned its lesson – not to be intimidated by politicians. This community would now reveal the mess that an all-out war would create and the fact that, as this newsletter has repeatedly asserted, the Iranian republic should have plans to self-disintegrate and fight a hugely unconventional war against the harmful idiots. Countries learn from others’ mistakes. Not to mention that Iran by then may have its nuclear weapon and be ready to use it – far-fetched since Israel possesses (or should soon) a second strike capability.


McCain-Lieberman or not, it’s difficult for the Saudis to recognize or understand their own defeat. Countries that don’t come to terms with defeat are bound to face a dismal future. Sadly for the Saudis, they don’t know they have been defeated since no one is telling them. One problem is that no one dares say it, since all are on the payroll. But the defeat is clear and multi-faceted. For example, under the “protection” of the harmful idiots, Saudi Arabia has found itself allied to Israel. Which has helped deliver the Arab Street to Iran, in full. That’s one aspect of the defeat. The Bandar wing, via Saudi intelligence, has tried to fire up a Sunni backlash; but the Iranians responded skillfully -- and overwhelmed Saudi Arabia and the Bandar wing – when they staged the war in the summer of 2006, one where nearly all objective experts judged as a victory for Hizbollah, Iran’s ally. And the Arab Street became glued to its television set. But even if Hizbollah had lost, we submit that there would’ve been no difference in the reaction of the Arab Street. The next war between Hizbollah/Syria and Israel should bode better results for Hizbollah and diminish even further the Kingdom’s ability to reclaim any say among the Arab Street. Why? The next war might involve Palestinians fighting on the side of Hizbollah, to let the blood of both spill together, and unite them. An Islamic epic. That should extend Hizbollah’s influence, and that of Iran, into each and every corner of the Arab World.

Saudi Arabia has lost Iraq; and it lost Lebanon. All because the team at the top has refused to acclimate fast–to accept partnership with the Islamic Republic in these places and not allow that Republic to monopolize the Palestinian cause and Syria’s quest for its Joulan. The Bandar team is waiting for Godot – for Lieberman-McCain. It’ll be a long and lonely wait.

Scratch the so-called Arab peace initiative. Let Israel negotiate with the Palestinians directly, with Hamas. Say we support our Arab brothers – and mean it – and allow these to make the calls about their future. Don’t jump over their head. The Israelis want acceptance; they can have it. But they have to go through those Arabs who are directly affected by their colonialism: the Palestinians and Syria. The so-called “Arab initiative” (Saudi) has served its purpose. The Israelis turned it down when they had believed their right wing American boys – that Iraq will lie prostrate the Arab World for them Stop trying to market a dead initiative.


Saudi Arabia’s defeat is visible in its own neighborhood. Saudi Arabia has lost the command and influence it once had over the smaller Gulf states. Qatar, the UAE, and Kuwait disregarded Saudi Arabia (and the harmful idiots) and sent in their highest officers to the summit in Damascus. What does Saudi Arabia have left? Little twerps in its media empire who are forever spinning Saudi defeats into victories? Those who accept its money to sing its government’s false praises?.

The smaller Gulf countries have accepted the new reality: an over-arching American protective shield from within which they can have a fruitful trade relationship with Iran. Iran’s Central Bank governor, for instance, in February, said that Bahrain and the UAE had been helping protect Iran’s banking system from US “financial terrorism.” Why should the Gulf countries be more royal than the King? If the harmful idiots and Iran can partner together –and they are in Iraq through the Hakims and the Malikis– so can they. Never mind the harmful idiots’ rhetoric about Iran. The harmful idiots and the Iranians for now are de facto partners. True, Iran keeps operatives in Iraq to attack US troops should the US go to war with Iran; and the harmful idiots mobilize for sanctions. But both want Abdel-Aziz Hakim to succeed. (Albeit Iran likely wouldn’t like the Mahdi Army to be eliminated since its operatives thrive best within that army.) In essence, therefore, the smaller Gulf countries are repeating the mantra,”What’s good for the goose (the harmful idiots in their partnering with Iran) is good for the gander (the Gulf emirates doing the same.)”

If anything, being so wealthy, it’s conceivable that these countries – Qatar, the UAE , but not Kuwait since that country’s Arab policy has been taken over in full (but for cosmetics) by the harmful idiots AKA Israelis -- should take over from Saudi Arabia in Lebanon and help that country with its national debt, while accepting Lebanon’s current strategic and political limitations. If they do, Saudi Arabia will become yet more insignificant. Partnership with Iran in places like Lebanon should strengthen the Gulf countries’ safety vis-a-vis Iran more than anything else. Kuwait may want to think long-term and beg the harmful idiots to allow it more freedom in its relations with other Arab countries. The harmful idiots are truly insignificant in determining the future of Iraq. That future is crucial for Kuwait. Aiding Lebanon – the way it is – might just be one safety valve the Kuwaitis need more than any other.

SCREWING THE ARABS

From an Arab perspective, Saudi Arabia under Bandar bin Sultan has screwed the Arabs royally — excuse the pun. But the Arabs will recuperate and acclimate themselves. The smart ones, that is – Qatar, the UAE– would and are. Saudi Arabia under the Bandar team can’t. The flow of money from oil has blinded it to the defeat the Bandar team has brought upon it. And , because of the money, and wanting to please Bush-Cheney, Saudi Arabia has delayed the inevitable: that it should partner with Iran, under the protective shield of American power, while mobilizing and organizing its youth into an effective and modern army.


DEALING WITH DEFEAT

1. DEALING WITH DEFEAT: ERECT AN ARAB IDENTITY WALL.

On or about March 4, the Saudi Information Minister said that Saudi Arabia will defend the Arab identity. What did he mean?

This we submit is one aspect of the Saudi strategy in dealing with defeat. Saudi Arabia, pre-invasion, had been successful at erecting a Sunni Wahhabi wall against revolutionary Shia Iran, and earlier against secular Arab nationalism. But the Wahhabi wall is no longer useful. Shia Iran now has more than one foothold inside the Arab world, most significantly in Iraq. The only limitation on the use of the Iraqi foothold is self-imposed. (No, it’s not US troops. These truly are meaningless–and I don’t mean this as an insult.)

The self-imposed limitation: Iran is reluctant to see a strong Iraq. A strong Iraq likely will be a hybrid Islamic state, where the Arab Sunni have a say. Iran isn’t ready for this. It wants federalism in Iraq, a southern Iraq that is part of a relatively pure Shia realm. Any Iraqi nationalism threatens Iran. If a hybrid Islamist Iraq, the Sadrists would be the most likely candidates to spearhead the strong state. But Iran cannot afford to see that evolve. It prefers to see an American Iraq, where it can force cooperation on the harmful idiots, the end of sanctions, and acceptance of it as an Islamic Republic and a regional power. In other words, Iran welcomes US presence in Iraq. (And we mean this!) Its partnership with the harmful idiots, via the Hakim Shia state, assures Iran a direct and immediate point of pressure on the harmful idiots which Iran wouldn’t have otherwise.

About wanting a pure Shia realm: In his recent victory visit to Baghdad, Iranian President Ahmadinejad said Iran supported Iraqi federalism. Iran, in other words, wants a Shia realm that is not tainted by Sunnis. Which means Iraq will be living through hell, to re-unite, which is the natural course of things, for the coming fifty years. American troops there will stand in the way of that with their silly and useless counter-insurgency manuals and practices. A Christian English-speaking pro-Israel army in the heart of the Muslim and Arab World! Hello! Better they leave and let Iraq find its way.


This newsletter a long time ago, with Zein al-Irban, had outlined the revival of Arab nationalism including a focus on language, as a means of stemming the flood of Iranian power. Neither one of us is sure about this track any longer. Iran’s ability to use Israel’s colonialist expansion and the absence of a Palestinian state, withdrawal from the Joulan, payment of reparations to Lebanon – and Saudi Arabia’s inability to do the same as Iran when it comes to Israel, places severe limitations on a revival of Saudi-led Arab nationalism. Too, the team at the top in Saudi Arabia is more worried about exposing its wealth and that of the members of the royal family overseas. That team therefore is subject to blackmail by the Jewish Right and possibly any US administration which may want to pressure the Kingdom.

Ideally, the entire team at the top should be made to go and be replaced by ascetics–if these exist in Saudi Arabia, if only to dodge blackmail and widen the freedom of action for the Kingdom. This can be done as a ruse and fool all. A peaceful inside coup of sorts.

The “Arab identity” stratagem serves yet another purpose: it fits in with the larger goal of readying the grounds for McCain-Lieberman when these are able (if ever) to dispatch troops to the Gulf for their all-out war on Iran. Saudi territory and bases will be needed. The sophomores at Saudi intelligence and the harmful idiots think they can portray an American-Israeli war on Iran as an Arab-Persian war, what with the “Arab identity” stuff and all. Ha!


2. DEALING WITH DEFEAT: PLAY UP THE SUNNI CARD AGAINST SAUDI ARABIA’S OWN SHIA POPULATION

In the second half of February, it was reported that Saudi Shia leaders had protested to Saudi authorities the ongoing policy of settling Sunni Yemenis of the Shafi3i tribe in Najran, the historic center of the Shia Isma3ili sect, on the border with Yemen. It seems that the settlements are financed by individual members of the royal family, likely a convenient but silly way for the government to deny direct involvement. One Shia activist told al-Quds al-Arabi that “they’re even giving land to [Yemeni] children.” (The editor’s translation.)

One objective of this policy is to dilute the Shia majority of Najran. This policy should be considered in conjunction with a recent rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Likely it reflects an attempt by Saudi Arabia to hit two birds with one stone: (1) neutralize Al-Qaeda in Yemen, which has quite a presence in that country (consider the recent attempted shelling of the US embassy and the fact that Al-Qaeda militants are able to “escape” prison so easily); and (2) to checkmate any attempt by Iran to use the Najran Shia to stir trouble for the Saudi government, when Lieberman and McCain dispatch the hoped for Crusader armada for their all-out war.

This policy is dangerous, very. The Shia of the Eastern Province likely will retaliate, sooner or later. While the Arab identity front policy (#1) co-opts the Arab Shia, including the Saudi, away from Iran –all things being equal, especially the Israel factor – the Najran policy distances the Arab Shia away from the Sunni. Divisiveness stirs riots and possibly low-intensity civil wars. Especially if the Iranian accusations that the harmful idiots are stirring ethnic trouble in Iran are correct. Which they likely (highly) are. Saudi Arabia needs to distance itself from the harmful idiots whose desperateness could send them into suicide, for the troops and for the region. One place where the Saudis can build trust with the Iranian is Lebanon. Another: to be Arab when it comes to the Joulan and the Palestinian state, not proxies of Bush and Cheney and whoever replaces them.

(Tony Khater’s note: It was common wisdom in sectarian Lebanon that a member of a sect is more helpful to the unity of the country when he/she acts from within their sect, not when they leave their sect. The Saudis should be Arab first, not proxies of the harmful idiots first. Only then can they be helpful to their allies, the harmful idiots, because only then can they have influence in the Arab World while correcting the Israel-centered thinking and policies of the harmful idiots against Arabs and Muslims.)

(We’re forever amazed at the stamina/delusion of the harmful idiots, defeated, yet wanting to double their bet, on and on. We’re also aware that Saudi Arabia wouldn’t have been in this bind but for the invasion. But that’s the Saudi government’s mistake–for trusting Bandar bin Sultan and US intelligence, at a time when the latter had been forced into obedience by the Bush-Cheney team –“politicized”– and made to disregard its better judgement. Lesson: Don’t trust the harmful idiots. Another lesson: allow for –even treasure – alternative thinking within your ranks.)


3. DEALING WITH DEFEAT: PREPARING THE SAUDI PUBLIC FOR CHRISTIAN-JEWISH TROOPS IN THE KINGDOM.

In an extremely awkward attempt at aligning Saudi Arabia’s public with the West, including Israel, King Abdallah on or about March 25, called for conferences for dialogue among Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. Okay, what’s this all about?

The King said that he had the approval of the Kingdom’s ulamas for his call. (These ulamas are paid by the government and their ranks since September 2001 have gone through a thorough vetting.) Now, the co-author, the editor, being originally from Lebanon, he can tell you with absolute certainty that even as children they poked fun at these conferences among the leaders of Lebanon’s sects. They perceived these “dialogues” to be full of lies, play-acting, and hypocrisy. Still, what’s the king trying to do?

This absurd announcement came soon after Bald Samson’s visit to the Kingdom–as has the assault by Maliki’s army and US troops on Mahdi in Basra. Bald Samson is eminently impatient. (It was reported by some in the Arab press that he yelled at Iraqi politicians. Is this why Maliki hastened the Basra assault? Can’t take being yelled at by the master, because he might have you lynched?) Bald Samson wants an outright and full war on Iran and is preparing the way for it. Not that it’ll happen during his watch. But he is certain that McCain will be elected President and he wants to pave the way for that war. The Kingdom’s territory will be needed for the full-scale war.

Viewed from a Saudi perspective and not from that of Bald Samson, this call, as the other above two policies, is about defeat. The King’s advisers are trying their best to open the Saudi populace to the idea that the Saudi government should eventually need a lot of US and other Western troops in the Kingdom to defend it against a putative Iranian attack–read: a McCain-Lieberman declaration of war on Iran. That, even short of a full war, the Kingdom needs to open up to the West since its security should be coming from that direction. This is especially true when one considers that Saudi leaders are reluctant to build a modern army lest that army stages a coup against the royals.

This interpretation becomes all the more compelling when one considers that, on or about March 28, Sheikh Saleh aal-al-Shaikh, Saudi Minister of Islamic Affairs, warned Saudi Imams (“Du3at”) that they would be facing “isolation and siege” if they refused to open up to modernity by “falling behind in meeting the [Christian and Shia, but mostly Shia–remember the “Arab identity”] competition, global, in hunting for hearts and minds.” (My translation.)

In other words: Let’s see if we can change you fast enough for the arrival onto the Kingdom’s territory of the Christian troops and (possibly) their Israeli Jewish advisers. The scare tactic: If we can’t get you ready, these Shia of ours will take over and many a Sunni will convert to Shiism.

The question: In view of the well-advertised hurricane, the all-out war on Iran, not a certainty by any measure but a somewhat distinct possibility, can Iran afford not to let a hybrid Muslim Arab state evolve in Iraq and disturb (immensely) the calculations of the harmful idiots and the Saudis?

To each her Achilles’ heel. Persian Shia nationalism might just be Iran’s.

CHENEY’S PRE-WAR VISIT TO THE IRAN REALM: IS (BALD) SAMSON TRYING TO BRING DOWN THE TEMPLE?

First r o u g h draft

1. OMAN.

Stated goal: He’s preparing for war. Oman’s importance is that it sits across from Iran on the Strait of Hormuz. It’s estimated that 20% of the world’s oil passes through that Strait. It’s also expected that Iran would try to choke that Strait. With Adm. William J. Fallon on his way out, the Vice President wants to ease the way for the military to perfect its war strategy against Iran.

(Adm. Fallon is a smart man, by definition, since he’s advised against going into a war which likely would become a morass for the US , for the region, and for the world. My impression is that he could see that hyper-readiness for war, even if meant as a bluff, might spin out of control and war, and the morass, would become a reality. He likely knows that the Israelis and a coterie of Arab intelligence service officers, on the payroll of or allied to the harmful idiots (e.g., for sure Kuwaiti intelligence which had been taken over by the harmful idiots ever since the Iran-Iraq war and had played a highly suspicious role in leading Saddam Hussein to invade, the UAE Navy -- see prior posts), ever since the dismantlement of Iraq and the resulting rise of Iran as regional power, have wanted to entrap Iran into a direct violent backlash, as they did to cause Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait. They have wanted this violent backlash to mobilize both the US public and the Gulf public to accept a lengthy though useless US stay in Iraq.)


Unstated goal: He wants to bring down the temple before he leaves office. Uncertain. Short of that, he has coordinated with John McCain (the timing of the visits smacks of coordination) to deliver the stage to him ready for war – to inform the nervous assets about continuity. (“Don’t worry this guy is a white war hero; he can beat a black guy in the US any day.”) An integral part to both inerpretations: to bluff to obtain concessions from Iran and Syria, especially in Lebanon.

Harmful and idiotic assumption: If war, the US military will be able to allow a high percentage of oil to still pass through the Strait. Eighty percent? Ninety-nine percent?

Another harmful and idiotic assumption: That such (securing the passage of a high percentage of oil through Hormuz) would dull the speculative craze that’s bound to hit oil prices.


2. SAUDI ARABIA.

The visit to Saudi Arabia. He’ll ask them to increase oil production when his administration or McCain’s orders war, to counter the inevitable :

i. Diminished supply which Iran will make sure will happen – at a minimum by cutting off its production temporarily , then bringing it up slowly to take advantage of the prices which would’ve gone through the roof;

ii. Venezuela may follow suit – aping the same tactic.

ii. Speculation. Which should take oil prices through the roof, anyway, especially if the recession, already in place, proves relatively mild.

Harmful and idiotic assumption: That Iranian missiles and/or agents in the Eastern Province (sleeper cells) will not be able to hinder oil production inside Saudi Arabia.

Corollary harmful and idiotic assumption: That speculation will not do the job for Iran. In other words, even if Iran fails to blow up oil installations inside Kuwait and the Kingdom, by missiles and/or by sabotage, that speculators wouldn’t already be sharpening their teeth to push oil prices radically higher, and spin the world into the deepest of recessions.

Another corollary harmful and idiotic assumption: that the world would stand behind the harmful idiots and the Israelis once these two carry out the Cheney threat.

THE CHENEY THREAT

If we’re in a recession, then I want the entire world to be in one, to make the point that the world (he means Russia and China) should back us up on disarming Israel’s foe. Let the world burn so that the Bush Administration and Israel can gain some satisfaction–any–from this horrible decision to dismantle the balancer of Iranian power. The world might just head in the opposite direction.

Further harmful and idiotic assumption: That the entire world, especially those whose currencies are pegged to the dollar, will bless the day they hitched their wagon to that horse. Especially that now the early advantages of a lower currency value have been exhausted and inflation has set in. Actual probability: they will curse that day. As a result, we should see American influence dim yet further after a war with Iran.

3. OPEN EMBASSIES -- SAUDI AND EGYPTIAN -- IN BAGHDAD. .

(Earth to harmful idiots: Ours is NOT an Arab army and therefore cannot mobilize Arabs behind it. Hear me well: the Arab army of Iraq is gone. Bye, Bye Arab army.)

So he wants his self-hating Arabs to open embassies in Baghdad. Stated goal: to counter Iranian influence.

Unstated goal: to give the occupation an Arab cover, since all the Bush/Cheney people have done until now has been perceived, and much of it in fact was, on behest of the Islamic Republic. (The argument can be made persuasively that even staying in Iraq helps Iran.)

Harmful and idiotic assumption: that these countries – Saudi Arabia and Egypt – would change the color of the occupation – an occupation by the sponsor of colonialist Israel, whose diaspora’s right wing boys helped the Vice-President disenfranchise the Arab Sunni of Iraq and dismantle their country.

Another harmful and idiotic assumption: that the Arab Sunni will trust the Saudis and the Egyptians, whose renewed presence in Baghdad should only (if mostly symbolically) give Arab legitimacy to the Shia and Kurdish States.

(NOTE: To be clear: no one should read into my analysis any special affection towards the late Saddam Hussein -- though I still haven’t gotten over the fact that we participated in the lynching of an Arab president! We even dispatched a US Senator, a Pennsylvanian, or he dispatched himself, to egg on the Hussein Court to speed up its work! Talk about active participation in lynching a Sunni Arab! My perspective is mostly one of balance of power. Having dismantled Arab Iraq, the harmful idiots’ desperation is due mainly to their inability, as a perceived Christian-Jewish nation, which occupation forces were mobilized accordingly, and which policies in Iraq have been sectarian from the beginning, to be an effective balancer of Iran, a Muslim nation.)

A corollary harmful and idiotic assumption: that the Arab Sunni of Iraq are madly in love with Saudi Arabia. This at a time when that Kingdom’s man, Tariq al-Hashimi, provides free legitimacy to the detention of thousands of their sons (some figures are putting the number at significantly higher than 30,000), stewing in camps and prisons run by the harmful idiots, the Shia State, and the Kurdish State.

Yet another corollary harmful and idiotic assumption: that the Arab Sunni would trust Saudi Arabia, whose esteemed leaders, especially the valiant and not excessively greedy prince Bandar bin Bush/Sultan, the said adopted brother of our President, couldn’t stop their friends and protector (the harmful idiots) from invading to dismantle the country where the Sunni Arabs had a large say, if not fully ruled. These are the same leaders who had allowed Saudi territory to be used to dismantle their country and disenfranchise them. (To compare and contrast: while a non-Arab state – Turkey – had not!) Too, as if the Sunni Arabs don’t see Egypt as a useless beggar state working for the harmful idiots and through them for Israel -- which very diaspora’s right wing treasures helped dismantled their country. In other words, the Arab embassies wouldn’t stand a chance without the help and allegiance of the Iraqi Arab Sunni–their co-religionists and once their brethren in Arab nationalism, before Israel and later Saudi Arabia emaciated that protector force. The Arab Sunni of Iraq will not trust the Saudis or the Egyptians.

Conclusions:

– He’s getting desperate and feeling that his compliant self-hating Arab leaders are useless. He’ll eventually blame them in his memoirs, and will not blame the Jewish Right nor his Christian Right. He has to live with the last two. And the Saudis will still take care of him and whatever oil or energy-related company he’ll be heading in spite of his criticism. You see: they’re compliant. They only worry about their princes’ wealth. That’s their allegiance.

-- He might be suspecting that Saudi leaders have opened a serious but secret communication channel with the Iranians. I have no evidence, but I would’ve done this a long time ago. I’ll need to go over my notes, but I do remember that Bandar bin Sultan had assigned someone or a team to remain in Tehran to coordinate. I don’t know what happened to that. I think the Iranians know that Bandar would be passe if a Democrat is elected President. Even if a Republican. Because any US administration would now want a King and a Crown Prince who don’t have any reputation for corruption. Corruption is what sinks US assets each and every time. Especially that political mobilization is such that the reputation of an asset is crucial! At any rate, the Saudis may have put in place an alternative secret channel, not Bandar-connected–if they’re smart, that is–and that’s a big if. But even Israel likely has done the same – open up a secret communication channel, active, with the Islamic Republic – but is waiting for the Bush/Cheney team to depart to make better use of the channel.) The Saudi-Iranian channel would be meant to establish a partnership between the two countries on various issues – to develop confidence-building steps that would secure Saudi Arabia’s stability. The Saudis, as the Israelis, would be waiting for the Bush/Cheney team to depart to make full use of their channel.


– When it comes to the bottom line, hey, for image sake, and to make McCain look good, what the hell! VP Cheney will do what needs to be done. It’s all about spin, anyway.


4. MEET WITH PETRAEUS AND CROCKER

Stated objective: to brief them on war and be briefed by them.

Unstated objective: to coax them about their upcoming testimony before Congress in early April. To Petraeus: if McCain wins, you’re Secretary of Defense; to Crocker: you’re Secretary of State. Just tell Congress the right thing.


5. IRAQ

Stated goals: to get the Shia and Kurdish States to be generous with the screwed Arab Sunni. To pass the oil and gas laws – to get something–anything! -- for his former US oil network and companies out of this entire bloody and damned entanglement! To be briefed on upcoming local elections. To discuss the planned long-term occupation of Iraq.

Un-stated goals: To find out first hand the state of cleansing of Iraq from Mahdi Army and al-Qaeda cells, fated to attack US troops if the harmful idiots order war on Iran. To tell them that he expects them to tow the line when he or McCain orders the war on Iran.

Harmful and idiotic assumption: That the occupying troops and the Iraqi army have cleansed the country of 90% of pro-Iranian fighters. Let’s ask the expert, Donna Quixote, a visiting cat at my place, about this. Even when I think I’ve cleaned the walk-in closets of her toy mice, and though my eyes are on her every time I open a closet and will not allow her to come in – I still find plenty of toy mice deep inside the closets, behind boxes and under piles of clothes on the floor. She’s getting in and planting her operatives! Even within Hakim’s people expect sleeper cells. These should appear with a vengeance and Hakim himself and his family would not be off limit. Run. Where to?


6. THE UNITED STATES AND CHENEY: IF YOU LIKE IRAQ SO MUCH -- STAY THERE.


Stated goal: To visit Iraq and the region.

Unstated goals: To spin; to portray success . “It’s good to be in Iraq,” he said. (SNL and The Daily Show: where are you?) Too, to hand the baton to Republican McCain, allied to the American Jewish Right which wants US war on Iran, as a means to secure the Israeli realm. But the Jewish Right, too, is behind since I’d bet the farm that the Israelis don’t trust them and their “theories’ any longer and want them to vacation not in Israel.

Harmful and idiotic assumption: the American public really cares about you. “It’s good to be in Iraq.” Please feel free to stay there, says the public. You don’t’ have to return. We’re voting for anyone who can fix the disaster you’ve created, unless you succeed at your inevitable racist or sexist campaign against the Democratic candidate.


Corollary harmful and idiotic assumption: That the American public cares about all that attention paid to the Middle East and the zero attention paid to the United states–at a time of a financial meltdown.

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

Added analysis in a FIFTH d r a f t

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

THE LIMIT OF THINGS: JUMBLATT AND THE LEBANESE FORCES.

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

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

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

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


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

[SAUDI ARABIA'S BIND:

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

THE LEBANESE FORCES

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

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

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

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

BOTH PROXIES -- JUMBLATT AND GEAGEA -- ARE PASSE

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


ELIOTT ABRAMS'S "STRATEGY."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


NOT A GLOWING PROSPECT FOR THE ASSETS

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

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

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

AHMADINEJAD’S VICTORY VISIT TO BAGHDAD.

By Zein al-Irban*
(* Pseudonymus)

To the Saudi government, repeat after me:

I.

Bye, Bye,
Arab Iraq
O dear Arab Iraq
Bye, Bye.


II.

Bye now, dearest Sunni Arabs –
Of once Arab Iraq.
Bye, bye.


III.

We gave thou the screw royal
To money and privileges
We’re so loyal.
Bye, bye.
Bye now.


IV.

We hunkered down
To save our ass.
Bye, bye sweet Arabs
Of the marshes’ grass
We sold thou out
To the gringo brass.
Bye now.


V.

The right wing boys
of Israel’s diaspora
Said they’d take away our royal aura
We hunkered down
In the stalls
And licked their
Right wing Jewish balls.
Bye, bye O sweet Arabs
of once Arab Iraq.


VI.

They had with them kiss-ass Arab Uncle Toms
And so many Arab-American Narcissuses
Assets of various opportunistic calls
Arab Christian bashers of Islam
At dearest Israel’s employ
And ex-pat con-artist-tusses.
They bought into our press,
The Americanus imperialist-usses
With cheapo dollares --
We scrammed and did our best
To save our hide
Watching our behind.
Bye, bye, sweet Iraq.
Bye now.


VII.

Our princes squatted on the floor
And begged Israel to humiliate them more
Killing Lebanese and Palestinian Arabs
Luring children with cluster bombs
Grabbing land and water forever more --
Rinsing their princely rotten nuts
With your Arab Iraqi blood
And lore.
Bye now,
Bye Bye.


VIII.

We’re the Saudi Government
“Raise our head,” we’re Saudi
Raise our head, we’re so silly
Raise our head, we’re not Arab
Raise our head, we spew khara-b**


IX.

Bye, Bye
Bye all Arabs
Say bye, bye
Bye, bye Arab Iraq.


**Zein, being drunk, played with words, and I couldn’t translate this one. But since it rhymed, I kept the Arabic version, and did not look for a fake Greek or Latin equivalent. “Khara” means excrement; and “Kharab” means devastation/destruction.

THE LIMIT OF THINGS: THE MAD AND SADISTIC HARMFUL IDIOTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST – IRAQ AND LEBANON.

f i r s t d r a f t


(NOTE ABOUT LEBANON--rough and hastily written.:

So sorry that Lebanon will be the second part. The harmful idiots are carrying their wars to that country. Likely to give cover to Israeli schemes regarding Gaza; likely as a stick meant for Syria that any retaliation in Lebanon for the Mughniyah assassination -- especially if the harmful idiots-financed and once Israeli-trained Lebanese Forces were involved in that assassination -- will obtain an American violent reaction.

It’s unclear whether the harmful idiots can afford to open a new front in Lebanon, merging US Marines with UNIFIL troops -- NATO troops, really. Syria can flood Lebanon with Palestinian fighters to assist Hizbollah in Lebanon; Iran should be expected to ignite fires in Iraq in response. Hence the “mad” and “hysterical” description in the headline.

The harmful idiots may be playing for war in the Middle East -- more limited than one with Iran -- in the hope of diverting the attention away from the ongoing and soon-to-worsen economic crisis at home which should bring into the White House Barrack Obama or a changed and chastised Hillary Clinton -- to assure the election of John McCain. The lower interest rates are not helping much, and likely should worsen things. And pumping money into the banks should avoid an abject economic disaster, but will not avoid a recession. And both, especiall the lowering of itnerest rates, are meant to give McCain the best break available. The Israelis are helping the harmful idiots in their limited-war-away-from-Iran scheme. The Israelis worry about Obama, that he would withraw US troops from Iraq. Syria and Iran likely would need Russian assurances -- in weapons' supplies -- before they decide to go all the way.

Too, by taking the war to Syria, the harmful idiots are hoping to take it away from the Persian Gulf, where oil supplies would be threatened and the current recession would turn into a global depression. Finally, and likely most immediately, the US naval presence off the coast of Lebanon may be meant to provide an anti-missile cover to Israel should the latter re-invade Gaza. If Israel invades, Hizbollah would be expected to retaliate by firing missiles into Israel. Supporting this scenario is the state of emergency which Israel has declared in its northern part.)


DEFINITIONS:

Mad: Lacking restraint or reason. Angry, resentful. Deranged by violent sensations, emotions, or ideas. Affected by rabies; rabid.

Sadistic personality disorder: a pervasive pattern of cruel, demeaning, and aggressive behavior.

PART I: IN IRAQ

In a recent article in The Washington Post, Lt. Col. Ricardo Love in Iraq commented, “[The sahwas] think we can make the government of Iraq do anything. We tell them we don’t control the government. But they think we are the mighty power.” (Sudarsan Raghavan and Amit R. Paley, “Sunni Forces Losing Patience With U.S., “ washingtonpost.com, Feb. 28. 2008; A 01.)

My first thought:

if you don’t control the government, and now you’re losing control of the sahwas, what is it you control in Iraq?

IRAQ: PLUGGING HOLES

As this newsletter repeatedly has asserted in the past: the very invasion of Iraq was disaster itself; what came after was more-or-less to be expected.

After years of occupation, embarrassment, a few massacres, sadistic practices reflecting in part personality disorders at the top, visits by upper-echelon harmful idiots, and the expenditure of (eventually) trillions of dollars -- What is it we really have in Iraq? Other than 140,000 (whatever the number) sitting ducks, that is? What is it we control?

Stop the charade: the Shia state belongs to Iran. When the harmful idiots negotiate with it, they are negotiating with Iran. Which is fine; but please don’t insult our intelligence.


THE SAHWAS

The sahwas’ allegiance to the harmful idiots is opportunistic and uncertain.

The sahwas were the result not of the surge or of the Pentagon’s willingness to talk, though that was a necessary ingredient. The sahwas were the result of a realization, which followed the initial outburst of Arab Sunni armed resistance, by the network of Baathists and former army officers. The realization: When once they had been engaged in armed resistance against the Americans, they had been shooting themselves in the foot. As the “emir” of the Islamic Army put it recently in an interview to an anti-Syrian publication: When resisting the Americans, we were doing Iran’s bidding.

In retrospect, the surge had been a symbolic gesture, an assurance to the Gulf oil Arabs (the GCC), following Cheney’s May 2007 visit there, that the harmful idiots would correct their mistake. That the harmful idiots would shed the Israel-anchored “theories” of the American Jewish Right and its Arab and Arab-American allies who owed their careers to that ethnic right-wing.


Also in retrospect, Cheney’s visit had been followed by blackmail: Saudi King Abdallah stated at the Arab summit in Riyadh that the US occupation of Iraq was illegitimate. The harmful idiots scrammed as a result. Hence in good part the intensification of the rapprochement with the Iraqi Sunni; hence the spread of the sahwas.

Jordan's role.

Jordan played a role in their formation. But that doesn’t mean that Jordan is so helpful. Jordan’s government is a beggar government and will do anything for a buck. Helping us dig in deeper in Iraq by creating the sahwas is hardly a favor. Friends don’t let friends drive drunk so they can set up a police checkpoint and shake the friend down.

But as the Post’s article above reveals the sahwas can’t wait forever. Yeah, you say, so? You’re right. Sadly for them, they have nowhere to go. They had formed in the hope of seeing the Americans butt head with Iran, in war, and the Shia start the long-hoped for intra-Shia civil war. Jordan has so assured them. Jordan has told them that the harmful idiots would put to work their stellar ideas of counter-insurgency and return them to power. Or to more power than they have now. Hope does spring eternal, doesn’t it, especially when riding on silly (if not harmfully idiotic) counterinsurgency manuals. (If our armed forces need a manual to handle a country, we and that country are in deep trouble.)

Neither war with Iran nor a full scale intra-Shia civil war have materialized. And things don’t look any more hopeful for the Sunni now than they did when they had made peace with US troops. They can’t go back to blowing up US troops since that would only help Iran’s Shia agents. They can blow up innocent Shia in the hope that Iran’s Iraqi Shia state and the Shia militias would retaliate against Sunni civilians. In the hope of rallying the Arab governments. In the hope of collecting money from these governments. In the hope of getting nowhere.

The useless Arab governments.

These Arab governments to which the Arab Sunni of Iraq are appealing can’t help anyone. Their armies are fiction of the imagination. Their people see them as traitors who nurse a wish of a return (yet deeper return) to feudal times; they’ve tied these reactionary hopes to Israel and the ability of that reactionary state to galvanize the country of the harmful idiots to subjugate any Arab and Muslim who wants a fairer redistribution of wealth in their miserable countries. At any rate, none of these Arab countries has a competent army or is seeking strategic parity with either Iran or Israel. They’re useless even to their American masters.

The problems for the sahwas and the Arab Sunni are nearly insurmountable:

1. When they stopped their armed resistance against the occupier they as a consequence lost their tight and intricate organization. (Recall the times when their intelligence was so good that our troops would launch a raid on a village only to find that its people had left it moments before, with coffee urns still warm.) They became the sheep that Arab governments nurse in their own people --eat, shit, and accept whatever pittance corrupt princes and fat merchants throw at you. True, armed resistance against the occupiers played into Iran’s hands; but not resisting has disintegrated them as a powerful force which had an effect that was way more potent that the number of their population would indicate.

2. Logically the Arab Sunni should be drawing an alliance with Muqtadha as-Sadr -- an Arab Islamist alliance. But Iran should stand in the way. Iran isn’t about accepting the formation of a new Iraqi Arab nationalism, albeit Islamic. (This should one day be the element that will break the Syrian-Iranian alliance; unless Iran accepts the formation of the above-described nationalism and both Syria and Iran are able to commit it as a force allied to them in their quest for strategic parity with Israel.)

3. The harmful idiots, via Jordan, using former Baathists on the payroll of the harmful idiots, should explode a car bomb now and then against Shia civilians, or blow up a Shia religious site, to scuttle the formation of any such (Sadr-Arab Sunni) nationalist alliance.


So, for the foreseeable future, The sahwas have nowhere to go. Nor do we.

ALL DRESSED UP AND NOWHERE TO GO

What are we really doing in Iraq? We don’t control the Shia state. Iran does. If anything, any time US troops engage the so-called al-Qaeda (the scarecrow) , the harmful idiots help firm up Iran’s control over Iraq. That is true even if we assess that Iran is assisting al-Qaeda ; even if we assess that Iran aims to use (or is using) al-Qaeda against the sahwas as a harmful idiots’ pet project. All of this really doesn’t matter. When we move against al-Qaeda, in the end, we are strengthening the pro-Iran Shia state -- and Iran’s control over Iraq. (This is especially true since al-Qaeda in Iraq is hugely and predominately Iraqi, anyway.) (Analysts on the payroll don't dare say this stuff. Do you wonder why I've turned down jobs? Remember: the best analysis on Vietnam came from relatively independent professors at state universities; not from a Samuel Huntington at Harvard.)

What are we doing in Iraq?

We’re now screwing the Kurds. Nothing new. The harmful idiots screw allies all the time. (Except the apple of their eye.) But fear not: the Kurdish leadership is so opportunistic that it’ll recuperate. Soon, Talabani will have his people post Ataturk’s portraits across Iraqi Kurdistan. The man is shameless. But all of this doesn’t matter. What matters is that the harmful idiots shall lose the passion that the Peshmergas once had brought with them. These had been instrumental in assisting the harmful idiots in killing and subjugating the Arab Sunni. Why? Because even the Peshmergas know that Turkey wouldn’t kill their brothers and sisters in the PKK without US and Israeli permission.

Not to mention that Turkey isn’t going to withdraw from northern Iraq; it’ll act as if it is; but it won’t. It just said it did, likely under pressure from Robert Gates. (Gates is concerned about losing the support of the Peshmergas–see below.) Still, Turkey isn’t about to make the biggest mistake of its post-WW II existence: to allow a Kurdistan to form, with oil revenues from Kirkuk. It’ll work with Talabani; it’ll work with Barazani’s son , and it’ll dig in deeper economically in Kurdistan; but it’ll not (really) withdraw. It’ll keep the military presence alive by forming Kurdish paramilitaries a la sahwas and supervising them. Or something like this. And it’ll keep the military threat alive and pending at all times. It’ll rule Iraqi Kurdistan only a tad softer than it rules its Kurdish people. But it’ll do it indirectly. As I write, I’m confident Turkey is searching for the ways.

In essence, therefore, we should expect the Peshmergas to “accept” that their ranks be infiltrated by Kurdish Islamists now that they have witnessed the American-Israeli alliance stand behind Turkey. They will spread the word. The harmful idiots’s ownership of the Kurds has now lost its elan.

The picture therefore is bleaker than it appears:

– We don’t control the Shia state; Iran does.

–The Sunnis resent the hell out of us, but are helpless and their young should be on their way back into the laps of al-Qaeda, especially that money shouldn’t be an issue. Not with dollar gluts. (Not that their return to al-Qaeda would help them much. But experience is showing them that neither can the harmful idiots.)

– And the Kurds, at the level of the public and the Peshmergas, should be directing their sympathy and assistance to their own Islamists, now that the harmful idiots and their Israelis have stabbed them in the back..


FIGHTING TERRORISM AND AL-QAEDA

Why are we there?

To fight terrorism? Have we fallen prey to our own rhetoric? (Get some inspiration by finding a book about the Assassins; please avoid any book written by a Jewish Right personality, since that book should contain an anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias, if not outright hate.) Consider this: A recent poll in the UAE revealed that of a total of 5, 631,000 population, only 15.4% were natives. The Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia contributed a total of 75% of the foreign residents; Arabs 13.8%, and so on. Do you see what I see? The harmful idiots want to squeeze Iran, using the UAE and other GCC countries. But these are so porous that Iran, if squeezed beyond a certain point, can make life hell for them. And what are they squeezing Iran about, anyway? A nuclear weapon? Like that’s going to change anything for Iran or anyone else. India did it; Pakistan too; Israel has hundreds of it; Israel, too, has German subs which can be equipped with missiles carrying nuclear warheads, assuring it a second strike capability. The harmful idiots have been after Iran since 1979, way before the harmful idiots and the Israelis had made the nuclear issue an issue . What have the harmful idiots achieved after nearly 30 years? More instability in the region, more refugees, orphans, and more potential for terrorism. The harmful idiots in their endless and hysterical screams to gain full control of the entire region of the Middle East have become its number one contributor in the creation of orphans.

But even if we assume the best results, favoring the harmful idiots, do you think for a moment that politics and terrorism will come to a stop? That the disfavored will cease their struggles? Are we accepting advice yet again from the Israelis on these issues? Are we going to build concentric circles of walls around us, as they do? Ghetto-ise ourselves as they do?

Are we now listening to the Saudis, as if these know what they’re doing? They don’t. (I’ll try to re-address their pathetic foreign policy more systematically in a future post.) Just be mindful that the Saudis, lacking (de facto) in armed forces, are useless. They’ve screwed themselves when they allowed the harmful idiots to use their country to invade Iraq; they screwed themselves yet again when they pacified the Iraqi Sunni with money without demanding that the harmful idiots withdraw to Kuwait and Qatar. And they’re screwing themselves again by going after Syria, a fellow Arab country. Here they’re feigning ignorance of basic balance of power principles which say that Syria will not regain its Joulan, and no Palestinian state will form, without Arab strategic parity with Israel. Money and secret payments do not a strategy make.

Are we listening to the Jordanians? These are after a buck, so their advice should be taken with a grain of salt.

Who’s giving us advice these days? Sarkozi? Ha! The French can’t protect my cat, let alone protect the Gulf. True, talking big and loud earns you defense contracts, especially when your new president is an asset of the Israeli-American strategic alliance, which alliance has winked at the Gulf Arabs to give him contracts. But the French are no better than the British when it comes to defending anyone. Their troops, as the British, would be dreaming of a Persian meal to wolf down when taken hostage. Umm. Umm.

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Next: Part II: In Lebanon.