“To see why, consider the lessons of other civil wars, which we assess in this week’s briefing. Syria is bogged down in endless killing. Early in the uprising, Western support might have ousted Mr Assad and preserved Syria’s sectarian harmony. That was what this newspaper at first recommended, but the West—and Barack Obama in particular—held back. Now, after more than 110,000 people have died during 30 months of violence, it is too late. Not only have many rebels fallen under the spell of Sunni fanaticism, but history suggests that, unless civil wars end in victory after 12 months or so, they tend to drag on for years. Like many civil-war leaders Mr Assad may prefer to prolong the fighting rather than risk compromise. The rebels, too, will battle on in the knowledge that surrender is likely to mean death. Hence the argument for a negotiated settlement that might bring forward an end to the fighting and spare Syrian lives. The effort is worth it—about 40% of civil wars end through negotiation. But the odds on success are already long. It makes no sense to insist on conditions that would make the talks still more likely to fail……………” The Economist
The Economist has moved back to the right over the past years. They are now more often eager for new Western wars in the Middle East. And by the way, their predictions are often wrong, have been for a few decades. The Economist has somewhat dumbed down over the years, but it is still better than most of its English language rivals. The problem with the Syrian opposition groups is that they believed what they read in Western and Arab potentates media throughout 2011-12. They believed that Bashar al-Assad’s days were numbered. Hell, even some of Bashar’s subordinates and minions believed that and defected to the opposition fighting hard in five-star hotels in Turkey or Jordan or Saudi Arabia or Qatar. Even Bashar’s best childhood friend Brig. Gen. Manaf Tlass got a haircut and defected to the free democratic ambiance of Saudi Arabia. So, it is easy to see why it is hard for the opposition groups to accept that Bashar might be around for some time. I mean if you’ve been promised by ‘the powers that be’ to be crowned Miss Universe, it is hard to accept being the runner-up. If beauty contests are your thing.
“Sheikh Mohammed Haif al-Mteiri, a former member of Parliament who is not related to the former Kuwaiti soldier and leads a committee that funds mainline rebel groups, said private funding would not exist if countries like the United States had intervened to protect Syrian civilians……………..”
Cute and almost funny. They fund “mainline” rebels, which to them means al-Qaeda type Jihadis. This sectarian admirer of Jihad is using the favorite Wahhabi argument. He claims he and his Salafi ilk support al-Qaeda in Syria because the USA would not intervene. Except that they would also fund the Jihadis to fight the Americans in Syria, should the U.S. intervene. But deep inside, all Salafis are al-Qaeda although they sometimes cover it up, a form of deceptive Salafi taqiyya! But he has chutzpah (he will have to look it up if he reads this, or maybe have it read to him). He is one pissed Jihad supporter because the USA did not intervene in Syria! So, they want the Americans out of Muslim lands, but not when it serves their purposes. Not until after the Americans liberate Syria and hand it over to them, preferably also after they smack the Iranians.
These writers have hit pay dirt. They have encountered these true Wahhabi Salafi gems back in my hometown. He must have promoted himself to “shaikh” recently, while I wasn’t looking. I am almost seriously considering adding “shaikh” to my numerous titles and honorifics. I have noticed that Salafis often disappear for a few of weeks and return with two titles: Shaikh and Herr Doctor. That is what they call “lightening education”. Or maybe they get lost (I like the part about getting lost) in the desert and after about 40 days something unusual happens, an Epiphany…………
“The heightened rhetoric came as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was to meet behind closed doors Wednesday with members of the Senate Banking Committee, which is weighing new sanctions against Iran’s energy and financial sectors, similar to a measure approved by the House in August. Kerry will appeal to skeptical lawmakers of both parties to wait at least a week before considering the new wave of punitive sanctions, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. He will ask them to put the sanctions a “temporary pause”………………”
It is not really about the Iranian nuclear program, stupid. I stopped believing that a few years ago, listening to Netanyahu and American senators and legislators and some Gulf media of the princes. It is about the omnipotent Israeli lobby in Washington pushing for yet another war of choice against another Muslim country that has some regional strategic reach. It is about the Persian Gulf money lobby (absolute tribal Saudi princes and UAE shaikhs, even lowly Bahrain shaikhs) pushing for yet another American destructive war of choice on yet another Muslim country. A proxy war they are not willing to fight nor to participate in. It is about a war that will not be sanctioned by the United Nations, and hence will be a certified Western war of aggression. Maybe it is about some inexplicable insatiable American desire to get bogged down in yet another faraway war that is erroneously painted as a cakewalk. Maybe it is a way to keep the military-industrial complex thriving. It will be a war about all of the above. What it is not about is a desire to reach a peaceful solution on the part of a U.S. Congress, both houses and both parties, that is in the Israeli pocket. Which is how most Muslims and Arabs see it, once one gets away from the views publicized by controlled Gulf and Saudi media like Alarabiya, Asharq Alawsat, Al-Hayat, and others.
“Although the US says it favors a state of Palestine, in fact it has been rather gleefully helping screw over the Palestinians since 1948 and has de facto gone along with virtually any new outrage the Israelis could think up to inflict on them, from putting the children of Gaza ‘on a diet’ to gradually usurping the best land and water resources on the West Bank. Whenever the international community tried to pressure Israel to stop, and to allow stateless Palestinians to have the basic rights of citizenship and property, the US used its veto at the UNSC to ensure the Palestinians were kept down. Now, for the sake of making sure no one recognizes Palestine as a state, the US has cut off its $22 million a year dues to Unesco and has lost its voting rights on the committee. This childish behavior, of taking your marbles and going home if you can’t win the playground game………………….”
It happened in 2011, toward the end of the first Obama term. I have noted here in the past that this administration (Obama) is more under the Israeli spell, nay influence, than any other in American history has ever been under the influence of a ‘foreign’ power. This UNESCO fiasco is just one example of trying to subvert international organizations, especially the United Nations and its affiliates. Clearly deliberately losing influence within the organization was a mistake. As Lyndon Johnson is quoted to have said (and I know I am paraphrasing LBJ here): it is better to be inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.
“”We believe that Khamenei allowed Rohani to be elected in order to become Iran’s ‘pretty face‘”. Also sprach Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon. That may be so. On the other hand, that evokes the expected inevitable comparison. Which is that: what is even more certain is that most people in the Middle East believe that Benyamin Netanyahu is Israel’s ‘ugly face’. Has been for several years (there might be a few secret exceptions to this opinion among some princes and potentates in recent months). Amend that: most people around the world including many in official Washington believe that Netanyahu is Israel’s ugly face. With the exception of his fans and groupies in both parties in both houses of the U.S. Congress.
“U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf, particularly Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, are also all warily watching the unfolding agreement in Geneva. The U.S. has forged close alliances with these countries over the past three decades in an effort to create a bulwark against Iran in the Middle East. Washington has showered billions of dollars of sophisticated weapons on the Gulf nations and stationed key U.S. naval and air assets there. Bahrain, Qatar, and the U.A.E. have also developed successful financial and trade centers in the Gulf, fueled, in part, by Iran’s isolation from international economy. A detente between Washington and Iran could significantly shake up Washington’s security calculations in the Mideast and challenge these countries’ long-term interests, according to regional diplomats. This, in part, explains these Gulf Arab states’ strong pushback against the Obama administration’s diplomacy………………….”
Strong pushback against the Obama administration’s “diplomacy”. Which means some of these Gulf princes in Saudi Arabia, UAE, and the lesser potentates in Bahrain were hoping for the alternative to diplomacy. And what is the alternative to diplomacy but war? These absolute tribal oligarchs are getting bold: they must feel entitled to American wars in support of their sectarian agenda. They, and their Wahhabi and Salafi allies, were counting on yet another American war, this time against the mullahs. A war they are incapable of waging themselves, even with the most expensive most-advanced weapons that money and commissions and bribes can buy. Their secret last white hope used to be hitched to the warlike bluster and bluff of Netanyahu, but by now they probably realize that without an American commitment to war it is just that: bluff and bluster.
“As soon as the Obama administration reaches an anticipated deal with Iran over its nuclear program, it will face a new challenge that threatens to strangle the accord in its crib: the inevitable attempts on Capitol Hill to impose new economic sanctions on Tehran. Expectations are high in Washington that John Kerry, the secretary of state, will announce a limited, short-term deal with Iran, following his unexpected arrival in Geneva on Friday to participate in negotiations. Yet the White House was quick to say that it is resolved to “protecting the broader architecture of the sanctions program,” as deputy press secretary Josh Earnest put it on Friday………….”
So the White House is “resolved to protecting the broader architecture of the sanctions program,” That was probably said to placate both houses of the Knesset in Washington. So what will any deal be about then? I have an idea, a solution of two parts: (1) the White House will seek to protect the broader architecture of the sanctions program, and (2) the Iranians will seek to protect the broader architecture of their nuclear program. Cheers
mhg
“During the Dust Bowl years of the ’30s, Jackson reminded, the monoculture crops died but the polyculture prairie, with its diverse ecosystem, survived. What is going on in the Arab world today, I argued, is a relentless push, also funded by fossil fuels, for more monocultures. It’s Al Qaeda trying to “purify” the Arabian Peninsula. It’s Shiites and Sunnis, each funded by oil money, trying to purge the other in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon…………. The same is true of the Republican Party in America today. Tea Party conservatives funded by the Koch brothers and other fossil-fuel donors are trying to wipe out whatever is left of the Republican Party’s polyculture and turn it into a monoculture. When Senate Republicans last week first offered their compromise proposal to end the shutdown………….. It’s striking how much the Tea Party wing of the G.O.P. has adopted the tactics of the P.O.G. — “Party of God” — better known as Hezbollah. For years, Lebanese Shiites were represented by the mainstream Amal party. But in the 1980s, a more radical Shiite militia emerged from the war with Israel: Hezbollah. Under the leadership of Hassan Nasrallah………………”
Clearly Thomas Friedman is still pissed that his 2009 post-election prognostication for Lebanon proved quite wrong (as I predicted at the time). His obsession with Hezbollah continues. His love affair with the Saudi faction in Lebanon, as represented by the Hariri March 14 and NowLebanon, continues. He does overlook the growing Salafi al-Qaeda threat in Lebanon, helped along and financed and armed by March 14 and its Saudi paymasters. But this is breathtaking, this mix of Dust Bowl history with Hezbollah and the Tea Party and the Koch Brothers. Now if Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas and other Godly places) were a bit fatter, just a bit fatter, with a shaggy beard and a turban, and had a Lebanese accent…………. BTW: whatever happened to the wise Arab taxi driver that advises Friedman on Middle East affairs? Where is Abed (or Abdu) in all this? Cheers
mhg
“Saudi Arabia on Friday rejected its freshly-acquired seat on the U.N. Security Council, saying the 15-member body is incapable of resolving world conflicts such as the Syrian civil war. The move came just hours after the kingdom was elected as one of the Council’s 10 nonpermanent members. In a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency, the Foreign Ministry said the Council has failed in its duties toward Syria. This, the ministry said, enabled Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime to perpetrate the killings of its people, including with chemical weapons, without facing any punishment. The kingdom, which has backed the Syrian rebels in their struggle to topple Assad, has in the past criticized the international community for failing to halt the civil war in Syria…………..”
This is a surprising and uncharacteristic public royal tantrum. Something has pissed off the Saudi princes. Or maybe now Prince Bandar has unbridled control over foreign policy. Earlier, they canceled their annual speech at the UN General Assembly meeting, not that anybody actually listens to it beside the flunkies. Now they refuse to take a seat at the Security Council. It could be the frustration from the setbacks to their allies and proxies in Syria and Lebanon. It certainly can’t be the Security Council’s failure to react to their own invasion and continuing repression of Bahrain. It could be the failure of Mr. Obama to wage war in Syria and possibly Iran (all options still being on the table and all that). It could be the prospect of resolving the Iranian nuclear “issue” peacefully. There is another possible angle here. A Security Council member will have to vote on issues, or abstain. Even abstention is a form of voting. Maybe the Saudis are going back to their old foreign policy mode of avoiding confrontation on sensitive issues. The Saudis want no part of the Security Council until it is reformed to their liking. Which reminds me of the League of Arab States (Arab League), apparently now under Saudi financial control and quite reformed, thank you very much………. And no, I would not be so crass as to suggest it is a form of royal PMS……….
Imagine how things will possibly be about 25 years from now:
Benyamin Netanyahu will still be either prime minister of Israel or running to become prime minister of Israel.
Netanyahu will still be announcing every two weeks that the Iranians are still only six months from developing a nuclear bomb. He has been claiming the same for the past twenty years. An extremely long six months indeed.
The U.S. Congress (both houses, both parties) will still be voting on and passing new resolutions and bills tightening the economic blockade on Iran, asserting Israel’s “right” to attack Iran at will, insisting that the United States support any such military attack. All will pass irresponsibly unanimously, of course.
Mr. Obama, or whoever is in power at the time, will keep insisting that “all options are on the table” and will remain so. No mention of red lines anymore.
Iranian politicians will continue to predict the demise of the “Zionist Entity”. The more moderate ones will continue to predict the demise of “Israel”. Crossing your fingers is frowned upon by the mullahs, might be considered some sort of “flipping gesture”.
Nuclear negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 will be continuing, with frequent Geritol breaks.
The Iranians will keep announcing more centrifuges operating as they keep negotiating with P5+1, all in good faith by both sides, by all sides.
The GCC Gulf potentates will still be funneling weapons and money and occasional Salafi volunteers to the Aging Free Syrian Salafi Army along the Turkish border, in its quest to depose Bashar Al-Assad. Bashar will still be ruling Damascus from his wheelchair, with the help of his army of nurses and his IVs.
Saad Hariri will still be trying to become prime minister of Lebanon, insisting he can run things from Paris and Riyadh.
Republicans will still be promising to cancel Obamacare (aka the Affordable Care Act) as soon as they control all three houses in Washington.
