Correct me if I’m wrong, but the image that I have of a lapdog is one of a homely looking mongrel of some sort or another panting rapidly with tail wagging uncontrollably, sitting upright by its master’s leg while waiting patiently for its next command.
Oh, yeah, and a little slobbering might be taking place as well.
Did you ever notice how relations on the state level can sometimes take on the appearance of that of a lapdog association? Consider the strange relationship between the United States and Israel, with the U.S. being the lapdog and Israel the master.
The only difference is instead of Israel saying, “Hey, United States, go fetch my shoes,” it says, “Hey, United States, go fetch my money.” And, boy, does the U.S. Congress respond. Resembling a good little lapdog, it immediately goes galloping back to the American taxpayers – slobbering and wagging its tail uncontrollably all along the way – and fleeces us again for another billion or 2… or 3… or 50!!!
For instance, consider just the last 12 or 13 years.
According to the BBC, from 1998 thru 2007 the United States gave Israel $2.4 billion a year in aid. In 2008, it began a new aid package for Israel for $3 billion a year over the next ten years. That’s a total of $54 billion for just those two decades alone. It doesn’t count the billions we had already heaped on Israel prior to 1998. Nor does it include the extra hundreds of millions, if not billions, we throw in on top – like the extra $200 million in military aid for Israel that Barack Obama said he would ask Congress for earlier this year. All totaled, we could easily be talking about a figure that goes well into the hundreds of billions of dollars. All for a little spit of land on the shores of the Mediterranean about the size of New Jersey and inhabited by only around 5 million people, give or take.
For what?
Has anyone ever considered asking just what in the hell is it that justifies this lavish outpouring of largesse? It’s a level of devotion similar to what one might expect to see in a parent toward a child. On the state level I don’t think there is a precedent. I mean, I could see it maybe if Israel had saved the United States’ ass from destruction or something. But from my vantage point, the only thing that Israel has ever done for the United States is bring the United States worldwide scorn and condemnation – not counting any Americans who might have lost their lives from terrorist attacks as a consequence of our government’s lapdog devotion to Israel.
Don’t tell me that $3 billion a year is just a drop in the bucket when compared to the overall federal budget. It was for budgetary reasons that the Senate just cut from a spending bill $1.2 billion that was supposed to go to black farmers to make up for years of discrimination by the Agriculture Department. It also cut $3.4 billion for a settlement with American Indians. Apparently the Senate doesn’t think such numbers are just a drop in the bucket.
Government officials and others typically describe Israel as the United States’ strongest friend and ally in the Middle East.
Strongest friend and ally?
You won’t find any Israeli troops fighting alongside ours in Afghanistan. Nor would you have found any in Iraq either. And if you went back and checked the record, you’d also see that there weren’t any fighting alongside ours in Operation Desert Storm in Kuwait in 1991. You see, whenever our troops conduct military operations in that part of the world we need logistical support from the Arab and/or Islamic countries in the region – Saudi Arabia, for instance. Those countries typically stipulate that we can’t have their support if Israel is involved in the operations. Hence, Israel is always left out of the equation.
What good is a friend or ally if you can never call on them?
I’ve heard some people try to characterize the alliance between the United States and Israel as being one of “strategic importance.”
Strategic importance?
It’s hard to see how. We could never station any troops there. We could never conduct any military operations from there. And Israel doesn’t even have any significant oil or natural gas deposits. So what in the hell is strategic?
The United States government continuously reaffirms its commitment to Israel’s security, and just recently did so again.
Oh? Why?
Why are we responsible for Israel’s security? What has Israel ever done for the United States? Or better yet, what does Israel ever do for the United States, period? As an American taxpayer I don’t feel any obligation for Israel’s security, do you? The time has come for the American people to take a stand on this issue and demand an end to this never ending spigot of largesse that’s derived from our hard earned tax dollars and could easily go into the trillions one day if it’s not stopped.
Some people might argue that without the commitment of the United States to Israel’s security, Israel might be overrun by its Arab neighbors. Although I do support Israel’s right to exist, it would be relatively inconsequential to the United States if Israel were to be overrun. It’s not like it would be any skin off our back. Unfortunate, maybe, but nothing for Americans to lose sleep over. In fact, it might even result in less terrorist attacks and fewer dead Americans.
The strange relationship between the United States and Israel constitutes American foreign policy at its stupidest. I’m afraid we picked the wrong side to throw in with here, people. I mean, out of all the sides to choose from we pick the tiniest, most-hated, most out numbered – perhaps as much as 30 to 1, or even greater – and most surrounded. How wise was that?
When you consider the evolution of modern weaponry and its availability, it’s doubtful whether all the money in the U.S. treasury would be enough to protect Israel’s security against those odds. On the surface it would appear to be futile.
Not only that, in the process of trying, the United States might have inadvertently created a potentially very dangerous situation down the road. For instance, the U.S. government has a policy to insure that Israel has the military might that it needs to defeat any combination of its neighbors. The problem with that policy is when you do that you create a monster. And indeed, the United States and some of its western partners have armed Israel to the teeth.
How much so? Let’s put it this way: We better hope that Israel never gets mad at us.
There’s significant reason to believe that Israel has armed its submarines with nuclear-armed cruise missiles. Now, the lowest estimate that I’ve seen for the number of weapons in its nuclear arsenal is 200 – a figure that I consider to be conservative.That’s enough destructive power to literally level the United States. Theoretically, Israel could park its submarines off our shores and just lob away.
Did someone say American foreign policy at its stupidest?
Yeah, I know. I know. You’re probably thinking that such a scenario is so far-fetched that I should probably be labeled as some sort of a crackpot for even suggesting such a thing. Yeah, but keep in mind we’re talking about human beings here and the fickle nature of human emotions. Relations between individuals can turn on a dime. Well, the same can be said when it comes to relations on the state level. And when we’re talking about that kind of destructive power, any chance is too much no matter how minuscule it may appear to be.
At the absolute minimum, arming Israel to the teeth just emboldens it to believe it can do whatever it wants. Why do you think after all these years there still isn’t a lasting resolution between the Palestinians and Israel? Israel knows that the Palestinians can’t shake a stick at it militarily. Consequently, there’s little incentive for it to strike a deal. It’s for that same reason that there’s little incentive for Israel to withdraw from its illegal occupation of Syria’s Golan Heights.
Clearly, an emboldened Israel is the major obstacle to achieving peace in the Middle East.
And lastly, the strange and bizarre relationship between the United States and Israel is just another example of the Congress catering to special interests. Make no mistake about it, Israel is just another special interest. There’s even a very powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington called the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. I think I’ll just leave it there.
Israel’s attempt to steer American foreign policy has been nowhere more evident than in the sustained campaign to move the United States in the direction of war with Iran, a war that serves no American interest unless one believes that Tehran is willing to spend billions of dollars to develop a nuclear weapon only to hand off the result to a terrorist group.
The most recent overtures by the Israeli government have pushed the United States to make a declaration that negotiations with Iran have failed and will not be continued. For Israel, this is a necessary first step towards an American military intervention, as failed negotiations mean there is no way out of the impasse but by war, if the Iranians do not unilaterally concede on every disputed point.
Two recent op-eds have elaborated the argument, promoting the necessity of convincing the Israelis that the United States is absolutely serious about using military force against Iran if the Iranians seek to retain any capacity to enrich uranium. One might note in passing that this new red line, sometimes also called the abstract “capability” to create a nuclear weapon, has been achieved by moving the goal posts back considerably. At one time Iran was threatened with a military response if it actually acquired a nuclear weapon (which is still the official position of the Obama administration), but earlier benchmarks within that policy saying that enrichment should not exceed 20 percent or that the enrichment should not take place on Iranian soil have been abandoned in favor of what now amounts to zero tolerance. Those who note that Iran, which is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and is under IAEA inspection, has a clear legal right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes have been ignored in favor of those who believe that Iran is somehow a special case.
On August 17, the Washington Post and The New York Times featured op-eds explaining why the United States must do more to convince Israel not to attack Iran this year. Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israel’s military intelligence who is believed to be close to the country’s political leadership, argued in the Post that Obama must basically convince the Israelis that he will use force against Iran if sanctions do not convince the country’s leadership to abandon enrichment of nuclear fuel. Over at the Times, Dennis Ross, a former senior U.S. diplomat who has been described as Israel’s lawyer, made pretty much the same arguments. Both advocated giving Israel refueling tankers and special munitions that would enable an attack on Iran to be more effective, thereby widening the window of opportunity for sanctions to work, in light of Israeli arguments that hardened Iranian sites might soon be invulnerable to attack. Ross advocates giving Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu effectively a blank check, asking him what he will need to attack Iran and granting the Israeli government commitments for a full range of U.S. military support. Both Yadlin and Ross argue that it is necessary to create the conditions for Israel to delay a possible attack until 2013. As Yadlin puts it, “if the United States wants Israel to give sanctions and diplomacy more time, Israelis must know that they will not be left high and dry if these options fail.”
Assuming that Ross and Yadlin are speaking for the Israeli government, which is almost certainly the case, Israel is essentially demanding a commitment from Washington to attack Iran unless the issue of Iran’s ability to enrich uranium is resolved through negotiation or through Iranian surrender of that right. In return, Israel will not attack Iran before the American election. So in effect, Washington would be promising to fight a war later if Israel does not start one now.
Israel knows it cannot successfully attack Iran unilaterally and must have the United States along to do the heavy lifting. It also knows that the threat to attack Iran before the election is a powerful weapon, with neither Mitt Romney nor Barack Obama welcoming such a potentially game-changing diversion from their debate on the economy and jobs.
Critics like Arnaud de Borchgrave have correctly noted that many former generals and intelligence officers in the United States and Israel have, in fact, decided that the basic premise is wrong. Iran does not pose a threat that could not be contained even if it does some day make the political decision to obtain a crude nuclear device. Launching a new war in the Middle East to prevent it from doing so would create “mayhem” throughout the region, guarantee a breakdown in Egypt-Israel relations, and create a perfect breeding ground for the civil war in Syria to spill out and lead to turmoil among all of its neighbors. American ships in the Persian Gulf would be attacked, unrest in Bahrain would turn to revolution, and the Palestinians would stage a new intifada. Israel would be bombarded from Lebanon and from Iran. Gas prices would soar, economic recovery would stall worldwide, and European nations now struggling to deal with unprecedented unemployment levels would watch the eurozone collapse before the rage of hundreds of thousands protesters in the streets. Americans would again become the targets of international terrorism.
And there is another serious objection to going along with the Israeli government’s thinking. Israel is by its own volition not an ally of the United States in any technical sense because alliances are troublesome things that require rules of engagement and reciprocity, limiting the partners’ ability to act independently. If Israel obtains a virtual commitment from the United States to go to war in 2013, it would mean enjoying the benefits of having a powerful patron to do its fighting without any obligation in return, beyond delaying unilateral military action until a more suitable time. A guarantee from Washington for Israel’s security which still permits unilateral action by Netanyahu is all too reminiscent of the entangling arrangements that led to World War I. The fact that the murder of an Austrian Archduke in the Balkans led to a world war that killed tens of millions was due to promises not unlike what Israel is demanding today.
If the United States commits to unconditional support for an Israeli attack on Iran, it will be a surrender of one of the defining attributes of national sovereignty: the power to choose when and where to go to war. Amos Yadlin suggests at one point that President Obama go to Congress and get approval in advance to take military action “to prevent Iran’s acquisition of a military nuclear capability.” Such a pre-approval for war certainly raises constitutional issues, but it also creates a virtual casus belli because Iran already has the “capability” to enrich uranium for potential military uses. A guarantee precludes any consideration that the United States might actually have an overriding national interest to avoid a war. It denies that the United States should be able to exercise complete sovereignty over the issue of Iran, and it also freezes the status quo, as if new ways of looking at the problem of the Iranian nuclear program could not evolve over the next few months.
Washington should make no commitment to anyone about what it will do vis-à-vis Iran in 2013 no matter what inducements are offered. As the 19th-century British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston put it, “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.” Let America’s actual interests dictate U.S. foreign policy.
CNN’s Nicole Dow featured Hillary in an interview on “Iran’s Soft Power Messaging” last week in connection with the Nonaligned Movement (NAM) summit in Tehran, see here. Hillary also appeared on Al Jazeera over the weekend to talk about the new United Nations/Arab League envoy for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, and the prospects for progress toward resolving the conflict there (click on video above to view). Her two interviews bring together a number of important points about Iranian foreign policy and the requirements for a political settlement in Syria.
Twenty years ago, Harvard University’s Joseph Nye famously defined soft power as the ability to get others to “want what you want,” which he contrasted with the ability to compel others via “hard” military and economic assets. Hillary’s CNN interview explores what we have called the Islamic Republic’s “soft power offensive” in the context of the geopolitical and sectarian (Shi’a-Sunni) rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
In the interview, Hillary notes that the rise of Tehran’s regional influence over the last decade has little to do with hard power. (As CNN’s Nicole Dow documents, “the numbers would certainly seem to bear this out. Last year, Saudi Arabia reportedly purchased as much as six times as much military equipment from the United States as Iran’s entire official defense budget.”) Rather, as Hillary points out, Iran’s rise is fundamentally about soft power. “We always think of Iran as a military dictatorship, but the Iranian message is clear: they want free and fair elections” in countries like Egypt, Afghanistan, and Iraq. “The Iranian message and belief is—if a country has free and fair elections, it will pursue independent policies that are in that country’s national interest. The Iranian belief is that if they pursue independent policies, they will inevitably be unenthusiastic about pursuing U.S. or Western policies.”
Hillary argues that Tehran can apply this approach even in Syria. Saeed Jalili, the secretary-general of the Islamic Republic’s Supreme National Security Council, has made clear that “Iran will not allow the axis of resistance, of which it considers Syria to be an essential part, to be broken in any way.” But, as Hillary points out, “The two big points of the Iranian push” [on how to deal with the Syrian situation] were for there to be a ceasefire in Syria for three months at the end of Ramadan, and that there should be free and fair elections.”
Iranian policymakers are willing to roll the dice on elections in Syria because, first of all, they judge (correctly) that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad appears to retain the support of at least half of Syrian society. Thus, it is not at all clear that he would lose an election. But Hillary underscores that, even if Assad were to leave office as part of a democratic transition, “a free and fairly elected successor to Assad would not be interested in strategic cooperation with the U.S. and would not be interested in aligning itself with Israel. That would be completely against the views and histories of the people.”
On the other side of the Middle East’s geopolitical and sectarian divide, Saudi Arabia is pursuing a very different strategy, in Syria and elsewhere in the region. The Saudi strategy emphasizes the funding and training of fundamentalist Sunni groups ideologically aligned with Al-Qa’ida—groups that, in contrast to mainstream Sunni Islamists “who are not interested in killing other Muslims,” take a strongly anti-Shi’a stance. This is, of course, the strategy that Saudi Arabia followed when it joined with the United States to fund largely Pashtun cadres among the mujahideen fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan—and then fueled the rise of the Taliban during the 1990s, after the Soviet withdrawal.
In Hillary’s assessment, “The Saudis cannot call for a ceasefire or for free and fair elections because the Saudis haven’t had free and fair elections in their own country. It doesn’t sound genuine, so they can’t do it, and they don’t want to do it. No precedent has been set to have everyone else doing it except them.” More fundamentally, though, “the Saudis aren’t interested in an outcome in Syria that leads to a government that carries out the interests of the people of Syria. What the Saudis are interested in is a head of state who will be on their side. And their side is against Iran and its influence in the region. This is a big albatross that Saudi Arabia has on its neck.”
Hillary elaborates on the point: The Saudis want to convince others in the region that “the Iranians don’t stand for Muslim causes, beliefs, independence or nationalism. The Saudis want others in the region to see the Iranians as Shiite, Persian, non-Arab, non-Sunni, and that what the Iranians are doing has nothing to do with democracy or freedom, but rather promoting a narrow sectarian vision… the Saudi message is that the Shiites are infiltrating Arab affairs to undermine the Sunni community and Sunni states. They see the Shiites as heretical, non-believing, non-Arab Persians. Some Sunnis believe that”—and some Saudis try to play on that “with a tremendous amount of money and weapons.”
But polls and other objective indicators suggest that regional publics are not buying the Saudi message. As Hillary concludes, “That’s where the conflict is today. It’s a battle today between this message that Iran has to promote of freedom,” in the sense of real independence, “and the Saudis that are really trying to fight that message.”
In Hillary’s reading, dealing with the contrast between the Iranian and Saudi approaches to Syria will be crucial to Lakhdar Brahimi’s chances of success in stabilizing the conflict there. On Al Jazeera, she highlights “two critical points” that Brahimi has made since taking over from former Secretary-General Kofi Annan as the U.N./Arab League Syria envoy.
First, Brahimi “has come out clearly against foreign military intervention. That is critically important because that could prevent the escalation of the civil war in Syria, and it could even start to dial back some of the armed support for opposition fighters.” Second, Hillary highlights Brahimi’s “refusal to simply parrot the White House talking point that Assad has to go and that Assad has lost all legitimacy. That is really a ridiculous point that is not going to lead to a negotiated outcome, and he has stood up courageously and refused to parrot it.”
Recalling her own experience working with Brahimi on post-9/11 Afghanistan, Hillary notes that his “track record” in the various civil wars and conflicts where he has been a mediator—Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti—is to focus on “power sharing. He focuses on getting together all of the critical players inside a country that need to be part of a solution. That’s power sharing. That’s not saying who goes and who leaves. That’s putting everybody into the same pot and having them work together. And then it’s critically important for him to work with the outside players.”
When challenged with an assertion that neither the Assad government nor the opposition is willing to talk, Hillary pushes back by observing that, just as the Islamic Republic supports a political solution in Syria, President Assad has been willing to talk with opponents since virtually the beginning of unrest back in March 2011. (So just who is it that it really blocking movement toward a possible political solution?) Furthermore, she underscores that it is largely the external Syrian opposition that has demanded Assad’s ouster up front; the internal opposition has not insisted on that.
In this context, she points out, Brahimi’s track record suggests that he will “focus on the players that are in Syria… He doesn’t actually have much time or patience for expatriates who sit in cafes in London or Paris. He doesn’t really think they’re players. He focuses on people who are in country.”
That is certainly a very different approach to post-conflict stabilization than that pursued by the United States in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and, now—in collaboration with Saudi Arabia—in Syria.
On October 11, a Franco-German TV channel, ARTE, broadcast an Anti Syrian documentary called “Syria, in the hell of repression (Killing license in Syria)”. People from France and Germany were able to watch it, as well as millions around the globe through satellite and / or VOD.
This TV channel is very well-known but has, most of the time, limited market shares. Indeed, this channel is highly believed to be a ” cultural channel”, hence, in regular people’s minds, it is only “intellectually accessible” to very smart people. This image provides the channel a very high credibility – although it is another propaganda and deception tool…
THE TRICK
The regular woman/man, will not watch it often because she/he thinks they are not able to understand all its programs (mainly about art, politics and history). Though, sometimes, just like on October 11, the channel broadcasts programs that seem to be within everybody’s intellectual reach. Very populist and arrogant attitude.
You might be wondering how they get the masses to watch it when they have a special propaganda message to impress upon people. The way they do it is the following: They advertise about this type of programs just like other “dumbing down” channels do, by showing appealing extracts (violence, choking revelations, etc.). They also make sure newspapers talk about it, insisting on the accuracy of the information provided by this channel.
They never proceed this way when the topic is about e.g. France’s role in slavery, France’s colonization of Africa, France brutal and inhuman war on Algeria… (Those programs are not broadcast often; a few times a year, likely just to make people believe in the neutrality of the channel). It broadcasts almost weekly programs about the SHOA though.
Also, on the above mentioned documentary webpage, we learn that Sofia Amara, the lady who actually films and comments on the documentary, spent her entire time filming and interviewing various “coordination committees of the revolution”.
A question immediately comes to my mind: How can a documentary be considered as fair and objective, when the documentary maker recognizes having spent her whole time with only ONE side of the conflict? A bit too one-sided to be intellectually honest …
The channel, of course, couldn’t miss this opportunity to spread more lies about Israel’s eternal enemies: Hezbollah and Iran. Indeed, on this same presentation page, the last paragraph read: “These images and testimonies show for the first time the direct implication of the Hezbollah and the Iranian guardians of the revolution in the massacres.” The images they show are the same ones that have been exposed as blatant lies a hundred times on the Internet, when they show Lebanese men talking amongst themselves saying that this was filmed in Syria when it was actually filmed in Lebanon a few years ago (2005 – 2006), when Hariri’s Mostaqbal militias and Lebanese forces were attacking Syrians in Lebanon to avenge Rafic Hariri’s death. In this video they say “This is the Syrian guy” which actually means they were in Lebanon fighting against Syrians. Because in Syria, everyone is Syrian…
Who are ARTE and Bernard Henri Levy trying to fool? Who could possibly believe that this documentary exposes the REAL situation? This documentary, as most of what is being said about Syria by the Mainstream Media, is false and only serves Israel’s and the USA’s interests in the region.
Manufacturing Dissent is a documentary about the psychological-warfare by the media and political establishment of the west and their allies aimed at facilitating the US, European and Israeli agenda of getting rid of the current Syrian government. It demonstrates how the media has directly contributed to the bloodshed in Syria.
The documentary de-constructs the main allegations those actors have presented, namely that the Syrian government was systematically repressing peaceful protests and that it has lost legitimacy. It shows how such claims are supported by scant evidence and are therefore little more than propaganda to serve the foreign policy interests of their countries.
Manufacturing Dissent includes evidence of fake reports broadcasted/published by the likes of CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera and others and interviews with a cross section of the Syrian population including an actor, a craftsman, a journalist, a resident from Homs and an activist who have all been affected by the crisis.
Produced by journalists Lizzie Phelan and Mostafa Afzalzadeh.
Foreign Policy magazine has compiled a list of the 50 Republicans who have the greatest influence on the GOP’s foreign policy. “Politics is mostly about people — and nowhere is that more true than when it comes to foreign policy,” explains Foreign Policy in its introduction. With the U.S. presidential election looming, the magazine offers “to peel back the curtain on this rarefied part of the Establishment” to better inform American voters about “the advisers who will determine the country’s course in the world” in the event that they elect Mitt Romney. The FP 50, it says, are “all GOP partisans” from the different “ideological traditions” — namely, realism, neoconservatism, and “even” isolationism — that are “currently fighting for the soul of their party’s foreign policy.” A cursory look at the list, however, shows that a far more influential ideological tradition — Zionism — holds sway over the Republican Party.
Although only about 20% of American Jews supported the GOP in 2008, the FP 50 features as many as 20 Jewish partisans of Israel, including Weekly Standard editor William Kristol (#2), Brookings Institution senior fellow Robert Kagan (#4), and casino mogul and mega-donor Sheldon Adelson (#9) who make its top 10 most powerful Republicans on foreign policy. Also at number 8 is Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the stridently pro-Israel chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, whose maternal grandfather was a “pillar” of Cuba’s Jewish community who helped found several synagogues there. More importantly, several of the most passionate Israel partisans are close advisors to the Romney team, including Kagan, Dan Senor (#13), Dov Zakheim (#27), Eliot Cohen (#29), and Elliott Abrams (#35).
Moreover, the careers of many of the non-Jewish individuals on Foreign Policy’s list have been inextricably linked to their staunch support of the Jewish state. Topping the FP 50 is Senator John McCain who not only continues the family tradition of covering up Israel’s deliberate June 8, 1967 attack on the USS Liberty but invariably leads the call — in unison with Senator Joe Lieberman — for U.S. intervention in countries surrounding the Jewish state. At number 26 is Senator Mark Kirk, “the Israel lobby’s favorite senator” whose office this year served as a conduit for an Israeli initiative to redefine Palestinian refugees out of existence. And coming in in 46th place is John Hagee, the founder and chairman of Christians United for Israel, which, as FP points out, “has done more than just about any other organization to make Israel a defining foreign-policy issue for evangelical Christians in the United States.”
Indeed, out of the 50 Republicans who have the greatest influence on the GOP’s foreign policy, Congressman Ron Paul — who, along with his son, Senator Rand Paul, is ranked #25 — appears to be one of the very few who could be relied upon to put U.S. interests ahead of Israel’s. Yet Foreign Policy, a division of the pro-Israel Washington Post, never explicitly refers to the decisive — and potentially catastrophic — influence Tel Aviv would have over a Romney administration. However, those familiar with the operations of the Israel lobby know that, as the magazine puts it, “the relentless lobbying and insider machinations of surprisingly few people can often end up defining the foreign policy of entire administrations.”
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem stressed that the United States is the major player in the ongoing crisis in the country, adding that the other countries are instruments.
“We believe that the US is the major player against Syria and the rest are its instruments,” al-Moallem told The Independent.
The daily quoted Moallem as saying that America was behind Syria’s violence.
“When the Americans say, ‘We are supplying the opposition with sophisticated instruments of telecommunications’, isn’t this part of a military effort, when they supply the opposition with $25m – and much more from the Gulf and Saudi Arabia?”
Addressing the US, the Syrian FM said: ‘You must read well what you did in Afghanistan and Somalia. I don’t understand your slogan of fighting international terrorism when you are supporting this terrorism in Syria’.”
“I tell the Europeans: ‘I don’t understand your slogan about the welfare of the Syrian people when you are supporting 17 resolutions against the welfare of the Syrian people,” Moallem addressed the European states.
As he stressed that about 60 percent of the violence going on in the country was from abroad, al-Moallem said: “Before I am a minister, I am a Syrian citizen, and I feel sad at seeing what’s happening in Syria, compared with two years ago.”
“There are many Syrians like me – eager to see Syria return to the old days when we were proud of our security,” he added.
The Independent reporter told the Syrian FM that the Emir of Qatar was enraged last year at what he called President Bashar al-Assad’s “lies”, claiming that the Syrian President had reneged on a deal to allow Muslim Brotherhood members to return home.
On this issue, Moallem said: “If you met the same Emir two years ago, he was praising Assad, and considered him a dear friend. They used to have family relations, spending family holidays in Damascus and sometimes in Doha. There is an important question: what happened? I met the Emir in Doha in, I think, November 2011, when the Arab League started their initiative [resulting in the sending of League observers to Syria] and we reached agreement … The Emir told me: ‘If you agree to this initiative, I will change the attitude of Al Jazeera and I will tell [Sheikh] Qaradawi [a popular prelate with a regular slot on the television chain] to support Syria and reconciliation, and I have put down some billions of dollars to rebuild Syria…’ .”
“At the same time, when I was waiting to enter a meeting, there was the head of the Tunisian party Ennahda and the Emir issued orders to pay Ennahda $150m to help his party in the elections. Anyway, this was their business. But I asked the Emir: ‘You were having very close relations with Muammar Gaddafi and you were the only leader in his palace when Gaddafi hosted you during the summit – so why are you sending your aircraft to attack Libya and be part of Nato?’ The Emir said simply: ‘Because we don’t want to lose our momentum in Tunis and Egypt – and Gaddafi was responsible for dividing Sudan’,” Moallem added.
On the relation between Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, the Syrian FM said: “We were told by some Western envoy at the beginning of this crisis that relations between Syria and Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, Syria and Hamas are the major elements behind this crisis. If we settle this issue, they [the Americans] will help end the crisis. But no one told us why it is forbidden for Syria to have relations with Iran when most if not all the Gulf countries have very important relations with Iran.”
When asked about chemical weapons, Moallem said if Syria had such weapons, they would never be used against its own people.
“We are fighting armed groups inside Aleppo, in the Damascus suburbs, before that in Homs and Idlib and this means fighting within Syrian cities – and our responsibility is to protect our people,” he said.
From time to time it is important that one provide a teach-in to nonacademics and educate those who promote wrong and harmful ideas. As a history professor I would like to teach a history lesson to Mr. Dana Rohrabacher, the honorable Congressional Representative of California’s 46th District in Orange County where I live and work. On July 26, 2012 Mr. Rohrenbacher wrote a letter to the US Secretary of the State, Hillary Clinton, informing her that since the “people of Azerbaijan are geographically divided and many are calling for the reunification of their homeland after nearly two centuries of foreign rule,” the United States should help them reach that goal. He then goes on to say that: Russia and Persia divided the homeland of Azeris in 1828, without their consent. “The Azerbaijan Republic won its independence in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed,” continues the letter “Now it is time for the Azeris in Iran to win their freedom too.” Finally, Rohrabacher states: “Aiding the legitimate aspirations of the Azeri people for independence is a worthy cause in and of itself… yet, it also poses a greater danger to the Iranian tyrants than the threat of bombing its underground nuclear research bunkers.”
Obviously Mr. Rohrabacher is concerned with the immediate issues at hand in the Middle East and the interests of the US and Israel in a very twisted way, because he calls the MEK (Mojahedin Khalq Organization, an Iranian exile group on the US terrorist list), “Israel’s Friends.” This obviously demonstrates Mr. Rohrabacher’s political stance and the influence of its supporters which is detrimental to US policy in the Middle East. This shortsightedness and lack of knowledge about the region and its history is indeed exactly the reason for which the US has gotten involved in the Middle East (Iraq and Afghanistan), which has bankrupted us. The question is how this kind of interference in different countries and plans of dismantling nation-states, recognized by the UN, would help the US? Or does it simply just help other countries in the region? Well, the short answer is that it doesn’t help a bit! Last time I checked, it was the work of colonial powers in the nineteenth century which created and divided countries in Middle East. Even in Orange County it is taught that such ideas and actions were evil and have caused problems in the world for the past two centuries.
Mr. Rohrenbacher states that the Azeri people have been divided for the past two centuries by Russia and Persia in 1828 (I wonder how much travel he has had in the Republic of Azerbijan and Iran’s province of Azarbijan to make such a claim). Just a short glance in any preparatory college world history book will make it clear that the territory he is discussing was part of Iran (known as Persia then), which was invaded by Russians in 1828 and annexed through a peace treaty. But what is important is that the territory that Imperial Russia took as part of her victory over the Persians was never called Azerbaijan. It was the Soviet strongman, Stalin who in order to meddle in Iran’s affairs renamed the region of Arran (historical ancient Albania) as Azerbijan as a thorn on the side of Iran and those allies who disagreed with the USSR, namely US and the UK. It seems Mr. Rohrabacher is following Stalin’s footsteps!
As an ancient historian I am also tempted to give Mr. Rohrenbacher a history lesson about the very ancient past. The name Azerbaijan (Turkified as Azerbijan), comes from the name of the last Satrap (Persian word now existing in English, check it in any good dictionary) of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, named Aturpat, in the 4th Century BCE. His family stayed on as local rulers even after Alexander the Great’s conquest and hence the region became known as Azarbijan (Old Persian Aturpatakan). The Old Persian terms mean “Protector of Fire.” This, however, is only the region south of the Aras River (Iranian Azarbijan), while to the north; Arran was named Azerbaijan by Stalin. The Republic of Azerbaijan is a twentieth century creation. Hence, there was never historically a unity or connection between the two. The region was turkified in the medieval period and that is just one more ethnic group among many others in the modern nation-state of Iran and beyond.
But Mr. Rohrenbacher should also be told that it was the Azaris of Iran and Arran who in fact invented modern ideas of Iranian nationalism. Akhundzadeh, known in the Republic of Azerbijan as Akhundof, a national hero is the man who perpetuated the intellectual movement behind the idea of the greatness of Iran. Since then, many if not most Iranian statesmen and intellectuals have been of Azari background (Ayatollah Khamenei and the previous presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi are both from Iranian Azarbijan). Many of the most famous Iranian historians, linguists and scholars in modern times have also been ethnically Azari, but none have called for such a separation. I don’t know why Mr. Rohrenbacher and his handful of friends (Mojahedin Khalgh in Washington who are spending money trying to buy congressmen and congresswomen, along with Israel), are making such nonsensical statements. They are both incorrect and historically inaccurate.
Furthermore, the Iranian Azarbijan is not only inhabited by Turkic speaking, but also Kurdish people as well as the Christian Assyrian and few remaining Armenians. Mr. Rohrenbacher should read a bit on the consequence of promoting a single ethnicity in a multi-ethnic nation-state such as Iran. Lessons from Kosovo and Serbia-Bosnia Herzegovina, as well as Armenia-Azerbaijan wars among others, places have shown that such ethnic divisions lead to ethnic cleansing and horrific acts of violence. Iran has been a multi-ethnic civilization for the past 2,500 years. It is people like Mr. Rohrenbacher who have fallen into the trap of Israel and the Mojahedin Khalgh who seek such divisions for their own opportunistic aims.
US involvement in the Middle East, particularly in Iran in the twentieth century, with a highlight of the US backed coup in 1953 which dethroned the only democratically elected prime minister in that nation’s history has made modern Iran as it is today. I am sure the congressman has heard of the term “blowback,” meaning any shortsighted action could lead to long-term problems in the Middle East and for the US. It should be a lesson to Mr. Rohrenbacher to stay out of Iranian affairs and concentrate on unemployment, the broken educational system and poverty in his own county. He is needed more here in Orange County where things are falling apart. His similar ideas about partitioning Afghanistan have made him persona non grata in that country. Let’s save California, before others begin to call for its secession from the US!
Touraj Daryaee is Professor of History at University of California, Irvine. He can be reached at tdaryaee@yahoo.com
As he urged the Non Aligned Movement (NAM) members to stand against the sanctions imposed against the Islamic Republic, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi stressed that the foreign interference in the events taking place in our region was unacceptable.
“The NAM… should seriously confront unilateral sanctions of certain nations against some members of the NAM,” Salehi said in a speech opening days of preparatory meetings for the summit on Thursday and Friday.
“So far, the NAM has condemned these measures,” he noted, adding: “we take this opportunity to thank the NAM for its support to the legitimate rights” to nuclear activities.
“Regarding our peaceful nuclear program… we have always said that we are only seeking our legitimate rights” to nuclear energy as permitted under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Salehi said.
The Iranian FM called for the active role of the NAM in annihilation of the weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), saying that the Zionist entity should be forced to respect the non-proliferation of WMDs.
“Israel’s refusal to sign Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is a hurdle to the globalization of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons,” he added.
FOREIGN INTERVENTION
Talking about the regional events, and especially the Arab revolutions, Salehi said the foreign interference was unacceptable.
“We have learned from the events which our region has witnessed that any forces cannot ignore the legitimate demands of people.”
“The popular uprisings and the regional events that follow it, affect the consecutive developments on the International level,” Salehi added.
“The participation of the real independent political powers in a comprehensive dialogue needs a political operation based on the internal views of a country,” the Iranian FM stressed, noting that this operation should not be away from the foreign interference.
Salehi also said that the Palestinian issue, as the most important problem in the region, should be taken seriously during the ongoing NAM meeting and the “criminal measures of Israeli regime, as the biggest threat to the region” must be taken into consideration.
Israeli media and press circles were predicting an all-out civil war in Lebanon this week as fighting continues to rage in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli.
The violence in the port city has so far killed 15 people, including women, children and religious leaders.
“The Syrian civil war has indeed and unprecedentedly infiltrated into Lebanon, and this time it appears to last. It will not stop so long as the Syrian crisis continues,” Channel 10 of Israeli news quoted unnamed Israeli political sources as saying.
“The fall of Assad’s regime would lead to a new era in Lebanon which will fluctuate between civil war and semi-stable security,” the source added.
It’s an oft-repeated prophecy told by Israeli politicians, particularly since the assassination of Lebanese political giant Rafik Hariri in 2005, which propelled the country into sporadic bouts of turmoil.
Lebanon’s civil war of 1975 to 1990 provided fertile ground for Israeli intervention, with the Jewish state invading the country from 1978 until well after the civil war in 2000. The Israeli occupation covered half the state at its peak in 1982.
A new study released by the National Security Studies Center in Tel Aviv concluded that “it would be inaccurate to consider that Lebanon survived the Arab spring, and regional shifts have definitely taken their toll on the country”.
Noting that Syrian events “which are unlikely to end any time soon, affect Lebanon negatively on many levels including economy, security and national unity”.
“The fall of Assad’s regime would certainly weigh heavily on Lebanon, since the departure of Assad and his group from the political scene would reshape the political map in Lebanon, and give those who led the Cedar Revolution, new-found strength and confidence,” the study added. … Full article
Beirut – During his visit with US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, Lebanese President Michael Aoun reportedly received a US-Israeli document detailing plans for creating a civil war in Lebanon with covert false flag operations and possible Israeli invasion.
Although the source of the document is Israeli and created in partnership with Washington, no one knows who presented it to Aoun. The Lebanese TV station, Al-Jadeed, initially reported the document on Lebanese TV and a video on its website. Geopolitics Alert translated the report for this article. … continue
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