Apache attack helicopters are constantly hovering over Baghdad now. Tracking them from my home in this city I can often estimate where the action is taking place.
[…]
Although the major Baghdad plan isn’t officially launched yet, every day we see several joint operations against targets in and around the city. Still, according to the latest leaked reports, it seems as if the major implementations of the plan are going to wait until the beginning of next month,.
The government here says they are waiting for the buildup of participating troops to be completed, but I think it’s more likely that they are waiting for the Ashura ceremonies to end to allow pilgrims to travel between Baghdad and the shrines safely.
The waiting is proving to be more of a burden on the people of Baghdad than the operation itself would be. Patience is fading under the pressure of the increasing numbers of suicide attacks and the civilian deaths they cause. Baghdadis are desperately waiting for the operation to begin because they hope it can reduce the occurrence of these deadly attacks that distribute death equally among civilians.
And on a different and equally important front – signs of an economic assault against Iran as crude prices continue to drop;
Saudi Oil Minister Ibrahim al-Naimi even said during a recent trip to India that oil prices are headed in the “right direction.”
Not for the Iranians.
Moreover, the traders believe the Saudis are not doing this alone, that the other Sunni-dominated oil producing countries and the U.S. are working together, believing it will hurt majority-Shiite Iran economically and create a domestic crisis for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose popularity at home is on the wane. The traders also believe (with good reason) that the U.S. is trying to tighten the screws on Iran financially at the same time the Saudis are reducing the Islamic Republic’s oil revenues.
For the Saudis, who fear Iran’s religious, geopolitical and nuclear aspirations, the decision to lower the price of oil has a number of benefits, the biggest being to deprive Iran of hard currency. It also may create unrest in a country that is its rival on a number of levels and permits the Saudis to show the U.S. that military action may not be necessary.
A bit of trivia I’ll bet you didn’t know – Iran is the second largest importer of gasoline in the world, after the US.
And since Iran sells gasoline at a rate comparable to the rest of the Gulf states — around 33 cents a gallon — it must subsidize the price on a massive scale. In fact, say traders, Iran is paying about $1.50 per gallon to subsidize domestic gasoline consumption — the world market price of gasoline minus the tiny price per gallon — a practice that is costing Iran billions of dollars annually and eating up most of the state-run oil company’s discretionary funds.
Iran has other problems that make it vulnerable. Inflation is officially running at 17 percent, the highest since the revolution, and unemployment is at 11 percent. U.S. intelligence, though, believes the real figures are much higher, with inflation as high as 50 percent and joblessness much higher among the country’s restless youth). In addition, capital outflow is estimated at $50 billion annually and budget deficits are a chronic problem, leading to overseas borrowing.
Read them both.
Also a good read is Gen Petraeous evaluation of the situation in Iraq. A pretty frank and realistic accounting of the errors and corrections required to make Iraq and Baghdad in particular a place that becomes hospitable.
http://armed-services.senate.gov/statemnt/2007/January/Petraeus%2001-23-07.pdf
His comments about Mosul/Nineveh are revealing and refreshingly honest.
Reminds of the old testament epic, when reviewing the comments on Mosul, the ancient site of Nineveh.
Jonah 4:11
“And am I not to feel sorry for Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more that a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, to say nothing of all the animals?”
No one ever creditied Iran’s Marxist leadership of engaging in practical economics. One of the reasons there is wide grassroots unrest and discontent in Iran with the government’s performance. It is a regime rife for overthrow.
The drop in oil prices will also be a nice poke in the eye to that lunatic Chavez. Not that it will stop his “revolucion” since no socialist ever let economic reality get in the way of THE PLAN.
A Strategy Page article on how the Saudis are spending $100 billion dollars to support Sunni countries and organizations against Iran.
“With the Shia majority in Iraq now running the country, the Arabs now have to confront Iran directly. And that they are doing. Saudi Arabia is supporting the Palestinian Fatah organization against the Iranian supported Hamas. Saudi Arabia is also using its money to support Sunni Arab, and Christian, factions in Lebanon, against Hizbollah, the Shia minority and its Iranian backers. Saudi Arabia is also giving support to the Sunni Arab majority in Syria. For decades, the Saudis tolerated the Shia minority that ran Syria. No more. The situation has changed, especially with Iran gaining speed in its effort to build nuclear weapons.
The Saudis are even, secretly, cooperating with the Israelis. Iran has always been seen as a greater danger to Israel than the surrounding Sunni Arab nations. Hizbollah, which is a Lebanese Shia organization, made a name for itself during its disastrous attack on Israel last Summer. Although Hizbollah lost by every measure, they won in the arena of public opinion. Both the Israelis and Saudi Arabs (and Sunni Arabs in general) hated that.
The removal of Saddam has already crippled al Qaeda throughout the Islamic world. The sight of American troops in Iraq enraged al Qaeda, and Islamic radicals in general. This was the one thing these maniacs could not tolerate. They all flocked to Iraq, began killing lots of Moslems, and after a year or so of that, plummeted in the popularity ratings throughout the Moslem world. Now the Saudis are mobilizing against that other terrorist backer; Iran. The Saudis are committing over $100 billion to this battle, and doing it out of the purest of motives; self interest.”
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htterr/articles/20070125.aspx
The Saudis know damn well that they are Iran’s real target. Mecca and Medina fall into Shiite hands, and the US/western economy gets tanked at the same time. US boots on the ground between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and between Iran and Syria. I’ve believed this was the real reason for going into Iraq for a long time. I still think it’s the reason.
I think Iran’s target is imperialistic control of the whole ME – and I wonder if the divide is really just Shia and Sunni. I think a more basic division is that Iran is Persian not Arab and the Arab countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Iraq – don’t want that domination.
I have wondered when SA and the other Arab countries would move to prevent Iranian domination of the region – and it’s a good sign that they are doing this.
I still think that the Iraq War was about enabling a democratic nation-state to develop within the midst of the ME – a mode of government that would diffuse throughout the rest of the ME states and so, defuse Islamic fascism.
Iran saw this deposing of Hussein’s dictatorship as a means of moving in, via terrorism and insurgencies, to destabilize the ME and eventually take over. After all, Iran is behind much of the insurgency in Iraq, it funds and arms Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine. And, it has apparently linked itself with N. Korea in its nuclear ambitions.
SA and the rest of the ME can’t rely on the West to ensure their safety from Iran – they have to step in and do it themselves. The US has essentially told them this – by its repeated messaages of ‘eventual withdrawal’ – which is not just a sop to the left in the US, but is a warning to the Arab States in the ME.
ET, you could be right. My opinion, and it’s just that, an opinion, is that the democratic nation-state approach was a waypoint, not and endpoint. It’s a good waypoint, far better than Islamic fundamentalist theocracy, certainly. Iran’s imperialist aspirations, it appears to me, put Saudi Arabia in the cross hairs immediately. You don’t hear much about the treatement of Shiites in Saudi Arabia, along the Gulf coast. My parents lived there during the overthrow of the Shah. There were Shiite uprisings on that coast in response to the rise of the Shiite fundamentalist regime in Iran, which were brutally put down, with little information making its way out of the Kingdom.
I always enjoy reading your posts, ET. I appreciate your knowledge of history, culture, and the way you think.
the adrenalin surge when amajamdama screams at Israel is followed by a long time lapse in which iranians of all stripes see prices climb in the iron fisted cold response of utterly impartial economics.
and wonder if there is a connection and blame the spewmeisters in tehran.
same old same old the old timers mutter to themselves.
Rush Limbaugh has got the situation in hand:
Phony Democrats Suck Up to the President,
Sit on Their Hands at Mention of Victory
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_012407/content/stack_a.guest.html
…
“Democrats are invested in defeat”, and some of you have written, “Find another way to say it. You’re not going to convince the American people that Democrats want us to lose.” Well, I’m not going to change the way I talk about it, certainly not after last night. When the president absolutely mentions that what this is all about is forging on to victory, half of that room sat still, half of that room did not applaud. Nancy Pelosi didn’t make a move other than her dancing eyes. Now, you can be critical of me for being, uh, too direct or whatever you think, brazen, but I just ask you to look at the video from last night if you saw it.
The concept of victory is mentioned, and they sat still, and some of them had dour looks on their faces such as Mrs. Clinton. Try as much as she can, she just can’t pull off warm. She just can’t. You look at her and you feel like, “My gosh, I’m in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and there’s Nurse Ratched following me. I can’t get away from her.” Now, you might say, “Rush, why do they want to lose?” Look it, have you noticed the latest that they’re talking about? They now want us to start withdrawing in four months. Well, let’s count four months. February, March, April, May. Hmm. May! What’s interesting about May? Well, May happens to be the date, the month, that General Petraeus says that we will begin to see signs of success or failure in this new surge — by May. So they want us to pull out before there is even an opportunity for the surge to work! See, it’s not really about calendars; it’s all about politics. Folks, here’s the dirty little secret: the Democrats cannot afford for this country to win this war now. After the position they’ve taken here, the position that it’s an unjust war, that Bush lied, that this is not even necessary, that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.
I don’t have to go through the whole litany for you. They have been invested in defeat. They’ve done what they can to sabotage victory over this enemy. They’ve done it consistently; they do it loudly, and they’ve broken ranks with victory a long time ago. They’ve broken ranks with their own votes to support this war, long ago. It is well understood where they come from. It is well understood by even average people that the Democrats are trying to get us out of there before any sense of victory has a chance, especially with this latest strategery of sending reinforcements. Why would this be? Why is it not about the calendar, why is it about politics? If this goes well, if Baghdad gets stabilized, and Petraeus said, “This has worked before. We pulled this off in Mosul. We’ve pulled it off in a couple of other places, and we’ve got a chance to work.” Can you imagine in 2008 as the presidential race, oh, heating up and coalescing, and imagine if the stories coming out of Iraq are 180 degrees different then than they are today.
What if we’re hearing and reading headlines like, “Snapping victory from the jaws of defeat”? What if Iraq and Baghdad in another two years end up tamed? What if this works? They are cooked! They are doomed! They cannot permit this. They cannot allow this to work, not after the position they have taken — and if you watched last night, the president mentions the concept of victory. One of the greatest lines last night, by the way, was, “Whatever you voted for…” Looking at members of Congress: “Whatever you voted for this war, you didn’t vote for failure.” That’s right. They didn’t back then. Now they are invested in it, and when the concept of victory is mentioned and they sit still — they don’t stand up and they don’t applaud — the people watching this don’t have to hear it from people like me. They saw it. They can’t afford to applaud victory. Every time the troops were mentioned they stood up and they rabidly applauded that, but if victory and the troops are mentioned at the same time, they sat still. If they had applauded victory, it would have destroyed everything they’ve been trying to do the past year oriented toward troop withdrawal, redeployment, whatever they want to call it. Plus, they would have started riots out there amongst factions of their base.
Anyway, I’m a little long. Quick time-out. We’ll be back and continue. We’ve got audio sound bites, 25 of them here so far, and we’re still putting together more. On Fox last night — I don’t know if other networks did this; it’s the first time I’d ever seen it. As the president is walking out after the State of the Union speech, they left the microphones on all the way up the aisle and out into the hallway outside the House Chamber, and you could hear the president talking to people and people talking to him, as he was signing autographs, and it was, for me, a first, and Fox wisely shut up. They got everybody out of the way and it went on for like ten or 12 minutes and to me it was something new, and it was, “Wow, look at this.” When we were able to hear what people were saying to the guy, especially from the Democratic side of the aisle, it presented even a more stark contrast to the daily dose of venomous rage and hatred we get from these people about George Bush to the way they acted last night.”
The drop in oil prices will also be a nice poke in the eye to that lunatic Chavez.
This is just the icing on the cake – not essential, but still very, very delightful.
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Maybe I’m just a Nervous Nellie, but if you don’t have the techical expertise to
refine your own gasoline… should you be foolin’ around with nuclear fission?
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