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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Cairo, Egypt, Salafi, WTF

Pictorial Egypt Parliament: One Saudi Guy, Three Sleeping Guys, Two Browsers, no Partridge on a Pear Tree

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This above picture of members of the new Egyptian parliament at the opening session. It shows a bunch of bearded guys, all duly and freely elected. Yet what I see are:

  • one skinny Saudi guy (bottom left with the red shmagh ghutra) who looks like Osama Bin Laden’s former driver or a flunky of some prince,
  • three sleeping guys (possibly polygamists),
  • two guys pretending to be awake,
  • one bearded guy (in the back) who is probably a fan of Beyoncé browsing YouYube.
  • One can’t judge a book by its cover, not most of the time.
  • Still: WTF is the Saudi guy doing in the Egyptian parliament?Why can’t he run for the oxymoron-ic Saudi parliament?


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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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Human Right, Muslims, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Syria, WTF

Middle East Worst Four for Freedom and Civil Liberties: Saudi Arabia, Syria, Somalia, and Sudan……….

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“A total of 26 countries registered net declines in 2011, and only 12 showed overall improvement, marking the sixth consecutive year in which countries with declines outnumbered those with improvements. While the Middle East and North Africa experienced the most significant gains—concentrated largely in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya—it also suffered the most declines, with a list of worsening countries that includes Bahrain, Iran, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Syria and Saudi Arabia, two countries at the forefront of the violent reaction to the Arab Spring, fell from already low positions to the survey’s worst-possible ratings…….Worst of the Worst: Of the 48 countries designated as Not Free, nine have been given the survey’s lowest possible rating of 7 for both political rights and civil liberties: Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan………”

Always the majority of the worst in Freedom House ratings are Arab and/or Muslim countries. The worst declines were in the Middle East. Of the last ones up there, the worst of the worst, seven of the nine are Muslim states, and four of those worst are Arab states (Saudi Arabia, Syria, Somalia, and Sudan). We all knew that most these states were not sweethearts, but the worst of the worst? The Worst-est? Way down there with North Korea? And they all start with S? Which deserves a resounding: WTF!
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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Culture, GCC, Human Right, Middle East Women, religious police, Salafi, Saudi Arabia

Saudi King Orders: a Gentler Religious Police, Witchcraft and St. Valentine’s, Chopped Lamb Heads……….

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“A long, long time ago…….. On graduation day
You handed me your book …… I signed this way:

Roses are red, my love……  Violets are blue. 
Sugar is sweet, my love……. But not as sweet as you.


Roses are red, my love…….  Violets are blue.
Sugar is sweet, my love……  But luck may
god bless you…..” Bobby Vinton


“The newly appointed general president of the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (Haia) Sheikh Abdullatif Al-Asheikh said Thursday that Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah had ordered him and his fellow colleagues to be lenient when dealing with people and to show good will and respect to them. “The king gave me these clear orders when I went to greet him after my appointment,” he told local daily Al-Eqtisadiah in an interview. Al-Asheikh said King Abdullah advised him to always have a fear of Allah when tackling religious issues concerning the public and to treat citizens and foreigners with respect and leniency………….”

So the Wahhabi religious cops (Commission for Protection of Vice) are ordered by the king to be respectful and lenient as they harass people for trying to, or pretending to, have fun. (Actually having fun is very hard in the Kingdom and that is why almost anyone who can do so flies, drives, swims, walks, rides a donkey, or hitches a ride out of the Wahhabi utopia). I am puzzled by this, and I have a few questions:

  • Why do they need an order from the king? Doesn’t the kingdom have rules and laws and by-laws regulating how people are to be treated by the regime and its secret police and enforcers? Like almost every other country outside North Korea?
  • And what about people who talk politics and vanish in the prison cells of the regime? When will the “king’s” mercy touch them? 
  • Does this also mean that people who dabble in sorcery and magic, as well as people who deal with them, will not have their heads chopped off in a public square just before the Friday lunch? 
  • Does this mean the religious cops will not entrap people into offering or buying magic and sorcery with the goal of getting them sentenced to have their heads chopped off in a public square just before the Friday lunch? Just before the spectators head back home for a lunch of lamb and rice? [I don’t think Saudis eat bacha or pacha (boiled spiced sheep’s head) like we do in the Gulf and Iraq and Iran].
  • Is all this, as I suspect, a ploy to open the door for the unthinkable, the legalization of red roses next February? Maybe on this St. Valentine’s Day red roses and heart-shaped balloons will be allowed in the shops. Maybe the religious cops (the Haia) will be encouraged by the king to buy red roses for each other, for their wives, for all their multiple wives, even the very first ones who may be long in the tooth. Anything is possible.

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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Arab Politics, GCC, Humor, Jordan, North Africa

Moroccans are from Mars, the GCC from Venus? Democracy and Humor………..

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“Scientists have confirmed that a rocky meteor that broke apart in the atmosphere and crashed last July came from Mars. The space-faring stones, perhaps blasted free of the Red Planet by an ancient planetary collision, are the first documented Martian debris to fall to Earth in 50 years. The rare meteorites have been scooped from the African sands by collectors and dealers, who are selling them for thousands of dollars. The Martian meteor’s fiery fall through Earth’s atmosphere last year was seen by Moroccan nomads and military personnel………”

That may explain why the Saudi princes are backtracking on their decision to have Morocco join the Gulf GCC. Martians against Venusians, it would never work out. Moroccans are inching closer to a constitutional monarchy, and that is something the Saudis sent their tanks into Bahrain to prevent last year (and still at it this year). I recall they also listed Jordan as a candidate for membership. They probably dropped that for ‘sense of humor’ reasons: Jordanians are supposedly allegedly reputedly reportedly credibly even less humorous than most of the Gulf potentates, possibly less humorous than Adolf Hitler, so why bother?
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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Multidisciplinary: Middle East, North Africa, Gulf, GCC, World, Cosmos…..