Intense consultations have been taken place between top Imperial representatives and Fatah thugs (the USA are, as pretty much everybody already knows, deeply involved in the anti-Hamas operations). Today, Imperial forces have made several deep incursions into the Gaza strip. According to at least one Palestinian news agency, this is actually an invasion of Gaza. I personally doubt this very much, but this could well be the first preparatory phase of a full-scale invasion.
In the meanwhile top US Neocon John Bolton has stated that sanctions and diplomacy have failed and it may be too late for internal opposition to oust the Islamist regime, leaving only military intervention to stop Iran’s drive to nuclear weapons. He added that he was “very worried” about the well-being of Israel. If he were in Israel’s predicament, he said, “I’d be pushing the US very hard. I am pushing the US [administration] very hard, from the outside, in Washington.”
(Bolton is, of course, quite correct about one thing: no “internal opposition” is going to “oust” anyone from power in Iran)
In the meantime, and on a lighter note, here is a small quiz: in which country in the Middle East does a religious radio station ban a male singer because his voice is “too feminine” and thus forbidden as pious man are forbideen to listen to female voices?
Taliban controlled Afghanistan? “Mullah” ruled Iran? Wahabi Saudi Arabia?
Nope.
But in all fairness to the “only democratic state in the Middle-East” something like that could also have happened under the Talibans.
Did you see this interesting – if depressing – article from Johnathon Cook?
http://www.counterpunch.org/cook06262007.html
nope. not yet. so thanks for pointing it out to me. I have been reading Cook’s stuff for a while already and I might start posting some of his materials here.
Thanks!
Here’s another article on a similar theme – it basically says that, contrary to the belief that the Hamas “takeover” of Gaza represented yet another failure for US policy in the ME, the opposite may be true:
http://www.counterpunch.org/loewenstein06252007.html
yes, I saw this one. I frankly do not agree with the author at all. For example, the author writes Abbas in order to maintain his role as “Good Guy”- will have to accede to the dictates of Israel and the United States or suffer the same fate as his predecessor, Yassir Arafat.
I think that the opposite is true, that should Israel no make any meaningful concessions to Abbas he will go down the tubes (which is, exactly, what seems to be happening). If Abbas goes down – who will replace him for the Empire? Dahlan?
I do not believe that the Empire is all that smart in its policies, quite to the countrary. There are people who say that it was actually the primary intention of the USA to create chaos in Iraq. I don’t buy that at all. I think that we see them as very evil (which they certainly are) and very shrewed (which in a short-term way) they can be. But they are simply incapable of mid to long term planning. I think that the entire Imperial Middle-East policy is in total shables and that the Neocons are clueless as to what to do about this, so they buy time by kidding themselves about “leaders” like Abbas, Karzai or Siniora not realizing that they are cheering on “already dead horses”