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Avi Shlaim on the Neoconservative Middle East War Agenda

“The influence of the Likud and of its friends in Washington could be detected across the entire spectrum of American policy towards the Middle East,” writes Shlaim.

By Stephen Sniegoski | My Catbird Seat | January 17, 2011

A friend, Phil Collier, an avid student of and sometime writer on Middle East affairs (and  a National Master in chess), recently  informed  me that Avi Shlaim, in his recent book, Israel and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions, Refutations, had one chapter, “Palestine and Iraq,” that presents a thesis almost identical to what I have written in The Transparent Cabal. This naturally encouraged me to obtain the book, and Collier’s description turns out to be correct.

Now this similarity is quite significant since what I have written on the neocons regarding their strong influence on U. S. Middle East policy and their connection to Israel is taboo in the American mainstream, with even numerous antiwar individuals (especially those with higher status) and publications shying away from my work. But unlike me, Shlaim, a professor of international relations at Oxford, is a recognized scholar, with such notable books on Israel and its neighbors as The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (2001).  And he is also Jewish and an Israeli citizen, who served in the Israeli Defense Forces (possessing dual British and Israeli citizenship), which shelters him from charges of anti-Semitism.   Undoubtedly because of his credentials, his works cannot be ignored, and this book was honored as a Kirkus Best Book for 2009.

Now, in his ten-page  chapter on this subject, Shlaim could only present a much-abbreviated version of the major themes that I elaborate on at length in my 447 page book.   The following are some poignant examples from Shlaim’s work, with my commentary drawing comparisons to The Transparent Cabal.

“The basic premise behind George W. Bush’s policy towards the Middle East reflected this strong pro-Israeli bias,” Shlaim opines. “The premise was that the key issue in Middle East politics was not Palestine, but Iraq.” (p. 297)    This is the essence of my thesis, but it is something many establishment people, including those who have been antiwar, ardently deny when they claim that the elimination of Saddam not only harmed  Israeli interests by empowering Iran, but that this result  was clearly foreseen by  Israelis and supporters of Israel prior to the attack on Iraq and that the government of Israel thus allegedly opposed the war.  The Transparent Cabal, of course, shows that the entire neocon war agenda in the Middle East was directed to advancing Israel’s security by weakening its enemies and that Israeli leaders did, in fact, promote the war on Iraq.   Of course, in the United States, any claim that American Jews promote Israeli interests, no matter how well adduced, invariably elicits accusations of anti-Semitism.

“American proponents of the war on Iraq promised that action against Iraq would form part of a broader engagement with the problems of the Middle East,” Shlaim notes.  “The road to Jerusalem, they argued, went through Baghdad.  Cutting off Saddam Hussein’s support for Palestinian terrorism was, according to them, an essential first step in the quest for a settlement.” (p. 297)  Later he observes:  “One of the main arguments for regime change in Baghdad was to put an end to Iraqi support for Palestinian militants and for what was seen as Palestinian intransigence in the peace process with Israel.” (p. 300)

As I point out in The Transparent Cabal, the neocons maintained that it was the removal of not only Saddam, but most “non-democratic” regimes in the Middle East, which was necessary to bring about a peaceful settlement of the Palestinian issue.  However, the “peace” the neocons had in mind was one dictated by Israel. Elimination of the Middle Eastern “non-democratic” regimes would facilitate this development because it was just these regimes  that provided moral and material support to the Palestinian resistance, portrayed by the neocons as “Palestinian intransigence.”  Without outside support, the isolated and dispirited Palestinians would ultimately be forced to accede to whatever type of peaceful solution Israel offered, which would create nothing like a viable, Palestinian state, but which would serve to remove Israel’s Palestinian problem and thus help to secure the Jewish nature of the state of Israel.

“The influence of the Likud and of its friends in Washington could be detected across the entire spectrum of American policy towards the Middle East,” writes Shlaim.  “Particularly striking was the ideological convergence between some of the leading neoconservatives in the Bush Administration – such as Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith—and the hardliners in Ariel Sharon’s inner circle.” (p. 298)

I go to great lengths in The Transparent Cabal to highlight the link between the neocons and the hardline Likudniks. In fact, I show that the neocons’ very plan to reconfigure the Middle East paralleled the Likudnik goal of destabilizing and fragmenting Israel’s enemies, which was best articulated by Oded Yinon in the early 1980s.

In illustrating the neocons’ identification with Israeli interests, Shlaim underscores the significance of the neocons’ “A Clean Break” paper, writing: “In 1996, a group of six Jewish Americans, led by Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, wrote a paper for incoming Israeli prime minister, Benyamin Netanyahu.  Entitled ‘A Clean Break’, the paper proposed, in essence, an abrupt reversal of the foreign policies of the Clinton Administration towards the Middle East.” (p. 298)  After mentioning the major goals  of the plan, including the removal of Saddam’s regime, Shlaim declares: “Thus, five years before the attack on the twin towers, the idea of regime change in Baghdad was already on the agenda of some of Israel’s most fervent Republican supporters in Washington.” (p. 299)  Regarding the connection of that policy to actual American interests,  Shlaim opines that “While the authors’ devotion to Israel’s interests was crystal-clear, their implicit identification of those interests with American interests was much more open to question.” (p. 299) Shlaim accepts the obvious  fact that the neocons were influential in shaping Bush policy: “The Bush Administration’s entire policy towards the Middle East was similarly supportive of Israel’s short-term strategic interests.” (p. 299)

It should be noted here that Shlaim, in accord with what I write in  The Transparent Cabal,  makes three taboo points that often lead to charges of anti-Semitism when he observes that the neocons are Jewish, that they are devoted to Israel, and that they were influential enough to shape U. S. Middle East  policy in the interests of Israel.

Shlaim correctly points out  that the neocons’ Middle East war  agenda transcended Iraq: “While Iraq was the main target, the neocons also advocated that America exert relentless pressure on Syria and on Iran.” (p. 300)  In The Transparent Cabal, I show that the neocons only regarded Iraq as the momentary “main target”—it was to be the first step in their plan to reconfigure the Middle East.

Shlaim refers to  Israeli support for the broader neocon Middle East war agenda, which would also primarily benefit that country, not the United States:   “Washington’s policy of confrontation and regime change was fervently supported in Tel Aviv.  Here too the benefit to Israel is much more evident than the benefit to America.   And here too, the US agenda towards the region appears to incorporate a right-wing Likud agenda.” (p. 300)

While fundamentally similar, Shlaim’s analysis does differ with The Transparent Cabal in a few respects.   For example, he depicts the noted Middle East scholar Bernard Lewis as a crucial influence on the neocons, maintaining that he provided “the intellectual underpinning for this policy [the neocon plan of democratizing the Middle East by war].” (P. 299)  While aware that Lewis expressed this Middle East democratization argument, I am not aware that the neocons actually derived this view from him.  To obtain expert opinion on this issue, I contacted Paul Gottfried, probably the foremost historian of neoconservatism, and he also was not aware of any evidence for Shlaim’s claim. Since Lewis is a well-known scholar, some neocons undoubtedly believed that publicizing their connection to him would enhance the credibility of their democratization argument, but whether they actually derived this view from him needs to be proven.

A more significant difference between Shlaim’s argument and that of The Transparent Cabal revolves around an assessment of the results of the neocon policy. While Shlaim holds that the  neocons were attuned to the views of the hardline Likudniks and sought to advance what they considered to be Israel’s security interests,  he seems to drift away from this position in looking at the policy’s results.  Instead, he seems to take the neocon rhetoric on democracy at face value and judges the results by both this standard and how the results affected Israel’s security, as he (a left-wing Zionist, not a hardline Likudnik) sees  it.  “The war on Iraq has not gone according to plan,” Shlaim asserts. “Saddam Hussein and his henchman have been removed from power but the goals of democracy, security and stability have proved persistently elusive. Today the shadow of civil war hangs over Iraq.” (p. 305)

In contrast to Shlaim’s view of Israel’s security, the neocons explicitly sought regional instability to allegedly achieve democracy, as I show in The Transparent Cabal.  And the hardline Likudnik position was to destabilize and fragment Israel’s enemies to enhance Israeli security.  The neocons similarly advocated such an approach in their “Clean Break” agenda, which did not emphasize  democratization.  In short, from the perspective of the neocons and the hardline Likudniks, the instability and the “shadow of civil war” resulting from the US invasion of Iraq were neither surprising nor unwelcome.  Thus the neocons’ plans failed only to the extent that the US has not, or at least not yet, moved on to attack and destabilize Iran and other enemies of Israel.

It is certainly pleasing to see themes that I present emerging  in the mainstream, but I am miffed that my much longer account remains largely ignored.  It would be great if  books such as Shlaim’s would serve to open the door to wider publicity for The Transparent Cabal, which would not simply be of personal benefit but would also provide mainstream readers with the most complete account currently existing of the neoconservative involvement in the war on Iraq and overall U. S. Middle East policy,  and thus serve as a guide to analyzing current U.S.  policy.  However, since Shlaim’s theme is buried among 29 other short chapters, its impact will likely be negligible.  And the overall blackout of these crucial themes will likely continue.

Stephen J. Sniegoski, Ph.D. earned his doctorate in American history,with a focus on American foreign policy, at the University of Maryland. His focus on the neoconservative involvement in American foreign policy antedates September 11,and his first major work on the subject, “The War on Iraq: Conceived in Israel” was published February 10, 2003, more than a month before the American attack. He is the author of “The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel”. Read more articles by Stephen J. Sniegoski. http://home.comcast.net/~transparentcabal/

January 17, 2011 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Israel Tested Stuxnet on Iran, with US help: Report

Al-Manar – 16/01/2011

US and Israeli intelligence services collaborated to develop a destructive computer worm to sabotage Iran’s nuclear efforts, The New York Times reported Sunday.

The newspaper quoted intelligence and military experts as saying Israel has tested the effectiveness of the Stuxnet computer worm, which allegedly shut down a fifth of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges in November and helped “delay its ability to make its first nuclear weapons.”

The testing took place at the heavily guarded Dimona complex in the Negev desert housing the Middle East’s sole, albeit undeclared nuclear weapons program. Experts and officials told the Times the effort to create Stuxnet was a US-Israeli project with the help, knowingly or not, of Britain and Germany.

“To check out the worm, you have to know the machines,” a US expert told the newspaper. “The reason the worm has been effective is that the Israelis tried it out.”

There has been widespread speculation Israel was behind the Stuxnet worm that has attacked computers in Iran, and Tehran has blamed the Jewish state and the United States for the killing of two nuclear scientists in November and January.

Moshe Yaalon, Israel’s strategic affairs minister and former military chief, said last month that a series of “technological challenges and difficulties” meant Tehran was still about three years away from being able to build nuclear weapons.

On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said international sanctions against Iran would only be effective if they were backed by a “credible” military threat.

The Stuxnet worm apparently included two major parts, one intended to make Iran’s nuclear centrifuges spin out of control.
Another secretly recorded normal operation at the nuclear plant, then played those recordings back to the site’s operators so all would appear usual during the sabotage operation, according to the Times.

Stuxnet targets computer control systems made by German industrial giant Siemens and commonly used to manage water supplies, oil rigs, power plants and other critical infrastructure.

Most Stuxnet infections have been discovered in Iran, giving rise to speculation it was intended to sabotage nuclear facilities there.

The report came after Clinton, who was on a five-day trip to the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Qatar last week, urged Arab states to stay focused on sanctions against Iran.

The UN Security Council last June imposed a fourth round of sanctions against Iran in a bid to halt its uranium enrichment program.

Iran says its aims are peaceful, denying charges by Israel and the West that its uranium enrichment work masks a drive for nuclear weapons.
The Islamic republic is set to hold a new round of nuclear talks with Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States in Istanbul on January 21 and 22.

January 16, 2011 Posted by | War Crimes, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

The Well-Deserved Collapse of Lebanon’s Government

Blame Hillary, Not Hezbollah

By RANNIE AMIRI | CounterPunch | January 14, 2011

Wednesday’s timeline from the Lebanese news portal Naharnet.com read as follows:

5:17 pm Agence France Presse: Prime Minister Saad Hariri went into talks with U.S. President Barack Obama at the moment that Opposition ministers resigned from the Lebanese government.

5:32 pm Minister of State Adnan Sayyed Hussein announced in a statement his resignation from Cabinet.

In that 15 minute span, President Obama went from meeting Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri to ex-Prime Minister Hariri. The unity government under his premiership had fallen, and deservedly so.

Events had rapidly unfolded.

Last weekend, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met Hariri in New York. The visiting prime minister was holding consultations with Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, recuperating from recent back surgery there, on the Special Tribunal for Lebanon’s (STL) impending indictments.

The STL is widely expected to implicate Hezbollah members in the February 2005 assassination of late premier Rafiq Hariri despite evidence pointing to Israel’s complicity in the crime. Saad Hariri’s Western-backed ruling March 14 coalition backs the tribunal while the opposition March 8 coalition has called for its boycott.

Hopes have been riding on a Saudi-Syrian, or “S-S” initiative that would effectively mediate between the rival camps on how best to handle the STL’s imminent verdict. Syrian President Bashar Assad and King Abdullah, respective patrons of the March 8 and March 14 blocs, sought to broker a solution to both side’s satisfaction.

Although details of the alleged initiative were not made public, speculation exists it may have entailed Hariri distancing himself from the STL decision in exchange for March 8 dropping its pursuit of charges against the “false witnesses”—those who initially fingered Syria for Hariri’s murder but whose testimony against Damascus was ultimately found to have been fabricated. Some of these witnesses are thought to be Hariri confidantes.

Not long after Hariri had finished meeting with Clinton, opposition leader and Free Patriotic Movement head Michel Aoun declared Tuesday the S-S initiative was dead:

“We thank the Saudi king and the Syrian president for the efforts they have exerted, although their initiative has ended with no results. The Hariri-led camp didn’t respond to these efforts, that’s why we’ve reached a dead end.”

A statement released by the opposition said the endeavor “ …  reached a dead end due to U.S. pressures and the other camp’s compliance with these pressures, despite the fact that we had positively dealt with that initiative and provided it with chances of success.”

Progressive Socialist Party head and Druze leader Walid Jumblatt remarked, “Saad Hariri was on the brink of making a major concession as concerns the tribunal, but occult forces prevented him from doing so.” After meeting with the Maronite Patriarch on Wednesday, he said, “dark forces intervened in the ongoing Syrian-Saudi talks and sidetracked this initiative from its original course.”

According to Labor Minister Muhammad Fneish, the Saudi-Syrian effort was sabotaged by “American intervention and the inability of the other side to overcome American pressure.” When asked why it ultimately failed, Fneish replied, “Ask Mrs. Clinton.”

The Obama administration and the U.S. State Department never wanted, nor would they have tolerated, an intra-Arab solution to Lebanon’s predicament. They ensured there would be no obstacle in the way of a discredited tribunal from issuing its findings based on doctored evidence, one that would sully Hezbollah’s reputation in Lebanon and throughout the Arab and Muslim world.

When it became clear the S-S initiative and whatever promise it held had been quashed, opposition members called on Hariri to urgently convene a cabinet meeting by the following day (Wednesday) to address what the government’s position toward the STL would now be.

The prime minister, still in New York, refused.

Ten opposition ministers in his 30-member cabinet then proceeded to tender their resignations.

Because the “one-third-plus-one” formula mandates at least 11 resign before the cabinet can be dissolved, one more minister was needed. That came when Minister of State Adnan Sayyed Hussein—one of five ministers directly appointed by President Michel Suleiman—announced his resignation. With that, Hariri’s 14-month-old government fell.

“The grace period has ended, and the waiting stage that we lived through without any result has ended,” said Energy Minister Jibran Bassil.

Saad Hariri rightly wants to see those who murdered his father and 22 others that fateful February day brought to justice. It is a wish shared by all Lebanese.

But Hariri and his coalition allies could not put their political and sectarian biases aside long enough to see how badly compromised the STL had become; its subjective investigatory methods, its reliance on Israeli-infiltrated telecommunication data, its refusal to even entertain the notion that Tel Aviv could possibly be involved in the assassination despite plausible evidence procured against it (not to mention the military benefits it reaped from Rafiq Hariri’s killing).

Although a compromise appeared at hand, one that would satisfy both coalitions and guarantee the nation’s well-being, Hariri was unwilling to overcome U.S. pressure. He allowed Secretary of State Clinton to veto overnight a plan that was months in the making.

What Clinton’s action did make clear is that any outside solution will always be subject to such interference. It only reinforced calls for the Lebanese to assume control of their own affairs and reach an agreement a third party cannot abrogate.

After meeting with Hariri, Clinton embarked on a tour of Persian Gulf countries, continuing the mission to promote division between Arab and Iranian, Sunni and Shia. When asked on Al-Arabiya television to comment on the situation in Lebanon, she said “stability requires justice.”

Ironically, a concept she tried to subvert and one Hariri never understood.

Rannie Amiri is an independent Middle East commentator.

January 14, 2011 Posted by | Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Israelis can tell the whole story of Sudan’s division – they wrote the script and trained the actors

By Fahmi Howeidi | Al-Khaleej Times | 14 January 2011

Now that we have been unable to defend the unity of Sudan, it might benefit us to understand what has happened there. Perhaps that will alert us to the fact that secession of the south is not the end, but is one of a series of splits intended to dismantle the Arab world surrounding Egypt.

From very early on, Zionists realized that minorities in the Arab world represent a natural ally to their state of Israel and so they planned to build bridges with them. Zionist representatives communicated with the Kurds in Iraq, the people in southern Sudan, the Maronites in Lebanon, Kurds in Syria, and the Copts in Egypt; Zionism adopted the principle of divide and conquer, and saw that the most effective way to fragment the Arab world was to create secessionist movements within it. In doing so, it sought the redistribution of power in the region in such a manner to make a group of marginal countries lacking unity and sovereignty, all the easier for Israel, in cooperation with non-Arab countries to control them one after the other later. All the rebel movements triggered by ethnic and sectarian groups in the Arab world have drawn support and advocacy from Israel, which has adopted these separatist movements, as witnessed by the Kurds in Iraq and the rebel movement in southern Sudan.

This situation helps us to understand Israel’s strategy towards the Arab world, which is designed to encourage minorities to express themselves so that they may eventually seize self-determination and independence from the state. What helps in all of this is that the Arab world, contrary to what the Arabs claim, does not consist of one cultural and civilized unity – the mythical “Arab nation” but it is a diverse mix of cultures, religions, ethnicities and multilingualism. Israel has been used to portraying the region as a mosaic that includes in its midst a complex network of multi-linguistic, religious, nationalism forms between Arabs, Persians, Turks, Armenians, Israelis themselves, Kurds, Baha’is, Druze, Jews, Protestants, Alawites, Sabians, Shiites, Sunnis, Maronites, Circassians, Turkomans, Assyrians and so on.

According to Israel’s view, when a land or part of a land has minority groups within it but no collective history, the real history is the history of each minority. This has the purpose of achieving two main objectives:

First, it rejects the concept of Arab nationalism and the call for Arab unity; Arab nationalism in the Israeli perception is an idea shrouded in mystery, if not irrelevant. Arab unity is a myth because the Arabs pay lip service to one nation, but live within mutually incompatible states. It is true that most are united by language and religion, but that is also the case with people across the English- or Spanish-speaking worlds, but that does not make them one nation.

Second, this is used to justify the legitimacy of Israel’s presence in the region as just one more to add to the mix of nationalities, peoples and languages, for which the perception of unity is an illusion. The logical conclusion of this train of thought is that each group of people (whether calling themselves a nation or not) has its own state; thus does Israel gains its legitimacy as one of many nation-states in the Middle East.

The preceding thesis is taken from a text book: “Israel and the South Sudan Liberation Movement”, published in 2003 by the Dayan Centre for Research on the Middle East and Africa. The author is retired head of Mossad Moshe Faraji. I have referred to him on more than one occasion. He is worth looking at again as the crop sown by Israel and its allies since the 1950s is beginning to bear fruit.

Another senior Israeli, former Minister of Internal Security Avi Dichter, referred to Sudan in his 2008 lecture delivered to the Institute for Zionist National Security Studies. “There have been Israeli estimates since Sudan’s independence in the mid-fifties that this country, although far from us, should not be allowed to become a force added to the power of the Arab world because if its resources continue under stable conditions, it will make it a power to be reckoned with.” Hence, Israel’s attention has been directed towards Sudan, hoping to exploit the situation.

Sudan provides strategic depth to Egypt. This was evident post-1967 when Sudan and Libya provided training facilities for the Egyptian air force and army; Sudanese forces were sent to the Suez Canal zone during the war of attrition waged by Egypt between 1968 and 1970. For these two reasons, Dichter added, Israel had to work on weakening Sudan and prevent it from becoming a strong, unified state. This strategic perspective is necessary, he said, for Israeli’s national security. It is worth noting that Dichter’s lecture took place almost thirty years after the peace agreement signed between Egypt and Israel in 1979.

When asked about the future of southern Sudan, Dichter replied: “There are international forces led by the United States that are determined to intervene in Sudan so that the South will become independent, and the same for the Darfur region, like the independence of Kosovo. The situation in southern Sudan is not unlike that in Darfur and Kosovo, in that the two regions aspire to independence and acquire the right to self-determination after their citizens fought for that.”

Israeli support for the rebels in southern Sudan has gone through five stages notes Colonel Faraji:

Phase 1 started in the fifties. For nearly a decade, Israel focused on providing humanitarian aid (medicines, food and doctors) and was keen to provide services to refugees who were fleeing to Ethiopia. The first attempts to invest in the tribal differences in southern Sudan itself began in order to intensify the conflict and encourage the South to secede from the Arab north. Israeli intelligence officers stationed in Uganda opened channels of communication with the leaders of the southern tribes to study the demographic map of the area.

Phase 2 began in the sixties with Israel providing military training in special centres established in Ethiopia. At this stage, the Israeli government became convinced that keeping Khartoum busy with internal wars was sufficient to make sure that it would be unable to provide any support for Egypt’s struggle with the Zionist state.

Proselytizing organizations active in the south encouraged Israel to send members of its intelligence services under the cover of humanitarian aid; the prime goal was to train influential people to sustain the tension in the region. At this stage, Israel also expanded its support to the rebels by providing weapons through Ugandan territory; the first of such deals was in 1962, with mainly Russian armaments which had been captured by Israel when it took part in the aggressive Suez campaign in 1956. Fighters were trained in southern Uganda, Ethiopia and Kenya before being pushed over the border to fight inside Sudan.

Phase 3 extended from the mid-sixties into the seventies, when the flow of arms to Southern Sudan was facilitated by an Israeli arms dealer called Gabi Shafine, who was working for Israeli intelligence. Shipments of Russian weapons won by Israel in 1967 were dropped by Israeli cargo planes. Israel also established a school for infantry officers to train the cadres necessary to lead the rebel factions. Israeli elements were involved in the fighting to lend their expertise to the South. At this stage groups were taken to Israel to receive military training. At the beginning of the seventies another channel for the delivery of Israeli support to South Sudan through Uganda was opened officially.

When it seemed that the rebel movement was about to collapse in 1969, Israel made a tremendous effort to urge the rebels to continue their fight, and used every method available to them to persuade southerners that they were engaged in a national struggle between Arab-Muslims in the north who were dominating a Black-African-Christian-Animist south.

Phase 4 from the late seventies through the eighties saw the African continent witness several major diversions (e.g. drought in Ethiopia) which did not stop Israel from supporting the rebels; indeed, support increased after Ethiopia became a regular conduit for the delivery of weapons to the South. John Garang emerged at this stage as a leader supported by Israel; he was received in Tel Aviv and given money and weapons. Israel was keen to train his men in various martial arts; ten pilots were trained to use light fighter aircraft.

Phase 5 started in late 1990 with expanding Israeli support; shipments reached the south through Kenya and Ethiopia. Israel provided the south with heavy anti-tank weapons and anti-aircraft guns. At the beginning of 1993, the coordination between Israel and the SPLA (the southern army) included funding, training, armament, information and supervision by Israeli technicians of military operations.

It is clear that Israel has been eyeing southern Sudan for more than half a century.

A worthy observation is that the insurgency in the south began in 1955, one year before the Declaration of Independence of the state of Sudan. This illustrates that the oft-cited reason for southern secession – the implementation of Shari’a Law by the government of Al-Turabi in 1989 – is merely an excuse; this is a struggle that has gone on long before such proposals were even mooted.

While Israel was supporting the southern rebels with arms, Western countries were continuing their diplomatic efforts to arrange the division of Sudan through a referendum. The peace accord signed between the Khartoum government and the rebels was reached with British, American and Norwegian sponsorship. For more than fifty years, the people of Sudan have faced armed insurrection on one side and diplomatic pressure and dirty tricks on the other. If just a quarter of such an effort had been applied on the situation in Palestine, the problem would have been resolved decades ago. Self-determination appears to be acceptable, indeed highly desirable, if it will weaken a predominantly Arab state, but off the agenda when it involves the Palestinians obtaining their rights against the Zionist state of Israel.

They have planned for this division of Sudan and look set to get what they wanted. As for the Arabs, they have stood and watched as mere spectators. I hope that this is not a precursor for further disappointments to come.

January 14, 2011 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Lebanon: The Fate of The Indictment Under a Caretaker Government

Al-Manar – 13/01/2011

Lebanon entered a transitional stage Thursday, only a few hours after the collapse of PM Saad Hariri’s government, as President Michel Sleiman declared the government in caretaker capacity pending the formation of a new government. On Wednesday, 11 ministers resigned from Hariri’s government in protest at his refusal to convene the Cabinet to discuss the Special Tribunal for Lebanon especially after the Saudi- Syrian effort to defuse the STL crisis was presumed dead.

It is the first time in Lebanon’s history that a government is toppled by the resignation of more than a third of its members, but it’s not the first time a government continues functioning in a caretaker capacity. Only this time, there is a slight difference with the STL expected to issue an indictment regarding the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Martyr Rafiq Hariri, and no official authority to receive it. The indictment is expected to implicate Hezbollah in the murder; a move widely seen as politicized serving US and Israeli interests in Lebanon and the region.

CARETAKER GOVERNMENT HAS NO DIRECT MANDATE

According to former minister and lawyer Issam Naaman, the Lebanese Constitution states that there are only three cases in which the government is considered resigned: the resignation or death of the Prime Minister, the end of the parliamentary cycle (i.e. parliamentary elections), in addition to the resignation of more than one third of the government’s members.

Naaman told Al-Manar website that in any of these cases, the president should call for parliamentary consultations to appoint a new prime minister. He noted that pending the formation of the new government, the resigned one functions in caretaker capacity and therefore, its ministers are required to act in this capacity.

The former minister defined the principle of “caretaker government as a task to manage the simple, routine and daily operations which do not require endorsement or Cabinet approval. “However, the caretaker government does not have the mandate to take decisive decisions that usually require a Cabinet meeting,” he explained.

Asked whether there were exceptional cases in which the caretaker government could take decisive resolutions, Naaman said that only in urgent cases such as catastrophes, the concerned minister has the right to take specific measures such as spending money without credence.

Naaman, meanwhile, pointed out that there was no specific constitutional deadline for the formation of a new government following any government resignation. “Customs stipulate, however, that parliamentary consultations, appointment of a prime minister and the formation of a new government take place without delay,” he said. “Yet, there are some cases where the country is severely divided, that the process extends to a relatively unlimited time” he added.

GOVERNMENT COLLAPSED WITH RESIGNATION OF 11th MINISTER

For his part, veteran legal expert and former head of the State Consultative Council, Yusuf Saadallah Khoury said the government collapsed the moment the 11th minister tendered his resignation. According to the constitution, more than one third of the ministers should resign to topple the government. In this case of a 30-member Cabinet, 11 ministers were required to withdraw.

“The constitution stipulates that the president then calls for binding parliamentary consultations to appoint a new prime minister. After that, the president, alone, issues a decree mandating the appointed PM to form the new government, and when the government is formed, the president releases a second decree” for the government take the oath and start functioning officially.

Like Naaman, Khoury stressed the caretaker government doesn’t have the direct mandate or the moral authority to take crucial decisions. “In case it adopts any resolution with relation to fateful events, it would be in violation of the law and should be penalized,” he explained. “The government has resigned and therefore its task is limited to taking care of necessary operations and transactions,” he elaborated.

The former head of the State Consultative Council also stated that the constitution has not specified any time limit for the President to issue the decree calling for parliamentary consultations. “The President is not obligated by any time limit in this regard. He can take the political circumstances into consideration before releasing it,” he said, stressing at the same time that the parliamentary consultations to appoint a new Prime Minister are mandatory.

The Lebanese are already divided over the legal and structural aspects of the STL, which the opposition regards as another political tool in US and Israeli hands to target the country and the resistance, yet the resignation of the government raises question marks on the fate of the international tribunal and the indictment which, if issued now, will find no official authority to receive it.

“Following the government’s resignation, the expected indictment will have absolutely no impact on Lebanon at any level,” former minister Issam Naaman told Al-Manar website, adding that the tribunal officials are aware that the STL wouldn’t be able to execute its indictment, especially after the speeches of Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah who called for boycotting the illegal and unconstitutional tribunal. He recalled that the national opposition has rejected the agreement of coordination with the STL, which was adopted by the unconstitutional government of Fouad Saniora January 23, 2007, in violation of the Constitution and all laws,” reminding that then President Emil Lahoud didn’t sign it and the parliament did not endorse it.
For his part, Khoury ruled out any possibility of forcing Lebanon into dealing with the tribunal, which is subject to the United Nations Security Council’s Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which allows the UNSC to resort to military interference and imposing sanctions. “This is not applicable at all,” Khoury told Al-Manar. He explained that the United Nations is powerless in this regard, especially with a caretaker government, given that the Security Council has the power to militarily interfere only in exceptional cases such as war, which is not the case in Lebanon.

OPPOSITION WILL NOT RE-APPOINT HARIRI…

Naaman explained the circumstances that led to the Saudi-Syrian initiative before being obstructed by the United States. “The Saudi-Syrian initiative was built on three main pillars: suspending financial aid, withdrawing Lebanese judges and transferring the issue of the false witnesses to the Lebanese Judicial Council. The US administration has rejected the settlement and exerted pressure on former PM Saad Hariri and Riyadh to foil it.”

“That’s why the national opposition decided to put an end to the whole game and chose to consult with President Michel Sleiman and convince him to influence Hariri to call for an immediate Cabinet session. But Hariri didn’t, turned down the opposition’s demand, leaving the opposition with no choice but resignation,” Naaman noted.

He expected that the formation of a new government would not take place very soon, adding that the opposition has basically decided not to re-appoint Saad Hariri as Prime Minister and seek other national figures suitable for the position of PM.

By its resignation from the government, the national opposition launched an era of democratic change; a sensitive transitional stage that will define the shape of the country for at least the 20 months left for the president’s tenure.

January 14, 2011 Posted by | Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Lebanese unity government collapses

Press TV – January 12, 2011

A Lebanese government cabinet meeting

Lebanon’s unity government has collapsed after 11 ministers led by Hezbollah and its allies resigned over tensions stemming from a US-backed probe into the assassination of former premier Rafiq Hariri.

Energy Minister Jibran Bassil told a news conference on Wednesday that Hezbollah ministers and their allies have resigned from the Cabinet.

Hezbollah made the decision after its demands on Tuesday for an urgent cabinet session over the tribunal’s crisis was rejected.

“If the cabinet fails to meet, it means there is no government and as such 11 ministers will tender their resignations this afternoon,” Health Minister Mohamad Jawad Khalifeh, whose Amal party is allied with Hezbollah, warned earlier on Wednesday.

The resignations came as Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri is in the US for a meeting with US President Barack Obama.

Former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and 20 other people were assassinated on February 14, 2005, when explosives equal to around 1,000 kilogram of TNT were blown up in downtown Beirut.

The Washington-sponsored Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) was set up some two years later to look into the deadly incident.

Reports say that the court would likely issue an indictment against some Hezbollah members.

Hezbollah Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah has vehemently rebuffed the allegations. He has described the tribunal as part of dangerous projects that are targeting the resistance movement.

January 12, 2011 Posted by | Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

US Financial war on Iran takes more Civilian Lives

Pulse Media | January 10, 2011

At least 77 people are confirmed dead after a commercial IranAir passenger jet crashed in Northern Iran. The plane was almost 40 years old. Israel/US initiated UN Security Council sanctions that have been strangling various elements of Iran’s economy for years seriously limit Iran’s ability to purchase new parts or aircraft. Proponents of sanctions such as Undersecretary of the Treasury for Financial and Terrorism Intelligence Stuart Levey argue sanctions will force Iran into complying with Israel/US demands. Of course, we have no actual evidence to support this claim in the case of Iran (except for the side-effect of innocent dead civilians) and we already know about the deadly effect of sanctions in Iraq, especially on Iraqi children.

According to former Bush administration officials and Iran-US policy analysts Hillary Mann and Flynt Leverett:

We have criticized sanctions as being futile and counterproductive, in that America’s continued resort to multilateral and unilateral sanctions against Iran undermines whatever credibility U.S. offers of “engagement” might otherwise have.  But, the Levey interview makes clear that the damaging effects of sanctions go beyond even this.  Levey says that sanctions are meant to press Iran to engage in serious diplomacy with the United States and the international community.  But, he has, in effect, created a sanctions policy which will be very difficult for the United States to walk back, even as part of a process of negotiation and prospective rapprochement.  We suspect that this is precisely what Levey intends.  That President-elect Obama moved so rapidly to retain Levey was a sad indicator of how internally contradictory and incoherent the Obama Administration’s Iran policy would turn out to be.

For a recent take on the Iran sanctions by Flynt Leverett click here.

January 10, 2011 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Video, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

‘Iran oil exports to India unaffected’

Press TV – January 5, 2011

India’s Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry says Iran’s oil exports to the country will not be affected as alternative payment routes have been put in place.

“There has been no disruption in supply since [Reserve Bank of India] RBI issued new payment guidelines. A cargo for delivery on January 8 and 9 is currently being loaded in Iran and we have no problems sourcing crude from Iran,” India Today quoted India’s Petroleum Secretary S. Sundareshan as saying on Tuesday.

He also said that the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) is willing to accept payments from Indian oil firms through the Europaisch-Iranische Handelsbank (EIH Bank) in Hamburg, Germany.

Oil companies working with Iran like Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) and Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) will make payments to NIOC’s EIH Bank account in Hamburg via the State Bank of India (SBI).

According to Sundareshan, the two central banks will meet in Tehran from January 14 to 16 to find a permanent solution to the matter.

Part of the meeting will involve choosing a payment currency, such as the Iranian Rial, Dirham and Yen, which are not susceptible to US pressure.

The problem arose when the Indian Central Bank said import payments to Iran would have to be settled outside the existing Asian Clearing Union (ACU) mechanism.

Under the ACU mechanism, every two months imports by the nine member-nations are settled by every member paying for its import surplus.

January 5, 2011 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

‘Charlie Rose’ transcript saves Hoenlein from on-air allegation he served as Netanyahu’s emissary

By Philip Weiss on January 4, 2011

Watch this Charlie Rose episode from last night to hear Rashid Khalidi soberly explain reality: Palestinians were promised a state 63 years ago and the check is still in the mail; and meantime, there is only one sovereign political entity between the river and the sea and it is or will be majority Palestinian but ruled by Jews. Palestinian statehood without the ability to keep Israeli soldiers from entering any one’s home in the West Bank whenever they like is meaningless. Ramallah is an “excrescence” on Palestine, it is a bubble of prestige and sink of international dollars where, yes, you can get a cappucino for $12.

Also watch it to see

Aluf Benn of Haaretz say at 11:00 or so that rumor has it that Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Orgs went to Syria at the behest of Netanyahu to negotiate with the Syrians… Hoenlein has admitted going to Syria and meeting President Assad but said that it was not at the behest of Netanyahu, a humanitarian mission. I imagine there could be an issue of needing to register the Conference of Presidents under the Foreign Agents Registration Act?

Then read the official transcript at Charlie Rose, the name Malcolm Hoenlein does not appear in the transcript, though it’s in the interview. Nor the name Ron Lauder. Despite my headline, I don’t know if there’s a rat here. These transcripts are not all that great. Note that the transcriber dropped some other language later in the answer, of a trivial character. Transcript, with dropped words in [BRACKETS]:

CHARLIE ROSE: My understanding and my impression is notwithstanding everything you just said that very recently there’s been some suggestion that they’re prepared to do [Turkey is prepared to play intermediary role between Israel and Syria]–

ALUF BENN: They’re always prepared to do it. Israel is not so happy about that, but, again, unless there’s something secret going on that we don’t know about, Prime Minister Netanyahu to this day has not shown signs of taking the Syrian threat seriously. Every other week there’s a story about a messenger. Only tonight [IT WAS PUBLISHED THAT MALCOLM HOENLEIN] one of the American Jewish leaders went to Damascus and met Syrian officials and obviously the rumor is that he was sent by Netanyahu in a similar way to — an [THAT RONALD LAUDER, ANOTHER] American Jewish leader[,] mediated 12 years ago. But it takes time to see these things are serious. But there is strong voice, especially among the Israeli security establishment which says the [BEST WAY AND THE SHORTEST WAY AND] surest way around Israel’s strategic problems is making peace with Syria.

January 5, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Goldberg’s next war sure sounds a lot like his last one

By Philip Weiss on January 3, 2011

Four months back, Jeffrey Goldberg published a long piece in the Atlantic called “The Point of No Return,” making the Israeli case for the United States to attack Iran in Never-again terms: Iran is threatening the existence of “the Jewish people,” Israel is bound to act if the U.S. fails to, the U.S. will do a better job. The piece has stirred a lot of discussion. Goldberg has gone on national media and panels at thinktanks to promote these bellicose ideas.

But no one has pointed out that the piece makes the same argument Goldberg marshaled eight years ago for the U.S. to attack Iraq, that time with an article in the New Yorker magazine under the headline, “The Great Terror.”  Iraq too was bent on the destruction of the Jewish people, and was developing a nuclear weapon to do so.

The language in the pieces is eerily similar. The last time the concentration camp Goldberg invoked was Bergen-Belsen. This time around it’s Auschwitz.

Both times the enemy is “three years” away from going nuclear. Last time:

He [August Hanning of German intelligence agency] does not equivocate. “It is our estimate that Iraq will have an atomic bomb in three years,” he said.

This time:

Iran is, at most, one to three years away from having a breakout nuclear capability (often understood to be the capacity to assemble more than one missile-ready nuclear device within about three months of deciding to do so).

The last time round Goldberg was flat wrong.

“The Great Terror” stated that Saddam had links to Al Qaeda, and the article was cited by both Bush and Cheney as proof of the threat posed by Iraq (Muhammad Idrees Ahmad has told me). As it turned out, Saddam Hussein didn’t possess weapons of mass destruction and didn’t attack Israel and wasn’t making a nuclear warhead or an aflatoxin/chemical/biological one and wasn’t importing canisters of mysterious nerve gases, as Goldberg had affirmed. But meantime, the U.S. was at war with Iraq, in some measure because of the bad ideas that Goldberg proliferated, and we and the Iraqis and its neighbors are still suffering the consequences.

This time around, the question is, Why is anyone listening to Goldberg? Why are prestige news organizations giving him the microphone?

But let’s compare similarities in the casus belli pieces.

In both cases, Goldberg turned Koran scholar to support his views. Last time, Saddam’s rage against the Kurds was based in part on

a chapter in the Koran that allows conquering Muslim armies to seize the spoils of their foes. It reads, in part, ‘Against them’—your enemies—‘make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah…’

Now Iran is the problem, Goldberg writes that “the depth of official Iranian hatred of Israel and Jews” can only be explained by looking to

a line of Shia Muslim thinking that views Jews as ritually contaminated, a view derived in part from the Koran’s portrayal of Jews as treasonous foes of the Prophet Muhammad.

In both cases, Goldberg alarms readers with Holocaust-tinged fears that a Muslim country is planning to wipe Jews out.

[T]he experts say, Saddam’s desire is to expel the Jews from history

That was last time. And this time—

[A] nuclear Iran poses the gravest threat since Hitler to the physical survival of the Jewish people.

The last time Saddam was the first leader since “the Holocaust” to use poison gas to “exterminate” women and children, and Goldberg cited an expert on Iraq with Holocaust fears.

as a child she lived in Germany, near Bergen-Belsen. “It’s tremendously influential in your early years to live near a concentration camp,” she said. In Kurdistan, she heard echoes of the German campaign to destroy the Jews.

This time around it’s the Shoah, and the camp is different, but the lesson of destruction is the same:

Many Israelis think the Iranians are building Auschwitz… “Iran represents a threat like the Shoah,” an Israeli official who spends considerable time with the prime minister told me….

“In World War II, the Jews had no power to stop Hitler from annihilating us. Six million were slaughtered. Today, 6 million Jews live in Israel, and someone is threatening them with annihilation.“

All the talk of annihilation from Israelis. In fact, Israeli journalist Noam Sheizaf has shown here, Goldberg echoed the hysteria of one element of Israeli society to justify the idea of the U.S. going on another Middle East joyride so as to forestall the Israelis from doing so.

The views of Israeli generals and senior officials in the Defense Department on Iran are of great interest, but they should be put in the right context. There are many in Israel who don’t see Iran as an existential threat, or, more precisely, they don’t see it as a different threat than those Israel faced in the past. There are even more who think that the risk in attacking Iran is far greater then the possible benefits. Israeli Generals have a tendency for creating mass hysteria.

The seamless stoking of hysteria is the most obvious impression one gets from reading Goldberg’s two casus belli pieces in sequence: Goldberg’s paranoia exists out of time; the very same themes and lines about the destruction of Jews appear several years apart, shifted from one enemy to the other (much as the State Department 60 years ago was the anti-Semitic enemy in his book Prisoners…).

Why is Goldberg still taken so seriously? The answer has to do with the strength of the Israel lobby inside the American establishment. That is how a former Israeli soldier–Goldberg immigrated to Israel in the 80s then came back a few years later– hops from one prestige magazine to another.

Indeed, Goldberg’s core concern, which also extends seamlessly eight years from the first piece to the second one, from Iraq to Iran– is not the fear of destruction, but of Israel losing hegemonic power in the Middle East. I have held out the two most similar and important phrases in the pieces for last, the phrases that reflect this root concern:

[T]here is no disagreement that Iraq, if unchecked, will have them [nukes] soon, and a nuclear-armed Iraq would alter forever the balance of power in the Middle East”

Goldberg warned the last time. And this time:

The challenges posed by a nuclear Iran are more subtle than a direct attack, Netanyahu told me….“You’d create a great sea change in the balance of power in our area”.

Does America want to go to war to preserve Israel’s power edge in the Middle East?

January 3, 2011 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

How Zionist lobby shapes UK politics

Press TV – December 31, 2010

The wealthy Jewish lobby in Britain working under the title of the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) has been tipped as the Conservative Party’s paymaster.

The CFI as described by British political analysts is beyond doubt the most well- connected and probably the best funded of all Westminster lobbying groups. It works in support of the interests of the Israeli regime.

The CFI’s finances may be legal but they are hardly transparent as the lobbying group is an unincorporated association. This is how the British media report on the CFI’s financial transactions.

The register of MPs’ interests shows that CFI board members and their businesses gave the Conservatives over 2 million pounds in the last 8 years.

The reports also say more than 30,000 pounds from CFI members went to campaign funds of the members of Prime Minister David Cameron’s team when he was first elected as the party leader in 2005.

Also in 2005, Cameron himself had received 15,000 pounds from a pro-Israeli lobby facilitator. The facilitator had also donated 50,000 pounds to the Conservative Central Office.

“Donations from all CFI members and their businesses to the Conservative Party of Britain have topped over 10 million pounds over the past 8 years”, according to reliable sources inside the UK.

Here’s an example of how the pro-Israeli lobby works in the UK.

After the 22-day Israeli war on the Gaza Strip a fact-finding team was appointed to conduct an inquiry into the war and identify the culprits.

A few weeks after the UN was to vote on a resolution following judge Goldstone’s report which condemned Israel for abusing human rights in Gaza, the CFI ran to now foreign secretary William Hague’s office and after consulting with them David Cameron gave them this quote:

“Unless the draft resolution is redrafted to reflect the role that Hamas played in starting the conflict we would recommend that the British government vote to reject the resolution”.

But, it was under former Prime Minister Tony Blair that the Israel lobby first acquired real influence in government.
Former chairman of the Labour friends of Israel John Mandelson boasted:

“Zionism is pervasive in new Labour, it’s automatic that Blair will come to Labour friends of Israel’s meetings”.

Shortly before Blair became Labour party leader in 1994 he met Michael Levy the pop music millionaire at a social event arranged by the Israeli embassy. They became friends, played tennis and Levy became Blair’s fundraiser. It’s estimated that he raised almost 15 million pounds for Labour before the row over cash for peerages.

When Tony Blair became prime minister in 1997, he awarded Michael Levy a life peerage and made him his special envoy to the Middle East, but because Levy was unpaid and working directly with the prime minister, what he negotiated between the Israeli entity and Arabs on behalf of Britain was kept secret.

December 31, 2010 Posted by | Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

NATO sees no end to Afghan war

Press TV – December 27, 2010

A spokesman for the US-led military alliance says the war in Afghanistan will escalate in 2011 as militants step up their attacks against the foreign forces in the country.

NATO spokesman Brigadier General Joseph Blotz says there is no end to the war and NATO needs to keep pressure on the Taliban all over Afghanistan.

“There is no end to the fighting season; we need to keep pressure on the Taliban all over the country.”

The remarks come as war has taken the lives of over 705 US-led foreign troops so far in 2010, making it the deadliest year for NATO since 2001.

This is while another NATO service member was killed on Monday. The Western military alliance says the soldier lost his life in a roadside blast in the south, without providing further details.

Southern Afghanistan has seen an escalation in violence this year.

A recent comparison of internal maps of the UN indicates “deterioration of the security situation” in Afghanistan despite the United States’ recent claim of progress in the Afghan war.

Fighting has recently spilled over into the previously peaceful regions in northern Afghanistan.

The Wall Street Journal compared two confidential “residual risk accessibility” maps and found that violence has worsened in northern and eastern provinces.

UN personnel use the maps to estimate the dangers of travel and running programs.

US President Barack Obama in his Afghan war strategy review claimed that the US-led forces had made progress in the war-battered country.

Obama had pledged a major drawdown from Afghanistan by July 2011. But Washington has confirmed that American troops will remain in war-ravaged Afghanistan for at least four more years.

The US military adventurism comes as the United Nations recently announced that Afghan civilian deaths had soared by over 30 percent in 2010 compared to the same period last year.

The UN says more than 2,400 civilians died in the crossfire across the country in the first 10 months of 2010.

The 2001 US-led invasion was launched with the objective of bringing peace and stability to Afghanistan. After nine years and despite the presence of over 150,000 foreign troops across Afghanistan, militancy is still high.

December 27, 2010 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

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