Further to Bush, Idiocy, Hariri and Leb Land

While I know some of you think this is a good idea (but then some of you think Egypt is transforming. Mubarek loves peeps like you, cynical fat shrimp eating fuck that he is), I remain stunned at the idiotic clumsiness of the effort.

First, let me say that blundering is not transformative, it's simply blundering.

Second, let me say that just because we (The West or whomever) do not like a regime, that does not mean "transforming it" via blundering about, pressuring it in the most gauche and clumsy manners, and exploiting in a clumsy, ad hoc manner assasinations actually is going to produce a positive result.

Rather, one needs something like a rational cost-benefit analysis of potential outcomes. This isn't fucking day trading with some extra cash where if a trade goes bad, well oopsie. Syria is unambiguously a nasty little regime. It's also not an amigo to the West. Fine. It is also weak and unstable. Okay. It's also a potential ground for hard core Salafism. Not good. Very bad. Above all given the fuck up that is Iraq.

Now, one regional "ally" - our "friend" Israel (yes the quotes are deliberate, Israel is a friend in need of a good smacking, a nice bitch slap to let it know who's in the driver's seat, like Bush I did.) - has a strong interest for its own immediate political calculations in destabilizing Syria. Of course, from their point of view, since they're already riding a tiger, one more can't hurt. It's a dumb ass calc, but Sharon is a fat dice roller.

However, in a more rational world, Syria is simply a second rate, moderately unpopular but not really all that bad actor. It would be great to see Syria reform. However, betting the farm is not in anyone's interest, above all if it take Lebanon and throws it into chaos and violence again. That is a lose-lose.

This aside, in the world of competent and adult politics, one can see the French approach at the moment, which applies pressure without inappropriately suggesting resposibility (and making one look like an utter fool and idiot - a hint for the gung ho, one loses respect, a valuable commodity when one looks like an utter fool and idiot too often). The French (who were close to Hariri and have been interested in pressuring Syria for longer than the US on this point) appropriately called for an investigation with clumsily and inappropriately linking this to withdrawal per se. Further, looking gauche by inappriopriately exploiting a death reduces one's street cred here in the region. The US has precious little street cred to waste.

To further expand on this point, and use the business language I am familiar with, the goal of "transforming" the region is rather like having the goal of transforming a conglomerate for greater growth and return. The realistic management team knows that a conglomerate is not transformed so much as evolved. Further to that, the realistic management team also knows that setting Ra Ra Marketing (in terms of internal communications) goals should not then be mistaken for meaning Ra Ra blind execution. It's easy to achieve current growth by cannabilizing future growth. It's also easy to set up a World Com kind of atmosphere, where cowboy antics lead to "current returns and growth" in such a manner as to explode the firm.

Destabilizing Syria at present is like funding a long term project with short term notes. Sure, it looks cheap and if all goes well, hey, who cares if the tenor doesn't match the real risk? But in this region, one should never, ever count on "all going well" and the mis match is very likely to blow you up.

I may add, that if Bush is the first "CEO" President, he has shown himself to be a piss poor CEO with no sense of real management skill or values - a "bricoleur" as we would say in French. The kind of CEO who runs a firm into the ground.

Leaving this aside, I link to Cole for a moment: http://www.juancole.com/2005/02/hariri-killed-in-huge-car-bombing-in.html

I note Cole raises the Saudi connexion. Very possible, and that's the direct claim via the group on al-Jazeerah. For those that do not know, Hariri made serious dough out of his construction contrating business in KSA; a business line that is utterly corrupt in KSA. Big ticket stuff. I also note that Cole touches on what I hinted at: "It is also possible, since al-Hariri was worth $4 billion and had all sorts of shady deals going on even when he was PM, that this assassination had an economic/ mafia-type background that we are not aware of."

I've had some dealings with the Hariri world (not directly thank whatever), and advance the opinion that a political-religious-Mafia connexion is the most likely explanation. Hariri had some serious enemies - and don't forget the murkiness of the reconstruction. He rebuilt Beirut, and that was good, but transparency in the effort, although perhaps not possible given conditions, left much to be desired to say the least.

Else, I see that the nasty fucker Michel Aoun is doing his usual shit stirring, claiming a Syrian connexion. I presume the Useful Idiots in the States will start echoing this to pound the anti-Syria drum. Morons.

(PS: I obviously got out of babysitting today)

Edit to add: I see also that Salafists are denying the connexion.
Edit II to add: I went googling around to find (i) Cole has a lot of people who don't like this comments, (ii) they tend to rant about "Arabists", (iii) they tend to see Syria behind this and mistake Cole's KSA comment for saying Hariri is Saudi (ex the rare grant of citizenship), (iv) almost exclusively see "politics." They also tend to give the sense of Arabo-Islamophobes. Pity.

Edit to add: via Pantom, comments, USG pulls Ambassador.
U.S. recalls envoy from Syria
'Deep concerns' over ex-prime minister's killing in Lebanon
Tuesday, February 15, 2005 Posted: 1931 GMT (0331 HKT)
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/02/15/beirut.explosion/index.html

Madre de puta.

So, we're all about funding our policy with a short term revolver. Fuck the next quarter, throw some meat to the sucker analysts.

Motherfuckers.

I think they want to blow everything up, the crazy morons.