Last Tango in Baghdad ?

Zeynab, my dear friend (a shia - just in case you wondered) and I were chatting this morning over several cups of coffees.
We occasionally play this mind game which we have dubbed with the code name "Imagine"
It goes like this:
Imagine you had a million dollars...imagine you met prince charming...imagine you had your own swimming pool...imagine you are a famous singer...imagine you are a well known actress...imagine you did not have to worry anymore...imagine you can travel wherever you desire...imagine you are a politician (we hated that one)...imagine you were a cleric (we hated that one even more)...imagine you were forced to cover your face (no,we skipped that one quick)...imagine you could learn a new dance.

Yes! We both digged that one. We both love dancing and one of our secret wishes was to learn how to dance Tango in Buenos Aires.

So we imagined this tall hunk of a latino guy (preferably a Che Guevara look alike - without the beret and minimal hair gel) teaching us Tango steps to some smooth "Mi Confesion" tune...Us, dressed in those sleek black dresses and high heels...just heavenly...
But suddenly a grey cloud hovered our heads...Our faces changed expressions "subitamente".
We stared at each other and remembered Muqtada al Sadr, Al Hakim (father and son), Al-Maliki and Co...

Our smiling eyes lost their twinkling shine in matters of seconds and we instantly redressed ourselves in a prime and proper fashion as if some invisible "morality" militia guard appeared out of nowhere and was brandishing a gun and a drill to our heads.
Oh dear me, what an anti-climax that was.

We were obviously brought back to our shitty reality with one lightening of a thought that worked as a thunder bolt to wake us up from our innocent "reverie".

So we naturally deviated our fun game to more "serious" matters...Yeah you guessed right, the future of Iraq...
Did I say the "future" of Iraq? Seems I did.
Let us see what this future holds for us and yes Iraqi women are included in this future and no it is not solely about your tedious, dry, pseudo-academic, political analysis which has little bearings on our daily realities.

- P.Cockburn in a very rare moment of fractional truthful lucidity (let us keep our fingers crossed and hope that it lasts - even though I personally doubt it) "reported" in his latest article on the partial British withdrawal from Southern Iraq and I quote:

"...But long before then almost all the remaining British forces will be located at Basra air base and act in support of Iraqi military and police units..." the articles continues "...As a result, southern Iraq has, in effect, long been under the control of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and the so-called "Sadrist" factions...The Iraqi forces that Britain helped create in the area were little more than an extension of Shia Islamist control by other means."

Now how do you read this? I read it as follows:

1) the so called Iraqi military and police are part of the current government presided by Al Maliki. Members of his government are : Al Hakim, father of the Badr Brigades from the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Council who helped the safe passage of Chalabi into Baghdad after its fall in 2003.
2) Chalabi the three in one agent who has made a noticeable comeback ( read the full article by R. Dreyfuss here) as I have mentioned it my previous post "Diss Information.
3) and last but not least, Muqtada al Sadr with his Jaysh Al-Mahdi also known as the Sadrists.


Finally P.Cockburn admits (even though he goes on to distort a few facts later on in the article but I will not dwell on them here) that Southern Iraq has fallen under the total control of both the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Council Iraqi Branch headed by al Hakim and the Sadrists.
If you remember in one of my previous posts, "Persian for Dummies", I confirmed that Southern Iraq has become an official Iranian enclave ...
I even mentioned in a subsequent piece, that the pictures of Ayatollah Khomeini, the lunatic, is plastered all over the city to the dismay of Iraqi Arab shias themselves.

- The second important development which has already been alluded to in one of my earlier posts, namely the new oil law that aims at the partitioning of Iraq into three statelets.
The North, the South and the Center. And I also mentioned that the ethnic cleansing that is taking place is part of that forced demographic change to facilitate that partitioning.

- The third important point is the so called "Security Crackdown plan".
Since its effect, this "new" plan has focused mainly on sunni areas and not on others.
For instance, Sadr city is virtually untouched and so are other predominantly shia areas.
Iraqileague website and al Haq agency report daily raids, mass detentions, and killings of sunnis, both civilians and so called "insurgents" aka anti occupation resistance fighters.
And today, Muqtada al Sadr has resurfaced calling the security plan a failure - translate that into the Mahdi Army returning full force to the streets of Baghdad.

Another interesting fact that emerged lately and which I touched upon in my previous posts and now it has become official- the three in one Chalabi (the triple agent/Mossad,Iranian/CIA) is a close friend to Muqtada Al Sadr and a mediator so to speak between the Americans and the various Iranian/Iraqi members of government.

So anyone with a modicum of common sense would conclude that:

a) the current Iraqi Government is nothing in fact but an agency for Teheran's directives.

b) the current Iraqi Government is nothing but an agency for Washington's plans in both Iraq and the region.

c) that the Brits partial pull out is not due to defeat as some like to claim but quite the opposite. The "pull out" from the South is precisely because they established their primary objective - facilitating the partition plan by handing over the south to the Iranian Revolutionary Council and to the Sadrists and their military base will back the so called Iraqi Army which is comprised by none but the above group.

d) that the so called security crackdown plan is really aimed at "cleaning" out all pockets of resistance be it armed or civilians both in the "sunni triangle" and in the northern city of Kirkuk by "flushing" out Turkmen and Arabs. (both groups are anti-occupation by the way)

e) that the new oil law that will be passing soon in parliament for approval, came out when all the above operations are fully underway paving the path for the ultimate partitioning of Iraq.

f) that those who are stuck in the details fail to see the bigger picture. Namely that an Iranian Islamic State in Iraq is in, full fledged and getting stronger and that none other but America has helped install it and counts on it for its "success" in operation Freedom.


After this sobering realization of an Islamic State Iran style in Iraq backed and approved by America, Zeynab and I needed more caffeine short of a stiff drink.
So we continued our mind game...What would you do if?

Imagine there is no occupation...imagine there are no Iranian mullahs...imagine there are no explosions...imagine there is no torture...imagine there are no detention camps...imagine there are no starving Iraqis...imagine we have functional hospitals ...imagine there is clean drinking water...imagine you can walk the streets without fear...imagine you did not have to be in knee high sewage...imagine your family is safe and happy...imagine you have electricity...imagine you can go back to school...imagine you can easily find a doctor...imagine you can go back to your old job...imagine you can go out shopping...just imagine Saddam Hussein is still alive and running the show...Imagine all of this is just a bad dream...

...Imagine Ahmadinajad (or Rafsandjani) with a flagellating whip dangling on one of his shoulders dancing Tango with Bush with his cowboy revolver swaying on his hips.
They pause, clink their champagne (or some good Rojo Argentinian Vino) glasses, passionately gaze into each other's eyes and say "Here's looking at you kid".

We laughed hysterically. But we knew that was no laughing matter...that was Reality.
Oh yes, it does take two to tango or to...trip.
Someone call our latino Che now!

Painting: Iraqi artist, Jaber Alwan "Dance Series".