The World’s Gyre
By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | February 12, 2024
The U.S. is edging closer to war with Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces, a state security agency composed of armed groups, some of which are close to Iran, but which for the main are Iraqi nationalists. The U.S. carried out a drone strike in Baghdad, Wednesday that killed three members of the Kataeb Hizbullah forces, including a senior commander. One of the assassinated, al-Saadi, is the most senior figure to have been assassinated in Iraq since the 2020 drone strike that killed senior Iraqi Commander al-Muhandis and Qassem Soleimani.
The target is puzzling as Kataeb more than a week ago suspended its military operations against the U.S. (at the request of the Iraqi government). The stand down was widely published. So why was this senior figure assassinated?
Tectonic twitches often are sparked by a single egregious action: the one final grain of sand which – on top of the others – triggers the slide, capsizing the sandpile. Iraqis are angry. They feel that the U.S. wantonly violates their sovereignty – showing contempt and disdain for Iraq, a once great civilisation, now brought low in the wake of U.S. wars. Swift and collective retaliation has been promised.
One act, and a gyre can begin. The Iraqi government may not be able to hold the line.
The U.S. tries to separate and compartmentalise issues: AnsarAllah’s Red Sea blockade is ‘one thing’; attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria, an unrelated ‘another’. But all know that such separateness is artificial – the ‘red’ thread woven through all these ‘issues’ is Gaza. The White House (and Israel) however, insists the connecting thread instead to be Iran.
Did the White House think this through properly, or was its latest assassination viewed as a ‘sacrifice’ to appease the ‘gods of war’ in the Beltway, clamouring to bomb Iran?
Whatever the motive, the Gyre turns. Other dynamics are running that will be fuelled by the attack.
The Cradle highlights one significant shift:
“by successfully obstructing Israeli vessels from traversing the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the Ansarallah-led Sanaa government has emerged as a powerful symbol of resistance in defence of the Palestinian people – a cause deeply popular across Yemen’s many demographics. Sanaa’s position stands in stark contrast to that of the Saudi and Emirati-backed government in Aden, which, to the horror of Yemenis, welcomed attacks by U.S. and British forces on 12 January”.
“The U.S.–UK airstrikes have prompted some heavyweight internal defections … a number of Yemeni militias previously aligned with the UAE and Saudi Arabia, consequently switched allegiance to Ansarallah … Disillusionment with the coalition will have profound political and military implications for Yemen, reshaping alliances, and casting the UAE and Saudi Arabia as national adversaries. Palestine continues to serve as a revealing litmus test throughout West Asia – and now in Yemen too – exposing those who only-rhetorically claim the mantle of justice and Arab solidarity”.
Yemen military defections – How does this matter?
Well, the Houthis and AnsarAllah have become heroes across the Islamic World. Look at social media. The Houthis are now the ‘stuff of myth’: Standing up for Palestinians whilst others don’t. A following is taking hold. AnsarAllah’s ‘heroic’ stance may lead to the ousting of western proxies, and so to dominate that ‘rest of Yemen’ they presently do not control. It seizes too, the Islamic world’s imagination (to the concern of the Arab Establishment).
In the immediate aftermath of the assassination of al-Saadi, Iraqis took to the streets of Baghdad chanting: “God is Great, America is the Great Satan”.
Do not imagine this ‘turn’ is lost on others – on the Iraqi Hashd al-Sha’abi, for example; or on the (Palestinians) of Jordan; or on the mass foot-soldiers of the Egyptian army; or indeed in the Gulf. There are 5 billion smartphones extant today. The ruling class do watch the Arabic channels, and view (nervously) social media. They worry that anger against the western flouting of international law may boil over, and they will be unable to contain it: What price the ‘Rules Order’ now since the International Court of Justice upended the notion of a moral content to western culture?
The wrongheadedness of U.S. policy is astonishing – and now has claimed the most central tenet in the ‘Biden strategy’ for resolving the crisis in Gaza. The ‘dangle’ of Saudi normalisation with Israel was viewed in the West as the pivot – around which Netanyahu would either be forced to give up on his maximalist security control from the River to the Sea mantra, or see himself pushed aside by a rival for whom the ‘normalisation bait’ held the allure of likely victory in the next Israeli elections.
Biden’s spokesperson was flagrant in this respect:
“[We] … are having discussions with Israel and Saudi Arabia … about trying to move forward with a normalization arrangement between Israel and Saudi Arabia. So those discussions are ongoing as well. We certainly received positive feedback from both sides that they’re willing to continue to have those discussions”.
The Saudi Government – possibly angry at the U.S. recourse to such deceptive language – duly kicked the plank out from beneath the Biden platform: It issued a written statement confirming unequivocally that: “there will be no diplomatic relations with Israel unless an independent Palestinian state is recognized on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and that the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip stops – and all Israeli occupation forces are withdraw from the Gaza Strip”. The Kingdom stands by the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, in other words.
Of course, no Israeli could campaign on that platform in Israeli elections!
Recall how Tom Friedman set out how the ‘Biden Doctrine’ was supposed to fit together as a interlinked whole: First, through taking a “strong and resolute stand on Iran” the U.S. would signal to “our Arab and Muslim allies, that it needs to take on Iran in a more aggressive manner … that we can no longer allow Iran to try to drive us out of the region; Israel into extinction and our Arab allies into intimidation by acting through proxies — Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Shiite militias in Iraq — while Tehran blithely sits back and pays no price”.
The second strand was the Saudi dangle that would inevitably pave the path into the (third) element which was the “building of a credible legitimate Palestinian Authority as … a good neighbour to Israel …”. This “bold U.S. commitment to a Palestinian state would give us [Team Biden] legitimacy to act against Iran”, Friedman foresaw.
Let us be plain: this trifecta of policies, rather than gel into a single doctrine, are falling like dominoes. Their collapse owes to one thing: The original decision to back Israel’s use of overwhelming violence across Gaza’s civil society – ostensibly to defeat Hamas. It has turned the region and much of the World against the U.S. and Europe.
How did this happen? Because nothing changed by way of U.S. policies. It was the same old western bromides from decades ago: financial threats, bombing and violence. And the insistence on one mandatory ‘stand with Israel’ narrative (with no discussion).
The rest of the world has grown tired of it; even defiant towards it.
So to put it bluntly: Israel has now come face-to-face with the (self-destructive) inconsistency within Zionism: How to maintain special rights for Jews on territory in which there is an approximately equal number of non-Jews? The old answer has been discredited.
The Israeli Right argues that Israel then must go for broke: All or nothing. Take the risk of wider war (in which Israel, may or may not, be ‘victorious’); tell Arabs to move elsewhere; or abandon Zionism and themselves move on.
The Biden Administration, rather than help Israel look truth in the eye, has discarded the task of obliging Israel to face up to the contradictions in Zionism, in favour of restoring the broken status quo ante. Some 75 years after the founding of the Israeli state, as former Israeli negotiator, Daniel Levy, has. noted:
‘[We are back to] “the “banal debate” between the U.S. and Israel over “whether the bantustan shall be repackaged and marketed as a ‘state’”.
Could it have been different? Probably not. The reaction comes from deep in Biden’s nature.
The trifecta of U.S. failed responses paradoxically has nonetheless facilitated Israel’s slide to the Right (as evidenced by all recent polling). And has – absent a hostage deal; absent a Saudi credible ‘dangle’; or any credible path to a Palestinian State – precisely opened the path for the Netanyahu government to pursue his maximalist exit from collapsed deterrence through securing a ‘grand victory’ over the Palestinian resistance, Hizbullah, and even – he hopes – Iran.
None of these objectives can be achieved without U.S. help. Yet, where is Biden’s limit: Support for Israel in a Hizbullah war? And were it to widen, support for Israel in an Iran war too? Where is the limit?
The incongruity, coming as it does, at a moment when the West’s Ukraine Project is imploding, suggests that Biden may see himself needing some ‘grand victory’, as much as does Netanyahu.
Does anybody still believe in Ukrainian victory?
By Uriel Araujo | February 12, 2024
While Moscow is making major investments in defense, Ukraine has stalled (in the battlefield) and so is the American aid package, writes Foreign Policy reporter Amy Mackinnon. “Ukraine will lose – on our present trajectory”, says Niall Ferguson, a senior fellow of the Centre for European Studies, Harvard, interviewed by John Anderson, former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia.
According to Ferguson, thus far the US-led West has given Kyiv enough weapons “not to lose, but not enough to win”. In addition, the United States’ “interest” is “clearly waning, particularly “among Republican voters and Republican politicians”, to the point that American aid to the Eastern European country “could be cut off if Donald Trump is reelected president in November 2024”. In this scenario, he says, it is hard to see how Ukraine could possibly win. Furthermore, he claims, the Ukrainians themselves admit that they have achieved a “stalemate” now, and in terms of resources it is “David versus Goliath,” with the latter being, more and more, “the likely favorite.” If Russia is, “to put it very, very modestly”, able to “retain control” of those parts of Ukraine it already does, that will be “the first big defeat of Cold War II, for the West.” Considering all the Western pro-Zelensky propaganda, all the “speeches”, “support” and “pledges” made, if Ukraine “loses”, the West’s credibility will be greatly undermined, Fergunson convincingly reasons.
Meanwhile, should an “all-out multifront assault on Israel” arise, in the Middle East, and the US fails to take meaningful action, then the expert argues, somewhat less convincingly, it would be “surprising” if Xi Jinping “didn’t take the opportunity to add Taiwan to the strategic mix” – and, in the scenario of a Chinese blockade of Taiwan, it would be “rather difficult to send another major naval expedition across the Pacific” because of the risk of US-China “hostilities” in this case, which then would mean a “much larger war than anything we’ve seen so far.” What Ferguson fails to acknowledge is that tensions with Taiwan arose after a series of American provocations, and that the current crisis in the Levant and the Red Sea is largely the result of the Western resolve to keep aiding and funding its Israeli ally even in face of the latter’s disastrous and globally condemned ethnic cleansing campaign in Palestine.
Back to the Ukrainian conflict’s prospects, Mark Episkopos, Eurasia Research Fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, writes that, at this point, there is “no magic weapon left”, and that Kyiv’s “backers” (on “both sides of the Atlantic”) have “no realistic theory of victory” accounting for “the dire conditions” faced by Ukraine and thus fail to offer “a sustainable framework for war termination on the best possible terms for Kyiv and the West.” In the same spirit, James Stavridis, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe sees no future for Ukraine other than a land-for-peace deal.
Back to the aforementioned Ferguson’s interview, the Scottish–American historian concludes, from an Anglo-Western perspective, that “this is a very dangerous moment in world history”, and “we’ve stumbled into it, partly by forgetting the lessons of Cold War I”, namely that one must have “credible deterrence.” Such deterrence, he laments, has been lost. As I’ve written, the West has no such deterrence against Iran in the Middle East either.
As is often the case, notwithstanding any criticism one may have of the Russian president and of his choices pertaining to Moscow’s campaign in Ukraine, there is something missing in the conversation about the crisis, namely any mention of the Western role in at least partly bringing it about by NATO expansion or, for that matter, any mention of the Western white-washing and support for far-right paramilitary nationalism in Ukraine – which is often neo-Fascist – since the Maidan Revolution, and the role this factor played in the Donbass war (going on since 2014); not to mention the issue of the civil rights of ethnic Russians, Russian-speaking and pro-Russian people in Ukraine since the aforementioned Maidan.
In any case, it is not just into Eastern Europe that Washington has “stumbled”. It is also “stuck”, as I wrote, in the Middle East, where it acts as an undecided declining superpower, “torn”, as it is, according to a recent The Economist piece, “between leaving and staying and cannot decide what to do with the forces it still has in the region.”
In September last year, Former US Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates described his country as a “divided” and “dysfunctional superpower”, unable to deter both China and Russia. “Torn”, “stuck”, “divided” – undecidedness could really be a key word with regards to the existential crisis haunting American exceptionalism: Washington seems unable to decide, for example, as Jerry Hendrix (formerly an adviser to Pentagon senior officials) puts it, whether it wishes to maintain its declining naval hegemony, as a sea power, in Mackinder’s terms, or to keep engaging in land wars in Eurasia in its struggle for the “Heartland”. It cannot decide whether to pivot away from the Middle East towards the Indo-Pacific Region (IPR) or to “stay” in the Middle East region. It seems to want it both ways always, as materialized in the different versions of the “dual containment” formula – now applied to both Beijing and Moscow simultaneously.
Thus, going beyond the issue of Ukraine, it is about time to acknowledge that the declining American superpower is currently overburdened and overstretched, in Stephen Wertheim’s words; that its policy of “dual containment” makes the world a far less stable place; and that Washington therefore must exercise restraint.
Uriel Araujo is a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.
Arab world calls US top security threat, sees no prospect of peace with Israel: Poll
The Cradle | February 9, 2024
A new opinion poll conducted in 16 Arab countries shows that Washington’s continued support for Israel’s campaign of genocide in the Gaza Strip has dramatically hurt its image across West Asia and North Africa, as 94 percent of respondents describe the US position as “bad.” At the same time, more than half say the US poses the biggest threat to regional security.
Other western states fared almost as poorly, with more than three-quarters of those polled saying the position of the UK, France, and Germany in relation to Gaza is “bad” or “very bad.”
In contrast, Iran received a surge in recognition, with 48 percent of respondents expressing a positive view of the Iranian position, while 37 percent held a negative view. Despite Ankara’s increasing trade ties with Tel Aviv, Turkiye got a similar response – 47 percent perceived the country’s position positively, and 40 percent perceived it negatively.
To make matters worse for Washington, 51 percent of respondents agree that the US is currently the biggest threat to peace and stability in the region – marking a 12-point jump from 2022. Israel trails behind with 26 percent, a 15-point drop from 2022.
The survey, conducted by the Arab Center Washington DC (ACW) in cooperation with The Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS), also asked respondents their opinions on prospects for peace with Israel in the wake of the war in Gaza.
Fifty-nine percent answered with certainty that there can be no possibility for peace with Israel, while 14 percent reported having serious doubts, and nine percent said they did not believe in the possibility of peace with Israel in the first place.
Furthermore, 89 percent of Arab citizens say they oppose official recognition of Israel, with only four percent favoring it. This marks the lowest level of recognition since the question was first asked in 2011.
When asked what actions regional leaders must take to stop the mass murder of Palestinians in Gaza, 36 percent said governments should suspend relations or normalization agreements with Israel, 14 percent said aid must be delivered to Gaza regardless of Israeli approval, and 11 percent said oil exports should be used to put pressure on Israel and its western backers.
A large majority of respondents also agreed that the US is not serious about working to establish an independent Palestinian state under the 1967 borders with occupied Jerusalem as its capital.
“This is a historic moment in some very important ways,” Shibley Telhami, a professor at the University of Maryland, said at an event presenting the survey findings on Thursday. “The scale of what we have seen and the role the US has played in this deeply painful crisis has been so large and been perceived to be so large that it’s going to leave an imprint on the consciousness of a generation in the region that is going to outlast this administration and outlast this crisis.”
Questions about Washington’s alleged commitment to democracy and regional stability have been growing steadily in the Arab world for several years. According to a Gallup poll conducted in April 2023, a great majority of citizens in 13 countries across West Asia and North Africa said they did not trust US claims about “encouraging the development of democracy” or about “improving the economic lot of people.”
A few months earlier, the ACRPS revealed the results of the largest opinion survey conducted in the Arab world, showing that 84 percent of Arabs reject recognizing Israel for political and cultural reasons.
Washington inching closer to a war with Iran
By Salman Rafi Sheikh – New Eastern Outlook – 08.02.2024
An Iran-US war would be an ideal scenario for Israel. On the one hand, Israel is systematically killing and driving the Palestinians out of their homes, which is allowing it to impose the so-called one-state solution. In this context, if the US plunges into a war with Iran and can inflict a lot of military and economic damage on Israel’s biggest enemy state in the region, that is the best possible scenario for Israel’s future standing in this region. On the one hand, US military engagement in the ongoing war will increase, and on the other hand, a US war on Iran might limit the extent to which Tehran can provide support to Hamas against Israel. This war is no longer a distant possibility, especially after the recent strike in Jordan that killed three US soldiers and wounded at least 34 others. Biden, who immediately accused the Iran-backed militia known as The Islamic Resistance based in Syria and Iraq, has vowed to retaliate. The target is Iran, even though Iran has officially denied supporting this group for striking the US. Nonetheless, US counterstrikes are going to happen, especially because Washington is already striking the Houthis in Yemen to control the Red Sea.
With these upcoming strikes, the US will be involved in at least three fronts, i.e., against Hamas, against the Houthis, and the Islamic Resistance. (This is in addition to the US involvement in Ukraine against Russia.) With deepening US involvement in the Middle East and against Iran, Washington is directly stepping into a sort of quagmire that it took 20 years to get out of in Afghanistan.
A war in the Middle East will not be too much different from the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, although a direct war with Iran would also mean going against a force that is much more organized, better equipped, and bigger than Saddam Hussain’s Iraqi army or the Taliban in Afghanistan. There are more than 45,000 US troops on the ground throughout the Middle East. There are another 15,000 personnel on board two aircraft carrier groups. If the US starts a war, Iran does have the capability to hit these targets, or the so-called Iran-backed groups can do the same.
The recent attack in Jordan has after all shown that the US air defense is far from impenetrable. This war, in this sense, could inflict a lot more damage to the US military forces than did the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Still, many people in the US want Washington to tackle not just the so-called Iran-backed militias, but Iran itself. A report in the NATO-backed Atlantic Council says,
“In recent weeks, Iran has waged a shadow war against the United States and its interests in the Middle East, and now three US service personnel are dead and dozens more injured … Washington could sink the Iranian navy, like then-President Ronald Reagan did in the 1980s. It could strike Iranian naval bases. It could target the Iranian leadership, following in the footsteps of then President Donald Trump’s killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. It could seize this opportunity to degrade Iran’s nuclear and missile program—which must be addressed soon regardless”.
Wesley Clark, a retired general who was once NATO’s supreme commander in Europe, wrote on X that “The US should stop saying, ‘We don’t want to escalate.’ This invites them to attack us. Stop calling our strikes ‘retaliation’. This is reactive. Take out their capabilities and strike hard at the source: Iran.” From within the US political class, Senator Tom Cotton (Republican), known for his staunch criticism of the Biden administration’s Iran policy, insisted that the deaths of the three US troops warranted a “devastating military retaliation against Iran’s terrorist forces, both in Iran and across the Middle East”.
With the Biden administration also fanning such ideas out, it means that targeting Iran will become an issue that may have bi-partisan support in the US. Within the US political system, if an issue has bi-partisan support, it tends to minimize the political risk for the given President. In other words, if the Republicans want Biden to retaliate against Iran, it means that they will not be able to criticize him for starting another war. It was the Trump administration that targeted Iran much more directly when it killed Sulemani in Iraq than the Biden administration has done in the past three years.
This is on top of the fact that a growing political opinion in the US points to the inability, or unwillingness, of Washington to hit Iran directly, i.e., inside Iran. This, some hawks have argued, encourages Iran to adopt an aggressive policy vis-à-vis the US, although it does not explain at all why Iran, a much smaller political and economic power than the US, would create such situations that might throw its country into a long turmoil.
Although the Biden administration is more likely to hit the so-called Iran-backed groups in the first round of counterstrikes, there is little gainsaying that this will add to the difficulty of managing the Middle East in a way that minimizes the possibility of war. It will only make a direct war much more possible.
The only geopolitical deterrent the US might consider seriously is whether or not it will have the support of the Middle Eastern states themselves against Iran, for a wider war in the region would jeopardize these states too in the sense that it will cause the conflict to spread and major middle eastern states, such as Saudi Arabia, are in the middle of massive modernization projects. A wider war in the region would disrupt this process, which is why they are more likely to oppose a US bid to wage a direct war. At the same time, given Israel’s position, it is likely to continue to push for, or create conditions, for a war against Iran to accomplish its key objectives, i.e., developing a Greater Israel and eliminating the main regional opposition to it.
Salman Rafi Sheikh is a research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs.
Biden vs Trump has profound implications for the world order
By Glenn Diesen | RT | February 8, 2024
The world is watching the US presidential election closely as it will have significant implications for global governance. President Joe Biden and former leader Donald Trump have very different views on how the world order should be governed and how the US should respond to its relative decline.
Biden wants to restore unipolarity with ideological economic and military blocs, strengthening the loyalty of allies and marginalizing adversaries. Trump has a more pragmatic approach. He believes the alliance system is too costly and limits diplomatic room for maneuver.
Since World War II, the US has enjoyed a privileged position in the key institutions of global governance. The Bretton Woods format and NATO ensured its economic and military dominance within the West. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Americans sought to extend their liberal hegemony around the globe.
They developed a security strategy based on global superiority and an expanded NATO. Washington assumed that its dominance would mitigate international anarchy and great power rivalry, and that liberal trade agreements would strengthen the US’ position at the top of global value chains. The replacement of international law with a ‘rules-based international order’ – in effect, sovereign inequality – was supposed to promote American hegemony and enhance the role of liberal democratic values.
However, unipolarity has proven to be a temporary phenomenon because it depends on the absence of rivals and values are devalued as instruments of power politics. The US has predictably exhausted its resources and the legitimacy of its hegemony, and competing powers have collectively counterbalanced Washington’s hegemonic ambitions by diversifying economic relations, staging retaliatory military operations, and developing new regional institutions of global governance.
The Cold War was a unique period in history because the West’s communist adversaries were largely disconnected from international markets, and military confrontation strengthened alliance solidarity to the extent that it mitigated economic rivalry between the capitalist allies. After the Cold War, however, the former communist powers, China and Russia, gained experience in managing economic processes, and submission to the US-led economic path lost its value for them.
The system of alliances has also begun to decline. The US previously was willing to subsidize European security in exchange for political influence. But Washington shifted its strategic focus to Asia, demanding that its European allies show geo-economic loyalty and not develop independent economic relations with rivals China and Russia. Meanwhile, the Europeans sought to use collective bargaining mechanisms through the European Union to establish autonomy and an equal partnership with the United States.
It is now clear that the unipolar moment has come to an end. The US military, exhausted by failed wars against weak opponents, is preparing for a conflict against Russia and China and a regional war in the Middle East.
The ‘rules-based international order’ is openly rejected by other major powers. US economic coercion to prevent the emergence of new centers of power only encourages separation from US technology, industry, transport corridors, banks, payment systems, and the dollar.
The US economy is struggling with unsustainable debt and inflation, while socio-economic decline is fueling political polarization and instability. Against this backdrop, Americans could elect a new president who will seek fresh solutions for global governance.
Biden’s global governance: Ideology and bloc politics
Biden wants to restore US global dominance by reviving the Cold War system of alliances that divided the world into dependent allies and weakened adversaries. It pits Europe against Russia, Arab states against Iran, India against China, and so on. Inclusive international institutions of global governance are being weakened and replaced by confrontational economic and military blocs.
Biden’s bloc politics is legitimized by simplistic heuristics. The complexity of the world is reduced to an ideological struggle between liberal democracies and authoritarian states. Ideological rhetoric means demanding geo-economic loyalty from the ‘free world’ while promoting overly aggressive and undiplomatic language. Thus, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are smeared as ‘dictators’.
Multilateralism is welcome to the extent that it reinforces US leadership. Biden is less hostile to the UN and the EU than his predecessor, and under his administration, the US has rejoined the World Health Organization and the Paris climate agreement. But Biden has not revisited the Iran nuclear deal or reduced economic pressure on China to change its supply chains. The institutions that could constrain the US – the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) – are not favored by either Biden or Trump.
The deteriorating socio-economic and political situation in the US will also affect Biden’s approach to global governance. Biden will remain reluctant to enter into new ambitious trade agreements as the losers of globalization and neo-liberal economics within the US move into the camp of the populist opposition. Nor will he favor free trade agreements in areas where China has a technological and industrial advantage, and his attempts to cut European states off from Russian energy and Chinese technology will further fragment the world into competing economic blocs.
Western Europe will continue to weaken and become more dependent on the US, to the point where it will have to give up any claim to ‘strategic autonomy’ and ‘European sovereignty’.
Biden has also shown a willingness to disrupt allied country’s industries through initiatives such as the US Inflation Reduction Act.
Trump’s global governance: ‘America First’ and great power pragmatism
Trump seeks to restore American greatness by reducing the costs of alliance systems and hegemony. He sees alliances against strategic rivals as undesirable if they involve a transfer of relative economic power to allies. Trump believes that NATO is an “obsolete” relic of the Cold War because Western Europeans should contribute more to their own security. In his view, the US should perhaps reduce its presence in the Middle East and allies should pay America for their security in some way. Economic agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership would have promoted US leadership, but under Trump, they have been abandoned because of the transfer of economic benefits to allies. Trump does not reject US imperialism, but wants to make it sustainable by ensuring a higher return on investment.
Less tied to the alliance system and unencumbered by ideological dogma, Trump can take a more pragmatic approach to other great powers. Trump is able to make political deals with adversaries, use friendly and diplomatic language when talking to Putin and Xi, and even perhaps make a diplomatic visit to North Korea. While Biden’s division of the world into liberal democracies and authoritarian states makes Russia an adversary, Trump’s view of the world as nationalists/patriots versus cosmopolitans/globalists makes Russia a potential ally. This ideological view complements the pragmatic consideration of not pushing Russia into the arms of China, the main rival of the US.
Global governance will be utilitarian in this case, and the main goal of the US will be to regain a competitive advantage over China. Trump is fundamentally inclined to blame China excessively for America’s economic problems. Economic pressure on China is intended to restore US technological/industrial dominance and protect domestic jobs. Economic nationalist ideas reflect the ideas of the 19th-century American system, where economic policy is based on fair trade rather than free trade. Trump appears to view the entire post-Cold War security system in Europe as a costly attempt to subsidize Western Europe’s declining importance. These same Europeans have antagonized Russia and pushed it into the arms of China. Trump’s unclear stance on NATO has even prompted Congress to pass a bill prohibiting presidents from unilaterally deciding whether to withdraw the US from NATO.
While Trump is in favor of improving relations with Russia, his presidency would be unlikely to achieve this goal.
The US can be seen as an irrational actor to the extent that it allows domestic political battles to influence its foreign policy. In 2016, Hillary Clinton’s campaign staff fabricated the Steele dossier and Russiagate to portray Trump as a Kremlin agent. In the 2020 election, Biden’s campaign staff attempted to portray the Hunter Biden laptop scandal as a Russian disinformation campaign and accused Russia of paying bribes to kill US troops in Afghanistan. These false accusations were designed to distract the public and make Trump look weak on Russia. All of this ultimately soured relations with Russia and even contributed to the current conflict in Ukraine.
Both Biden and Trump seek to reverse the relative decline of the US in the world, but the difference in their approaches will have a profound impact on global governance. While Biden seeks to restore US greatness through systems of ideological alliances that will fragment global governance into regional blocs, Trump will seek to withdraw from the institutions of global governance because they drain US resources and impede pragmatic policies.
Glenn Diesen is a Professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway and an editor at the Russia in Global Affairs journal.
Col. Douglas MacGregor on Iran
IfAmericansKnew | February 5, 2024
Colonel Douglas MacGregor is a 28-year veteran of the US Army who previously served as Senior Advisor to the US Secretary of Defense. During this interview with Redacted’s Clayton Morris, he explains that Iran did not perpetrate the recent attack that killed three American servicemen and he describes the long effort to get the US to attack Iran on behalf of Israel. Colonel McGregor explains that such an attack would be disastrous on every level.
This excerpt is from a longer, excellent interview that can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le-Ktsau_iM (If Americans knew added the image of the New York Times advertisement and the photos of Gaza.)
Israel and Israel partisans embedded in the US government previously pushed the US into the disastrous Iraq War. See https://israelpalestinenews.org/israel-loyalists-embedded-in-u-s-government-pushed-us-into-iraq-war/ and https://israelpalestinenews.org/pentagon-officer-described-how-israelists-manufactured-anti-iraq-disinfo-that-led-to-war/ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjzD5zTLepc
This is not the first time the US has been used to deliver oil to Israel. See the account by Gary Vogler, a former US Army officer who served as a senior oil consultant for US Forces in Iraq. See https://israelpalestinenews.org/oil-for-israel-the-truth-about-the-iraq-war-15-years-later/ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zK-LFOpVowg
For more information on israel-Palestine go to https://ifamericansknew.org/
Biden’s Justification For Hitting Iran ‘Would Justify Russian Attacks on NATO’
By Ian DeMartino – Sputnik – 03.02.2024
On Friday, US President Joe Biden fulfilled his promise to strike Iranian targets in Syria and Iraq, further escalating the region even as the White House insists that it does not seek war with Iran.
Michael Maloof, a former senior security policy analyst for the Office of the Secretary of Defense with nearly 30 years of experience, told Sputnik’s Fault Lines that the justification used by the White House could easily be applied by Russia to NATO countries supporting Ukraine.
“You’re hearing from congressmen and senators saying ‘but we need to hit Iran for supplying the Houthis and Hamas and Hezbollah,” Maloof explained. “Well, does Russia then have a right to hit US and NATO allies, as a result of supplying weapons to Ukraine to battle Russians?”
The United States has placed the blame on Iran for the Sunday drone attack that killed three US service members and injured dozens more on the border of Syria and Jordan. While the US admits that it has no evidence Iran helped plan the attack, the Biden administration has been clear it blames Iran because the country allegedly funds those groups and other militants.
“This afternoon, at my direction, U.S. military forces struck targets at facilities in Iraq and Syria that the IRGC and affiliated militia use to attack U.S. forces,” US President Joe Biden said in a statement released Friday by the White House.
“I think that if Biden were to follow through, then that raises a whole new specter of opening up NATO countries to potential attack,” Maloof continued, adding that the US is simply hoping Russian President Vladimir Putin “doesn’t follow through” with that justification.
Maloof argued that the US should reevaluate the situation in the Middle East but it’s difficult because the US looks “at the Middle East through the prism of Israel all the time.”
“We’ve got to somehow figure a way out of it. Instead, we’re digging that hole deeper and even though there might be some attempts to try and persuade [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu to calm down and have a ceasefire and try to resolve things, it’s doing just the opposite.
“The problem is that Biden has left the conduct of the war up to Netanyahu, and Netanyahu knows this and he’s basically dragging us along – we’re captives of Netanyahu,” Maloof explained.
“You don’t have any, there’s no leadership [the US] left it up to Netanyahu. He’s the tail wagging the dog,” he added later.
Maloof further argued that Israel has been getting the United States to do its dirty work for decades. “We always hear Netanyahu wanting the United States involved, or us to bomb the sites… This is the way we’ve been conducting ourselves since… 2003 when we invaded Iraq.”
Asked by Co-host Melik Abdul how the US should have responded to the attack, Maloof argued that the US should leave the region.
“I think we shouldn’t even be in those locations. And I think we should have gotten out some time ago.”
Otherwise, Maloof warns “This thing has unlimited possibilities of escalation very rapidly.”
US Not Prepared for War Against Iran and ‘Axis of Resistance’
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 02.02.2024
Attacking Iran would be a catastrophic mistake for Washington, as the US is too internally weak to wage a new major in the Middle East, University of Tehran professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi told Sputnik’s New Rules podcast.
US officials have reportedly signaled that plans have been approved for a series of strikes against targets in Iraq and Syria.
That would be in response to a recent drone attack on US personnel in the Middle East — which claimed the lives of three soldiers and left 34 wounded.
In the wake of the strike Bloomberg claimed the Biden administration was considering a covert strike on Iran or Iranian officials as possible options.
But University of Tehran Professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi told Sputnik that directly targeting Iran would be a major mistake and a major miscalculation by Washington.
He suggested that scenario was very unlikely, given Iran’s missile defense and drone capabilities, as well as the vulnerability of US bases which are scattered across the Middle Eastern region.
“Let’s assume that the United States strikes Iran,” Marandi said. “The United States has bases all across the Persian Gulf. The Iranians will hit out at those bases, and then the Iranians will also punish those countries that host those bases.”
Message for Joe Biden: Don’t Mess with Iran
The professor warned the fallout from the tit-for-tat attacks would send oil and gas prices “through the roof.”
“The Red sea would no longer be safe for oil and gas. The Western economies would collapse if there was a major escalation in our region,” Marandi underlined. “The United States, its assets across Iraq would be crushed. It would be overrun and by extension Syria as well and Lebanon. The world has changed. This is not just Iran, by the way. This is the whole of West Asia.”
Given the latest US media reports, it appears far more plausible that the US would attack targets in Iraq and Syria, Marandi continued.
“[The US] will claim some sort of ‘victory over terrorists’ and that sort of nonsense which they usually say,” the professor said. “But it will be like in Yemen, they will have very little impact because the resistance to the US occupation, the illegal occupation in Iraq and Syria is very well hidden. Their assets are underground, they are spread out. And all the United States would do would be to make people angrier and make the resistance more popular, both at home and abroad. That’s exactly what we saw in Yemen.”
Marandi noted that most recently instead of pushing the Israeli regime to end the slaughter in the Palestinian Gaza Strip, the US tried to facilitate the genocide by attacking Yemen. Since early January the US and its allies conducted a series of strikes against the Ansar Allah-led government in the Yemeni capital Sana’a, also known as the Houthis after their leader.
“They launched many missiles, wasted a lot of money, but they were incapable of changing the balance of power. And Yemen continues to easily strike ships. Why?” the professor asked. “Because all of their assets are underground. Their mobile radar is well-protected underground. They are missiles and drones are well protected underground. They come out, strike the target and go back underground. So the Americans failed in Yemen. They made ‘Ansar Allah,’ or what the West likes to call the Houthis, very popular across the region and across the world, and they’ll only do the same in Iraq and Syria.”
In the aftermath of the strikes the Biden administrations came under criticism from both Republicans and Democrats. A bipartisan group of House representatives, comprising such strange bedfellows as Republican Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green and New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, argued that the US’ “unauthorized strikes in Yemen” violate the Constitution and US statute.
They called on Biden “to seek authorization from Congress before involving the US in another conflict in the Middle East,” and warned the White House against provoking Iran and Iran-backed militia in the region which could swiftly spiral out of control and lead to a broader regional conflict.
US legislators’ concerns are justified as the US cannot afford to wage wars on multiple fronts, the academic pointed out.
“The United States cannot win another war,” said Marandi. “I have no doubt that if the Republicans were in charge, they would be… Whoever is in the white House, the people around him would be saying these things in private, and the Democrats in public would be denouncing the president for holding back. But the truth is that the United States is not the United States of the past. They can launch an attack on Iran. But the price would be extremely high and the United States wouldn’t win.”
Marandi questioned when the US had last won an overseas war.
“As the United States ‘won’ in Iraq as it won in Afghanistan. Did it win in Libya? Did it win in the genocide that it supported in Yemen? Did it win in Ukraine? The United States has a very poor record when it comes to launching wars and destroying nations and countries,” the acdemic said.
“They are capable of ruining lives and murdering millions and they don’t care. We see that in Gaza every day, but they simply don’t have the power to win. And Iran is not Iraq. Iran is not Libya. Iran is not Yemen. Iran is not Vietnam,” Marandi stressed. “Attacking Iran would be a catastrophic mistake for the United States, and something that I don’t think those decision makers in Washington would ever seriously contemplate.”
“The Americans may be foolish enough to do so, but if they do so, then I think you’ll see the demise of the American empire take place much more rapidly than we’re seeing right now,” he concluded.
The Three Strands to the ‘Swarming of Biden’
By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | February 2, 2024
“The Iranians have a strategy, and we don’t”, a former senior U.S. Defence Department official told Al-Monitor: “We’re getting bogged down in tactical weeds – of whom to target and how – and nobody’s thinking strategically”.
The former Indian diplomat MK Bhadrakumar has coined the term ‘swarming’ to describe this process of non-state actors miring the U.S. in the tactical attrition – from the Levant to the Persian Gulf.
‘Swarming’ has been associated more recently with a radical evolution in modern warfare (most evident in Ukraine), where the use of autonomous swarming drones, continuously communicating with each other via AI, select and direct the attack to targets identified by the swarm.
In the Ukraine, Russia has pursued a patient, calibrated attrition to drive hard-Right ultranationalists from the field of battle (in central and eastern Ukraine), together with their western NATO facilitators.
NATO attempts at deterrence towards Russia (that recently have veered off into ‘terrorist’ attacks inside Russia – i.e. on Belgorod) notably have failed to produce results. Rather, Biden’s close embrace of Kiev has left him exposed politically, as U.S. and European zeal for the project implodes. The war has bogged down the U.S., without any electorally acceptable exit – and all can see it. Moscow drew-in Biden to an elaborate attritional web. He should ‘get out’ quick – but the 2024 campaign binds him.
So, Iran has been setting a very similar strategy throughout the Gulf, maybe taking its cue from the Ukraine conflict.
Less than a day after the attack on Tower 22, the military base ambiguously perched on the membrane between Jordan and the illegal U.S. al-Tanaf base in Syria, Biden promised that the U.S. would provide a quick and determined response to the attacks against it in Iraq and Syria (by what he calls ‘Iran-linked’ militia).
Simultaneously however, White House National Security spokesman John Kirby stated that the U.S. doesn’t want to expand military operations opposite Iran. Just as in Ukraine, where the White House has been loath to provoke Moscow into all-out war versus NATO, so too in the region, Biden is (rightly) wary of out-right war with Iran.
Biden’s political considerations in this election-year will be uppermost. And that, at least partly, will depend on the fine calibration by the Pentagon of just how exposed to missile and drone attacks U.S. forces are in Iraq and Syria.
The bases there are ‘sitting ducks’; a fact would be an embarrassing admission. But a hurried evacuation (with overtones of the last flights from Kabul) would be worse; it could be electorally disastrous.
The U.S. seemingly aims to find a way to hurt Iranian and Resistance forces just enough to show that Biden is ‘very angry’, yet without perhaps doing real damage – i.e. it is a form of ‘militarised psychotherapy’, rather than hard politics.
Risks remain: bomb too much, and the wider regional war will ignite to a new level. Bomb too little, and the swarm just rolls on, ‘swarming’ the U.S. on multiple fronts until it finally caves – and finally exits the Levant.
Biden thus finds himself in an exhausting, ongoing secondary war with groups and militias rather than states (whom the Axis seeks to shield). In spite of its militia character, however the war has been causing major damage to the economies of states in the region. They have fathomed that American deterrence has not been showing results (i.e., with Ansarallah in the Red Sea).
Some of those countries – including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – have initiated ‘private’ steps that were not coordinated with the U.S. They are not only speaking with these militia and movements, but also directly with Iran.
The strategy to ‘swarm’ the U.S. on multiple fronts was plainly stated at the recent ‘Astana Format’ meeting between Russia, Iran, and Turkey on 24-25 January. The latter triumvirate are busy preparing the endgame in Syria (and ultimately, in the Region as a whole).
The joint statement after the Astana Format meeting in Kazakhstan, MK Bhadrakumar has noted:
“is a remarkable document predicated almost entirely on an end to the U.S. occupation of Syria. It indirectly urges Washington to give up its support of terrorist groups and their affiliates “operating under different names in various parts of Syria” as part of attempts to create new realities on the ground, including illegitimate self-rule initiatives under the pretext of ‘combating terrorism.’ It demands an end to the U.S.’ illegal seizure and transfer of oil resources “that should belong to Syria””.
The statement thus spells out the objectives starkly. In sum, patience has run out over the U.S. weaponising the Kurds and attempting to revitalise ISIS in order to disrupt the tripartite plans for a Syria settlement. The trio want the U.S. out.
It is with these objectives – insisting that Washington give up its support of terrorist groups and their affiliates as part of attempts to create new realities on the ground, including illegitimate self-rule initiatives under the pretext of ‘combating terrorism’ – that the ‘Astana’ Russian and Iranian strategy for Syria finds common ground with that of the Resistance’s strategy.
The latter may reflect an Iranian strategy overall – but the Astana Statement shows the underlying principles to be Russia’s too.
In his first substantive statement after 7 October, Seyed Nasrallah (speaking for the Axis of Resistance as a whole) indicated a strategic Resistance pivot: Whereas the conflict triggered by events in Gaza was centrally connected with Israel, Seyed Nasrallah additionally underlined that the backdrop to Israel’s disruptive behaviour lay with America’s ‘forever wars’ of divide-and-rule in support of Israel.
In short, he tied the causality of America’s many regional wars to the interests of Israel.
So, here, we come to the third strand to the ‘swarming of Biden’.
Only it is not regional actors that are contriving to box-in Biden – it is America’s own protégé: Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Netanyahu and Israel are the principal target of the bigger regional ‘swarm’, but Biden has allowed himself to be enmeshed by it. It seems that he cannot say ‘no’. So here Biden is: boxed-in by Russia in Ukraine; boxed-in in Syria and Iraq, and boxed-in by Netanyahu and an Israel that fears the walls closing-in on their Zionist project.
There is likely no electoral ‘sweet-spot’ to be found here for Biden, between inserting America into an unpopular and electorally disastrous, all-out Middle East war, and between ‘green-lighting’ Israel’s huge gamble on victory over war against Hizbullah.
The confluence between the failed Ukrainian ploy to weaken Russia, and the risky ploy for Israel’s war on Hizbullah, is unlikely to be lost on Americans.
Netanyahu too is between a rock and a hard place. He knows that ‘a victory’ that boils down to just the release of the hostages, and confidence-building measures to establish a Palestinian state, would not restore Israeli deterrence – inside or outside the state. On the contrary, it would erode it. It would be ‘a defeat’ – and without a clear victory in the south (over Hamas), a victory in the north would be demanded by many Israelis, including key members of his own cabinet.
Recall the mood within Israel: The latest Peace Index survey shows that 94% percent of Israeli Jews think Israel used the right amount of firepower in Gaza – or not enough (43%). And three-quarters of Israelis think the number of Palestinians harmed since October is justified.
If Netanyahu is boxed in, so is Biden.
On Tuesday, Netanyahu former said:
“We will not end this war with anything less than the achievement of all its objectives … We will not withdraw the IDF from the Gaza Strip and we won’t release thousands of terrorists. None of that is going to happen. What is going to happen? Total victory.”
“Is Netanyahu capable of veering strongly to the left… entering into an historic process that will end the war in Gaza and lead to a Palestinian state – coupled with an historic peace agreement with Saudi Arabia? Probably not. Netanyahu has kicked over many other similar buckets before they were filled”, opined veteran commentator, Ben Caspit, in Ma’ariv (in Hebrew).
Biden is making a huge bet. Best to wait on what Hamas and the Gaza Resistance answers to the hostage proposal. The omens, however, do not look positive for Biden —
Senior Hamas and Islamic Jihad officials responded yesterday to the latest proposal:
“The Paris proposal is no different from previous proposals submitted by Egypt … [The proposal] does not lead to a ceasefire. We want guarantees to end the genocidal war against our people. The resistance is not weak. No conditions will be imposed on it” (Ali Abu Shahin, member of Islamic Jihad’s political bureau).
“Our position is a ceasefire, the opening of the Rafah crossing, international and Arab guarantees for the restoration of the Gaza Strip, the withdrawal of the occupation forces from Gaza, finding a housing solution for the displaced and the release of prisoners according to the principle of all for all … I am confident that we are heading for victory. The patience of the American administration is running out because Netanyahu is not bringing achievements” (Senior Hamas official, Alli Baraka).
Israel Keeps Killing Civilians and Rejects Any Sovereignty for Palestinians
Benjamin Netanyahu shows Joe Biden who’s boss
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • FEBRUARY 1, 2024
Over the past ten days there have been several interesting developments in the continuing ethnic cleansing of Gaza, as well as increasingly on the West Bank, by the Israeli military supplemented by armed settlers. In one particularly grotesque killing, Israeli commandos disguised as medical staff and Arab civilians burst into a hospital room in Jenin refugee camp on the West Bank and shot dead three Palestinians. The Israeli military said one of the victims belonged to Hamas and was planning an imminent attack “inspired by the events of October 7” but provided no evidence in support of the claim. Palestinian hospital staff reported afterwards how “They raided one of the patients’ rooms and killed him, and the people who were in the room with him, his brother and friend. He was a patient, paralyzed and using a wheelchair.” One might observe that Israel, like the White House, lies about everything.
To be sure, Israel and the United States deservedly continue to be subjected to legal challenges, both internationally and in the United States, over their carrying out of a policy in Gaza that many, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, might eventually consider to be a full scale and active genocide, the most notorious crime against humanity. The court’s Order last Friday to Israel “to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza and punish incitement for genocide accepts the possibility of Israel being a perpetrator of genocide” and not just a perpetual historical victim, as it chooses to depict itself. As the court continues to pursue the completely plausible claim of genocide submitted by South Africa and to come to a final ruling, which could easily take months to complete, it has “already made history.” But in the meanwhile, manipulation of both the judicial and constitutional processes by the United States to support Israel has enabled the Jewish state to keep bombing and killing an average of 300 Palestinians each day while also controlling and cutting off relief supplies desperately needed by the starving and dying two million nearly all civilians physically imprisoned by the barriers erected by Israel surrounding Gaza.
In the latest act of undoubted collusion staged to kill even more Palestinians, Israel claimed that 12 members of the United Nations Gaza Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) participated in the Hamas October 7th attack on Israel. The UN has fired some of those accused out of its 13,000 employees in the organization and it is investigating further but that did not prevent the US from immediately cutting its funding to UNRWA in spite of the fact that Israel had produced no evidence to back up its claim and there was no explanation provided why such a report was not issued until more than 100 days after the alleged incident. Timing is everything. Clearly the moves were preplanned by President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to help counter the negative impact of the ICJ report, which was released several days before, and it will accomplish nothing except to increase the misery of the Palestinians.
The international focus on Israel and the United States regarding Gaza is because of the widely held and absolutely correct perception that Israel keeps getting away with murder, literally, and Washington is the accomplice in the crime, using its power and United Nations veto to avoid holding the Jewish state accountable for its misdeeds. Ironically, Israeli behavior often negatively impacts on the actual interests of the United States to include killing American citizens without there being and consequences for the perpetrators. This recklessness has recently been on display not only in Gaza but also on the occupied West Bank where just last week another Palestinian-American has been shot dead in what appears to be something like a vigilante killing.
According to witnesses, the completely unprovoked recent killing consisted of the fatal shooting of American-Palestinian teen Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, 17, a Louisiana native, who was driving a pickup truck near his village Al-Mazra’a Ash-Sharquiya on the Israeli occupied West Bank. Without any warning, a volley of Israeli gunfire struck the back of the truck, hitting Tawfik in the head and killing him, resulting in the out-of-control vehicle turning over several times on a dirt road. Family members who rushed to the scene were confronted by Israeli soldiers at gunpoint, who blocked their access to the truck. In an initial statement, Israeli police admitted that the shooting targeted Tawfic, but claimed the victim was “purportedly engaged in rock-throwing activities.” Police would not identify who fired the shots but did describe the incident as “ostensibly involving an off-duty law enforcement officer, a soldier and a civilian.” That suggests an armed settler was involved. The US Embassy has demanded an explanation but Israel never convicts Jews who kill Palestinians. That is what is expected in this case, which recalls the May 2022 killing by an army sniper of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh at a demonstration which she was covering at the Jenin refugee camp in the Israeli occupied West Bank. She was wearing a clearly identifiable journalist’s jacket. No one was ever held accountable and even the Zionist dominated US State Department eventually believed she had been targeted and deliberately executed. Indeed, there is currently a law pending in the Knesset that blocks prosecution of any Israeli soldier or policeman who kills an Arab.
And when it comes to other dead Americans, there is the still uninvestigated killing of 34 crewmen on the USS Liberty in June 1967 by Israeli warplanes and gunboats, the killing of activist Rachel Corrie by being run over by an Israeli army bulldozer in 2003, and the killing of Turkish-American boy Furkan Dogan and eight others in international waters on the Mavi Marmara ferry in 2010. If Israel decides to kill Americans it does not hesitate and the US never does anything but whine after the fact, if that. In that case of the Liberty the White House and Pentagon actually participated in the cover-up, such is the power of the Israel Lobby.
So once again the gloves are off in terms of the abuse that the United States has to take at the hands of “best friend” Israel, particularly now that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a group of fascist ultra-nationalists have formed a war cabinet that is intent on driving out or exterminating the Palestinians. Both in Gaza and on the West Bank any living Palestinian is little more than target practice for the Israel Defense Force half trained thugs in uniform.
And Netanyahu is not even trying to hide what he wants to do to Palestine, even though he is now running into concern from President Joe Biden who apparently is afraid that all the bloodshed in Gaza being endorsed and enabled by Washington will damage his re-election prospects. Netanyahu has not budged however and has made some significant comments over the past two weeks, one of which directly rejects a Biden call to look at options for reviving the so-called Two States plan that would give the Palestinians a mini-state that has actual sovereignty at some level, unlike the almost total military and police occupation by Israel that prevails currently.
Speaking at a press conference on January 22nd, Netanyahu insisted that “I will not compromise on full Israeli security control over all the territory west of the Jordan River”. His statement also prefigures an assault on the West Bank and the seizure of all Palestinian-held territory. War would “continue until the end, until the victory, until the elimination of Hamas” and “nothing will stop us.” Ending the war prematurely “would harm Israel’s security for generations,” he said, suggesting this could mean military action continuing until next year.
Netanyahu has said that there will be no Palestinian state with actual sovereignty and that Israel will control all of the former historic Palestine “From the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.” Yes, Netanyahu is using the very words that Israel’s friends have condemned as “antisemitic” when used by Palestinian demonstrators in the US objecting to the slaughter in Gaza.
Meanwhile, a number of Israeli cabinet and other senior officials have indicated clearly that achieving the goal of an Israeli state incorporating the whole area into what will legally be defined as a Jewish state will be achieved no matter what will have to be done to the Palestinians. This will all start with the ethnic cleansing and resettlement of Gaza by Jews, no matter how long it takes to accomplish, and then will proceed to the West Bank. The displacement of the Palestinians is being justified by claiming that that population is not redeemable as they are nothing but “terrorists,” to include incitement from government officials with comments like “We kill the children otherwise they will grow up to kill Jews.”
To be sure, there has been some pushback against the Netanyahu revelation, coming from many dissatisfied Israelis and even originating within the normally massively pro-Israel US Congress. Calls have come for a cease fire and 15 Jewish Democratic congressmen have supported a two-state solution with a Palestine state having true sovereignty. They issued a brief statement saying “We strongly disagree with prime minister [Netanyahu]. A two-state solution is the path forward.” And there also has been something of a rebellion from the civil service in Washington, where there was a walkout of employees rejecting the Biden Administration’s Gaza policy.
Senator Bernie Sanders and some others in Congress have repeated calls to stop funding what Israel is doing, particularly as the war is already spilling over to Yemen and Iraq and Syria where illegal US military bases are under attack producing most recently three deaths by drone fired from an Iraqi shi’ite militia, allegedly hitting a base in Jordan, and causing more than thirty injuries. The incident will possibly lead to further escalation as Joe Biden has said there will be some retaliation against the militia group that staged the attack and its sponsors. Predictably, Joe and others in Washington are actually blaming the attack on Iran though there is no evidence supporting that claim. Several Congressmen and presidential candidate Nikki Haley have nevertheless already called for an attack on Iranian military and economic installations and CBS news is now reporting that preparations are underway for the US to hit “Iranian targets” in Syria and Iraq. The Iranian government has said it was not involved in the incident and has already announced that it would retaliate if attacked. A better policy would be a withdrawal from those illegal bases, reportedly under consideration by the Pentagon, but it has been denied by the inimitable Victoria Nuland at the State Department.
US President Joe Biden also followed up on the recent Netanyahu statements with what was reportedly his first phone call with Netanyahu for a month, after which he suggested that the Israeli leader might consider some “type” of two-state solution. But Netanyahu’s spokesman dismissed Biden’s claim on the following day, saying that “In his conversation with President Biden, prime minister Netanyahu reiterated his policy that, after Hamas is destroyed, Israel must retain security control over Gaza to ensure that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel, a requirement that contradicts the demand for Palestinian sovereignty.”
Netanyahu then personally expanded on the message, saying how “I emphasized to President Biden our determination to achieve all the goals of the war, and to ensure that Gaza never again constitutes a threat to Israel.” Under his leadership, Netanyahu pledged that Israel would go beyond that to wage a far wider regional war “on all fronts and in all sectors. We are not giving immunity to any terrorist: not in Gaza, not in Lebanon, not in Syria, and not anywhere.”
Netanyahu and his generals have repeatedly stated that Israel is waging war not just on the Palestinians but also against Iran and its allies, with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant explaining that Israel is confronted by a war on seven fronts: Gaza, the West Bank, and Iran and its proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen. Replying to a question from a reporter asking why Israel is not attacking Iran directly, Netanyahu responded, “Who says we aren’t attacking Iran? We are attacking Iran.” Indeed, Israeli forces have repeatedly bombed Syria’s capital, Damascus, targeting Iranian forces allied to the Syrian government. In the most recent incident, Israeli missiles fired from the occupied Golan Heights killed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Syria intelligence chief and four more IRGC members.
As a final observation, Netanyahu and his supporters appear to be using the prospect of a Donald Trump victory in the US presidential elections in November to put more pressure on Biden to make him back off from supporting any concessions over Gaza and a Palestinian state. Bibi is also intent on extending the war until the end of 2024 to make his domestic opponents who are demanding his resignation appear unpatriotic, many of whom believe that the Israeli actions vis-à-vis Gaza have been motivated by Netanyahu’s own political and personal interests. As Netanyahu might well otherwise be in jail currently due to corruption charges, many critics now support the theory that Gaza may have been a false flag setup with the Prime Minister himself giving the green light to an operation that would open the door to keeping himself in power while also destroying Gaza and ridding Israel of the Palestinians forever. If Netanyahu plays his cards right with the clueless Biden he might also be able to convince the United States to attack Iran very soon, something that he has been seeking for more than twenty years. That may be what is coming next.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
Biden Makes Clear Case for NATO Complicity – and Russia’s Right to Retaliate – Over IL-76 Shoot-Down
By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | February 1, 2024
Joe Biden is contending that the United States has the right to attack Iran as a result of the deadly strike on a U.S. base in Jordan which killed three American troops.
Biden is throwing rocks in a glass house if we then look at the case of the IL-76 shoot-down over Russia when 74 people were killed.
It is by no means clear if Iran was involved in the Jordan base raid. Tehran strongly denies it and even the Pentagon has admitted there is no evidence showing Iran had a hand in the drone attack.
Nevertheless, Biden has asserted Iran is to blame and that this gives the U.S. a right to respond militarily. If Biden can make that case, then the United States and its NATO allies should be held accountable for the shooting down of the IL-76 transport plane over Russia killing all onboard, according to the reasoning of none other than the US President.
By “accountable” that means Russia has the right to take retaliatory military action against the culprit of the crime in which 74 people were killed. Again, this is according to Biden’s own reasoning.
Biden was not speaking about the fatal IL-76 incident that occurred on January 24 when nine Russian servicemen and 65 Ukrainian prisoners were killed after their cargo plane was hit in mid-air with a warhead.
The president was responding to U.S. journalists questioning him about the deaths of three American military personnel at a base in Jordan that Iraqi militants attacked on January 28.
Biden said he held Iran responsible for the American fatalities and vowed to retaliate. Somewhat contradictorily, the president and his spokesmen have said the United States does not seek to have a wider war with Iran even though Biden said he intends to attack Iranian assets in a “tiered way at a time of his choosing”. If that’s not a wider war, what is?
Iran has vehemently denied any involvement in the drone attack on the U.S. base in Jordan near the border with Syria and Iraq. The strike was claimed by Iraqi militia known as Islamic Resistance which is allied with Iran.
Asked if he blamed Iran, Biden said he did “in the sense that they’re supplying the weapons to the people who did it.”
Iran and the Iraqi militants are affiliated in a similar way to Tehran’s support for Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria, and the Ansar Allah movement in Yemen. All are motivated by staunch opposition to U.S. military occupation in the Middle East and Washington’s support for Israel’s genocidal aggression in Gaza. Collectively, Iran and its allies are known as the Axis of Resistance.
There is no evidence that Iran supplied the weapons to the militants who killed the three American troops. Iran contends that each resistance member possesses its own agency and decision-making.
By contrast, however, the supply of American and other NATO weaponry to the Kiev regime is publicly recorded. It is estimated that the West has funded Ukraine with a total of $200 billion since the proxy war against Russia erupted in February 2022. About half of that has been spent on weapons that include long-range missiles such as Patriot, Shadow Storm, Scalp and Iris-T systems. British and French cruise missiles have been repeatedly used to hit pre-war Russian territory such as Belgorod resulting in dozens of civilian deaths.
The strike on the IL-76 transport plane is believed to have been carried out with Western-supplied weapons.
Russian crash investigators have this week confirmed earlier claims that the cargo plane was shot down with a NATO weapon, either a U.S.-made Patriot missile system or a German Iris-T surface-to-air missile.
When the IL-76 was blown out of the sky on January 24 over Russia’s Belgorod region, Russian radars detected the launch of two anti-aircraft warheads nearly 100 kilometers away from the target. The missiles were allegedly fired from the location of Liptsy in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkov province. It is believed that only NATO-supplied weapons to the Ukrainian forces could have achieved that extensive range.
At the time of the IL-76 shoot-down, the Kremlin said that if it confirmed that Western weapons were responsible then Russia would deem the West to be complicit in the crime.
On January 26, Russian First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyansky said: “According to preliminary investigation, Ukrainian armed forces carried out this terrorist attack using an anti-aircraft missile system. The missiles were launched from the village of Liptsy in Kharkov region.”
He added: “These could have been either American Patriot or German-made Iris-T missiles. If confirmed, this will make the Western suppliers of this ammo complicit in this crime. Just as they are complicit in shelling of peaceful neighborhoods of Russian cities that Ukrainian armed forces carry out with Western weapons.”
Russian crash investigators have now confirmed that Western weapons were the cause of the deadly crash.
The United States or one of its NATO allies supplied those weapons. That makes the U.S. or NATO complicit in an act of deadly aggression against Russia.
And by using the same logic as Joe Biden that culpability makes the U.S. or its allies accountable to Russia… “in the sense that they’re supplying the weapons to the people who did it.”
Biden has made the case for Russia to directly hit American or NATO assets.
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‘Conspiracy Theory’ Now Fact: Greater Israel Has Arrived
By Kit Klarenberg | Mint Press News | January 28, 2025
Ever since Tel Aviv’s 1948 creation, much has been said and written about ‘Greater Israel’ – the notion Zionism’s ultimate end goal is the forcible annexation and ethnic cleansing of vast swaths of Arab and Muslim lands for Jewish settlement, based on Biblical claims this territory was promised to Jews by God. The mainstream media typically dismisses this concept as antisemitic conspiracy theory, or at most the fringe fantasy of a minuscule handful of extremist Israelis.
In reality … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Trump admits Iran hit USS Ford carrier: ‘We ran for our lives’
- Battle for Hungary: EU attacks on Orban are a sign of worse things to come
- Iraqi resistance conducts drone strike on US-run base in Syria
- Failing to Defeat Hezbollah, Israel & US Pressure Syria’s Ahmed al-Sharaa to Join War
- US-Israeli war on Iran drives global fertilizer prices up 40%
- Hezbollah’s Surprise Weapons Redefine Ground Battle with Israel
- Yemen joins fight against US, Israel by firing missiles at occupied territories
- Seizing the Kharg: Washington’s path to defeat in the Persian Gulf
- Iran reports 500 US casualties in strikes on covert US military sites
- Pro-Israel terrorist arrested before assassination of pro-Palestinian activist
- If Americans Knew
- Over 300 US service members wounded, majority have brain injuries – Not a ceasefire Day 169
- Researchers at Human Rights Watch Resign Over Blocked Report on Palestinian Refugee Return
- Jewish Groups Are Backing a War Americans Don’t Want
- Eric Fingerhut Thinks He’s the President of the Jews
- Top Jewish Philanthropists, Rabbis Urge Israeli President to Take Action Against ‘Jewish Extremists’
- Don’t Be Fooled. Zionist Leaders Have Always Wanted to Control Southern Lebanon
- Israel’s widespread use of torture is a core element of its genocide against the Palestinian people
- In Israel’s War on Iran, Many Middle East US Bases Rendered “All But Uninhabitable”
- ‘Burn the lawn’: Israel pursues ‘Rafah model’ in southern Lebanon
- A genocide here, an amputation there
- No Tricks Zone
- Devastating Assessment Of Comirnaty Vaccine By Former Senior Pfizer Europe Toxicologist
- New Study: CO2 Is ‘Effectively Negligible’ As An Explanatory Climate Change Factor Since 2000
- Former Pfizer Toxicologist Dr. Helmut Sterz Tells Bundestag Hearing Pfizer Vaccine Should Have Never Been Approved
- Energy Expert: Germany’s Nuclear Phaseout Was A “500 Billion Euro Mistake”
- New Research: South Australia’s Mid-Holocene Sea Surface Temperatures Were 4°C Warmer Than Today
- Storing Green Energy To Last Germany 10 Days Would Require A 60-Million Tonne Battery
- New Studies: UK Sea Levels Were 4 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
- Destructive Green New Deal: German Energy And Metal Group Warns Of Drastic Crisis
- New Study Documents A 20-Year Pause In Arctic Sea Ice Decline – Driven By Internal Variability
- Wake-up Call: Survey Shows Majority Of Germans Now Favor Postponing Climate Targets!
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