Cheney's Lost Thermopylae, Gulf Dirge for Peace, Fragmenting Baghdad to Save It
"Even when someone battles hard, there is an equal portion for the one who lingers behind, and in the same honor are held both the coward and the brave man; the idle man and
he who has done much meet death alike..." Homer, The Iliad
The world became more confusing this week:
The National Intelligence Report stated that Iran has halted development of nuclear weapons in 2003. President Bush claimed that the report vindicated his stated position about Iran, and how it is developing nuclear weapons, and how it could threaten WWIII. For a good but quickie Psyhch 101 analysis of W's mindset, read Maureen Dowd's today column. No public statement from Mr. Cheney yet, but surely the visions of hordes of Persian peasants showering his Humvee with flowers are receding. No Thermopylae in reverse for Darth Vader yet. But, then again, perhaps he was saved the fate of Marcus Licinius Crassus- speaking metaphorically of course, Carrhae in a political sense.
The Israelis have again proven a most reliable ally: stung by Iranian ally Hezbollah last year, they are also in vigorous denial mode. Will be interesting to see what Sarko and the good Dr. Bernie Kouchner of France feel about the whole thing, and they were ready to deploy their poodle squad to the Gulf.
Along the shores of the (Persian) Gulf many are sighing audibly with relief that the shadows of war are receding, but many others are playing a funereal dirge for the failure of Uncle Sam to get entangled even deeper in their envisioned sectarian morass. Some in the Gulf media had been hard pressed to hide their glee at the prospect of a new war fought, again, on their behalf by the brave sons and daughters of others, over the cities and villages of others. Even th Salafis who demonize the West have been praying so loudly for Uncle Sam to strike at the annoying mullahs across the Gulf that they had thought it was a done deal, that the Lord Allah had heard their call and drafted the infidel boys and girls (yes, they'll make an exception and take those latter too if they will fight, even sans burqa'a or niqab) to do their bidding.
The neocons, feeling the opportunity for a new glorious war, as well as political power, perhaps but not for certain, slip from their fingers, are in full spin mode. This week, John Bolton has been on cable TV more than he had been during the previous fifty years. A shame, and to think that Iran holds the biggest natural gas reserves outside Russia, and that it can finance the war against it, the way the Iraqis could have done had 'they' not botched the whole thing. If you can't believe this, read a passel pf Christopher Hitchens' articles (although some of his writings of late read like he was in full mid-life crisis mode when he wrote them. For his mid-life crisis my old Norwegian friend Bjorn ran away to the arctic north with his young secretary- maybe because he did not have access to slate.com.
Ahmadinejad is putting his own spin on the whole thing, calling it a 'victory', whatever that means. He had seemed consistently sanguine, certain for the past year that there would be no war: was he privy to the same intelligence reports as Dick Cheney?
BTW: then what was that bombing raid a few weeks ago in Syria about?
A reporter for CNN, the scruffy Michael Ware, noted dryly this morning that the creation of neighborhood Sunni 'militias' has been an important reason for the reduced violence in Baghdad. Are these real, armed, above-the law-militias, of the kind that were demonized for the past three or four years in Congress and by the media? Does this mean that the Mahdi militias are now considered kosher by the multinationals which are quickly becoming uninationals even as I write this? Is the future of Baghdad now neighborhood hamlets policed with their own militias? Is the strategy to fragment Baghdad in order to save it unified - ok, ok, that last one was not original, but it has been forty years?
Cheers
MHG
m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com
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