AFTER THE RETREAT: TURKEY PUSHES EASTWARD

Rough draft.

(Please read IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER at end of post.)

Turkey is expanding eastward. It has crowned with open borders the years of rapprochement with Syria. It’s wrapping up deals with Iraq. Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his foreign minister shuttle eastward so hyperactively they’ve put to shame Sarkozi and his foreign minister.

The issue: Will this expansion eastward by the Turkish team collide head-on into Iran’s strategic interests and achievements?

A RECENT HISTORY OF SOUND STRATEGY

Turkey is unabashedly playing the Gaza card. (Gaza’s suffering is real, but Gaza and the suffering of its people do politically constitute a card.) I wouldn’t question the authenticity of the Turkish team’s empathy. The refusal years ago by Turkey to allow the harmful idiots to channel troops through Turkish territory into Arab Iraq (pre-Retreat) was proof enough that the team’s current feelings (post-Retreat) are genuine.

Though, then as now, it wasn’t really about feelings. It mostly was about sound strategy. Refusing the harmful idiots the use of Turkish territory to vanquish Arab Iraq was as much a smart and tactically masterful move as it was a move dictated by empathy with the Arab and Muslim Street - - and responsive to that Street within Turkey. Turkey could see (as could any sophomore, so long as free of the Israel shackle) that eliminating Arab Iraq would turn Iran into a regional power, unhindered. If anything, the idiots’ strategy should’ve been to rehabilitate Arab Iraq. But they shut us up then, and now they’re at it again—to shut up any independent Arab-American - - any Arab-American who’s not Israel-centric.

Too, the Turkish team, Islamic, wasn’t about to have its strategic alliance with the harmful idiots and their Israel be used the wrong way. The Turkish team could see a campaign by its strategic partners that, in its American domestic/mobilization aspects, smacked of a joint “Jewish” -“Christian” effort. The Muslim World is huge and the Turkish team wasn’t about to see Turkey turn itself into a ghetto vis-à-vis that World, as the “Christian”-“Jewish” strategists had turned the United States.

WILL TURKEY AND IRAN LOSE CONTROL?

But the primordially-sectarian feelings of the Turkish team, genuine though they are, hardly should prove decisive in Turkey’s future relations with Iran. Turkey already has begun the free fall into the regional power vacuum trap. It’ll possibly make the same mistake this newsletter had deemed Iran might commit: to spread across the empty divide that is the Arab nation, starting in Plantation Iraq, where the power vacuum is most severe. For now it seems the Turkish team is in control of that expansion, and conscious about the dangers-for-war it portends. That consciousness is mandated by the fact that the Turkish team is forever aware of its Achilles’ heel - - the Kurds and the Alevis. Accordingly, it’ll factor Iran into everything it does.

But politics is such that the Turkish Islamists might lose control over the expansion eastward. For one, consciously-or-not, they’re competing with Iran over the Arab Street. What with the Turkish team’s use of the Gaza card. That’s an important card for Iran and it wouldn’t want to lose it to Turkey or to anyone. Turkey, if it gains credibility on Gaza, might turn the Sunni masses of the Levant into a weapon against Iran’s dominance in Iraq. Suddenly, the Arab Sunnis of Iraq would no longer be a minority in the plantation-nation-state. They would be a majority if Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria are factored in. It’s not an imminent threat to Iran, but it is a threat nonetheless.

(What helps Iran vitiate that threat is the fact that the governments of the Arabian Peninsula in their wealth turn their back on the poorer Arabs. The wealthy and privileged Gulf ruling elites become, in effect, self-hating Arabs. So, instead of Saudi Arabia re-opening its doors to the Arab workers of Yemen, for Arab reasons and to defuse the economic woes of it poor Arab neighbor, rumor has it that Saudi Arabia is trying to lure China away from Iran by promising to hire hundreds of thousands of Chinese laborers.)

For another, Iraqi Kurdistan is an Israeli fiefdom. (I don’t know that it still is; but contacts developed over years of Israeli presence there shouldn’t be expected to evaporate too fast.) Think of the possibilities Israel has to drain Erdogan’s government. For instance, what if Israel supplies aid to the PKK, and in that have the tacit approval of Turkey’s military? What if Iran, aware of the Israeli stratagem, remains silent about it in order to block the push eastward of a rival? For now, it seems that the harmful idiots-and-the-Israelis are rooting for an alliance between Turkey and the de facto nation-state of Iraqi Kurdistan. (Note the visit there a couple of months ago of U.S. Senator John McCain.) But what the harmful idiots may desire likely wouldn’t be determinative. Israel might go its own way. Iran does. And so does Turkey. The scenarios are many.

CONCLUSION

Turkey and Iran will be doing a lot of management of their relationship as they fill the power vacuum left by the harmful idiots in Iraq. Both teams, however, would be fools to think that that management and the control they now exercise will be theirs to keep.

As we retreat, expect many - - not only Iran and Turkey - - to fall into systemic power vacuum traps. Let's then retreat faster! Long live RETREATS!


IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER

This newsletter has no connection WHATSOEVER to any government, INCLUDING the U.S. - - regardless of what the intelligence-industrial complex tells its snoops when they recruit them. How do they get these acquaintances, two of them I referred out to attorneys, as friends-of-friends, never having been retained by them, to snoop on me? What do they tell them? They most definitely teach the low-life snooping techniques - - that much is obvious. Obviously, too, they must pay them handsomely to become treacherous, low-life, snitches. Or something else; but I’d rather not talk about the “something else.” The parasites, the pests, and assholes.

AFTER THE RETREAT: SAUDI ARABIA COVERS THE BASES

Rough draft

FACTS

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia visits Syria. Turki al-Faisal dispenses advice to the Obama Administration.

SAUDI ARABIA CROWNS SYRIA THE LIAISON BETWEEN IRAN AND SAUDI ARABIA

First: the King’s visit.

I found the explanations for the Saudi King’s visit to Damascus lacking. He went there to discuss Lebanon. He visited Damascus to lure it away from Iran.

I believe that the King went to Damascus to crown Syria THE liaison between Saudi Arabia and Iran. In that, Saudi Arabia is admitting that Iran-as-a-great-power is here to stay - - but only temporarily. That is, until such time when the Kingdom is able to use harmful idiots other than Saddam Hussein or Crusader-and-the-American-Jewish-Right (if ever others like them could be found) to defeat the Islamic Republic.

Until such time: Arab Syria will have to be the liaison.

Why not approach Iran directly? The most persuasive reason would be that the two (Iran and Saudi Arabia) distrust each other, immensely. Note for instance the disappearance of the Iranian nuclear scientist while in Saudi Arabia. Covering the American base, Saudi Arabia likely had delivered the scientist to the reluctant ones.

Another reason for not approaching Iran directly: Saudi Arabia would hope that the reluctant ones wouldn’t close off the option of the war-on-Iran-directly-or-through-sanctions. Here, easing relations with Iran might provide the wrong Saudi message to the reluctant ones. In other words, the Saudi ruling elite would hope that the reluctant ones would stay in the neighborhood, Iran’s neighborhood, and NOT in the Kingdom itself. Hence: Turki al-Faisal’s appeal. (See below.) If the reluctant ones stay in Iran’s neighborhood, the Saudi ruling elite would then nurse two other alternative hopes: (1) that the reluctant ones would eventually finish the Islamic regime; or (2) that the reluctant ones would remain engaged in encircling Iran - - suffocate it until the regime changes.

A third reason (related to the second) yet for not approaching Iran directly likely has to do with the fact that the Saudi ruling elite wouldn't want to give legitimacy to the Islamic Republic both within the circles of allied Arab rulers and before the reluctant ones and their allies.

In essence: Saudi Arabia is on a war footing with Iran but doesn’t have the professional armed forces to wage its own war.

That President Assad and the Saudi King were reported to have spent substantial time discussing Palestine - - I do believe that. Be mindful that “Palestine talk” is the means to various ends which may or may not relate to Palestine. In other words, the King wasn’t about to ask Mr. Assad point blank for help with Iran. His strategists likely already had done the asking and, likely too, a price had been set for Arab Syria’s services. Palestine was the excuse - - the medium through which the agreement for Syria to act as liaison was expressed. Tangentially, therefore, expect Palestine to regain in importance since (1) Palestine is and always has been central to any Arab consensus, even when superficial; and (2) Syria would insist on it since Syria’s stability depends in good part on its faithfulness to Arab nationalism.

Accordingly, Arab Syria’s services as liaison should be seen as a function not only of financial profit (Syria is quite poor) but, too, as a function of Arab nationalism. Syria nurses the latter to keep links among the Arabs, project power, and to assure that Arab Syria doesn’t become another Lebanon or Iraq.

Saudi Arabia is hedging its bets by covering the Arab Syrian base - - the Iran base, really. Should the reluctant ones stage a retreat, even if only half-way, and NOT engage extensively in the Indian subcontinent/Iran's neighborhood (see below), the Saudi ruling elite would put on its Arab nationalist hat and direct its “full” support for Syria (and Hezbollah) in their war to liberate Arab lands. In that sense, the Saudi rapprochement with Syria is meant as a message to the American Jewish community and its organizations that unless these help steer the idiots to full war-and-engagement in Iran’s neighborhood, the Saudi ruling elite would have no choice but to lend its full support to Syria and, indirectly, to Hezbollah. Call it the flip side of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s anti-Semitic statements - - just as you can brand the same such phenomena as the reliance by the harmful idiots on the Jewish community for legitimacy in waging war and dismembering an Arab country, or the use of informants, with links to American Jewish organizations, to spy-and-snoop and deliver information (finger prints, writing sample, DNA) on Arab Americans with views and participate in campaigns to intimidate and harass them.

It’s too early to tell whether this Saudi rapprochement (with Syria and, indirectly. with Hezbollah) would rein in Iranian-Saudi tension. For one, the Saudis should expect all bets to be off if, for instance, they deliver yet another important Iranian to the reluctant ones. Arab Syria-as-liaison likely would no longer do when it comes to the Iranians.

Saudi-Iranian tension might rear its head anyway because Saudi Arabia’s heart is with the reluctant ones as the only ones who could defeat Iran once-and-for-all. Saudi Arabia is lobbying for these to remain intensively involved in the Indian subcontinent - - Iran’s (not Saudi Arabia’s!) neighborhood. In doing that Saudi Arabia is trying to cover the bases. The U.S. base is the most important; Syria is only a side-show—a way to hedge a bet. Recently, for instance, Turki al-Faisal published an article in the Washington Post. In that article, he most definitely dispensed advice to President Obama. He offered the Kingdom’s help in Afghanistan. He seemed motivated by a concern that the reluctant ones would pack and go in Afghanistan. Too, he called on the reluctant ones to engage extensively in the region of India and Pakistan. In other words, he outlined a strategy for the Obama Administration to remain in Iran’s neighborhood to - - encircle Iran without saying so - - as he tried to weigh in on the American debate on Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia, he seemed to be saying, wouldn’t be satisfied with an American commitment to protect the Kingdom militarily - - to place it under a U.S. military defense cover - - and convey that to the Iranians. For reasons of war-with-Iran this wouldn’t do.

A few posts ago (or maybe a couple of posts ago) I had commented that Turki al-Faisal was screaming for attention, not to himself but to the Kingdom. He was and still is trying to have Saudi Arabia gain a seat on the White House team of strategists. It seems that that effort is ongoing. And because it is, one cannot but conclude that the Obama Administration still isn’t giving Saudi Arabia (or its advice on Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan - on Iran, really) the attention to which the elite of that country had been accustomed. Still, it’s fair to see in Turki’s appeals Saudi nervousness about the extent of the retreat by the reluctant ones and the fact that the Saudi ruling elite wouldn’t be accepting-or-satisfied with only an American commitment to defend the Kingdom. It’s important to note here that it’s likely not about the Saudi public not accepting U.S. bases in the Kingdom. Saudi bases, after all, can be stocked and used as they had when U.S. troops had liberated Kuwait after the Arab Iraqi idiot had fallen into the harmful idiots’ trap - - the very trap we fell into, the one of our own making. As I’ve maintained in prior posts: a trip wire (and the training of a professional army in Saudi Arabia?) would do for the Arabian Peninsula. It would save a lot of money and be effective.

(By the way, Turki al-Faisal is making the same mistake the mediocre strategists had made when they ha kept on entrapping until we fell into the Iraq trap. The mistake: not tying foreign military adventures to domestic politics and economic realities at home.)

BY WAY OF CONCLUSION

Turki’s proposals aim to further U.S. engagement in the Indian subcontinent - - Iran’s very neighborhood and not Saudi Arabia’s. It can be interpreted as a continued call for war on Iran - - but not by the Saudi army. As such, one can see that the hearts-and-hopes of the Saudi rulers are with the reluctant ones changing ways and clearly taking on the task of re-arranging the Indian subcontinent, and pacifying it. The heart of the Saudi rulers, therefore, is hardly with Arab Syria. Arab Syria for now is a minor Saudi side show. In essence, Syria is Saudi Arabia hedging its bets and staging an indirect and cautious rapprochement (from afar) with Iran and Hezbollah- - not much more. More correctly, the use of Arab Syria as liaison is a payoff to Iran, protection money, a ruse, for a truce while the Saudi ruling elite waits for what’s coming from the reluctant ones. Saudi Arabia should be expected to quit on Syria as soon as it senses that the country of the harmful idiots-and-the-reluctant ones is back to its overwhelming (to our country) military campaigns and miscalculations.

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IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER

I have no connection to any government. My analysis is based solely on my review of newspaper articles.

AFTER THE RETREAT: WILL SYRIA TURN ITS BACK ON IRAN?

First and incomplete draft. A rough one.

(Please read the IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER at the end of the post.)

Reading a New York Times article a few days ago, I detected that the reluctant ones still are nursing hopes that they will be able to lure Arab Syria away from Iran. These, too, seem to think that they could attle both (Iran and Syria) and make them mistrust one another.

I don’t think so.

Let’s consider the contours of the subject:


1. In the absence of a settlement between Israel and Syria, Iran can reassure Syria that Iran and Iraq would provide Syria with the strategic depth it needs in its attempt to - -

(a) regain its land; and

(b) see to it that Arab nationalism - - an integrator of Arabs, Sunnis and Shiites and others - - is alive and well; this of course hinges on Arab nationalism not threatening Iran. It no longer does, what with Arab Iraq’s demise, once a relatively rich state to fund it. So Iran knows that that ship has sailed. But Arab nationalism isn’t fully gone. In large part it is a function of the Palestinian cause. That cause doesn’t threaten Iran, to say the least. Arab nationalism remains a potent force. It is insurance in part that Syria wouldn’t disintegrate a la Iraq or a la Lebanon. The same applies to other Arab countries - - e.g., Jordan. Arab nationalism, too, may heal Lebanon.

2. On the stick-end, Iran would assure that the Shiites of Lebanon remain united. Money will play a chief role. A united Shiite community in Lebanon would mean that Syria would pay a price. The price: Syria would lose its influence in Lebanon. To complicate matters for Syria - - should it turn against Iran, and therefore against a united Shiite community in Lebanon- -Syria would find itself in the Saudi camp in Lebanon - - Saad al-Hariri’s. That’s a mostly-Sunni camp, but it’s not one that controls the Sunni Street or the Palestinian camps in Lebanon. (For instance, the Hariri camp flooded Tripoli’s Sunni Street with money to win elections, then dropped that Street flat on its ass after the elections.) Not to mention that the rank-and-file in Lebanon’s armed forces is mostly Shiite.

The gist of it all: Lebanon would enter another civil war. Syria would bloody its hands moving against both the mostly-Shiite Lebanese army AND Hezbollah and the Shiites. Syria isn’t an idiot. Lebanon is part of its strategic depth. Things to Syria are fine the way they are. It's difficult to argue otherwise.

3. Importantly: Syria fields a pan-Arab elite which finds its match in all Arab countries, regardless of the type of government that rules that country. (Note that Muntazar - - the man who threw his shoes at President Bush (I’ve healed), and a part of the Arab elite - - chose Syria for medical treatment, not Iran. The pressure by the delusional and Israel-centric harmful idiots is over. Accordingly, the Arab elites can now live in tune with their Arab feelings. Expect their shopping trips to Damascus to increase markedly. Syria’s home to them. Syria is poor. They have the money. Barring Iran dropping the Palestinian cause, expect the Arab elites to show understanding for Syria in its alliance with Iran. (The Arab elites already are. You can see it in the writings of Abdel-Bari Atwan.)

4. True, Syria has a partnership agreement coming due soon with the European community. As the reluctant ones and that community ratchet up the pressure on Iran, if they do, Syria might feel that pressure too. But, for now, that pressure isn’t in full motion. Iran in its negotiations with the reluctant ones might keep Syria in mind. Communication between the two - - Syria and Iran - - likely will continue to be intense, not always at the visible level. With communication: coordination. Besides, I doubt that in the cost-benefit calculus Syria would shed its alliance with Iran without the Joulan and a peace with Israel that would preserve Syria’s Arab nationalist credentials - - that means a full-fledged Palestinian state on all of the pre-June 5, 1967 lands.

5. True, too, Syria has to be concerned about the Hariri tribunal. The Saudi King should be in Syria by now. The tribunal card, via Saad al-Hariri (Rafiq’s son), belongs to the King. Should the Saudis refuse to let go of the tribunal, Syria’s ally - -Iran - - could, for instance, wink at Muqtadha as-Sadr to revive the issue of the Shia Imams’ graves in Saudi Arabia. (He had raised that issue before and the Saudis likely coughed up money to silence it.) Not to mention that not letting go of the tribunal would amount to Lebanon living in limbo. Recently my father angrily commented that some Syrian official had called Lebanon “a sick country.” My response: if the statement had in fact been uttered, it was likely because Syria was positioning-and-maneuvering before the Saudi King had arrived in Damascus. Lebanon could “recuperate” as fast as the King’s plane departs the Damascus airport. Or not. (It’s “recuperating” as I write, but the Saudi King might not be responsive enough to Syria’s tribunal concerns. Lebanon’s “sickness” therefore would continue to fester.)

6. Iran can prove handy. For instance, what if Turkey cuts off the water - - or not increase its flow? True: Turkey and Syria now are enjoying a strategic relationship. But this relationship should head south if Turkey doesn’t release water to Syria (and Iraq.) The strategic relationship with Turkey therefore, in the end, might not mean much. Who’s going to come to Syria’s help? The highest likelihood - - for now - -: Iran.

CONCLUSION

The difference in Syria’s relationship with Saudi Arabia and the Israel-centric ones, on the one hand and, on the other, with Iran, is that Iran needs Syria - -e.g., Hezbollah as deterrent to an Israeli or American attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. But Saudi Arabia doesn’t need Syria. (We all know that Arab “brotherhood” means zilch.) Accordingly, Syria shouldn’t be expected to let go of such a precious relationship, one that is based on need and mutual benefit. The reluctant ones should by now have given up on luring Syria away from Iran. Not while Israel occupies Syrian and Palestinian land.


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IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER

This newsletter is independent. It has no connections WHATSOEVER to ANY government, including ours, or the business world. I (the editor) do NOT seek the views of anyone in government. (I do conduct my own opinion polling on colleagues to get a sense about things.) I develop my analysis based on my reading of newspapers. I told a friend recently: I started this newsletter as a graduate student - - not an old fart - - would. With courage. (Please forgive the self-congratulatory tone; but I need to vent.) I started it with the idea of dispelling the illusions of the harmful idiots. And I’m still at the task. When I started it, I knew I’d be monitored by government. (Hey, it was post-September 11.) What I didn’t know was that Government would be paying off so many people - - “colleagues,” “friends,” people I’ve helped as an attorney, and others - - to snoop on me. I became the cow to milk for these to make and supplement their income. No one from the intelligence-industrial establishment ever picked up the phone and said let's have a coffee. (If they did, I would've said I'd only talk to Senator George Mitchell or someone of his caliber.) Snooping and annoying harassment - - that was the way they established contact. For seven years, the post-September 11 State has put me through the ringer. It’s beyond me what they tell their snitches - -that they love me? I’m exhausted!

At a wake recently, I sat near a young physician from Northern Virginia. I went through the entire loving harassment and intimidation campaign by the intelligence-industrial complex having seemingly hired what looks like an entire Jewish-American organization to snoop and harass - - and Arabs, too. (It seems to me that the intelligence-industrial complex has hired Jewish groups, likely formed by entrepreneurs, to spy-and-collect-information on Arab-Americans and to provide what information they already had, and has hired Arab-Americans to do the same against Jewish-Americans. But, be mindful of the difference: we Arabs are the terrorists.)

The more I recounted the more the young doctor laughed - - nearly uncontrollably. When he was able to rein in his laughter (he was able to do that only a couple of times), he commented that “these people” had so much money that they’ve deluded themselves that you were bigger than you are; he said that all along they have wanted you to consult for them, more to nab you as a prize and silence you than for any real need for you. There’s just too much money, he kept repeating.

Mostly, however, the young doctor laughed - - and at a wake!

AFTER THE RETREAT: WILL HEZBOLLAH MODERATE IRAN’S INFLUENCE IN THE ARAB NATION?

Rough draft

THE HARMFUL IDIOTS HAVE ELIMINATED ALL BALANCE OF POWER IN THE REGION

As the reluctant ones clean up after the harmful idiots and manage the ongoing and inevitable retreat, Israel’s realm - -to use the harmful idiots’ terminology about their Beloved- - no longer has any country left to balance Iranian power.

No, the reluctant ones can’t do it. They can preside over a conventional balance from the Arabian Peninsula. But the balance of power required to offset Iranian power is one that would mobilize/de-mobilize the Arab Street. That kind of balance is beyond them. The Arab Street hates them.

And no, their Israel can’t either. It sits somewhere between useless and extremely harmful - - to U.S. interests, and to Arabs and others. Ask the Palestinians. Not to mention that the Arab Street perceives Israel's people as having been the most important pillar behind the invasion and dismemberment of Arab Iraq.

And no, Turkey cannot do it, either. Turkey’s Kurdish Achilles’ heel is painful enough - - not to mention the Alevi heel. (I caught on to this in Paul Theroux’s The Pillars of Hercules). At any rate, NATO for now has accepted that Turkey play the role of the good cop with Iran - - in part because Turkey has wanted to. Turkey knows that the alternative would set it back a couple of decades.

The government of Egypt? The predecessors of the reluctant ones and the harmful idiots had turned this one into an Israeli outfit - - useless though by no means harmful. They began that process when they had entrapped Gamal Abdel-Nasser. They moved for the kill when they adopted the Israeli-favored one-peace-at-a-time formula—to divide the Arab nation. They succeeded. Congratulations.

Arab Iraq can’t do it. It no longer exists. What’s left of it is a broken-up plantation.


CAN SAUDI ARABIA BALANCE IRANIAN POWER?

Hence the flirtation by Saudi Arabia with Syria. (The Syrian President had been recently to Saudi Arabia.) Saudi Arabia was (and is) the champion of the policy for Iran’s containment and for its defeat. It and Kuwait had sacrificed Arab Iraq on the altar of that policy and for the benefit of the harmful idiots’ Israeli realm-interest.

Saddam Hussein, the Arab idiot, had Arab Iraq fight a devastating war – - for Arab Iraq and for Iran - - in good part on behalf of the Saudi and the Kuwaiti ruling elites. These, the same elites Arab Iraq had protected, turned around so soon after Iraq’s “victory” against Iran, began setting up traps for it (with the help of the harmful idiots), and then unleashed the armies of the harmful idiots for the kill. No Sunni Arab who’s not on the payroll will ever trust these two. Saudi Arabia therefore can’t balance Iranian power.

This realization by the Saudis of their limitations likely stands behind the severe reduction of Saudi intelligence disbursements in Lebanon. I suspect the termination by Lebanese media outfits (e.g., al-Nahar, MTV) of droves of employees is related to Saudi intelligence conceding Lebanon, so to speak, to Syria, as part of its flirtation with Syria and its conclusion that Saudi Arabia has been defeated by Iran’s rise. Not that the Saudis had a choice: Syria and Hezbollah had taught the Saudi proxies in Lebanon many-a-lesson. These had gotten so over-excited (tickled to death, really) by the delusions of the harmful idiots. (The fact that Waleed Jumblatt did a volte face could have the same reasons: Saudi intelligence diminishing the supply of money it had once been giving him.)

(Unless the Saudis live fully on Plane-Israel-and-the-Idiots, it should be clear to them that Syria would be a fool to sever its alliance with Iran. The flirtation with Syria therefore is more of an admission of defeat in Lebanon and in Iraq - - and adaptation to that defeat - - than anything else. And no, the rapprochement with Syria isn’t in the main to pressure the Israelis to withdraw to the June 4, 1967 borders. That ship’s sailed.)

Unless! Why couldn’t Saudi intelligence, for instance, keep the money flowing but instruct the dependent Lebanese media outfits not to criticize Syria? If one subscribes to the theory that Saudi Arabia has more money than God, then what’s a few million dollars to MTV, an-Nahar and others? Unless, that is, Saudi Arabia is helping fund the Iraq and Afghanistan “war” effort. Which means it’s draining its coffers at tens of billions of dollars per year. Otherwise, it simply doesn’t make sense that Saudi intelligence would cut off - - or substantially reduce - - funding to pro-Saudi outfits. The draining of Saudi Arabia’s coffers must be so bad that even a few millions of dollars have now gained significance to the Saudis.

HEZBOLLAH AND SYRIA: THE SMART INTERPLAY. WILL IT WITHSTAND ISRAELI/IDIOTS' RUSES?

But is Syria key? And if it is, it’s key for what?

Syria’s deputy foreign minister has been to Washington, D.C. for talks. His visit probably is part of the campaign by the reluctant ones to synchronize an orderly retreat. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the reluctant ones (the Israel-centered they are) still harbor the illusion that they can split Syria from Iran.

(I don’t want to spend time here on why Syria would be a fool to split from Iran, although it’d need to cover some bases in case the Iranian regime folds to the opposition, which is unlikely.)

There’s no regional power to balance Iran. Syria can’t, even if it had wanted. For one, it’s a poor country. Because of the absence of a regional country to balance Iranian power, Iran might commit a mistake similar to that which the harmful idiots had committed: to fall into a systemic power-vacuum trap, this one regional. Just as the idiots had fallen into the trap of a highway to Central Asia’s energy fields, having seen no worthy military power to stop their expansion, Iran might fall into the trap of over-reaching into the Arab nation now that the idiots had eliminated for them the main stumbling block: secular Arab nationalism, funded with Iraqi oil proceeds. And now that the idiots are in a retreat mode.

The harmful idiots had seen no worthy opposition all the way to China. (Nationalism, to the idiots, is never a factor to be considered. Nor is cost. These are two of the symptoms of their derangement.) It became alluring for them to invade that space, pacify Afghanistan, and make available to India (via a pacified Afghanistan) the energy fields of Central Asia. The idea would’ve been to build up India as a great power to stand up to China on the latter’s Western front.

(The harmful idiots’ very country - - ours - - is responsible for China’s rise, but the harmful idiots are functionally specific idiots. Since they specialize only in foreign policy (in poli. Sci., they proudly referred to similar phenomena as “functional specialization” and deemed it a sign of “development”), they weren’t about to stand up to China by tackling the forfeiting of anything that is job-creating to that country - - but for health care.) (We will all need to get sick a lot to keep ourselves employed! Or we can snoop at one another and get paid off by the various outfits of the intelligence-industrial complex, which parses out a majority of its $50 billion-a-year intelligence business to fat contractors, including those around this author who are out to supplement their income.)

Had the idiots proceeded to Afghanistan in full force after September 11, they may have succeeded. India would’ve perhaps become the Great Power to help out against China. But the Israel realm crowd diverted the idiots sideways into Iraq. Then there were the unforeseen Iraqi resistance which left the idiots with too-little-too-late for Afghanistan.

(And yes: I’m driven crazy when I read on the front page of the Washington Post an article about the idiots investigating the sources of funding for the Taliban. Beside the arrogance of taking on the subject as if a criminal investigation, it bewilders me to no end that so much resources are needed to monitor that funding. All the idiots need do is consult with any professor of international relations to point to them the parties to which advantage it is to scuttle the idiots’ plan for India-as-great-power-to-stand-up-to-China. Hello idiots!)

Iran might fall into the systemic power vacuum trap, and likely will. Unless, that is, Hezbollah, its chief Arab ally and protégé, modulates Iran’s intervention in the Arab nation. Hezbollah might have to take on the task of moderating Iran’s intervention to avoid offending Arabs and creating a backlash against both Iran and Hezbollah - - a backlash that would be unbearable for Iran’s ally, Syria. Currently, Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas own the Arab Street. There’s hardly any Arab on that Street who is not proud of Hezbollah, is not rooting for Iran, and is not protective of Syria.

Israel (very purposely) feeds that pride (in Hezbollah) by leaking on a near-daily basis report-after-report about the prowess of Hezbollah. Israel wants that guerrilla army to become so self-satisfied, so content (a la Bar Lev Line or the Maginot Line) until it comes at it again, this time for THE kill. Or maybe, just maybe, the Israelis are praying that their “leaks” of near-daily reports lauding Hezbollah would help blind the Lebanese political party about its task as an Arab political party - - albeit Islamic - - to monitor Iran’s rush to fall into the systemic Arab power vacuum trap. If Hezbollah does become blind to its mission, and is drunk with victory - - then perhaps it would allow Iran and itself to fall into the trap that is the systemic power vacuum the idiots are leaving behind. Bluntly put: Israel wants Iran and Hezbollah to fall into the power vacuum trap.

So in essence Arab Hezbollah might take on the task of modulating-and-moderating Iran so as not to overreach into the Arab nation. Put differently, Arab Hezbollah might take on the task of preventing Iran from falling into the systemic trap that the void that the harmful idiots, their Israel, and their Arab Gulf minions had created when they had eliminated Arab Iraq. This double-role would fit Hezbollah well in that it pleases both its constituencies - - Iran and the Arab nation. With that in mind, Hezbollah will let Arab Syria swim the public relations sea and enjoy the role of the good cop as THE bridge between the Arab governments and Iran’s - -all of that while Hezbollah is doing the heavy lifting for all of them - - Syria, Iran, and the Arab Street.

Such is my reading of a part of the picture of the Arab nation after the retreat. But there’s an important caveat about corruption which impugns Hezbollah’s ability to take on the task. Hezbollah’s recent entanglement in a Ponzi-like-scheme in which many Lebanese Shiites lost their nest egg says that the “best guerrilla army” is now flirting with corruption. (Or has corruption reached deeper into it?) It already may have become full-of-itself, having believed the Israeli studied propaganda-in-the-form-of-“professional”-reports about what a great guerrilla army it is. Its victory in 2006 may have led it astray and into the world of Grand Corruption that so characterize politics in the Arab nation.

Still, all things considered, the eyes of all Arabs ARE on Hezbollah.