Ball of confusion

Philosophy and religion seem to be converging in a big ball throughout the middle east this week. Perhaps a tad melodramatic, but UN Ambassador John Bolton has said the future of the region might well be decided during the next few days.

Meanwhile the Rodney Dangerfield of Ba'ath terrorism, Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri (he just can't get any respect) is in the news again. Some may remember his recent decree telling Ba'ath terrorists to stand down their attacks on the Coalition shortly after Saddam was sentenced to swing. Looks like he's changed his mind:

'He told us in a letter that no talk, no contact, no reconciliation (is allowed) with the occupier or their stooges,' one former top Iraqi Baath leader told the AP in Damascus.

Another former Baathist, also in Syria but only temporarily, quoted a recent letter from Ibrahim to his followers outside Iraq as saying: 'Only the mujahadeen (fighters) are entitled to decide what they should do, and nobody else.'

A few days ago we learned about a scheduled meeting this week between al-Maliki and lower-level Ba'athists--not to include the likes of al-Duri or other most-wanted figures. One could speculate that Izzat's letters are meant to dissuade the participation of lower-level operatives still in-country. Only time will tell if it had any affect on the meeting, or whether Izzat himself still has any affect on anybody.

More interesting were the references to Syria. Aside from the Hariri and Gemayel murders, they've been implicated as a conduit for re-arming Hizballah and facilitating the cross-country movement of Mehdi Army terrorists for training purposes. According to Jordan they were the point of origin for terrorists who were planning to gas Amman back in 2004. And of course there's that claim the Syrians accepted some of Saddam's weaponry before the invasion. Considering everything we know such a notion doesn't sound far-fetched.

It's also beyond speculation they've allowed themselves to become a superhighway for foreign jihadis on their way to becoming ordnance in Iraq--but mostly of the Sunni stripe, while the jihadis entering through Iran are supposedly Shia flavor. That's why the Syrian-Iranian alliance is so weird.

Assad, like Saddam, is more Arab than Muslim, but apparently not Arab enough to keep him from hopping in the sack with the Persian Ayatollahs if the need arises. That would seem to be an exploitable weakness, if not for Israel. But if nothing else it proves just how much Assad wants the US to fail in Iraq, which was predicted by Yossef Bodansky in his book "The Secret History of the Iraq War" several years ago in which he surmised that Saddam was in cahoots with both Syria and Iran (and the PLO) to drive the US out of the region through organized destablization efforts.

So far every single leak from the Baker/Hamilton commission suggests dialogue with Syria, but the average guy on the street might say (in light of all the nefarious behavior from Assad) that any such dialogue should be in the form of an ultimatum, perhaps in the spirit of Reagan's "the bombing begins in five minutes" slip-up.

Of course, the average guy also never seems to have the proverbial big picture. Thing is, there's no evidence the big picture guys have the big picture, either.

MORE 11/28/06

An Iraqi ex-pat says Sunnis are doing fine in southern Iraq, which dispels the notion of a true civil war. It does, however, comport just fine with the notion that Syria is helping the Ba'athists and Iranians in an effort to hasten our departure.

Some blame this mess on Paul Bremer for de-Ba'ath-ifying the new government after we took Baghdad, which seems to ignore the influence of top regime figures who fled the country and had access to piles of cash and weapons.

LEAKY TIMES 11/28/06

The New York Times is heralding another bombshell leak. This time they've come into possession of a secret briefing memo prepared by NSA Stephen Hadley intended to give President Bush an assessment of possible strategies that Iraqi PM Maliki might wish to pursue in the very near future. The timing is certainly interesting since the two leaders are set to meet Wednesday in Jordan.

It's tempting to believe this was yet another example of the Times finding some empassioned whistleblower fed up with fascism within the administration and wishing to bare soul to save the world, and such may be the case. But the election is over. It seems more likely this memo was deliberately leaked (or even written) to carry a message in advance of Bush's pow-wow. Better put, a pre-meeting riot act for Maliki.

The suggestions seem a tall order for anyone, especially someone whom the document says might not have all the necessary clues at the moment. At the same time it demands progress, so take that for what it's worth. It also isn't shy about threatening to target Iran's proxy agents and suggests the Saudis could somehow "lean on" the Syrians to break up their Ba'athist sanctuaries. Meanwhile we have this fluttering peace dove circling the area, aka the Baker/Hamilton Commission, that everybody believes will be calling for a general US kow-tow to both Ahmadinejad and Assad. The plot doth thicken.