Category Archives: US Foreign Policy

GCC, Syria, US Foreign Policy

Saving the Syrian Opposition, Meeting Where Predatory Princes Roam………..

   

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“Syrian opposition leaders struck a hard-won deal on Sunday under intense international pressure to form a broad, new coalition to prepare for the fall of President Bashar al-Assad. Delegates, who had struggled for days in the Qatari capital Doha to find the unity their Western and Arab backers have long urged, said the new body would ensure a voice for religious and ethnic minorities and for the rebels fighting on the ground, who have complained of being overlooked by exiled dissident groups. Some details remain outstanding, including who will head the new Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces and the final assent of some leaders not present in Doha. Diplomats and officials from the United States and Qatar, the tiny Gulf emirate whose oil and gas wealth has helped fund the 20-month-old uprising, have particularly been pressing the Syrian National Council (SNC), whose leaders mostly live abroad, to drop fierce objections to joining a wider body. “An initial deal has been signed. A final formulation has been agreed and signed,” Ali Sadreddine al-Bayanouni, a delegate for the Islamist group the Muslim Brotherhood, told reporters…..……….”

Western powers, Arab potentates and assorted despots, and Syrian opposition groups are meeting to “save” the Syrian opposition, basically saving it from itself. Which is something that is sorely needed. And where are they meeting? In Doha, Qatar, where not even dog-catchers (as Americans would say) are elected, where not even sheep-herders are elected (as the Mufti should say but won’t). They meet in an absolute unaccountable monarchy, aided and abetted by such great supporters of freedom, self-determination, and democracy as the Al-Saud and Al-Khalifa.
While they are at it, why not discuss repression in nearby places. Like a stone’s throw across the Persian Gulf waters in Bahrain, or just across the border in the Arabian Peninsula where the wild and avaricious and predatory princes roam and plunder?
Cheers
mhg
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Drones, Iran, US Foreign Policy

Intern Drones over the Gulf: More on the War of Drones…………………..

   

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“Barbara Starr, CNN’s Pentagon reporter (more accurately known as: the Pentagon’s reporter at CNN), has an exciting exclusive today. Exclusively relying upon “three senior officials” in the Obama administration (all anonymous, needless to say), she claims that “two Iranian Su-25 fighter jets fired on an unarmed US Air Force Predator drone in the Persian Gulf last week,” while “the drone was in international airspace east of Kuwait . . . engaged in routine maritime surveillance.” The drone was not hit, but, says CNN, “the incident raises fresh concerns within the Obama administration about Iranian military aggression in crucial Gulf oil shipping lanes.” First things first: let us pause for a moment to extend our thoughts and prayers to this US drone. Although it was not physically injured, being shot at by the Iranians – while it was doing nothing other than peacefully minding its own business – must have been a very traumatic experience……………”

Was the drone in training? Was it an expendable “intern” drone? Was it testing Iranian reaction? Was it playing a ‘game of chicken’ with the Iranian fighters? Some might say “You Betcha”. Personally I am tempted to suggest that the “Iranian” fighters and naval units ought to stop patrolling the “Persian” Gulf, straying so many thousands of miles from their homeland, harassing the natives of NATO.

I have posted my insight and wisdom on this escalating War of Drones here:
World War Drone: Patience of Job and Ayub with Israel and Iran……

Israel and Hezbollah and UN Resolutions, Goose and Gander and Racism…..

Drones Over Israel: Iranian or Hezbollah?……..

New International Band: “Barack Obama and the Drones”……

Cheers
mhg

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Iran, Israel, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy

Iranians Gloat over Netanyahu’s November Defeat……………

   

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“Wednesday was “not a good morning for Netanyahu,” as one of his deputies Eli Yishai of the religious Shas Party said, when results showed that Bibi’s friend Mitt Romney had lost the presidential race. Netanyahu had at times confronted Obama or even tried to undermine him by making direct relations with the Republican-dominated, Israel-friendly Congress and during the election campaigning, had driven Obama into a tight corner by challenging his positions about Iran’s nuclear energy program and the recent developments in the Arab world. On Wednesday, however, the primer invited the US ambassador to Tel Aviv to his office to give his painful congratulations…………..” Press TV (Iran).

Press TV is an official Iranian English-language television news network that is banned in Britain (and possibly some other European countries).
Interesting take: they seem to be gloating over this. Yet it is true: Netanyahu worked as hard as Fox News, nay harder than Fox News, to undermine and defeat Barack Obama. He went around him to deal with his friends in the right-wing controlled Knesset Congress for policy coordination (extremists like Ros-Lehtinen, Kantor, and Goh-mert, among others). The Israeli right has developed a certain hubris in its relations with the USA, no doubt fed by right-wing leaders of some Jewish-American organizations that do not represent the political views of their constituency. Obama got about 70% of the Jewish vote, which shows how “popular” Netanyahu is in the United States.
Cheers
mhg
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Canada, Iran, Israel, US Foreign Policy

U.S. and Canada Bust New Iranian Cheese Plot, Netanyahu Demands War…………………….

   

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“Canadian and US authorities have busted a cross-border cheese smuggling ring that brought Can$200,000 worth of mozzarella into Canada undeclared and without paying duties. Four men, including two Canadian policemen, were foiled in the caper to also distribute the dairy products — as well as chicken wings and pickles — to pizzerias and other restaurants in southern Ontario for an estimated profit of Can$165,000, Niagara Regional Police said. They each face several charges including conspiracy, smuggling and breach of trust. A conviction carries fines and possible jail time. Constable Derek Watson told AFP: “Most people have been chuckling about the arrests (in online postings), but the (police) chief is taking these crimes very seriously.”………..”

I have been told that it was Bibi Netantyahu who turned them onto Iran as the possible culprit, the possible mastermind behind this. Bibi, as usual, shot from the hip, before aiming. It was a Hail Mary aimed at Ahmadinejad and it was caught: a lucky Hail Mary thrown by a Jew toward a Muslim. It was all logic, he told the Americans and the Canadians. The Iranians have been behind so many plots, so many disasters, that this one must be of their making. Anyone who hires Mexican drug cartels and a troubled Texas car salesman to blow up a crowded Georgetown restaurant just to kill one unimportant Saudi ambassador would stoop to anything. Bad food, Bibi intoned to Canada’s Stephen Harper, is no justification for murder and terrorism. Harper nodded emphatic agreement as his eyes scanned the photo of his wife on his desk, and Bibi immediately uttered a hearty “I hear, ya“.
Relations between the two right-wing leaders, Bibi and “Steve”, have been quite cozy ever since earlier this year Harper called Iran  the greatest threat to peace ever, in world history.
Cheers
mhg
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Arab Revolutions, Culture, Muslims, US Foreign Policy

Muslim Mobs, Media Savvy Mobs, KFC Mobs, Old Glory Mobs…………

   

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Ref my last posting. There is one thing many in these countries, in our countries, have in common when angry, when really angry at outside powers. Or when they are angry at local powers but can’t express it freely. Or when the economy is stagnant. Or when they are repressed and frustrated, politically and otherwise (especially ‘otherwise repressed and frustrated‘ in the fun-deprived Middle East). Or when they are irritated by some silly foreign cartoon or a video clip. Or sometimes even when they are genuinely angry at Uncle Sam for his policies.
There is one thing that unify all our mobs, from North Africa all the way to the outer islands of Indonesia. They all raise the flag of the United States, including the Salafis and other al-Qaeda supporters. They raise Old Glory, then they trample on it, all for the benefit of Western television cameras, then they burn it, all for the benefit of the Western television cameras. Our “rebels” and “protesters” now always carry signs in English rather than Arabic. Our mobs have become quite camera savvy and media savvy. CNN and Fox and Sky and the rest love it, no doubt at least partly wishing and hoping it would go on.
Oh, we have also developed a taste for fast American food. Sometimes our mobs raid a McDonald’s or KFC restaurant, ransack it, before eating all the French fries and all the crispy chicken (original recipe is the favorite). Then they may burn it.
Cheers
mhg
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Iran, Israel, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy

Netanyahu Trying to Blackmail Obama, Help Romney in U.S. Elections……………..

   

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“The White House has rejected a request by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to meet President Barack Obama in the United States this month, an Israeli official said on Tuesday, after a row erupted between the allies over Iran’s nuclear programme. An Israeli official told Reuters on condition of anonymity that Netanyahu’s aides had asked for a meeting when he visits the United Nations this month, and “the White House has got back to us and said it appears a meeting is not possible. It said that the president’s schedule will not permit that“…………”

Whining again. You’ve got to hand it to Netanyahu: as far as hitting low and dirty, he never disappoints. Even as he whines. This is clearly an attempt to blackmail Obama weeks before the presidential, and to give the Republican right-wing new ammunition for the campaign. I would not be surprised if this was closely coordinated with the Romney campaign. In fact I am almost certain this is the case. It is unlikely to sway many Jewish voters, but the name of the game is either Florida or cornering Obama into a promise to wage an unprovoked internationally illegal war of aggression in the Middle East. Most people in the Muslim and Arab world see it that way.
Will it work? It needn’t work: Romney looks set to defeat himself in the November elections. Yet he may get his wish to meet Obama.
 Cheers
mhg
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Arab Revolutions, Cairo, Libya, Salafi, US Foreign Policy

Back to the Shores of Tripoli: the Salafi Rampage…………….

   

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“From the Halls of Montezuma
To the shores of Tripoli
We fight our country’s battles
In the air, on land, and sea;
First to fight for right and freedom
And to keep our honor clean;
We are proud to claim the title
Of United States Marine……..” U.S. Marines Hymn

Egyptian commentators noted that police and security were absent from the US embassy area in Cairo yesterday. Tweeters wrote that the Salafis had an easy job climbing the walls and taking the flag. Theories of conspiracy were all over the place. Overall, the Egyptians have managed to contain the backlash to this “mysterious” film.
Now this has become the most famous film in the world: free publicity by Salafi Wahhabi idiots. Just as the Ayatollah Khomenei gave free publicity to a little-known book by a British author three decades ago: and made it a worldwide best-seller.
The producer of this film wtf it is, couldn’t have paid for better publicity.

As for Libya: it is now becoming a failed state. It is getting the same disease as the Horn of Africa and the Sahel of northwest Africa. A ”potentially” rich failed state. Liberated from the Qaddafi dictatorship by NATO (NOT by the ragtag militias who marched in after the Western planes had done the job. Now it is beset with militia forces not bound to any authority, ideological, various Islamist, and tribal militias. The dictatorial glue that held Libya is coming undone, melted by the fires from NATO bombs last year. Now the marines again storm the shores of Tripoli, well, just to protect the embassy, a task the local “authorities” don’t seem able to do. The embassy killers were not just a “mob”. They were a heavily armed “militia”, not a popular spontaneous mob. Meanwhile, the Salafis, who ironically don’t believe in challenging any authority as long as it is Muslim, are poised to challenge the Arab system. This will not be the last in Libya (or in Egypt).
Salafis thrive on anarchy everywhere. Everywhere except in Saudi Arabia, their ideological mother and the teat that breastfeeds them with ideas and money.
Cheers
mhg
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Iran, Israel, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

Tale of Netanyahu and the Red Line: Is It a Small World After All?………

   

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“It’s a world of laughter, a world of tears.
It’s a world of hopes and a world of fears.
There’s so much that we share, that it’s time we’re aware
It’s a small world after all.
It’s a small world after all.
It’s a small world after all…..
” Disneyland Anthem.

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday launched an unprecedented verbal attack on the U.S. government over its stance on the Iranian nuclear program. “The world tells Israel ‘wait, there’s still time’. And I say, ‘Wait for what? Wait until when?’ Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don’t have a moral right to place a red light before Israel,” Netanyahu told reporters on Tuesday. “Now if Iran knows that there is no red line….…….”

Except the world is not telling Netahyahu “wait, there’s still time”. The world is telling him that an unprovoked attack on another country is an act of aggression, illegal according to international law. Just like Hitler’s attack on Poland was in 1939 (to use one of his most often evoked monstrous characters). The “world” is almost seven billion people who are not quite represented by a few right-wing kooks and spineless politicians in the U.S. Congress, certainly not represented by Joe Lieberman or Bugs Bunny.
Netanyahu is telling the “world”, his “world”: “let me at him, I wanna get him. Please hold me back, I don’t wanna a hurt him“. It is getting almost tedious, boring, if it were not so dangerous. Now, if you feel that you are in the Red Zone, Bibi, then go for the TD, to use a favorite fall Sunday term. Otherwise, it is time for Bibi to STFU (a k a ShutTheFuckUp). Saying it politely, of course.
Cheers
 mhg
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Arab Revolutions, Syria, US Foreign Policy

Some Garbage Analysis of the Middle East and U.S. Policy……………

   

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“Yet there are elements of the man’s personality, nature and mentality that would certainly affect the political outlook on Russia, for example, or on Iran, or on the role played by the United States in places like Syria. Here, differences emerge in the stances of the two candidates for the US Presidency– and the primary point of disagreement lies in the fierceness of the electoral battle over the role of the United States at this stage of history…………. The battle is coming, from the point of view – or according to the wishes – of some, after the presidential elections, in the form of an American-Iranian confrontation in the Syrian context…………………”

Some Garbage Analysis of the Middle East and U.S. Policy in the region (Saudi-centric). Fact is, this is the least important issue for American voters this year.

Cheers
mhg
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Iran, Iraq, Syria, U.S. Congress, US Foreign Policy

Oracles of War or Junket Kings: Three U.S. Senators Declare Two New Middle East Wars…………

   

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“U.S. Senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman and Lindsay Graham on Friday urged Washington to help arm Syria’s rebels with weapons and create a safe zone inside the country for a transition government. They also called for a far tougher position against Iran over its suspected, and seemingly inexorable, drive toward acquiring nuclear weapons capability. McCain blasted President Barack Obama, who defeated him in the 2008 presidential election, for recently setting the “red line” for Syria at use of chemical weapons. “If you’re (Syrian President) Bashar Assad, maybe you interpret that to mean that you can do anything short of chemical weapons before the United States will intervene,” the Republican from Arizona told the Ambrosetti Forum, a gathering of political and business leaders on the shores of Lake Como in Italy…………”

These three U.S. senators seem to spend more time in our region, the Middle East, than in the USA. More time than even some of us spend. They gave up on their early plan to establish their own private base in Iraq after the American (early) withdrawal. They would have called that a ‘settlement’: McCain and Graham violently opposed Lieberman’s suggestion of the term “Kibbutz”: they said it sounded socialistic and un-American; ditto for shtetl. They threatened to storm the beaches of Libya (along with Bernard–Henri Lévy) but were beaten by NATO. They have been trying to liberate Syria and Iran for several years (and Lebanon), but have been frustrated.
Remember: McCain had originally wanted to remain in Iraq for one hundred years (a hundred year Reich?) if necessary, and to retire after that to Arizona where he would run for the job of Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Now they are all waiting for Mr. Obama to be defeated in November so that General John Bolton can march through the Middle East with his terrible swift sword again, making it the New New Middle East again.
Cheers
mhg
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