There Are Exploding Neocon Heads Everywhere

They sure look like pals to me:

Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Sunday tried to allay Iranian fears over a planned U.S.-Iraq security pact, saying his government would not allow Iraq to become a launching pad for an attack on its neighbor.

"Iraq today doesn't present any threat as it used to be in the times of the former regime," al-Maliki told Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during a Sunday meeting between two leaders, according to a statement from the prime minister's office.

"Today's Iraq is a constitutional state based on the rule of law, and it seeks to develop its relations with the regional countries based on cooperation and mutual respect," al-Maliki said.

Earlier, Iran's state-run news agency IRNA quoted the Iraqi leader as saying that "Baghdad would not allow its soil to be used as a base to damage the security of the neighboring countries, including Iran."

It never ceases to amaze me that the neocons believe in a world where the mostly irrelevant and powerless Ahmadinejad has his finger, literally and figuratively, on a nuclear weapon [that Iran doesn't have the capability to build or deploy] and the immediate destruction of Israel, and yet he routinely has warm meetings and dealings at all levels with his "counterpart" in Iraq, the same al-Maliki pictured here:



Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's just one degree of separation between McCain and Ahmadinejad now. Anyone for a bowl of hot steaming appeasement?

Al-Maliki and Ahmadinejad met Sunday afternoon, with Ahmadinejad calling on Iraq's neighbors and the United Nations to help restore security and stability to Iraq, IRNA reported. And al-Maliki thanked Ahmadinejad for his call for an end to longstanding U.N. sanctions against Iraq that date back to the 1991 Persian Gulf war.

Wait a minute--five years after the fall of the Iraqi regime under Saddam--five years--and the United Nations still has Iraq on its shit list? There are still UN sanctions against Iraq? I did not know that. But it doesn't surprise me--it's not like we've ever sent anyone to the United Nations who could actually get something done during the Bush Administration. Shouldn't someone be writing a letter or something on behalf of our allies in Iraq? As in, yo, this is a different government now. You can end the sanctions--they're the puppet government we're propping up.

Fighting Terrorism, Appeasement Style

For all of their bluster about appeasement, the only appeasing being done these days is by the Bush administration, and the regime they are appeasing is the Saudi royal family.

Is Wael Julaidan, founder of al Qaeda and one of only two Saudis ever designated as terrorist financiers by the Saudi regime and supposedly out of circulation, back in the public spotlight? It would seem so.

According to the English language Saudi paper, the the Arab News Julaidan was a featured speaker at a recent conference hosted by the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY). The article was first noted and commented on by the Global MB Report (registration required).

There are no other known leaders of Julaidan’s stature that my most knowledgeable sources say share that name, or would be noted with such prominence, so the likelihood that it is the same Julaidan that is designated by the UN, the US and Saudi Arabia, is very high.

This would mean, in essence, that one of the very few actions the Saudis claimed to have taken against the financiers and sympathizers of al Qaeda, was a bogus as almost every other step the Kingdom has claimed to have taken.

Appeasement is, more accurately explained, letting a country you're not at war with yet have concession after concession in the hopes that they won't attack you. We have been "appeasing" the Saudis for as long as anyone can remember, and the lion's share of the blame for the entirety of why we have a war on terror right now can be laid at the feet of the Saudi officials who obviously don't respect or fear the United States. Who can blame them? They own the Bush Administration and they can do whatever they want without fear of being held accountable. For other examples of this, see Colombia, Pakistan and Mexico.

--WS