My JV partner in particular astonished me with a virulent rant against Bush as a "cretin" mixing al Qaeda with Shia Hezbullah. For someone profoundly apolitical (and, I may add like many apolitical MENA residents generically admiring of the Israeli state if disapproving of its policies in re the Territories - in short the profile of the "partner" the radical nationalists & enablers claim do not exist, leveraging the "Arabs want to drive the Jews into the sea" stereotype.) the commentary was extraordinary. And symbolic of how the American administration is consistently and gratuitously losing "hearts and minds" - even among that core population (the emerging private sector based westernised middle class). For bloody fucking hell, if you can not even win the bloody capitalists and political-economic liberals (that's rational soft libertarians to Americans), then you're really fucked. But let me quote me old Agency amigo: "We ain't no kinda pimps when our own whores don't wanna be seen with us." (or something like that, can’t get into me own old Livejournal site) Although said re American efforts in Iraq in early 04, it rather sums up the stunning failure of the American administration to date.

Returning the night's convo, among the items in the discourse that appeared to grate was the foolish over-selling of the Israel won line (reminiscent of the over selling bordering on self-delusion of the "all is fine in Iraq, it's only Left media neg spin" line sold in Bolshy Right circles right into 2005), while understandable was foolish and counterproductive - rather like the badly done Iraq spin. Overselling to clients one has continued business with is a poor sales tactic.

The other main item that rang hollow was the foolish, cheap mixing of Al Qaeda with Hezbullah - whatever short-term domestic political utility there was - like similar manoeuvres re Iraq – although it was hard for me to differentiate the annoyance of these Sunni liberals with the mixing of Sunni and Shia or the resentment of the confusing the nihilistic Al Qaeda with the eminently practical and in many ways admirably disciplined Hezbullah.