ARAB BI-POLARITY: EGYPT V. HEZBOLLAH -- AND HOSNI MUBARAK'S SONG

(rough, oh so rough, draft, written while pursuing (weekend) Happiness in researching and shopping for a car AKA Freedom , and doing my laundry AKA more Freeedom.)

ACID WORDS

A war of words and more is being waged across the Mediterranean. And no, it’s not between Syria and Egypt. It’s between the Egyptian ruling elite and . . . Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah. The Israeli SS-like extermination of Gaza’s children, executed from a “civilized” distance, brought that war of words (and more -- i.e., the Egyptian claim that they have dismantled a Hezbollah-led cell in Sinai) into the wide open. Hasan Nasrallah, during the Israeli killing campaign of a couple hundred children, unleashed not Hezbollah’s missiles against the Israelis, but a barrage of acid words against the Egyptian ruling elite. That elite is now intensifying its counter-campaign of accusations (Hezbollah as agent of Iran) against Sayyed Nasrallah.

HEZBOLLAH'S AIM

Sayyed Hasan has meant the unrelenting and obstreperous (you like that?) verbal attacks (the last on or around January 30) to achieve the following:

1. To excuse Hezbollah before the Arab public (where that party’s popularity is paramount) for failing to launch missiles against Israel. These missiles would’ve lessened the brunt of that country’s SS-like extermination of Gaza’s children -- executed from a distance, of course, to be “civilized.” (“We’re but modern-day people. We don’t exterminate children but from a civilized distance.”)

2. To busy, so to speak, the Egyptian ruling elite with domestic trouble : Ruling servants of the harmful idiots/Israel v. Muslim Brothers and sympathizers among the middle class. The idea would be to prevent that elite from dispatching a proxy army of intelligence operatives into Iraq. Again, to regress, these wouldn’t make much of a difference against Iran-in-Iraq; but Iran doesn’t want any party to contest its bound-to-increase influence in Iraq, not even when that party would be useless -- e.g., the Egyptian operatives. Who needs a headache, albeit minor? Ask the Iranians. Right? Still, the ruling elite of Egypt is dying to prove its usefulness to the harmful idiots and the Saudi ruling elite. The place to do it would be Iraq, post-withdrawal of our troops.

But Gaza stands in the way. “Those cowardly Israelis,” says the Egyptian ruling elite; "They wouldn't engage Hamas in man-to-man combat." "You do it," answer the Israelis; "We specialize in murdering children, from a civilized distance."

3. To act from within the historic script which says that Hezbollah in the end hails from an Arab nationalist tradition. (Remember the quid pro quo modus operandi between Arab Islamic nationalist forces and Iran -- see two posts back.)

4. To reflect Hezbollah’s conviction (and that of Syria and Iran) that the harmful idiots have exhausted their energy with Iraq and Afghanistan, and that the local actors are taking over. Hence the increased prominence (yet more) of a local political party AKA people’s army -- Hezbollah.

You see: the welfare program (the Iraq and Afghanistan "wars") of the military-industrial complex and the Evangelical churches/Jewish synagogues in the land of the harmful idiots will be trimmed. Crusader and Bald Samson have paid off their loyalists handsomely, making them millionaires and billionaires many times over, while exhausting our country financially. Enough, Mr. Obama is bound to say; I've had it. Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah are aware of this. The Egyptian ruling elite is on its own, so to speak. If Iran doesn’t make a mistake or fall into a trap -- the future should belong to it and its allies.



HOSNI MUBARAK’S SONG

Bye, bye all Arabs
Bye, bye sweet relllll- levance
Hello uselessness
I think I’m gonna die
Bye, Arab public, goodbye

Here go-ooooo my Arrraaaaabs
With someone new [Iran]
They sure look haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaappy
I sure I’m [Israel] blue
They were my Arrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaabbbbs
When Nasser Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas innnnnnnnn
Goodbye sweet relllllll----levance
I’m in . . the dustbin

TENSION RISES BETWEEN IRAN AND THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

rough first draft

BY WAY OF BACKGROUND

For a long time now the United Arab Emirates has seemed to have become a spy and operations’ station for the harmful idiots in their war with Iran. (Iran likely has at least as many spies in the U.A.E. as the harmful idiots.) The U.A.E., in particular Dubai, had been Iran’s economic lungs, so to speak. The Islamic Republic has used the U.A.E. to lessen the impact of sanctions imposed against it by the United States and (mostly) NATO countries. (China loves it.)

There’s a tad of an Israeli angle to this. Syrian news sources (the peripheral ones -- I’ll explain some other time) had in the recent past talked about Israeli “penetration” of the UAE -- that former Israeli generals and intelligence officers have entered the UAE as part of “Western” companies that had won security contracts. A while ago, I’ve reported in this blog that Iranian travelers were being subjected to higher security procedures at the Dubai airport

The U.A.E. contests the Iranian claim of sovereignty over three islands in the Persarab Gulf, the largest (I believe) being Abu Musa. Iran currently occupies these islands. I’ve always thought of these islands as Arab. But I don’t know the history of the controversy. The harmful idiots and the Israelis likely are taking advantage of the frustration the U.A.E. feels about losing these islands. But, frankly, with Arab Iraq gone, I don’t see the U.A.E. ever regaining them. The harmful idiots will use these islands to get their way with the U.A.E.; but the harmful idiots would never want to risk war for these islands. (If war happens, the harmful idiots are unlikely to want to occupy Iranian territory, inluding these islands, anyway, since a war of attrition agaisnt them would ensue.) For now, the islands are Iran’s. The U.A.E. doesn’t have the troops to fight a “crew”(gang) from Washington, D.C. , let alone Iran.

The harmful idiots, likely with the Israelis and the British, have been making attempts at dislodging Iran from the U.A.E., fully, as part of their policy of tightening the screws on the de facto blockade against Iran. There also have been signs that the harmful idiots have been directing the U.A.E.’s foreign policy in full. It has seemed like the U.A.E.’s Foreign Minister is a full-time agent of the harmful idiots and the Israelis, being handled by these. Consider, for instance, his visit with Mahmoud Abbas (the cargo getter of our tax money for his men’s villas in Jordan) in Ramallah where he went through Tel Aviv and not through Amman. His visit in retrospect had seemed like the prologue for the Israeli savagery against Gaza. Consider, in contrast, that the Islamic deputy to Kuwait’s parliament, Dr. Walid Tabtabaii (he dons a hugely Islamic beard, very comforting to non-Muslims) made his way to Gaza to survey the damage of Israel’s savagery and mass murder by sneaking across the border from Egypt.


IRAN WARNS THE U.A.E.

Things must’ve gotten pretty bad for Iran to recently issue a battery of warnings to the U.A.E. :

1. Ali Larijani, Speaker of the Islamic Shura Council (parliament) told the U.A.E. to change its behavior towards Iranian travelers or else risk retaliation by the Shura Council. He said that the Shura Council’s demand is serious; that the deputies to parliament have serious misgivings about the treatment of Iranian travelers. In addition, he warned that the U.A.E. continues to float hostile controversies (he means the islands) risking the sizeable trade exchange between the two countries.

[NOTE: One of the mistakes I made in this blog was to have been the first to have raised the issue of the islands soon after the harmful idiot occupation of Arab Iraq. Let me correct my mistake. O Harmful Idiots, hear me well: the Arab public will side with Iran on the issue of the islands and not with your Emirati self-hating Arab dummy leaders -- no offense intended. The fact that the Syrian (peripheral) press has highlighted Israeli military “penetration” of the U.A.E. is signal to the Arab and Muslim public to hate the U.A.E. rulers, not to love them. The prototype for your success in the region is Arab Qatar: Arab and Muslim, keeping a polite distance from the Israelis. The Israelis will screw up your plans -- as they had -- any and every days. The U.A.E. rulers, by accepting to be handled in part by the Israelis, will never curry any sympathy from the Arab public. Get it?]

2. Manuchehr Mutaki, Iran’s Foreign Minister, affirmed Iran’s intent on defending to death each and every inch of its territory. (He means the islands.) He affirmed that Iran’s sovereignty over the island of Abu Musa is a “clear and documented matter.” (Why didn’t he mention the other two islands? A lure to the U.A.E.?) Mutaki had been responding to questions from parliament deputies both about the “expansionist desires” of the U.A.E. (The islands) and about that country’s alleged interference in Iranian domestic affairs. (Likely a reference to the fact that the U.A.E. has become a harmful idiot spy and operational base against Iran.)


3. Ali Zari’i Najfadri (sp.–remember: my sources are mostly Arabic), adviser to the Iranian president, warned the U.A.E. of the repercussions of its mistreatment of Iranian travelers. He reminded the Emirates that these had become the commercial center of the region thanks to Iranian capital. He warned of economic retaliation against the U.A.E. such as canceling its share of the investment (or the share of Emirati investors -- it’s unclear) in a cellular communication project in Iran. (He's too nice. Iran an do way more things to the U.A.E. than canceling an investment, but it would risk severe losses to Iranian capital in the U.A.E.)

U.A.E.’s RESPONSE

I looked at alkhaleej.co.ue and akhbaralarab.co.ue -- two U.A.E. dailies. I didn’t find much of a response. One article in alkhaleej.co.ue , not prominently-placed, said that the Iranian Ambassador had warned against giving too much credence to the information about mistreatment of Iranian travelers. (He’s Iran’s ambassador to the U.A.E.; so he has to say that.) The U.A.E. obviously would like to avoid the entire controversy. It’s as if it’s saying, “It’s the harmful idiots and their tool, the Diaspora Boys, who are doing all of this. Us? We’re helpless. But hey, maybe we’ll get those islands back, anyway. Meanwhile, we'll let the harmful idiots and the Diaspora Boys and the Israelis form a state-within-a-state in the U.A.E. and run our foreign policy, since all we care about is money. Still, maybe, just maybe, we'll get the islands back. Won't we?”

Forgive my harshness, but it’s anchored in realism: Dream on.

OPEN LETTER TO SENATOR GEORGE MITCHELL

rough second draft

DECLARATION OF (NO) CONFLICT

1. There once was a rumor going about that we’re related, you on your mother’s side, I on my father’s. My answer to this rumor: Nature is cruel -- so cruel that it didn’t go half-half on anything between the Mitchells and the Khaters. It gave the Mitchells all the smarts.

2. I’m sick and tired of the Middle East.

3. No, I have no attachment to any Lebanese party whatsoever, or Saudi, or Ethiopian, or Syrian, or Samoan. I don’t mean to be harsh: but I don’t care about all of these places. Give me a beach any day. So why do I have a blog on Arab politics? Likely because at one time I thought people would listen. Post September 11. No one does. But I do have other interests, you know, like keeping up with defense attorney Harry Wessel (www.HarryWessel.com.) Mr. Wessel is the attorney you want on your side if you get in trouble in Washington, D.C.

4. I don’t have any interest whatsoever in political appointment. To prove it: this blog has spared no one.


Here’s a short outline of what I think you should be looking for as background in your negotiations. Warning: It'd destroy your negotiations if you reveal in any way that you got ideas from this blog; don’t even acknowledge reading it! Everything in this blog is insulting to the actors.

IRAQ DID CHANGE A LOT OF THINGS

As much as I’d like to think that the more things change the more they’re the same -- for the time being: Iraq has changed everything. I don’t know what the people who eliminated Arab Iraq had in mind. (I do know, but it’s neither here nor there now.) But I can tell you that these people must’ve never taken International Relations Theory 101 -- mostly about balance of power. Too, these people didn’t understand the limit of things in their own country – such as how our economy can be pushed to a limit, and how other countries do have money, too, and can balance our power by funding those who oppose harmful idiot plans. Finally, because these people are Israel-obsessed, they were bad students of the region. All in all: a disaster.

ARAB IRAQ HAD BALANCED IRANIAN POWER

Arab Iraq had balanced Iranian power, but not only militarily. More importantly, Arab Iraq was secular and partook in an Arab nationalist ideology that was acceptable to the Shia Arabs and had welcomed the Kurds, too, so long as these adopted Arab nationalism. When the harmful idiots eliminated Arab Iraq, they opened up a pandora’s box:

00 Iran no longer had an Arab regional military power to stand in its way – and no, Israel isn’t Arab nor Muslim and therefore cannot balance Iranian power; and

00 Iran, as a Shia power concerned with its Shia realm, laid claim to the Shia of Iraq (a majority) and Lebanon (likely a plurality by now) -- and, sooner or later, the Shia of the Gulf, who occupy mostly the eastern side of the Arabian Peninsula. (Bahrain, for instance, is majority Shia.) Even Yemen features a Shia minority and that fact became more widely known during the Saadah armed clashes pitting Shia (the Hawthis) against government troops. Saudi Arabia has Shia abutting its border with Yemen, an extension of the Saadah region. In addition, as with all the Gulf Arab countries, Saudi Arabia has a Shia minority in the Eastern Province.

It’s not that the Arab Shia necessarily follow Shia Iran’s lead. It’s that in many of the Arab countries the Arab Shia are treated as second class citizens. With the disappearance of Arab Iraq (and earlier that of Arab Egypt, also eliminated by the symbiotic alliance of the harmful idiots and the Israelis), these Arab Shia have come to find Iran attractive. Iran, in turn, under pressure by the Arab protectorates of the harmful idiots, and by the harmful idiots, trying to fail the Iranian Islamic government, seeks out the Arab Shia to buttress its defenses.

Militarily, the elimination of Arab Iraq has freed Iran. Here’s an example: the United Arab Emirates owns three islands in the Gulf: Abu Musa, Greater Tomb, and Smaller Tomb. Had Arab Iraq been around, Iran, which occupies these islands, would not be able to build any structure of significance on this Arab land. The Iraqi air force would take care of these structures. No longer. And, once again, no: Israel can’t do it. Israel’s involvement in the UAE, already pronounced, will eventually come to hurt the UAE -- what with events like Gaza and Israel’s savagery against Arabs, mostly Palestinian civilians, including children.

Israel hoorayed the invasion of Iraq. But that invasion has turned the tables on Israel. The argument that the mistake was in the disbanding of the Iraqi army and the Baath is a non-starter. To invade Iraq, Mr. Bush and his entourage mobilized Evangelists and Jews, neither one of whom had any love lost towards Arabs, the Sunni in particular. You can’t mobilize people and peak their hate of others so that they would conquer these; yet expect that these (Evangelists and Jews) make a fast turn around and begin to love the same people they so hated and conquered.

The ones who ran the show in Iraq soon after the invasion were mostly of the two groups. For instance, one of your former colleagues, Jewish, headed to Baghdad to lecture the Kangaroo court which tried Saddam Hussein on how to speed up the process -- which led to delivering the man to the lynch mob. You’ve been a judge and you would know better than others that that would’ve been grounds for a mistrial and recusal of the “judicial” team hearing the case. Even a change of forum likely would’ve been necessary -- say to a place like Cyprus.

Not to mention that not disbanding the Iraqi army would’ve resulted in a Shia insurgency, not Sunni. In other words, the conquerors had to chose between two insurgencies.



A NEW PARADIGM IN POLITICS: THE NEAR-ELIMINATION OF CORRUPTION

Iran is very much a player in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It sees Lebanon, for instance, as part of its strategy to deter an Israeli attack on it. It’s important, however, to not adopt the view that Iran is causing all the trouble. Hamas, supported by Iran, had won parliamentary elections! You couldn’t win parliamentary elections just because Iran supports you.

Why did Hamas win? Hamas and Hezbollah have introduced something novel to the Arab World: non-corruption! These two groups provide essential services to their constituents and do not rob national coffers blind. In contrast, Fateh, which is funded to the hilt by our CIA (I’m analytically guessing) is corrupt to the bone. In Lebanon, the late Rafiq al-Hariri, an asset of Saudi Arabia and our CIA (analytical conclusion) robbed the Lebanese national coffers blind; some say to the tune of $17 billion. Hezbollah’s leaders and those of Hamas in contrast are ascetics! (Hezbollah, too, contributed to the bankruptcy of the Lebanese state; but the money went to its constituency, not into the pockets of its leaders.)

At any rate: it helps to think of Hamas as the opposition; ditto for Hezbollah. It, too, helps to think of the Arab East, including the Gulf countries, as one Arab country. Hamas, Hezbollah, the Muslim Brothers –-- these are part of the political opposition in that one country.

BEYOND THE SCOPE OF YOUR MISSION?

The Bush people and Israel (with their Arab allies) have repeatedly miscalculated. Two recent examples come to mind: the Israeli assault on Lebanon in 2006 to create a “new Middle East” (the words of the September 11 Queen) and the recent assault on Gaza to uproot Hamas and bring into Gaza the forces of Mahmoud Abbas, being trained mostly by the Jordanians AKA CIA. (Think of Jordan as a CIA station -- analytical conclusion. I’m not being normative: the Jordanian ruling elite, too, needs to make a living.) In both, Israel and the Bush people failed to achieve their goals: eliminating Hezbollah and Hamas. If anything, both should become stronger. Non-corruption (and an impressive secrecy for Hezbollah -- I suspect Hamas will follow that route) is their most stunning weapon -- not missiles.

Iran needs Hezbollah as a deterrent against Israel -- to prevent Israel from attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities. Israel attacks and Hezbollah will launch thousands of rockets and missiles into Israel. That doesn’t make Hezbollah an Iranian force. The better way to think about this is to see it as a quid pro quo: Hezbollah is a Lebanese political party; it needs to compete in Lebanon’s elections; all Lebanese political parties receive funding from abroad: from Saudi Arabia, Iran, the harmful idiots, Kuwait, Arab Qatar, and France. Iran therefore is just another source of income that allows for competition. (Not to complicate matters: Hezbollah, too, packs a lot of Arab nationalism . In that sense, it has its own Arab agenda, separate and apart from Iran.)

Iran needs Hamas as a rallying cry, a Sunni Arab symbol for a Shia Iranian power. With Hamas, Iran would look good the Arab World over, and the Islamic World -- majority Sunni -- too. Iran’s support of this Arab Sunni rallying cry , Hamas, prevents the Arabs of Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Saudi Arabia (remember: they’re one country) from streaming into Iraq to fight the Shia regime there, and Iran. An inexpensive enterprise if you ask me. Hamas needs Iran, too. (Remember: the quid pro quo.) The harmful idiots, the Saudis, and the Emiratis pump lots of money into corrupt Fateh. What’s an Arab opposition party to do, as it witnesses the obscene corruption of the President of its country and his entourage? Their theft of resources to build villas in Jordan, instead of using these resources to improve the life of the Palestinian nation?

Will you be talking to the Iranians? Would it help?

ISRAEL

The Israeli leaders remind me of the Arab Christian Maronite leaders in 1975 --with one major difference: the Arab leaders of the Maronites aren’t thieves of others’ land and water. These outbid each other so viciously on “protecting” the Christians that they ended up screwing the Christians. Lebanon had been exploding demographically, which had translated into a ticking sectarian time-bomb. Add to that the fact that the PLO in Lebanon had formed a state within a state, financially and militarily, being generously financed by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Libya, and others.

Then came the alliance of three intelligence services: the CIA, Jordan's, and the Lebanese Deuxieme Bureau. These services had (mis-) calculated (what’s new?) that they can train and equip the Lebanese Christians to supplement the army in its plan to rein in the PLO -- all to avoid doing the right (Palestinian) thing. The Arab Christian Maronite leaders’ best option would’ve been to lay off and wait things out, until a Palestinian state is formed. Instead, they hyped each other into virtual suicide for their country and their community. The Israeli leaders are doing the same thing: it’s a contest among them on who can order the killing of the largest number of Palestinians, children and civilians included. This doesn’t work, to say the least.

There are things the Israelis can do. They can, for instance, open up their colleges to Palestinians. We know that women who attend college have less children than those who don’t. Gaza can use colleges.

Do be mindful that the Israelis would rather deal with any Arab who is not a Palestinian. At a very deep level, the Israelis likely fear that the very existence of the Palestinian national identity is tantamount to an irredentist future. That the Palestinian national identity eliminates the Israeli. What the Israelis don’t seem to appreciate is that they’re really are connected to the Palestinians in the deepest of fashions. In the long run, Israel/Palestine really is one country and the two national groups will have to accommodate each other in that country.

SYRIA

Syria is the only country with a pan-Arab ideology that is still standing on its feet. You eliminate it and you’ll pay the heaviest of prices. It’ll be the Sunni Islamists’ biggest victory, perhaps allied to Iran as a most likely scenario. The majority of the population in Syria is Sunni. They support a mostly-Alawite government not only because of repression. They do so because Syria is truly secular – maybe the only one in the Arab World. In addition, Syria’s commitment on behalf of the Palestinian cause is paramount. This support is pragmatic, too. It keeps the Syrians united. It’s no secret that Saudi intelligence has tried to foment Sunni trouble in Syria against the Asad government. Israel’s savage assault on Gaza, however, was godsend. As a consequence, Syria’s Muslim Brothers (likely–analytically–funded by the harmful idiots and Saudi intelligence) declared the suspension of their activism against the Syrian government, which activism likely was supported by Saudi intelligence.

Syria will not be able to act without the Palestinians, Hamas included. Its Sunni majority wouldn’t stand for it. So: a peace agreement has to be comprehensive. Financially: even if Saudi Arabia promises to replace all the benefits Syria receives from Iran and Russia (a couple of years ago, Russia forgave Syria over $10 billion), Syria couldn’t trust that the Saudis would keep up their promise. Russia and Iran need Syria. Saudi Arabia doesn’t. Better receive help from those who need you, right?


LEBANON

The Lebanese state is financially bankrupt, direly so. Saudi Arabia has pulled out its financial support because it’s not getting its way in Lebanon. Though the royals, partners with the Hariris, likely are collecting usurious interest money from the Lebanese state, since Hariri and his royal partners own at least one bank (likely two) which had loaned money to the state, of which Hariri stole half, yet the state pays interest ad infinitum to his (and the royals’) banks. (Which proves my point that you cannot depend on the Saudis. Saudi intelligence is channeling money through Hariri/Seniora to sectors of the population to try and keep a Hariri-led majority in parliament.) I suspect that Iran came in to replace Saudi Arabia and float(financially) the Lebanese state.

Lebanon has an estimated 410,000 Palestinians refugees. (Remember: Lebanon’s population is estimated at around 4 million.) How are you going to handle that? Like Syria, Lebanon will have to wait for a comprehensive settlement. At which settlement Lebanon expects to be compensated for all the turbulence and misery it has experienced from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Expect Hezbollah to champion that rallying cry to widen its popularity. (No one really has the money now–not Europe and not us.)

Lebanon’s cargo-cult-iyism works for it. The civil war had pushed out so many people to the West. These relatively recent immigrants send remittances – the essential income for many Lebanese. You may want to include the thousands of Lebanese now living in Israel in your negotiations. (I’m not sure how many of these still are in Israel.) These had been the backbone of Israel’s occupation of south Lebanon. My understanding had been that these would like to emigrate to the West, but that no one there wants them. I suspect many countries in the West believe that these would be Israeli spies/operatives anywhere they land, to be used by Israel especially against Arab emigre communities in these countries. Some might be, but I doubt the majority of them would be. It’ll be a kind gesture towards thousands of Lebanese (their extended families) if you would include these in your negotiations and perhaps ease their way into the West.


EGYPT

A ruling elite looking (badly) to be used by the harmful idiots.

Having signed a separate peace treaty with Israel, that elite had lost credibility in the Arab and Muslim worlds. (It wasn’t the signing of the treaty; it was the separate signing.) The Egyptian ruling elite likes to think of itself as able to balance Iranian power. Not. I believe it cooperated with Israel on Gaza to take advantage of the Israelis’ superb influence in the country of the harmful idiots – ours. The quid pro quo for their cooperation: to have Israel use its influence in the U.S. to persuade the harmful idiots to pay for and use Egyptian intelligence and army operatives in Iraq as U.S. troops begin their withdrawal -- to work with the U.S. contingent left in that country.


SAUDI ARABIA

Saudi Arabia and the other Arab Gulf countries to contain Iran had funded Arab Iraq’s unprovoked eight-year war on Iran. Later, on orders from the harmful idiots, these Arab protectorates turned on Arab Iraq and asked for their money back! But before these orders had been issued, and using the dumb Arab Sunni of Iraq, Saudi Arabia had succeeded in using these dumb Arab Sunni to contain Iran’s Islamic revolution. Then came Crusader, Bald Samson, and the Boys of the Diaspora -- and all became history.

For years Saudi foreign policy has been influenced by Bandar bin Sultan. Makes sense from a protectorate’s perspective: Saudi Arabia, like Israel and the other protectorates, nearly always give a higher voice to those who are friends (“assets”–their corrupt careers having been helped along by the harmful idiots) of an American administration. But, unlike Israel, Saudi Arabia doesn’t have a natural constituency in this country. The Diaspora Boys’ success in co-opting the Evangelist Right has robbed the Saudis of even the Big Oil constituency – since the politicians of the Evangelist Right (e.g., Crusader, Bald Samson) are, too, the politicians of Big Oil. These politicians are allied to the Israel Lobby. Ergo: Big Oil is allied to the Israel lobby. To make things even more depressing for the Saudis, the Diaspora Boys had succeeded at co-opting what is labeled as the Arab lobby. That lobby had never been impressive in its achievements. But now, in good part, it's a make-believe lobby! ha!

The Saudis have tried to get around this by co-opting the Israel lobby itself. Hence the analytical conclusion of this blog a time ago that the Saudis likely have been funding the Israel lobby.

The Saudis are eminently confused. On the one hand they cooperated with Israel and Egypt against the Gaza Palestinians. They did so with the idea that the harmful idiots would give Egypt a prominent role in Iraq and the region. (Saudi Arabia perceives Egypt as the only Arab country that’s able to (allegedly) protect the Saudi ruling elite from Iranian influence in Iraq. ) Egypt can field enough intelligence operatives to constitute a small army. In addition, Israel needs Egypt to rein in Gaza and therefore Israel will sway the harmful idiots to do what’s beneficial for the Saudi ruling elite, allied to Egypt, who's needed by Israel. (No longer: Israel went to the US and Europe to rein in Gaza; not to Egypt!) President Obama seemed to be biting when he phoned President Mubarak. (I think he phoned the Saudis a couple of days later, quite disconcerting for these.) But it doesn’t seem that President Obama is reneging on his promise to withdraw a majority of U.S. troops from Iraq, contravening an essential demand of the Saudis (and their Israeli allies.) And it’s unclear whether he would bite on funding and using an Egyptian contra inside Iraq.

(As the number of American troops diminish in Iraq, you can expect the majority of the Arab Sunni of that country to align increasingly with Iran, as the Lebanese Christians de facto did. It wouldn’t matter that the Saudis would flood the Arab Sunni with money. In the end Saudi Arabia’s cooperation with Crusader and Bald Samson in the invasion of Iraq gave the historical screw to the Arab Sunni of Iraq. It’s just a matter of how skillful the Iranians will be in handling the Arab Sunni rapprochement towards them. The Iranians have proved skillful in other situations – e.g., Lebanon. Hence the concern of the Saudis. )

The Saudis have championed the so-called Arab peace initiative towards Israel. This doesn’t work. Saudi Arabia can champion what it wants when oil prices are high; or when under pressure soon after September 11 and the wave of racist hate against them and all Arabs. But Saudi Arabia should necessarily lose its enthusiasm when oil prices are low. Not to mention statements and policies by Israeli leaders (most recently for your benefit) to the effect that settlements will grow larger. (When oil prices are low the Saudi ruling elite will necessarily turn inward and deal with a revived political opposition to governance by an extended family.) The Palestinians, including and especially Hamas, and the Syrians (because of Syria’s Arab nationalism, AKA Sunni majority) are the key to peace with Israel. Not Saudi Arabia.


ARAB QATAR

Do talk to its emir and its foreign minister. Arabness (and therefore credibility) seems to be well-entrenched in Arab Qatar. It’s worth at least one visit.

BITTER VICTORY FOR HAMAS

rough draft

Perhaps Israel’s Arab allies (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates) are taking a respite from their servility to the Axis of Conquest and New Colonialism (the harmful idiots and their Beloved.) Saudi Arabia has made up with Arab Syria; Egypt with Arab Qatar. Perhaps, too, that they can see that Israel has failed them:

00 Because they truly had bought into the idea that Israel would be leading as sheep Hamas’ men into holding pens inside Israel.

00 Because the number of Hamas leaders who Israel was able to kill (a symbolic “achievement,” but one that Hezbollah had trained Hamas not to concede) was rather minimal -- with Siyam as the only genuine leader who mattered. (But he likely has so many children and grandchildren and great grandchildren to take over from him.)

00 Because the savagery of the Israelis wasn’t something the Sudeiris and Abdallah of Saudi Arabia had bargained for, being dim-witted, under the spell of Bandar Bush and his "theories."

00 Because the Egyptian ruling elite, which had worked with the Israelis against the Gaza Palestinian Arabs, as only a self-hating slave would, did so to market itself in Iraq. Egypt joined in with Israel likely in exchange for Israel using its superb influence in the U.S. Congress and the executive agencies (among others: the CIA, State, and the Pentagon) to secure a paid role for Egypt in Iraq as the harmful idiots order withdrawal. (See prior post.) That Egyptian ruling elite was stunned when its Israeli ally’s Foreign Minister headed to the capital of the harmful idiots to seek assurances on monitoring the tunnels and not to Egypt.

00 Because Arab Qatar had staged a wonderful and brilliant coup when it had invited Iran, Indonesia, and Turkey to send emissaries to Doha for the emergency Arab summit on Gaza, which the Sudeiris and King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia had boycotted and worked hard to torpedo.

oo Because the Sudeiris of Saudi Arabia and the old (and ineffectual) King were told by people like Turki al-Faisal that the Arabs have replaced Saudi Arabia with Turkey and Iran -- and even Indonesia.

00 Because Turki likely told the Sudeiris and the helpless Saudi King that Arab Qatar is making a comeback as a symbolic all-Arab power, while the Kingdom is slippery-sliding into oblivion as an Arab power -- cheap with Lebanon, with the Saudi royals' corrupt man (having graduated from the Saudi school of high corruption) there, having robbed that poor country’s coffers blind, and amazingly callous to the loss of life among the Gaza Palestinian Arabs while Israel’s war machine (Saudi Arabia’s “strategic ally” according to Salman’s newspaper) was flexing its muscle against defenseless civilians a la Sabra and Shatila and a la mowing down of Lebanon’s civilians.

00 Because maybe, just maybe, the Arab allies of Israel have come to realize that they have to be Arab first -- that Israel is a treacherous “ally” which doesn’t trust them. Nor does anyone else.

Hamas wins, but a bitter (relative) victory. The Gazans now will have to pick up their dead from under the crumbled cement, bury the balance of these . . . Their misery: the result of yet more miscalculation by the harmful idiots, the diaspora boys, their Israelis, treasonous Fateh and the Arab regimes, and the up-for-sale Arab (and Arab-American) self-hating cowards.

Kudos to Arab Qatar for staying the Arab course.

BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS: SAVAGERY AND MASS MURDER ON THE WAY (BACK) TO PROJECT IRAQ

rough draft


PAST PREDICTION/ASSESSMENT

In August 2008, I posted “Project Iraq’s Next Phase: the Harmful Idiots’ Uncle Toms Head to Baghdad.” In that post I predicted that the harmful idiots’ next phase of the Iraq Project would be about dispatching to Baghdad umteenth numbers of Arab intelligence operatives to eat away at Iran’s influence.

IRANIAN STRATEGY

Though I have no evidence that Arab intelligence operatives have begun to arrive in Baghdad, it is possible that what we’re witnessing now, with Gaza, is a prelude for the upcoming war among intelligence services in Iraq. Egypt, with Israel’s assistance, likely wants to spearhead the effort in Iraq on behalf of the harmful idiots. Iran wants to stop it cold. The Egyptian ruling elite, made insignificant in the Arab and Muslim Worlds by signing a separate peace treaty with Israel, is dying for a re-birth as an imperial tool. It is worried that the harmful idiots see it as useless. By coordinating with Israel on the Gaza assault, the Egyptian ruling elite is hoping that Israel would use its influence in the land of the harmful idiots to regain for Egypt an imperial regional role. The Egyptian ruling elite would hope that the harmful idiots would allow it to spearhead their proxy effort in Iraq as the harmful idiots begin to withdraw. (My assessment: the Egyptians will make no dent in Iraq.)

But Iran received (unintended) help -- from Israel. Israel’s slaughter of hundreds of civilians, and the wounding and maiming of thousands, gave Iran ammunition it didn’t have. Thanks to Israel’s savagery Iran was able to turn the Gaza affair against the Egyptians. In addition, and in response to the Israeli/Egyptian/Saudi/ Emirati barbaric push on Gaza, Iran has intensified a campaign, using Gaza (a gift from Israel) to achieve the following:

1. To busy those regimes most likely to provide intelligence operatives (e.g., for now, Egypt) to serve the harmful idiots in Baghdad. The Egyptian regime is a hungry regime and will do anything for a buck. And it can field more intelligence operatives (an army, really) than any other harmful idiot Arab dependency. Gaza should preoccupy Egypt away from Iraq. (Not that Iran believes that the Egyptian operatives in Iraq would make too much of a difference; but keeping them at home is better. Right?) Israel’s murder of Palestinian civilians (not a first by any stretch -- they’re now using a film to wash their bloodied hands off the slaughter of at least 900 unarmed Palestinian civilians by their proxy, who they KNEW would do that, at Sabra and Shatila ), has given this Iranian tactic an unexpected boost.

2. To place these regimes on the defensive in the Arab and Muslim World, including in Iraq, as traitor regimes. By siding with Israel, even supporting it, as that country was massacring Arabs and Muslims, these regimes were further discredited among the Arab public, including the Iraqi. Again, Israel’s proxy savage assault on Gaza, on behalf of itself and of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, has given this Iranian tactic a superb boost. But it took an already-existing outright alliance by these Arab ruling elite with Israel to give success to this Iranian tactic. The Sudeiris (and King Abdallah, who isn’t a Sudeiri) of Saudi Arabia, for instance, much earlier had fallen into the trap of treason against their own, big time. Israel’s savagery just made it more plain.

(The Saudi ruling elite can place its confidence in its Israeli ally on a policy issue, but it should know that it cannot rein in Israel’s savagery against Arabs, especially Palestinians. One would think that the Saudi ruling elite, admittedly perhaps not that bright, would’ve known that, having witnessed -- and some believe paid for -- Israel’s assault on the Lebanese Arabs, mostly Arab Shia, in the summer of 2006. But the Saudi elite is having the diaspora boys think for them, maybe. These diaspora boys seem to have embedded themselves within Saudi policy-making institutions. How else explain Saudi support of slaughter of fellow Arabs and Muslims?)

All one need do to witness the effect of this successful Iranian entrapment (made one hundred times more effective thanks to Elliott Abrams, another one -- see below) is to read the writers of Asharqalawsat.com, owned by the Sudeiri Salman bin Abdelziz. The reader would fast realize how pro-Israeli the Sudeiris had become, before Gaza, influenced by the dubious and intellectually deficient hypothesis that Israel can balance Iranian power.

(This alliance with Israel is so dangerous to the royal Saudi elite that Turki al-Faisal rushed in with his martyrdom for God and Palestine statement, in a an attempt to to stem the dangerous slide by the Saudi royal elite into self-destruction. Turki seemed to be trying to save them from themselves.)

BEWARE OF OVERPLAYING IRANIAN INFLUENCE: WHAT THE SAUDI-ISRAELI ALLIANCE IS AFTER

As I’ve warned before in this blog: the harmful idiots should beware of seeing in the Iranian role in Arab politics more than that role deserves -- to overplay Iran’s influence, that is, sublimating the Arab opposition, a political force, even when Islamic, unto itself, for Iran. Having the harmful idiots treat the Arab opposition as nothing but paid proxies/terrorists of the Islamic Republic is a trap set up by the reactionary protectorates for the harmful idiots. The idea is to extend the involvement of the idiots who are harmful on behalf of the protectorates. Some, as Saudi Arabia, refuse to field a professional army lest this army stages a coup against the royals. Go figure.

The goal of Israel and Saudi Arabia is to see U.S. troops remain in Iraq. (Hence this blog’s analytical conclusion -- some posts back -- based on circumstantial evidence that Saudi Arabia has been funding the Israel lobby in the United States.)

For the Saudi ruling elite, continued U.S. presence in Iraq would (arguably for them) scuttle two possibilities:

(1) the possibility that the Shia regime in Iraq would become too appealing to the Shia of Saudi Arabia; and, more threatening to the Saudi ruling elite,

(2) the possibility that an Arab Shia-Sunni populist front would evolve in Iraq, turning that country into a magnet for the Arab opposition, including (and especially) the Saudi, and forcing democratic reforms on the ruling elite.

For the Israelis, continued U.S. presence in Iraq would assure that Iraq doesn’t become part of the Iran-led coalition. This coalition worries the Israelis in that it might be able to force them to actually withdraw in full from the lands they occupied in 1967 -- which they don’t want to do. Their consensus is such that they would want Jerusalem, all of it, and those lands they now have taken over on the West Bank, filled them with colonial settlements, which abut pre-1967 Israel, and give the Palestinians pre-1967 Israel lands in exchange. And they want control of the West Bank water, too.

(What’s ironic about this goal of the Saudi-Israeli alliance is that continued U.S. presence would mean continued fodder for mass mobilization by the Arab opposition, including the Islamic. Catch 22, courtesy of Crusader, Bald Samson, and the boys of the diaspora.)

IT WASN’T IRAN. IT WAS ELLIOTT ABRAMS -- YET ANOTHER ONE

Iran didn’t put Hamas up for the war that was waged on it and Gaza. Grant it, Hezbollah did train them, having foreseen an Israeli assault on them similar to the one on Hezbollah in the summer of 2006. But Israel’s war on them was very much part of the package devised by Elliott Abrams to reverse Hamas’ victory in the parliamentary elections. Iran took advantage. Wouldn’t anyone with smarts?

People should remember that following Hamas’ win of the parliamentary elections, which surprised Hamas itself and the boys of the diaspora, Elliott Abrams pursued a policy of dividing the Palestinians by pumping tons of money into Fateh and buying it out in full. Hamas pre-empted Abrams’ policy in Gaza by kicking Dahlan and the Fateh institutions and troops out of the Strip. (I can’t begin to tell you how much Palestinians hate Abbas and Dahlan and the other Palestinian servants of the Jewish Diaspora. I had been invited to a mostly Palestinian-American cookout around the time when Abrams and the Diaspora boys had activated Fateh. There wasn’t one single Palestinian at that cookout who didn’t despise Abbas and Dahlan as traitors and puppets of the Diaspora boys AKA Israel.)

Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade on Hamas. Hamas used the sophomoric rockets to force a lifting of the blockade and recognition of it as a legitimate political force which had won elections. The Egyptians used Gaza as part of a campaign of blackmail against the harmful idiots, blackmail by men who had become irrelevant to the needs of the harmful idiots and who were trying to regain relevance. Gaza would be a test for the Egyptian ruling elite, a joint project with the Israelis, both hoping that the Egyptians would become the harmful idiots’ clutch in Iraq when these withdraw most of the troops, keeping some to partner with the Egyptian operatives in Baghdad. Israel, with its superior influence in the land of the harmful idiots, would help the Egyptians regain a role as needed agent of the harmful idiots, a role about which the harmful idiots have been having doubts. But the Egyptian ruling elite first had to prove themselves to the Israelis, with Gaza. They did. That’s the idea. (I hope I’m wrong because I’m already laughing, though my laughter stops when I remember the photos of men rushing the corpses of children, draped in green, to the cemetery.)

Israel moved in to –

– dismantle Hamas once-and-for-all, in order to pave the way for total reign by Abbas and Fateh who would be way more willing to accept Israel’s plans for land and water, and be Israel’s vanguard to open up to them the Arab and Muslim worlds; and

– to get the Obama Administration stuck in the Middle East, as part of wanting it stuck in Iraq, too; hence the “pact” signed between the September 11 Queen and the Israeli Foreign Minister.


WAKE UP!

There’s an Arab opposition, you know. While I’m aware that it helps the harmful idiots to keep us obsessed about al-Qaeda, the danger is that this obsession eats up the thinking of the idiots themselves, and their foreign policy, too. As such, this obsession would continue to blind the insanely Arab-despising U.S. to the fact that Arabs, too, the traitors against their own, inferior beings lost in a medieval world of Kings and Princes, merchants willing to sell their souls for harmful idiot oil-and-Israel projects, do have government and opposition, like everyone else. Hamas is part of the opposition. Keep it visible, not underground!


Through it all -- slaughtered children and maimed civilians -- it behooves the observer to know that it’s not about Hamas or Gaza. That these aren’t as “strategic” as portrayed. Nor is it about Hamas not recognizing Israel’s right to exist. (Ha!) It’s about Iraq and its oil; it’s about the harmful idiots trying to re-align the Arab World , under the leadership of the diaspora boys’ beloved, against Iran. It’s about an Iraq Project that is still alive and kicking. It’s about the harmful idiots miscalculating. It’s about a Central Intelligence Agency that seems to have been so politicized and made Israeli to the bone by the diaspora boys, by Bald Samson, and by Crusader, to seemingly have become an extension of the Israel lobby -- helpless as an agency to tell them off.

ARAB QATAR

r o u g h draft

BACKGROUND

Commenting on Ali Larijani’s statements to the effect that Gaza was important to Iran’s national security (“Arab Opposition: the Post-Gaza Phase, January 1, 2009), I had said that his statements sounded absurd, since I couldn’t fathom how Gaza, without geographic depth, could be relied on strategically. In the same post and in the post after (“Iran to Arab Nationalism, Post-Gaza: Come to Mama,” January 5, 2009), I developed the hypothesis that Gaza’s fall would benefit Iran -- immensely. The Arab Sunni opposition would have nowhere to go but to Iran.


ANOTHER REASON THE ARAB OPPOSITION WOULD HEAD TO IRAN: SAUDI ARABIA IS WORKING HARD TO GIVE ITS ISRAELI ALLY MORE TIME TO ACCOMPLISH ITS MISSION

This hypothesis of mine has become even truer recently. Saudi Arabia, the birth-place of Islam and, as part of the peninsula, the birthplace of the Arabs, is now flaunting its alliance with Israel, its hatred of Hamas, and its callousness towards the suffering of fellow Arabs. (I’m excluding Turki al-Faisal. The more I think about it the more I conclude that his anger was genuine. He’s had it with Bush, with Bandar, and with the Israelis, in spite of the fact that he’s opened up to the Israelis in the past.) The Saudi ruling elite is doing all it can to give its Israeli ally more time to finish Hamas.

ARAB BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS

Arab (Sunni) blood will now be on the hands of Saudi King Abdallah and on the hands of the Saudi ruling elite.

To give its Israeli ally more time to finish Hamas, the Saudi ruling elite is doing all it can to torpedo the efforts by the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Aal Thani, to hold an emergency Arab summit in Doha on Gaza. It’s now all but confirmed that the Saudi ruling elite had been pressuring those Arab governments beholden to it (e.g., the Moroccan King Muhammad VI) not to attend the Doha summit. The idea is to rob Sheikh Hamad of the quorum needed for the all-Arab summit.

The Saudi ruling elite’s newest method to torpedo an all-Arab summit on Gaza is to push along for an alternative summit of Gulf Arab countries, the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

INTIFADHAS NOT GAZA

The Saudi ruling elite’s not-so-hidden rationale is that Hamas is an Iranian tool. (Larijani’s statement’s to that effect weren’t helpful to the Gazans.) It doesn’t matter that the Saudi ruling elite is miscalculating, as was Mr. Larijani, on the alleged strategic importance of Gaza. Truth be told, Gaza and Hamas are supremely unimportant strategically, especially that Gaza has no strategic depth since the Egyptian ruling elite is on the harmful idiots’ payroll. The best weapon for the Palestinians are Intifadhas, and these will happen sooner or later, especially after Gaza.

With the Palestinian opposition going underground, the Intifadhas should gain a deadly edge. They should reach inside Israel and re-ignite the Israeli "transfer" campaign and the concomitant fears of the Jordanian government.

Why after Gaza? Because the Arab opposition, including the Palestinian, would’ve had the time to sober up and go underground, shedding the illusion that democracy can work for them. Algeria and Palestine have shown that such couldn’t be farther from the truth. Not when the backer of Israel and the Saudi regime (and Europe) torpedo any attempt by the Arab opposition to build non-corrupt governments that serve their people.

NO COUNTRY HATES ARABS MORE THAN THE UNITED STATES

The Arab opposition knows that no country hates Arabs more than the United States, the backer of Israel -- as a reactionary base in the heart of the Arab World -- and the pro-Israeli regimes. (The very invasion of Arab Iraq could be said to have been facilitated by American hatred of Arabs.) The Arab opposition knows that this hate is embedded in three pivotal pillars of American politics:

– the diaspora Jewish pillar;

– the Christian Evangelist pillar; and

– the liberal (mostly Jewish) pillar.

(The African-American pillar isn’t involved.)

The Arab opposition knows that Europe is Israeli to the bone.

Where’s that opposition to go? I submit: to Iran.

QATAR AS AN ARAB ALTERNATIVE TO IRAN

Arab Qatar is trying to be a pole for Arabness. Kudos to them. Arab Qatar is trying to show that a small Arab country can place itself under the American strategic security umbrella without quitting on its Arabness. It helps that Qatar sits too far to know that the United States, in three of its most important political pillars, despises Arabs. But what does that matter? Qatar needs the American security umbrella.

The fact that pivotal American political forces and their people (and the wider culture which they actively influence) find Arabs revolting doesn’t obviate Qatar’s need for the American strategic umbrella.

Arab Qatar can allow the Israelis to open a commercial office in Doha, yet be concerned about the Gazans as helpless sheep being massacred by the Israeli war machine -- a machine trying to make up for its defeat in Lebanon by flexing its muscles in helpless Gaza, with the assistance of the United "Arab" Emirates, Egypt, Saudi "Arabia," and the Fateh establishment. (Gaza for Israel is like Grenada was for Ronald Reagan.) But Qatar cannot close that office lest it upsets the three pillars and beget retaliation inside the Arab-hating United States. In contrast, Iran isn’t saddled by that burden. Iran gets its respect inside the United States from its ability as a regional and effective player.

At any rate, Arab Qatar is too small to really be able to monopolize the role of a pole for the Arab opposition. Iran isn’t. In other words, Iran is it for the Arab opposition.

But at least Sheikh Hamad will not have Arab blood on his hands. Saudi King Abdallah and the Saudi royal elite do, and will.

CLINICAL DEPRESSION FOR A HARMFUL IDIOTS' ASSET?

rough draft -- hurried while in the pursuit of paper money and happiness.

As-Safir reports in today's edition ("News Report: Abbas, the Failed [Man] [thanks to] Gaza's Steadfastness ... Awaits the Worst in Ramallah." No author.) that people around Mahmoud Abbas , before he had left to New York, could see anxious failure on his face.

[Caveat: Be mindful as-Safir is part of the Arab opposition, not funded by the harmful idiots or the Saudis. Likely funded by Iran, though established likely with Libyan money. Too: this is NOT a verbatim translation. It's a summary, of sorts. You know what I mean. You don't? Too bad.]

His intelligence services had misled him, with endless reports about the soon-to-come elimination of Hamas' authority in Gaza -- some even predicting a maximum of 4-5 days of resistance, no more.

When he returned from New York he's reported to have confided to some that he was depressed about Israel's failure -- that what he and many thought would be a "historic opportunity" to finish Hamas once-and-for-all might just finish him, instead.

The failed agent of Israel and the harmful idiots pointed the finger at some of his men who had predicted that Hamas would crumble so fast and had begun to stuff their luggage to head back to Gaza. That intelligence services tied to the harmful idiots -- Israeli, Egyptian, and the harmful idiots themselves -- thought Hamas leaders would be led with ropes around their necks or herded as sheep to the slaughterhouse ("Iqtiyad") by the Israeli conquerors, and that throusands of Hamas fighters would raise the white flag, asking for mercy and surrender.

The Egyptians were the worst intelligence estimators because they had assessed the fastest end for Hamas.

That things are such at present that Hamas has no choice but to resist until the end, since it had lost so much already.

What saddens the hartmful idiots' Uncle Abbas even more is that Hamas would rather have Turks man the Rafah crossing than Abbas men.

Israel's man, the harmful idiots' Uncle Abbas, is worried even more about his fate; and so are the harmful idiots themselves. No sooner did he return from New York than the CIA had equipped his house with the latest seurity gadgets , and ordered a change in the guards around him. It further asked the depressed man to diminish his movements in his very town -- Ramallah.

REVANCHISM

d r a f t

Between me and you,
There’s no [room for] blame
You live [to] ignore me
And [to] apologize [later]

Fairuz, Baghdad and the Poets

(The following was inspired by one of may endless conversations with my father, a man to the right of Attila the Hun. He’s my sounding board for right-wingers. I get his first reaction then I complicate the subject for him, as only those not of the right can.)

IF YOU THOUGHT THE AL-QAEDA BRANCH OF THE ARAB OPPOSITION WAS BAD – WAIT 'TIL YOU SEE THE POST-GAZA REVANCHISTS

It was reported reently in the Arab press that the Syrian Muslim Brothers as a result of Gaza had suspended their activities against the Syrian government. It wasn’t clear who had issued the statement. (If my memory serves me well, the statement was sent to a French media outlet.) No names were mentioned, such as that of al-Bayanouni or even that of the palace dwarf, Abdel-Halim Khaddam. But the statement tells a truth: the Arabs, the Sunni included, are wounded, so deeply embittered by Gaza.

Should Gaza fall, the Arab Sunni (and I’m including a majority of the elite) should turn revanchist.

As I’ve said in a recent prior post: the Arab Sunni elite and public, the majority, should head Iran’s way as a result of Gaza, especially if Gaza falls.

IRAN V. EGYPT: THE BLAME GAME

Hence Iran’s persistent campaign to portray the Egyptian government as responsible for Gaza’s suffering. Which is true, in good part. Each and every photograph of a Palestinian child with amputated legs; each and every photograph of corpses of children being rushed forward, draped in green cloth; each and every photograph of a mother crying, of a girl weeping, having lost their entire family to the insane and desperate harmful idiots’ bombs – these pictures should be etched in the brain of each and every Arab Sunni – if one is to use the categorization nomenclature pushed along in part by the colonialist harmful idiots and their self-hating reactionary Arab servants.

The Egyptian ruling elite would like nothing more than to point to Iran for blame: why don’t the Iranians activate the Lebanon front? But they can’t even make this argument lest they upset Israel. Besides, the Arab public, majority Sunni, knows that Iran’s hands are somewhat tied by Lebanese politics. Not to mention that the Arab public knows that Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah perceive the Israelis as the enemy, even when they can’t act on that perception to help the Gazans. But the Egyptian government is Israel’s friend and an Arab servant of the harmful idiots and their Israeli pet -- or is it the other way around? Get it?

MORE ANGLES

The cargo cult nature of the Middle East, most of it, is hard to dispute. (The oil-rich Gulf Arab ruling elite are a cargo cult in that they are totally reliant on the U.S. for their security, not willing to field decent armies of their own, while oil-poor countries like Lebanon and Syria are cargo cults of – nearly – anyone who’s willing to deliver cargo.)

The financial meltdown in the countries from where cargo originates – the West, Russia, and China – should heat up instability in the Middle East. Only the Gulf Arabs at present have material cargo – money. And Arab countries with dire need for cargo should therefore be searching for angles to lay a claim on some of that. Consider Lebanon and its insurmountable national debt; Yemen and its population explosion; Syria and its relative poverty. Elite in these countries should evolve ideologies to secure cargo. In the absence of a willingness by the Gulf Arabs to share their wealth (cargo) with the poorer Arabs under the umbrella of an Arab common market and/or an Arab common defense plan, the elite of the poorer countries would have to devise ways for forcing the issue with their rich counterpart.

THE USE OF GAZA: AN ILLUSTRATION

The fall of Gaza should provide a terrific angle. Here’s an illustration:

Saida, the very (second) home of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence man, Saad al-Hariri, is predominately Sunni. And the Hariri family, whose wealth was and is directly connected to the theft of Lebanon’s national purse, which turned the Hariri family into a state-within-a -state (Hezbollah is the second such state) had been generous with the Sunni of Saida, perceiving this constituency as essential to the family's prominence and continued pilfering (through banks) of the Lebanese national purse. The Hariri family’s “generosity” has extended to other Sunni in Lebanon, but hardly ever to other sects. (Saudi intelligence has been pumping money into the Christian constituency of Samir Geagea, but that’s likely temporary to secure the election of his men to parliament , with the hope of providing the Hariri bloc with a majority. If Saudi intelligence fails at this effort, the Christian beneficiaries of that Saudi largesse should be dumped flat on their ass.)


But Saida is a gem for Hezbollah -- a Sunni city in a predominately Shia region (south Lebanon) and featuring one of the largest (it may be THE largest) Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon – Ain el-Helweh. If you’re Sunni in Saida, you wouldn’t want tension with the Shia majority, would you? Nor with the Palestinians, the refugees in Ain el-Helweh. These after all are Sunni, too. You are Sunni. Gaza (and Hamas) are Sunni. Shia Hezbollah is a terrific ally of Hamas. The Israelis are slaughtering the children of Sunni Gaza under the guise that Hamas is hiding amongst them. (Like Israel didn’t know that a people’s army in an area mostly devoid of forests, would not use its people to hide from the superior killing machine of the Israelis, whose effective bombs come mostly from the harmful idiots. ) What do you get? In spite of all the Hariri state and Saudi intelligence money in the world, you get a coalition whose effort and energy are directed against the Israelis and their killing machine. Let’s call it The Arab Islamic Coalition for the Liberation of Palestine (AICLP.) Many among the public and elite in Saudi Arabia should become secret card-carrying members of that coalition.

FAISAL’S MARTYRDOM AND NAYIF’S SECURITY (MUKHABARAT) FILES

(NOTE: Hence likely in part Turki al-Faisal’s statement that he would be willing to be martyr for God and Palestine. Turki, likely in coordination with “the family” and Saudi intelligence, was trying to absorb the anger of the Saudi public at the Israeli massacres in Gaza. Especially that it’s not a secret ( to the elite) that Saudi Arabia is allied to Israel, via its intelligence service and Bandar bin Sultan. A cynic would say that Turki’s statement served a less benign purpose: to flush out those who are angered by Gaza (and, by extension, by the Saudi state’s alliance with the Israelis and its funding -- to an analytical certainty -- of the Israel lobby in Washington, D.C.) Once out, Nayef at Interior would open files on the opposition members and have them monitored. Faisal’s statement would've been an inexpensive way at countering the compelling strategy of Arab Islamic nationalism to go underground all the way in response to the treason of Arab regimes vis-a-vis Gaza.)

THE NEED FOR AN IDEOLOGY

Factor in the fact that Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arabs give only pittance to poorer countries such as Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. What do you get? You get AICLP to develop an ideology that reaches into the depth of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries if only to force them to share their Arab wealth – not as cheap payments to proxies like Hariri and his ilk. But more as systematic payment of cargo to Lebanon itself and the poorer Arab countries. Use Palestine and the murderous Israeli war machine against the Muslims of Palestine. Add Yemen to the mix. Consider AICIP dispatching operatives to Yemen. Consider that Yemen borders on two Gulf countries which are intimate with Israel: Saudi Arabia and Oman. What do you get?

SILENCE

My father became silent. He understood all too well what I was talking about. I just crumbled his world, yet again. He’ll get his respite and come back at me later. And I’ll have to do the same thing over, with more twists that would eat away at his once-cogent law-and-order world.

It’s like when Dona Quixote would attack my toes; I’d put my free foot under her belly and flip her up in the air. She’d fly upward, then fall back on the bed, licking herself and assuring that no blood was gushing. Then she’d attack again, with more gusto, only to face the same fate, this time flying even higher flipping and falling like a ton of bricks on the bed, using all her acrobatic skills to soften the fall. Then she’d give up and go looking for what her imagination tells her was an antagonist lurking somewhere in one of the closets.

My father finds solace at the Lebanese church with fellow Lebanese right-wingers, all searching for what lurks in closets of Muslim terrorists and haters of Christians.

IMAD MUGHNIYYAH IN GAZA

Utterly rough draft. First and only.

INTRODUCTION AND CAVEAT

Ibrahim al-Amin writes for the Lebanese daily, al-Akhbar. I believe he used to write for as-Safir. He’s always been close to Hezbollah. In today’s al-Akhbar he has a front-page article titled, “Imad Mughniyyyah in Gaza: a Communications Network, Tunnels, an [organizational] Hierarchy, and [stored] Supplies to Last for Months.”

First a caveat: Although I have tons of respect for Mr. Ibrahim and his terrifically informative reporting, his article likely reflects in part an Iranian/Hezbollah policy to explain to the Arab public that neither Iran nor Hezbollah had quit on them. Hezbollah cannot at this time activate the Lebanon front, in good part because Lebanese parliamentary elections are coming up and the party doesn’t want to weaken its allies at the polls. If war is to happen, let Israel start it. Only then would the Lebanese public accept Hezbollah’s deterrence and retaliation. What resistance the Arab public is witnessing in Gaza and success (see below) should be credited to Imad Mughniyyah and Hezbollah, says not-so-implicitly Mr. Al-Amin.

ROUGH TRANSLATION

1. Al-Amin says that prior to the assault on Gaza, the Israeli Foreign Minister had assured Mubarak that Israel’s mission would be swift retribution and should result in finishing Hamas politically. That, the Israeli Foreign Minister had said, would pave the way for Mahmoud Abbas to re-enter Gaza with his men. The Foreign Minister told Mubarak that the air attack in-and-by-itself would destroy Hamas’ infrastructure and should break the leadership hierarchy of that political party and kill its fighters in a wholesale fashion. In three days at the most, al-Amin reports about the Israeli Foreign Minister, Israeli land troops would advance into Gaza and would eliminate what pockets of resistance were left. Israel then should return home with convoys of prisoners, while thousands of Abbas men would reenter the Strip.

2. Mubarak believed the Israeli Foreign Minister and began to plan for the next phase in Gaza. But the days passed and Israel’s assault seemed to take longer and longer.

3. A few days before Israel’s attack , Hamas’ leaders, both military and political, with the commanders of allied groups, had evacuated any and all known places, where they would historically be found. The first 150 or so infrastructure sites which the Israeli force bombed had been emptied out. Mostly civilians dies who were close by. The only “success” for the Israeli air force was the massacre of the policemen.

4. This strategy, al-Amin says, was the brainchild of the late Imad Mughniyyah. No sooner had Hezbollah defeated Israel in the summer of 2006 than Mughniyyah had begun “toli ve the obsession of [attending] to Gaza.” Mughniyyah began a series of meetings with his Palestinian friends in which he lectured them about the importance of the communication network – that this network was “a strategic weapon,” together with “the weapon of the private [hiding] places. With this, tens of Palestinian resistance fighters traveled to Syria, Lebanon, and Iran where they were given many details and benefitted from much expertise. In less than one year, Gaza had changed in terms of its strategic preparedness for Israel’s war.

5. The Palestinian resistance movement in Gaza, al-Amin admits, had been shocked early on by the insanity of Israel’s air assault. But in two days, he said, that movement regained its composure and returned to its planned strategy.

6. The Israelis had meant their media campaign of showing off their soldiers getting ready to enter Gaza as part-and-parcel of a strategy to terrorize Gazans and the Palestinian resistance there. But the resistance kept on dispatching its rockets as a means of showing off that the intelligence the Israelis had gathered had been faulty.

7. When the Israelis came into Gaza, the Palestinian resistance fighters withdrew. Only to return and belie Israeli calculations that its strategy of cutting off Gaza in parts and isolating these would bear fruit.

8. The idea, reports al-Amin, was to have stored enough supplies to be able to wage a war of attrition against the Israeli troops should these decide to remain in Gaza for the long term.

9. The swiftness promised by Israel’s Foreign Minister to Mubarak prior to the attack didn’t happen. That rattled Mubarak and his men. These arranged for an emergency meeting with the Israelis in Taba, at which meeting the Israelis admitted that things didn’t happen according to plans. Al-Amin intimates that the Israelis had relied on intelligence reports from officers of the Palestinian Authority (Abbas’) but that these reports about amounts of supplies of rockets proved faulty. Other intelligence reports on which the Israelis had relied had come from the United States. These reports had been given to the harmful idiots (oops!) by Arab intelligence services. At the Taba meeting the Israelis blamed the Egyptians for not controlling their border with Gaza, and the Egyptian officers retorted that they had destroyed hundreds of tunnels and claimed that much of the smuggling of weapons had come by sea. (At which point the Israelis and the Egyptians had a fist fight. I’m KIDDING! See www.HarryWessel.com to know where I’m coming from.)


10. At this point, Israel is stuck. It doesn’t want to cut short its operation because it wants to assure that Hamas will not be able to shine as Hezbollah and dominate Gaza.

***

(Editor's note: there's more in the article. I've picked what I judged to be most telling. Note, too, that the article that followed - very short -- revealed that the Saudis had met yesterday with Hamas leaders. Nothing was said about what had transpired at the meeting. But do refer to prior posts about the apparent rift among the Saudi ruling elite on the Gaza matter. )

WHO WILL BE KING?

rough second draft

It just hit me: the wide chasm between the comments by Turki al-Faisal (See January 7 “Is Saudi Arabia Coming Back...) and those by the King (See January 7 “Turki al-Faisal is on His Own...”) may indicate a rift within the Saudi ruling elite. And it likely isn’t fully about Gaza. It’d be about preparations to replace both King (too old) and Crown Prince (suffering from cancer. Health condition purposely kept unclear.)

The king’s words struck me as adaptation from Bandar’s, and Mubarak’s. It took courage for Turki to state (earlier) that he would be a martyr for God and Palestine. To have done it, he must've had the support of other princes. Bandar seems to have retorted through the King.

I’m going out on a limb -- not having researched the issue enough. But we may be witnessing a rift within the ranks of Saudi princes in preparation to retire both King and Crown Prince, or at least agreeing to a timetable for retiring them. Turki’s statements likely were meant not only as message to Mr. Obama but, too, to galvanize those princes who are pre-disposed to dislike Bandar and his Israeli leanings.

It could be, too, that Turki's American advisers have told him about the pre-disposition of the President-elect, though it's highly unlikely Mr. Obama would take Hamas's side. But it's very possible that Mr. Obama wouldn't be (and shouldn't be) enamored by Mr. Bandar.

Weighing on Turki is the fact that, overall, going Israeli as Bandar had done has lost the Kingdom a lot of influence in its own backyard. Israel has been inching its way into the UAE (and possibly Oman) without a check. (The UAE Foreign Minister has been nothing but a tool of American Middle Eastern policy as designed and implemented by the harmful idiots and Israel's diaspora boys.) And the Kingdom has been belittled by Qatar's progressive and clearly Islamic foreign policy -- though Qatar has done a stunning job at concealing the fact by seemingly opening up to Israel.

As a result, the Kingdom in the future should be pulling not only against Iran, but against Israel too, in the Kingdom's own backyard. It'd be leaving its fate and the fate of the ruling family in the hands of the Israelis and their diaspora in the land of the harmful idiots.

Are we on to a new era in Saudi politics?

SAUDI MESSAGE TO THE PRESIDENT-ELECT

first and rough draft

This commentary is meant to complement the last two, and add a note to the January 6post.

TURKI AL-FAISAL

Choreographed by Saudi intelligence or not (probably were ), Turki al-Faisal’s comments likely were meant as a message to President-Elect Obama. The message: to disregard Bandar bin Sultan and his advice. Instead, the message asks that Mr. Obama use Turki al-Faisal (and Muqrin, the current head of Saudi intelligence, by likely extension) as the liaison to the Saudi ruling elite.

It probably isn’t a bad idea. Bandar had been part-and-parcel of the disastrous decision to invade Arab Iraq and eliminate a power that balanced the Iranian militarily (the eight-year war), ideologically (an inclusive Arab nationalism, attractive enough to the Arab Shia), and church/state-wise (a country which was viciously secular versus one run by clerics.) Not to mention that Bandar was (and possibly still is) under investigation in this country for alleged kickbacks worth $2 billion from BAE Systems, the British-American arms company, to secure the Yamama arms contract.

(To be precise: BAE Systems was under investigation. But the subject of the investigation most likely was/is the alleged $2 bn kickbak to Bandar. The Department of Justice picked up the case after the Serious Fraud Office in Britain had closed the file under pressure from Tony Blair. Please try and find prior post titled something like this, "Bush to Bandar: You're not my Brother...")


MR SATTI’ NOUREDDINE

As to the January 6 Post, I may have misconstrued Mr. Noureddine’s observation. I said that it amounted to opening up to the Israelis and the harmful idiots. This offended me since this perceived opening was taking place at a time when these were continuing on with the project to colonize Arab Iraq (e.g., the monster-like embassy, the hope pinned on the armed forces and an eventual coup by these) and the de-facto break-up of the country since , like it or not, the Kurds will not but by force re-join Iraq as nationals.

I still think that Mr. Noureddine is dead wrong on expecting the Israeli public to revolt against its leaders and pull out from Gaza without eliminating Hamas. As I said, the Israeli casualties have to be high enough and, until now, they’re not. (It took losing hundreds of soldiers in the 1980s and the rise of a new power, Hezbollah -- itself a result of the occupation -- for the Israeli occupiers to pull out from Lebanon. But Hezbollah had Syria and strategic depth as a consequence. Hamas has Egypt and a treasonous ruling elite working in total coordination with the Israelis. In 2006, it took rockets flying into northern Israel at such a rate as to cause mass migration by Israelis from that part of the country. Not to mention that Israeli troops couldn’t take over a single Lebanese town or village in full, with Hezbollah fighters so ready for them. It’s unlikely Gaza would be that tough a nut to crack for the Israelis, so intent are these on killing any and all Palestinians -- children and civilians at U.N. schools, women, the aged, and the young. But victory will be in the eye of the beholder. Hamas could come out of this with a brighter aura. In addition, the Arab opposition should adopt yet a deeper realization that the West, including France and especially Sarkozi and his diaspora ilk, cannot be trusted. Gaza would usher in a new phase in Arab nationalism, Islamic likely, and secretive as hell.)

Mr. Noureddine wasn’t opening up to the new colonialists who want to dominate Arab and Muslim oil, using Israel and its diaspora (and these using their Arab friends, greasy snake oil salesmen, hateful and self-hating assholes) to achieve that goal. I think that, as with most Arabs, Mr. Noureddine was disappointed that the Arab Street hadn’t come out in full, nor the Arab Islamists. The mistake he made (and I make it myself often enough) was that he thought the Arab public would come out into the streets to express the anger the public and Mr. Noureddine feel. Not. The Arab public in its opposition has gone underground and should continue to head that way.

TURKI AL-FAISAL IS ON HIS OWN. THE SAUDI KING RIPS INTO HAMAS LEADERS

(For background please refer to the previous post.)

Was Turki al-Faisal's statement (the last post) choreographed by, say, Saudi intelligence, or was Turki veering off the "let's-please-Israel-and-Bush" consensus within the Saudi ruling elite, allied to Israel and funding its lobby in Washington, D.C.?

King Abdallah, hosting an Islamic delegation on a tour to express its concern about Gaza, ripped into the Hamas leaders who, we're told he said, "cannot be trusted and aren't qualified to hold on to the confidence [of the public] [never mind that they won a democratic election -- Aha! so that's what the King is concerned about, silly me] and to behave responsibly." (My translation from Arabic; my source: Al-Quds al-Arabi, Jan.8, 2009.)

IS SAUDI ARABIA COMING BACK TO ITS ARAB AND ISLAMIC HOME?

r o u g h draft

I’ve sung for Mecca,
[and] its people the proud

Fairuz

The Saudi ruling elite had given Bandar bin Sultan a free hand for most of the years of the Bush Administration.

Turki al-Faisal is former Saudi intelligence chief and unhappy ambassador to Washington, D.C. Turki’s unhappiness as ambassador was due to the fact that Bandar, who had adopted wholesale Israel’s agenda and that of its diaspora boys, kept on returning to the capital of the harmful idiots to perform the job of the ambassador, brazenly undercutting Turki. Bandar would lobby his friends, the Israeli administration of Crusader and Bald Samson, for an American war on Iran. In addition, he would lobby them to trust him and Saudi intelligence in their effort to deepen the sectarian wedge between the Arab Sunni and the Arab Shia as a means of damming Iranian power -- the damming Saddam Hussein had done, free of charge, the same Arab man who was delivered to the lynching by the diaspora boys and the harmful idiots.

Oh well, Turki has had it. On Tuesday, at a Gulf-American conference in Riyadh, Turki spilled the beans. Not only did he rip into Crusader for sinking the Obama Administration into the Gaza imbroglio, intentionally, he added:

“Today we’re all Palestinians longing for martyrdom for the cause of God and for the cause of Palestine, unperturbed [are we] by any repercussions, [as we are] on the steps of those who became martyrs [before us] -- the children, the women, and the old people of Gaza.” (My translation from Arabic.)

“WAITING FOR THE ISRAELIS”

a rough draft

Satti’ Noureddine writes daily editorials for the Lebanese As-Safir (Arab nationalist; Shia; close to Syria and Hezbollah.) In today’s editorial (“Waiting for the Israelis”) he dissects the relative lethargy of the Arab Street in reacting to Gaza. In other words, he’s somewhat surprised and moderately disappointed by the relatively muted response by the Arab public to the massacres in Gaza. A couple of days earlier, he had noted the low-level reaction of the Islamists to Gaza’s suffering. (“Battle of the Islamists,” 1/3/09.)

Mr. Noureddine is off the mark. I’ve fallen myself to measuring the reaction of the Arab Street by what’s visible. I’ve done it quite recently. But in doing so I’ve ignored my earlier observation in this blog: that the Arab Street had long gone underground and was bound to further dig deeper into the ground. Will come a time when the Islamists will shave their beards, don suits, and carry briefcases. Secret cells and secret organization will connect them.

What’s al-Qaeda but the Arab Street/Arab opposition gone underground? That it chose exile is common sense in view of the impossibility of opposing regimes that are endorsed by the West wholesale. Consider Algeria’s experience; and now Palestine. The opposition in both places had won elections fair and square. The West made them eat dirt as a result.

The visible and apparent therefore don’t provide an accurate gage of the reaction of the Arab public to the Gaza massacres. Reaction to these things had headed underground and will head there even more, post-Gaza.

As to Mr. Noureddine’s observation that the opposition to the Gaza massacres against the Palestinians has got to come from the Israelis: this is unlikely to happen unless there are high casualties among Israeli troops. Besides, the Bush years have uncovered such a close and intimate link between Israel’s diaspora in the United States and that diaspora’s choices for political alliances on the one hand and Israel’s behavior on the other. The diaspora has gone right-wing in its majority and has chosen to be at the forefront of imperial expansion, an arm of the Anglo capitalists, so to speak. As things stand, the Anglos are intent on wiping out any Sunni or Arab or Arab Sunni who raises his head. Hence the largest American embassy in the world was built in Baghdad, in the heart of the Arab nation. The Arabs, including Mr. Noureddine, will be monitored closely, very.

The Israelis don’t matter. They now follows their diaspora’s lead, mostly, not the other way around. The diaspora wants to be at the service of the Anglos -- to protect its relevance and cohesiveness by presenting itself as the medium to control Arab and Muslim oil. It even had dispatched a higher proportion of its boys to administer Iraq than, say, Italian-Americans or even Arab-Americans. One of them, U.S. Senator Arlen Specter, even flew to Baghdad to speed up the lynching of an Arab leader. (I’m aware that the Arab leader had little sympathy; but that’s besides the point, isn’t it? Divide and conquer. Who says, for instance, that Mr. Noureddine would get more sympathy if he's lynched? Or Mr. Larijani? Or any Arab or Muslim?)

Israel follows the lead of the oil-hungry imperial Anglos, too, and moves to wipe out the Arabs who’ve raised their head in Gaza.

The harmful idiots and Israel’s diaspora will be monitoring all Arabs and Muslims from the largest American embassy in the world. Divide and conquer will be their operative policy.

Mr. Noureddine: Smile, you’re monitored too, even as you open up to them.

IRAN TO ARAB NATIONALISM, POST GAZA: COME TO MAMA

rough second draft

SO I SAID

In the last post I observed that the Gaza invasion and Gaza’s demise should result in the re-organization of the Arab opposition. I said that the Arab opposition will head underground. I said hat Iran will be the country most adept at nursing this well-organized and secret opposition. I said that Gaza was the last gasp for Crusader and the cult boys of the diaspora, one enduring pillar/pole in American politics attracting the many among the elite. I said that Gaza’s demise would teach the Arab opposition, including the political middle, that the West, the U.S. in particular, can never be trusted. I said that Gaza confirms to the Arab opposition elite and public that the diaspora boys dominate in the land of the harmful idiots. ( I was being diplomatic. Moi! It wouldn’t be a matter of mistrust of the United States, only. Actually, the Arab opposition will view the United States as THE enemy and will organize accordingly.)

NEEDING EVIDENCE OR SIGN POSTS

Crusader, a day or two after my last post, confirmed my observation that he and the cult diaspora boys were behind the invasion. Not that I needed confirmation on that subject. But I did need some indication -- other than my sense about things -- as to the future course of the Arab opposition -- of Arab nationalism, really, since the Arab opposition, Islamic and non, personifies that nationalism.

EVIDENCE!

Abdel-Bari Atwan, the Editor-in-Chief of the Al- Quds al-Arabi (Palestinian nationalist; Arab nationalist; Sunni; Palestinian Islamist; pan-Arab in readership; published in London) came out on January 5 with an editorial smashing the West, in particular the United States -- Crusader and the harmful idiots. (“A Land Attack . . .Anything Left in Barak’s Bag?”) (My translation.)

His mistrust of the United States isn’t the full story. Front page, prominently placed, this headline: “Students of Iran Demand the Closing of [the Strait of] Hormuz and the Consulates in Tehran of Egypt and Jordan.” A silly headline, I admit. But indicative of a high level of desperation and helplessness on the part of Mr. Atwan.

SUNNI-WIDE, ARAB-WIDE DESPERATION

Do you get it? That’s exactly my point! To the extent one would want to use sectarian classifications, Mr. Atwan’s desperation is Sunni-wide desperation, Arab-wide, really. (No, it’s not solely Palestinian. Palestine remains one central theme in Arab identity and nationalism.) In tandem with the prominent display about Iran’s students , the two (Sunni desperation and the prominent display about Iran’s students) outline to me the likely direction of Arab (Sunni) nationalism. But not yet, not fully.

When one adds to the this mix the reality of treason by the ruling elite of Saudi Arabia (funding the Israel lobby, for one!), Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (both doing the bidding, the first for the harmful idiots, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, and the second for the harmful idiots and Israel) -- and the earlier treason by Kuwait’s ruling elite, which along with the harmful idiots set up Arab Iraq to eventually dismember it -- what does one get?

THE FUTURE

One gets Arab (mostly) Sunni nationalism, gone underground, bleeding from Gaza and Iraq, and heading Iran’s way.

THE HARMFUL IDIOTS SOW...

Kudos to Iran for its inaction. The harmful idiots seem to always be doing the work for it (as they are now for Russia in Afghanistan). The harmful idiots, mediocre and harmful, sow massive misery; the Iranians reap the beneficial fruit.

ARAB OPPOSITION: THE POST-GAZA PHASE

rough second/or/third draft

[A] stranger
And in the lands of strangers
I wander

Sabah Fakhri (My translation from Arabic.)

Ali Larijani is nearly desperate. Or maybe he’s acting, told to do so by Iran’s cunning analysts. He doesn’t say it: that Hamas has scored success for itself and for Iran by forcing Iran’s ally, Syria, to cease contacts with Israel.

Larijani said recently that Gaza was linked to Iran’s national security and its demise would affect Iran’s independence. Quite overwhelming as statements go, but absurd nonetheless. (Unless he’s issuing a threat to the Israelis -- to activate the Lebanon front? As threats go: quite a timid one, style-wise.) Iraq and Lebanon (and Afghanistan) are the most important elements in Iran’s national security. Gaza? Didn’t he see Gaza coming? Israel since the summer of 2006 has been aching for any test to rebuild its image as a defeated forward base for the harmful idiots and a beneficiary of their military-industrial complex. Gaza is a relatively easy target. Unlike Syria which provided (and still does) Hezbollah with a strategic depth, kiss-ass Uncle Tom Mubarak and his crew are out to screw the Hamas Palestinians.

Blame it on Crusader. Gaza, you may say, is Crusader’s last gasp before he and his harmful idiots, including Bald Samson and the diaspora boys, leave office. The new President would want to forget all of this and focus instead on tending to our garden, ignored for so long by the harmful idiots and their Israel diaspora gurus -- pillaged, to the tune of national bankruptcy.

If Gaza falls, Iran should have way better chances at spreading its influence strong and wide across the Arab and Muslim worlds. If Gaza falls, the Arab opposition --including the middle, politically -- would have learned not to ever (ever) trust the West, in particular the United States. The Arab opposition, all Arabs, really, already believe that the U.S. is controlled by Israel’s diaspora boys. Gaza’s fall should buttress that mantra. No longer would anyone in the Arab opposition believe the West's bullshit about democracy and be so impulsive as to come out into the open, as Hamas did. The Arab opposition should’ve learned that following the Algeria experience --and Hamas did, though imperfectly. Hence its earlier military assault on Elliott Abrams's Fateh. Still, Gaza at this time is closer to home, so to speak, and likely would be the last nail in the coffin of Arab street/opposition (including the middle, politically) trust in anything Western. Gaza will be the straw that broke the camel’s back for the non-ruling alternative Arab elite.

Mr. Larijani should know that Iran stands to gain tons from the elimination of Gaza. The Arab opposition should go underground as a result, in full, and devise a terrific network of cells and operatives. (A Western security nightmare, I predict, to be made worse by Western and harmful idiot/Israeli meddling in the Arab and Muslim worlds.) And who best to support and mine this network but Iran? It’ll be this network that should monitor and nix Israel’s spreading influence in the Arab Gulf countries. Even the Salafi of Saudi Arabia should be so embittered by Gaza that they would open their heart and organizational structure for the Arab opposition -- and for Iran. Iran stands to mine a terrific gem. (Saudi authorities have recently arrested a Salafi da3iyah, 3Awad al-Qarni, a religious man, for calling on the faithful to spill Israeli blood as these are spilling Palestinian.)

Gaza, too, should be a lesson to Iran about allowing for a Shia-Sunni front in Iraq -- yet another means to penetrate deep into Saudi Arabia, especially if Iranian money balances Saudi, disallowing the latter from “corrupting” that front. Gaza may just be that event which persuades Mr. Larijani and his Persians that they can nurse a friendly Arab nationalism or else risk an unfriendly one. (I can almost hear Iranian analysts say: Yeah? So where’s that so-called Arab nationalism gonna go for help? To the Israelis and the harmful idiots who fucked Gaza? And fucked Arab Iraq? And are out to fuck them for Israel every time they get a chance? Point well-taken. So sorry I even raised the issue.) The likes of Malikis are no different from the likes of Abbas-es. They’d sell you out cavalierly at the drop of a hat.

(Saudi Arabia, aware that Iran is here to stay, including in Iraq and Lebanon, already is opening up to the Iranians, having recently signed a "border patrol" coordination agreement with them. In essence, coordination on Gulf water security. Saudi Arabia's ruling elite likely senses that the American President-elect should be cutting the fat on the defense budget as part of his effort to re-float the federal government which the harmful idiots and Israel's diaspora boys had driven into bakruptcy. The President-elect would have to adopt this blog's idea of a trip wire, if onlyto save money.)

In short: I don’t know what Mr. Larijani is complaining about. Better times are ahead for Iran, post-Gaza, and for the Arab opposition, gone fully underground.