12 September 2006
Tools
Print
Send
All the versions of this article:
français
Countries
Palestine/Israel
Lebanon
United
States
Themes
Control
of the "Great Middle East"
|
|
A survey of Israeli State pronouncements, documents and
press releases echoed by its resident representatives in the
Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and their
supporters writing and speaking in the major media reveals a
concerted effort to convince the United States to militarily
attack Iran. Beginning in the mid-1990s, Israel’s top US
ideologues promulgated documents and propaganda manifestos,
purporting to be strategy papers directed toward joint
US-Israeli aggression against Iraq, Syria and especially
Iran. [1]
Even as the bricks were still smoldering from 9/11, Israeli
ideological point men, Senator Lieberman and Undersecretary
for Defense Wolfowitz urged Washington to attack Iran by
launching either simultaneous or sequential wars. In pursuit
of Israel’s regional priorities, its representatives in the
US Government, in the Pentagon (Wolfowitz, Feith and Shulsky),
in the National Security Council (Abrams), in the Vice
President’s Office (Libby) and in the President’s Office
(Speech writer Frum) falsified intelligence, designed the
propaganda (War Against Terror, Axis of Evil) and planned
the War against Iraq, and with the Lobby secured near
unanimous Congressional acquiescence. They then successfully
secured a US boycott of Syria and support for Israel’s
expropriation, annexation and settlement of Palestinian land
in the West Bank and the destruction of Gaza. Even as the US
invasion failed to secure control of Iraq, Israel’s
representatives in the US Government did destroy Iraqi
society and state, and its capacity to support the
Palestinian resistance, increasing Israel’s regional power
(at a very high cost to the United States).
Even as the US was at war with Iraq, even as it suffered
over 20,000 dead and wounded, even as its war spending rose
to over $430 billion dollars, even as the bulk of its ground
troops were stretched thin, Israel’s representatives in the
Executive and Congress and through the Lobby pushed for a US
pre-emptive attack on Iran.
Within the US government, Israeli representatives faced
several objections from the State Department and active
military officers to a pre-emptive military attack on Iran:
1. An attack on Iran would lead to a large-scale cross
border invasion of Iraq, endangering the precarious position
of US troops.
2. Hezbollah, Syria and other Iranian allies would likely
act in solidarity with Iran, and launch reprisals against US
client supporters in Lebanon, the Gulf States and elsewhere
in the Middle East.
3. An attack would totally isolate the US from its European,
Arab and Asian allies, forcing the US to assume the total
burden of the war.
4. Iran could block the Hormuz Straits, blocking the flow of
oil to Europe and Asia.
Preparing for War
In response, Israel’s representatives in the US formulated a
series of policies to get around these objections.
In the first place, they, along with the Israeli secret
police and their Lebanese collaborators, and with the
approval of the US-dominated United Nations Security
Council, successfully implicated Syria as the author of the
February 14, 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime
Minister, Rafik Baha’eddin Al-Hariri, on the basis of
recanted testimony from a single perjured ’witness’. On that
basis, the US-UN forced Syria to withdraw its forces from
Lebanon, thus hoping to isolate Hezbollah and other
anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movements. Once Syria was
out of Lebanon, the US with Israeli approval secured a
client regime in Beirut, a regime nonetheless that only had
influence in the center-north of the country. Hezbollah
remained the most influential force in Southern Lebanon and
much of South Beirut and impregnable from any military
machinations emanating from Beirut.
In 2004 the US and France co-sponsored UN Resolution 1559
which called for «the disbanding and disarmament of all
Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias.» This extraordinary
interference by the Security Council in Lebanon’s internal
politics was clearly a set-up for Israel’s 2006 invasion.
Washington in co-ordination with Israel continued its
’salami tactics’ chipping away at real or potential
opponents to absolute US-Israeli regional control. By
isolating Syria, destroying Gaza and ’surrounding’ Hezbollah
(or so they thought), they believed they were moving closer
to isolating Iran. In June 2006, Israel proceeded to invade
and demolish Gaza, arrest the Hamas political leadership in
order to install a new client regime. In the same month,
Presidential Adviser on Middle Eastern Affairs, Elliot
Abrams, in close consultation with the Israeli military
command, gave the green light to invade Lebanon in order to
destroy Hezbollah as a step toward the strategic goal of
isolating Iran and overcoming US military fears of
retaliation from a pre-emptive bombing of Iran.
Parallel to the US-Israeli coordinated invasion of Lebanon
and Gaza, Washington and the Jewish Lobby were working the
diplomatic track. They sought to secure UN approval for a
multi-lateral boycott in opposition to Iran’s legal uranium
enrichment program. In the case of Gaza, the Lobby secured
unanimous White House, Congressional and mass media support
for labeling the electorally oriented Hamas, as a
’terrorist’ organization. Paradoxically President Bush
supported the ’free elections’ in the Palestinian
territories as well as Hamas’ decision to go to the ballot
box. The Lobby then followed Bush’s endorsement of the ’free
and democratic’ nature of the electoral process in Palestine
by pressuring the US Congress and the White House to cut all
aid and contact with the democratically elected Hamas
government. The White House then pressured the European
Union to follow suit. Israel blocked all trade and supply
routes, and illegally refused to hand over Palestinian tax
revenues to the newly elected government. Israel moved to
asphyxiate the Palestinian economy. The Lobby secured US
endorsement of the Israeli policy.
Six months into a murderous campaign, Israel escalated its
armed incursions into Gaza and the West Bank, by
deliberately killing civilians, families and children who
were engaged in the most innocent activities, such as family
outings at the beach. These grotesque Israeli provocations
were intended to push the democratically elected Hamas into
breaking its 17-month unilateral ceasefire. A Palestinian
attack to incapacitate an Israeli tank emplacement near the
frontier shelling Gaza and the capture of an Israeli soldier
served as the pretext for a full-scale invasion of Gaza. The
Israeli government systematically destroyed most of the
basic life-supporting infrastructure (water treatment and
power plants, sewage systems, roads, bridges, hospitals and
schools) and arrested the top executive and legislative
leadership of the elected Palestinian Authority. Israel
killed over 251 Palestinians in the first two months of its
’Summer Rain’ campaign against Gaza, injured over 5000 —
mostly civilians [2].
Following the Lebanon debacle Israel unleashed a massive
’kill and destroy’ campaign.
The Lobby silenced any dissenting voices and secured near
unanimous Congressional and automatic Executive endorsement
for Israel’s policies toward Gaza. Israel’s stranglehold
over Gaza weakened any organized Palestinian opposition to a
pre-emptive attack on Iran.
Where the Israeli military invasion of Lebanon failed to
destroy Hezbollah, the Lobby succeeded in pushing the US to
secure a major diplomatic victory via the United Nations
Security Council Resolution (UN Res. 1701) on a ’ceasefire’.
The entire resolution was verbatim a replica of Israeli
strategic aims for destroying Hezbollah, dividing Lebanon,
securing its military primacy in Lebanon and isolating Iran.
The approval of the resolution followed the usual multi-step
process: Israel set the terms, the Lobby organized its
apparatus to push Congress and the White House. Washington
presented the resolution to the Security Council and
pressured its members to approve it. The resolution was
approved and the military, economic and diplomatic processes
were set in motion, with Kofi Annan serving as point man for
the US-Israeli strategy.
To say that the ceasefire resolution is ’one-sided’ and
biased in favor of Israel is an understatement. The problem
is in the very terms and premises of the resolution. Israel
invaded Lebanon. A country, which invades another, destroys
the entire civilian infrastructure and 15,000 housing units
and kills over 1,100 of its citizens, is considered by
international law to be the ’aggressor’. A buffer zone or
demilitarized region should be located within the borders of
the aggressor country — namely a twenty-kilometer area
within the Israeli frontier. This is the common practice
with states with long histories of military intervention
into neighboring countries. This is especially the case
since Israel initiated the bombing of Lebanon and Israel
invaded Lebanon and not vice versa. Instead, the resolution
provided for the United Nations forces to occupy Lebanese
territory and to eliminate its first line of national
defense — namely the complex of bunkers and underground
tunnels which Hezbollah and the Lebanese resistance
organized as civil defense against the onslaught of Israeli
bombs, missiles, artillery and invading infantry.
Secondly the United Nations resolution called for the
displacement, dissolution and disarming of the defenders
(Hezbollah) of the invaded country instead of the invaders
(the Israeli Defense (sic) Forces — IDF). In line with
Israeli strategy, this proposal was meant to accomplish via
the UN military what Israel’s IDF was not able to do.
Thirdly while the resolution proposed that Hezbollah was to
be forced to disarm or at least ’hide’ its arms, Israeli
armaments, occupation soldiers and over flights remained in
place within Lebanon, ready and eager to bomb and attack the
Lebanese resistance as its Prime Minister and Defense
Minister publicly declared (and practiced on several
occasions).
Fourthly, while Hezbollah agreed to the ceasefire, Israel
did not. Israel retains its air and sea blockade, which are
’acts of war’ according to International law, and upholds
the ’right’ to freely send commandos and assassination teams
into Lebanon. The UN and Kofi Annan have not denounced
Israel’s non-compliance. The US, on the other hand, has
endorsed Israel’s non-compliance.
Fifthly, Israel has insisted and the UN resolution proposed
that Lebanese troops patrol the border, hunt down and
destroy Hezbollah arms and activists, thus hoping to promote
a sectarian civil war and divide Lebanon into a fragmented,
dysfunctional state in place of the coalition government
(which includes Hezbollah) that existed prior to and during
and after the Israeli invasion. In response Hezbollah has
not disarmed although it has agreed to not permit its
fighters to openly carry arms in public. Hezbollah has not
resisted the placement of Lebanese soldiers on the Israeli
frontier; rather it has fraternized with them.
In this most perverse of all ceasefire resolutions, the
aggressor (Israel) retains its arms, its occupation of
Lebanese land, sea and air space, and increases its purchase
of offensive weapons. The Lobby pushes the US/UN to encircle
Hezbollah, control Lebanon’s border with Syria (thus losing
sovereignty) and stop the flow of any defensive weapons to
replenish the supply depleted defending the country from
Israeli invaders.
The Israeli/US/UN resolution is designed to isolate the
Lebanese resistance from Syria and Iran, and to weaken any
common Arab solidarity if and when Iran and Syria are
attacked.
Kofi ’the Gopher’ (a pejorative American term for an errand
boy or flunkey) Annan, nominally the UN Secretary General,
but known by UN insiders as Washington’s — and therefore the
Lobby’s — messenger, went on a ’peace’ mission to the Middle
East. His purpose was not to open negotiations over a
prisoner exchange between Lebanon-Hezbollah and Israel but
to secure the unilateral release of the two captured Israeli
prisoners of war. Never at any moment did he mention the key
demand of the Lebanese, which was the release of the
unlawfully imprisoned 1,000 Lebanese civilians and
combatants suffering in Israeli prisons, many of whom have
been held without charges or trial for years. For Annan,
articulating Israel’s demands for prisoner release was the
only issue to be discussed. When Syria agreed to work with
Annan on a negotiated reciprocal Israeli-Lebanese prisoner
release and Israel rejected the offer, Annan refused to
criticize Israeli intransigence and continued mouthing their
demand for an unconditional, unilateral prisoner release.
It is clear that Israel and the US-Jewish Lobby are trying
to build on the pro-Israeli ceasefire resolution and its
implementation to widen and deepen inroads in Lebanese
politics, control its security policy and erode its
sovereignty by buying off sectors of the Beirut elite with
’reconstruction aid’ while keeping Israel on a wartime
footing within, around and above Lebanon.
The ’ceasefire’ agreement is in effect a ’mousetrap’
offering donors’ assistance (cheese) to the weak and
vacillating Beirut regime (particularly its rightwing,
pro-Western sectors) and the iron clamp of air, sea and land
encirclement and military attacks by Israeli and UN
collaborators on a disarmed Hezbollah.
The Jewish Lobby has ensured 100% White House and US
Congressional support for Israel’s continued air and sea
blockade and its demands for disarming and destroying
Hezbollah as conditions for withdrawing from its territorial
occupation of Lebanon.
Even worse, as the UN begins its occupation of Lebanon and
Israeli retains its military presence, Tel Aviv
’re-interprets’ the ceasefire to ensure its forward position
within Lebanon. Israel demands the release of its two
prisoners of war, the destruction of Hezbollah before
considering the ending if its occupation and blockade.
Israel insists that the UN troops control the Syrian border
before conforming to the terms of the agreement and
withdrawing its own troops. No mention is made of the UN
patrolling Israel’s borders with Gaza which Israel crosses
daily on its way to murder and assassinate Palestinians. In
other words, as the UN erodes the position of the Lebanese
resistance and strengthens the Israeli militarily, Israel
neither negotiates nor reciprocates - it escalates new and
harsher demands. All of this is backed by the Jewish Lobby
and its highly placed officials in the Executive branch and
US Congress. The purpose of this complex United Nations
maneuver is to neutralize any Lebanese opposition to the
escalation of US-Israeli aggression against Iran.
Diplomacy for Confrontation and War
Parallel to and converging with the Lebanese ’mousetrap’
strategy, the US with a powerful push from the Lobby have
moved to secure United Nations Security Council support for
a series of diplomatic measures and economic sanctions
against Iran. The UN Security Council prompted by the US and
Europe is making demands in total contradiction to the
Non-Proliferation Treaty allowing all countries in the world
at any time to enrich uranium for peaceful uses, thus
provoking a major confrontation with Iran. These illegal and
presumptuous demands have absolutely no basis in law and in
fact: According to the International Atomic Energy Agency,
there is no evidence that Iran is building a nuclear weapon.
The US has taken a step-by-step approach to preparing for
pre-emptive war with Iran, in order to minimize its (the US)
isolation, the heavy financial and human costs and the
prospects of retaliation. Washington has prepared a
resolution calling for economic sanctions — limiting travel
and investment. Once the principle of economic sanctions is
in place, Washington can more easily push for add-ons, like
trade sanctions, shipping restrictions and freezing overseas
assets. Once having secured the multi-lateral economic
isolation of Iran, Washington can launch its military-air
assault with less opposition and greater acquiescence from
Europe and its Mid East clients.
From Iraq, Hezbollah, Hamas to Iran: Another Failed
Strategy?
Israel’s representatives in the US government saw the war
against Iraq as a key staging ground for the attack on Iran-
as part of a triumphal series of military conquests turning
the Gulf into an Israeli-US condominium. Together with the
Iraq War, the Lobby successfully bulldozed the US Congress
to pass legislation boycotting Syria, another target in the
overall Israeli-Lobby strategy. Lebanon, especially the
national resistance led by Hezbollah is a key piece in the
US-Israeli strategy for militarily attacking Iran. South
Lebanon under Hezbollah and Hamas in Gaza, and other
potential allies of Iran, were subsequently targeted for
diplomatic isolation through the UN and militarily for
physical extermination. Each US and Israeli war serves an
immediate purpose (weakening adversaries) and more important
forms part of the preparation for a major attack on Iran.
The ’dual purpose’ wars are designed to weaken and destroy
adversaries to US-Israeli plans for regional dominance and
to create military bases, geographic encirclement and
economic pressure for the ultimate military assault on Iran.
The Dominos are Falling in the Wrong Places
The Lobby and the Israeli architects of sequential wars in
the Bush Administration have however suffered several severe
setbacks as well as victories on their road to Teheran.
They succeeded in destroying the secular nationalist
government of Saddam Hussein and totally crippled Iraq’s
defensive military and economic potential. However they face
an unanticipated long-term, large-scale insurgency that ties
down hundreds of thousands of US active military forces and
depletes their reserves, imposes enormous financial costs
and undermines public support for that war and any new
military invasion promoted by the Israeli Lobby.
The Israel-Lobby-US backed effort to oust Arafat and impose
a client regime opposed to Iran and Hezbollah via elections,
backfired: Hamas, an anti-colonial national movement won the
elections. As a result Israel re-took the path of outright
military assaults and massacres to decimate opposition to
its larger Middle East agenda.
The effort to exterminate Hezbollah in South Lebanon
succeeded in ravaging that country and killing many
civilians, but failed its main mission to clear the way for
an uncontested attack on Iran. While Israel failed
militarily, the Lobby and its clients in US Congress and the
Administration succeeded in imposing their joint Israeli/US
policy goals in the infamous UN Resolution 1701 via United
Nations and Lebanese troops. Nevertheless the resolution,
while imposing some important restrictions, is still highly
contested: Hezbollah rejects disarmament, the Lebanese Army,
which is nearly 40% Shia, fraternizes with Hezbollah and
doesn’t challenge them and the United Nations troops have no
intention of acting as Israel’s shock troops in provoking a
new attack on Hezbollah, especially after Israel’s
deliberate killing of UN peacekeepers.
The Israel-Lobby-US diplomatic strategy in the United
Nations to impose sanctions on Iran has secured European
support for relatively marginal issues but has failed to
secure Russian and Chinese support for a full-scale embargo.
China is negotiating an agreement with Iran on the
enrichment process that may undermine the entire US
’diplomacy to war’ strategy.
Facing a series of military and diplomatic obstacles, the
Jewish Lobby does not cease and desist. The Lobby presses
ahead with a new campaign to whip up war fever in the US
through the ultra-militant ’Zionophiles’John
Bolton,
US Ambassador to the UN, US Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld,
Vice President
Dick Cheney,
President Bush and, of course, the inimitable ’Chief Adviser
on the Middle East’ Elliot Abrams. Their current position is
to sweep aside all the failed, phony issues and diplomatic
proposals and base the impending military attack of Iran on
ideology: The new struggle between Democracy and ’Islamo-fascism.’
For the Israeli Government, a pre-emptive US attack on
Teheran would be seen as weakening another opponent to
Israel’s regional dominance. For the United States, it would
open the floodgates of insurgency into Iraq and beyond,
leading to two, three many Iraqs. At some point ’the
chickens may come home to roost.’ For sacrificing untold
numbers of American lives at the service of a foreign power,
the Lobby and its political supporters in the US Congress
will go down in history as traitors to our highest ideals as
a free and independent country.
Failing to secure a US attack on Iran, Israel constantly
accelerates its plans for war with Iran and Syria. Once
again the Lobby mounted a massive, sustained propaganda
campaign that claimed that Iran’s President Ahmadinejad, in
a speech on October 2005, declared, «Israel must be wiped
off the map.» The Lobby totally falsified the English
translation. In fact the Iranian President never used the
word ’map’ or the term ’wiped off’ [3].
What he actually said was, «[T]his regime that is occupying
Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.» Clearly he was
referring to a regime that illegally occupies a city by
military conquest, that reduces its own Arab citizens to
discrimination and poverty and which colonizes the occupied
territories. In other words he calls for the disappearance
of a racist colonial regime, not the destruction or removal
of the Jews in Israel. These and other deliberate
’mistranslations’ are part of the Lobby’s effort to build up
worldwide opprobrium against Iran and to stigmatize Iran
with the worst ’holocaust-denier’ features, in order to
present an Israeli attack as an act against an
’Islamo-fascist’ rogue state. From January to March 2006,
the Israeli military high command set in motion war plans to
attack Iran
— postponed temporarily as Washington went through the
diplomatic motions. In September, the London Times
(September 3, 2006) reported that, «Israel is preparing for
a possible war with both Iran and Syria.» According to
Israeli political and military sources, «The challenge from
Iran and Syria is now top of the Israeli defense (sic)
agenda.»
[1]
See : The Project for the New American Century : White
Paper - Rebuilding American’s Defenses (September 2000),
[2]
Ha’aretz, September 4th, 2006.
[3]
The Guardian has published an interesting investigation
about this handling: «
Lost in translation
» By Jonathan Steele, The Guardian, June 14th, 2006.
|