The other day, this writer was watching an I$raeli media video of the pathetic Iranian traitor Reza Pahlavi, the dead Shah's son, openly calling for the United States to support "regime change" in Iran.(1) Pahlavi didn't explicitly propose an all-out invasion.

Pahlavi doesn't claim to be a Marxist. What he said in that particular video, though, isn't distinguishable at all from what some fake Marxist revolutionary leftists have been saying for many years, including during the "fascist" George W. Bush presidency. Not in the slightest.

Pahlavi has a function, and others with different, but overlapping, rhetoric serve a related purpose. Indeed, as a Maoist, I have to admit: various fake Maoists have over years suspiciously persisted in welcoming U.S. attacks against Third World countries as an opportunity for revolution -- a stunning and particularly confusing achievement of U.S. psywar and influence, given Maoism's association with anti-imperialism, international united fronts, proletarian internationalism, and Third World revolution.

Even conservative noninterventionist readers in the United States need to know and understand that so they don't make a mistake and overestimate left-wing opposition to war. They need to step up their own activity against ill-conceived wars. Various supposed radical leftists aren't far behind the liberals blatantly trying to outdo neoconservatives in warmongering jingoism.

Supposed Marxists are sometimes worse than even the royal claimant Reza Pahlavi, who has obvious bourgeois, comprador and even feudal attributes. Like the former feudal ruler and slavemaster the Dalai Lama, Pahlavi at times sounds more critical of violent U.S. intervention and undemocratic meddling than supposed Bolsheviks who, despite supporting conspiratorial methods, can appear totally unacquainted with and naive about CIA and State Department activities and the ways in which the Pentagon tries to influence even U.S. domestic opinion. The unacknowledged or acknowledged context of this is that there hasn't been a revolution in the rich First World (which has virtually no proletariat worth mentioning globally but is almost entirely made up of international exploiters). American megalomaniacs with violent tendencies end up justifying collaborating with U.S. agencies with multibillion-dollar budgets.

To prove their special and indispensable usefulness, these maniacs and their followers in other countries use grotesque distortions of Marxism to justify murdering people in the Third World instead of going on pointless killing sprees against Walmart and IBM shareholders in the United States -- or mowing down "alt-right" people they incessantly compare to Nazi Party activists as if U.S. liberals supporting protectionism and populism, but not the noninterventionism of isolationists, were so innocent. Their fake internationalism year after year, week after week, conciliates with U.S. hegemony in both subtle and obvious ways.

So, I was disturbed on a couple of levels by Pahlavi's predictable appearance now and its similarity to the message of some supposed Marxists, but not surprised. I scrolled down. On the webpage with the video, there was a comment on Pahlavi's alleged physical appearance: "ugly." I'm sure some people laughed about that who needed to. Unfortunately, the obvious implication is that if someone better-looking than the 56-year-old Pahlavi were to call for U.S. air strikes or CIA/special ops infiltration in Iran, more people might approve. In other words, there are some people whom Pahlavi isn't attractive enough to spy on in the psychological domain.

Thus, I'm no fan of baby-faced Jared Kushner -- an alleged architect of Trump's anti-Iranian Middle East policy -- in particular. You know, Kushner's not really my type anyway. I wouldn't get in bed with him on accident. I have to say that because, after Trump's encounters in Brussels last week with Macron and in Washington three months ago with Trudeau, male First World leaders and officials seem to be increasingly judged, relative to each other and to older Muslim leaders and a certain young Korean leader, in terms of their physical attractiveness. There have been numerous pieces mentioning how handsome Kushner is and now the sexual aura around Macron and Trudeau. Recall that some Amerikans admitted they knew there was little difference between Obama and other candidates but voted for Obama at least once because they thought he was gorgeous. Nevermind that Obama would oversee the United States' intelligence agencies and command its killing machine; after all, being a powerful deadly spy could make Obama even more sexy. They fantasized about fucking Obama, but what ended up being fucked in reality, thanks to Obama and his supporters, was the U.S. antiwar movement and the minds of people around the world. Putin seemed to counter with pictures of himself shirtless on horseback etc.

So, people vary in appearance, and some liberals who are supposedly against stereotypes and laughing about rape seem to find it necessary and worthy to talk about how "pretty" Kushner -- alleged Jewish agent of former KGB officer and intelligence director Putin -- would be in prison surrounded by all sorts of people supposedly worse than antisemites outside prison walls.

Back channels

One thing that doesn't vary is the fact that there is diplomacy of various types with various countries. That has long been normal. Some of it really is so unofficial as to not be built on top of any government infrastructure at all. Many are saying there is something particularly suspicious about not waiting until after the exact moment of an inauguration to verbally explore Russia's reaction to the idea of walking into a known Russian diplomatic facility in broad daylight to talk with the Russians without going through bureaucrats who may be under severe anti-Russia pressure. That suspicion may not withstand scrutiny. It can't be denied that some view Russia diplomacy now distrustfully for political reasons and may be so emboldened as to break rules to oppose Trump. Fears that there could be leaks have obviously been validated, including by the Kushner-Kislyak leak itself. Supposedly, Kushner discussed the idea of a direct, secure back channel several weeks after Trump had already won the election, which Russia supposedly illegally influenced somehow by communicating with Trump's campaign. Trump's inauguration was weeks away then.

The whole idea of a back channel or Track II diplomacy broadly speaking involves people who may not even have any government job, ever. In the case of Libya, citizen-to-citizen diplomacy was being discussed publicly in the context of official U.S. trade meetings with the Libyan government, months before NATO started firing missiles at Libya. Anyone could read about it in some magazines and papers. There were already U.S. economic ties with Libya at the end of 2010. Capitalists were talking about commerce when "anti-capitalists" were talking about "revolution" before the aggressors' missiles, warplanes and bombs came. Some rich American businesspeople, without any physical or financial transaction, opposed war and talked with the Libyan government about investment and trade -- more than some fake anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist leftists were opposing war -- before Obama and henchman Hillary Clinton overthrew that government in 2011. U.S. liberals are suggesting all such activity already is or should be prosecutable or that the Foreign Agents Registration Act covers merely discussing a legitimate business deal that would be ruined by war. They are wrong about that. In various ways, they are helping to beat a warpath to Iran in what they are saying about back channels.

Like it or not, it isn't yet illegal for Americans outside the public sector to initiate encrypted communications with Russians acting in various capacities without sending classified information. Much business in Russia is supposedly connected to the government anyway. The idea that the U.S. government has a right to easily spy on all international business negotiations, for example, and throw people in prison for using WhatsApp or something better than that, is a figment of the fascist imagination. Manufacturers of weapons and potential dual-use products, like Boeing, coordinate their Iranian negotiations with the U.S. government for certain reasons; it doesn't mean others can't have a discreet conversation about deals that would be legal under current or future laws and agreements.

Iran's government, which is also involved in industry extensively, should be able to feel comfortable discussing hypothetical business deals with American imperialists so it can have something to offer to avoid war. Even some warmongers, more in tune with the thinking of their fellow mafia scum at the U.S. Treasury Department, should be able to understand that.

Lack of foreign policy evidence of collusion

Supposedly, the central issue in all of the Russian influence hysteria is whether there was favoritism at some point in exchange for illegal hacking. (Merely working with a Russian media company that influenced voters, for example, may not be illegal even if it involved undisclosed meetings.) If there was favoritism, there would be evidence of it. It's hard to see how anti-Iranian, American-backed "Arab NATO" is in Russia's interests even with less emphasis on the official, European NATO. Or dramatic gunboat diplomacy against Korea, which borders Russia. Or blowing up a Syrian air base used by Russians. Although, the brazen Syria air base attack did help clarify to many that the United States was wrecking peace efforts. Thankfully, peace efforts survived.(2)

Merkel is talking about the European Union going its own way.(3) That may be in Russia's interests, but one of the major issues that may have led to Merkel's remark is climate change. After Obama, there would have been some Republican sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office eventually. Democrats are in somewhat of a bind: the more they say the cause of weakened relations with the Europeans is typical Republican bullheadedness on climate change, the less convincing it is to say the cause is Trump's behaving as Putin's spy. Republicans are also in a bind, because to say Trump was acting as Putin's spy last week reflects badly on what Trump said about climate change. Unsurprisingly, much attention has been paid to Trump's "awkward body language" etc. Despite the discussion of European-U.S. ties, there hasn't been as much discussion of the significance of warmongering, with less public commitment to NATO, about a supposed Iranian-Russian-Syrian axis.

There are some U.S. liberals who are against war, but some mistakenly flatter liberals who aren't. One way to do this is by imagining a hidden antiwar motivation where one doesn't actually exist. Dishonest or delusional supposed leftists in the United $tates, who sense a problem with the anti-Russian hysteria but seek to pander to the hysterics, are apt to say accusing Kushner of seeking a back channel improperly is a way of opposing Kushner's leadership on Middle East policy. "Inexperienced," "naive" Kushner was always a figurehead, however, or disposable. Almost everyone said as much themselves. Even though Kushner has an obvious family reason to be loyal to Trump in some ways, there are plenty of other people willing to debate alleged isolationist Steve Bannon. Trump was a known war hawk and militarist before entering office, and loyalty to Trump never meant loyalty to noninterventionist principles. If Kushner goes, the replacement may just be someone even more willing to support adventurous policy, threatening the lives of non-Russians in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, to prove loyalty or deference to anti-Russian warmongers. That is what the pressure about Russia is leading to, irrespective of the extent to which Kushner was really anti-Russia or not.

In Andrew C. McCarthy's latest National Review column, McCarthy says, "Donald Trump's infatuation with forging an alliance with Russia (much like his infatuation with crafting a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians whose objective is to destroy Israel) has always struck me as reckless, occasionally repugnant, and always hopelessly naïve."(4) It's interesting to see Americans in black and white openly opposing the two-state solution as having something to do with naivete about Russia. So, maybe what some accusers of Kushner are thinking about now is how the Palestinian prisoners' hunger strike suddenly ended after Trump met with the Saudis, the Israelis, the Palestinians, and then the Catholics in Vatican City.

According to Palestinians, how the hunger strike ended is a victory.(5) Solitary confinement torture and administrative detention appear to remain, but at least some prisoners get to see family twice a month now instead of only once a month. That's in addition, according to Ma'an News Agency, to possible "access to more relatives including grandparents and grandchildren; improved communication, especially between imprisoned children and women and their families, and the installation of public telephones; easing security prohibitions and the frequent bans on family visit imposed by the Israeli prison administration." That is significant and no doubt I$raelis are trying to minimize what the striking prisoners won, but the outcome as presented to Israelis by mainstream Israeli media is conceivably face-saving for both the Israelis and the Palestinian nation. Anyway, it's hard to see how this benefits Russia in particular. Many different countries didn't want to see Palestinian prisoners die. Hopefully, the concessions weren't in exchange for anyone's cooperation against Hamas and Iran. There is no report that the Pope said anything against Trump's Iran warmongering in Saudi Arabia specifically.

Russia does benefit from the increased clarity about the United States as a danger, but so do various countries. At the same time, after Trump's Saudi Arabia visit and seeming praise for Sunni-majority countries relative to Iran and Hezbollah, Trump's favorability and U.S. favorability may have increased in some Muslim countries unfortunately.

Various Arab commentators and even some American commentators have said Trump's anti-Iranian remarks will make Middle East peace more difficult to achieve, but what Ayatollah Khamenei said about the Great Satan being the #1 enemy -- after the United States insulted Iran not even two full days after it re-elected Rouhani -- is both harsh and necessary. The American owner is indeed pumping the Saudi milking cow it is preparing to slaughter one day.(6) Saudi Arabia will never be the peer of European countries in Americans' eyes. The Saudis need to know whatever crimes some of their officials may have committed, whatever evil they have done to avoid being destroyed by the Americans, can be forgiven as long as they immediately cease their collaboration with the Satanic polytheists and mammonists in Washington.

American traditionalist conservatives who are against having an Iran war shouldn't be too offended by what Khamenei said, if they really oppose interventions and foreign entanglements more than they prioritize short-term economic gain. What the Iranians are seeing is a big mass of various left-wing and right-wing Americans supporting war against Iran or its allies. Noninterventionist voices refusing Trump's "jobs" bribery need to be louder.

Not all Arab countries are on board with isolating Iran. For example, though Iraq still cooperates with the Americans to an extent, Iraq's foreign minister reportedly categorically said Iraq won't join the anti-Iran coalition.(7)

There are other indications, economic ones.(8) Among other things, Kuwait may have recently suggested, without naming Iran, that Arab countries need Iran's future cooperation on oil production cuts.(9) Anas Al-Saleh, a deputy prime minister and Kuwait's finance minister, days before Trump's Saudi Arabia visit "lauded huge efforts made by Islamic Development Bank (IDB) aiming to foster cooperation amongst member states," in the context of "affirm[ing] the importance of economic reform made in Arab oil-exporting countries against the sharp drop in global oil prices." At the end of 2016, Iran was the third-biggest shareholder of IDB.(10) The top shareholder is Saudi Arabia.

Like various leaders and officials -- including the EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the UN's Secretary-General, India's prime minister, Germany's foreign minister, and Qatar's emir -- Kuwait's emir congratulated Iran on its election.

There has been severe reaction to Qatar's allegedly raising the idea of a position supporting relations with both Iran and Israel. Despite a bizarre story about Qatar taking back what it allegedly said against Trump's anti-Iran, anti-Hamas, anti-Hezbollah warmongering,(11) it can't be denied that Qatar has had better relations with Iran than some other Arab countries have had. And Qatar took flak for hosting Hamas officials though Qatar continues to host thousands of U.S. troops and even after Hamas officially endorsed a two-state outcome strategically and replaced Khaled Meshaal with Ismail Haniya as its political bureau chief. The replacement may mean a shift in the location of some of Hamas' leadership back to the Gaza Strip.

Despite some reservations, Iranian official and unofficial media may be on the same page as Hamas in terms of supporting the two-state solution as a step toward liberation of all of the Palestinian nation's territory. Whatever Jared Kushner was doing while Trump was provocatively visiting the Western Wall in occupied East al-Quds, it doesn't seem to be helping to advance the two-state solution. Since tiny Qatar is much more serious about Middle East peace -- or at least about having good relations with various countries -- than the powerful, hegemonic United States is, it has reasons to be unenthusiastic about the Americans' brazen warmongering. Besides other reasons, Qatar has the largest U.S. military installation in the Middle East and is within Iranian striking distance. There could be a motivation to pretend to be more anti-American or pro-Iranian than one actually is, but there could be genuine nervousness about U.S. anti-Iranian warmongering.

The Qatar News Agency website continues to be inaccessible as of the time of this writing. Things have been blown out of proportion. The Emir of Qatar is no Marxist or socialist and obviously accommodates U.S. forces, but Qatar's critics are fools for suggesting that mere verbal opposition to recognizing Israel makes it acceptable to unite with the Great $atan and its right-wing Israeli slaves against Iran, the two-state solution, and Middle East peace. ◊