NATIONAL SECURITY ALERT: TALK TO ALL. NOW!

First rough draft

They found people in bags
A person without a head
A person without arms and without [a] tongue
A person [who had been] strangled
And the rest without faces [and without] names
Have I gone mad? Please
Don’t write about these things.

Adonis, Desert I. (My translation from Arabic.)

How would we know the secret of the place
If the mud of that place doesn’t smear us?

Adonis, “The Innocent.” (My translation from Arabic.)



SAUDI ARABIA: USING THAT OIL SURPLUS

--What are the Saudis up to?

They’re swimming in money – $870 billion in accumulated surplus, according to Hasan Rohani, Iran’s former nuclear negotiator. They’re using that money to --

000 Contain Iran by firing up and funding Sunni nationalism A.K.A. Islamism. This has reached a point where even the moderate (and prominent) Sheikh Salman al-Awdeh has been recruited for the war of the Sunni-Shia divide. The idea is not only to mobilize Sunnis against the Shias and Iran. The idea likely is to have Iran lose its cool and as a result help (unwittingly) the Saudi government define and deepen the Sunni-Shia divide. My assessment: Islamism will bite them in the ass.

000 Unseat the Alawites and the Baath from power in Syria; in other words: destabilize Syria.

000 Return their Hariri proxies to power in Lebanon. My assessment: unreal, unless there’s a radical re-alignment of coalitions.

000 Pay off anyone who would take money , and/or partner with them, to buy out the Iraqi Shia state.

PAKISTAN

Too, it looks like the Saudi government will be taking on the burden of Pakistan, financially. Pakistan’s central bank saw its reserves fall precipitously in a few months from $16 billion in April to $9 billion in August/September. I haven’t read any explanation for that. It could be that the harmful idiots and the Saudis through their Pakistani assets are pursuing a policy of bankrupting the Pakistani state. The harmfully idiotic idea would be to make that state so desperate and so dependent on Saudi Arabia for its very existence as to coax it into putting its armed forces at the service of the general strategy of the harmful idiots. Along with the option of using India to put pressure on that state, that state should further go schizophrenic at a minimum or blow up in a civil war at a maximum.

–You think?

I hope I’m wrong. Because the harmful idiots had used the financial bankruptcy strategy in Lebanon through their asset, and an asset of the Saudis, the late Rafiq al-Hariri. They guy ushered in tremendous construction projects where it’s said he pocketed likely half of the “cost” and had his banks, likely co-owned with members of the Saudi royal family, lend the Lebanese state money for those gargantuan construction projects to benefit him and his family. The hope (for the harmful idiots) had been to saddle the Lebanese state with so much debt that it’d sign a peace treaty with the harmful idiots’ beloved, Israel.

Poor Pakistan. On the bright side the Saudis are involved in negotiations with the Taliban, with logistical help from Britain which is shuttling about at least one Taliban leader to bring the Taliban into the Afghani government. Europe is easily exhausted. It doesn’t want to be drained and Afghanistan will drain it. Likely it wants any sort of deal, even cosmetic, to start pulling troops out. But the harmful idiots aren’t on the same wavelength as the Europeans. Though bankrupt, they want to continue on. They like getting bogged down. Sadly for us, our foreign policy and defense establishment is not analytically connected to economic and financial processes, neither domestic nor international.


OIL GRABS DO EVOLVE INTO TRAPS AND HELP BRING ON BANKRUPTCY

--What do you mean?

Throughout the preparation for the Iraq oil grab, A.K.A. war, there hadn’t seemed to be any assessment of the economic impact of a lengthy involvement on the US economy. Nor any assessment of how the wealth of others, obtained thanks to the profligate consumption by Americans (the much-vaunted “expansion”), itself made possible by seller financing by the likes of China, on the possibilities of success or failure of an oil grab as Iraq’s. In addition, no one I knew of connected the attempt by Osama bin-Laden to bankrupt us with the knee jerk reaction by the Federal Reserve to effectively wipe out interest rates, to Bush’s tremendous and unnecessary tax cut, to launching onto an adventure that would (could, then) end up a morass and a lengthy and costly stay – to the impact of all these factors on the financial health of the country.

– Someone must’ve.

Maybe someone did. I hadn’t seen it. I’m talking about pre-invasion, not after.

–Has Osama bin Laden won?

You bet -- subjectively. His goal to bankrupt us has arrived, though late, seven years late. It had been delayed by the effective wiping out of interest rates by the Fed, the unnecessary and huge tax cut by an irresponsible and mediocre right wing Christian Zionist Republican administration, later compounded by an unnecessary tax rebate, and by an oil grab that has turned into a black and deep hole financially. I say “subjectively” because our current bankruptcy is really self-inflicted. In some ways, Mr. Greenspan kept interest rates unusually low to offset the Asian countries’ refusal to float their currencies. And he didn't see the respercussions. (He just loved attractive phrases and words, likely having failed English composition in high school.) Add to this the expenses of the wars of choice, Bush’s tax cuts and rebates...and you have disaster. If it’s any consolation, Europe seems to be coming up against a worse crisis.

–What’s next?


TRADE AND/OR CURRENCY WARS?

I don’t agree with the huge choir, domestic and international, that says that America’s days are over as a superpower. They’re not. There’s a silver lining. The financial crisis has forced us to look inward, which had been needed for eight years, even longer. China and India have built their “great power” status on the American consumer. China did seller financing for our profligate shopping and construction spree (“expansion.”) Sellers by definition should become richer than buyers. Right? Especially when they make an endless line of credit available to the buyer. The harmful idiots tried to engineer a run on the dollar as a way of diminishing the value of our debt to China and others or to force the Asian countries to float their currencies. That policy has backfired and put us in the dire strait we’re now experiencing.

Taxes will go up to pay for this mess. And they should. We’re a nation of over three hundred million. Progressive taxation should produce an extra income (easily) of 300 billion per year – by my amateurish and rough calculation. The rich will pay more than the middle class. The rich will not mind it. What’s there to mind? A few thousand dollars more per year?

But along with taxation, we should (indeed, will) force China and the others to accept to outrightly cut our debt to them. If they want the economic advantages the American system of hyper-consumption provides, then they’d need to cut our debt to them. Outrightly. I’m not talking through trade. If Japan is holding $100 dollars in U.S. Treasuries, then it should forfeit $50. If it doesn’t – then it’s a trade war. In law school I wrote a paper about Section 301 of some trade act that allows for trade sanctions. I have a strong feeling it will be used. The hell with ITO. The line to the debtors will be that we’re doing our share through taxation. Time for them to do theirs towards us. Yes, we do accept economic inter-dependence (“globalization”) but we can no longer treat our country as a plantation nor allow others to treat it as such. (A protectionist, oh no!)

I give us only a few years to see us on top back again. This time, however, we would have learned not to bog down ourselves and our armed forces into harmful adventures, fighting like a blind and deaf elephant instead of a fox. (By fox, I don’t mean the silly “counterinsurgency” stuff which bogs us down even further.) The economic revival of the state–I mean the federal government–should diminish the much vaunted economic “expansion,” but it should, too, see oil prices take a dive. Concomitantly, the reserves of countries like Russia and other oil and gas countries should, too, take a further dive. All, including us, should become more realistic as a result.

–Are you serious?

Yes, but I know the harmful idiots – revolving door and all – will find a way of not doing the right thing. The Republicans will borrow from the Gulf Arabs to steer through the financial crisis. They’ll wait for the Democrats to raise taxes and be blamed for that. It doesn’t matter that the Bush Administration and I-want-to-be-popular Mr. Greenspan had screwed the hell out of the country. The public will later punish the Democrats for raising taxes. In a way, if McCain wins, it’ll be the worst thing that had happened to the Republicans – next to Crusader and Bald Samson. Because McCain will be the one raising taxes and the public will blame his party for that. The Republican party should divide and a Ross Perot should appear and split the party for the next (at least) two presidential elections. It’ll allow any Democrat, even a relative unknown, to win the White House for years and years to come.


SAUDI ARABIA OR HOW TO SHOOT ONESELF IN THE FOOT

–Back to the Saudis.


They can’t seem to appreciate that their friends Bush and Cheney have screwed the Arabs (for the Saudis that means the Sunnis) for a century to come. They don’t get it. The right wing Jews, when they took over the Pentagon, scared the wits out of them when they threatened to unseat the royal family and divide the kingdom into various states. So they aligned with Crusader and Bald Samson to invade Iraq. Then they compounded their mistake, this time of their own will. Starting in May of 2007, after Cheney’s meeting with the GCC leaders, they began to coordinate with the harmful idiots to re-tribal- ize (pay off tribal chiefs to compete with other structures of political organization) the Arab Sunnis of Iraq (the sahwas) so as to finish the armed resistance by these to the American occupation.

–They tamed the Sunnis vis-a-vis Iran?

You bet. That armed resistance should’ve been preserved, even helped by the Americans. But it wasn’t to be. Because the harmful idiots had long-term plans (illusory, of course) to stay in Iraq and they held on to Israel-centric ideas. In these plans, there wasn’t room for an armed resistance by Arabs, Sunnis included. The Saudis and the Jordanians actively went along. I still remember Prince Hasan of Jordan, practically an extension of our heroic CIA, muse that the United States now will be a neighbor of Jordan’s, so sure was he and the CIA analysts of our ability to stay in Iraq.


STAY OR GO?

–Will we stay?

– The hope of all Israelis and Jordanians and Saudis is for McCain to win and for us to stay. I think they’ll be doing some creative budgetary acrobatics within intelligence and defense committees in Congress to approve appropriations for US troops in Iraq while putting out the word (hush!) that the Saudis and other Gulf Arabs will refund that money. In effect, the Gulf Arabs, especially Saudi Arabia, having no effective armies, will be using our armed forces as their mercenary army in Iraq. You broke it, you fix it , they seem to have been saying since the invasion. Only that they want it fixed the Saudi way.

So we’re a player in Iraqi politics. It seems that now we’re using the Kurds to put pressure on Maliki to approve of a treaty for a US bases. We’re de facto cooperating with and appeasing Iran –

– How?

For one, we have delivered the file of Mujaheedeen Khalq (MK) to the Shia Badr/Dawa government. There’s every indication that this government wants the MK out of the country within a specific period. (I recall six months, but I may be wrong.) In early September, it was revealed that there was agreement that U.S. troops will leave Camp Ashraf where the MK – 4000 of them with their children -- are based. Last March, the Iraqi President and opportunist extra-ordinaire, Jalal Talabani, called the MK fighters “terrorists.” (There’s some indication that Mr. Talabani is drawing particularly close to Iran as his realm within Iraqi Kurdistan abuts the Islamic Republic and as he senses that the harmful idiots’ influence will be waning.) Last year, MK had released a list of 31,000 Iraqis who it said were agents of the Islamic Republic and received salaries. It accused Iran of setting up operatives of the Quds Force inside Iraq.

In addition, the harmful idiots watch as Iran deepens its economic influence within southern Iraq. Either they can’t do much about it or they’ve come to terms with it. Likely both. A senior Iranian official was quoted on or about 9/11/08 as saying that Iran and Iraq will be opening three free trade zones on the border between the two countries; he hoped trade this year will reach $4 billion. This should create economic dependency by at least the south on Iraq on Iran. The harmful idiots’ Arab protectorates try to balance this economic integration with an Arab political one as when recently, at the U.N., the foreign ministers of the GCC, Jordan, and Egypt, included the foreign minister of Iraq in a coordination meeting. That’s a win-win for Iran. The Iraqi Shia government should prove a convenient tool for Iran to force normalization with the GCC. In other words, Iran benefits from the inclusion. Now Iran has three Trojan Horses to force normalization with the Arab World: the national plight of the Palestinians, Iraq, and Lebanon. I think normalization would be good thing: it’ll certainly help (significantly) stabilize the region.

–Are we going to stay?

I doubt we can. We’ll be forced to withdraw. Iran has assured peace within the Shia camp, its realm, so as not to disturb us and to ease our way out, little by little, having tamed the harmful idiots. We’re still conducting joint operations with the Iraqi army against the Sunni resistance, what’s left of it. And we’re gathering up Shia operatives of Iran. (No one knows the percentage caught of all those present.) But it doesn’t seem that Iraq will want the 145,000 troops. Little by little these will be whittled down. The Shia government will see to it that our withdrawal from Iraq preserves the illusion that we weren’t defeated. Too bad, since I’m a big believer that defeats and admission of such make us – or any country - much stronger. It’s all about definition and semantics anyway. But denial of mistakes and denial of defeat are prescriptions for yet more disastrous war policies.

– But what about the Saudi refunds of the expenses for our future tenure in Iraq?

The Saudis and other Gulf Arabs will pay up. We’re not going to withdraw from the Gulf. From Iraq: yes; form the Gulf: no. Not even I would recommend withdrawing from the Gulf, though we will need to defuse the hot issues: Palestine, Lebanon, and likely Iraq. We will lord over the Arab Gulf protectorates and (in effect) negotiate with Iran on their behalf. But we need to create a Saudi army, badly. Because we can’t be there in any significant numbers. And we shouldn’t want to, anyway. Our tenure should be more about preparedness to respond, a trip wire of sorts, than about elephant-ing our way about there, blind and deaf and so visibly supportive of reactionary governments. The Saudi young have shown an incredible ability to make war in Iraq and Afghanistan. So a Saudi army, one that is trained in guerrilla warfare, would be a terrific tool to balance Iranian military power. We shot ourselves in the foot when we adopted Israel’s views and defeated Arab nationalism. Then we shot ourselves in the foot yet again as Israel-centric imperials when we got rid of the Baath in Iraq. Watch us shoot ourselves in the foot yet again as Israel-centric Middle Eastern players by coordinating with Saudi intelligence to get rid of Syria’s Baath.


SAUDI INTELLIGENCE: BACK TO ISLAMISM

– Which brings us to Syria. Who staged the recent car bomb in Damascus?

Prime suspect: Saudi intelligence. Possibly Egyptian. The car bomb came after news that Syria has spread a said 10,000 of its special forces on the Syrian side of Lebanon’s northern border with Syria. Saudi intelligence has been funding Islamists to engineer a mini civil war between Arab Sunnis and Arab Alawites in the city of Tripoli, in the hope that this war would spread to Syria. Syria has asked Lebanon to move one Lebanese army brigade from the south to the city of Tripoli to scuttle the Saudi intelligence plan.

–What do the Saudis want?

The Saudi royal family wants to avenge the assassination of Rafiq al-Hariri who was an extension of themselves, both as extended “family” and as banking and business partners. They, too, want to contain Iran and Arab Syria is allied to the Islamic Republic. (Albeit that alliance has its problems, borne out mostly of Iran’s exclusively Shia behavior in Iraq; but that’s a different subject altogether.) And they want to return the Hariris, directly or through proxies, to power in Lebanon. I think they likely feel that they’ve lost Lebanon which the late Rafiq al-Hariri had told them that they then had owned – through him. (I suspect they own via proxies tons of real estate in Lebanon. I have this image of each and every Lebanese attorney waiting in her office a la Guy Noir for the Saudi network to walk in on him and use him to buy in his name real estate.)

The alliance between the majority of the Christians and the Shias promises to do away with Sunni predominance within the Lebanese state structure until such time when alliances and coalitions change. (Recently Hezbollah’s Nasrallah assured Hariri and the Saudi royal family –“the Sunnis”– that they’ll continue to play a crucial role in Lebanon even if the Shia-Christian alliance wins parliamentary elections.) The late Rafiq al-Hariri, a blindly greed-driven businessman did the Sunni predominance a huge disfavor when he corruptly emptied the coffers of the Lebanese state and put it in debt to fatten his pocket and the pockets of his family. In the age of Hamas and Hezbollah you can’t afford that level of grand theft and expect legitimacy for your political predominance. And, frankly, the Saudi royals aren’t capable of understanding that Hezbollah and Hamas have introduced a new paradigm for political legitimacy in the Arab World. It’s one where corruption is nearly absent, let alone obscene corruption.


–But does this Saudi plan have a chance of working?

– No. It’s a dangerous plan. Beware what you wish for. It’s agreed overall that a Sunni state in Syria will likely be an Islamist, Hamas-like, state. I myself think it’ll even be more radical than Hamas. (I think Hamas is not that radical! ) The Sunni state in Syria will go through a revolutionary phase that should mark it radical and extremist for long time. Regarding the recent car bombing in Syria: Be mindful that the Hariri/Saudi intelligence-funded Islamists are angry with Syria because the latter likely is no longer allowing large numbers of them to sneak into Iraq. In other words, Saudi intelligence funds the Islamists for one reason (to destabilize the Syrian government); but the Islamists have a mind and an organizational structure of their own. To my mind, this organizational structure includes contact with al-Qaeda. The French recently revealed that two out of eight al-Qaeda terror suspects awaiting trial in France had been to Nahr el-Bared where they received training.

Let’s wait and see what the Syrians do next. Who they assassinate and/or how many operatives they dispatch to Tripoli. Let’s see if Iran will or can help them. Because the fastest and surest way to end Saudi Arabia’s attempts to destabilize Syria , logically, is to retaliate inside Saudi Arabia. And I doubt very much that Syria has that ability. Iran likely does. But will Iran act on this ability?

There’ll be a civil war, alright, in Tripoli, but it’ll be an act of cooperation between Lebanese army intelligence and Syria’s. (I wrote this prior to the recent roadside bomb attack on the Lebanese army bus in Tripoli. Could it be that the cooperation on the ground between the intelligence services of Syria and the Lebanese army’s has begun?) Both will hunt for the Sunni Islamists in the alleys around Bab el-Tebbaneh in Tripoli. If Lebanon’s internal security intervenes (I don’t know what they call them now, but these are the mostly-Sunni police troops associated with the Ministry of Interior and acting as Hariri’s official militia), then expect Hezbollah to move against these. Europe should secretly hooray Syria’s entry into Tripoli. Europe should worry about Islamists A.K.A. al-Qaeda having a base in Lebanon. Lebanon’s banking system is so liberal that terror money can be transferred easily to Europe. And the Islamists have money from Saudi intelligence. Europe likely would prefer that the Islamists be stopped in their hometown, Tripoli, and not in Paris or Madrid.


NATIONAL SECURITY ALERT

It behooves the U.S. government to open up to any and all in the Arab and Islamic Worlds. If only tactically. I mean to all: any small or large group, all governments -- Syria’s, Iran’s, Hamas -- you name it. Why? I recently read an article by Michael Scheuer warning of a “near-term attack” by al-Qaeda on the US mainland to compound our financial crisis. I rarely take these warnings seriously. But his (reasoned as an al-Qaeda strategist) made sense. What I worry about is the following: the harmful idiots have introduced to the Middle East more systematically than ever before the phenomenon of mercenaries – security agencies a la Blackwater–mercenaries for pay, in effect. My understanding is that these come from all over the world, especially the Western. Understand this: ideas are copied, and successful ideas are copied more successfully. Already Mr. Hariri and Saudi intelligence had copied this idea to achieve unstated goals. If the Syrian-sponsored/sympathetic press is telling the true story, Mr. Hariri (and Saudi intelligence) had opened sham offices for alleged private security companies in Lebanon, especially in Beirut. These, however, were meant to recruit a Sunni militia to attack Hezbollah’s rear lines and preoccupy it. In May, Hezbollah scuttled this plan, picked up the employees of these offices, and delivered them to Lebanese army intelligence. Foreign mercenaries and the Saudi ambassador, fled the country via the Christian heartland and most via boats to Cyprus.

My concern is that bin Laden and company will copy the harmful idiots and use mercenaries of their own. Watch for offices for private security agencies in the Arab World and in Europe. Watch for mercenaries. The worst part about the use of mercenaries is that Muslim and Arab communities in Europe and the U.S. wouldn’t even see these and warn the authorities. That’s why we need to open up to all, including Hezbollah and Hamas and Iran and Syria and each and every opposition group in that world. We and Europe are exposed and it seems we have a way of teaching our opponents new ways to hurt us – as in the use of mercenaries. Those Europeans who aren’t assets of the harmful idiots are opening up to the Arab opposition–to bin Laden! (e.g., Switzerland.) Is that going too far? We need to open up to the Arab and Muslim opposition, too. Start by doing something symbolic like dropping the case against Sami al-Arian. (I’m not keeping up; so I don’t know the latest in with his case. And I don’t know him from Adam; and I have no affinity whatsoever with him or with whoever he likes. And I’m tired as Arab-American to justify each and every creative policy thought I have.)

The opening towards the Arab and Muslim opposition cannot be done solely (maybe not even at all) by our CIA or our reactionary allies in Egypt (useless) or Saudi Arabia (harmful). (Jordan already has resumed contact with Hamas, fearful about the immense influence this organization has within Jordan.) Our CIA has lost flexibility with the Arab opposition when it partook so systematically in extraordinary rendition and torture. This is a time when (if only symbolically) we need the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Center for Constitutional Rights, and so on of organization which have credibility to build a bridge with the Arab opposition. (Please: no more paid mandarins with “democratic” credentials. I had too many fights with a number of these assholes who, in their twenties and thirties, want to teach us Arabs about democracy. And yet they’ve never worked on a single political campaign in their own country!) I’m hoping grants are given to these to conduct their own foreign policy, so to speak, in the Arab and Muslim Worlds. Since the worry is about a terror attack inside the U.S., find those FBI agents who wrote up memos and reports about torture and bring them into the limelight. (See Mark Tran, “FBI files detail Guantanamo torture tactics,” in www.guardian.co.uk , January 3, 2007. Too, refer to the ACLU press release, “Newly Obtained FBI Records Call Defense Department’s Methods ‘Torture,’.... 12/20/04) The FBI possibly got a black eye with the Maher Arar case–the Syrian-Canadian who was sent to Syria and was tortured there. Settle the Arar case brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights. Draft an apology. Spend some money. Have him appear with FBI directors and announce forgiveness. (I heard Mr. Arar on Democracy Now. He didn’t strike me as the vengeful type.) Cease the opportunity. Count your blessings that he’s not dead. Use him.

Time is of the essence. Move it!

(I’m tired. To be continued. Maybe. The God of Capitalism and Wall Street willing.)

OUT OF THE FRYING PAN (LEBANON) INTO THE FIRE (THE UNITED STATES): ON THE FUTURE USE OF CHURCHES AND SYNAGOGUES.

rough second draft

What do I care about the country
May God protect the children.

Fairouz -- from her song, "Kifak Inta." (My translation from Arabic.)

Taking on the world with wars and military bases should be a prescription for constant campaigns of mobilization at home for foreign wars. As Iraq has shown this mobilization domestically is likely to call on religious feelings and dogma – the force of churches and synagogues. How else mobilize? To tell Americans that we’re going to war because we want to assure that this or that oil or gas pipeline doesn’t go through Russia or Iran? Too sterile; It wouldn’t work. The people at the White House will need religion to mobilize effectively, as Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney have shown. Unleash the power of religion through faith-based initiatives and wars in foreign and Muslim lands.

I think there’s a good chance that the Bush Administration’s use of religion to mobilize for war will replicate in future administrations. We’ve seen that an oil grab can be called “war” and can be mobilized for through the political use of religious exclusivity and extremism. In the end the White House mobilized not the drivers of Urban Assault Vehicles but those who attended churches and synagogues. These, by definition and with help from Israel, are anti-Muslim and anti-Arab. Their mirror image: the mosques.

The political entrepreneurs are aware that the churches and synagogues are ripe candidates to mobilize against China and Russia, too, especially if evangelical preaching in these lands and access to Jews in Russia (or on behalf of the -- likely-- few left) isn’t made easy by the authorities.)

One backlash begets another: churches and synagogues versus mosques. And there are time bombs and rallying cries always ripe for mass mobilization. The rulers, friends and "assets" of the harmful idiots, in the Arab and Muslim Worlds already had been (and still are living) on edge, way before the Iraq oil grab. Why? the harmful idiots had proven repeatedly incapable at competently addressing the establishment of a Palestinian state, returning the Arab Joulan to Syria, putting a stop to the building and expansion of Israeli settlements (the Israelis and their right wing diaspora spokesmen in Washington are now trying to belittle the importance of those and of the Palestinian/Arab differenes with Israel compared to that between Sunnis and Shias, wishful thinking abounding), and attending to the financial/refugee/intelligence wars time bomb that is Lebanon.



The Iraq war has revealed that religious extremism isn’t the exclusive purview of the Islamic Republic and other Muslim and foreign regions. The Bush Administration has used religious extremism and zealotry to mobilize at home for the Iraq oil grab. And this extremism has spread to England where its former Prime Minister, a likely asset of ours, has felt the (in the end, political) necessity to (publicly) convert to Catholicism. The same religious extremism is spreading to France. The latter’s President, likely an asset of the harmful idiots/Israel’s diaspora, along with the Pope, seem to want to re-define (read: dilute) secularism and the separation of Church and State in that country. Sarkozi has welcomed with open arms a Pope who’s indifferent, maybe even uneasy and perhaps hostile, about relations with the Muslim World. The Pope and Sarkozi likely are worried about Muslims and Africans flooding Christian and blond Europe, what with these secular Europeans so averse to having children.

The country of Lebanon is the test tube for religious exclusivity and extremism. (Which had befuddled the US Marines, who were there in the early 1980s. And who were said to have been awed at the stated differences among the Lebanese, viewing the fact that the Lebanese “looked alike.” The Marines had come from a racial culture to a sectarian. Hence their befuddlement. But now: welcome to sectarian America, too!) Sectarian extremism, superficially, has led to an internecine civil war in Lebanon, made one hundred times worse by the irresolution of the reality of refugees, the corollary absence of a Palestinian state, and the non-return to Syria of the Arab Joulan.

We’re not like Lebanon, you might say. Our institutions should be able to withstand the unleashing of religious exclusivity and extremism, both Christian and Jewish. Perhaps that’s true. Likely it is. But, at a less superficial level, the Lebanon experience of religious exclusivity and extremism already may have proven significant in its application to the United States. Uncontrolled religious exclusivity and extremism in Lebanon has led not only to civil war but, more importantly for the long-term, to financial disaster and bankruptcy. A country of around four million in population faces a national debt of at least $40 billion. (Do the calculation for a country of our size: 300 plus million, divide it by 4 million, and multiply the result by $40 billion. You get the picture.)

One important (sectarian) observation: that while the U.S. seems more homogenous (Christian/Jewish; so called "Judeo-Christian -- excuse the cynicism: even as children in Lebanon we use to poke fun at Christian-Muslim flirtation, seeing it as a joke ) than Lebanon (18 officially-recognized sects), the fact is that there are groups (e.g., African American, Unitarian, Quaker) who would be so intent on defeating the use of the right-wing imperial Christian-Jewish churches and synagogues that they can be seen as “sects” of their own. That would make the Lebanon example yet more applicable.

The dynamics that result from unleashing religious extremism by a White House, I submit, are one-and-same as those found in a highly religiously mobilized smaller country like Lebanon. These dynamics pack the power to divert attention away from public policy issues that need to be addressed, direly; and which failure to address result in financial disaster and bankruptcy. (Not to mention the use of religion to nullify a politician's personal and professional achievements and even her intelligence. I'm familiar with two churches and in both the word seems to have been put out that Obama is Muslim.) It’s a world where political entrepreneurs find it easier to build on religious exclusivity and zealotry to draw votes than to face up to seemingly intractable issues such as national bankruptcy – issues which would require ( dare I say it) taxation. I see that in Lebanon (in its press) every day: that “country” is so consumed by religious exclusivity and identification that its politicians spend their time rallying the religious/sectarian forces and not attending to looming (it’s already in effect) financial disaster. They leave the time bomb that is their “country” 's financial crisis to the Central Bank. (My mechanic, an Arab man, told me that Lebanon is a country on paper only. I agree.)

Are we that different here? Haven’t American politicians so ridden the religious mobilization train that they’ve ignored the financial crisis and its roots and left it all to the Federal Reserve? And can the Federal Reserve manage a crisis about which it already has failed (e.g. ignoring the looming sub-prime mortgage crisis) without help from the politicians in the form of higher revenue for the bankrupt federal government?

Looking back, it could be that we should’ve read (correlated) eventual bankruptcy, both public (federal and state governments) and private (banks, investment outfits, and hedge funds) with the White House’s mobilization of religious extremism and zealotry. It could be, too, that we should look at the world with an eye on religious extremism as predictive of national banksrupcy for any country we study.

The future: more harmfully idiotic “wars” and oil grabs; more religious zealotry and extremism; and chronic national bankruptcy and bailouts by the Federal Government?

REALISM, GLOBALIZATION, AND UNIPOLARITY.

second (plus)f i r s t rough draft.

O women’s poet
In the age of darkness
Haven’t you learned yet
that I
I
[am] an exception to the rule.

Rita Audeh, “I'm a woman [who’s] different.”( Poem in response to one by Nizar Qabbani.) From the website www.Adab.com (My translation from Arabic.)

***

This is an attempt to fill in the gaps in logic that I perceive in my posts. I’m enumerating certain givens that likely pepper this newsletter’s posts but haven't been cogently stated.

1. GLOBALIZATION TRUMPS UNIPOLARITY. TOWARDS A NEW FOREIGN POLICY.

As this newsletter said a while ago (“An Imperial Blind Spot...”), quite before Russia re-asserted itself in the Caucuses, our domestic economic “expansion” has resulted in dollars flowing overseas at a speedy rate. That has made rivals rich and able to fund military and nationalist opposition to the oil-and-war schemes of the harmful idiots.

1.a. In other words, to revive U.S. influence and weaken rivals, it’ll take clamping down on our economic “expansion;” in addition, it’ll take sucking the dollars out of the global marketplace ( i.e., higher interest rates and taxation at home). There’s no question in my mind that, for a while now, economic globalization, an ideology of the harmful idiots, has trumped unipolarity. The brains behind foreign policy hadn’t caught up.

1.b. There’ll be domestic political repercussions to any attempt to suck dollars out of the coffers of rivals. Why? The same policy would suck currency out of the domestic economy. The harmful idiots engineered a run on the dollar in an attempt to get out of debt without taxation or raising interest rates -- one and the same as aspirating money out of the domestic economy. All of this while gaining new (Iraqi) oil fields with the cheap money. Engineering a run on the dollar isn’t working when it comes to regaining ground in foreign policy. Rivals have and will diversify reserves.

1.c. Alternatively, or along with the above, the harmful idiots will need to understand that mediating among regional rivals makes us shine – e.g., actively mediating between India and Pakistan instead of lining up with India to help contain China. While still calling on the Pakistani military to fight along the U.S. in the North-West Frontier Province. Mediating (while keeping strong conventionally and non, of course) beats invading and conquering -- and getting bogged down. The mind set will have to change (and will change) from triumphalism (the first time I use this word in this newsletter) to modest realism.

1.d. Too, we will need a new policy on “assets.” Not everyone who makes herself available should be accepted. Political scientists have always known that a modicum of corruption gets things done and therefore is acceptable. But corruption on the grand scale of the harmful idiots’ assets? No f—ing way! (This wording is inspired by Harry Wessel: A Capital Defense Attorney . Find it at www.harrywessel.com )

2. ISRAEL DEFEATS THE ARAB FRIENDS OF THE HARMFUL IDIOTS.

Once and for all the Arabs, in particular the intelligence services and governing elite of the regimes of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Uncle-Tom-Egypt, and the Gulf Emirates should get it into their head that they (“the Arabs”) have been dealt a historic defeat by the invasion of Iraq.

These “Arabs” now clamor to use Israel. They want it to put out the word within its diaspora in the United States to protect their privileges. Which devastates the minimal credibility they have with their people. To beg at the doorstep of the country which right wing diaspora had eliminated an Arab country off the map! Grant it: they do it in secret. But the counter-elite (e.g., Islamist) knows all about it.

Credibility of assets and allies is essential in the new foreign policy.


2.a It’s absolutely essential for places like Lebanon, in which the Saudi secret government (intelligence service) has wanted to ignite a Sunni-Shia civil war, that the Saudi elite (and the harmful idiots) understand the following:

i. That the Saudi intelligence plans for Lebanon (Saudi Foreign Legion to West Beirut, a Sunni-Shia civil war), meant to counter Hezbollah and contain Iran, are and will be to naught. These plans should harm Lebanon – and should later harm the Saudis. (Just heard that the Saudi government has invited Hezbollah officials to Riyadh. Haven’t confirmed it yet.)

Using Saudi intelligence money, there should emerge from Lebanon a stronger al-Qaeda branch. What if this branch shifts allegiance? What if it spins off groups with a different agenda (e.g., Fateh al-Islam), a highly likely possibility? What if it’s infiltrated and the infiltrators are able to carry out operations against Americans? The Salafis in Lebanon have understood the sectarian structure of their country so well that they now have portrayed themselves as Hariri men, to seek protection until they grow powerful enough. And Hariri, an extension of the Saudi royal governing elite, is willing to accommodate, protect, and fund them. In his mind, and that of Saudi intelligence, he needs a militia. The PLO no longer is in Lebanon to provide militia services. As a result, his behavior (and that of Saudi intelligence) has been erratic and dangerous: do I fund the Palestinian Sunnis? The Lebanese Sunnis? Doesn’t that mean that I’m funding Fateh al-Islam, an al-Qaeda organization? Because my money (the said $17 billion his late father made in Lebanon while sinking Lebanon into a $40 billion plus debt) and that of Saudi intelligence in the end will spread about to Sunnis who are al-Qaeda . And wouldn’t these same Sunnis be open to infiltration by those who have a gripe with the Saudi government and the United States?

The current lesson: the political opposition in the Sunni Arab World is stuck between al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda. Nothing in-between. Sad for them and perilous for us. When they invaded Iraq, the harmful idiots eliminated yet another component of Arab nationalism that at heart was Sunni but wide open to the Arab Shias. Arab political opposition is left only with al-Qaeda as an outlet.

3. DEFEAT OF THE "ARABS" REVISITED.

Understand this: Israel had begun to win a war against the Arabs when US troops invaded and conquered Iraq. You (Saudi intelligence and governing elite and the others enumerated above) have been defeated. (Israel itself was the biggest loser in the invasion, but that’s another topic altogether.) Never mind Bald Samson’s promises to the GCC leaders in May 2007, which promises resulted in the surge to stabilize things in Iraq. Relative stability has come with yet more dangers to the GCC princes and Kings. Why? The mix of policies (“counter-insurgency”) which the surge was all about has marginalized the Iraqi Arab Sunnis -- an army of the Arabs. So much so that they now are a fully defeated group.

Be mindful that the Arab Sunnis hadn’t been defeated for as long as they had been fighting the conqueror. But Saudi intelligence has used Saudi money and Jordan’s intelligence has provided its liaison services (between the harmful idiots and the tribes) to re-tribalize the Sunni Arabs and defuse the Arab Sunni resistance to conquest. One argument they used was powerful: your resistance is helping Iran.

Result: the Arab Sunnis of Iraq have become beggars and criminals in their own country:

i. On the payroll of the harmful idiots with these hoping to unload them on the Badr/Dawa state which, likely, will unload them onto the streets, especially if oil prices continue to fall;

ii. on the run from the Badr/Dawa state and the harmful idiots;

iii. in prison camps and jails run by the harmful idiots and the Badr/Dawa state;

iv. engaged in their own bloody civil war; devastated...

v. while Iran has been able to clamp down on the Shias not to have their civil war.


Israel’s right wing boys had taken over the Pentagon. Allied to the Christian Right, they were able to dispatch US troops to conquer Arab Iraq. The Arab Sunnis exercised their God-given right to resist conquest by troops coming from 6000 miles away. For as long as resistance was raging Israel hadn’t defeated “the Arabs.” But when “the Arabs” joined into the counter-insurgency effort by the harmful idiots, they shot themselves (and the forever self-defeating harmful idiots) in the foot – yet again.

What we have now in Iraq is way more dangerous to “the Arabs” and to their privileges (meaning the regimes, not to the Arab public, mind you, which has no privileges) --

– than the situation before the current one (when the Arab Sunnis were resisting conquest),

– than the situation which preceded invasion and resistance (when an Arab Iraq, emaciated by years of sanctions, still had the potential to rebound should the harmful idiots have allowed),

– than the situation which preceded sanctions by the harmful idiots (when an Arab Iraq, imperfect, but able to defeat the Islamic Republic, an Iraq that possessed a pan-Arab ideology that was inclusive of the Arab Shias.)

Can you see it? The Arab regimes have been descending deeper and deeper into disaster, thanks to playing along with Israel and the harmful idiots.

Enjoy Israel’s defeat of you and your defeat of yourselves.


4. COUNTERINSURGENCY IS FOR THE BIRDS.

The harmful idiots love their counter-insurgency. This reactionary passion is overwhelming. But their counterinsurgency is so moment-driven that, using it, they shoot themselves in the foot, again and again.

Grant it: they never should've dismantled the army and the Baath–blah, blah. Blah. But , as this newsletter had made it abundantly clear, the harmful idiots had no choice but to dismantle the army and de-Baathify. Why? It’s too much to re-explain in full. (Please refer to prior posts.) For one, they were basking in their own triumphalism. (Their commander-in-chief landed on an aircraft carrier. The non-reformed alcoholic was savoring his sadism. Jewish Right wing personalities, who now have staged a likely coordinated disappearance off the radar screen, were partying to no end while poking fun at Colin Powell for his hesitation.) For another, they had come into Iraq allied to forces that would not have stood for anything short of dismantling the army and de-Baathifying. The two together (triumphalism and allies) prevented them from thinking correctly. Most importantly, however, the harmful idiots came into Iraq under the banner of the Jewish Right and the Christian Right, the first anti-Arab to the bone, the second anti-Muslim. They were driven by a passion which they had borrowed from their Israelis. And an Israel mind set wasn’t going to allow for anything Arab to be strong – including an army and a party.

Counter-insurgency, as the harmful idiots then defined it, was mostly about showing the American public that violence was diminishing. They needed to buy time with the American public so that they can re-sell it the Iraq Project. By defining counterinsurgency as an abatement in violence meant mostly to buy time from the American public, the harmful idiots shot themselves in the foot. Lessening violence became an end in itself; they bought so much into it (typically the harmful idiots always are the first and only ones who buy into their propaganda) that they didn’t see that the country itself – which they want for bases and oil – was slipping through their fingers. They lost sight of the long-term. (I’m now talking as if I care about the Iraq Project; which I don’t. Devil’s advocate. Bear with me.) Missing the long-term has created a hazardous situation in Iraq and one that in no way is beneficial to the harmful idiots and their Iraq Project. Choose one: Iraq now is a dam ready to burst or a lake ready to be plucked by Iran.

(About the surge: Never mind that Iran deserves more credit for the drop in violence than the harmful idiots. I’m talking Shias. Not to simplify : Iran had decided that already it had won the political battle by owning the Badr/Dawa state. And it wasn’t to Iran’s interest to see an intra-Shia civil war rage and weaken the Shia realm. Nor see a Shia war of liberation, which would be redundant and a waste of energy since Iran can politically displace the harmful idiots. It has the – Shia – numbers. Hence Iran’s decision to pull Sadr back. Now likely it’s training him a la Hezbollah, lest the harmful idiots up the ante. Both Iran and Syria coordinated to quiet things down in Iraq since Iran owned the state. Quiet things down to ease the harmful idiots out of the country.)

But there's more.

Not only did the harmful idiots, so busy with their counterinsurgency, had the country (Iraq) slip through their fingers, to the point were the Shia state wants them out. The harmful idiots, in playing up to the American public about the decrease in violence, had missed something equally important. Their counter-insurgency, with help from Saudi intelligence, had successfully pulled the heart out of the once stellar Sunni armed rebellion. With that, the harmful idiots finished the only force that could stand up to Iran and its Badr/Dawa state. (The Kurds are useless.) Worse yet, they had finished an armed force which could’ve fended for itself to obtain a role within the new “Iraq.” And that role by necessity and definition would’ve kept Iraq more Arab than it is now or will be later.

Put differently, a better course would’ve been for the harmful idiots to reach a modus operandi with the Sunni Arab insurgency without defusing it. Keep it as it had been: vibrant. Instead, the harmful idiots and the Saudis began to pump money into the Sunni tribes. As a result, in good part, the insurgency, the best dam to Iran’s power, was no more. The Sunni insurgency could’ve been the harmful idiots’ best friend. They didn’t see it. In the end, it’s all about jobs for the harmful idiots. And counterinsurgency produces jobs.

4.a. The harmful idiots think they can replace the once highly organized and effective Sunni insurgency with a cozy relationship with Arab Sunni army officers. Good luck with that. When a sophomore in college, I would’ve agreed with this tactic.

4.b. The harmful idiots think they can checkmate Iran’s ownership of the Badr/Dawa state by developing a cozy relationship with the Arab Shia army officers. Good luck with that. When a sophomore in college, I would’ve agreed with that tactic.

4.c. The harmful idiots at some shoot-myself-in-the-foot level (“counterinsurgency”) think they can eventually stage a coup d’etat with these officers. Which tells me that they still haven’t appreciated the fact that their conquest of Iraq has brought out the sectarian genie. And that that the Iraqis had used that genie to defeat the Iraq Project and will continue to use it for as long as the harmful idiots are there. Talking sectarian: Iran knows it needs its Shia realm to protect it from the harmful idiots. (Even if the harmful idiots and Iran reach an understanding, their very presence in Iraq is threatening and would dictate preserving that realm.) It helps little to call on Arab embassies to open up in Baghdad to re-Arab-ize Iraq. When was it that a treasonous bunch of Uncle Tom regimes, with no patriotic credibility whatsoever, and corrupt to boot, can reclaim the Arab Street – so fascinated is that Street with Iran’s (and Hezbollah’s and Syria’s and Hamas’s) defiance of the harmful idiots’ colonialist ally, Israel? For now: Bye, bye Arab Iraq.

About the sectarian genie and a coup d’etat: All one needs is a series of explosions against a sect and the members of that sect in the army would psychologically if not logistically (remember the "checkpoint" where soldiers of the same sect allow through their sectarian warriors?) and maybe physically return to their sectarian base. Especially if an alternative source for salaries is available. (Recall the example of the Lebanese army during the civil war.) A civil war trumps a coup d’etat. Put differently, the armed forces are a reflection of the society from which they sprung, an observation that applies more to rich regions than to poor. Iraq and its region are rich. And so the corporate spirit the harmful idiots are playing for, where those in the armed forces would see their economic interest as separate-and-apart from the rest of society, can’t happen. Why? Because the sectarian politicians control the oil revenues. Any threat to their control and they’ll go sectarian all the way – with car bombs and arrests and torture, and so on of gory violence against the other sect. All to foil the evolution of a corporate and self-interested spirit within the armed forces, as not to allow these to become the Trojan Horse which the harmful idiots would use to establish permanent bases.



5. UMMA!

(You like to say that, don’t you? “Umma!”)

Though the Arab public knows that Hezbollah is a tool of Iranian foreign policy, it nonetheless cuts it a slack because that tool still is Arab and is fighting Israel. Accordingly, Hezbollah is part of the never-dying aspiration of joining together the nation, be it Arab or Islamic, or Arab-Islamic.

The Arab public is aware that the harmful idiots and their Israel have defeated its attempt to pull things together and unite in one nation. It hasn’t forgotten the 1967 war, meant to defeat Nasser and Arab nationalism. Israel then, aspiring to be an arm of the harmful idiots, became that. And it certainly will not forget that Israel’s right wing diaspora was instrumental in directing the harmful idiots’s armies against Iraq, an imperfect Arab country, but Arab. Score two for Israel and its sponsor. Hence the popularity of Hezbollah. It’s about having an army for the umma; and, too, it’s sweet revenge for the Arab public -- for Abu Khaled (Nasser) and for Iraq.

The Arab public is aware that the Israel-inspired assault on it and its aspirations is never-ending. It knows that such ideas as the Greater Middle East, the New Middle East, and the Union for the Mediterranean ideas are put out by Israel’s right wing diaspora ( the first two) or by an asset of the US-Israeli/right wing diaspora phenomenon (the third) to create a realm where Israel lords over the Arab hinterland.

It’s eminently obvious to the Arab public that the more natural union, an Arab one, isn’t on the agenda of those who are Israel-inspired; those who want to split the Arabs so that they can control oil and have permanent bases.

6. ANTI-CORRUPTION.

Iran’s revolutionary allies –Hamas and Hezbollah, but especially Hezbollah – happen to be nearly free of corruption. While the assets of the harmful idiots are not. To say the least. It seems that uncontrollable greed is a pre-condition to becoming an asset of these.

So it’s not only defiance against Israel. Things seem to go in tandem: to defy Israel and its plans for settlements and its use of its diaspora to further the privileges of the reactionary Arab regimes goes together with the near-absence of corruption. Go figure.

7. MERE PRESENCE BY THE HARMFUL IDIOTS IN THE HEART OF THE ARAB WORLD IS PRESCRIPTION FOR FURTHER RADICALIZATION OF THE ARAB PUBLIC.

I went over to the libraries at the American University and Georgetown looking for Leonard Binder, ed., Politics in Lebanon. That book likely was published in 1961 or 1962. If my memory serves me well, the book provided insight in part about Lebanese politics before and after the landing of the U.S. Marines in Lebanon in 1958. Vaguely, I remember Mr. Binder’s conclusion where he warned against direct U.S. intervention in the Middle East. (Remember, these were the days of mass mobilization under Nasserism.) That such intervention was bound to further anger and mobilize the Arab public against the West.

I don’t’ think much has changed. Instead of Arabism, it’s now Islamism. Iran for Egypt; Iraq for Lebanon.

(I didn’t find the book. At A.U., Leonard’s book was stored away; at G.U., it had been checked out.)