Fasten your seat belts, folks.

[msmcghee]

Is it possible that Iran's fundamentalist government, to shore up their power and clamp down on modernization, may see a role for itself here in defeating the American infidels in the name of Allah - and thereby becoming the de-facto leader of the ME Islamic world - the role that we kept from them by supporting Saddam Hussein in the 80's?

The US military is now tied down in a hopeless struggle in Iraq - that is now morphing into the civil war that I (and many others) predicted several months ago. Iran supports the Shias who are successfuly resisting the US and Iraqi police forces in Najaf right now.

There will be no better time for them to assert their will and assure victory for a greater fundamentalist Iran that could well include all of present day Iraq.

Here's just one possible scenario:

They could announce that they do not have any nuclear weapons but they have learned through their intelligence service that due to Pakistani scientist Khan's efforts over the last decade and al Queda operations there are now six nuclear warheads positioned in major US port cities.

They will say that they will negotiate with the terrorists to disarm the bombs - but that the terrorists' say that their demand that the US withdraw all troops from the middle east is not negotiable.

The threat doesn't even have to be true. If the bombs don't go off, they can claim that their level-headed diplomacy saved the world from disaster. No-one will ever be able to prove that the bombs did not exist. (You can't prove a negative.)

If Bush* caves and agrees to withdraw troops, of course, they still become heroes to all the Islamic world and the US is further disgraced for negotiating with terrorists.

If Bush* refuses to negotiate the US will become bedlam in 24 hours. Marshall law will be declared, the elections will be canceled and our economy would suffer irreparable damage as millions of Americans leave our major population centers.

How's that for an October surprise?

[amber dog democrat]

1. So since when have you been collaborating with Tom Clancy and ....

when does the novel come out ?
When we created a political vacuum and attempted to band aid over it with a puppet regeime managed by the US I figured something like a wide spread civil war would happen. I am just surprised it has NOT occured sooner.

[msmcghee]

2. Wow, I never thought of a novel. But . .

. . I have been accused of approaching that in the length of some of my posts.

B-)

[amber dog democrat]

4. At this point - real day to day stuff far exceeds

what one can say in a work of fiction.. IMHO
The scenero as described in your post woud have been good plot material, say 10 years ago. Now its a looming possiblility.

[dave29]

3. I've been waiting for the Canary Islands to make this move

for years.

One small problem with the plot above: MAD. They threaten to take out 6 port cities, and we counter that we can and will take out the entire middle east. It wouldn't be pretty, but mutually assured destruction might even make a terrorist rethink his plans.

Terrorism is most successful when the retaliation to their "terror" inflames more to their cause (see Iraq), but if they were wiped off the face of the planet (along with ruining it for everyone else) they wouldn't have much sympathy.

[amber dog democrat]

5. i don't think MAD applies to someone who is willilng to destroy themselves

in order to take out First World cities and infrastructure.
Its going to get interesting.

[dave29]

6. True,

but they care about their cause more than themselves - and their cause would not be furthered by killing 40 million people

[amber dog democrat]

15. this is true if we are not dealing with zealots/crazies and fundies.

To my way of thinking, the liklihood of mayhem is just as great with a Tom Delay, or the authors of the Left Behind series as a Mohammad Atta type.
some times I think we are living on borrowed time.

[msmcghee]

17. Exactly n/t

[dave29]

22. hey, I hear ya

but I think you are making a mistake if you think the leadership of these organizations (Osama, etc, whom you will never see strap themselves into an exploding vehicle), isn't a little smarter than you are giving them credit for. These attacks are meticulously planned - and great thought is put into whether or not the tactics will yield the result that they want. The people who carry out these attacks are the crazies, fundies, whatever you want to call them. The leadership is, unfortunately, very goal oriented - and ensuring their own destruction is not really what they are after. In fact, it's exactly the opposite of what they are after.

Note the drop in beheadings since the Islamic world started coming out strongly against this form of "retribution".

[msmcghee]

8. Al Queda exists now . .

. . in almost every decent sized city in the ME. Do you really think Bush* would nuke the 100 million Arabs in th ME to kill a couple of thousand terrorists among them? Do you think the rest of the world would let him?

[DrWeird]

10. Well, he killed at least 12,000 civilians...

to kill no terrorists.

[dave29]

13. Well,

yes.

The rest of the world, while not thinking highly of our Government, doesn't so much hate our people - and if you remember, they reacted with shock and revulsion to the murder of 3000 Americans on 9/11. They were at our backs, willing to support us 100%.

If we were threatened with the murder of tens of millions of innocent Americans, there would be unbelievable pressure, not just from our threat of MAD, but from leaders around the world to pressure those who know and work with these organizations to cease and desist.

Al Queda was lucky on 9/11 that George Bush was in power - had we had any decent leadership we would have gone after them, with the full support of the World community, quickly, with decisive force directed SQUARELY at them. We could have rooted them out and captured them, or killed them if necessary. In so doing we would have showed them this sort of thing would not be tolerated. At the same time we could have looked at why this was allowed to happen, if there are any policy changes we need to make that would not CAUSE terrorism, and continued to enjoy the full support of the world. Al Queda would have overstepped their bounds.

Instead, we killed a bunch of innocent people, swelling the terrorists ranks, blew up some points of interest in Afghanistan, half-heartedly went after Osama, and put our military in dire straits by bogging them down in a war of attrition against an enemy we created overnight. We've emboldened terrorists to make stupid moves like the scenario posted above, and we've put ourselves in the unenviable position of having to decide whether or not when faced with that scenario we would put our lives ahead of those who happen to be near the terrorists.

[msmcghee]

7. Actually, this part . .

If Bush* refuses to negotiate the US will become bedlam in 24 hours. Marshall law will be declared, the elections will be canceled and our economy would suffer irreparable damage as millions of Americans leave our major population centers.

This works out so well for Bush* that Rove might have figured this out already and may claim that we have been contacted by the terrorists directly.

Bush* looks stalwart and strong for not negotiating with terrorists, he doesn't have to worry about losing the election and the damage to the economy will further speed up his desire to defund all domestic functions of government - forcing us into a conservative fiscal winter with John Ashcroft's Justice Department bringing all domestic police and fire agencies under his direct control.

The sheep will flock to his protective breast and praise God and Bush* for saving them - since the non-existent bombs will never explode.

Hmmmm?

[amber dog democrat]

9. Margarate Attwood - The Handmaid's Tale

Would you have read this book? Its about a dystopia very like what you are describing. so much for the republic. Goodby to the old regieme.

[msmcghee]

11. No, but I'm on my way to . .

. . Amazon as soon as I click Post Message to price it out.

On edit: Just ordered it with 1 click for $4.10 used. I don't usually read many novels but this one sounds good. Thanks. PS Just learned a great old tune "Remember Me" from a Bill Clifton CD I have. Red Rector's mandolin riffs are amazing on that one.

[amber dog democrat]

19. oh then you must read Oryx and Crake by her too.

only get it from your library. i would like to know what you make of Handmaid however. I heard her last year at a book signing and .... she said regarding Handmaid, that EVERYTHING in that book had already happened in American history at one time or another.

It all starts when sheeple get scared enough to sacrafice their rights to civil liberties in exchange for security. Ive read Handmaid a couple of times. The postscript is even more interesting.

[lapfog_1]

12. There is only one problem with Iran leading the ME

and it's a fairly big one. They aren't Arabic. And Mecca and
Medina are in Saudi Arabia. And the Saudis really don't trust
the Iranians at all.

Course, we are providing them all a wonderful common enemy, us.

[msmcghee]

14. Yes, but . .

. . the Turks pulled that off and ran the mideast for several hundred years. And they are less Arab than the Persians - I think.

[amber dog democrat]

16. iranians don't like Arabs either.

I can attest to that.

[Catherine Vincent]

18. "And the Saudis really don't trust the Iranians at all."

Iran: "The enemy (Iraq) of my enemy (US) is my friend."

[amber dog democrat]

20. I am more partial to Iran than Gulf Arab states.

If the US had not meddled in their politics in 1954, the Shaw and the revolution that followed may never have happened. I tend to think the mullahs that are managing things now are more in common with fundamental Islamic principles that are alien to Persia and the Iranian people, traditions and culture.

I am very fond of Turkey too. I could live there. I think the Ottoman's tolerance to other religeoins and cultures had much to do with how they were able to create and hold onto such a large empire. But at the same time there is a legacy of violence and conquest in the Balkins that still smolders to this day. Its almost as if some of those cultures are conditioned to hate each other ever since. The Ottoman Turks consider themselves a part of Europe and to my knowledge they were not trying to root out and convert other religeons and cultures the way the Christians were.

[msmcghee]

21. But, do any of the Arab nations trust any others?

They have always put governments in place where the strongest baddest dude gets to run things. I'm not so sure their Islamic ideology causes that. I think it is Bedouin culture over thousands of years in a desolate environment that until the gasoline engine was invented had no natural resources - except perhaps the geography of the Suez canal.

I think Islam is used to justify atrocities while they fight each to see who's going to get the baddest dude title. Islam is like Christianity or any other mainline religion. It can easily be used to justify the worst atrocities if that's what someone in power wants to do.

But I think they will accept any government that gives them a chance to share that power and bakshish, just like the Sunnis did in Iraq - while Saddam butchered their Shia neighbors. They even loved the Brits for a while.

[amber dog democrat]

23. I think it is a tribal thing too.

If the fix in is and your tribe is on top, everything is all good.
I got a sense of what you are talking about by reading T E Lawrence's 7 Pillars of Wisdom a few years back. Where every well, waddi, creosote bush and date palm is owned by some tribe or another with deadly antipathy. And if your tribe is in charge, Allah is on your side. Sunni vs Shia... I don't see that ending anytime soon either.

[msmcghee]

24. Yes, I think the idea of nation states in the ME . .

. . is wrong. They are basically tribes elevated by necessity to control huge expanses by political borders created by the US, Britain and France after WWI.

Their tribal culture would have divided themselves up into very ambiguous borders with shifting political alliances that would have enclosed smaller territories - often only known of by the people who lived there and traveled through, IMO. But oil and the Holocaust, that had it's roots in the diaspora, was the reality that was imposed on them from the outside. I think Arab culture can be cruel but it also has very beautiful aspects to it.

It's too bad that that ancient culture has been forced to exist within our modern industrialized world. It really doesn't fit very well. And I think that is really why there will always be death, suffering and hatred in the ME - at least until their culture changes and conforms to modern expectations. And I'm not sure it can.

The same thing happened to Native Americans and for many of the exact same reasons. The question is, what would the world be like today if Geronimo had a few nukes.

[amber dog democrat]

25. Nation State hood was imposed after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

I wonder if the French and English had even a clue how difficult this was going to be.
Maybe the fact that they were colonial powers by the on through to WW II, the next step in political evolution was not seriously contemplated. They'd have no good answer.

And now, thrust into the world spotlight its not a comfortable situation.

I am guessing beduin tribal societies coexisted well with what ever authority it was that could claim control over a region be it Babalonyan, Assyrian, Carthegenian, Egyptian, Roman, Arab, under Saladin, or the Caliphates of various cities. I think the governing societies were more involved in regulating trade and keeping down bandits.

More of a challenge than Yugoslavia even.