HEADLESS CHICKENS ON A TRAIN THAT HAS LONG LEFT THE STATION

a rough draft.


SUMMARY: The Axis of the Screwed, led by Saudi Arabia, convened a conference in Abu Dhabi recently. The conference likely was a message to President Obama to give them assurances that he would champion an aggressive anti-Iran policy. Or else. That kind of threat worked with Bald Samson in May 2007. Will it work with Mr. Obama?

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Now they have no one to fight for them. And if Hamas goes, they really will have no one.

Egypt had been taken out with Camp David. Arab Iraq was taken out by the Jewish-Evangelist Big Oil politicians of the country that detests Arabs, especially the Sunni. Now they only have Israel left to fight for them – they hope. As if to make sure their suicide is complete, they cheered Israel on to take out Hamas. But Hamas resisted well. Lucky for them Hamas resisted, though they don’t know it. Their hope at one time, when the Jewish-Evangelist Big Oil politicians had ruled, was to have the harmful idiots dominate their region and eliminate any and all Arab opposition groups. Hezbollah (the 1980s; 2006) and Hamas (2009) have dashed that hope. Not that they have adapted to the new reality. They haven't: They’re headless chickens. The Arab Axis of the Screwed (Saudi Arabia-U.A.E.-Egypt) has only money – the Egyptian ruling elite is a beggar member. Israel is an uncertain tool for them, at best. Will this (money and Israel) be enough for them to wipe out all Arab opposition -- their antithesis since it champions non-corruption -- to their rule and to contain Iran?

THEY DREAD IRAN, BUT NOT FOR LONG?

The Iranian threat, to them (as a ruling elite), is multi-faceted:

-- Iran will be impossible to dislodge from Iraq for the foreseeable future. Forget all the U.S. press reports about how great Maliki has done in the provincial elections. These reports are tantamount to “let’s declare victory and depart.” Which is not bad for us in the United States, now that the Jewish Evangelistas, the Federal Reserve, and the bourgeois economists have so bankrupted us. But an Iraq that is close to Iran is yet another Arab country that will make Iran yet more acceptable to the Arab public; yet another bridge to the Sunni public -- the same public who scares the hell out of the ruling elite.

(Meanwhile the harmful idiots, via Kuwait, are banking on the Kurds to restrain Arab Iraq. Consider Masoud Barazani's recent visit to Kuwait where he thanked it for the economic support it had provided his real country – Kurdistan.)

-- Iran as a Shia power is an appealing pole to the Shia in the Arab Gulf. These are treated as second class citizens. For instance, they’re not allowed a real voice, let alone to rule, in a sectarian polity like Bahrain's, where they are a clear majority. (Please understand: I'm not inciting; my hope is to provide parameters to those whose task it is to define policy.)

-- Iran threatens the stature of Saudi Arabia within the Arab and Muslim Worlds and at home (in Saudi Arabia) in three ways:

a. Iran is perceived by the Arab public as having long ago taken on the cause of the Palestinian Arabs, majority Sunni;

b. Iran supports Syria, which gives Arab Syria prominence within the Arab World, lifting it from an impoverished land to a pole that competes with rich Saudi Arabia and Egypt combined;

c. Iran, by its mere presence, gives countries such as Arab Qatar room to maneuver in foreign policy, which gains the Qatar ruling elite tons of legitimacy. (Until, that is, the harmful idiots overturn Shaykh Hamad’s rule when they catch their breath from the financial meltdown and the Iraq fiasco.) That contrast in legitimacy (the Qatar ruling elite as supporter of the Palestinian people, including Hamas, at a time when the Saudi ruling elite is colluding with the atacking Israelis.) It couldn’t be good for the Saudi ruling elite, could it? Another example is Lebanon: Saudi Arabia restricts its financial help to the Hariri team; while Iran floats the entire bankrupt Lebanese state – all of it, not only one team.

But the countries of the Axis of the Screwed can’t seem to catch up with the times.


SUMMIT CONFERENCES AS A WEAPON. NOT

Other than money, the Axis of the Screwed is left with one weapon and one weapon only: summit conferences.

On or about February 3, foreign ministers of nine Arab countries, led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, met in Abu Dhabi. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Morocco, Bahrain, and Yemen dispatched their foreign ministers; and so did Mahmoud Abbas.

Absent without explanation were Iraq and Kuwait. Some at the conference told the press that these two had said they would send their foreign ministers to the summit; but they did not. Obviously, the two countries are way too close geographically to Iran and the Abu Dhabi summit was all about containing Iran. Syria was kept out since it’s allied to Iran. Qatar was too, for its support of Hamas, itself supported by Iran. Hamas – well it’s part of the problem for the Axis of the Screwed, isn’t it? Libya wasn’t told at all about the meeting. Oman wasn’t there, but it had been busy mediating between Egypt and Syria.

Bahrain was there. It forever amazes me how Bahrain can get away with being so flagrantly anti-Iranian. (Bahrain is home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet. Maybe that’s why.) Bahrain has a Sunni government ruling a Shia majority. On or about January 30, thousands of Bahrainis took to the streets to protest the illegal naturalization policy of the government. This Sunni government policy is meant to add Sunni to the population to balance the Shia majority. An estimated 12,000 to 20,000 people marched.

STOP NON-ARAB (IRANIAN) INTERFERENCE IN ARAB AFFAIRS

The U.A.E.’s Foreign Minister, Shaykh Abdallah bin Zayid Aal Nahyan, linked the summit to Saudi King Abdallah’s call at the recent Kuwait economic conference, for reconciliation among Arab countries. This statement revealed that (1) Saudi Arabia was in fact the force behind this silly contain-Iran summit; and (2) Saudi Arabia may be changing tracks from inciting Sunni turmoil in Syria to paying off Syria (lovingly) to break its alliance with Iran. Or maybe use both: carrot and stick. The U.A.E.’s foreign minister said that one aim of the conference was to “assure the non-intervention of non-Arab parties [he meant Iran], such intervention [being] unwanted and unnecessary.”

The conference wasn’t really about reconciliation among Arab countries. How could it be with so many of these not present? Besides, that train has long left the station. The conference if anything was yet another asinine effort by Saudi Arabia to rally the troops (a metaphor: to rally those addicted to conferences) to contain Iran.

The U.A.E.’s foreign minister promised yet more meetings of the kind. (Iran is so scared.) He said that these meetings would re-affirm Arab support for the Arab (it’s called Arab, but it’s really Saudi) peace initiative with Israel – something for the Obama Administration to chew on. And that the conferees met and would meet again to affirm their support for Mahmoud Abbas, and for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. So sad. So desperate. As if Israel is listening to them.

In other words: Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. want Khalid Mishaal, Hamas, and Syria to know that Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. will fight to the last drop of oil any attempt by these to form a new organization (alternative to the PLO) to lay claim to the allegiance of the Palestinian people. Hamas (and Syria) have used this threat after they’ve come to be stunned by the not-so-subtle support by Mahmoud Abbas, Saudi Arabia, and the U.A.E. for the Israeli barbaric (really: killing a couple hundred children!) war on Gaza. Consider that there were reports in the opposition press that at least one official within Abbas’s circle had expressed frustration that the Israelis wouldn’t engage Hamas fighters directly so as to extricate Hamas from Gaza..

The Lebanese daily al-Akhbar (Left; close to Hezbollah) said that one source at the Abu Dhabi conference had told it that the conferees had wanted to support Egypt’s efforts in Palestine, which the source said were meant to draw all Palestinian organizations closer once again. The idea, the source had revealed, was to contain Iranian influence since Iran gets quite a lot of mileage from the Palestinian cause. Another goal, that source had revealed, was to pressure Syria to split from Iran.


THAT TRAIN HAD IN FACT LEFT THE STATION. HEADLESS CHICKENS BEHIND THE TIMES: WHY SHOULD HAMAS TRUST THEM? AND WHY WOULD ARAB SYRIA SPLIT FROM A FAITHFUL BACKER – IRAN?

Now that Hamas has stood its ground, the Saudi strategy, it seems, is to try again to re-unite Hamas with the asset of the harmful idiots and their Israelis – Mahmoud Abbas. Not that Hamas isn’t willing to act from under the umbrella of the PLO. But Hamas likely is in a state of shock: how could these so-called Arabs (Abbas, Fateh, and the ruling elite of Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., and Egypt) hooray as Israel was committing mass murder against their people? (The state of shock likely accounts for Hamas’ paranoid behavior vis-a-vis the distribution of U.N. aid.)

That train has left the station. Hamas should’ve learned not to trust these, and to trust Iran. It’ll work with Fateh and Mahmoud Abbas, but on its terms. For as long as over 600 Israeli checkpoints dot the relatively minute West Bank, Hamas wouldn’t trust Fateh. These Israeli checkpoints are meant against it. They’re meant to keep Abbas alive politically (though imperfectly) while Jordan and the harmful idiots train the CIA-fuunded shock troops for him. Which troops are meant to wipe out Hamas. No. This isn’t the way to deal.

That train has left the station.

Arab Syria isn’t going to trust them either. Can’t they see that Iran has been a faithful supporter of Syria for decades now? That Iran and Russia have kept the Syrian armed forces capable (not to mention Hezbollah's), not like the Saudi armed forces or the Emirati – which exist on paper only, as a way of channeling money about. Syria isn’t the U.A.E.: it can’t allow itself to be defended by a motley of British, French, and American troops. (It’s really the Americans who deter on behalf of the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia. The British and the French are in it for the ride and for some money. They can hardly defend themselves. Ask the British sailors who in detention were wolfing down Persian food. Do you remember?)

Besides, the French have plans to reduce their military presence overseas, in places like Lebanon, to save money. And the British Foreign Minister recently returned from Afghanistan to allude to the fact that Britain can’t do it alone – that others have to pay up for British military services. (He wasn’t referring to the European cover his country had given the harmful idiots in breaking up Arab Iraq, which exposed those who he wants to have pay for services which wouldn’t have been needed in the first place had his government not assisted in breaking up Arab Iraq.)

Syria is unlikely to let go of the consistent help Iran and Russia offer it. It can’t sit there begging as Egypt for a buck from the Saudi ruling elite. That Saudi elite will explode from within, anyway. For years I’ve heard that there were 6000 Saudi princes. By now, if each had on average six boys (princes) – since they can marry four wives, and more if they divorce so long as they pay – there are likely 36,000 princes soon to be all on the government payroll. Not to mention the princesses who, too, likely are on the payroll, though at a lesser amount. If each prince on average receives $300,000 per year – 36,000 prices will be receiving nearly $11 billion. (I’m not particularly good with numbers; you’d need to crunch up your own.) Add the payroll for the princesses. Consider that each of the six little princes will reproduce like his dad.

Iran is a more reliable ally financially and technologically for Syria. Splitting it from Iran is not a strategy; it’s an illusion.

THE WAY AHEAD

The Arabs of Iraq are uniting to face off with the Kurds, but this time these Arabs of Iraq, Shia- led, aren’t and will not be anti-Iran. (Iran can thank King Abdallah and Bandar bin Sultan and their Jewish-Evangelist politicians of Big Oil for bringing Iraq’s Arabs into Iran’s fold. ) Iran has floated Lebanon financially and , oddly, made it more Arab than ever before. Hezbollah is here to stay; Hamas is here to stay. The Israelis live in a world of daydreams about a Jewish ghetto they’ve romanticized, cleansed of any and all Palestinians. The United States is in no mood for wars against Iran or anyone. The West, China, Russia – all are dreading domestic turmoil. No one has time for asinine contain-Iran policies which the Axis of the Screwed is championing in its conferences.

Iran will wait out Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozi, likely assets of the harmful idiots (and the Israelis for Sarkozi), who should face the same fate as another, Spain's Jose Maria Aznar. What with the financial meltdown and the associated social turmoil to come.

I say they’re going to run.

Run to Tehran and accept it. Like Arab Qatar, they’ll be living under the umbrella of U.S. protection but with close relations with Iran. The best of all worlds. I bet you Israel already has opened channels with Tehran. Why should they be left behind?

So what if they have to give their Shia Arabs some rights? Only us, the U.S., under whose defense umbrella they’ll be living, will have to struggle with our self-image: to be defending pre-historic regimes, such as Bahrain’s, say at a time when the political opposition in like sheikdoms is boiling over. Do we sit idle and watch as these governments we have under our defense umbrella stifle any and all democracy? True, we should be the last to lecture anyone, after the beastly war on an Arab country that has meant us no harm and the devastation we brought onto that country. But here in America, post Crusader, we breathe in a democratic ethos. So it’s unlikely that we would stand for no democracy at all in protectorates made up of Arabs, especially Sunni, who the American public detests. That public will blame the Arab Sunni for not accepting the gorgeous democracy we had brought them by orphaning their children in Iraq. Let alone have American protect them.

It’ll be our dilemma, not theirs.