"What I think is going on with the "necessity" of the ports deal, and this is just wild-assed speculation, but I think we owe the UAE big-time, both in monetary terms (i.e. off-the-books debt) and political terms (for letting us use their ports to stage our naval vessels). They're the ones dictating the terms right now, when they say "jump" we say "How high?" The recent announcement of the sell-off of that British military contractor further supports this theory.indeed - from my notes re phonecall with Sibel: "it sounds like she pulls her hair out in frustration at the fact that the banks in cyprus, malta, dubai and other similar places dont get investigated..."
If I'm right, look for more US and British assets to be sold off to Dubai-controlled interests (which is really just Carlyle-controlled interests). The problem is, given the banking secrecy over there, we may never know the identity of who's behind the deals, as seemingly unconnected "fronts" based in Dubai may be the buyers."
* digby points to this jan 02 Ledeen article:
"Dubai is one of Iran's most important operational centers outside the motherland. Those who care to know such things have long been aware that the two most murderous leaders of the Islamic Republic, Rafsanjani and Rafiqdust, spend considerable time in Dubai, from which Iranians run weapons shipments throughout the region, smuggle Iraqi oil to market, and transfer billions of dollars to their overseas operatives (as well as to their private financial empires in Western Europe, North Africa, and elsewhere in the Middle East). There are more than 40 flights per day between Dubai and Iran, in addition to the countless voyages of ships of the sort captured by Israeli forces."digby goes on to note that ledeen hasn't said anything about portgate. "How odd"
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I cannot, for the life of me, figure Michael Leeden out. He actually, surpisingly for a neocon, has moments of clarity, and has quite a bit of expertise in Iranian and Italian affairs. Sometimes he even tells us the truth. But then, he goes into full-action neocon mode and rationalizes all that he knows to be true to actually be false and falls in lockstep with the PNAC line. It's almost like he *wants* so bad to be a member of the kool-kids klub, even if he doesn't always carry their water, that he'll do anything for them.
Emptywheel's post dissecting his series on fictional conversations with Jesus James Angleton's ghost was a classic. She even went so far as to suggest that this series was actually some sort of public confession of his sins in certain points, using JJA as a literary foil. Alas, I think that post got eaten when typepad went down back in December. It also begged the question of, "was Leeden *actually* CIA, or was he just playing pretend?"
cheers viget - i've responded with a post here
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