Short Stories, Long Odds

Things are getting hairy in Washington and abroad these days. Allow me to update you on a couple of stories.

A few days ago, I reported that Russian airliners had crashed, that eyewitnesses had seen explosions, and that the Russians were keeping mum on what was going on, initially ruling out terrorism. Well, now it appears that the crashes were incidents of either terrorism or horrible baggage handling, because traces of explosives have been found on both planes. Putin released a statement concerning the black boxes, saying that they had been “switched off almost immediately.” The situation is further confused by the lack of claims of responsibility.

This situation will obviously continue to develop, but a primary question in the minds of anyone interested in the affairs of countries other than the United States should be “Why was the Russian government and State media so quick to rule out terrorism when it reeked of malfeasance in the first place?”

Adding to international peccadilloes, Israel may have had a spy at the Pentagon. The Israeli press is up in arms about the whole thing, comparing this case to Jonathan Pollard. Since I know next to nothing about the Pollard case except what his website tells me and that the Israeli press is using it as a comparator, I’ll refrain from commenting on it specifically, but it may be useful in the future for you to know that possible Israeli espionage was examined in the 1980’s.

Now, in the world of geopolitical ramifications, the connection between Israel, Iraq, and Iran often gets over-looked when we talk about the Iraq War. As I said nine days ago, Israel and Iran hate each other. Israel and Iraq also hated each other. It is worth mentioning that a major fear during the buildup to the current Iraq War was not that Saddam would nuke or biologically attack the US stateside but rather that, seeing that he was on a one-way train to Totally Fuckedville, would bomb the shit out of Israel.

Additionally, it is tough to forget that Iran and Iraq hate each other. A lot. For those of you that truly don’t pay any attention to world history or international affairs, Iran and Iraq spent the 80’s in a shooting war, actively invading and trying to kill each other.

So ever since that war and especially since the death of Khomeini, Iran has been a country unable to get a foothold in any international situation. A million people died in the Iran-Iraq conflict and it created millions of refugees to both sides. A necessarily secret political blending began to occur which has, since the capture of Saddam Hussein, resulted in situations like Najaf and players like Muqtada al-Sadr, who was a cleric X-treme by even Middle Eastern standards and while he operated in Iraq, he took his cues from… Iran?

Its true. al-Sadr’s number one homeslice (and the guy who convinced him a messianic return was imminent) is one Ayatollah Kazem al-Haeri, who vacated Iraq in the 1970’s and makes his home in Qom. He has spent most of his life, both political and physical, fighting for an Islamic state in Iraq. He’s a Shiite, as is al-Sadr. Iran is overwhelmingly Shiite and the majority of citizens in Iraq are Shiite with strong minorities of the Sunni Muslim and Kurdish varieties.

Not to sound terribly alarmist on the side of Israel, but let’s not forget that Allawi is also a strong Shiite Muslim who was also in exile, just like al-Haeri. In July, Allawi made it clear that no steps would be taken to establish or normalize a relationship with Israel without the rest of the “Arab Leadership,” including Palestine.

So, here we are, on the cusp of what some people call “Mid-East destabilization” and what I like to refer to as “OMG THEY’RE ALL GONNA GET ALONG NOW”. Getting along normally wouldn’t be bad, but Iran and Iraq getting all friendly in the power vacuum the extraordinarily secular Saddam Hussein left behind is probably not good news for most people, and you can bet your ass that Israel is right at the tippy-top of several TO-DO lists. Hussein funded Palestinian suicide bombers, but he probably just did that for fun. These new guys really mean it.

So the US and Israel have been allies for a long time, and all of a sudden the United States does something potentially very dangerous to the tenuous position Israel has held in the Middle East for the last 40 years or so. It doesn’t seem that way to begin with but any sort of consideration (and especially the ability to see into the future Giuliani purports Bush to have) would have revealed that even if the invasion was an inexorable event in a series of such events, Allawi or any similar and feasible appointees would spell trouble for Israel.

The moral of the story is - why is anyone surprised that Israel would have intelligence agents operating in the Pentagon? If I were Israel I would certainly be involved in at least a smidgen of statecraft, just to stay in the loop concerning the United States’ seeming inability to understand that the Middle East breaks down to “Israel” and “Everyone Else That Hates Israel.”

See? A mess.

On a final note, I was never given a name to go after like I asked for. This probably has to do with the distinct possibility that you, dear reader, barely care enough to read what I write and not much more. That’s fine, because at least you read. Bill Gertz never responded so I guess I’m just going to have to pick another chuckleface to go after.