Fitzgerald: On redrawing the map

What about other map redrawings? We should not care whether or not Qatar or Kuwait or Abu Dhabi or any of the other sheikdoms any other place is bullied by a larger neighbor, but of course being indifferent, we could also charge a very large fee to protect Qatar, Kuwait, and other statelets from Saudi Arabia, or Iran, or even a conceivably intact Iraq. At the moment we appear to be so grateful for the use of bases. We are selling ourselves, and our implied protection, cheap -- far too cheap for what the Al-Sabah and Al-Thani and Al-Maktoum and the other ruling families could and should be paying.

Hugh, could you please explain to me why one drop of precious American blood should be shed for the protection of these corrupt princlings and their "assets"???

Why not just let them reap the whirlwind?

"....could you please explain to me why one drop of precious American blood should be shed for the protection of these corrupt princlings and their "assets"???"
-- from a posting above

The current arrangement is unsatisfactory. The Americans have bases, temporary bases, in Kuwait and Qatar. And for that we are all supposed to be grateful. But no gratitude is required. The only reason the use of bases has been granted is because the ruling families in Qatar and Kuwait deem it in their self-interest; for the same reason, the Al-Saud had American airbases and even allowed them to be used during the Gulf War. For Saddam Hussein threatened them, and that -- not his massacres before, or massacres after, the invasion of Kuwait -- was all that mattered to the Al-Saud.

Americans benefit from an American military presence somewhere in the Gulf region. It could be in Oman (as was suggested in 1980 by someone). But it could be right smack on land, if it is determined that, say, Saudi policies, and restive Shi'a, require outright seizure of the oilfields of Al-Hasa. It would be less dangerous to seize and hold, one suspects, those main Saudi fields, and the ports and sea-lanes, than are current operations in Iraq to subdue the assorted actively hostile Sunni or Shi'a (and "passively hostile" describes almost all the remaining Arabs, whether Sunni or Shi'a, but not the Christians, and not the very tiniest sliver of the most westernized, advanced, secularized, Muslim Arabs of the Chalabi or Almusi or Allawi or Makiya (pseud.) variety, those unrepresentative men whom Pentagon and White House planners mistook for representative men. This tiny souche or sloy or level of Iraqi society cannot be counted on; they are too few, in Iraq as in Egypt, as in everywhere in the Arab Muslim states.

I was arguing that to protect the sea-lanes, and even Kharg Island and Dhammam and Dhahran, an American presence is now useful, but that a much harder bargain should be made. The Arabs and Muslims received $10 trillion in OPEC revenues in the last one-third century. We need to get all of that discretionary income that they spend on mosques and madrasas and campaigns of Da'wa and on Western hirelings back, as best we can. One way to do so is to begin charging what the market will bear. They want to send their students to the United States? They want Western medical care? Charge them not the full, non-scholarship price for tuition, but the price it really costs, to monitor these students, to worry about the damage they inflict, with their high-spending heedless ways (how many Americans have been injured or killed in accidents involving Saudi students over the past 30 years? How many girls have been misused? How many colleges have been turned into farces by the Arb students who pay others to write their every paper, up to and including their doctoral theses?. Charge them for this, a half-million or so per head. And for access, by the rulers, to the best medical facilities and doctors in the world, charge them -- charge them far more than anyone else has to pay. If it costs a dollar or two to lift a barrel of Saudi crude, and it sells for 50 or 60 or 75 times that, start thinking how much you wish to charge Saudis for access to Western services. And coorindate, to the extent possible, with other Western countries, so that the Al-Saud princeling who will not pay enough to have his son treated at Children's Hospital or Dana-Farber cannot rush off to Harley Street. Get back as much of that money as can possibly be done. And start thinking about seizing the illiquid assets of Saudis if they cease to listen to our demands that they stop funding these mosques, these madrasas, this dangerous anti-Western propaganda.

That army of Western hirelings has been powerful. It has helped to damage the entire world, in fact, by preventing the imposition of a sensible tax on gasoline and on oil, as ought to have happened beginning in 1973. There is evidence that a cabal of Arab interests and some oil companies helped prevent, for example, the development of nuclear energy in Italy (so unlike what happened in France), and this deserves much more investigation. It is time for others, incorruptible others, to seize control of energy policy all over the Western world, and to do whatever it takes to diminish Arab and Muslim revenues. And it is time for others, in the Pentagon and the State Department, to think of nothing else but this: what can we do to use up those unmerited revenues, how can we force them to spend that money, those vast sums. Part of it should be diverted to spending on the poorer Muslims. Infidels can make a big noise about the selfishness of the rich Arabs, and never let up; let the whole world, but especially the Muslims in Pakistan, and Jordan, and Egypt, and Indonesia now that it too is about to cease to be an oil-exporting nation, must have presented to them (and this is the kind of thing that should be beamed in on Arabic-language programs or other channels aimed at other Muslims, and not idiotic programs on how splendidly Muslims prosper in the Western world - how stupid can one get?). Emphasize the fantastic luxury in which they wallow, show more pictures, and stilll more, of those $10,000 a night hotel rooms in Dubai. Write about Saudi palaces, and about how much the Al-Saud, the Al-Thani, the Al-Maktoum (the ones who specialized in mistreating camel jockeys at home, and horse jockeys abroad) make, all from an accident of geology, all revenues that should be part of a national, and not a particular family's patrimony).

Unfortunately, the thick-skulled administration shows no signs of waging this propaganda war. It thinks war is "boots on the ground." Sometimes it is. But this is primarily a war to prevent, by non-military means, the slow and insidious takeover of the Lands of the Infidels, and also to prevent, by non-military means, the growing appeal of the Jihad to Muslims within Dar al-Islam. The war will be won by depriving the Arabs of that money weapon that came into being after 1973, and supplied the wherewithal to fund the Jihad on a scale that eneabled it to go world-wide, rather than be limited to the Lesser Jihad against Israel and the equally endless one against India and Hindus even in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

The entire world should be bombarded with information about just how much the rich Arabs and Muslims have already taken in, and what they have spent their trillions on, and pointing out that they have failed completely to create modern economies. The entire world should be bombarded with information aboutr the incredibles selfishness, the fantastic luxury, of those rich Arabs, the ruling families, and their courtiers, and their Western hirelings. Such names as James Akins and Raymond Close and Eugene Bird should become household names, and their English and French analogues as well -- let's see who has been making money, and how much, and for what. Let Congress insist on investigating the use of Arab, especially Saudi, money, to make this country more vulnerable to Muslim siren-songs, Muslim propaganda. This was not done by the 9/11 commission. But the OPEC revenues will not stop, but will only increase. So the Western world cannot stop the Saudis and others from expanding their army of hirelings. But if The New Duranty Times spent one-hundredth of the attention it has spent expoosing secret programs on that army of Western hirelings, beginning, say, with the role of ARAMCO (see J. B. Kelly), and then listing the ex-diplomats, journalists, intelligence agents, businessmen, who have done Saudi bidding, that would be a great service, for spotlights shown will make others think twice about being eager to accept Arab money for promoting the Arab and Muslim view of things. Embarrassment, shame, all that can play a role in limiting the natural cupidity of so many in American life, not least in Washington.

And then there is the bad habit the Western world has fallen into of this disguised Jizyah of foreign aid, to every Muslim state or people who happen to have been born without the gigantic trust fund of oil and gas deposits. Stop the practice. Stop it especially because the recipients -- Egypt, the "Palestinians," the Pakistanis, others -- seem to think it is now theirs by right, just as the Muslims in Western Europe have so abused every conceivable offeering by the Infidel nation-states and their longsuffering taxpayers, in the free education (with classes and curricula disrupted by violent or menacing Muslim students and their parents), free medical care (with doctors' offices and clinics and hospitals disrupted by Muslim men insisting on accompanying their wives or children, and being the sole means of communication with the doctor, and with Muslim husbands even going so far as to insistthat male Infidel surgeons work with their backs turned, dictating to female subordinates who then carry out procedures on female Muslim patients), free or subsidized housing (where violent Muslims have threatened, made lives hell for, the non-Muslim recipients of such housing, and of course some of the younger non-Muslim males, desiring to fit in with menacing Muslims, accept and emulate their ways, or even become Muslims to curry their favor and escape Muslim bullying -- not the least of the reasons that the economically marginal in Europe are vulnerable to being islamized -- not only the desire to get back at "the System" in the socially acceptable way of embracing Islam, but fear of Muslims, causes some in those poorer classes to become Muslims themselves).

We have to figure out a thousand ways to make the Arabs use up their unmerited, unearned wealth. Surely we can.

Meanwhile, let's raise a glass to Crockford's and the Societe monegasque des bains de mers and all the soignees Madame Claudes and Sabbia-rosas of this world. But only a glass. We all need to be working to separate the House of Al-Saud from its allowance. Unless, of course, it agreees to completely change its ways. But it won't. It can't.

Interesting. But how realistic it is to expect the Muslims to leave the West Bank voluntarily, given that the rest of the Muslim world would presumably be attempting to keep them in the West Bank, e.g. by refusing to admit them to other Muslim countries?

Thanks for your response. Much food for thought there.

I particularly like the media campaign you describe. Tony Snow, are you watching?

Hugh,
I can't understand why you seem to think these Kurds are any different than other Sunni Muslim people is beyond me. While a few Kurdish leaders like Abdullah Ocalan are real secularists (Ocalan is a former Marxist) the vast majority are Muslim true believers. Just look at the Kurds in France, Germany, or Scandinavia. Freed from Turkish oppression by being in Europe, these Euro-Kurds have not concentrated on emphasizing "Kurdishness" and slowly, but surely, de-emphasizing the role of Islam. Instead they have become some of the most fanatical of Muslims. It would be no different in an independent Kurdistan. The exception to this are the Alevis of Turkey who should be supported as well. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alevi

The only just policy is the restoration of the rights of the original inhabitants. An independent Assyria and expanded Armenia are the only policies that are worthy of support.

I looked at the map. Where's Lugash?

This is one very wild pipe dream.

If only this US administration and the next one would listen to Hugh and Robert.

"I can't understand why you seem to think these Kurds are any different than other Sunni Muslim people is beyond me."
-- from a posting above

I have gone out of my way to mention, repeatedly, that Turks and Kurds participated in the mass murder of Armenians, something almost never mentioned. I have mentioned in other posts the kidnapping and murder of Christians, including the case of a Christian girl murdered by her Kurdish employer. But Christians in Iraq are also moving northward, and some appear to believe they will be safest in regions under Kurdish control. There is reason to think they are right. It may not be enough, and this will depend on how much the Kurds embrace secularism, and see Islam, more and more, not as a truly universalist religion but more accurately as the "Arab national religion." It is important that they do so, and even more important that a free Kurdistan, in being created raises this issue so that the world's attention, and the attention of non-Arab Mulims, focusses on this matter of Arab supremacism within Islam. It is a very good topic to raise, in order to get the non-Arab Muslims who make up 80% of the world's Muslims, to begin to feel the resentment that they should feel, to stop thinking they must adopt Arab names, worship 7th century Arab ways of doing things, parrot Arab political ambitions, turn toward Arabia, concoct false Arab lineages. The whole thing needs to be exposed, and discussed endlessly, so as to make sure that non-Muslim Arabs who have begun to have their doubts about Islam can emulate Ataturk, with his cult of "the Turk" and then, posthumously, the cult of Ataturk himself.

When the identity furnished by Islam is not reinforced but undercut by another, and competing, identity -- that of ethnicity -- then this can provide a purchase for forcing those who call themselves Muslims to begin to see what is wrong with Islam. Almost all of the articulate defectors from Islam to date have been Iranians or Pakistani in origin, save for the new addition, Wafa Sultan. That should not surprise. The "maghrebins laics" in France consist mostly of Berbers.

Kurds endured persecution and mass murder by Arabs, directly by Saddam Hussein and his Arab forces. But these massacres, and the persecution for decades that came after, and the persecution that continued below the level of the American protected zone, were looked upon by Arabs everywhere not with horror or dismay -- not a single syllable of protest was ever uttered, ever, about any of this by the Arab League. Kanan Makiya, virtually alone, wrote about this, but his focus was narrow -- he never went on to discuss the general contempt for, and mistreatment of, non-Arab Muslims by Arab Muslims. The entire subject of Arab supremacism was avoided, either because he could not allow himself to see it, or he did not wish to publicize it, for even he feels defensive and protective about his "grandmother's Islam." He too, therefore, is limited as a guide. As he attacks the Arabs for their indifference to the massacre of the Kurds, he himself cannot follow the story further, and broaden it to include, for example, black African Muslims (in Darfur an elsewhere) or Berbers.

Is it surprising that, having been protected by American forces, and having seen how the Arabs warn darkly -- as they do -- that an independent Kurdistan would be "a second Israel" -- presumably because the entire Middle East must belong to the Arabs, to this made-up area called the "Arab world," that Kurds turned out to be, as all American officers and men know, so genuinely friendly, so reliable in their aid, that the American soldiers with whom I have talked kept referring to "the Iraqis and the Kurds."

Many Kurds in Kurdistan, and outside Kurdistan, have decided that their Kurdish identity is more important than their "Islamic" one, and this realization must have been aided by the awareness of how the Arabs have always treated them. And in coming to this realization, and out of gratitude as well to the (Infidel) Americans, and in beginning to conceive of themselves as having something in common with Infidel Israel -- have you forgotten, by the way, that in thew 1960s several Kurdish pilots defected from the Iraqi army, flying their planes to Israel? -- there is a hope that this attitude will grow and grow.

And the interests of the Kurds, in claiming Mosul and Kirkuk and the oil that has been stolen from them for many decades by the Arabs of Iraq, are naturally opposed to regimes that are enemies of the United States -- to wit, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the Syrian Arab Republic. About Turkey, a quid-pro-quo whereby Turkey will drop its objections to this independent, and even enlarged Kurdistan, as long as no territorial demands are made on it (and this can be guaranteed by the United States as Kurdistan's main protector), could be obtained if the American government were bold and clever enough to do so, instead of listening to those who keep suggesting that "it just can't be done" and "Turkey would never agree." Turkey does not have the claim on our affections that it once had; if anything, it is Turkey that needs to have a kind of riot act read to it, or rather to the current government there, and if it tries to use that to whip up anti-American sentiment, then the Turkish army, one hopes, will at long last do what it has done before, remove the regime, and realize, with the help of all those Turkish beneficiaries of Kemalism, that they underestimated the power of Islam and the cunning of Erdogan, and will simply use force to reinstitute, and broaden, the Kemalist constraints on Islam. Once this would have been protested in the capitals of the Western world. No longer. Not in this new world.

And the effects of an independent Kurdistan would go far beyond Iran and Syria. The achievement would be noticed by Berbers in the Kabyle. Why, after all, and how, did a handful of Arabs manage to arabize so many Berbers, for surely most of those "Arabs" are really Berbers who, once they believe themselves to be Arabs, proceed to turn on the Berbers who did not submit, who did not agree to be arabized. The cultural and linguistic imperialism of the Arabs has been protested, bitterly, by the more advanced Berbers -- more advanced and more secular.

In France, too, it is the Berbers who make up that part of the maghrebin population most likely to be able to integrate, most open to seeing what is wrong with Islam.

I'll end with this comment by a well-known Berber nationalist:

"BELKACEM LOUNES : Président du Congrès Mondial Amazigh (Mouvement International Berbères).

Peu, trop peu de voix osent s’élever publiquement aujourd’hui contre les violences générées directement par les discours de haine que prêchent les mouvements islamistes. Les communautés juives un peu partout dans le monde sont lâchement agressées cela nous est intolérable. Il est impératif que chacun citoyen, élu, décideur de ce pays ouvre les yeux sur cette réalité et comprennent une fois pour toute que le projet islamiste n’est pas simplement judéophobe ou francophobe, il est tout simplement anti-humain car il préfère l’amour de la mort en lieu et place de l’amour de la vie …. Les obscurantistes responsables d’actes antisémites et de violence à l’encontre même des musulmans paisibles de ce pays constituent une infime minorité le plus souvent au service d’intérêts étrangers…. J’appelle le peuple français à ne pas se laisser aller au jeu facile de l’amalgame et à ne pas se réfugier dans le vote xénophobe… J’assure la communauté juive de notre total soutien, de notre amitié et de notre fraternité. Ensemble dressons nous contre l’obscurantisme, que la lumière soit et que la lumière fuse."

Wherever and whenever resentment against the Arab supremacism that is part of Islam can be located, that resentment, and the political movmeents, nationalist in nature, that are prompted by it, should be encouraged.

It had to happen: I totally agree but like levitation and spiritual healing just because it sounds like a very sensible idea, it has a long way to go and against much fierce arab resistance to ever be possible that we seem to be already very unwilling to confront. So ? a "pipe dream" albeit a very good one.

"Middle Eastern Arabic-speaking Christians, such as those now in Iraq, may wish to consider moving to eastern Judea and Samaria -- the "West Bank" as it was ridiculously renamed by the Jordanians in 1948. (Even more ridiculously, that name became standard in the Western world, rather than the toponyms that had been in use for several millennia, and were good enough for, inter alia, Jesus of Nazareth). Christians in the West could agree to spend a year or two, as living witnesses, living in Israel, and possibly deliberately choosing to live in that area now called "the West Bank.""
--posted by Hugh

No to Mid Eastern Christians. Their propaganda efforts have caused enough damage to Israel. And they are not exactly friendly towards Jews. It's important to populate some of cities in Judea-Samaria with majority Christian populations to take care of the sacred sites and to stave off the Muslims, but importing them from the Middle East sounds like a crazy and risky idea. Importing evangelicals from America and Christians from Eastern Europe and Russia seems like a far more sane plan. The Mid Eastern Christians should be saved from the menace of Islam, but letting them into Israel sounds like a dangerous idea. Let them go to Lebanon.

The issue Ralph Peters has raised, and that Hugh has elaborated on, is actually a special case of a more general dilemma that has confronted the U.S. since 9-11: In this fight against Islamic terrorism, whom should we want as our allies? And more importantly, whom should we NOT want as our allies?

Immediately after 9-11, Colin Powell and the rest of the State Department went to work to build the largest possible coalition of nations against al-Qaeda. The more, the merrier, he thought. Attempting to emulate the successful 30 nation coalition against Saddam in the first Gulf War of 1991, Colin Powell made side deals with literally dozens of nations, including even Syria (a known sponsor of Islamic terrorism), to get them into this coalition against al-Qaeda. And of course, Colin Powell built upon NATO as it currently exists, which includes Turkey as a sovereign member.

But all these nations have their own narrow interests; and they demanded (and we agreed to) lots of quid pro quos for their agreeing to join us against al-Qaeda. The upshot was that we end up legitimizing and freezing in place some very unsavory regimes, while turning our back on some legitimate regimes and peoples. Turkey, in particular, demanded that the U.S. not grant Kurdish independence, and we agreed to that. On the other hand, Israel was pointedly excluded from our anti-al-Qaeda coalition, to avoid offending the Arab states. And legitimizing every existing Arab national boundary, including the existing borders of Iraq, leaves America open to the charge that we are emulating the European colonialists ourselves.

I always thought we would have more flexibility if we limited ourselves to a smaller coalition tailored specifically to the long-term issue of jihad. In particular, no Muslim state should be in our anti-jihad coalition, unless its people (not just its regime, which could be unstable) are moderate. Right now, Dubai is about the only Muslim state I would trust to join us in our anti-terror coalition. Because the people there know that under a Taliban-like state, their days as a playground for the rich would be over. It is simply ridiculous for America to treat Syria or Saudi Arabia as our allies on counter-terrorism, or anything else substantive for that matter.

So my proposed anti-terror coalition would consist of: most English-speaking nations; Mexico; Israel; Dubai; and France. (Yes, France. They don't give a good accounting of themselves in war, but in counter-terrorism and intelligence gathering they are good.) That's it.

As for the accusation that such a coalition would appear to be "anti-Islamic," I would have a simple answer: All Muslim peoples (not regimes) who oppose terrorism can join us, as soon as they have put themselves on the record via a free and fair plebiscite that they oppose both the methods and the goals of all major Islamic terrorist groups. That means, they must renounce the goals of al-Qaeda and Hamas and Hezbollah in a free and fair plebiscite. Once they have done that, we can welcome them as partners.

Hugh,
You wrote in response to my post: "But Christians in Iraq are also moving northward, and some appear to believe they will be safest in regions under Kurdish control."

That doesn't seem to be what the Christians themselves report. They are leaving Baghdad and moving north for two reasons. First, the majority of Christians have been concentrated in the north, i.e. the ancient Assyrian homeland. They are going there to join up with other Christians. Unfortunately, this area is now under Kurdish, not Christian, control. So the second reason comes into play. That is, it is easier to escape into Alawite Syria from the north because the US military has completely sealed off the Syrian border everywhere else.

"Kurds endured persecution and mass murder by Arabs, directly by Saddam Hussein and his Arab forces."

For this reason, the Kurds especially hate the Christians because they consider them to have been the intellectual core of the Ba'ath Party and its secularist (in their view, anti-Islamic) ideology.

"Many Kurds in Kurdistan, and outside Kurdistan, have decided that their Kurdish identity is more important than their "Islamic" one"

And many Turks like Kemal Ataturk considered Turkish identity is more important than their Islamic one. We see how long that lasted!

"And the interests of the Kurds, in claiming Mosul and Kirkuk and the oil that has been stolen from them for many decades by the Arabs of Iraq"

Although this is true about Kirkuk, it is dead wrong about Mosul. Assyria has the sole legitimate claim on Mosul which is but a few kilometers from ancient Ninevah. If not for the Turkish/Kurdish genocide of a century ago, Mosul would still have a Christian majority.

While your hope that Islam is somehow weaker among Kurds than Arabs, would be wonderful if true, I fear the Kurds are no different than any other Sunni Muslims. Remember Salah al-Din.

prosvoslavni your right mosul belongs to the assyrians its there historical homeland not the kurds

kurds are responsible for massacring the Christian assyrians under the ottoman empire the kurds killed thousands of christians in Iraq in 1915 the kurds also helped the Turks slaughter Armenians and yet kurds are seen as a freind and ally to America just shows Americas ignorance again by ignoring muslims genociding christians

forget the kurds having a homeland in north iraq north iraq belongs to the assyrian christians

When one talks of Mosul, one needs to have some sense of reality. It is clear that the Christian Assyrians will not be able to stake a claim to the oil near Mosul. What they hope for is simply to be allowed to live and to practice their religion, without constant fear of harassment and discrimination and persecution and murder by Muslims. This is a modest desire. It is the same desire of the Maronites in Lebanon, and the Copts in Egypt. But even this modest desire, which seemed possible under the old dispensation in Lebanon (when the Maronites were also helped by French support and the French presence), and in Egypt in pre-Nasserite days (those good old, Durrellian days, as evoked by the title of a new Egyptian play, "The Yacoubian Building," with those Italians, and Jews, and Greeks, and Armenians, and the holdovers from the Cromer-Cecil good-government administration that officially lasted from 1882 to 1922, but had effects that continued on, especially since the British returned during World War II, and the Gazette de Caire, and all that nostalgia for a lost world that has been exaggerated, and htat was permanently ended by the anti-Infidel measures that Nasser (Nasser the "secularist" and "nationalist"), undertook, including his cruel and crude seizure of assets of people whose families had lived in Egypt for generations.

It is unrealistic to suggest that the Christians could press a clai mto Mosul. They can't, any more than the Copts can now press a claim for Cairo -- much as the Copts deserve Cairo, and indeed all of Egypt. It is not unrealistic, however, for the United States to extract a promise, and to monitor the fulfillment of that promise (something it did not do with Egypt's promises under the Camp David Accords that Carter and Brzezinski forced down Begin's throat), by the Kurds, to protect the Christian enclave, and to guarantee its prosperity and even a share in the oil wealth. Why should Kurdistan do this? Because if it doesn't, it could lose the support, diplomatic and conceivably military (in the form of equipment and intelligence from drones and spy satellites), of the only nation that can offer it anything of value -- the United States.

I have been taken to task before for supposedly overlooking the treatment by the Kurds of Christians. I have continually mentioned the Kurdish participation in the massacres of Armenians, and have mentioned the examples, recently, of Kurds who attacked or murdered Christians. But I also think that the Kurds are more likely, in current circumstances, to see the need to behave, and to the extent that their ethnic (Kurdish) identity can clash with, and undercut, their identification with Islam (and that will happen the more Islam is depicted, truthfully, as a vehicle for Arab supremacism), so that the impulse that causes Muslims of all kinds to treat Christians badly (how are they doing in Basra? how are they doing in Ramadi, where the last four Christian families had their women kidnapped and children forcibly converted to Islam? how are they doing in Baghdad, where the Christian professionals are leaving every day?)

I don't know if the Americans can extract that promise by the Kurds to help establish a "Chaldo-Assyrian Safe Haven in Northern Iraq" as outlined in a copy of "Nineveh" -- extending from Rizgary in the north, including the areas of Sumel, Telkaif, and Hamdaniya, which the Assyrians suggest could be a separate administrative region, It would be protected by Americans working through the Kurds, and any sign of Kurdish betrayal of promises could promptly lead to a cut-off in American diplomatic and other support (including weapons supplies). Could it succeed? It depends on how the Kurds, who have supplied the only troops helpful to the Americans, and whose populations seem genuinely grateful to the Infidel "Crusaders," decide to view those Christians. Some of the Kurds, the kind who are of the Mullah Krekar Ansar al-Islam school, will treat them terribly. But how popular is Ansar al-Islam in Kurdistan? And would the prospect of an independent Kurdistan, taking over as well the Kurdish-populated lands in Iran and eastern (but not those in western) Syria, not force better behavior toward the Christians?

It is true that Ba'athism was a concoction designed to disguise the real nature of the minority rule in both Syria (where unorthodox Alawites held power) and in Iraq (where a Sunni Arab minority held power), one that was open to those of every confession or ethnicity -- as long as the real rules were observed. A Sunni Arab might be among the Syrian nomenklatura, the better to camouflage the Alawite rule, but only if he did not challenge that rule -- as former vice-president Khaddam is now doing from the safety of his fortified French castle. And we all know that some Shi'a (for example, Allawi for a short while) joined the Ba'athist government, and even the odd Christian (Tariq Aziz, with that Halloween-masque face reminiscent of the late unlamented Bani-Sadr). But the "secularist" mask has been ripped off, and Islamic impulses are much more evident among both the Shi'a and the Sunnis, and all those advanced, secular Iraqis-once-in-exile turn out to have been exceptions to the rule, unrepresentative men assumed by American policymakers to represent the "real Iraq." It was nonsense.

The notion of an autonomous region for the Christians of Iraq is not far-fetched. But demands made for Mosul would queer that pitch. The Kurds are the only force on the ground who might, out of self-interest, guarantee within their own autonomous region a smaller, Christian autonomous region. Surely it is not beyond the wit of the American administration, as it makes plans (surely it is making plans, surely it has realized if not the full folly, at least part of the folly, of its messianic Iraq-the-Model notions)to leave, to start talking, quite quietly, to representatives of the Kurds, about what the Kurds can do for the Christians, if the Americans are to change their minds, and decide to support an independent Kurdistan.

Hugh,

Your sad observation of the current realpolitik is probably accurate, especially as long as the Western military presence there is under the control of the Muslim American satrap Zalmay Khalilzad and the Lebanese Islamo-christian John Abizaid.

However, such defeatism only gives legitimacy to the current situation. If anyone should stand on principle it should be Dhimmi Watch/Jihad Watch. Mosul is the capital of Assyria whether the Muslim Kurds accept it or not! A condition for the establishment of an independent Kurdistan must be an independent Assyria.

The modern secularist prejudice against anything Christian cannot be allowed to triumph. If Muslim ethnic minorities have a right to assert their nationalism then Christian minorities have that same right. Assyrians, Armenians, Greeks from Smyrna and Constantinople, Kosovo Serbs, Palestinian Christians, Lebanese Christians, and Copts all have a God given right not only for survival but also for self-determination.

"Muslim American satrap Zalmay Khalilzad and the Lebanese Islamo-christian John Abizaid."
-- from a posting above

This remark is unfair to both men. Zalmay Khalilzad is clearly a Fouad-Ajamish Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only Muslim, and that's fine.

As for General Abizaid, there is nothing "islamochristian" about him. He is not an apologist for Islam. He is perhaps the general who served in Iraq who most keenly understands the nature of Islam, and the one who, consequently, is most worried about this "war on terror" misnaming, and the wasteful "Light Unto the Muslim Nations" project that Bush and his loyalists cling to. He has nothing in common with the "Palestinian" islamochristians of the Naim Ateek-Hanan Ashrawi school. If you seek others like him, look at Brigitte Gabriel and her excellent website. Or the man who runs "Ecce Libano." That's what General Abizaid is like.

Hugh,

If I was being harsh to both men, I'm willing to apologize. However, they have presided over the transformation of Iraq into an Islamic state and the subsequent persecution of Iraq's Christian, Yezidi, and Mandean populations.

Of course, the ultimate responsiblity lies with George Bush and his Neo-Con advisors. There is no denying that non-Muslims were far better off under Saddam and his Ba'athists than they are in the new "liberated" Iraq.

"However, they [Khalilzad and Abizaid] have presided over the transformation of Iraq into an Islamic state and the subsequent persecution of Iraq's Christian, Yezidi, and Mandean populations."
-- from a posting above

No, it was out of their hands. There was nothing they could do to prevent the new force of Islam, which has also made life unpleasant for the more secular and advanced Muslims. The Mandean libraries of ancient manuscripts were already being burned in 2003. The uncertain position of the Christians in Iraq is hardly their fault. It was inevitable once Saddam Hussein and his regime, horrible as it was, fell. The fact is that the Christians in the Middle East cannot endure Muslim rule for long, and they will have to either leave the area, or arrange for safe areas -- such as that "Chaldo-Assyrian" site possibly to be located under Kurdish (i.e., in the end, American) auspices and protection mentioned in "Nineveh."

As for blaming "Bush and his Neo-Con advisors," the word "Neo-Con" has become so cheap, and so suspect, as a Buchananite code-word for "Jewish" advisors, that it ought to be avoided altogether. And the word "Neo-con" does not fit either Bush, or Rice, or Rumsfeld, or Cheney, yet they all seem to be obstinately determined to continue this Iraq War #2 (the one that started once Saddam Hussein was captured -- which ought to have marked the end of America's direct intervention in Iraq). Finally, it is not only the current policymakers, but many in the past, who failed to learn about Islam, who contiued to spread the dreamy misinformation that Saudi Arabia was our "staunch ally" and that has its roots in the Cold War notion of Islam as a "bulwark against Communism" and the fondness of some in Washington for such cockamamie schemes as the CENTO alliance, and for favoring Pakistan over India becuase those Pakistani generals were so -- so trustworthy.

Blame Bush and Rice and Cheney and Rumsfeld along with Wolfowitz and Perle, but also blame so many others: blame James Baker, true friend ("boughten friendship" as Robert Frost would say) to Saudis and other rich Arabs. Blame his predecessors as Secretaries of State and Treasury. Blame Kissinger, blame Scowcroft. Blame the ludicrous Brzezinski, who now dares to pontificate on NPR about his "four-part plan" (remember how Brzezinski used to love these schemes, used to love the sound of that word "strategic that he would drop into every second sentence?), the same Brzezinski who still hasn't the faintest idea about Islam or Jihad, and who with Carter abandoned the Shah and even welcomed Khomeini, not as Carter did ("a fellow man of faith") but still badly. Those were the days of the Gary Sicks, and that johnny-jump-up (J. B. Kelly keeps wondering how he managed to do it) Robert Hunter, who somehow parlayed his modest gifts into becoming that appetizing thing, ambassador to NATO (and Shireen, his wife, whose anti-American nastiness Kelly still remembers from a quarter-century ago, is still going strong somewhere -- SAIS is it?). Blame them, blame Raymond Close, and James Akins, and all those who contributed to that atmosphere of misunderstanding about Islam. Blame the stupid CIA agents who still think their finest hour was helping the mujahedin in Afghanistan, and blame a system that permits an obvious simpleton like Scheuer to be put in charge of something called, ridiculously, the "Bin Laden desk." Blame Madeline Albright, who blandly reports that the other Arab leaders "had no idea what Saddam Hussein was doing inside his country, and I know this because they told me so directly." Blame Gary Sick, with his Iran policy that helped bring Khomeini to power, still oozing his venom at -- where else? -- Columbia's MEALAC.

Blame Richard Haass and Dennis Ross who spent years on those idiotic negotiations between Israel and the Arabs, or rather the "Palestians," and never once thought to find out about the clear doctrine, in Islam, governing "treaties" bewteen Muslims and Infidels. I doubt if Dennis Ross even today has bothered to read Majid Khadduri or any other relevant writer on the subject. He's not a reader. He's a plane-trip taker. He's a frequent flyer. He's a "doer" not a thinker. His entire professional life has been a waste, testimony to his own silliness and ignorance, and he still doesn't know it -- nor do the magnates who currently support him (who is it now? is it Haim Saban, or is he the one supporting Martin Indyk? They're so hard to keep apart).

Plenty of blame -- and it started decades ago, when the ARAMCO World propaganda on behalf of Saudi Arabia first started. And it found all sorts of outlets, including Melville Grosvenor's National Geographic (remember all those stories about wonderful, progressive, Saudi Arabia, with its "majlis" and all those glossy pictures by -- who was it? -- yes, Robert Azzi, that was the one). National Geographic, when it comes to the Middle East, has been merely a bunch of pretty pictures and misinformation.

Blame all round. As much blame as one might have assigned, throughout the ruling circles in London and Paris, in 1939, when it finally came to what it finally came to.

-- "It was inevitable once Saddam Hussein and his regime, horrible as it was, fell."

Exactly! The biggest mistake was destroying the Ba'ath thus creating a power vacuum that has been filled by Islamists.

-- "As for blaming "Bush and his Neo-Con advisors," the word "Neo-Con" has become so cheap, and so suspect, as a Buchananite code-word for "Jewish" advisors, that it ought to be avoided altogether"

Neo-Con is exactly what these people call themselves. Ex-Trotskyites who still believe in permanent revolution albeit now in the name of Democracy. Their pipe-dreams of bringing democracy to Muslims is the root of the destruction wrought on the non-Muslims of the Middle East. While some like Wolfowitz are Jewish, most are not. Remember also, Grover Norquist is also considered a Neo-Con.

Bad as he was, Saddam was probably a positive good vis a vis the majority of Muslim leaders, so much blame can go to the first Bush. If the US had stayed out, Saddam may have taken Arabia, hung the Saudi princes and destroyed the funding source of Jihadists everywhere. Unfortunately, like the British and French during the Crimean War, the US is on the wrong side of history in Iraq.

i didnt agree with the war in iraq as much as saddam was a dictator he was against alquieda and he offered some protection to iraqi christians now this war in iraq has resulted in a new iraqi goverment with shariah law in it and assyrian christians being ethnicly cleansed more then they ever where before Bush has really messed up in iraq