A MOMENT OF CHAOS

“Revolution is not a dinner party, not an essay, nor a painting, nor a piece of embroidery; it cannot be advanced softly, gradually, carefully, considerately, respectfully, politely, plainly and modestly.”

~ Mao Tse Tung.

For the last few days, I have been watching the news about the escalation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, and I think it's important to note that this whole mess goes directly to one source: Iran. Anyone who thinks otherwise simply does not know how things work in the Middle East. The Persians, being the natural cowards that they are, like to use their proxies to fight their battles for them, and in this case they are employing the Ba'athi Syrians and their puppet, Nasrallah.

The other day there was an interesting analysis of the Persian Empire's Lebanese proxy from, of all places, the LATimes. Taking a look at that article, we find the following:

The country's [Lebanon's] elected government was still in meetings Wednesday, arguing over what to say in public, when Hezbollah chief Sheik Hassan Nasrallah went before television cameras with a pointed threat for the ruling elite.

"Today is a time for solidarity and cooperation, and we can have discussions later. I warn you against committing any error. This is a national responsibility," the cleric said, looking every inch the head of state.

Any criticism over the capture of the two Israeli soldiers would be tantamount to colluding with Israel, Nasrallah said, making it clear that he expected citizens and officials to heed his orders.

"To the Lebanese people, both officials and non-officials, nobody should behave in a way that encourages the enemy to attack Lebanon, and nobody should say anything that gives cover to attack Lebanon," he said.

Nasrallah was careful to frame the raid — which occurred less than three weeks after Palestinian militant groups, including the Hamas military wing, captured an Israeli soldier in a similar cross-border attack just outside the Gaza Strip — as a noble strike on behalf of Lebanon and Arab nationalism. Its goal was to free Lebanese and other Arab prisoners, many of them Palestinian, held in Israel by forcing Israel into a prisoner swap, he said.

In other words, Lebanon has an elected government like Turkey has an elected government, which means to say that the elected Lebanese government isn't worth so much as a hanging chad. Maybe it's not so odd that this whole business pops up at a moment when Persian chestnuts are being held over an international fire, a fire fueled by Persian desires to acquire nuclear weapons and Persian meddling in Iraq. It makes me wonder if North Korea's big show of missile launches aren't also a Persian inspiration.

It sounds like the Lebanese government got Nasrallah's message, though, from NPR:

In his first public speech since the fighting began, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora condemned Israel's actions as "collective punishment," and said it has "no moral or legal legitimacy." He also indirectly criticized Hezbollah, saying only the state had the right to make decisions of peace and war. Siniora repeated that he had no prior knowledge of Hezbollah's plan to kidnap the Israeli soldiers.

Siniora pledged to expand Lebanese government authority across the country. The government is a delicate mix of ethnic and religious factions, and is considered too weak to confront Hizbollah despite agreeing to a U.N. resolution to do so. This has left the Shiite militia group operating as a quasi-independent force in the south.

Nasrallah is the de facto ruler of Lebanon with Hezbollah as the de facto government, and both answer only to Teheran. A recent article from the NYTimes tries to tell us that the relationship between the evil Persian Empire and Hezbollah are opaque, and therefore "few would suggest that Syria or Iran can issue direct orders to Hezbollah," but then our intrepid reporter goes on to discuss the weapons provided to Hezbollah by Iran:

Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, asserted in a May 2005 speech that Hezbollah had more than 12,000 rockets, all of which were believed to be various forms of Katyushas provided by Iran. That coincides with estimates by Israeli and Western officials.

Until now, Hezbollah limited itself to using rockets with a range of 12 miles, but for the past several years Israeli officials have warned that Iran had provided more serious systems, including the 240-millimeter Fajr-3 missile, with a range of about 25 miles, and the 333-millimeter Fajr-5 missile, with a range of about 45 miles. The Fajr-5 could reach the northern Israeli city of Haifa and areas even farther south. On Thursday, Hezbollah-backed Al Manar TV broadcast images of the new long-range missiles. It is unclear how many Hezbollah might have.

The NYTimes report also mentions the 100-200 million USD's that the Persian Empire annually forks over to Nasrallah's boy scouts, but states that this amount is peanuts compared to donations received from Western Shi'a expats.

Hell, yeah! Let a Kurd send a hundred bucks back to Hewlêr so that mom can be fitted with a prosthetic device because she chased a sheep into one of Saddam's minefields and the jackasses at the FBI think they've caught an honest-to-God terrorist, but not so for those supporting totalitarian political Islam of the Persian flavor. Hezbollah supporters are free to donate more than 200 million greenbacks to their favorite charity.

Furthermore, in contradiction to its own editorial efforts, the NYTimes quotes an Iran expert from Stanford University:

“Would Hezbollah use a sophisticated missile that can hit Haifa without permission from Iran?” said Prof. Abbas Milani, chairman of Iranian studies at Stanford University. “I doubt it.”

No kidding. I doubt it too.

MEMRI is carrying some news about the renewed security agreement between Iran and Syria. Quoting Al-sharq Al-Awsat from 16 June:

"Well-informed sources in Tehran have told Al-Sharq Al-Awsat that the talks held in Tehran between Syrian Defense Minister Hassan Turkmani and his Iranian counterpart Mustafa Mohammad Najjar did not only deal with military and security aspects of the strategic cooperation between the two countries, but also with the situation in Lebanon... [The talks also] dealt with the situation in Palestine, and with the ways of assisting the Hamas and the [Islamic] Jihad in their conflict with Fatah...

"In a meeting with reporters after the signing of the military cooperation agreement, the Syrian defense minister stated that 'the American threats against Iran and Syria are nothing new... We are examining ways of countering these threats, and are establishing a joint front against Israel's threats... [since] Iran regards Syria's security as its own.'"

The daily reported that the Syrian defense minister had visited Tehran at the head of a large delegation escorted by army and intelligence officers, and met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iranian Chief of Staff Hassan Fayrouz and Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander Yahya Rahim Safavi.

It further reported that "Iran has agreed to finance Syrian military deals with Russia, China and Ukraine, to equip the Syrian army with cannon, warheads, army vehicles, and missiles manufactured by the Iranian Defense Industries, and to enable Syrian navy drills.

"Syria, on its part, has renewed its previous agreements with Iran which allow Iranian ammunition trucks to pass [through Syria] into Lebanon..."

Al-Sharq Al-Awsat added that the Syrian and Iranian defense ministers "had agreed to establish a 'consultation room' and maintain open communication channels between the two countries in security and military matters."

So, military deals with Russia, China and Ukraine will be funded for Syria by Iran. . . no wonder Putin's at the G8 gathering, acting like an uptight little whore about to lose a client. I wonder what kind of deal Jacques "The Rat" Chirac cut for himself?

For anyone who still thinks that connections between Hezbollah, Syria and the Persian Empire are still too "opaque" to decide who is ordering whom, check out the last paragraph at MEMRI:

According to a May 11, 2006 Al-Sharq Al-Awsat report, a high-level Iranian official who held a closed meeting with a small group of Western diplomats in London emphasized Hizbullah's importance to Iran: "Hizbullah is one of the pillars of our security strategy, and forms Iran's first line of defense against Israel. We reject [the claim] that it must be disarmed..."

The quotes from Al-Sharq al-Hayat implicate Turkey's ally, HAMAS, as being beneficiaries of the security agreement between Syria and Iran. No shock there, either, given that HAMAS operates out of Syria. Most of the opinion writers for Turkish media have been engaged in their usual hypocrisy about the poor, suffering Palestinians and Lebanese, although not a single one of them at any moment in their lives has ever expressed any sympathy whatsoever for the Kurds which they and their government have been murdering for the last 80+ years. In addition, their hypocrisy becomes even more apparent in the light of joint Turkish-Israeli efforts to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza.

That's another irony of the situation of Kurds under brutal Turkish occupation. Neither the fascist Ankara regime, nor any of its international enablers have ever permitted any kind of humanitarian aid to reach Kurds. None of these fascists even permit a sincere discussion of Kurdish oppression under the Ankara murderers, which means, of course, that the international community is also guilty of genocide. They are accessories to the crime.

The one blogger that I have read on this situation is Big Pharaoh. He has some interesting commentary, including one in which his Dad weighs in, and that's not something to overlook, since his dad was a general in the Egyptian army. Another good post from Big Pharaoh, and one which highlights the hypocrisy of any so-called Turkish mediation between Israel and Syria, is his post on Syria being next.

If the speculation on Big Pharaoh's post, "Syria Next," is true about the possible takeover of Syria by totalitarian political Islam in the wake of a power vacuum, then it's another irony of the Kurdish situation that the US and Israel, and the West in general, have maintained the status quo and played up to the Turks. It is not the Turks who view Ahmedinejad as the Hitler of our time, but the PKK.

The Syrian Ba'ath army and air force is going to be up the proverbial creek without a paddle when the IAF gets done doing to them what it did to the Egyptians in '67. The Turks will hold their line along the border with South Kurdistan because they're going to want to play the role of "invaluable mediator" between Iran and the West, and they can't do that if they get their noses dirty by becoming involved militarily.

Turkey loves to insinuate itself into these messes, which is a result of its desire to reestablish the same kind of regional control the Ottomans had. It can play itself as the confidante of both the West and the Persians, especially since the Arabs appear to be sitting this one out.

Since Syria may be next in line for a few IAF sorties, this might be an opportune moment for the Kurdish population of Damascus to visit the folks back home in Little South Kurdistan. Besides, when the moment of chaos arrives, I'm sure there will be a need for more Kurdish help in terminating, with extreme prejudice, the last remnants of the Syrian Ba'ath occupiers within Kurdish territory.

Carpe Diem!