Press TV – September 3, 2024
Turkish citizens have taken to the streets in Izmir to demonstrate against the docking of an American warship, expressing solidarity with Palestinians and their opposition to US all-out military support for Israel amid the Gaza genocide.
Turkish parties on Monday night gathered at the Izmir port entrance to voice their opposition to the USS Wasp anchoring, one of the ships sent to the region by the US to support the Israeli regime.
Waving the Palestinian flag, protesters held banners reading “Our country’s ports cannot be supply and logistics points for murderers” and “We do not want the US ship that brings war and death to Palestine in Izmir.”
They chanted slogans such as “Down with Israel,” “Down with NATO” and “Down with USA,” demanding the immediate departure of the American ship from the Port of Izmir, as they honored the memory of Palestinians killed in Israel’s US-backed war in Gaza.
The USS Wasp, carrying nearly 1,500 US soldiers, anchored at the port of Izmir on Sunday after participating in bilateral at-sea training with Turkish Navy ships in August. The vessel, along with its accompanying ships, the USS Oak Hill and the USS New York, has been positioned in the region since June as part of deterrence efforts against possible threats to Israel amid high tensions in the region.
Protesters issued a stern warning to the Izmir Governorship, declaring they will not leave the port until the ship departs.
The protesters condemned the United States for its role in causing suffering and violence in Iraq, Syria, the West Asia region, and globally.
“It has been almost a year. Israel is carrying out a brutal massacre in Gaza. By killing tens of thousands of people, Israel is not only committing a great crime against humanity. It is also persistently continuing an unlawful and unscrupulous incitement to drag our region into a bloody war,” the protesters said in their statement.
The statement emphasized that the United States openly backs Israel and its military actions, and questioned its occasional ceasefire calls.
They also called on the Turkish government to remove the American soldiers from the streets of Izmir, after two US Marines from the USS Wasp were assaulted during a port visit in Izmir on Monday, as part of a protest against Israeli actions in Gaza and decades-long “US imperialism.”
“US soldiers who have the blood of our soldiers and thousands of Palestinians on their hands cannot tarnish our country. Every step you take on these lands will be met with the response you deserve,” the Turkey Youth Union (TGB), which carried out the attack said in its statement on Monday.
Fifteen individuals involved in the incident were detained by Turkey’s police.
The US has ramped up its military presence in the region as the Israel war on Gaza rages on.
Washington has sent 50,000 tons of arms and ammunition to Israel since October 7 when the regime launched its genocidal war on Gaza.
Late last month, the US completed the air delivery of its 500th consignment of weapons and munitions to Israel since it launched its genocidal war in October.
By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | August 30, 2024
“The successful thwarting of Hizbullah’s attack on Sunday, symbolized Israel’s intelligence and operational edge”: According to the IDF spokesman, the Hezbollah attack was thwarted for the most part – thanks to 100 Israel aircraft carrying out around the clock – pre-emptive strikes that destroyed “thousands of missile launchers”.
“The group [Hizbullah], did manage to fire hundreds of rockets at northern Israel, but the damage they caused was quite limited”, the Israeli spokespersons disdainfully suggested (amidst a complete blackout on publication, under full censorship, in Israel of any reporting on damage caused to strategic Israeli infrastructure or to military sites).
In effect, it was ‘theatre’ mounted by both sides: By limiting their 20 minute strike to within 5 kms of the border – and by Hizbullah staying within the ‘equations’ of war – both sides signalled plainly to each other they were not looking for all-out war.
The ‘winner narrative’ from Israel was to be expected in today’s psy-war atmosphere. Yet it comes at a cost: Amos Harel in Haaretz suggests that “there’s a tendency in Israel [as a result] to view the success in foiling Sunday’s attack as renewed evidence of the consolidation of regional deterrence and [of western] strategic supremacy. But such an assessment” he concedes, “appears to be far from accurate”.
Indeed it is (far from accurate). The Sunday theatre concluded with no change to the strategic situation in the north of Israel: Daily attrition continues from across the frontier of Lebanon, down to the new 40 km border defining the extent of Israel’s loss of territory to the Hizbullah no-go zone.
The strategic point is not that this narrative of a successful thwarting of Hizbullah’s capabilities is highly misleading. Rather, it sets up expectations of available military success from which wrong conclusions will be drawn. We have been here before. It didn’t go well …
Seymour Hersh, doyen of U.S. investigative journalism, this week re-posted a piece that he wrote in August 2006 about U.S. thinking in the context of an Israeli war on Hizbullah – and on its intended role as a pathfinder-project for a subsequent U.S. strike on Iran.
What Hersh wrote then represents a striking déjà vu of today’s situation. It remains to the point because U.S. neocon thinking rarely evolves, but remains constant.
“The big question for our [U.S.] Air Force”, Hersh noted in 2006, “was how to hit a series of hard targets in Iran successfully”, the former senior intelligence official said. “Who is the closest ally of the U.S. Air Force in its planning? It’s not Congo—it’s Israel”. The official continued:
“Everybody knows that Iranian engineers have been advising Hezbollah on tunnels and underground missile emplacements. And so the USAF went to the Israelis with some new tactics and said to them: ‘Let’s concentrate on the bombing and share what we have on Iran – and what you have on Lebanon.’”.
“The Israelis told us [that Hesballah] would be a cheap war with many benefits,” a U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel said: “Why oppose it? We’ll be able to hunt down and bomb missiles, tunnels, and bunkers from the air. It would be a demo for Iran”.
“I was told by the consultant that the Israelis repeatedly pointed to the war in Kosovo as an example of what Israel would try to achieve. “The NATO forces … methodically bombed and strafed not only military targets but tunnels, bridges, and roads, in Kosovo and elsewhere in Serbia, for seventy-eight days …“Israel studied the Kosovo war as its role model … The Israelis told Condi Rice: You did it in about seventy days, but we need half of that—thirty-five days’ [to finish off Hizbullah]””.
“The Bush White House”, a Pentagon consultant said, “has been agitating for some time to find a reason for a preëmptive blow against Hizbullah”; adding, “It was our intent to have Hezbollah diminished, and now we have someone else doing it … According to a Middle East expert, with knowledge of the current thinking of both the Israeli and the U.S. governments: Israel had devised a plan for attacking Hezbollah—and shared it with Bush Administration officials—well before the July 12th [2006] kidnappings: “It’s not that the Israelis had a trap that Hezbollah walked into,” he said, “but there was a strong feeling in the White House that sooner or later the Israelis were going to do it”, Hersh wrote.
“The White House was more focussed on stripping Hezbollah of its missiles, because – if there were to be a military option against Iran’s nuclear facilities – it had to get rid of the weapons that Hezbollah could use in a potential retaliation at Israel. Bush wanted both”, Hersh was told”.
“The Bush Administration was closely involved in the planning of Israel’s retaliatory attacks. President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney were convinced … that a successful Israeli Air Force bombing campaign against Hezbollah’s heavily fortified underground-missile and command-and-control complexes in Lebanon could ease Israel’s security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American preëmptive attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations – some of which are also buried deep underground”. (Emphasis added.)
A former intelligence officer said, “We told Israel, ‘Look, if you guys have to go, we’re behind you all the way”.
“Nonetheless, some officers serving with the Joint Chiefs of Staff were deeply concerned that the Administration will have a far more positive assessment of the air campaign than they should – the former senior intelligence official said. “There is no way that Rumsfeld and Cheney will draw the right conclusion about this,” he said. “When the smoke clears, they’ll say it was a success, and they’ll draw reinforcement for their plan to attack Iran”.
(This is where we are today: When the smoke clears from Sunday’s ‘exemplary pre-emptive attack in Lebanon’, Netanyahu will be using it with Washington to draw reinforcement for his aspiration to engage the U.S. for a strike on Iran.)
“Strategic bombing has been a failed military concept for ninety years, and yet air forces all over the world keep on doing it,” John Arquilla, a defense analyst at the Naval Postgraduate School, told [Hersh] … Rumsfeld [too, shared this expert’s jaded view]: “Air power and the use of a few Special Forces had worked in Afghanistan, and he [Rumsfeld] had tried to do it again in Iraq. It was the same idea, but it didn’t work. He thought that Hezbollah was too dug in – and the Israeli attack plan would not work, and the last thing he wanted was another war on his shift that would put the American forces in Iraq in greater jeopardy”.
“The 2006 Israeli plan, according to the former senior intelligence official, was “the mirror image of what the United States had been planning for Iran””. (The initial U.S. Air Force proposals for an air attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear capacity, which included the option of intense bombing of civilian infrastructure targets inside Iran) were being resisted by the top leadership of the Army, the Navy, and the Marine Corps – according to current and former officials. They argued that the Air Force plan will not work and will inevitably lead, as in the Israeli war with Hezbollah, to the insertion of troops on the ground.
David Siegel, the then Israeli spokesman, said that his country’s leadership believed, as of early August 2006, that the air war had been successful, and had destroyed more than seventy per cent of Hizbullah’s medium-and long-range-missile launching capacity.
Israel however had not destroyed 70% of Hizbullah’s missile inventory in 2006. It was deceived by Hizbullah’s intelligence decoy operation. The Israelis bombed empty sites.
Today, we hear the same exultatory narrative coming from IDF Spokesman Rear Admiral Hagari – parading how successful Israel’s strikes on Sunday had been.
Likely some in Israel and U.S. again will be deeply concerned that the Biden team may fall for a far more positive assessment of the Israeli air campaign than they should.
Many commentators across the West are making the same mistake. As Haaretz’ military correspondent noted in respect to this Sunday’s air strikes: “there’s a tendency in Israel to view the success in foiling Sunday’s attack as renewed evidence for the consolidation of regional deterrence – and strategic supremacy”.
Or, in other words, Iran has been deterred from carrying out its ‘commitment’ to retaliate for Ismail Haniyah’s assassination in Tehran by the amassing of fire-power by the U.S. in the waters of the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf and the fear of overwhelming U.S. firepower.
Anyone seeing the video glimpses of Iran’s automated and deep ‘missile cities’ deployed throughout the depth of Iran (and which it has allowed to be exposed to momentary view), should understand that carpet bombing Iranian civilian structure will not prevent the Iranian ability to respond lethally. Iran could unleash Regional Armageddon, nothing less.
So, for clarity’s sake: Who exactly is it that is deterred and backing down? Is it Iran or Washington?
Yet, “If it’s true that the Israeli campaign is based on the American approach in Kosovo, then it missed the point”, General Wesley Clark, the U.S. commander told Hersh. Killing civilians was not the objective: “In my experience, air campaigns have to be backed, ultimately, by the will and capability to finish the job on the ground”.
And that – simply – for the U.S. to contemplate for Iran is impossible.
“We face a dilemma”, an Israeli official told Hersh in 2006. Effectively, to decide whether to go for a local response (which is ineffective), or go for a comprehensive response—to really take on Hezbollah [and Iran] once and for all”.
Plus ça change: The dilemma may not have changed, but Israel has altered radically. A majority in Israel today is messianic in its support for Jabotinsky’s followers to do what they had always wanted and promised to do: To expel the Palestinians from the Land of Israel.
It is understood by many in Washington that the Revisionist Zionists (who represent maybe about 2 million Israelis) intend cynically to impose their will on the ‘Anglo-Saxons’, by plunging the U.S. into a wide regional war, should the White House try to undercut their neo-Nakba project of Palestinian forcible expulsion.
Benjamin Netanyahu has provoked Iran once (with the assassination in the Damascus Consulate of a top IRGC general); twice with killing of Haniyeh in Tehran; and a possible third would be were Israel to launch a so-called ‘pre-emptive’ strike against Iran, believing that the U.S. would be trapped and politically unable to stand aloof as Iran retaliated against Israel.
However, should the U.S. veto a strike on Iran before the U.S. elections (and Iran not retaliate for the death of Haniyeh before then), the Naqba ‘project’ can be moved forward via extending the existing Gaza military offensive to the West Bank, or through a grave provocation on the Haram al-Sharif (such as a fire at the al-Aqsa Mosque).
The Revisionist Zionists have been clear over recent years that some crisis or the confusion of war would be required to implement their neo-Naqba project fully.
America particularly is trapped by its ‘ironclad’, unqualified military support for Israel – which offers Netanyahu ample room for manoeuvre.
Manoeuvre, that is, towards the conflict that is Netanyahu’s only escape hatch ‘upwards’ as the ‘walls of attrition’ close-in on Israel. Iran and Hizbullah seem to have chosen too, for now, to preserve their escalatory dominance through a return to imposed calibrated attrition on Israel.
The U.S. will not be able to keep such a huge deployment of naval vessels in the region for long; but equally, Netanyahu will not be able to politically prevaricate at home for long, either.
Al Mayadeen | August 30, 2024
When Yemen’s Ansar Allah declared the Red Sea as part of the support fronts backing the Palestinian people and their Resistance, the United States announced that it would try to subvert its operations to protect Israeli ships and shipments, trapping itself in an indefinite and congressionally uncertified military conflict in the region.
Coined “the most intense running sea battle” the US has seen since World War II, Washington’s decision to enter the Red Sea rapidly transpired into “the epitome of strategic malpractice“, an op-ed published by Responsible Statecraft said.
According to authors Jonathan Hoffman and Benjamin Giltner, the US military conquest in the Red Sea is not only failing but also exposing US military personnel in the region to extreme danger to protect foreign vessels, as well as risking escalation and the destabilization of not only Yemen but the entire region.
Hoffman and Giltner expand on the reasons for the US failure in the Red Sea and explain that they stem primarily from Washington’s willful ignorance and refusal to acknowledge the main motive behind Ansar Allah’s operations [that being the Israeli genocide in Gaza], clearing all hopes it has for triumphing in the region.
A vain costly conquest
The United States deployed its forces in the Red Sea, firstly to counter the Yemeni ban on Israeli-affiliated or Israeli ships under Operation Prosperity Guardian, and secondly to launch its joint aggression with the United Kingdom against Yemen under Operation Poseidon Archer. The goal, allegedly, is to restore its deterrence in the region.
However, the US has now spent millions in American taxpayer funds and over a billion dollars to shoot down homegrown Yemeni drones, only to fail in deterring the Yemenis. In detail, the US has claimed that its forces shot down 150 Yemeni drones, each costing $2,000 at most, using missiles and weapon systems that cost more than one billion dollars.
The authors also note that Yemen escalated its operations only after the US and its partners launched their aggression to “restore deterrence”, further proving that their mission in the Red Sea failed.
This is due to the Yemeni military niche as a result of a decade-long conflict with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which enabled the country to develop its “shoot and scoot” guerrilla tactic. The Yemenis have proven to be skilled in producing highly versatile drones that carry out their attacks and retreat rapidly, at relatively extremely low costs.
Ironically, the US acknowledges the detachment between the US military campaign and its goals in the Red Sea, as well as its ineffectiveness in either deterring Yemen or restoring the maritime supply chain, but still expresses its determination to maintain its presence in the region and prolong the conflict further.
On the contrary, the US, according to the authors, has worsened the situation in the Red Sea.
US presence could destabilize Yemen
The second reason why the American strategy continues failing is because it risks destabilizing a war-torn Yemen following a decade of war against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi war against Yemen has not only left almost 400,000 casualties, but also created one of the worst modern-day humanitarian crises the world has seen. Despite the disastrous consequences of the war, Yemen’s Ansar Allah still emerged victorious.
The UN was able to mediate and establish a two-month ceasefire back in April 2022, which has extended to the current day. Saudi Arabia has been trying to pull out from the war it lost, while Ansar Allah maintained and fortified their positions in Yemen.
In the aftermath of October 7, Yemen emerged as a support front to back the Palestinian Resistance and the people of Gaza, further synthesizing Ansar Allah’s resistive front with the Yemeni government, in the face of any aggression that targets the country or its affiliations.
However, the escalating US-led aggression risks fracturing the UN-established ceasefire, further risking the destabilization of Yemen.
Risk of regional war
Lastly, the ongoing conflict between the United States and Ansar Allah risks escalating already mounting regional tensions, potentially pushing the Middle East closer to an all-out war. In the nearly 11 months since “Israel’s” war in Gaza began, military escalations have increased throughout the region, with the current clashes between Ansar Allah and the US military emerging as a result.
In a sequence of successes for the Axis of Resistance, the “deterrence” the US sought to impose against Yemen was further asserted as a failure when Ansar Allah successfully struck a site located near the US embassy in Tel Aviv.
“Israel”, backed by the United States, then bombed Hodeidah, killing six civilians and injuring dozens more.
With no resolution in sight for the war in Gaza and increasing concerns of a regional conflict, Yemen could become a key flashpoint, the authors wrote. If the US aims to prevent further Yemeni attacks and avoid being drawn into a larger regional war, military force is unlikely to accomplish these goals.
There are no critical US national interests in Yemen that warrant the current level of American military involvement or the waste of billions in taxpayer dollars. Rather than continuing its tit-for-tat conflict with Ansar Allah, Washington should acknowledge that its unwavering support for “Israel’s” war in Gaza is destabilizing the region and harming US interests.
The authors called for a ceasefire in Gaza, which would offer the most promising opportunity to halt, or at least significantly reduce Yemeni attacks, and ease growing tensions across the Middle East.
Colonel Douglas Macgregor & Prof Glenn Diesen | August 22, 2024
Has the thin line between proxy war and direct war now been eliminated? I spoke with Colonel Douglas Macgregor as NATO’s direct involvement in the war is evident with its involvement in the invasion of Russia.
Russia has restrained itself to a large extent as retaliating against NATO could trigger another world war and possible nuclear exchange, although the failure to retaliate emboldens NATO and results in subsequent escalations. Even Zelensky referred to the failure of Russia to respond to the invasion of Kursk as a reason for why NATO should not fear stepping over more Russian red lines. Colonel Macgregor suggests that the assumption of the US and NATO being all-powerful will continue to contribute to reckless escalations in the war against Russia – but also in the Middle East, and against China.
Most Ukrainian, Western and Russian observers seemed to recognise during the first days of the invasion of Kursk that it was a mistake. Ukrainian troops emerged out of well-defended frontlines and could be easily targeted in the open and with poor supply lines. As this is a war of attrition, it is likely a huge mistake to throw away Ukraine’s best soldiers and NATO’s military equipment on territory that is not strategic and cannot be held. However, the propaganda machine has since been turned on and the war is now sold to the Western public as a great opportunity to improve negotiation power, to develop a buffer zone, and to humiliate Putin – although none of these arguments can stand up to scrutiny.
The Ukrainian and NATO invasion of Kursk has changed the war completely as the Ukrainian causalities have increased dramatically, the Ukrainian defensive lines in Donbas are now collapsing even faster, and NATO’s role in the war is no longer ambiguous. This is all happening as internal divisions in NATO are surfacing, and the US/Israel will likely trigger a regional war in the Middle East.
By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | August 22, 2024
There is a Zen proverb — ‘If you want to climb a mountain, begin at the top.’ All the show of contrived enthusiasm by US President Joe Biden and CIA Director William Burns over an Israel-Hamas deal on the Gaza war cannot obfuscate the grim reality that unless and until Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu greenlights it, this is a road to nowhere.
But what did Netanyahu do? On the eve of the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s arrival in Tel Aviv on Sunday to press the flesh and cajole Netanyahu to cooperate, the latter disdainfully ordered yet another air strike in the central town of Deir Al-Balah in Gaza, killing “at least” 21 people, including six children. Biden had emphasised only the previous day that all parties involved in the Gaza ceasefire negotiations should desist from jeopardising the US-led diplomatic efforts to halt the war and secure a deal to return hostages and achieve a ceasefire to end the bloodshed.
And this was even after a ‘senior administration official’ who has been actively involved as negotiator — presumably, Burns himself — laboured to convey in a special briefing from Doha that the negotiations had reached an inflection point. The crux of the matter is that the western leaders have a maximum pressure strategy toward Iran to exercise restraint while they don’t have the moral or political courage to tackle Netanyahu, who is invidiously undermining the Doha process because he is simply not interested in a ceasefire deal that may lead to his removal from power, investigation to pin responsibility for October 7 attacks, revival of court cases against him and possible jail sentence if convicted.
Indeed, Tehran is sceptical that peace cannot come to Gaza under American mediation but taking care not to create any new facts on the ground while the Doha negotiations are under way. Tehran has adopted a mature, responsible attitude not to derail the Doha process. The point is, Iran is keen that the horrific war that the Israeli state unleashed in Gaza must be somehow brought to an end. Over 40,000 people have died so far.
That said, Hamas’ response to the US’ “bridging proposal” at Doha meeting will be a major determinant for Tehran. From available indications, there are serious disagreements over Israel’s continued military presence inside Gaza, particularly along the border with Egypt, over the free movement of Palestinians inside the territory, and over the identity and number of prisoners to be released in a swap. Both Israel and Hamas have signalled that a deal will be difficult.
On the other hand, the new Iranian government under Masoud Pezeshkian has highlighted his desire for a constructive engagement with the West and prioritises the removal of western sanctions. Pezeshkian’s nominee for the foreign ministry Abbass Araghchi reiterated these policy parameters in his testimony at the Majlis on Sunday while seeking parliament’s approval for his appointment.
Dispelling speculations that Araghchi, a career diplomat who is reputed to be a moderate, may face difficulty to garner support in the conservative-majority parliament, the Majlis recognised his high professionalism by unanimously approving his name as Iran’s next foreign minister in a vote instantaneously.
There is much food for thought here for the strategists in the White House. Suffice to say that what Pezeshkian’s predecessor late Ebrahim Raisi left behind as his foreign policy legacy will continue to guide the new government. That signals a high level of national consensus. Succinctly put, in all these years since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, there has not been a more conducive setting in the power calculus in Tehran for a pragmatic engagement with the West. It will be extremely unwise for Washington to overlook the window of opportunity to engage with Iran.
On the other hand, Tehran’s grit to push back western bullying is also at an all-time high level. The bottom line is that Iran will not submit to western diktat. In today’s circumstances, therefore, it is unrealistic to expect Tehran not to react to the Israeli aggression of July 31. Iran’s sovereignty was violated and its response will be strong and decisive, — and as a deterrent for the future as well.
No amount of muscle-flexing by Washington will frighten Tehran. The national unity, unlike in the US, is a crucial factor. The stunning endorsement by the Majlis of the entire list of cabinet ministers proposed by President Masoud Pezeshkian shows that there is no daylight between the different branches of state power. All indications are that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and Pezeshkian are on the same page — and this message has gone down the echelons of policymaking and state power in Tehran.
The contrast with the disarray in Israel’s confrontational domestic politics couldn’t be sharper.
Therefore, Iran will do what it considers necessary and an obligation — and a matter of national honour. The Deputy Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, General Ali Fadavi said on Monday, “We will determine the time and manner of punishment (of Israel). The usurping Zionist regime committed a great crime by assassinating Martyr Haniyeh, and this time it will be punished more severely than before.”
In a statement to The Wall Street Journal, Iran’s UN mission said any response must both punish the Israeli regime and deter future strikes in the country, but also “must be carefully calibrated to avoid any possible adverse impact that could potentially influence a prospective ceasefire.
“The timing, conditions, and manner of Iran’s response will be meticulously orchestrated to ensure that it occurs at a moment of maximum surprise; perhaps when their eyes are fixed on the skies and their radar screens, they will be taken by surprise from the ground — or, perhaps, even by a combination of both.”
The Iranian statement from the UN podium in New York is a message addressed to the White House that the ball is in the US-Israeli court. Interestingly, it coincided with the toned down White House readout on Biden’s call with Netanyahu on Wednesday, where Biden flagged the “defensive U.S. military deployments” and stressed the urgency of bringing the ceasefire and hostage release deal to closure and discussed upcoming talks in Cairo to remove any remaining obstacles.” It stands to reason that Tehran and Washington are communicating with each other.
Clearly, against such a heavily nuanced backdrop, the paranoia about a regional war is unwarranted, since neither Iran nor the US wants war. As for Israel, a small country, it simply lacks the capability to go to war with Iran armed with three submarines stacked with nuclear missiles as its strategic assets.
The stunning disclosure of Hezbollah’s vast network of underground missile network in southern and central Lebanon is a reality check for the Israeli political elite and settler communities on what they are up against.
As the former Israeli war minister Avigdor Lieberman puts it, Israel is engaged in a war of attrition, exactly as the Iranians wanted, having succeeded in uniting the resistance fronts. Lieberman pointed out that the agony of the indeterminate waiting for Tehran’s retaliatory operation is in itself an achievement for Tehran and the Axis of Resistance.
READ MORE: Iran finesses its deterrence strategy, Indian Punchline, August 12, 2024
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 20.08.2024
After nearly a year of efforts to taunt, provoke and intimidate Iran into a full-on regional war in the Middle East amid the Gaza crisis, Iran hawks in Washington have turned to a new strategy, accusing Tehran of interfering in the upcoming US presidential election. A respected Middle Eastern affairs scholar explains what’s behind the new approach.
The FBI, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence formally accused Iran of attempting to hack the Trump and Biden-Harris presidential campaigns on Monday.
The new allegations, which came weeks after a series of reports in US media citing “anonymous intelligence sources” claiming that Iran was plotting to assassinate Donald Trump, or to hack his presidential campaign, were not accompanied with any evidence.
“As the lead for threat response, the FBI has been tracking this activity, has been in contact with the victims, and will continue to investigate and gather information in order to pursue and disrupt the threat actors responsible. We will not tolerate foreign efforts to influence or interfere with our elections, including the targeting of American political campaigns,” the US intel agencies said in a joint statement.
Iran calmly rejected the US’s “unsubstantiated” and evidence-free claims.
“Such allegations are unsubstantiated and devoid of any standing. As we have previously announced, the Islamic Republic of Iran harbors neither the intention nor the motive to interference with the US presidential election,” the country’s permanent mission to the United Nations said in a statement.
“Should the US government genuinely believe in the validity of its claims, it should furnish us with the pertinent evidence – if any, to which we will respond accordingly,” the mission added.
Dangerous Distraction Action
“There is little doubt that the rhetoric itself has more impact than the substantiation of these accusations,” Dr. Mehmet Rakipoglu, a political scientist and international affairs observer and assistant professor at Turkiye’s Mardin Artuklu University, told Sputnik.
“Creating artificial agendas such as [the Iran hacking claims] intensifies hostilities between the parties involved. This accusation seems to be aimed at diverting attention from Israel’s actions in Gaza and refocusing it on the US election process,” Rakipoglu added, pointing out that Tel Aviv has been bogged down by accusations of engaging in genocide against Gaza’s civilian population, while proving unable to defeat Hamas militarily.
“It is already clear that the American public is deeply divided, regardless of whether there is an alleged Iranian attack. It is not Iran or any other external actor that is responsible for these divisions, but rather the US administrations themselves,” the academic said.
Rakipoglu stressed that, conveniently for the accusers, there’s virtually no way to verify the US intelligence agencies’ allegations, or conversely, prove that or Iran, or any other country, has interfered in the US election.
In some sense, the claims against Iran this election cycle are reminiscent of similar allegations made against Russia ahead of, during and following the 2016 vote, Rakipoglu said.
“While the US propagated a narrative of Russian interference during the 2016 elections, it continued to lose influence over time. It seems that the current accusation against Iran serves the same purpose as the allegations against Russian interference in 2016,” the observer said.
If that’s the case, it could signal a dangerous turn for Iran, and the Middle East in general. The 2016 Russian meddling allegations sparked a deep downturn in Russia-US relations, with the Russiagate conspiracy hounding Donald Trump throughout his term in office, blocking his ability to restore any semblance of normal ties with Moscow, and ultimately manufacturing consent among a substantial portion of the US electorate for the NATO-Russia proxy conflict in Ukraine which began in 2022.
RT | August 17, 2024
Israel’s Foreign Minister, Israel Katz, has stated that his country expects not only the United States but also its allies, including Britain and France, to assist in offensive operations against Tehran in the event of direct conflict.
Katz made these comments during a meeting with British Foreign Secretary David Lammy and French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourne in Jerusalem on Friday, according to a Hebrew-language statement from his office.
”Israel expects France and Britain to publicly clarify to Iran that it is unacceptable for it to attack Israel, and that if Iran attacks, the US-led coalition will join Israel not only in defense but also in an attack against significant targets in Iran,” the statement said, as cited by the Times of Israel.
Katz reiterated in a post on X that he made it “clear” to his colleagues that they should publicly announce their countries “will stand with Israel not only in defense but also in striking targets in Iran.”
The French and British diplomats downplayed these assertions, with Sejourne telling reporters that it would be “inappropriate” to discuss any “retaliation or preparation for an Israeli retaliation” amid diplomatic efforts to negotiate a deal to end the Gaza war. A joint French-British statement following the meeting also made no mention of any anti-Iran coalitions.
“We have urged Iran and its proxies to stand down the ongoing threats of military attack against Israel. We have also stressed to all parties that the spiral of escalating reprisals must end,” they said in their only reference to Tehran.
The meeting in Jerusalem occurred shortly before the latest round of indirect ceasefire talks ended without breakthroughs, though there were promises to return to the negotiating table next week. The war between Israel and Hamas has dragged on for 10 months since the militant group staged a deadly incursion, resulting in approximately 1,100 deaths and around 200 hostages. The massive Israeli response has claimed over 40,000 Palestinian lives, according to Gaza health officials.
The risk of wider conflict in the Middle East was drastically exacerbated by the assassination of Hamas Political Bureau Chief Ismail Haniyeh, who served as the Palestinian armed group’s lead negotiator in indirect talks with Israel. He was killed in Tehran on June 31, hours after attending the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. Iran promised to inflict a “harsh punishment” on Israel, which has neither acknowledged nor denied any involvement in the killing.
The US has deployed additional warships and a submarine to the Middle East to protect the Jewish state from potential attacks, but it remains unclear whether Washington has agreed to any plans to bomb Iran.
In April, when Iran fired hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel in retaliation for the bombing of its embassy in Damascus, US fighter jets and warships helped intercept many of the incoming projectiles. However, this was a purely defensive operation, with no direct counterstrike on targets inside Iran.
The Cradle | August 16, 2024
In a ceremony earlier this week, CIA Director William Burns awarded the head of the Qatari State Security Agency the George Tenet medal for his work on strengthening intelligence cooperation between the US and Qatar, Axios reported on 16 August.
Both Burns and Al-Khulaifi have played important roles in the negotiations between Israel and Hamas for a potential ceasefire in Gaza and prisoner exchange.
One reason for the award is Qatari efforts to release the remaining 111 Israeli captives held by Hamas in Gaza, one source with knowledge of the issue told Axios.
Israel is holding thousands of Palestinians in its prisons and detention camps, where torture and rape is common.
Another source said Burns gave the award to his Qatari counterpart in “appreciation of his role in maintaining national and regional security, and the exceptional support he provided to the CIA in preserving the interests and security of the US and Qatar.”
Another important reason for the award was the cooperation between the CIA and Qatari intelligence in counterterrorism and the ability of the Qatari State Security Agency to prevent and foil threats and attacks in West Asia, the source told Axios.
Both the US and Qatar have long been known for their support of terrorist groups in the region.
Starting in 2011, the US and Qatar worked closely with other regional states to support Al-Qaeda in Syria.
The Syrian branch of the terror group, the Nusra Front, led a jihadist insurgency against the Syrian government led by Bashar al-Assad under the cover of US-sponsored anti-government protests.
By W.M. Peterson | Truth Blitzkrieg | August 5, 2024
Former U.S. Congressman Ron Paul once asserted, “There’s no history to show that Iranians are aggressive people. When is the last time they invaded a country? Over 200 years ago!”
As with many other important matters, Congressman Paul was absolutely correct; Iran has never been a warmongering state, unlike adversarial belligerents Israel and the USA.
Despite deep state meddling in the Persian nation’s affairs (e.g., the 1953 coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh and the 2020 murder of Major General Qasem Soleimani), Iran has never posed the slightest threat to America. Why, then, are we being maneuvered into war when there is absolutely no national interest at stake?
It’s somewhat of a rhetorical question, I admit, since by now most people who aren’t cognitively impaired understand that Israel is trying like hell to steer America’s military into the Middle East to shed more blood on its behalf. The recent provocations towards Iran are but the latest installments in an ongoing saga we’ve witnessed play out repeatedly since 2001.
Americans should know by now what to expect. After having been led by the nose into 20 years of costly wars primarily for the enrichment and comfort of Jewish intruders squatting in the Holy Land, you’d think we might have learned a thing or two about international Zionist statecraft. It’s not as if their methods of fomenting a climate of war have changed. It’s not as if we weren’t told what to expect.
In fact we were told, by none other than former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, General Wesley Clark.
During a 2007 interview on Amy Goodman’s political talk show Democracy Now, General Clark spoke about a detailed war agenda that was revealed to him by members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when he visited the Pentagon just ten days after 9/11:
“One of the generals called me in. He said, ‘Sir, you’ve got to come in and talk to me a second… We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq.’ This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, ‘We’re going to war with Iraq? Why?’ He said, ‘I don’t know…I guess they don’t know what else to do.’ So I said, ‘Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al-Qaeda?’ He said, ‘No, no…there’s nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq…I guess it’s like we don’t know what to do about terrorists, but we’ve got a good military and we can take down governments.’ And he said, ‘I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail.”
A few weeks later, Clark returned to the Pentagon and met with the same man, recalling:
“I said, ‘Are we still going to war with Iraq?’ And he said, ‘Oh, it’s worse than that.’ He reached over his desk. He picked up a piece of paper and he said, ‘I just got this down from upstairs’ — meaning the Secretary of Defense’s office — ‘today.’ And he said, ‘This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.’ I said, ‘Is it classified?’ He said, ‘Yes sir.’ I said, ‘Well don’t show it to me.’ And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, ‘You remember that?’ He said, ‘Sir, I didn’t show you that memo! I didn’t show it to you.’”
General Clark was having these conversations at a time when the Pentagon was entirely under the thumb of Zionist Jews who had been plotting and preparing for a global war on terror for many years prior to 2001. The battle plan disclosed to Clark is not of American provenance; it is an Israeli war stratagem smuggled into our foreign policy by duplicitous foreign agents. You’ll notice that almost every country named by the general has been ‘dealt with’ militarily in one form or another in the years following 9/11, Iran being the lone exception. That status is likely to change real soon as Israel continues to escalate tensions in the region. AIPAC control over U.S. politicians ensures there won’t be so much as a whimper of protest from the ‘American Colossus’ in response to Zionist saber-rattling and increased provocations. And, rest assured, America will defend Israel to the death when the situation in the Middle East reaches critical mass. American citizens, and especially ‘conservatives,’ need to understand how they’re being emotionally manipulated into supporting yet another war that is entirely at variance with our interests and could only spell doom for our already beleaguered nation.
Netanyahu’s War on Terror
On July 24th, Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu swaggered into the U.S. Capitol to address a joint session of Congress and to cultivate material and emotional support for his upcoming war with Iran. During the course of his nagging hour-long harangue, the Israeli prime minister received 58 standing ovations from submissive stooges on both sides of the aisle, proving once more that Pat Buchanan’s description of Capitol Hill as “Israeli-occupied territory” is as true today as it was 30 years ago.
The AIPAC-funded adulation shown this Hebrew war criminal was a sickening sight to behold. Former US Marine and United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter summed it up nicely:
“Israel has bragged about buying the US Congress. And this is the result, where a war criminal—a man who has been accused of genocide, who has arrest warrants being prepared for him by the International Court of Justice, a man who heads a State that has been defined legally as an “apartheid state,” carrying out an illegal and unjust occupation and, again, genocide of the Palestinian people—has demanded an audience to the Congress that he has bought and paid for. That’s what’s happening here. We must see it in that perspective. This isn’t an honor being given to Netanyahu by the US Congress. This is the US Congress obeying the commands of the man who leads the nation that owns the US Congress.”
In one of his most memorable lines of the day, Netanyahu affirmed with a straight face, “there is no place for political violence in democracies!” (He made the comment while referring to the recent shooting at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania.) Within one week, however, Israel had assassinated Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran; Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut; and Al Jazeera journalist Ismail al-Ghoul in Gaza. The recent killing spree occurred only three months after IDF jets bombed the Iranian embassy in Syria killing 16 people, including seven diplomats. “There is no place for political violence in democracies!” quoth the mass-murdering psychopathic Jew, who once attended a two-day anniversary celebration commemorating the Irgun’s 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel.
Bibi the Butcher, that distinguished darling of America’s political class, has spent his entire adult life promoting Israel’s War on Terror.
In 1979, he and his father Benzion partnered with Irgun terrorist-turned-prime minister Menachem Begin to organize the Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism, a three-day event intended to “launch an international propaganda offensive to promote and exploit the issue of international terrorism,” as Philip Paull explains in his 1982 book, International Terrorism: The Propaganda War. The event was held at the Yonatan Institute, named after Netanyahu’s deceased older brother, and its purpose was to bring Western political leaders together to discuss international terrorism and the possibility of manipulating America’s military into the Middle East to wage a war on terror. The elder Netanyahu (born Mileikowsky) said in his opening address, “This conference was called to serve as a beginning of a new process — the purpose of rallying democracies of the world to a struggle against terrorism and the dangers it represents.” (George H.W. Bush spoke on the last day of the event.)
From that point on, the Western media dutifully disseminated the propaganda of the Jerusalem Conference and Benjamin Netanyahu would produce a number of books, articles and speeches throughout the 1980s and 90s promoting the doctrine of a global War on Terror. As Philip Paull wrote in 1982, “This ‘anti-terrorist’ propaganda campaign was and is being conducted in a style reminiscent of war-time ‘psychological warfare’ by journalists serving as conduits and spreaders of misinformation originating in Jerusalem.”<
Forecasting War
Netanyahu’s plan to haul America’s military into the Middle East to wage war on Israel’s enemies became a reality after September 11, 2001, a day he claimed was “very good” for Israel. (Source: New York Times, Sept. 12, 2001)
Many Americans still believe the War on Terror was launched in response to the 9/11 attacks. The fact is, however, the War on Terror was conceived many years before 2001, and the atrocities perpetrated in New York City and Washington D.C. were merely the excuse to make the war agenda operational.
In February 1982, the World Zionist Organization published ‘The Yinon Plan: A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties.’ The document was published in Hebrew but was later translated into English by the eminent professor Israel Shahak of Hebrew University. It was written by military strategist Oded Yinon and detailed a plan to break up large Arab nations like Iraq and Syria and transform them into tiny ethnic statelets that would be incapable of defending themselves against Israel’s superior military might. Yinon wrote:
“The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas… is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target.”
Yinon’s vision for Iraq came to fruition following the illegal American invasion, launched on the Jewish revenge holiday Purim, in 2003. Almost immediately, America’s conquering forces disbanded Iraq’s military and the entire country soon descended into civil war between competing factions of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. Prior to the invasion, Iraq had been a significant impediment to Israeli domination of the Middle East, which is why the Jews in control of America’s foreign policy selected it for annihilation. And, as an added bonus, there were the financial spoils of war to acquire as well. Oded Yinon: “Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand…is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel’s targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria.”
What Yinon described in 1982 is the Eretz Yisrael (Greater Israel) project that Americans have been fighting and dying for since 2001. America’s military is not fighting terrorism; it is reorganizing the Middle East to conform with Israel’s whims and Iran is the crown jewel. This war agenda has already bankrupted America morally and financially and has destroyed the erstwhile superpower’s standing on the world stage. As noted Middle East expert Linda S. Heard wrote in an article for Counterpunch (April 25, 2006), “Oded Yinon’s 1982 ‘Zionist Plan for the Middle East’ is in large part taking shape. Is this pure coincidence? Was Yinon a gifted psychic? Perhaps! Alternately, we in the West are victims of a long-held agenda not of our making and without doubt not in our interest.”
A Clean Break and PNAC
An updated version of The Yinon Plan was drafted for Netanyahu in 1996 during his first year as Israel’s prime minister. Titled ‘A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,’ the document was assembled for Netanyahu by neocon hawks Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser. It specifically called for the removal from power of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Bashar al-Assad in Syria and recommended military confrontations with both countries as well as with Lebanon and Iran. One year later, Perle, Feith and Wurmser would all join the newly-founded Project for a New American Century (PNAC) and continue their strategizing for Netanyahu’s War on Terror.
PNAC was an elite neoconservative think-tank founded in 1997 by influential Zionists William Kristol and Robert Kagan. The majority of the group’s membership was comprised of fanatical Jews with deep ties to the state of Israel, many of whom came to power just prior to 9/11 within the administration of George W. Bush. These include: Dov Zakheim, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Elliot Abrams, Richard Perle, David Frum, Robert Zoellick, David Wurmser, and the convicted felon Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby.
The overarching philosophy of PNAC was based on the ideology of Jewish intellectual Leo Strauss. Like many of today’s neoconservatives, Strauss was an ex-Trotskyite who promoted Machiavellian tactics and the use of lies as necessary political tools while a professor of political science at the University of Chicago. Significantly, he was also a dedicated Zionist and a follower of the terrorist Ze’ev Jabotinsky. On the surface these ideological alignments appear to be contradictory, unless some understanding of the overwhelming Jewish role in both Zionism and Communism can be apprehended. Both were pioneered by the same man, Moses Hess, and both are Jewish revolutionary movements whose sole aim is to do whatever is best for Jewish interests even if it means employing seemingly opposing methods. Far-right Zionism (Jewish nationalism) and far-left Communism (Jewish internationalism) are two sides of the same shekel working in tandem as a lethal pincer for global hegemony. Attempting to explain these amorphous tendencies, Jewish historian and political theorist Murray Rothbard once noted that neoconservatives “moved from cafeteria Trotskyites to apologists for the US warfare state without missing a beat.”
In September 2000, PNAC published a 90-page document titled ‘Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategies, Forces, and Resources For a New Century.’ The document, co-authored by Rabbi Dov Zakheim, called for America to initiate a series of regime change wars in the Middle East and North Africa with an emphasis on Iraq, Syria, Libya, Lebanon and Iran. The authors of the report emphasized the importance for America to “fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars” but acknowledged that “the process of change is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event like a new Pearl Harbor.” One year to the month of the document’s publication America got what George W. Bush referred to at the time as ‘our Pearl Harbor.’
Conclusion
And so America teeters once again on the brink of war due to our fatal attraction to the Zionist state. The man who claims “there is no place for political violence in democracies” presides over a country that has made political assassinations its stock-and-trade and is undoubtedly responsible for the 9/11 attacks which activated its long-held War on Terror scheme. Speaking to an audience at Bar Ilan University in 2008, the war criminal recipient of 58 standing ovations from the US Congress reiterated his belief that the 9/11 attacks were in fact good for Israel: “We are benefitting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq.” (Source: Ha’aretz, April 16, 2008)
*Nota bene: Netanyahu listed three things, not one, but to the mind of an architect of the War on Terror, all three blend seamlessly together.*
The Israeli prime minister and his minions have nothing but contempt for America. That won’t change regardless of how many standing ovations he receives from a goyische congress or how many US dollars flow into his over-stuffed war chest. In 2001, he was filmed having a conversation with Israeli settlers about ways in which he intended to undermine the US-led Oslo Peace Accords that had been signed in 1993 and 1995. During one such conversation, he crowed: “I know what America is… America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won’t get in the way.” He goes on to boast about his ability to manipulate the US in the ongoing Israeli/Palestinian peace process, saying, according to the Washington Post (July 16, 2010), “They asked me before the election if I’d honor [the Oslo Accords]… I said I would, but … I’m going to interpret the accords in such a way that would allow me to put an end to this galloping forward to the ’67 borders. How did we do it? Nobody said what defined military zones were. Defined military zones are security zones; as far as I’m concerned, the entire Jordan Valley is a defined military zone. Go argue.”
Benjamin Netanyahu ladies and gentleman. A man whose military has killed upwards of over 186,000 Palestinians this year alone and has bombed hospitals, schools, churches, aid convoys and refugee camps; a man who sanctions the anal rape of prisoners; a man American politicians hail as a conquering hero; a man millions of evangelical ‘Christians’ believe we should sacrifice more of our children’s blood for.
The Cradle | August 14, 2024
The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) ended on 13 August the siege it had imposed on the northern Syrian cities of Hasakah and Qamishli for the past week, thanks to the mediation of the Russian army.
“All roads that were closed to civilian movement have been opened, with the start of the entry of water, fuel, flour and food tankers into the centers of the cities of Al-Hasakah and Qamishli. Things have returned to how they were before the siege,” Hasakah governor Louay Sayyouh told Al Mayadeen on Tuesday.
Russian military officials held talks with SDF and Syrian army representatives in Qamishli on 13 August, Al Mayadeen and Sputnik reported.
Sputnik’s correspondent said “intensive Russian efforts” took place during the meeting between the commander of Russian forces in Syria and the head of the SDF, Mazloum Abdi, aimed at lifting the SDF siege and de-escalating tensions in the eastern Deir Ezzor governorate, where a large Arab tribal rebellion against Washington’s Kurdish proxy is ongoing.
“There was an initial agreement on the necessity of releasing all detainees in the Syrian army held by the SDF in the cities of Qamishli and Hasakah, along with the necessity of lifting the siege imposed by the SDF on the neighborhoods under the control of the Syrian Arab Army in the cities of Hasakah and Qamishli,” the Sputnik correspondent said.
The SDF siege on Damascus-held areas of Hasakah and Qamishli had been ongoing for the past seven days and was imposed in response to the Arab tribal offensive against the Kurdish militant group last week.
Prior to the Russian visit to Qamishli, which began last week, SDF leaders had “rejected mediation and insisted on continuing the siege,” according to Syrian journalist and TV presenter Haidar Mustafa.
Mustafa added that the SDF siege tactic will not “deter the tribal ‘resistance’ from continuing its project aimed at pressuring the US occupation and its Kurdish militias.”
The Russian mediation came as US forces continued attacks on Syrian army positions in the countryside of Deir Ezzor in support of its SDF allies, who are engaged in clashes with a coalition of Arab tribesmen said to be receiving support from Damascus. SDF forces have also been targeting Syrian military positions with artillery in recent days.
“US Army forces launched a violent attack using heavy artillery and drones on positions of the Syrian army’s auxiliary forces in the villages and towns of Khasham, Marat and Hawijat Sakr in the northeastern countryside of Deir Ezzor,” Sputnik’s correspondent reported during the early hours of 14 August.
The source of the US fire was Washington’s illegal military base in the Conoco oilfield.
On Sunday, several Syrian army soldiers were killed and others wounded in an airstrike targeting a vehicle near Syria’s eastern city of Al-Bukamal on the Syrian–Iraqi border. The strike was widely believed to have been carried out by US forces that had attacked Syria several times since last week’s tribal assault.
A coalition of Syrian Arab tribes launched a massive offensive against the SDF in Deir Ezzor’s countryside on 7 August as part of a rebellion launched against the US-backed militants last year.
The tribal fighters have since lost some of the towns and positions they managed to capture as a result of US air cover provided to the SDF.
The SDF helps oversee oilfields occupied by the US army in Syria and is complicit in Washington’s theft of the country’s natural resources.
It has also released hundreds of ISIS fighters held in its prisons across northern Syria – who have then gone on to attack Syrian troops and civilians.
The rebellion against the Kurdish militants represents a broader rejection of US occupation in Syria.
“The events unfolding today in Syria’s eastern region are a result of the repercussions of the Palestinian resistance’s Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and the broader spillover of conflicts across West Asia … while some may view the recent developments as a local conflict – either between Arab clans or between Arab clans and Kurds – the reality suggests otherwise, as the clans find common cause and common targets with the Axis of Resistance,” political affairs writer and researcher Dr Ahmed al-Druze told The Cradle on 12 August.
The current uprising in Syria’s Deir Ezzor represents the growing armed resistance of local Arab tribes against US-backed Kurdish forces who control their land and resources – potentially opening up a new front for West Asia’s Axis of Resistance
By Haidar Mustafa | The Cradle | August 12, 2024
On 7 August, a coalition of Syrian Arab tribes recaptured several key towns from US-backed Kurdish forces in the eastern countryside of Syria’s Deir Ezzor governorate. These tribesmen, led by Sheikh Ibrahim al-Hafl, launched the largest assault on Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) sites since the onset of the Arab tribal rebellion against the US-backed militia last year.
The renewed offensive has also reignited popular resistance against the US presence in the region, tracing its origins to the SDF leadership coup against the Deir Ezzor Military Council, which led to the arrest and removal of Arab leader Ahmed al-Khabil, also known as Abu Khawla.
The spark of resistance
In August 2023, the SDF’s arrest of the Deir Ezzor Military Council leader triggered a tribal uprising across several villages under SDF control – from Al-Baghouz to Al-Shuhail. This uprising quickly evolved into a more organized resistance when Sheikh Hafl announced in an audio statement the formation of a military command for the “Army of Tribes and Clans in the countryside of Deir Ezzor” last September.
Since then, Hafl has become a constant menace to the SDF, with accusations flying that the Syrian government and Iran supported him. It is an obvious attempt to discredit the Arab tribal movement, which is genuinely focused on liberating land and reclaiming resources.
The SDF prematurely announced the “failure” of the attack, which it claims was carried out “upon the orders” of Hossam Louka, head of Syria’s General Intelligence Directorate. In a statement posted on Facebook, the SDF said:
Our sweep campaign continues against the remnants of the Syrian regime-backed mercenaries who attacked the villages of Al-Dhiban, Al-Latwa, and Abu Hamam.
US occupation forces have established prominent bases at the Al-Omar and Conoco oil fields, in a region largely inhabited by Arab communities who have long been persecuted by the SDF. When the US failed to control and co-opt these tribes into a loyal organization, it sought to instead characterize them as a threat aligned with Syrian and Iranian interests.
This narrative is consistent with the approach of the US project and its allies in the SDF, who seek to suppress any resistance movements that challenge their agenda and practices, including the theft of Syrian oil and wheat.
‘Iranian-backed’ tribal resistance
Sheikh Hafl called upon the tribes and clans, especially those beyond Syria’s borders, to support the resistance, leading to increased and sustained attacks against the SDF. The tribal resistance, primarily rooted in Dhiban, spread throughout the towns and cities east of the Euphrates, turning them into a continuous conflict zone.
This resistance posed a significant threat to US interests, with the so-called “Operation Inherent Resolve” reporting in its October–December 2023 quarterly update to the US Congress that tribal fighters have evolved into a “full-fledged resistance movement.”
These fighters, the report said, receive “explicit support from the Syrian regime and its Iranian allies on the western side of the Euphrates River, where resistance fighters resupply, rearm, and launch attacks across the river in SDF-controlled villages on the eastern side.”
Recognizing this threat, the US aircraft recently launched several raids targeting the Arab tribal forces to prevent them from advancing towards their bases or achieving their goal of expelling the SDF from “Arab land.”
Gaining ground as SDF lays siege to Hasakah
After a year of limited confrontations and small operations, Hafl re-issued the call to confront what he called the “Qandil” gangs. This announcement coincided with the launch of a violent attack by Arab tribal forces on SDF positions in the cities and towns of Deir Ezzor.
During this assault, tribal forces managed to cross into and expand control over areas including Dhiban, Al-Busaira, Ibriha, Al-Hariji, Al-Tayyaneh, Abu Hamam, Gharanij, Al-Kishkiya, and the entire riverbed. The SDF, in turn, responded by imposing a siege on the residents of Hasakah and Qamishli within Syrian government-controlled areas, cutting off supplies of flour, food, and water – a tactic the SDF frequently uses to pressure Damascus.
Insiders believe that the SDF is leading Hasakah into the unknown, as the imposition of a siege policy could trigger local confrontations within the city. This will not, however, deter the tribal “resistance” from continuing its project aimed at pressuring the US occupation and its Kurdish militias.
Notably, a Syrian-based Russian delegation arrived at Qamishli airport before Friday afternoon and held several meetings to mediate the crisis. According to Syrian daily Al-Watan, these discussions did not yield positive results after the SDF leaders rejected mediation and insisted on continuing the siege of Hasakah’s population.
Serving geopolitical goals
The US occupation of the Jazira region and the establishment of more than 20 American bases was not primarily to combat terrorism, as claimed by the international coalition, but rather because “ISIS” served as the pretext for strengthening the US obstruction of the strategic land links between the eastern Mediterranean, via Central Asia, to China, and to Iran on the Persian Gulf. The US further seeks to prevent the development of close ties between the Syrian and Iraqi arenas.
Political affairs writer and researcher Dr Ahmed al-Druze explains to The Cradle why the US continues to provide unlimited support for the SDF in opposition to the region’s inhabitants.
The American occupation will remain as long as it has the ability to do so, and it deals with the Arab tribes from this perspective.
Druze believes that the events unfolding today in Syria’s eastern region are a result of the repercussions of the Palestinian resistance’s Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and the broader spillover of conflicts across West Asia.
He highlights that, while some may view the recent developments as a local conflict – either between Arab clans or between Arab clans and Kurds – the reality suggests otherwise, as the clans find common cause and common targets with the Axis of Resistance.
Even if the situation temporarily stabilizes, with tribal forces retreating and the SDF lifting the siege on Hasakah and Qamishli, Druze believes the underlying international conflict will likely resurface, potentially tied to events in occupied Palestine and Gaza.
Though it may be premature to speak of a US existential predicament in the Jazira region, given that its losses currently remain limited, writer and political analyst Khaled al-Miftah argues that the US faces growing popular rejection and resistance.
The region is increasingly aware of Washington’s goals – to establish a separatist Kurdish entity and exploit Syria’s resources. Al-Miftah tells The Cradle that the US is beginning to feel the effects of the Turkish–Syrian rapprochement, which, if achieved under Russian auspices, could spell the end of the SDF’s separatist ambitions. Consequently, the US has begun to create obstacles to prevent this outcome.
Part of the region’s resistance
Despite the end of large-scale military conflict in most of Syria years ago, the eastern region remains embroiled in tension and ongoing strife. Armed confrontations between the SDF and pro-Turkish factions in the north continue, while the war with Arab tribal forces east of the Euphrates enters a new chapter, driven by different calculations than in past battles.
The tribes are now determined to expand their operations and have increased their readiness. US bases have become permanent targets for resistance forces on both the Syrian and Iraqi sides, with drones and rockets frequently striking occupation bases in the Omar and Conoco oil fields. Meanwhile, the tribes have expanded their control over villages that serve as the first line of defense for the SDF around US bases.
Meanwhile, with the SDF’s release of hundreds of ISIS fighters from prisons in July, ISIS continues its terrorist attacks in the region, despite the international coalition’s previous claims of having eliminated the group’s presence. ISIS cells periodically launch assaults on Syrian army positions and their allies in the Resistance Axis.
The Jazira region has essentially become a battleground where the US now reaps consequences from its forced occupation of Syrian territory, disregarding the impact on Syrian territorial unity and the strife it sows among the population.
The eastern region remains trapped in a cycle of escalation, with local and international actors involved, while the Syrian people bear the brunt, suffering both from ongoing violence and the theft of their resources.
By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | August 12, 2024
Walter Kirn, an American novelist and cultural critic, in his 2009 memoir, Lost in the Meritocracy, described how, after a sojourn at Oxford, he came to be a member of ‘the class that runs things’ – the one that “writes the headlines, and the stories under them”. It was the account of a middle-class kid from Minnesota trying desperately to fit into the élite world, and then to his surprise, realising that he didn’t want to fit in at all.
Now 61, Kirn has a newsletter on Substack and co-hosts a lively podcast devoted in large part to critiquing ‘establishment liberalism’. His contrarian drift has made him more vocal about his distrust of élite institutions – as he wrote in 2022:
“For years now, the answer, in every situation—‘Russiagate,’ COVID, Ukraine—has been more censorship, more silencing, more division, more scapegoating. It’s almost as if these are goals in themselves – and the cascade of emergencies mere excuses for them. Hate is always the way,”
Kirn’s politics, a friend of his suggested, was “old-school liberal,” underscoring that it was the other ‘so-called liberals’ who had changed: “I’ve been told repeatedly in the last year that free speech is a right-wing issue; I wouldn’t call [Kirn] Conservative. I would just say he’s a free-thinker, nonconformist, iconoclastic”, the friend said.
To understand Kirn’s contrarian turn – and to make sense of today’s form of American politics – it is necessary to understand one key term. It is not found in standard textbooks, but is central to the new playbook of power: the “whole of society”.
“The term was popularised roughly a decade ago by the Obama administration, which liked that its bland, technocratic appearance could be used as cover to erect a mechanism for a governance ‘whole-of-society’ approach” – one that asserts that as actors – media, NGOs,corporations and philanthropist institutions – interact with public officials to play a critical role not just in setting the public agenda, but in enforcing public decisions.
Jacob Siegel has explained the historical development of the ‘whole of society’ approach during the Obama administration’s attempt to pivot in the ‘war on terror’ to what it called ‘CVE’ – countering violent extremism. The idea was to surveil the American people’s online behaviour in order to identify those who may, at some unspecified time in the future, ‘commit a crime’.
Inherent to the concept of the potential ‘violent extremist’ who has, as yet, committed no crime, is a weaponised vagueness: “A cloud of suspicion that hangs over anyone who challenges the prevailing ideological narratives”.
“What the various iterations of this whole-of-society approach have in common is their disregard for democratic process and the right to free association – their embrace of social media surveillance, and their repeated failure to deliver results …”.
Aaron Kheriaty writes:
“More recently, the whole of society political machinery facilitated the overnight flip from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris, with news media and party supporters turning on a dime when instructed to do so—democratic primary voters ‘be damned’. This happened not because of the personalities of the candidates involved, but on the orders of party leadership. The actual nominees are fungible, and entirely replaceable, functionaries, serving the interests of the ruling party … The party was delivered to her because she was selected by its leaders to act as its figurehead. That real achievement belongs not to Harris, but to the party-state”.
What has this to do with Geo-politics – and whether there will be war between Iran and Israel?
Well, quite a lot. It is not just western domestic politics that has been shaped by the Obama CVE totalising mechanics. The “party-state” machinery (Kheriaty’s term) for geo-politics has also been co-opted:
“To avoid the appearance of totalitarian overreach in such efforts”, Kheriaty argues,“the party requires an endless supply of causes … that party officers use as pretexts to demand ideological alignment across public and private sector institutions. These causes come in roughly two forms: the urgent existential crisis (examples include COVID and the much-hyped threat of Russian disinformation) – and victim groups supposedly in need of the party’s protection”.
“It’s almost as if these are goals in themselves – and the cascade of emergencies mere excuses for them. Hate is always the way”, Kirn underlines.
Just to be clear, the implication is that all geo-strategic critics of the party-state’s ideological alignment must be jointly and collectively treated as potentially dangerous extremists. Russia, China, Iran and North Korea therefore are bound together as presenting a single obnoxious extremism that stands in opposition to ‘Our Democracy’; versus ‘Our Free Speech’ and versus ‘Our Expert Consensus’.
So, if the move to war against one extremist (i.e. versus Iran) is ‘acclaimed’ by 58 standing ovations in the joint session of Congress last month, then further debate is unnecessary – any more than Kamala Harris’ nomination as Presidential candidate needs to be endorsed through primary voting:
Candidate Harris told hecklers on Wednesday, chanting about genocide in Gaza, ‘to pipe down’ – unless they “want Trump to win”. Tribal norms must not be challenged (even for genocide).
Sandra Parker, Chairwoman of the political advocacy arm for the three thousand members of Christians United for Israel (CUFI) was advising on correct talking points, the Times of Israel reports:
“The rise of Republican far right-wingers who spurn decades of (bi-partisan) pro-Israel orthodoxies, favouring isolationism and resurrecting anti-Jewish tropes is alarming pro-Israel evangelicals and their Jewish allies… The break with decades of assertive foreign policy was evident last year when Sen. Josh Hawley derided the “liberal empire” that he dismissively characterised as bipartisan “Neoconservatives on the right, and liberal globalists on the left: Together they make up what you might call the uniparty, the DC establishment that transcends all changing administrations””.
At the CUFI talking points conference, the fear of increased isolation on the Right was the issue:
“You’re going to see that adversaries will see the U.S. as in retreat” – should isolationists get the upper hand: Activists were advised to push back: Should lawmakers claim that NATO expansion is what triggered Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: “Should anybody begin to make the argument that the reason the Russians have moved in on Ukraine – is because of NATO enlargement – can I just say that this is the age-old ‘blame America trope,’” the Chair advised the assembled delegates.
“They have the strain of isolationism that’s – ‘Let’s just do China and forget about Iran, forget about Russia, let’s just do one thing’ – but it doesn’t work that way,” said Boris Zilberman, director of policy and strategy for the CUFI Action Fund. Instead, he described “an intricate fabric of bad actors working hand in hand”.
So, to get to the bottom of this western mind-management in which appearance and reality are cut from the same cloth of hostile extremism: Iran, Russia and China are ‘cut from it’ likewise.
Plainly put, the import of this “behavioural-engineering enterprise (it no longer having much to do with the truth, no longer having much to do with your right to desire what you wish – or not desire what you don’t wish)” – is, as Kirn says: “everyone is in on the game”. “The corporate and state interests don’t believe you are wanting the right things—you might want Donald Trump— or, that you aren’t wanting the things you should want more” (such as seeing Putin removed).
If this ‘whole of society’ machinery is understood correctly in the wider world, then the likes of Iran or Hizbullah are forced to take note that war in the Middle East inevitably may bleed across into wider war against Russia – and have adverse ramifications for China, too.
That is not because it makes sense. It doesn’t. But it is because the ideological needs of ‘whole of society’ foreign-policy hinge on simplistic ‘moral’ narratives: Ones that express emotional attitudes, rather than argued propositions.
Netanyahu went to Washington to lay out the case for all-out war on Iran – a moral war of civilisation versus the Barbarians, he said. He was applauded for his stance. He returned to Israel and immediately provoked Hizbullah, Iran and Hamas in a way that dishonoured and humiliated both – knowing well that it would draw a riposte that would most likely lead to wider war.
Clearly Netanyahu, backed by a plurality of Israelis, wants an Armageddon (with full U.S. support, of course). He has the U.S., he thinks, exactly where he wants it. Netanyahu has only to escalate in one way or another – and Washington, he calculates (rightly or wrongly), will be compelled to follow.
Is this why Iran is taking its time? The calculus on an initial riposte to Israel is ‘one thing’, but how then might Netanyahu retaliate in Iran and Lebanon? That can be altogether an ‘other thing’. There have been hints of nuclear weapons being deployed (in both instances). There is however nothing solid, to this latter rumour.
Further, how might Israel respond towards Russia in Syria, or might the U.S. react through escalation in Ukraine? After all, Moscow has assisted Iran with its air defences (just as the West is assisting Ukraine against Russia).
Many imponderables. Yet, one thing is clear (as former Russian President Medvedev noted recently): “the knot is tightening” in the Middle East. Escalation is across all the fronts. War, Medvedev suggested, may be ‘the only way this knot will be cut’.
Iran must think that appeasing western pleas in the wake of the Israeli assassination of Iranian officials at their Damascus Consulate was a mistake. Netanyahu did not appreciate Iran’s moderation. He doubled-down on war, making it inevitable, sooner or later.
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Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
By Lisa Pease | Consortium News | September 16, 2013
More than a half century ago, just after midnight on Sept. 18, 1961, the plane carrying UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld and 15 others went down in a plane crash over Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). All 16 died, but the facts of the crash were provocatively mysterious. … continue
Aletho News If Americans Knew No Tricks Zone
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