HAMAS WINS

(Rough t h i r d draft meant to break the news about Syria’s suspension of its contacts with Israel.)

BACKGROUND: THE HARMFUL IDIOTS' ARAB UNCLE TOMS SPONSOR ISRAEL’S MASS MURDER IN GAZA

The Israeli barbaric assault on Gaza’s civilians has the backing of the Egyptian ruling elite and those of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

The evidence against the Egyptian ruling elite is overwhelming.

Against the U.A.E: That country's Foreign Minister recently visited the West Bank and met with Mahmoud Abbas. He (proudly) stated that his country supported Mr. Abbas as leader of the Palestinian people. In other words, Hamas was Iranian and therefore we dread it. Abbas was Israeli.

The fact that the U.A.E.'s Foreign Minister chose to go through Israel to reach the West Bank (not through Jordan) says that the U.A.E.'s ruling elite is as much in cahoots with the Israelis as the Egyptian ruling elite. (I have the distinct impression that cadres of Israel's intelligence services and its armed forces have gone furthest in the U.A.E., of all Gulf countries.) That Foreign Minister's visit, in retrospect, looked like the prelude to the assault on Gaza. His handlers, the harmful idiots and Israel's diaspora boys, harmful and idiot, had dispatched him to provide yet more of an "Arab" cover to the Israelis. It wasn’t enough that they had the Egyptian ruling elite and Mahmoud Abbas to fulfill that function.


The Saudi ruling elite had learned its lesson from Israel’s equally-barbaric assault on Lebanon in 2006: the mass murder of the Lebanese Arabs (with American weapons and cluster bombs) which the September 11 Queen had said was meant to give birth to a “New Middle East.”

Indication then was that the Saudi royal elite had backed that aggression on Arabs and Muslims.

Further indication soon theafter (or is it before?) was that the Saudi ruling elite was in alliance with the Israel lobby (and with Israel) in Washington D.C. and highly likely was pumping money into that lobby. (The earliest cue on this can be found in this blog's post "Israel Says Who Can Be Saudi King.") But the Saudi ruling elite has proved smarter this time around. It’s letting its Egyptian counterpart, which is on the Saudi and harmful idiot payroll (with all the certainty political analysis can muster), do the dirty work for both and for the harmful idiots.

(Israel in turn is doing the dirty work for the Egyptian ruling elite. By (thinking it is) weakening Hamas, Israel is hoping to weaken the Muslim Brothers in Egypt, the only true opposition to the Egyptian ruling elite. Israel has become through-and-through the bully for Arab reaction.)

HAMAS WINS

As the last post had indicated: Syria’s negotiations with Israel in Turkey were most likely meant to put pressure on Syria’s Iranian ally to soften up on the Shia realm strategy -- too sectarian for the vehemently secular Baath in Syria. The last part of the post predicted that if the Israelis go into Gaza, the Syrians should be expected to stop Syria's overture towards Israel.

It hasn’t taken that much. Ziad Haidar in assafir.com today (“Asad Moves For an Arab Summit; the Aggression on Gaza Closes off the Negotiation Door Between Syria and Israel”) quotes “Syrian sources” as saying that “the aggression on Gaza closed off the doors to these contacts [between Israel and Syria].” (My translation from Arabic.)

MEA CULPA

In the last post, I didn’t heed my own earlier warnings that one should hesitate before referencing so much to Iran. In assessing the chcances for the Syrian-Israeli negotiations, I had said that Hamas’s strategy to lure Israel into Gaza would constitute counter-blackmail by Iran against its Syrian ally. I amend this now by saying that Hamas had every reason to blow up the Israeli-Syrian separate negotiations. (Too many reasons to cover here.) Not to mention that the Israeli-Egyptian starvation of Gaza had propelled Hamas to force the issue with the Arab Street. I believe it succeeded: the Israeli-Syrian negotiations have ended, for now. That Iran would benefit from Hamas’s strategy could only be gravy for Iran. Iran, thanks to Hamas and the Israeli-Egyptian war on Gaza, has been able to re-define the terms of its alliance with Syria the Iran way.

SYRIA'S ARAB NATIONALISM WILL NOT DISAPPEAR

But Iran has to be careful. Syria’s Arab nationalism is here to stay. I recently attended a “tea” at a friend’s house and spoke at length to a Syrian family which clearly was Sunni. The Arab nationalism of one of that family’s members was as solid as that of Jamal Abdel Nasser or Michel Aflaq. Which told me that the pressure on Asad and his crew will continue to be immense: to act on an Arab nationalist agenda if only to keep the Syrian Sunni satisfied. And provide them and Arab Syria with an alternative outlet to the sectarian route pushed by the Saudi ruling elite.

Which further indicates that, even without Iran, Mr. Asad could never quit on the Palestinian or the Lebanese Arabs. (If nothing else, Lebanon is owed tons of billions in compensation and the Saudi route would rob Lebanon -- which Saudi Arabia's man had pillaged -- of that money. Arab nationalist Syria would have to push for Lebanon's interest in any negotiation with Israel and its harmful idiot sponsors. Ditto for Palestinian interests.)

The conversation revealed to me that Asad in his Arab nationalist endeavor will continue to need Hasan Nasrallah and Hamas -- both of whom give the Baath government in Syria immense legitimacy.

(FYI: All Arabs, practically all -- 99% -- love Hasan Nasrallah. I say this to educate the harmful idiots who listen to their Arab Uncle Toms (both abroad and the self-hating ones here) and to Israel's diaspora boys. These -- the Uncle Toms and Israel's disapora boys -- likely tell the harmmful idiots that the Arab Sunni dislike Nasrallah. Nothing could be farthest from the truth.)

SYRIA

rough first draft–really rough.

I’ve come to you, O Egypt
And have brought with me exhaustion
For loving [you] is exhausting.

Fairuz, "Misr 3Adat" (My translation.)

INTRODUCTION

There’s a lot of speculation on how close Israel and Syria are to a peace treaty. Despite a Syrian gesture to Lebanon to allow it to open up its own negotiations with Israel, the Lebanese and Palestinian Arabs are worried that they would be left behind. They are flabbergasted that Syria would negotiate separately with Israel, a la dope head Sadat.

MY (GOLDEN) HYPOTHESIS

Here’s my hypothesis:

Syria is going along with its talks with Israel, in Turkey, as a means of pressuring its ally, Iran.


IRAN’S DICTUM IS AS TIGHT AS NETANYAHU’S RECTUM

Syria is getting impatient with Iran. It wants its ally to shed its exclusively Shia realm approach in Iraq. Syria is using negotiations with Israel as blackmail to force the issue with Iran.

Iran, by managing the Shia realm, is keeping Iraqi Arab forces out of the Iraq game. As the harmful idiot occupation nears its gasping end, due in good part to self-inflicted bankruptcy and wishful dreams in Afghanistan, and Syria feels less threatened by the idiots who are harmful, its impatience with its ally is increasing. It needs an accommodating sign from Iran. None yet has been made. There are those in the Iraqi Shia realm who are Arab nationalists. Foremost among them are Muqtadha and the Sadrists. And those outside: Lebanon’s Hezballah, too, packs an intense doze of Arab nationalism. Syria wants a course in Iraq that accommodates it and these two forces. But neither the Sadrists nor Hezballah can veer off the Iran dictum, without Iran’s permission, for a few of reasons:

-- They do share with Iran many a precept about Israel, its aggressive nature, its make-up and that of it diaspora, as base and as mobilized constituency respectively, for the harmful idiots to assail any attempt to bring together Arabs and/or Muslims -- to keep the Arabs and Muslims down;

– They are aware that Israel, through its diaspora, wants to force the harmful idiots to go through Israel AKA diaspora on oil policies in Arab and Muslim lands -- as a way of buttressing the relevance of Israel in the Arab and Muslim oil countries, and of the diaspora in American politics; and

– Iran provides funding, relatively advanced weapons and training, and technological expertise. These fulfill more than just a defensive need against the Israel/harmful idiots’ extensive arsenal. These provide Hezbollah and Syria with technological advances and know-how that buttress the Arab identity. The alternative would be the Saudi ruling elite’s sea of technological knowledge and concomitant ruling elite pride. Ha. Ha. Ha. (You’re killing me; be serious, pleeeaase.) Ditto for the bright servant of the people Egyptian ruling elite.



IRAN THREATENS SYRIA’S STABILITY BY INPUNING ITS ARAB NATIONALIST CULTURE

Propelling Syria’s blackmail against its ally is the fact that Syria features an Alawite ruling elite (perceived as Shia in Saudi propaganda) governing a predominately Sunni country. True, repression is a tool to keep the Sunni public (the politicized, that is) in line; but, of more importance, is that ruling elite’s Arab identity and nationalism. One makes a serious mistake if one thinks for a moment that Syria’s culture isn’t Arab nationalist, through-and-through -- regardless of the fact that a religious/geographical minority predominates in the security and army establishments. (When once I used to visit Lebanon, once, before I’ve taken refuge in Fortress Washington D.C., I’d talk to Syrian soldiers and be impressed again-and-again by the fact that these guys, some of them peasant boys, were totally Arab nationalists.)

That’s one more reason why the Syrian government is impatient with its Iranian ally. If the Sadrists are unleashed, likely many of the Syrian Sunni would join hands with them -- and, eventually, even the Iraqi Arab Sunni. That would foil the attempts by the Saudi ruling elite to drive the wedge as wide as possible between the Sunni and Shia, a wedge that’s more threatening to Arab Syria’s stability than it is to either Saudi Arabia or to Iran. Bringing out Iran-sponsored Arab nationalists (e.g., the Sadrists) would act as a brake to the sectarian scheme and boost immensely the legitimacy of Syria’s government. (Saudi intelligence, with the knowledge of the harmful idiots, would fund explosions against Shia to foil the Syria-mediated united Arab front and delay its formation. But, hey, what’s a few hundred dead Shia to Saudi intelligence?)

IT’S NOT THE PERSIAN GULF, NOR THE ARAB GULF. IT’S THE ISRAELI GULF. YES IT IS.

Syria’s blackmail of its ally is made all the more necessary by the fact that the Saudi ruling elite, and that of the Gulf (especially the UAE and Bahrain -- the latter’s recent signing of a security coordination agreement with Iran notwithstanding; such agreements many times are not worth the ink spent on them) have now been hiring Israeli generals and Israeli intelligence officers to run the security establishments in those countries. These had flown in on the wounded wings of the harmful idiots. In other words, an alliance between Israel and the ruling “Arab” elite of those countries could further isolate Syria in the future, since Israel is gaining influence over the ruling elite of the richest Arab countries. (The fear of Iranian influence is more acute in the Gulf than in the Levant.)

A SAUDI-ISRAELI (SUNNI) REGIME IN SYRIA. . .WILL NOT BE

Not that isolating Syria, and eventually producing a Sunni government there, would be to the advantage of the Saudi ruling elite. Highly likely it would not. But intelligence services which run foreign policy in these countries aren’t exactly hubs for geniuses. (Ditto for ours, under the thumb of Israel’s boys, who have so genius-like gotten my fingerprints and my DNA. Now they’ll stick a crime on me or a baby whose mother will claim the baby’s DNA is mine. My fighting attorney: www.HarryWessel.com) And so, the dumb ones at Saudi intelligence might celebrate a victory should the Syrian government be toppled. But it’ll be fleeting. If oil prices are low, the new Syrian state (after years of chaos) would still be allied to Russia and Iran with one difference: It'll provide the two with a much better weapon against the ruling Israeli elite of Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf Israelites.

IRAN’S COUNTER-BLACKMAIL TO STOP SYRIAN-ISRAELI NEGOTIATIONS

Iran’s counter-blackmail against its Syrian ally likely is found in Hamas’s effort to lure the Israelis into invading Gaza and spilling Arab blood. (The Israelis now are into yet another effort to wash their hands of the Sabra and Shatila massacres. Elie Hobeika, who headed the Lebanese Forces at that time, was their man through-and-through and had executed the massacre; During the execution, Hobeika was in the Israeli army headquarters at the Beirut airport, and he and Israeli officers were reported to have been laughing it off while their men were hunting for “terrorists”–while the Israelis were dispatching flares onto the camps to help out their proxy army in spilling the blood of their Arab brothers.) If the Israelis do go into Gaza, the Syrian government likely would have to step back from its flirtation with Israel.

HIGH DECEPTION – FROM THREE ISRAEL-MAD HARMFUL IDIOTS

rough second draft

“After I had shed the [false] hopes
And the wishful thinking”

Um Kalthoum, “Fakkarouni.” (My translation from Arabic.)

"How I wish [I could] escape my pain
And take comfort in your arms."

Um Kalthoum, “Fakkarouni.” (My translation from Arabic.)

The Washington Post (Christian-Right/Jewish Right /ululating liberal/smasher of Arab Iraq) recently featured a prominently-displayed op. ed. article by John McCain, Joe Lieberman, and Lindsey Graham. (“A Chance for Consensus on Iraq,” Sunday, December 21, 2008, at B7.) I started to read it, reluctantly; then I stopped. I knew it must be yet another silly though harmful attempt by harmful idiots at portraying events in Iraq as progress.

These Israel-mad men, I tought, are into mobilizing the American public for a permanent U.S. military tenure in Iraq. Their timing was meant to place pressure on the manager of the national bankruptcy they helped engineer -- the President-elect. At a minimum these harmful idiots would like the troops to remain in Iraq at least until such time when the US-trained and equipped Iraqi military is ready to take on the role of a junta. Iraq then and its oil would be a harmful idiot possession, Iraq a protectorate through-and through. Iran the next target. The first sentence gave the three men’s deception away:

THE FIRST FEW WORDS

“After our visit to Iraq this month...”

My closest friend in town (a co-author of a classic textbook on American politics) had written his dissertation about the politician-as-a-con-artist. This perspective colors my views. There are con-artists who take the country on a joyous, though sacrifice-laden ride (e.g., Bill Clinton) and politicians of mediocre intellect but with influential family and oil connections who con the country into abject disaster.

Deception by these Israel-mad senators (the con-artists) requires that the many buy into the notion that visiting a country bestows on the visitor credibility and legitimacy for her point of view about that country. The visit is supposed to endow the visitor with such depth of perspective that her utterances at the end of the visit would be treated as the last word on the subject. Hardly. Visiting a country and talking to people, in my view, doesn’t mean tiddly shit in assessing the future course of that country. This is particularly true of countries such as Lebanon and Iraq, both dismantled by the harmful idiots, on Israel-centric (mis)-calculations, and who sit in the crosswinds of regional and international interests. (The harmful idiots, too, had dismantled Palestine following Hamas' sweep of the parliamentary elections.)

To distinguish: a scholar who spends years of her life in a country, investing time, energy and intellect is someone to listen to. Unless the country is Iraq or Iran and the scholar is an Israel-mad person, Jewish mostly, or non, or a self-hating Arab (or Arab-American) Uncle Tom whose career and prominence, or that of his family, had been stage-managed by the Israel lobby, its personalities, and Arab Uncle Tom intelligence services.

Not if the scholar remains independent (and relatively poor.) An independent scholar has the weight of praxis behind her, the weight of one who for years had been a participant-observer and had not sold out. (Be mindful that there’s literature which shows that the best analysis on Vietnam came out not from so called Ivy League institutions but from state universities and colleges.) The three Israel-mad U.S. Senators are hardly independent or un-biased. These have decided that the Jewish community is a generous source for their political money. In addition, they’ve identified a good part of the American Jewish community as a direly-needed domestic pillar of support for any militaristic project in the Arab and Muslim Worlds, regardless of merit. Finally, these con-artists likely no longer sense any contradition between Big Oil money and Jewish.

To visit a country is (not) to have the last word

The civil war in Lebanon was in good part the result of Israel-centric miscalculation by the alliance of US intelligence, Jordanian, and the Lebanese Army Deuxieme Bureau. (The officers of the two Arab intelligence services had been on the harmful idiots’ payroll.) During that war there were times when Christians, Muslims and Palestinians, who had been murdering each other with abandon at checkpoints, would nonetheless take absurd breaks. During these, fighters of all sides would come out from behind sandbags and socialize with each other, kidding and hugging. Then back to their sandbagged positions and to war.

In other words, appearances during fleeting visits (where none of the Senators spoke Arabic, had gone out into the various regions alone and dodged Iraqi Arab shoes, and most importantly had taken it upon himself to invest years of his life to study Iraq and the Arab World) are most certainly deceiving. Had the three walked in on the Lebanese militiamen and Palestinian guerrillas on their absurd breaks they would’ve returned to tell us peace in Lebanon was a done deal and that the three groups (Christians, Muslims, and Palestinians) all loved Israel as madly as those U.S. Senators.

The Israel-mad senators likely know the above. But they’re into deceiving us. They’re Israel-mad con-artists. They want us mobilized to support US military tenure in Iraq. Deception is their game.

THE REST OF THE SENTENCE

“[I]t is clear that what once was unthinkable there is now taking place: A stable, safe and free Iraq is emerging.”


Okay, what’s wrong with this picture?

Once again, the Israel-mad Senators don’t see what I see -- I not being Israel-mad, never have been, but certainly not since Israel’s people decided to spy on me and stage encounters meant as threats, as intimidation. The relative quiet we now witness in Iraq is due more to the fact that the country has been divided into three states, de facto.

The north belongs to the Kurds and is viciously independent of the rest of Iraq. The south is a Shia state. It and the Kurdish state control the Iraqi government, though the Kurds are always at the ready to pull out and head back to Fortress Kurdistan -- to the mountains. To fight for Kirkuk. The Shia dominate the state we see -- the de facto federal government. They’re terrifically sectarian, Sistani and all. The Sunni state in the middle is an extension of the Saudi government and, to a lesser extent, the Jordanian. It’s on the Saudi payroll. The Sunni state is being torn apart by a civil war. T

he Israelis, ,through their diaspora and allied (and supremely petty and disgusting) Arabs and Arab-Americans, have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams at dismembering Arab Iraq.

This is an untenable situation, one that by definition is a breeder of instability. The dynamics of Iraqi nationalism are bound to reassert themselves. One likely scenario is where the Shia state repeatedly fails against the Kurds as it tries to reclaim Kirkuk and the surrounding area. It’ll lose as a result any legitimacy it has within the Shia Street. As it fails, the Sadrists (with or without Muqtadha) should become more popular, especially if they play up the issue of the Kurdish state as an Israeli-harmful idiot dagger stuck deep in the heart of Iraq. Sooner or later, a pan-Islamic Arab Sunni-Shia front should emerge. Between Sadrists and Sunni Islamists. A difficult task at present, but politics are such that anything is possible, and will be tried. The Iraqi armed forces , so loaded up with US weapons, will have to choose whether to help out in reclaiming the north. My money is on the armed forces – the Arab members of those forces -- joining in to reclaim the secessionist Kurdish region.

Not to overplay the Iranian role, which I believe is much overplayed by the Axis of Conquest and New colonialism (the harmful idiots and their Israelis) in Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq. Still: Iraq is crucial to Iran, superbly so. In part because Iraq provides Iran an opening -- a tool -- to foil the harmful idiot/Israeli schemes against it. These schemes are typically hatched in Saudi Arabia and (likely) the U.A.E. Press reports already tell us that Israeli intelligence and army operatives have penetrated many of the security establishments in the Gulf states. Iran would not want to rattle these states too much since it’ll be doing so from a relatively weak position -- using the Arab Shia communities. This could work in Kuwait and Bahrain, but likely wouldn’t work in the prize of them all – Saudi Arabia. (The Shia community in Saudi Arabia isn’t numerous.)

Only if Iran is able to engineer a pan-Islamic ARAB front, to include Sunni and Shia, one which would raise the banners of Arab Palestine and Lebanon and the Arab Joulan, would Iran be able to foil the schemes against it by the alliance of Saudi Arabia (via its secret government -- the intelligence service) Israel, and the harmful idiots. Only if such a front emerges in Iraq would Iraq become shield and sword to protect Iran from the Axis of Conquest and New Colonialism and that Axis’ Saudi tools. Only then would Iran, via the Arab Islamic front, be able to appeal to the Saudi public and have that public help foil its government’s schemes against Iraq and Iran. It’s a tall order for Persian Iran. But suffocation from sanctions might motivate the Iranians to shed a part of their Persian chauvinism and their fear of Iraqi nationalism. Continued engagement in Iraq might just be the way to manage that fear and assure that Iraqi nationalism doesn’t become a thorn in Iran’s side.

The importance of Iraqi politics to Iran is pronounced. It becomes more so when one considers that the competition for Iraq’s oil (which the harmful idiots are after, having driven out the Russians and others) is hardly about the use of conventional military power. The harmful idiots have used that power to destabilize Arab Iraq, yet they’re nowhere close to firming up control of that oil -- in realpolitik terms not in terms of signed contracts by their puppet government.

From a risk analysis perspective U.S. Big Oil would be a fool to dump money into Iraq only to see Iraqi nationalism revive. An essential element of that nationalism is bound to be national control of the oil and gas resource. To compound matters, Big Oil is unlikely to obtain federal government insurance for its investment in Iraqi oil since the federal government is bankrupt and a non-oil administration (Obama’s) will have more urgent matters to manage. Only if Big Oil enters Iran and Iraq simultaneously would its investment gain a modicum of security. (Be mindful that Big Oil is coveted by the Iranians because it has the capital and the technological know how.) Israel and its diaspora, and their allies, should be expected to stand in the way of any Big Oil investment in Iran.

(I think Big Oil in Europe –- e.g.. Total -- should be back in Iran soon, if not already, and should be reeled into Iraq, too, with Iranian assurances. I can smell Sarkozi –in his opening to Syria – map out the way.)

It's not about military power

A running theme in this blog has been that it is not about military power. How does that hypothesis make a difference?

I don’t think Iran has any illusions that the harmful idiots, even with a trip wire, nothing more, wouldn’t be able to balance Iran’s conventional military power. If anything, Iran likely knows (in spite of all the puffing) that the harmful idiots can order the obliteration of so much of Iran’s conventional military infrastructure. That the call by some of Israel’s diaspora boys in Washington , D.C., to withdraw from Iraq to avoid having all these hostages there (the troops) , is meant to gain freedom for military action against Iran. This call is about wanting US forces to service the diaspora boys' Israel by obliterating Iran’s military infrastructure without losing too many American troops. The concern would be that the American public may just blame the Israelis and their diaspora boys (and possibly the diaspora itself for not stopping its boys should bankrptcy dig its heels deeper) in Washington, D.C., for the death in Iraq.


And it is as well about a deep fear Israel and the diaspora boys have that the U.S. military would incrementally partner up with the Iranian for Gulf security -- common sense for the U.S. military (any military) but scary as hell for Israel and its diaspora boys.

To recap: Iran likely knows that it’s not about military power. That its military power is meant mostly to defend itself. That, but for that military power (including Hizballah), Israel would’ve attacked Iran a while ago if only to prove its usefulness to the harmful idiots’ military-industrial complex. (The harmful idiots should be glad Iran is able to balance Israeli power; including the arming of Hizballah; otherwise Israel would’ve a while ago gotten us into a war with Iran driving our bankruptcy to scarier depths.)

It is in the political arena where the war likely will happen. Here, Iran has held the Sadrists off to protect the Shia realm from splitting and to give time to President-elect Obama to make an overture towards it.

To complicate matters, the ship may already have sailed on the Obama Promise. Russia is fast losing any hope that even the Obama Administration would cease and desist from attempts to contain it and steal away its traditional influence in the Central Asian republics, areas of which are oil and gas- rich and are coveted by the harmful idiots. Even the increase in the number of troops in Afghanistan, the Russians know, is likely meant to control the highlands of the Hindu Kush and the Pamirs, control the Asian steppes, and the Caucuses, and accordingly be within a strategically convenient striking (and threatening) distance of Russia and China. (This should sober up the Left which thinks President-elect Obama is transferring troops to Afghanistan as a ruse to pull out of Iraq without the right-wing hounding him about that pull-out.) Iran therefore should become a solid and needed ally of Russia – out of necessity for both. The Israel-mad harmful idiots in out-bidding each other have driven the two into each other’s arms. Russia likely can no longer afford to keep at bay those who need it, and who can help it in breaking the attempted siege of it by the harmful idiots. Iran figures prominently in this Russian strategy. The scale for the Russians is increasingly tilting against using those who need them as chips to dump when the Russians reach an understanding with the harmful idiots.

Since it’s not about military power, Iran should know that politics in Iraq (and to a lesser extent in Lebanon) are crucial to determining the course of events. The harmful idiots and their Israelis want to persuade the Arab World (majority Sunni) that Iran is a threat to it. For as long as Iran voices and provides support for the Palestinian Arabs (majority Sunni), the Arab public (and I’m including much of the non-ruling elite) is unlikely to love the harmful idiots, let alone like them and their Israelis. Do I need to remind the harmful idiots (who choose to ignore even recent history and think of themselves as innocent and self-righteous angels who are smart and not harmful) that they and their Israelis have conquered an Arab Sunni-led country, devastated it, delivered its Sunni leaders for the lynching (with assistance from the Israel-mad Jewish Senator Arlen Specter –another one), and broke it into three states, de facto? Hell!

The Palestinian issue might grow old for Iran and for the Arab public and elite. But don’t hold your breath. If Israel goes into Gaza. Ha! But, on the off-chance (very off) that the Palestine cause should become too stale, and even if it doesn’t, and should the Malikis and Hakims and their crews fail to kick out the harmful idiots, while these refuse to reach an authentic accommodation with Iran (ruses, as in pretending, wouldn’t do it; the harmful idiots would have to dispatch Big Oil to Iran) then Iran would have to reformulate its strategy and split the Iraqi Shia realm. It might be able with the help of Syria to engineer that Arab Islamic front. (I’ve covered at least one attempt at such formulation in the past.) It can start (and has) in a place like Saida, the very home of Saad al-Hariri, Saudi Arabia’s man in Lebanon, and one of the stooges of the harmful idiots. (The harmful idiots had brought in his late father from Saudi Arabia, mediated his Prime Minister post, and allowed him to steal an estimated $17 billion from Lebanon’s national purse -- all on the illusory promise that he would have Lebanon sign a treaty with Israel and join the camp of the Axis of Conquest and New Colonialism. Mr. Hariri so trusted the harmful idiots that he failed to see that the strategy of these was so Israel-centric (and therefore eminently flawed) as to cost him his life.)

Iran would couple up with Mustapha Saad -- train his men, fund them -- and try out for the Islamic Arab front. And hope to import it from Lebanon into Iraq. From there: hope to use it as shield and sword against the allies of the harmful idiots (in particular the Saudis) in the Gulf. No conventional military power needed. Only issue-oriented mobilization skills, likely revolving around

-- Arab Palestine,

-- Arab Lebanon,

-- the Arab Joulan,

-- the theft of Iraqi oil, and

-- the secession of the north.


These issue-oriented skills at mobilizing aren’t a staple of the harmful idiots , the blind Israel-mad elephants they are. They can’t even comprehend these skills . (They’re into color revolutions. Harmful idiots!)

And they are on the wrong side of Arab and Muslim issues.

CONQUEST: AN ISRAELI VISITS IRAQ

THE AWAITED ONE

A shoe he dodged
From Muntazar
Two shoes . . .
From an orphan and her mother
For the millions of refugees
For oil
For his beloved Israel
For a country he dismembered
A mercenary for another
That canine lover

For the shame he brought to Maliki. . .
He'll order torture
And maybe good old American lynching
(Christian-style)

That Awaited One
A bad shot
Humanity's Hope
That sweet,
Oh so sweet . . .
Across the sky
A streaking star
That -- p r o u d -- A r a b -- I r a q i -- c z a r
M U N
T A

Z A R!

(Muntazar in Arabic means "Awaited One." Important Disclaimer: This blog doesn't condone the use of violence, however minimal or symbolic. But this blog does feel that, from a purely artistic perspective, red, ripe, Mesopotamian tomatoes would've contrasted better with the background.)

RENT-A-COP: THE NEW HARMFUL IDIOTS’ TENURE IN IRAQ AND THE PERSARAB GULF REGION

second equally rough draft

THE AWAITED ONE (A POEM)

A shoe he dashed
From Muntazar
Two shoes. . .
From an orphan and her mother
For the millions of refugees
For oil
For his beloved Israel
For a country he dismembered
A mercenary for another
That canine lover

For the shame he brought to Maliki . . .
He'll order torture
And maybe good old hybrid lynching
(American Christian-style)
For Him
The Awaited One --
A bad shot
Humanity's Hope
That sweet, sweet
Oh so sweet . . .
Across the sky
A dashing star...
M u n t a z a r

(Muntazar in Arabic means “Awaited one.”)

(Important Disclaimer: The Editorial Board of this blog --moi-- doesn't condone any act of violence, however minimal, though it does feel that red, ripe, Mesopotamian tomatoes would've looked better, visually-speaking.)




RENT-USA-TROOPS.COM. (“WE PROTECT REACTIONARIES -- “OUR ALLIES AND FRIENDS” -- THE OLD FASHIONED WAY: FOR MONEY)

Hey, come’on, rent yourself an American soldier. Or a fighter jet with pilot and co-pilot, and 1000-member support team, Or a hummer with embedded anthropologists, journalists, graduate students. The military-industrial complex is genuinely complex.

Until further notice, the harmful idiots have turned us into a security agency, a mercenary army of sorts. Our bankruptcy, magnified first by the unpopularity of taxing during Crusader/Bald Samson/Israel-is-Where-Jesus-Resides rein, and now by the fear that taxation might exacerbate the looming and devastating economic depression. (It’s said to be a severe recession now; but when Starbucks lets go of a friend of mine, an older gentleman -- then it’s a depression.)

THE DIASPORA BOYS ARE ALL OVER TOWN AND WILL MONOPOLIZE, ALONG WITH THEIR ARAB-AMERICAN AND MUSLIM STOOGES, HARMFUL IDIOT DEALINGS WITH ARABS, IRANIANS, AND MUSLIMS.

Israel’s alternative diaspora boys (“the ululating liberals” in the background for a few years) are all over the place, advising and outlining. They’ll likely be holding on to key posts (are already) as they (and, to a much lesser extent, their Arab-American and Muslim-American stooges whose careers they arranged) will again have a monopoly on anything Arab, Muslim, or Iranian. But it’s unclear how much real influence they and the country (meaning poor us, not Israel) actually will have.

PHILOSOPHER-WARRIORS: NO TO HALF-ASS WARS

My assessment is that the Defense Department and not State (or even the CIA) would be calling the shots. And Defense might be asked to trim the fat. In view of the fact that philosopher-warriors seem to come out of so many nations’ army officer corps , especially in the Third World and here, it’s likely that these will not be in any mood to pick a war with Iran. As philosophers they should know, shouldn’t they, that the nation doesn’t want to spend on them and on Israel’s diaspora boys’ schemes to keep Israel “safe.” (Iran will attend to sanctions by rattling “the allies.” Basic self-defense.) It’s beyond CENTOM, and all the other COMs.

RENT-USA-TROOPS.GOV

In the war of propaganda between the Iranian government and the Arab Uncle Tom regimes of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan (Jordan actually is showing smarts by opening up to Hamas, which means the CIA is, too) -- in that war about Israel’s starvation of Gaza, the Iranians are happy to bring out the fact that the Gulf American protectorates are “bailing out” the U.S. from its financial dire strait -- while ignoring starving Palestinian Muslims and Arabs. But few numbers have been flashed. Last month, around the 22nd/23d, the Kuwaiti as-Siyasah (sp. I don’t feel like googling -- we need fiction to beat an overflow of efficiency) said that the harmful idiots have asked the Gulf countries to advance loans to the U.S. The numbers given were as follows:

Saudi Arabia: $120 billion
The U.A.E.: $70 billion
Qatar: $60 billion
Kuwait: $40 billion.

(Total: $290 billion.)

The quid pro quo? None was mentioned. But, at least for the Saudi ruling elite and its Israeli ally (which wasn’t asked to pay anything -- it’s piggybacking on its new mule, the Saudi ruling elite), my assessment is that it’ll require the harmful idiots to continue on with active involvement in Iraq. For two reasons:

(1) To balance Iranian conventional power. But that can be done with a rather simple trip wire in Kuwait, Qatar, and the U.A.E. , by placing me, a camel, and binoculars, there to monitor the desert. (I love deserts. Oh, I forgot, I'd need water, too. Or camel milk might do -- it's got Vitamin C, you know. And visiting female graduate students from Sweden to embed with me.)

And

(2) To remain involved in the development of the Iraqi armed forces. These should eventually take over from the Shia politicians and lock them up or simply lynch them (the nouveau Texas Christian hybrid way -- dragging them behind cars was the old exclusively Arab way) or cut off their heads in a public square (the Saudi way.) (The Kurds will retreat to their de facto state, armed to the teeth, in the north , so thrilled with all the money they made from the harmful idiots and the Gulf Arabs and are to make from the harmful idiots’ military regime in Iraq. )

Oh, those reactionary dreams never cease to entertain me. How boring life would be without them.

WHY IT’S NOT ABOUT MILITARY POWER

rough outline.


SAUDI ARABIA RENTS A DIASPORA AND PAYS IT PROTECTION MONEY

To harmful idiots, those established and those coming into the Obama Administration, this is the more complex part of this short outline. (Because of their experience with the Soviet Union, it’s easier to tell them that Iran, even if it develops a nuclear bomb, would not scare anyone. It’ll be assured total destruction, a la MAD, though the “mutual” part of this may not be, should it ever use that Bomb.) The harmful idiots’ Israel-obsessed brain -- and their blind rush to climb up professional ladders -- dulls their senses. Since I’m not interested in climbing up professional ladders, and my brain isn’t fogged up with love for the Father, the Son, and Holy Israel -- I think I can see things more clearly than they.

Here it is: The alliance of the Saudi ruling elite to the Israel lobby is beneficial to that elite in that it neutralizes the Jewish Right and its liberals. It wards off campaigns by these against that elite. This had become particularly pressing after the Israel lobby/Jewish Right took over the Pentago -- to teach the Anglos how to conquer Arabs and lay claim to their oil. Whatever money the Saudi ruling elite is paying the Israel lobby is akin to protection money. That the two will be able to persuade the Obama Administration to keep U.S. troops in Iraq to balance Iranian (conventional) power -- well this subject should be influenced more

– by Iran and what it does or doesn’t do in Iraq and the Gulf; and

– by the Obama Administration needing to save money lest the federal government goes fully insolvent -- and deepen further our disaster. (Mr. Obama should work to place an additional one dollar tax on each gallon of gasoline, now that its price is relatively low -- and have the money go to us (the federal government) instead to the friends and foes of oil-connected Bald Samson and Crusader.)

And, therefore, the Obama Administration should hardly be influenced by the alliance of the Saudi ruling elite with Israel and its U.S. lobby. That alliance should prove insignificant in deciding matters of war, peace, and encirclement of Iran.

Iran can defend itself and define the battle better than the Saudi ruling elite or its Israeli ally -- and better even than the harmful idiots. Its success in Lebanon, along with Syria, is nothing short of stunning. Suddenly the “axis of evil” has within it Christian Lebanese who have always been pro-Western (and super pro-U.S.) and hardly ever terror-minded. Who would’ve said? That Syria would succeed at pulling the Maronites to Aleppo to visit the tomb of Saint Maron! Aleppo as the new Maronite Jerusalem. And the Maronite Patriarch, who (likely getting paid off by the harmful idiots via Geagea and by Saudi intelligence, via Saad al-Hariri), had been unleashing his churches against Hezbollah; He hasn't been mindful (or maybe he is, but money for the church really does matter) that all the sermons in the world wouldn't make a difference in the balance of power within Lebanon. In short, he is now becoming insignificant, or already has. What a coup!

THE SPLIT BETWEEN THE SAUDI RULING ELITE IN ONE CAMP AND THE ALTERNATIVE ELITE AND SAUDI PUBLIC IN ANOTHER.

As you’ve noticed, I’ve been referring to “ruling elite” not to Saudi Arabia. Why?

The very fact that the ruling elite of that country is keeping secret its alliance with Israel and its lobby should tell us that this alliance would have a negative political cost to that elite should it ever be revealed.

And revealed it will be as soon as the American Jewish Right decides that the Saudi ruling elite is changing course and staging a rapprochement with Iran. (It’ll pay money to witness the event, though the Israel lobby would have to be careful: how to admit to receiving money from Saudi intelligence? Tricky. Maybe Israel would release photos and tapes of Saudi princes and officials when the time comes. I’m certain they’ve taped me! Just make sure to remember: I told you so.)


As the oil money diminishes the political price for the alliance of the Saudi ruling elite with Israel and its lobby should prove quite steep for the elite. Money during the recent oil bonanza likely had bought tons of allegiance to the ruling elite. Not for long.


WHY ARE THE SAUDI ALTERNATIVE ELITE (THE OPPOSITION) AND THE PUBLIC SO AGAINST AN ALLIANCE BETWEEN THEIR COUNTRY AND ISRAEL?

At a superficial level that would be understood by the harmful idiots: because the rapprochement between the Saudi ruling elite and Israel and its lobby is...a wedge issue for the Saudi opposition.


At a less superficial level: Arabs aren’t holocaust deniers. Their differences with Israel are about Israel’s treatment of the their brethren -- the Palestinian Arabs -- colonization, theft of land and water, military repression.

Arabs feel that Germany (and Europe) are historically responsible for the harm that had befallen the Palestinian Arabs and the Lebanese Arabs. More recently, ever since 1967, Arabs have felt that the harmful idiots have taken on a part of the historic responsibility thanks to unlimited support for Israel. And thanks to the harmful idiots’ intensive involvement, yet consistent inability to move the peace process forward.

When you talk to Arabs, as an American, you are perplexed by how stupid the harmful idiots are. The idiots’ involvement took so much of the blame off Germany and Europe and placed it squarely in the harmful idiots’ lap! Sadly: in our lap, by extension.

More recently, Arabs have added the dismemberment of an Arab country, Iraq, to the list of repulsive acts by the harmful idiots, with Israel and its American right wing diaspora taking such a leading role in this enterprise. Iraq had nothing to do with September 11. Going for an oil grab while mobilizing Israel’s diaspora (with Israel’s approval and support) and miscalculating . . . What gives?


The Arab public feels that Israel should do right by the Palestinian Arabs and Lebanon – using money from Germany, Europe, and the United States for reparations and compensation. That, to jump over the affected parties to buddy up to Saudi Arabia is a nasty way of doing business. And the nastiness comes from the Saudi ruling elite which is allowing Israel to jump over the head of its victims. (And the money has evaporated , anyway -- yours, mine, and theirs.)


IT’S NOT ABOUT MILITARY POWER

The United States attacks Iran. So what? Are things going to improve for the Saudi ruling elite, or for its ally, Israel?

Hardly.

As this newsletter repeatedly has warned, countries learn from others’ experience and only harmful idiots don’t learn from theirs’ or others’. (Watch them drown themselves and us in Afghanistan/Pakistan! As if the Soviet Union’s occupation of Afghanistan carried no instructive value whatsoever! We’re heading there to fight 40 million Pashtun, hoping to divide them as we did the Iraqis!) In the case of a full-scale American war on Iran, the Islamic state likely has plans to self-disintegrate and fight a guerrilla war. In the case of a more limited war, the Islamic Republic will retaliate all over the globe–but mostly in Iraq and the Gulf. And in Lebanon. (That’s in part why you have Hizbollah.)

Israeli diaspora spokesmen (the alternative ones) with fancy titles now want us to withdraw from Iraq, not too hastily but not too slowly. What bullshit! Why? So that we can wage a full-scale retaliation against Iran when the time calls for it. Like when? When the federal government becomes so insolvent as to rent itself out to the Chinese? Is Iran stupid? Even sanctions will beget retaliation once Iran determines (in full) that Israel’s boys have, too, monopolized the Obama Administration policy on the Middle East and Iran.

If the Iranians can get over their Persian chauvinism, they would seize onto a golden opportunity: to evolve an Arab Islamic front in Iraq. That front would include Sunni and Shia. And Iran will tip its support incrementally towards that front, and away from the harmful idiots’ puppet government. Not an easy task, I admit. But a task, nonetheless. (I'ver discussed this possibility a number of times in the past.) Once such a front evolves, the sky will be the limit. Through that front Iran should be able to neutralize the Saudi ruling elite and the latter’s endless schemes against it. Iran has the seeds for that front: Sadr, the Sunni Association of Muslim Ulamas, and Arab Syria.

U.S. troops, be they stationed in Iraq or in Kuwait, will be political fodder for the Arab Islamic front in Iraq. That front -- and a new Iraqi government -- might just say the hell with the tens of billions of dollars of Iraq’s oil money the US is holding hostage, or might threaten Kuwait to have the harmful idiots cough up the money. That front should scare the wits out of anyone who would still claim compensation for the war in which Arab Iraq had been entrapped by Kuwaiti intelligence and the harmful idiots.

That’s why the harmful idiots need to talk to Iran. More importantly, Saudi Arabia needs to partner with Iran all over the region. This should be done from under an American defense shield (for Saudi Arabia) -- but not with a huge and visible U.S. military presence. Conventionally, some sort of trip wire will have to do. Unconventionally, when it comes to the Arab and Muslim Streets, Mr. Obama or not, the U.S. and its proteges -- the Saudi ruling elite and Israel -- don’t stand a chance. Even if Israel withdraws from every inch of pre-1967 land, we’re bankrupt and can’t help in the payment of reparations.

(I sincerely hope the new idiots aren't counting on President Obama to turn the tide in the Islamic and Arab World. Policies work, not speeches.)

Unless the U.S. adopts and encourages Arab nationalism (and an Arab common market) -- which would distance Arabs from both Israel and the Iranians. But what are the chances of that - - to distance Arabs from the harmful idiots’ beloved? Better another national bankruptcy and impoverishment for all.

AN IRANIAN MESSAGE

third draft

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The questions are as follows:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s Ali al-Haj Yusef from Tehran:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SOUP LINES, ANYONE?

first draft

Baghdad, I've come to you
As a broken ship
Hiding my wounds
Under my clothes.

Ilham al-Madfai, "Baghdad." (My translation from Arabic.)

The usual suspects, foreign policy experts whose views are colored by concern about Israel, are dispatching flurries of proposals for the new President about Iraq, a Middle East settlement, and especially about sanctions and war on Iran.

I don’t have the time (and I don’t want ) to discuss their self-serving ideas and the ideas of their allies. But I’d like to note that, once again, these foreign policy entrepreneurs are making the same mistakes they made when they had dispatched the troops to invade Iraq:

One mistake: assuming that they’re smarter than their opponent -- in this case, Iran. (Iran can draw circles around them.)

More seriously, these people aren’t connecting/linking economic/financial issues to foreign policy options. Nouriel Roubini recently wrote:

“[W]ith governments and central banks bringing private sector losses on their balance sheets, fiscal deficits will top $1000 bn for the US in the next two years. The Fed and the Treasury are taking a massive amount of credit risk endangering the long-term solvency of the US government.”

Nouriel Roubini, “How to avoid the horrors of ‘stag-deflation’,” FT.com (Financial Times), Dec. 2, 2008. Emphasis added.)

Soup lines, anyone?