Getting hot in the Middle East

Some interesting news recently: France has agreed to supply the Lebanese army with weapons, and Saudi Arabia has agreed to pay for it.

On the surface, this looks like just another arms deal in a world of arms deals. One commenter went so far as to suggest that this was an anti-semitic plot against Israel, but frankly, that's unlikely.

Make no mistake; this deal will have been done with Israel's tacit agreement.

The target of this deal is not Israel, but Hezbollah.

Hezbollah, supplied and supported by Syria and Iran, is a major force in Lebanon. An unofficial but very heavily armed and organised political and military force, it's proven too strong for Israel to unseat without getting stuck in an occupation quagmire, and the Lebanese army is too weak (deliberately kept weak by Hezbollah's involvement in the political process) to assert its authority over the entire country.

But the wind has been blowing against Hezbollah lately, with Iran feeling the squeeze of sanctions and strike threats, and Syria, its most immediate ally, now reeling in a Western-initiated, Saudi financed civil war. The fact that Hezbollah felt the need to intervene on the battlefield on Assad's behalf is a measure of how worried they are, and of how high the stakes are.

And, at this moment of turmoil and weakness, Saudi Arabia just happens, for no apparent reason, to open its generous cheque book to the Lebanese Army.

The implications are obvious - Saudi Arabia is looking to provoke a civil war, this time in Lebanon itself, with the aim of crushing or weakening Hezbollah.


Turning up the heat

In the war for geopolitical influence in the greater Middle East, and in the conflict between Sunni and Shia, Saudi Arabia is winning. And it is doing so without the deployment of a single Saudi soldier.

Well, if you don't count the ones they sent to Bahrain to stamp on the embers of the so-called 'Arab Spring' there.

But with the retreat of, first, the USSR, then the US, from the region, Saudi Arabia is emerging as a colossus.

It was involved, along with Qatar, in the removal of Gaddafi and his meddlesome, pro-African revolution, anti-oil dollar ways. He's gone now, and Libya is in turmoil, but no matter. It is no longer a threat to Saudi Arabia, and it can stay in turmoil for all the Saudis care - it's one less oil producer to compete with.

The Saudis were also involved, this time snubbing Qatar, in bringing down President Morsi in Egypt and returning the country to military rule. The grinding down of the Muslim Brotherhood (Saudi Arabia's most hated enemy) that is currently going on will be much to Saudi Arabia's liking.

Saudi Arabia, of course, has been instrumental in keeping the Syrian civil war going, doing all it can to knock out Iran's last ally in the Middle East. And it has been making sure that the Saudi backed militias prevail over the ones backed by the US, EU and Qatar. The Syrian Opposition is a mess of competing loyalties, and while it appears to be losing against Assad's forces on the ground, it nonetheless continues to keep the country in an unstable state. If Assad is busy handling problems on his doorstep, then he will have less time to meddle with Saudi Arabia's plans in the rest of the Middle East.

And so we come to the next domino: Lebanon. You see, the real war in the entire Middle East is between (Shia) Iran and (Sunni) Saudi Arabia. And Iran is having its tentacles in the Gaza Strip, Syria and Lebanon slowly snipped off. Turmoil in Lebanon will look terrible in the Western media, but for the Saudis it will be a welcome message to Iran: Look at what is happening to all your friends.


Try the Falafel

So how do other countries feel about this? Well, Israel is happy, as it has been quietly allied with Saudi Arabia ever since the Saudis requested (and paid for) their help a couple of decades ago to solve a problem in the Yemen. With the British no longer willing to fight in Aden or the Arabian Peninsula, the Saudis needed other soldiers to fight their wars. Pakistani mercenaries are useful, and America's willingness to stamp on Saddam Hussein proved very useful, but nothing is as useful as Israel's vociferous anti-Iran stance and its willingness to ignore international law to enforce its interests. So Saudi Arabia can use Israel's help, and it can provide a useful service in return.

It can make sure Egypt honours its peace deal with Israel and maintains its side of the Gaza blockade (which Morsi's government had gone soft on). It can keep Syria, Israel's old enemy, destabilised and no threat to anybody anymore.

And it can kick the legs out from under Hezbollah and leave them too busy fighting for their own survival to bother Israel any more.

So Israel is happy.


Non?

Then there is France. Now what France is up to in all this is something of a mystery to me. Just lately France has gone interventionist mad, with robust insertions into Libya, Mali and the Central African Republic. When you consider that they were once mocked as being Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys for not getting involved in the Invasion of Iraq, you can see that this is quite a change for the truculant Gallic nation that prefers to say 'Non'. And having just lost their triple-A rating on the world finance markets, you'd think the French would be more cautious about getting into expensive interventions.

Then again, that may be why it is happy to boost its defence industry with Saudi money. And who wouldn't? And France remains a staunch ally of Israel anyway, in spite of the EU's weak finger wagging over the Palestinian issue.


You're either with us and against us?

And how does the US feel about this? Well, that's a difficult one too, as the US has long since ceased to pursue a rational foreign policy, mixing as it does its geopolitical interests with its humanitarian interests - feeling sorry for downtrodden people while supporting Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Since its disastrous venture into Iraq, where it was forced to leave empty handed, the US has declared its intention to pivot towards the Far East (and antagonise China instead). It committed aircraft to Libya but declined to do so in Syria, even as the CIA trained anti-Assad militias in Jordon and unleashed them across the border in a major offensive (which failed). And while backing Israel and the Sunnis in the west, and maintaining its hostility against Shia Iran in the east, it offers drones and missiles to the Iranian backed Iraqi government in the centre.

What is the US trying to achieve? Quite honestly, I don't know. It could be a plan so cunning that mere mortals like myself cannot understand it. Or it could just be foreign policy incompetance on a grand scale.

Either way, it looks a million miles away from what Saudi Arabia is doing.

So keep an eye on Lebanon. If those arms get delivered, and if the conflict next door is unresolved, it could blow up.

Why do men fight?

In an age where masculinity appears outmoded - where masculinity is in fact mocked and derided, the issue of why men fight becomes a vexing question.

And there have been many answers to that one question - or perhaps questions raised by that one question.

Is it that men are inferior to women? Surely if they were not so egotistical or vain, if they were more able to empathise and cooperate, then they would see there was no need to fight? The pen is mightier than the sword, good deeds are better than bad, we are one species and only have one planet to live on. If men could learn to share, then they would no longer need to destroy.

Or perhaps it is masculinity, that cult that is supposed to direct us and tell us what to do? Perhaps it is simply a mistaken cult, one that can be shaped to be different? For is not masculinity just an idea? And cannot ideas be changed?

Maybe it's the system? The capitalism that pits one against the other, that competes for resources, that demands a loser for every winner? Perhaps it is civilization itself - that monstrous entity that corrupts us, that consumes us and uses us as fuel to maintain itself?

Or perhaps it is God who makes us do this, because He made us in his own image? Or even the Devil, who hates what God made and therefore whispers temptations into our ears and leads us to our doom?

But consider this. We have a common ancestor with chimpanzees. We share 98% of our genes with chimpanzees. We don't really know much about that common ancestor, but genetically we do know that the chimpanzee is our closest relative. A brother. And chimpanzees fight too. Viciously and frequently.

Ah, but that is different, you say. Men fight for causes, for honour, for flags, for pay, for the motherland, for family. Or for stupidity, and the lies of other men. Take your pick.

But at the point of fighting, at the point when a man engages his opponent, whether in a bar or a battlefield, does any of that other stuff really matter? At the point of death, at the point of driving home the blade, charging the blood soaked horse or crashing the burning plane into the enemy's ship, are any of those causes really thought about? Pondered over? Repeated to one self?

Or, at the point of naked aggression, is there something else? Something we dare not speak of? Something that those who do not fight will never understand? Or would prefer to not understand?

Now ask the question: Why do chimpanzees fight?

When you can answer that question - truly properly answer that question - then we can answer the question of why men fight, and therefore dispense with all that philosophical, theological or ideological nonsense that we currently fill our heads with.

Middle Class Hypocrisy

Guderian is in danger of becoming my favourite commenter. Here's another gem from a Spiked article:

Dear Tim

I see you are a bit bewildered by the ways of the modern world. Let me see if I can help you understand 

You see, when the Guardian says something, we call this an "opinion" but when the Daily Mail says something, we call this "being judgemental". That's because Guardian readers are being insightful whereas Daily Mail readers are being prejudiced.

Money is also different, £7.45 an hour is shitty money to most people, but Guardianistas call that "living wage".

Same deal with food. A piece of beef in a bun is a "gourmet burger" in Guardianland but it's junk food when the working class eat it.

And finally sex. When the nice people have sex they are expressing their sublime love for each other but when my window cleaner does his wife he's just giving in to his animal instincts, treating her like an object and perpetuating some kind of macho crap.

So don't fret Tim, eventually you'll get the hang of it.

All the best

Feelgood factor

Quote from Guderian in a Spiked article:

People in the Third World have never had it so good and it's thanks to heroes like me. Every espresso I have at Costa Coffee makes Guatemalan children very happy, I have seen the pictures and they always smile. I drink water from some company that vaccinates (or is it fumigates?, I forget) children in some African country, they also smile in the picture. My bananas make peasants in some other loser country very happy because a nice lady in London tells them how lucky they are to be paid a fair price. I am very precious and all the brown people know it. My mum was right.

Get a grip

Some brilliant comments by Sinister-Dexter in an article about the comedian Russel Brand's call for a 'revolution of consciousness'. Here's S-D's take on modern trendy activism of the kind lauded by Brand:

Western activism over the past decade has descended into an ego stroking exercise. I often meet people who have flown into the country to attend a summit on climate change, when i question them on their usefulness I always get the same response: "We're raising awareness!" which is what people end up saying about Brand when it's pointed out he has no substance, no solutions, and his revolution doesn't even have an exit strategy! "Raising awareness" is for backslapping narcissists who want to believe they're saving the world but don't want to do any of the boring shit, like, actually saving the world. "I really care about the planet, y'know? That's why I've organised this Green event, we're going to have DJs, and people speaking about polar bears, and face painting, and it will all raise awareness!" No. You are useless, just like Brand, you're a distraction, a feel-good exercise. There are people doing hard work to actually solve such issues, intelligent, studious people working on solutions. Shitting on such people and shouting "let's burn it all down and rebuild it based on the principle of love, not money!" might make you feel good for an hour or so, but it draws attention away from the committed people who spend their entire lives working on solutions to these problems.

 And here he is on the 'disaffected youth' of today:

 And seriously, when has the youth not been disaffected? The youth aren't that fragile, disaffection is a phase, a natural part of growing up. I feel disaffected with the disaffected British youth, whereas the disaffected youth in other countries riot for political change, in the UK the disaffected youth riot for a new iPhone. Funny how you didn't see the disaffected youth in turkey or Egypt robbing JD Sports.

Hypocrisy

72 'activists' have now been killed in Egypt - protestors gunned down by State security forces.

And world leaders are queuing up to condemn the heavy handed suppression of democracy, aren't they?

Aren't they?

Oh wait, they aren't. Well what about sanctions then? Uh, no. No-fly zones? You must be joking.

Surely Human Rights campaigners and the President of the United States - a holder of the Nobel Peace Prize - are united in condemnation of the Egyptian Military's actions? Surely there must be outcry at the countries that supply Egypt with weapons? Surely our own parliament is being lobbied by all those who insist that weapons are supplied only to those regimes that don't use the weapons against their own people. Surely the very people who protested against the actions of the Gaddafi and Assad regimes are joined in condemnation of the suppression of an election and the 'will of the people'.

Don't be silly. There can't be an outcry against those countries that supply Egypt with weapons, because the aforementioned Nobel Peace Prize winner still pays the Egyptian military $3 Billion a year, and will continue to deliver its promised F16 fighters. And the 'will of the people' only counts when the protesters are young, english speaking, facebook using, secular liberals. With lots of women in the picture. And it helps if they are college educated, like the journalists who photograph them.

Otherwise, they can be gunned down with impunity.

What the dead needed, you see, was not their right to life, but a good public relations agency. This is why the Libyan rebels hired a US PR agency on day one, and it wouldn't surprise me if the Syrian rebels had done the same.

Western Liberals are only interested in people who are just like them, and the claims that they see all people as the same, with no discrimination, are in fact just plain lies.

If you're 'just like us', or beautiful or young, then we'll like you.

If you're not like us, or ugly (and bearded), or the wrong (political) colour, then we don't want you.

That's the reality of Enlightened Western Morality. It's just a crock of shit.

The world knows we are hypocrites. It's just us that don't.

Cohesion

Cohesion requires an enemy.