Category Archives: Middle East

Updated: Bush Should Slither On His Belly to Bashar

Bush, Democrats, Iraq, Middle East

The White House is furious that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has traveled to meet with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus. Assad is not the only Middle East leader Pelosi is speaking to. Omigod! Diplomacy!

Trust Pelosi to give as good as she gets; she has pointed to the hypocrisy of the administration, having said nothing about the “the recent visits by Republican members of Congress.” The U.S. also participated “in a regional security conference in Baghdad last month that also included representatives from Iran and Syria.”

But here’s the real difficulty, as the press sees it: “The United States has poor relations with Syria, accusing it of interfering in Iraq.” Come to think of it, Bush, like the snake he is, should be slithering on his belly to Bashar to thank him for serving as the US’s pressure relief valve vis-a -vis Iraq.

Although the cable cretins don’t bother to report about them, and the administration smears reporters who try —millions of Iraqis have been displaced and uprooted in the aftermath of our invasion. Syria has been incredibly generous to these poor refugees. Together, Jordan and Syria have taken in 1.6 million fleeing Iraqi refugees. “On 20 October, Ron Redmond, UNHCR chief spokesman, said some 40,000 Iraqis are now arriving in Syria each month.” Take into account that these figures date back to October 2006.

Pelosi ought to thank the Syrian president for extending to the Iraqi refugees the use of its public schools and the health care system, although they “have to travel out of the country every six months to renew their visas and cannot hold work permits, resulting in high unemployment.” [I’m sure they don’t risk popping back to Iraq when visa renewal falls due, despite McCain’s assurances.]

IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Networks) reports that “the majority of Iraqi refugees in Syria live in the suburbs of Damascus, in deteriorating socio-economic conditions.” That’s where Pelosi should be headed.

Update: Of course, American interests in the Middle East are not to be conflated with Israel’s. The two countries have completely different interests in the region (the one “lives” there, so to speak; the other often makes life impossible for those who live there). The fact that Bush should be speaking to Bashar doesn’t mean that Israel ought to be doing the same. Israel would be in better shape if it didn’t aim above all to please or emulate the US. Syria wants Israel to return territory acquired due to Syria’s aggression. Israel should reject this “option” if it cares to survive. However, time and again Israel has shown that it is no more than an American satellite.

Further reading:

From Russia With (Less Than) Love

Who’s the Boss — Israel or the U.S.?

Updated ‘Reza Aslan’s Pogrom Amnesia’

Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Media, Middle East

About Reza Aslan, the darling of the media on all things Muslim, Myles Kantor observes the following:

“Last night I watched Sam Harris and Reza Aslan’s January 25 debate on religion at the Los Angeles Public Library. Toward the end, Harris noted the anti-Semitic character of the Middle East before the establishment of Israel in 1948.

Aslan responded in reference to pre-state Israel, ‘Before 1948, of course, there were tens of thousands of Jews living alongside their Arab neighbors without any problem at all.’

Without any problem at all? How about the Jerusalem pogrom in 1920 and the Jaffa pogrom in 1921? Or Arab massacres of Jews in Hebron and Safad in 1929? Or the Tiberias pogrom in 1938? (There was a reason the Sephardic Jewish sage Maimonides wrote in 1172 regarding Arabs, ‘Never did a nation molest, degrade, debase, and hate us as much as they.’)

If Aslan is ignorant of this recurrent savagery, then the Harvard graduate’s study of pre-state Israel has been amazingly selective. If not, his misrepresentation of Arab-Jewish life before 1948 is revisionism in the same gutter as Holocaust denial.”

Or down at curb level with the New Historians’ output.

Update: the post was mentioned favorably at Jihad Watch.

Updated 'Reza Aslan's Pogrom Amnesia'

Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Media, Middle East

About Reza Aslan, the darling of the media on all things Muslim, Myles Kantor observes the following:

“Last night I watched Sam Harris and Reza Aslan’s January 25 debate on religion at the Los Angeles Public Library. Toward the end, Harris noted the anti-Semitic character of the Middle East before the establishment of Israel in 1948.

Aslan responded in reference to pre-state Israel, ‘Before 1948, of course, there were tens of thousands of Jews living alongside their Arab neighbors without any problem at all.’

Without any problem at all? How about the Jerusalem pogrom in 1920 and the Jaffa pogrom in 1921? Or Arab massacres of Jews in Hebron and Safad in 1929? Or the Tiberias pogrom in 1938? (There was a reason the Sephardic Jewish sage Maimonides wrote in 1172 regarding Arabs, ‘Never did a nation molest, degrade, debase, and hate us as much as they.’)

If Aslan is ignorant of this recurrent savagery, then the Harvard graduate’s study of pre-state Israel has been amazingly selective. If not, his misrepresentation of Arab-Jewish life before 1948 is revisionism in the same gutter as Holocaust denial.”

Or down at curb level with the New Historians’ output.

Update: the post was mentioned favorably at Jihad Watch.

DEBKAfile Says Saddam Execution Staged By US

Iraq, Israel, Middle East

After receiving irate letters from recovering waraholics about “No Due Process for a Despot,” my latest column, it appears, once again, my deductions therein were not only reasonable, but warranted. Iraqi sovereignty my foot; DEBKAfile confirms the following:

“Saddam Hussein’s execution was a stage in the newly-crafted Iraq strategy Bush has promised to unveil in the New Year.
The strategy, already in the works, was first revealed by DEBKA-Net-Weekly 283, Dec. 22. It hinged on the cooperation of two key national religious figures: the most revered Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, and the Sunni cleric with the most influence on the Sunni Arab insurgency and the Baath, Sheik Hares al-Dari, head of the Sunna Scholars Council. The plan as conceived by the US president is not contingent on engaging either Iran or Syria.
The next stage, possibly the toughest, is to bring a form of stability and security to Baghdad, for which an infusion of troops will be required, followed by the partition of Iraq into three semi-autonomous Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni regions. Baghdad will serve as the federal capital. Its key role will be the administration of Iraq’s oil resources. Oil revenue will be distributed equitably to all three regions by a higher oil authority, whose members will not be Iraqis but Iraqi federal government appointees backed by the national army.
These arrangements which depend largely on the continuing cooperation of the two clerics are intended to pave the way for the orderly exit of US forces from Iraq.”

A least DEBKAfile, an Israeli source for intelligence, doesn’t pretend that the Iraqis who hunker down in the Green Zone with the Americans are autonomous in any meaningful way.