Rumor still passing around -

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=119009

Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Appears on TV After Suffering Stroke
17:58 Jan 08, '07 / 18 Tevet 5767


(IsraelNN.com) Iran’s supreme rule Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 68, appeared on state TV Monday looking pale and feeble, after suffering a cerebral stroke January 3.

The Iran leader's TV appearance was meant to end rumors spreading round Iranian exile communities that he was dead. The rumors started when the ayatollah missed two important state and religious events, and was not seen in public after Dec. 24

Last Wednesday Khamenei was transferred unconscious to the emergency department of the Khatam Al-Anbia hospital. Neurosurgeons diagnosed extensive brain damage, and two foreign teams of specialists were rushed over from Germany and Switzerland Friday.

In the interim, scholarly Ayatollah Mohammed Reza Mahdavi Khani, an apolitical figure, was appointed temporary stand-in for the supreme ruler. Khamenei who used the broadcast Monday to invite senior clerics from the holy city of Qom to visit him, is reportedly considering making Ayatollah Reza’s appointment as stand-in permanent.

Debka is reporting similiar as well as other 2nd and 3rd string global news

Middle East's new era:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16408291/site/newsweek/

Israel plans nuclear strike on Iran:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...535310,00.html

The opposition's prop machine is either in full swing or things may be as said -- either way, very interesting -

http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=8179&size=A

The man waiting for both developments to take place is none other than former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who recently became the chairman of the 85-member Assembly of Experts, the body that selects the Supreme Leader.

It is however unclear at this point whether Ahmadinejad or Khamenei would be the first to go, but the president's fate will likely be determined by Khamenei’s health.

I particularly like this --

Ahmadinejad could be forced to resign, be removed by the supreme leader or have a deadly accident, but this is not expected to take place before June

More at -

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_En...74527125&par=0

Iranian reformist lawmakers have started collecting signatures in Parliament to demand the impeachment of the country's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. So far, 38 signatures have been collected out of the 72 required to formally summon Ahmadinejad and request his impeachment.

Did the other superpower give the word -

http://www.cctv.com/english/20070106/100546.shtml

Michael Totten has some interesting things to say from on-the-scene in Lebannon, with photographic backup.

So This Is Our Victory

Toni insisted these guys were the best. Not only do they know their way around the back roads of South Lebanon, they are battle-hardened infantry veterans of Lebanon’s civil war. I seriously doubted we would need their services as trained killers, but it was nice to have that skill set in our back pockets while venturing into the heartland of an illegal warmongering militia. Every Lebanese person I know insists Hezbollah won’t actually harm American journalists, and I believe them. It has been a while since Hezbollah has violently terrorized Western civilians in Lebanon. But the very same people strongly insisted Noah and I not go to the South by ourselves.

Hezbollah and their ilk (both allied and opposed among our enemies) have learned how to play the American/Western media like a fiddle.

The situation is eerily much like it was in 1975 when Lebanon descended into 15 years of hell and chaos and war. Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organization used South Lebanon as a launching pad for terrorist raids into Israel. The Shia who lived there were fiercely opposed to having their land used in this way for a foreigner’s war. Lebanon’s Christians also stridently opposed the use of their country as a battleground by Palestinians. But Lebanon’s Sunni community allowed and even encouraged Yasser Arafat to build himself a state-within-a-state in West Beirut. Street clashes between Christians and Palestinians sparked what eventually became a war of all-against-all that shattered the government and drew in the Syrians, the Iranians, the Americans, and the Israelis.

Actually, there are a whole lot of things going on the hark back to the 70s, for those of us old enough to remember them. It's like all the trouble that got put 'on hold' back then is being resuscitaed today, and all the conflicts from that time are simply picking up where they left off, absent the USSR...and even modern Russia seems to be trying to throw its two cents in.

Israel may have over-reacted in July and selected targets (the milk factory, bridges in the north, etc.) that should not have been hit. But the stark scene on the hill of Maroun al-Ras demonstrated that the Israeli military did not bomb indiscriminately as many have claimed. Unlike Hezbollah, the Israelis are able to hit what they want and they don’t shoot at everything. That mosque wouldn’t be standing if they dropped bombs and artillery randomly in the villages.

“We have been screaming about this conflict for 30 years now,” Henry said as he dealt himself a hand of Solitaire from a deck of cards in his pocket. “But no one ever listened to us. Not until September 11. Now you know how we feel all the time. You have to keep up the pressure. You can never let go, not for one day, one hour, not for one second. The minute you let go, Michael, they will fight back and get stronger. This is the problem with your foreign policy.”

http://tinyurl.com/yxj4ee

Paris, 10 Jan. (IPS) In a new visible sign that winds are definitely turning against the fanatic President Mahmoud Ahmadi Nezhad, a newspaper that belongs to the leader of the Islamic Republic sharply criticized his behavior in the difficult nuclear problem, mostly the “prsonalisation” of the nuclear issue and the constant repetition of his diatribes against Iran’s interlocutors in the issue.

“It is correct that the nuclear issue must be on every Iranian’s heart, and we also praise your action on this matter, however, one must bear in mind that anything that is repeated more than necessary makes the matter irrelevant and indifferent. That’s exactly what is happening (to the Iranians) because of your taking up the nuclear issue in all your speeches unnecessarily”, observed the radical daily “Islamic Republic” that belong to Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i.

Also, this from Barnett is interesting {Note - Barnett has some difficulties grasping the threat of the neoKhawarij and 5GW, but some of his thinking within the nation-state paradigm (e.g. China is not a potential threat but a potential strategic partner) is pretty good} -

http://tinyurl.com/y8ra9t

Suffering the world's worst brain drain and a birth rate that's dropped through the floor, Iranian society is imploding before the world's eyes, triggering a resurgent domestic reform movement that's now aligned with pragmatic conservatives determined to arrest the nation's downward spiral.
Externally, however, Iran is peddling influence across the region, quietly executing regime-building investment strategies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and southern Lebanon. Iran's oil revenue is creating development all right, just not back home where increasingly angry Iranians want it.
Slap these dichotomous images together and you can't help but wonder at the similarities between today's Iran and the Soviet Union in the late Brezhnevian period: the blustery fagade of regional domination covering a system rotten to its spiritual core.
Sooner than we think, Iran's Gorbachev-like figures will reveal themselves, not because we desire it, but because Iran's rate of internal decay -- so visible in its oil industry -- will demand it. Remember, Gorby wanted to fix -- not dismantle -- the USSR. America's approach to this looming transition should mirror Ronald Reagan's with the Soviets: talk and act tough publicly, but privately seek out pragmatic opportunities for detente-like cooperation. This "soft kill" strategy has worked before

Note above, Barnett's desire for a Reagan-like approach of watching-the- USSR-self-implode to be applied to present day Iran. Now contrast that with the f'king moron we're actually stuck with for two more years -

http://tinyurl.com/y3yxye

The U.S. definitely failed to coordinate the raid with Kurdish security forces. When American troops went to the airport, the Kurdish peshmerga who were guarding it, alarmed at the approach of unauthorized foreign troops, came very close to firing on them. Whether or not the raid was intended to provoke Iran, it almost turned into yet another Bush gambit with unforeseen, disastrous consequences. The fallout from a big firefight between U.S. soldiers and the Kurdistan paramilitary could have been serious, since Kurds are among the few strongly pro-American populations left in Iraq.

Dear Jenny,

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?

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was born in 1956, and is in the Hero generation
that fought the Iran/Iraq crisis war of the 1980s.

The easiest way to understand Ahmadinejad is to compare him to
President Kennedy, both of whom represented a "new generation of
leaders" at the beginning of an Awakening era.

Kennedy had to win his spurs by proving that he could stop Communism,
and so he launched two wars against Cuba (the Bay of Pigs and the
Cuban blockade), and he launched the Vietnam war.

Ahmadinejad has to win his spurs by proving that Iran will never be
vulnerable again to WMD attacks, as was the case in the Iran/Iraq
war. Thus he's launched a program to develop nuclear weapons and
he's launching a war against the US, who supported Saddam during the
war, and against the little Satan, Israel. His objective is gain
hegemony over the entire region, and to prove that Iran can be the
leading Mideast superpower for generations to come.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Iran attack in a few months?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...articleId=4459

I received this in my synagogue's discussion list serve. By the way, when the article refers to Lake Kinneret, they mean the Sea of Galilee, which is how it is known in the US.

Israeli, Syrian representatives reach secret understandings
By Akiva Eldar, Haaretz Correspondent

In a series of secret meetings in Europe between September 2004 and July 2006, Syrians and Israelis formulated understandings for a peace agreement between Israel and Syria.

The main points of the understandings are as follows:


An agreement of principles will be signed between the two countries, and following the fulfillment of all commitments, a peace agreement will be signed.

As part of the agreement on principles, Israel will withdraw from the Golan Heights to the lines of 4 June, 1967. The timetable for the withdrawal remained open: Syria demanded the pullout be carried out over a five-year period, while Israel asked for the withdrawal to be spread out over 15 years.

At the buffer zone, along Lake Kinneret, a park will be set up for joint use by Israelis and Syrians. The park will cover a significant portion of the Golan Heights. Israelis will be free to access the park and their presence will not be dependent on Syrian approval.

Israel will retain control over the use of the waters of the Jordan River and Lake Kinneret.

The border area will be demilitarized along a 1:4 ratio (in terms of territory) in Israel's favor.

According to the terms, Syria will also agree to end its support for Hezbollah and Hamas and will distance itself from Iran.

The document is described as a "non-paper," a document of understandings that is not signed and lacks legal standing - its nature is political. It was prepared in August 2005 and has been updated during a number of meetings in Europe.

The meetings were carried out with the knowledge of senior officials in the government of former prime minister Ariel Sharon. The last meeting took place during last summer's war in Lebanon.

Government officials received updates on the meetings via the European mediator and also through Dr. Alon Liel, a former director general at the Foreign Ministry, who took part in all the meetings.

The European mediator and the Syrian representative in the discussions held eight separate meetings with senior Syrian officials, including Vice President Farouk Shara, Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, and a Syrian intelligence officer with the rank of "general."

The contacts ended after the Syrians demanded an end to meetings on an unofficial level and called for a secret meeting at the level of deputy minister, on the Syrian side, with an Israeli official at the rank of a ministry's director general, including the participation of a senior American official. Israel did not agree to this Syrian request.

The Syrian representative in the talks, Ibrahim (Abe) Suleiman, an American citizen, had visited Jerusalem and delivered a message to senior officials at the Foreign Ministry regarding the Syrian wish for an agreement with Israel. The Syrians also asked for help in improving their relations with the United States, and particularly in lifting the American embargo on Syria.

For his part, the European mediator stressed that the Syrian leadership is concerned that the loss of petroleum revenues will lead to an economic crash in the country and could consequently undermine the stability of the Assad regime.

According to Geoffrey Aronson, an American from the Washington-based Foundation for Middle East Peace, who was involved in the talks, an agreement under American auspices would call for Syria to ensure that Hezbollah would limit itself to being solely a political party.

He also told Haaretz that Khaled Meshal, Hamas' political bureau chief, based in Damascus, would have to leave the Syrian capital.

Syria would also exercise its influence for a solution to the conflict in Iraq, through an agreement between Shi'a leader Muqtada Sadr and the Sunni leadership, and in addition, it would contribute to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including the refugee problem.

Aronson said the idea of a park on the Golan Heights allows for the Syrian demand that Israel pull back to the June 4 border, on the one hand, while on the other hand, the park eliminates Israeli concerns that Syrians will have access to the water sources of Lake Kinneret.

"This was a serious and honest effort to find creative solutions to practical problems that prevented an agreement from being reached during Barak's [tenure as prime minister] and to create an atmosphere of building confidence between the two sides," he said.

It also emerged that one of the Syrian messages to Israel had to do with the ties between Damascus and Tehran. In the message, the Alawi regime - the Assad family being members of the Alawi minority - asserts that it considers itself to be an integral part of the Sunni world and that it objects to the Shi'a theocratic regime, and is particularly opposed to Iran's policy in Iraq. A senior Syrian official stressed that a peace agreement with Israel will enable Syria to distance itself from Iran.

Liel refused to divulge details about the meetings but confirmed that they had taken place. He added that meetings on an unofficial level have been a fairly common phenomenon during the past decade.

"We insisted on making the existence of meetings known to the relevant parties," Liel said. "Nonetheless, there was no official Israeli connection to the content of the talks and to the ideas that were raised during the meetings."

Prior to these meetings, Liel was involved in an effort to further secret talks between Syria and Israel with the aid of Turkish mediation - following a request for assistance President Assad had made to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

That attempt failed following Israel's refusal to hold talks on an official level - and a Syrian refusal to restrict the talks to an "academic level," similar to the framework of the talks that had preceded the Oslo accords.

There was no initial formal response from the Prime Minister's Office after the story broke early on Tuesday. But the Israel Radio quoted unnamed senior Israeli officials as stating that Israel is not holding contacts with Syria.

Juan's got this one right --

http://juancole.com/

Cheney blew off Iran in 2003
For the Love of God Impeach this Man

Lawrence Wilkerson, an aide to Colin Powell when he was secretary of state says that Iran in 2003 offered to help stabilize Iraq and to cut off aid to Hizbullah in Lebanon and to Hamas. http://tinyurl.com/2wflaw
Wilkerson says that the State Department was interested in pursuing the offer, which presumably came from reformist president Mohammad Khatami. He says that when the issue was broached with VP Richard Bruce Cheney, Cheney shot down any notion of "talking to evil." As if Mohammad Khatami is evil and Richard Bruce Cheney is not. (Cheney's lies about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and connection to 9/11 have gotten hundreds of thousands of people killed).

Because Khatami kept promising that his reforms would make Iranians better off, and because the US rejected all his overtures and left him with no achievements to show for them, the Iranian electorate turned against the reform movement and put Mahmud Ahmadinejad into power, a loud-mouthed braggart of a sort that Cheney's Likudniks could then build up into a bogey man to frighten Americans with. Cheney created Iran as a menace.

What this article doesn't mention is that the rightwing Likud cabal in Cheney's office, such as Irv Lewis Libby, with its connections to the Israeli far right, almost certainly played a key role in this rejection. I think John Hannah was already there then, too. David Wurmser came later, after getting up the fraudulent case against Iraq in the Pentagon "Office of Special Plans" (i.e. foreign policy plumbers) set up by Likudnik Douglas Feith, then the number 3 man in the Pentagon.

Libby is now on trial for lying to the special prosecutor about his role in betraying CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson. Wilson had been working on anti-proliferation efforts versus . . . Iran. She was outed to punish her husband for publicly challenging Cheney's lies about WMD in Iraq.

Cheney is the most fascistic high official in US government in history. He recently implied that al-Qaeda is glad that the Democrats won the mid-term elections, as his way of trying to create the impression that anyone who disagrees with him is a terrorist-loving traitor. But it is Cheney who is the traitor, with his office having betrayed Valerie to the Iranians (and everyone else in the world).

Fascism depends on the creation of straw man enemies said to be dire threats to the Homeland. Iran is a poor weak third world country and poses no threat to the US. It hasn't aggressively invaded another country for over a century. But Cheney needs Iran to substitute for the old Soviet Union, otherwise how could he get you to agree to let him listen in on your telephone calls without a warrant, or let him torture people?

Cheney is the much bigger threat to the integrity of the US constitution than any foreign force. He should be impeached. If lying about a tawdry affair that did not even get to third base is grounds for impeachment, then lying us into a war, slapping Iran's overtures away and setting the stage for another war, and outing a CIA operative certainly are.

At least let us investigate the extent of his crimes.

Time running out on Mahmoud?

http://tinyurl.com/27ojbh

Iran: Looming Economic Crisis
Amir Taheri, Arab News

As tension builds up between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the international community, a potentially more significant conflict is taking shape within the ruling establishment in Tehran.

The conflict is centered on what looks like a looming economic crisis. Inflation has risen to 17 percent, its highest rate since the 1970s. A cascade of business closures has pushed unemployment, already high even by Third World standards, to its highest level in three decades. The value of the national currency, the rial, has dropped against regional and global currencies, and remains on the slide. According to official estimates, including some offered by Ayatollah Shahroudi, the Islamic chief justice, the flight of capital from Iran has turned into a flood.

In Iran, as in most other Third World economies, the absence of modern investment opportunities gives real estate a leading role in attracting savings at all levels. As soon as an Iranian has some extra income, he tries to buy a piece of land or an apartment. As a result, real estate has been a key measure of Iran’s economic performance. By that measure, the Iranian economy is heading for meltdown. The money that would have been invested in real estate inside Iran now goes to Dubai and Turkey. In recent months, Iraq has also become a magnet for Iranian investors, generating a boom in the Shiite “holy cities” of Najaf and Karbala. A few companies also offer investment opportunities in real estate in Syria, Romania and Bulgaria.

Some within the Khomeinist establishment blame the crisis on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s policies.

http://tinyurl.com/25n3mp

Ahmadinejad's government has been criticized for its not viable target. "The government has painted idealistic goals like tackling housing problems and unemployment . . . but no solution has been offered," Mohammad Khoshchehreh, a prominent conservative lawmaker, told The Associated Press.

http://tinyurl.com/yuvqg8

The British Sunday Times has reported that Iran 's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei supports a more moderate national position towards international negotiations regarding the monitoring of the country's nuclear activities.

The paper cites growing American pressure and the United Nations enforced sanctions for the change of heart. Associates of Khamenei say the leader is interested in appointing a more moderate team for the nuclear negotiations in an effort to calm escalating tensions with the West.

Such a move on Khamenei's part, says the Sunday Times, would deliver a decisive blow to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who has so far refused to back down from his hard set positions.

Sources in Tehran say that the driving force behind the policy switch is Khamenei himself, who has the final say over the country's armed forces and foreign affairs.

Nuclear attack on Iran?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...articleId=4536

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6288503.stm

Lebanon - 2T or 4T? Xenakis says 2T, meaning the Civil War of 1975-1990 was a Crisis, but Odin says 4T, calling the Civil War a "2T-gone-bad", since it was mainly about religious and cultural differences and not a civic-based government meltdown.

The uprisings seem 4Tish and not 2Tish to me. They are literally devastating the country, not upsetting it. They are destructive and violent. The Siniora government seems gridlocked and paralyzed.

I vote 4T, just like the rest of the Middle East (save Iran).

Originally Posted by Tom Mazanec

Nuclear attack on Iran?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...articleId=4536

Hey, Tom, how about a little filtering out of the quack-quacks?

In this new and expanded edition of Michel Chossudovsky's 2002 best seller, the author blows away the smokescreen put up by the mainstream media, that 9/11 was an attack on America by "Islamic terrorists". Through meticulous research, the author uncovers a military-intelligence ploy behind the September 11 attacks, and the cover-up and complicity of key members of the Bush Administration.

OK, you have a point. I try to post all important clippings, but that is a little far out. Thanks.

Originally Posted by Tom Mazanec

OK, you have a point. I try to post all important clippings, but that is a little far out. Thanks.

I really appreciate your posts. Thanks. And just pulling your leg a little on this last one. ;-)

Originally Posted by 1990

The uprisings seem 4Tish and not 2Tish to me. They are literally devastating the country, not upsetting it. They are destructive and violent. The Siniora government seems gridlocked and paralyzed.

I vote 4T, just like the rest of the Middle East (save Iran).

Ditto. My gut tells be there will be a Regeneracy in Lebanon with the year.

Originally Posted by Odin

Ditto. My gut tells be there will be a Regeneracy in Lebanon with the year.

Now if only we could get a Regeneracy here within a year. While I find the coming Crisis scary and daunting, at this point the old order is so dead it would almost be better to just jump into the rebirth now and throw away what we've been clinging to for so long.

Dear Nathaniel,

Originally Posted by 1990

> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6288503.stm

> Lebanon - 2T or 4T? Xenakis says 2T, meaning the Civil War of
> 1975-1990 was a Crisis, but Odin says 4T, calling the Civil War a
> "2T-gone-bad", since it was mainly about religious and cultural
> differences and not a civic-based government meltdown.

> The uprisings seem 4Tish and not 2Tish to me. They are literally
> devastating the country, not upsetting it. They are destructive
> and violent. The Siniora government seems gridlocked and
> paralyzed.

> I vote 4T, just like the rest of the Middle East (save Iran).

Utter nonsense. Nasrallah was forced to call off his strike today,
but promised "more action" later. Ooooooooooooooooooooh.

Nasrallah has had one failure after another, and now even the Shia in
Southern Lebanon are turning against him.
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayA...iddleeast&col=

The mainstream media can't stop talking about "civil war" in Lebanon.
They've been talking about that for over a year and a half, and yet
no civil war ever develops. I wonder why?

I know it's antediluvian history to you, but remember what happened
during the 1960s, America's last generational Awakening era. It began
in August 1963, when Martin Luther King led a march on Washington in
which over 200,000 people participated. Later, President Kennedy was
assassinated, and so was King. There were numerous demonstrations
and riots throughout the country, some of them shutting down the
government in Washington. There were "long, hot summers," led by the
Black Panthers, and there were bombings and declarations of war
against the government, led by the Weather Underground. President
Lyndon Johnson was driven from office, and the climax was when
President Richard Nixon was forced to resign.

The pictures you saw on TV today in Beirut were burning tires.
Oooooooooooooooooooooooooh.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Dear Nathaniel,



Utter nonsense. Nasrallah was forced to call off his strike today,
but promised "more action" later. Ooooooooooooooooooooh.

Nasrallah has had one failure after another, and now even the Shia in
Southern Lebanon are turning against him.
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayA...iddleeast&col=

The mainstream media can't stop talking about "civil war" in Lebanon.
They've been talking about that for over a year and a half, and yet
no civil war ever develops. I wonder why?

I know it's antediluvian history to you, but remember what happened
during the 1960s, America's last generational Awakening era. It began
in August 1963, when Martin Luther King led a march on Washington in
which over 200,000 people participated. Later, President Kennedy was
assassinated, and so was King. There were numerous demonstrations
and riots throughout the country, some of them shutting down the
government in Washington. There were "long, hot summers," led by the
Black Panthers, and there were bombings and declarations of war
against the government, led by the Weather Underground. President
Lyndon Johnson was driven from office, and the climax was when
President Richard Nixon was forced to resign.

The pictures you saw on TV today in Beirut were burning tires.
Oooooooooooooooooooooooooh.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

BBC's account of the story makes it sound much more devastating than what is going on in Iran, however.

We all seem to agree that Iran is 2T, and the stories from inside Iran confirm that: massive student protests, burning Ahmadinejad in effigy, a strong pro-Western movement that is against war with the U.S. Oh, and Ahmadinejad is about as popular as LBJ was circa 1968.

Lebanon's situation sounds drastically different. The Lebanese government seems to be in gridlock, paralysis, meltdown, whatever you want to call it, just like that of Israel. You yourself consider a paralyzed government and deteriorating old order to be symptomatic of a 4T, right?

And if Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq are 2T, why isn't Jordan? Or Kuwait? Or the rest of the Arabian peninsula?

BTW, I'm not trying to be argumentative. I am not an ideologue about this stuff, and I really want to have the right answer. You might be right, and if so I want to know why I agree with you.

Dear Nathaniel,

Originally Posted by 1990

> BBC's account of the story makes it sound much more devastating
> than what is going on in Iran, however.

The BBC has really been hyping this, constantly talking about the
violence and being on the brink of civil war.



The only good thing about this is that it's derailed the BBC from
spending ten minutes of its newscast showing as much gore as possible
in downtown Baghdad.

I've mentioned this on my web site, but I really believe that most
people are genuinely prejudiced about Arabs, and believe that
violent, bloody wars are their normal way of life. That's why
they're so quick to assume that a civil war is coming.

Originally Posted by 1990

> We all seem to agree that Iran is 2T, and the stories from inside
> Iran confirm that: massive student protests, burning Ahmadinejad
> in effigy, a strong pro-Western movement that is against war with
> the U.S. Oh, and Ahmadinejad is about as popular as LBJ was circa
> 1968.

I don't think it's true that there's general agreement. For every
country and every era, you'll find some member of this forum who
believes that country is in that era.

Originally Posted by 1990

> Lebanon's situation sounds drastically different. The Lebanese
> government seems to be in gridlock, paralysis, meltdown, whatever
> you want to call it, just like that of Israel. You yourself
> consider a paralyzed government and deteriorating old order to be
> symptomatic of a 4T, right?

Not exactly. It's true that the American government is close to
total paralysis, and Israel's government really IS in total paralysis
(the President is now being charged with rape).

But governmental paralysis doesn't uniquely determine the era. A
government in 4T (prior to the regeneracy) becomes paralyzed because
the Prophet generation is incompetent.

A government in 2T may become paralyzed because of the generation gap
and the resulting political chaos. That's what's happening in
Lebanon. But it's only temporary.

Originally Posted by 1990

> And if Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq are 2T, why isn't Jordan? Or
> Kuwait? Or the rest of the Arabian peninsula?

Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran are on the East European timeline,
having had crisis wars around that time, and having new crisis wars in
the 1980s, so they're in Awakening eras today.

Saudi Arabia's last crisis war was right after WW I, but Saudi Arabia
hasn't had a new crisis war since then. I believe that the reason is
the enormous amount of money from oil revenues. (I've suggested a
similar reason for Russia.) So Saudi Arabia is in a fifth turning.
Incidentally, the 9/11 suicide pilots and almost all of the suicide
bombers in Iraq are from Saudi Arabia.

Jordan and Palestine were also on the East European timeline, but
they're a special case because of the massive influx of European Jews
in the 1930s, leading to the massive war in the late 1940s. This war
drove hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into Jordan. It's
probably true that the 1940s war was an Awakening war for the
Palestinians, but the massive relocations caused a "reset" to the
first turning.

You know, all of these countries are different. There's no one rule
that applies to all of them, and there's no simple way to diagnose a
country's current era without first understanding at least a saeculum
of its history.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

The Lebanese Civil War was a 2T in the same way the English Civil War was a 2T (Sorry John, your opinions on the ECW have been thoroughly debunked). If the civil war was a 4t the old, pro-Christian biased, constitution wouldn't of been retained afterwards. It was a 2T-gone out of control and then supressed by outside forces.

Dear Taylor,

Originally Posted by Odin

> The Lebanese Civil War was a 2T in the same way the English Civil
> War was a 2T (Sorry John, your opinions on the ECW have been
> thoroughly debunked). If the civil war was a 4t the old,
> pro-Christian biased, constitution wouldn't of been retained
> afterwards. It was a 2T-gone out of control and then supressed by
> outside forces.

Oh, really? Is this another one of these moronic rules that people
are always making up?

Wait, let me write this one down:

• Taylor's rule: "If a country keeps its old, pro-Christian
  biased Constitution through a war, then it wasn't a crisis war,
  it's merely a 2T gone out of control."

Got it.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com