A HOT SUMMER OR A TEMPEST IN A TEAPOT?

DONA QUIXOTE AND THE HARMFUL IDIOTS BATTLE IT OUT ON THE STATUS OF FORCES AGREEMENT.

ruf drapht -- ceccond

There’s no question about it: Dona Quixote is getting nervous as the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between the Badr/Dawa state and the harmful idiots, to allow the US troops to remain in Iraq for the long-term, nears signing.

In response, it is:

(1) Issuing Warnings; and
(2) Hinting at supporting Iraqi public mobilization against SOFA.

In turn, the harmful idiots are:

(1) Continuing with the Badr/Dawa state to clean up Sadrists; and
(2) Lamely trying to mobilize the Arab public (which hates their guts for dismembering an Arab country, sponsoring beloved Israel, and torturing at Abu Ghraib) against Dona Quixote via the issue of the UAE islands which Dona Quixote occupies.

Assessment: There’s a stalemate in Iraq, and both the harmful idiots and the Iranians are stuck with that stalemate, with nowhere to go, SOFA or no SOFA.

DONA QUIXOTE’S WARNINGS.

WARNING 1: AHMAD KHATAMI.

It started on Friday, May 23. Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami in Tehran in his Friday sermon described the proposed security agreement (SOFA) as “enslavement without end, and the worst humiliation and debasement.” He said that he didn’t think “any free man in Iraq would accept this humiliation.” “Any person who signs the agreement,” he continued, “would be considered by Iran to be a traitor to Islam, to the Shias, and to the Iraqi people.” (My translation from Arabic.) Meaning: watch out, Badr/Dawa double agents. (This newsletter was first to call them double agents.)

He detailed what should be Iraqi objections to the agreement. Only one objection would properly belong to Iran: that the agreement to permit US troops to stay in Iraq for the long haul (10 years for now) would allow the occupation forces to wage attacks on neighboring countries.

WARNING 2: ALI AKBAR WILAYATI.

On or about May 26, Ali Akbar Wilayati, foreign affairs adviser to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, joined his voice to that of Ayatollah Khatami. He stressed that the religious marja3iyyah (leaders) in Iraq will oppose the US maneuvers to have the security agreement signed by Iraq’s government. To be safe, in case they didn’t, we’ll make sure we so rumor them. So, a few days earlier, on or about May 22, the Associated Press would report that Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani had issued four secret fatwas declaring armed resistance against occupying troops to be legitimate. But a few days later, on or about May 28, people around Sistani said that the proposed security agreement between the Badr/Dawa government and the US was a matter for the people. Basically, it seemed Ayatollah Sistani was avoiding the issue by calling for a referendum on that agreement – and putting to rest the story/rumor of the four secret fatwas. Back to Wilayati. He said: “The security agreement eats away at Iraqi sovereignty and [aims to] control the wealth of the country, and to threaten the security of neighboring countries.” (My translation from Arabic.)


WARNING 3: SAYYED HASSAN NASRALLAH.

On or about May 27, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary-General of the Lebanese Hezbollah, added his voice to those of Khatami and Wilayati – but not the clever Sistani. In a speech to about 100,000 of the party’s followers in the southern suburb of Beirut, a stronghold of the party, he seemed to be dispensing advice to the Iraqi government. He did it by outrightly stating that Hezbollah stands with the Iraqi resistance, calling on the people and government of Iraq to follow the example of Hezbollah in resistance and liberation, and follow the example of the Palestinians in Gaza. (For an analysis of his speech, I’ve relied on Saad Elias’s take in Al-Quds al-Arabi.)


DMITRI MEDVEDEV: RELATED WARNING?

There’s no evidence that there’s coordination between Iran and Russia on a response to the harmful idiots’ plans to love Iraq, long term, as does Bald Samson -- and as do the September 11 Queen, and the Christian-Zionist Crusader. Still, Iraq might just be the place where a Russian response to the proposed US missile shield in Europe might take place. On or about May 22, just before the first Iranian warning had issued by Ahmad Khatami, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev issued a warning. He first declared his country’s willingness to negotiate with the US on the latter’s plans to build a missile defense system in Europe -- to deploy ten land-based interceptor missile silos in Poland and a guidance radar in the Czech Republic. But the Russian President hinted that should the US and Europe fail to reach an agreement with Russia, his country would consider a “proper response.”

Admittedly: it’s a long shot. But, again, could the “proper response” be in Iraq?

WARNING 4: THE SADRISTS.

Most recently, Moqtadha al-Sadr called for weekly demonstrations, every Friday, against the proposed security agreement. The campaign against his men is ongoing by US troops and the Badr/Dawa state troops. Also recently, Syria and Iran seemed to put an end to speculation, borne out of repeated defeats and associated wishful thinking, that Syria would allow itself to be snatched away by the US-Israel axis. The Defense Ministers of Iran and Syria, after signing yet another mutual defense cooperation agreement in Tehran, among other things, called for the withdrawal of “foreign and occupying troops” from the region. Earlier, we had learned that a Syrian delegation was in Russia to secure advanced weaponry. (Hence one reason for my linking between the warning by the President of Russia and a possible “proper response” to take place in Iraq, using Iran and Syria. The possibility of a quid pro quo between Russia on the one hand and Iran and Syria on the other.)

ANALYSIS

The problem for both Dona Quixote and the harmful idiots is that a stalemate is in place in Iraq. But for the activity by US troops and the Badr/Dawa troops against the Sadrists, and some work against the Sunnis in and around Mosul, there’s a stalemate. All are collecting paychecks and waiting. Likely for domestic American reasons, to get the new Administration stuck with a SOFA commitment, the harmful idiots are trying to move beyond the stalemate. And the Iranians, for their own domestic reasons and for not wanting to lose control over the double agents (Badr/Dawa), are activating against SOFA. But it’s a tempest in a teapot.

Not that there are no givens to the situation. There are. For example, the harmful idiots know that, should they withdraw, not only would civil wars erupt, but the harmful idiots would lose the marvelous Iraqi army they trained and equipped, the Badr/Dawa ancillary troops. That the double agents are only double agents because the harrmful idiots have a military presence in Iraq. That if they don’t, the double agents would fall back comfortably into Iran’s lap. Hence the harmful idiots’ need to get the new Administration stuck with a piece of paper to which the coterie of those who benefit from the adventure of Iraq could point to when they seek out an attack on Iran.

If they withdraw, what will happen to the 110,000 armed Arab Sunnis on the harmful idiots’ payroll, the Sahwas? They’ll engage in many civil wars: against Shia, intra -- but, more level headed ones would approach Iran and reach a deal. And Iran likely (this time) would listen, especially that US troops would be watching from the nouveau Israel, Kurdistan, and Kuwait. So the harmful idiots don’t want to “lose” those, not that they now have them. The harmful idiots are now fighting a Shia war, and the Arab Sunnis can wait. If anything, I’m likely complicating the life of the harmful idiots by raising the issue of the Arab Sunnis.

In the presence of US troops in Iraq, Iran has at least two major problems. They’re called: (1) Sunni distrust; and (2) Badr/Dawa unreliability. But should the harmful idiots order a withdrawal, these problems should diminish markedly. For now, dealing with the Sadrists and the Badr/Dawa double agents is a management nightmare for Iran. Heads might have to roll, if you know what I mean, so that everyone will know his place. Calling on the assistance of Lebanon’s Hizbollah is...lame. The popularity of Hizbollah in the Arab World shouldn’t be the same in Iraq simply because the Badr/Dawa state controls so any of the paychecks to the Shia and the Iraqis are tired from wars. The only time the Shia public will get incensed is if it senses that the harmful idiots will be stealing their oil. Anything short of that–and they shouldn’t care, at least not as much as Dona Quixote would like them to.

Hizbollah would be useful in at least one scenario -- if Iran uses its ultimate weapon. And, believe it or not, its ultimate weapon in Iraq is an intra-Shia civil war. You heard me. Because if Shia blood is spilt by Shia and the Americans, the Shia will blame the harmful idiots -- and not Iran. In that war, Hizbollah will come in handy to help the beleaguered Sadrists -- to balance out the help by US troops to the Badr/Dawa state troops.

THE HARMFUL IDIOTS WANT TO MOBILIZE THE ARABS. HA.HA.HA.

The harmful idiots are trying (HA, HA, HA) to get some Arab mobilizing (HA. HA) of their own against Dona Quixote (HA, HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, HA.) No, not in Lebanon. There, they let their proxies eat dirt since their beloved Israelis weren’t ready for an exchange of death-to-civilians missiles with Hizbollah. Especially that Hizbollah wasn’t about to accept any longer that Israel would massacre in cold blood 1200 Lebanese civilians while Hizbollah restrained itself for doing the same, as happened in 2006. So the harmful idiots are trying the UAE route: raising the issue of the three UAE islands which have been occupied by Iran for decades. In the past week, there has been a spitting match between the foreign ministries of Iran and the UAE about the islands. (I’m getting sleepy, so I’m not about to repeat for you the smart Alec statements by both.) I think the harmful idiots believe that the Arab public will mobilize behind the UAE on this one.

I don’t mean to be harsh on the UAE; I was recently there and I truly like them, albeit I never really met them. (I tell a lie, two Emiratis once ate at the same South Indian restaurant and invited me to share their lunch. Otherwise, the UAE is an extension of the British Raj.) But listen well: one statement from President Ahmadinejad about Palestine and the Arab Street will line up behind Iran, lock, stock and barrel. Not to explain something to the UAE policy thinkers working closely with the harmful idiots and trying to please them. I’m sure they know what I know, which I know they know but haven’t told it to the harmful idiots. Here it is: WHOEVER OWNS THE PALESTINE CAUSE OWNS THE ARAB STREET. The Arab Street is confident the harmful idiots will withdraw the troops from Iraq sooner or later, or will be forced to, but the Arab Street doesn’t know that there’ll be a Palestinian state until it sees one. And while no one doubts the Arab credentials of the UAE, the UAE is NOT capable of arming Hamas and Hizbollah and training the latter to match Israel technologically and organizationally and at times be ahead of it. Case closed. I apologize for being blunt.

IN SHORT.

I think that neither the harmful idiots nor the Iranians can battle it out militarily (by proxy) in Iraq for either to be able to convince the other not to do what it wants to do. Assassinations, demonstrations, a few military operations here and there. In essence, there’s a standstill. I think Iran might want to use Syria with some Sunnis . Syria does control a branch of the Iraqi Baath, but it’s unclear how much leeway, political or military, this branch has; I suspect not much.

It’ll be mostly a war of mobilization -- mobilizing an opposition to the basing of US troop. In this war, Iran will have the Sadrists and their ability or inability to draw in some of the Sunnis. The harmful idiots will have the Badr/Dawa state, whose people would be hedging their bets trying to please both masters. But whose ranks as double agents could be whittled down as Iran’s Iraqis eliminate those amongst them who will not know their place; and as the harmful idiots’ closest circles within the ancillary state retaliate with car bombs in Sadr City. Watch the Sadrists bring up together both the issue of Iraq's oil and that of US bases. Linking will help get better mobilization.

THE LONGEST AND LONELIEST WAIT. (AL-INTIZAR AL-KABEER.)

s e c o n d rough draft

PREFACE: POLITICAL CORRECTNESS AND THE HARMFUL IDIOTS.

I’ll preface this essay by telling you a true story, the best I remember it.

A roommate of mine from SUNY headed back to Lebanon after finishing his B.A. We’ll call him Amin. He was neither Shia nor Sunni. He was blond with blue-green eyes. A dashingly handsome fellow, tall, who many a woman in Buffalo likely still grieves over. In Lebanon, he gathered up money from family and friends and made his way to Baghdad.

Amin didn’t know that town. He bought land outside Baghdad, in an area which had no construction whatsoever. A gutsy move. Then he headed to the mayor’s office, Baghdad’ mayor. He introduced himself. He told the mayor that he bought land and he told him where. He said he needed water, sewage, and electricity. He informed the mayor that he would be starting soon the construction of an ice-cream factory–that the machines already have been ordered from Italy. Amin relayed later that in no time at all the work on the three projects –water, sewage, and electricity– was begun. The efficiency of the Baghdad government, he recalls, was nothing short of dazzling. No Bechtel; no Halliburton. Iraq was a modern state. The factory building went up. . Business proved so brisk that Amin hired the Italian technician full-time, instead of having him visit periodically. He recalls that no one ever, no one ever, no one ever asked him about his religion. (His name was neutral.) It was enough for the mayor and other officials that he was Arab and that he was entrepreneurial.

He relayed that the factory was making so much money that at times he had a hard time shutting the safe. He relayed that the area outside of Baghdad where he had built his ice cream factory later became a thriving industrial region of the capital.

I tell this story by way of apologizing for having to refer to the Iraqi Arabs as Sunni and Shia, the common nomenclatures which the harmful idiots have imposed on the Iraqis and on us. I know the harmful idiots. I’ve gone with them to school, college at various levels. Their harmfulness, in their know-it-all imperial classification of others by primordial belonging, is truly a phenomenon. And it serves them well: divide and conquer. All of that while they refuse any like ethnic classification of our society, hiding under the pretense of us all being “taxpayers,” in their politically correct pretense. No, Everybody Loves Raymond isn’t an Italian stereotype – food, family (the mother), and machismo; Seinfeld isn’t a New York stereotype about Jewish neuroticism and defensiveness against others in a big city; Two-and-a-Half Men isn’t about WASPS, all washed-out and having no purpose but adventures in sex and divorce; Cheers isn’t about Irish stereotypes of drunkenness, albeit in the person of a reformed alcoholic, Sam Malone. And The Cosby Show isn’t about African-Americans being consumed by class trumping race.


THE LONG AND LONELY WAIT

As the harmful idiots change them from a proud Arab people to beggars-in-their-own country, having placed them on the dole as we did native Americans, on arid reservations, the Arab Sunnis of Iraq will have a wait that’s likely to be the longest and loneliest–

-- As they watch the resources of the country come under the full control of Iran’s Badr/Dawa state.

-- As they watch the Badr/Dawa state allow the harmful idiots control of critical ministries within that state, confirming the plantation nature of the post-conquest domain once called Arab Iraq.

-- As they watch the north of their country become a wealthy independent state, with the Badr/Dawa government disbursing significant sums of the plantation government budget to that state.

-- As they watch their leaders diversify the beggar payroll, adding to the one from the harmful idiots other payrolls from the Gulf countries’ intelligence services, to the point where they’ve become drugged, making yet more pronounced the stalemate in the Arab Sunnis’ political and economic life.

– As they watch these leaders show no interest in creative coalitions that would break the Arab Sunnis’ isolation and , more importantly, re-unify Iraq.

-- As they reminisce on how the conquering harmful idiots delivered their leaders (and likely will continue the same) to the lynch mobs, while Arlen Specter lectured the Kangaroo court on how to speed up the process.

(A friend who once was a constituent of that Senator, and knows about him, and who is politically correct, told me as I was writing this essay, “Don’t chalk it up to him [Specter] being Jewish; chalk it up to him being an asshole.” I’ll take that any day. I’m not sure though that the Arabs, both Street and the elite -- and these are the ones I read mostly for this newsletter --, weren’t exposed to so much which warrants a different perspective; I think they were, big time. But I accept to chalk it up to Specter as an asshole and wonder why anyone with any smarts --including an asshole –- would accept to have blood on his hands in a matter that’s none of his business, where the execution already had been a given. Unless he had allowed himself for some ethnic reason to be mobilized beyond the level allowed by the culture of the U.S. Senate. That friend, too, said that the Lebanese Christians aren’t Arabs. He doesn’t know the region. The Christian Lebanese are credited -- by all -– for the modern renaissance of Arabic literature and poetry. Strangely enough, the luminaries of that revival were immigrants to the U.S.! As much as they want to: not the harmful idiots, not the ghetto-hugging Israelis, and not the Islamists, Arab and other, will be able to return the Lebanese Christians to the ghetto. Defeats are liberating. Long live defeats.)

-- As they reminisce on how Christian Zionism conquered them in the name of Israel’s security and oil.

-- As they wait and watch for the harmful idiots to wage war on the Iranians, to need them for that war, and have to return them to the top.

-- As they lose hope that this war will ever happen and know that hope shouldn’t be allowed to spring eternal.

-- As they see the dole the harmful idiots hand them, the dollars, become akin in value to toilet paper , with each one hundred dollars worth less than $70, and a pay of $300 worth less than $190. While the prices of essential food staples hit the roof.

-- As they watch the harmful idiots go bankrupt and prepare us to conceding to Iran a regional role which Iran would never have dreamt of but for the invasion -- which would be fine from a harmful idiot perspective, but would not be so (superficially) from an Iraqi Arab Sunni.

-- As they reminisce on how their own brothers , the Kuwatis, the Saudis, and the Jordanians, (especially the Kuwaitis, who had given an Arab cover to the harmful idiots to set a trap to Saddam Hussein, which trap the harmful idiots later fell into because they didn’t know and still don’t when to stop–but that doesn’t matter now)–these so-called Arab brothers who stabbed them in the back worse that Iran ever did.

–- As they watch the the intelligence services -- the secret governments -- of these self-hating Arab states evolve a working relationship with Israel, the very country which was a partner in the conquest and humiliation of the Iraqi Arab Sunnis by the harmful idiots, th esponsors of Holy Israel. Holy Israel which evolved such a venomous symbiotic relationship with Arab and Muslim-hating extreme right wing elements both within its diaspora and without. And which not-so-secretly has unleashed a campaign of its own to assure Western hatred of Arabs and Muslims. Which Israel-associated extreme-right wing elements toiled hardest to conquer the Arab Sunnis of Iraq.

–- As they watch their conqueror, the harmful idiots, lose influence the globe over thanks to the conqueror’s currency becoming as valuable as toilet paper from dollar stores, while the Christian-Zionist Crusader, Bald Samson, and the September 11 Queen go about spinning that all’s well in the best-est of all worlds.

-- As they see China, made wealthy by “globalization” (read: de-industrializing America) which the harmful idiots shoved up our ass, and Russia, which wealth too is due to the same–the globalization that spiked oil and gas demand and associated speculation and made Russia wealthy–

–- As they watch these two (Russia and China) coalesce into an alliance at a time when the harmful idiots’ troops are stuck in Iraq and Afghanistan, playing the role of the gofer, so that the Crusader, Bald Samson, and the September 11 Queen can point to “success” under their rein.

–- As they listen to louder and recent voices from Iran, coming out so close to threats by the Russian President, from China, related to the harmful idiots’ plan to set up a missile defense shield in the former Eastern Europe -- such Iranian voices making it clear to the Shia of Iraq that signing any long-term security agreement with the US (stupid, really–but we’re dealing with...) is tantamount to treason. And realize how much their life now is totally out of their control and in the hands of harmful idiots, Russians, the Iranians, the Chinese, and what have you -- that they're no longer a player, not even a minor one.

-- As they see the devaluation of the dollar store toilet paper AKA US currency , while losing its value, not result in manufacturing companies returning to the American mainland, to make us all wealthy, and our dole to the Arab Sunni worth something, since it still is cheaper to manufacture in Asia.

–- As they see the harmful idiots desperately seek ways to burst the oil bubble, which is drawing the last drops of oxygen out of their miserable political existence – a bubble that is directly connected to the seller-financing by the Chinese of the American consumer beyond the outer limits of consumption – with the Bush Administration and the Federal Reserve having pushed the envelop so as not to enact public policy -God forbid–

-- As they see their conqueror being brought down by the very staple it was and is after –- oil

–- As they wait for Iran to decide whether it’s better for Iran to encourage a Sadr-Sunni alliance, to raise the hot issues of control by the harmful idiots over Iraqi oil and their military occupation of Iraq, than to rely on the current Badr/Dawa government, which is lackadaisical when it comes to taking a stand against the harmful idiots.

–- As they wait for Iran to decide whether to back such an alliance as the best means to defend itself against the harmful idiots, or put its eggs all in the basket of a nuclear bomb to scare away the harmful idiots. And in Hizbollah to rain missiles on Israeli cities , as Israel did on Lebanon’s civilians, if Israel/the harmful idiots ever decide to go after Iranian sites.


-- As they watch, with uncertainty and confusion, the harmful idiots and the Badr/Dawa state beat the al-Qaeda Sunnis --

–- . . .hoping that the defeat of these al-Qaeda Sunnis would help evolve within their own ranks a brand of political Sunnism, made up of their young, that is willing to weld itself a political Shiism, one that is patriotic and rejecting of “federalism” and, they would hope, one that’s less dependent on Iran . They would hope that both of these forces would be calling for the harmful idiots to leave their country and not control their oil -- two sure issues for successful political mobilization in post-devastation al-Intizar al-Kabeer.

As they lose all hope, surrounded by enemies, treacherous brothers, an occupier with a global agenda and a three-decade long policy to do something (now destroy Iraq) to break OPEC’s hold on oil prices, albeit it's no longer OPEC alone -- the Arab Sunnis will have to wait for national salvation. It’ll likely be the longest and loneliest of all waits.

BUSH TO BANDAR: YOU’RE NOT MY BROTHER! A FALLING OUT IN THE BUSH FAMILY.

f i c t i o n a l i z e d to have some fun.

4th rough draft.

THE NEWS

Recently, Sir Niguel Rudd, a director of the UK’s BAE Systems, and Mike Turner, its chief executive, were detained by the FBI when they arrived in Houston. The FBI detained them for around 30 minutes and issued them subpoenas to return for formal interviews.


ANALYSIS

President Bush in Saudi Arabia was heard screaming at Prince Bandar bin Sultan, “You’re not my brother and I deny ever having known you.” (This is the fiction part.)

The financial and oil markets have a mind of their own, especially when the people at the White House take the easy and cowardly way out. As in invading a country to grab its oil instead of addressing urgent public policy issues and enacting needed regulations.

Mr. Bush, in his two visits to Saudi Arabia, was reported to have asked King Abdallah to increase Saudi production of oil to alleviate (the hope: to break) the hold OPEC and the speculators have over the prices of oil. In effect, to devalue the dollar without paying an oil tax on the devaluation. The concern for Bush/Cheney is that a continued rise in the price of oil not only would confirm the recession. But, too, it would give a boost to Barrack Obama’s candidacy. After much begging, King Abdallah agreed to increase production by a paltry 300,000 bpd (barrel per day.)

(In the meanwhile, Iran is sitting on 30 million barrels of heavy crude -- not sought after by modern refineries, but accepted by older ones -- which it has stored in docked oil tankers.)

The pressure on the Bush administration from the McCain-Lieberman camp must be tremendous -- to do something about oil prices.

In response, it seems, President Bush has unleashed the Justice Department on the Saudi government. (This newsletter had assessed that a Democratic administration might do this; not a Republican oil administration. But this is not the first time that the Bush Administration unleashes a force to subdue Saudi Arabia's government; it had unleashed the Jewish Right and its Defense Policy Board, threatening to break up the Kingdom, on the eve of the invasion of Iraq.)

FROM THE SERIOUS FRAUD OFFICE (UK) TO THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT (US).

The UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) had once begun to investigate BAE Systems for an alleged $2 billion bribe to Prince Bandar bin Sultan, known as “Bandar Bush” for his closeness to the Bush family. The SFO later aborted its investigation on the intervention of then Prime Minister Tony Blair. (Go to the guardian.co.uk; use its search engine for details.) There were reports in the UK press that prince Bandar all but threatened Mr. Blair with cutting off coordination in intelligence-sharing about terrorism between Saudi Arabia and the UK. Some in the UK press interpreted these alleged threats quite ominously. A legal battle ensued to force the SFO to re-open the investigation.

Since BAE Systems is, for all practical purposes, a bi-national corporation (UK and US), and is a major supplier of weapons to the Pentagon, the U.S. Justice Department had the obligation to pick up the corruption investigation. (I'm currently examining the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act -- FCPA) But under a Bush regime one would've expected that Justice would not move too hastily on this matter, lest it disturbs relations with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Especially that the main target of the investigation in the end (especially if the FCPA penalties for the offending corporation are merely financial) would be Prince Bandar, directly, so close to Bush, and his father Crown Prince Sultan, indirectly. (The last I read was that CP Sultan is undergoing treatment in Switzerland and that the process of picking a replacement is under way; that Prince Nayef at Interior, his full brother, is the foremost candidate.)

But hastily Justice is moving on this matter. The brief detention of the BAE Systems' directors shows it. The timing, however, of the detention is suspect: that it would happen so soon after the Saudi government had shot down President Bush's request to increase substantially the production of oil. Though I’m confident (logically) that Justice has had a roadmap for the investigation, the detention still smacks of a political maneuver. The idea likely is to pressure Saudi Arabia to increase oil production to the limit to break the hold by OPEC and the speculators on oil prices.

(Justice might retort by claiming that they had a jurisdictional opportunity, so to speak, and had jumped at it -- the opportunity that two men were on American soil. Instead, Justice likely would've had to coordiniate with the British government and these men's British lawyers to speak to them, if ever. That argument in the end is unpersuasive. Viewing the closeness of the relationship between the UK and the US, and the fact that UK troops had helped in Basra in the suppression of the Mahdi Army, the US will have to defer to the UK, in the end; and may already have angered that government. Why complicate that relationship at this time but for the White House needing to send a signal to the Saudis, a threat of dire things to come?)

Not to complicate matters, but Saudi Arabia’s unresponsiveness to President Bush’s pleas has quite a lot to do with the fact that the harmful idiots will likely leave the region in a shape that’s eminently disadvantageous to the Kingdom. It’s not so much that the US had been dealt a defeat -- which it had, and this newsletter was first to announce it and define it -- after the invasion and breakup of Arab Iraq. It’s that Saudi Arabia which had been dealt the bigger defeat. (See “The defeat of Saudi Arabia...) The kingdom watches as the Maliki Badr/Dawa Shia government, beholden to Iran, digs its heels deeper in Iraq -- while the Arab Sunni have been made marginal and live on the harmful idiots' dole. Even if the Arab Sunni were unleashed, how is Saudi Arabia to supply them with weapons? Through Israel/Jordan? That’s political suicide. Through Syria? It’s allied to Iran. The Turks: too complicated, with Europe and the Kurds. Saudi Arabia and the other Arabs have no Trojan horse but Muqtadha al-Sadr. (Not that they know it.) But the harmful idiots have fused Muqtadha's fate to that of Hizbollah and Iran, especially with the last assault on his men in Basra and Sadr City.

Rhetoric aside, the harmful idiots are rushing down the highway of near-full partnership with Iran, de facto or de jure -- what does it matter. And the Saudi government likely is increasingly suspicious. Partnership by the harmful idiots with Iran or not, the Saudi government's options since the invasion have diminished markedly. That government is now feeling, and should later feel even more, the full weight of the harmful idiots' bureaucracy, on a regualr basis. (The Saudi government buckled under that weight, heaviest, when the Pentagon had been taken over by Israel's right wing boys -- the Kissinger Brigade.) This weight should become heavier as the harmful idiots continue to lose influence the world over. And as they continue to lack flexibility, being tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unable to tend to their own garden (ours), in raising rates, enacting regulations and preparing to raise taxes on oil once the price of that staple goes down, the harmful idiots should weigh heaviest on those countries which are beholden to them. Case in point: Saudi Arabia.

(This analysis shoud in no way be seen as a defense of Prince Bandar bin Sultan or of BAE Systems. As they say in Arabic, beteeen these entities and myself there exists what "the blacksmith has manufactured." -- solid steel. "Bayni wa- baynahum ma sana3uhu al-7addad.")

There’s a dim chance(very dim) that Justice has moved on its own, without White House approval, in a coup against the President. The idea would be to blunt the rapprochement between Mr. Bush (as a person not as the President) and the Saudi government -- to stem the transfer of the Bush team from the federal government payroll to that of the Saudi. But I wouldn’t bet the electric car on this interpretation.

LINKAGE III. NOT: THE HARMFUL IDIOTS ON THE RUN.

F i c t i o n a l i z e d out of force of habit.

a draft to complement the prior two posts.



After the two prior posts, I surfed web sites, mostly pro-Syrian or Syrian. (Remember: I was abroad so I missed quite a lot of harmful idiocy) If these e-sites are telling half the truth, it looks like Hizbollah has kicked the harmful idiots’ and the Israelis’ ass. De nouveau. (It’s the same ass, though there seems, encore, to be a French ass involved. And a Saudi ass; and a Jordanian.) .

In a nutshell.

The harmful idiots, unwilling and unable for over 40 years to establish a Palestinian state and have reparations paid to the Palestinians and Lebanon, and embedded with the self-referential and eminently reactionary Israelis, who don’t want to share their fortune with those whose misfortune they caused, just can’t seem to learn. To the point of not seeing but through these Israeli reactionary eyes. They can’t seem to appreciate that little minorities in the Middle East and Israel are forever recruiting them to return them to the top.

HIZBOLLAH’S PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE

Heavy (Saudi/Israeli/harmful idiot-ish/French) artillery directed at the Arab Shia of Lebanon.

According to the Syrian and pro-Syrian web sites, the non-Arab Saudi-Israeli Druze extra ordinaire, al-Waleed ben-Yehuda bin-Jumblatt, had invited harmful idiot members of the US and French military to the Shouf . These had identified and begun work on positions to encase/station heavy artillery. They already had in place some of that artillery by the time Hizbollah struck. That artillery was and would be directed at Hizbollah. (The hell with civilians; they’re not Israeli. The Lebanese Shia don’t count as people. Only the Israelis do.) That a helipad, once used by the Lebanese army before the harmful idiots and Jordanian intelligence, on behalf of Holy Israel, miscalculated to destroy Lebanon; and before Jumblatt had declared his de facto pan-Druze state, a la pan-Kurdish one in northern Iraq, the de-facto pan-Sunni in the middle of Iraq, the pan-Shia in southern Iraq – this helipad had been expanded to accommodate both copters and small jets.

(Nothing the harmful idiots touch that they don’t break. They’ve smashed the Arab World to sectarian smithereens on behalf of Holy Israel, an exclusively Jewish state, and oil. Entrapping and sinking themselves and us in the meanwhile in quicksands. They don’t know when to stop.)

The harmful idiots evacuate Saudi and Jordanian operatives.

Another story by a Syrian e-newspaper says that the harmful idiots evacuated from West Beirut around 400 operatives of the intelligence services of Saudi Arabia and Jordan when the harmful idiots realized that Hizbollah would be taking over West Beirut. That these were shuttled to the US embassy in Christian Mount Lebanon, and later put on speed boats dispatched by the USS Cole and shipped to Cyprus.

To assassinate Hassan Nasrallah.

Yet another: that the Israelis and their proxies in Lebanon, especially the now non-Arab and Israeli/Saudi Druze extra ordinaire, al-Waleed ben-Yehuda bin-Jumblatt, says that the self-referential and full-of-it Israelis had this cunning plan to work with the Lebanese proxies of the harmful idiots (Hariri, Siniora, Jumblatt, Geagea, Gemayyel) to assassinate the man Iran loves, Hassan Nasrallah. They would fly a couple of planes over Beirut as a signal, blah, blah, blah. (Can you believe the harmful sophomores?) Remember: the Holy Israelis are amazing geniuses. They spy and spy and spy, because that really is a winner for them. And they have this way of thinking which gives tons of importance to assassinations. They’re intelligence traders; and they’re hit men – all in one package. They’ve always thought that if they assassinate a leader, that his entire movement would crumble. Ha! So funny. That story says that on seeing how fast the men of Hariri and Jumblatt crumbled, the Israelis thought better of the plan. They let their allies eat dirt. (Funny, again. Eating Beiruti dirt, so polluted.) They really didn’t want thousands of missiles to be flying onto their cities. They’re aware that Hizbollah and Iran likely have now decided not to let the Israelis get away with killing Lebanese civilians wholesale, as they did in the summer of 2006, without in return they killing Israeli civilians wholesale. No Hizbollah/Iranian chivalry any longer. Balance of terror against civilians. Not funny.

(Seniora: You can tell the frustration of Siniora in Doha who made an anti-Bush statement -- saying that the Christian-Zionist oil Crusader (SaudiPolitics’ words) was “opportunistic” in his support of Siniora and those on the payroll of the Saudi and harmful idiots’ intelligence services in plantation Lebanon. Yeah? Really? You don’t say? Like you just discovered that Israel comes first for Bush and the harmful idiots? That the two are opportunistic? And you say that just because they didn’t land Israeli Druze troops to assist you? Where were you when they dismantled Arab Iraq? Or, earlier, when they blessed Syrian tanks conquering Mount Lebanon? Oh, oh. You’re Saudi as is your paymaster, Hariri, and so other Arabs and their experience don’t matter to you. Oh, I forgot: Didn’t you see how they screwed the Arab Sunni of Iraq who fought an eight-year war in part to protect Saudi Arabia and Kuwait? Only to have the two scheme against them and have Kuwait entrap them to drag the harmful idiots into the region, to dominate it? You just discovered that they’re opportunistic? Serious?)

PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE

If half-true, these stories reveal a scenario similar to that which occurred in Gaza. There, Hamas, after winning parliamentary elections fair and square, saw the harmful idiots and their reactionary Holy Israeli agents arm Dahlan and company to ignite an intra-Palestinian civil war and reverse Hamas’s electoral victory. Just as with Hizbollah, it seemed Hamas had no choice but to move against the harmful idiots’ proxies in Fatah and kick their ass before these had become competent enough to ignite a full-scale civil war – Elliott Abrams’ plan according to credible press reports.

*********
THE ACTORS

And you take out Arab Iraq, the balancer of so much, and sink us in quicksands, you geniuses you. Come-on . Let me give you a hug – all of you:

oo Christian-Zionist Crusader : I’m clueless. I believed the right-wing Jews; look what happened. And their people are now writing books criticizing me. I’m back to oil and money: God bless. They’re washing their hands off the fiasco, claiming to be too intelligent to have stood behind me. I’m unloading my people who served me with allegiance, all hundreds of them, -- minus the right wing Jews -- off the federal government payroll to the Saudi payroll – Amwal bin Foss, of Saudi intelligence – he’s my brother Bandar’s man – he’s a good man this Amwal, though a Muslim – will make sure my people are hired and given contracts by the many corporations which do business in the Kingdom.


oo Bald Samson: money, oil, money, oil, money, Dubai – damn the f---ing mullahs, Muslim money, Muslim oil, money, money, money;

oo the September 11 Queen: yes it did happen on my watch, but I was promoted because it did happen on my watch, and I was promoted, so that cancels things out, since I was promoted; and

oo Bubble-to-Bubble Alan Screw-the-Greenback : Bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble. Hey: not my fault; the damn politicians refuse to raise taxes and they globalize by shipping industry overseas. You’re not gonna blame me for a recession. Blame whoever comes after me. Let him raise the rates to 7-8%. Don’t you dare say I don’t have balls. Blame globalization. Bubble. Bubble. Bubble. Bubble.

LINKAGE II: LEBANON-IRAQ. A SECOND LOOK.

(OR: DONA QUIXOTE’S ARAB WING AND THE HARMFUL IDIOTS).

Second draft : another take on the previous post.

BACKGROUND: JUMBLATT SETS OFF A CRISIS.

There are three stated reasons for the recent decision by Hizbollah to move militarily against the plantation government of Hariri/Siniora. Waleed Jumblatt, now referred to in the left press as al-Waleed bin-Kamal, a typically Saudi nomenclature, likely and analytically in reference in part to the money he’s receiving from Saudi intelligence, began the controversy that set off Hizbollah’s takeover of West Beirut. In a distribution of roles that is common in political coalitions and alliances (we see it played out in the U.S. most often in op. ed. articles), Jumblatt had been assigned mouthiness; accordingly, he had raised the following issues:

(1) The fact that Hizbollah has a land-based phone line of its own, meant to diminish the ability of the harmful idiots and their Israelis to listen in on its communications;

(2) The allegation that Hizbollah has set up cameras at the airport to monitor what agents of the harmful idiots, the Saudis, and the Israelis, in private jets, are landing in Beirut; and

(3) the dismissal of a high-ranking military officer assigned to the airport, one who’s deemed sympathetic to the Iranian cargo cult – Hisbollah and Amal.

What Jumblatt (and whoever is coordinating the moves of the harmful idiots/Saudi/Israeli cargo cult, likely the intelligence services of Saudi Arabia and that of the harmful idiots) didn’t account for was that the Arab wing of the Iranian cargo cult (Syria and Hizbollah) likely had been waiting for the proper moment to establish linkage between what the harmful idiots do in Iraq against their ally, Moqtada al-Sadr, and what they can in response do in Lebanon.

HIZBOLLAH’S PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE. NOT. IT IS. NOT.

Hizbollah and the Iranian cargo cult, which includes Syria, all on the payroll, analytically-speaking, had been patient with the Saudi-harmful idiot cargo cult in Lebanon. (The members of the second cult are (analytically) on the payroll, too, of Saudi intelligence and/or the intelligence services of the harmful idiots; they include Hariri/Siniora, Jumblatt, Geagea, Gemayyel.) There’s no question that Hizbollah could’ve a long time ago taught these proxies a military lesson. But it hasn’t. Hizbollah’s patience is due to the following:

(1) Iran and Syria would rather partner with Saudi Arabia, accepting the latter’s special relationship with the harmful idiots. After all, the Saudis have enough money to make life difficult for the Iranians and the Syrians. That money can reel in so much of Europe’s armies into the Gulf . Not that these armies can protect anyone. Frankly, they’re useless. But who needs the complications, especially with sanctions? Iran hasn’t forgotten that Saudi Arabia had succeeded for nearly two decades and a half (1979-2003) in containing Iran’s Islamic revolution; and in defeating Iran, using the former president of Arab Iraq. Logically, now that Bush/Cheney/Bandar had made it victorious, Iran would prefer not to go through this, yet again. But Saudi Arabia, in good part because of oodles of dollars coming it way, hasn’t yet come to terms with the extent of its defeat, a ton of bricks really; and so it hasn’t yet come to terms with the newregional reality. Hence in part the stalemate, especially in Lebanon.

In short, Iran and Syria would prefer to partner with the Saudis and to focus on Israel instead. But the Saudis have two binds that prevent them from doing that: (1) they run scared of the ability of Israel’s diaspora in the U.S. to complicate the Kingdom’s life and that of its princes (e.g., the activists within this diaspora can, in a Democratic administration, activate the Department of Justice’s investigation of the alleged $2 bn. payoff by BAE Systems to Bandar bin Sultan); and (2) they run scared that a true rapprochement with Iran could result in the political mobilization of the Saudi Shias, where Saudi Arabia would be conceding some form of tutelage to Iran over the Kingdom’s Shia population. Both Iran and Saudi Arabia can make life difficult for each other. For now, Iran stands victorious and it wants to use this moment to partner with Saudi Arabia – but not if that would mean conceding Iraq or Lebanon to the Saudis and the harmful idiots. As stated above, the Saudis have not yet reached the awareness that they should be reeling from the heavy blow dealt their country by the Bush/Cheney/Bandar team, and will need time to come to terms with the new regional and realpolitik reality – and that money alone, without troops, will not do it for the Kingdom.

(2) The Arab wing of the Iranian cargo cult is aware that the (sophomoric) strategy of the harmful idiots, AKA Eliott Abrams (See prior post: Saudi Arabia’s Bind .. .) is to ignite civil strife in Lebanon to busy Hizbollah away from Israel. Hence Hizbollah’s limited military backlash, stopping short of a full war or victory.

(3) The Arab wing of the Iranian cargo cult isn’t talking. But that wing has had it with mouthy Jumblatt, especially that, soon after the assassination of Imad Mughniyah, a Syrian e-newspaper made the allegation that Jumblatt’s chief of intelligence (!) had traveled to Israel. During that visit, Prime Minister Olmert is said to have granted the Druze members of the Israeli armed forces benefits that resemble those given to the Jewish soldiers. This smacked of a payoff for something, possibly assistance by Jumblatt’s Druze, those in Lebanon and those in Syria, in the Mughniyah assassination.

Syria and Hizbollah could easily have had Jumblatt assassinated. But they haven’t. The main reason is that the greater majority of Syrian citizens in the occupied Joulan are Syrian Druze. (I believe they all are.) Since Jumblatt has aligned himself with Israel, directly and with Saudi Arabia’s blessing via the Saudi secret government (intelligence service), he’s now competing with Syria over the allegiance of the Joulan Druze. Syria isn’t about to create a martyr out of him and anger the Joulan Druze. That can lead to a backlash and to a split within that community between those who don’t want to return to Syria and those who do. The better approach for Syria and Hizbollah would be to arm and fund Lebanese antagonists of Jumblatt, Druze and others.

But patience has its limits, and these limits may explode among the Christians. Allegations circulating about say that US military copters during the crisis were supplying weapons to the Lebanese Forces, shuttling between Israel and US ships and Mount Lebanon. If true, you can expect Syria/Hizbollah to retaliate by increasing the arming and training of opposing Christian forces, especially the Marada in the north and the partly-Christian SSNP. Neither of these two political parties has enough fighters – but neither do the Lebanese Forces. Going out on a guessing limb, I would say no more than 100 fighters each for the Marada and the SSNP. (For the Lebanese Forces, in the same range, since the Christians are now divided among Aoun, Gemayyel, Geagea, Franjieh, the SSNP; and they mostly hate each other. Too, be mindful that the Christians have all but evaporated. Their presence in Lebanon is more or less a fiction, kept alive by the Shias and the Sunnis; they miss them.) But as Syria had done during the civil war, when it uniformed up Palestinian fighters as Jumblati, it can do the same for the Marada and the SSNP. Better yet, Hizbolla fighters – with Lebanese accents – can do that. I don’t think Aoun will partake in this mostly intra-Christian civil war. But I’m missing facts. I’m basing my observations on logic. Hizbollah is too smart to drain Aoun politically by having him fight other Christians. Already, Aoun’s Christian adversaries and Hariri have succeeded in portraying him as the main reason for Lebanon’s economic woes. If Hizbollah keeps him out of it, so to speak, he would run a better chance at scoring big wins in parliamentary elections. Geagea, in contrast, doesn’t have much to lose; nor does Franjieh (the Marada) nor the SSNP. In short, those who engage in intra-Christian fighting will not do well electorally among those Christians left in Lebanon. They will be penalized.

(3) Hizbollah is in south Lebanon as part of a larger Iranian strategy to keep up such a balance of terror to deter Israel or its sponsor, the harmful idiots, from striking Iran’s nuclear facilities. Thousands of missiles should fly onto Israeli cities should either attack Iran. There should be no question whatsoever that for the Iranians there exists a linkage between an attack by one on Iran to retaliation against another by Iran or Hizbollah. Hence Hizbollah’s long-term perspective; Israel is its target not the other Lebanese. And Hizbollah is more capable at igniting fires for Eliott Abrams’ proxies than these are for Hizbollah.


LINKAGE, OH LINKAGE, AND I’M NOT TALKING ABOUT SAUSAGES.

What may have triggered the military reaction by Hizbollah is the vicious campaign against the Mahdi Army in Iraq. Moqtada is dear to Syria and to Hizbollah, both Arab; I would say dearer to them than to Iran. After all, Iran owns the Hakims, SCIRI/Badr, and Dawa. It owns the current Shia government in Iraq, lock, stock and barrel. (The wishful thinking/delusional harmful idiots are but a gofer.) Why would Iran want to disturb a government it owns?

Yeah, yeah, yeah: Iran needs Mahdi to harass the US; but it can do it without Mahdi. Just as the harmful idiots can retain mercenaries (e.g., Blackwater), so can the Iranians. And just as Americans and others from across the globe are willing to be hired as mercenaries in the age of de-industrializing America and replacing heavy industry with cheap money – “the financial sector” – so are many of the poorer Iraqi Shia. (In 1960, manufacturing made up 26.9 percent of US Gross Domestic Product, and financial services 13.6%; in 2005, manufacturing made up 12.9% of GDP; financial services: 20.4%.) With one difference: the Iraqi Shia-for-hire are hardly mercenaries coming from 6000 miles away. They have a patriotic reason to fight. At any rate, Iran doesn’t mind Moqtada but likely, in the end, Iran would be hesitant about him since the Sadrists are at heart Arab nationalists. But under pressure of the Arab wing within the Iranian alliance, Iran has no choice but to protect him. There’s another advantage for Iran: the Sadrists are akin to saints in the Catholic religion. They can produce a lot of martyrs, and Iran would be foolish to allow that martyrdom to be directed at it. It’d prefer that it be directed at the harmful idiots. Most importantly, whoever wins the Sadrists, so to speak, wins a terrific source of legitimacy and acceptance among the Arab Street. Syria knows that; so does Iran. Only the harmful idiots are clueless. (The Arab Street will forget the sectarian massacres committed by Mahdi as soon as they hear a name of a Mahdi fighter dying in the next war with Israel.)

In short, the retaliation in Lebanon for the assault on Mahdi in Iraq is likely a concession by Iran to the Arab wing within its camp.

* * * * *

(NOTE ABOUT BEING SCREWED. The harmful idiots are confused, very. They don’t have the flexibility to pack and go lest the American right wing – the alliance of the Jewish Right, its liberals, and the Christian Right – blame the Republicans for risking Israel’s security and for “losing Iraq,” and punish them by deserting the party. Strategically, however, our military tenure in Iraq is a waste.

Even if we talk to Iran, which we should, we no longer have a country to rely on to contain Iran. And we, the Jewish-Christian nation we are, always concerned about Israel and never about the misfortune that became the Palestinians, can’t do it. Nor can Saudi Arabia, which has no army to speak of – though it does have a lot of protection money military contracts ! – and which has lost its bully – Arab Iraq. And which is secretly in a working relationship with the Israelis. No can do.

Nor can we ourselves become an Arab nationalist power, or sponsor a non-existing one, since the Jewish sector of our elite wouldn’t tolerate that. (Can Yemen come to the rescue? I’m toying with you. I really wanted to visit Yemen, but my security-minded self said no.) So we’re screwed. Attacking Iran in full, or engaging it with limited attacks, should bring on likely worse repercussions than those which were obtained from invading Iraq. Think, at the limit, chaos. Think planned disintegration of the state. (See prior posts.)

Even symbolically we’re screwed. We pumped so much cheap money into buying up the Arab opposition elite (including Communists!) directly or through Saudi intelligence/ Hariri, that these had lost all credibility. The establishment of the Jewish Right and its liberals complemented this by handing out US government jobs to the Arab-American elite; and by so benefitting, that elite ended up becoming useless to the United States as a credible Arab cover. We have no one left to be a bridge which could be trusted by the Arab Street. I tell a lie. We do. We have Arab-American and Muslim comedians. We’re screwed.)

* * * * * *

SUMMARY

Hizbollah’s use of Jumblatt’s tirades and raves about the not-so-secret Hizbollah land-line and airport cameras seem to have been an excuse to link the assault on Moqtada to revenge in Lebanon. The possibility (conclusive perhaps to the Syrians) that Druzes in the employ of Jumblatt have played a role in the assassination of Imad Mughiyah, likely is the straw that broke the camel’s back. (The weakness in this argument revolves around the fact that one would have expected Hizbollah, to establish linkage, to have moved against Jumblatt and Hariri earlier – during he bombing of and assault against Sadr City. Was Iran hesitant in allowing Syria and Hizbollah a free hand in Lebanon, not convinced about establishing such linkage for a man (Sadr) who the Iranians have mixed feelings about? Or had the opportunity –such as Jumblatt has provided with the private land-line controversy – not been available?)

The Arab wing of the Iranian-Syrian alliance had been waiting for the moment to do the tit-for-tat: You screw around with Moqtada and we screw around with your hollow and passe proxies in plantation Lebanon. Delusional proxies – like their masters – who don’t know their own limitations.

LINKAGE: LEBANON-IRAQ. DONA QUIXOTE (IRAN) AND THE HARMFUL IDIOTS -- YET AGAIN!

a draft on the run!

I've tried to make sense out of the acrobatics in Lebanon. Beside the spill-over in harmful idiocy from the harmful idiots to their proxies in Lebanon -- Hariri/Seniora, Jumblatt, Geagea, and Gemayyel -- there's got to be something else.

Then it hit me -- but only after Zein el-Irban (pseudonym) found a safe way of contacting me to ask me what's going on. Dona Quixote likely is sending the message loud and clear to the harmful idiots, so busy dispatching a warship here, an aircraft carrier there. The message: you go after our man Moqtada here (in plantation Iraq) and we'll go after your hollow and passe assets there (in plantation Lebanon.) Yes, we're aware that killing Jumblatt -- the asset of the alliance of the harmful idiots/the Saudi secret government/the Israelis -- might set off the Joulan Druze against the Arab and Islamic umma; so we're not going to do that. We're going to make him and you sweat. And we're going to dump so much money and weapons into the camp of his Druze rivals.

Besides, if you (Eliot Abrams) and your allied Arab secret governments think you can preoccupy us away from Israel, think again. We can create as many groups and organizations, or arm the existing ones, as you -- even more and better. We'll preoccupy you instead.

Get it?

By the way: Moqtada and his Sadrists will either prove to be Dona Quixote's most
grand way to consolidate its popularity within the Arab World -- better than even Palestine -- or that of the harmful idiots. For now it looks like Dona Quixote is the smarter one. Not difficult: Dona Quixote v. idiots; Ummm. Let me think about this one. We'll see how things evolve.

The Editor

BACK IN DUBAI.

a draft

F i c t i o n a l i z e d.

THE BRUNCH

No shopping for a Porsche. Daniel thinks he knows me and he has postponed that project. Instead he arranges for a large gathering in my honor and that of his relatives visiting from Indiana. He doesn’t know me: I’d rather be shopping for the Porsche.

We report to a “five-star” hotel which is not related in any way to the Sun City Hotel in Muscat, a city where scrumptious South Indian meals go for $1.20. Here, the array of food is endless, and most of it is covered with so much oil, which makes it shine. Daniel understands my warnings about the fattening food and says his guests would never understand inviting them to a South Indian restaurant where he would be paying $1.20 per person. Here, he’s paying about $100 per person.

We’re the first to arrive at the “five-star” hotel, about ten minutes early. I refuse to wait at the table for the late guests. Instead I entertain myself trying out the fattening food. Daniel is at a loss on how to make me wait for the others. He likely thinks this is an American cultural trait where we don’t wait for late guests. I feel as if I’m stuck on one of these cruises, not wanting to take the trip, so food becomes the outlet for my frustration.

I’m amazed at the multi-ethnic and varied national background of the staff. I ask Daniel. Just as I was recruited, they were. Recruitment agencies scan the world over for staff. There are Indians (always), South Koreans, Arabs, Turks . . .

THE GUESTS ARRIVE, OVER AN HOUR LATE.

Okay, the guests are here, the expatriates and the Indiana ones. They don’t wait: they engage me in a “conversation” about politics. Daniel must’ve told them about this newsletter. (Daniel thinks I’m the best political advisor/analyst in the world; I’m flattered. Every time I talk, he tries to contradict me, then he snaps his head sideways in a sudden awakening as if to say “I didn’t know this is the way to think about this subject.” I’m flattered, especially when appreciated by such a right wing person.) I never learn that I should shut up in encounters with reactionary strangers. Why? Because the rich expatriates ask me about my views as a ruse to tell me theirs. Not that I don’t gain insight from theirs; in the end, I do. It’s only irritating while the encounter is taking place.

The rich expatriates are all staunch supporters of the US occupation of Iraq. And none thinks the harmful idiots made any mistakes, either in the decision to invade (my view always, and all that happened after was more or less a natural outgrowth), or while occupying (the view of the harmful idiots and the Jewish Right and its liberals who think not disbanding the army was a choice.) The rich expatriates believe that all that happened in Iraq and that which continues to happen, even mistakes, was and is planned. Planned; all planned. The Pentagon and the White House plan their own mistakes, so to speak. Very frustrating to rebut views of this kind.

James Harper later tells me he has the same problem with his students. That many of these feel similarly and he’s given up on trying to convince them that the Pentagon does make mistakes, as does the White House. That to teach them foreign policy and public policy is eminently difficult when they start with such stubborn illusions.

I’m under attack. The rich reactionaries are all over me. At some time I think about putting on the Russell Snowe hat. Russell was a late colleague, a lawyer, who I had always deemed to be the best propagandist around. And I’ve used his methods socially to great success. I’ve even used them to create a buzz about this newsletter, with some regret, as now I have to have a Big Brother escort when I leave the country and one when I return. I think about telling them that if the US -- which makes only planned mistakes -- wages war on Iran, that they can kiss their multi-million dollar real estate and their hefty jobs goodbye. That real estate prices should evaporate and their plum jobs should disappear. That the Pentagon owes them no obligation since most of them aren’t taxpayers, anyway. But I hold myself back since I don’t want to influence their investment decisions and their life styles in any way.

“THE US HAS EVERY RIGHT TO GRAB IRAQI OIL.”

One of them gives me a lecture saying as follows: the US should be allowed to take over Iraqi oil because the US provides the world with discoveries in medicine and technology and therefore the world owes it the oil from Iraq. That view sounds eminently okay, but for the fact that the Iraqis and US taxpayers (moi) should be making that decision, not rich reactionary expatriates who pay no taxes. (Someone ought to hire me to tax these people.) Besides, it’s difficult to explain -- and wasteful of energy , anyway -- that there are those amongst us who want our government to govern our country as a public policy project, to the extent politics allow it, not as a plantation. And to use politics to set a long-term agenda. To tax gasoline consumption and fund research and development in alternative and new sources of energy -- not the shameful project of ethanol-izing corn and other food staples. That this plantation government misjudges us Americans when it thinks that we forever want a so called “expansion,” tax breaks, and the life of a spending spree. That we’re tired of caffeine-ating ourselves pursuing cheap printed money so that we can catch up with inflation (an acute reality).

THE ALLEGED 800 FOLLOWING OF THE PRESIDENT – THE “'HASHIYA.”

One of the expatriates tells me he knows something I don’t. I don’t want to hear what he knows and I try to escape to fatten myself. What is it? He wants me to ask; but I don’t. “Listen,” he says anyway, “Bush on his last visit to Saudi Arabia had around 800 people with him. What do you think they’re here for?” He answers himself: It’s to assure the Saudis that the US will be staying in Iraq. Come what may.

Oh, the frustration I feel. I don’t say anything. First, I don’t know that Mr. Bush had 800 or 80 people with him. I hadn’t kept up with the press during his visit. Second, he hardly needs 800 people to communicate commitment to stay in Iraq. Third, he doesn’t control what will happen after he leaves; that -- even if the coalition of right wing Christians and Jews re-takes the White house ; that there’s no assurance that the public and the economy will allow them a free hand. Fourth, Iraqi politics can take so many turns, and some major turns might prove anti-American. Fifth, the new people at the White House, who would not be as oil-and-Saudi-minded as Cheney and Bush, might mandate that Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf countries cough up hefty amounts of their new-found wealth to pay for US military presence in the Gulf. Finally, viewing Mr. Bush’s tendency to reward allegiance before competence -- the “I’m-running-a-plantation” mind set -- he could have brought these along to plug them in finance and oil jobs associated with the Kingdom after they all leave office, and he does too. (In Arabic the alleged 800 are called 'hashiya. Going out on a translation limb, 'hashiya comes from the verb 'hasha, to stuff. ) The President likely is “stuffing” them into lucrative jobs and with Saudi money -- he’s transferring his 'hashiya/following to the Saudis, so to speak.

I bet they didn’t come in economy class, I tell the expatriate. Of course not, he says. Engineering a run on the dollar means among other things flying business and first class, I think to myself.

What I think to myself more than anything is the probability that somewhere in the US government bureaucracy there’s a memo about the need to supplement the Federal Reserve’s effort to engineer a run on the dollar by spending hundreds of billions of dollars on something. That instead of spending the money on a universal health plan, or a pilot project for such -- that this oil-and-Christian Zionism coalition administration chose instead to spend it on the invasion and occupation of Iraq. It didn’t think it’ll cost trillions; but it has; all the better. All of which was meant to diminish the value of U.S. currency to jumpstart a so-called economic expansion. Yet another expansion! Bubble-to-bubble-to-bubble.


(I’ve already written a while ago that the engineered run on the dollar will cause tension between Europe and the US since devaluing the dollar will hardly hurt China, the alleged target, but will Europe. There are signs that this is beginning to happen.)


NOWHERE TO GO.

Once the weekend passes I have nowhere to go. Here I have a few days left, but I don’t want to be in Dubai. Besides, the tax base is calling me to get on the treadmill and process printed dollars. I log on to see whether I can return early. Unlikely. I conclude that I should’ve bought my ticket directly from Delta and not have gone through Orbitz. That, it seems, could’ve given me a window for changing it with an acceptable penalty.

On my first morning with nowhere to go, I wake up early and walk outside. It turns out that mornings in Dubai in April aren’t bad – even nice. But you need to wake up before the sun rises. The earlier the better. I walk about among the villas and am fascinated by the multiplicity and richness of the flowering trees around these, all watered by desalination. One of the most arid deserts in the world can be made to bloom!

I see tourist buses hauling construction workers all about, and I see these getting off these buses and dragging their feet along to the sites. Orange is the color of choice for their overalls. On one construction site near Daniel’s house, a few construction workers have built their own open air shack and are sleeping so peacefully on foam mattresses inside. Strangely, there’s beauty to the sight. The laborers look peaceful and content. The outdoors’ shack beats the alternative. The poorer expatriates live in congested quarters. The police arrests an Indian man for murdering his roommate. The article in the paper reveals that the two roommates live with fourteen others in one room. Sixteen to one room. These laborers save any money they can to send back home. Though Lebanon and all Arab countries have a decently tight social structure, I think that in such places as India, Pakistan and the Philippines the social structure is way tighter. To program men and women to give their lives away to help their families back home makes me feel that we have more in common with ants and bees than with apes. An Indian man helps his mother board the bus to Dubai. He kisses her hand and lowers his forehead to have it touch her hand and kisses it again. Talking about tight social structures!

In contrast, Daniel’s wife complains that the children don’t even respond to her emails and her calls. Nothing accounts for this impoliteness, she comments. I tell her that her children have grown up in that cargo cult in Lebanon which dogs the West, the same cult which is horrified of any sign that reminds it that it is of the East. She doesn’t want to hear any of it. She herself is of that cargo cult and had encouraged her children to apply for membership. She may not have been wrong. The older son is finishing an MBA in a Scandinavian country. The state there is generous with him and other students. It gives him $30,000 to start a small company as part of a program meant to encourage students to take the initiative in starting small businesses. It also keeps showering him with prizes, such as computers and other like gadgets. Abdallah, an American friend from the Sudan, rushes over to Sweden to be with his sister who’s dying of terminal cancer. He returns with so much praise about the Swedish health care system. They never left my sister alone and did a wonderful job managing her pain. What a civilized country, he keeps on repeating for months after he had returned.


“EAT AND DRINK”

And so, while walking about aimlessly I reach an area which features two supermarkets, a drugstore, other businesses and ...”Kol Washrab” -- a restaurant called “Eat and Drink.” Though the name is Arabic, the food and the staff -- it’s all Indian.

What a discovery. I now have a “where” to go!

I’ll preface my description of Eat and Drink by saying that in the few days that I all-but-resided there, I saw a woman eating at the restaurant only once. And I saw two Emiratis. So, in essence, it’s an Indian men’s place.

My routine for the few days: Wake up early; walk to Eat and Drink (10 minutes); have breakfast and lots of tea; walk back; swim and sun bathe; walk back to Eat and Drink; have lunch and lots of tea; walk back; swim and sunbathe; walk back to Eat and Drink; have dinner; walk back ; shower up; wait for Arab guests of Daniel’s to arrive for dinner two hours late. Eat again, reluctantly. Focus on tabbouleh to which Daniel’s wife adds fresh and sour pomegranate seeds. Delicious. Try it.

I slip and fall by the pool, and twist my knee. The pain is excruciating. I sleep it off on the lawn. I can walk afterwards but the knee is quite swollen. Now it has water in it, I suspect. In D.C. I’m still trying to find a physician to drain it. I call a Lebanese physician who once had attended to my sister. He calls me “habibi” (my dearest or, more precisely, my love ! ) 4-6 times in a conversation that lasts less than one minute. He recommends his neighbor and another physician. I’d have to wait until Monday to see if one of them will see me. But I have a busy week. I called the Lebanese physician because I had gone to Georgetown and they had given me consent forms to fill out and circulate to all physicians I’ve seen throughout my life in D.C.; that’s the only way the Georgetown specialist would see me. Once your records arrive, we’ll call you. Ha! That’s why I called the Lebanese physician. I’m trying to speed up things here. But it doesn’t look good. The Lebanese physician I called didn’t have time to talk. I may have to drive to Cleveland to have a couple of friends drain the damn knee.

Eat and Drink serves hundreds of people. It’s part of a network of restaurants by the same name. The kitchen always has four men working the various parts of the cooking operation. Large containers, always cooking, feature all sorts curried mixes and sauces. Humongous aluminum water heaters are always boiling and their water is used for the likely hundreds of tea the restaurant serves. The inside can seat about 20-25 people. Customers take seats all over, even at tables which already are occupied but not in full. So you can be eating with total strangers. As you walk in, the cashier is to your right; the seating area to your left. A fridge features soda and bottled water. If you continue on you’ll run smack into a window to the kitchen from where food is pushed out. Facing that window, you’ll find to your left two faucets. Customers wash their hands before a meal. No napkins are provided to dry up the hands. But, if you’re in the know, as I become, you head to the cashier. There, you’ll find sandwich wrapping paper which you can use to dry up your hands. Ditto for afer the meal. Be mindful that Indians (it seems) eat their food with the fingers of their right hand. They mix the rice with the curry sauce and mix again and again before taking it into their mouth.

Outside, abutting an alley, there are three tables and their chairs. At noon the tables and the chairs become full of take-away lunches in plastic shopping bags. It turns out that a seemingly large number of the construction workers I spot in the morning, being hauled in by humongous tourist buses, likely have their lunch prepared by Eat and Drink. A couple of men in orange overalls pick up the tens and tens of lunch bags.

Eat and Drink, too, serves tens of drivers. These come second in numbers after the construction workers. The drivers all wear neckties. The shirts vary, mostly striped, though the most striking being the white shirts with red epaulettes. The men wearing these also wear a red tie.

Municipality of Dubai workers are third in numbers. Their baseball-like hats feature that municipality’s name in Arabic, under which is the English acronym: D.M. (Likely for Dubai Municipality.)

Then there’s the scruffy white cat, which sits under the tables outside. A couple of times I find it next to my feet. No one bothers it. And it bothers no one.

Eat and Drink’s food is to kill for, all at less than two dollars per meal. But at noon, for lunch, they don’t have vegetarian.

Though it has waiters, Eat and Drink’s system of service is haphazard. Amazing for a place that serves hundreds of meals a day. I never know where to order: I use the waiter, the cashier, go straight to the window, the one inside or the one outside. Haphazard though the service is, communication must be near perfect since I always get my food fast and I always seem to pay for exactly what I got.

Women pass by: Western, Asian . . . But the men never even notice. A stark contrast from Mediterranean countries. Reproduction in India must be so well calibrated that there’s no need to hunt on one’s own. Or maybe because it’s the UAE. I don't know.


D.C. JAMES

I have two cousins in Dubai. I don’t know either one of them. I try to retrieve their emails using search engines and other sites, and I dispatch notes to the addresses I retrieve. To no use. My fault. Lack of organization, I send my sister an email asking for their email addresses or phone numbers. She doesn’t answer. Busy as usual. Such a a great member of the tax base.

I email James Harper and get a reply right away. Welcome to the UAE. You’re coming to stay with us in Abu Dhabi. I talk to him by telephone. I explain that I had fallen by the pool and hurt my knee quite bad. That it’s better if I stay where I am. We agree on a time when they’d come over. Daniel wishes they’d come over late so he can meet them. They have two young ones, four and two. Difficult to do. But we’ll try.

James and his wife and the two children arrive at a time when no one is home. Daniel’s wife is with the maid, shopping for the maid’s trip back home. James is dying for conversation. I never made good friends here, he says. His wife agrees. The two girls are gorgeous. James is accepting that his German wife teach them German. He says something funny happens. When the two girls are seated at a breakfast table in the morning, and James is in the kitchen without the mother, the two girls speak English to each other. When their mother is in the kitchen, the two girls converse in German.

Daniel’s wife is back; we have coffee together then head out for some walking by the Dubai Creek and for dinner. The younger child delays us and James tells me he calls her “Bottleneck,” for the tactic she has of delaying any departure. I call the older one “Scout.” She’s like me; she ventures away to discover. Very independent. Overall, however, I can see that in the US the couple will find it more difficult financially to pay for the children. Unlike in the UAE where they can have a maid relatively cheap -- James brings in one, not live-in, nearly daily, at $4 per hour -- in the US he’ll have to check immigration rules. I doubt that he’ll be able to obtain help cheaply, though I do see a lot of foreign nannies in my neighborhood. (But property in my neighborhood is owned -- versus rentals -- by people with trust accounts, with Porsches and BMWs in the driveways. James doesn't have that.) If you have children at a late age, as James, you really need help, including a maid. I can see it based on the few hours we spent together. That’s how Daniel, though young when he got married, raised his children in Lebanon -- with the assistance of a live-in maid from Sri Lanka. I limp throughout the hours we’re together.

James has ambitious plans for these few hours. But Bottleneck and Scout stand in the way. We are able to converse only thanks to their mother who would retrieve them away. She’s not doing well; she’s recuperating from a surgery. And it’s very hot.

We return fairly late and Daniel insists that the Harper family come in. The mother offers an alternative: she’ll stay with the girls and attend to their needs, including bathroom and water, while James and Daniel can talk. You can tell that Daniel wants to be a good host but the lateness of the visit and the little girls stand in the way. Daniel and James exchange phone numbers and email addresses and promise to visit with each other. They’re more specific: Daniel is heading to Abu Dhabi on a specific date. Both agree to get together then.


When James leaves I feel emptiness. His departure announces mine; I'll be leaving a childhood friend and the sun I cherish. Soon, I’ll be back on the plane. In retrospect, my only regret: I should’ve seen a doctor in Dubai and not waited to go through the morass of assembling my own medical record.

FLASHBACK: THE HARMFUL IDIOTS AND SAUDI ARABIA IN PLANTATION LEBANON.

For input/insight on Plantation Lebanon and the ongoing events, please refer to the Sunday, March 9, 2008 post, in this blog/newsletter:

“Saudi Arabia’s Bind and the Limit of Things: the Harmful Idiots in Plantation Lebanon.”

THE CURE: MUSCAT, OMAN.

rough draft – first-and-a-half

f i c t i o n a l i z e d

The bus ride between Dubai and Muscat, Oman, takes less than six hours, including the stops at the border. It costs $24 one way. There’s more than one company with buses between the two cities. My choice is haphazard. I use “al-Khanjari.” Our bus breaks down before we leave Dubai. Lucky. We change buses.

The Indian movie is eminently annoying noise.

The distance between Dubai and Muscat shows you enough of the desert. Comes a time when you stop seeing the occasional shrub or dried up tree, and you see actual sand dunes. But overall, there are towns sprinkled all about.

I can’t get over the fact that Dubai and Muscat are watered by desalination. Part of why I find it incredulous is that in neither city do I have to limit my use of water. I would love to see the desalination operation. Daniel explains it thus: you sell a barrel of oil for $115; you power the desalination plant at $15 per barrel; you sell the water for ther equivalent of $25 a barrel; you’re ahead.

SUN CITY HOTEL

The bus’s final stop is Ruwi, a suburb/section of Muscat. Before I do anything, I need a tea. I enter one of many coffee shops and ask for tea, instructing the owner not to put in the standard condensed milk, and only half a teaspoon of sugar. Lipton does brisk business in the UAE and Oman. Tea is offered as would a large espresso, with not much water, and a lot of sugar and condensed milk. It costs about 30 cents.

Now that I’ve had my tea I turn to lodging. I stop a young man in his national Omani jellaba and head gear -- all wear that -- and ask him to recommend a hotel. Here’s one he says, right near us, which I hadn’t seen. It turns out that the coffee shop where I sat is part of the Sun City Hotel. The young man says that I should check it out and if I don’t like it, that he’d be glad to drive me to another hotel.

I like it. Recently renovated. The room is huge and the bathroom is too. My room sits right atop the coffee shop. It smells of tobacco, mildly. On that observation the attendant fires up the AC. I open the window and shout “shukran” (thank you) to the young man. He smiles and drives off in his Toyota -- the most popular brand of cars in Muscat.

The room costs 20 riyals per night -- about $76.00. Later I discover that the floor’s common kitchen is so badly kept up that cockroaches fill it. I spot them in so many places in that kitchen. Never in the room. What a waste: after the fancy renovation, to fail at cleaning well the common kitchen! Daniel’s maid is the best cleaning person I know. That kitchen of hers is spotless. Daniel’s wife chastises me to stop feeling guilty and have the maid make my tea or clean after me after I do. “She’s rich in Sri Lanka, you know,” she says; “she’s built a house and now rents it; and she’s asking for a steep raise. We have no choice but to give it to her. She’s been with us from Lebanon.” I sort of accept the instructions. Before I leave I give the maid a gift of $100 to spend I say on her upcoming return home after six years away. Daniel’s wife goes with her to help her shop for gifts for her trip back. She's worried about her not returning.

I have to admit: It’s so nice to have a live-in maid. Everything is always clean and you see no clutter whatsoever.

THE MAN FROM KERALA

A man from Kerala, India, runs the coffee shop. People from Kerala run so many things in Muscat -- and a lot in the UAE, too. The Kerala man isn’t a natural at owning a business. His temper is short. I never see him smile. I think likely he should’ve been a professor, but is stuck at the coffee shop. I’m not being facetious. His brother or cousin helps him out in the evening. He’s handsome and more patient and pleasant.

The hotel and the coffee shop tower over bus stops that take you to many towns and places in Oman, and to Dubai. In the morning, the sun hits the Kerala man’s coffee shop and most people use the coffee shop across from it, where there’s plenty of shade. In the afternoon, the roles reverse: the sun shines on the opposite shop, and most customers use the Kerala man’s coffee shop. The Kerala man can add a few parasols, which would bring in some business in the morning. But he isn’t interested. He’d rather teach at university.

I spot quite a lot of dissatisfaction among taxi drivers, bus drivers, and coffee shop managers in Muscat. Remember: Oman isn’t as rich as other Gulf countries. I query about the bus drivers. An Omani tells me that they make 200 Riyals per month (@ $750) driving 6 or 7 days per week (he isn’t sure) between Dubai and Muscat – that’s at least 11 hours per day. Now I know why the bus driver coming from Dubai, though courteous, was nonetheless uninterested in helping out. I tried to ask him some questions and he puffed. On the way back to Dubai, the driver is hell bent on not even having a drink of water. He seems mad, but the Omani way: gently. And he’s a good and careful driver. In Mexico, I’ve taken buses where the drivers were outrightly reckless. And they’re even worse in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, In one ride between Playa del Carmen and Merida, in the Yucatan, not for a moment was the driver not engaged in programming his cell phone or conversing sideways. I’m still alive to write about it.

I suspect that the coffee shop “owner,” the man from Kerala, ends up coughing up a lot of his profit to the mandatory Omani co-signer on his shop. His silent partner who does not work. Hence likely the dissatisfied disposition. His cousin’s good looks make up for the relative economic disadvantage of an Indian expatriate running away from relative poverty at home, and maybe that’s why he has a better disposition. Looks go a long way in making for better disposition, I think. I recall an incident where a Syrian soldier manning a checkpoint in Bhamdoun, Lebanon, punishes my cousin for taking the “military route” by stopping us and having us wait, forever. Another soldier comes out from a building nearby. I swear he is James Dean incarnate, he’s so handsome. I seek his attention and talk to him. I tell him about his colleague, about the punishment. Throughout the conversation, he holds on to my arm. After he hears me out, he tells us to leave. I remind him that his colleague has an AK 47. Not to worry. Paul, my cousin, takes off. Then Paul tells me to look back. I do: the James Dean look-alike is having a shoving match with the ugly soldier.

Another time, I’m heading to my father’s hometown in the Bekaa valley. The Israelis had just bombed a Syrian radar at Dahr al-Baidar in Lebanon. The Syrian intelligence service man who checks me out asks me what I do for a living. I say I’m a lawyer, without specifying that I’m an American lawyer. I show him what they call Ikhraj Ayd -- a document from the hometown mayor with a photo in it attesting to origin. It’s as good as any identification. He looks at it and claims he knows my father’s hometown from where the Ikhraj Ayd was issued. He doesn’t and I say to him with venom in my voice that his outfit should teach him some geography before sending him over to occupy a country. He smiles. He’s a handsome guy which, according to my theory, makes for a good disposition, generally. Okay, go, he says. I leave not thanking him. On the way back, there’s a lengthy queue of cars waiting at the Syrian intelligence checkpoint. But the handsome intelligence guy sees me from afar. He waves me over and I pass the lengthy queue. “Go Istaz (counsel).” I smile at him.

THE MOROCCANS

Dissatisfaction in Muscat makes for some entertainment. On my first day I meet a bunch of Moroccan expatriates who gather regularly in the Kerala man’s coffee shop, every late afternoon. These men become my guides about Muscat; I follow their instructions on what to see and do. They don’t like the man from Kerala , and he hates their guts. That’s how it looks at the surface. The same encounter between Morocco and Kerala repeats itself daily: They arrive; they take over a table outside after they say hello to me; they shout for tea, soda, and bottled water. The Kerala man refuses to budge. They scream and make a scene; he screams back from inside his shop.

Simple: he resents their bossy attitude and their disrespect of his policy of not waiting on tables. They’re to come in and pay for their orders and take them outside to their table. It’s not worth his while to wait on tables. The sad and funny part is that they seem to enjoy irritating him, and accuse him (to me) of being an awful coffee shop owner. He doesn’t care. He looks at me and looks at them, and then back at me and makes an attempt at snickering (He's incapable of that), with a dismissive wave of his hand. “These assholes,” he seems to be saying, “who do they think they are?”

The Moroccans always return to the Kerala man’s coffee shop to repeat the same act.

MATTRAH (“A PLACE”)

I go to many parts of Muscat, and on one long distance trip to Nizwa. I will not waste your time. I only liked Mattrah and its port and Corniche. (The Corniche could actually be located in the city of Muscat itself, not in Mattrah; I never bother to find out. I reach it via Mattrah.)

At high tide, the mini-port of Mattrah becomes a virtual aquarium. I can’t begin to describe the schools of fish that parade by as you watch. I wouldn't know how since I'm not familiar with marine biology. But the place should be protected, I know that much. All colors, all sizes. And I see my fair share of sea turtles. It’s a true feast to the eyes.

At low tide, the place is disappointing. As water retreats, you can see the ground at the edge, and on that ground you see garbage strewn all about. One day, children swimming at low tide take Styrofoam with them and shred it to no end in the water. The place fills up with white Styrofoam , which a mild current moves in unison to one end of the port. Local fish swim below it, including a weird-looking obese fish which feeds off under water rocks. Many times I spot people disposing of garbage to the ground or into the bay.

THE PROUD GERMAN MAN

A man passes me by in a hurry. We say hello to each other. Then he returns. He apologizes for rushing away. I say it’s okay, that I understand that he wanted to take the photo of a yacht as it was leaving the mini-port. It’s not a yacht, he corrects me; It’s a super yacht. He mentions the German company which manufactured it. With sincerity I ask whether he works for that company. No, no, he says, impatiently. It seems he’s proud of the German product, period. Suddenly I feel so bad about not being proud of the seating on the Bowing 777. I don’t share this with the German man. He might accuse me of treason.

The German man returns to his wife to explain away about the yacht – I mean: super yacht.

The one thing about traveling: you’re thankful you didn’t get married young and had stayed with the same woman. I know it sounds awful. But the man looks young and his wife looks like she can be his mother. I prefer my mother’s hometown’s paradigm of marriage: marry young, children, children move to Beirut or immigrate to Oklahoma, mother follows them, father stays in the hometown and remains drunk on arak with his buddies, until death. That scene -- the one where I don’t regret being unmarried -- repeats itself often on this trip. It could be my age. Not that I don’t miss women when traveling solo. I do. Once it had been the most important reason why I traveled each summer to Cyprus -- for the Swedish women. Once, in Mexico, after traveling inside the Maya country for days, and not seeing but Maya women, on returning to Cancun, I run in downtown Cancun on spotting from a distance a non-Mayan woman, just to see her. She has a waist, a defined waist. And I’m awed and speechless. At last: a defined waist. I’ve always had a weakness for women with a defined waist.


BACK IN TIME

Food in Muscat is to kill for, as it is in Dubai. South Indian cuisine, which many tell me is better than that found in India itself. I discover a place in Mattrah which makes amazing paratta. But these are decent all over, including at the coffee shop under my room, the Kerala man’s shop. The South Indian food is so cheap, to boot.

In Mattrah, too, I want to avoid returning to the taxi stand using the souk; I’m getting tired of the solicitations. By taking all sorts of cuts, I get lost. And, what a place to get lost. I come out in a neighborhood which, but of the presence of a couple of cars, could’ve been Muscat circa 1867. For a short while, I feel hesitation. As if I’m transported back in time. James Harper, my friend from D.C. who lives and works in Abu Dhabi, later tells me that the same thing had happened to him. And that he had been so awestruck that he felt fear – that he really had gotten lost in time. To get back to 2008, I look about for the minaret of the mosque abutting the souk, and make my way accordingly back to the beaten track. For how long will these neighborhoods last? Especially that the Oman government’s budget is over $1 bn in the black.

One incident in the souk: I enter a public bathroom. I’m wearing beach combers and shorts. I start using one urinal, but my lower legs and feet are being drenched with urine. I stop and look down: Yes, the urine goes straight into a canal beneath. The urinal is missing a pipe, I think to myself. I move over to the next urinal, thinking the first is in need of repair. The same thing happens to me. I accept my fate. The missing pipe is a planned event.

In Ruwi, I purposely walk about away from the market area, and I discover where the toiling masses live. Actual shacks and huts. And little deli-like stores. A far contrast from the villas at Qorm where I had gone to sun bathe.

THE OMANIS: VISIBLE AND POLITE

Omanis, unlike Emiratis, are out and about a lot. They man the taxis, for instance. They’re very polite. I become angry once with a shared taxi driver who’s supposed to drive me from Nizwa to Muscat; but he drops me off 40 kilometers outside of Muscat. It doesn’t make sense to me. We had agreed that he would drive me to Muscat itself, to Ruwi. He says that’s their standard stop, 40 kilometers out, and that’s what everyone in Nizwa understands by “Muscat.” He’s dazzled and apologetic though he truly believes it’s not his mistake. He doesn’t write the rules. I find out later from the Moroccans that he was right. The stop where he left me is understood by all in the trade to be the “Muscat” stop for anyone returning from Nizwa.

Still, it’s strange that he had not tried to explain that earlier, when in Nizwa, since I clearly appeared to be a tourist. And it's not like he was aching for riders.

One night I wake up late. The window is open. I look out and I see that two men are sleeping at the entrance of the bus dispatcher’s office. For some reason, it doesn’t feel that bad. They both have mats under their bodies. Later I find out who the two are. They’re Omani and wear the standard national garb. I think the national garb is such an equalizer, and perhaps that’s why I didn’t feel bad for them when I spotted them asleep in the outdoors. Daytime: they're indistinguishable from the rest. Too, it’s warm and not hot at night.


On my last day I enter a small store in Mattrah, “owned” by a Pakistani man. It’s a watch repair shop. But he had these great-looking watches. I buy five of them. He gives me a special price: about $20 each. (Even less.) A steal. I consider buying the national garb, then think it’ll only add to clutter in my life The watches: I can give away as gifts. The garb will be abused and worn for Halloween. I look for gifts for women. No luck. The women’s watches aren’t that great. I buy perfume. But I’m not sure it’s worth giving to anyone. It’s so difficult to open the bottles.

I wake up early on my departure day. I sit in the café across from the Kerala man’s shop. I’m able to write a poem I’ve long wanted to write. It flows so fast. I continue to edit it on the bus. Is this why I travel? I’ve written most of my poetry (in Arabic) while traveling.

PASSPORT, GOOGLE, GOOGLE, AND THE MUKHABARAT (INTELLIGENCE) MAN

The trip back is uneventful but for the presence on the bus of a Mukhabarat (intelligence service) guy. He doesn’t buy a ticket; I know that because when the comptroller boards the bus to check ours, he shows none. And all those in the know — driver and aide and all those who work for the Bus company, who hop on and ho off – come by and pay their respect by lowering their head and shaking his soft hand. He’s a tad heavy. I don’t know that he’s there for me. If he is, it’s because the hotel copies my passport and likely dispatches it to the Mukhabarat. Google; google; boogle; spoogle. Then a bus ride from Muscat to the border with Dubai to assure that this guy (moi) has really left. They’re afraid I’d jump off the bus and have some secret plan to survive in the desert. The Mukhabarat guy leaves the bus at the border.

I think to myself: that’s why Dubai is successful; it doesn’t have much oil. But its ruler doesn’t dispatch Mukhabarat people to track Tony Khater, or to make sure he leaves the country. Doesn’t bother.

WOULD I RETURN TO OMAN?

Yes, but only if I can fly business class. Oman is a great place to visit, and to get lost in it, before the government’s money spreads to the neighborhoods which time has forgotten. If I can put up with another 14-hour flight, the next time I’ll rent a four-wheel drive and head to Salalah in the south and to Jabal al-Akhdar.

James Harper wants me to come to Abu Dhabi so that we can do the region together. He’s a great traveler, has traveled the globe over, and he just bought a four-wheeler with the idea of reaching places he hasn’t reached before. I know I should take advantage: no one can show me the region as James. Besides, time is of the essence: James is now searching for a job in D.C., his hometown; it’s better for the children, he says. He has two master degrees and has taught English as a foreign language (and other courses) for the better part of his adult life. I can easily lose the opportunity to have him show me the place. I saw him last summer in D.C. when he interviewed in Texas; then he recently interviewed in D.C. itself, ini Georgetown.


It hit me: Oman’s sun has cured me so thoroughly. I feel healthy and am giddy. It’s such a gorgeous place. On the way back I can’t get over the fact that I’m feeling so much better. What makes the experience even more special is that the Omani people are so polite. And the expatriates are –- oh well, hilarious. I miss the Moroccan expatriates already, and I miss the Kerala man. It’d be worth going back if only to see the two dismiss each other.

I return to Dubai, uncertain; I don’t want to; but I feel an obligation to spend some time with Daniel, and the only time he has is over the weekend. I’m praying I will not have to go shopping for a Porsche.

DONA QUIXOTE (IRAN) AND THE HARMFUL IDIOTS

draft

THE MILITARY'S BIND

I don’t envy the military. To be placed in such a bind by the harmful idiots must be unbearable:

– in a state of so-called counter-insurgency mode, while occupying a country 6000 miles away;

– in a bind as to what to do with as many as 110,000 Sunni insurgents placed on the payroll, forever, with a civil war brewing amongst them, a ticking time bomb;

– in a state of illusory hope that the Badr Brigade government (I’m using the old name on purpose), allied to Dawa, will turn against Tehran;

– in a state of denial about the fact that both of these organizations -- Badr and Dawa -- had been reared by Tehran;

– in a state of false hope that the harmful idiots (in this case, the politicians) can squeeze Tehran financially and politically, and that Dona Quixote cannot squeeze back while raking in higher and higher income from oil, thanks in good part for lower and even lower interest rates in the US -- the imperial blind spot;

– in a state of utter illusion that the Turks and the Kurds will hug and kiss, oblivious to the fact that structurally there’s no hope under the sun that the flirtation would succeed;

– in a state of war with Moqtada al-Sadr who, if one avoids a short-term perspective, and avoids buying one’s self-referential propaganda about him being a “radical” just because he’s a politician, and if one thinks long term, (Sadr) would be Iraq’s best hope to (eventually) stand up to Iran. Not a sure thing by any measure. Still, if one is betting, Sadr would be the better bet. By far. Instead, the harmful idiots are assuring the welding of his fate and that of the Sadr family saint-like legacy, to Iran’s goals.

CONTROL THE TERRITORY

Abdel Halim Khaddam, the Syrian Sunni man who the Saudis placed in a palace in France, in their silly and self-defeating war with Syria, used to say that whoever controlled the ground/territory, controlled the political outcome. He was referring to little Lebanon after the harmful idiots and their Jordanians had destroyed it on behalf of their beloved Israel -- to dodge the formation of a Palestinian state. Wait a minute: Khaddam didn’t mean an army (and another army of mercenaries) imported from 6000 or so miles away. He meant local forces supplanted by Syrian and Palestinian fighters, who look like local forces, dressed up as Druze or other fighters to roll back the proxies of the harmful idiots and Israel. Successfully.

(I really feel like stopping; I feel like a teacher at a school for the learning-challenged.)

NO HELP

Okay, a tea and I shall resume.

The harmful idiots had emaciated or destroyed every country that had allied itself to them. I’m thinking Egypt. Now useless -- and hungry -- and can’t help in Iraq. I’m thinking Lebanon which, had the harmful idiots built up a Palestinian state, would’ve been a hell of a pro-harmful idiots country -- all of it; Now even the harmful idiots’ erstwhile ally, Michel Aoun, seeing who controls the ground/territory, runs away from them, that after they had left him stranded alone fighting the Syrians and getting run over. I’m thinking Saudi Arabia, which doesn’t even have an army to speak of, and is now relying even more on the harmful idiots; Saudi Arabia, which happens to produce some of the most vicious fighters in the world, but only for export, instead of recruiting them into a fighting army. I’m thinking Jordan, which teeters about waiting forever for a Palestinian state to relieve the threat of the Islamists -- saved mostly by its King’s ingenious ways at obtaining cargo for an otherwise hostile population.

ILLUSION AND WISHFUL THINKING

And here are the harmful idiots swimming in an ocean of illusion and wishful thinking about the Badr Organization Shia state in Iraq. Here’s Robert Gates, on April 11:

“I think the Iraqi government now has a clearer view of the malign impact of Iran’s activities inside Iraq...I think they have had what I would call a growing understanding of that negative Iranian role. But I think what they encountered in Basra was a real eye-opener to them.”

Say what? You’re building a state in Iraq, dumping billions upon billions on that state with the hope (!) – with the hope (!) – that it’ll have “a growing understanding” of Iran’s “malign” role? I’m cringing.

Here’s Ali al-Dabbagh, spokesman for the Iraqi government, on May 4, responding to a question about the repeated allegations by the harmful idiots that Dona Quixote has been sending weapons to Shia militias -- they mean the Mahdi Army -– and training these. His answer:

“We don’t possess like evidence.” (My translation from Arabic.)

About the Iraqi delegation visiting Tehran to talk about Dona Quixote’s role in arming and training the Mahdi Army -- Mr. Al-Dabbagh: these people don’t represent the Iraqi government.

In other words, we the Badr Organization Shia government aren’t so stupid as to pick a fight with Iran, once our mentor and host, and so well embedded amongst us that we’re one and the same. We really are one and the same.

Thank you very much. We really appreciate your help. Please come again.

BOGGED DOWN ON ORDERS BY THE HARMFUL IDIOTS

Here’s Admiral Micheal Mullin, on May 5, from beloved Israel:

“I am actually very hopeful we don’t get into a position where we have to get into a conflict [with Dona Quixote] ... It would be a very significant challenge for the United States right now to get into a third conflict in that part of the world ... I think it is very important that we increase the financial pressure, the diplomatic pressure, the political pressure, and at the same time keep all the military options on the table.”

Translation: we really cannot afford a war with Dona Quixote. That, in effect, our job as the military at the service of the harmful idiots, is to keep a state of stasis, of stagnation, including of our own miliary in Iraq, until the end of the Bush term. To be bogged down so as to preserve the fighting image of Bald Samson and the Christian-Zionist Crusader -- as warriors for one hundred years.

FRESH PARSLEY

I need some fresh perspective. I go over to see my dad at his garden. He’s checking his parsley, which is coming through, now that he’s removed the straw -- so necessary for successful sprouting of parsley seeds. I ask him. May God bring victory to the US, he says. He’s repeating what they say at his church. This is my Maronite father speaking; I need to bring out the politico in him.

I change my tone. What are you talking about? I retort impatiently. Victory doesn’t come to those swimming in illusion and wishful thinking. Answer my question please: do you think the Shia Badr Organization government will turn against Iran? You’ve spent a lifetime in a sect-dominated culture in Lebanon and had had many Shia, Sunni, and Druze friends, and countless acquaintances among these sects. You filled my head with sect and politics. He hesitates. Then he answers: No; I can’t imagine it. It’s a “tabkhet Bo7s” (“a meal of pebbles”) for the US.

Thank you. Now you can go back to admiring your parsley. How can I make up for my impatience at his earlier reluctance to answer my question? It’s gonna be a bumper crop, I comment. God I can be mean.

TRAVELOGUE: THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES AND OMAN; PART 1.

second draft

F i c t i o n a l i z e d.

INDEPENDENCE AS A LEVANTINE PREDICAMENT?

I need a lot of sun, both for vitamin D and to treat what I suspect is SAD —Seasonal Affective Disorder. I used to do it by shuttling to Miami Beach. But I can’t stand that place any longer. I’m forever running away from anything that compromises my independence. Call it a Levantine predicament. The Lebanese-British historian Albert Hourani knew it. He had said something along these lines: to be a Levantine is to be thoroughly familiar with two worlds, maybe three, but not to belong to any. Quite a damning predicament. Couldn’t go to Miami, a hub of Israeli and Lebanese Christian right wing expats. (Refer to the post, “Chance Encounters.”) Add to that my late mother’s sickness and dependency. And so for five years, I’ve gone nowhere but on trips by car . I tell a lie: I’ve done one three-day weekend by plane.

Albert Hourani, it’s now said, was British intelligence. I don’t know if that’s true.

I’m nursing the end of a cold, and I feel miserable.

Daniel, an international and contracts lawyer, a friend since our high-school days, has been calling and emailing. I’ve got to come to the UAE. He can’t resist wanting to show me how well he’s doing -- making as much as a partner at a large American law firm. I keep on telling him not to tell me. He tells me anyway. Good: now I won’t feel any guilt to be the beneficiary of his UAE largesse. He needs to show me. And I’m fine with that. He’s one of the best hosts I know.

On the off-chance that I may want to stay there, I check out the American law firms in Dubai. At heart I know I’m not interested. But, who knows? A friend says, “Re-write your resume; you’re a litigation lawyer.”

I buy my ticket on Delta, for less than $1100, including all taxes and fees.


AN ESCORT ALL THE WAY TO THE DUBAI FLIGHT GATE

As I rush to catch the underground tram at the Atlanta airport, to make it to my Dubai gate, I notice an Amazon standing right behind me. I see her reflection on the tram’s glass doors as it pulls up. Inside the tram, her long legs tower over me as she eyes me intently. She’s wearing shortened jeans that go all the way to below her knees, and carrying a large nap sack. She looks like she could be my friend Colin’s sister. Both of them have this Anglo colorless skin and eyes that are too round. Descendants of Sherwood Forest – Robin Hood’s people. Little sun; no color. When I had first met Colin, he was standing against a marble wall at a courthouse, wearing a light-colored suit. If it weren’t for his eyes fluttering at some moment I wouldn’t even had spotted him. He had melted away into the faux- marble. Later, together, we handled a sizeable securities fraud case and proved to all that inexperienced lawyers can bone up fast and make things right for their clients.


I leave the tram and rush to my Dubai flight gate; the Amazon is on my heels. I’m relieved that I made it. She turns back and away. She scares me; such intimidation.

Someone wants to make sure I know that I’m under surveillance. I’ve succeeded beyond my wildest imagination at creating a buzz about the newsletter. Now I’m getting an escort all the way to the departure gate out of the country. If it goes on like this, I’ll be changing the focus of the newsletter, closing shop really, away from political analysis to something else. I’m already thinking about the new direction -- away from constant surveillance. No one really gets it that at heart I’m tailored for what I do. But is that what Big Brother and its right wing Jewish imperial pillar want me to do? Close shop? I need to think this over.

CLOSING SHOP BECAUSE NO ONE LISTENS?

No one listens anyway. The country’s foreign policy is run haphazard, the product not of thinking people who can intellectually and organizationally pull it all together – financial, economic, political, and military -- the last as a last resort. A team comes into the White House representing the Jewish Right and oil interests (Cheney /Bush) which, through the President, controls the forces of the Christian Right. Ingenious link. This team wants Iraq, badly, the right wing Jews for Israel, and the oil interests for oil. The Christian Right forces: for jobs in the armed forces and as contractors.

The White House activates some “Iraq Project” collecting dust on a shelf at the Pentagon. It does so to run away from a necessity: to raise taxes and invest in energy research and development. It refuses to accept that America's strength is technology, before all others steal it. Instead it pushes the envelope on oil by seeking to control Iraq’s. Strategically, it hopes that by controlling that oil it’ll have a choking hold on China and Europe, boosting American power not by tending to one’s garden at home (too costly politically -- recall Bush-father’s promise not to raise taxes), but by stealing. It seeks domestic support for its pathetic and cowardly policy choice and finds this support in the Jewish community and among the crusading Christian Right, so pervasively present in the military-industrial complex where the jobs are, as the other jobs have moved to China. The former (the right wing Jews) is sold on the idea that Arabs should either be hung (the Jewish-American US Senator Arlen Spector lecturing the Saddam Hussein murderous Kangaroo court on speeding up the lynching of an Arab leader) or subdued by false charm after the Jewish Right realizes that the Iraqi Sunni resistance had failed its Israeli scheme (Thomas Friedman lecturing Saudi Arabia’s King Abdallah, that the Saudi King should share in Friedman’s love for Israel, as should everyone.)

What escaped the harmful idiots was that their very policy of not taxing such staples as oil, and not investing in research and development, was such a runaway affair that it enriched China, Russia, Iran and other rivals. And, I would submit, it had weakened the federal government, a goal of these people, always. In other words, even if one were imperial and right-wing and harmfully idiotic, and wanted to conquer Iraq and control its oil, invading to achieve these goals was done at the wrong time. At a time when all rivals had been made rich in hard currency reserves by the harmful idiots’ push for “globalization” and by always running away from doing the right thing at home. A financial balance of power had been effect by the time the harmful idiots ordered the invasion. That balance was made all the more solid by the miscalculation: that the Sunnis would be dumb enough to accept defeat without resorting to igniting a civil war -- their best defense. The rivals reaped a whopper of a profit as oil prices skyrocketed. Now the rivals can fund what they please. Presently, I would add that even an intra-Shia civil war (Badr Organization AKA Iraqi army v. Mahdi), so encouraged by the harmful idiots, benefits Iran. But that’s a different subject altogether.

THE FLIGHT FROM HELL

My cold is persistent, albeit at its end. The economy seats on the Bowing 777 are awful, so narrow with hardly any leg room. The plane is full of contractors and troops in civilian clothing. The haircut gives them away. Others are muscled and tattooed beyond comprehension. These must be the security contractors -- the mercenaries. Iraq and Afghanistan. The plane is full to the brim. Not a single seat is empty. I’m in the aisle seat. I pity the guy next to me, in the middle seat. He’s a heavy-set man from the south, as are mostly all of them. It feels like the war establishment in imperial America is a southern establishment. We in the north go to law schools instead. The man is squeezed pretty bad. But he’s courteous: he’s careful not to spread his large body sideways. I’ll be giving him many breaks since I’ll be spending most of the 14-plus hours walking about.

Still, it’s really uncomfortable, and I promise myself that I will not take such long flights any longer.

The vegan food is horrific. I refuse to eat any of it. My neighbor gladly accepts my offer to take the dessert and a couple of other small things -- like the cheese wedge. As if vegans eat cheese, anyway.

My sickness catches up with me. I start to faint. I lower my head to between my knees and am able to abort passing out. But every time I start to straighten up I feel like I would be dropping to the floor, unconscious. I’ve lowered my head down so far that I’m avoiding a fall by pushing my arms against the floor. The plane is so dark. We’re flying into the night. An attendant passes by and asks me if I want “medical.” I ask for water instead. He returns soon with a glass of water. I sip it while hunched down, keeping one arm pushed tightly against the floor. I feel better.

A couple of seats in front of me is a striking woman. She can be Indian or Iranian. She’s laughing uncontrollably at some situation comedy.


AT THE DUBAI AIRPORT

We arrive in Dubai and the striking woman and I talk about situation comedies. I make it look like I can write these. The George Costanza phenomenon. She’s from Charlston and coming to visit her two brothers. Her name is Zainab Ameri , from Iran. My luggage comes first and I bid her goodbye. Her brothers, she says, will be meeting her outside.


Outside I spot Daniel. We wait for the valet to bring over his brand new Land Rover — or Range Rover? This is the UAE. Inside, I advise him to avoid driving a Porsche -- that nothing is sillier than a middle-age man driving a Porsche. He’s a tad struck; how did I guess? We’re buying a Porsche any day now. Like I’m surprised.

I tell him about Zainab Ameri, that her two brothers would be waiting for her. They work with me, he says. He recites their names. A small world.

ARABS: A CULTURE TRAIT

At home he gives me around $500 in UAE money. To get me started , he says. Arabs are nothing if not generous. This is one of the ways their society re-distributes wealth. (Another is marriage -- hence the fact that nearly every Arab movie has a wedding scene, as American movies have a peaceful house with healthy lawn and cars -- and crime; yes crime is a redistribution of wealth scheme in the US.) The worst thing you can call an Arab is “stingy.” The worst thing you can call an American is “a bum.” Can’t afford to have bums in the society of the tax base and accumulated capital. Need to contribute in taxes (e.g., work) and move that capital (e.g., personal injury law suits), always. Women in America are reluctant to reproduce with a “bum.” You can be a sleazeball; that would be okay to many American woman. They’d reproduce with you in the bathroom of a plane. But don’t you dare be a “bum.”

My closest friends’ neighbor in Bethesda still visits a serial killer serving a life sentence in jail. The man had murdered three immigrants, including the George Washington professor in the parking lot of NIH. My friends’ neighbor had dated him. She cries when she talks about him. She misses the serial killer. After all, he moved capital, didn’t he -- what with funeral services for his victims, police work, transporting the bodies of his victims to their home countries? He even told her that on her birthday, after they had split, he had broken into her house and sat crying in her daughter's empty room as his ex-girlfriend was having sex in her own bedroom. That he considered killing her that night. My friends, her neighbors, are understanding and full of sympathy. The serial killer had been their painter and his work had been impeccable. I want to kill myself.


DUBAI: WHAT’S THERE TO TELL?

I spend the weekend (Friday and Saturday) with Daniel and his wife. Dubai, it turns out, is just another city. From a touristic perspective, there’s nothing to recommend it. To me at least. There’s no question that its ruler Sheikh Muhammed bin Rashed Aal Maktoum is a genius. He had caught on to a way to enrich his people beyond their wildest imagination. To draw in “smart money.” He had opted for total openness, economic and social. He knew he needed not worry about socially disturbing the Dubai natives, his subjects, since these had such a tight social structure that little could pierce it. Even their “villas” were so surrounded by high walls that no foreign influence could find its way to within their grounds.

By the way, Dubai can’t be half-open, as Stuart Levy the terrorism finance guy at Treasury would like it to be. I get out from its airport faster than fast. In contrast, when back in Atlanta, I almost miss my connecting flight. The immigration queue is endless. The security via the short immigration interview (When did you leave the country? Do you have any food on you? Were you by yourself? Always by yourself? What countries did you visit? What was the purpose of your visit?) , the re-checking for security to board the connecting flight, weighs so heavy. The dogs circulate about sniffing our luggage. The customs agent asks me to take my bag off my shoulders and place it on the floor so the beagle can sniff it.

Dubai can’t be like that. If it apes Atlanta, it’ll die a natural and not-so-slow death. You cannot be half-open, or a half-virgin. If you do that, the Dubai phenomenon will move to another place. It already had moved from Lebanon to Jordan to Cyprus and now to Dubai. Levy wants to squeeze the air out of Iran’s financial lungs, which are the UAE. But Iran can retaliate with bombings, or with stirring of Shia sentiment, both of which are certain to move the Dubai phenomenon to another place.

It’s a precarious balancing act. Extremely precarious. No beagles for the Dubai airport. People (Russians and Iranians, I heard) are welcome to come in with millions of dollars and Euros in cash and buy real estate.


Brad is right. An old friend who I could trust about my upcoming foreign trip laughs when I say I’m heading to Dubai. “Is there something old,” I ask him, “where I can hang out?” He laughs again. I had bought the ticket and he isn’t about to disturb my construct of a desert place, the romantic I am, always with Wilfred Thesiger on my mind.

We head to the impressive Mall of the Emirates, another mall, to buy a Rolex. Not for me. For Daniel’s wife. A priority, Daniel says; you’re not married, you don’t understand, he repeats. He’s trying to pre-empt what he thinks is my view that the entire thing is superfluous. He doesn’t know me. I think the entire thing is superfluous, including my existence and his. Anyway, the word has spread that the price for Rolex watches is going up this Sunday, by as much as fifteen percent. Strangely, that doesn’t motivate me at all. But it certainly puts the fire under the feet of Daniel and his wife -- and all Emirati and the upper classes among the large Arab and other expatriate community. Inflation is hitting a product that’s dear to these people. The phones are at work throughout Dubai, I imagine. Buy the Rolex for $60,000 and you make a profit of over $8,000 overnight. And you’d be wearing a Rolex to boot. In Oman I buy a watch for $20, pure gold...plated! Even Daniel notices it and thinks it’s pretty; I tell him it’s for $20; he dismisses the watch.

I shouldn’t frown on the luxury purchases of the Emiratis and the expatriates. There’s wisdom to it. Arabs have always bought gold, not trusting paper money nor the stability of their states. They’re right, aren’t they? If the harmful idiots wage war on Iran, paper currency should plummet and the expat community should return home. Real estate values and prices should evaporate. What are they gonna have as security but movables, such as gold and Rolex watches?

I, member of the tax base, like the struggling masses the world over, am more concerned (mildly) about the prices of wheat and Thai brown rice, my main food staples. And about health care cost.

By the way, before I forget, Arabic in the UAE is nearly useless to you. Daniel had assured me that English is way more useful. You’re more likely to deal with people from the Indian subcontinent than with Arabs, Emiratis or others. My later forays outside Daniel’s villa confirmed it.


THE MATING DANCE

Daniel and his wife are inside the Rolex store. For a very long time. To Daniel’s credit, he’s always understood that I’ve forever been spartan and have never had any interest in such symbols as Porsche and Rolex. So he doesn’t insist that I partake in picking the watch. Instead, I stand outside the store with a tea. (The Mall of the Emirates doesn’t like benches.) For a while, I don’t notice. Then I do. There’s a mating dance happening right under my nose.

Emirati men in groups of three or four, and Emirati women in groups of the same size, donning the national dress, white for men, black for women, are circulating about the floor where the Rolex store stands and where I stand. They pass by me again and again. They never talk to each other. The women’s faces look light-skinned Semetic; they can be Lebanese. The men too, though they look more Arab, with darker skin, than the women. The difference in skin hue likely is due to the use of cosmetics by the women. All are of reproductive age, in their late teens and early twenties. Again, I never see them talk to each other, men to women or vice versa. Their politeness and dignity are pronounced. There’s no doubt that they’re checking each other out. Yet they’re doing it in accordance with a code which requires silence. This mating dance is made attractive by the dress code and the total absence of communication. I notice that they seem proud of their Semetic noses. Sadly I predict that Lebanese cosmetic surgeons with tons of experience should be flooding Dubai to change the Emiratis’ mind about their proud features.

The mating dance continues: I suspect that if a woman is drawn to a man, or vice versa, that she or he will know through the network of friends and friends-of-friends who he or she is. I suspect they already know who’s who. She or he can use an intermediary, as would the Samoans in Margaret Mead’s days -- Coming of Age in Samoa. But in Dubai, as in the rest of the Arab World, the guy’s mother usually goes at it head on, no intermediaries necessary. All that would be needed is a smile by the young woman at the Mall of the Emirates, and the young man can activate his mother. She will lay the groundwork. Then the Rolex and the gold, then marriage. Then the villa.

An ex-girlfriend and ex-fiancee, half-Arab , used to comment that the old Arab system of mating (still in use in many parts of the Arab world) was so much less exhausting than the American. She would mention her mother on a plane to the home country being approached by the mother of a young man in medical school to strike a marriage deal. It all looks good until you find out how much neurosis this creates to the Arab parents. Arabs say “we’ve married him off,” or “we’ve married her off,” referring to their son or daughter. The parents use the active tense. In essence that means that they played an active role in getting their daughter or son married.

Jennifer Smith, a close friend in D.C. and a well-published clinical psychologist, sees her fair share of Arab clients. I’m her “informant,” anthropologically-speaking, about Arab culture. I remind her often about the neurosis created when the parents fail to marry off their offsprings. Or when they choose the wrong mate for them. I became aware of this when I noticed my parents talk about someone’s marriage by referring to the parents of the married person and using an active tense in describing the parents’ role.

That neurosis is made all the worse in the severe social vacuum that is the West when compared to the tight social network present in the Arab World. (To each its advantages and disadvantanges, by the way.) Daniel, for instance, hardly sleeps. He works until late at night, then he either has Arab and other friends over for dinner or has to attend one himself. I repeatedly turn down his pestering invites; I prefer to watch concerts of old Arab music -- Abdel-Halim al-Hafiz, Umm Kalthoum, and Muhammad Abdel Wahab, on Rotana Tarab, owned by Waleed bin Talal -- than to swim in a social scene of fixed noses, bleached hair, and Rolex watches. The Arab social network needs constant upkeep and finessing: Daniel’s wife is on the phone so much of her time, arranging and responding to social invites. The social network is tight and busy. There’s no room for depression or neurosis. But, in the West, in the great social vacuum, when Arab immigrant parents “fail,” they and their children end up at Jennifer’s office.

Jennifer and her husband have cats and dogs. No children. The cats and dogs are neutered and spayed.

**********************
(To be continued, if allowed by Big Brother and its right- wing Jewish pillar of imperial aggression against Arabs and Muslims; the civilizers who dispatched Arlen Spector to lecture the kangaroo court set up by sadistic harmful idiot “consultants” with no conscience, Nazi sadomasochists “doing their job,” mandarins running after an income, little capitalists consumed by financial security -- on how to speed up the hanging of Arab leaders. Their next target: Moqtadha al-Sadr. I suspect they have serious regrets for not having finished him earlier. The guy just doesn’t want his country occupied or broken apart. Hence he’s a “radical.” Where’s the logic? What I see: the harmful idiots are once again shooting themselves in the foot and breeding reactive and new “spiritually”-inspired secret Shia terror networks. )