Foreign Correspondent: A New Arab Spring In Lebanon And Iraq-- Once Again, People In The Middle East Want Democratic Reforms And An End To Corruption And Foreign Domination

-by Reese Erlich

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Lebanese have been demonstrating in the streets against corruption and for democratic rights. The protestors come from all economic classes and religious/ethnic groups.

Like the Arab Spring uprisings that began in 2010, these protests are spontaneous and without traditional leaders. And they are sending corrupt political parties and foreign powers scrambling to manipulate the protests for their own nefarious ends.

The current protests raise many of the same issues as the Arab Spring, says David Dunford, a former U.S. ambassador to several Middle East countries and author of From Sadat to Saddam: The Decline of American Diplomacy in the Middle East.




“People in both countries are sick and tired of sectarian jockeying and foreign influence,” he tells me in a phone interview.

In my opinion, the uprisings expose false logic of the vacuum theory, which posits that U.S. military withdrawal automatically benefits the villain du jour, whether Russia, Iran, or China. Instead, the protests show that the people of the Middle East don’t want domination by Washington, D.C., or any outside power.

Lebanon crisis

On a trip to Lebanon earlier this year, I spoke with businessmen who warned of a coming economic crisis. The Lebanese currency was dropping against the dollar, and the businessmen saw an economic meltdown coming.

It wasn’t hard to see why. Walking along Beirut’s cornice, or seaside road, I passed by dozens of vacant, multi-million dollar condos owned as vacation homes or investments by Saudi sheiks and Emirati businessmen.

Meanwhile, working class Lebanese can’t get basic services: electricity, garbage collection and protection from raging forest fires. The poverty rate is around 30 percent, according to the World Bank.

On October 17, spontaneous demonstrations began when the government imposed a new tax on the What’s App program, widely used on cell phones to make free calls. But demonstrators quickly added corruption and lack of democracy to their list of demands. They called for the entire government to resign and an end to Lebanon’s system by which certain government positions are guaranteed to each ethnic/religious group and hence to the corrupt political parties.

People sat down on major thoroughfares and set up roadblocks. Universities shut, and when they reopened, students refused to attend. Banks closed because depositors feared they couldn’t access their money.

For the first time, Lebanese from different economic classes and religions joined together demanding an end to the country’s sectarian political system. They opposed the old, corrupt parties, whether backed by the U.S., Saudi Arabia, or Iran.

People were particularly angry with Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who gave $16 million to his bikini model mistress. Hariri and his cabinet resigned October 29. All the parties in the ruling coalition, which was led by Hezbollah, scrambled to respond.

Amal and Hezbollah, the two parties with largely Shia Muslim support, initially supported the demonstrations. But so did Samir Geagea, the ultra right wing Maronite Christian leader and sworn enemy of Hezbollah. Hezbollah and Amal later withdrew support, having been accused of beating peaceful demonstrators.

Groundhog Day all over again

The Trump Administration, in what has become a Groundhog Day experience, didn’t know how to respond to yet another world crisis, according to a former U.S. diplomat who recently met with White House and State Department officials. Washington views Lebanon through the prism of Iran and Syria, he says. “They have no understanding of what's going on in Lebanon,” the diplomat tells me, on condition of anonymity.

So far, the Trump Administration does not plan a military intervention but seeks to weaken Hezbollah, which it alleges is an Iranian proxy. But factions within the administration differ on tactics.

The White House’s National Security staff believes Hezbollah controls the Lebanese government and has significant influence in the Lebanese Army. They want to pressure the Army and opposition parties to break with Hezbollah.

So on October 31, in a surprise move, the U.S. stopped all aid to the Lebanese Army, including $105 million which had been already approved in September.

The State Department and Pentagon opposed the aid cut, arguing that the Army constitutes a stabilizing and pro-western force. Cutting U.S. military aid, they argue, just provides more openings for Iran and Russia to exert influence.

All sides believe that the mass protests have weakened Hezbollah. But Hezbollah not only has a well-armed, battle-hardened militia, it can mobilize tens of thousands of civilian supporters in a matter of hours. It consistently wins seats in the Lebanese parliament and has proven adept at forming electoral alliances, even with former enemies.

Iraqis oppose U.S. and Iran

Given Lebanon’s unsuccessful system guaranteeing government positions to ethnic groups, you’d think the U.S. would have tried something different in Iraq. Instead, Washington has created an equally flawed system and imposed it on a poorer, war-ravaged country.

In Iraq, the political parties break down by religious/ethnic group, resulting in a Shia Muslim prime minister and Kurdish president. Each party places its supporters in government jobs and issues government contracts to corrupt partners. As a result, the government functions as an ATM for the parties and the wealthy elite.

Meanwhile, ordinary Iraqis don’t have safe drinking water and government-supplied electricity. Many complain that government services are worse today than under Saddam Hussein.

Protests against corruption and the party system broke out October 1. Demonstrators condemned corruption in the pro-U.S. and pro-Iran parties in Iraq, and within the parties of the Kurdish region.

The government launched a brutal crackdown. To date, more than 300 protesters have been killed, mostly by uniformed security forces and government-affiliated snipers.

Protesters threw gasoline bombs at the Iranian consulate in Karbala and chanted anti-Iran slogans. Persons unknown launched seventeen rockets into a U.S. air base.

Iraqis have long opposed U.S. occupation of their country. But over the past few years, they’ve also grown angry at Iran’s influence over certain political parties and Iranian-controlled militias affiliated with the Iraqi Army.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's leading Muslim cleric, has supported the demonstrations and opposed Iranian meddling. Moktada al-Sadr, whose political party won a plurality in the last parliamentary elections, has called for an end to all foreign interference, whether from Washington or Tehran.

The uprisings in Lebanon and Iraq show once again that people in the Middle East want democratic reforms, and an end to corruption and foreign domination. Nowhere is it written that countries must either support the U.S. or Iran. It may be difficult, but people can determine their own future.

Béji Caïd Essebsi: "My three goals as Tunisia’s president"

Earlier this week, Béji Caïd Essebsi became the first Tunisian freely elected president of the country.

"While Tunisia's commitment to elections and other democratic processes has been inspiring, building deep roots for the democratic institutions and values that can stand the test of time will take years. Still, the country offers more hope than any other Muslim country shaken by the 2011 political upheavals and deserves as much political and economic support as the United States and Europe can muster."

-- the conclusion of a NYT editorial, "Tunisia Wins Again"

by Ken

The corner in the middle of the coast of North Africa which is now Tunisia once held considerable strategic importance as a meeting point for shipping lanes to the eastern and western Mediterranean Sea and as the gateway between northern Africa and southern Europe. Even those of us with dim memories of high school World History are apt to have some glimmering of the time when Carthage, located in modern-day Tunisia, was a rival to Rome for regional domination.

It could well be lucky for Tunisians that this ancient land and sea crossroads doesn't have the strategic importance it once did, and that Tunisia itself isn't blessed with the richness in natural resources of any number of other North African and Middle Eastern states. If this doesn't sound to you like the kind of great good luck that calls for celebration, look at the fates and ongoing ongoing struggles of the countries in the region that do have significant strategic and/or resource importance, where local citizens' interest in how their countries should be governed tend to be overwhelmed by powerful political and economic forces from within and, especially, without.

I imagine that, like me, DWT readers have been generally aware that Tunisia, the country that pretty much alone survived the once-hope-engendering Arab Spring as a cause for hope, has been undergoing the delicate experience (I first wrote "experiment") of electing a president after enduring a rocky transitional period since the January 2011 ouster of longtime dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, with first-round elections in November and the decisive second round this past week.

A New York Times editorial earlier this week, "Tunisia Wins Again," responding to the second-round voting that gave the country its first-ever freely elected president-elect, began:

With the election of its first freely chosen president, Tunisia has taken another important step on its post-Arab Spring transition toward democracy. Although the country faces many difficult challenges, it remains a symbol of hope and sanity in a region consumed by chaos and dominated by authoritarian governments.

Mr. Essebsi served as interior minister under Tunisia’s repressive first president, Habib Bourguiba, and as speaker of Parliament under Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, who was ousted in the 2011 Arab Spring revolution. During the campaign, he promoted himself as an establishment figure whose experience could help ensure Tunisia’s security. Mr. Marzouki, a former human rights advocate, embodied the ideals and fervor of the revolution.

A lot of hopes are riding on the shoulders of the 88-year-old president-elect. A country with more than its share of problems to contend with is rife with forces, internal and external, that are far more interested in "getting theirs" than in contending with those problems. Which is why I think a lot of readers may be curious about the Washington Post op-ed piece in which President-elect Essebsi himself sets out "My three goals as Tunisia’s president":

* "solv[ing] daunting economic and social problems;

* establish[ing] security in a country surrounded by insecurity; and

* strengthen[ing] our young democracy at a time when hopes for democracy elsewhere in the region are failing to take root."

Or, to be more specific (links onsite):

Tunisia’s extraordinary political experience since the Arab Spring stands as a testimony to the openness, tolerance and moderation that Tunisians owe to their 3,000-year history as a Mediterranean state crisscrossed by invaders, traders and missionaries of all kinds.

It was trade and exchange with Europe — in particular, with France and Italy, Tunisia’s closest Mediterranean neighbors — that opened the country to the Enlightenment. Sadiki College, established in the 19th century, provided a strong bilingual education for the country’s elite: the modern sciences were taught in French, Arab history and Islamic heritage in Arabic. The leaders who built the postcolonial state after securing Tunisia’sindependence from France in 1956 were largely Sadiki alumni.

Those founders brought to their task a commitment to anchor the young republic in modernity. They instituted universal education, gender equality and separation of religion and state, and they promoted a strong work ethic in a country that lacked the oil wealth of other countries in the region — which has proved a blessing in disguise.

Thus, when revolution swept the Arab world in 2010 and 2011, the vision of our founders paid off. The protesters who ended both Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali’s corrupt dictatorial reign and now the Ennahda party’s recent Islamist regime are the educated sons and daughters of the large, secular middle class that was built over decades by the independence generation.

The constitution agreed to by both Ennahda and the secular camp after the Tunisian Revolution followed the example of the one adopted in 1959 under the leadership of President Habib Bourguiba, the father of Tunisian independence. Both constitutions are devoid of ideological intent and state that the country’s religion is Islam while affirming the civil character of the state.

In 2012, I formed a new political party — Nidaa Tounes (the Call of Tunisia) — to challenge Ennahda following the Islamists’ victory in the first post-revolution elections. Thanks to Bourguiba’s modernist legacy, which helped us mobilize the large, educated middle class, and particularly women, to vote for our candidates, Nidaa Tounes met with success in theOct. 23 legislative elections and again in the Dec. 21 presidential elections.

Winning democratic elections is, however, only a means to an end.

For Nidaa Tounes, and for me as Tunisia’s new president, our goal has three interconnected parts: We must solve the daunting economic and social problems that began in the Ben Ali era and were aggravated by three years of incompetent Islamist administration. We must establish security in a country surrounded by insecurity. And we must strengthen our young democracy at a time when hopes for democracy elsewhere in the region are failing to take root.

On the economic front, we face high youth unemployment, a struggling middle class and unacceptable disparity in regional development, which divides the country into coastal “haves” and interior “have-nots.” These challenges are exacerbated by the persistent economic slump in Europe, which is Tunisia’s principal trade partner. We must invest in youth employment, particularly through training for new jobs in the digital economy and service sector. We must also integrate the regions of the interior by upgrading their transportation systems, improving health care and creating jobs in solar energy and agricultural industries suited for these arid lands.

Security concerns add to these challenges and affect both foreign and national investment. Despite a robust tradition, our tourism suffers — as does our enchanting environment for lack of means to protect it.

We must also confront the fact that poverty is producing terrorism, a new phenomenon for Tunisia. The scourge of terrorism should have been addressed more decisively by Ennahda. Instead, the Islamist government allowed in radical foreign preachers who lured thousands of vulnerable young people to join al-Qaeda and the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. The same extremist ideology motivates others to take up arms — made readily available by the turmoil in nearby Libya — against their fellow Tunisians.

To fight extremism, we will need to pursue a two-pronged strategy: both “hard,” through stricter control of our borders and a more robust and technologically advanced security response, and “soft,” based on better intelligence-gathering, working to return our mosques to their spiritual function and barring entry to foreign preachers.

Despite all these challenges, the Tunisian people have hope: Our recent elections were some of the most impressive democratic achievements in recent times. Peacefully, fairly and with full transparency, Tunisians voted for accountability. Voters punished the Islamists for their failures of governance and offered secular democrats a chance to solve the country’s problems.

Particularly impressive to me — as a marker of our culture of democracy — is that the leader of Ennahda, Rachid Ghannouchi, called last month to congratulate me for Nidaa Tounes’s victory in the legislative elections. I truly appreciated his gesture and look forward to working with him and all Tunisians to overcome our difficulties and establish our nation as a solid democracy.

We hope that Tunisia’s Islamists will continue on this path. If they opt to be a normal part of a functioning political landscape, Tunisia will prove to the world that, after all, an Arab Muslim country can indeed be a full democracy.

I don't have a clue how this is all going to work out; I would just point to the conclusion of that NYT editorial, quoted at the top of this post. Although recent world experience doesn't provide mountains of optimism on any of the president-elect's three counts, I sure hope Tunisians can defy those odds.

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Rewriting History In Real Time: Egypt

If the Arab Spring can say to have "started" anywhere, it was in Tunisia on December 18, 2010 in rural Sidi Bouzid when a 26 year old vegetable seller, Mohamed Bouazizi, gravely insulted by an authoritarian policewoman, set himself on fire, igniting weeks of demonstrations that spread across the country and unseated Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali after 23 years of repressive rule. Protests spread rapidly to Algeria, Jordan, Yemen, Oman, Syria, Bahrain, Libya and Egypt. Less than a month after the protests started Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia and one month after that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resigned following 18 days of massive protests, ending 3 decades as president/dictator. Last week Tunisia had a freely contested presidential election and will likely form a broad coalition government after next month's runoffs.

That isn't the how things turned out in Egypt, which has fallen under the iron grip of a violent, repressive military dictatorship. And earlier today, that dictatorship utterly rehabilitated the 86 year old Hosni Mubarak who had been convicted of every kind of corruption under the sun and for the murder of 846 Egyptians. A pack of Mubarak political and business cronies and his two crooked sons, Gamal and Alaa, also saw all their charges thrown out. Mubarak's life sentence was reversed-- counter-revolution in action, courtesy of the new dictator, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, who had been Mubarak's equivalent of the head of the CIA.

Commenting on the verdict, deputy Head of the Conference Party Salah Hasaballah said that “Egyptians are more concerned with the political future of their country than with the past."

Hasaballah told Ahram Online that Mubarak had given a lot to Egypt during his presidency and “after two revolutions and after a new elected president, our priorities are to focus on how to build the new Egypt.”

Political analyst Mohamed El-Agaty of the Arab Forum for Alternatives thinktank told Ahram Online that he expects that the political backlash to the verdict to be small and to pass quickly.

El-Agaty argued that the state and media have been propagating a state of "panic" that will not allow for any mobilisation against the verdict.

"It was also clear from the start that this case will go nowhere… there are no proper laws to fight corruption…you cant put them [former regime figures] on trial using their own laws," he opined.

Head of the liberal Constitution Party Hala Shukrallah told Ahram Online that politically things "are going back to how they were before the January 25 revolution."

"The old political order is being reinstated… even the figures of the old regime are resurfacing," she said.

The decision more or less acquits the entire regime of the crimes that sparked the revolution in Egypt in the first place. Tahrir Square was closed down immediately. Today's NY Times points out that "state-run and pro-government media now routinely denounce the pro-democracy activists who led the 2011 uprising as a 'fifth column' out to undermine the state. Some of the most prominent activists are in prison, and the Islamists who dominated the elections are now jailed as terrorists." Earlier this month prosecutor's asked for the death sentence for the elected president, Mohammed Morsi, who was overthrown and put in prison by the military junta. His supporters are still being imprisoned and murdered by the authorities.

Too late to rehabilitate Gaddafi... but something tells me Bashar al Assad's public image is going to undergo quite the transformation in coming months. As for Egypt... the revolution is over. Better luck next time. The muderous "king" of Bahrain, Sheikh Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifah, called Mubarak to congratulate him. Presumably the two of them had a good laugh over the fake Bahraini elections underway now.

John McCain-- Always And Forever The Manchurian Candidate?

The CIA was trying-- and trying hard-- to further its own goals in the 2014 elections. Replacing Senate Intelligence Committee civil liberties hawk Mark Udall (D-CO) with a hapless national security state sieve may have been their top goal but electing freshmen members to climb into committee positions to control CIA over site was another goal. It met with mixed results. The DCCC failed to slip several CIA agent-House candidates into Congress-- at least Kevin Strouse (PA-08), Bobby McKenzie (MI-11) and Jerry Cannon (MI-01)-- but the Republicans were able to beat hapless Blue Dog Pete Gallego in south Texas with the CIA's William Hurd.

Hurd's unlikely primary victory over former GOP Congressman Quico Canseco in a low-turn-out runoff 8,699 (59.5%) to 5,930 (40.5%), was largely financed by CIA employees and operatives and national security neocon freaks like Allen West and John Bolton ($10,000 each). His own campaign website describes him as "a Senior Advisor with the cybersecurity firm FusionX, which he joined following a decade of federal service and a run for public office in Texas. As a member of the FusionX team Will helps tackle a wide range of complex cybersecurity challenges facing large manufacturers, financial institutions, major retailers and critical infrastructure providers. Additionally, from 2010 to 2013, Will was a partner with a strategic advisory firm, Crumpton Group LLC, where he provided leadership across the full range of Crumpton Group’s service offerings—helping companies capture opportunities in international markets while managing risks to their physical assets, intellectual property and human resources. Prior to returning to Texas in 2010, Will served for almost a decade as an undercover officer at the Central Intelligence Agency. At the CIA, he worked at the nexus of some of America’s most important national security issues leading intelligence operations on counterterrorism, cybersecurity and other critical threats. The majority of his career was spent overseas in South Asia and the Middle East where his primary mission was the recruitment of foreign assets, collection and dissemination of intelligence in support of the President and senior government policymaker’s national security decision making." And now he'll be ascending the ladder that will allow him to help cover up illegal CIA activities from within Congress. Just what we need!

So what's all this got to do with John McCain and The Manchurian Candidate? Is the CIA the clandestine operation who's ever successfully slipped an operative into the U.S. Congress? Uh... no. Let me introduce you to Thierry Meyssan, founder and chairman of Voltaire Network. He charges that McCain is conducting covert operations in the Middle East and claims he's working for Obama. He could be working for anyone. This'll be a hard one to ever unravel. Meyssan:

When I was in Libya during the "Western"attack, I was able to view a report of the foreign intelligence services. It stated that, on February 4, 2011 in Cairo, NATO organized a meeting to launch the "Arab Spring" in Libya and Syria. According to this document, the meeting was chaired by John McCain. The report detailed the list of Libyan participants, whose delegation was led by the No. 2 man of the government of the day, Mahmoud Jibril, who abruptly switched sides at the entrance of the meeting to become the opposition leader in exile. I remember that, among the French delegates present, the report quoted Bernard-Henry Lévy, although officially he had never exercised functions within the French government. Many other personalities attended the symposium, including a large delegation of Syrians living abroad.

Emerging from the meeting, the mysterious Syrian Revolution 2011 Facebook account called for demonstrations outside the People’s Council (National Assembly) in Damascus on February 11. Although this Facebook account at the time claimed to have more than 40,000 followers, only a dozen people responded to its call before the flashes of photographers and hundreds of police. The demonstration dispersed peacefully and clashes only began more than a month later in Deraa.

  On February 16, 2011, a demonstration underway in Benghazi, in memory of members of the Islamic Fighting Group in Libya massacred in 1996 in the Abu Selim prison, degenerated into shooting. The next day, a second event, this time in memory of those who died by attacking the Danish consulate during the Muhammad cartoons affair, also degenerated into shooting. At the same time, members of the Islamic Fighting Group in Libya ,coming from Egypt and coordinated by unidentified, hooded individuals, simultaneously attacked four military bases in four different cities. After three days of fighting and atrocities, the rebels launched the uprising of Cyrenaica against Tripolitania; a terrorist attack that the western press falsely presented as a "democratic revolution" against "the regime" of Muammar el-Qaddafi.

On February 22nd, John McCain was in Lebanon. He met members of the Future Movement (the party of Saad Hariri) whom he charged to oversee the transfer of arms to Syria around the MP Okab Sakr. Then, leaving Beirut, he inspected the Syrian border and the selected villages including Ersal, which were used as a basis to back mercenaries in the war to come.

The meetings chaired by John McCain were clearly the trigger point for a long-prepared Washington plan; the plan that would have the UK and France attack Libya and Syria simultaneously, following the doctrine of "leadership from behind" and the annex of the Treaty of Lancaster House of November 2010.

  In May 2013, Senator John McCain made his way illegally to near Idleb in Syria via Turkey to meet with leaders of the "armed opposition". His trip was not made public until his return to Washington.

This movement was organized by the Syrian Emergency Task Force, which, contrary to its title, is a Zionist Organization led by a Palestinian employee of AIPAC.

In photographs released at that time, one noticed the presence of Mohammad Nour, a spokesman for the Northern Storm Brigade (of the Al-Nosra Front, that is to say, al-Qaeda in Syria), who kidnapped and held 11 Lebanese Shiite pilgrims in Azaz. Asked about his proximity to al-Qaeda kidnappers, the Senator claimed not to know Mohammad Nour who would have invited himself into this photo.

The affair made a great noise and the families of the abducted pilgrims lodged a complaint before the Lebanese judiciary against Senator McCain for complicity in kidnapping. Ultimately, an agreement was reached and the pilgrims were released.

Let’s suppose that Senator McCain had told the truth and that he was abused by Mohammad Nour. The object of his illegal trip to Syria was to meet the chiefs of staff of the Free Syrian Army. According to him, the organization was composed "exclusively of Syrians" fighting for "their freedom" against the "Alouite dictatorship” (sic). The tour organizers published this photograph to attest to the meeting.

If we can see Brigadier General Idriss Salem, head of the Free Syrian Army, one can also see Ibrahim al-Badri (foreground on the left) with whom the senator is talking. Back from the surprise trip, John McCain claimed that all those responsible for the Free Syrian Army were "moderates who can be trusted" (sic).

However, since October 4, 2011, Ibrahim al-Badri (also known as Abu Du’a) was on the list of the five terrorists most wanted by the United States (Rewards for Justice). A premium of up to $ 10 million was offered to anyone who would assist in his capture. The next day, October 5, 2011, Ibrahim al-Badri was included in the list of the Sanctions Committee of the UN as a member of Al Qaeda.

In addition, a month before receiving Senator McCain, Ibrahim al-Badri, known under his nom de guerre as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, created the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ÉIIL)-- all the while still belonging to the staff of the very "moderate" Free Syrian Army. He claimed as his own the attack on the Taj and Abu Ghraib prisons in Iraq, from which he helped between 500 and 1,000 jihadists escape who then joined his organization. This attack was coordinated with other almost simultaneous operations in eight other countries. Each time, the escapees joined the jihadist organizations fighting in Syria. This case is so strange that Interpol issued a note and requested the assistance of the 190 member countries.

For my part, I have always said that there was no difference on the ground between the Free Syrian Army, Al-Nosra Front, the Islamic Emirate etc... All these organizations are composed of the same individuals who continuously change flag. When they pose as the Free Syrian Army, they fly the flag of French colonization and speak only of overthrowing the "dog Bashar." When they say they belong to Al-Nosra Front, they carry the flag of al Qaeda and declare their intention to spread Islam in the world. Finally when they say they are the Islamic Emirate, they brandish the flag of the Caliphate and announce that they will clean the area of all infidels. But whatever the label, they proceed to the same abuses: rape, torture, beheadings, crucifixions.

Yet neither Senator McCain nor his companions of the Syrian Emergency Task Force provided the information in their possession on Ibrahim al-Badri to the State Department, nor have they asked for the reward. Nor have they informed the anti-terrorism Committee of the UN.

In no country in the world, regardless of their political system, would one accept that the opposition leader be in direct contact, and publicly friendly, with a very dangerous wanted terrorist.

But John McCain is not just the leader of the political opposition to President Obama, he is also one of his senior officials!

He is in fact President of the International Republican Institute (IRI), the republican branch of NED / CIA, since January 1993. This so-called "NGO" was officially established by President Ronald Reagan to extend certain activities of the CIA, in connection with the British, Canadian and Australian secret services. Contrary to its claims, it is indeed an inter-governmental agency. Its budget is approved by Congress in a budget line dependent of the Secretary of State.

It is also because it is a joint agency of the Anglo-Saxon secret services that several states in the world prohibit it from any activity on their territory.

The list of interventions by John McCain on behalf of the State Department is impressive. He participated in all the color revolutions of the last twenty years.

To take only a few examples, ever in the name of "democracy", he prepared the failed coup against constitutional president Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, the overthrow of constitutionally elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti, the attempt to overthrow the constitutional President Mwai Kibaki in Kenya and, more recently, the ousting of the constitutional president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych.

In any state in the world, when a citizen takes initiative to topple the regime of another State, he may be appreciated if successful and the new regime proves an ally, but he will be severely condemned when his initiatives have negative consequences for his own country. Now, Senator McCain never was harassed because of his anti-democratic actions in states where it has failed and who have turned against Washington. In Venezuela, for example. That is because, for the United States, John McCain is not a traitor, but an agent.

And an agent that has the best coverage imaginable: he is the official opponent of Barack Obama. As such, he can travel anywhere in the world (he is the most traveled US senator) and meet whoever he wants without fear. If his interlocutors approve Washington policy, he promised them to continue it, if they fight it, he hands over the responsibility to President Obama.

John McCain is known to have been a prisoner of war in Vietnam for five years, where he was tortured. He was involved in a program designed not to extract information but to instill speech. This was to transform his personality in order that he make statements against his own country. This program, studied based on the Korean experience for the Rand Corporation by Professor Albert D. Biderman, served as the basis for research at Guantánamo and elsewhere by Dr. Martin Seligman. Applied under George W. Bush to more than 80,000 prisoners, it has transformed many of them into real fighters serving Washington. John McCain, who had cracked in Vietnam, therefore understands. He knows how to unscrupulously manipulate jihadists.

In 1990, the United States decided to destroy its former Iraqi ally. Having suggested to President Saddam Hussein that they would consider the attack of Kuwait as an Iraqi internal affair, they used this attack as an excuse to mobilize a broad coalition against Iraq. However, because of the opposition of the USSR, they did not overthrow the regime, but were content to administer a no-fly zone.

In 2003, France’s opposition was not enough to offset the influence of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. The United States attacked the country again and this time overthrew President Hussein. Of course, John McCain was a major contributor to the Committee. After handing to a private company the care of plundering the country for a year, they tried to partition Iraq into three separate states, but had to give it up due to the resistance of the population. They tried again in 2007, around the Biden-Brownback resolution, but again failed. Hence the current strategy that attempts to achieve this by means of a non-state actor: the Islamic Emirate.

...In January of 2014, the Congress of the United States held a secret meeting at which it voted, in violation of international law, to approve funding for the Al-Nosra Front (Al-Qaeda) and the Islamic emirate in Iraq and the Levant until September 2014. Although it is unclear precisely what was really agreed to during this meeting revealed by the British Reuters news agency, and no media US media dared bypass censorship, it is highly probable that the law includes a section on arming and training jihadists.

Proud of this US funding, Saudi Arabia has claimed on its public television channel, Al-Arabiya, that the Islamic Emirate was headed by Prince Abdul Rahman al-Faisal, brother of Prince Saud al Faisal (Foreign Minister) and Prince Turki al-Faisal (Saudi ambassador to the United States and the United Kingdom).

The Islamic Emirate represents a new step in the world of mercenaries. Unlike jihadi groups who fought in Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Chechnya around Osama bin Laden, it does not constitute a residual force but actually an army in itself. Unlike previous groups in Iraq, Libya and Syria, around Prince Bandar bin Sultan, they have sophisticated communication services at their disposal for recruitment and civilian officials trained in large western schools capable of instantly taking over the administration of a territory.

Brand new Ukrainian weapons were purchased by Saudi Arabia and conveyed by the Turkish secret services who gave them to the Islamic Emirate. Final details were coordinated with the Barzani family at a meeting of jihadist groups in Amman on 1 June 2014. The joint attack on Iraq by the Islamic Emirate and the Kurdistan Regional Government began four days later. The Islamic Emirate seized the Sunni part of the country, while the Kurdistan Regional Government increased its territory by over 40%. Fleeing the atrocities of jihadists, religious minorities left the Sunni area, paving the way for the three-way partition of the country.

Violating the Iraqi-US Defense agreement, the Pentagon did not intervene and allowed the Islamic Emirate to continue its conquest and massacres. A month later, while the Kurdish Peshmerga Regional Government had retreated without a fight, and when the emotions of world public opinion became too strong, President Obama gave the order to bomb some positions of the Islamic Emirate. However, according to General William Mayville, director of operations at the headquarters, "These bombings are unlikely to affect the overall capacity of the Islamic Emirate and its activities in other areas of Iraq or Syria." Obviously, they are not meant to destroy the jihadist army, but only to ensure that each player does not overlap the territory that has been assigned. Moreover, for the moment, they are symbolic and have destroyed only a handful of vehicles. It was ultimately the intervention of the Kurds of the Turkish and Syrian Kurdish PKK which halted the progress of the Islamic Emirate and opened a corridor to allow civilians to escape the massacre.

Much disinformation is circulating about the Islamic Emirate and its caliph. The Gulf Daily News newspaper claimed that Edward Snowden had made revelations about it. However, after verification, the former US spy published nothing about it. Gulf Daily News is published in Bahrain, a state occupied by Saudi troops. The article aims to clear only Saudi Arabia and Prince Abdul Rahman al-Faisal of their responsibilities.

The Islamic Emirate is comparable to the mercenary armies of the European sixteenth century. They were conducting religious wars on behalf of the lords who paid them, sometimes in one camp, sometimes in another. Caliph Ibrahim is a modern condottiere. Although he is under the orders of Prince Abdul Rahman (Member of Sudeiris clan), it would not be surprising if he continued his epic in Saudi Arabia (after a brief detour in Lebanon or Kuwait) and determine the Royal succession favoring the Sudeiris clan over Prince Mithab (son, not brother of King Abdullah).

In the latest issue of its magazine, the Islamic Emirate devoted two pages to denounce Senator John McCain as "the enemy" and "double-crosser", recalling his support for the US invasion of Iraq. Lest this accusation remain unknown in the United States, Senator immediately issued a statement calling the Emirate the "most dangerous Islamist terrorist group in the world."

Ibrahim al-Badri, also known as Abu Du’a, also known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, aka Caliph Ibrahim, mercenary of Prince Abdul Rahman al-Faisal, funded by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United States. He can commit all the horrors that are forbidden to states by the Geneva Conventions.

This controversy is there only to distract the gallery. One would like to believe it... if it were’t for this photograph from May 2013.

UPDATE: Primary Challenge

Many Republicans are sick of McCain's song and dance. If he doesn't retire right-wing extremist Rep. David Schweikert is likely to primary him.

McCain has said he will likely seek a sixth term. Asked about the possibility of a member of the Arizona delegation challenging him in a primary, McCain said he expected it.

“I think many people are not ruling it out,” McCain said. “I’d certainly expect a primary. I always have had a primary.”

In the 2010 primary, McCain crushed former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, 56 percent to 32 percent.

In January, McCain was censured by the Maricopa County Republican Party, which accused him of campaigning as a “conservative” only to “flip-flop on those promises.”

Why Should The Arabs Continue To Roam Endlessly In A Political Wilderness Of Their Own Making?

Yesterday I happened to pass a TV set while a nice MSNBC was trying to get through her job by interviewing Hisham Melhem, the thoroughly Americanized Lebanese journalist and Al Arabiya News Washington bureau chief. She may not have known it-- trying desperately to keep whatever he was talking about inside the time she was allotted to to with this guy-- but it was an interesting interview, not the questions, of course, but what Melhem had to say.

As best I could tell, he wound up on her show because of an article he had penned for Politico last week, Within Our Gates-- Arab Civilization Has Collapsed. It Won't Recover In My Lifetime. That's certainly irresistible bait for TV news bookers! Especially since it was an American-oriented apology for Obama's decision to along with Military Industrial Complex demands to drag America into another war in the Middle East, or, as Melhem puts it "Obama is stepping once again-- and with understandably great reluctance-- into the chaos of an entire civilization that has broken down." Comfortingly, he's not a big fan of the world that once gave us algebra, astronomy, coffee, universities, guitars, military marching bands… and socialized medicine.

Arab civilization, such as we knew it, is all but gone. The Arab world today is more violent, unstable, fragmented and driven by extremism-- the extremism of the rulers and those in opposition-- than at any time since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire a century ago. Every hope of modern Arab history has been betrayed. The promise of political empowerment, the return of politics, the restoration of human dignity heralded by the season of Arab uprisings in their early heydays-- all has given way to civil wars, ethnic, sectarian and regional divisions and the reassertion of absolutism, both in its military and atavistic forms. With the dubious exception of the antiquated monarchies and emirates of the Gulf-- which for the moment are holding out against the tide of chaos-- and possibly Tunisia, there is no recognizable legitimacy left in the Arab world.

Is it any surprise that, like the vermin that take over a ruined city, the heirs to this self-destroyed civilization should be the nihilistic thugs of the Islamic State? And that there is no one else who can clean up the vast mess we Arabs have made of our world but the Americans and Western countries?

No one paradigm or one theory can explain what went wrong in the Arab world in the last century. There is no obvious set of reasons for the colossal failures of all the ideologies and political movements that swept the Arab region: Arab nationalism, in its Baathist and Nasserite forms; various Islamist movements; Arab socialism; the rentier state and rapacious monopolies, leaving in their wake a string of broken societies. No one theory can explain the marginalization of Egypt, once the center of political and cultural gravity in the Arab East, and its brief and tumultuous experimentation with peaceful political change before it reverted back to military rule.

…The polarizations in Syria and Iraq-- political, sectarian and ethnic-- are so deep that it is difficult to see how these once-important countries could be restored as unitary states. In Libya, Muammar al-Qaddafi’s 42-year reign of terror rendered the country politically desolate and fractured its already tenuous unity. The armed factions that inherited the exhausted country have set it on the course of breaking up-- again, unsurprisingly-- along tribal and regional fissures. Yemen has all the ingredients of a failed state: political, sectarian, tribal, north-south divisions, against the background of economic deterioration and a depleted water table that could turn it into the first country in the world to run out of drinking water.

Just before his appearance on MSNBC he published an article, follow-up to the Politico piece, in Al Arabiya News that he wanted to talk about but that his host had no knowledge of. His critique of an Arab world that "continues to reproduce the values of patriarchy, mythmaking, conspiracy theories, sectarianism, autocracy and a political/cultural discourse that denies human agency and tolerates the persistence of the old order" sparked a huge response. Lucky for him, he's not living among beheaders. "The overwhelming response," he asserts "was positive, even though my analysis of Arab reality was bleak and my prognosis of the immediate future was negative."

Arabs were not the only victims of colonialism, and with the exception of Algeria which gained its independence from France after a savage war, colonialism in the Arab world was not as devastating as it was in Africa. Egypt and India were colonized by the same power and gained sovereignty after the Second World War. And both are plagued with demographic overweight. But for most of its independent life Egypt was ruled by a strong military leader, while India maintained its democratic rule-- strained at times-- even when its military achieved victories in wars with Pakistan and it managed difficult political transitions after the assassinations of some of its elected leaders. India, despite its economic and social inequalities, produces science and knowledge in its universities and in Bangalore, its high technology capital.

There are no such universities in Egypt. In 1960 the GDP per capita for South Korea and Egypt were almost equal, $155 and $149 respectively and their populations were practically identical, 25 million and 27 million respectively. By 2012 the gap is frightening. The GDP per capita in South Korea has reached $16,684 with a population of 50 million. In comparison, Egypt’s GDP per capita has grown only to $1,976, and its population has tripled to 82 million. What went wrong in Egypt and what went right in South Korea is a tale of political will and good and bad governance. South Korea invested heavily in education and in its corporations and revolutionized industrial productivity by empowering women and incorporating them in the labor force. By contrast Egypt did not improve the quality of its educational system, and invested heavily in non-competitive industries.

Arab states have had more than their share of military dictators who enforced their absolute authority and decimated their societies and ruined their economies even in those countries that enjoyed considerable hydrocarbon deposits such as Iraq, Libya and Algeria. They ruled in the name of Arab Nationalism and they manipulated religious authorities and symbols (Saddam Hussein was the most outrageous offender in this regard), while exploiting sectarian, ethnic and tribal fissures.

Others such as the Assads in Syria and Ali Abdallah Saleh in Yemen adopted the same ways. The military rulers and autocrats of Asia, such as Park Chung-hee of South Korea and Lee Kuan Yew, of Singapore, who are credited with putting their countries on a trajectory of industrialization and wealth, look very benign when compared with Arab despots like Hussein whose wars and invasions caused the death of at least half a million people, or the Assads, who are responsible for the death of more than a quarter of a million people. Even the awful depredations of Augusto Pinochet, the dictator of Chile, pale in comparison with the bloody deeds of his Arab contemporaries. At least Pinochet did not wreck the Chilean economy and some credit him with turning Chile into a major economic power in Latin America.

There is one benign Arab autocrat whose legacy in part explains why Tunisia, of all the countries that went through an uprising is on the path of good governance. Tunisia’s president Habib Bourguiba, abolished polygamy and enacted a series of laws and secular reforms in 1956, giving women the right to vote and access to higher education, the right to file for divorce, and access to employment opportunities. Modern Tunisia has maintained a secular tradition and a polity more tolerant than its neighbors. Bourguiba benefited from Tunisia’s legacy of reform which goes back to the reign of the reformer Khayr al-Din Pasha al-Tunisi in the 1870’s. Tunisia was a trail-blazer when it became the first Arab country to outlaw slavery in 1846, one year before Sweden and, astonishingly 17 years before the United States. This legacy of secularism and empowering women is one of the reasons why Islamists were kept at bay and prevented from monopolizing political power after the overthrow of President Bin Ali.

…During the heyday of Arab Nationalism, many Arab intellectuals entered into a Faustian deal with the custodians of power in their world. They accepted a deal in which they will not agitate for freedom and democracy, until the Nationalist fought their supposedly historic battles with the forces of Arab reaction, Israeli usurpation and Western imperialism. All the battles were lost, and with them the hopes of freedom and democracy.

Today, the world of millions of Arabs is collapsing; whole societies are consumed by the flames of sectarianism, political fragmentation and economic disenfranchisement. The indefatigable Sadik Al-Azm is still at it, always probing and always deconstructing. He is now part of a smaller minority of such intellectuals, living and writing and publishing mostly in the west. And unless Arab intellectuals and activists engage in a no holds barred debates similar to what happened in Beirut after 1967, in which all their political, cultural and religious inheritance is put to critical inquiry, the Arabs will continue to roam endlessly in a political wilderness of their own making. But if you are looking now for a vibrant debate, about what ails the Arab world today, and if you are searching for a liberal open Arab city for Intellectuals to engage in critical introspection, you will be searching in vain.

Joey Lieberman Squeezes Another Fancy Vacation Out Of American Taxpayers-- This Time To Morocco

Crown Prince Moulay, M6 & Joe Lieberman (l-r)... royalists

Thursday, Joe Lieberman, who is finally retiring from the Senate, was on a junket to Morocco. I can't blame him-- other than the taxpayer-funded part of it. Morocco is one of my favorite places in the world to visit. I first went there in 1969 and I've been there over a dozen times. A couple years ago I rented a riad right next to the king's personal residence in Marrakech. We were told not to point any cameras from our rooftop lounge towards his rooftop lounge. We never did-- nor did we ever see him while he was in town, although I did write about him, maybe more rudely than I should have. Lieberman, like all conservatives, is a royalist at heart and he wasn't rude at all-- just a fabulist tweeting away about "our" wonderful ally being a reformer.


I just guess that Lieberman doesn't know what the Makhzen is, doesn't have a clue about the predatory nature of the royal family and has no idea he's basically endorsing a kleptocracy with good p.r. skills. Mohammed VI, when you strip away the 21st Century p.r. veneer, is an authoritarian despot, not all that much different from any king or Emperor or sultan or tsar. In fact, one thing I noticed a lot-- and eventually started questioning people about-- is that many Moroccans sounded exactly like pre-Revolutionary Russians believing if only their Little Tsar knew what evil the terrible men around him were perpetrating against his people! Mohammed calls all the shots in the family business, a business that owns at least a piece of almost everything, from the big hotels to the drug trafficking bonanza that a Wikileaks cable from a U.S. diplomat asserts is the only bigger source of income in the kingdom than the tourist industry. And remember, it was the release of wikileaks cables that opened the flood gates against the dictators in Tunisia and Egypt as well.

Even members of the royal family believe Morocco's monarchy can't go unscathed by what swept the rest of North Africa last year. The King's cousin, Prince Moulay Hicham, 3rd in line to the throne and popularly known as the "Red Prince," because of his criticisms of the monarchy, said "the political liberalisation launched in the 1990s after Mohammed succeeded his authoritarian father Hassan II had virtually come to an end, and reviving it while still avoiding radical pressures would be 'a major challenge'." Everyone is counting on the spiritual bond between THE KING and the people, a bond, they hope, makes him different from a grubby usurper like Ben Ali or Mubarak or Algeria's Abdelaziz Bouteflika. On the other hand, dissident journalist Aboubakr Jamai wrote in France's Nouvel Observateur that "If Morocco goes up, the disparities in wealth are such that the rebellion will be much bloodier than in Tunisia."


Afrol News appears to be as anti-monarchial and "down with tyranny" as we are here. While Egypt was exploding, they seemed to try stirring things up a little for Mohammed who, they reported, was off in one of his fabulous palaces... in France, plotting contingencies in case any radicals decided it was time to follow the example of Tunisia and Egypt and throw off the chains of oppression and kleptocracy.

Discontent is ample in Morocco, the poorest, least developed North African nation, and many are inspired by developments in Egypt. Meanwhile, Morocco's King Mohammed VI rests in his French luxury chalet.

Morocco so far has been spared from larger protesting groups as those in Tunisia and Egypt, much thanks to the King's quick reversal of boosting prices for basic foods. The same move proved a good assurance for authorities in neighboring Algeria.

But discontent is very widespread in Morocco. Despite an economic boom over the last years and some careful reforms ordered by King Mohammed VI-- most prominently regarding gender equality and education-- Morocco remains the poorest country in North Africa, with least employment opportunities and the lowest literacy rate.

The King, claiming to descend from the Prophet Mohammed, has an almost divine role in Morocco. Very few dare to criticise him, even in the mildest form.

Among the Arab majority, loyalty to the King is great, while the government-- appointed by the King-- and age-old ruling "Makhzen" class-- controlling the administration, police, army and much of business-- are the popular focus of hatred. In the streets of Casablanca, it is often said that the King is honest and wants to rule the country well, but the Makhzen is corrupting everything.

Minorities, however, to a wider degree dare to blame the King for their mischief. This includes large parts of the indigenous and disadvantaged Berber people. Estimates of the Berber population wary from 20 to 60 percent of the Moroccan total, with official estimates being the lowest. Unemployment is highest among Berber youths, of which many view the Arab King as a foreign imposer.

...As the tourist market in all North Africa now is crumbling-- many travellers fear Morocco could be next-- the kingdom's greatest growth and employment sector could soon be strongly impacted. A sudden growth in unemployment due to falling tourist arrivals could spark revolt.

Blogging from Fes, Matt Schumann is a Fulbright Scholar and English teacher at the S.M. Ben-Abdellah University, a graduate of Rice University and an incredibly well-informed and very perceptive observer of the Moroccan street, far more so than anyone you're going to ever hear on the utterly clueless CNN or the ideologically sociopathic Fox News, not to mention Joe Lieberman's twitter account. Last year, he wrote about being in Morocco and watching the Moroccans watch the developments unfolding in Egypt. His conclusion, though, is that Morocco is immune to the upheavals sweeping the Arab world. I disagree but I want to offer his arguments, since they make a great deal of sense and include important information we'll need to look at when the revolution does, inevitably, come to Morocco.

It's been strange to be in Morocco during all of this. There's no lack of information. When you walk into a cafe, people are watching coverage of Egyptian protesters burning police vehicles or tearing down posters of Hosni Mubarak. But these images and ideas don't seem to be penetrating. A glance through two of the biggest newspapers, As-Sabah and Al-Masa', lead you to believe that the protests are only tangentially relevant to Moroccans. There are no attempts to apply Tunisians' and Egyptians' grievances to a Moroccan context. On Facebook, my students have posted pictures of the Egyptian protesters along with words of support and solidarity, and then proclaim their love for Morocco's King Muhammad VI. How can you identify with the protesters of two revolutions against authoritarian governments and still do that?

Why have the events in Tunisia and Egypt failed to generate the same reaction in Morocco as they have elsewhere in the Arab world?

Reading reports from the past weeks has made it clear to me that life for the average Moroccan is very different than that of a Tunisian or an Egyptian. Yes, Morocco is a poor country with high unemployment. The GDP per capita is significantly lower than Egypt's and nearly half that of Tunisia. Yet, the poverty is not oppressive. Life necessities are cheap in Morocco. People are poor but do not starve. The Moroccan government also tolerates "underground economic activities" which provide money and support for many young, uneducated Moroccans. The most notable of these is the drug trade, which according to WikiLeaks, generates more money than tourism, the largest sector of the Moroccan economy.

A second, key difference, concerns education. As one commentator pointed out, Tunisia is an exception in the Arab world in that it has a large, educated middle class. The middle class' dissatisfaction with the country's economic prospects fueled the protests that eventually led to Ben Ali's downfall. Egyptians, while not nearly as wealthy as Tunisians, are similarly educated. Both countries post literacy rates in the 70s and both protests movements have utilized social (especially Tunisia) and print media (especially Egypt) for organizational purposes. Morocco is a completely different story.

At best, 50% of Moroccans are literate and many well-educated Moroccans are ex-pats living in Europe or North America. While this may seem insignificant, I think it's a huge factor. Moroccans' illiteracy hampers the spread of information in general, and would definitely impede the organization of any type of protest movement. Additionally, the Moroccans who identify the most with Tunisia and Egypt don't live in Morocco. They've already exercised their discontent by leaving the country... [T]here is no credible opposition to the King [inside Morocco].

Morocco is a parliamentary monarchy that has a prime minister, political parties and elections. But in reality, it's something else. Parliament and the lesser bodies of government are where corrupt officials take bribes and appoint their sons- and daughters-in-law to influential posts. This corruption is obvious and derided by the Moroccan people. It's not uncommon for a Moroccan to say that the best way to make money in the country is to get into politics, but that you can only do that if you know the right people.

The King is seen as the only credible member of government despite his overwhelming and unquestionable political powers. And there's good reason for this. Royal initiatives, like infrastructure development and some social reforms, are completed on time and relatively efficiently. In other words, he gets things done when other Moroccan politicians don't. Combine that with the legacy of the Alaouite Dynasty, which has ruled Morocco for nearly four hundred years, and Muhammad VI is seen less as a despot and more as a benevolent and beloved monarch.

Now it's true that the King has the power to end the corruption that plagues parliament, the police and the military. Allowing his political opponents to profit in their subordinate positions decreases their desire for change. Additionally, their corruption draws the ire and attention of the people. So while his policies may leave something to be desired in the eyes of some Moroccans, the alternatives are much much worse.

The commentator who describes Tunisia as an exception in the Middle East may be eating his words in the next few days depending on Egypt's outcome. This doesn't mean Moroccans are happy with the state of affairs in their country. Poverty, unemployment, education, and political freedom are just a few issues that Moroccans feel must be addressed. But for now, the situation does not seem dire.

More than anything, Moroccans love stability. This is why they love the King. They tolerate the political and social status quo because it still meets their needs and because they don't have to worry about what tomorrow will bring. Because of this mindset, I don't think radical change is anything many Moroccans feel is necessary. Speaking to a Moroccan friend he said that while things here are not good, they are getting better. "Maybe five or ten years from now, but not now," he added. As long as this attitude persists, Morocco will stay stable.

Everybody loves stability. But it costs Morocco and awful lot to keep the king-- much more than he's worth, not just in my estimation but in the estimation of more and more people. When Egypt falls and things get ramped up in another country, Mohammed VI is going to be very happy his family's corporation has all the billions of dollars they've stolen from the people of Morocco separate from the state's funds. Like the rest of the kleptocrats, they and their spawn will be living on it for generations-- in other countries. Not everyone agrees with me, of course. Lieberman sure doesn't. Recently Nicolas Pelham did a thought-provoking piece for the NY Review of Books, How Morocco Dodged The Arab Spring, acknowledging the miserable living conditions in Morocco-- the part the Liebermans never see when they visit our glorious ally-- and the all pervasive corruption. Mohammed may have appropriated and tucked away $2.5 billion from the rich country his family and regime cronies have systematically impoverished but... "gave up his claim to divine rights as sovereign, but left him as Commander of the Faithful," which is slightly different and might seem like a monumental step for some. Pelham can't help but acknowledge that even after parliamentary elections and a man of the people, moderate Islamist taking over as prime minister, "Moroccans ask themselves whether their new constitution was merely cosmetic. Most recently, this view has been confirmed in a battle over who gets to make senior government appointments. Unsurprisingly, the King seems to have won."

It is hard to ignore the royal court’s smugness at how they co-opted the Islamists to revive the monarchy’s legitimacy at its weakest hour. On the one-year anniversary of the King’s “historic” March 9 speech ceding powers to a prime minister, the Moroccan state press, which usually commemorates royal anniversaries with religious attention, carefully avoided covering the event. “M6 [as the King is commonly known] was shaken to the core, and gave the biggest speech of his career pledging to open a new page,” says Karim Tazi, a politically-active businessman who initially backed the protestors. “The way he changed his mind when the February 20 movement began to lose its way is shocking."

[Prime Minister] Benkirane insists he has to “work gradually” to assert his new power and counter corruption, but there are increasing demands that he show it now. All but eleven of the government’s thirty-one ministers come from non-Islamist parties, and several served in the previous government, which Benkirane hitherto decried as corrupt. Aziz Akhennouch, a businessman whose wife recently opened the country’s largest and swankiest mall-- replete with Africa’s first Galeriés Lafayette-- is his agriculture minister, with powers to distribute state lands. An editor of an opposition Islamist newspaper, whom I knew a decade ago as one of the makhzen’s more judicious critics, is now the information minister, dutifully banning foreign newspapers deemed to disparage the king.

The legislature is similarly subservient. Under Article 41 of the new constitution, their laws can be overruled by royal dahir, or decree. Moreover, despite his gruff reputation, Benkirane’s justice minister has pledged that the government will not tamper with royal prerogative over religious affairs such as the Sharia. Scripting the Friday sermons, he insists, remains the prerogative of the Commander of the Faithful. Even Benkirane seems belabored with doubts, alternately referring to his election by the people, and his appointment by the King.

While Egypt’s election of an Islamist president has given Benkirane’s followers a recent boost, attempts by old regime security apparati to stage comebacks and harness elected representatives across the Arab world have also emboldened the makhzen. The old forces have resorted to their old ways, censoring and incarcerating critics. Hind Zerrouq, an Islamist activist, disappeared on June 13 minutes after calling her husband to tell him she was held in the basement of a state security cell. (Islamist websites said she had formed a support-group for the relatives of detained members of the banned but non-violent Islamist movement, Justice and Charity.) The same week, a court sentenced a blogger who criticized the King to two years in jail for possessing cannabis, a Moroccan cash crop. Meanwhile, dissident Islamists, fearing waning public interest and further state pummeling, have suspended public protests, though they continue to agitate for change more quietly.

But the King has not been able to resolve Morocco’s economic troubles. In his thirteen years on the throne, he has removed many of the shackles his father placed on modernization. Child mortality has fallen 30 percent in five years, and literacy is sharply up from previous appalling lows. Yet development projects seem mostly aimed at the country’s upper crust and at foreigners, who are feted by hoteliers in Marrakesh. Moroccan trains run on time, the streets are spotless, and motorways are being built across the country, while everyday life for many is staggeringly squalid.

The government’s commitment to purchase a high-speed train network from France has become a symbol of the social disparities. At a cost of $2.8 billion, it is supposed to send TGV locomotives darting through countryside that peasants still plow with oxen. The sum equates to 10 percent of the annual budget, or ten times the government’s Agriculture fund for farmers, who comprise 40 percent of the workforce. The Islamist budget minister, attributing the decision to the previous government and to anxious follow-up visits from the French president and prime minister, told me the decision could not be reversed. “We can’t demolish what has already been built,” he said.

But that is precisely what the authorities have done when it comes to unregulated housing for the poor. After a year in which the makhzen stopped enforcing planning permits lest they provoke a Tunisia-scale uprising, the security forces now feel sufficiently emboldened by the stability of the Benkirane government to strike back. In March, riot police armed with sledgehammers began flattening the first batch of what officials say are 44,000 homes built illegally since the start of the Arab Awakening a year ago. A broken trail of rubble stretches from Tangiers in the north via the hillsides of Benkirane’s Sale constituency to El-Jedida, an old Portuguese fortress town a two-and-a-half hour train ride down the Atlantic.

Lieberman, of course, is visiting-- and getting his information for his tweets from-- people like himself. Here's a lesson for Senator Lieberman:

Although Those Countries May Barely Notice, Some Americans May Wonder Why Romney Is Snubbing Italy And Ireland

The verdict is certainly in on Romney's publicity stunt of a sojourn to the land of the Anglo Saxons: unmitigated p.r. disaster. Maureen Dowd used her analysis of it as an opportunity to give Obama a back-handed endorsement: "Romney programmed himself into a robot, so he wouldn’t boil over with opinions and convictions, like his more genuine dad. But if we’re going to have someone who’s removed, always struggling to connect and emote, why not stick with the president we already have? Better the android you know than the android you don’t know." Her column, wasn't nearly as cutting as the U.K. press, which nicknamed him "Mitt the Twit" and delighted in informing the British public that the Conservative officials who met with him found him "apparently devoid of charm, warmth, humour or sincerity." That's our Mitt!

In her Sunday column Dowd explained why he so cautious and scripted in terms of his father's ruined political ambitions. "Mitt began to build his own sterile biosphere, shaping his temperament and political career to make sure he never stumbled into such a costly moment of candor... limiting access to reporters, giving interviews mostly to Fox News, hiding personal data, resisting putting out concrete policy proposals, refusing to release tax returns, trimming his conscience to match the moment, avoiding spontaneity."

Even as he angled to appear Anglo-Saxon and obsequiously vowed to restore the bust of Churchill to the Oval Office, Mitt condescended to the nation that invented condescension. The Brits swiftly boxed his ears for his insolence and foul calumny.

Conservatives in London oozed scorn. Mayor Boris Johnson mocked “a guy called Mitt Romney,” and Prime Minister David Cameron suggested it was easier to run an Olympics “in the middle of nowhere.” Fleet Street spanked “Nowhere Man” and “Mitt the Twit.”

Conservatives on Fox News were dumbfounded. “You have to shake your head,” Karl Rove said. Charles Krauthammer pronounced the faux pas “unbelievable, it’s beyond human understanding, it’s incomprehensible. I’m out of adjectives.”

The alarming thing about Romney is that he has been running for president for years, but he still doesn’t know how to read a room. He doesn’t take anything in, he just puts it out. He doesn’t hear himself the way the rest of us hear him.

In the Mitt-sphere, populated by his shiny white family, the Mormon Church and a narrow, homogenous inner circle, Romney’s image of himself as wise, caring, smart and capable is relentlessly reinforced. That leaves him constantly surprised that other people don’t love what he is saying.

We may wince when the blithering toff, or want-wit, as Shakespeare would say, arrives at the Brits’ home and throws his Cherry Coke Zero can in the prize rose bushes. But what drives his gaffes is his desire to preen over accomplishments.

As a candidate, he’s expected to stoop to conquer, to play a man of the people. But he really wants voters to know that he earned $250 million, and not even in the same business where his dad made a name for himself.

So he keeps blurting out hoity-toity stuff to make sure we know he’s not hoi polloi-- about his friends who are Nascar owners, his wife’s Cadillacs, how he likes to fire people and how he, too, is unemployed. And he builds a car elevator in the middle of an economic slough.

The Brits boxed his ears. Great fun... ho ho. But they don't vote and Americans voters, by and large, don't care that he made a bore and a clown out of himself in London. He didn't do any substantive damage to the Special Relationship, not even by babbling inappropriately about the head of the MI-6. If anything, he helped burnish Obama's image with the British people-- and their Conservative government-- as the right man for the U.S. presidency. Mitt's just a light-weight gaffe machine with a lot of wealthy Mormon friends and a lot of wealthy reactionary friends trying to buy the White House. No harm done. But that wasn't the case in Israel. And I'm not talking about more glaring missteps like scheduling a $50,000/plate banquet on a solemn fast and mourning day, Tisha b'Av and then putting it off for a day and doing a photo opportunity at the Wailing Wall instead. Tisha b'Av is a day of mourning for Jews-- the day Solomon's Temple was destroyed. Of all places and times to schedule a photo op, this was just wrong-- just vulgar and crude. But that's not going to do any substantive damage to the other Special (non Anglo Saxon) Relationship either. At least Bishop Romney didn't start baptizing dead Jews while he was there or-- if he did-- managed to keep it as secret as his 2009 tax returns.

But between all the gaffes, ugly American behavior and slapstick, there was something seriously disturbing and real world problematic-- Romney interfering with delicate, ultra-sensitive foreign policy to make narrow partisan points while overseas. Did he think our Arab allies weren't watching when he went to an Adelson-owned far right newspaper and denounced the new pro-democracy governments in Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt? What kind of message was he sending (other than to get the Republican base to vote for him)? As David Kirkpatrick explained to NY Times readers, Romney inserted the Arab Spring into the American elections for the first time. "Romney," he wrote, "discussed the Arab Spring revolts as a problem rather than progress. He asserted against some evidence that the Obama administration had abandoned an agenda of pushing for democratic reform pursued by George W. Bush, and he characterized even the most moderate and Western-friendly Islamists-- those in the political parties leading legislatures in Tunisia and Morocco-- as political opponents. The last runs counter to the Obama administration’s strategy, endorsed by some Republicans in Congress, of building alliances with moderate Islamists where possible." And, as always with Romney, it got worse. "What is this man doing here?" asked Saeb Erekat, a top Palestinian negotiator. "Yesterday, he destroyed negotiations by saying Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, and today he is saying Israeli culture is more advanced than Palestinian culture. Isn't this racism?" But Romney, seated next to Jabba-the-Hutt-like Adelson, was determined to say whatever was required to raise money. And seeking to score points back home, he did some anti-Iran saber rattling in Israel, giving Israel's far right a green light to go ahead and bomb Iran and count on help from a Romney government. This alone should disqualify him from even getting the GOP nomination.

President Obama has also affirmed the right of Israel to defend itself but, in contrast to Romney, Obama has warned of the consequences of an Israeli strike on Iran.

"Already, there is too much loose talk of war," Obama told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in March. "Now is the time to let our increased pressure sink in and to sustain the broad international coalition we have built."

While Romney is left to implicit contrasts with his Democratic opponent, Obama has been focusing on Israel, signing legislation on Friday increasing military and civilian ties between the U.S. and Israel. And he authorized the release of an additional $70 million in military aid for Israel, a previously announced move that appeared timed to Romney's trip.

Pentagon officials have spoken publicly about the difficulty of such a strike and American officials have expressed concern about the destabilizing effect such military action could have in the region, even if carried out successfully.

The goofball who made such a hash out of Bush communications on Iraq policy, Dan Senor, has been tasked with the same job for Romney... and, predictably, with the same results. His Tisha b'Av pronouncement was “If Israel has to take action on its own, in order to stop Iran from developing that capability the governor would respect that decision." Romney making a fool out of himself in London is one thing... threatening nuclear war against Iran is something else. The man is a danger-- not to Iran, but to America. Let's hope he doesn't start denouncing "the Soviet Union" again when he begins his visit to Poland today, where he's making a blatant play for Polish-American votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio. (I wonder why he's skipping Ireland and Italy.) Romney is, however, expected o offer to add Poland to the visa waiver program in return for Polish-American votes. "Craven" and "opportunistic" barely describe the man's character.