Our World: Iran’s American protector
Caroline Glick , THE JERUSALEM POST Aug. 18, 2008
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates is the darling of Bush administration foes. Gushing about Gates in a recent column, Washington Post writer David Ignatius crooned, “Gates is an anomaly in this lame-duck administration. He is still firing on all cylinders, working to repair the damage done at the Pentagon by his arrogant and aloof predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld.” Ignatius called on the next administration to give Gates a major role leading its foreign and defense policy.
It can only be hoped that Ignatius’s advice will be ignored.
Today the US’s strategic posture lies in tatters in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of US-ally Georgia. The fact that aside from issuing strong reprimands the administration has no policy for contending with Russia’s aggression shows clearly that the move caught Washington completely by surprise.
That Russia was apparently able to invade Georgia without US foreknowledge is a stinging indictment of all US intelligence agencies. As was the case before the September 11, 2001 attacks, again US intelligence agencies have failed their country.
But America’s intelligence agencies’ failure to comprehend the significance of Russia’s intentions was not theirs alone. It was shared as well by Gates and by his State Department counterpart Condoleezza Rice. Both senior cabinet secretaries simply failed to notice what Russia was doing, or how its actions would influence US interests.
GATES’S DENIAL of Moscow’s strategic hostility to the US was made clear as late as last month. As Russia built up its forces along Georgia’s borders, Gates released his new National Defense Strategy which he presented as “a blueprint for success” for the next administration.
Gates’s strategy paper, which foresees asymmetric campaigns against non-state actors comprising the bulk of US military operations in the coming decades, raised the hackles of US military commanders when he turned his attention to Russia and China. In Gates’ view, the best way to confront these authoritarian rising powers is to deny that they constitute a threat to US interests. Rather than building US forces to confront them, Gates advocates building “collaborative and cooperative relationships” with them.
Gates’s penchant for collaborating and cooperating with US rivals and enemies is no doubt the reason that the Left supports him so enthusiastically. Since he assumed office after the November 2006 elections, betraying allies as part of a strategy of appeasing US enemies and rivals has been the focus of his efforts.
Ahead of his appointment to the Pentagon, Gates was a member of the Iraq Study Group led by James Baker and Lee Hamilton. The thrust of the ISG report, issued on December 6, 2006 – the day he was sworn into office – was that for the US to maintain its credibility in the Middle East and
generally, it was necessary to appease its enemies by betraying its allies.
While the ISG report was ostensibly focused on Iraq, its real focus was Israel. Although the report advocated removing all US combat brigades from Iraq by the beginning of 2008, it wasn’t wedded to the notion. It allowed the possibility of a temporary surge of US forces to secure Baghdad and so enable the Iraqi government to assert control over the country and build its military.
But while ambivalent on Iraq, the Baker-Hamilton report was unyielding in its insistence that the US distance itself from Israel. The report argued that to gain regional – and indeed international – support for the project of stabilizing Iraq, it was necessary for the US to appease the Syrians, the Iranians, the Saudis, the Egyptians and the Jordanians. And the best way to do that, they claimed, was to disembowel Israel. The report recommended that Israel be forced to give Syria the Golan Heights and coerced into accepting a Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria, Gaza and Jerusalem which would be run by a Hamas-Fatah “national unity government.”
Like Baker and Hamilton, Gates was also not wed to the idea of a speedy withdrawal of combat forces from Iraq. Instead he supported the surge and for that he has gained great acclaim in Washington. But also like Baker and Hamilton, Gates has been unyielding in his push to distance the US from Israel. Indeed, in his National Defense Strategy, Israel is not listed as a US ally.
GATES’S PUSH to abandon the US’s alliance with Israel in favor of embracing Iraq’s Iranian and Arab neighbors is nowhere more apparent than in his actions regarding Iran’s nuclear weapons program. And those actions are simply a continuation of his efforts before entering office. In 2004, Gates
co-authored a study for the Council on Foreign Relations with Israel foe Zbigniew Brzezinski calling for the US to draw closer to Iran at Israel’s expense.
Over the past nine months, largely due to Gates’ advocacy, this has been the essential thrust of US policy toward Iran and Israel. The policy involves downplaying the urgency of the threat of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons, understating the progress Iran has made toward nuclear capabilities and openly working to appease Iran through US support and involvement with EU negotiations with Teheran.
The first US assault on what had until then been a more or less united public front with Israel on the issue of Iran’s nuclear program came with the publication of the US’s National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear weapons program last November. In the face of Iran’s open calls to destroy
Israel and the US, its rapid progress in its uranium enrichment activities, its command of the insurgency in Iraq, of Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian Authority, and its ballistic missile buildup, the NIE claimed that Iran had ended its nuclear weapons program in 2003.
The publication of the NIE was a body blow not only to Israel’s efforts to solate Iran and forge an international consensus about the need to confront Teheran. It was also a precision strike against the US’s own stated objective of building a consensus for sanctions against Iran in the UN Security Council. Gates was responsible for the report’s public dissemination.
IN RECENT months, as Iran has ratcheted up its genocidal rhetoric, taken over the Lebanese government, strengthened its alliance with Syria, built up its offensive forces, doubled the scale of its uranium enrichment, and strengthened its attachment to Russia, Gates has moved out of the shadows and into the spotlight. Assisted by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen and Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell, Gates has made defending Iran’s nuclear installations against the prospect of any Israeli or US attack his primary concern.
Gates has been a constant proponent of “engaging” Iran. In May for instance, he told a group of retired US diplomats, “We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage… and then sit down and talk with them. If there is going to be a discussion, then they need something, too. We can’t go to a discussion and be completely the demander, with them not feeling that they need anything from us.”
Following Gates’ clear lead, the US not only stopped being “the demander,” it has become Iran’s supplicant. And it has been repaid with increased Iranian extremism. Iran met the US’s decision to openly join the Europeans in offering it everything from nuclear reactors to World Trade Organization
membership last month with intensified military action directed most recently against the US’s allies in the Persian Gulf. Iran has threatened international oil shipments through the Straits of Hormuz, has launched a satellite and tested still more missiles and again and again called for Israel’s destruction.
BUT THIS hasn’t thwarted Gates. Since Iran itself demonstrated the falsity of the National Intelligence Estimate, Gates moved from subtle to open opposition to US military strikes against its nuclear installations. Together with Mullen, in recent months he has stated repeatedly that
attacking Iran would be a disaster for the US. And he has not stopped there. Gates has used his authority as defense secretary to also block any possibility that Israel will attack Iran.
In June the Pentagon leaked information about the IAF’s massive exercise in the Mediterranean which it claimed was a rehearsal of an attack against Iran. The same month, McConnell and Mullen visited Israel and rejected requests for military equipment and other support that would improve its
ability to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Asserting that as far as the obviously infallible US intelligence estimates are concerned, Iran’s nuclear program is not nearing completion, Mullen and McConnell also told their interlocutors that the US opposes an Israeli strike against Iran. As a consequence the US will deny the IDF the right to
fly over Iraqi airspace.
Alarmed by the administration’s swift slide toward Iran in recent months, senior IDF commanders and cabinet ministers have streamed into Washington. Last month Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi spent a week in Washington trying to convince the US to change course. After Ashkenazi
failed to deliver the goods, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz all converged on Washington. They too failed.
To hide the US’s now openly pro-Iranian position from the public, Mullen gave Ashkenazi an unrequested Legion of Merit decoration. Gates agreed to supply Israel with advanced anti-missile defense systems that could be deployed as early as 2011 if funding is steady. If deployed successfully, these anti-missile systems should be able to intercept up to 90 percent of incoming Iranian nuclear warheads.
SPEAKING OF Russia’s invasion of Georgia over the weekend, Gates claimed that Russia’s actions would harm its relations with the US and the West “for years to come.” But at the same time, he demurred from mentioning even one concrete step that the administration is considering adopting against Russia, arguing that “there is no need to rush into everything.”
The administration has been accused by its critics of ignoring the strategic alliance among Russia, Iran and Syria. That alliance has been made most apparent by Russia’s assistance to Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, and its provision of sophisticated air-defense systems to both countries. Yet it is more likely that the administration is acutely aware of that alliance. Bush has simply decided to follow Gates’ recommendation of appeasing all three.
Gates’s position presents a daunting challenge to Israel and indeed to the US. If Iran is to be prevented from carrying out genocide, and if Bush hopes to leave office with even a shred of international credibility, Gates must be shunted firmly to the side.
Israël must maintain a friendly relationship with Germany and the rest of Western Europe. They should do the same with Eastern Europe and Asia. It would be a good idea to have friendly ties with S America, Australia and N. Z. too. Basically they must do their best to cultivate friendships with all countries because, as we know too well, there are only two kinds of countries in the world: those with either active or latent antisemitic policies and Israel. There are also only two kinds of Jews: those who believe the above and those with their heads in the sand.
Am I negative? Probably, but negative beats hell out of dead.
Apparently somebody is not paying attention to Gates and company and have an agenda all their own.
Death in Denver
A Small Event with an Ominous Warning
By Ilana Freedman,Editor and CEO of Gerard Group International, Inc.
Denver Police have closed their investigation into the mysterious death of an indigent man in a suite of a luxury Denver hotel. They announced that his death was suicide, and that there was no link to terrorism. An FBI spokesman has also stated that the incident has no apparent terrorism connection.
The man was Saleman Abdirahman Dirie and, the coroner’s verdict notwithstanding, his death raises far more questions than have been answered by the Denver police, who seemed quite happy to wash their hands of the whole affair. But the story surrounding Dirie’s death is bizarre, and needs to be unraveled.
The facts, as far as they have been released, are these: Saleman Abdirahman Dirie was a 29-year-old Canadian citizen, a Muslim, and a former refugee from Somalia with no visible means of support and no money. He came to Denver from Ottawa by bus and checked into an upscale hotel (where the least expensive rooms rent for nearly $250 a night) for which he paid cash. There are reports that several thousand dollars in cash were also found in his room. He was not seen again until his body was found six days later next to a one pound jar of sodium cyanide crystals.
If you consider that this all took place in the city where the Democratic National Convention was about to take place, suspicion becomes alarm.
The questions themselves are disquieting. Why was he in Denver? Where did he get the cash to pay for his room? Where did he get a full pound of sodium cyanide crystals, enough to poison hundreds of people, and what was he planning to do with it?
Sodium cyanide is one of several cyanide salts that are among the most rapidly acting of all known poisons. These crystals are potent inhibitors of respiration, depriving the body of its ability to use oxygen. Its effect is deadly and swift. Mixed with acid, it becomes significantly more potent as it generates a highly toxic gas. Its close cousin, hydrogen cyanide, was used by the Nazis to produce Zyclon B, the gas of choice to murder millions of Jews in the Nazis’ infernal gas chambers.
In short, a little goes a long way. So no one needs a pound of sodium cyanide to commit suicide, when a mere taste will do. A more likely scenario is that his curiosity got the better of him and he opened the jar, accidentally breathing or ingesting some of the cyanide. That would make it, perhaps, an accidental poisoning, but hardly a suicide.
The more important question remains: why else would anyone need a pound of cyanide? The timing of Dirie’s visit to Denver, less than two weeks before the Democratic convention, raises an alarming possibility. National Republican and Democratic Conventions have been considered a high value target since 9/11 and the last round was surrounded by heavy (if imperfect) security. Compromising the water or HVAC systems in the Convention Center is a plan that might seem quite attractive in the name of jihad. And it could kill several hundred people.
The combined circumstances make the possibility that Dirie was an operative part of a jihad plot very real. Evolving strategies among the terrorists groups seem to lean towards small cells carrying out limited attacks on prime targets. This situation could be that, with Dirie being a one man jihadi whose job was to place the poison where it would do the most damage. On the other hand, if a very large attack were planned, as seems possible in this case, he might have been one of a larger group of terrorists, each with a single role to play. In this case, he would not have known the parts of the plots or the people who would carry them out. If the accidental death scenario is correct, then his extreme incompetence, which ended in his contamination and death, would indicate that the latter situation would be the most plausible one.
And that means that there are others like Dirie still out there, taking courage in the statements of the Denver police that the case is closed. As the festivities preceding the Democratic Convention are about to begin, the time to take this possibility seriously is now.
There are terrorist cells active throughout the country, using mosques and community centers, coffee houses, homes, and street meetings to develop and carry out their plans. Despite what the Denver police have said, this appears to be far more than a dysfunctional man taking his own life.
There is a pervading opinion among our leaders that Americans need to be protected from uncomfortable and frightening truths. Instead of giving us the opportunity to protect ourselves and our families, they prefer to tell us that everything is okay and under control, even when the threat is real and current. The time to be honest with the American people began a long time ago and the time for concern is now.
Ilana Freedman is Editor of IntelAnalysis and CEO of Gerard Group International, Inc.
Peskin this is for you especially
A reminder of Americas anti Israel duplicity.. This relationship as it is constituted Today must end and the quicker the better. Those within our system who support America over Israeli and Jewish interests must at least be marginalized and if it were up to me much worse.
A reminder!!! of what we are loosing:
Last update – 05:10 21/08/2008
Defense Ministry continues to ban security exports to China
By Yossi Melman
Tags: China, Olympics, Israel
When it comes to formulating Israel’s overall policy on China, the way it usually works has been upended. In general, we are used to the Ministry of Defense, as the representative of the defense industries, supporting, initiating, advancing and promoting arms deals, while it is the Foreign Ministry, in the name of a broad and comprehensive vision, that tries to prevent or suspend them for fear of a deleterious impact on Israel’s foreign relations.
When it comes to China, though, things are different. In this case, it’s the Defense Ministry that will bar any consideration of a deal, even one still in its earliest stages, for defense-related exports to China. “In this matter, Israel has capitulated completely to American dictates,” says Prof. Yitzhak Shichor, a China expert at the University of Haifa. Having been burned in the twice in the past, the ministry now exercises extreme caution when it comes to China.
The first scalding took place in 2000, when under heavy American pressure and threats of damage to Israel’s defense industries, then prime minister and defense minister Ehud Barak ordered the cancellation of the Phalcon venture, for the production of advance warning jets for China. Israel even had to pay China some $400 million in compensation. China’s leader at the time, Jiang Zemin, behaved as if he had been personally offended, and he ordered the implementation of a policy to punish Israel, which in effect meant a downgrading of diplomatic and financial ties. Four years later, Israel was burned again, once more offending the U.S. and insulting the Chinese. When Israel undertook to repaired Harpy drones for China, Washington saw this as a deceitful action on Israel’s part and a serious violation of the understandings between the two countries. This time the U.S. did not make do with merely voicing its protest, but intervened directly and bluntly in Israeli domestic policy. It demanded the removal from their positions of Defense Ministry director general Amos Yaron and its security chief Yehiel Horev, as they were the ones the U.S. responsible for the actions.
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Indeed the two men in the end did leave their jobs. But the U.S. did not stop there. In response to American pressure, the ministry also established a special department to oversee defense exports.
Since these two incidents and the creation of the department, the Defense Ministry has exercised extreme caution. China, says a diplomatic official, long ago forgave Israel for the offenses and is ready to resume defense ties. The Foreign Ministry is advocating a careful and measured policy. But Defense is standing firm in its position. It is unwilling to approve not only deals for the sale of weapons systems, but also the marketing of basic knowledge or technology to China.
The most obvious test case is the Olympics. After the Chinese initially thought they could rely on themselves alone, they realized they would need knowledge and assistance from experienced countries in order to improve the security of the Beijing Olympiad. They were in fact willing to accept help from any possible source, including Israel. Then foreign minister Silvan Shalom visited China in November 2004 and spoke with his hosts about integrating Israeli companies into ventures and contracts relating to the Olympic games and the Chinese responded in the affirmative.
Then prime minister Ariel Sharon himself told the Chinese that Israel was interested in getting involved in the ventures, and again the reaction was favorable. None of that prevented the Defense Ministry from stepping in and made it difficult for any Israeli company or businessman that attempted to obtain an export permit for security know-how destined for the Olympic games.
In the end, Israeli companies lost out on a large market that could have brought in tens of millions of dollars, and only one company, ISDS, managed to sign on as a consultant for Chinese government security agencies. This is in fact a case of the ministry acting “more Catholic than the pope.” The situation is especially absurd, considering that American companies themselves, led by General Electric, are supplying knowledge, equipment, experts and technology to secure the games, and benefiting from contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
“China is very interested in technologies from Israel,” estimates Prof. Shichor, and therefore is in the company of the Foreign Ministry, which recommends a change in policy toward China. And not just in the matter of defense exports. China is experiencing unprecedented annual economic development, and growth of more than 10 percent a year, and is confidently on the way to becoming the world’s largest financial superpower. Every country is trying to get its foot in the door. The balance of trade between Israel and China totals some $5 billion annually. Israel exports $1 billion worth of goods, knowledge and technologies, and purchases $4 billion worth of goods.
“If Israel doesn’t make a concerted effort,” stresses a Foreign Ministry official, “Israel is likely to lose China.” The Defense Ministry declined comment.
After an investigation that went on for some two years, Defense Ministry director general Pinchas Buchris has decided to clear Dr. Avigdor Shafferman, the director general of the Israel Institute for Biological Research in Nes Tziona, of all suspicions.
The episode, first reported extensively in Haaretz at the time, started during Shafferman’s trip to the United States in the summer of 2006, at the start of a sabbatical year. Shafferman has for years been trying at the Biological Institute – so far with no success – to develop a vaccine against anthrax derived from weakened bacteria. He was employed as a consultant for a Canadian company that was sold to an American company in the same field. In this capacity, Shafferman was included in the company’s stock-options plan. Dr. Yehoshua Gozes, the former head of the institute’s workers committee, who was forced to resign a few years ago due to differences of opinion with Shafferman, submitted a complaint to the security chief of the Defense Ministry. Gozes argued that there was reason to believe that Shafferman had a conflict of interests, and had used knowledge and secrets that are the property of the State of Israel for personal objectives and gain. Yehiel Horev, who was the security chief at the time, reviewed the complaint and concluded that the suspicions of criminal violations were unfounded and passed the complaint on to the Civil Service Commission’s investigations department. The latter found a suspicion of disciplinary violations and recommended holding a disciplinary hearing for Shafferman. “The prosecutor” for the Civil Service Commission, lawyer Assaf Rosenberg, accepted the recommendation and recommended to the Ministry of Defense that it take action against Shafferman in a disciplinary proceeding, in accordance with section 31 of the Civil Service Law. Buchris, following the recommendation, held a hearing for Shafferman, after which he decided not to try him and closed the investigation file. The Civil Service Commission said that the proceedings were properly handled and legal. But the spokesperson of the Defense Ministry did not respond to a request from Haaretz for the director general’s explanation of his decision.
Charles: could all this posturing be dis-informational spin? Naw! Americans are too dumb for that kind for ploy, and anyway both Washington and Jerusalem leak like sieves. Nobody keeps secrets.
We could convert Boeings or others for refueling purposes. It would take time though.
We could buy Russian even through 3rd party.
On the other hand Israel has been preparing for Iranian attack now for over ten years and I can’t believe such important aspect would have been delayed till mow. Who knows?
I smell a lot of spin here but where? and for whose benefit. American spokesperson could just have made no comment.
If I hear that inane statement that if Israel is attacked America would come to our defense I will really scream.
Gates is a motherf*cker.
Excuse my French.
I apologize Ted, I should know better then to let someone get my goat, I hope you accept my sincerest apologizes for my behavior.
Hey Guys, cool it. Focus on the arguments and not on one-upmanship.
That is because you do not have one, by the way, here is some shocking news Elvis is also dead.
I won’t dignify your remarks with a reply.No, really, Barry Goldwater is dead? Don’t be a pompous ass, and there is differences in foreign policy on the right and left, so as you would obnoxiously say, is that the best you got? (technically not really grammatically good sentance, you should have said is that the best you have).
I didn’t say there weren’t real left/right arguments, as if you didn’t know that the post and my comments were referring to foreign policy. Is that the best you got? But as long as you bring up Goldwater who, last I heard, has passed away you’d know that he warned about the exact same foreign policy blunders.
No, there are real Left/Right arguments, because there are small government conservatives who do not like big government liberals, case in point Pat Buchanan, Barry Goldwater, etc.
NoName-
My first comment was simply a dispassionate precis of a radio program. The doctrinaire left/right arguments are there to distract you. Case in Point- The RNC plank of medicaid prescription benefits was the biggest hornswaggle since the social security act, the new, fuzzy, warm, liberal look of the Republicans.
Physician, heal thyself.
NoName-
I speak dispassionately and objectively- It isn’t about political parties but the factions (old school or neocon) within the the ruling elites who are pulling the strings of your leaders who are not there to help you or their countries, but to line their pockets and for self-aggrandisement and power. The boiler plate left/right arguments are just a dog and pony show to distract you. But since you brought it up, it was the Republican Medicaid prescription funding, an RNC plank, that was the biggest socialistic hornswaggle since the Social Security Act. Of course big pharma was there with plenty of campaign contributions for the liberal, warm fuzzy “compassionate conservatism”.
Physician, heal thyself.
Elvis, stop whining about neo-cons, the Democrats are worse with their ideas of universal health care and such, where does th money come from to support it, it comes from the tax payer.
elvis, THE Russians by the balls as Europe gets most of their gas and oil from Russia. Don’t look for any help from NATO, who met today decided nada. Russia stole American Humvees 6-7 That looks great on TV.
Then we have our secret weapon: http://www.nbn.org.il/video/index.htm
More Than 100 Children Arrive as New Immigrants
by Hana Levi Julian
(IsraelNN.com) More than 100 children were among the 290 new “anglo” immigrants who landed at Ben Gurion International Airport Tuesday morning.
An El Al plane, the fourth of five Nefesh B’Nefesh summer aliyah flights from New York, also carried Israel’s newest citizens from Canada, as it touched down just minutes after the seventh Nefesh B’Nefesh group flight from the UK.
Knesset Opposition leader and Likud party chairman Binyamin (Bibi) Netanyahu greeted the new arrivals, along with former Israeli Ambassador to the US and NBN Co-Chairman Danny Ayalon, as well as NBN co-founders Rabbi Yehoshua Fass and Tony Gelbart.
Among the 240 new Israelis arriving from New York were 100 children, 46 families, 18 singles and six IDF soldiers, with the immigrants ranging in age from one month old to 72.
Members of the North American group hailed from 17 different states in the US and two provinces of Canada, and are planning to live as far north as the Golan and as far south as Be’er Sheva, as well as in all points between.
Over the course of the summer, more than 2,000 North American and British Jews are expected to immigrate to the Jewish State through the organization on five specially-chartered flights, in addition to eight group aliyah flights.
Photos: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/127244
Yamit-
[I think the Europeans hate the Russians as much as Brezinski, a lower rung elite Polish, who hates the religious Jews as much as the secularized ones who tried to play footsie with the mainstream society.]
The whole idea, neocon or otherwise, has been to keep Russia from getting a warm southern port for which she has been hegemonic for over five hundred years. Yes, one cannot trust the Muslims which is a lesson the West cannot appreciate. If Ohmert weren’t such a pussy in Lebanon then things may have turned out differently as he seriously diminished the the power and credibility of the neocons. It looks like he was the fly in their ointment. Israel has always been the USA’s weird uncle in the attic without a defense pact, but called upon to do unsavory tasks when required. Personally, I never believed the ‘bringing democracy to the muslims line’ since free will is entirely opposite of Islam (i.e. submission) — or that it would help in any of the elite plans for a harmonious one world economic order (minus Russian influence, heh…). The real fly in the ointment is to honor Hashem, and never to trust any so-called leader.
Elvis. Brezinski Hates two entities: Russians and Jews and not necessarily in that order, if he is involved you could be right.
On the other hand Israel doesn’t have to just sit back and take it we could play fly in the ointment? or not! The Arabs are not reliable allies and you can excuse western Europe so that leaves only Eastern Europe, who based on America’s performance with Georgia might just try and make the best deal they can with the Russians. It seems to me The Americans have been suckered and done in by their own stupidity and greed. The lesson here for Israel is get out from under America as fast as they can even if it means joining the Russian side and even if it is tacit. We can not now more than ever rely on America especially with such high stakes for us on the line.
Since we are no longer considered an ally of America Lets consider them if not an enemy at least not a friend. Then do what ever we must.
Of all the names given in the article, the most important is James “F*ck the Jews” Baker. He is the one who had Reagan “order” Menachem begin to stop what would have been a clear victory in Beirut (and would have left us without the mess we have now). He was the one behind denying Izthak Shamir loan guarantees, and he has been behind a lot of things which have cause unnecessary loss of lives for Israelis and Americans.
I am positive he is behind all of this (probably through the first President Bush as a conduit to his son) and is just as evil as Osama Bin Laden as far as I am concerned.
The transformation from the neocon vision of hegemony, the West against the ME, has now reverted to the cold war paradigm vision with Bush’s last gasp cave-in to North Korea, and the subsequent invasion of Georgia. This according to Tamar Yonah’s interview of Webster Tarpley. In a nutshell, it is Brezinski’s strategy with Obama as figurehead to rally the Europeans against Russia with Bush as interim proxy rearming Poland and cajoling Russian troops to Georgia. Mac could still be elected, but wouldn’t have been able to draw the adoring Eurothrong. So it is again the strategy to bolster Iran hoping for a second front against Russia. Israel will be an expendable bit player expected to make continuing sacrifices to the “Palestinians”.Recall how Chamberlain held out a peace treaty as the West was rearming post World War One Germany in clandestine hope that they and the Soviet Union would annihilate one another.
Who ever the new American President will be we should expect Americas enemies, competitors and some combination of the two, to test their leadership metal. Israel as well by that time should have new leadership or be in the process of choosing one. It seems possible and even probable that with the next 6-7 months we should have a much clearer. picture of where the various lines have been drawn and who will cross them first? We live in interesting times.
Can Israel always count on American support?
Short answer: No. The current American President has been called (for reasons not very clear to me) the one who has been most friendly to Israel.
But he is a Republican, and the Republican party is a composite. The traditional Republican WASP hereditary aristocracy have always been Jew-haters. The WASP dominance of the State Department, CIA, FBI, and military have made those institutions quite frosty toward Jews (look at the disproportionately harsh treatment of Jonathan Pollard). (FDR, although a Democrat, was a WASP aristocrat. If a blood vessel in his brain hadn’t burst while he was fooling around with his mistress, there never would have been an Israel.)
The current President, though, originally did not favor the traditional WASP Republicans, and at first was more heavily influenced by the Christian evangelical Zionists, and the neo-Cons (self made men, many of whom were Jewish). He followed their advice, and ended up in the disastrous occupation of Iraq. The Republicans were then heavily repudiated in the 2006 elections. This gave the traditional Republican WASP Jew-hating, Arab-lovers a chance to regain control.
So since then we have seen the Iraq Study Group blaming Israel for everything, the castigation of the neo-cons as part of a Jewish conspiracy led by American Jews with “dual loyalties”, the Walt-Mearsheimer report (published by Harvard) claiming that America is controlled by something called the “Israel lobby”, the National Intelligence Estimate giving Iran a free pass to develop nukes to use against Israel, and the Annapolis Road Map to Israel’s destruction.
So if that’s the friendliest American president Israel has ever had, then Israel is in deep doo-doo.
Not very shocking, the US has appeased many enemies of Israel. Saudi Arabia still touts the false and disgraced rag “The Protocols of the Elder’s of Zion”, they teach their children that Jews drink blood on Passover and do not even recognize Israel on their world maps. Bush would probably force Israel to give up the strategic Golan Heights to appease the Syrians. Bush wants to dismantle the settlements in Judea and Samaria, doing this to appease the Palestinians, despite that land historically belonging to the Jews. The US played nice with Russia, even when Russia tried keeping Jews from moving to Israel and let India pressure Israel into not alloing people to convert to Judaism and move to Israel (kind of weird because India claims to be a democracy, yet freedom of religon is almost non-existant). Israel is the only chance the world has to stop Iran, and yet the US is stupidly tying Israel’s hands (hopefully the Germans will deliver the subs Israel bought, though the US might try and pressure Germany to not deliver).