HOW TO ROB THE ARABS OF THEIR IDENTITY

rough draft

NOTE: what follows is a summary of a larger treatment. I’ve done away with the latter in part because it was lengthy, in part because of dissatisfaction with the way it flowed.

SUMMARY: THE OVERALL PICTURE

The Arab part of the Muslim expanse between the Atlantic and the Central Asian republics, whose oil-and-gas-and-routes are one prize for American strategists (in addition to Iraq’s), is subject to a de facto process of vitiating its Arab identity as a result of the imperial strategy to encircle and secure the oil-and-gas wells and pipelines of those republics - - and of Iraq.

Currently, the strategists are in a retreat mode. They had drawn their plans with the help of the Diaspora strategists who, so obsessed by Israel and wanting to keep it prize-worthy for U.S. foreign policy (“we and Israel know Arabs”) and keep themselves relevant, did so without the benefit of familiarity and knowledge about their own country’s financial and economic limitations. Not to mention their mediocrity at assessing the strategic repercussions of invading Iraq and dismembering it.

While in that mode of tactical retreat - - which may prove not-so-tactical if the financial crisis endures - - Turkey (representing the interests of the United States) and Iran are groping for a modus operandi in their relationship pending (for the U.S. strategists) the rehabilitation of the financial system in the United States and the taming, now by blockade later likely by war-if-need-be, of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

For now the two (Turkey and Iran) are using Syria as the go-between, the opening door, one to the other. Both - - for now - - seem to appreciate that role by Syria and seem to want to bolster both - - Syria and its role as go-between.

There’s news that the strategists are putting pressure on Qatar to end its cozy rapport with Iran and rein in its Islamic Arab nationalism. If Qatar goes the strategists’ way - - so would a decent visible part of the Arab identity. (I’m not exaggerating.) The strategists did in Arab Iraq, one rich source for visible Arab identity and nationalism; now it’s Arab Qatar. Decades ago, they did in Nasser’s Arab Egypt. As predicted by this newsletter, one ominous result of this blind push by the strategists - - and the faith they put in their reactionary (likely Arab) advisers - - is to force Arab and Islamic nationalism fully underground, a la al-Qaeda - - but with better tools in organization and impact since - - and I strongly believe this - - one generation learns from another.

A powerful determinant in the American strategists’ goal (conscious or not) to eliminate Arab identity, on their way to Iraqi and Central Asian oil-and-gas-and-routes, is the American base that is Israel. Prized as a “Jewish state” by both the American and the Diaspora strategists, at times one-and-the-same, the paradigm of the atomized sectarian exclusivity of that base spills over into the Arab nation (and the Muslim expanse) to further break it apart into sectarian (e.g., Shia., Christian) and ethnic (e.g., Kurdish, Berber) identities and attendant dreams of parallel nation-states (e.g., Kurdish.) Here, the American imperial strategists likely become befuddled (or should become so) as they now have to micro-manage the Muslim and Arab expanse and the instability their very push towards oil-and-gas-and-routes has helped and help produce. (Note, for instance, that they would rely on Kurds and Shias to take-over Arab Iraq, only to have the same people stand in their way: the Shia-as-the-Shia-realm which is protective of Iran, and the Kurds as the complicating factor in their relationship to Turkey.

Micro-management can be seen when it comes to the current regimes in the Arab stepping-stones for the oil-and-gas expansion - - e.g., Egypt, Saudi Arabia. These likely are feeling their next-to-last breath - - historically. (I’m not diminishing their creativity at making a come back, especially if either Iran or the idiots-reluctant act impulsive.) The American strategist had skillfully used September 11 to tame the Saudi royal elite. Should their plans forge forward, they will unavoidably force that elite to open up the political system, at a minimum. Ditto for Egypt. (Is this the true reason why President Mubarak has canceled his planned trip to the U.S.?) Change is coming. Will that change be of a kind to bolster the plans of the imperial strategists to secure the oil-and-gas-and-routes of Iraq and the Central Asian republics?

In a way, the Saudi royal elite was way ahead of me. Though I caught on to the distinct possibility that the Saudi elite is funding the Israel Lobby, it somewhat escaped me (not fully) that the elite knew first-hand that political change was coming to the Kingdom - - coming from the United States! (My weakness is twofold: (a) generally, I don’t read prior issues; and (b) I don’t head to the field and talk to all.) Hence the hope the Saudi elite likely had/has that renting the Diaspora’s services, so to speak, could scuttle the course of U.S. foreign policy. That course would be one where the Saudi royal elite would politically live (to the extent it will) at the mercy of the imperial strategists - - bureaucrats-not-politicians. The Saudi ruling elite would hope that the Diaspora strategists would put to use their fortress, the U.S. Congress, to (in the end) return the situation to a status-quo-ante - - to pre-September 11. (All, in a way, would depend on the solvency of the federal government, though the larger national security bureaucracy should endure.)

Management of the Arab-and-Muslim expanse can be seen, too, in the take-over by the U.S. national security bureaucracy of the cause of the Palestinian state. But for Hamas: near-total take-over! (A friend refers to Fateh as “the CIA whore.” It’s true - - and very funny.) That take-over is so complete that no Palestinian on the West Bank (where the “whore” is tasked to crack down on its own people) is allowed to raise her head against Israeli occupation and theft of land and water. Put differently: the national security bureaucracy, by taking over so completely, has buried the Palestinian national cause. That cause on the West Bank now awaits a new generation.

(What’s fascinating about this relatively new course - - to take on the cause of the Palestinian state, go after the Israel Lobby to tame it, and be willing to micro-manage polities like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt - - is its historical/political science significance: Did this process start with Crusader? Did he issue an Executive Order (sorry: I need to check a poli. Sci. textbook to see if these can be secret - - likely can) to go after the Israel Lobby and tame it? In other words, was Crusader’s White House, post-Iraq, made up of two executives, two Presidents - -two states: a national security state (Crusader) and a parallel Diaspora state (Bald Samson)?