Direct US Attack on Iran Would Open Pandora’s Box – Mideast Experts
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 29.01.2024
Having groundlessly accused Tehran of masterminding a recent deadly drone bombing on US personnel, President Joe Biden and his team are allegedly considering a covert strike on Iran or targeting Iranian officials, as per Bloomberg. How could the purported plan pan out for Washington?
Three US soldiers were killed and 34 wounded in a drone attack over the weekend that is ramping up the pressure on Joe Biden ahead of the 2024 elections, according to the US press. The Biden administration rushed to pin the blame on Iran, presenting no evidence to back up its claims.
Even though Tehran made it clear that it had nothing to do with the attack, Washington is reportedly planning to either conduct a covert strike on Iran and later deny it, or resort to extraterritorial assassinations of Iranian officials, as then-President Donald Trump did by ordering the killing of General Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad in 2020.
“A direct attack on Iran will open Pandora’s Box,” Professor Hossein Askari, political analyst and emeritus professor of business and international affairs at George Washington University, told Sputnik.
“If the attack was from an Iraqi militia that Iran supports, then a US attack on the militia will affect relations with Iraq, which has already objected to other US responses to the militias and is engaged in talks for the US to exit Iraq. It is an election year in the US and there is a great deal of pressure on Biden to be ‘tough’ on Iran.”
Per Askari, Biden has found himself between a rock and a hard place: no matter what he does, he is likely to come under fierce criticism for either being too weak or escalating the conflict.
“An attack inside Iran would undoubtedly widen the war with the end game becoming even murkier and [an attack] inside Iraq would further damage US-Iraq relations,” the professor stressed.
He believes that Biden will strike nonetheless and that the strike will pour more gasoline on the fire as Tehran is “still looking for revenge for the assassination of General Soleimani and the Iraqi militia leader, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.”
When asked what forces could be potentially involved in any “covert strike”, the expert assumed that only cruise missiles and no planes or Special Forces are likely to be used. He added that no regional player would join the purported US action except, possibly, Israel. “But if the US allows Israel to join in, then this would become a much wider war with religious overtones,” Askari warned.
Even though neither the US nor Iran have an interest in a wider regional war, “there is a tug of war between the two countries to sway influence over the wider Middle East, and particularly the Arab Gulf States,” echoed Dr. Imad Salamey, associate professor of political science and international affairs at the Lebanese American University.
“I believe the US will take on limited retaliatory attacks against [Islamic] Revolutionary Guards targets in Iran or Iraq without engaging in a wide-scale war,” Salamey told Sputnik.
“It remains too early in this conflict for the US to target strategic positions such as nuclear facilities. I do not think the allies will join the US in the standoff against Iran, as none have a reason to join rank. Only in the case that Iran decided to close down the Strait of Hormuz that other states would join the US war efforts. I believe the US is now after attacking Iranian Revolutionary Guards and no longer as interested in proxies.”
US Vows Response to Deadly Attack on Mideast Base, Seeks to Avoid Wider Conflict
Sputnik – 29.01.2024
WASHINGTON – The United States will retaliate to a deadly drone attack on its al-Tanf military base on Syrian-Jordanian border at a time and in a manner of its choosing, but it is not seeking a wider conflict in the region, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said on Monday.
Earlier in the day, Axios reported that President Joe Biden discussed a “significant military response” to the attack during a meeting with top US officials on Sunday.
“As for our response options, the President is working his way through that right now. He had a good meeting yesterday with the National Security Team,” Kirby told CNN.
According to Axios, the White House and Pentagon are seeking to calibrate their retaliation to contain the risk of a wider conflict. Meanwhile, some hawks on Capitol Hill are pushing for strikes inside Iran, the report said.
“We will respond. We will do it in a time and a manner of our choosing. We’ll respond, you know, in a very consequential way but we don’t seek a war with Iran. We are not looking for a wider conflict in the Middle East,” Kirby said, when asked if the US is considering strikes inside Iran.
On Sunday, three US soldiers had been killed and 34 others injured in a drone attack on a US military base in Jordan’s northeast near the border with Syria.
President Biden pinned the blame on unspecified Iran-backed militant groups, while also saying the US was still gathering the facts. Jordanian cabinet spokesman Muhannad Mubaidin said that the strike targeted the US’s Al-Tanf base in Syria, not a base on Jordanian territory.
Iran has nothing to do with the drone attack on a US military base, Iranian state-run news agency IRNA reported, citing an Iranian official.
Russia-China Joint Approach to the Middle East
By Salman Rafi Sheikh – New Eastern outlook – 29.01.2024
By repeatedly targeting the Houthis in Yemen and pushing for an escalation in the Red Sea, the US is jumping into the Middle East with a military and strategic mindset. The objective is to create space for Washington – and its global allies – to push back against the recent gains, i.e., normalization between Iran and Saudi and Arab normalization with Syria more than a decade after the start of the so-called “Arab Spring”, that Russia and China have made. A wider war in the region will, in the US calculation at least, re-politicize regional fault lines that might allow Washington to reverse the larger normalization process. Considering the high stakes Washington has in developing a wider war in the region, it makes sense for both Russia and China, who largely have similar interests vis-à-vis normalization processes within the Middle East, to develop a joint approach.
In October, soon after Israel launched its brutal war after the October 7 attacks by Hamas and much before the US started doing its own strikes, Russia, anticipating a deeper US military involvement in the Middle East, confirmed that it was already coordinating its Middle East policy with China. This coordination, on the other hand, is also an outcome of the recent state of Russia-China bilateral ties, which, in the words of the Russian foreign minister, are in the best state in the “centuries-old history”.
This coordination also has its roots in the ways that the Arab world itself has come to see its ties with the US on the one hand and Russia and China on the other. For instance, some recent surveys have shown that an increasing number of people across most Arab states view Russia and China as crucial economic players above all. The core reasons for this favourable view are twofold. First, many Arab societies today view the US as no longer a reliable partner. Second, they view Russia and China not from a revisionist perspective, i.e., as states deepening their involvement in the region to replace the US. Rather, Russia and China continue to emphasize the Middle East as a region that can play an autonomous role, i.e., a role not tied to, or disproportionately overshadowed by, any superpower’s interests.
The fact that Russia and China both see the Middle East from this perspective, their calculation sees the Middle East as a vital region that can really push for shifting the center of the present world order away from the West to creating multiple power centres within a multipolar world order. Therefore, developing a joint policy and indirectly protecting the Middle East from slipping too much under the US radar makes sense for both Moscow and Beijing. Were the Middle East to relapse to being a US vassal region, it would make it extremely difficult, if not entirely impossible, for Russia and China to realize their ambitions for a new world order.
Now, for both Russia and China, keeping the Middle East – which is already on the verge of a wider war – as a center of power, they must project their ties beyond the Gaza war. Of course, Israel’s war on Gaza is the most important issue today, and both Russia and China have adopted and emphasized a pro-Arab/pro-Palestine position. But Russia and China are also taking steps to not allow their ties with the region to be bogged down by this one issue.
China and Russia, as we know it, already have deep economic ties with the Middle East. Both, as we know, remain focused on maintaining and expanding these ties despite the ongoing conflicts. Putin’s recent visit to the Middle East was not simply provoked by the Gaza crisis, nor was this war the sole subject of his discussions with Arab leaders. In fact, a lot of discussion was around the core issue of a multipolar world order. Putin emphasized how the conflict in the Middle East is a US failure, a failure that makes it imperative for the Middle East to not only distance itself from Washington but also adopt a more autonomous role to, among other things, resolve the issue through its initiatives. But beyond this, Putin emphasised that “The UAE is Russia’s main trading partner in the Arab world.”
For China as well, this logic of relationship beyond and above the Palestine issue remains prominent. While Beijing has openly supported the Arab state’s current stance on the issue, its ongoing engagement with this region remains predominantly underpinned by the logic of trade and development, building a relationship that helps the Middle East transform into a powerhouse that can ultimately help China and Russia tackle the hegemony of the West. (That’s why both China and Russia recently adopted new members into BRICS, including those from the Middle East.)
At the same time, China has taken steps to use the scenario, like Russia, to step up itself as a global power that can help mediate regional conflicts. In November, China announced its five-point peace plan that placed heavy emphasis on the United Nations, calling for the implementation of all relevant UN resolutions on the conflict and an international conference organized by the world body that leads to a two-state solution, all overseen by the Security Council. While nothing concrete followed this plan, it served China’s purpose of projecting itself as a power different from the West on the one hand and very close to the Arab world on the other.
For Washington, which has been hoping for differences to emerge between Russia and China taking them back to the era of rivalry, this situation is frustrating, making it extremely difficult for it to not lose ground in the Middle East specifically and across the Global South more generally. But its continuing support for Israel’s war machine and its continuing push for NATO’s expansion is doing exactly the opposite of what the US aims for, i.e., preventing its global decline and the related rise of Russia and China.
Salman Rafi Sheikh is a research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs.
‘Swarming’ the US in West Asia, until it folds
The US is so deeply mired in an unwinnable battle from the Levant to the Persian Gulf that only its adversaries in China, Russia, and Iran can bail it out.
By MK Bhadrakumar | The Cradle | January 29, 2024
Deterrence in defense is a military strategy where one power uses the threat of reprisal to preclude attack from an adversary, while maintaining at the same time the freedom of action and flexibility to respond to the full spectrum of challenges. In this realm, the Lebanese resistance, Hezbollah, is an outstanding example.
Hezbollah’s clarity of purpose in establishing and strictly maintaining ground rules that deter Israeli military aggression has set a high regional bar. Today, its West Asian allies have adopted similar strategies, which have multiplied in the context of the war in Gaza.
America, surrounded
While the Yemeni resistance movement Ansarallah is comparable to Hezbollah in certain respects, it is the audacious brand of defensive deterrence practiced by the Islamic Resistance of Iraq that is going to be highly consequential in the near term.
Last week, citing sources in the State Department and Pentagon, Foreign Policy magazine wrote that the White House is no longer interested in continuing the US military mission in Syria. The White House later denied this information, but the report is gaining ground.
The Turkish daily Hurriyet wrote on Friday that while Ankara is taking a cautious approach to media reports, it does see “a general striving” by Washington to exit not only Syria but the entire region of West Asia, as it senses that it has been dragged into a quagmire by Israel and Iran from the Red Sea to Pakistan.
Russia’s special presidential representative for the Syrian settlement, Alexander Lavrentiev, also told Tass on Friday that much depends on any “threat of physical impact” on American forces present in Syria. The swift US military exit from Afghanistan took place with virtually no advance notice, in coordination with the Taliban. “In all likelihood, the same may happen in Iraq and Syria,” Lavrentiev said.
Indeed, the Islamic Resistance of Iraq has stepped up its attacks on US military bases and targets. In a ballistic missile attack on Ain al-Asad airbase in western Iraq a week ago, an unknown number of American troops sustained injuries, and the White House announced its first troop deaths on Sunday when three US servicemen were killed on the Syrian-Jordanian border in strikes earlier that day.
Calling Beijing for help
This situation is untenable for President Joe Biden politically — in his re-election bid next November — which explains the urgency of the National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan’s meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Friday and Saturday in Thailand to discuss the Ansarallah attacks in the Red Sea.
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby explained Washington’s rush for Chinese mediation thus:
“China has influence over Tehran; they have influence in Iran. And they have the ability to have conversations with Iranian leaders that — that we can’t. What we’ve said repeatedly is: We would welcome a constructive role by China, using the influence and the access that we know they have…”
This is a dramatic turn of events. While the US has long been concerned about China’s growing sway in West Asia, it also needs that influence now as Washington’s efforts to reduce violence are getting nowhere. The US narrative on this will be that the “strategic, thoughtful conversation” between Sullivan and Wang will not only be “an important way to manage competition and tensions [between the US and China] responsibly” but also “set the direction of the relationship” on the whole.
Meanwhile, there has been hectic diplomatic traffic between Tehran, Ankara, and Moscow, as Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi traveled to Turkiye, and the moribund Astana format on Syria last week got kickstarted. Succinctly put, the three countries anticipate a “post-American” situation arising soon in Syria.
A US exit from Syria and Iraq?
Of course, the security dimensions are always tricky. On Friday, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad chaired a meeting in Damascus for commanders of the security apparatus in the army to formulate a plan for what lies ahead. A statement said the meeting drew up a comprehensive security roadmap that “aligns with strategic visions” to address international, regional, and domestic challenges and risks.
Certainly, what gives impetus to all this is the announcement in Washington and Baghdad on Thursday that the US and Iraq have agreed to start talks on the future of American military presence in Iraq with the aim of setting a timetable for a phased withdrawal of troops.
The Iraqi announcement said Baghdad aims to “formulate a specific and clear timetable that specifies the duration of the presence of international coalition advisors in Iraq” and to “initiate the gradual and deliberate reduction of its advisors on Iraqi soil,” eventually leading to the end of the coalition mission. Iraq is committed to ensuring the “safety of the international coalition’s advisors during the negotiation period in all parts of the country” and to “maintaining stability and preventing escalation.”
On the US side, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a statement that the discussions will take place within the ambit of a higher military commission established in August 2023 to negotiate the “transition to an enduring bilateral security partnership between Iraq and the United States.”
Pentagon commanders would be pinning hopes on protracted negotiations. The US is in a position to blackmail Iraq, which is obliged, per the one-sided agreement dictated by Washington during the occupation in 2003, to keep in the US banks all of Iraq’s oil export earnings.
But in the final analysis, President Biden’s political considerations in the election year will be the clincher. And that will depend on the calibration by West Asia’s resistance groups, and their ability to ‘swarm’ the US on multiple fronts until it caves. It is this ‘known unknown’ factor that explains the Astana format meeting of Russia, Iran, and Turkiye on January 24-25 in Kazakhstan. The three countries are preparing for the endgame in Syria. Not coincidentally, in a phone call last Friday, Biden once again told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “to scale down the Israeli military operation in Gaza, stressing he is not in it for a year of war,” Axios‘ Barak Ravid reported in a ‘scoop’.
Their joint statement after the Astana format meeting in Kazakhstan is a remarkable document predicated almost entirely on an end to the US 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 US’ illegal seizure and transfer of oil resources “that should belong to Syria,” the unilateral US sanctions, and so on.
Simultaneously, at a meeting in Moscow on Wednesday between the Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev and Ali-Akbar Ahmadian, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, the latter reportedly stressed that Iran-Russia cooperation in the fight against terrorism “must continue, particularly in Syria.” Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to host a trilateral summit with his Turkish and Iranian counterparts to firm up a coordinated approach.
The Axis of Resistance: deterrence means stability
Iran’s patience has run out over the US military presence in Syria and Iraq following the revival of ISIS with American support. Interestingly, Israel no longer abides by its “de-confliction” mechanism with Russia in Syria. Clearly, there is close US-Israeli cooperation in Syria and Iraq at the intelligence and operational level, which goes against Russian and Iranian interests. Needless to say, the backdrop of the imminent upgrade of the Russia-Iran strategic partnership also needs to be factored in here.
These developments are a vintage illustration of defensive deterrence. The Axis of Resistance turns out to be the principal instrument of peace for the issues of security that entangle the US and Iran. Clearly, there isn’t any method or any reasonable hope of convergence to this process, but, fortunately, the appearance of chaos in West Asia is deceiving.
Beyond the distractions of partisan argument and diplomatic ritual, one can detect the outlines of a practical solution to the Syrian stalemate that addresses the inherent security interests of the US and Iran that are embedded within an outer ring of US-China concord over the situation in West Asia.
Russia may seem an outlier for the present, but there is something in it for everyone, as the pullout of US troops opens the pathway to a Syrian settlement, which remains a top priority for Moscow and for Putin personally.
Red Sea Crisis Is Opportunity for U.S. to Weaken Europe & China
By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | January 28, 2024
The Red Sea conflict is intensifying as is the impact on commercial shipping and the global economy, according to shipping news reports.
One might think that common sense would prevail here to solve the conflict diplomatically and quickly. If a ceasefire was called in Gaza to stop the horrendous slaughter of Palestinian civilians by Israel then that would end the restrictions imposed on shipping by Yemen.
Yemeni leaders have unequivocally said so. End the genocide and we will end the interdiction on shipping.
The moral imperative to immediately end the appalling suffering in Gaza is therefore a straightforward – not to say absolutely necessary – way to restore normal navigation through the Red Sea and for wider peace in the region. It’s not a dilemma. It’s not a conundrum. And it’s inexcusable to prevaricate.
The United States has the power to end the Israeli genocide. But the Biden administration has refused to exert its control over the Netanyahu regime.
Washington has opted to escalate the military aggression in the Red Sea by launching at least eight waves of air strikes since January 11 on Yemen – the poorest nation in the Arab region, having already suffered a genocidal war at the hands of the U.S. and Britain supporting Saudi Arabia’s aggression between 2015 and 2022.
The Yemenis have in turn defiantly warned that their operations to interdict shipping will continue until the genocidal siege on Gaza has ended.
Biden even admits that the military action to deter the Yemenis is limited in achieving its supposed objectives.
So, why continue to aggravate the situation and escalate potential conflict across the region? Not only will bombing Yemen not work, but it is also inflaming violence across the Middle East and risking a head-on confrontation with Iran which is allied with the Yemenis.
As Iranian Professor Mohammad Marandi points out in our interview this week a big incentive for the U.S. and its Israeli ally is to blow up the region as a reckless and nefarious way to conceal how disastrous the defeat in Gaza is for the Americans and their Israeli client regime.
But there may be more to it. Another incentive for taking a militarized response to the Red Sea crisis is the strategic gain that this gives the United States with regard to Europe and China.
The Red Sea shipping restrictions are hitting the European and Chinese trade most acutely. American economic interests are relatively unaffected.
It is estimated that about 60 percent of China’s exports to Europe are shipped through the Red Sea, according to the Washington DC-based Middle East Institute.
Put another way, Eurostat figures indicate that 20 percent of all EU imports come from Asia via the Red Sea.
Inevitably, the longer the insecurity and hostilities persist in the Red Sea, the worse will be the damage to Europe-China trade and their economies.
Reuters reports that China is urging Iran to rein in the actions of the Ansar Allah and Yemeni armed forces in the Red Sea. That indicates how severe the impasse is impacting Chinese trade with Europe.
The Europeans meanwhile seem oblivious to the damage that the United States’ policy is inflicting on their economies. The Europeans have meekly gone along with Washington’s militarized aggression against Yemen.
It is a long-term and deeply coveted goal for Washington to cleave European trade and political relations with China. China has become the European Union’s top trading partner, surpassing the United States in that historic role.
During recent Democrat and Republican administrations, Washington has vigorously sought to undermine European-Chinese relations. The Americans have reacted testily to any trade and investment pacts signed between the two.
The Red Sea crisis is thus a handy opportunity for the United States to kill two birds with one stone.
By ramping up the shipping problems through militarizing the conditions, the U.S. can weaken the economies of Europe and China while also sticking a very big wedge between the two.
In short-term American imperial calculation that is a tantalizing gain. The U.S. consolidates its hegemonic control over the weaker European allies while damaging China’s economic power.
This short-term zero-sum thinking by the American imperial planners is of course self-defeating in the long term from the far-reaching deterioration in the global economy and international peace and security. But long-term thinking about the common global good is not a priority for U.S. capitalist imperialism. One might even say they are fundamentally in opposition.
There is a close analogy here to the Ukraine crisis. Washington has pursued hostilities with Russia as a way to undermine European-Russian trade and their wider cultural and political relations. Washington calculates that such antagonism will bolster its hegemonic ambitions. The ideologically slavish European leaders have gone along with that policy even though it has resulted in an economic and security disaster for Europe.
The European leaders are either too stupid or too brainwashed to assess what is going on and how they are being manipulated by Washington for its selfish strategic interests.
If the European regimes had any independence or integrity they would not have gone down the path of conflict with Russia in Ukraine. But as it is, they have been had by Uncle Sam – big time. What’s more, they don’t seem to realize or even care.
Likewise, the same fate of shooting themselves in the foot is occurring over the Middle East crisis. The Europeans are backing a genocide in Gaza in deference to U.S. imperialist interests and the Israeli regime. That has rebounded with the Red Sea crisis that is set to hammer EU-China trade. Rather than seeking to resolve the conflict diplomatically, the Europeans are making it worse and in the process damaging their own international standing and strategic interests.
No wonder the Americans ultimately treat their European vassals with contempt. Because they are utterly spineless and clueless.
MAGA and Progressive Lawmakers Unite to Lambast Biden’s Attacks on Houthis
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 28.01.2024
US representatives and senators of all stripes have subjected the president to sharp criticism over his strikes in Yemen.
US President Joe Biden’s recent air strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen have provoked cross-party criticism in Congress.
Representatives Cori Bush (D-Mo.), Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), Marjorie Taylor Green (R-Ga.), and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), as well as other 12 House Democrats and six Republicans, have joined ranks to express “serious concerns” about the “unauthorized” strikes.
“We believe the US’ unauthorized strikes in Yemen violate the Constitution and US statute,” wrote the lawmakers, arguing that Congress has the sole power to declare war and authorize military action.
Addressing Biden himself, they continued: “We urge your Administration to seek authorization from Congress before involving the US in another conflict in the Middle East, potentially provoking Iran-backed militias that may threaten US military service members already in the region, and risking escalation of a wider regional war,” the letter said, as quoted by Axios.
Since January 12, the US and its allies have been carrying out strikes with cruise missiles and precision-guided bombs against the Houthis in Yemen.
The US-led coalition has conducted 11 strikes against the Shiite militia so far in response to the Houthis targeting Israel-linked vessels in the Red Sea in a bid to force Tel Aviv to halt military actions against Palestinians in Gaza.
Earlier this week, another bipartisan group of senators questioned Washington’s effort to protect foreign ships in the Red Sea.
“As Commander-in-Chief, you have the power and responsibility to defend the United States under Article II of the Constitution,” a letter signed by Senators Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Todd Young (R-Ind.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) said. “However, most vessels transiting through the Red Sea are not US ships, which raises questions about the extent to which these authorities can be exercised.”
Commenting on the strikes on Yemen targets, the lawmakers drew attention to the fact that “there is no current congressional authorization for offensive US military action against the Houthis.”
“[U]nless there is a need to repel a sudden attack, the Constitution requires that the United States not engage in military action absent of a favorable vote of Congress,” the lawmakers insisted.
While non-interventionists on both sides of the US political aisle are urging Biden to show restraint, the hawks are chastising the president for not doing enough against the Yemen Shiite group.
For his part, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) lambasted the president for “failing to sufficiently exercise the authority he has.”
“[Biden’s] played whack-a-mole against warehouses and launch sites, but left the terrorists’ air defenses and command-and-control facilities intact,” argued McConnell.
McConnell highlighted the 2002 authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) that empowered then-US President George W. Bush to kick off the Iraq War. In 2023, US lawmakers sought to strip US presidents of the AUMF; however, the legislative measure got stuck in the US Congress.
Not only US lawmakers but also right- and left-wing American scholars have recently warned the Biden administration against escalating tensions in the Middle East.
They particularly argued that the cost of the global trade disruption caused by the Red Sea crisis would be far less than the cost of the US operations against Yemen, especially given the risk of a clash with Iran, which traditionally supported Shiite militias in the small Middle Eastern state. A larger regional war is looming, they warned.
Who Is the Antiwar Candidate?
Fuggedaboutit!
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • JANUARY 25, 2024
I sometimes wonder what the Founders, if they could return to life and see their creation, would think of today’s American Republic. President George W. Bush described the Constitution of the United States as “just a goddamned piece of paper” before he went on a rampage all over the world in what he called the “war on terror.” Of course, he had probably never even read the Constitution or the Federalist Papers and therefore did not understand how the Founders had deliberately made it difficult to go to war, which they regarded as the greatest evil confronting the new nation. Bush proceeded to push through other unconstitutional legislation including the so-called Patriot Act which empowered him to kill some hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings in places like Afghanistan and Iraq without declaring war on anyone after having produced fabricated information to justify the brutality.
But that was then and now is quite different and even worse, with a president who often appears to be lacking any brain cells holding hands behind his furrowed brow. The United States is currently at war in two countries, has illegal occupying military forces based in at least three more, and is quite possibly conniving at adding a few more enemies du jour, namely Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, China and Russia. All of this is being accomplished without declarations of war from Congress and without even compliance with the 1973 unconstitutional War Powers Act, which mandated that the president should be confronting an imminent threat to take such action. Joe Biden and his Secretary of State Antony Blinken have also twice sidestepped the requirement that Congress should approve all arms transfers to foreign nations by falsely claiming an “emergency” to ship $250 million of armaments to Israel, weapons that are being used to carry out a genocide against the Palestinians, making the US totally complicit in that war crime.
I have of course been following the Republican primaries as well as the flow of self-justifying verbiage otherwise known as lying coming out of the mouths of the Democratic Party incumbents, most notably the Zionist-Catholic Commander-in-Chief Joe Biden; his able sidekick Kamala “has anyone seen her lately” Harris; his Antony Blinken who goes to Israel to negotiate and the first thing he tells Bibi is that he is a Jew; his Director of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas who has forgotten that real countries have borders; and his Treasury Secretary Janice Yellen who is happy funding multiple wars simultaneously while running up the already unsustainable federal debt. Behind it all is the apparent belief that the United States should be empowered to tell the rest of the world how to behave. Oh, and the Democrats have decided to base their 2024 campaign on the highbrow principle of free abortions for everyone! Joe Biden’s confessor would like to hear that!
And then there is Congress, which is following the Senator John McCain principle that one should always embrace the possibility for a new war. Congressman Nancy Pelosi and Senator Schumer seem to love Ukraine and Israel so much that it leaves little time to do anything for their actual constituents. Schumer often reminds audiences that his surname is close to the Hebrew word for protector, making him “the Jewish state’s protector in the Senate.”
The problem is that America’s so-called government has been so corrupted by both money pouring in from defense contractors and Jewish/Israeli interests that they have lost sight of the people who have the misfortune of having voted the bastards into office. Opinion polls suggest that the public has gone off both the comedians running Ukraine and the Israeli baby killers in Gaza. The voters have also learned that they have little to no say regarding what the psychopaths in the White House and on Capitol Hill decide to do with their tax money and even their very lives.
Just to show how useless voting has become, it is interesting to look at the policies concerning war and peace that have been enunciated by current and recent presidential candidates to find out if anyone seriously wants to step on the brakes of the war machine. Bear in mind that the Neocons have come to control the foreign policies of both major parties which means that Israel will always come first in Washington while war will also be a constant element in America’s relationship with the world.
First comes Genocide Joe whose record speaks for itself. He managed to get out of Afghanistan by abandoning many billions of dollars-worth of military equipment and killing a bunch of American soldiers, but he quickly sought to make up for that by avoiding a negotiated end to the Ukraine-Russia conflict and giving Israel a free hand backed by money and weapons to undertake the slaughter in Gaza. He has made America accessory to both conflicts and has a hit list of other countries he might decide to weaken or attack to demonstrate that he is a strong leader. The possible victims include major nations like Iran, Russia and China. He is now attacking the Houthis in Yemen and has warned that if even a single American is killed at the illegal military bases in Iraq and Syria he might have to go to war with Iran, which he blamed for the incidents without providing any evidence. His Vice President is Kamala Harris, who is married to a Hollywood Jewish lawyer. She is, of course, little more than an affirmative action token in place, but makes noises indicating that she is fully on board with what is going on with Israel and Ukraine.
Trump the GOP nominee-apparent? He is completely ignorant on most issues including foreign policy and wars and he appoints reckless hawks and neocons like Mike Pompeo and John Bolton to senior positions. Christian Zionist Mike Pence, a dispensationalist who wants the world to end so he can be wafted up to heaven, was his Vice President. Trump is totally owned by the Israel Lobby operating through his son-in-law and his former Ambassador to Israel David Friedman. Friedman notably spent his time in the Jewish state supporting Israel rather than working on behalf of American citizens or US interests. Trump moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem in spite of international agreements making such a move illegal after receiving $100 million in political donations from Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. He also recognized Israel’s illegal annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights, allowed illegal settlement expansion, and gave Netanyahu a free hand in dealing with the Palestinians. Trump also ordered the killing of Qassim Suleimani, a senior Iranian official who was in Baghdad on a peace mission and staged missile attacks on Syria based on false intelligence. Trump gives lip service to ending “useless wars” but never did so in practice when he was in office. He is prone to throwing around threats and has declared recently that if an enemy in the Middle East spills a “’drop of American blood’ I will spill a ‘gallon of yours.’” This comes from a man who avoided the Vietnam War draft because he found a doctor who discovered that he suffered from “bone spurs.”
And then there is still standing the Republican contender Nikki Haley, former Governor of South Carolina and Donald Trump’s United Nations representative. She has been described as the female version of John McCain and she is a complete supporter of the carnage in Ukraine and is even more so a total Israel firster. She is a hawk across the board and it is believed that the bulk of her political financial support comes from Jewish sources that are tied to Israel. She has said that Israel should eliminate Hamas, which she considers to encompass all Palestinians, and that the US should not take in any Palestinian refugees. She also rejects the two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict because the Palestinians, who have rejected several two states solutions according to Nikki, want instead a one-state solution that would eliminate Israel. She also supports the war against Russia in Ukraine.
And then there is good old Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, who recently dropped out of the race. He might just be the most vicious Zionist of them all. He has led a number of delegations from Florida to Israel and was one of the first to respond to October 7th Gaza events by banning Palestinian groups at all state universities due to their alleged “antisemitism.” He did not ban or even criticize a single Jewish group for cheerleading the subsequent slaughter of the Palestinians and even opposes giving Palestinian refugees US visas because he claims they are all “antisemites.” He fully supports everything Israel is doing in Gaza and believes that Netanyahu should have a free hand to do whatever he wants to the Arabs. When DeSantis was a Congressman he notoriously refused to meet with survivors in his district from the 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty which killed 34 American crewmen and injured more than 170. The Israelis sought to sink the ship and a cover-up of the incident ensued thanks to President Lyndon Baines Johnson, who declared that he would rather see the ship go to the bottom of the sea and all on board killed than embarrass his Israeli friends. LBJ also ordered the recall of a squadron of US jet fighters that were sent to help the Liberty.
Not much room left! Finally there is Robert F. Kennedy Jr (RFK Jr) who initially did a good job in fooling potential voters into thinking he was a man of peace, but he turned all John McCain after he blundered by praising Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters. Israel’s friends and partisans quickly informed him that Waters was on their enemies list because of his openly expressed support for the Palestinian cause. Kennedy immediately deleted his praise of Waters and declared him to be a “vicious anti-Semite.” He also claimed falsely that the Palestinian Authority has offered to pay a bounty to any Palestinians who “kill a Jew anywhere in the world” while also claiming that Palestinian children are all “being raised as serial killers. He approves of the demolitions of Palestinians’ homes and argues that in Gaza “Israel is doing more right now to protect human life” while he also praises the IDF’s “unique moral approach” to war.
Kennedy also issued a detailed statement online and has become one of the Jewish state’s most outspoken supporters. He posted on X: “This ignominious, unprovoked, and barbaric attack on Israel must be met with world condemnation and unequivocal support for the Jewish state’s right to self-defense. We must provide Israel with whatever it needs to defend itself — now. As President, I’ll make sure that our policy is unambiguous so that the enemies of Israel will think long and hard before attempting aggression of any kind. I applaud the strong statements of support from the Biden White House for Israel in her hour of need. However, the scale of these attacks means it is likely that Israel will need to wage a sustained military campaign to protect its citizens. Statements of support are fine, but we must follow through with unwavering, resolute, and practical action. America must stand by our ally throughout this operation and beyond as it exercises its sovereign right to self-defense.”
Kennedy’s inability to separate fact from fiction is evident in his referral to “Palestinian settlements within Israel,” when describing Palestinians living in what is left of their former land that is now under Israeli occupation and subject to constant settlement expansion, as though the Palestinians are the ones colonizing the Israelis. Kennedy is now running as an independent but has lost many of his staffers because of his position on Gaza. Many antiwar Americans were initially thrilled when Kennedy announced that he would be against Joe Biden in this year’s primaries and that he’d hired former Democratic congressman Dennis Kucinich, an antiwar progressive, to be his campaign manager. But Kucinich quit in the middle of October. In November, Kennedy’s field team, headed by former California Congressman Dana Rohrabacher’s wife Rhonda, also quit. In December, his foreign policy and veteran’s affairs adviser James R. Webb, Marine Corps veteran of Iraq War II and son of the former senator from Virginia, also submitted his resignation. Webb revealed that his resignation was in disgust over Kennedy’s stance on Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in the Gaza strip and Kennedys’ claim that “collective punishment” of civilians is justified.
One might add that there is another interesting more-or-less independent in the race, namely Jill Stein who will be seeking the nomination of the Green Party. She is a genuine antiwar person whom I have known for eight years and she has criticized the “endless war machine” as well as what is going on in Ukraine and in Gaza, where she has called for an immediate cease fire. Alas, she has no chance of getting more than a couple percentage points of the votes cast.
Other fringe candidates include Cornel West, an independent, and two Democrats who will continue to appear on the primary ballots going ahead. They are Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson. So, there you have it folks. To paraphrase the immortal Donald Trump, peace on earth is for losers!
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.
China-led multipolarity has accelerated the decline of the American era, the war in Gaza may end it altogether.
By Mohamad Hasan Sweidan | The Cradle | January 24, 2024
What is unfolding today in West Asia — the Gaza war and its regional expansion — cannot be viewed separately from the international transformations that have grown in momentum over the past few years. Today, the transition to multipolarity is the underlying factor shaping the decisions and policies of most countries, particularly those of the great powers.
The timing of Israel’s devastating military assault on Gaza coincides with heightened US attention on its great power competition for Washington, this conflict has much wider geopolitical significance beyond West Asia. In this context, the US has assumed, and will continue to play, a pivotal role in Gaza and its environs, unlike its powerful peers in China and Russia.
According to statistics published by the China Society for Human Rights Studies, the US initiated 201 of the 248 armed conflicts that took place since the end of World War II, often engaging in these wars via US-led alliances and/or proxies.
For decades, Washington has led these conflicts by very ably forming, then leading, and directing broad alliances to achieve its political and military objectives. But that ability notably shifted in December 2023, signaling a sharp decline in this capability.
In response to Yemen’s Ansarallah-aligned armed forces’ Red Sea blockade of Israeli-linked vessels, the US Department of Defense announced the formation of “Operation Guardian of Prosperity … to uphold the foundational principle of freedom of navigation” in those waters, initially consisting of a coalition of ten countries, most of them insignificant partners.
Protecting Israel or maintaining maritime dominance?
The coalition proved shaky from the get-go, with only the US and Britain actively involved in military strikes on Yemen. The reluctance of key European countries France, Spain, and Italy to join the naval alliance indicated a growing skepticism among the US’s traditional partners — both western and West Asian — about Washington’s commitment and capability to defend its allies in any impactful way.
Interestingly, more than eight further countries reportedly joined the coalition, but demanded anonymity, given the potential political fallout from associating with Washington and Tel Aviv.
Crucially, the Pentagon’s stated purpose of securing navigation in the Red Sea does not align with the actual threat presented, revealing ulterior motives behind US actions. The Yemenis have repeatedly confirmed that they only intend to inhibit the passage of Israeli-owned or destined vessels — and that all other ships are free to pass.
In short, the US/UK-led coalition is acting as a naval arm for Israeli military forces, seeking specifically to ensure unimpeded access for ships heading to Israeli ports via the Bab al-Mandab Strait. That’s not a position many other states will get behind if they want to maintain freedom of transport for their own shipping vessels.
Ultimately, the American show of force in these waterways seeks to consolidate US naval dominance, which war-torn Yemen, West Asia’s poorest country, has contested.
As outlined in the National Security Strategy for 2022:
The US “will not allow foreign or regional powers to jeopardize freedom of navigation through the Middle East’s (West Asia) waterways, including the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab al Mandab, nor tolerate efforts by any country to dominate another — or the region — through military buildups, incursions, or threats.”
According to media reports following massive US airstrikes against Iraqi targets on 23 January, Iraqi resistance factions will now also follow Yemen’s suit by implementing a blockade of Israeli ports in the Mediterranean Sea.
Current events are spiraling out of Washington’s control as onlookers increasingly question the utility and competence of US naval leadership in the world’s important waterways. Equally, there is recognition that other formidable forces and states have emerged, challenging US control over key global straits. In the words of British politician and writer Walter Raleigh, “Who rules the seas rules the world.” Under Sanaa’s watch, the US no longer can claim rule over the Red Sea or even its adjacent waterways.
Great power competition amid the Gaza war
The current scenario in West Asia, particularly post-Al-Aqsa Flood and the Gaza war that followed, coincides with a shift in Washington’s focus toward competition with China and its proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. As outlined in the US intelligence community’s annual threat assessment last year, this transition has already affected strategic goals, leading to a sharp decline in western support, especially from the US, for Ukraine. The Biden administration faced challenges in securing Congressional approval for a new aid package for Kiev, which directly competed for dollars against Tel Aviv’s military campaign in Gaza.
Despite assurances from western leaders during visits to Ukraine in October, their statements came without tangible material support, leaving President Volodymyr Zelensky in the proverbial dust. Quite unexpectedly, China has emerged as a potential peacemaker in this European conflict, with Kiev openly requesting Beijing’s involvement in mediation talks, and the US itself open to Chinese mediation to mitigate the escalation in West Asia.
The Chinese are well aware that there are no simple, face-saving exits for the US from the Gaza war it has championed and that the conflict’s metamorphosis into a regional one mires the US deeper into West Asia — and away from the Asia-Pacific.
Although China seeks to increase its presence in West Asia, it is very careful not to bog itself down in the region’s many issues. But Washington’s request that Beijing use its influence to sway Iran from conflict escalation makes clear that the US is no longer “the biggest power” in the region.
Why Israel opposes multipolarity
Following Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, US financial and military support for Israel has reached a critical stage, presenting two options for Washington. The first involves imposing some control on Israeli actions, given that the war’s timing has been unfavorable to US strategic interests, particularly in a critical election year. The second option, favored by the Washington elite, is to continue its unwavering support to Tel Aviv, even at the risk of damage to its global image.
Sustained global outrage over the Gaza war, coupled with the landmark genocide case filed against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), shows that Washington’s ability to cover for Israel is diminishing rapidly. Again, this reflects the global shift in the balance of power toward multipolarity, which is marked by the widespread decline of American influence.
But the US support for the Gaza genocide has had dramatic domestic repercussions, too. Polls show a major shift in the attitudes of young Americans, especially university youth, who will make up the ranks of America’s future leaders.
A Harvard-Harris poll published on 17 January reveals that 46 percent of respondents aged 18-24 believe that Hamas’ actions on 7 October can be justified because of the injustice to which the Palestinians are subjected. The same poll shows that 43 percent of the same group support Hamas in this war, and that 57 percent believe that Israel is carrying out massacres in Gaza. The most staggering poll result of all, though, has to be the one in December (conducted by the same pollsters) in which 51 percent of young Americans believe a final solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is for Israel to end and be given to Hamas and the Palestinians.
While Israel remains a direct US interest in West Asia, Washington’s commitment to Tel Aviv’s security has already become a growing burden and increasingly difficult to justify. As the region’s Axis of Resistance expands its battle with Israel on new, multiple frontlines, the US will need to reallocate ever-expanding resources and focus on matching its international rivals in further-flung geographies.
Ukraine was a test run compared to this Gaza war and the immense, direct toll it is taking on US alliances, domestic politics, and the American image globally. For Israel, this presents an existential crisis beyond measure, as Washington is forced to compete with other great powers, none of whom are ideologically driven to support Zionism as part of their foreign policies.
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From the Archives
‘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
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