Why Israel May Abandon Zionism

"We will not be silenced! Whether you're a Christian, whether you're a Muslim, whether you're an atheist, you will demand your goddamn rights, and we will have our rights, one way or the other! We will never be silenced!"
Cairo Protester, January 25th, 2011

Last Wednesday Lord Wife and I went to meet an Israeli dissident for an evening. His name is Hassaf and we know him from our kids' co-op school. The school's annual auction was our reason for being there, having bid on and won "Understanding the Palestine-Israel Conflict." Because a couple of other co-op school parents were there, both of whom had traveled across the region in their youth, in addition to two local peace-active scholars, the main focus of dialogue was the region's history of conflict following Israel's formation.

Hassaf is a deeply thoughtful, fair-minded, and forthcoming man who decided to leave his country rather than run afoul of the Shin Bet (the secret police), so I did my best to shut up and learn something while the others questioned and commented. I failed the first objective and said far more than I intended, but it was hard not to succeed on the second, since Hassaf is the perfect perch on which to have one's thoughts provoked. The elephant in the room, the current tsunami of pan-Arabic civil and economic unrest, waited patiently in the wings, its trunk peeking out occasionally.

Obviously what's going on in Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan and soon to be Syria and Saudi Arabia is huge from Israel's perspective, because it spells d-o-o-m. (Note: a handy Barometer of Badness for the tsunami's strength is the price of oil, which has already crested $100/bbl.) To me, of course, what's happening is expected. The equation is child's play. You take Western client states with decades of stability achieved through brutal repression, a strong and largely homogeneous religion, a young unemployed demographic, then you add rampant inflation in food commodities and top it off with a wheat crop failure in Russia. Take away bread and sugar and this is what you get. Really, what else could you expect?

What's not child's play is the immediate and long-term effects on Israel, aka "US interests in the region." That's what I was brooding on last Wednesday night. It's had time to percolate and its coming out right now despite it being in the middle of my workday, perhaps because we'll be meeting with Hassaf again this Wednesday night. A lot of commentary or causation could be laid out here. But there's no time so here's the deal. Every single day that Mubarak, Egypt's military dictator for the past 30 years, stays on is bad for everybody. Every day he stays, support for the Muslim Brotherhood swells.

Mubarak must be convinced to step down at once, with safe haven assured for his family and the metric tons of gold they got out last week. The longer he attempts to stay, the higher anti-Israel sentiment of succeeding governments will be, as well as its cohesion and duration across them as a group. It's already too late, but fast action in Egypt and ginger diplomacy with the replacement(s) would ameliorate the effects of a possible, and probably a likely, near-term oil shock. Two words nobody in our media is mentioning: Oil Shock. The Happy Chatter I've heard most out of the twittering heads is about democracy breaking out in the Mid-East. Democracy in the Mid-East? Give me a fucking break! Democracy in the Mid-East is about as useful as a refrigerator of ping-pong balls. Nitroglycerin-filled ping-pong balls.

[ed. note: Some very smart analysts see voting democracies as a positive way forward. Whereas I see them as quick paths to majority rule by Islamists. My opinion is formed by having seen my own government taken over by religious radicals, ones who still effectively set its policies, and by having been a young eyewitness to the formation of their plans.]

The Obama Administration is, unfortunately, too locked into its own foreign policy ass and damage control processes to accomplish anything like fast, effective action. Therefore, Israel will find itself in a truly interesting position: having aggressively settled the hell out of Palestine and boxed its bothersome inhabitants into a tiny fraction of the available land mass, generating pan-Arabic enmity, it can now turn around and make concessions, very soothing concessions. Such as would provide the next Western client state successors, such as probably El Baradei in Egypt and the bin Laden family in Saudi Arabia with quick victories and credibility. This means stabbing its own Zionists from the front, and from the back or the side will do just as well. If it can stab them down, Israel can reestablish a semblance of stability.

I see that opening, at least, and will allow myself a wallow or two in my own optimism, even for at least one more sentence. Implementing concessions may not deflect all the existential problems coming for Israel, not least its own neuroses and habits, but giving up its Zionist political strategy (adopted in order to generate immigration) buys more time. More time is a good thing, right? (Wow. That wallow felt really nice.) One must admittedly recognize the solution verges on the politically insufferable, and if so that's too damned bad. Again, the equation is pretty easy here. Over time, a reunified pan-Arabia defeats Israel via mere copulation, and there are already just too many Arabs to kill. The biogenetic weapons Israel has tried to come up with, ones which could selectively attack only Arab populations and spare Jews, haven't materialized. Trouble is, Arabs are every bit as Semitic as ancestral Jews, much moreso than European Jews, having all come from father Abraham.

Pacifying the anger is now a far more fruitful course, since the opposite tack manifestly failed as of Sunday, January 30th, 2011. Now, as a gloomer and doomer, it would be remiss of me to not repeat that it's probably too late. Many things have changed, human nature isn't among them. Peoples do change when they've exhausted other options. Well they're exhausted, baby, and leadership's inattention to and denial of bad fundamentals on the ground went on far too long. It's out of control now and no known countervailing force exists which can contain the Mid-East's grievances. Except maybe, just maybe making a half million or so hostile, entitled, crazy-ass-racist religious radicals move out of settlements built with US foreign aid. Oh and until that happens, as an aside, anyone reading this would be well advised to go buy at least 50 gallons of gasoline...and browse Craigslist for a moped.

Saying No To The Long War For One Brief Week

Let's see, now...what unfortunate coincidence befell the last sitting President who said "No" to the Pentagon? Hmm. Wish I had a better memory. Anyhow, Obama's annoying re-consideration of his decision this Spring to expand troop levels in Afghanistan, which I had discussed in a recent prescriptive post (A Solution for Afghanistan: Changing the Mission to Observe and Contain) was sure to generate swift repercussions from the military industrial complex crowd. And they came, mild openers such as these:

1) Republicans are telling Congressional Democrats that if B.O. withdraws, they'll personally be blamed for slaughtered virgins raining from Afghanistan's skies;

2) General Stan McChrystal has preemptively threatened to resign if he doesn't get his 40,000 more troops;

3) Impetus is gathering for congressional hearings about O's mishandling of the Afghanistan war, with a parade of generals and policy analysts. Mutiny, in other words, is afoot;

4) The Defense Secretary, Bob Gates, went on CNN Sunday and appeared to contradict his boss, saying an exit strategy would be a "strategic mistake;"

5) General David Petraeus, more on him later, again denied that he's thinking about a presidential run in 2012.

These wails aren't keening over nuke-bearing Russkies and these breasts aren't being beaten over invading Chinese hordes, but over the prospect of disillusioned donut salesmen trying to figure out how to mix acetone and peroxide together and hurt other people as well. The Complex will turn up the heat on a recalcitrant White House, and the most likely political response will be re-emphasizing al-Qaeda and de-emphasizing the Taliban.

This switch of framework can be easily packaged for public consumption by explaining that al-Qaeda is offensive in nature and the Taliban is defensive, therefore a troop buildup to chase the Taliban in Afghanistan doesn't make sense--but, for the sake of the populace in the areas we've made promises, withdrawal must be very gradual and we Will Not Abandon Them. This political solution will please few other than politicians, is almost as bad operationally as a build-up, and will probably result in a creeping expansion anyway. In the spirit of the times, I hereby take the liberty of christening it Operation Kevlar Chandelier.

While it's possible B.O. will have the political courage to put his head on the line and withdraw from his Dumb War in accord with what we already do against aQ on the cheap in places like the Sudan, it's a much longer shot than any Mr. Oswald took from the Book Depository. Thankfully, a commenter named VietnamVet on Sic Semper Tyrannis (link on right) repeats myself for me:

"The Long War is a losing proposition; it will break the bank and break the force.”

I have long been a proponent of containment. The only force that works to pacify an insurrection is a native police. If an empire is going to occupy a foreign country it has to work the ethnic divisions and build a native state that can police itself. This worked more or less until WWII. However, the AK-47, IED, cell phones, internet, and excess oil money make it impossible for a Jewish or a Christian country to occupy and pacify the Muslim people.

Containment and Energy Independence are the only strategy that will work for Western Civilization. These are the only schemes that won’t bankrupt the Middle Class. Unfortunately for America’s future, all the government Stakeholders have a game to play and wedge politics has neutered the Middle Class voter.

The infuriating fact that we're certain to lose doesn't matter. Rory Stewart, who knows the area better than any talk show analyst, recently put it so:

"...basically the policy decision is made. What they would like is a little advice on some small bit. I mean, the analogy that one of my colleagues used recently is this: “We’re planning to drive our car off a cliff. Do we wear a seatbelt or not?” And we say, “Don’t drive your car off the cliff.” And they say, “No, no, no. That decision’s already made. The question is should we wear our seatbelts?” And you say, “Why by all means wear a seatbelt.” And they say, “Okay, we consulted with policy expert Rory Stewart."

Post-Kennedy US foreign policy starts coming together once you realize the United States Middle Class is viewed in certain circles as an accident which should never have happened. Any straps extending underneath that class are now introduced as entitlements. Geopolitics were once games of chance to the inbred hemophiliac royals who had their private parties and scorecards and something like it is happening again. Senseless wastes and gambles begin making sense against that backdrop and the drama of tawdry and conveniently far-off places works as well as Western movies. The Apaches are out there, planting IEDs.

Thus we play the fools with time, and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us. But there is still an ember, there is still a glimmer, and I still blow.

Hamid Karzai Needs To Rethink Afghanistan

Speaking alongside NATO's secretary-general, Karzai told a news conference in Kabul that his government's foreign partners should respect and honor his country's independence"Afghanistan ... will never be a puppet state," Karzai said.

"No, my arms and legs are not spastically twitching on hidden strings. Not not not!"

The elections were to be held August 20th, but Karzai brought them up to April 21st to improve his chances of remaining Mayor of Kabul. Even if he manages to get elected again, however, his reason for being there is already over. Team Obama has no apparent plan other than to huddle with counterinsurgency experts who use the basic population control metrics and time frames. These usually work out to be 600,000 soldiers for 8 more years. That's not a solution. It's a hallucination.

At this point the only guy capable of bringing order to Pashtunistan is war hero Mullah Omar, leader of the Taliban, Afghanistan's ruler from 1996-2001. He's the guy who told BushCo to shove its pipeline someplace else than through his country. He is renowned by Pashtuns as a man of integrity, bravery, and faith. He hasn't been seen since the US bombed his house in 2001 and killed his 10-year old son, effectively ruining our diplomatic options, and he is "rumored" to be under the ISI's protection. It is he who commands his people's will, now more than ever, and his rep as the toughest mo-fo around is necessary for governing the rampantly corrupt, comically chaotic region.

Yes, I am advocating The Big Dee-Dee Mao, leaving it all to the wrath of the Taliban. Bombing more villages of the poorest people in the world, well you might better try and kill them all and these are not the folks you want to have a "Who's Toughest" contest with. They'll win every time, and they have.

Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films is going to interview people on the ground for a new documentary, "Rethinking Afghanistan." The upshot is of course that the US shouldn't send more soldiers in to worsen a bad situation, so that's predictable enough, but Robert will also be there right when the plastique is blowing up the fan. Anything could happen, he won't have the US military or a team of handlers to protect him and the spring thaw will bring out the roadside bombs. Robert is a truth-seeking missile and all he's asking for is $20 to buy some rocket fuel in exchange for a production credit on his movie.

Sounds like a good deal to me, because we sure need to Rethink Afghanistan.

"I Told Her Not To Call When I'm At The Office"

Mullah Abdul Salaam Zaeef, a former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, looks at his iPhone during an interview with Associated Press at his residence in Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2009. Zaeef spent almost four years in Guantanamo.

Twenty-Year Old News

(NYT Redux)

After seven years of war, Afghanistan presents a unique set of problems: a rural-based insurgency, an enemy sanctuary in neighboring Pakistan, the chronic weakness of the Afghan government, a thriving narcotics trade, poorly developed infrastructure, and forbidding terrain.

Shiva Gets His Nukes Back

Against the week's chaotic backdrop, a high-impact foreign policy decision was made without perceptible coverage or forbearance, one which signals a major shift in risk factors. Congress and the White House passed legislation allowing a nuclear deal with India, despite the latter's refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or allow transparent inspections of planned reactors. Under the deal, only civilian sites can be inspected, and India defines what "civilian" means at any time.

In other words as of today, India is an official sorcerer's apprentice to The Bomb, which will be made on their soil by United States nuclear engineers. Behind the kabuki screen, America's long, strained, ever-hopeful, ever-cynical relationship with Pakistan has been scrapped and there is a new backstop in the "Global War on Terror." India will be used to strike fear in the hearts of Pakistan's generals, and, it is hoped, as a way to split up an emerging BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) Bloc.

Proponents of the deal push it as enlightened self interest, pointing to its positive effects on energy, strategic alliance, and economy. Those hopeful positions give scant cover to the move's desperation in ending the 30-year ban on nuclear fuel and technology sales to India. Its successful tests in 1974 provided the major inspiration for having a Non-Proliferation Treaty in the first place, and for Pakistan to clandestinely develop its own Bomb. Given their acrimonious past, the circumstances surrounding the formation of Pakistan, and the incipient defeat of the West in Afghanistan, it's difficult to see how a nuclear incident between it and India can be long avoided.

High Crimes, Misdemeanors, And Venn Diagrams

Slate has an interactive chart up which maps a few of the current administration's scandals. Bruce pointed me to it in the comments section of "Evil Is As Evil Does," and although Jon noted it doesn't include the treason of outing Valerie Plame, it's still pretty useful. You can scroll over it, click on the names and get nifty little summaries along with cases for and against prosecution.

I'm linking to it because it may prove fairly handy about a year from now, when most Congress-critters should start to feel pretty secure that the dossiers on their call girls, corruption, catamites, and kinks won't be leaked to the press by the departed Bush Administration. (I'll bet the most enthusiastic piling-on will come from the Pug side of the aisle.) Note the chart position occupied by former Bush chief counsel, loyal friend, and Justice Department goat-herd Albert "Abu" Gonzales. As Slate notes, "all roads lead to Gonzales," and any future reincarnation of the congressional post-Watergate Church Committee, an event highly likely to occur, will assuredly focus on him. As Cheney explained his reasons for invading Iraq: "It's doable."

Speaking of Cheney, unfortunately he and other officials in the Bush Administration aren't particularly vulnerable to domestic prosecution for their actual crimes. I believe that pursuing them on that basis would be a very bad idea. It's very difficult to prove intent, and their predictable defense would be, "We were motivated by our unequaled patriotism." They would however seem very vulnerable to obstruction of justice charges, which in part would explain their motivation, one might say obsession, for destroying millions of their own emails and documents, and marking everything from old laundry receipts on up as Classified.

Congress just voted Karl Rove into contempt for not bothering to show up to a required hearing. Karl's response: "What are you pansies gonna do, piss yourselves?" Congress doesn't have much if any authority right now, and won't until after January 9th, 2009. It seems likely that at least a few scapegoats will suffer for their Eichmannesque conformities, and some testimony will be collected in exchange for (perhaps) getting jail time for Mr. Gonzales, who after all is a minor, not very well-liked outsider. Then I would expect blanket immunity a la post-apartheid South Africa and pronouncements that "our long national nightmare is over." And everyone will know the big fish are still swimming free. How to extract justice from them?

Civil suits, both domestic and international, will be filed. Cheney, Libby, Rove, and Armitage face at least one remaining civil suit from Valerie Plame and her husband, Joe Wilson, who have re-filed after their first was thrown out on national security grounds. They'll find the judicial environment much more favorable under a different President. Then, displaced Iraqis, friends of the environment, soldiers' families, innocent people tortured and imprisoned for years, class actions, and dissatisfied contributors can seek damages on everything from depleted uranium to wrongful death.

Probably the best, most enduring way of getting at BushCo officials is by convincing other countries to indict them for war crimes, since in international courts under those charges, outcome rather than intent is the issue. The burden of proof would be on the defendants, "crimes against humanity" covers a lot of ground, and it should not be difficult to find widespread enthusiasm for such a project. What happened in Iraq meets the UN's technical definitions of genocide, with more than 25% of a nation or ethnic group within it killed or displaced. With the right organization and marketing, it could become the international equivalent of a Yellow Ribbon campaign, only in reverse.

Donald Rumsfeld, Gonzales, and former CIA Director George Tenet have already had charges filed against them in Germany, which allows universal jurisdiction; why not include the other malefactors? No need to stop at Germany, although not all the countries of the world need to participate. Just the ones you'd want to travel to. Hmmm. Maybe some enterprising bloggers will get together and coordinate a web-based effort to make this happen. What would be a good name for it?

(Graphic credit to Mike Votes at Born at the Crest of Empire, link on right margin.)

Talk With The Enemies, Get Delusional

Foreign policy is the art of getting your enemies to do what you want them to. This normally involves praise, rewards, bribes, time-outs, aired grievances, ignored affronts, playing games of Trivial Pursuit, common amusements, and, on remarkably rare occasion, the application of logic. Much like dealing with a toddler, only scaled upwards to nations and borders. Or there's the Bush approach, which is to bomb things to smithereens, make far-ranging diabolical threats, and then lock yourself into an insane asylum.

Despite the continued "don't negotiate with terrorists" stance of the Global Oil Party (GOP), Israel struck a deal with a legitimately elected political party known as Hamas to stop bombing each other's settlements in Gaza. In return for what, it's hard to say. Maybe some peace and quiet? You can bet the inmates at Casa BushCo are shrieking in yellow-foam-specked rage and will need to self-medicate extra heavy tonight.

The truce is a pretty positive development. The US had little to do with, other than pushing for democratic elections in Gaza and then acting as if a baby Alien had gnawed its way out of the body politic's chest and then ran off hissing under the dinner table. Sheesh, those unintended consequences. No one could have imagined. In related news, after making her 22nd visit to the region, having to stay in a second-rate hotel and finding no one in authority to speak with until the pro-Palestinian State Tzipi Livni is installed as the new PM, the the word 'Condi' has been adapted to new uses:

Israeli TV announcers coined her name as a verb, meaning to go endlessly around in circles, accomplishing nothing.

In unrelated news, one-third of the state of Iowa is under flood waters which are expected to rise even further, and President George W. Bush played basketball in Ireland. Apart from impeachment, what the hell are we going to do with this imbecile and his defunct freak show circus when he leaves office?

Iraq's Quick, Dirty, Happy Ending

Under what will be known as the Obama Doctrine starting in 2009, the U.S. will seek to withdraw all its troops from Iraq in 16 months, the speediest exit military experts think it can be achieved. Various factors will make this withdrawal's timing less relevant than its context, its extent far more dependent on matters outside Presidential control. This is good, because unilateral voluntary withdrawal would invite a great deal of resistance, denial, and wheel-spinning. Predictions are arrogant, foolhardy, and as the professional futilitarians so often prove, ineluctably wrong. Therefore, I'm going to tell exactly what's going to happen in Iraq in 2009. In short, the Iraqis are going to make it simple for us.

Currently, Bush Doctrine jockeys are holding $50 billion in accrued oil revenues hostage from Iraq's Prime Minister, Nouri al Maliki. He wants the money, but to get it he has to promise US rights to permanent bases in his country. Three problems: he doesn't have the votes, he doesn't have the country, and if he signs the deal on his own authority, he won't have lungs. He is now in a position where Iraqi power brokers will tell him what to do, and by extension, they will also determine what a US withdrawal will look like.

To recap, Iraq was a secular nation made up of three main ethno-religious groups in descending numerical order: Shi'a Persians, Sunni Arabs, and Kurds. While there is considerable complexity and strife going on within each of those labels, the geographic separation and cohesion of these basic groups has become much sharper over the past 5 years as upwards of 30% of the total population either relocated or fled the country entirely, and the unspooling "blood borders" dynamic has made the guesswork much simpler.

A basic question is, why bother continuing to have an Iraq? There are all sorts of reasons against it, and only a few big reasons for it. While the Kurds and Sunnis would love to have separate states of their own, but they also realize these would quickly be overpowered; Moqtada al-Sadr and al-Sistani, the most important Shia leaders, both want a unified Iraq; and finally, Iran does not want to inherit or administer a "Shia rump," not even with its oil, greatly preferring a car-bomb free existence and a stable neighbor to the south. (The Saudis? Screwed.) All the stakeholders come out ahead by forging a stable country, whether as a federation, a coalition of self-administered states, or the present parliament. The system is secondary to the agreement, upon which rests the logic of continuing as a single nation.

Sadr and Sistani realize the quickest way to achieve a stability which favors them is to get the Americans out. Thence, they're insisting the deal for American bases be decided by referendum, which will overwhelmingly reject it. This rejection will leave a political power vacuum, which Sistani will happily let Sadr fill; Sistani simply wants Najaf to return to its rightful place as spiritual center of the Shia world. As for the Sunnis, they remember the solidarity and aid Sadr showed to Fallujah, his general history of restraint, and far prefer him over Maliki; the Iranians have seen his effectiveness, approve his co-existential nationalism, and have extended him protection. The Kurds will grouchily join and give up much of Kirkuk's oil in return for continuing autonomy and protection against Turkey, something the US no longer even pretends to offer.

Obama Doctrine or no, Iraq is going to demand that the US leave, and it can readily obtain the means of enforcement. After the coming referendum, the Prime Minister's job is his anytime he wants it, and his first act would be to draft a resolution calling for American withdrawal. As soon as American troops start leaving, the violence will plummet. Maliki will decamp with his pieds-noirs for the quiet life in Provence. Obama will fork over the $50 billion in return for soft-power access and influence, knowing that long-term bases are more than not needed, they're the biggest problem.

And then, of course, we'll hear every dubious neo-twit flathead shout with glee clear down into the grave, "You see? We were right all along, it worked just like we said! You said we were wrong, you insulted us, but it was you, it was you who was wrong. And we were right!!" If you ever find yourself within arm's reach of a neocon, a short, sharp, two-knuckled punch into the solar plexus will serve quite nicely.

Torkham Choke Point: Pakistan To Stop Supporting US Operations In Afghanistan

Torkham is just 5 klicks east of the summit of the Khyber Pass, right on what masquerades as a border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Some clever chappie drew the Durand Line, more commonly known as the 'Zero Line,' on a map in 1893 as an attempt to keep the Khan's influence out of what was then British India. It never really worked. Jalalabad is to the west, Peshawar is to the east, and in between is al-Qaeda.

The 50,000 US & NATO troops in Afghanistan need about 700,000 gallons of fuel per day to maintain operations. 500,000 of that goes through Torkham, where 36 tankers were blown up in a customs parking lot one night in March. The Afghan National Army has difficulty securing supply columns from attack once past the gate, and the efforts of Pakistan's forces have become increasingly token since recent elections which effectively deposed the US-bankrolled Musharraf. The Taliban was able to close the supply route for at least 8 days in April, prompting an increasing number of Predator drone missile strikes inside Pakistan. "Truckers wanted, must have a love for adventure."

Soon, Pakistan will conclude a new treaty with its tribes to heal enmities over past US support; losses through the Torkham line will likely steepen dramatically. Russia has been watching this devolving situation closely, and Vladimir Putin offered a supply line through Russia at the last NATO meeting, but certainly not for free. They didn't take him up on it (yet). US supplies going through Russia to fight al-Qaeda packs enough irony to prostrate intelligence services with howls of helpless laughter. The only people keeping straight faces are the grunts and the Bush Administration. Here's what the Pakis have to say about it:

Adm. Eric T. Olson, the commander of United States Special Operations Command, held a round-table discussion with a group of civilian Pakistani leaders to sound them out on the possibility of cross-border raids by American forces. He was told in no uncertain terms that from the Pakistani point of view it was a bad idea, said one of the participants.

Instead, Pakistani officials are trying to restore calm to their country, which was rattled by a record number of suicide attacks last year. Within days, they are expected to strike a peace accord with Pakistan’s own militants that makes no mention of stopping the infiltrations. In fact, Pakistani counterinsurgency operations have stopped during the new government’s negotiations with the militants.

“Pakistan will take care of its own problems, you take care of Afghanistan on your side,” said Owari Ghani, the governor of North-West Frontier Province, who is also President Pervez Musharraf’s representative in charge of the neighboring tribal areas.

Mr. Ghani, a key architect of the pending peace accord, believes along with many other Pakistani leaders that the United States is floundering in the war in Afghanistan. Pakistan, he said, should not be saddled with America’s mistakes, especially if a solution involved breaching Pakistan’s sovereignty, a delicate matter in a nation where sentiment against the Bush administration runs high.

“Pakistan is a sovereign state,” he said. “NATO is in Afghanistan; it’s time they did some soldiering.”

Ashura & The Shiite Passion Plays

Naj, a friend and Iranian ex-pat who runs Iran Facts (link at right margin), has written an enlightening summary of the Ashura festival in Iran, one which bears similarities to Christian passion plays held around the world. As celebrations re-enact the martyrdom of Jesus, so Ashura commemorates the martyrdom of Hussein, inspiration of the Shi'ite faith. Naj explains Ashura's significance, in particular the basis of the schism between Shi'ite and Sunni forms of Islam, as expressed in the street plays known as ta'ziyeh (lit. "compassion, mourning"):

As a dramatic form it has its origins in the Muharram procession commemorating Hussein's martyrdom and throughout its evolution the representation of the siege and carnage at Kerbela has remained its centerpoint. Ta'ziyeh has never lost its religious implications. Because early Shi'ites viewed Hussein's death as a sacred redemptive act, the performance of the Muharram ceremonies was believed to be an aid to salvation; later they also believed that participation, both by actors and spectators, in the Ta'ziyeh dramas would gain them Hussein's intercession on the day of the Last Judgment.

People, Sunnis much included, have criticized Shi'ism as medieval, gruesome, superstitious. Again, parallels between Shi'ite and Sunni conflicts are fairly comparable to those between Protestantism, expressive folk forms of Catholicism, and the body with claims originating authority over all things Christian. In the late 1700s, the Catholic Church banned passion plays in Europe, particularly Germany, as being too bloody, boisterous, and pagan-bordering. Oberammergau soon gained a passion play monopoly through a deal in which they changed their celebration's title, toned down the edgy displays, and charged for tickets, drawing about half a million visitors once a decade ever since (and for a one-time 350th anniversary in 1984). Outside Germany, the popularity of passion plays has spread, and are practiced in South and North America. Shi'ites are by no means alone in re-enactments of suffering, or in practices seen as beneath the dignity of other groups who supposedly share the same religion.

Demographically, Shi'ites are the fastest-growing segment of Islam and already significantly outnumber Sunnis, a fact which gives the lie to the deterministic 'Clash of Civilizations' logic. (Which goes, in short: other religions are quickly out-breeding Christianity, ergo the West must attack while the chances for success are still high. Thus the Iraq grab and the Iran end game.) Naj again provides a quick history check:

In the first years of the sixteenth century, when under the Safavid dynasty, Persia, which had always been a strong cultural power, again became a political power, Shi'ite Islam was established as the state religion and was used to unify the country, especially against the aggressive Ottomans and Uzbeks who were adherents of Sunnite Islam.

All anecdotal evidence indicates that religions exhibit a strong tendency to schism over time, not to unify. Judah was but one tribe of Israel, and ten went missing somewhere. Islam is technically an off-shoot of Judaism, and recognizes Christ as an important prophet. (How about "United" Methodists? Ha!) Islam is about to schism further, and of course the Bush Doctrine is based almost entirely on the opposite assumption. Wahabist philosophers may have correctly diagnosed and exploited the West's weaknesses, but they overlooked their own glaring problems: their chances of unifying Islam are extremely low in the absence of a Western Crusaders, encouraging a personal relationship with the Koran invites the attendant dangers of differing interpretations, and Iran is a bigger threat to al-Qaeda than the US ever will be.

'Foreign policy' means getting other countries to do what you want. If a capable diplomat keeps the principle of religious disunity mind, much can be quickly done with little more than travel vouchers and a free hand to first extricate a mired foot from the Mideast, then a leg, then maybe two. Not to mention greatly improve relations with Iran, which shouldn't be further driven into Russian or Chinese embraces; Iran should be engaged and helped in their goal to generate nuclear power, unravelling their biggest knot of anxiety: depleted oil fields.

A policy of de-escalation in rhetoric and force re-deployments will work immediate wonders, eroding support for mirror-image radicals who stir the embers of conflict. Iran may have old vendettas with the US and fully share in Islamic enmity for Israel, but it hates al-Qaeda, and in the equation of Realpolitik, it can be a policy anchor, a successful, eventually friendly counterbalance for non-violent containment.

Charlie Wilson's War & The Beauty Parlor Reaganites

Former Reagan officials are angry about the new Tom Hanks movie, Charlie Wilson's War. They say it aggrandizes how much a mere Texas Rep, a Democrat!, helped the Afghanis to forcibly eject Soviet occupiers. They dispute how much credit "the Avocado," CIA agent Gust Avrakatos, deserves for devising effective insurgency tactics. They claim Wilson and Avocado actively resisted sending Stinger missiles to the tribes, finally being overruled by Cap Weinberger, certified Cold War Hero. A blog called "Libertas" is one of many piling on the trope:

Sorry, Hollywood, THIS (Ronald Reagan) is the man who won the Cold War you wanted us to lose, not some cocaine-snorting, whore-mongering, alcoholic liberal… It was this man, the people who served him, Pope John Paul, Margaret Thatcher, the people in Eastern Europe who rose and followed the likes of Lech Walesa, our brave military, and a man named Ollie North who also sent covert arms to freedom fighters, but there will be no movies about him…

I'd love to see a movie about Ollie North! One which depicts a moral compass Heinrich Himmler would've loved, although of course the pic would have nothing to do with defeating the Soviets in Afghanistan. That's why there's a movie about a cocaine-snorting, whore-mongering alcoholic liberal who delivered enough money to a wholly insubordinant, down-and-dirty CIA agent to blow up every Russian in the country, an agent whom the Republicans hated, feared, and tried to get rid of. At one point, Avocado controlled 70% of the CIA's discretionary budget for the entire world. On top of that, Wilson and Bill Casey got the Saudi government to match the US funding buck-for-buck.

The bad liberals begged for Stinger missiles to give to the mujahedin, and it was the Reagan Administration which wouldn't send them. It was the Reagan Administration which held up the shipment of sniper rifles for nearly 5 years on fears they would be used to target Russian generals. (Finally the rifles were sent, but without the night vision goggles needed to make them effective.) It was the Reagan Administration which held back the good stuff, fearing it would offend Gorbachev.

Wilson and Avrakatos were flawed bit players who thought up a solution and pursued it with single-minded determination. Just pawns, really, of Zbigniew Brzenski's 1980 plan to stick Afghanistan up the same Commie ass which took his native Poland and killed family members and friends. (Z-Big was Carter's national security advisor.) Still, the grasping and whining from people widely praised for engineering a "Morning in America" (which, if it existed at all, was made possible by hard policies of their predecessors), is beyond unbecoming. It's yet another unfortunate confirmation that duplicitous, perpetually insecure glory-whores rarely change. Reagan's whores claim the movie is liberally biased, a low blow to conservatives because the screenplay was written by Aaron Sorkin, the creator of two Liberal Wet Dream White Houses portrayed on television series "The West Wing" and in Michael Douglas movie "The American President." Clearly, Aaron Sorkin wants all Republicans to be lined up against a wall and shot, ergo speaks with forked tongue.

That the Reaganistas are not remembered for treating Afghanistan like a snotty Kleenex while basking in political glory is too bad. Once the Russians pulled out, the Tough Guys were too timid and dim-witted to maintain any presence and funding. In their stupidity, they did not rebuild Afghanistan, preferring to create a power vacuum into which were sucked the spores of the Taliban. Kool-Aiders will claim stability wasn't their responsibility, they couldn't have known it would go bad, the Cold War was won anyway, the Taliban wasn't formed until the Clinton years, yadda yada. Of course, that's also saying ignorance of basic statecraft is wonderful. In keeping with Republican style.

Meanwhile, after the Russkies hauled ass, a rich Saudi national named Osama bin Laden (OBL) stayed on in Afghanistan to build roads, dams, and schools, to further promulgate the Muslim reformation (Al-Qaeda), and to build a network so loyal to him that he hasn't been turned in despite a $40 million reward. Again, the tropes proclaim no connection between the CIA and bin Laden, that he never got any direct US funding, and the events in Afghanistan and Pakistan had nothing to do with 9/11. The rabid Puggies don't seem to realize the dreaded librul Sorkin adapted the bothersome movie's screenplay from a book, one funnily enough called Charlie Wilson's War. And they're missing the central plot point:

What if, instead of Osama bin Laden, we were the ones who stayed on to build the roads, dams, and schools?

The Return Of Containment

"The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and commander must make is to establish...the kind of war on which they are embarking; neither mistaking it for, nor trying to turn it into, something that is alien to its nature."

--Clausewitz--

Translation: fight stupid wars, and pretty soon you'll leave broken monuments. Von Clausewitz would've chortled schnapps out of his nose at the Bush Doctrine. Attacking and occupying Iraq grossly conflated a minor but thorny enemy into an empire-ending emetic. It was a full-court embarkation onto a fool's parade of twisted alien natures and wars which can't be won. It's time to cut the losses and reach back to strategies which proved successful.

George F. Kennan was a time-and-motion foreign policy genius, and he was the promulgator of "Containment." In context, Containment was a long-term, non-violent way of defeating an inimical, hostile form of government, a way of lowering confrontational temperatures down into a non-military zone. Kennan would know about that. He was SecDef under Truman from 1947-48, a time when many in the U.S., England, and Germany, including George S. Patton and a chorus of ex-Nazis believed there was no good alternative but to invade and defeat Stalinist Russia. The lower the temperature, the more it favored us.

Kennan convinced Truman and the planners around him, with a series of well-reasoned articles, to buy enough time for flawed, inferior, murderous, centrally planned communist systems to fall. He knew we didn't need to attack them directly because they would consume and probably reform themselves. Kennan was probably the biggest anti-communist of all time, and I became his disciple in the early 80's because his doctrine of strong-point containment had the courage to express and exercise a simple confidence in democracy. He believed we would win out, and thus didn't need to attack Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, El Salvador, Grenada, Haiti, or other places. Kennan believed it would be better to out-invest Russia and China than to out-kill them. He made sense to me then, and he makes sense to me now. None of those wars needed to happen to defeat communism, and he encouraged not a single one of them. All the crucial battles between democracy and communism were about making people healthier and happier than the other guy did. Sometimes that was hard for both sides to understand.

Ian Shapiro, a Yale Professor and biographer of George F. Kennan, was on the local NPR show the other morning. He was talking lots of sense that morning, so I called in and slid past the producer with an inane, innocent question, something like "I'd like to invite Dr. Shapiro to speculate about when Containment will make a comeback." But when the producer patched me in, I asked Shapiro on the air with extravagant politeness: "How long until this goddamned %@%^*-t ends?"

"Soon, my friend," he said. "Very soon."

Spinning In From The Cold

Karl Rove's dog ate 4 years worth of e-mails, the Sunni insurgency in Iraq sent a suicide bomber to detonate its share of
parliament, and our quiet downstairs tenants flew to a wedding in San Francisco. Leif the former rock star left to go back home, and our Mr. Butler went back to his sister's submarine base. We were all introduced, thanks to Michael, this week, to Regina Spektor. She was trained as a classical pianist in Russia, and grew up in Brighton Beach. It was about time to know Regina, and right now I might now be happier than I've ever been. That's the impact real art always has on me.

With the downstairs tenants gone tonight, we blared the stereo the loudest it's ever gone, the dial goes to 13 I think, and Lord Baby got into proper spirits and ran around the fireplace to dance with us in the living room. We tossed him up to our curved ceiling by his legs and by his head with all of us laughing and giggling until we got sweaty and tired. Then we threw him into the pillows on the couch and got sweatier and more tired. He would bounce down, laugh, bounce up and turn around again, point at the most rested one of us and say "Your turn!" Off we would go again, dancing in our windows, in full frontal view of our neighbors. We danced until a half an hour ago, with loud music, Indian war whoops, and no regrets. With lots of dizziness from the spins.

I thought of Japan today, and necessary deceptions. I thought of Germany and Austria, Switzerland, Rumania and the former Czechoslovakia, of blood matted thick in black hair in Korea. Of indulgences in Sweden and Denmark, of Norwegian tax fugitives and holidays in Verbier, of Finnish guts and losing a tooth north of Beijing, of getting harmlessly sick in the Yucatan, of spying for Mormons and the prisons in Yugoslavia, of the marble sculptures in La Spezia and the Mossad in Los Angeles.

I let two members of my team smoke hashish in Amsterdam. I woke up without alarm clocks in Provence and wondered about the wonderful things I would eat and drink that day. I think of never getting to see Bali/Sri Lanka. Of falling in love with my beautiful wife outside the Jimi Hendrix Museum before our first date, calling her a good girl/noble woman on our entrance to the Microsoft party, of stuffed squab and unpastuerized cheeses after swimming all day under the cliffs of the Calanques, of lawsuits and dinners with the money-men pushing airline TV. I think of a British Foreign Service agent and his Oxford cricket bat which cast no shadow, pouring amicable Sambucas into our relaxed and ice-filled glasses by his blue and private pool. The satellites passed above all our heads unobserved despite their precise schedules tonight, and our son looked up at the stars with us and fell finally asleep to one more blessed, stolen day of peace.

The automatic in my bookshelf does me no good. Truth be told it never did, and the tomahawk in my old tuxedo closet is just a hopeful heirloom. The secret to resistance isn't in your weakness, but in your temptation, and how to hide your sweetest downfalls. The consequences I delayed so long are called parenthood, the true adventure has arrived, and there are no defenses against the intrusions.

Syria Using Liberal Congress-Woman As Human Shield

Nancy Pelosi looks like she's having fun in Damascus, going all Zen and dishing out quotes about realism-Hamas and improvement-Hezbollah after cozying up to Israeli PM Olmert over the weekend. She should remember the rules a little better. See, it's ok for 'Pug congress-critters to visit Syria, but it's verboten-land for the Dims. Even in the picture above, you can see the Syrians literally hiding behind her! Those sand-sucking scalliwags. I wonder if Speaker Pelosi would look so calm and assured when a stray JDAM drops on the building? The White House would never do that, of course. But they want to.

(Seriously, I think this is great politics. It's a good way of showing the world that America split, that there's real progress against those who hate us for our freedoms.)

Council On Foreign Relations: "Time For Detente With Iran"

There's an important article coming up in the new issue of Foreign Affairs. Now, if I happened to be running an Open-Source Intelligence Agency instead of the Home For Interesting Women, I'd be sure to get every advance copy of that publication and read it from cover to cover. As it is, I prefer my beloved, cheeto-dust-stained issues of "Car and Driver," "Vibe," and "Video Gaming Monthly," thank you very much.

You needn't bother to read the article, other than to know that it's the lead piece in the March/April issue and is written by Ray Takeyh, who is probably the closest thing to an objective expert on Iran you're likely to find in this country. He's been running around saying the same thing for about three years now, basically that it would be better to negotiate with Tehran than nuke it. The difference is, suddenly he's saying the same thing on the cover of the "most influential periodical in print." This...is...very...good. It means the Other People who run the country (I mean besides the Office of the Vice President, PNAC, AIPAC, et al) are fairly united in their desire to normalize relations with Tehran.

If you insist on getting all wonkish, you could go read the transcript of Ray's interview with the managing editor of Foreign Affairs (Gideon Rose) at last week's meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations, you know, the meeting where other important matters were examined, like voting to let Angelina Jolie become a member. Which she now is. I think we know which way Henry Kissinger voted on that one.

(The pic recalls the scene from Monty Python's Holy Grail where the knights who say "neet!" run into the vulnerable bunny which turns out to be a vicious attack rabbit. Knightly blood spurts everywhere and the armored ones run away screaming, "Run away! Run away!")