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[ by Charles Cameron — given a choice between Stephen Miller and Will McCants.. ]
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The Saudi speech:

Trump will deliver Stephen Miller's speech on Islam at the Saudi 'Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology!' https://t.co/DLJ3yb1srh

— Shibley Telhami (@ShibleyTelhami) May 18, 2017

Trump speech on Islam in Saudi Arabia will be written by far-right anti-Muslim aide Stephen Miller https://t.co/p8I6yHWpOm by @MaxBlumenthal

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) May 18, 2017

"Tossing pronouncements on religion into that tinderbox could be a very bad idea."https://t.co/CxE21BLeri

— The Grey Man (@IntelOperator) May 17, 2017

My friendly advice for the poor speechwriter tasked with crafting Trump's upcoming speech on Islam https://t.co/6HemebAZ8i

— Will McCants (@will_mccants) May 18, 2017

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The NATO speech:

MORE NEWS: NATO-Skeptic Stephen Miller Is Writing Trump’s NATO Speech https://t.co/YN8XOa2pBR via @John_Hudson

— Hayes Brown (@HayesBrown) May 18, 2017

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The Israel speech:

So Stephen Miller is writing Trump's Saudi Speech, his Israel speech, AND his NATO speech. Should be…fine. https://t.co/wLK1FpoNZv

— Hayes Brown (@HayesBrown) May 18, 2017

Israel, where Trump wanted to land his helicopter atop Masada..

Trump couldn't land his helicopter on Israel's ancient fortress—so he canceled his visit, refusing to take cable car https://t.co/51lw5z8nPr pic.twitter.com/CIGUB9Bwx9

— Newsweek (@Newsweek) May 18, 2017

Unlike former presidents who have made the trip, such as George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, Trump declined to land the helicopter at a base of the historic site and then take the cable car up, preferring to cancel the visit altogether.

It's fuckin Masada. Even IDF doesn't land choppers on the top. ihttps://t.co/MBzPQEUDq7

— manu saadia ? (@trekonomics) May 18, 2017

And the Western Wall is in the West Bank?

All in all, one might wish there were a Will McCants to proffer speechwriting advice — or, hey, write speeches — for Saudi, Israel, NATO, the vatican, onwards…

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Coda:

Trump to Give Speech on Islam While in Saudi Arabia https://t.co/PNryD8yDbe

— Blogs of War (@BlogsofWar) May 17, 2017

Maybe he'll give a speech on Christianity while in Vatican State? https://t.co/19OkvGgrBC

— hipbonegamer (@hipbonegamer) May 17, 2017

[ by Charles Cameron — sunni / salafi hope, shia fear, when the us weighs saudi oil against iranian nukes — what say the sufis? ]
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Context one:

First stop on Trump’s first official trip overseas signals Saudi Arabia’s importance https://t.co/kIfCiVesxh

— Blogs of War (@BlogsofWar) May 18, 2017

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Context two:

Iraqi Christians visit Imam Hussain shrine in Kerbala & pray at one of the oldest churches in the world. https://t.co/NMG5UcmadB #Iraq pic.twitter.com/jvOm6GCSNT

— ICID (@IraqiCouncil) May 18, 2017

Beautiful. It's this wonderful coexistence, diversity and tolerance that Saudi Arabia, ISIS and Al-Qaeda fear. They all want to erase this. https://t.co/evPJqPJMcq

— Hayder al-Khoei (@Hayder_alKhoei) May 18, 2017

**

Having said that, returning to the Saudi visit:

Hayder al-Khoei is less than enthused:

This is the aim of Donald Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia – and it isn't good for Shia communities https://t.co/n3EJlJCVXU

— Hayder al-Khoei (@Hayder_alKhoei) May 18, 2017

Fisk: The aim is simple: to prepare the Sunni Muslims of the Middle East for war against the Shia Muslims. With help from Israel. #pt

— Hayder al-Khoei (@Hayder_alKhoei) May 18, 2017

The fact that most of the Middle East’s “terrorism” – Isis and al-Qaeda – have their fountainhead in Saudi, must and will be ignored. #pt

— Hayder al-Khoei (@Hayder_alKhoei) May 18, 2017

Fisk: The fact that Isis – Trump’s mortal enemy – is a creature of the same Salafist cult as Saudi Arabia, is neither here nor there. #pt

— Hayder al-Khoei (@Hayder_alKhoei) May 18, 2017

[ by Charles Cameron — Saudi girl’s council, all male ]
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I believe this to be an example of the Ouroboros Moebius, or flattened snake twisted and self-biting — the negative or flipped version of the usual self-biter:

Habitat not limited to Saudi Arabia…

Source:

BBC News, Saudi Arabia launches girls’ council – without any girls

[ by Charles Cameron — you could start from this polarity and build out to cover the tensions of the world ]
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This:

Saudi Arabia’s top cleric says Iran’s leaders ‘not Muslims’ https://t.co/rPNjqo9x6g via @WSJ

— El_Grillo (@El_Grillo1) September 6, 2016

is an instance of this:

When Iran's regime criticizes KSA's regime, or KSA's regime criticizes Iran's regime pic.twitter.com/GqRuswXVfq

— Iyad el-Baghdadi (@iyad_elbaghdadi) September 6, 2016

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And if these two don’t suffice, there’s always Charles Mortimer:

And so it’s all explained at last,
There’s nothing more to know.
Chameleons are pink and fast
Because they’re green and slow.

[ by Charles Cameron — one black swan that’s almost predictable — where two timelines meet ]
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God in His wisdom has decreed that all right thinking humans should circumambulate the Kaaba in Mecca if at all possible during their human lifetimes, so proclaims Islamic orthodoxy.

A Guardian piece titled Extreme heatwaves could push Gulf climate beyond human endurance, study shows gives an approximate date by which Mecca may be impossibly hot for humans, even clothed in the brilliant white ihram of the pilgrimage:

The extreme heatwaves will affect Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Doha and coastal cities in Iran as well as posing a deadly threat to millions of Hajj pilgrims in Saudi Arabia, when the religious festival falls in the summer. The study shows the extreme heatwaves, more intense than anything ever experienced on Earth, would kick in after 2070 and that the hottest days of today would by then be a near-daily occurrence.

After 2070.

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Tim Furnish, describing the Boston conference at which we both participated last year, expresses his regret that the Center for Millennial Studies is no longer with us in these words:

It’s a pity that Landes’ CMS has run its course, for as the Islamic year 1500 AH (after hijrah)/2076 AD approaches, Muslim eschatological fervor — almost certainly to include jihadist leaders thinking themselves the Mahdi — will only increase

Graeme Wood in his article What ISIS’s Leader Really Wants perhaps simplifies reality a little when he writes:

David Cook, a historian at Rice University who studies Muslim apocalypticism, points out that the battles preceding the Day of Judgment will take place in modern Syria, with a final showdown in the year 1500 of the Islamic Hijra calendar, or A.D. 2076.

2076, or 1500 AH, is indeed a plausible date, but not the only possibility.

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If there’s a second part to this post, it will express the extreme fierceness and driving passion of what Richard Landes calls “Active Cataclysmic Millennialism” — a category that includes both secular variants (Nazi, Marxist) and religious (Taiping Rebellion) — and how it ties in with the converging ecological and Mahdist timelines discussed above.

Okay, at the point of convergence:

Mecca uninhabitable, Hajj obligatory, and the arrival of the Mahdi imminent — it’s a potent brew to consider as we head towards the 2070s.