The list of US military and diplomatic defeats in its self-declared GWOT (Global War on Terror) in the Middle-East is getting longer and longer.

Nobody seriously doubts that the war in Iraq is totally lost.

Likewise, the war in Afghanistan is going nowhere and the CIA groomed puppet “President” Karzai can, at best, claim to be the mayor of Kabul. In fact, this is what he is called in Afghanistan. The Taliban are back in the provinces and the only parts of the country which are not under their control are under the control of the allies of Russia and, even more humiliatingly, Iran: the Northern Alliance and its Tadjik, Uzbek and Hazara warlords.

Pakistan is more or less overtly supporting the Taliban and doing precious nothing to help its official US ally.

The Empire’s GWOT suffered a crushing defeat when Hezbollah totally defeated Israel last summer, both tactically (by, for example, never loosing the control of Beit Jbeil which is right across the border and which even the famed Golani Brigade’s commandos could not control) and strategically by maintain its ability to rain rockets on the northern third of Israel to the very last day of the war.

Lebanon is also a mess politically. The so-called “Cedar Revolution” has crumbled, everybody sees Fouad Siniora as the helpless puppet collaborator he is and the Shias of Hezbollah have now the support of the patriotically oriented Christians of General Aoun.

The war plans for an attack on Iran are drawing a huge wave of protests worldwide, from Kuwait to Europe, to South America, and Iran is holding firm in its intention to maintain an IAEA and NPT compliant civilian nuclear program.

The Turks have crossed the border into Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish guerrillas and do not seem to care much about what Uncle Sam has to say about that.

Am I forgetting something here? Probably (like Somalia being a bloody mess and Sudan being next for US intervention).

There is a small, but very ugly, war I want to turn to now: the Empire’s war against the Palestinian people.

Remember how the US, Egypt and Israel infiltrated US-trained Fatah goons into Gaza? Well, now the very same goons are being ex-filtrated back to Egypt. In fact, it looks like Hamas has seized complete control of the entire Gaza strip and that, being the “democratic leader” that he is, Mahmoud Abbas decided to sack the Hamas-lead Palestinian government and replaces it by a state of emergency.

How could this have happened?!

Ever since the majority of Palestinians elected a Hamas government in what everybody agrees were free and fair elections the entire Palestinian state has been the subject of what can only be called a blockade (the term “boycott” does not even begin to cover the magnitude of what was done to the Palestinians) and the Occupied Territories were turned into a giant prison camp.

The Israeli Air Force regularly bombed Hamas anyone suspected of being pro-Hamas, its killers organized “targeted executions” of Hamas leaders, the USA and Egypt infiltrated specially trained Fatah thugs into Gaza and financed Mohammed Dahlan’s goons to help the “Palestinian Security Forces” and still, Hamas defeated them all. Makes one wonder who is supporting Hamas, doesn’t it?

Of course, war pimps like Senator Lieberman or Hillary Clinton would immediately conclude that Iran is behind Hamas and that Iranian weapons are killing all those “democratically minded” Israeli soldiers and Fatah thugs. Unfortunately for this theory, the IDF, Egypt and the rest of the Empire are holding Gaza in an iron grip from the land, sea and air and nothing can come in or out of it without the knowledge and go ahead of the Imperial forces.

One has to conclude that Hamas’ support comes from inside Gaza. There is nothing left inside Gaza except one thing: the Palestinian people.

This means the the strength of Hamas comes from the very same Palestinians who democratically elected Hamas in the first place. That also means that when Abbas sends in his “security forces” to fight the “Hamas extremists” (anyone opposed to the Empire’s plans is, by definition, an extremist), when Abbas sacks the democratically elected and Hamas-lead government and when Abbas imposes a state of emergency – Abbas is fighting against the Palestinian people.

Unsurprisingly, Abbas, Siniora, Karzai and other such imperial puppets are loathed by their peoples and no amount of Imperial intervention can prevent them from being defeated by their own population.

What will happen next?

I suspect that the IDF does not have the nerves and guts to reoccupy all of Gaza. So the Empire will simply do more of the same: slam Hamas for being a “terrorist organization” (as opposed to Fatah and Israel, I presume), demand that Hamas recognise Israel (not such demands will be made to the “Jewish state”), tighten the blockade around Gaza and further increase the pace of bombings against the population of Gaza. Even more money will flow into the bank accounts of Fatah, more bribes will be offered to Hamas leaders to “see the light” and, eventually, new and democratic elections will be imposed upon the Palestinian people after a “preparatory” state of emergency phase in which Hamas supporters will be killed, disappeared, tortured, etc.

The Empire will further support Al-Qaeda in Lebanon (Ansar al-Islam) while fighting it in Iraq by giving weapons to Baathist Sunnis and, if all else fails, there will always be Iran to bomb or even nuke.

Abbas, Siniora, Karzai and Maliki are on the way out, and everybody knows it – all the Mubaraks and the Musharrafs of the Middle East understand this better than anyone else. So it turns out that Condi Rice was right after all: we are, indeed, witnessing the birth of a new Middle-East.

Nobody will miss the old one.