Category Archives: US Foreign Policy

Iran, Israel, Middle East, U.S. Congress, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy

SOTU: Obama as a Middle East Hostage………..

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Under Mr. Obama, American Middle East policy has become practically a political hostage of the Likud coalition and a resurgent pro-Israeli lobby. Not necessarily a Jewish lobby that is in fact divided, but more a Rapture lobby of Christians eager for new converts ‘when the moment is right’. That is not all: the administration has several high-ranking strongly pro-Israeli advocates, like Susan Rice who naturally aspires to replace Hillary Clinton at the State Department.
Arabs often complained that U.S. policy was strongly influenced by Israeli interests. That is not exactly the case anymore: U.S. Middle East policy is now truly shaped by ‘perceptions’ of Israeli interests in an unprecedented way. That perception is not necessarily in the interests of Israel in the longer term. Look for Republicans to continue applying pressure on Obama between now and November, pushing him to leave the West Bank alone for now, pushing him to ensure Israeli supremacy in the Eastern Mediterranean.
SOTU: all that pressure was reflected in the Iran part of the State of the Union speech, when Obama repeated the mantra that “all options” are on the table. “All options” means a possible unprovoked war in the Persian-American Gulf.

Cheers
mhg


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Arab Media, Iran, Iraq, Persian-American Gulf, Saudi Arabia, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

Godfather of Unreliable Sources: Saudi Princes Claim Iran to Take Over Iraq Soon………..

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“Don Corleone: Tattaglia’s a pimp. He never could’ve out fought Santino. But I didn’t know until this day that it was Barzini all along…….” The Godfather

Alarabiya network is a semi-official Saudi media outlet managed by a son of the late King Fahd on behalf of his uncles. Its English headlines are relatively more moderate and are targeted to appeal to Western readers (and maybe policy makers). The English headlines represent the front, the moderate cover for the ‘unique’ Arab headlines.
The Arabic headlines of Alarabiya are the most sectarian, divisive, distorting of any major Arab media, or any other media outside North Korea. This item here is typical of the unsubstantiated rubbish it headlines in Arabic, with the goal or stoking fears and sectarian hatreds, mainly in the Gulf region where most of its website readers are. Here the topic is headlined as “Ruling parties Preparing for an Iranian Takeover of Iraq”. The network claims it has received a ‘statement’ from “Iraqi parliamentarians” about a statement Alarabiya had originally claimed was made by chief of the al-Quds Brigade of the Iranian IRGC. There is no reference to such item anywhere in Iranian news agencies. It is probably part of preparing the Saudi people, and other gullible Gulfies, for choosing the right side, the Western-Israeli side, if and when war erupts in the Persian-American Gulf region.
This is the modus operandi: Alarabiya headlines in Arabic a fake news item it ascribes to “sources”, than it creates “news” threads based on that, with more fake news from more fake ‘sources’. Many people with a sectarian bent in the Gulf GCC countries tend to believe this openly crass propaganda, especially the Wahhabi faux-liberals who dominate the media and some academic institutions of the ruling potentates.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Politics, Libya, Saudi Arabia, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy

The Late Qaddafi and the GOP: Arab Referendums and Plebiscites, American Primaries……..

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“Plebiscites are a fraud against democracy. Those who vote “yes” or “no” do not, in fact, express their free will but, rather, are silenced by the modern conception of democracy as they are not allowed to say more than “yes” or “no”. Such a system is oppressive and tyrannical. Those who vote “no” should express their reasons and why they did not say “yes”, and those who say “yes” should verify such agreement and why they did not vote “no”. Both should state their wishes and be able to justify their “yes” or “no” vote…………”

“Not allowed to say more than “yes” or “no”…“ I guess he suggests a resounding “maybe” as a third option.
More seriously, the late Colonel Qaddafi here aims directly at the heart of the Arab phony election system. From North Africa through Egypt to Syria and Ba’athist Iraq and Yemen, they all forced the people to vote in referendums, plebiscites, rather than elections. One candidate only: and a voter was supposed to vote “yes or no”. Suppose a majority voted no? Would they have to start a new vote with a new single candidate?
 
Qaddafi never allowed referendums on his rule (as far as I know), which might somehow make him more honest than his fellow Arab leaders. He was as honest as the Saudi princes, who never pretend that they have elections or freedom or a civil society. Unlike the late Qaddafi, the princes never agonized over it in a Green Book either, which might make them slightly more honest than the colonel.

(I wonder what Qaddafi would have thought of these Republican caucuses and primaries. They are not real elections: they never ‘elect’ anyone for any position or office. Mr. Obama, being a sitting president will not contest elections to be renominated: he will be renominated in a referendum. That is something Colonel Qaddafi would have never condoned).
Cheers
mhg


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CIA, Iran, Middle East, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

The War that Bush Rejected but Obama may Wage: Mrs. Clinton and GOP War Evaders………..

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“President George W. Bush’s administration concluded that a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be a bad idea — and would only make it harder to prevent Iran from going nuclear in the future, former CIA and National Security Agency (NSA) chief Gen. Michael Hayden said Thursday. “When we talked about this in the government, the consensus was that [attacking Iran] would guarantee that which we are trying to prevent — an Iran that will spare nothing to build a nuclear weapon and that would build it in secret,” Hayden told a small group of experts and reporters at an event hosted by the Center for the National Interest. Hayden served as director of the NSA from 1999 to 2005 and then served as CIA director from 2006 until February 2009. He also had a 39-year career at the Air Force, which he ended as a four-star general. Without an actual occupation of Iran, which nobody wants to contemplate…………….”

It is all about the goal and the exit plan. See? Even I, who is no military expert or strategist(yet) or eve newspaper columnist, know that.
As for an actual invasion of Iran, with ground troops: oh boy. Iran is at least three times the size of Iraq with more than three times the population with many huge cities and is very rugged territory. It stretches from the Persian-American Gulf deep into Central Asia, from the Arabian Sea-Indian Ocean to the Russian border. There is no flat easy terrain to Tehran or Isfahan or Mashhad or Qum. The Revolutionary Guard IRCG is not likely to run away and hide like the Iraqi Ba’athist army in 2003. Think of it as invading Russia but on a smaller scale, and we all know what happens when Russia gets invaded.
Of course, I can be wrong and the whole Iranian regime could collapse within days. But I doubt it: no doubt they have prepared for such a scenario.
Still, before November, Mr. Obama, prodded by an easily ‘disturbed’ Mrs. Clinton and a taunting Republican mob of draft dodgers and war evaders, may opt for a war that he will not be able to control.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Revolutions, Human Right, Libya, U.S. Congress, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy, WTF

Colonel Qaddafi on Free Speech and Insanity: Green Book and the U.S. Supreme Court………

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The Late Mua’mmar Qaddafi: “An individual has the right to express himself or herself even if he or she behaves irrationally to demonstrate his or her insanity. Corporate bodies too have the right to express their corporate identity. The former represent only themselves and the latter represent those who share their corporate identity………”

Mitt Romney: “Corporations are people too, my friend.”(Romney being warm and fuzzy in a way on a Republican politician knows how).

I was intrigued by Qaddafi’s assertion about a ‘corporation’ having the right to express itself. The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court must have read the Colonel’s Green Book before they ruled the very same thing exactly two years ago. The Supremes referred to the First Amendment to hand the 2010 U.S. midterm elections to corporate money and to the Tea Party wing of the GOP.
As for the part about ‘freedom to express’ one’s insanity: that also makes me wonder if most of these Republican presidential candidates have read Qaddafi’s Green Book on this very topic. I mean some of them talk during their debates as if they are no saner than Colonel Qaddafi was. Yet the colonel was much more amusing than, say Gingrich or Romney. Perhaps not as amusing as Rick Santorum, but close, whose name may be misinterpreted by the ignorant to mean that he is too sane for his own good..

Cheers
mhg


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Iran, Israel, U.S. Congress, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

Hormuz and Oahu: Dreaming of a Persian Gulf Pearl Harbor…….

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“The simmering standoff between Iran and the United States has some parallels with the origins of the Pacific war in 1941. To persuade Japan to withdraw its marauding army from China, the United States and other countries imposed ever-tightening sanctions, culminating with an oil embargo that put Japan’s back to the wall…….. Similarly, it’s politically untenable for President Barack Obama to fire the first shot at Iran. But Iranian military action that, say, closes the Strait of Hormuz for a time could result in the world’s begging for U.S. military action. Few doubt that Japan’s policymakers blundered badly when they opted for war against the United States. Yet these leaders also thought it was impossible to abandon their China policy. Iranian leaders are caught between demands for full International Atomic Energy Agency inspections of its nuclear program and the U.S. 5th Fleet. Iran may have a card or two left to play, but it would be illogical for shooting to be on…………….”

 

“Will Israel attack? Is Obama, coerced by domestic politics in an election year, being dragged into war by the Israel lobby? Will he lunch the bombers? Is the strategy to force Iran into a corner, methodically demolishing its economy by embargoes and sanctions so that in the end a desperate Iran strikes back. As with sanctions and covert military onslaughts on Iraq in the run up to 2003, the first point to underline is that the US is waging war on Iran. But well aware of the US public’s aversion to yet another war in the Middle East, the onslaught is an undeclared one. The analogy here is the run up to Pearl Harbor. Let me quote from a useful timeline. On October 7, 1940, a US Navy IQ analyst Arthur McCollum wrote an 8 point memo on how to force Japan into war with US…………”

Two Democrat presidents were elected on ‘peace’ (and bread & butter) platforms but ended up leading the United States into the two greatest wars of history. The merits of WWI were doubtful, but not WW II. In a way Pearl Harbor was a good thing, otherwise the Nazis may have consolidated their hold on Europe in spite of their greatest folly, attacking the Soviet Union.
Now, another Democrat president who came to power on promises of peace may end up waging an unprovoked war against a country half-way around the world. As for closing the Strait of Hormuz, the Iranians are no retro-Japanese, they are not suicidal types. Contrary to what some GOP politicians and media types may think, they do not worship their clerics the same way the Japanese worshiped the emperor. They do not worship their clerics the same way most members of the U.S. Congress, especially but not only Republicans, worship Benjamin Natanyahu. Or Ronald Reagan. And their clerics are not suicidal either.
Yet there is still a silver lining, some hope, for the war camp in the West: there is always a point when anyone who is cornered will strike back. Now that is not any ‘change’ you can believe in.
Cheers
mhg


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Economics, Iran, Sanctions, Terrorism, Turkey, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

Oh No, another Iranian-Hezbollah-Turkish-Kurdish Embassy Plot Uncovered……..

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“Intelligence units have warned that the Quds Force, a special unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, plans to send a group to Turkey to carry out a series of demonstrations that may include a bomb attack on the Embassy or Consulate General of the United States. The Turkish Security General Directorate (EGM) has warned police departments in all 81 Turkish provinces that they must be vigilant and remain alert to the existence of such a threat. The intelligence pertaining to the possibility of such an attack was delivered in a secret letter to the information department at Turkey’s General Directorate of Security. The written statement indicates that a team linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard will be sent to Turkey and that it may be planning to bomb the US embassy or consulate general in the country. The Quds Force is infamous for its role in attempting to export Iran’s revolution to other countries through the instigation of chaos and by acting as the overseas branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp.……….”

Haaretz (Israel) has also pulled a rabbit out of its hat by adding Hezbollah to the mix, claiming that Iran’s Lebanese ally was to take part in the plot. The Turkish newspaper Zaman report makes no mention of Hezbollah, but maybe some federal district judge in New York or Washington DC will implicate them, as usual. They may throw in al-Qaeda as co-conspirators for good measure (Saddam Hussein is dead). No mention of a Mexican drug cartel connection, nor anything about Mr. Adel al-Jubair or a Venezuelan hand.

Clearly Republican 2012 candidates for POTUS don’t read the Turkish press, not even Rick Perry or Newt Gingrich. Otherwise the GOP would have called for an immediate declaration of war on all Muslims, including Mr. Perry’s pals in the terrorist Turkish government.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, no doubt, will take the opportunity to declare herself ‘disturbed’ by this ‘disturbing’ report.

An attack on an embassy is a serious act, nearly as much an act of war as blockading a country and preventing its exports and imports, surrounding it with warships and fleets and military bases. And threatening to bomb it. That is why it is highly unlikely that this story is true: the Iranians are not that stupid, or are they?
Cheers
mhg


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Apartheid, Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, GCC, Human Right, Iran, Muslims, Salafi, Saudi Arabia, Theocracy, US Foreign Policy

Mullahs, Princes, and Islamist Potentates: Prince Turki and Fitna……….

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“Prince Turki al-Faisal, chairman of the board of the King Faisal Center for Islamic Research Studies called on Iran to stop spreading sectarian divisions (Fitna) among Gulf GCC citizens. He emphasized that these countries are not part of any dispute with the “international community” about its nuclear program. He made his statement in a speech to the Conference on National Security and Regional Security in the GCC, held in Bahrain………..”

I don’t know about this. No doubt the Iranian mullahs have pursued their own goals toward influence through interference in some Arab states: mainly in Iraq and Lebanon. Like all theocrats, the mullahs are no sweethearts in the pursuit of their goals. But the prince is being deliberately unfair and misleading toward the Shi’a citizens of the Gulf states. Prince Turki is hinting here that Iran is responsible for the popular uprisings in Bahrain and in Qatif. He is using the discredited al-Khalifa excuse of painting the peoples of Bahrain and Qatif as Iranian agents simply because they refuse to accept the current apartheid policies of the al-Saud and the al-Khalifa despots.
Yet no regime in the Middle East is as sectarian as the Saudi and Bahraini regimes, no regime has resorted to as much sectarian divisiveness and hatred as the Saudi Arabian. The vast semi-official Saudi media (all owned by princes and their retainers and tribal in-laws) has waged a campaign of several years spreading sectarian hatred wherever they could. No other regime in recent history has spread so much suspicion and hatred. Especially in the Gulf GCC states, but they have also tried well beyond the Gulf from Syria and Lebanon to Egypt and North Africa. All with the help of their local Salafi fifth columns and their Muslim Brotherhood tribal allies. (Most Gulf Muslim Brothers are very close to the Saudi princes, unlike those in Egypt and other places. Some like the demagogue Yusuf al-Qaradawi are close to the Qatari shaikhs, a few others are close to the UAE Abu Dhabi shaikhs).
It is the old divide-and rule policy once attributed to the British imperial power.
Cheers
mhg


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Humor, Iran, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

Beast of Kandahar: Iranian Mullahs Have a Drone Sense of Humor……….

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“Iran says it will send the U.S. government a toy model of the CIA drone the Islamic Republic captured last month. The announcement, made via state media, comes in response to the White House’s request for the return of the unmanned aircraft. The U.S. drone, a RQ-170 Sentinel dubbed “the Beast of Kandahar,” is one of the most technologically advanced surveillance crafts in the world. The toy model, the Associated Press reports, will be one-eighteenth the size and retail for the equivalent of $4 in Iranian toy stores. There’s still no conclusive explanation for how the drone got into Iranian hands in the first place………..”

So who said the mullahs don’t have a sense of humor? I always knew they were funnier than, say, the king of Jordan or prime minister of Bahrain. They seem funnier than even Newt Gingrich or Rick Perry. As for Mitt Romney, oh well…………
Cheers
mhg


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GCC, Gulf states, Iran, Oman, OPEC, Saudi Arabia, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

The Next War: Saudis Succeed in Aligning Gulf States with the American-Israeli Position……..

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“Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi has advised Saudi officials against making injudicious remarks about boosting oil production amid European countries’ efforts to impose oil sanctions on the Islamic republic. “We expect the countries in the Persian Gulf region, particularly Saudi Arabia, with which we have always called for the best relations, to avoid injudicious discourses,” Salehi said on Tuesday in response to Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi, who has said that his country will make up for any shortfall in world oil supply caused by sanctions against Iran. “If Saudi officials’ recent remarks are to be regarded as their official view, we advise them to respond more thoughtfully and sensibly to regional issues,” Salehi added. Al-Naimi told CNN on Monday that his country could increase production by two million barrels “almost immediately” if sanctions are imposed on Iran’s oil industry. Iran exports roughly 2.5 million barrels per day. The Saudi minister also expressed his doubts that Iran could successfully close the Strait of Hormuz..……..” Mehr News Agency (Iran)

It looks like the Saudis have succeeded in pushing any hesitant Gulf state toward the American-Israeli position on Iran. With the likely exception of Oman which usually marches to its own music. The Saudis are taking an openly harder line now: the minister said his country is willing to produce about the same amount of crude that Iran would lose in exports. Even more telling, he opined that Iran can’t close the Strait of Hormuz. It sounds like he was inviting the West to go ahead and march toward the destructive regional war that some Gulf oligarchs want the Americans to wage again. The Saudi king and the UAE rulers may get the wish they have expressed in the past (Wikileaks). And there is no doubt that it would be a regional war this time around.
All this is reminiscent of the 1980s, when most GCC Gulf states sided with Saddam Hussein after he invaded Iran. Not only did they supply Saddam with financing and weapons, some of them also sold their own crude oil on behalf of Iraq. Once Iranian’s ability to sell oil was cut, they started the tankers war in the Gulf. That led to confrontations with the U.S navy in the Gulf (of course the Iranians didn’t do well in those confrontations). After that war ended Saddam turned his brotherly neighborly guns south toward the GCC. History may be about to be repeated, but on a larger more destructive scale.
Of course the GCC states have the right to sell as much oil as they want and to whomever they want to. Even to poached former customers of Iran. Still all perfectly legal, more legal than the expected new war that the West may wage in the Gulf. But in time of war and desperation this type of logic is meaningless in reality, and is thrown out the window. The Iranians will correctly see it as an attempt to help the Anglo-American-Israeli war effort against them. The oil embargo is not sanctioned by the United Nations, but is purely American, with Israeli instigation.
From the Iranians’ point of view, they will see the same neighbors again siding with an ‘aggressor’, this time without the convenience of the aggressor being an “Arab” side.
Cheers
mhg


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