A new EU court ruling that rejected sanctions on a number of Iranian entities has drawn the ire of the United States, prompting Washington to extend its illegal embargoes against more individuals and businesses.
The EU’s General Court in Luxembourg lifted the bloc’s sanctions against seven Iranian companies on Friday, ruling that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to justify the embargoes.
The top EU court ruled that the bloc wrongly blocked the accounts of Post Bank of Iran, the Iran Insurance Company, Good Luck Shipping and the Export Development Bank of Iran, from 2008 to 2011.
“We are very disappointed by the [EU] court’s decision today,” a spokesman for the US Treasury Department said in a statement on Friday.
The US Treasury later announced that it blacklisted six individuals and four businesses over their alleged links to Iranian oil sales.
At the beginning of 2012, the US and the European Union imposed new sanctions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors aimed at preventing other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran.
The illegal US-engineered sanctions were imposed based on the unfounded accusation that Iran is pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.
Iran rejects the allegation, arguing that as a committed signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
In addition, the IAEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities but has never found any evidence showing that Iran’s nuclear activities have non-civilian purposes.
September 7, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Economics | European Union, Human rights, Iran, Post Bank Iran, Sanctions against Iran, United States, United States Department of the Treasury |
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Informed insiders have confirmed that Syria and Hezbollah plan to retaliate against Israel in the event of an American-led military attack on Syria. Says one: “if even one US missile hits Syria, we will take this battle to Israel.”
An official who spoke to me on the condition that neither his name or affiliation is published, says the decision to retaliate against Israel “has been taken at the highest levels within the Syrian state and Hezbollah.”
Why attack Israel after a US strike?
“Israel has been itching for a fight since their 2006 defeat by Hezbollah,” explains an observer close to the Lebanese resistance group. “They have led this campaign to draw the US into a confrontation with Syria because they are worried about being left alone in the region to face Iran. This has become an existential issue for them and they are now ‘leading’ from behind America’s skirts.”
The “Resistance Axis” which consists of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and a smattering of other groups, has long viewed attacks on one of their members as an effort to target them all.
And Israeli aggression against this axis reached a new high in 2013, with missile strikes and airstrikes unseen for many years in the Levant.
Israel has reportedly conducted at least three separate, high profile missile strikes against Syria this year, effectively ending a 40-year ceasefire between the neighboring states. The last overt violation of this uneasy truce was in 2007 when the Jewish state destroyed an alleged nuclear site inside Syria.
Then two weeks ago, Israel launched its first airstrike in Lebanon since the 2006 war, bombing a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine–General Command (PFLP-GC) target in an entirely unprovoked attack. Earlier, four rockets had been launched into Israel from Lebanese territory, but an unrelated Al Qaeda-linked group took credit for that incident.
When asked whether Syrian allies Russia and Iran would participate in retaliatory strikes against Israel or other targets, the official indicated that both countries would back these efforts, but provided no information on whether this support would include direct military engagement.
The Russians have stated on several occasions that they will not participate in a military confrontation over Syrian strikes. Iran has not offered up any specifics, but various statements from key officials appear to confirm that strikes against Syria will result in a larger regional battle.
On Tuesday during an official visit to Lebanon, Iranian parliamentarian and Chairman of the (Majlis) Committee for National Security and Foreign Policy Alaeddin Boroujerdi told reporters: “The first party that will be most affected by an aggression on Syria is the Zionist entity.”
His comments follow a steady stream of warnings by senior Iranian officials, which have escalated in tenor as western threats to attack Syria have intensified.
“The US imagination about limited military intervention in Syria is merely an illusion, as reactions will be coming from beyond Syria’s borders,” said the Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari last Saturday.
Even Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has stepped into the fray, warning the US and its allies: “starting this fire will be like a spark in a large store of gunpowder, with unclear and unspecified outcomes and consequences”.
Concurrent with these warnings, both Iran and Russia have been urging the West to avoid further confrontation and return to the negotiating table to resolve Syria’s 29-month conflict. But instead, western officials and diplomats in the Mideast have spent the past few weeks hitting up their regional sources for information on how Syria’s allies will react to a strike.
An unusual visit to Tehran by UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman (a former senior US State Department official) was one such “feeler.”
According to several media outlets, the Iranians had a singular response to Feltman’s efforts to gauge their reaction to a US strike: if you are serious about resolving the Syrian crisis, you must first go to Damascus, and follow that by launching negotiations in Geneva.
Gunning for a fight
While Israel plays heavily in the background, by turns provoking and encouraging western military intervention in Syria, it publically denies any role in this business.
Just this week, Israeli President Shimon Peres attempted to distance the Jewish state from events in Syria by insisting: “It is not for Israel to decide on Syria, we are in a unique position, for varying reasons there is a consensus against Israeli involvement. We did not create the Syrian situation.”
He’s right about one thing. Any visible Israeli military intervention in Syria will likely raise the collective ire of Arabs throughout the region. But Peres is being disingenuous in suggesting that Israel hasn’t played a pivotal role in dragging the region to the brink of a dangerous confrontation.
In fact, since its establishment as a state, Israel has possibly never been more motivated to force a military confrontation in the Mideast:
The Arab uprisings, a shift in the global balance of power, increased isolation and the waning influence of Israel’s superpower US ally have all served to remind Israel that it stands increasingly alone in the Mideast in confronting its longtime adversaries – Iran, Hezbollah, Syria and various Palestinian resistance groups.
Before a US exit from the region becomes patently clear to one and all, Israel needs to disarm its foes – and it needs the Americans to do that. For years, the Israeli establishment has regularly threatened military strikes against Iran, in most part attempting to inextricably embroil Washington in this military venture.
Forcing ‘red line’ narratives into western political discourse – whether it be the use of chemical weapons in Syria or a civilian nuclear program in Iran – has become a clever way to commit allies to an Israeli military agenda.
When US President Barack Obama last week appeared to suddenly revise his plans to launch a strike on Syria by deferring the decision to Congress, Israel went into overdrive:
Two Israeli missiles were launched off the Syrian coast in the Mediterranean Sea to raise temperatures again. Whether this was meant to be veiled threat, a provocation, or an attempt to pin the deed on Syrians is unclear. What is certain is this: Russian early radar systems caught the activity and publicized it quickly to ward off misunderstandings that might trigger counterstrikes.
This quick reaction forced Israel – under US cover – to acknowledge it had participated in unannounced ballistic missile tests. The Iranians reacted very skeptically. Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces General Hassan Firouzabadi said the missiles were “a provocative incident” conveniently executed as western nations withdrew from plans to attack Syria, and called Israel “the region’s warmonger.” He further charged: “If the Russians had not traced the missiles and their origin, a Zionist liar would have alleged that they belonged to Syria in a bid to pave the way for breaking out a war in the region.
On an entirely different front, Israel has been amassing its considerable army of US supporters and lobbyists to ensure a compliant Congressional vote on strikes against Syria.
All its heavy hitters have now stepped up to push US lawmakers into backing military intervention, even though polls continue to show the majority of Americans rejecting strikes.
The Israeli lobbying effort has been particularly critical to ensure there is bipartisan consensus and that Obama’s Republican opponents join the bandwagon. To ensure this, the scope of the “surgical strikes” had to be expanded for GOP members opposed to a cursory punitive strike against Syrian government interests.
Key Republicans have since piled on, and already there are soundings of ‘mission creep.’ Obama told lawmakers on Tuesday that his plan “also fits into a broader strategy that can bring about over time the kind of strengthening of the opposition and the diplomatic, economic and political pressure required – so that ultimately we have a transition that can bring peace and stability, not only to Syria but to the region.”
This suddenly sounds remarkably like President George W. Bush’s plans to remake the Middle East. And it is everything Syria and its allies have both feared and suspected from the start.
Existential for you, existential for me
If ever there was a real ‘red line’ in the region, this is it. Any “limited” or “broad” military intervention in Syria is simply unacceptable to Syria, Iran, Russia, Hezbollah, China and a whole host of other nations that want to turn the page on US hegemonic aspirations in the region and beyond.
Washington has miscalculated in thinking that an attack in any shape or form would be palatable to its quite incredulous adversaries. They are all intimately familiar with the slippery slope of American interventionism and its myriad unintended consequences.
Israel, in particular, appears to be victim to a false sense of security. Analysts and commentators there seem to think that the lack of a Syrian military response to recent Israeli missile strikes is a trend likely to continue. Or that Hezbollah and Iran would have no ‘grounds’ to climb aboard a counterattack if Syria were attacked.
But the fact is that, to date, no member of the Resistance Axis has faced a collective western-Israeli-GCC effort to strike a blow at their core. This promised US-plus-allies strike against Syria makes their calculation an easy one: there is nowhere to go but headfirst into the fracas.
As Israeli warplanes pounded Lebanon during the 2006 war, then-US Secretary of State Condaleeza Rice got one thing right. Refusing to call for a ceasefire, Rice explained that battle was sometimes necessary to break free of the status quo and emerge with a new regional order. The carnage, in short, was simply “the birth pangs of a New Middle East” – something to endure in order to reach a desired outcome.
But in 2006, conditions were not yet ripe for an all-out confrontation on multiple fronts. Today’s confrontation, however, has all the ingredients to fundamentally shift the region in a clear new direction, depending on which side emerges victorious.
What Rice did not anticipate seven years ago was that a few thousand Hezbollah fighters could shake the region beyond Lebanon’s small borders in a mere 33 days – simply by emerging from battle with Israel, leadership and capabilities intact.
The US has never predicted outcomes successfully in the Middle East and is unlikely to do so this time given that its strategic and military objectives seem even more muddled than usual. What we do know is that Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah has promised that the “next battle” will take place inside Israel’s borders and that he will fight proportionately this time – striking Israeli cities when Israel hits Lebanese ones.
On the Syrian front, Israel imagines a war-weary adversary. But the Syrian armed forces have the kinds of conventional weapons and ballistic missiles that can level a town in short shrift – that is not an outcome Israel has the capacity to endure.
In yet another corner is Iran, boasting a rare combination of military manpower, hardware, technology and tactical skills that Israel has never faced in any adversary on the battlefield. Russia looms large too – it may provide military intelligence to its allies or it may just use its clout in the UN Security Council to intervene at opportune moments in the fight. Either way, Moscow is a huge asset for the Resistance Axis – and will be joined by China to coach and calibrate responses to the fighting from the ‘international community.’
Meanwhile, as if unable to stop a ‘war trajectory’ once it starts, the US Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee has just voted to widen and deepen the scope of a US attack on Syria. The new goal? To “reverse the momentum on the battlefield” against the Syrian army and “hasten Assad’s departure.”
This is no different than Libya, Afghanistan or Iraq. Israelis and Americans need to understand that language and behavior threatening ‘regime-change’ gives their adversaries only one choice: to retaliate with all their capabilities and assets on all fronts. Washington just made this existential. No more games, no more rhetoric. Any strike on Syria will be ‘war on.’ In US military parlance: a ‘full-spectrum operation’ will be heading your way. And you can call it Operation “Tip of the Iceberg” out of sheer accuracy, for a change.
Sharmine Narwani is a commentary writer and political analyst covering the Middle East. You can follow Sharmine on twitter @snarwani.
September 6, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | Hezbollah, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, United States |
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An Open Letter by Former UN Officials
THE CASE FOR PEACE
The drums of war are beating once more in the Middle East, this time with the possibility of an imminent attack on Syria, after the alleged use of chemical weapons by its government. It is precisely in times of crisis such as now that the case for peace can be made in the clearest and most obvious manner.
First of all, we have no proof that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons. Even if proofs were provided by Western governments, we have to remain skeptical, remembering the Tonkin Gulf incident and the Vietnam war, the incubator baby massacre in Kuwait and the first Gulf war, the Racak massacre and the Kosovo war, the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and the second Gulf war, the threat of massacre in Benghazi and the Libyan war. All these justifications for previous wars were fabricated or dubious. We may also notice that evidence for the use of chemical weapons was provided to the U.S. by Israeli intelligence which is not exactly a neutral actor.
Even if, this time, proofs were genuine, it would not legitimate unilateral action from anyone. That still needs an authorization of the Security Council. People who accuse the Security Council of inaction should remember how Western powers abused a Security Council resolution to stage a full-fledged attack on Libya in order to perform “regime change” in that country — this is what motivates Russia and China’s opposition to any Security Council motion that may lead to intervention in Syria.
What is called in the West the “international community” willing to attack Syria is reduced to essentially two major countries (US and France), out of almost two hundred in the world. No respect for international law is possible without respect for the decent opinions of the rest of mankind.
Even if a military action was allowed and carried on, what could it accomplish? Nobody can seriously control chemical weapons without putting “boots on the grounds”, which is not considered by anyone a realistic option after the disasters of Iraq and Afghanistan. The West has no real ally in Syria. The jihadists fighting the government have no more love for the West than those who assassinated the U.S. Ambassador in Libya. It is one thing to take money and weapons from some country, but quite another to be its genuine ally.
There have been offers of negotiations coming from the Syrian, Iranian and Russian governments, which have been treated with contempt by the West. People who say “we cannot talk or negotiate with Assad” forget that this has been said about the National Liberation Front in Algeria, Ho Chi Minh, Mao, the Soviet Union, the PLO, the IRA, the ETA, Mandela and the ANC, and many guerillas in Latin America. The issue is not whether one talks to the other side, but after how many unnecessary deaths one accepts to do so.
The time when the U.S. and its few remaining allies acted as global policemen and national sovereignty was considered passé is actually behind us. The world becomes more multi-polar, not less, and the people of the world want more sovereignty not less. The greatest social transformation of the twentieth century has been decolonization and the West should adapt itself to the fact that it has neither the right, nor the competence, nor the means to rule the world.
There is no place where the strategy of permanent wars has failed more miserably than the Middle East, starting with the creation of Israel and the fateful decision to refuse the right of return to the Palestinian refugees. Then came the overthrow of Mossadegh in Iran, the Suez canal adventure, the many Israeli wars, the two Gulf wars, combined with the murderous sanctions against Iraq, the constant threats against Iran and now the war in Syria.
True courage does not consist in launching cruise missiles once more but in breaking radically with that deadly logic: force Israel to negotiate in good faith with the Palestinians, convene the Geneva II conference on Syria and discuss with the Iranian their nuclear program by taking honestly into account the legitimate security and economic interests of that country.
The recent vote against the war in the British Parliament, as well as reactions on social media, reflects a massive shift of public opinion in the West. We are getting tired of wars, and ready to join the real international community in demanding a world based on the U.N. Charter, demilitarization, respect for national sovereignty and equality of all nations.
The people of the West also demand to exercise their right of self-determination: if wars have to be made, they have to be based on open debates and direct concerns for our national security and not on some ill-defined and easily manipulable notion of “right to intervene”.
It remains to force our politicians to respect that right.
Dr. Hans Christof von Sponeck, UN Assistant Secretary General and United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq (1998 -2000)
Dr. Denis J. Halliday, UN Assistant Secretary General (1994-1998)
Dr. Saïd Zulficar, UNESCO official (1967-1996). Director of Operational Activities, Division of Cultural Heritage (1992 -1996)
Dr. Samir Radwan, Adviser on Development Policies to the Director-General of ILO (2001-2003). Egyptian Finance Minister (January-July 2011).
Dr. Samir Basta, Director of UNICEF’s Regional Office for Europe (1990-1995). Director of UNICEF’s Evaluation Office (1985-1990)
Miguel d´Escoto Brockmann, President of the UN General Assembly (2008-2009). Nicaraguan Foreign Minister (1979-1990).
José L. Gómez del Prado, Former Senior Officer at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Member of the UN Working Group on the use of mercenaries (2005-2011).
September 5, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | Gulf War, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Middle East, Syria, United States |
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President Obama is now saying his administration has decided to attack Syria but will seek Congressional approval before doing so. This sets up a really interesting situation if Congress doesn’t agree, as seems quite possible.
The idea of Obama ordering an act of war on Syria without significant international support and without a Congressional mandate always was a head scratcher. Here’s our far left president advocating yet another war in the Middle East after opposing the Iraq war when he was a senator. The same president who has a frosty relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu and has repeatedly fallen short of the demands of the Israel Lobby.
Of course the rationale is framed in moral terms—like all American wars, but there was more than a touch of that in the run-up to the Iraq war as well. Here the case for the hawks is made more difficult because the WMD story turned out to be false. Lest we forget, this story was manufactured by strongly identified ethnically Jewish, pro-Israel operatives linked to the Office of Special Plans in the Department of Defense, including Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Abraham Shulsky, Elliott Abrams, David Wurmser, Michael Ledeen, David Schencker, and Michael Rubin, with the close cooperation of Israeli intelligence (see here, p. 47ff).
The Weekly Standard’s usual neocon suspects — including many of the same people who promoted for the Iraq war — are pressing for a very large U.S. involvement in Syria. It’s mind-boggling to read in the statement of these so-called “experts” that the president must act “to ensure that Assad’s chemical weapons no longer threaten America.” Shades of how Iraq under Saddam Hussein was going to destroy the U.S. with his WMD’s. How Assad is going to unleash his chemical weapons on America is anybody’s guess.
Given the strong support of the neocons for action against Syria, we must assume that Israel is entirely on board with a U.S. campaign. So it’s not surprising that, as in the case of the run-up to the Iraq war, Israeli intelligence is front and center: “The bulk of evidence proving the Assad regime’s deployment of chemical weapons – which would provide legal grounds essential to justify any western military action – has been provided by Israeli military intelligence, the German magazine Focus has reported” (see here). This includes the much-discussed intercepted phone call between Syrian officers discussing the use of chemical weapons (Ibid.) and the claim that chemical weapons were moved to the site of the attack (see here).
I am unaware of evidence for a heavy involvement of Israel Lobby operatives on the U.S. side responsible for verifying this intelligence, as was the case when the Israel Lobby manufactured the rationale for the Iraq disaster — doubtless the most treasonous and corrupt such episode in American history. Nevertheless, one would have to be naive indeed not to be suspicious of Israeli involvement.
As many have noted, it would make no sense for Assad to unleash chemical weapons in a conflict he was winning; no point in killing women and children; no point in attacking just as UN investigators arrived in Syria; no point in incurring the wrath of the U.S. moralizers by crossing Obama’s idiotic red line — idiotic because it is an open invitation to a false flag operation carried out by the opponents of the Assad regime.
Uri Avnery claims that “practically all Israeli political and military leaders” want the Syrian civil war to “go on forever.” The other obvious motive for Israel and its fifth column in the U.S. is to strike a blow against Iran, as many have noted. The anti-Iran motive is front and center at the AIPAC website (“Syria proves Urgency to Stop Iran“). This article assumes as true that Assad did use chemical weapons:
The use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime highlights the danger of allowing the world’s most dangerous regimes to possess weapons of mass destruction. As Israel prepares its citizens for the possible ramifications of a chemical attack from Syria, the United States must consider potentially catastrophic ramifications if Iran, who is actively backing Assad, acquires a nuclear weapons capability. … We cannot allow Assad to operate with the support of his greatest ally in Tehran backed by a nuclear weapons capability. The Islamic Republic is already expanding its influence throughout the region, moving military equipment and resources into Syria and Lebanon.
In a statement from June, 2013, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, like AIPAC, emphasizes the implications of failure to act in Syria for the larger question of Iran:
Rather than deterring Syria or Iran from using or pursuing illicit weapons, the administration’s red lines appear to be eroding U.S. credibility and national security. The lesson learned from Syria is that preventing a nuclear Iran will require an actionable and verifiable red line. This should include a credible mechanism for assessing Iran’s progress toward the red line and warning of its crossing.
The ADL statement engages in double talk on who is responsible for using chemical weapons (“Use of chemical weapons in Syria ‘an immoral crime of the first order‘”). On one hand, it states that the attack was performed “reportedly by the Syrian government.” On the other hand, Abe Foxman clearly blames the Syrian government for “the horrific events of last week,” a claim that goes much further. And as usual, the Holocaust is invoked as establishing a special Jewish moral posture useful for achieving Jewish interests:
For more than two years, the world has been witness to President Bashar al-Assad’s slaughtering of his own citizens. Following the horrific events of last week there is no longer any doubt about the brutal and evil nature of Assad and his regime.
We welcome Secretary Kerry’s clear statement of condemnation of the use of chemical weapons in Syria and the U.S. commitment to work with allies to ensure those responsible are held accountable. The world failed to act during the Holocaust and stood by through the genocides in Cambodia and Rwanda. It is a moral imperative that the international community act now to prevent further atrocities in Syria.
From Foxman’s perspective, it’s hard to see how “preventing further atrocities” could happen short of regime change.
Clearly, the organized Jewish community will not be satisfied with a mere gesture against Assad, but wants something in the general vicinity of regime change. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy has numerous articles with the message that a U.S. attack needs to be linked to strategic goals. An article by Michael Makovsky and Blaise Misztal advocates an “asymmetrical” response in which the U.S. would cause far more damage to Syria than caused by the chemical weapons attack: “if Washington orders an operation against the Assad regime, it should not hold back from breaking a few eggs on the way into Syria to ensure easier access in the future. This approach would send a credible and menacing message to the regime to amend its behavior or face further strikes.”
Also on the WINEP site, Robert Satloff (one of the most despicable neocons) makes a ridiculous case that regime change in Syria is in American interests:
Given the strategic stakes at play in Syria, which touches on every key American interest in the region, the wiser course of action is to take the opportunity of the Assad regime’s flagrant violation of global norms to take action that hastens the end of Assad’s regime. Contrary to the views of American military leaders, this will also enhance the credibility of the president’s commitment to prevent Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapons capability, not erode America’s ability to enforce it.
Likewise, neocons like Charles Krauthammer (also high on the list of most despicable neocons) want the U.S. campaign to change the balance of power — “a sustained campaign aimed at changing the balance of forces by removing the Syrian regime’s decisive military advantage — air power.” What the neocons don’t want is a brief attack that serves little more than to show U.S. displeasure, leaves Assad in power, and doesn’t change the military situation
So from the Israeli and (what is the same) the neocon point of view, it’s win-win. A serious U.S. intervention would minimally prolong a war that Assad is winning, weakening Syria and Hezbollah far into the future. And perhaps it could lead to the fall of Assad and a Sunni government severed from Iran. Iran and its allies are seen as a far more dangerous enemy of Israel than the Arab nations and the mainly Sunni rebels opposing the Assad government, no matter how fanatically Muslim, Israel-hating, and in bed with al Qaeda they turn out to be.
The decision by Obama to consult with Congress may actually benefit the Israel Lobby because it could quite possibly provide a mandate for much more than a brief attack that is little more than a gesture—like Bill Clinton lobbing a few cruise missiles into Afghanistan to protest the bombing of American embassies in Africa. Without a congressional mandate and without support from the U.K., Obama would have been unlikely to carry out the sort of attack desired by the Lobby. Now there’s a chance.
The delay provides an opportunity for the Israel Lobby to get into high gear in order to bump up the poll numbers and exert its power over Congress. At this time, there is clearly no popular mandate for a war; only 42% favor a “broad military response”, and only 16% favor the regime change desired by the Israel Lobby. A much higher percentage but still far from a mandate (50%) favor the sort of action detested by the Israel Lobby — a limited response involving only U.S. naval ships directed at the chemical weapons.
Congressional approval is also iffy. Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky) has stated that the odds are “50/50″ that the House will approve force, but that the Senate will “rubber stamp what [Obama] wants.” Others believe that even the Senate will be an “uphill battle.”
So the Israel Lobby has a challenge ahead, but it’s certainly doable. Expect a blizzard of propaganda emanating from the most elite media in the U.S., and a lot of arm-twisting in Congress. The Israel Lobby sees this as a preliminary battle prior to the really serious campaign for a war with Iran. If the Lobby loses this test, it would be a clear indication that the U.S. lacks the determination to attack Iran.
The pressure will be intense. Don’t bet against the Lobby.
September 4, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | ADL, AIPAC, Benjamin Netanyahu, David Wurmser, Iran, Iraq, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, Syria, United States, WINEP |
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Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) said Monday that the administration’s argument that letting Syria’s use of sarin gas last month go unchecked would hurt U.S. security was “not logical” and did not “make any sense.”
Administration officials have argued that the U.S. should respond to the attack because the failure to do so would send a message to other regimes — and terror groups — that the use of chemical weapons was acceptable.
But in an interview with CNN’s “New Day,” Grayson said that too few countries had chemical weapons for that to be a concern.
“There’s only four countries in the world that have chemical weapons,” Grayson said. “The largest of the four is the United States. So are we trying to send a message to ourselves? That’s not logical.”
The Florida Democrat went on to reject the argument made by Secretary of State John Kerry on ABC News’ “This Week” that a failure to respond ” will be granting a blanket license to Assad to continue to gas and we will send the wrong message to Iran, North Korea and other countries.
“I’ve heard that theory before somehow one country’s actions will affect another country’s and another country’s and another country’s,” Grayson said. “It’s just the Domino argument again. We’ll call it the ‘bomb-ino’ argument. It’s not logical, doesn’t make any sense.”
Grayson said the chemical attack on the Damascus suburbs “absolutely” did not threaten American national security interests.
“We are not the world’s policeman,” he said. “We can’t afford this anymore, these military adventures that lead us into wars that last for a decade or more. It’s wrong. We need to cut it off before it even happens.”
The White House argues if the U.S. does not act, Hezbollah and Iran, among others, would see there are no consequences for violating the international law against using chemical weapons.
“Anyone who is concerned about Iran and its efforts in the region should support this action,” a White House official said.
Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/319893-dem-rep-wh-case-for-syria-not-logical-doesnt-make-any-sense#ixzz2dqoWJBOy
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September 3, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Militarism | Alan Grayson, Iran, John Kerry, Syria, United States |
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President Barack Obama’s decision to delay the US offensive against Syria opened the window for negotiating a non-military solution to the issue of chemical weapons, a step that worried Israel for various reasons, the Israeli daily Maariv reported on Monday.
Israel’s worries are not just related to Syrian chemical weapons, but also to the consequences that a non-military solution will have on the Iranian nuclear issue and on Hezbollah.
Israel believes that the proposed attack would have a deterrent message to Iran and Hezbollah that the US is still effective in the region, according to Maariv.
The newspaper reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced fears that Obama’s hesitation could send a message to Iran and Hezbollah that the US would not use military power to undermine Iran’s nuclear program.
Netanyahu also said this could also increase Hezbollah’s motivation to carry on threatening the security situation in the region, resulting in Israel standing alone in face of the Iranian and Hezbollah threats without any expected military interference by the US.
According to the newspaper, Netanyahu wanted a military operation to regain the credibility of the US’s deterrent power in the region.
Meanwhile, observers suggest that the time span for a potential US attack against Syria is actually longer than what Obama initially announced. While Congress is expected to discuss the issue within eight days, the eyes of the world are also looking to the UN General Assembly to convene on 17 September, when the UN inspection mission is scheduled to disclose the results of its investigations in Damascus about the use of chemical weapons.
The newspaper said that Obama’s decision also opened the door for a prospective meeting on diplomatic solutions for the Syrian crisis with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin during the Summit of the Group 20, which is to convene in Petersburg later this week.
One of the expected solutions, the newspaper reported, is what Russia has already been working on. Russia is seeking to preclude a military attack on Syria and instead suggesting the destruction of chemical weapons under the authority of UN inspectors.
Another proposed solution is to take the chemical weapons out of Syria as a prelude to an international conference on the Syrian issue. The US accepts the participation of the Syrian regime in the proposed conference.
September 3, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Benjamin Netanyahu, Hezbollah, Iran, Israel, Syria, United States |
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Commentators in the West will surely declare that it was their democratic systems of government that forced US President Barack Obama to back down on attacking Syria. But the events that led up to Washington’s de-escalation suggest there were other factors at play.
When Obama stepped out into the White House Rose Garden to declare that, though still intent on attacking Syria, he wanted to get Congress’ approval first, the Pentagon must have breathed a sigh of relief, knowing full well that a military strike against Damascus could spark a major confrontation in the Middle East for which they were not adequately prepared.
The story starts shortly before the Israeli-Saudi intelligence operation that engineered the chemical attack near the Syrian capital. The Americans and Europeans had begun negotiating with the Russians and the Iranians for a political settlement, after having failed to remove the regime by force. The West’s only condition was that Bashar al-Assad would not be part of the solution, even proposing to Moscow that they would be willing to allow the Syrian president to pick a successor of his own choosing.
When the Russians – after extensive discussions with their allies – told Washington that it was difficult to accept such a condition, the West turned to Plan B, which was to raise the level of military support for the opposition and reorganize the armed groups fighting against the regime, allowing Saudi Arabia to take the lead in mobilizing them to up the ante on Damascus.
The goal was to squeeze Assad by launching major offensives from both the north and the south of the country, in addition to wreaking havoc on Hezbollah on its home ground and providing more appealing incentives for Syrian army officers to defect.
In the meantime, the regime and its allies were already in the process of consolidating military gains on a number of fronts by expanding the area under government control, particularly in the area around Damascus. One such operation was to be launched on the eve of the chemical attack on August 20 against opposition forces to the south and east of the capital.
After the opposition was quickly routed in the north as it tried to sweep through the coastal Latakia region, many of their regional and international backers understood that the only way to bring about a qualitative change on the ground was by drawing the West into a direct foreign military intervention in Syria – but a justification was necessary to prompt Washington to act.
It was for this reason that the “chemical massacre” in the Ghouta area around Damascus was carried out, most likely at the hands of the Saudi and Israeli intelligence. Barely an hour had passed before the orchestrated media campaign to get Assad was in full swing, followed by condemnations and threats from Western capitals.
Washington rushed to cash in on what they insisted was an imminent military attack by sending envoys to both Russia and Iran, giving the two countries a last opportunity to stand down before unleashing their missiles on Syria. But all the sabre-rattling was not enough to force any political concessions – even Assad informed his allies that he had chosen to take a stand.
The Americans tried to respond to this by showing that they were serious about a strike, moving additional naval vessels into the eastern Mediterranean, as well as increasing the number of fighter planes in bases around Syria. But again, Russia and Iran were unmoved, refusing to give Washington any guarantees that its limited strike would not turn into a broader, prolonged war, with devastating consequences for the region as a whole.
They backed their words with action, as Russia, Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah put their forces on high alert, ordering them to make preparations for a military confrontation. Most notably, Hezbollah directed its fighters to return to their bases, as it set up an operations room in coordination with Damascus to make effective use of their combined arsenal of rockets.
The first to buckle was that old hand at such affairs, the United Kingdom, whose parliament gave Prime Minister James Cameron a way out, putting their ally Washington in the uncomfortable position of going it alone. Suddenly, Obama, too, felt the need to consult the American public and seek the approval of their representatives in Congress.
Nevertheless, Obama – having lost the initiative – has but two choices before him: He either retreats and seeks out a political settlement, or enters into a military adventure, whose outcome he cannot control. The results of round one of this global confrontation in Syria provide yet another indicator that the days when the US can call the shots, without regard for the rest of the world, are on their way to becoming a relic of history.
September 2, 2013
Posted by aletho |
False Flag Terrorism, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Wars for Israel | Bashar al-Assad, Iran, Middle East, Obama, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United States |
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In a recent tweet Stephen Walt, professor of International Relations at Harvard and co-author of the seminal text The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy wrote, “Note to advocates of military action in Syria: please tell us ur endgame: where does using force lead and who’s in charge if Assad goes?”
I would answer, that from the perspective of the Israeli-guided Western imperialists the answer would be: nobody. Israel and its de facto puppet regimes in Ottawa, London, Paris and Washington want Syria to be a dysfunctional, ungovernable failed state, rather than a sovereign Arab state led by an intelligent, anti-Zionist strongman.
It ought to be kept in mind that the post-WWII US military doctrine for the Middle East was the Eisenhower Doctrine which promoted the fomentation of stability in the region to facilitate the flow of oil to Americans. This was fine if you were safely ensconced in Houston or Dallas with your oil companies raking in profits from Middle East oil fields but for Israel this policy was disastrous. The funneling of petro-dollars to Israel’s adversaries like Saddam Hussein, who fired scud missiles at Israel in 1991, and to the likes of President Assad was intolerable. Therefore a schism in the Empire soon emerged and two distinct US-Zionist visions for the Middle East crystallized.
From the perspective of anti-neocon Realists, such as Walt, the US has a vested interest in propping up Arab strongmen (like President Assad) who can create stability in their countries thus making them potentially hospitable for US corporations. For Zionist-neocons and their evil twin brothers, Liberal Interventionists, it is Israel’s regional dominance rather than US commerce which is of primary importance.
For the likes of Walt, Iran too is an obvious country for the US to engage with for commercial and geostrategic reasons. But this is not what the agents of Israel in North America want. They want a weakened, balkanized Middle East so as to ensure Israeli regional hegemony. The distinctiveness of these two schools of imperial thought was perhaps best expressed in the [Persian] Gulf War I when George H. W. Bush, after repelling Saddam from Kuwait, DID NOT proceed on to Baghdad despite much cheerleading for regime change in Iraq by Zionists. Why did Bush senior not oust Saddam in 1991? Because the then US president, an oil man, realized that invading Iraq would unleash sectarian civil war that would jeopardize stability and thus oil markets. For putting US interests over those of Israel he was demonized as an “anti-Semite” by Israeli agents in the US press. Bush senior represented a more benign form of imperialism than that promoted by the Zionists who want to create Rwanda-style civil wars in the Middle East to divide and rule. In Israeli-oriented foreign policy circles this is known as prioritizing “moral incentives” over economic incentives.
The Israeli-neocon 9/11 coup d’état allowed the pro-destabilization, Zionist faction of the US elite to seize the reins of power. Since then we’ve seen the implementation of the Destabilization Doctrine, which, as stated, is the polar opposite of the less malignant post-WWII Eisenhower Doctrine. The now notorious Oded Yinon plan, authored by the Israeli geostrategic analyst in 1982, offers the clearest manifesto for the Israeli destabilization of the Middle East. Yinon argued the following:
“Lebanon’s total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precedent for the entire Arab world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula and is already following that track. The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon, 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. Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such as in present day Lebanon, so that there will be a Shia Alawi state along its coast, a Sunni state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in Damascus hostile to its northern neighbor, and the Druzes who will set up a state, maybe even in our Golan, and certainly in the Hauran and in northern Jordan. This state of affairs will be the guarantee for peace and security in the area in the long run, and that aim is already within our reach today.”
Thus many are naively asking “will it be the al-Qaeda affiliated opposition or President Assad’s government who will rule Syria?” From the perspective of the Zionist West the answer is neither. Israelocentric policy makers don’t want there to be a “Syria” to be ruled at the end of this chapter of history. It is the balkanization of the Middle East into microstates which is the long term goal, as expressed by Oded Yinon and his acolytes.
Certain Neocons have effectively argued for the Rothschildesque backing of both sides in Syria to perpetuate the carnage to the benefit of Israel. Neocon guru Daniel Pipes in a recently televised interview contended that in Syria the West should “keep them fighting each other,” adding “we are best off strategically when they are focused on each other.” This supports the contention that the Zionists want nobody to rule Syria. They want nobody to rule Iraq. They want nobody to rule Iran. They want sectarian civil war and carnage so Arabs, Persians and Muslims are fighting each other rather than the Zionist cuckoo in the nest.
August 31, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Iran, Iraq, Israel, Middle East, Syria, United States, Zionism |
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It is conventional wisdom in U.S. government officialdom and among our mainstream punditry that popular opinion in Iran has absolutely no impact on the decision-making of that country’s leadership. The common refrain is that the policies, namely with regard to foreign affairs and national security, pursued by Iran’s political and military elite have little relation to – and are often at odds with – the will of the Iranian people.
Despite this assumption, in fact, most public opinion polls of Iranian citizens demonstrate a wide range of perspectives and attitudes, much like that of any other diverse and informed population, and consistently find that government policies track closely with public opinion, especially when it comes to foreign policy, relations with the West, sanctions, perceptions of the United States government and the nuclear program.
There are naturally large segments of the Iranian population who disagree with their government’s handling of many different issues, from the economy to international relations, just as there are anywhere. One need only look at public opinion polls here in the United States to see similar, if not far more striking, public opposition to official policies.
Nevertheless, the politicians and the media continue to push the idea that Iran is an anomaly in this regard – a dictatorial authoritarian state in no way beholden to its oppressed citizenry; a virtual security state in which government officials make life and death decisions of war and peace with no regard to the will of the masses.
Before the recent Iranian presidential election this past Spring, Secretary of State John Kerry presaged, “Ultimately, the Iranian people [will] be prevented not only from choosing someone who might have reflected their point of view, but also taking part in a way that is essential to any kind of legitimate democracy.”
Once Western observers were shocked by the result of the June 14 vote – the election of moderate cleric Hassan Rouhani – the White House issued a statement of congratulations to the Iranian people for “making their voices heard.”
“It is our hope that the Iranian government will heed the will of the Iranian people and make responsible choices that create a better future for all Iranians,” it read.
With the bloody civil war in Syria now driving headlines and drawing battle lines over the alleged use of chemical weapons, this perception has once again been articulated when it comes to Iran’s continuing support of the Syrian government and efforts to avoid the escalation of military conflict in the region.
Writing this week for the U.S.-government funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, reporter Golnaz Esfandiari remarked:
Iran’s support for Syria, which has already come under criticism by many Iranians, could become even more unpopular as more and more countries point the fingers at the Syrian regime over the suspected chemical attack on August 21.
That does not mean that Iran will discontinue its support for Syria — public opinion doesn’t count for much in a country like Iran — and for now Iran appears to be determined to stand by Assad.
The implications here are obvious. We are told that the Iranian public doesn’t support its own government’s policies on Syria, and the Iranian government simply doesn’t care, instead forging ahead with what a Western readership is supposed to immediately dismiss as destructive and wrongheaded policy.
The very same day that Esfandiari published her story, U.S. State Department deputy spokesperson Marie Harf – Jen Psaki’s late summer pinch-hitter – defended the Obama administration’s increased threats of military intervention – mostly likely in the form of airstrikes – on behalf of anti-Assad rebels, which may occur in a matter of days.
During her daily press briefing, Harf was asked whether she was “aware that most – in fact, if not all – public polls show that the American people, by a very large majority, oppose to any kind of intervention? Should that factor in in any kind of decision?”
The reporter posing the question was referring to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, conducted between August 19 and 23 and released the previous day, which found that a mere 9 percent of respondents currently supported American military intervention in Syria. According the Washington Post, “this is the lowest support for intervention since the poll began tracking opinion on the issue.”
So, considering countries like Iran – y’know, the brutal, myopic, dictatorial kind – supposedly don’t make foreign policy calculations based upon public opinion (in contrast, presumably, to noble, responsive democratic nations like the United States), how did Ms. Harf reply?
Here’s how:
I think the President’s been clear that he makes decisions about our national security based on what’s best for national security interests of this country, and I think it’s clear here that there are core national security interests at stake for the United States. Clearly, the mass-scale use of chemical weapons or a potential proliferation of these weapons flagrantly violates an important international norm and therefore threatens American security.
Apparently, what is demanded of other nations simply doesn’t apply when it comes to our own policy-making.
Back in June, Obama spokesman Jay Carney explained that, when it comes to Syria, “the ultimate goal here is to bring about a political transition — one that results in a governing authority that respects the rights of all Syrians” and “that reflects the will of the Syrian people — all of the Syrian people.” The Obama administration, he said, is “working with our partners and allies and the opposition to help bring that about.”
Yet earlier that same month, Carney told the press just how the governing authority of his own boss – the Commander-in-Chief of the United States – would react to the will of the American people when it comes to arming Syrian rebels or possible militarily enforcing a no-fly zone against Assad’s air force. “The President makes a decision about the implementation of national security options based on our national security interests,” Carney said, “not on what might satisfy critics at any given moment about a policy.”
A reporter followed up. “Public opinion would not factor into that?,” he asked. In response, Carney was clear:
Of course not. What does factor in is what’s in the national security interests of the United States and what has the best chance of working — not satisfying an urge to do something today, but beyond today and next week and the following week — what actually has the potential to help bring us closer to the achievement of the goal.
A similar statement was made almost exactly a year ago by then-Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak when faced with popular protests and polling data reflecting strong Israeli opposition to a potential military attack on Iran. “The prime minister, defense minister and foreign minister have the authority…and the decision will be made as necessary by the government of Israel. That’s how it is and how it needs to be — not a group of civilians or even newspaper editorials,” Barak declared.
It is obvious that stark issues of foreign policy not be left solely to the whims of public opinion; every military decision can not be made via popular referendum. This is not the issue. The issue, rather, is that American rhetoric with regard to how other nations should operate is wholly disregarded when it comes to our own expectations for ourselves or our allies.
It’s called a double standard. It’s called hypocrisy. It’s called American exceptionalism.
Meanwhile, in a striking blow to the Obama administration’s efforts to assemble a willing coalition to attack Assad’s military installations, the British Parliament voted today against immediate involvement in a military strike against Syria. The decision, won by a margin of just 13 votes, was primarily based on outstanding questions regarding the ultimate culpability for the recent use of chemical weapons based on available evidence.
Reacting to the vote, British Prime Minister David Cameron said that, despite his personal belief “in the need for a tough response to the use of chemical weapons” he would respect the will of the representatives. “It is clear to me that the British Parliament, reflecting the views of the British people, does not want to see British military action,” he said. “I get that, and the government will act accordingly.”
When it comes to Syria, the real question yet remains: American public opinion and the war cheerleading from both neoconservative hawks and supposedly liberal voices in the mainstream media aside, will Barack Obama heed not only the mandate of the U.S. Constitution, but also the tenets of international law, which unequivocally prohibit a military strike? What about the fact that such attacks could certainly do far more harm than good by putting even more Syrian civilians lives in danger and exacerbating an already devastating humanitarian crisis?
So far, the signs don’t look good.
As Marc Lynch recently wrote in Foreign Policy,
The rumored air strikes would drag the United States across a major threshold of direct military involvement, without any serious prospect of ending the conflict or protecting Syrian civilians (at least from non-chemical attacks). They likely would not accomplish more than momentarily appeasing the whimsical gods of credibility. The attack would almost certainly lack a Security Council mandate. Meanwhile, the response from Arab public opinion to another U.S. military intervention has been predictably hostile; even the very Arab leaders who have been aggressively pushing for such military action are refraining from openly supporting it. And nobody really believes that such strikes will actually work.
According to the New York Times, even in the face of “a stinging rejection” of military action “by America’s stalwart ally Britain and mounting questions from Congress,” unnamed U.S. “administration officials made clear that the eroding support would not deter Mr. Obama in deciding to go ahead with a strike.”
Like his much-maligned predecessor, a lack of solid evidence and respect for legality may not deter this new Decider from launching another war, logic and democracy be damned.
August 30, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | Iran, John Kerry, Obama, Syria, United States |
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CNN is bringing back Crossfire next month, but viewers on August 27 got a taste of what they might expect: The left thinks we should bomb Syria, while the right thinks we should have started that a long time ago.
On the show The Lead, guest host John Berman moderated a “debate” between conservative S.E. Cupp and left-leaning Van Jones.
“Look, I want to commend the president for finally following through on our red line threats,” Cupp declared–before explaining that Obama’s plan was too timid:
We should absolutely intervene to stop the genocide of more than 100,000 people. We should absolutely intervene to stop Al-Qaeda and Islamic extremism from jihadizing yet another conflict. It is absolutely our obligation, and instead we do the bare minimum to save face and pat ourselves on the back for our civility and our diplomacy. I think it’s pathetic.
OK, and from the left? Jones said:
This president has now said there is a red line. It was not clear before whether the line was crossed. It’s crossed, he’s moving forward. I think we need to stand behind this president and send a clear message to Assad that this type behavior is not acceptable.
And:
If you kill Assad right now, wonderful. You have a huge power vacuum. Who is going to fill it? Listen, people have a nostalgia for 1953 when the U.S. could just sort of thump out dictators like in Iran. This is not the world we live in. It is a tough neighborhood over there, and the idea that we should have a more bloodthirsty and reckless president, I reject.
I’m not sure what “thumping out dictators like in Iran” is supposed to mean; in 1953, the United States supported a coup against Iran’s elected president.
But back to Syria: The American public is generally and overwhelmingly skeptical of military strikes on Syria. But in CNN‘s left/right debate, that point of view seems to be missing entirely.
August 29, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Assad, CNN, Iran, Peter Hart, Syria, United States, Van Jones |
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As the Obama administration manufactures its “case” for military aggression against Syria in the coming days or weeks, we want to highlight an interview that Hillary did with Zeinab al-Saffar when we were in Beirut earlier this summer; the interview is now available on Al Mayadeen’s Web site, see here. Hillary’s account of how the United States self-servingly demonizes non-Western countries that get in its way seems highly applicable to the current discussion—it hardly merits the label “debate”—about attacking something in Syria, ostensibly because of claims that the Syrian government used chemical weapons against civilians last week in Ghouta, an eastern suburb of Damascus. The frame for such demonization, Hillary notes, is inevitably driven by and bound up with
“the United States’ way of going to war. The United States doesn’t go to war, it says, to protect its interests. The United States says it’s going to war to ‘liberate’ peoples—whether they’re liberating people in Cuba, Vietnam, Iraq, and prospectively Iran. And the way the American people is conditioned to accept it (and, essentially, world opinion as well) is that American experts put out a narrative about these various countries—whether it’s Cuba, Vietnam, Iraq, or now Iran—they put out a narrative about how repressive that society is, how illegitimate its government is in terms of its domestic politics, and how irrational it is in its foreign policy. We’ve seen this in country after country that the United States has invaded or tried to invade to overthrow its government.”
Of course, no one anticipates that President Obama is about to order a U.S.-led invasion of Syria. But, since Obama’s foolish declaration in August 2011 that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “must go,” the United States has been committed to the Syrian government’s overthrow. And the demonization of Syria’s government as repressive, illegitimate, and irrational has proceeded apace, exactly along the lines described by Hillary. Now the demonization focuses on unsubstantiated allegations of the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons as a justification for the United States to use military force against it—just as concocted claims about Saddam Husayn’s weapons of mass destruction were central to building the case for invading Iraq in 2003.
Make no mistake, U.S. military action against Syria will be fragrantly illegal (not that President Obama’s senior advisors, most members of Congress, or much of the American public will care). Nevertheless, the Obama administration is gearing up for precisely such action—and for entirely self-generated reasons. It was Obama who declared that Assad “must go.” It was Obama who declared that chemical weapons use was a “red line.” It was Obama who put himself in a position where he can’t entertain the possibility that Syrian oppositionists used chemical weapons, because that would destroy his administration’s Syria policy. And because Obama took these ill-considered and illegal positions, he must now use American military power to preserve his “credibility.”
Obama took these positions, the “credibility” of which he must now defend by engaging in overt aggression, in no small part because American foreign policy elites believe that bringing down the Assad government will undermine the Islamic Republic of Iran. In her interview for Al Mayadeen, Hillary discusses the evolution of our own thinking about the Islamic Republic, how America should engage it, and what are the real obstacles to a more realistic and effective American posture toward Tehran.
In particular, she charts the progress from our earlier advocacy of a U.S.-Iranian “grand bargain” (whereby America would “talk Iran into agreeing with American positions on Hizballah, on the nuclear issue, on the Palestinian issue, on a range of things”) to our recognition that “something much more profound and deep” is required—that the United States needs “to come to terms with and accept” a fiercely independent Islamic Republic, in much the same way that President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger came to terms with and accepted the People’s Republic of China in the early 1970s. She also recounts the attacks we have faced—first from the right, when we were criticizing President George W. Bush’s handling of Iran policy, followed by much of the left, when we began making the same criticisms of Obama’s posture toward Iran. In this context, Hillary argues that our biggest offense has been to challenge the deeply held American myth “that Iranians were demanding to be liberated by the United States, but not liberated by an American tank, but by the great American ideas and great American values, that everyone wants, deep in their heart, to be secular liberals…if you questioned that in the United States, as we did, you really were vilified.”
Our experience strongly suggests that the biggest obstacles to genuine revision of U.S. policy toward the Islamic Republic are some fundamental aspects of American political culture. As Hillary points out, “to accept an Islamist political order, [the United States] would have to give up the pursuit of hegemony, the pursuit of dominance. This idea that we can use the excuse of what’s called American exceptionalism—that the United States is a unique force for good in the world—to invade other countries to ‘liberate’ them, we’d have to give that up, because we’d have to recognize that there is some legitimacy to other political orders, particularly ones that are Islamist. And that’s especially relevant in the Middle East that is so important in geostrategic terms.”
The problem, though, is that “hegemony may be nice in theory—if you could get it, if you could rule the world, that might be a nice idea for some Americans in theory—but you cannot get it in the Middle East, because you are up against Islam. You cannot do it; you cannot defeat that. For the United States to have any strategic influence in this vital part of the world, we argue in our book, we have to come to terms with that—just as we could not defeat one billion people in China who wanted to have their independence. It’s a very similar situation.”
But it seems that United States is not yet ready to come to terms with this reality. And so, in another vain attempt to get at the Islamic Republic of Iran, America is about to engage in illegal aggression against one of the Middle East’s most avowedly secular governments—a government that, like the Islamic Republic, actually fights the kind of violent (and anti-American), al Qaida-affiliated extremism that some U.S. “allies” work so hard to promote.
August 28, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | Iran, Middle East, Obama, Syria, United States |
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Introduction by Jim Lobe
While the terrible events in Egypt have delayed my plans to reply to ProPublica’s response to my critique of Sebastian Rotella’s report on the alleged build-up of Iran’s terrorist infrastructure in the Americas, Gareth Porter has written the following essay on a 2009 article by Rotella for the Los Angeles Times about an alleged bomb plot to blow up the Israeli Embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan, in 2008. It offers a very good illustration of some of the problems raised in my original critique of Rotella’s most recent work, notably the virtually exclusive reliance on sources that are clearly hostile to Iran with an interest in depicting it in the most negative light possible. But you be the judge.
It happened in Baku, transforming the capital of Azerbaijan into a battleground in a global shadow war.
Police intercepted a fleeing car and captured two suspected Hezbollah militants from Lebanon. The car contained explosives, binoculars, cameras, pistols with silencers and reconnaissance photos. Raiding alleged safe houses, police foiled what authorities say was a plot to blow up the Israeli Embassy in Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic that borders Iran.
Thus begins the only detailed English-language press account of an alleged Iranian terror plot in Azerbaijan in 2008: a May 2009 article, written with a Paris dateline, by Sebastian Rotella for the Los Angeles Times.
But despite the sense of immediacy conveyed by his lede, Rotella’s sources for his account were not Azerbaijanis. Rather, the sources Rotella quoted on the details of the alleged plot, the investigation and apprehension of the suspects consisted of an unnamed “Israeli security official”, and Matthew Levitt, a senior fellow at the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) and the author of a constant stream of articles, op-eds, and Congressional testimony reflecting the Israeli government’s interest in promoting the perception of a growing Iranian terrorist threat around the world.[1]
It was Levitt who described the alleged plot in Baku to Rotella as having been “in the advanced stages” when it was supposedly broken up by Azerbaijani security forces, an assertion echoed by the anonymous Israeli security official cited in the article:
”[Iran] had reached the stage where they had a network in place to do an operation,” said an Israeli security official, who requested anonymity for safety reasons. “We are seeing it all over the world. They are working very hard at it.”
So readers of the LA Times received a version of the plot that was filtered primarily, if not exclusively, through an Israeli lens.[2] Relying on Israeli officials and a close ally at a pro-Israel US think tank for a story on an alleged Iranian bomb plot against an Israeli Embassy is bound to produce a predictable story line where the accuracy can hardly be assumed at face value. Indeed, in this case, there were and remain many reasons for skepticism.
Yet, three years later, in a July 2012 article for ProPublica, he referred to the plot as though it was established fact.
Had Rotella sought an independent source in Azerbaijan, he would have learned, for example, that such alleged plots had been a virtual perennial in Baku for years. That is what a leading scholar of Azerbaijan’s external relations, Anar Valiyev, told me in an interview last November. “It’s always the same plot year after year,” said Valiyev, Dean of the School of International Affairs of the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy in Baku.
In fact, security officials in Azerbaijan had claimed the existence of a similar plot in October 2007 and January 2012 and only two months later, authorities arrested Azerbaijani suspects in two different allegedly Iranian-initiated plots to carry out terrorist actions against Western embassies, the Israeli Embassy and/or Jewish targets. In early 2013, prison sentences were announced in yet another alleged terrorist plot to attack the Eurovision song contest in Baku in 2012. Valiyev told me that those detained by Azerbaijani security officials are always charged with wanting to kill Israeli or US officials and subsequently tried for plots to overthrow the government, which carries the maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.
In a 2007 article in Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Focus, Valiyev observed that plots, assassination and coup-attempts were “thwarted” with regularity in Azerbaijan. “Periodically the government finds a scapegoat,” he wrote, to justify attacks on domestic critics, including “Wahabbis”, followers of Kurdish-Sunni scholar Said Nursi and/or Shiite radicals. Valiyev suggested that security officials might be “trying to show that radical Islamists could come to power… should the incumbent government lose the election.”
The Azerbaijani government and its security forces are not known for their devotion to the rule of law. The current president, Ilham Aliyev, is the son of Azerbaijan’s first president, Heydar Aliyev, who, in turn, was the head of the Soviet KGB before Azerbaijan’s independence. According to Jim Lobe, who visited Baku last year, dissidents regard the first Aliyev’s tenure as relatively liberal compared that of his son. A 2009 State Department cable described Ilham Aliyev as a “mafia-like” figure, likening him to a combination of Michael and Sonny Corleone in the “The Godfather”.
Valiyev observed that virtually nothing about the alleged plot made sense, beginning with the targets. According to Rotella’s story, the alleged Hezbollah operatives and their Azerbaijani confederates had planned to set off three or four car bombs at the Israeli Embassy simultaneously, using explosives they “intended to accumulate” in addition to the “hundreds of pounds of explosives” they had allegedly already acquired from “Iranian spies.”
But the Israeli Embassy is located in the seven-story Hyatt Tower office complex along with other foreign embassies, and no automobiles are allowed to park in close proximity to the complex, according to Valiyev. So the alleged plotters would have needed a prodigious amount of explosives to accomplish such a plan.
For example, the bomb that destroyed the eight-story US Air Force barracks at the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996 was estimated at 23,000 pounds of explosives detonated less than 100 feet away from the building. Valiyev told me that it is “practically impossible to find such components in Azerbaijan” because “Even a few kilograms of explosives would be tracked down by the ministry of national security.”
In his article, Rotella also referred — though only in passing — to the prosecutor’s charge that the alleged conspirators were planning to attack a Russian radar installation at Gabala (sometimes spelled Qabala) in northern Azerbaijan. But that part of the plot was also highly suspect, according to Valiyev. No reason was ever given for such a target, and it would have made no sense for either Hezbollah’s or Iran’s interests.
Built in 1984, the Gabala radar station was leased to the Russians until 2012, and 900 troops from the Russian Space Forces were stationed there. An attack on the station by Hezbollah or its supposed proxies in Azerbaijan would have represented a major provocation against Russia by Iran and Hezbollah, and was therefore hard to believe, as Valiyev pointed out in a July 2009 report for the Jamestown Foundation. Valiyev said it was far more plausible that the alleged plotters were simply carrying out surveillance on the station which, according to some reports, was being considered for possible integration into a regional US missile defense system.
Rotella failed to mention yet another aspect of the prosecution’s case that should arouse additional skepticism. The indictment included the charge that the leader of the alleged terrorist cell plotting these attacks was working simultaneously for Hezbollah and al-Qaeda. Even though it has been long been discredited, the idea of an Iran-al-Qaeda collaboration on terrorism has been a favorite Israeli theme for some time and one that continues to be propagated by Levitt.
Rotella’s account of how the suspects were apprehended also appears implausible. In May 2008, when the bombings were supposedly still weeks away, according to his story, the suspects realized they were under surveillance and tried to flee.
But instead of hiding or destroying incriminating evidence of their terrorist plot — such as the reconnaissance photos, the explosives, the cameras and the pistols with silencers — as might be expected under those circumstances, the two suspects allegedly packed all that equipment in their car and fled toward the border with Iran, whereupon they were intercepted, according to the official line reported by Rotella.
Somehow, despite the surveillance, according to anonymous “anti-terrorist officials” cited by Rotella, “a number of Lebanese, Iranian and Azerbaijani suspects escaped by car into Iran.” Only those with the incriminating evidence — including, most implausibly, hundreds of pounds of explosives — in their car were caught, according to the account given to Rotella.
Even Rotella’s description of the two Lebanese suspects, Ali Karaki and Ali Najem Aladine, as a veteran Hezbollah external operations officer and an explosives expert, respectively, should not be taken at face value, according to Valiyev. It is more likely, he said, that the two were simply spies working for Iranian intelligence.
Even the US Embassy report on the trial of the suspects suggested it also had doubts about the alleged plot. “In early October after a closed trial,” the reporting cable said, “an Azerbaijani court sentenced a group of alleged terrorists arrested the previous Spring and supposedly connected to Lebanese Hezbollah plot to bomb the Israeli Embassy in Baku AND the Qabala radar station in northern Azerbaijan” (emphasis in the original). It added, “In a public statement the state prosecutor repeated earlier claims that the entire plot was an operation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.”
Yet another striking anomaly about the alleged plot was the fact that nothing was published about it for an entire year. No explanation for the silence was ever made public. This silence is all the more significant because during 2009 and 2010, the Israeli government either publicly alleged or leaked stories of Iranian or Hezbollah plots in Turkey and Jordan about which the host country authorities either did not comment on or offered a different explanation. But despite the extremely close relationship between Azebaijani and Israeli intelligence services (confirmed by this US Embassy cable), neither the Israeli media nor foreign journalists were tipped off to the plot until the Israelis leaked the story to Rotella a year later.[3]
The complete absence of any leak by the Israelis for an entire year about an alleged Iranian plot to bomb the Israeli Embassy in Baku casts some circumstantial doubt on whether such a plot had indeed been uncovered in 2008, as claimed in the article.
Despite the multiple anomalies surrounding this story — the complete lack of any publicly available corroborating evidence; the well-established penchant for the Aliyev government for using such alleged plots to justify rounding up domestic critics; the US Embassy’s apparent skepticism, his failure to consult independent sources; and the 2009 publication by the Jamestown Foundation of Valiyev’s own critique of the “official” version of the case — Rotella has shown no interest in clarifying what actually happened. In fact, as noted above, he referred to the plot again in a July 2012 article for ProPublica as if there was not the slightest doubt with regard to its actual occurrence, identifying it, as he did in the original article, as an attempted retaliation for the assassination of a senior Hezbollah operative three months before:
Conflict with Israel intensified in February 2008 after a car bomb in the heart of Damascus killed Imad Mughniyah, a notorious Hezbollah military leader and ally of Iranian intelligence. Iranian Hezbollah publicly accused Israel and vowed revenge.
Within weeks, a plot was under way against the Israeli Embassy in Azerbaijan. Police broke up the cell in May 2008. The suspects included Azeri accomplices, a senior Hezbollah field operative and a Hezbollah explosives expert. Police also arrested two Iranian spies, but they were released within weeks because of pressure from Tehran, Western anti-terror officials say.[4] The other suspects were convicted.
As narrowly sourced as it was, Rotella’s original 2009 story thus helped make a dubious tale of a bomb plot in Baku part of the media narrative. More recently, he continued that pattern by promoting the unsubstantiated charge by Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman and various pro-Israel groups and right-wing members of Congress, such as Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, that Iran poses a growing terrorist threat to the US in the Americas. While Jim has helped deconstruct that story line, I have recently marshaled evidence showing that Nisman’s charges about alleged Iranian involvement in the 1994 AMIA bombing and the 2007 JFK airport plot were tendentious and highly questionable.
[1] In one illustration of Rotella’s and Levitt’s long-time symbiosis, Levitt cited Rotella’s account of the alleged Baku plot as his main source about the incident in a 2013 article on alleged Hezbollah terrorism published by West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center (CTC).
[2] Rotella referred twice to “anti-terrorism officials” as sources for describing the surveillance of the alleged perpetrators that preceded their arrest and past work for Hezbollah. Of course, the phrase “anti-terrorism officials” does not exclude the possibility that they, too, were Israeli.)
[3] The first time the alleged plot’s details appeared in the Anglophone Israeli press was when Haaretz published a several hundred-word piece based virtually exclusively on Rotella’s account with the added detail, citing “Israeli sources,” that the “plotters also planned to kidnap the Israeli ambassador in Baku…”
[4] This account, incidentally, was the first to report the arrest in the case of “two Iranian spies”, another anomaly that may be explained by a flurry of media reports in 2010 that it was the two Lebanese who were released as part of a larger prisoner exchange that also included an Azerbaijani nuclear scientist arrested as a spy by Iran.
August 22, 2013
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Azerbaijan, Gareth Porter, Iran, Jim Lobe, Los Angeles Times, ProPublica |
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CNN is bringing back Crossfire next month, but viewers on August 27 got a taste of what they might expect: The left thinks we should bomb Syria, while the right thinks we should have started that a long time ago.
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