Remember Joe (Judas) Lieberman? He is Alive and Well and Homesick for Iraq……..

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“I don’t know that the president will order a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities even if the sanctions don’t work, but I know that he’s capable of doing that and I believe he’s prepared to do that,” he said, adding that he doesn’t think Obama would ever send ground troops to Iran. Over the New Year’s break, Lieberman visited Israel, Iraq, Tunisia, and Libya, and he said Iran was the number one concern of leaders in the region. In previous meetings, Israeli officials had focused almost entirely on U.S. red lines and their concern over whether Obama would really attack Iran if push came to shove, emphasizing that Israel would attack if the United States doesn’t. But now the Israeli government seems more willing to let the sanctions strategy run its course, Lieberman said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview this week that Iran is beginning to show signs of cracking under the international sanctions regime……….

Now WTF rock did Joe (Judas) Lieberman crawl from under? Joe the famous turncoat of 2008. Maybe he is covering his backside for 2913: maybe he hopes Obama will appoint him secretary of state if he wins again. He might as well appoint that other (Avigdor) Lieberman.
Joe
and John (McCain) and their friend Goose had wanted to establish permanent bases in Iraq, although they have plenty of bases and warships all over the Persian-American Gulf to hang around, as well as an alleged drone base in Saudi Arabia.
Anyway, Joe who single-handed derailed the original Obama healthcare plan is back and he has a whole year left of his senate term to do damage and push for a project dear and near to his heart: a new war in the Middle East.


These right-wingers like Joe Lieberman seem to have a perverse attachment to our region, to the Middle East. From Bush-Cheney to Hillary Clinton to the pandering Republicans of 2012, they all want to start yet another war or two or three in the Middle East. Oddly they never want to start a war against the only Middle East country whose citizens attacked the American homeland in September 2001. They want to start a war of choice against another country that has not attacked anyone, not yet
.

Cheers
mhg



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Disturbing Solo Brainstorming: So What is the Goal in Iran?………

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The Obama administration has been adamant that regime change per se is not the goal of U.S. sanctions. On Wednesday, a Washington Post article initially quoted an anonymous U.S. official as saying “regime change” was the goal, but then was quickly corrected to say “public ire” was the sanctions’ goal, not regime change. Today, a U.S. official told AFP that the goal of the sanctions was to “close down” the Central Bank of Iran (CBI)……..

This is confusing. There are conflicting reports about the goal in Iran. The three (red) goals given above do not include the ‘nuclear’ program which the Iranians insist is civilian. The Obama administration and the Israelis and the Saudi princes and their Gulf Salfi and Wahhabi faux-liberal admirers insist is for military purposes. There are two reasons not mentioned here for the sanctions and the possible war that may follow: Reason One is to keep the Israeli extreme right-wing government quiet before the 2012 U.S. elections. If you don’t believe that is one important, possibly the most important reason, then I still have that perfect old lame camel for sale. The Likud and its American lobbyists and worshipers can make Mr. Obama’s life miserable between now and November, and they probably will do so anyway.
Reason Two may be to keep Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from being “disturbed”. Lately she has been describing many news, allegations, and rumors about the Iranian mullahs as “disturbing” or that she is ‘disturbed’ about them. The secretary and her spokespersons have been doing that at a ‘disturbing’ rate.
I am sure my confusion, and yours, has not been clarified by this individual solo brainstorming by yours truly.

Cheers
mhg



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A Gulf Love Affair: Mr. Cameron the Democratic Traveling Salesman……

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The Foreign Office currently warns all Britons travelling to Saudi Arabia to exercise vigilance: “Any increase in regional tension might affect travel advice,” its website says. It is a warning that David Cameron could do well to heed when he flies to the kingdom today. Saudi Arabia might seem an ideal customer to a British prime minister keen to win contracts. If Barack Obama can sell the kingdom nearly $30bn of F-15 fighter jets, Britain can surely flog its armoured personnel carriers, sniper rifles, small arms ammunition and weapon sights………. However, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are fast learning to play another role in the region. The kingdom is branding itself as a bulwark not just against the Revolutionary Guards in Iran and despots in Syria, but against the Arab spring itself……… Internally, the most authoritarian regime in the Arab world has much to fear from demonstrations – which are illegal…………

The Conservative (Tory) British prime minister likes to claim his coalition government’s love of democracy and spreading it around the world. His government participated in the NATO bombing and ground campaign for the liberation of Libya from Mu’ammar Qaddafi. Colonel Qaddafi was formerly a dear and near friend of Britain and the U.S. government in the last decade. They liberated Libya, just as they helped in the liberation of Iraq eight years ago. Just as they might help in the ‘liberation’ of Syria if the absolute ruling oligarchies on my Gulf, and their Salafis and the Wahhabi faux-liberals have their way.
The British government, like the United States government, like the Iranian government, like the French and Saudi governments, doesn’t give blanket support to all movements for freedom and dignity. If it truly believed in democracy before self-interest it would not do the following, and more:

  • The Crown Prince of Bahrain invited to visit the UK and was feted at No. 10 Downing St and other places.
  • The King of Bahrain to UK invite to visit the UK, where he was feted even as his mercenary forces were, are, busy gassing and killing and arresting protesters. Even as his local and imported Jordanian torturers are busy in the cells.
  • Prince Edward and the Countess of Wessex last week visited Bahrain where they reportedly received gifts of jewellery and watches. Gifts usurped by the ruling al-Khalifa clan from the poor people of Bahrain.
  • Now Mr. Cameron is visiting the most repressive regime in the Middle East, which also makes it the second most repressive regime in the whole world (thank God for North Korea). That would be the Democratic People’s Kingdom of (Saudi) Arabia, which is dangling the prospect of fat contracts in return for turning a blind eye, nay two blind eyes.
  • British governments since the days of Tony Blair have become good at the two-faced game. Pushing democracy while pushing weapons that repress democracy. Pushing transparency in other countries while suppressing investigations at home of massive bribery to Saudi princes like Bandar Bin Sultan (as in BAE Systems and Saudi al-Yamama and Tony Blair and British SFO).
  • Just before the Riyadh visit, Mr. Cameron loudly and noisily sent a new British warship to the Persian-American Gulf. The goal was likely to show the al-Saud princes who their true friends are; that it is not only the Obama administrations, and whoever follows it into the White House.

Cheers
mhg



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BHL d’Arabie: the Liberation of Syria and the Gulf………

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Speaking of the liberation of Syria, whatever happened to Bernard-Henri Lévy? The French pop-philosopher and liberator of Libya has not yet landed in Latakia to rally the opposition against the al-Assad regime. Actually Tartus would be a better spot for him than Latakia. He might be waiting for the opposition to establish their own ‘beachhead’, their own Tripoli (Libyan Tripoli not the Lebanese Salafi-Muslim-Brother Tripoli). Then he can sweep ashore, a la Douglas MacArthur. BHL d’Arabie, Lévy of Arabia!
Or maybe he has a more ambitious target in mind, maybe he is waiting or an opportunity to sweep the shores of the Persian-American (not yet French) Gulf. The liberation of Iran from the mullahs may be his next ambition: to bring down the theocracy and raise the flag or freedom, modernism, Wahhabism, and international oil companies. To drive the last Western nails, figuratively speaking, in the coffins of Mossadegh (nationalizer of oil) and Ayatollah Khomeini. For that goal, he can count on a small army of our Salafi and Muslim Brotherhood cheerleaders (only cheerleading, no fighting, not even puffy pompoms).

Cheers
mhg



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Shaikh of Qatar and the Liberation of Syria: about a Piss-Up in a Brewery….………..

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Media report that the Emir of Qatar has called for an Arab force to intervene in Syria. Arab forces do not have a good history of intervention in other Arab states, unless they are led by a Western general (or colonel or major). Remember, Europeans (T.E. Lawrence and others higher above him) actually led the “temporary” liberation of Jerusalem and Damascus in WWI. Commanders of regular Arab armies, like Arab leaders in general, can’t organize the proverbial-American ‘piss-up in a brewery’ as far as war is concerned. What they can organize is repression of their peoples, and occasionally of other Arab peoples (as the Saudi princes are doing in Bahrain). If Desert Storm were Arab-led (as some Saudi regime journalists occasionally try to claim), Iraqi Ba’athist forces would still be sitting in Khafji, and most likely beyond.

No, an Arab force in Syria would have as much success as the Arab League observers have had. Not only will both the Syrian regime and the ‘opposition’ run rings around them: it would also be a bloody fiasco. As one example: the Saudi military, armed with the best American weapons that petro-money can buy, could not subdue a small group of Yemeni clans (the Huthis) armed with primitive guns just a couple of years ago. They had to leave in defeat. Imagine what the well-armed Syrians can do to these same forces, led by the same inept princes.

I suspect that some of the Arab oligarchs of the Gulf look toward an eventual Western intervention and “liberation” of Syria. Just as the West liberated Iraq and Libya. That is probably their goal, something they have in common with many leaders of the fractured Syrian ‘opposition’. The people who excoriated the West for ‘liberating’ Iraq, after helping it ‘liberate’ Iraq, now want more of the same. Assuming they will end up in control, a tough thing.
Cheers
mhg



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Legalized Bribery, Western Terrorism vs. Islamic Terrorism, a Most pro-Israeli Administration…………

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In the peculiar American system of legalized bribery, AIPAC has bought most US congressmen by organizing thousands of Jewish and Christian Zionist groups to give money to Congressional campaigns. AIPAC ought to have to register as an agent of a foreign country, but is allowed to so function without any let or hindrance, by the FBI, which really ought to intervene here. The hypocrisy is so thick you could drown in it. The Israel lobbies have managed to configure the Hizbullah party-militia of Lebanon as a “terrorist” organization, when Hizbullah’s major military operations were defensive, aimed at expelling occupying, aggressive Israeli troops from Lebanese territory on which they had unlawfully squatted. But when Mossad (pretending to be Americans) buys Baluchi agents to blow up innocent worshippers in mosques in Zahedan, that is defined away as not terrorism…………

Also sprach Juan Cole, not unreasonably; in fact quite reasonably.
All these revelations only reinforce deeply ingrained Iranian suspicions that go back almost six decades. Jundullah have committed some gruesome murders against Iranian civilians, like beheadings and slitting throats, Salafi al-Qaeda style crimes. It is not clear yet if it was the CIA that recruited the Salafi terrorists or the friendly Israelis in American disguise (nice friends, no?). But it all reminds the mullahs and ordinary Iranians of the American-British plot that ended their democracy in August 1953. That plot, Operation Ajax, handed absolute power first to the shah, then it lay the seeds for the 1979 revolution, the embassy hostage-taking, and the ongoing crisis.
As for the Israelis, if they were behind it, they certainly will not be punished, not even reprimanded. Not when they have the American Knesset running the show in Washington DC, and a terrified Democrat administration turning a blind eye in a way George W. Bush would never have allowed. This is truly the most pro-Israeli administration in American history. Unfortunately, pro-Israeli also means extreme pro-right-wing Likud.

Cheers
mhg



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A Very Funny Iranian Political Story…….

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There are unconfirmed reports that the qualifications of 30 to 40 current MPs, who had registered to run for the March parliamentary elections, have not been approved by the government’s appointed executive committees, the Mehr News Agency has learnt. The qualifications of the parliamentary candidates have to be approved by the mentioned committees, the Interior Ministry, and the Guardian Council respectively. These MPs were initiators of controversial proposals at the parliament……….”

This Iranian news agency has a subtle sense of humor. Political humor should be subtle in the Middle East, it is safer that way (except in places where humor may not exist anyway, like Jordan and Gaza and possibly the West Bank and Israel). It says the qualifications of these listed members were not approved (not yet, hints that maybe not later either) for the March elections in Iran. It also says that these members were “initiators of controversial proposals at the parliament”, wtf that may mean. Yet it seems as simple as putting two and two together (2+2=4, normally, except when it is inconvenient).

Cheers
mhg



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Blockades from Cuba to Iraq to Iran, Netanyahu as King of NATO and the Confederacy ……………

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But will an oil embargo work? Not as far as oil analyst Paul Stevens of London-based Chatham House is concerned. “If you look at history, oil embargoes have never, ever worked and never, ever been effective…so it’s not going to work,” he said. “It’s just going to cause a great deal of disruption.” Stevens says EU countries that depend on Iranian oil can find new suppliers – like the Gulf states. But Iran may also find new buyers for its oil in Asia. Iranian officials have downplayed the impact of Western measures – including new U.S. sanctions that could reduce Iran’s ability to sell oil and other exports. But Tehran also has threatened to close the critically important Strait of Hormuz, the entrance to the Persian Gulf………… For his part, Stevens of Chatham House doubts Iran will go through with its threat to close the Strait of Hormuz – in part because it relies on the waterway for its own oil exports. But he believes the deepening standoff between Tehran and Washington, in particular, is creating a dangerously unstable situation. “By trying to limit Iran’s oil exports, it [Washington] is essentially escalating the situation into what could very rapidly become a crisis,“………

Every time Mr. Netanyahu threatens to wage his own war, Western powers (mainly the Obama administration) panic and tighten their sanctions, really a blockade, against Iran. It is Mr. Netanyahu, a supreme hustler if there ever was one, who calls the shots for the West over many things Middle Eastern, from Palestine to Iran. He exercises his veto power over the two branches of the American government. He has a direct route (hotline) to the leadership of the Congress, which is willing to kiss his posterior in a way he would never dream the Israeli Knesset ever would. He would never get a standing ovation in the original Knesset in Jerusalem. He is fawned upon so much by the American right (and some on the left) it is a wonder he doesn’t immigrate back to the USA and run for office in Georgia or Alabama or Tara.

Boycotts and sanctions rarely work, they never worked against Cuba (been over fifty years) or Iraq (led to an invasion). They do hurt the people. The Cuban boycott caused economic hardships, and the misery it caused only pushed many thousands of Cubans to leave their homeland and cross to Miami. It gave many U.S. administrations the alibi to blame Cuban misery completely on the Castro regime (the Castro regime was partly responsible for erecting inflexible out-dated Soviet-style institutions and stifling dissent). The Cuban boycott has no justification anymore. It has been sustained for decades only by one political pressure group in the United States and can be summarized by a seven-letter word: FLORIDA.
 
The Iranian boycott is even tougher than the Cuban one, it is nearly a blockade by all Western powers that could lead to a war. Yet it is also unlikely to work against Iran: the theocratic regime in Tehran is as confident of being on the right, as committed to not buckle in the face of foreign threats, as Castro was for so many decades. They are as ideologically stubborn, albeit at a stiff economic cost to their people. Besides, they have something the communist Castro has never had since at least July of 1956: they believe divinity (G-O-D) is with them, although I am not sure about h-i-s-t-o-r-y.

Then there are the petroleum and the gas fields. They possibly have the world’s second largest petroleum reserves and possibly the world’s largest gas reserves. Meaning they feel they can outwit and out-wait the West and its blockade. Besides, the way the petroleum markets work makes it hard to distinguish Iranian or Angolan petroleum: there will always be demand for Iranian crude and gas, probably at discounted prices. Both have been mainly sellers’ markets for some time, as countries try to secure sources of supply.
Cheers
mhg



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Lebanon’s Unwelcome Visitors: Ki-Moon, a Phony UN Bureaucrat, a Familiar Messenger of Evil…………..

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The head of Hezbollah’s Shura Council Sheikh Mohammad Yazbek said over the weekend that U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, who is scheduled to arrive in Lebanon Friday, is not welcome.“The visit of United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to Beirut is not welcome, neither is the phony [U.N. Special Envoy Terje Roed] Larsen or the messenger of evil [Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs] Jeffrey Feltman,” Yazbek was quoted by local media as saying. Yazbeck accused Larsen, who is tasked with overseeing the implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559, of being biased toward Israel. UNSCR 1559 was adopted in 2004 and calls for the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon and the disarmament of Hezbollah. The latter has defended its arms as the only means to fend off Israeli aggression…………

Hezbollah

and Jeffrey Feltman are old pals, they go way back to the good old days when Mr. Feltman was US ambassador to Beirut. The Lebanese opposition at the time claimed he was the true leader of the March 14 right-wing movement. They nearly claim that he led the March 14 and the old Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir and the Saudi ambassador in daily prayers for an Israeli victory in the summer war of 2006. They also strongly suspect that many Arab oligarchs joined that prayer, via teleconferencing or Skype. I fully agree with this last assessment: the princes were doing their rain dance, in vain, for a right outcome that war.

Lebanese-American relations have been in a sort of twilight zone for some years. For years U.S. secretary of state Clinton reportedly has not met with her Lebanese counterparts, the successive foreign ministers, even when she visited Lebanon. The foreign minister has been from the Hezbollah bloc. This has led to an interesting diplomatic dance by Hillary Clinton to meet some Lebanese leaders but not their foreign minister, nor their most important leader (you know who that is, don’t you?).

I suppose

this Lebanese opposition to the visits by these foreign dignitaries and international bureaucrats is somewhat fair. After all Hassan Nasrallah is probably not welcome in Washington (DC), and I don’t just mean at the AIPAC or its offshoot Washington Institute for Near East Policy. I doubt that Mr. Nasrallah is welcome at the UN either. Besides, all these gentlemen no doubt wish that the current Lebanese government would just vanish and be replaced with the pliable Saudi regime of Saad Hariri and his sidekick Fouad Saniora. They no doubt also wish that Hassan Nasrallah would also vanish, but then where would he go? Dearborn?
Cheers
mhg



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Anti-American Iraqi “Shi’a Taliban”, Pro-American Afghan Taliban, Godfather & Chinese Food………..

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“Tom Hagen:

Some of the other families won’t sit still for an all out war.
Sonny:

Then you tell them to hand over Sollozzo!
Tom Hagen:

Your father wouldn’t want to hear this, Sonny. This is business not personal.
Sonny:

They shoot my father and it’s business, my ass!
Tom Hagen:

Even shooting your father was business not personal, Sonny!….
The Godfather

An anti-American Shia militia in Iraq backed by Iran that once killed US soldiers has agreed to give up its weapons and join the political process in a move likely to fuel US paranoia about growing Iranian influence in the country. The group, the Asaib Ahl al-Haq, which split from the Mehdi Army militia of the nationalist Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, carried out some well-organised attacks on US troops at the height of the tit-for-tat covert conflict between Iran and the US in Iraq in 2007. They were also responsible for kidnapping the British IT consultant, Peter Moore, from the Justice Ministry in Baghdad. They later killed four of his bodyguards whom they now say tried to escape. The group says it wishes to run in local and parliamentary elections and is willing to hand over its weapons………

This business of identifying a militia as ‘anti-American’ is a favorite way for much of U.S. media to identify some of these armed foreign groups. Apparently this title is reserved for certain Iraqis, including Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of the largest single party in the Iraqi parliament. These people opposed American presence in Iraq during the occupation, so they were anti-American at the time. But the American forces are out of Iraq now, so they can’t be anti-American. This is not to downplay the very violent nature of this particular group or its possible Iranian connections.

The al-Anbar terrorists were never called anti-American, although they caused more killings and damage than anyone else (meaning Iraqis). No doubt if the Chinese had occupied Iraq these people would be anti-Chinese. That wouldn’t mean they hate Chinese food (they probably do). Who knows, once the Iranians overplay their hand, in the future maybe Iranian media will start identifying some Iraqi groups as anti-Iranian (there already are several). People don’t like lengthy foreign interference in their internal politics, be that American or Iranian interference. It is all business, nothing personal, as Tom Hagen told Sonny in The Godfather.

There is no doubt that the Afghan Taliban, and their Pakistani cousins, have killed many many more Americans than this violent small Iraqi group.
Yet there is also no doubt that the Obama administration is willing and maybe eager to negotiate with them and practically hand them half the power in Afghanistan, (half for now, the rest probably later).

Cheers
mhg



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Multidisciplinary: Middle East, North Africa, Gulf, GCC, World, Cosmos…..