Urgent Call to Leaders of The Free World

UN are a bunch of good-for-nothings.
Till what time are they going to ignore??

I think the work of the Egypt Shadow Government will be the most positive event to take place in the Middle East, if it is successful. It will accomplish what couldn’t be done by any country including the super powers. It would make Egypt the most important country in the Middle East and I would hope the Muslim world. That is my opinion - I wish you well.

This would be wonderful if it could be achieved and I wish them every success. If even ONE democracy might happen in the Middle East, there is more chance other
brutal, corrupt regimes would fall...

Whatever other reasons are offered to justify the initial invasion of Iraq, the most legitimate is that of depriving Iraq of weaponry, whether of the so-called mass destruction variety, or simply Stinger missiles, that can, in the wrong hands, harm Infidels. What are the wrong hands? The wrong hands are any those of any country whose population and government are Muslim, and in which, therefore, sooner or later one can expect either the government itself, or whatever government replaces it in a coup, or a group that is sufficiently powerful within the army to lay hands on some of that weaponry, or a terrorist group ditto -- in other words, not only Iraq, but all Arab and Muslim countries, with the exception, for now, of still quasi-Kemalist Turkey (holding on, as Erdogan steadily dismantles the arrangement, and hobbles the Turkish army by camouflaging his moves as necessary to meet the EU requirements for Turkish admission -- an admission that will never come), and of some but not all of the Central Asian Republics which, fortunately, in places like Kazakhstan in both the size of the non-Muslim population, and in the real, not feigned, secularization and atheism of its so-called Muslim population, is for now still secure.

It is madness, then, to risk American lives to disarm one Arab regime, and at the same time keep pouring arms into other Arab regimes. It is particularly idiotic to refuse to see Egypt as it is, a world center for anti-Americanism and antisemitism, and the general hysteria and hate that one becomes inured to, and tends simply to ignore.

Many Israelis talk as if the treaty with Egypt was a success. It was, but only from Egypt's point of view. From Israel's point of view it was a total failure, violated by Egypt in every single particular as soon as it pocketed the entire Sinai, the airfields, the oilwells, the infrastructure. The "peace" with Egypt holds for the same reason the peace with Syria holds -- not a treaty, but the armed might of Israel. No treaty with an Infidel party has any worth in Islam; this is all clearly set out in many books, perhaps best in Majid Khadduri's out-of-print The Law of War and Peace in Islam. It is not possible to make a permanent peace with an Infidel polity. Period. End of story. The only reason to prolong a truce beyond the maximum of ten years is when necessity, darura, demands it.

If the Israelis are pressured this way and that, if their leaders are undistinguished, or harried, or worn out, that is no reason for American leaders to ignore the real nature of Egyptian society and government. More than $60 billion has now gone from American taxpayers to Egypt, a country whose people hate us (no, it is not "just the American government" they hate -- it is us, you and me). This money, presumably "in memory of Anwar Sadat," has been completely wasted. What if we had understood the nature of Egypt, and the nature of Islam, back when Carter and Brzezinski were doing everything they could to pressure Israel (just a few years before they completely abandoned the Shah, and even seemed to welcome Khomeini)? If we had had sensible and informed leaders (and not a man like William Miller, a Khomeini groupie, advising the Senate Intelligence Committee), then we would never have taken Sadat's side in his preposterous -- by all the rules that had heretofore applied -- to be given back, for the second time, the Sinai (which, readers should remember, did not become part of Egypt until 1922 -- before that it was administered separately by the Ottomans, and it was always regarded, legally, as most deserts were, as a corpus separatum. That whole "Sinai" is part of Egypt stuff is nonsense, and more attention should be paid to just what nonsense it is).

What would intelligent people have done (in other words, if Carter and Brzezinski had been out of the picture)? They would have asked both Israel and Egypt to surrender the entire Sinai to the United States, for its use, its bases. In return, the Egyptians would get some of what they have received so far (but not the military aid). Israel would have had the Americans, not the treacherous and inveterately hostile Egyptians, on their southern border. The Sinai would have allowed the Americans to cover all of North Africa and the Middle East, and the quixotic and expensive notion of "bases in Iraq" which some may still contemplate, would never have been necessary.

Now, of course, the United States should be seizing the opportunity to take control of southern Sudan and Darfur, and having its soldiers greeted gratefully by persecuted black Africans -- quite a contrast to those sullen, or murderously hostile, Iraqis. And it should stay until a referendum on independence has been held, and until Christian missionaries have had a chance to allow the persecuted blacks of Darfur to reconsider their "Muslim" identity given what has just been inflicted on them by Arab Muslims, and to obtain long-term bases in a free southern, largely Christian Sudan, among a grateful population, and that will keep Egypt from threatening, as threaten it will if it ever gets the chance, both Israel, and, more importantly, Ethiopia when it begins to divert some of the headwaterrs of the Nile which it has every right to do, given the repeated famines in that country.

There has to be a little more vigor in making things clear. It is stupid and ultimately self-defeating to supply Egypt, or any otherArab state, with weaponry (unless that weaponry has been rigged to malfunction, or otherwise tampered with so that it will mysteriously fail to work at certain latitudes and longitudes); it is criminal madness to actually supply such weaponry as part of an "aid program" that has been a total waste of American money, and only encouraged a vicious, corrupt -- those are qualities one can live with -- and mainly hostile regime, that does not and never will wish us well.

One hopes that reality is not strictly a partisan affair. That means that the Bush administration must have a different energy policy, one designed to fully internalize the real cost of Arab oil -- $100 a barrel? $200 a barrel? -- based on what the Saudis and other Arabs use that money for (mosques, madrasas, bribery, direct and indirect, of diplomats, journalists, academics). One cannot claim to be fighting the "Jihadis" (the most recent attempt to avoid using the word "Islam" -- well, so be it) and not put oneself on a military footing, in the Manhattan Project manner, to diminish the revenues of Arab oil states. And one can start by taking away the aid that Egypt can so blithely count on, whatever it does. And the latest nonsense about the "helpfulness" of Egypt in Gaza is just one more chapter in that episodic epic, Infidel Idiocy in the Middle East.

As if there aren’t already a host of big problems of different types, on a range of levels, in a multiplicity of places, standing between the West and its INDISPENSABLE Victory (the Absolute SINE-QUA-NON) in the sorely misnamed “War on Terror”, an old and familiar, major Obstruction is right now being put back - insanely - straight into the middle of the road.

So predictably, this lunatic piece of Grand Folly’s transpiring largely at the behest of the EU, the UN and the rest of the almost uniformly purblind, compulsively masochistic, ultimately suicidal “international community”, appeasing the dar el-Islam by obstinately pretending to themselves that this repeatedly-PROVEN, chronic Obstacle to peace is actually a Bridge).

Since his curt, public concession last week that he’d made a mistake or two in his administration, the spectre’s rolling down the track again: the “re-, re-, re-, rehabilitation of… the “President” of the PA/PLO-Hamas-Jihad Islami-“Pal” Hezbollah, Yasser Arafat, as “Mr Indispensable”.

The OPTIMAL status which can result from this umpteenth resuscitation of his would be, in effect, to be stuck back in the exasperating Oslo years, 1993 - 2000. Without venturing into how that period all went, look at how it ended! FUTILE, TRAGIC: definitely NOT bearing repetition.

In July of 2000, at Camp David, Maryland, Arafat was concretely offered NEARLY everything (approximately 96%) which he’d claimed “Palestine” wanted, by the President of the United States and Israel’s PM themselves, no less - he immediately spurned the deal, left in a fit of pique and promptly triggered his grisly, terrorist “el-Aqsa Intefada”, which he’d been preparing - at minimum - for months (at the least as his contingency-plan).

At that historic point, it became transparent that he was NEVER in the slightest bit interested in peace with Israel (and he isn’t now): the polar opposite - Arafat was wishing for no more than the maximum propaganda advantage, on the international stage, for scheduling his re-opening of hostlities - for which he’d been champing at the bit from the hour he arrived in Gaza in 1995.

Having attained it, via deceitfully selling his senseless rebuff of the tendered peace-proposals as unequivocally based upon the (unelaborated) “Highest of Principles”, to a superlatively gullible audience, Arafat gleefully returned to violence - his habitual stock-in-trade.

He unleashed his killers fully again, with relish, in September, in order to continue on in his dream of wiping out the Jewish State (not living alongside Israel, but supplanting it, in toto). He fabricated a pretext then, on the Temple Mount, for triggering his bloody offensive, directly on the heels of the infamous UN “Anti-Racism” Confab, held in Durban, South Africa, having done its heinous work in cranking up gross antisemitism, beneath the flimsy mask of “anti-Zionism”.

Ideally, TONIGHT, the Angel of Death should pay the odious Mr Yasser Arafat a long visit, torment him with the MOST excruciating agonies for a good while, then sweep him away.

However, once he’s gone, unfortunately, it wouldn’t be realistic to project that sweetness and light’ll suddenly descend upon the “Palestinian” Arabs and that Peace will prevail.

To the contrary - it’s lots more likely that, as the assorted factions there - from “secularist” pan-Arab fascists to radical Jihadis, not forgetting various criminal and feudal mafias - vie in the incandescent power-struggle, igniting in the vacuum of Arafat’s departure, in a hysterical climate of supreme anarchy - an armed, pitched, murderous chaos, encompassing gangs of many stripes - any hint of “moderation” on a Contender’s part would constitute a severe, popular HANDICAP, in such utter turmoil as liable to be consuming the steeply radicalized “Palestine”. Alas, peace will remain a length of time in coming, decades - a reverie… a prayer….

Accordingly, talk of “Conflict Resolution” here is WAY PREMATURE: at this juncture, it’s far more practical to speak in the empirical, functional terms of “Conflict Management” for this arena. Nonetheless, as long as Yasir Arafat’s around - let alone being given any degree of “control” - the amount of factual progress towards peace being made will always be ZERO (indeed, MINUS: examine his unwavering record of half a century’s serial arch-duplicities).

Hugh:

Your sweep of the geostrategy on this board, in this War, astounds me afresh! Moreover, your preference for Southern Sudan’s future looks as if it could well come to pass, reasonably soon.

For one big thing, written EXPRESSLY into the recent peace-agreement, between Khartoum and the black Christians and idolaters in the South, is the free option for secession of those provinces, forming into a brand-new, internationally sovereign nation - this item’s due for a popular vote there in roughly five years from now. (But then, as you’ve often asked, what’s the validity of any deal, however solemn, with Jihad-fired maniacs.)

On top, you were pretty perspicacious re Ethiopia, whose re-swelling population (predominantly native Moslems) can solely be accommodated via accelerated construction of the up-Nile dams, in order to provide adequately for the recouping country’s burgeoning agricultural and power-generation demands. The (literal) downstream effects, in the Sudan and in Egypt, could indeed swiftly become detrimental to regional peace....

As, you’ll recall, nearly did, briefly, a somewhat similar case, several years ago, where Syria’d been complaining about Turkish dams on the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates. It washed up with the Turks mobilizing, rattling their hefty sabres on the Syrian border and, finally, forcing the Syrians to hand over Abdula Ocelan, Head of the PKK, who’d been sheltering in Damascus!

That Ethiopia’ll find itself confronted by Egypt and Sudan over the river-flow is highly liable in the mid-term - especially, as you point out above, with the bounties showered on the Egyptian Military for decades by the USA, in remembrance of brave Mr Anwar Sadat (while internally, the Egyptian Government routinely conveys anti-American and antisemitic incitement through its public press, while cheerfully tolerating it in mosques, school-rooms and the private media).

The Machtspolitikal advantages of a functioning, pro-American state, tucked away down south of Sudan, adjacent to Ethiopia, would be INESTIMABLE in such a scenario (and beyond) - as would, doubtless, be the survival of a democratic, peaceable Iraq. (Which is why Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Egypt are working nefariously to see the “Experiment” in Iraq ignominiously crash and burn and as well, lately, doing everything they can to keep Darfur clean OUT of the news, as the Genocide/Jihad continues there, unabated, and Khartoum goes on outrageously lying about it.)

My own predilections are slightly more “neo-imperialistic” than what you’ve said here: my vote would be - when it comes to the crunch - for using existing bases in central Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar to jump off, to conduct the abrupt seizures of Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Hasa Province, Iraq’s southern oil-bearing tracts, the UAE’s, together with those in southwestern Iran; these are all contiguous, to be amalgamated into a single “Protectorate”, beneath a nuclear umbrella.

Notwithstanding, in the 21st Century, this can serve solely as a STOP-GAP MEASURE - even pumping it bone dry. Accordingly, I fully concur with your proposal for a “Manhattan Project”-scale program to completely replace the need for oil. (Incidentally, I have an acquaintance who travels periodically to Kazakstan - always raving extravagantly about it on his return!)

Dear HGII,

Your comment is accurate, and true, I only have one little remark considering the paragraph:

"He unleashed his killers fully again, with relish, in September, in order to continue on in his dream of wiping out the Jewish State (not living alongside Israel, but supplanting it, in toto). He fabricated a pretext then, on the Temple Mount, for triggering his bloody offensive, directly on the heels of the infamous UN “Anti-Racism” Confab, held in Durban, South Africa, having done its heinous work in cranking up gross antisemitism, beneath the flimsy mask of “anti-Zionism”."

Arafat started the Intifada started in September 2000, and the infamous Durban Conference for Anti-Semitism, oh no sorry, against Racism took place in 2001, just days before 9/11. Everything else you said is correct, and very true.

There is mention of Kazakhstan above, largest and richest and most important of the five stans. It is also by far the most secular, for various reasons. The Soviets tried, with some success, to crush Islam as they attempted to crush other religions. Campaigns in the 1920s and 1930s were ruthless and effective.

Another factor is that large numbers of Russians, Koreans, Germans were brought into, or settled in, Kazakhstan. Some were moved by Stalin as security risks. Kazakhstan was also the place where, if you were bad, or connected to bad people -- you know, like Osip Mandelstam, whose wife Nadezhda ended up teaching there -- you might find yourself exiled to Kazakhstan. It was, for that reason, possible to get a wonderful education in Kazakhstan from some of the most interesting Russian exiles; like Tartu, in Estonia, with Lotman and company, Kazakhstan was a place to escape to a place where the full stifling effect of Soviet rule would not be felt. A distancing in space akin, perhaps, to all those Russian writers who found a safe outlet in translating from Georgian, Azerbaijan, and so on.

Even though the Kazakh State University has been renamed in honor Al-Farabi (the Muslim philosopher of our medieval period, and a local boy, incidentally), this should not alarm. Even those who feel they must call themselves "Muslim" (a good deal of the world is made up of people who, for one reason or another, feel they must call themselves something) have nothing really in common with the Middle Eastern variety. A few take vacations in the Emirates. But Kazakhstan is culturally, mentally, intellectually, still firmly Russian, which is to say European. One of the very best books on the Igor Tale, Russia's National Epic (and it will remain the National Epic even if Josef Dombrovsky, the 18th century Bohemian Slavist, turns out to have been its real author -- take that, Head of Dumbarton Oaks), is by a Kazakh writer, Olzhas Solomeinov. Russian is an attractive language; few would wish to trade it in.

And maps of the globe also help. Chinese are attempting to pour across the border into Siberia and into Kazakhstan. They marry local girls. They are hard to dislodge, hard to find. Maps of the Chinese Empire, still available from officials in Beijing, show Kazakhstan as part of that Empire. Mere antiquarianism, or something else? Kazakhstan, like Russia, has two potential enemies, and neither one of them is the United States. They are: China, and Islam, or rather the ideology of Islam. To the extent that they realize this, and intelligent people in Kazakhstan work to defeat the physical or intellectual penetration, respectively, of both, they will succeed on all that oil coming from Tengiz, and now from the bigger field at Kashagan.

Advice to Nazarbayev: want to be popular? Okay, just give up that crazy capital in Astana, to which everyone must infuriatingly commute, and move the whole government back to Almaty, okay? Then other little peccadilloes, comparatively small by the standards of other governments in the region, will be forgiven by your long-commuting bureacracy. Let everyone stay in Almaty, and enjoy their familiy life. You can do it.

One more thing. After Turkey is turned down by the EU, where will it turn? If the American government and real Turkish secularists are awake, they will even now be preparing for that near-certainty, and preparing to blame the "Arab Muslims" who have blackened the "good name of the Turkish (nice, trustworthy) variety." Erdogan is all set to blame the "Christians" of Europe (and perhaps their "Zionist" allies). It is up to the Americans to pretend that everything is okay in Turkey (Perle and Feith were once, one has heard, lobbyists for Turkey -- but the Defense Ministry in Ankara is not Turkey, and far less so than it was, say, ten or fifteen years ago).

There is a possibility of encouraging Turkey to look East, old Ottoman man, not south to the Arab states. If somehow -- and this is all quite vague, and possibly unrealizable -- pan-Turanian dreams, not of conquest, but at least of trade and influence might be encouraged, so that Turkey could, along with Kazakhstan, help in the effort to keep militant Islam down in Uzbekistan and the three other stans, that would be a task the Turks might relish -- every self-respecting country likes to be given a task, or to impose it on itself, now doesn't it? And think of all the seminars and Position Papers and the busy-busy-business at various think-tanks, not to mention the money that will flow into those "experts" in Washington (you know, of the Cordesman variety on the supposedly hard-headed right, of the O'Halloran variety on the supposedly hard-headed left). Something for everyone here. But not a completely idiotic idea.

gloria:

Thank you! Right you are!

I must've been close to my MOST SPLENETIC when I typed that screed!

Hugh:

Thanks!

My ol' mate's off to Kazakstan again pretty soon - and, yes, he's recounted how he HATES having the long, tough drag over to the new "Potemkin Capital" of Astana, when he could be basking in the fine ambiance of "the Mother of Apples".

This time, in addition, he'll be off to Karaganda, one of those Prime, SCANT, intellectual semi-havens in Stalin's Russia, to which you've alluded.