Jonathan Spyer recently observed that “if the U.S. leaves a void here, the secondary powers in the region—Israel, Turkey, and Iran—will begin tussling with one another for dominance.” And lower down the food chain the proxies may be fighting for turf. Hanin Ghaddar from Lebanon Now says that street fighting which broke out in Beirut between Hezbollah and a Syrian militia called Al-Abash.
the clashes must be seen as a message from Syria to Hezbollah that Damascus is back and that the Party of God no longer single-handedly controls the political scene in Lebanon. It is also worth mentioning that this happened immediately after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared that he would visit Lebanon on September 11 and 12.
The streets are now full of rage. The death and destruction will only lead to more anger and the need for revenge. The problem of Hezbollah’s illegitimate arms still remains, but now we know once and for all that the Resistance’s arms can be used on the street against other Lebanese, whether to defend its arsenal, as was the case in May 2008, or to confront another militia over who controls Beirut’s streets.
If the problem of arms is not resolved soon, the clashes will increase, and the rule of the militia will prevail.
The Associated Press is depicting the clashes as a dust-up between the Hezbollah and an insignificant Sunni group. Ghaddar believes it is more than that. Al-Abash was once a gang controlled by Syria and its fight with the Hezbollah might be a signal by Syria to Sunni Muslims that Damascus, and not just Riyadh, is the patron of Sunni Muslims in the region.
That occurs against the interesting background of the administration’s “soft power” efforts in the Gulf. Muslim Matters reports that the Imam Rauf was recently in Doha as part of a State Department sponsored visit. Rauf later spoke at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service in Doha. As was probably inevitable, some in the audience saw Rauf’s role as not to convince Muslims of America’s good intentions, but to win over America to the pan-Muslim cause. Muslim Matters says that some people in the audience felt the embassies were should be reversed and that Rauf, rather than touting America in the Gulf should be pushing Islam in America. Rauf appeared reluctant to discuss the Mosque.
Amad: Imam, we have been obviously following the matter very closely
Imam: I’m sure you have
Amad: We are wondering how it [the controversy] has affected your trip here?
Imam: Alhamdulillah, it hasn’t. But, except that I have been getting less sleep [kind of half-serious]. Everyday, [I spend] 2-3 hours following the issues of the day.
Amad: A lot of people are asking. Do you feel that you are needed more there. Do you feel that it would have been prudent more to be there [in America] than here?
Imam [the voice was fuzzy here so this may be less than perfectly accurate transcription]: That’s a difficult question but the decision was made/justified to stay on course with the program. [And I think he said he was content with that]
In the meantime, Joe Biden was in Iraq “to assure Iraqis the United States is not abandoning them as it stops combat operations, a milestone in the 7-1/2 year war the Obama administration is trying to end.” Biden told newsmen:
We are going to be just fine. They are going to be just fine,” Mr. Biden told reporters as he prepared to confer with James Jeffrey, the new American ambassador in Baghdad, and Gen. Ray Odierno, the outgoing American commander in Baghdad.
The wheel is still in spin all over the region. The chaotic interplay between the Obama administration and the political factions of the Middle East is occurring across the spectrum ranging from culture to military confrontation. About all that can be safely said is that the struggle for power is by no means over. Perhaps nothing is ever “over” in the Middle East, a point illustrated by this video featured at Michael Totten’s. It’s an ad for a night club whose message is, live while you can because you never know.
embedded by Embedded VideoYouTube Direkt
The inspiration for that ad must have been Downfall: Mrs. Hitler dances tabletop.
Obviously, the well announced withdrawal of our main body has unleashed Damascus.
The ophthalmologist should think again. Iraqi forces may well be much less reluctant to spank him in the East. Good campaign weather is right around the corner.
Baghdad may want to punish the terrorist cells and their enablers in the East.
By early 2011, her army will have enough punch to really hurt. Even a single battalion of M1A2 tanks is way too much for Dr. Assad’s boys.
Mischief is afoot in the ME whilst the WH strolls blissfully around Marthas’s Vineyard. Leadership upon which we can rely. On second thought, maybe we came out ahead with him out of play. Gotta luv it.
So the vacuum was Pre-Desert Storm – almost 20 years ago. 7 years ago the US served notice on the silly little governments in the ME by stomping Sadaam. Really the only new factor in the region is Iran and it’s Shiite revolutionary outpost in Lebanon – the Hezbollah. I don’t think much of anything newsworthy is going to happen as we leave.
Everybody knew we would be weak internationally with Bozama in office – no surprise here. I don’t think this is gonna be a repeat of the Carter-era weakness that allowed Marxism to destroy Africa and Central America. This is different – I don’t see the 800lb gorilla (the USSR equivalent) waiting in the room.
I have it on good authority that the club scene was filmed at a Democrat House Member’s gathering a couple of days ago.
Reminds me of that great line in the song “Home of the Brave” by The Nails:
“Oh God of Hell
I said I love the suit
The devil gave me
To wear to Beirut
Where the whores are dancing
On the table tops
And the jukebox plays
Apocalyptic bebop”
Hell, the whole song is great.
5. wws
It did remind me a bit of Detroit… /g
The Arab psyche provides a blood chilling projection of/for the future. This is clearly a post-nuclear bombing scenario.
Ever since 9/11 I have been disturbed by the way Muslims and Arabs pervert the truth and blame everybody else for their shortcomings and heinous crimes as a civilization. But the thing that disturbs me the most is how these damaged humans, abused by their culture of hatred in Islam, indicate exactly what they intend for our future. Claims by Muslims of victimhood are almost always projections of how they would treat the other if the tables were turned. Some have claimed a genocidal campaign of harped against Muslims since 9/11. Does anyone doubt that, had a Christian sect flown planes into Muslim skyscrapers, that the Muslim slaughter of “infidels within their reach would be ongoing and unlimited?
Just so, the regular and overblown claims of oppression and abuse in America by Muslims is a projection of the kind of abuse and oppression Muslims/Arabs would inflict if given a chance.
How did we ever let this cancerous and poisonously damaged culture into our precincts? Why do we continue to let them come here and live here?
On the surface, that video is a nihilistic ad for the club scene in Beirut. But on a deeper level, it’s a stark prediction of the future the Arab/Muslim “civilization” knows it will usher into the world: Unlimited Islamic Jihad.
For those lunatics in the West who expect a Muslim reformation to counter the gathering storm of the Great Jihad — for those Western morons who go on and on about “perverting a religion and Religion of Peace ™, THIS is what we all can expect from the moderates within Islam: bury your head and party! They have already given up hope because they know it is hopeless. Why should their hopelessness be allowed to spread to us, and drag us into the maw of the hell they’re creating? Muslims know what is coming. They’re visualizing the future, and it doesn’t look like iPads and flat screens and comity and peace; the Muslim future looks like Armageddon, and that’s all that Islam and Muslims ultimately have to offer.
Three conjectures, anyone?
The Middle East is a complex and in many ways a crazy place. That description can be applied to US politics in its own way. The conversation between the region and DC can resemble a dialogue between armed lunatics. The Middle East will probably remain much as it has been for centuries. One shouldn’t expect an outbreak of “Western type” behavior there any time soon. They will be what they will be. In any case any lasting change must come from within.
If one were looking for a place to break the cycle of craziness, maybe DC is the place to start. The best place to restore sanity, if there is any prospect of it, is in American political life. A Washington that is strong, yet fundamentally benign; which is willing to use force, but only when necessary and which acts consistently to expand freedom — without being in a rush, will over decades be a positive force for the region. A strong horse, but a good horse plodding along a predictable road would be a good thing.
Perhaps one of the good things about the decline of the traditional elites is that it will curb their enthusiasm for turning the world into a laboratory for their crazy fads. It is interesting to consider whether the average Achmed and the average Joe might not have more in common than the scheming, oversophisticated aristocracies who sometimes are at cross purposes with each other; and even at odds with themselves.
Good policy would be to fan these muslim on muslim battles so they kill each other rather than us. The hatred is there, has been for centuries . . . it just needs to be nurtured and these morons given enough simple weapons with which to kill each other.
There are many lonely virgins in heaven waiting for a visit from these wannbe jihadis.
This is interesting. I wish I had a way of intertwining this thread with this one:
http://pajamasmedia.com/michaeltotten/2010/08/27/whats-up-with-turkey/#comment-18789
What we need is a “community organizer” to combine them, sell them and be able to make a profit and “re-distribute the funds”.
Oh well, just as well it doesn’t happen. YOU know, oil and water…
Papa Ray
An interesting story of the US sending a message to Lebanon from Israel:
And then there was this story about US fighters going to KSA:
Would it be crazy to think that the magicians are saying don’t look at my left hand up here in Lebanon, while the right hand is being formed into a fist to smack Iran – and by that I mean, the US sells KSA advanced aircraft that get staged in the East where Israeli pilots man the equipment for the shorter sorties across the Gulf ending Bushehr? The old enemy of my enemy is my friend scenario.
Israel finds itself in the same camp as many Arab states, and for better or for worse, having a common enemy is perhaps the best way to make friends in the Middle East.
“How did we ever let this cancerous and poisonously damaged culture into our precincts? ”
a) Imam Rauf told us we should.
b) Better to be a dhimmi than a bigot.
c) Better to submit to Sharia than Islamophobia.
d) All the above.
“This smug attribution of bigotry to two-thirds of the population hinges on the insistence on a complete lack of connection between Islam and radical Islam, a proposition that dovetails perfectly with the Obama administration’s pretense that we are at war with nothing more than “violent extremists” of inscrutable motive and indiscernible belief. Those who reject this as both ridiculous and politically correct (an admitted redundancy) are declared Islamophobes, the ad hominem du jour.”
The last refuge of the liberal
blert/2–did you get your east and west mixed up?
“The first involves 84 F-15SA — the “SA” stands for “Saudi Advanced” — strike aircraft configured to Saudi specifications to replace its aging F-15C/D air-defense variants acquired in 1978-92, plus upgrades for 70 F-15S strike jets already in service.”- Novanglus
No, it’s just a balance of trade thing. SA has to protect their oil fields,
and we need the cash. And in the end, who knows where these F-15′s will end up?
Remember when some of Saddam’s air force fled to Iran during Desert Storm,
and that’s where they remained? None of these jokers has more than half a clue
as to how to run their respective countries. A measurable fraction of Jewish Israelis
would probably be willing to do something to politically imolate themselves to prove
their sincerity for “peace” with their neighbors. Some neighborhood.
Peace, what is peace? The absence of war? The political comity of neighboring nations???
Is it the peaceful rule of law between nations?
Was there “peace” in the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War?
Is there “peace” in North America, between Mexico and the US?
Is there “peace” in the Philipines on Mindanao between Christians and Muslims?
As long as there are men, as long as we all bear the Mark of Cain, I don’t think
there will be much “peace”. At most, we can keep the brush fires from turning into
a fire storm, but that is my most optimistic hope.
A wedge has been forced between Turkey and Israel. Hezbollah controls a good part of South Lebanon. The Christian population of Lebanon is much smaller and pushed north. Syria is a problem. And what prey tell is the US Administration worried about? Peace between Palestine and Israel. Can’t or won’t interfere with nuclear development in Iran. Can’t throw a net over the Mayor of Kabul? Poppies grow freely in Afghanistan. And the Sunni and Shia are still prepared to fight. Who says there are problems in SE Asia?
wretchard @ 9 said:
“If one were looking for a place to break the cycle of craziness, maybe DC is the place to start…. A Washington that is strong, yet fundamentally benign; which is willing to use force, but only when necessary and which acts consistently to expand freedom — without being in a rush, will over decades be a positive force for the region. A strong horse, but a good horse plodding along a predictable road would be a good thing.”
Being optimistic, I’m hoping the Messiah will be ejected from office in 2012, a reasonable/competent person will take his place and the cycle of craziness broken. Unfortunately this means the next two years with the Messiah and his crew running foreign policy and the national economy (We Americans behaved like stupid children in allowing ourselves to be seduced by the MSM). The next two years are going to be critical for the world (maybe the most important two years since 1938-1939).
Perhaps nothing is ever “over” in the Middle East.
Home of the Hudna! ™
md @ 8: The Arab psyche provides a blood chilling projection of/for the future. This is clearly a post-nuclear bombing scenario.
It’s a desert survival mindset, where you always have more population than resources, where you can fight an enemy and then run away and not see him again for a generation, where real information is vanishingly scarce, where it might be a survival trait to kill your neighbor and steal his ass.
Tie a ribbon on that with the story of the Islamic conquest, and here we are. Until we have a counter-meme of comparable magnitude.
I’ve never understood what faith or force America is supposed to align with in the Muslim Middle East. Neither the Sunni nor Shiite factions, in whatever national or ethnic configuration, are the least bit trustworthy for even medium term relationhs. At one point Reuel Marc Gerecht and affiliated analysts put their faith in the Iraqi Shiites, but that was long ago and much blood has flowed under the bridge since then. The bonds of trust, the social mechanisms to enforce contracts and establish laws with real weight simply aren’t there and want be for generations.
So, what is our endgame? A constant military presence? A realist playing off of faction against faction? I thought the Iraq War was supposed to move beyond all that.
How did we ever let this cancerous and poisonously damaged culture into our precincts? Why do we continue to let them come here and live here?
It looks like they’re back to testing airport security again: “Two Men Arrested on Terror Suspicion on Flight From Chicago to Amsterdam”
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/08/30/detroit-men-arrested-flight-chicago-amsterdam/
Either you control events or events control you.
This regime is depending on its “long established good will” with the islams to obtain “peace in our time”. Somebody needs to notify the islams of the agenda.
Neglect by responsible parties leads to bloodshed. ‘Tis evermore the case. The more responsible the party (and Darlin’, Im sorry, we’re the Only Responsible Party) the greater the bloodshed. I know they’re only islams. But they need a chance at salvation and they cant get it if they’re dead.
When this plays out it is necessary that the finger points in the arithmetically correct direction.
Zero @ 20: We align with our American interests. Mostly coincident with Israel, but subject to other considerations as may be necessary and expedient. But American always in the first place.
As to the end game, that’s subject to the Third Conjecture.
It is one thing to have advanced weapons and it is another thing entirely to know how to use them. One of the F-16s we sold Pakistan was damaged when it hit a wild boar crossing the runway. A European company attempting to sell an anti-aircraft system to a ME country found that the natives could not operate the system even after training.
Armed Forces fight the way they train. The forces of the USA are among the most lethal ever seen because they are well-trained, and because they devolve responsibility down. Someone once remarked that a platoon sergeant in the US Army has more authority than any ME colonel.
May God bless America, land that I love.
Ledeen reports that the Iranians shot down a drone and an F-4 Phantom over Bushehr.
…belonging to the Iranian “Air Force”
One can only guess what Obama really wants in the Middle East. He certainly doesn’t like Israel but domestic political considerations prevent him from overtly anti-Israel actions. So he confines himself to the covertly anti-Israel ones.
He surely has great sympathy for Islamic countries but in the tension between the Sunni Arab countries and the Shi’ia Persian one, it is difficult to discern whom he favors.
So probably his dream scenario would be for Israel to attack Iran with covert KSA help but without USA support. This would be a setback for Iran but would also offer Israel up as a sacrifice to the so-called “international community,” as well as creating a demand for Israel to give up its nukes. This is a three cushion billiard shot, to be sure, but it is the only way I see for Obama to hurt Iran, hurt Israel, protect the Arab countries, and appear to be a peacemaker.
Reading through the MJT article, it sounds as though Totten believes Obama may have the ability to call the shots on Iran (and Hez?) if and when the political climes get to that dark place. I don’t think the embarrassment has the political support much less the political will to pull the trigger, without some purge or shuffle or awkward awakening within D party.
I don’t see it, and I certainly do not think the embarrassment gets the ME.
Still while dancing around the interplay between Syria and Iran there was no definitive explanation of Syrian support of anti hez action. The only plausible explanation it seems to me, is that Assad likes to be a spoiler, to achieve his own selfish ends and nothing more. That at least is consistent and allows Assad’s acts to appear more or less predictable. All one has to do is figure out what Assad believes is his interest at any given time and context. Damascus and not Tehran is a master key to the ME. And clearly Tehran holds the key on its ring.
The failure of Al Quida to survive the battle for the PLO Camps, was a boon to Hezbollah, as the Lebanese government was unable to take full advantage of the Lebanese Army’s triumph to cut the knees out from the Hezbollah militia’s efforts to rearm in the south, and in fact backed down on earlier threats to disarm them at a time when they might have been successful.
Too bad.
So there is probably some other actor or factor involved there between Hezbollah and Al-Abash, I think. I do not see the connection between Assad and Al-Abash despite the pro Syrian stance of Al Abash in the past.
THE SEEDERS OF LEBANON
In Lebanon street battles rage
As Hezbollah exits the stage
And Syria resumes control
And Sunni gangs now do patrol
The very streets the Shiites thought
Were theirs and so they were distraught
To find themselves again at war
With Sunnis who would like the score
To be reversed to favor them
But who will rule that little gem?
The seeds of war are sprouting fast
The wakeful know the die is cast
I wanted someone else to mention the march meeting between Syria, Lebanon and … (shhhh)…KSA.
Who knows, maybe someone bought off Al Assad? At what price? For what forgiveness does he perform this penance? For what promise is this treachery achieved? This stuff is right out of “The Prince”.
25/batman:
but it is the only way I see for Obama to … appear to be a peacemaker.
But, but, but – doesn’t he already have a Nobel prize granted prospectively for bringing Peace to the World and stopping the seas from rising?
28. whatdayameanitstoohot
Well, KSA certainly has more money (and is likely to for the forseeable future)than Iran, so buying Assad is entirely within their power. The KSA wants to be seen as the moving agent behind an Islamic rise to power. Iran might soon be getting nukes and this will threaten the KSA long term goal of infecting the world with Wahhabism, as well as threatening the KSA rulers with being vaporised. While there is still time it makes sense for KSA to peel away the Iranians allies, some may know secrets, others are the source of deniable terror attacks, all are important to the Iranian foreign policy.
From a Syrian point of view the Hezzies have been getting mighty uppity of late and need to be knocked down a notch, you just can’t have the puppets pulling the strings. Crazies with bombs and missles are fine for the Iranians as they are very far to the east, Damascus is but an hours drive away and Assad may be getting nervous about living next door to these guys. So he provokes a dust-up between his pet militia and the Hezzies; if the Syrian militia win great, if they lose he can shrug and say “I had nothing to do with that” either way he sends a message “Watch your back”. At the very best Assad is playing a very dangerous double game (maybe triple, if he has been talking to the Israelis) at the worst he is a simpleton and a fool who is going to get a lot of people killed.
I am sure his dreams are marked by a desire to restore Damascus to it’s “rightful place” as capital of the Arab middle east, Arab culture has a long memory and for centuries Damacus was the most important city in the Fertile Cresent. Perhaps that is the offer that KSA has dangled in front of him; a return to power in exchange for acting against his previous patron (it would not be the first time in history that a despot has switched sides out of vainglory).
Anton,
“His pet Militia” respects its long standing Sufi position and Quitist leaning. It has long disdained violence for the sake of political points and positioning which makes it all the more surprising that they would have instigated a shoot em up with Hezbollah. For my money, the Hezbullies probably started something they thought was easy, with an eye on proving something or other and Al Abash defended itself.
Al Abash is not pure, Two of their leadership have allegedly been tied to the past PM Hariri murder, but they aren’t pure evil either. It does serve to place Al Assad’s behavior and choices under a more intense microscope, or should.
If, as many suspect, Iran is making a bid to proxy in Iraq, why would Assad oppose them after wink and nod feeding of rockets and more to Hezbollah through its borders to the west and the same once upon a time to Al Q in Iraq to the east. It would take a big price tag indeed to move Assad away from his ties with Iran. A price I don’t think the KSA is willing to pay to Assad. Nor the embarrassment Machiavellian enough to recognize the futility of such an offer. I can envision a scenario that would place Assad in the drivers seat, yet again. Because certain western politicians insist he can be trusted because they asked him and he told them so.
F-15SA means Saudi Arabia
F-15J means Japan ( Most built in Japan )
F-15K means Korea
That they decided back in the marketing department to call it Advanced is cute.
IIRC, the Saudis were the first to purchase conformal buddy tanks. Further, they then proceeded to station essentially their entire F15 wing up towards Aquaba! Now that’s some defense for the air fields!
While that airbase plus conformal fuel tanks = Israel as target, it is also easy to guess that the King has coup phobia. He also might be concerned lest Iran do to his air force what Israel did to Nasser.
By giving his air defense arm extreme range he made a first strike by Iran ( true enemy number one ) quite impractical. His counter-force air fleet would / should survive to put the hammer down on all of Iran’s coastal assets.
——-
The whole ‘Death to Israel’ is a shtick. The real target is always the Gulf Arabs — all of them.
Iran wants to pitch the idea that her martial interests are against the far enemy. No way is Tehran taking on nuclear powers. Her intent is to power up her unconventional assets. Then strike with suicide troops against Araby in a lightning multi-state coup.
While posturing herself as a protecting power, Iran then moves to grab all of the marbles while sheltering behind her nukes and holds the West economic hostage byway of her day-to-day energy hunger.
Europe, China, Japan, Korea, India, Taiwan will all erupt in a chorus of ‘restraint!’
Tehran rightly figures that when you’ve got’em by the oil pump their hearts and minds will soon come around.
Further, Iran realizes that her despotism is no worse than the Wahhabi Kingdom. The Magic Kingdom has been at jihad with America since the 1970′s. That’s when the Kingdom realized that the balance of production power had shifted so much that KSA was top swing producer.
Now she could use monopoly profits to perform a reverse LBO upon the kafir state!
KSA found a way to buy out America with its own money!
But more: she could kick out any equity positions that American enterprise had been previously granted.
———-
It rarely gets mentioned, but the Magic Kingdom has not made any MAJOR world scale improvements in her infrastructure in the last thirty years. Ras Tanura was brought on-line in 1968. The Yanbu complex was designed and launched before Chevron, Exxon, Texaco, and Mobil were shown the door.
That Yanbu exports more than Ras Tanura and that it’s the OTHER Gulf States that need clear sailing the most also gets no press. ( Yanbu was expressly built with this in mind. Further, Yanbu is the sole export terminal able to handle the extreme most VLCCs — the ships with a draft so great that they’d bottom out before they reached the Gulf piers.
IF the magic kingdom were to permit the rest of Araby to deliver from Yanbu then Iran’s leverage at the Strait would evaporate.
Arabs can’t bear the thought but the smartest route would be Iraq, Jordan, Israel terminating in a LOOP style delivery station in deep Mediterranean waters.
Plan B would be to turn south in Jordan and run an oceanic dog-leg over to Sinai and then north to the sea.