Iraq can get worse. Much worse...
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/arc..._11/010263.php

Latest on Iran:
http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=4385
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/11/22/224702.php

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

In keeping with this crazy thinking, wouldn't it be parsimonious to knock the minority Alawi's out of power in Syria and combine Syria and "Sunni Iraq" into a "Greater Syria"?

Originally Posted by Zarathustra

In keeping with this crazy thinking, wouldn't it be parsimonious to knock the minority Alawi's out of power in Syria and combine Syria and "Sunni Iraq" into a "Greater Syria"?

Sorry, I'm not quite following. Are you advocating a decapitation of the current Syrian regime, or of the current Green Zone regime?

Actually, the most bizarre part of that map is Baghdad-as-Jerusalem. Have we fallen so far that the Israel-Palestine DMZ is a model for Iraq to look up to?

Originally Posted by Zarathustra

In keeping with this crazy thinking, wouldn't it be parsimonious to knock the minority Alawi's out of power in Syria and combine Syria and "Sunni Iraq" into a "Greater Syria"?

This would remove even more non-Red Heiferite Xians from the area. Perhaps the Lebanon should also be so swept of Xians and added to a Sunni Seleucia.

Originally Posted by Finch

Sorry, I'm not quite following. Are you advocating a decapitation of the current Syrian regime, or of the current Green Zone regime?

Right now Syria is run by a minority ethnic group called the Alawi, also known as Alawites, a Shiite split-off sect (thus one reason why Syria, a majority Sunni country, can be so cozy with Shia Iran). In the sick spirit of this exercise, I just thought it would be simpler to dethrone the Alawi's, and allow the Sunni majorities of Syria and Iraq to unite.

Originally Posted by Finch

Actually, the most bizarre part of that map is Baghdad-as-Jerusalem. Have we fallen so far that the Israel-Palestine DMZ is a model for Iraq to look up to?

The Baghdad conundrum. Does one purge the city of it's minority Shiites so it can belong to (small) Sunni Iraq? Or does one purge the majority Sunnis out of the city so it can belong to (big) Shia Iraq? The open city solution (c. 1947 Jerusalem, c. 1938 Danzig), though it won't work, is an honest attempt to avoid intra-urban genocide.

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

This would remove even more non-Red Heiferite Xians from the area. Perhaps the Lebanon should also be so swept of Xians and added to a Sunni Seleucia.

One would also have to rid the region of the Druze, but it could be done. I just hope it isn't done.

The whole exercise is sick.

Originally Posted by Zarathustra

Right now Syria is run by a minority ethnic group called the Alawi, also known as Alawites, a Shiite split-off sect (thus one reason why Syria, a majority Sunni country, can be so cozy with Shia Iran). In the sick spirit of this exercise, I just thought it would be simpler to dethrone the Alawi's, and allow the Sunni majorities of Syria and Iraq to unite.

Ah, I see. I thought you were talking about Iyad Allawi and his secular(?) Shia bloc. No wonder I was confused. (Hard to keep them straight without a scorecard...)

Originally Posted by Zarathustra

The Baghdad conundrum. Does one purge the city of it's minority Shiites so it can belong to (small) Sunni Iraq? Or does one purge the majority Sunnis out of the city so it can belong to (big) Shia Iraq? The open city solution (c. 1947 Jerusalem, c. 1938 Danzig), though it won't work, is an honest attempt to avoid intra-urban genocide.

So how did Sarajevo work for all those hundreds of years?

Originally Posted by Finch

Ah, I see. I thought you were talking about Iyad Allawi and his secular(?) Shia bloc. No wonder I was confused. (Hard to keep them straight without a scorecard...)

No kidding! I suspect ol' Iyad has an Allawite heritage. Thus the name. "Ansara" is apparently another derivative, making the Syrian-born Michael Ansara (of Kang of Star Trek fame) a likely ethnic relation as well.

Originally Posted by Finch

So how did Sarajevo work for all those hundreds of years?

I was not aware that Sarajevo was an open city. I thought it was part of the Ottomon Empire for most of it's existence, and part of the Hapsburg Empire later one.

The Taliban does not heart CAMBLA

Originally Posted by the highest leader of the Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan in the Layeha

19) Mujahideen are not allowed to take young boys with no facial hair onto the battlefield or into their private quarters.

Nor sot-weed:

Originally Posted by the highest leader of the Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan

18) Mujahideen should refrain from smoking cigarettes.

So red; yet, so blue! The Taliban be 4T!

Iraq enters its 4T as a Civil War. And this offers a choice of more troops or no troops. Even in WW2 we needed a draft. We are not getting enough troops without a draft:
http://www.thestate.com/mld/state/ne...n/16165498.htm

Iran will soon have a new Iman. This new one will be involved in matters of war and peace.

Amir Tehiri
December 9 2006
Asharq Alawsat

As they gather in Riyadh for their annual summit, the leaders of the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations could not fail to notice one fact and acknowledge one need.

The fact that they would have to notice is that the regional balance of power, as shaped over decades, has been shattered, creating what historian's call "a systemic disequilibrium." Since the late 1970s, the status quo had been under threat from three sources: the Khomeinist Revolution in Iran, the American ambition to win the Cold War and control its aftermath, and, finally, the armed Salafist groups trying to seize control of the agenda in parts of the region.

After 9/11, the American challenge to the status quo was put into effect with the toppling of the Taliban in Kabul and the Ba'ath in Baghdad, with ripples that included the expulsion of the Syrians from Lebanon, the marginalisation of Colonel Kaddhafi, and the brief but significant budding of democratic hopes across the region, including in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The changes produced by the American move have now enabled the Iranian challenger to make its move. As France's president Jacques Chirac said at the NATO summit last month, Iran is now actively engaged in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

It is no accident that the Afghan armed groups opposed to President Hamid Karzai's regime are increasingly active in provinces that border Iran rather than Pakistan. Nor is it an accident that several Iranian-backed Pushtun warlords, including Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, have been persuaded by Tehran to join forces with their erstwhile enemies including Mullah Muhammad Omar to develop a joint strategy against Karzai.
Iran's role in Iraq is equally clear now. Having lost control of the Badr Brigades that appear to have decided to be Iraqi patriots rather than Iranian agents, Tehran quickly recruited a new client in Iraq in the form of Muqtada Al Sadr. In one of hose ironies that give history spice, Sadr started by casting himself in the role of a pan-Arab enemy of Persians with the promise of combating Iran's influence in Mesopotamia. His rapid transformation from the reluctant debutante to keen courtesan may be the stuff of legend, but the net effect of his switchover is to give Iran a real possibility for making mischief in Iraq with a relatively small investment.
The Islamic Republic has also taken Syria under its wing, forcing President Bashar al-Assad to abandon policies worked out by his late father over three decades. The latest Iranian move has come in Lebanon where Hezballah, is trying to stage what amounts to a putsch against the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.

Even if we disagree with the present regime in Tehran, as I heartily do, none of the above should be read as a criticism of Iran. The Islamic Republic is behaving like any other opportunistic power. Finding a vacuum, it is trying to fill it. Under similar circumstances, the Shah's regime would have pursued the same objectives, though certainly not with the same methods.

The greater Middle East today is the only major region in the world to lack credible structures for stability. All other regions are covered by a variety of security arrangements, economic alliances, and political groupings. Dotted with small, weak and often newly created states, the Middle East is seething with tensions at various levels. All the enemies of the modern world- from extreme nationalism to religious fundamentalism are present in this region alongside deadly sectarian rivalries, pervasive corruption, frustrated hopes, and archaic social and cultural attitudes.

Four years ago the US came to the region with the claim that it intended to help shape a new balance of power in which its own national security interests would be combined with the deeper aspirations of the region for reform and progress.

President George W Bush's ambition was to transform the US from a guarantor of the status quo into a revolutionary power seeking radical change.

Judging by what we currently know the new majority in the United States does not share that ambition, and will be looking for an elegant way to abdicate the responsibility that Bush had assumed in the region. However, in politics things could change overnight. The new Democrat majority may soon find out that playing politics with Iraq to win an election is one thing while destroying the United States' credibility as a responsible power is another. In the months ahead, the American public may well begin to understand the consequences of running away.

The immediate effect of an American abdication would be a boosting of the Iranian position as the only power crabapple of helping the region create new structures of stability. The American abdication will also offer fresh hopes to armed Salafist groups that have been largely defeated in Algeria, Egypt and the Gulf region.

The expected American abdication would have another consequence: it would rule out the possibility of a "Grand Bargain" under which an Irano-American condominium could be imposed on the Middle East. If the Americans are running away, why should the Islamic Republic offer them 50 per cent of anything? The Yalta-style deal that President Bill Clinton had hoped to make with Tehran would be possible, at least theoretically, if only the Americans remained in the game. Right now, however, it seems that they simply wish to walk away from the table. Ahmadinejad's analysis of Bush as "an aberration" and an atypical American leader who is ready to stand and fight is beginning to look credible. However, even if Bush's successors do not turn out to be as spineless as Ahmadinejad hopes they will be, it is only prudent for the GC nations to take into account the possibility of an American abdication.
Having observed the fact of the situation as described above, the GCC leaders would have to consider the need that arises from it: the need for new and credible structures of stability. If the US cannot offer such structures, who can?
The truth is that, despite President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's hubristic sloganeering, the Islamic Republic is a ramshackle and unstable regime with its internal contradictions that cast a shadow on its future. In other words the Islamic Republic lacks the economic power, the political influence, the military might and the accumulated experience needed to act as the regional "superpower." What it has is a denial power, a negative power that could be used to sabotage the work of others. However, it lacks the positive power without which no new equilibrium is constructed. Far from emerging as the core of a new stability in the Middle East, the Islamic Republic may develop into the vortex of a new and much bigger crisis in the region.
Because of its strategic location and the fact that it contains almost two-thirds of the world's oil and gas resources, the greater Middle East region is of vital importance to the entire world. This is why almost everyone has a direct interest in this region's stability. Those who wish to see the Americans leave and those who think the Iranians lack the wherewithal to generate stability must come up with alternatives. The American abdication, if it happens, and the Iranian weakness, when it is exposed, could create a vacuum that would suck the region into a generation of violent instability and war. Like nature, politics abhors the void.

Possible proliferation in the gulf.

Six oil-rich Gulf nations have said they are considering seeking nuclear technology for peaceful purposes

Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE also urged a peaceful settlement to the crisis over Iran's nuclear programme.

The six Arab states said they were exploring the possibility of creating a shared nuclear programme.

Six futures for Iraq...all bad:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/121106G.shtml

Iraq and Clausewitz:
http://www.energybulletin.net/23655.html
Stay half the course:
http://www.gregpalast.com/the-baker-...alf-the-course
And the view from al-Jazeerah:
http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%2...0Henderson.htm

MARCH TO MECCA FOR GAY RIGHTS!!

BTW, on the off-chance it isn't clear, this is a parody on more than one level.

Iran be 2T

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6196069.stm

Usual disclaimers apply

'Mass purges' at Iran universities
By Frances Harrison
BBC News, Tehran




Iranian students say there is a second cultural revolution under way in the universities with scores of professors forcibly retired and politically active students being threatened with expulsion.

Student anger exploded with an unprecedented show of defiance when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad went to Tehran's Amir Kabir University on 12 December.

Pictures shot on a mobile phone showed angry students chanting against the president, accusing him of being a fascist and a puppet of the hardliners. They held portraits of Mr Ahmadinejad upside down to mock him and then set them on fire.

The day before the president visited, the university was in turmoil with students shouting "Death to the dictator".
Iranian television only showed a few seconds of the disturbance. Later Mr Ahmadinejad put a brave face on it saying the protest showed there was freedom of speech in Iran compared to his student days under the Shah.


'Harassment and purges'

When Mr Ahmadinejad came to power the universities were quiet.

But by trying to stop students getting involved in politics, the new government has antagonised them.

"They have stepped up the pressure to scare students," says activist Ali Nikoo Nesbati.

"We think they've done this on purpose to frighten us; to send a message that if you want to be politically active you will have problems in the future," he says.

According to student activists 181 students have received letters warning them not to get involved in politics, while 47 student publications and 28 student organisations have been closed in the last year.

"They threatened me that if I talked to the media it might make things much worse for me," says Mehdi Aminzadeh, who has been banned from doing a masters in political science because he has been too active in politics.

"But if we keep silent it's easier for them to do the same things to other people," he says.


'Three-star students'

Mr Mehdi has twice been arrested and still has court cases pending against him.

He is what is known perversely in Iran as a three-star student. That means he has three bad marks against his name for political activism - enough to be banned from the university.

"We are not working against the system here," says fellow student Mohammad Gharib Sajadi, who has also been banned.

"The constitution has given us this right to education," he says.

"Freedom of speech is being restricted more than before in Iran," says Iran's Nobel Peace Prize winner and human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi.

"They think students should go to their classes, read their books and then go back home and shouldn't get involved in the social and political issues around them in society - that's asking a lot!"

But President Ahmadinejad denies that his government is harassing students.

He says it has created an open atmosphere in the universities.
"The ears of the government are open to hear them," he said referring to student demands during a news conference.


Turban incident

It was the president who appointed a cleric for the first time since the revolution to head Tehran University - the country's most political and prestigious university.

Mr Ahmadinejad told journalists the chancellor should be friendly with the students, moving among them and visiting their dormitories - otherwise he should give up his job to someone else.

The first time the new chancellor entered the university, students protested by knocking off his turban - a sign of extreme disrespect for a cleric.

"If I had not been well protected I would have been suffocated and there was a possibility of a crime like murder being committed," said the chancellor, Ayatollah Amid-Zanjani, after the incident.

However he added that "students have the right to protest".

The chancellor denies student allegations that there have been 17 protests against him inside Tehran University in the last year alone.

He says apart from the turban incident there was only a protest on Iranian Students' Day on 6 December, which, he said, was attended by at most 40 people.


'Cleaning the slate'

The photographs of the event showed the crowd was much bigger.

And there is mobile phone footage from a demonstration in the summer at which the posters make it pretty clear what the students think of their new Ayatollah-turned-chancellor.

"This is not a religious seminary - it's a university," read one poster.
But it is not just students who are angry - professors have also faced problems.

The new chancellor forcibly retired 45 teachers from Tehran University. He said they were past the retirement age, although they were younger than him.

"The majority of the retired teachers couldn't reach the standard of a full professor after 30 years of teaching at this university. They didn't manage to do any research to improve their position," Ayatollah Amid-Zanjani said.

"It seems this is the start of a project to clean the slate - to get rid of those intellectuals who are secular opponents of the government," says student activist Abdullah Momeni.

He believes the purge started after President Ahmadinejad spoke about the need to remove secular and liberal thought from the universities.
Students complain the international community is not paying enough attention to the worsening human rights situation in Iran because of the obsession with the nuclear issue.

"The Islamic Republic has managed to focus the international community's attention on Iran's nuclear case and the possibility of an Israeli attack. That has diverted attention from the human rights situation in Iran," says Mr Nesbati. He believes it is possible that one day Iranian officials will solve the nuclear crisis but "in the mean time they will have crushed all their internal critics".

Originally Posted by Odin

Iran be 2T

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6196069.stm

Usual disclaimers apply

But wouldn't that agree with John's analysis?

Bush and Iraq in the next two years:
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1214-29.htm

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

But wouldn't that agree with John's analysis?

I now agree with John on Iran but I think the Arab world is mostly late 3T for the reasibs I stated in the GD thread

Originally Posted by Odin

I now agree with John on Iran but I think the Arab world is mostly late 3T for the reasibs I stated in the GD thread

Things may be coming to a head in Iran and its barely mentioned in the US press --

http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publ...le_19925.shtml

Iran's top spiritual and political figure, Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei is seriously ill and will have to be replaced in the coming months as he is no longer capable of holding office, according to Assembly of Experts member Ayatollah Nasseri.

His death or removal from office by the Assembly of Experts will trigger a power struggle within Iran's clergy, according to observers.

The names of three possible successors to Khamenei are currently on the lips of Iranians: Khamenei's son, Mjtaba; Iran's former reformist president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani; and Gholam Ali Mesbah Yazdi, the ultra-conservative ayatollah who is considered the spiritual father of Iran's current hardline president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

My sources say they've heard nothing to this effect. It may be a simple rumor started by some disenfranchised Iranians, or it could be an early smoke-sign of what is to come, i.e. the removal of Khamenei, whether sick or not. That could change the entire landscape of the ME -- maybe good, but maybe bad.

What generation do you think Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is? In my opinion, everything about him screams mad Prophet. That would be consistent with Iran being in 3T or early 4T, but not 1T or 2T.

Any thoughts?

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

What generation do you think Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is? In my opinion, everything about him screams mad Prophet. That would be consistent with Iran being in 3T or early 4T, but not 1T or 2T.

Any thoughts?

He is an Iranian Artist; he is most certainly the John McCain of Media:

• He's a maverick
• He's a reformer
• He's a Republican
• He bucked the political structure
• He's beloved by the MsM
• He's more likely to injure his allies than his opponents
• He has had rough relations with the POTUS

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

He is an Iranian Artist; he is most certainly the John McCain of Media:

• He's a maverick
• He's a reformer
• He's a Republican
• He bucked the political structure
• He's beloved by the MsM
• He's more likely to injure his allies than his opponents
• He has had rough relations with the POTUS

Iran does seem to be 3T as far as I can tell.