- PROLOGUE
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- When someone does something obviously egregious, we tend
to look past it because it is our nature to believe that people are naturally
sane, good, and honest. We cannot imagine that anyone would willfully destroy
their own country, violate their own laws, trample on their own people,
and do it with such naked bravado while the world looked on.
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- But people have done it and do it even still, because
there is also a darker side to human nature. Those of us who see the good
in people look past actions that appear to be willfully evil not only because
it is in our nature but it is also a foundation of our culture, as Americans,
we believe guilt must be proved.
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- So we do not see what is going on before our eyes and
directly in front of us. We look past it, around it, through it, but not
at it. We cannot look directly at it, because if we do, we lose the vision
of our beloved America and see something so sinister, that our minds would
rather collapse than accept it.
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- But chess forces us to abandon our preconceptions and
emotions. It pushes us to think in terms of cause and effect and it forces
us to consider each action and counteraction in terms of the whole game.
That is to say, chess forces us to think beyond our own present and fixed
position, forcing us to reason every possible outcome of each action and
counteraction.
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- Furthermore, chess teaches us to calculate not against
a person, or a group, or a nation, but against a strategy that has no inherent
religious, moral, or human characteristics. Master players can suspend
their fixated self at will. Sadly, I am no master, and so I continue to
struggle in seeing the game despite my human nature as an obstacle.
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- But sometimes, it just happens, something sets it off
and there you are, inside the board, walking each action out in your mind
and seeing the whole from beginning to end.
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- QUESTIONS AND SEEING THE BOARD
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- Sometime this morning, all the various and truly bizarre
events the Bush administration has been engaged in recently with regard
to troop levels and surges suddenly crystallized for me, as though I were
sitting at a chess board and seeing the entire strategy unfold before my
eyes.
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- This is of course my opinion and I may very well be wrong.
In fact, I hope I am wrong. But the news that Saddam Hussein would be executed
soon, and then the news that it would be in the next 48 hours, boggled
my mind. Why on earth would anyone want to set off an ideological bomb
during an already chaotic situation? I do not defend Saddam Hussein, not
by any measure. But when Iraq is falling into total chaos and civil war,
and as American troops continue to die, why would anyone want to add fuel
to that fire, enough fuel to destroy what is left?
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- Suspend your emotions and think strategically. Now look
at the question again and in context.
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- The administration is stalling as it supposedly weighs
its Iraq options, when in fact they have already made their decision. How
do I know they have made their decision? One need only look at the slow
leaks coming out, not the least of which was Joe Lieberman's op-ed in the
Washington Post, to understand that we are going to be sending more troops
to Iraq. So why does the administration wait to tell us this?
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- In the meantime, naval carriers are deployed to send
Iran "a warning," as though the threats thus far and the passing
of sanctions are not warning enough. Add to that the detainment of Iranian
diplomats invited to Iraq by the Iraqi leadership. Why is the US arresting
diplomats invited to a country that the US claims is a sovereign nation
governing itself?
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- And what about those sanctions, which ultimately mean
nothing and sadly mean everything? The sanctions are so watered down as
to have no real effect on the Iranian population or economy. Why even bother
passing them?
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- Why censor Dr. Leverett's opinion piece on Iran when
the CIA already cleared it?
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- Now given this entire context, ask yourself again why
Saddam Hussein is being executed now, during Hajj even? What is the urgency?
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- THE UGLY STRATEGY I SEE
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- This is what I think may be playing out, my opinion of
course. And yes, the strategy is so brazenly obvious, arrogant, and antithetical
to everything America is supposed to be and stand for that it will be difficult
to digest.
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- What the Bush administration appears to be waiting for,
stalling for, while they allegedly mull over the Iraq question, is for
the naval carriers and other key assets to fall into position. This will
happen in the first week of January. Saddam Hussein is being executed (and
I would not be surprised if every major network aired it) to enrage tempers
and fuel more violence in Iraq. This violence will justify an immediate
need for a troop surge, although I think it will be described as temporary.
Remember too that the British press has for the past week done nothing
but report that Britain will be attacked by the New Year. Clearly they
are preparing themselves for a contingency, and that contingency is the
massive violence that will erupt across the Muslim world as they watch
(and I really believe it will be televised) Saddam's hanging just before
the New Year.
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- Why is the rush to execute Saddam Hussein not account
for Hajj? Or does it?
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- The carriers will be in position. I imaging there will
be an event of some sort in Iraq, or the violence will spill into friendly
(our friends) territory. It will be dramatic, even more so than the immediate
violence.
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- The attacks will be blamed on Iran, with the help of
the Saudis and Pakistan. Iran will be blamed for something that happens
in Iran. The naval carriers, again, will be in position. The sanctions,
as watered down as they are, have given the administration the blank check
they needed from the world (and they still have their blank check from
Congress) to order aerial strikes. The surge troops will be in position,
and I estimate that ground support will begin around late February, early
March.
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- Saddam's execution and the violence will also be a convenient
cover while the administration moves pieces into position.
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- But what the planners in the administration don't seem
to realize is that the Persians are the most expert of chess players, and
they are a patient, strategy minded opponent. They are watching this develop,
all of it, and they too are planning their counteraction. They know better
than to strike first, because in doing so, they would lose the moral argument
in the eyes of the world, as well as the advantage of counteraction. The
US has a superior air force, but Iran has a formidable navy, and while
the house of Saud will fuel this, the fallout will be fatal. Why?
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- Here is why: Because the US is too stretched to be able
to protect Israel, and Israel cannot sustain a long term attack. They can
sustain a few hits, but they will not be able to sustain a full blown attack.
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- If you have any doubt, go back to the recent war with
Lebanon. The British will pull out, despite promises of support. Blair
is on his way out, and the British public will not tolerate support for
Israel, because of its help in supporting US imperialistic aggression.
Whatever terrorist cells lurk in the US, and make no mistake, our administration
has done little to address this issue, will be activated.
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- Also consider that the house of Saud is not prepared
to defend itself against an uprising, and that the US cannot protect it
while simultaneously operating on three different fronts and covertly in
god knows how many. Despite the various sectarian differences in the Muslim
world, there are two enemies that they all agree to fight and die fighting
against: the US and Israel. This attack will set off a Muslim counterattack
so large, that nothing will be able to stop it or contain it.
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- But our leadership does not see this, because they cannot
think strategically and won't think in human terms, so they are left with
nothing but arrogance. And we ae left with a world ablaze. '
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- Larisa Alexandrovna maintains the blog At-Largely and
is Managing Editor - of Raw Story.
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- http://www.juancole.com
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