MANEUVERNG FOR
A FINAL SHOWDOWN

Boys against the Girls

[Part 1 in our series on the buildup
to the Gog / Magog War]

April 4, 2007
By: S.R. Shearer

INTRODUCTION

As April begins, a highstakes showdown between the president and Congress over the War in Iraq is looming - one that is pitting the proponents of America's New World Order System against those in the United States who would just as soon give up on the idea of the American Empire and see America as just one country among many others on planet earth. [Please see our article, "An American Coup D' Etat."]

Such an idea, however, is anathema to American evangelicals who believe that America is God's REDEEMER NATION destined by Him to subject the world to God's rule on earth. To Christian evangelicals, the conflict in Iraq is the first battle in a much broader war that aims to subjugate the world in the interest of "Christ and the church." To fail in this war means to fail with Christ. To give up on the American Empire is to give up on the Kingdom of God.

BUSH vs. PELOSI;
THE BOYS AGAINST THE GIRLS

But that's exactly what seems to be happening - not so much on the battlefields of Iraq as in the halls of Congress and among those left-wing "prissies" and "wimps" who gather themselves around such effete, "limp-wrist" congressional leaders as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco (no less) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

These "milquetoasts" and "pantywaists" believe that the American people sent a clear message in the November elections that they want an end to the fighting in Iraq - and that's exactly what the new Democratic majority in Congress intends to do: bring an end to the fighting. Moreover, in pursuit of their goal to "bring the troops home," these Democrats are not very much alarmed by the prospect that if this means the U.S. has to leave the Middle East with its tail between its legs, just as it did after the Vietnam War, then so be it!

In order to bring about such a result, the Democratic-controlled Congress is using its power of the purse to set conditions on a must-pass $120 billion "Emergency Wartime Supplemental" bill to continue war spending for the next year. The Senate version of the bill has a MANDATORY August 2008 deadline for withdrawal of ALL U.S. combat troops from Iraq.

Using unusually strong language, the president has threatened that he will veto the bill if it reaches his desk in its present form.

CALM DOWN WITH THE THREATS

Pelosi, however has dismissed Bush's warning by telling him to -

"Calm down with the threats. There is a new Congress in town."

The tone in Pelosi's words reeked with feminine contempt and disdain - the kind that drives so-called "real men" mad with anger; the kind that the National Organization of Women (NOW) uses to such great effect against their "manly" adversaries.

Indeed, so dismissive is Pelosi and her "milksop minions" of Bush's clumsy, "mean-spirited" policies in the Middle East that she has actually embarked on a tour of Middle East capitals (including Syria's capital, Damascus) to demonstrate what a "softer" more "non-masculine" touch in the Middle East can accomplish over and against the "oafish" and "manish" policies of George Bush and his Christian allies. She's guided by the thought - resident in the hearts of many women of her ilk - that even an Hell's Angel can be "tamed" and "civilized" if treated with respect and a willingness to sit down and listen to his complaint - a willingness to help heal his "hidden child."

It's BOYS (the bullies, i.e., George Bush and his crowd) against the GIRLS (the "healers," i.e., Nancy Pelosi and her crowd); the wimps against the tough guys - and it seems that the girls are winning, much to the rage of Bush's neo-con, testosterone-driven supporters.

Norman Ornstein, who studies relations between Congress and the White House at the American Enterprise Institute, says that the confrontation between Pelosi and Bush -

"Will play out over [the coming] months ... and the CRUNCH[between the two] probably won't come until August."

It's a CRUNCH, however, that Pelosi and her "girl-friends" in Congress expect the president to lose.

BUSH IS ON THE LOSING SIDE

Commenting on the presumed fact that the president is on the losing side of this confrontation, the Washington Post recently editorialized:

"In the short term, the president has time and rhetoric on his side ... but in the long term, HE IS ON THE LOSING SIDE."

And that's certainly what most other political pundits and the "chattering class" in the United States believe. They are convinced that - in the end - the president will be forced to back down. The Post editorial continued:

"Bush will have to find middle ground here since the Democrats hold the purse strings for financing the U.S. military involvement in Iraq."

THAT'S NOT THE WAY THUGS BEHAVE

The problem with this kind of thinking is that "pansy liberals" such as Pelosi, Reid, Kennedy, etc. believe that Bush will "play by the rules:" that if Congress mandates the withdrawal of American troops from the Middle East, Bush and his neo-con allies will meekly comply.

But that's kind of like believing that a thug with a gun in a room full of unarmed pantywaists will relinquish his gun if the pantywaists take a vote asking him politely to do so - to comply with the "will of the majority." However, that's not the way thugs behave.

Thugs don't operate by resort to the "rule of the majority." They operate by the "rule of the gun" - and from this perspective THERE IS A GREAT DEAL OF EVIDENCE WHICH SUGGESTS THAT BUSH IS SETTING THE UNITED STATES UP FOR A WAR WITH IRAN, despite the fact that neither Congress nor the American people as a whole have any stomach for such a war. He's the one with the gun, not Congress, and not the American people.

BUSH IS MANEUVERING TO GET HIS WAY

Bush is maneuvering to get his way much in the same manner that Al Capone would have moved against his opposition in the streets of old Chicago - and all the pressure being brought against him by Pelosi and her coterie of pantywaists down "at city hall" (so to speak) is having little effect on him. They can wield their majority in the House and Senate, they can angrily stamp their wee little feet, shake their prissy fists and investigate the "crimes" of the Bush Administration "until the cows come home;" but in the end, Bush "bullies on" in the Middle East - intimidating here, threatening there - in his effort to expand the reach of America's New World Order System in the oil fields of that region of the earth.

And make no mistake about it, what the mean neighborhoods of Chicago were to Al Capone, the Middle East is to George Bush. Bush isn't trying to win an election there; he's trying to "mob" his way into power Mafioso-style, and to hell with the wimpy bureaucrats "down at city hall."

Again, what does it matter to Bush that Pelosi has the votes on "the city council;" he has the guns, and in Bush's world - and in the muscular world that most Christian evangelicals so naively admire - that's what counts.

Like Capone, what Bush may very well be planning to do is "BLAST" his way into a kind of "permanent power," dismiss the city council (as it were), rewrite the city charter, call for new elections and "stuff the ballot box" to get his way - with his Christian allies toting submachineguns to enforce the new rules.

That's where Iran comes in: In order to initiate this process of murder and mayhem, BUSH INTENDS TO MAKE WAR WITH IRAN (Bush's cross-town rival for power in the Middle East) - and to that end Bush is setting Iran up for the equivalent of a "Saint Valentine Day Massacre."

SETTING IRAN UP FOR THE EQUIVALENT
OF A ST. VALENTINE DAY MASSACRE

Saman Sepehri, an analyst with the ISR, describes the many ways that Bush is going about to weaken Iran and "set it up" for the kill:

FIRST, in the United Nations, the United States has persuaded the Security Council to slap sanctions on Iran. Moreover, the acquiescence of Russia and China in the vote for sanctions has signaled the willingness of these two countries to cut a deal with the United States, and has created an opportunity for the U.S. to increase the "sanctions regime" against Iran in the future. THIS IS EXACTLY THE TACK THAT THE U.S. TOOK WITH REGARD TO IRAQ PRIOR TO MAKING WAR ON THAT COUNTRY.
SECOND, on the military front, the United States has sent two full carrier battle groups (the Eisenhower and the Stennis groups) into the Persian Gulf, WHICH GIVES THE UNITED STATES THE FIREPOWER TO SUSTAIN A 24-HOUR BOMBING CAMPAIGN AGAINST IRAN FOR A FULL MONTH. This supplements the already massive naval presence the United States has in the Gulf. The U.S. is also supplying the Arab Gulf states (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, etc.) with full batteries of Patriot missiles to protect against a possible Iranian retaliation.
THIRD, on the economic front, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states have agreed to higher oil production levels, lowering the price of oil from about $80 per barrel a few months ago, to about $55 per barrel today. THIS HAS HAD THE EFFECT OF LOWERING IRAN'S OIL INCOME. This drop in income has effectively bankrupted the country's oil export foreign currency savings account.
FOURTH, using the fig leaf of UN sanctions, the U.S. is putting a financial squeeze on Iran by pressuring European and other international banks to refuse to perform transfers with Iran or Iranian banks, citing Iran's "support for terror" and "non-cooperation" with United Nations Security Council on the nuclear front. This has seriously hampered transfer of funds, and hence has put the quietus on Iran's commercial transactions, as well as her imports and exports - creating massive economic problems for the country. As a result, the value of Iran's currency has dropped and inflation has gone up by 50 percent in the past few months. Moreover, these financial pressures have dried up any prospect of foreign investment in Iran's aging oil sector, seriously jeopardizing its oil production capacity.
FIFTH, on the Iraqi front, the United States is giving political forces and players in Iraq that heretofore have been friendly with Iran - from Iraqi Prime Minister Al-Malike to the Mahdi army leader Mutqtada Al-Sadr - the choice to join up with the U.S., get out of the way by melting into the background, or risk being caught in the coming firefight with Iran.

NOTE: Please see Sepehri's article entitled "The Pressure Is On" in the ISR for March / April, 2007.

PIECES ARE FALLING INTO PLACE

Already pieces are falling into place, the loose elements breaking rank with Iran after only the first round of threats by the United States. For instance, just days after U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned Al-Maliki that if Iraqi's Shia militias are not brought under control, Al-Maliki's days as Prime Minister could be numbered - and perhaps he could even find his own life in serious jeopardy. Al-Maliki - who is a Shia Muslim and thus sympathetic to close ties with Iran - got the message: When asked in early February about Iranian involvement in the insurrection, rather than defending his erstwhile ally, he turned on Iran and said:

"It (i.e., Iran's involvement) exists! I assure you, it exists."

Not only that, Al-Maliki went a step further and ordered his Shia followers to roundup the Shiite radicals responsible for kidnapping and murdering five U.S. soldiers in Karbala - an incident that the U.S. blamed on Iranian operatives.

And it's not just Al-Maliki that has gotten the message from the United States: Muqtada Al-Sadr, the head of the Mahdi Army in Iraq, a group supported by Iran, has ordered his troops to back away from a confrontation with the U.S. over Iran, fearing a full scale onslaught by U.S. forces in Sadr City - an onslaught that could make the massacre that occurred in Falluga several years ago look like a cake-walk.

PROMOTING CONFLICT BETWEEN
THE SHIITES AND THE SUNNIS

In addition to all this, the United States has been willfully and relentlessly promoting the idea among Sunni Muslims, most of whom reside in U.S. "client states" in the region (i.e., Jordan, Iraq, the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya, and North Africa in general) that their real enemy in the Middle East is not the United States (nor even Israel) but the Shia menace posed by Iran. [To understand the differences between the Sunni Muslims and the Shia Muslims, please see our article, "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsan."]

And there can be no question that these fears are real - at least insofar as America's toady-elites are concerned. The very real fact of the matter is, America's Sunni client-state elites have become increasingly alarmed at the growing regional influence that has accrued to Iran among every-day people in the Middle East (both Sunnis and Shiites alike) because Iran is apparently the only country in the region willing to take a stand against American (and, ipso facto, Israeli) hegemony.

This fear has been intensified by the fact that Iran has ostensibly been attempting to persuade the Sunni populations in Lebanon and Syria to convert to Shiism - THUS PRODUCING A SHIITE ALLIANCE OF NORTHERN STATES (IRAN, IRAQ, LEBANON, SYRIA) HOSTILE TO THE SUNNI SOUTH. Whether Iran is actually attempting to do so is an open question, but that is what America is telling the Sunni elites, and that's what these elites are beginning to believe.

DIVIDE AND CONQUER

Divide and conquer! - that's the policy of the United States insofar as its attempt to take over the oilfields of the Middle East is concerned; pit the Sunnis and the Shiites against one another and by doing so NEUTRALIZING ANY POSSIBLE ARAB (SUNNI) SUPPORT FOR IRAN IF AND WHEN THE UNITED STATES DECIDES TO GO TO WAR WITH IRAN.

So sure is the U.S. of the efficacy of this policy that many in the Bush government believe that they can actually convince America's client state Sunni elites that Israel should be seen as their friend in all this - AND TO THIS END THEY ARE PUSHING FOR A RECONCILIATION BETWEEN ISRAEL AND THE SUNNI ARAB NATIONS OF THE SOUTH BY PERSUADING THE ISRAELIS TO FINALIZE A PEACE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THEMSELVES AND THE PALESTINIANS, A PEACE TREATY THAT THE UNITED STATES HAS TOLD ISRAEL IT IS READY TO GUARANTEE.

That should be enough to send shivers up and down the spine of anyone conversant with the prophecies dealing with Isaiah 28:18. [Please see our article, "Israel: In that Day There Shall Stand up a Root of Jesse that Shall Be an Ensign for the People."]

ISRAEL IS CONVINCED

So convincing has the Bush Administration been with regard to this political tack, that many in Israel have actually come to believe that such a possibility exists: Specifically, that Israel and the Sunni states of the Middle East can make peace with one another over Iran's corpse. This was made abundantly clear last summer in a speech that Shimon Perez, Labor Party leader in Israel's "Unity government," gave to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in Chicago:

"There are clearly two trends, one run by Iranians to introduce a Muslim hegemony of their taste, a Shia one; and the Arab countries, who want to remain in charge of the Middle East. They think it's their region; it's not a Persian region, it's an Arab region.

"... Iran wants also to change the character of Syria even to the point that they want to convert the Syrians from being Sunni to become Shias, and clearly they have an eye on Iraq as well. If they will win, it will be catastrophic all over the world ... Probably then, you have many of the Arab countries for the first time that are supporting an Arab [Sunni] struggle or a Lebanese struggle. Among them is Saudi Arabia, which feels that if Iran wins, they will lose."

THE LINES ARE DRAWN

Sepehri writes:

"The lines drawn by Perez are clear: Israel has common interest with, and is a defender of Arab countries [Sunni Muslims] against the Shiites [i.e., Iran]."

Sepehri continues:

"Moreover, as the Wall Street Journal reported, 'Israel's outreach to moderate Arab states gained momentum last month when during the United Nations meeting in New York Israeli officials held private meetings with officials from Persian Gulf states regarding Iran', though Israel refused to name the states since it has no official relations with most Arab countries."

In all of this, the United States is deftly playing on the fears of its Arab (Sunni) client-state governments (i.e., the Gulf states, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc.)

Clearly, Israel has bought into America's strategy here - even to the point of actually subscribing to the ridiculous notion that the Sunni governments of the Middle East can be made their friends. Well, maybe the elites in these countries who are dominated by the Americans can, but certainly not the masses who hate both America and Israel with a burning passion because of the grinding poverty they have been reduced to as a result of American oil policies and their governments groveling participation in the American New World Order System.

Nonetheless, what does America care about the poor in the Sunni nations of the Middle East. America's interest lies only with placating their toady elites there so that they can continue to pillage these countries of their oil wealth. Cutting the poor of the region into a share of the wealth would dilute the American share of the loot - something that America's oil elites simply cannot tolerate.

CONSOLIDATING A SUNNI ALLIANCE AGAINST THE
SHIITES IN PREPARATION FOR WAR AGAINST IRAN

On January 15^th of this year, the U.S. convened a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council with Egypt and Jordan attending as guests. Sepehri writes:

"It was a turning point for the United States in its effort to encircle AND PPREPARE FOR AN ATTACK ON IRAN. It marked the consolidation of forces necessary to form an anti-Iranian block, allowing the United States to attempt to move beyond the quagmire of Iraq to the second phase of its war in the Mideast - opening a front against Iran - WHICH HAS ALWAYS BEEN ITS MAIN TARGET AND THE CENTERPIECE OF ITS PLAN TO REMAKE A 'NEW' MIDDLE EAST."

According to Sepehri, this meeting sealed the agreement of America's Sunni client-states against Iran. It has -

"... put the necessary players and pieces in place, SETTING THE STAGE FOR ... MILITARY OPERATIONS TO COMMENCE AGAINST IRAN."

THE BEST LAID PLANS OF
MICE AND MEN OFT GO AWRY

Still, America may be making a great mistake in not taking into account the wishes of the poor throughout the Middle East; making a deal with America and Israel at the expense of the poor, not only in Shia Islam, but in Sunni Islam as well, could very well BACKFIRE on the Americans. And that's plainly what the Prophetic Scriptures seem to indicate.

MANEUVERNG FOR A FINAL SHOWDOWN