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.

Iran's Crisis And Opportunity

Naj over at Iran Facts has been in understandable distress over the tumult in her country, and today abjured my silence. Truthfully, I feel adrift in Iranian internal affairs, but am someone who marvels at the sheer number of Iranians, millions of them, willing to peacefully put their lives on the line in passionate service.

Listening to Publicly Traded Media frame the demonstrations this week, you'd think post-election disapproval boils down to a generational dispute. In one corner, we have a forward-looking, freedom-loving Twitter Generation casting away beards and head scarves to square off against a severely backward, unyielding theocracy. While social networks have been useful for the opposition and the authoritarian regime was so blog-darned clueless it thought banning foreign reporters would diminish coverage, the media narrative has distorted the basics in exchange for Packaging...which is, of course, their Job. They have cast the conflict in mythical terms, something like "The Islamic Revolution vs. Gay Marriage," when more accurate political Packaging would be Godzilla vs. Mothra.

If you wonder what makes modern Iran tick, it doesn't take much poking around to conclude that it's complicated. It's a constitutional democracy, yes, well-functioning at local levels, but also resembles a Soviet command economy and is ultimately run by a Supreme Leader. The leader is a cleric powerful enough to invalidate voting results in an insultingly obvious way, and then publicly decree that the demonstrations will be put down by force. If the Mormon Church ran the US, figuring out the resulting factional dynamics would be next to impossible, but they would be easy compared to Iran's.

Few in the West or the East know what goes on behind and between the doors of the Assembly of Experts, Guardian Council, Expediency Discernment Council, or have any insight to the respective rabbinical squabbles and sways over Parliament (Majilis) which commonly result in overturned legislation. As a measure of volatility, one-third of sitting Majili candidates were disqualified from running again in 2008, indicative of a cresting conflict between theocratic and democratic factions.

When trying to predict outcomes with sparse data, falling back on fundamentals of the Human Condition is advised. Impulses towards civilization, i.e., living by agreed-upon rules conducive to peace and harmony, often clash with wills to power. There is constant tension between individuality and groupthink, rationality and emotion, morality and immorality, and there are simple questions. Who has power? What are their motivations?

Hashemi Rafsanjani is Iran's richest man. A former President, he chairs both the Assembly of Experts and the Expediency Discernment Council; he is rumored to have resigned from the latter body last week, one tasked with mediating disputes between the Supreme Leader and Parliament. His nickname is "Shah," he is a pro-business free-marketeer hostile to the current President's isolationist policies, and he sent an open letter to Khameini, the Supreme Leader, a week before the presidential election warning of vote fraud consequences.

The wronged opposition candidate (Mousavi) is a pragmatic and open to rapprochement with the West, yet seems to be unacceptable to both Khameini and, for the moment, to Rafsanjani. Khameini, Iran's first post-revolution President and survivor of a 1981 assassination attempt, has a history of violent repression and executed thousands of dissidents. Rafsanjani can now use Khameini's response to popular protests as a reason for dismissal in his capacity as Chairman of the Assembly of Experts, which has the constitutional power to elect and oust the Supreme Leader.

Mere logic is often unreliable in these things, but Rafsanjani appears to be angling toward installing himself or a proxy as Supreme Leader. The basic structures seem unlikely to change, and Mousavi's appeal for a return to uncorrupted revolutionary principles is similarly unlikely to occur (see Naj's translation of his remarkable letter), but his appeal will bear strong offspring. Theocracy is intransigently shooting itself in the foot, hollowing out its authority and provoking conditions for a long arc towards modernism in elected offices with less direct control of church over state. Politically, the next tactical step would be commercial back-channel communications by Rafsanjani's son, the head of Gaz-Iran, to the Obama Administration on nuclear and energy issues.

Rafsanjani is a firm supporter and direct beneficiary of the nuclear power generation program, appreciates its implied effects on Israel, and would almost certainly trade close monitoring for shifting administration contracts to US suppliers. While innocents protesting election fraud are gassed, beaten, shot, and photographed for future detainment, this is the cold-around-the-heart door they're making it possible for Iran to walk through. If such is done, Iran will immediately be immunized from attack by Israel and the unbalanced scales of power in the region would swing towards equilibrium.

While sometimes achieving desired results, naked applications of force are expensive and unreliable. As of today, Iran's Supreme Leader set a host of unintended and, for him and the current regime's supporters and enemies, undesired consequences in motion. Having known and abetted the protests which brought down the Shah in 1979, resisting the will of the people is a Supreme Irony.

Gaza Protests In Beirut

A juxtaposition of how viciously stupid Israel is being, via Fox News:

The day after Christmas, White House special counsel Charles Colson told the president that the American people needed to hear "some explanation of why it is we're continuing to bomb [North Vietnam], and that it isn't simply an exercise in trying to decimate a country."

"It's too damn bad we aren't decimating the country," Nixon snapped.

"I wish to hell we were," Colson replied.

"We're doing one hell of a lot," the president continued, marveling at North Vietnam's "war-making capabilities." But Nixon added that the North had been "clobbered this time, because...I told [Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Thomas] Moorer...'Now look here. May 8th, we mined, we bombed. We did a hell of a lot. And it set 'em back a year. Now, we're going to set 'em back two years."

Nixon then told Colson: "The targets they've had have been really something. Everything, except, of course, we're avoiding civilians. I mean, even -- with all the screaming about civilians, believe me: If we were trying, the goddamn place would be leveled. Leveled!"

"God, yes," replied Colson, who after pleading guilty during the Watergate scandals became a born-again Christian and dedicated his life to his Prison Fellowship ministry.

The next day, talking by telephone with Kissinger, the commander-in-chief said of the enemy: "We gave 'em a hell of a good bang, you know. And I'm glad we only lost two B-52s. That wasn't too bad."

Kissinger pointed out that a loss rate of three percent was "about average."

"We're punishing the hell out of them, aren't we?" Nixon asked.

"Oh, there's no question about it," Kissinger replied. The NSC chief added that the French foreign minister had shared with American diplomats a report from France's consul general in Hanoi in which the Frenchman fretted: "I've just lived through the most terrifying hour of my life. An unbelievable raid has just taken place."

When Kissinger, a former Harvard professor and master courtier, sought to flatter his boss, the president cut him off. "You have shown that you are not to be trifled with," Kissinger told the president, producing a mirthless chuckle from Nixon.

"I wouldn't worry about the people here," Nixon said. "I mean, they're bitching around in the news magazines. Don't worry about it, Henry. It's not all that important. The public isn't that much concerned about all this."

The Wit And Wisdom Of Rahm Emanuel

I hate Rahm Emanuel. I hate him for being a shitty DCCC chair, for battling with Howard Dean over the 50-state strategy, for doing everything possible to undermine the winning strategy, then for taking credit when it worked. I hate him for running Bush-sympathizing 'Blue Dog Democrats' in red districts in 2006, and I hate him for being a smirking phoney smarm. He is rumored to hold an Israeli passport, to have volunteered for the IDF during Desert Storm, he is a Zionist and passes out Uzis to Jewish gangstas, "The Isros," in synagogues all over Chicago's north side. My mildest reaction to him as Obama's chief of staff was "Blerrrchh!"

But then I thought, "What would Saul Alinsky do? What would a community terrorist who has improbably seized power next do?" Get himself an enforcer. A Laurenti Beria, Luca Brazzi, knock-on-the-door-in-the-night Bad Cop. My hunch is it was in part a "keep your enemies closer" move. By naming Emanuel, Obama fulfilled Chicago political machine payback in perpetuity and also removed a major, ongoing congressional pain in the ass, one which is now condemned to schedule meetings and incessantly listen to people bitch and whine about how they absolutely must see the President. Music, sweet music.

Is it any wonder Rahmbo didn't immediately accept the post? He's done it before, and knows it often requires arriving 5AM and leaving 9PM. Plus, it messes with his ambition to be Speaker of the House, so he only committed 2 years to the job from hell. A placeholder will take his congressional seat, but things aren't always predictable on that watch. Especially now. The shit that's being aerosolized will not have settled back down upon the turnip field a short two years from now.

So Obama has a (preferably hypoallergenic) pit bull for CoS, and past holders of that slot like Dick Cheney and John Sununu were noted for startling levels of unapologetic rudeness. You don't need to trust the holder of the post to be nice, you need smarts, stamina, effectiveness, and quick answers to your reins. Obama trusts his combat team: Axelrod, Plouffe, Valerie Jarrett, and his wife. Not the Merchant of Hyde Park, who will henceforth be Axelrod's responsibility. Emanuel scares the ever-living shit out of the Reich Wing, and he's as bipartisan as a broken nose. (See the cancelled SNL sketch above.) Politics is his blood sport. This is a good thing, if your President backs off from it.

Here's another Rahmbo angle: I suspect Obama will throw deep right away on the Palestine-Israel issue as a way to open up the options, because progress there, or the convincing illusion of it, makes everything else easier in the Mid-East. Emaneul knows how to work with the Clintons, is an intimate who maintained his neutrality, which pushes a few jigsaws together with Hillary as SecState. Baggage or no, the Clintons have mondo stature on the archway issue that's screwing the entire world up. They're the most recent people to make any headway on reconciliation and recognition, exact roboratives needed to free the Mid-East oxen from the desperate mire.

Obama is going after Israel, and it will be leaned on hard, with all the remaining US leverage available. Right where it should've been placed for the last decade and more. It may be too damned late, as Israel is busy sucking up to Russia with all possible speed, but having Rahm as CoS is like establishing an open channel to Tel Aviv. He will communicate what's doable, what's not, and he'll be believed.

For everything else domestic, he'll be diabolically effective, and will use his time in the White Cabin to gather power, not burn bridges. Aaron Sorkin's scheming character on the West Wing, Josh Lyman, is supposedly based on Emanuel's three-ring performances with the Clintons. Which, if true, means he gives a shit about liberal causes. And as for the rest, I'll take Machiavellian over Vaudevillian any day.

(Note: this post was originally written on November 8th, so the Clinton appointment and SNL sketch were added.)

The Wit And Wisdom Of Rahm Emanuel

I hate Rahm Emanuel. I hate him for being a shitty DCCC chair, for battling with Howard Dean over the 50-state strategy, for doing everything possible to undermine the winning strategy, then for taking credit when it worked. I hate him for running Bush-sympathizing 'Blue Dog Democrats' in red districts in 2006, and I hate him for being a smirking phoney smarm. He is rumored to hold an Israeli passport, to have volunteered for the IDF during Desert Storm, he is a Zionist and passes out Uzis to Jewish gangstas, "The Isros," in synagogues all over Chicago's north side. My mildest reaction to him as Obama's chief of staff was "Blerrrchh!"

But then I thought, "What would Saul Alinsky do? What would a community terrorist who has improbably seized power next do?" Get himself an enforcer. A Nastasi Beria, Luca Brazzi, knock-on-the-door-in-the-night Bad Cop. My hunch is it was also a "keep your enemies closer" move. By naming Emanuel, Obama fulfilled Chicago political machine payback in perpetuity and also removed a major, ongoing congressional pain in the ass, one which is now condemned to schedule meetings and incessantly listen to people bitch and whine about how they absolutely must see the President. Music, sweet music.

Is it any wonder Rahmbo didn't immediately accept the post? He's done it before, and knows it often requires arriving 5AM and leaving 9PM. Plus, it messes with his ambition to be Speaker of the House, so he only committed 2 years to the job from hell. A placeholder will take his congressional seat, but things aren't always predictable on that watch. Especially now. The shit that's being aerosolized will not have settled back down upon the turnip field a short two years from now.

So Obama has a (preferably hypoallergenic) pit bull for CoS, and past holders of that slot like Dick Cheney and John Sununu were noted for startling levels of unapologetic rudeness. You don't need to trust the holder of the post to be nice, you need smarts, stamina, effectiveness, and quick answers to your reins. Obama trusts his combat team: Axelrod, Plouffe, Valerie Jarrett, and his wife. Not the Merchant of Hyde Park, who will henceforth be Axelrod's responsibility. Emanuel scares the ever-living shit out of the Reich Wing, and he's as bipartisan as a broken nose. (See the cancelled SNL sketch above.) Politics is his blood sport. This is a good thing, if your President backs off from it.

Here's another Rahmbo angle: I suspect Obama will throw deep right away on the Palestine-Israel issue as a way to open up the options, because progress there, or the convincing illusion of it, makes everything else easier in the Mid-East. Emaneul knows how to work with the Clintons, is an intimate who maintained his neutrality, which pushes a few jigsaws together with Hillary as SecState. Baggage or no, the Clintons have mondo stature on the archway issue that's screwing the entire world up. They're the most recent people to make any headway on reconciliation and recognition, exact roboratives needed to free the Mid-East oxen from the desperate mire.

Obama is going after Israel, and it will be leaned on hard, with all the remaining US leverage available. Right where it should've been placed for the last decade and more. It may be tool late, as Israel is busy sucking up to Russia with all possible speed, but having Rahm as CoS is like establishing an open channel to Tel Aviv. He will communicate what's doable, what's not, and he'll be believed.

For everything else domestic, he'll be diabolically effective, and will use his time in the White Cabin to gather power, not burn bridges. Aaron Sorkin's scheming character on the West Wing, Josh Lyman, is supposedly based on Emanuel's three-ring performances with the Clintons. Which, if true, means he gives a shit about liberal causes. And as for the rest, I'll take Machiavellian over Vaudevillian any day.

Fear of Russia Ends Israeli Support For Georgia

First off, if you're an English speaker, every story proffered on the Russia-Georgia conflict is 100-proof propaganda. Next, the most important story you haven't heard is that Israel is betting against US success vs. Russia. Paradoxically, and despite Israel's typically overweening, convoluted conceits, this is very heartening, since it means they think the US won't go to the mat and start launching its nuclear arsenal. Apparently, they also believe the Russians can handle US Navy, Air Force, and Army units going into Project Georgia in the names of "humanitarian aid" and "peacekeeping." Israel understandably wants the output of the BP-sponsored Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan whoever controls it, yet until now they've been neck-deep in arming and training the Georgian military. How deep? Georgia's minister of defense, for example, is a citizen of Israel.

Still, it's tough to be sanguine, or resist going into seizures or duck-n-cover positions. The Bush Administration is about as dangerous as a badger on crystal meth, and as we've repeatedly seen, they're so dumb they can screw up a soda straw. If they send military personnel into a war zone, as they announced their intentions today, I don't see how some of them won't get zapped. While the Russians have already achieved their negotiating objectives vs. NATO-BushCo, it will be next to impossible for them to restrain the itchy trigger fingers of individual, low-level units flush with easy victories.

I'd love to be the bearer of good tidings, I'd love to regale with tales about how Water Engines, sunny pyrolysis and wave energy will save the earth and our asses, and that we'll all sing Joni Mitchell songs in harmony. Ice cream castles in the air, feather canyons everywhere, yep. Unfortunately, this is probably the closest we've been to nuclear conflagration since the Cuban Missile Crisis. This isn't pessimism, just a cold-around-the-heart look at the factors. On the happy side, having the Israelis bail out on arms sales to the Georgians, renouncing their military sponsorship and offering a no-confidence vote on the Bushies, well, that's a reason to not pack up the fam right now and head to Saskatchewan. If Israel is packing up to leave the the tattered hulk of America's security umbrella, much of which they've built, pay condo fees on, and effectively control, it's a high decibel, panic-button message.

On the other hand, look at the body language of Bush, SecState Condi Rice, and SecDef Gates in the above photo as they march out of a press conference after threatening Russia with reprisals. They look like a beaten football team, but still dangerously angry. They're not going to shake any hands and say, "what a great game." They were all called back from vacations, they're grim, resigned, resentful, and their collective arrogance, the long bearing of our national privilege, is steeped in all the rages and fears of failing Priam. It's life's illusions I recall, and will these people lay off the nitrous oxide and learn humility anytime soon? (Don't answer.) Meanwhile, blog-friend Naj reports that three new carrier groups, including the amphibious invasion carrier USS Iwo Jima, have arrived on station in the Persian Gulf. (Happy thoughts, Christmas songs, happy thoughts.) From Israel Today:

A top Georgian envoy in Israel on Sunday urged the Jewish state to use whatever leverage it has to put pressure on Russia to pull its forces out of the small Caucasus nation. But while voicing support for Georgian territorial integrity, Israel decided instead to appease Russia by halting all arms sales to Tbilisi.

Israel has sold some $500 million worth of military equipment to Georgia over the past few years, and top Israeli military experts have been involved in training Georgian armed forces.

Israeli soldiers who participated in training Georgian forces as recently as four months ago told Ha'aretz that they were not surprised when hostilities broke out. "There was an atmosphere of war about to break out. ...From my point of view, the battles of the past few days were to be expected," said one soldier.

As Russian forces invaded Georgia late last week and the two nations engaged in what is increasingly being called a full-scale war, Israel's leadership expressed concerns that Moscow could retaliate for continued Israeli military support of Georgia by selling advanced arms to Iran and Syria.

Defense officials cited by The Jerusalem Post later said that arms sales to Georgia had ceased several months back, after Israeli authorities became alarmed by urgent requests for large supplies of weapons by Georgian authorities apparently aware that they were about to go to war with Russia.

Said one Israeli official, "We have good relations with [Russia and Georgia], and don't want to back either in this conflict. We therefore made a decision to drastically minimize sales of weapons to Georgia."

Many Israelis expressed frustration with what they said amounted to abandoning Israel's allies in Georgia to appease Russia, even though advanced Russian weapons have been reaching Iran, Syria and their terrorist proxy Hizballah for years.

Israel is home to some 80,000 Georgian Jews who would also like to see Jerusalem provide outright backing to the small Christian nation.

Georgia's other major military backer, the United States, has said it will continue to provide support and training to the Georgian army, and warned Russia that its military escalations could severely damage relations between Moscow and Washington.

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.”

Well That Didn't Take Long

The day after presidential aspirant General "Surgemaster" Petraeus took over CENTCOM command from Admiral William Fallon, two Iranian boats were fired on in the Persian Gulf. Oil went over $120 a barrel, a 20% raise in the last month. In concert, Joint Chiefs Chair Adm. Mike Mullen focused on Iran's role in Iraq yesterday, (NYTimes, WaPo) stating that military action against Iran is okey-dokey.

The nation's top military officer said yesterday that the Pentagon is planning for "potential military courses of action" as one of several options against Iran, criticizing what he called the Tehran government's "increasingly lethal and malign influence" in Iraq.....

"It would be a mistake to think that we are out of combat capability," he said at a Pentagon news conference.

More Pentagon talking points delivered to the NY Times:

The administration has, in fact, discussed whether to attack training camps, safe houses and weapons storehouses inside Iran that intelligence reports say are being used by the Quds Force to train fighters, according to two senior administration officials.

Looks like Cheney has some room left to run. People who say the US can't attack Iran, because to do so would be illogical, are very nice, well-meaning folk whom I'd dearly love to believe.

Feeding The Mouths That Bite

In 2005, the Jacobin ideologues who cling to the Bush Administration like cow farts in a barn wanted free and fair elections held in Palestine. "Yasser Arafat's marginalized because he's dead. That opened a grand path to peace," went the thinking, "and the solution is obvious. Let's turn Palestine into a democracy. That'll fix everything." Oddly, free and fair elections somehow transpired, and on the eve of them Dubya prompted hisself to beneficently proclaim, "We make elections."

Problem was, the Palestinian people apparently harbored inexplicable hostility to US designs, and they swept Hamas (aka "the evil doers," the Eye-Ranyans, Ay-raabs, etc) into power. The poor result was a matter of distress and dyspepsia to the Jacobins, or castle-in-air neo-cons, and the mess was shrouded in dissimulation and silence. If publicly discussed at all, the wreck was blamed upon froward and fickle natures understandably inherent to former savages, having been so recently ennobled with the rites of voting.

Therefore, thwarted by whims of a misguided populace, the rabbinical hermeticists who ran our curiously flawed policies arrived at their next verdict: clearly the best means way to redress this unsightly blot on democracy's perfect track record was to send truckloads of cash and AK-47s to Fatah, the party Palestinians had voted out, and start a vicious civil war.

For someone who has deployed anti-neocon nets around the bed, it was easy enough to connect the dots at the time, even if only in private. It's so tiresome to be called an anti-Semite, after all. Now, however, a concerned party in the State Department has quite helpfully leaked an internal memo outlining the civil war scheme to Vanity Fair. Thank you, brave patriot, for getting that on the record:

According to Dahlan, it was Bush who had pushed legislative elections in the Palestinian territories in January 2006, despite warnings that Fatah was not ready. After Hamas—whose 1988 charter committed it to the goal of driving Israel into the sea—won control of the parliament, Bush made another, deadlier miscalculation.

Vanity Fair has obtained confidential documents, since corroborated by sources in the U.S. and Palestine, which lay bare a covert initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian civil war. The plan was for forces led by Dahlan, and armed with new weapons supplied at America’s behest, to give Fatah the muscle it needed to remove the democratically elected Hamas-led government from power. (The State Department declined to comment.)

But the secret plan backfired, resulting in a further setback for American foreign policy under Bush. Instead of driving its enemies out of power, the U.S.-backed Fatah fighters inadvertently provoked Hamas to seize total control of Gaza.

These pedestrian putzes. May they learn that the penalty for political malpractice is reality.

Kosovo: Independent State, Or Mephitic Gas?

On the surface, what with all the favorable press coverage and foreign endorsements, you'd think Kosovars did a good thing by declaring independence from Serbia. Nobody really knows where Kosovo, Serbia, and Albania are, because they're next to Macedonia and Montenegro, and nobody knows where they are either. Sure, Alexander the Great was born in Macedonia, but that was a long quaint time ago, and few people have recently been blessed with any idea why they should care about Serbia and Kosovo.

So here goes. This is how crashingly, igneously ignorant the erupting situation is, and how cold-blooded its planned containment: Kosovo declaring independence from Serbia is like the Alamo declaring independence from Texas, only worse. The brief aggregation called Yugoslavia (or "south of Slavland") was once formed from a chunky stew of violent religious migrations and wars. In their fundamental concept of nationhood, the Serbians (Greek Orthodox) persevered over persecution, holding fast against all comers. They still see themselves fighting off Muslims (Bosnians), regular Catholics (Croats), teeming Albanians (Various Bastards), al-Qaeda (Saudi Foreign Legion), and the Nazis (formerly played by themselves, now by NATO). I'm greatly simplifying the area's bloody, complex history, and skipping over an unsavory present. The point is, Serbians see themselves doing all this fighting across ancient and recent history, right from the heart of Kosovo, and they make Texans look like Comanche-cuddling candy-asses.

The US embassy in Belgrade was burned as a declaration of war. Most US diplomats and Foreign Service staffers have been sent home. The burning isn't going to stop, and it isn't going to "cool down" with a little diplomacy and PR. Serbians could care less if a tidy Western oil pipeline should cut through Kosovo, they understand they will get bombed with US warplanes once more, and they are turning to the Russians for more and better weapons. If NATO plans to go in there to protect Kosovo's independence, it will face a vicious insurgency it's not prepared for, one it can't quell without serial-killer determination.

Yet US and NATO support for Kosovan independence is an entirely logical extension of what was started in Clinton's 1998 intervention. Then as now, it isn't about freedom, self-determination, or halting ethnic genocide. Kosovo is a pawn in a cavalier, supercalifragilistic game in which our players acknowledge neither the limits of their intellects nor their powers. The reason we should care now? It's not just about them. The protectorate is perched on Russia's southern doorstep, and this time, Serbia is set to serve as a proxy, if not more, in an energy war widening from the Mid-east to the Caspian to the Balkans. Western oil companies have been unsuccessfully seeking a transport route into the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles since 1994, and they want to build one through an expanded and secured Albania. Enter Russian premier Vlad Putin from stage left:

"Those who do this, subjugating their allies to their will and by force of arms, are not thinking about the consequences of what they are doing. This is a double-edged sword, one whose second edge will snap back into their gobs sooner or later."

The best diplomatic outcome in Kosovo is to not take our players seriously, and cajole the opposition into treading water for a year. Many see BushCo as simply a continuation of US aggression, and true enough. But it's also an apotheosis, one overstretching everywhere. We've arrived at the confused, panicked, unjust cave in A Passage To India, and every noise yelled into the cave returns an unwelcome 'Boum!' The menu for the next US leader will be where to retreat, how to consolidate, how far and and how fast. As for friendship, may well we come to it, but even the earth and sky seem to say, 'Not yet.'

Information Warfare: Mid-East Has Its Intertubes Tied

It's worth wondering why the fiber optic cables to Iran, Egypt, and Dubai were cut. While making some sport of it in my first post, and the title of this one, it's also cause for serious concerns. Ones I didn't vent at first. Conspiracy theories? Uhn-uh. To think 5 cables got cut in a total of 6 places from ships dropping anchors, the only explanation offered thus far, is to buy a lifetime membership in the Ignorance Is Bliss Gated Community.

Under current US and Israeli war doctrines, knocking out the enemy's communications infrastructure is Priority One. Those undersea cables would be the first thing to go, because if you're making war, crippling them is risk-free, high-payoff. It not only seriously degrades the enemy's advanced communications, but it also gives you mastery of the public relations message to the world. Al-Jazeera can't transfer, upload, or air video over the internet in real time. Anyone with a passing knowledge of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), not to mention the virulent nation itself, knows that it is first and foremost a propaganda machine. An awesomely effective one. (Remember, it's The Holocaust, and none other holocausts shalt come before it.)

Israel has to be the prime suspect in this gig, with the US a close second or an outright participant. Various other possibilities readily present themselves: countries wanting more censorship, Islamic extremists, a self-inflicted test, a psy-op...but each of these is also relatively easy to dismiss.

Naj from Iran Facts finds the censorship angle ludicrous, since manual, ad hoc measures are fully effective in the eyes of her former government. It's highly doubtful Islamic extremists possess the coordination or inclination to carry out such an operation, nor with such a light touch. A self-inflicted test on infrastructure effects carries some appeal, yet it's a stretch to imagine exactly what multinational Mid-east body would've wanted to conduct one. An intelligence psy-op study is even more appealing, but it would almost have to be a rogue operation, one whose scale makes it unlikely; the Mid-East is an active war zone where the military takes precedence.

A telecommunications professional of long acquaintance briefly mused that the cables may be tapped; while technically possible, bouncing light signals out of thousands of underwater optic strands is arduous and, due to signal loss, obvious, compared to sniffing right on the server nodes. Still, surveillance can't be ruled out, with resulting service disruption playing nicely into multiple purposes.

While very bad, I don't think the internet vasectomy signals immediate war as an attack would've (probably) already happened. It would be difficult to imagine, even granting the past and current imperial wooden-headedness in the region, giving an enemy so much time to re-adjust. This incident reads more like a message of mastery, an ape beating its chest and thumbing its nose. Strategically, it's an excellent way to signal you're escalating the threat level up another notch. You can safely sit back, gleefully gauge the reaction, and send a witty note to make your point. As mentioned in the first post below, the countries in the region are about to break down the fence and stampede off the dollar farm, and giving them electric collar shocks is just about the only means of non-violent control either primary suspect has left.

Unfortunately, the move is openly aggressive, illustrates what a wider regional war would first look like, and gives the Mid-East abundant and well-founded reason to stock up on three things: paranoia, desire for payback, and making communications infrastructure and procedures more redundant and secure.

Strange Mid-East Intertube Outages

What are the odds all these undersea fiber optic cables got cut by burrowing mollusks?

Mena Report:

A total of five cables being operated by two submarine cable operators have been damaged with a fault in each. These are SeaMeWe-4 (South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe-4) near Penang, Malaysia, the FLAG Europe-Asia near Alexandria, FLAG near the Dubai coast, FALCON near Bandar Abbas in Iran and SeaMeWe-4, also near Alexandria.

A hundred million people in the Mid-East are without fast internet:

Internet connectivity still remains slow in several Middle East countries due to the cable damage near Egypt, Iran and Dubai. An improvement is not expected soon as operators claim there are many complexities involved in fixing the problem. In addition, all voice calls, corporate data and video traffic were also affected.

The first two cables, off Alexandria in Egypt, were cut on January 23. Over the weekend a looped cable in the Gulf waters was cut in two points, off Dubai and off Iran's Bandar Abbas. The cuts have raised many conspiracy theories on their reasons.

However, the International Cable Protection Committee, an association of 86 submarine cable operators dedicated to safeguarding undersea cables, has declined to speculate on the cause of the breaches, adding investigations were underway.

In possibly related news, Saudi Arabia unpegged its interest rates, not following the September 18th drop by the Federal Reserve Bank. The Saudi currency (the riyal) has risen to a 20-year high against the dollar. A meeting of the Saudi financial advisory council is scheduled for February 17th, when it is widely expected that other oil suppliers will decide to revalue their currencies against the dollar. Maybe on the verge of connecting too many dots here, but somebody cut those cables, and I doubt it was "The Evil-Doers."

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.

Iraq, Then And Now: The Evolution Of A Revolt

Then...T.E. Lawrence writes from the perspective of a successful Iraqi insurgent against the Ottoman Empire:

"It seemed that rebellion must have an unassailable base, something guarded not merely from attack, but from the fear of it: such a base as we had in the Red Sea Parts, the desert, or in the minds of the men we converted to our creed. It must have a sophisticated alien enemy, in the form of a disciplined army of occupation too small to fulfil the doctrine of acreage: too few to adjust number to space, in order to dominate the whole area effectively from fortified posts. It must have a friendly population, not actively friendly, but sympathetic to the point of not betraying rebel movements to the enemy. Rebellions can be made by 2 per cent. active in a striking force, and 98 per cent. passively sympathetic. The few active rebels must have the qualities of speed and endurance, ubiquity and independence of arteries of supply. They must have the technical equipment to destroy or paralyse the enemy’s organized communications, for irregular war is fairly Willisen’s definition of strategy, “the study of communication” in its extreme degree, of attack where the enemy is not. In fifty words: Granted mobility, security (in the form of denying targets to the enemy), time, and doctrine (the idea to convert every subject to friendliness), victory will rest with the insurgents, for the algebraical factors are in the end decisive, and against them perfections of means and spirit struggle quite in vain."

Now...PFC Damien Corsetti, nicknamed "The King of Torture" and "The Monster" by his compatriots for his enhanced interrogations in Kabul, gave an interview to the Spanish paper El Mundo, describing part of the repertoire:

"They tell them they are going to kill their children, rape their wives. And you see on their faces, in their eyes, the terror that that causes them. Because, of course, we know all about those people. We know the names of their children, where they live, we show them satellite photos of their houses. It is worse than any torture. 98% of the prisoners had nothing to do with either al-Qaeda or the Taliban. In Abu-Ghraib and Bagram they were tortured to make them suffer, not to get information out of them."

T.E. Lawrence was tortured and sodomized in Daraa, Syria while in Turkish custody there. His claim has been disputed by people focused on his unknown sexual practices, yet the treatment he reports was commonplace. Lawrence said his captors were so inept and and sadistic they didn't realize his significance, and let him go. He later assaulted the Turkish-held port of Aqaba from the rear, capturing it in 1917, then was instrumental in throwing them out of Damascus in 1918. He was given every medal in the Empire, but refused a knighthood.

The map pictured above is of Lawrence's personal design, submitted by him to the British War Department at the end of World War One. It hangs in the Imperial War Museum in London. It was drawn with the subtle realities of local topography, history, tribes, trade routes, and cultural peculiarities uppermost in mind. Armenians have their own state, for example, and Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Syria are given to Feisal, Irak to Abdullah, with a second Arab state to Zeid. Things might have worked out differently had the Brits paid any attention to it.

More Wag, Less Bark, And How To Beat Al-Qaeda

Happy 2008! Here's to looking forward to a change in direction by this November, one which will see the world's woes begin to mend. Far from being a utopian sentiment, it's still possible to defuse worse war to come by wise accommodation, application of Realpolitik, and perceptive leadership. As Machiavelli would say, "when my people yield I push, when my people push I yield."

BushCo and Al-Qaeda have a lot in common. They both are condemnatory of the West, and believe its institutions, philosophies, and societies are morally bankrupt, even doomed. Selling Western ideals short is tempting, but the world's future may well not boil down to a binary game of social darwinism vs. theocracy. I'd put my money on Plato over BushCo or even Osama Bin Laden any day, and honoring social contracts, treaties, and binding accords, if such can be accomplished with former friends and enemies, is a far more efficient repository for faith.

First, a state of the current affairs: Pakistan People's Party leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in the military fortress city of Rawalpindi in 2007, on a Wednesday evening in December, presumably by those who wish to re-establish a Muslim caliphate. For the past 10 years, the United States has fed a stunt-man in Pakistan billions of dollars to keep things like this from happening, and suddenly, it feels shortchanged. Predictably. Yet predictability is no consolation from having to witness more brutal ineptitude in the short-sheeted Global War On Terror (GWOT), US policies characterized by wooden-headedness, crash-and-burn ignorance, and unswerving arrogance.

"Muslim Domino Theory" analysts are now publicly defining Pakistan as the front line against Muslim extremism (can they say, "Duhhh?"), and the US is sending Special Forces units to train 'Frontier Corps' to keep the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in line. It should be obvious how viscerally sick about 75% of the 160 million Pakistanis are of the US, and how disastrous further efforts to violently meddle in their internal affairs will be. It's like putting out a campfire with gasoline, and the flare of Bhutto's death was the 'whoosh.' She shouldn't have been there in the first place, the assassination was nearly certain to occur, as was the violence and chaos which has followed.

The Bush Administration had brokered a "power-sharing arrangement" between Bhutto and dictator Pervez Musharraf, sending her back (to be greeted by a huge car bomb in Karachi) earlier this Fall. It appears Musharraf forcefully declined the shotgun marriage, and the Wahabist sympathies of his junior officers denote strong complicity. Like chess neophytes, BushCo led and imperiled their queen too early. Neither neo-cons nor realists have any viable option to regain a semblance of control, and they have no Plan B but to send in Negroponte and the death squads. To "bring the evil-doers to justice," as His Lowness monotonously observed, will be next to impossible in 'Afghakistan,' nothing like it was in El Salvador or Guatemala. Attempting to do so will fracture an already fissured country.

So how to prevail, in Pakistan and elsewhere? First, governments wishing to blunt the effects of a strong socio-religious movement would not wave red flags in front of its nose, and would not idiotically attempt to bomb, occupy, and torture its innumerable adherents into submission. Aside from morality, the sheer scale precludes effective use of force. A government or coalition wanting to win would follow a simpler, time-tested course:

1) Understand
2) Parlay
3) Bribe
4) Marginalize
5) Splinter

What is known as "Al-Qaeda" is simultaneously a very deep-rooted revivalist and nascent protestant movement. It was seeded by long Western occupations and militarization of the Mid-east, nurtured by Muslims reading and interpreting the Koran for themselves, and triggered by internet-age communications. In historical significance and effect, Al-Qaeda is akin to Luther in Leipzig when he kicked off Protestantism, hanging up broadsheets stating that commoners had a right to read and think about the Bible, the existing Church was corrupt and incorrect. Like Luther and his supporters, the Muslim reformers want a return to spiritual purity of thought to exist in their religion's original form, and to reject the grossly abusive, sclerotic theocracies which currently claim authority. Trying to repress these urges is like plugging a pressure cooker.

The Catholic church tried to force the genies of Lutheranism back into their pressure cooker, plunging Europe into a hundred raging years of "Long War" during which it suffered defeat. The Church could instead have chosen to co-opt Luther's movement, dilute his power, and wait for the internal inconsistencies of his philosophy to take hold. Given time, revolting bishops would interpret the Bible differently from Luther and each other, a hundred groups waiting to bicker, splinter, and war. Luther was no stand-in for the authority of a Pope, and the Catholic church might well have prevailed over the Reformation through mere patience. Instead, it hoisted itself, and many but not nearly enough heretics, on its own petard. As a new central spiritual authority and commoners reading the Bible were natural enemies then, so are a caliphate and commoners interpreting the Koran now. They will fall asunder, all the faster by granting them a measure of credence in the meantime.

Just as the Catholic Church was unwilling to accept less absolute control over Europe in exchange for continuing primacy, the US refuses to accept loss of control and pursue a multipolar future. Pakistan represents loss of control, and it will continue to thwart the empire's will. The welcome mat has been taken inside, and much of the islamic world will take its cues from that symbol. America can't stop the looming civil wars there, and can't stop any future national wars against Afghanistan, Iran, or India. Power vacuums get filled, and there's plenty of stuffing already in and around Pakistan.

Rather than fighting a 'Long War,' the US and the West should meet with the Taliban, should parlay with Al-Qaeda, and should make reparations. The Guantanamo detainees should be released, shown kindness, and their families should be lavishly compensated. Troops should get out of Iraq before it gets hot again. George W. Bush should be scapegoated and, at his blessed departure, take upon his head the blame shared by many others, be they Democratic, Independent, or Republican.

Yes, this clean slate approach is a "perfect world," but it is also strategically sound. Al-Qaeda's propellant isn't "hating us for our freedoms," but annoyance at having Western-made spiked cleats on their necks for a hundred years. Moving even conservatively in the direction of Jiu-Jitsu will erode Al-Qaeda's prime impetus, and that erosion spells victory for all sides.

Will The US Bomb Iran...Or Should We Get Pakistan To?

At least one sober optimist says "No," almost convincingly enough to override my galloping skepticism. He said so in person, to an audience of me, my cousin-in-law, a fellow hordie, and 30-40 anti-war activists. How could this be? I'm not an anti-war activist! And my cousin-in-law may be an NSA mole. What were we doing there?

Well...of course I think bombing Iran would be the dumbest thing since the Children's Crusade, but it was only with the knowledge and encouragement my spouse that led me to an evening of dominant paradigm subversion. Lord Wife is a medical researcher of considerable talents who's on about as many list-servs as Isaac Asimov if he had been into email and weren't dead. Bombing Iran is a public health issue par excellence, so therefore, she knew that the Northwest International Health Action Coalition, along with a head-spinning variety of other organizations including the Network Opposing War on Iran (NOWI),was sponsoring a visit by Reese Ehrlich. Journalist. Author. NPR contributor. I and others went to the Keystone Congregational Church, not far from Casa Lord, to see him while my wife generously stayed home watching Lord Running Boy and his beloved cousin "Beatie" try to send each other to the ER.

Ehrlich was on tour promoting his book, 'The Iran Agenda: the Real Story of the US Policy and the Middle East Crisis,' and gave a slideshow detailing his visits to Iran and Kurdistan with Norman Solomon, on one trip accompanied for no explained reason by actor Sean Penn. They interviewed regular people while Sean Penn went first unrecognized, then was mobbed by paparazzi and autograph hounds. They met with journalists, and they crossed the border to see the anti-Iranian Kurdish guerillas (PJAK) who get their mayhem-funding from the US. Overall, Ehrlich's Iran spiel was well-reasoned, directly researched, delightfully positive and on-point; not only are we all sensitive people with so much to give, et cetera: too many important coalitions, not piss-ants like us, rather Coalitions controlling huge amounts of Money don't want Iran bombed. They want an Iran un-bombed not out of filial regard, but because they don't want oil prices to blow sky-high and make the looming recession any worse.

True enough. But has Reese Ehrlich ever witnessed The Attack Without Mercy? I didn't think so, and asked him: "Reese...if you were President...but you were from Texas, and were a former oil man...and your Vice President and mentor was a big-time Texas oil man...why would higher oil prices be so bad?"

Reese rightly answered that Bush and Cheney had obligations to all their Base, not just to the oil lobby. Rather than pointing out that those obligations don't matter much to, say, Israelis who think Iran has the launch codes to nuclear warheads on our Trident-class subs, or to religious fanatics who believe Armageddon will midwife The Messiah and The Rapture, or to national security hawks who believe Iran must be punished for humiliating The Empire even if it chooses to arm itself only with Stephen R. Covey inspirational date calendars, or to sadists who keep pictures of their dead victims in their desk and need to bomb stuff, I accepted his answer without antics. Actually, what I'd really, really wanted to ask him was, "Reese...do you think we can we get Pakistan to nuke Iran for us? Like, you know, instead of Israel?" (Damn. Should've asked it.)

Bottom line, he was able to get me to keep a more open mind that, no, it is not a fait accompli that the US will bomb Iran. After all, there are so many points in his favor, he could be right, and my reactive paranoia could remain sub-clinical. His practical explanations for bias in media reporting were the best take-aways, in line with his book, which says:

"Most American reporters I met saw Iran as an evil society and a danger to the United States. While many expressed disagreement with President Bush's policies, they believed Iran was developing nuclear weapons that threatened America. In short, their views tracked the political consensus emanating from Washington. Rather than proceeding from reality, they filtered their reporting through a Washington lens. When a Washington official makes a statement, even a false one, the major media dutifully report it with few opposing sources."

To paraphrase and assemble his off-the-cuff comments regarding how media bias works, and what to do about it: as a journalist at a major news outlet, you have to publish the story your editor wants you to write. Your editor works for one of three news corporations, none of which is at all interested in journalism. If you still happen to have your own opinion, insist on working for major media anyway, and you can't get a CIA or State Department official to go on the record with dissident information or views (thus risking their careers), you don't have a chance in hell at getting your story out. Pro-Washington, pro-Empire media bias isn't not only unsurprising, it's institutionally guaranteed. Read or listen to people interested in journalism, or advocacy, and make friends with Iranians.

Never Underestimate The Power Of Carefully Worded Nonsense

(Update: There's probably a Third Upside to Martial Law in Pakistan in addition to the two below...if the US and UK "distance themselves" from Pervez Musharraf, might this not be good for him domestically amongst certain, shall we say, "authority-minded people?" In other words give him more credibility amongst islamic fundamentalists, and thus more room for manoeuvre.)

The US and UK are maintaining shocked moues of disapproval re: Musharraf's Martial Law frolics. Does anyone seriously think Musharraf, who gets his military aid from (and has his personal wealth in) the United States, failed to inform the disapproving parties exactly what he was going to do, and when? Pakistan is claiming both the White House and Downing street sanctioned the crack-down. Hmm...whom ta believe?

Even if you're not a fan of dictatorships (might be time to bone up on them!), Musharraf is still one seriously smart, very effective guy. If he's pulling out the stops now, it should be telling us something. There are at least two immediate upsides, one obvious, one less:

1) keeps the lid on a Boiling Pot
2) distracts attention away from Iran

Iran Facts Update, Pt. II: Strategic Fulcrum & Schwerpunkt

(Note: big research credit owed to Church and Empire, since this is basically his post. I'm plagiarizing like crazy below, I'm just not entirely sure yet from whom.)

Washington has now shifted into full "All Iran, All The Time" mode. This should be a big tip-off to what may be coming next. Rumors circulate that an Executive Order has already been signed for attacking Iran. Someone with access to Cheney's office leaked the preferred scenario: an Israeli attack on the Natanz reactor project, followed by an Iranian response against Israel, followed by a "shock and awe" bombing campaign from the US targeting Iran's entire infrastructure, including bridges, utilities, pumping stations, and ports.

While you or I might not think it's a good idea to bomb a country which hasn't attacked anything since the 18th century, and while a bombing campaign is likely to provoke even the dissident Iranians into hating the US, it might be helpful to know why, under certain strategic analyses, "It Must Be Done." And now, I must hand the blog for a suitably brief period to Mr. Paul Wolfowitz:

"Defense Planning Guidance for 1994-99", Paul Wolfowitz

• "Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union..."

The War Department is always looking to nip new threats in the bud. That's natural. But the focal point of its attention was further expanded as follows:

...to ensure that the United States - and no one else - controls the energy supplies of the Persian Gulf and adjacent areas of Asia.

The first part of that sentence has been the most basic precept of US foreign policy since the 1950s. In fact, written in invisible ink on the door of the Oval Office is this phrase: Don't Lose the Gulf, Dipshit! (It was a class trip, the tour guide looked away...what can I say?) Now, the Bush Doctrine goes much further. "Adjacent areas of Asia" covers a lot of ground. The Vulcans radically expanded the Carter Doctrine, and turned away from, even trashed, the Eisenhower Doctrine (better known as "Containment"). Amongst other things, the Bush Doctrine clearly stipulates that Iran has to knuckle under. Even if that's impossible.

In short, the Bush Administration wants access to all the oil and gas in the Caspian Sea, which is currently (mostly) under Russian control. Iran happens to be blocking the way of "our" pipelines with "their" pipelines. Even worse, Iran is undermining the Petro-dollar standard by selling its oil directly to countries, for example to Japan in exchange for Yen. Big no-no in Bush World. Chavez is a gnat in that mental sphere, whereas Iran is a bee-hive.

So, having secured the White House and a pretext for wars intended to control pipelines, BushCo wasted no time in taking its spiffy new Doctrine out for a spin in early 2001 by:

• unilaterally pulling out of the US-Russian Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
  
• announcing new high-tech arms sales to Taiwan

The Russians and the Chinese did not miss the significance of these gestures. How could they? Warm spit was dripping off their expression-frozen faces. The Cold War was back on, baby. Following these opening provocations, a sizable, sustained, and fairly successful effort was made to destabilize the goverments of the obscure new countries (sometimes referred to as "Trashcanistans") surrounding the Caspian basin. Then, on May 4, 2006 Vice President Dick Cheney went to Lithuania, and made some rather blunt public statements which could be considered hilarious, insane, or hypocritical, but probably above all rude. Among other things, he accused:

• Kremlin officials of "unfairly and improperly" restricting the rights of Russian citizens
  
• Russia using the country's abundant oil and gas supplies as "tools of intimidation [and] blackmail" against its neighbors
  
• Moscow of attempting to "monopolize the transportation" of oil and gas supplies in Eurasia
  

The next day, Cheney flew to Kazakhstan, urging them to:

• ship their plentiful oil through a US-sponsored pipeline to Turkey and the Mediterranean rather than through Russian-controlled pipelines to Europe.

In tag-team bonhomie, on June 3, 2006, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld went after China by pointing out:

• Beijing's "lack of transparency" with respect to its military spending "understandably causes concerns for some of its neighbors"
• plans for increased spending on the F-22A fighter and Virginia-class nuclear attack submarines, weapons only useful in an Armageddon War for which there were just two possible adversaries - Russia and China

So they're right. This is a Long War. Whether it should be fought or not is a good question, but the economic prizes are considerable. If you look at a map of new US military bases in Africa and Asia, the correlation with proximity to oil assets is nearly perfect. For its part, China has been extremely aggressive in securing energy resources, often paying unbelievable sums of cash (dollars, of course) for lease and development rights. After Kerry fumbled in '04 they went around the world signing deal after deal...it was like watching Mike Tyson and his entourage on a shopping spree for new bling-bling, only instead of being the youngest heavyweight champion of all time, China is the world's oldest civilization, with trillions of suddenly accumulated dollars to get rid of. In addition, it is willing to fight proxy wars in pursuit of energy reserves and is addressing its biggest military gap by:

• use of arms transfers and other military aid as inducements to such countries as Iran and Sudan to gain access to energy reserves
  
• acquiring warships "that could serve as the basis for a force capable of power projection" into the oil-producing regions of the planet

Where's Iran in all this? Stuck right between the US, Russia, and China. Geographically, the country:

• spans from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea, positioning Tehran to play a significant role in the two areas of greatest concern to the nuclear powers
• owns part of the vulnerable Strait of Hormuz - a narrow waterway from the Gulf to the Indian Ocean, the bottleneck which moves over one-quarter of the world's oil every day
• is the most obvious transit route for the delivery of oil and natural gas from the Caspian countries to global markets, especially those in Europe, India, and Japan

• supposedly possesses the world's second-largest reserves of petroleum - an estimated 132 billion barrels (11.1% of the world's known reservoirs); and also the second-largest reserves of natural gas - 971 trillion cubic feet (27.5 trillion cubic meters, or 15.3% of known reservoirs)

Bush policies seem almost intentionally designed to drive Iran into Russia and China's arms. China, in particular, benefits from the US shunning and sanctioning Iran:

• US firms are barred from investing; European companies face US economic penalties if they do so
  
• China signed a US$50 billion cash deal in 2004 to develop the massive Yadavaran gas field
  
• China signed deal to purchase 10 million tons of Iranian liquefied natural gas annually for 25 years.

Russia's designs on Iran are primarily defensive, but the two countries have extensive ties. Russia's perspective:

• major strategic loss if Iran falls under US control
  
• primary supplier of nuclear equipment and technology, future role in developing Iran's energy infrastructure
• Russian firms are completing the construction of a civilian nuclear reactor at Bushehr in southwestern Iran
  

So if the US could pull off regime change in Iran, it would hit another "Trifecta." Not only would complete control of the Persian Gulf be ensured for a generation, but oil companies would (continue to) make more money than God, and the US would be able to...umm....what was that Cheney phrase again? Oh, yeah: "use abundant oil and gas supplies as tools of intimidation and blackmail."

Now wouldn't those be handy tools to have? A self-respecting Empire wouldn't be caught dead without them. The only flaw in all this brilliant logic is that the Bush Doctrine's distinctive flair for execution has been, to be kind, dubious and underwhelming:

• Long-term US prospects in Central Asia have seriously dimmed
  
• US-European relations weakened, halting if not tenuous
  
• The Coalition of the Swilling sham doesn't hide that Europe stayed on the sidelines
• Our closest allies are interested in securing Iran's oil flows for themselves
• Turkey has refused to provide airbase support for bombing Iran
• Encouraging a separate Kurdistan gives Turkey and Iran a common interest
  

Bottom line, the American Corporate State is bankrupt. By its leaders' calculations, however, taking Iraq's oil cost only a trillion dollars and is worth thirty trillion. A return of 3,000%! The Empire is saved. (Chipmunks demonstrate better math competency.) The pink-red areas on the map above represent ethnic Shia populations. How happy will they be if Iran is bombed...for not having The Bomb? Meanwhile, the Russians and Chinese are solvent, right next door to Iran, and accumulating increasingly large gobs of cash. My friend Jon in Wisconsin recently quoted his drinking buddy Sun Tzu, who summed up the Bush Doctrine and dumb-assed Vulcans pretty well:

“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first, and then seek to win."