SAUDI ARABIA TO IRAN: WE SHALL HANG YOU!

a draft on the move. Rough.

Exciting times ahead:

Kommersant.com, a Russian newspaper, featured an article on July 15 titled “The Arab Seduction” by Alexander Gabuev.

Check it out. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia seems intent on paying off the Russians to drop Iran as a client.

SUMMER COMEDY:WWW.HARRYWESSEL.COM.

No I’m not talking about the acrobatics by Israel and Iran or the proxy wars among intelligence services in Lebanon and Syria, in Yemen, in Pakistan and Afghanistan, in Iraq. (I expect the latter to get started and heighten if the UAE, Jordan, Bahrain, and Kuwait --all arms of U.S. intelligence and the harmful idiots -- open up the promised embassies.)

No. It’s about Harry Wessel: a capital defense attorney, a comedy inspired by my practice as a defense attorney in the District of Columbia.

You can find the comedy at www.HarryWessel.com

I sent this comedy only to one New York agent. She said the following: “It’s a funny and biting satire, to be sure, but there’s not enough narrative or connective tissue bringing together the work as a whole.” She may be right. My intent was to let the reader do the connecting. I can’t go back and do connective tissue work. Once it’s written, it’s over for me.

But I will in due time edit and correct the misspellings.

Enjoy.

Tony S. Khater

DR. MATROUK AL-FALEH.

ON THE TRIBALIZATION OF THE ARAB SUNNIS BY THE US-ISRAEL-SAUDI ARABIA AXIS AND HOW LIBERAL AMERICA WILL USHER CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY INTO SAUDI ARABIA.

For background, please google: Dr. Matrouk al-Faleh.

second rough draft.


F i c t i o n a l i z e d: this article is the product of a discussion by three Arab-Americans.


00 In life, thankfully, there are bulwarks against mass hysteria and harmful government campaigns and blind and racist policies of various kinds. Dr. Matrouk al-Faleh is one such bulwark. As an Arab nationalist, a political prisoner stewing in jail in Saudi Arabia, with torture always a possibility, Dr. al-Faleh’s Arab nationalism is a bulwark against the harmfully idiotic policy of the Saudi secret government. That government is working directly with the harmful idiots, and with the Israelis, directly and likely through Jordanian intelligence, to disintegrate the Arab World into tribes.

Dr. al-Faleh has committed no crime whatsoever.

But for concern for Dr. al-Faleh, all would be well since the idiots in Saudi Arabia’s government are doing the work for many in the Arab Street, both elite and masses. The Arab Street will watch with glee as the Arab governments, specially the Saudi, will not know what will hit them. It’ll hit them so hard that they’ll twirl about for generations. The camp of the Jewish Right and its allies (the “neocons”) may have been on point about Saudi Arabia -- that it is the nut to crack -- though it was dead wrong on Iraq. Still, Iraq took place anyway. For that camp and its liberals, Iraq is only the beginning. Saudi Arabia is next. As Bald Samson put it: it's good to be in Iraq. It's good for America's liberal camp, too, to be so close to Saudi Arabia.

The Jewish Right and its liberals and likely a majority within the Israel-obsessed American Jewish community seem to be on board for a continued US military campaign in the Arab World. Joseph Lieberman, the right-wing Israel-obsessed U.S. Senator from Connecticut, represents a large swath of these. He isn’t leaving John McCain’s side for a moment. Did you see his photo with McCain in Mexico in the Post this past Friday?


00 I did. Significance?

00 Lieberman is Israel’s man, the child of its mobilized diaspora. Israel wants us there, in Iraq, to stay, and in the rest of the Arab World. Israel hopes that through us -- armed forces and resources -- it’ll preserve its so called Jewish identity.

00 How will that work? The Palestinians will multiply as all poor people do.

00 It’s not about identity. It’s about power . "Jewish identity" are code words. Israel wants to lord over the Arabs, all of them, to be the center. To use the Zionist ideology for the maintenance of a network that would reward friends, punish enemies, and preserve its alleged superiority. To push through into each and every corner of the Arab World, to make each and every Arab “accept” Israel -- a code word for accepting the idea that Israel is superior to Arabs, and therefore needed by them, and the idea that a Palestinian state is unnecessary. (The Israelis, through the harmful idiots and directly in Kurdistan, already are in the heart of the Arab World -- once Arab Iraq.)

00 They’re crazy.

00 Such is power, especially when they have succeeded at putting American armed forces to use.

00 What resources of ours will they use?

00 For one, they’ve already put to service our greatest resource: the armed forces. They were able to match Israel’s ambitions with that of the grabbing oil administration and the larger Pentagon goal of gaining a strategic advantage against China and Europe without having to raise taxes at home. (See prior posts.) That poor Iraq; that poor Arab World. They still don’t appreciate what hit them. They don’t understand that we in the United States produce so little. That our chief product is our military, and it is our chief export. The result of multinational corporations carrying the day and moving manufacturing away from the American heartland. Israel, through the American Jewish Right and a large swath of the American Jewish community, has marshaled that resource to its advantage, as it had perceived it. It got defeated because its drive for power and superiority is a blind drive; because the harmful idiots are idiots; but mostly because of Iran.

But now Israel has bounced back. Using Jordanian intelligence and the secret government of Saudi Arabia, Israel has discovered that the Arabs can be made to revert to a state of tribalism -- e.g., the sahwas. Iran is only a subterfuge for the Israelis. The real goal is the Arab World. The goal is to teach the Americans how to tame that World by a divide-and-conquer policy that would revert that World to tribes. For that they have recruited Jordanian and Saudi intelligence.

00 Any other resources?

00 Yes. A lot more. Israel likely has US intelligence on its side, in full. The possibility -- distinct -- that the CIA is engaged in a smear campaign against the September 11 Queen because she’s now likely perceived as “pro Arab.” The funding and support of the Syrian Muslim Brothers in the hope of destabilizing the Syrian government, the last Arab outpost of secularism. The disastrous Beirut campaign where the consortium of intelligence services -- harmful idiot, Saudi, Israeli, and Jordanian -- had this incredibly moronic and harmful plan to flood Beirut with hundreds of agents to attack Hezbollah’s rear lines. All of this tells me that they have U.S. intelligence in their pocket.

00 Where are they heading with this?

00 It’s about power, so it’s blind. It’ll head likely in a direction that they themselves can’t predict or control. They’re doing anything they can to keep US troops in Iraq, with bases, for the long haul. And it won’t end here. If Obama is elected the liberal wing of that imperial pillar -- the large swath of Israel’s diaspora that’s mobilized and put to use -- should take over. The Saudi government, the patsies they are, don’t understand what’ll hit them. The liberals will unleash an army of civil rights and human rights organizations against them. It doesn’t matter that the Saudi secret government is in full alliance with Israel; and that, according to rumors, that secret government had paid Israel for the 2006 military campaign on Lebanon, The Saudi secret government is made up of fools. They have no forward thinking. They don’t know that the liberals will wage such an effective campaign against the Saudi system of government to tire the hell out of it. The secret government thinks the Shias are the threat. Maybe Iran is; maybe not. I’m all eyes and ears to witness the next phase of the campaign against the Arab governments, but especially against the Saudi. It’ll aim to subjugate that country and all the Arabs. It’ll confirm my assessment.

That next phase (the liberal phase) should make the name of Dr. Matrouk al-Faleh or others like him more famous than that of Jesus. The liberals will adopt them, as well they should, but for the wrong reasons.

00 You seem to be against change, period.

00 I’m not. My heart goes to Dr. Matrouk al-Faleh and his family. He is an Arab nationalist, and my Arab persona is too. Dr. Al-Faleh is not only a reform activist; to me, more importantly, he is a bulwark against this ominous descent into tribalism which is being financed in good part by his government. I’m disgusted with what the harmful idiots have done to Arab Iraq, disintegrating it and reverting the Sunnis of that country to a state of tribalism -- all to achieve colonial ends. Let’s hope the Saudis aren’t torturing Dr. al-Faleh. They may not like him for calling for a constitutional monarchy. That’s their business. And likely the business soon of so many Western organizations which the liberals will unleash on the Kingdom. But Dr. Al-Faleh is, too, an Arab nationalist. And that’s the business of all Arabs.

Now that the harmful idiots have their peace of mind in Iraq, albeit precarious, having put all on the payroll and revived the Sunni tribes, and reached a modus operandi with Iran (or are on their way towards that), they’ll be moving their liberals wing sooner or later into Saudi Arabia. The Israelis will tell the Saudis, “Oh don’t worry, we can control our people, including the liberals, in the US.” But the liberal camp isn’t solely a Jewish camp. It has in it churches and civic organizations and law associations, and what have you. So I don’t think the Israelis can control the liberal camp. Once the cat is out of the box -- bingo: liberal America will bring in constitutional monarchy to Saudi Arabia , not Iran and not Dr. al-Faleh.

00 And they can reward their friends within the Kingdom.

00 Absolutely. These guys are such spies that they likely have tons of information on who’s who inside the Kingdom and the blackmailing points for each. The Saudi secret government has opened the door wide to the Israelis. That secret government is working closely with Arab-hating sectarian and ethnic groups who are agents of the Israelis -- Jumblatt's Druze, Lebanese Christians of the Lebanese Forces, Lebanese Sunnis on Hariri's pay and likely keeping a direct association with Israeli intelligence -- and those so hungry for a buck and therefore easy recruits of the Israelis/harmful idiots (Egyptians, Sudanese, Jordanians). (This is why, likely, Syria a few weeks ago refused to let Egyptian "reporters" enter its territory; they know they're hungry spies!) Syria, by holding on to Hezbollah, which the harmful idiots perceive as an obstacle to US bases in Iraq, has pushed Saudi Arabia into that unpleasant corner as an ally of Israel's, successfully. The Saudis want to please the harmful idiots and placate their own Shia population -- so they’ve taken on the war on Hezbollah. In that they found themselves allied to the Israelis.

The Saudi secret government through the groups mentioned above has opened the Kingdom's doors wide to Israeli intelligence. Israel's spy network already likely is impressive in the US. They can -- and highly likely are -- use the same groups to spy on Arabs in the United States and Arab-Americans. Likely, they can score with US intelligence by passing information on these to these services as Israel is one of the best traders of intelligence around. That network is expanding for Israel. A recent minor incident has gotten my imagination going: Could it be that Hariri, using the huge pool of money at his disposal -- both the money his late father made from Lebanon through government contracts (!) and the money from Saudi intelligence -- be spreading Hariri and allied youth around the US to mobilize the Lebanon diaspora? If he is, then I sure hope that he has a system to vet these since any Sunni groups can be infiltrated relatively easily by al-Qaeda cultist types. Worse, since Israel likely is making available its network for these young Hariri people, it would be hilarious, woudldn't it, if al-Qaeda types get so close to higher-ups in the US government.


In the absence of a pan-Arab ideology to dam Israel’s spying activity, the Kingdom belongs to Israel. The ball has been rolling ever since Iraq. The absence of a pan-Arab ideology has disintegrated the Arab World, Iraq-like.


00 But at least the Iranians have been dammed by the use of the Sunni wall.


00 No they’re not. The Iranians own the Palestine cause and that’s half of the battle. For one, that breaks Jordan’s back. Jordan’s population, both Jordanian Arabs and Palestinian Arabs, are all Sunni. The Palestinians are the majority. Jordan has no Shias. By owning the Palestinian cause Iran averts total mobilization of the Arab Sunnis of Jordan, both Palestinian and Jordanian, as an army in Iraq for the harmful idiots. Ingenious.

But Palestine is only half of the battle. The other half is in Iraq. If the Iranians are able to engineer a form of Arab Islamism that’s acceptable to them and that mends Shias and Sunnis -- then they’ll own most of that World. It isn’t an easy task for the Iranians. They wouldn’t want to lose the Badr/Dawa crowd. But they can wait until the harmful idiots transfer troops to Afghanistan. At some moment, when they judge the time propitious, they should allow the Sunni-Shia front to evolve, one that’s friendly to them. But they don’t dare do it now: too many U.S. troops in Iraq and hyper-preparedness. They know they have to tire out the U.S. and bleed it financially. For now, the Shia realm is their best bet. And the Palestine cause. But, sooner or later, they’d need the Shia-Sunni front. Especially if a Palestinian state is formed. If this happens, Iran would be dead meat if caught without a strong pro-Iranian Shia-Sunni front in Iraq.


00 Is it a race?

00 You bet it is, or it’ll soon be. The Arab Street is in that race, too. Because the Arab Street knows that its governments are incapable of adopting Arab nationalism, in good part because of their dependence on the US, and not wanting to upset Israel lest the Israelis unleash campaigns against them in the US. The Street therefore will go its own way. Likely it’s no longer crazy about the terror-minded Islamists because these have under-achieved and splintered further the Arab front. But that Street is boiling especially about Iraq, its disintegration, its status as an American-Israeli-Kurdish-Iranian plantation, and the presence on its Arab soil of occupying colonial troops allied to Israel. The Saudi secret government and, I suspect, our intelligence services, are funding Sunni Islamist groups and publications to absorb the Street’s frustration and pretend to represent its dreams. To keep that fictitious Sunni wall standing against Iran. But these are either ineffective or harmful and will come back to bite the Saudis and the harmful idiots in the ass. How: they’re so easy to infiltrate by those who are at the fringe and for whom the targets for terror involve the Kingdom itself and the United States. Get it?

00 What’ll the Street do?

00 Look: the sahwas in Iraq -- totally on the payroll of the harmfull idiots -- have been able to pull the rug from underneath the Muslim Brothers in the person of the Islamic Party. In other words, Arab Sunni forces that are more reactionary than the Muslim Brothers have been able to defeat these! Or at least become their equal. Which means that Islamism, as would be typified by the Muslim Brothers, is on the wane. The harmful idiots’ money is on tribalism, and so is the Saudi.

The more radical Islamists are and will be facing off with their own , mostly Sunni, like the Muslim Brothers such as found in the Iraqi Islamic Party, or the tribes, such as found in the sahwas -- all Sunni. What kind of “wall,” cracked and full of holes, against Iran is that?

Not to be sectarian, but this is total disintegration of the Arab Sunnis which the Saudi secret government (Bandar and Muqrin) is financing. This disintegration is bound to spill over into other countries around Iraq, including the Kingdom. Is it any wonder that Syria so fast caught on to a scheme by the Saudi secret government to fund at least one Sunni tribe in Syria? Odly, Syria did Saudi Arabia a favor when it blunted the Saudi payment to that tribe since it aborted an idiotic, self-destructive, and harmful scheme to further tribal-ize the Arab World, including disintegrating the Sunnis who would divide between tribe and Arab nationalism -- and possibly Islamism, too.

This disintegration and the reversion to tribalism is a direct result of Israel’s success at having America’s armies adopt its views of the Middle East. The Street will have to come up with an ideology that would counter Israel’s success.

00 And...

00 Likely the Arab Street will revert to Arab nationalism to stem disintegration and tribalism -- the goals of the axis of the US/Israel/Jordanian intelligence/Saudi intelligence. In other words, the Street should go the way of the proud Arab, the way of Dr. Matrouk al-Faleh. The Street will design its own Arab nationalist network across borders. In that it has a live example: It’ll emulate the Zionist network.

00 For instance:

00 You’ve worked across the Gulf, haven’t you?

00 Yes.

00 And you know a lot of foreigners who make a living from that world.

00 Many foreigners make a better living than the natives. Some Westerners I know were pulling in one-million dollar salaries for work which in their home countries would fetch them $150K, no more.

00 Were they pro-Arab?

00 They were drunkards. If any had a political view it’d been sympathetic to Israel.

00 Here you go. The Arab Street -- and I’m including the elite -- when it organizes around Arab nationalism, will shed these. The passive-aggressive way. Terror is for losers. One Westerner who is known to be anti-Arab should face people spitting to the ground when they see him. When a child in Lebanon, I’d see the Arab Lebanese ants do this to a man who left his family for another woman. It’s an incredibly effective punishment, I suspect, to keep up discipline among the ranks of men so that the production of for-export children remains solid, which benefits all the ants ("society"). Sooner or later that Westerner should stop leaving his house. He’ll get cabin fever. And suddenly he’ll leave and another Westerner would take his place. This one would be in the Arab camp, enthusiastically and wholeheartedly. He’d be one to patronize Arab art and send money to care for Palestinian and Lebanese children in an Arab version of the United Jewish Appeal. Little victories as this can go a long way in buttressing the Street’s ability to stem the descent into tribalism.

The Arab Street would be emulating Palestinian nationalism, which has been emulating Zionist nationalism, lock, stock and barrel. In other words, the new Arab nationalism will be a network a la Zionist network, to include the diaspora when one is present, which will work below the governments’ radar screen, mostly with tacit government approval, sometimes without. It’ll reward and punish. It’ll be in the bureaucracies all over -- from DMVs to customs to national security. Blair and Bush invade Iraq and contracts are delayed for British and American companies. Drafts of contracts disappear. Spitting to the ground becomes a national passtime. Refusal to serve Americans and Brits, the new colonialists and haters of Arabs, at private stores, spreads all over the Arab World. If an Israeli official visits the UAE and Qatar, ripe tomatoes would be the welcoming fruit of choice. This Arab nationalist network should have a lot of friends within the governing elite, including the royal elite in Saudi Arabia. It doesn’t threaten the established governments since it’s not calling for union among Arab countries; only for union among the Streets and a celebration of Arab history and culture.

And a readiness to come to the aid of fellow Arabs, be they Sudanese, Lebanese, Palestinian, or Egyptian.

OF OIL, WAR, AND LUST.

DOES CONDOLEEZZA RICE HAVE THE HOTS FOR A HANDSOME ARAB MAN AND IS THE CIA WAGING A SMEAR CAMPAIGN AGAINST HER?

first and rough draft

OF OIL.

Baghdad opens its fields to Big Oil.

OF WAR.

Saudi King Abdallah alludes that his government’s allies (the United States and Israel) will soon put an end to the Islamic Republic. He is reported to have told one Arab daily, the Kuwaiti As-Siyasa, that “ [t]he hour of the dawn has come due for those who have wanted evil to Lebanon and the region. . . [t]he hour of their ghurub (dawn/disappearance) is approaching.” (assafir.com, July 2, 2008. My translation from Arabic.)

The Saudi King has meant by evil not only the Islamic Republic, but Hizbollah and Syria, too. Hizbollah is a Lebanese Shia guerrilla army and political party supported by Iran and Syria. In May Hizbollah took over West Beirut. This military take-over was swift and impressive. It resulted in the evacuation (by US helicopters dispatched from the Cole) from the Mediterranean city of hundreds of armed operatives. These had been dispatched to the Paris of the East by the US via Saudi, Jordanian, and Israeli intelligence. Their mission had been to boost the Seniora government militarily and to set the stage for attacks on Hizbollah’s rear lines.

Hizbollah recently broke its tradition of silence on matters related to Arab countries and warned Saudi Arabia (one mastermind of the various assaults on Hizbollah) that in the next confrontation Hizbollah will not, as it did in May, allow the Saudi ambassador to escape, albeit humiliated, from the Jewel of the Mediterranean. Heeding the warning, the Saudi government recently announced that its ambassador will not be returning to Phoenicia any time soon.

OF LUST.

In the meanwhile, al-Malaf.net (highly likely: Jordanian intelligence) reported on 6/29/08, quoting the daily al-Shuruq (Algeria) , that Condoleezza Rice is involved in a romantic relationship with an Arab and “very handsome” young man “[who] is way better [looking] than a woman of her [plain] looks can hope to land.” (My translation.) Al-Malaf further noted from al-Shuruq that the young man has the run of the Department of State when in Washington, D.C., and that he's able to go into parts of that Department that are not open to US citizens. Al-Malaf noted that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) got in on the act and warned Rice that the relationship should remain a secret because the young man is related to an Arab leader. The CIA's concern, it's alleged, is that "photos or positions" might compromise that Arab leader's "stand" or that of the White House.

OF A POSSIBLE SMEAR CAMPAIGN.

Jordanian intelligence could be waging a smear campaign against Rice on behalf of Israeli intelligence. Israel has never been fond of the US State Department since that Department has nearly always been less patient with Israel than other parts of the Executive Branch.

But what about the CIA? Could it be that the CIA, too, dislikes Rice so much as to allow Jordanian intelligence -- a total and unequivocal servant of the CIA -- (or possibly even prod it) to wage the smear campaign against her? It’s highly unlikely that Jordanian intelligence would go after Rice without the CIA’s approval.

Did the CIA approve of the smear campaign?

IRAN RESPONDS.

Very rough draft.

Ali AL-Haj Yousef writes for the Lebanese assafir.com (Arab nationalist/left/Shia/pro-Syrian) from Iran. I find his reporting refreshing. Be mindful, though, that he seems to be (over-) impressed with Iran. What follows is a summary of his latest article in Arabic: “Iran: The Life of its People is Quite Ordinary and the Finger of its Military is on The Trigger.”

Here are some of the points he highlights:

1. That Tehran is brimming with life -- tourism external and internal, and markets brimming with commerce.

2. That it’s unlikely the US would be foolish enough to attack Iran when it should know that the relative quiet in Iraq is due in no small part to Iran’s intervention.

3. That Israel’s domestic political conditions aren’t conducive to war, especially that Israel has failed repeatedly in “mini-wars” in Lebanon and Gaza.

4. That much of the saber-rattling against Iran is meant to pressure that country to respond to the latest European Union’s basket of proposals about Iran’s nuclear program, and to respond swiftly.

5. “Defense sources” agree with the above but would not discount the possibility that Crusader and Bald Samson (my description, not Yousef’s) would actually attack because they have nothing to lose.

6. Iranian observers point to quite a lot of harassment by the Americans inside Iran. These point to the increase in activities by armed secessionist elements, Kurdish and Sunni in northwestern Iran and southeastern Iran, respectively. These observers refer to the Kurdish party known as Bijak (Party for the Free Life) based in Iraqi Kurdistan, which has entered Iran as deep as Tibriz.

Another place for US “harassment” of Iran is in the province of Sistan-Balushistan where the group knows as “Jund Allah” (Soldiers of God) had kidnaped 16 Iranian policemen and recently has executed two.

These groups and the bombing in Shiraz which killed 12 people and a car bomb explosion in the western part of Tehran (or west of Tehran) -- that the investigation indicate that all these events and groups have US intelligence behind them.

7. The “defense sources” stressed that their strategy is to be ready for all scenarios and not be swayed by this or that move by the US an Israel, such as the sophomoric acrobatics (my words) of the Israeli Air Force in its air show above the Mediterranean. That the job of the Iranian armed forces is to keep the finger on the trigger.

YAKETY YAK: BLAH, BLAH, BLAH.

first draft

D i s c l a i m e r :

I have no background in finance or economics; so don’t base your investment decisions on what you read here. Follow the capitalist hysteria du jour, and get out early. Historically I’ve gone hysterical capitalistic-ally (!)-speaking late and froze when it came time to get out. Whatever you do, don’t blame me.

IRAN, ITS AGENTS, AND THE TREATY

00 Iran for now has turned its episodic defeat -- its surprise at the SOFA/Treaty negotiations between Iraq and the harmful idiots –- into a victory. It turns out that its promise to go through Iraq’s parliament to defeat the proposal is working. There seems to have been not-so-veiled threats against the double-agents. Iran knows them all too well. I find it difficult to pinpoint these threats, but I can swear I see them in the Arabic reporting about the sermons of ayatollah Khatami at his Tehran mosque.

The Iranian threats (if my reading of them is correct) don’t surprise me. You can’t be nursed by Iran for so long in your political life and not expect Iran to demand allegiance and services. It’s only natural. It’s happened to the Lebanese Christians and Lebanese Shias who had worked for Israel during Lebanon’s civil war. For all practical purposes they’re Israel’s people, come what may. Israel owns them. It saved them when it took them in after Hizbollah defeated it, the first time around. I feel bad for them because I’m confident they would rather live in the West. But the last I heard (which was a good while ago), the West didn’t want them. Israel expects their allegiance and their services. Iran expects the same of the Iraqi Shia agents it had nursed, the ones who occasionally forget their status: agents!


The Treaty in the end doesn’t really matter much, at least not as much as the news has portrayed or Iran’s reaction, or the harmful idiots’ colonialist demands included in their draft. Through the Treaty, Sophomoric Crusader and Frustrated Bald Samson in part are trying to tie down the coming administration with a contract, a piece of paper that’s worth as much as the ink on it. Not much. Treaty or non, the harmful idiots will do what they feel they need to do, and the Iranians will behave likewise.

INFLATION, RECESSION, AND UNEMPLOYMENT WILL COMPETE WITH IRAQ.

The worthlessness of the Treaty is made all the more obvious by the fact that Iraq and the Treaty will be competing for attention with some dire issues awaiting the new American President. That president should be running smack into high inflation and a possibly steeper-than-usual recession. I can sniff the recession all about me. One of my closest friends on the West Coast just lost his job after at least a dozen years with the same outfit. A colleague’s girlfriend, an accountant, just lost hers. Another acquaintance, at 58, a teacher, was forced into “retirement.”

The papers already announce plenty about inflation: utilities raising rates steeply; Dow chemicals raising prices steeply. On a personal level, I see it when I see one medical bill for pulling water out of my knee, which insurance refuses to pay for. It’s a hefty bill. And food! A 4-lb tehini, for instance, cost $9.99 a few months ago. (I still have the old container so I was able to check the price.) Yesterday: $19.99.

00 Transportation cost?

00 That and the fact that inflation is hitting Lebanon’s region (from where the tehini comes) really hard. All the oil dollars in the region (likely by now over a trillion) are chasing limited supplies. If you can export your product to the trillionaires in the Gulf and to Euro-land, why would you ask for less by exporting to the land the harmful idiots lord over?


OIL AND THE WIDER MARKET.

00 Why now?

00 Because of idiots. Who are harmful. Going for an oil grab (“war”) on a miscalculation about extent and cost. Not taxing for that grab. Worse: giving a tax cut before going for the grab. To compound things: giving a tax rebate after. I mean the world looked hard at us and said these people are a plantation and their dollar is being printed at a speed that way surpasses that plantation’s level of expected growth.

00 What now?

00 First it should be clear to all, including idiots, that you can’t have a strong foreign policy if you have a weak dollar. For one, printing money (a weak dollar) accounts for more than one third (by my rough calculation) of the rise in oil prices. Add to that the insecurity brought about by the invasion of Iraq and the nearly daily talk of war by the harmful idiots, the Israelis, and the Iranians – which invited and still does speculators – , the miscalculation about extent and cost, the expectation by most of the world that Iraq will drain us and bankrupt us even further, and you have the current oil prices. The harmful idiots likely thought that they could emulate Reagan who printed money to defeat the USSR. (Reagan actually did raise taxes.) But the Reagan people were smarter. When Iranian intelligence blew up the US Marines in Lebanon, Reagan retaliated against ... Grenada! A little nothing island so close to home. Smart. Vent the public’s anger and get it over with. (I don’t mean to say that Regan’s people were caring, just politically smart. The Marines in Beirut died because Reagan’s people were asleep at the wheel. But Reagan got away with it.) Reagan, too, through Saudi intelligence (according to the Washington Post then) exploded a car bomb in Beirut decimating tens of civilians in an assassination attempt against Fadlallah, then Hizbollah’s Secretary-General.

Now we will need to raise interest rates and raise taxes, too. McCain’s people have put out the word that people should vote their pocketbook, implying that Obama will raise their taxes. As if McCain will not. Ha! One way to scare voters away from Obama. Never mind that we’re already being taxed via higher oil prices, except that the $2.50-plus extra we’re paying for a gallon of gasoline is going not to us – governments at various levels - - but to the oil producers and companies. I don’t think it’ll matter who gets elected when it come to taxation. Both these guys will have to raise taxes. They’ll do it symbolically at first –raise a hundred billion dollars. But the world isn’t stupid. It’d want to see more than that to return to the dollar. It’d want to see Iraq not drain us. The Federal Reserve will have to complement the taxation hike with a hike in interest rates. If I have to make a guess, I’d say it’ll have to be between 6 and 8 percent I’m being cautious. It could be more.

That should suck the money away from the globe and oil and into the US–or into dollar-denominated accounts. There’ll be political and social turmoil at home. But I don’t think anything else will work. You don’t have a strong dollar and you’re dead when it comes to foreign policy. A strong dollar is a message that the country is well-managed, or well enough to make up for the excesses of years of allowing China, for one, to keep us on a leash with its seller-financing of our consumption. Not to mention that the country will have to address the issue of oil prices AKA inflation. My guess is that no accumulated capital will leave oil unless it can make the 6-to-8 percent figure, at a minimum. And if accumulated capital doesn’t shed oil, then the bubble will continue on. True, people will drive less, blah blah blah, but would you take your investment out of oil if you weren’t persuaded that the government is serious about doing all it can -- including raising interest rates -- to burst the oil bubble? You wouldn’t want to be in oil when the bubble bursts, would you? And it’s unlikely that it’ll burst of its own accord. If you’re waiting for the rise in oil prices to force a lowering in the price of that staple, forcing accumulated capital to shed it, you might be waiting for a long, long time. Oil is safest until further notice. Anything else –e.g., real estate – and accumulated capital would open itself up to taxation, likely high, by local government. In short: there’s a dire and urgent need to burst the oil bubble.

True: a rise in interest rates beyond a certain point will wreak havoc in the 10-year bond market. Expect havoc!

00 Stocks?

00 These likely might benefit from the money heading back to the dollar denomination. The country will be getting out of the recession around the same time when people would’ve come to terms with the fact that our government is serious about reining in inflation and dollar-printing. Psychologically they’d have adapted to the new mood and will trade and consume away. You can’t stop trade. People will trade away regardless. I remember once in high-taxation Australia learning that BMWs and Mercedes cost so much money, sinfully more than Australian non-luxury cars, because of some luxury tax. Yet, people bought these with abandon. Status always will sell.

IRAQ, AGAIN.

00 Iraq?

00 Can’t continue to spend so much on chimerical schemes and spin. Can’t let Iraq bankrupt us any further. We’re in Iraq for three reasons, two of them aren’t working out or are unlikely to work out in the foreseeable future; one may, but it’ll not benefit us as a society. The three reasons:

1. Gain a strategic advantage vis-a-vis China and Europe, by controlling oil supplies. The alternative, foreign policy-speaking, is to keep up the value of our currency by raising taxes and interest rates. That should slow down the expansion even more and with it China’s power -- the latter (China's power) being a source of concern for the Pentagon. Politically, it takes courage ans smarts to raise taxes. Oil grabs, to harmful idiots, are easier. They give the illusion of courage (e.g., landing on an aircraft carrier) and smarts (having a competent pilot land the plane.) Crusader and Bald Samson, having come into office on the thinnest of mandates, went the opposite way. Another team player, Alan Greenspan seemed to have been running a popularity campaign by keeping interest rates low. The guy wanted to be popular. Can’t do that. People now are blaming him for the mess. Something’s gotta give. Killing two birds with one stone, Crusader and Bald Samson invaded. But have we gained control of Iraq’s oil by spreading bases all over that country and have we assured long-term military presence there? Hardly. Can it be done in the near future? Highly unlikely.


2. Giving the friends of this oil administration a gift in the form of an Iraqi oil bonanza. And I mean this -- this is not some sort of lefty conspiracy stuff. These two men -- Christian Zionism’s Crusader and Bald Samson -- come from an oil background. Old World me knows that this has an impact on policy and related decisions. This goal may yet become a reality. It’ll help the oil companies but not us. (The oil companies could, too, lose money on this, but they have so much that they can take risks.) Those Europeans who joined in, including most recently Sarkozi, have brought with them their national oil companies. They’re betting that the oil grab will at least work for Big Oil, even if it’ll not work for the harmful idots.

3. Bust OPEC by turning Iraq into the swing producer to replace Saudi Arabia. Because it’s unclear whether Saudi Arabia can play this role any longer. It looks like heavy crude is what it has as spare capacity. I don’t know enough about it, but it seems to me that heavy crude isn’t sought after that much by modern refineries. Goal achieved? Hardly. Can it be achieved in the near-future, say ten years? I doubt it. Iraq should be expected to go through so much turmoil about its oil. Besides, by the time Iraqi capacity is increased the oil bubble likely will have burst. The oil companies might lose their passion. So it looks like it’s a race between bursting the oil bubble and increasing Iraq’s production capacity while under occupation. What’s your bet? I tend to pick the conservative approach. I’m not a gambler. What’s your game? Gambling away so much as Crusader and Bald Samson have done?

ISRAEL: THAT GEM OF AN ADJUTANT. THAT BURDEN.

00 What about the reason given that the US invaded Iraq to assure Israel’s security?

00 Israel’s security my ass. Two things:

a. Israel has factored into the miscalculation of extent and cost in that this administration relied on Israel’s people in the US —the Jewish Right and its liberals within its diaspora and the allies of these, including self-hating Arabs and Arab-Americans who owe their careers to the Jewish Right. These played such a huge part in making the calculations. The intellectual framework for these is so Israel-based that the concern about assuring the preeminence of that state blinded them. Or they could simply have been mediocre people, reflecting in their abilities the intellectual curiosity and openness of those at the White House who had called on them. Old World and lawyer me knows that a biased individual is unlikely to judge properly. These guys were/are biased.


b. Everyone and his brother, including Sarkozi, Blair, Cheney, Bush and many, many small ones , ride on the back of the American Jewish community to satisfy their political ambitions. The Israel-as-a-rallying-cry consensus within the American Jewish community must be so strong, so iron-clad, that the majority in that community becomes a sucker to any political entrepreneur – Jewish or non – with blind ambition who wants to get ahead as his best assurance for a penile erection. The American Jewish community seems to have an engine of its own, spinning to Israel’s music, a community that’s fearful of losing its togetherness and thinks that Israel-as-a-rallying-cry can keep it together. Every shrewd political entrepreneur and his brother milk this phenomenon.

00 Anything achieved in Iraq?

–00 Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Forget the spin and the articles about normal life returning to Baghdad. One of the harmful idiots’ theories is that if you create enough stability the political players will come together and heal the wounds and , as a positive side-effect, give the US an oil advantage and bases and what have you.

Like everything the harmful idiots touch, they break -- they shoot themselves (really: us) in the foot. They’re under such pressure to show success at home that they put an entire army of Arab Sunnis (the sahwas and neighborhood watch groups) on the payroll. They made it look like the “surge’ had brought relative peace to Iraq when in fact it had been the formation of a new Sunni army. In other words, the harmful idiots have revived the old army they had dismantled, but this time it’s exclusively Sunni. Too little, too colonialist, and too late. Jordan and Saudi Arabia and the Gulf adjutants of the harmful idiots have promised these that the US will return them as an essential player in the Iraqi body politic. It’s unlikely to happen – not through the harmful idiots, anyway.

Besides, the harmful idiots would sell out the Iraqi Sunnis at the drop of a hat, and do sell them out whenever they strike a deal with the Shia Badr/Dawa government: You go afer Mahdi and we will clip the wings of the sahwas. That’s one of sahwa’s accusation against the harmful idiots. Neither Mahdi nor the Sunni resistance AKA sahwas have gone away, anyway. Maliki’s repression of Mahdi is Iranian-mediated and therefore cosmetic. The sahwas are armed to the teeth and likely haven’t forgotten how to place roadside bombs. For how long will this go on? For ho long do you think the Arab Sunnis will wait for the harmful idiots to return them to an essential role in the life of their country? There are revolutions happening in Iraq, of young against old, of poor against rich, within both sects and within the ranks of the Kurds. What are we doing in the middle of these revolutions? Who are we trying to help? The Shias who will not leave Iran and whose (Mahdi) is aching to go after those in power (Badr/Dawa) ? The Sunnis, whose young and poor have waited so long for their revolution but couldn’t start it under the former President of Iraq? Why stand in their way? Who are we to do that? Only the Kurds have relative calm, the product not so much of their Peshmergas but of so much deal-making with Turkey and Iran. But if the harmful idiots ever dream of heading there, to Iraqi Kurdistan, they can kiss the rest of Iraq goodbye. Additionally, if the US reaches a deal with Iran and Syria and the three repress the Iraqi Sunni Islamic resistance, which force is bound to revive, that would strengthen the Shia state. Which should freak out the Gulf Arabs and these should start rushing over to Tehran and striking independent deals.

I think Iran is here to stay as a regional power. I think any new administration would be foolish not to concede to Iran that role. Unless the harmful idiots can send in a million troops to stay there for years to come. I think the Gulf Arabs -- especially Saudi Arabia -- would be foolish not to open up to Iran in a genuine fashion. I think the Saudi leaders are playing with fire when they allow their secret government to finance anti-Iranian activities in places such as Lebanon and inflame Sunni passions against the Shias. I think the Arab Sunnis of Iraq would be foolish not to follow suit and reach a modus operandi with Iran. I say these things because I’m confident the various actors are thinking them and acting on them. The bet on Iran’s young to detest the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRG) and the mullah is a bad bet. What may come after these (IRG and the mullahs) likely will be much worse.

The harmful idiots in Iraq don’t know what to do. They just don’t. Forget the spin and the portrayal of success at home. They swing between believing the Shia state is theirs and the realization that it’s not. That it would be if they only do this or that, only to find out that Iran can do this or that, too. Then they have the Sunni state which they keep up both as a modus operandi to supplant the resistance by the Sunnis and the concomitant casualties among the troops, and as a stick against the Shia state. So they think they own at least the Sunni state. A safe bet. But they don’t. The young Islamists have infiltrated this one and will continue to. Why? Because at that checkpoint manned by sahwas, as the level of frustration among the Arab Sunnis climbs higher and higher, as they hit a wall having believed the harmful idiots and their Gulf trilionaires and Jordanian beggar adjutants – it’s then at that same checkpoint, that the sahwas should let the Islamists through on their mission. The Islamists increasingly are and will be their hope for a fighting chance. They can’t leave the money the harmful idiots are doling out to them. But they certainly can turn a blind eye to the Islamists going through a checkpoint. Are we micro-managing these matters as the police would criminal investigations at home? With an army of interpreters? It certainly looks that way. Is this realistic?

God are we gonna get deeper into bankruptcy for chimeric goals!

SAUDI ARABIA AND THE SAHWA CHECKPOINT.

00 Can’t the Saudis help out?

00 No. Remember the checkpoint. The sahwas will accept Saudi money but no Iraqi Arab Sunni should trust them or any of the Gulf trillionaires. These weren’t able to stop the Pentagon from practically finishing them, and the trillionaires are supposed to be “allies” of the harmful idiots. Worse, the Saudi government through Bandar bin Sultan had partnered in their humiliation and loss of their country. As an Iraqi Sunni Arab you can’t trust the Sunni “Arabs” of the Gulf. The God of these is Money. Iraq, to many of the Arab Sunnis, had fought a costly 8-year war with the Islamic Republic to defend the trillionaires, in good part. And these turned around and let their protector devastate the same Iraqi Arab Sunnis. No. If I were an Iraqi Arab Sunni I’d be sitting with Iran and reaching a deal. The thinking would be something like this: Iran, after all, didn’t invade and finish us. The axis of the US/Israel/Kuwait/Saudi Arabia did.

00 And that’s exactly why the harmful idiots are trying not to let happen by withdrawing?

00 You bet. In the meanwhile, I suspect there’s likely ongoing open venues of communication and funding between Iran and those among the Sunnis , even mainstream, who know that the harmful idiots can be no good for them if ever they are to see Iraq revived as a nation that is united – not broken up into sectarian and ethnic pieces. The Arab Sunnis need freedom to maneuver; Iran is that freedom.

00 But the Saudis can assist in taking over the payment to the sahwas and saving the Americans some money.

00 The Saudis are schizophrenic. They don’t know what to do. Their secret government unleashes a Sunni anti-Shia paranoia only to discover that Saudi Arabia itself has Shias of its own. So others, with level heads (e.g., Sheikh Muhammad al-Nujaimi , Sheikh –as tribal leader, not religious– Mukhallaf al-Shamri) within the Sunni governmental establishment rush over to a city like al-Qutaif to mitigate the damage Bandar and Muqrin (the secret government) have done. The Saudi Shias are left confused: Is this an act? Going after the Shias outside the Kingdom should come back to haunt the Kingdom.

00 Once you recommended Arab nationalism.

00 Yes; and they seemed to bite but not all that well. Arab nationalism requires them to compete with Iran on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the Syrian Arab Joulan. And if they so compete, they’d upset the harmful idiots and Israel’s extensions in the US, including in Congress. Not to mention that Israeli intelligence, which is in the business of collecting and trading intelligence with all, likely has tons of dirt on the ruling princes as does US intelligence. The harmful idiots and the Israelis have the ruling princes by the balls. So the option of Arab nationalism is not. Unless the Saudis shed the team currently in power and that which is expecting to get there. Which isn’t an easy task by any stretch.

In short, as far as US interests are concerned: the Saudis, Kuwaitis and other Gulf trillionaires are useless; the Israelis are harmful, the Egyptians are useless except as adjutants for the Israelis and the harmful idiots in Gaza.

**

(Last minute laugh: Did you notice that Syria went through Turkey to negotiate with Israel? Not Arab Egypt, who would die to play that role as adjutant of the harmful idiots. A few weeks ago, Syria didn't allow Egyptian "journalists" to enter the country, likely believing they were mostly spies on the harmful idiots' payroll. Syria is marginalizing Egypt, not the other way around.)

MEDITERRANEAN UNION: THE GREATER MIDDLE EAST YET AGAIN -- WITH A FRENCH FACE!

s e c o n d draft.

THE HARMFUL IDIOTS’ GREATER MIDDLE EAST HAS A FRENCH FACE.

Could Arab analysts be so dumb as to plead ignorance about the hidden agenda of Nicolas Sarkozy’s Mediterranean Union initiative? They are; they’re pleading ignorance! Being on the payroll of governments, especially the Saudi and that of the harmful idiots, feigning ignorance has become their best escape. Have they forgotten that Sarkozy became President of France thanks in part to being the asset of the axis of the harmful idiots, the American Jewish Right, and colonialist Israel?

I’ll cut to the chase: Sarkozy’s initiative for a Mediterranean Union is yet another version of the “Greater Middle East” initiative advanced by the Bush Administration and inspired by its circle of Israel-obsessed right wing advisers -- those who on behalf of their Israel wanted to break the back of any Arab solidarity left that could threaten Israel’s preeminence. The same idea later became the “New Middle East” initiative, the words being uttered by the September 11 Queen as the Israeli war machine -- its pilots and its artillery men -- rained death on Lebanese civilians, killing them by the hundreds in the summer of 2006.

Sarkozy, the asset of the axis of the harmful idiots/Jewish right/Israel, is president of France likely as a result of the September 11 Queen’s promise to “punish” France for not partnering with the harmful idiots when these had shattered the lives of Iraqis, dismembered an Arab country, and minted thousands of mostly Arab orphans, but American too. Pre- Sarkozy France had been a proud country which had called the Iraq aggression correctly, as had Turkey and Germany. My assessment is that punishing France apparently took the form of US intelligence pumping tons of money into Mr. Sarkozy’s campaign, their French Blair, their minion. Now the man opens an embassy in Iraqi Kurdistan, if only to further humiliate Arabs and register his country’s approval of the dismemberment of the Arab country.

SYRIA AT THE CENTER OF ARAB NATIONAL UNITY, LIMITED THOUGH IT MAY BE?

On March 14, 2001, our Christian Zionist Crusader commented that the “reality is that the nation has got a real problem when it comes to energy... We need more resources of energy.” That’s not the full truth, of course. China, too, needed more energy. And let’s not forget India. What the Crusader was saying was that, having made it to the White House with the thinnest of mandates (the Supreme Court had appointed him), he wasn’t about to tackle America’s profligate use of energy the public policy way. Instead, he would use that alleged need for more resources of energy to grab Iraq’s. It takes an oil administration to think up a grab of the kind.

Grabbing Iraqi oil was meant to place a choke around the necks of China and Europe. Oil is a fungible commodity in that it’ll go where money is paid for it. Grabbing it hardly assures that its destination would be the USA. But

-- grabbing it and pumping to the maximum would bust OPEC;

-- grabbing it would provide lucrative contracts to the harmful idiots' firends;

-- grabbning it with the needed military presence in Iraq would assure the strategic oil choke over China and Europe.

Hey, a win-win scheme, right?

From an Arab perspective, the perspective of the proud Arabs not that of the self-hating traders of Arab dignity, it was humiliating that the Crusader and his coterie, to subdue Iraq, would put to use the most venomous anti-Muslim and anti-Arab domestic political forces -- the Jewish Right and its Christian Crusading ally.

ISRAEL AT THE CENTER, ALWAYS.

The Greater Middle East, the New Middle East, and the Mediterranean Union are all meant to split Arabs more than they already are. The idea is to smash them to smithereens, gut out any solidarity and cultural affinity they feel that would threaten Israel’s preeminence, and ease Israel into their World, victorious and at the center of all of them. Israel should be the center of the Arab World. Not Egypt; not Syria; not Lebanon; not the UAE. All of this without Israel doing what it has to do: helping out in the formation of a Palestinian state on all of the pre-June 4, 1967, territory, all, withdrawing from the Arab Joulan, and paying reparations. (I apologize to the Palestinians; I don't mean to hijack their judgement and future.)

WHY NOT AN ARAB UNION INSTEAD OF THE GREATER MIDDLE EAST AKA MEDITERRANEAN UNION?


The anti-Arab and anti-Muslim animus of the harmful idiots and their Sarkozi is so powerful that their attempts to hide it fail miserably. For instance, had the harmful idiots and their people been logical and not motivated by an anti-Arab animus, they would’ve been pushing for an Arab Union, not a Mediterranean one, and for the Gulf Arabs to share their wealth with their brothers and sisters. As part of the Arab union, not the New or Greater Middle East, these Western Israel-centric Arab-haters would’ve coaxed their minions in the Gulf to share their near half -trillion dollar per year income (Saudi Arabia in 2006 brought n $196 bn.) with the other Arabs, the ones they’re trying to place under Israel’s lordship.

THE HARMFUL IDIOTS' SARKOZY RUSE.

The focus now is, and has been for a while, on Syria. How to steal it away from Iran; how to create an “Arab” front against Iran, under the leadership of Israel, and joining the trillionaires (the Gulf ones) with the paupers (Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan.) One way for achieving this goal is to divert the Arab peoples’ attention away from the orphan-generating and Arab-hating ideas of the harmful idiots (e.g., the New Middle East.) You do that by shifting the source of colonialist domination, if only cosmetically, as a ruse to another country. That country would propose a “Mediterranean Union.” The idea could’ve been Sarkozy’s, but could’ve been , too, the harmful idiots’. Coordinating as likely he is with the harmful idiots, being their “asset,”, Mr. Sarkozi adopted the idea as his own. Or saw in it Israel’s salvation. Hey, the harmful idiots had failed at their Greater Middle East and New Middle East – both constructed on the graves of the parents of mostly Arab children, but American children, too. (But not the children of those who’ve wanted to build the New American Century. God forbid these assholes should send their children to war.) Why not let Sarkozy try out a new and improved Greater Middle East -- a Mediterranean Union -- while, along the way, he pitches weapons and nuclear power reactors to the Arabs?

THEY SPEAK OF NON-ARAB UNIONS , ALIEN TO ARABS. . . THEY SPEAK OF ARAB UNIONS AND A SUNNI WALL AGAINST THE SHIAS.

On or about April 14, 2008, the Saudi cabinet, chaired by King Abdallah, issued a statement which Lebanon or Iraq seemed to be its focal point. (My notes are unclear on this; I apologize.) I jumped when I saw one word in that statement: “Qutr.” The statement was referring to an Arab country as a “Qutr,” plural : “aqtar.” That word is a Baathist word, an Arab nationalist word. In the lexicon of Arab nationalism, the current Arab “nation-states” (e.g., Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia) are not. Each is a car in a train made up of 22 cars and constituting a whole -- one Arab nation of 300 million people. Had the Saudi government turned Arab nationalist?

Hardly. Though my notes aren’t clear (they are clear about the use of the word “qutr”) that Arab nationalist approach was meant for multi-sectarian Lebanon (18 to 19 sects) or Iraq. For other places, such as Yemen, the Kingdom pushes an ideology of Sunnism to contain the Shia revival, made all the more visible by Iran’s easy victory.

Schizophrenic? You bet. How else deal with defeat against Iran, a defeat brought about not by the Kingdom’s weakness but by its oil ally at the White House and the ally of Saudi Arabia's secret government -- Israel.

Though ruled by an Alawite minority, and because of that, Syria is by far more credible as an Arab nationalist entity than Saudi Arabia. Minorities favor Arab nationalism because it’s secular and therefore inclusive. Before the harmful idiots and their Israelis had divided up Iraq you’d be chastised if you had differentiated between a Shia and a Sunni. Iran of course had its Shia proxies in Iraq but these were repressed and the Shia sectarian phenomenon was kept under check -- by repression and by the inclusive ideology of Arab nationalism.

THE ART OF ACTING WITH SINCERITY.

That Syria has accepted to sit with Israel in Turkey, and to open up to Sarkozy’s flirtations -- Syria likely is buying time to wait out the term of the Christian Zionist Crusader and Bald Samson. Syria’s allies had been quite generous with it and it’d be foolish to trust the harmful idiots and their minion, Sarkozy. These want such domination that they’d turn on you and have you hanged the first moment they can. Their only allegiance in the region is to Israel, on which back and that of its diaspora they climb the ladder of blind ambition and associated penile erection. Russia’s Duma recently approved the forgiveness of most of Syria’s debt to Russia. Iran has been Syria’s lifeline ever since 1979, and has helped it stand up to Israel. On a visit to Damascus years ago, I noted to my friend’s father the presence of so many Iranians. “But for Iran,” he commented, “the Syrians would’ve starved.”

But Iran’s help to Syria hasn’t been only economic. It’s been a new ideology of war that has proven its worth twice. Hizbollah, after all, is an extension of the armies of Iran and Syria. And Hizbollah has defeated Israel twice. In other words, hell should freeze over before Syria seriously considers splitting away from Iran. To hedge my bet: it’s possible but highly unlikely.

I think Syria’s defense minister was genuine in his assessment when recently from Tehran he described his country as Iran’s strategic depth. I would add that Iran, too, is Syria’s strategic depth. The Arab adjutants of the harmful idiots, especially the trillionaires, had left Syria alone carrying the Arab onus against those colonialists who for decades have shot down the formation of a Palestinian state as a basic demand of all Arabs. Is Syria now to trust them, via the harmful idiots’ French minion, and be lured by yet another sophomoric and Israel-centric idea as the Mediterranean Union?

I instruct my clients to use the skills of actors. I tell them acting is a most powerful tool, that I wish I had. That if they act responsible until probation is over, that they’d be smart and they’d win against a huge and tangled system of repression.

Damascus is a great actor when it comes to playing along those who Damascus knows wish it and all the Arabs ill in the form of nouveau colonial domination.

DAMASCUS AND ARAB CULTURE.

Damascus is the unquestionable center of Arab culture, hands down. Why? Because Iraq used to be that center and there’s no one else to take its place but econmically humble Syria. The harmful idiots and their Israeli ally had eliminated Arab Iraq. The Arabs are left with Damascus. Not perfect, but what else is there? Before the harmful idiots and the Israelis had destroyed Arab Iraq, of all the Arabs only the Iraqis had thrived on Arab literature. Only they had celebrated the Arabic language so gloriously and patronized its learned vanguard. One Sudanese acquaintance who had gone to college in Baghdad -- a writer -- is fond of telling the story that in most Arab countries a pedestrian would have to wind her way around mountains of shoes and other Chinese-made products piled up on sidewalks. Not in Baghdad. In Baghdad, a pedestrian wound his way around books, Arabic books, books of poetry and prose.

The harmful idiots and their Israelis destroyed that culture. Looting the National Museum was only the tip of the iceberg. The harmful idiot and Israeli barbarians damaged the heart of Arab culture. They damaged Baghdad’s sidewalks, chock full of heritage, literature and poetry. Damascus is what’s left for the Arabs. Will these allow Sarkozy and his masters to destroy Damascus?

To confirm Baghdad’s passion for Arabic literature. When once I approached a Lebanese publisher, a friend who once had lived in DC, to assess whether he would be interested in my collection of Arabic poetry, he said no, not asking to read any poem. We’re only publishing school textbooks these days. Before Iraq had been invaded, we would’ve jumped at the opportunity. But no one buys literature in the Arab World any longer. The Yemenis love Arabic literature but they don’t have the money. The Gulf Arabs, who have the money, don't read. Only the Arabs of Iraq had both: the highly civilized passion for literature and the money. And the Arab Iraqis are no more.

THE STRUGGLE FOR IRAQ’S ARMY

third draft with some terrific additions. Find them if you can.

REVISITING THE LARGER GOALS: MILITARY BASES, BUSTING OPEC, AND CHOKING CHINA AND EUROPE.

It’s difficult without visiting Iraq to outline the contours of the Iraqi army the harmful idiots are assembling. Likely the harmful idiots are assembling an army with the idea that it’d possess a nucleus that’s ancillary to their occupation army. In other words, it’ll not be an army that can balance the power of the Iranian, or the Israeli, or the Syrian. It’ll be an army which function would be to assist the harmful idiots in controlling Iraq as a regional base for the US military. (It’s another matter whether or not they can succeed at this colonial project; but hope, dreams, and plans do spring eternal for the harmful idiots.)

The ancillary army, the nucleus of the wider Iraqi, should help the harmful idiots achieve another goal : the control of Iraq’s oil. Why control Iraq's oil? For one, to bust OPEC, once and for all, so Iraq would become the swing producer to replace Saudi Arabia. The latter either cannot produce that much more oil ( and doesn’t want the world to know it, lest it loses influence;) or doesn’t want to be a swing producer any longer. Not after its own son Bandar, his Christian Zionist brother at the White House, Bald Samson, at the White House, too, and no-it-wasn’t-me-I’m-telling-you-I’ve-been-promoted-so-it-couldn’t-be-me September 11 Queen, did for Iran what Iran couldn’t do for itself. Meaning: the Saudis likely are seething. Likely both: they can’t produce more oil to be swing producers any longer and they’re seething.

The harmful idiots’ other goal, using the key words “Israel’s security,” (Israel is more secure than we, but the words are important to mobilize the American Jewish community many of whose members are willing to drink poison for Israel) was to gain the ability to choke China and Europe, should the strategic need arise. (Instead Taiwan, sensing that the harmful idiots' Iraqi adventure had turned us into a paper tiger, have opened up to the People's Republic. The harmful idiots are retaliating by dragging their feet on the delivery of F-16s and other weapons to Taiwan.) To achieve dominance in the twenty-first century without having to effect any changes at home, like taxing oil consumption or otherwise tending to our garden. Besides, there's such a disconnect between on the one hand those who make foreign policy their business and those who make the financial world -- the state of the economy, the not-so-obvious trade wars, the wars among central banks, including the Federal Reserve -- on the other. It is this newsletter's position that you cannot conduct foreign policy if you don't have a leg in both worlds. Not to mention the fact that ideologues (mostly on the right, but the left will have its chance, and it could be soon) and those so obsessed with "Israel's security," -- that these people can create so much obfuscation. At any rate, there’s such a huge gap between foreign policy ideologues and public policy people; between those whose brains are brimming with sophomoric wishful thinking and biased ideas about America’s role and Israel’s pre-eminence, and the world of public policy, finance, and international trade. The foreign policy ideologues don’t’ want to invest the time to understand the public policy world. The result is tragic: it’s Iraq.

I’ve tried to research the Iraqi army using Google-Arabic. (My notes are all over the place.) It was a tedious process and I didn’t get much. What I did get confirmed my impressions (outlined below). Google-English didn’t reveal anything so particular either. The reason why I’ve pursued he subject is that I can see the harmful idiots focus so much of their effort and hopes on building an Iraqi army on which they can rely to pacify the country for them. In other words, it seems to me that in their heart of heart, the harmful idiots have given up on the politicians in Iraq and the political system their invasion has produced. (They did that quite a while ago.) That this political system (democracy) favors Iran; that it set off the sort of pluralism, sectarian (Sunni-Shia) and ethnic (Arab-Kurd) which manipulation made it easy for them to invade and still makes it easy for them as occupiers. But the same forces they’ve unleashed (Democracy and pluralism) stand in the way of their strategic goals: to turn Iraq into an American military base to bust OPEC and choke China and Europe if the need arises. That they don’t have a monopoly over the manipulation of pluralism; that other countries and domestic forces are also capable of manipulating that dreadful force. Disappointed with the forces they’ve unleashed, the harmful idiots went back to the drawing board. (They did that way before the recent controversy about the Treaty.) All they could come up with was the idea of building an army that’s allied to them and that would be capable of re-taking the south from Iran and its allies. The new confrontation in Iraq therefore should be about its army. Hence this attempt at understanding its contours.

AN ARMY MADE UP OF THREE ARMIES

My assessment/speculation is that the Iraqi army is more than one entity.

1. THE ARMY OF THE NORTH: THE KURDISH PESHMERGAS.

The Army of the North is made up mostly of Peshmergas donning Iraqi army uniforms. The allegiance of these is to Kurdistan. The search results of both, Google-Arabic and Google-English, though meager, nonetheless described an army that responds only to the Kurdish leaders. Theirs is an army which is part of the long march to form an independent Kurdistan, to declare that state when the time and balance of power permit it, as when sadistic idiots make it to the White House and disturb yet again the balance of power. Kirkuk and at least half of Mosul would be part of that Kurdistan. The Army of the North should be expected to fight for that project. If the Iraqi Army Command asks for more, that Command would have to go through Talabani and Barazani, or their family heirs.

2. THE ARMY OF THE SOUTH: THE SHIA BADR BRIGADE/CORPS.

Second, there’s the Badr Brigade AKA Iraqi army – the Army of the South. These Shia soldiers and officers may or may not accept to execute the orders of Army Command if these orders contravene their primordial and sectarian attachment. Yes to suppressing SCIRI’s political rival, the Mahdi Army; no to attacking Iran. No to attacking any of a dozen armed Shia militias in the south, in Basra, since these do not threaten the political power of Badr/SCIRI within the wider Shia community.

3. THE ARMY OF THE CENTER: THE NUCLEUS OF THE WIDER IRAQI ARMY AND THE HARMFUL IDIOTS’ ANCILLARY .

Ayad Allawi, the CIA man favored by the Saudi secret state, a Shia but secular, recently affirmed in a television interview from London that, when Prime Minister, he had returned quite a number of former Baathist officers to service. But he had since seen the Dawa/Badr double-agent state re-dismiss these. (almalaf.net ,6/12/08. Arabic. Likely Jordanian intelligence e-newspaper -- be mindful that the CIA is Jordan's cargo-getter -- which consistently pokes fun at Iran’s proxies. Hates Hasan Nasrallah, in particular. The Jordanian Uncle Toms are trying to declare victories with words of condescension, unable to achieve any other, to regain the Arab Street as Sunni. Oh well. Beware what you wish for.) Allawi continues to flirt with the Baathists and had met with a bunch of them in Cairo a few weeks ago.

The harmful idiots in part through through Allawi are trying to bring back a version of the Baathist state. Sunnis and former Baathists form, I suspect , the American-bred nucleus of he wider Iraqi army. That nucleus is the ancillary state I’ve referred to for such a long time. The double-agent Badr/Dawa state can dismiss the officers who Allawi had re-hired, but the harmful idiots can re-hire them back again. My suspicion is that these likely are joined to the nucleus, the ancillary army, the Army of the Center or with the Sahwas. (The Sahwas are the extension of the ancillary army.) They don’t have to don uniforms; they can be “intelligence” operatives; they can explode a car bomb now-and-then here and there.


To the harmful idiots these would be reliable troops; they would gladly move against Shias, against Kurds, even against Sunnis who refuse to be on the harmful idiots’ payroll. If you ever wondered why the Sunnis stopped their resistance, likely it’s because the ancillary army, the Army of the Center, the revived Baath, had put out the word. We’re back. It’s a matter of time. That time will come when , while the harmful idiots deter Iran, we shall stage a coup d’etat and re-capture the south. (And hope certainly does spring eternal.)

NOT THAT DIFFERENT FROM LEBANON, PRE-CIVIL WAR.

The Army of the Center, aided by the Sahwas, recalls the harmful idiots’ experience in Lebanon. The nucleus of the wider Iraqi army, the Army of the Center, is similar to the Maronite officer corps and the Maronite troops drawn in their majority from a few Maronite towns in pre-civil war Lebanon. The harmful idiots’ plan then was to use that army, supplanted by Christian militias, trained and armed by Army intelligence, to rein in the PLO – a state within a state, financed by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the other Gulf oil countries and Libya. The idea was (and still is) to avoid for Israel the formation of a Palestinian state. The harmful idiots’ plan went awry; the harmful idiots and their adjutants, the Jordanian Uncle Toms, miscalculated egregiously, as the harmful idiots later did in Iraq. This brought about thirty years of misery to Lebanon, and we’re still counting. Ever since then, the harmful idiots’s meddling in Lebanon, on their own or invited by those Lebanese who are politically passe (and bitter about it), has focused on bringing back one ancien regime or the other. It seems the harmful idiots are trying to do the same thing in Iraq, and are using Saddam’s army to re-constitute what already has been lost.

BY WAY OF CONCLUDING

I don’t know where the harmful idiots are going with this. Iran’s alertness, especially following its failures (outlined in the prior post), in particular its surprise about the Treaty, is such that it should be expected to engage politically more actively in Iraq, to a level unseen before. Iran can’t afford to let the ancillary army become so competent that it’d be able to neutralize the Badr people within the wider army. Or, as an alternative, that the ancillary army would become so competent that it would give room to the Badr double-agents to shed Iran once and for all. Either way, the ancillary army would be used to re-take the south for the nouveau Baathist state.

The manipulation of pluralism is a weapon for all those who want to dominate. Pluralism, sectarian and ethnic, as a divide-and-conquer playing field, does make occupation easy, but it doesn’t lend itself to more than that. In other words, the harmful idiots can use pluralism to divide and conquer, to remain in Iraq as occupiers. But the same force –- pluralism –- will not let them turn Iraq into a base in the region. Unavoidably, they will be seen as closer to this group or that within that pluralism, allowing the other groups to ignite sectarian and/or ethnic tension to fail the harmful idiots’ colonial projects. Chaos in the form of civil wars should result. It’d be Iraq’s best defense against becoming a banana republic. And it’d be Iran’s best defense, too. At any rate, whatever critical mass the ancillary troops give the harmful idiots, this mass will face stiff and fierce opposition by the Shias should a coup d’etat ever be tried.