Tim Anderson: US and Israeli involvement in the war on Yemen

الانتداب المالي أقصر الطرق للارتهان السياسيّ اللبنانيّ!

د. وفيق إبراهيم

النظام السياسي للبناني مرتهن دائماً للخارج السياسي الدولي الإقليمي الذي يُغطيه ويرعاه، الا أن نجاح حزب الله في طرد الاسرائيلي والارهاب في لبنان ومعظم سورية، ادى الى ولادة ظروف داخلية لتحالفه مع التيار الوطني الحر.

لقد أنتج هذا التحالف استقراراً لبنانياً اجتماعياً وسياسياً أجهض مشاريع الفتن المذهبية والطائفية… لكن الغطاء الخارجي للقوى السياسيّة اللبنانية، حماها في مشاريع السطو على الاقتصاد البناني وإفلاس البلاد.

وتمكنت من توحيد الاقتصاد اللبناني لأنها استغلت الصراع بين ثلاثة مشاريع اقليمية، الاول هو المشروع الاميركي الذي ابتدأ بغزو افغانستان والمشرق منذ 2001 لإعادة إنتاج شرق اوسط جديد. والثاني هو المشروع الاسلاماوي ذهب نحو بناء خلافة اسلامية مزعومة بالقتل والذبح والتسعير الطائفي والعرقي واقصى درجات الارهاب.

اما المشروع الثالث فهو «المقاوم» الذي جابه الاميركيين والارهاب وقوى يمنية عراقية سورية لبنانية مرتبطة بهم مسدداً ضربات متواصلة لهذه القوى أدت الى منع الاستفراد الاميركي مع قواه المحلية ببلدان المنطقة. الا ان لبنان بسبب طائفية نظامه المغطاة أيضاً من الطبقة الدينية المتمثلة بالمفتين والكرادلة وشيوخ العقل والمطارين، تمكنت من استغلال الصراع بين المشاريع المذكورة للاستمرار في سطوها على كامل الاقتصاد اللبناني والادارة والدين والتعليم والقضاء والجيش وسط انهماك المقاومين بالتصدي للعدوين الأكثر خطورة، «اسرائيل» والارهاب والغطاء الاميركي السميك.

هذا ما ادى الى الانهيار الاقتصادي الدراماتيكي في لبنان، وعجز الدولة عن إعادة ترميم بناها الدستورية، واستمرارها في تبني أسلوب التحاصص الحكومي وكأن شيئاً لم يكن.

هذا النظام يعرف أنه لا يزال حاجة أميركية، ويدرك ايضاً انه ليس جزءاً من الاستهدافات الأميركية في الشر، بقدر ما يشكل حليفاً أساسياً لحركتها في لبنان والإقليم إذا كان ذلك ممكناً.

بذلك يتبدّى مشهد حقيقي، قد يراه بعض المحللين صعب التصديق، وهو نجاح المقاومة في الحماية الوطنية والسياسية للمنطقة، مقابل نجاح القوى المحلية التقليدية في تنفيذ أكبر عملية فساد في التاريخ، ورسوخها في مواقفها الدستورية.

هنا تفتق الابتكار الغربي عن خطة جديدة للسيطرة على لبنان، يجري العمل على تنفيذها باسلوب متدحرج.

المؤشرات الاولى لهذا المخطط هو الدفع نحو فوضى سياسية واقتصادية واجتماعية طائفيّة تهدف الى تشديد العزلة على الجناح اللبناني المقاوم، تريد هذه السياسة إفهام المواطن اللبناني أنه جائع بسبب حزب الله الذي يضفي صورة غير مستقرة على الوضع الداخلي. ويمنع هيئات النقد الدولية من دون تسليف لبنان ما يحتاجه وهذا يدفع نحو المزيد من الانقسامات الداخلية والتصدع المذهبي والطائفي.

بالمقابل، يقوم الإعلام الغربي والداخلي الموالي له بتسريب معلومات من الصناديق الدولية يرد فيها أن مؤشر «سيدر» جاهز لتقديم ديون للبنان مقدارها اثنا عشر مليار دولار وصندوق النفقد الدولي خمسة عشر مليارات وبين مليار وخمسة مليارات من البنك الدولي. لكن دون الحصول على هذه الأموال، ضرورة اشراف هذه المؤسسات المالية الدولية على النظام الاقتصادي اللبناني لمدة خمس سنوات على الأقل، بمواكبة هذه الارقام المغرية لبلد مفلس كلبنان تصل أوامر اميركية بالبريد الدبلوماسي السريع ان الحكومة المرتقبة يجب ان لا تضم وزراء من حزب الله… هذا يعني باللغة الصريحة ان اسماء الوزراء الجدد يجب أن تنال مسبقاً موافقة السفارة الأميركية.

هذا المشروع الاميركي الجديد هو اذا مخطط لانتداب على لبنان لخمس سنوات متواصلة قابلة للتجديد عبر الهيمنة الاقتصادية او الفوضى…

اما مهامها الفعلية، فهي التوقيع على ترسيم الحدود البحرية بين لبنان وفلسطين المحتلة، وفتح ملف سلاح حزب الله، باعتبار أن اسباب وجوده لم تعد اساسية، لان ابواب المفاوضات على الحدود البرية أصبحت مفتوحة مع الكيان المحتل… وهذا يشمل بالطبع إيلاء شركة شيفرون الاميركية ومثيلاتها حقوق التنقيب في آبار الغاز اللبنانية بالتعاون مع الطبقة السياسية اللبنانية التي نهبت البلاد في الثلاثين سنة الماضية.

أليست هذه من فئة الحروب الاميركية الجديدة عبر استعمال السلاح الاقتصادي للإمساك بسياسات الدول.

لبنان اذاً أمام إرهاب اميركي غربي كبير فهل يستسلم له ام يجد وسيلة لإجهاضه؟

إن ما يحبط المشروع الخارجي المستهدف للبنان، هو اتفاق القوى السياسية اللبنانية على مسألتين: الاولى ان آبار الغاز والنفط اللبنانية هي حصراً لوقف الانهيار الاقتصادي من دون ربطها بشروط سياسية او تركها بجشع القوى السياسية الداخلية.. وهذا يتطلب إعلاناً وطنياً من الرئاسات الثلاث للدولة بتحريم أي دور لأي سياسي لبناني او من يمثله في موضوعها… وهذا يتطلب تشكيل لجنة وطنية عليا نزيهة وتدير نفسها من دون تعليمات من قوى النظام السياسي، وتعمل على المكشوف في التظهير الإعلامي المباشر للناتج وطرق إنفاقه على اولويات وطنية. وفقط من دون الغرق في لعبة توازنات الطوائف التي يتبنى فينا بعد انها توازنات في السطو على المال العام بين أحزاب الطوائف.

إن الاتفاق بين القوى السياسية يردع المشروع الاميركي ويدفعه الى تراجع كبير..

اما لجهة حزب الله فيجب الإقرار انه سلاح داخلي واقليمي يتصدى لـ«اسرائيل» والارهاب.. بمعنى ان لا امكانية لسحبه الا بعد انتهاء إرهاب يؤكد الأميركيون والأوروبيون على استمرار وجوده.

اما السبب الآخر فيتعلق بالاحتلال الاسرائيلي لأراض لبنانية وسورية واسعة. وهذا بمفرده كافٍ لدعم حزب الله في مواصلة تصديه للعدو الاسرائيلي، وإعادة تسليح الجيش اللبناني بأسلحة موازية للأخطار المحيطة بلبنان والتي تتجاوز بكل تأكيد أسلحة الشرطة التي يتباهى الأميركيون بانهم يقدمونها للبنان في حين ان كل المصادر الدولية تؤكد أن هناك خطراً أميركياً على تسليح الجيش اللبناني بأسلحة فعالة لمجابهة العدوانية الاسرائيلية.

ما يجب أن يشجع كل القوى السياسية اللبنانية على المطالبة باستمرار حزب الله للدفاع عن لبنان واللبنانيين من كل الطوائف ومصادر ثرواته.

المواجهة بين الأوهام الأميركيّة والحقائق الميدانيّة…

العميد د. أمين محمد حطيط

ابتغت أميركا مما أسمته «الربيع العربي» عموماً، ومن الحرب الكونية على سورية ومحور المقاومة خصوصاً، إعادة صياغة الشرق الأوسط وفقاً لخرائط استراتيجية جديدة تحصّن الأحادية القطبية التي عملت من أجلها وتزيل أيّ عقبة من أمامها في هذا السياق، شجعها على ذلك أنّ العالم بشكل عام والدول التي تخشى من عرقلتها للمهمة بشكل خاص موزعة بين تابع تملكه (دول الخليج) وحليف تملك قراره (أوروبا بشكل عام) أو مترنّح أزيح من الخطوط الأمامية دولياً (روسيا) أو حذر يخشى على اقتصاده من أيّ مواجهة ذات طبيعة أو بعد عسكري (الصين) أو محاصر يئنّ تحت وطأة العقوبات الاقتصادية والحصار السياسي والتهديد العسكري (إيران وسورية).

أما الخريطة التي توخّت أميركا الوصول إليها فهي صورة لمنطقة تكون «إسرائيل» مديرتها الإقليمية بعد أن تكتمل عمليات «التطبيع» مع جميع البلدان العربية، وبعد أن تضع أيّ دولة بين خيارين أما التطبيع والاستسلام الكلي للمشيئة الأميركية او الحصار والعزل وصولاً الى الانهيار والتدمير الداخلي. فأميركا لا تتقبّل فكرة قيام رأي معارض لمشيئتها أياً كان صاحب هذا الرأي ـ لأنّ أميركا تتصرّف وللأسف وفقاً لنظرية «الحق الإلهي» التي تعتمدها والتي عبّر عنها بوش الابن في لحظة زهو في أوائل القرن الحالي، حيث قال «أرسلني الله لأنقذ البشرية» وإن «العناية الإلهية جعلت من أميركا قائدة للعالم».

وبعد نيّف وعقد من الزمن وبعد المآسي والدمار والقتل والتشريد الذي أحدثته الحرب الإرهابية الأميركية في المنطقة من تونس وليبيا غرباً الى سورية والعراق شرقاً مروراً باليمن طبعاً، اعتبرت أميركا انها حققت ما تريد وأنها أنهكت او دمّرت عدوّها وباتت قادرة على الاستثمار والانطلاق الى جني النتائج التي خططت للوصول اليها وهنا تكمن الخطيئة وسوء التقدير الأميركي الذي إنْ لم يعالج قبل فوات الأوان فإنه سيقود الى مرحلة دموية خطيرة في العالم تتقدّم في مستواها وشراستها عما سبق في العقد الأخير الماضي وتنقلب على أميركا سوءاً بدرجة لا تتصوّرها.

ولانّ أميركا تعتقد او تتصوّر بانّ حربها على العرب حققت نتائجها، فإنها أطلقت «صفقة القرن» في مطلع العام الحالي وراحت تسارع الخطى الى التطبيع بين العرب و«إسرائيل»، وتتوعّد إيران بعقوبات متجدّدة عليها وكأنّ الاتفاق النووي لم يحصل او أنها تمكّنت من الإمساك بقرار العالم كما كانت تمني النفس يوم أطلقت فكرة النظام العالمي القائم على الأحادية لقطبيّة بقيادتها.

تريد أميركا وبكلّ صلف وغرور أن تحمّل كلّ الدول العربية على التطبيع، وبعد أن كان لها تطبيع من دولتين خليجيتين، يروّج ترامب انّ 6 دول أخرى قيد الانتظار وانّ الباقي لن يطول تردّده في الالتحاق بالركب. اما الممانعون وبشكل خاص إيران وسورية ولبنان فقد أعدّت لكلّ منهم نوعاً من الضغوط تقود بالظنّ الأميركي الى الخضوع. وهنا يكمن سوء التقدير الأميركي لا بل الخطيئة الاستراتيجية الكبرى ايضاً.

تظنّ أميركا انّ ضغوطاً على إيران وحزب الله، قد تحملهما على مواجهة عسكرية تبرّر لأميركا استعراض قوتها العسكرية ضدّهما تحت عنوان دفاعي، ما يجعل ترامب يحصد مع كلّ صاروخ يطلقه الجيش الأميركي على «أعدائه» يحصد أصواتاً إضافية في الانتخابات وقد يكون بومبيو ومعه صقور الجمهوريين قد أقنعوا ترامب انّ السبيل الأقصر لربح الانتخابات التي يتأرجح المصير فيها الآن هو حرب محدودة مع إيران وحزب الله يقوم خلالها بضربة سريعة خاطفة ثم يتفرّغ للانتخابات التي ستكون نتائجها حتماً في صالحه.

بيد أنّ التقدير الأميركي يبسط الأمور الى حدّ الخفة والسطحية تقريباً ويتناسى المتغيّرات الدولية التي جعلت من عالم 2020 مختلفاً كلياً عن عالم 2010، وإذا كان المفهوم الاستراتيجي للحلف الأطلسي الذي وضع للعقد الماضي قد حقق شيئاً من أغراضه فإنّ النتائج الاستراتيجية التي كان يرمي إليها بقيت بعيدة المنال. وها هو الحلف الأطلسي يُخفق في اعتماد مفهوم استراتيجي جديد يلتفّ حوله الجميع من الأعضاء كما انّ كيان الحلف بذاته واستمراره بات في الأشهر الأخيرة تحت علامات استفهام ما يعني أنّ الحلف لن يكون شريكاً لأميركا في خططها.

اما أوروبا فإنها وجدت بعد العقد الماضي وعملها العسكري خارج نطاقها الإقليمي، كم هو التباين بينها وبين أميركا في المصالح بخاصة في الشرق الأوسط، ما جعل الدول الأساسية فيها تفكر بسياسة أوروبية مستقلة لا تغضب أميركا في بداياتها، ولكنها ستتمايز عنها في جوهرها ما يجعل أيّ حرب تشنّها أميركا على أحد حرباً أميركية فقط ليس لأوروبا ضلع فيها. وما الموقف الأوروبي في مجلس الأمن في معرض الطلب الأميركي لاستئناف العقوبات على إيران ربطاً بالملف النووي إلا أول الغيث.

وعلى الاتجاه الروسي، فنعتقد انّ أميركا تعاني من المرارة الكبرى فقبل «الربيع العربي» والحرب الكونية كانت روسيا دولة داخلية بعيدة عن مسارح التأثير العالمي، أما اليوم فقد باتت ركناً أساسياً في النظام الدولي قيد التشكل وفاعلاً رئيسياً في الشرق الأوسط لا يقتصر وجودها وتأثيرها على سورية فقط بل يتعدّاها الى أفريقيا (ليبيا) وتستعدّ ليكون لها كلمة في اليمن أيضاً. وبهذا يكون العدوان الأميركي على المنطقة شكّل بطاقة دعوة او استدعاء ذهبياً لروسيا لتخرج من عزلتها وتحتلّ مقعداً أمامياً ينافسها على الصعيد الدولي العام.

اما الصين التي تؤرق أميركا بشكل عميق فقد جعلت من اقتصادها متقدماً على الاقتصاد الأميركي ولم تنفع كل تدابير الإرهاب والحصار الاقتصادي في كبحه، فاجأتها الصين أيضاً حيث قدمت جديداً في مجال الصراع هو ايحاؤها الاستعداد لاستعمال القوة لحماية نفسها واقتصادها وتحضيرها مع حلفائها للاستغناء عن الدولار أيضاً.

وفي إيران التي تعوّل أميركا اليوم عليها لتكون الحقل التي تزرعه قذائف تحصدها أصواتاً انتخابية تثبت ترامب في البيت الأبيض لأربع سنوات أخرى، نرى أنها تتبع سياسة مركبة تهدف الى حرمان ترامب من الأوراق التي يريدها من المواجهة، وحرمان ترامب من إحكام الحصار عليها، وصيانة علاقتها مع الأوروبيين من دون تراخٍ أمامهم وتمتين علاقاتها مع روسيا والصين وتجنب الصدام مع تركيا، هذا من جهة؛ اما من جهة أُخرى فإنها تستمرّ في تحشيد القوة العسكرية الدفاعية التي تفشل أيّ عدوان عليها وتستمر في خوض الحرب النفسية المرتكزة الى عوامل ميدانية مؤكدة التأثير وما مناوراتها العسكرية الأخيرة إلا وجهاً من وجوه عرض القوة الدفاعية المستندة الى فكرة الهجوم بوجه أميركا.

وبالعودة الى سورية، نجد وبشكل يقيني انّ كلّ ما حلمت به أميركا هناك بات في غياهب التاريخ، وأننا ننتظر في الأشهر المقبلة معالجة متدرجة لملفي إدلب والجزيرة (شرقي الفرات) بشكل لا يبقي للمحتلّ الأميركي أو التركي إثراً في الميدان يعيق تثبيت سيادة سورية على كلّ أرضها، معالجة نراها منطلقة من عمل عسكري لا بدّ منه أولاً وتستكمل بتفاهمات وتسويات يضطر اليها الفريق المعتدي وتحرم الأميركي مما يتوخاه.

ونختم بلبنان ونجد أنّ المؤامرة الأميركية لعزل المقاومة وحصار لبنان ودفعه لتفاوض مباشر مع «إسرائيل» بضغط أميركي يقود للتنازل عن المناطق المحتلة في البر وعددها 13 بالإضافة الى الغجر ومزارع شبعا، والتسليم لـ «إسرائيل» بما تريد في المنطقة الاقتصادية في البحر واقتطاع ما يناهز الـ 400 كلم2 من أصل 862 كلم2 متنازع عليها، كلّ ذلك لن يحصل لأن المقاومة لن تتخلى عن حقها في التمثيل الحكومي ولأن قرار لبنان لن يكون كما تشتهي أميركا حتى ولو اشتدّ الحصار وتعاظم الانهيار الذي تصنعه أميركا للبنان.

وعليه نقول إنّ العالم في حقيقته ليس كما تراه أميركا بعينها، وإنّ تطبيع دولتين خليجيتين واهنتين لا يعني نجاح صفقة القرن، وإن وجود 800 جندي أميركي الآن في سورية و3000 في العراق لا يعني انّ الدولتين في القبضة الأميركية، وإن النطق بغير حق باسم مجلس الأمن ضدّ إيران والقول باستئناف العقوبات الأممية عليها لا يعني انّ العالم انصاع للقرار الأميركي. فأميركا توهِم نفسها أنها تربح أو انّ بإمكانها اختزال إرادة العالم، ولكن الحلم الأميركي يصطدم بصخور الحقيقة فيتكسّر وتبقى الحقيقة صارخة لمن يريدها، فأميركا اليوم ليست أميركا 1990 وزمن الطموح لحكم العالم ولّى الى غير رجعة مع اشتداد بأس خصومها وأعدائها وتراخي وضعف أتباعها وابتعاد وتفكك حلفائها عنها.

Hezbollah vs Israel 2006: Who has upper hand 14 years on?

Original links:
Part 1: http://middleeastobserver.net/hezbollah-vs-israel-2006-who-has-upper-hand-14-years-on-pt-1/
Part 2: http://middleeastobserver.net/hezbollah-vs-israel-2006-who-has-upper-hand-14-years-on-pt-2/

Description:

Senior Lebanese political analyst Nasser Qandil explores what has changed between Hezbollah and Israel over the last 14 years since the ‘July War’ or ‘The Second Lebanon War’ in 2006.

After tracing the major changes and transformations in the military balance of power between the two sides over the last 14 years, Qandil then explores the current challenges facing Hezbollah inside Lebanon, particularly regarding the deepening economic and political crises in the country.

Note: we have added our own sub-headings in the below transcript to make for easier reading

Source: Al Mayadeen News

Date:  July 12, 2020

(Important Note: Please help us keep producing independent translations for you by contributing as little as $1/month here: https://www.patreon.com/MiddleEastObserver?fan_landing=true)

Transcript:

Hezbollah 14 years on from the July War

Nasser Qandil:

Actually, regarding (Hezbollah’s) achievement of liberation (in the year 2000) free from any conditions or negotiations, any analyst can figure out that after the year 2000, the region was involved in a race between the Resistance and (Israeli) Army of occupation in which both (sides) tried to reinforce the reality that they wanted to reflect on May 24, 2000 (i.e. just before the liberation).

Israel wanted to say that it has positioned itself on the borders with the purpose of protecting the interior (of Israel); that the era of (the war of) attrition has ended; and that it is moving into a stage where it is able to direct (its) deterrent capacity at will. In contrast, the Resistance wanted to say that Israel has humiliatingly and forcefully withdrawn (from Lebanon); and that this withdrawal is not only the beginning of a countdown of the (Israeli) entity’s capacity to hold onto (occupied) land, but also (its capacity) to go to any (new) war again as well.

Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 and the Al Aqsa Uprising (“Al Aqsa Intifada”) certified what the Resistance was saying. (Israel’s) 2006 war on Lebanon was the contest that had to settle the previous contests and the (side) who wins this round, cements what it has said. Israel has worked on a plan, theory, mechanisms and appraisals, that is, it didn’t go haphazardly to war (in 2006). In short, Israel counted on “air warfare” theory and put it into practice the (2006) war. However, the Resistance was aware of that, so it opted to strengthen its power on land, in order to cancel out the theory of air warfare, and to bring the enemy to the land to fight, engage in (battles) of attrition, and (ultimately) defeat it.

The Resistance was the victor. This was the outcome (of the war), because when we talk about ‘victory’ we are not referring to the historic and final defeat. Rather, we are just discussing this war (in 2006) in which the Resistance achieved victory and Israel was defeated again. As in the Lebanon war of the year 2000, or (more accurately) as reflected by the liberation in the (year) 2000, Israel lost its first pillar, that is, its ability to occupy (Lebanon) and remain in it. It also lost its second pillar in the 2006 war, which is its ability to wage war and achieve the goals (that it sets) as it wills.

After the 2006 war, the issue (between both sides) persisted. They entered a totally new and different race. The entity of the (Israeli) occupation is fighting to restore its honor and rehabilitate its image, whereas the Resistance is fighting the battle of becoming a regional power able to make the deterrence weapon (itself as) the policymaker. Since the year 2006, America put its weight behind (Israel’s goals) since Israel is not able to survive any longer without American protection and support. America went to Iraq after realizing that Israel superiority is (gradually) being eroded, and that it is important to rehabilitate its power and control through the American military presence to compensate for the deficiency in Israel’s ability that came about after Lebanon’s liberation in the year 2000 and the Al Aqsa intifada.

Host:

We all remember Condoleezza Rice and the ‘New Middle East Project’.

Nasser Qandil:

Exactly, and this was at the heart of the 2006 war. However, before this (war), America went to Iraq in order to redress the imbalance occurred after Lebanon’s liberation in 2000 and the Al Aqsa intifada, but they failed. The “July War” (2006) came as a second rehabilitation supported by American pressure, calculations and backing. It was a new failure that was added to the accumulated record of failures.

The only available alternative (choice) then was going to a great war, i.e. to topple Syria. This was like Armageddon. Nevertheless, other different battles, the Yemen war and the battle over the future of Iraq, occurred alongside the war (in Syria). They were no less important than the (war in Syria). Today, 14 years after the July War (in 2006), we can talk about facts and not about general trends only. The resistance (movements) transformed from being a resistance force into an Axis of Resistance. This becomes a fact; it is not just words. Today, when his eminence Sayyed (Hassan Nasrallah) speaks and says “I will kill you” – we’ll discuss this later – this (statement) reflects the (powerful reality) of the Axis of Resistance, from Beirut, to Palestine, to Iraq, to Yemen, to Iran and to Syria. This is the first major transformation that occurred between the years 2006 to 2020 during the heat of the several wars that raged over the map of the region.

The second (major transformation during these years): the ‘missile belt’ is now able to strike – from any point (within the Axis of Resistance) – any target in occupied Palestine (i.e. Israel). This means that as the resistance in Palestine is able to target all (areas of Israel) north of Gaza, the resistance in south Lebanon can target the entire (area of Israel) south (of Lebanon); the resistance from Iraq is even able to reach the (Mediterranean) sea; the resistance in Yemen can cover the whole territory of Palestine; and that’s besides (the missiles capabilities of) Syria and Iran.

The Host:

The entire Israeli intelligence efforts have lately been centered on the missile capabilities of the resistance.

Nasser Qandil:

This ‘(missile) belt’ has been completed; it is not a subject of discussion anymore.

The third (major) development is the entrance of the drones (UAVs).  The use of this weapon is not restricted to the Lebanese front line. Israel has evidence that confirms that. How many times were drones sent by the resistance from Lebanon? How many times were the Israelis lost because they failed to track the drones sent from Gaza? (Further evidence lies in) the drones in Yemen, and the achievement of the Aramco attack (in Saudi Arabia) that the godfather of the Dimona (Israeli nuclear program) and Thomas Friedman wrote about it an important article in the New York Times. The article states that what happened in Aramco (can be) repeated on all American military bases in the Middle East, and can be repeated (in a strike) on Dimona. Moreover, one of the Israeli generals quoted by Thomas Friedman during a telephone conversation says that it seems that we must now relinquish the status of being the number one technicians in the Middle East, (and cede that status) to Hezbollah and its allies, and (we ought to) call upon our people to carry hand rifles  in any coming wars in which drones are used.  Henceforth, the third factor is the drones.

The fourth (major) new factor is the precision-guided missiles which formed the center of the struggle during the last two or three years of the Syrian war. The Israeli (air) raids which initially aimed at stopping the supply of weapons to the resistance (from Syria to Lebanon) turned into a specific goal (during these years) which became ‘preventing the resistance from the possibility of transforming their missiles into precision-guided ones’. Today, the Israelis speak about precision-guided missile factories and this signifies that they have surrendered to this fact.

The last issue we are ignorant of was revealed by the video published (recently) by (Hezbollah’s) military media which says “Mission accomplished”. Certainly, it is not referring to the precision-guided missiles because his eminence Sayyed (Hassan Nasrallah) has already announced clearly and publicly that ‘yes, we have enough precision-guided missiles to hit any vital Israeli military installation in occupied Palestine’.  But we still don’t know what is meant by “Mission accomplished”. This will stay one of the resistance’s surprises in the coming wars.

Israel 14 years on from the July War

Nasser Qandil:

What have Israel and America achieved in return? Their situation now is similar to that in the July War (2006); they go to war today on one foot only. It was the air force in (the) July (War) that they relied upon, and it is the financial sanctions (that they rely upon) today. Did the Resistance succeed in breaking this foot?  I say “Yes, and we will expand on this discussion later.

Host:

We will continue discussing why the resistance succeeded…

Nasser Qandil:

In the first section we talked about the progress achieved by the resistance (Hezbollah) from 2006 to 2020. Israel also worked (on building its power) during these 14 years. Let u see what it did.

Host: …and of course (Israel) was given a green light by the US.

Nasser Qandil:

First of all, Israel focused on the home front. Its main aim was not to draw up a plan to seize the initiative, but to face the fallout of the July War. The resistance (Hezbollah) has risen higher and higher in its level of readiness, its networking capabilities (i.e. greater integration of the Resistance Axis across the region), and its ability to wage war. Meanwhile, what did the (Israeli) entity do?

(First), the Iron Dome that (Israel) was preparing (in order to intercept) Katyusha missiles is now threatened by precision-guided missiles and drones. (The Israelis) went back to saying that they will shoot down missiles with hunting rifles!

(Second), the (Israeli) home front has further collapsed, and now in the time of Corona, it is even worse.

Third, political fragmentation, which is one of the repercussions of the July War. Since the July War, the (Israeli) entity has been mired in its inability to reestablish a historical (political) bloc capable of leading the entity politically. This fragmentation reached its peak with three (consecutive) repeats of the election.

The last point that (Israel) has discovered (over the last 14 years) is that there is no solution to is broken spirit, because we are not only talking about equipment, armies, weapons and logistical plans, we are talking about human beings, about their mental condition. The resistance (Hezbollah) is now becoming more and more confident that it can bring down the (Israeli) entity. When his eminence Sayyed (Nasrallah) comes out and says in one of his recent appearances that there is a real possibility that the (Israeli) entity will collapse without war, and that this generation is going to witness the liberation of Jerusalem…On the other hand, we find the (Israeli) entity in a state of frustration. No matter how many (Israeli) generals say “We will win. Victory is ours in the coming war. We are waiting for the right opportunity to wage war”…what are you (Israelis) waiting for? You and the Americans said: “Time is not in our favor. Yesterday’s war is better than a war today, and a war today is better than a war tomorrow.”

Host:

Who is going to achieve Israel’s goals today? Who is the principal agent? The US? Because, as you said in one of your articles, Sayyed Nasrallah’s recent speech on 7/7/2020, presents the most vivid example of the (resistance’s) ability to defeat the Israeli occupation and American hegemony. But how is he (Nasrallah) able today to combine this (military) resistance with economic resistance?

The third pillar of the Resistance: economic reconstruction

Nasser Qandil:

What I want to get to is that in one of his appearances, his eminence Sayyed Nasrallah cut to the chase and said: “The resistance (Hezbollah) has already overtaken Israel. Israel is still standing thanks to US protection.” In 1996, the Resistance discovered – and this was the secret behind the liberation in the year 2000 – that the Israelis remained (in Lebanon) because they were under the illusion that the border buffer zone (that Israel established within Lebanese territory) protects the (Israeli) entity from the missiles of the resistance. So if (Israel) realizes that the border (buffer zone) is pointless and that the entity will be targeted no matter what, it will withdraw. And this is what happened (in the year 2000).

Today, his eminence Sayyed (Nasrallah) tells us that the resistance is certain that the (Israeli) entity continues to survive only because of the American presence (in the region), and that the decisive battle with the entity is a battle to expel the Americans from the region.

Whoever analyses the (American) sanctions and the logic behind them will discover that they are not aimed at escalating the situation such that it provokes a full-scale confrontation. This is nothing but propaganda. In fact, these sanctions have direct political goals. I mean, (Lebanese) parties affiliated to the US (in Lebanon) are proposing (very high demands such as) the disarmament (of Hezbollah) and the implementation of Resolution 1559 because this is the American approach. Just as they (Americans) did in 1983 with (Lebanese) President Amine Gemayel when they told him that they were (about to attack) Syria at the same time in which they were engaged in negotiations with (Syria). Two months later, McFarlane) the special US envoy to the Middle East) was asked: “why did you back out (of the attack)? You would have put (Gemayel) in big trouble.” McFarlane answered: “if we told (Gemayel) that we were (negotiating) with Damascus, he would have beat us to it. We trick our allies to make them think that we are escalating for the sake of imposing stronger terms in the negotiations.”

What do Americans want from the Caesar Act? Why are the Americans putting pressure on Lebanon, blocking access to US dollars in the (Lebanese) market, preventing the transfer of dollars to the country, and closing lines of credit – via the Central Bank of Lebanon’s accounts -for the purchase of fuel? What do they want? The Americans are not hiding (their intentions). They told us what they want. James Jeffrey (US Special Representative for Syria Engagement) told us. Why the Caesar Act? He said in the live appearance he made in which he spoke about the Act. He said ‘we wish to go back to (the balance of power) that existed before 2011. What does he mean by “before 2011”? He means the time when “we (Americans) will acknowledge the victory of President Assad. We were not present (in Syria before 2011), but Hezbollah and Iran were not there either. We leave (Syria), but (Hezbollah and Iran must) leave too.”

So he (Jeffrey) wants to ensure the security of the (Israeli) occupying entity in southern Syria by hinting at sanctions against Russia as the main target of the Caesar Act. Syria will be hit by sanctions anyway and Iran is drowning in a sea of sanctions. Therefore, these sanctions are actually against Russia. The Caesar Act was introduced originally at the beginning of 2016 in order to reach a compromise with Russia in relation to the battle in Aleppo. However, (the Caesar Act) now aims at reaching an agreement with Russia over the terms of the withdrawal of US forces from Syria and is not aimed at (prolonging) their stay.

Second, regarding Lebanon, David Schenker (US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs) publicly appeared on TV and said that Hezbollah is involved in ‘corruption, smuggling, money laundering, causing devastation, and that it is the cause of the crisis (in Lebanon)’ etc. Give it to me directly (Schenker), what do you want? He (Schenker) told us directly that “you are suffering greatly (due to the economic crisis). You have promising gas reserves in the (Mediterranean) sea, but they are in a region that is the subject of a dispute with Israel. We (the US) presented you with a plan, so accept it! So the US wants an exit strategy that provides the (Israeli) occupying entity with a security belt on the Syrian and the Lebanese fronts, and (the US seeks to achieve this) by exerting “maximum pressure on the resistance”.

———

Nasser Qandil:

This is the third pillar of the power of the Resistance. The first pillar is military capability. The second pillar is the political front, meaning the Axis of Resistance. The third pillar is economic reconstruction. Without a resistance economy, the resistance cannot speak of an ability to maintain a level of cohesion within its support base and environment. What I want to say here is that the measures and steps taken by the resistance are not new. It is not true that the resistance, being under pressure at the moment, is now discovering or searching (for solutions). This was in fact its original program. Its original program was and is ‘Openness to the East’, that (Lebanon) have multiple sources (for economic, financial, and political relations). Its original program is aimed at breaking the borders (created by) Sykes-Picot between the countries of the region to form a single (economic) market. Its original program is aimed at relying on industry, agriculture and the national currency for exchange with neighboring countries and where possible. This is the original plan of the resistance. But this plan is now being put into action. It is not a negotiating weapon to lure Americans into easing conditions. If the Americans want to cooperate they are welcome, but if they don’t we will proceed (with this plan). Either way, this plan is not subject to review. Industry and agriculture are objective needs (of Lebanon).

In terms of industry and agriculture, Lebanon … Lebanon, by the way – in the year 1960, the Iraqi market was running 60% of the Port of Beirut and 30% of Lebanese industrial production. Today, Lebanon, which used to export milk, cheese, juice, clothing and shoes to the Gulf, imports 200 million dollars worth of milk and cheese only! Thus, the revival of the agricultural and manufacturing sectors, which were destroyed by the rentier economy, was and is the original plan. We are not talking about a knee-jerk reaction.

Host:

Has the goal (behind the sanctions) become counter-productive? Because the Lebanese internal consensus over the economic resistance that Sayyed Nasrallah called for was remarkable. I want you to comment briefly because we exceeded the time allocated for this file. The Patriarch (Bechara Boutros) al-Rahi said today: “The Lebanese people today do not want any majority (group in Lebanon) to tamper with the constitution and to keep them away from (Lebanon’s) brothers and friends.” This is noteworthy as well Mr. Nasser, is it not?

Nasser Qandil:

The truth is, the speech of his Beatitude (al- Rahi), at certain points, was vague and unclear. It seemed like he was targeting the resistance by talking about neutrality and keeping Lebanon out of conflicts. However, today there may be another direction. I think the Lebanese people know that when we talk about buying oil products in Lebanese pounds… if you don’t want to buy them from Iran, then buy them from Saudi Arabia. Aren’t you friends with Saudi Arabia and the UAE? Let these countries sell us oil products in Lebanese pounds. Half of the demand for dollars in the Lebanese market is because of oil imports. We are depleting the reserves of the Central Bank of Lebanon. They will last us for five years instead of ten if we keep using them for oil imports.

His eminence Sayyed Nasrallah announced that Iran is ready to help, and since oil imports are consuming half of the budget, the resistance is proposing to remove half of the pressure on the US dollar, meaning (that the exchange rate) would return to 3000 or 4000 (Lebanese pounds per dollar) if we buy these oil products in Lebanese pounds. We are not bound to (importing) from Iran exclusively. Bring any offer from any other country.

Host:

True…for the Americans, the (economic) war was aimed at Hezbollah. However, the entirety of Lebanon is suffering the consequences of this war.

Nasser Qandil:

Here, I want to say something so we can put things in the right perspective. When the uprising began in October (2019), Pompeo and his team went beyond warnings. (Jeffery) Feltman (Former Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs) said before the American Congress: “Do not overestimate the influence of this uprising. Let’s not allow Lebanon to become prey for China and Russia.” He said frankly that China wants Lebanon to be a base for its 5G (technology) in the Middle East.

The Americans are backtracking from this (maximum economic pressure) approach not only because of economic (considerations). Do not be mistaken. This is because a highly powerful security message was delivered to the Americans about what the resistance might do if the situation (in Lebanon) deteriorated further.

—————-

Nasser Qandil:

When someone with the great prominence, status, and figure of Sayyed Nasrallah comes out and says: “I will kill you, I will kill you, I will kill you” … These words were written down (on paper). He did not say them out of anger during his speech. He was establishing a (new) equation. He said: “You are making me choose me between hunger or death. My answer is: I will kill you, I will kill you, I will kill you.” Mediators received questions asking them “what is going on? (what does Nasrallah mean here by ‘I will kill you’)” Then they got the answer. The answer might be – I do not know the answer, only the resistance knows it – but it might be in the form of strong military strike that the US and Israel would never expect. Is it the announcement of the zero hour for the expulsion of US forces from Iraq and Syria? Maybe. Is it a precision guided missile attack on the Dimona (nuclear reactor in Israel), for example? Maybe. Is it a (codeword) for opening up the (military) front in the south of Lebanon, and the Golan Heights front (from Syria) under the title of liberating the Shebaa Farms and the Golan Heights in one go? Maybe. This is the level and size (of the warning that Nasrallah directed).

The resistance will not stand idly by while its people suffer (from the deteriorating economic crisis). It will fight hunger by establishing the foundations of economic reconstruction because this is its project. This (economic reconstruction) has nothing to do with merely fighting (US) sanctions. (The resistance) found an opportunity to launch this project. Other (Lebanese parties) did not accept these proposals (before). Now it is the chance (to put them forward).

Do we want to change Lebanon’s identity by (economically) cooperating with China and giving rise eastern totalitarianism and who knows what, as some (in Lebanon) claimed? No. But does it make sense that the NATO (member) Turkey dares to go to Russia and buy S400 (missile systems), while we (Lebanese) don’t dare to buy Kalashnikov bullets that former Prime Minister Saad Hariri pledged to buy but did not dare to allocate funds for? We have 10 billion dollars’ worth of offers from China to build power plants, factories and tunnels under BOT (Build–operate–transfer) contracts, but we don’t have the courage to accept these offers because we are afraid that the US might be upset with us!

Host: Saudi Arabia itself is now negotiating with China over avenues of cooperation…

Nasser Qandil:

Everyone is turning to China. (Check) the Boston Harbor now, all the equipment for loading, operating, and unloading are Chinese!

Host: This all goes back to the American-Israeli concerns, Mr. Nasser.

Nasser Qandil:

This is the economic vision of the resistance. The (military) dimension (of this whole picture) is something else. The (military) dimension is the following: when they raise the bar of the financial threat, we raise the bar of the military-security threat.

Sayyed Nasrallah: If “Israel” is behind Beirut Blast then It will Pay A Heavy Price

By Zeinab Essa

Beirut – Hezbollah Secretary General His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah delivered on Friday a speech commemorating August’s 2006 historic victory over the “Israeli” enemy.

Hailing the sacrifices of the martyrs and their families, Sayyed Nasrallah congratulated all the Lebanese and all free people of the world on this victory.

He further thanked all those who had a role in this battle and in writing this epic of steadfastness and victory. Sayyed Nasrallah also thanked those who contributed to the political administration of this war, particularly President Emile Lahoud. “President Lahoud was unable to manage the negotiations because of the isolation decision that was taken regionally and internationally so this mission was assigned to Lebanese House Speaker Nabih Berri.”

According to His Eminence, “Lebanon fought alone militarily against an army that considers itself the most powerful army in the Middle East and among one of the most powerful armies in the world.”

“2006 war had great strategic, military, security, and cultural results. I will just mention three of them,” he added, noting that “The first result is toppling the new Middle East scheme that the American administration was aiming at implementing.”

In parallel, the resistance Leader underscored that “The new Middle East scheme and the huge push that began with the occupation of Afghanistan and reached Iraq, was toppled in Lebanon.”

“The capture of the two “Israeli” soldiers expedited the timing of the US scheme,” he mentioned, stating that “For the first time, the “Israelis” are living the fear of the existence and survival of this entity in the region is questioned.”

Sayyed Nasrallah also highlighted that “Resilience and resistance in Lebanon toppled the US scheme,” mentioning that “The effects of the military, political and psychological defeat are still strongly present in this entity, and we are still enjoying victory as hope is strongly present.”

“The achievement of the 2000 is liberation, and the achievement of 2006 is protection through the balance of deterrence,” he confirmed.

In addition, His Eminence confirmed that “There is an equation that protects Lebanon, called resistance, through the deterrence equation, and nothing else protects it.”

“Lebanon is strong by this equation, while they seek to get rid of this force,” he stressed, confirming that “The balance of deterrence is getting stronger day after day.”

Meanwhile, Sayyed Nasrallah affirmed that “The Americans cannot tolerate the survival of a force in Lebanon that will protect Lebanon, its sovereignty, pride, honor and people.”

“Only the balance of deterrence and the ‘army-people-resistance’ equation are protecting Lebanon at the moment,” he said, noting that “They failed in the military war and they know that no military war will be able to affect Hezbollah, so they are trying with other wars, and what is happening with us in Lebanon is part of this battle.”

In addition, His Eminence underlined that “Claims that Hezbollah is practicing hegemony over the Lebanese political life are mere lies and they know this.”

“To us, the resistance is an existential matter. It is the air that we breathe and the water that we drink to stay alive,” Sayyed Nasrallah confirmed highlighting that “Until further notice, and as long as no alternative has been presented, the resistance will remain our choice.”

“For Lebanon and its people, resistance is a condition of existence, and it is our choice,” he asserted, noting that “From the very first day, our choice was to respond to “Israel’s” airstrike in Syria.”

Sayyed Nasrallah went on to say: “What happened since the first day of martyr Ali Mohsen’s fall until today is part of the punishment for the Zionist enemy. The decision to respond aims at fixing the rules of engagement, it doesn’t aim at media exhibition. This is proven by the calculated and serious action.”

In a sounding message to the apartheid “Israeli” entity, Sayyed Nasrallah stated: “The decision to respond to the “Israeli” strike in Syria is still on the table. It is a matter of time and they have to wait. The “Israeli” is still standing on a “one and a half leg” so that his soldiers are not targeted, and this is part of the punishment.”

Commenting on the recent Emirati step of announcing normalization with the apartheid “Israeli” entity,” Sayyed Nasrallah said:

“We have not been surprised by the move of some of the UAE’s rulers. The timing of the agreement between “Israel” and the UAE confirms that some Arab regimes are servants to the Americans. The UAE’s deal is a personal electoral service for Trump and Netanyahu,” he clarified.

Moreover, His Eminence predicted that “We have to expect from now until the time of the American elections that some Arab regimes sign ‘peace’ agreements with ‘Israel’.”

“Until the US Presidential Elections, Trump will continue ‘milking’ the Gulf regimes financially and religiously in what serves him and his friend [“Israeli” PM Benjamin] Netanyahu,” he expected.

Sayyed Nasrallah also said: “The humanitarian, religious, jihadist, national and regional duty makes it a must for me and everybody to stand up and condemn this act which is a betrayal of Islam, Arabism, al-Quds and sanctities.”

“Let us reject with our tongue and the weakest faith is to reject by our hearts,” he stressed.

To the Palestinians, he stated: “We should be angry in our hearts, but not be sad because the masks fell and this is a good thing. When it is destined that the front of right approaches victory, the traitors and stabbers in the back are to get out of it. Their departure from the cause of right, which is the Palestinian issue, will make the resistance front acknowledge well its friend from its enemy.”

“Hezbollah does not have an account of events about the Beirut port blast,” His Eminence asserted noting that “Hezbollah is awaiting the results of the investigation.”

Sayyed Nasrallah underlined that “Theoretically, there are two hypotheses about the causes of the Beirut Port explosion, whether it is accidental or sabotage. Hezbollah is concerned with the resistance’s direct security and we are not capable of shouldering the responsibility for the entire national security with its internal dimension.”

“If the FBI want to investigate in Beirut Port Blast, it means that they will rule out any ‘Israeli’ responsibility in case ‘Israel’ was involved in it,” the Resistance Leader declared, pointing out that “The investigation should be continued and answers should be offered to the Lebanese people.”

He also announced: “Hezbollah, that would never turn a blind eye to killing one of its fighters and insists on fixing this equation, would never remain silent towards a major crime such as the Beirut Port blast if it was committed by ‘Israel’.”

“We do not trust any international investigation,” Sayyed Nasrallah said.

To the enemy and the friend, Hezbollah Secretary General explained: “The account won’t be only for what happened. It will also be for what could have happened. ‘Israel’ will pay a similar price to the size of this crime [Beirut Port blast] if it had committed it. If the investigation determines that ‘Israel’ is involved, the Lebanese state and people should have a say in the issue.”

In addition, he underscored that “The most dangerous thing is that in front of a national calamity of this level, we have witnessed a scheme to topple the state, from which Lebanon escaped. Any political movement must be limited with preventing the collapse of the state and its institutions and the outbreak of a civil war in Lebanon.”

Slamming that “Some Lebanese political forces and media outlets exploited people’s pain to target not only Hezbollah, but also Lebanese President Michel Aoun,” Sayyed Nasrallah announced “In the name of Hezbollah, I do thank PM Hassan Diab and his cabinet, and hail their courage amid all circumstances as they made the best they could, and we understand their resignation.”

“It was not those who toppled the government. The government was toppled by a host of circumstances and difficulties. In fact, a blast of such magnitude would have made it difficult for any government to continue. The Lebanese political forces had sought in the past days to topple the state and put Lebanon on the brink of civil war to serve personal and foreign interests. Hezbollah have always demanded a national unity government or a most possible political and popular representation government,” he said.

Moreover, His Eminence revealed that “The second institution that was targeted is the parliament, with collective resignations, and under the pretext of the constitution, they are practically heading towards toppling the parliament and then calling for early parliamentary elections, and this attempt is doomed to fail.”

According to the Resistance Leader, “Whoever does not abide by the ceiling of not toppling the state, he must have his nationality under question.”

“The caretaker government will assume its responsibilities until a new government is formed,” he said, demanding “a strong, capable and politically protected government.”

Once again, Sayyed Nasrallah reiterated that “The talk of a neutral government is a waste of time. Many unethical and provocative practices are suspicious and some embassies which stand behind them will be named someday. The government’s priorities are reforms, reconstruction, and healing the wounds after the port bombing, the financial, economic, and livelihood issue, the criminal and financial investigation, and the fight against corruption.”

Moving to the Special Tribunal of Lebanon [STL], His Eminence repeated: “We’re not concerned with the STL’s rulings. The content of the international tribunal’s decision is not the important thing, it is rather some people’s attempts to abuse it to target the resistance. We cling to the innocence of our brothers should unjust STL verdicts be issued against them.”

To the resistance people, Sayyed Nasrallah said: “There was a state of anger among our supporters over the past days and we sought to control the situation, because clearly some were trying to incite strife. Preserve your anger, as we might need it one day to end the attempts seeking to drag Lebanon into a civil war. As Lebanese, we should be aware that some will try to exploit the rulings and we should show awareness.”

Commenting on the coronavirus developments in Lebanon: Sayyed Nasrallah said: “The Covid-19 pandemic in Lebanon is out of control, we have to live with the Coronavirus measures and those who infects others and lead to their death are killers and have to pay their blood money.”

“With God’s help and the people’s support, we and our allies are the strongest in the region,” he concluded.

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Towards a “New Cold War” in the Middle East: Geopolitics of the Persian Gulf and the Battle for Oil and Gas

By Germán Gorraiz López

Global Research, July 21, 2020

The foundations of the great Near East were established in the Pact of Quincey (1945) following the doctrine of the Franco-British Sykes-Picot agreements of 1916 that favored the regional division of power in areas of influence and sustained on the tripod US-Egypt- Saudi Arabia. This doctrine consisted in the endemic survival in Egypt of pro-western autocratic military governments, which ensured the survival of the State of Israel (1948) and provided the US Navy with privileged access to the Suez Canal, a crucial shortcut for access direct to the United Arab Emirates, Iraq and Afghanistan, remaining as a firm bastion of US geopolitical interests in the area, especially after the fall of the Shah of Persia in 1980.

The other pillar of the agreement consisted of the privileged access of the United States to Saudi Arabian oil in exchange for preserving its autocratic regime and favoring the spread of Wahhabism (doctrine founded by Mohamed Abdel Wahab in the mid-eighteenth century with the aim of becoming a vision attractive to Islam and exportable to the rest of the Arab countries), with which the Saudi theocracy became a regional power that provided the US with the key to energy dominance while serving as a retaining wall for socialist and pan-Arab currents. Finally, after the Six Day War (1967), the geostrategic puzzle of the Middle East and the Near East was completed with the establishment of autocratic and pro-Western regimes in the countries surrounding Israel (Libya, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran), leaving the Palestinians confined in the ghettos of the West Bank and Gaza.

Iraq and the Biden Plan

The Biden-Gelb Plan, approved by the US Senate in 2007 and rejected by Condolezza Rice, Secretary of State with George W. Bush, provided for the establishment in Iraq of a federal system in order to prevent the collapse in the country after the withdrawal of US troops and proposed separating Iraq into Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni entities, under a federal government in Baghdad charged with the care of the borders and the administration of oil revenues.

Thus, we will attend the appearance of Free Kurdistan presided over by Masoud Barzani with capital in Kirkust and that would include annexed areas taking advantage of the power vacuum left by the Iraqi Army such as Sinkar or Rabia in the province of Ninive, Kirkuk and Diyala as well as all the cities of Syrian Kurdish ethnicity (except Hasaka and Qamishli) occupied by the Kurdish insurgency of the BDP.

The new Kurdistan will have the blessings of the United States and will have financial autonomy by owning 20% of the farms of all Iraqi crude oil with the “sine qua non condition” to supply Turkey, Israel and Eastern Europe with Kurdish oil through the Kirkust pipeline that empties into the Turkish port of Ceyhan. On the other hand, the Sunistan with capital in Mosul and that would cover the Sunni cities of Ramadi, Falluja, Mosul, Tal Afar and Baquba (Sunni triangle), with strong connections with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and that would later lead to a radical pan-Islamist movement that it will use the oil weapon to strangle the western economies in the horizon of the next five-year period.

Finally, as the third leg of the tripod, we would have Iraqi Chi with capital in Baghdad that will counterbalance Saudi Wahhabism and that will gravitate in the orbit of influence of Iran, which will make Iran a great regional power in clear conflict with Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Iran, guardian of the Gulf and energy power

Iran acquired a regional power dimension thanks to the erratic policy of the United States in Iraq, (fruit of the political administration myopia obsessed with the Axis of Evil) by eliminating its ideological rivals, the Sunni Taliban radicals and Saddam Hussein with the subsequent power vacuum in the area. He also proposed a global negotiation with the contact group to deal with all the aspects that have confronted Western countries for thirty years, both the suffocating embargo that has plagued the Islamic Republic and the Iranian assets blocked in the United States, the role Iran regional cooperation and security cooperation in Iraq and Afghanistan.The Middle East: A Review of Geopolitical Structures, Vectors of Power Dynamic

President Mahmoud Ajmadinejad stretched the rope to the limit in the security that the United States would not attack and would limit any individual action by Israel (a discarded project of bombarding the Natanz plant with commercial jets), as a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz through which it passes A third of the world’s energy traffic could exacerbate the global economic recession and profoundly weaken the entire international political system. Thus, in an interview with Brzezinski conducted by Gerald Posner in The Daily Beast (September 18, 2009), he stated that “an American-Iranian collision would have disastrous effects for the United States and China, while Russia would emerge as the great winner, as the foreseeable closure of the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf where oil transportation destined for Northeast Asia (China, Japan and South Korea), Europe and the United States passes, would raise the price of black gold to stratospheric levels and would have severe repercussions on the economy global, becoming the totally crude EU dependent on Russia.

According to experts, Iran would possess the world’s third largest proven reserves of oil and gas, but it would not have enough technology to extract the gas from the deepest fields and would require an urgent multimillion-dollar investment to avoid irreversible deterioration of its facilities, which in practice it translates into a huge pie for Russian, Chinese and Western multinationals and an increase in the supply of Iranian crude oil to 1.5 million barrels / day within a year, with the consequent drop in prices. of the Brent and Texas reference crudes.

Furthermore, the revitalization of the 2010 energy cooperation agreement between Iraq, Iran and Syria for the construction of the South Pars-Homms gas pipeline that would connect the Persian Gulf with the Mediterranean Sea would relativize the strategic importance of the Trans-Adriatic Gas Pipeline Project (TAP) , (a substitute for the failed Nabucco gas pipeline designed by the US to transport Azerbaijani gas to Europe through Turkey), as well as the relevant role of the United Arab Emirates as suppliers of crude oil to the West, which would explain the eagerness of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey for torpedoing him.

America’s “Project of the New Middle East”

Ralph Peters Map: The Project for the New Middle East. Used for teaching purposes at the military academies. (“Unofficial”)  

Are Iraq and Iran the bait for the US to involve Russia and China in a new war?

Former President Carter’s National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski in a speech to the Iranian-American National Council (NIAC) stated that “I believe that the US has the right to decide its own national security policy and not follow like a stupid mule what the Israelis do. ” In addition, Brzezinski, would be faced with the neocon republican and Jewish lobbies of the USA and with his habitual biting he would have discredited the geostrategic myopia of both pressure groups when affirming that “they are so obsessed with Israel, the Persian Gulf, Iraq and Iran that they have lost from the global picture: the true power in the world is Russia and China, the only countries with a true capacity to resist the United States and England and on which they would have to focus their attention ”.

We would thus be at a crucial moment to define the mediate future of the Middle East and Middle East (PROME East), since after the arrival of Donald Trump from the White House the pressure of the pro-Israeli lobby of the USA (AIPAC) would be increasing to proceed the destabilization of Iran by expeditious methods, a moment that will be used by the United States, Great Britain and Israel to proceed to redesign the cartography of the unrelated puzzle formed by these countries and thus achieve strategically advantageous borders for Israel, following the plan orchestrated 60 years ago. jointly by the governments of Great Britain, the United States and Israel and which would have the backing of the main western allies. Thus, after the approval by the Congress and the US Senate of a declaration prepared by the Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and the Democrat Robert Menéndez, who clearly states that “if Israel is forced to defend itself and take action (against Iran), the US will be at your side to support it militarily and diplomatically”, with the Trump Administration we will assist the increase in pressure from the pro-Israeli lobby of the USA (AIPAC) to proceed with the destabilization of Iran by expeditious methods.

In a first phase of said plan, the US Senate unanimously renewed the Sanctions Against Iran Act (ISA) until 2026 and after the launch of a new ballistic missile by Iran, Trump expanded the sanctions against several Iranian companies related to ballistic missiles without violating the Nuclear Agreement signed between the G + 5 and Iran in 2015, known as the Comprehensive Joint Action Plan (JCPOA) and which would only be fireworks to distract attention from the Machiavellian Plan outlined by the Anglo-Jewish Alliance in 1960 that would include the Balkanization of Iran and whose turning point would be the recent assassination of the charismatic General Qasem Soleimani.

This war could lead to a new local episode that would be involve a return to a “recurrent endemism” of the US-Russia Cold War involving both superpowers having as necessary collaborations the major regional powers namely Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

This Cold War scenario would cover the geographic space that extends from the Mediterranean arc (Libya, Syria and Lebanon) to Yemen and Somalia and having Iraq as its epicenter (recalling the Vietnam War with Lindon B. Johnson (1963-1.969).

Thus, Syria, Iraq and Iran would be the bait to attract both Russia and China and after triggering a concatenation of local conflicts (Syria, Iraq and Lebanon), this potentially could evolve towards a major regional conflict that could mark the future of the area in the coming years.

*

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Featured image is from Silent Crow NewsThe original source of this article is Global ResearchCopyright © Germán Gorraiz López, Global Research, 2020

West Bank annexation plan is a 21st century apartheid with Trump’s approval: Amal Wahdan

Source

Amal Wahdan

June 23, 2020 – 10:45

TEHRAN – Amal Wahdan, a Palestinian activist who has been campaigning for the liberation of Palestine, tells the Tehran Times that the plan by Israel to annex the West Bank is a “new apartheid” that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “would not dare” to implement without the “approval of Donald Trump and his circle”.

Wahdan, who was founder and editor of the Arab Gazette, says the annexation plan is in line with Britain’s colonial design in West Asia.

“The West Bank annexation plan fits in perfectly within the larger strategy of “Greater Israel’ to ensure the regional superiority of the Zionist entity through Balkanization of the Arab countries into smaller and weaker entities,” Wahdan notes.

She calls Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump two “troubled leaders” who need each other’s help in these “difficult times”.

“Both troubled and defeated leaders, Netanyahu and Trump need each other’s help in their difficult times in order to remain in office. The former is facing corruption charges that might end his political career if he is indicted and the latter is under constant attack from his adversaries and facing impeachment,” explains Wahdan, a permanent member of the Palestinian Coalition for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Following is the full text of the interview.

Question:  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is facing a number of criminal indictments, has repeatedly said that he would commence cabinet-level discussions for annexing more areas in the occupied West Bank on July 1 in accordance with U.S. President Donald Trump’s so-called “deal of the century” plan. What is your take on it?

Answer: The Zionist colonial settler entity in occupied Palestine intends to further its ethnic cleansing plans against the Palestinian people by moving on with Netanyahu’s West Bank annexation scheme, a promise he made to his ultra-right election constituency and allies.

The proposed plan seeks to annex 30% of the West bank, including the Jordan Valley stretching 85km to the North along Jordan River and larger illegal settlements in the de facto occupied Palestine. This move poses an imminent threat to the livelihood of 60,000 Palestinians who live in the Jordan Valley and depend mostly on agriculture (compared to 6000 Jewish settlers( and to hundreds of thousands who live in rural areas surrounding the larger settlements.

“For over 72 years, Zionists practiced apartheid policies against Palestinian people which is much worse than those practiced in South Africa and like those of Nazi Germany.”Netanyahu would not dare to go ahead with his plan of annexation without the approval of the U.S. President, Donald Trump, and his circle. Actually, both troubled and defeated leaders, Netanyahu and Trump need each other’s help in their difficult times in order to remain in office. The former is facing corruption charges that might end his political career if he is indicted and the latter is under constant attack from his adversaries.

In return, Trump will guarantee the support of AIPAC and the American Jewish votes. In addition, we have to bear in mind that Trump’s “deal of the century” granted the Zionist colonial entity what they have been dreaming for over the past decades; recognizing “Israel” as a Jewish state and Jerusalem as its eternal capital, supporting the illegal settlements in the West Bank in opposition to UN Security Council Resolution 2334, annexation of the Golan Heights, and the occupied West Bank. With this gift, Trump granted the Zionist entity what he doesn’t own to those who don’t deserve it. Just like what Belfour did with his declaration over a century ago; he granted a Jewish Homeland in Palestine, a land that he didn’t own, to the Zionist movement.

Q: Could we consider this plan in line with the Zionist colonial project of “Greater Israel”?

A: The ideology of the Zionist Movement and Project has developed over the decades as an organic part of the European colonial powers. It came into formal existence at the end of the 19th century with one main theme: the creation of a Jewish Homeland. In the process to materialize this dream, several options were put in place before they spotted Historic Palestine as the most suitable choice, mainly for geopolitical reasons but covered by the religious myth for political tactics. 

Most Zionist leaders from Herzel, the founder of the Zionist Movement, to Jabotinsky, Ben Gurion, Moshe Dayan, Ariel Sharon up-to-date Netanyahu have used the religious mythology in their political platforms, speeches, and with world leaders even though none of them was actually religious.

It was Herzl who carved the area of the future Jewish state by saying: “From the Brooks of Egypt to the Euphrates.” Ben-Gurion had wanted Israel’s northern border to extend to the River Litani. While the World Zionist Organization declared a century ago that the Jewish state shall extend to cover all of historic Palestine, Litani Rive, Golan Heights, Hauran Plain, Deraa, to control the Railroad from Deraa to Amman in addition to the Gulf of Aqaba.

Thus, within the framework of the Zionist project, Palestine, which has been inhabited for thousands of years becomes the ‘promised land’ to God’s ‘chosen people’, and empty land for another people (from all over the world) who have no land! The replacement of the people of Palestine with colonial invading settlers became the implementation of a divine promise.     

Q: Do you think the U.S. “New Middle East” doctrine was to create chaos and divide the Arab homeland into sectarian entity?

A: The West Bank annexation plan fits perfectly within the larger strategy of “Greater Israel’ to ensure the regional superiority of the Zionist entity through Balkanization of the Arab countries into smaller and weaker entities. This was in fact an extension of Britain’s colonial design in West Asia when the victors of WWI, Britain- France signed the Sykes-Picot agreement. This was the first phase of the geographical division of the Arab Homeland and the creation of the satellite entities of the British colonial empire; Saudi Arabia, Persian Gulf states, carving Jordan, Lebanon, and historic Palestine from the Levant.

The Oded Yinon plan went further beyond the geographic division to the sectarian divide of the Arab Homeland between Muslims and Christians, Sunnis and Shiites. This vision had kicked off in 1982 with the Israeli occupation and invasion of Lebanon and the creation of the Antone Lahed Army south of the Litani River. This war led to the expulsion of the PLO leadership and the scattering of the Palestinian fighters as far as Yemen, Tunisia, and Algeria. The second major blow was the U.S. incitement of Saddam Hussein of Iraq to wage an eight-year war against the Islamic Republic of Iran and its new revolution, which had immense ramifications on both countries. The third was the eruption of what the U.S. and its allies called the “Arab Spring.” This was manifested in a wave of mass demonstrations that swamped the Arab region from Tunisia in December of 2010 to Egypt, Libya and to the torn country of Iraq since the invasion of 2003, to the division of Sudan in 2013, the instigated terror war in Somalia, and the “Arab Coalition” war on Yemen in 2015, led by Saudi Arabia with the support of the U.S. and the Zionist entity. 

Despite of the pan-Arab Nakba (catastrophe), millions of casualties among civilians, exodus, destruction of infrastructures, economic sanctions, and devastation, and loss of billions of dollars of national wealth, the Yinon plan of Balkanization of the Arab Homeland failed miserably to achieve its goals as well as the U.S. “New Middle East” doctrine. On the contrary, it drove regional and Arab resistance movements and countries closer in confrontation with U.S. hegemony and Zionists’ expansionist project from Yemen in the South, to Syria, Lebanon, occupied Palestine, Iraq, and Iran as a regional power.

The Balkanization of West Asia is an integral part of U.S. foreign policy. A policy which the U.S. administration under Bill Clinton successfully implemented in the former Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc and managed to dismantle the Eastern bloc but into failed fragmented entities.

Q: The U.S.-Zionist strategy to annex the West Bank would have serious ramifications on the Palestinian Authority, Jordan and Egypt. What are the options left for the Palestinian people and leadership?

A: The U.S.-backed West Bank annexation plan has put an end to the Oslo agreement that was signed between the PLO leadership and the Zionist colonial settler entity in September of 1993 and the two-state solution. This agreement was in “Israel’s” favor from A to Z. Although, it entailed mutual recognition and the creation of the Palestinian state at the 1967 war borders which included the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem as its capital, several important issues like the right of return, borders, settlements, water, sea and airports will be decided at the end of the five year period. None of these articles were implemented. Furthermore, after 25 years of Oslo, the Palestinians are still living in a huge open prison as the Gaza Strip is under siege for 13 years, hundreds of thousands of dunums of Palestinian land are confiscated, dozens of Zionists colonies are erected, over 800 km of the illegal wall surrounding and cutting in between the Palestinian cities, towns and rural areas, water springs, power grids, land, sea, and airports all are under the control of the Zionist colonial entity.

The PLO executive committee and President Mahmoud Abbas have declared their decision to abandon the Oslo agreements, to suspend their diplomatic and security relations with the Americans and the Zionist leaders in rejection to the West Bank annexation plan. But this is not enough to confront the new wave of ethnic cleansing.

The Palestinian leadership needs to free its mind from any illusions that Americans and Zionists want peace and recognize reality that we are in the process of national liberation not state-building. For over 72 years, Zionists practiced apartheid policies against Palestinian people which is much worse than those practiced in South Africa and like those of Nazi Germany. Even the UN human rights experts announced their condemnation of the Zionists’ annexation plan of parts of the occupied West Bank, as a “vision of a 21st century apartheid”.

The new geopolitical order provides a positive environment to a genuine solution in front of the PLO and the Palestinian people; to restore the National Charter of 1968 and resolutions of the National Councils up to 1974 on the vision of comprehensive unity of an undivided, historic Palestine in terms of both land and people, to maintain a tight link between the objectives of the Palestinian National Movement and the Arab, regional and international resistance movements, to emphasize the leading role of the organization in liberating Palestine from settler colonization along with all national forces as a framework for their alliance during the liberation stage.

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الطبيعيّ يهزم التطبيعيّ

حمدين صباحي

التطبيع هو الجائزة الكبرى التي يسعى إليها العدو الصهيوني.

إنه استسلام المغتصب للغاصب، ومباركة الضحيّة لسكين الجلاد، هو تخلّي صاحب الحق عن هويته وتنكّره لدمه وتكذيبه لروايته وترديده لسردية قاتله.

هو الانسحاق النفسي والسلوكي الذي يُخرج المطبعين من صفة الأحرار ليدبغ أرواحهم بوشم العبيد.

–

تعدّدت الجبهات وتوالت الحروب في الصراع العربي الصهيوني. الصراع الحضاري الشامل عسكرياً ومعرفياً وثقافياً وعلمياً وتكنولوجيًا وسياسيًا، صراع من نوع فريد لن ينتهي إلا بانتفاء أحد طرفيه، صراع وجود لا حدود.

وفي سياق هذا الصراع فإن التطبيع هو حرب كبرى، هو رمانة ميزان الصراع، فعند العدو كل انتصار منقوص ما لم يتمّمه التطبيع. وعند الأمة كل هزيمة محتملة ما لم يكرّسها التطبيع.

–

التطبيع لا يعني فقط التخلي عن فلسطين بل هو موت العروبة.

لأنه انتفاء شرط الأمة. الأمة ليست عديد محض لبشر يتساكنون، بل جماعة يوحدها تاريخ من الهم والحلم والسعي نحو حياة تجسد هويتها وتحقق أهدافها، ولكل أمة مقاصدها الكبرى تجتمع على السعي نحو تحقيقها. وقد بلور العرب بوحدة الجغرافيا والتاريخ هوية جامعة ومقاصد نبيلة في الحرية والتنمية المستقلة والعدل الاجتماعي والكرامة الانسانية والتجدد الحضاري وبناء دولة القانون المدنية الديمقراطية الحديثة الحامية لحقوق الإنسان. وفي قلب هذه المقاصد تحرير فلسطين. الذي هو حق وواجب أخلاقي وقومي ووطني.

هذه المقاصد سلسلة متكاملة الحلقات يعزز بعضها بعضاً. فلو انكسرت بالتطبيع حلقة تحرير فلسطين لتكسرت السلسلة وانفرط العقد وتبعثرت الأمة.

–

وانتفاء أحد طرفي صراع الوجود لا يعني بالضرورة الإبادة الجسدية بل إكراهه أو استدراجه إلى الرضوخ والتخلي عن الحقوق. وقد ثبت أن هذا الهدف لن يتحقق بالقوة العارية وحدها، فتاريخ العدو يفيض بالمذابح وسفك الدم والاقتلاع والتهجير والترانسفير والاحتلال والعدوان والفصل العنصري والإبادة الجماعية. ورغم كل هذه الوحشية لم يزل العربي الفلسطيني على مدى سبعين عاماً على قيد الحياة والمقاومة والأمل.

لا يتحقق هذا الهدف الرئيس إلا بالتطبيع. فبالتطبيع وحده يمكن إخراج العرب من حال الأمة التي تقاوم عدوها ككل الأحرار، إلى حال قطعان العبيد الراكعين في حظيرة التطبيع يديرهم السيد الصهيوني ويحرسهم ويعلفهم ويذبحهم متى شاء. وهذا هو المقصد الجوهري للمشروع الصهيوني بتعدّد لافتاته من “إسرائيل” الكبرى إلى الشرق الأوسط الجديد إلى صفقة القرن.

ولكل حرب أسلحتها وجنودها. وسلاح التطبيع هو الكذب وجنوده هم بضعة عرب كاذبون استهدفوا تزييف وعي الأمة وإصابة الروح والعقل والوجدان العربي بفيروس التطبيع، كما يفعل فيروس كورونا الآن.

ولأن الكيان الصهيوني هو عضو غريب مزروع بـالـعنف في الجسد العربي، ولأن المعلوم من الطب أن الجسد يلفظ العضو المزروع ما لم يُحقن بمثبطات المناعة لكي يتقبله. فإن هدف فيروس التطبيع هو تثبيط المناعة العربية لكي تقبل الكيان الدخيل.

على مدار أربعين عام يتوالى حقن العقل العربي بفيروس التطبيع. منذ حقنة كامب ديفيد أم الخطايا إلى حقنة أوسلو وحقنة وادي عربة انتهاءً بأقراص التطبيع المسمومة مما يحاول إعلام العبيد ترويجها كما تفعل قناة mbc وسواها من الكذبة التابعين.

أربعة عقود من حرب التطبيع خاضها الصهاينة بدعم أميركي وتواطؤ دولي ومشاركة ذليلة من بعض النخب العربية التي خارت فخانت في قصور الحكم وأجهزة الإعلام وأسواق التجارة. فماذا كان الحصاد؟

هزيمة ماحقة للتطبيع والمطبعين.

ونصر مبين للوعي الشعبي والعقل الجمعيّ العربيّ.

تكفي نظرة فاحصة لحالة مصر التي عمّدت خلال هذه الحرب أبطالها في مواجهة التطبيع: سعد إدريس حلاوة وسليمان خاطر وأيمن حسن وأبطال تنظيم “ثورة مصر” بقيادة خالد عبدالناصر ومحمود نورالدين كما عمد الأردن العربي بطله احمد الدقامسة.

والأكثر دلالة ملايين الابطال المغمورين من النساء والرجال العاديين الذين يتجلى رفضهم الطبيعي للتطبيع واحتقارهم ونبذهم للمطبعين.

ولعل من مكر التاريخ أن الجيل الذي ولد في ظلال كامب ديفيد وتربّى تحت سلطة وأبواق التطبيع حتى إذا بلغ أشده رفع علم فلسطين في ميدان التحرير في أعظم تجليات الربيع العربي قبل أن يختطفه خريف الحكام التابعين. هو نفسه الذي رفع في الميدان صورة جمال عبد الناصر الرمز الأصدق في مقاومة الصهيونية والاستعمار، هو الجيل نفسه الذي ما أن أسقط مبارك حتى اتجه إلى سفارة العدو على شاطئ النيل يحاصرها بأجساده الغضة وهتافاته الغاضبة ويتسلق جدرانها بأظافره ويقتحمها بصدوره العارية.

ما أبأس المطبعين وما أحقرهم، ورغم خطرهم ما أهونهم.

إن النصر عليهم أكيد. لأن حرب التطبيع ليست وقفاً على الجنرال أو المثقف، إنها حرب كل الناس، حرب الشعب، وما دامت بطبيعتها حرب الشعب فإن النصر فيها هو الممكن الوحيد.

إن هزيمة الكيان الصهيوني في حرب التطبيع تحرمه من ثمرة عدوانه، وتبقيه في مهب تبديد كل ما حققه. وانتصار أمتنا في حرب التطبيع لا يحقق مقاصدها لكن يؤكد مناعتها، وهي الشرط اللازم لتقدمها الواجب من الممانعة الى المقاومة، ثم من المقاومة إلى تحرير فلسطين.. كل فلسطين.

والنيل يجري.

فما ضيَر إن تسقط في مجراه العميق بعض جثث الحيوانات النافقة؟ يجرفها تياره الطبيعي، يتطهر ذاتياً ويُطهّر، يُخضر ويُعمّر.

كذلك تيار الوعي الجمعي لأمة وحدتها هزائم مقيمة وانتصارات مبددة وأحلام لا تموت. فتعلمت أن تميز العدو من الصديق كما تميز الخبيث من الطيب. لا يضيره أن تسقط فيه بعض أكاذيب منتنة يلقيها مهرّبو التطبيع. يجرفها تيار الوعي الجمعي الطبيعي.

هذا هو القانون الحاكم من أربعين عاماً، وسيبقى:

الطبيعيّ يهزم التطبيعيّ.

والنيل يجري.

(1) مداخلة ألقيت في الملتقى العربي الدولي «الافتراضي» لمناهضة التطبيع مع العدو الصهيوني.

*سياسي مصري

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من «كامب ديفيد» إلى «نيوم» مخطط إمبريالي صهيوني عسكري اقتصادي متكامل

د. ميادة ابراهيم رزوق

ـ من اتفاقية كامب ديفيد إلى مشروع «نيوم» مخطط امبريالي صهيوني عسكري اقتصادي متكامل لشرق أوسط جديد وفق أجندة صهيوأميركية تشمل الكيان الصهيوني بدولته المزعومة (إسرائيل) كلاعب وجزء أساسي من المنطقة، وتكمن تفاصيل ذلك في كتاب «الشرق الأوسط الجديد» لوزير الخارجية الإسرائيلي شمعون بيريز الذي صدر عام 1993 ، وتضمّن رؤيته لمستقبل المنطقة بأحلام كبرى تربط بين (إسرائيل) وفلسطين والأردن ومصر والسعودية بمشروع سياسي اقتصادي يخلق سوقاً اقتصادية في المنطقة على غرار السوق الأوروبية المشتركة، وبتحالف عسكري موحد على غرار حلف الناتو، من خلال إنشاء شبكات كهربائية لا تعترف بالحدود، ومنطقة حرة بلا حدود بين السعودية ومصر و(إسرائيل) ليتوافق ويترجم ذلك وفي وقت لاحق بـ (رؤية2030 ) لولي العهد السعودي محمد بن سلمان تحت اسم «نيوم» اختصار لجملة المستقبل الجديد، والذي يتضمّن إنشاء منطقة حرة تقع في قلب مربع يجمع السعودية ومصر والأردن وفلسطين المحتلة.

ـ بين هذا وذاك تتالت الأحداث على المنطقة ضمن إطار مشروع الشرق الأوسط الجديد الذي حلم به قادة ومنظري الكيان الصهيوني وأبرزهم شمعون بيريز، وبدأ ذلك بعد اتفاقية كامب ديفيد عام 1979 التي أخرجت مصر من معادلة الردع العربي، والجيش المصري من حرب المواجهة والوجود مع كيان العدو الصهيوني، إلى حرب الخليج الأولى بدعم أميركي وتمويل خليجي سعودي بشكل أساسي للرئيس الراحل صدام حسين لإنهاك وإضعاف قوى وجيوش وإمكانيات إيران والعراق، مروراً بحرب الخليج الثانية /غزو العراق للكويت/ التي كانت سبباً رئيسياً وبتخطيط مسبق لتواجد القواعد والقوات العسكرية الأميركية بشكل كبير في المنطقة، ثم اتفاقيات أوسلو (1و2) ووادي عربة التي كانت أكبر مؤامرة على قوى وفصائل المقاومة الفلسطينية، وليس انتهاء بالاحتلال الأميركي للعراق بحجج كاذبة واهية تحت عنوان امتلاك أسلحة الدمار الشامل، وتفاصيل أخرى لا مجال لذكرها في هذا المقال تمهيداً لسيناريو ما يسمّى (الربيع العربي) الذي بدأ من تونس أواخر عام 2010 متدحرجاً إلى عدد من الدول العربية، واصطدم بصخرة الصمود السوري وقوة التعاون والتشبيك والتكتيك لقوى محور المقاومة من إيران إلى العراق وسورية وحزب الله في لبنان مع الحليف الروسي والصديق الصيني، ففشل في تحقيق أهدافه في تقسيم وتجزئة المنطقة، وتطويق روسيا والصين وإيران للسيطرة على منابع وأنابيب النفط والغاز.

ـ ترافق ذلك مع الجزء الأساسي الذي سنركز عليه في هذا المقال لعلاقته المباشرة بـ مشروع نيوم، وهو «عاصفة الحزم» الحرب على اليمن التي بدأت عام 2015، وقامت بها قوى التحالف المدعومة من الولايات المتحدة الأميركية والتي تضمّ إلى جانب السعودية ثماني دول أخرى هي الإمارات ومصر والأردن والسودان وموريتانيا والسنغال والكويت واليحرين، إلى توقيع مصر اتفاقاً عام 2016 بإعطاء النظام السعودي جزيرتين ضروريتين لربط مشروع نيوم بسيناء بانتقال جزيرتي تيران وصنافير إلى السيادة السعودية لتصبح الرياض جزءاً من اتفاقية «كامب ديفيد» بأثر رجعي، ثم إعلان ترامب لصفقة القرن والترويج لها عام 2017 لتصفية القضية الفلسطينية، وتنسيق جارد كوشنير صهر الرئيس دونالد ترامب ومستشار البيت الأبيض عام 2019 لورشة المنامة في البحرين الجانب الاقتصادي من صفقة القرن للتمويل أملاً بنجاح الصفقة، وصولاً لمشروع محمد بن سلمان المدينة الذكية «نيوم».

ـ تعتبر حرب الإبادة اليمنية أحد أهمّ تفاصيل مشروع «نيوم» للسيطرة على مضيق باب المندب والثروات النفطية اليمنية وخاصة في محافظتي مأرب والجوف، حيث يعتبر مضيق باب المندب ذا أهمية استراتيجية عسكرية أمنية اقتصادية كبيرة يربط بين البحر الأحمر والخليج العربي والمحيط الهندي، ويعمل كطريق ملاحة للسفن النفطية وغير النفطية التي تنتقل بين الشرق الأوسط وبلدان البحر المتوسط، وتأتي أهمية اليمن الاستراتيجية بالسيطرة على مضيق باب المندب بامتلاكها جزيرة بريم، ومرة أخرى مُنيت قوى التحالف في حرب اليمن التي تخوضها السعودية بشكل رئيسي بالوكالة عن الولايات المتحدة الأميركية والعدو الصهيوني بفشل تحقيق الأهداف وفق ما سبق، وتتالت انتصارات الجيش اليمني واللجان الشعبية وحركة أنصار الله رغم الصواريخ الباليستية والقنابل المحرمة دولياً ومعاناة المجاعة وانتشار الأوبئة في اليمن، وخلقت معادلات ردع جديدة من خلال استهداف بارجة حربية وناقلة نفط سعوديتين، وضرب منشأة «أرامكو» النفطية السعودية، وما تلاه من انهيار الإنتاج النفطي لأسابيع عدة، وأصبحت تطال صواريخ المقاومة في اليمن العمق السعودي بمطاراته ومنشآته النفطية، إضافة للتفوّق في الحرب البرية في استعادة وتحرير العديد من الأراضي اليمنية، وخاصة محافظة الجوف التي فيها أكبر الحقول والشركات النفطية، وذلك في ظلّ تصدّع قوى التحالف التي عانت من انسحابات متتالية من قطر إلى العدد الأكبر من الجنود السودانيين إلى غيرها من بقية الدول التي أصبحت مشاركتها رمزية.

ـ تستمرّ المعارك والعمليات العسكرية لتحرير محافظة مأرب معقل سلطة حزب التجمع اليمني للإصلاح (الإخوان المسلمين في اليمن) وهو المسيطر على المفاصل المهمة في ما تسمّى الحكومة الشرعية في اليمن، وأهمّ الحصون التي تتمسك بها قوات التحالف وبما تحتويه من مخزون نفط استراتيجي، وبتأييد الحاضنة الشعبية من مشايخ وقبائل مأرب التي ناشدت حكومة صنعاء لتخلصهم من سلطة الإخوان المسلمين.

ـ خلال الأيام او الأسابيع المقبلة وبتحرير مأرب، مع بدايات العجز الاقتصادي للنظام السعودي من انخفاض إيرادات النفط جراء حرب أسعار النفط إلى انعدام إيرادات الحج والعمرة من جراء جائحة كورونا، وتفشي الفيروس في السعودية داخل وخارج أفراد الأسرة الحاكمة مع ما تعانيه من أزمات داخلية أخرى، وبالتكامل مع إنجازات محور وحلف المقاومة على مستوى الإقليم ستتغيّر موازين القوى، لتكون سنة فارقة مهمة على صعيد التحوّلات الكبرى لصالح محور حلف المقاومة.

ـ وبالتالي فإنّ تفوّق قوى المقاومة على القوة الإسرائيلية الأميركية الإمبريالية وأدواتها التركية والرجعية العربية قد تكون مقدّمة لرؤية استراتيجية لمشروع تحدٍّ جديد لدول غرب آسيا في برنامج متكامل للتشبيك في الإقليم لإنشاء كتلة اقتصادية اجتماعية كبرى قادرة دولها على تحقيق التنمية الاقتصادية، وتأمين فرص العمل، والحماية الأمنية والرعاية الصحية والخدمية لشعوبها.

القوميّون العرب يواجهون الإرهاب!

د. محمد سيد أحمد

في ظلّ حالة من الإحباط واليأس مما يحدث داخل وطننا العربي منذ مطلع العام 2011 حيث هبّت رياح الربيع العربي المزعوم وبدلاً من أن تكون نسائم ربيعية لطيفة منعشة، وجدناها رياحاً خريفية محمّلة بالأتربة التي تزكم الأنوف، وشتاء قارص البرودة محمّلاً بالأمطار الثلجية والصواعق الرعدية المرعبة، وصيفاً شديد الحرارة تحرق نيرانه كلّ من يتعرّض لها، وخلال أيام قليلة من الأحداث كنا قد تكشفنا حقيقة المؤامرة التي تتعرّض لها أمتنا العربية، ونبّهنا وبحّ صوتنا بأنّ ما يحدث هو مؤامرة كبرى على أوطاننا بهدف تقسيمها وتفتيتها من جديد – بعد التقسيم والتفتيت الأول في مطلع القرن العشرين – ضمن مرحلة جديدة من مراحل المشروع الاستعماري الغربي بقيادة الولايات المتحدة الأميركية واصطلح على تسمية هذه المرحلة بـ «الشرق الأوسط الجديد».

وفي إطار مشروع الشرق الأوسط الجديد قامت القوى الاستعمارية باستخدام آليات جديدة تماماً في العمل على تقسيم وتفتيت أوطاننا ومن بين هذه الآليات تطوير آلية العنف والتطرف والإرهاب التي هي بالأساس صناعة استعمارية غربية نشأت مع الاستعمار القديم في مطلع القرن العشرين حيث احتضنت بريطانيا القوى الاستعمارية الكبرى في ذلك الوقت التنظيمات الإرهابية الوليدة داخل مجتمعاتنا المحتلة ومنها جماعة الإخوان المسلمين، حيث قامت أجهزة الاستخبارات البريطانية بدعم حسن البنا وتنظيمه الذي خرجت من تحت عباءته كلّ التنظيمات الإرهابية الحديثة في ما بعد، وخلال العقود الأخيرة ومع تبلور مشروع الشرق الأوسط الجديد وجدت القوى الاستعمارية الجديدة متمثلة في الولايات المتحدة الأميركية الوريث الشرعي للاستعمار الغربي في ما بعد الحرب العالمية الثانية أنه يمكنها استثمار هذه التنظيمات الإرهابية لتقسيم وتفتيت مجتمعاتنا العربية من الداخل دون الحاجة للتدخل العسكري المباشر كما كان في الماضي خاصة بعد خسائرها الباهظة في أفغانستان والعراق حين قرّرت السير وفق المنهج القديم.

ومع مطلع العام 2011 كانت قد أعدّت العدّة وتمّ الاتفاق والتنسيق بين القوى الاستعمارية الغربية والتنظيمات الإرهابية لتعمل بالوكالة في تنفيذ أجندة المشروع التقسيمي والتفتيتي لمنطقتنا العربية باستخدام ورقة الفتنة الطائفية والمذهبية والعرقية، حيث أشعلت هذه التنظيمات الإرهابية النيران بالداخل ودارت الآلة الإعلامية الغربية الجهنمية الجبارة لتغسل أدمغة الرأي العام العالمي وإيهامه بأنّ هناك ثورات شعبيّة داخل هذه المجتمعات العربيّة ولا بدّ من دعم هؤلاء الثوار من أجل إسقاط الأنظمة الدكتاتوريّة وتحقيق العيش والحرية والعدالة الاجتماعية والكرامة الإنسانية لشعوب هذه الأوطان، وتمكّنت الآلة الإعلاميّة الغربية ومعها الآلة الإعلامية العربية العميلة من خداع الرأي العام داخل مجتمعاتنا والأمر نفسه تمّ في الوقت الذي كانت القوى الاستعمارية الغربية تدعم وتجيش وتسلح الجماعات الإرهابية للاستيلاء على الحكم لتقوم بعد ذلك بعملية التقسيم والتفتيت التي تستهدفها في الأصل.

ورغم النجاح النسبيّ لمشروع الشرق الأوسط الجديد في مرحلته الأولى في مطلع العام 2011 حيث تمكن من إشعال النيران بالداخل العربي في تونس ومصر واليمن وليبيا وسورية إلا أنّ هذا النجاح لم يتمكّن من الاستمرار طويلاً حيث تمكّن الجيش المصريّ من إحباط وإفشال المخطط عبر مواجهة شرسة مع الوكيل الإرهابي مما أجبر الأصيل الاستعماري الأميركي على التراجع مؤقتاً عن مشروعه في مصر، وفي الوقت ذاته كانت المواجهة الشرسة والمعركة الكبرى والحرب الكونية بين الجيش العربي السوري والوكيل الإرهابي على كامل الجغرافيا العربية السورية حيث نجح في إحباط وإفشال المخطط عبر معارك لا زالت مستمرة حتى اللحظة الراهنة في إدلب. واستطاعت سورية أن تقلب موازين القوى الدولية عبر تحالفها مع روسيا التي عادت من جديد كقوة عظمى بعد غياب عقدين كاملين عن الساحة الدولية كانت الولايات المتحدة الأميركية خلالها هي القطب الأوحد في العالم. ووقفت روسيا ولا زالت مع سورية في حربها ضدّ الإرهاب المدعوم أميركياً، لدرجة جعلت الرئيس الروسي فلاديمير بوتين يصرّح بأنه لن يترك معركة الإرهاب في سورية حتى لو وصلت الحرب إلى شوارع موسكو، وفي الوقت نفسه يصرّح وزير خارجيته سيرغي لافروف هذا الأسبوع أنّ القضاء على الإرهاب في إدلب آخر معاقل الوكيل الإرهابي على الأرض العربية السورية أمر حتمي، وهو ما سيجبر الأميركي عن التراجع مؤقتاً عن مشروعه في سورية.

وفي ظلّ محاولات جيوشنا الوطنية التصدّي للوكيل الإرهابي كان موقف النخب العربية مخزياً فهناك من قام بالانخراط في دعم الوكيل الإرهابي سواء بشكل مباشر أو غير مباشر، وبذلك أصبح في خندق الأصيل الاستعماري الذي يسعى لتقسيم وتفتيت مجتمعاتنا، وهناك من فضّل الانسحاب من المعركة ولزم الصمت سواء بوعي أو دون وعي وهو ما يصبّ في النهاية في صالح مشروع الوكيل والأصيل، وهناك من قرّر خوض المعركة إلى جانب وطنه وجيشه، وعلى الرغم من قلتهم إلا أنهم صمدوا صموداً أسطورياً، وفي ظلّ هذه الأجواء الكئيبة والمحبطة على مستوى النخب العربية يأتي من بعيد بصيص من الأمل عبر ضوء خافت في ظلام دامس، مجموعة من الشباب القومي العربي في المهجر يتحرّكون ويجوبون العالم شرقاً وغرباً في محاولة لتأسيس هيئة شعبية عالمية لمناهضة العنف والتطرف والإرهاب، لتكون صوتاً مدوياً مدافعاً عن أوطاننا داخل أروقة المنظمات الدولية الرسمية وغير الرسمية، ليقولوا للعالم أجمع أننا من وقف وتصدّى للإرهاب، ونحن مَن تآمر الغرب الاستعماري على أوطاننا عبر الوكيل الإرهابي لتستمرّ عمليات سرقة ونهب ثروات شعوبنا المغيبة عمداً مع سبق الإصرار والترصد، فلهم كلّ التقدير والاحترام. اللهم بلغت اللهم فاشهد.

A NEW MIDDLE EAST “MADE IN IRAN” IS ABOUT TO BE BORN

Posted on 09/01/2020 by Elijah J Magnier

By Elijah J. Magnier: @ejmalrai

It would be inaccurate to say the US will leave the Middle East. However, it is certain that the assassination of one single man – the Iranian General Qassem Soleimani – is diminishing US influence significantly. This could not have happened without the (in) direct help of US President Donald Trump.

Trump is doing everything possible to undermine and degrade US hegemony in the world. He doesn’t need any help in this endeavour, but his advisors and cabinet members share his talent for mismanaging foreign policy and national security affairs. With this bad advice US relations around the world, and particularly in the Middle East, have been run as if by a businessman, used to negotiating and intimidating with little subtlety and altogether lacking diplomatic skills.

Every time Iran needs help, President Trump rushes headlong to boost its image in the world, particularly among the “Axis of the Resistance” and above all in relation to China and Russia. These two countries will now only strengthen their relationship with Iran, the country that has effectively and publicly challenged the strongest country in the world.

Targeting a base with thousands of officers and soldiers from hundreds of kilometres away and deliberately avoiding human casualties shows incredible self-confidence in Iran’s manufacture of their own missiles. Iran has shown the strength and technical ability to bomb the most powerful US base in Iraq with precision missiles and has now twice shown mercy by not killing US servicemen.

The first time was in June 2019 when Iran declined to down a US spy plane carrying 38-officers that had violated Iranian space during the “Tanker’s war”. The second time was yesterday when Iran deliberately chose not to bomb human targets at the Ayn al-Assad base hosting in Iraq, home to thousands of US, British, Canadian, Norwegian, Belgian and Dutch officers. Iran used precision missiles to hit specific military objectives avoiding human casualties, by contrast with Trump’s decision to assassinate an Iraqi commander (Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes) and an Iranian general and diplomat on a mission of peace (Sardar Qassem Soleimani).

The Iranian hit on the Ayn al-Assad military base exposed the weakness of the most sophisticated radar and interception missiles in the US arsenal. President Trump has long bragged about these tools like the “best in the world”. But the US defence system at the Iraqi-US base in al-Anbar (west of Iraq) was incapable of intercepting one of the 13 ballistic missiles launched. The consequences of this single act are devastating both to the US armament industry and to US foreign policy in the Middle East.

This strike has shown US allies in the region that the hundreds of billions of dollars they have invested in US weapons are an insufficient defence against Iran. These countries now recognize they have no real deterrence against an Iranian attack. This realisation will push the traditional enemies of Iran in the Middle East to bypass their differences and take the road to Tehran to regain good ties with the “Islamic Republic”. It should not be excluded that many countries would be tempted to buy Iranian precision missiles that must be much cheaper than the expensive US manufactured ones.

President Trump also sent a wrong signal when he announced: “The US doesn’t need Middle Eastern oil”. This statement has been taken by many Middle Eastern leaders as indicating the US government’s lack of appetite to defend their interests since many of these regimes base their yearly budget on oil income.

This brings us to another important point: Trump’s threat to Iran’s nuclear capability. Following the Ayn al-Assad bombing, it is clear the US will not be involved in bombing Iran any time in the future. The US has the destructive military capability, so does Iran. The lesson learned from the Iranian bombing is that Iran is ready to bomb and hit back US targets with great accuracy. Therefore, bombing Iran is off the table. However, Iran developing its nuclear capability is on the table. Tehran is likely to announce new developments in this area as we approach the anniversary of the US revocation of its commitment next April.

Iran has no choice but to totally pull out from the nuclear deal due to the incapacity and unwillingness of the European signatories of the Iran deal (known as the JCPOA) to honour their commitments, to offer Iran any alternative, and to confront Trump’s unilateral abrogation of the US treaty obligation. Such an announcement will be the Iranian “gift” to Trump for his forthcoming electoral campaign, providing political ammunition to Trump’s political opponents.

Trump has done everything in his power to unify Iran behind their leaders by imposing sanctions on the Iranian people and assassinating their general. Iran played the US sanctions skilfully when attacking tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, gathering public support for the regime and fuelling nationalist feeling. The US assassination of Sardar Qassem Soleimani brought millions onto the street and unified Iran under one flag: the return of Iranian dignity, power and sovereignty. Only Trump could have achieved such a critical goal, regenerating the Iranian regime at the right and most needed moment.

Trump’s call for NATO to assume its responsibility in the Middle East has been interpreted in the region as indicating a serious decline of US hegemony. The US President is showing his inability or unwillingness to deal with Middle Eastern affairs. This could reflect the incompetence of his advisors, or a strategic decision by the US to let go of its influence.

Iran showed its power as a regional country capable of facing the US in its most difficult state. There is little doubt the 40 years of US sanctions on the “Islamic Republic” were a total fiasco even with Trump’s “maximum pressure” of sanctions. It would be difficult to imagine the results if Iran was not under these sanctions all these years.

The US primary ally in the Middle East, Israel, is watching the events with a lot of focus. Iran’s threat to hit the US or Israel is real today. Not only that, throughout the years, Iran has delivered these precision missiles to its partners in the Middle East. Iran (or its allies) showed its capability in the most complicated and coordinated attack ever, as proved during the destruction of Saudi Arabia oil facility. Drones and precision missiles launched hundreds of kilometres away hit simultaneously their target. This spectacular attack was claimed by Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East that initiated its weapon supply and retaliation only in recent years. What about Hezbollah, the fully equipped and highly trained organised but an irregular non-state actor with 38 years of experience? Hezbollah has received precision missiles from Iran and deployed these on the Syrian-Lebanese borders under the mountain chain in underground silos. The Iran bombing of the US-dominated base in Iraq marks the end of the Israeli-Hezbollah war. Israel can see what Iran and its allies are capable of. It should maybe start thinking about a different approach towards the Palestinians.

The US President – who promised to end the “endless wars” – killed the Iraqi commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes and the Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani believing he could win control of Iraq and achieve regime change in Iran. On the brink of triggering a major war, Trump has spectacularly lost Iran and is about to lose Iraq.

“Beautiful military equipment doesn’t rule the world, people rule the world, and the people want the US out of the region”, said Iran Foreign Minister Jawad Zarif. President Trump doesn’t have many people in the Middle East on his side, not even among his allies, whose leaders have been repeatedly insulted. Iran could not have dreamt of a better President to rejuvenate its position domestically and regionally. All Iran’s allies are jubilant, standing behind the “Islamic Republic” that fulfilled its promise to bomb the US. A “New Middle East” is about to be born; it will not be “Made in the USA” but “Made in Iran”. Let us hope warmongers’ era is over. The time has come to recognise and rely on intelligent diplomacy in world affairs.

Proofread by:   C.G.B and Maurice Brasher

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Copyright © https://ejmagnier.com  2020

Review of 2019 and Preview for 2020: the Final Combat of Western Hegemonism

December 26, 2019

By Paul Schmutz Schaller for The Saker Blog

The world situation is changing very fast and one needs to make an effort in order to keep pace with the events. The end of a year is a welcome opportunity for an assessment of the current situation. I shall concentrate on two main subjects.

2019: The West has lost the supremacy in the Middle East

I think that this was the most important change in the year drawing to a close. Iran has successfully and creatively defended herself against the „maximal pressure“ from the USA and has kept her distance with the West European countries. Economically, the country has suffered from the US-sanctions, but she has now passed the biggest crisis. The country took the imposed problems as a motivation to improve the economical governance and to diminish the dependance from petrol. While in June, say, there was a more or less real danger of an aggressive war against Iran, now, this treat haas faded into the background. The report of UN-Secretary-General Guterres of Desember 10 saying that the UN, after an investigation in Saudi Arabia, cannot verify the US and Saudi claims that Iran was behind the strikes on Aramco in September, is a diplomatic victory for Iran. As for the Iranian trade, an official recently said that, during the last 9 months, China, Iraq, UAE, Afghanistan and Turkey were major destinations for the Iranian exports while Turkey, UAE and Germany are biggest Iranian trade in terms of imports.

Syria has made further important progress in the fight against terrorism, in particular in the province Idleb. Moreover, the government and the army were able to utilize the partial withdrawal of the US occupying army in the north-east of the country. The reconstruction in Syria moves forward, Russian and Chinese enterprises will thereby play an important role. Hundreds of thousands refugees have come back. In short, as President Assad said in the interview with Italian Rai News 24: „[… ] the situation is much, much better […] and I think that the future of Syria is promising; we are going to come out of this war stronger.“

In the absurd war of Saudi Arabia against Yemen, the strategic situation has completely changed. Saudi Arabia has lost the initiative and different Arabian and African countries have stopped the support for the Saudi army. The Ansarallah movement of the Houthis has made important attacks, in particular against Aramco, and the movement has now strong official relations with Iran.

The West and Israel are still trying hard to exploit the economical and political crisis in Lebanon and Iraq. However, the patriotic forces in both countries were able to keep a positive outlook of the situation and could avoid to fall into the traps.

There is no reason to think that the positive development in the Middle East will change in the next months. Quite the contrary. One can expect that the fight in Afghanistan against terrorism and US occupation will make important progress. Moreover, the influence of China and Russia will further increase. However, the general situation will remain tense. This is of course due to the fact that there is a country like Israel in this region which is utterly hostile against the neighboring countries and tyrannizes the indigenous population.

Asia a a whole has already widely casted off the yoke of Western hegemonism. As of South America, the developments in 2019 show – despite of the coup in Bolivia – a movement to more independence which very probably will continue. I would assume that this vague will also grow in Africa, in particular in Western and central Africa, due to the fight against terrorism and the beneficial influence of China and Russia.

2020: The fight between the American national imperialism and Western hegemony will come to a decision

Trump has won in 2016, based on his program of „America first“. Since then, it has become more and more clear that this program is in fact a program of an American national imperialism. Trump is not interested in a „Western“ perspective. A typical example are the US sanctions against numerous countries, even against traditional allies. This is a crucial change. Since the end of World War 2, the USA were constructed as a worldwide leading power. During the cold war, this has developed into the collective Western hegemony – including countries like Japan, Australia and others – with the USA as the undisputed leader. The emergence of an American national imperialism is a somewhat unexpected challenge for all other Western countries. Nevertheless, it is a logical evolution, provoked among other things by the declining power of Western hegemony and the appearance of China, the new Russia, as well as their strategic collaboration.

The traditional Western hegemonic forces have never accepted the election of Trump in 2016. They are very strong inside the US Democratic Party and in the US parliament in general, but also in Western Europe. With the impeachment and the US election in 2020, the fight between the both tendencies will reach a decision. One should expect that this fight will be very hard. The only logical outcome will be a victory of Trump; however, it is still to be seen whether this will be a clear victory or not. In other words, will the Western hegemonic forces be obliged to accept it this time? I think that these questions will be very crucial in 2020.

Also for Western Europe, the influence of this fight will be immense. Concerning this matter, the UK is the most advanced country in Western Europe. After a struggle of 3 and half years, the population has given a clear mandate to the Johnson government to deliver Brexit. It is probable that now, where this central question is resolved, the development in the UK will be quite dynamical. The formation of a national imperialism will advance quickly. France also is rather well prepared for a victory of the American national imperialism; with the period of de Gaulle in the 1960s, she has a historical model.

On the other hand, I believe that Germany is the less prepared country. Germany is very anti-Trump. In 2016, polls in Germany indicated that up to 90% would vote for Hillary Clinton and only 4% for Donald Trump. The polls during the last years have clearly confirmed this rejection of Trump in the German population. Also, German Chancellor Merkel has been widely seen as a stronghold of the traditional Western hegemony and against American national imperialism. However, the situation is changing. Merkel has lost her authority and is now rather isolated. The awareness is growing that Trump does not stand for a parenthesis in history, but for a fundamental change. The impeachment is not judged as positive as one could await. Moreover, the German industry would like to have better relations with Russia. The US sanctions against Nord Stream 2 will only reinforce the will in Germany to become more autonomous.

There is still another problem. While national imperialism has a long tradition in the UK and in France and will probably be accepted without too much of resistance, in Germany, national imperialism is not popular, for historical reasons. Therefore, one may predict that Germany will have a big debate on her political identity; even a profound crisis is possible. This is certainly complicated by the fact that Merkel has to be replaced and that there is – actually – no convincing successor. I am however quite confident that Germany will be able to find a way for playing a quite positive role in the future world.

We therefore may anticipate that Western hegemony is replaced by national imperialisms. Of course, they will remain a big problem for the world, even if the classical Western hegemony will suffer an important defeat. But the contradictions of other Western countries with the USA will strongly expand. This gives the remaining world much better perspectives.

From my point of view, 2019 was a very positive year and I am convinced that the same will be the case for 2020.

A Panicked Israel Is a Dangerous Israel — Astute News

Former US Presidential Candidate, Pat Buchanan has written, “the Middle East and world, have been awakened to the reality that, when Trump said he was ending everlasting commitments and bringing U.S. troops home from “endless wars,” he was not bluffing. The Saudis got the message when the U.S., in response to a missile and drone […]

via A Panicked Israel Is a Dangerous Israel — Astute News

Haaretz Criticizes Russia, Supports US/Israeli Aggression

By Stephen Lendman

Source

Among major powers, Russia is the leading proponent of peace and stability worldwide — its geopolitical agenda polar opposite how the US, NATO, Israel, and their imperial partners operate, an unprecedented global menace Haaretz and Western media support. 

According to the Israeli broadsheet, Dems have little appetite for “Middle East entanglements and many of them have little love for Israel.”

Fact: On issues of war and peace, corporate empowerment, serving privileged interests exclusively, neoliberal harshness for ordinary Americans, and cracking down hard on resisters, there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between both right wings of the US war party.

Fact: As for virtually anything involving Israel, nearly the entire Congress and executive branch support the Jewish state one-sidedly, uncaring about Palestinian rights. Rare exceptions prove the rule.

Haaretz: “The days of unconditional US defense aid may be numbered. In the future Israel will have to give something back.”

Haaretz has things backwards for the near and longer-term. The power of the Jewish lobby in the US and West assures continued support for the worst of Israeli high crimes. The Jewish state partners with the US and NATO in waging them. 

Haaretz claiming “Putin is the new king of the Middle East” greatly exaggerates Russia’s regional influence, gaining on the West, way short of surpassing it so far.

Saying he has “economic goals” is true of all nations. Russia pursues its geopolitical aims without attacking or exploiting other nations and their people — seeking peace, stability, mutual cooperation with other countries, and multi-world polarity.

Washington’s agenda is polar opposite, the same true for NATO and Israel — at war with other nations while exploiting their own ordinary people for maximum wealth and power.

Haaretz repeated the Big Lie that won’t die about Russian US election meddling no credible evidence proved happened because none exists, adding:

“Moscow operates hacker teams specializing in political interference in ways that leave no trace of official involvement.”

Like Western media, accusations against Russia by Haaretz include no evidence proving them, showing they’re groundless.

The broadsheet quoted an unnamed Israeli official claiming with no corroborating evidence that Russia “engage(s) in political subversion all over the world. They see it as legitimate and Israel is no exception,” adding:

“Like the Chinese, the Russians want to show that the democratic system doesn’t work anywhere. They prefer to deal with leaders and hierarchical systems without institutions that balance and restrain power.” 

“So they challenge democratic structures everywhere, interfere in elections and create economic pressure via investments by oligarchs that serve the Kremlin.”

Fact: Russian democracy is real, polar opposite US-led Western and Israeli fantasy versions.

Fact: Israel spies on allies and adversaries alike, notably the US.  Washington’s Government Accountability Office (GAO) earlier accused Israel of “conduct(ing) the most aggressive espionage operation against the United States of any US ally.”

The Pentagon accused Israel of “actively engag(ing) in military and industrial espionage in the United States.”

An unnamed US official once said “(i)t is one thing for the US and Israel to spy on each other.”

“It is another thing for Israel to steal (its) secrets and play them back to (congressional) legislators to undermine US diplomacy.”

I’ve stressed that the nuclear armed and dangerous Jewish state is run by fascist extremists, Zionist ideologues, and religious fundamentalists — representing an unprecedented regional menace along with Washington’s pernicious presence.

No “challenge from Russia” to Israel exists, no “Russian sheriff in town,” no Kremlin threat to any countries.

Polar opposite is true. Moscow seeks cooperative relations with other nations, not confrontation or exploitive designs.

Haaretz a broadsheet producing credible reports at times on some issues, usually domestic ones — spoiled by the above rubbish appearing much too often.

As for all things geopolitical, the broadsheet supports US, NATO, and Israeli aggression. 

It pretends the Jewish state faces cross-border threats — despite none since the October 1973 Yom Kippur war.

It’s militantly hostile to Iran, Syria, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Hamas, and other Palestinian liberation organizations — nonbelligerent states and groups threatening no one.

Except at times by noteworthy columnists, it hasn’t come to terms with Israeli apartheid ruthlessness, its fantasy democracy, fascist rule, neoliberal harshness, and imperial aims.

All of the above pose a regional and global menace — second only to US-dominated NATO.

The Dancing Israelis: FBI Docs Shed Light on Apparent Mossad Foreknowledge of 9/11 Attacks

September 10th, 2019

By Whitney Webb Whitney Webb 

NEW YORK — For nearly two decades, one of the most overlooked and little known arrests made in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks was that of the so-called “High Fivers,” or the “Dancing Israelis.” However, new information released by the FBI on May 7 has brought fresh scrutiny to the possibility that the “Dancing Israelis,” at least two of whom were known Mossad operatives, had prior knowledge of the attacks on the World Trade Center.

Shortly after 8:46 a.m. on the day of the attacks, just minutes after the first plane struck the World Trade Center, five men — later revealed to be Israeli nationals — had positioned themselves in the parking lot of the Doric Apartment Complex in Union City, New Jersey, where they were seen taking pictures and filming the attacks while also celebrating the destruction of the towers and “high fiving” each other. At least one eyewitness interviewed by the FBI had seen the Israelis’ van in the parking lot as early as 8:00 a.m. that day, more than 40 minutes prior to the attack. The story received coverage in U.S. mainstream media at the time but has since been largely forgotten.

The men — Sivan Kurzberg, Paul Kurzberg, Oded Ellner, Yaron Shimuel and Omar Marmari — were subsequently apprehended by law enforcement and claimed to be Israeli tourists on a “working holiday” in the United States where they were employed by a moving company, Urban Moving Systems. Upon his arrest, Sivan Kurzberg told the arresting officer, “We are Israeli; we are not your problem. Your problems are our problems, The Palestinians are the problem.”

For years, the official story has been that these individuals, while they had engaged in “immature” behavior by celebrating and being “visibly happy” in their documenting of the attacks, had no prior knowledge of the attack. However, newly released FBI copies of the photos taken by the five Israelis strongly suggest that these individuals had prior knowledge of the attacks on the World Trade Center. The copies of the photos were obtained via a FOIA request made by a private citizen.

A high-quality photo, top, shows the area the dancing Israelis were staged. Credit | Panamza

According to a former high-ranking American intelligence official who spoke to the Jewish Daily Forward in 2002, the FBI concluded in its investigation that the five Israelis arrested “were conducting a Mossad surveillance mission and that their employer, Urban Moving Systems of Weehawken, NJ, served as a front.” At least two of the men arrested were determined to have direct links to the Mossad after their names appeared in a CIA-FBI database of foreign intelligence operatives. According to one of their lawyers, one of the men, Paul Kurzberg, had previously worked for the Mossad in another country prior to arriving in the United States. Another of those arrested, Oded Ellner, subsequently stated on Israeli TV that the five Israelis had been in New York at the time “to document the event,” meaning the attack on the World Trade Center.

The FOIA release of the photos is notable because responses to prior FOIA requests to the Department of Justice, which oversees the FBI, had previously claimed that all of the photos taken by the Israeli nationals had been destroyed in January 2014. The photos themselves are heavily redacted, making it impossible to see the Israelis’ facial expressions. However, previously declassified yet heavily redacted FBI reports state that the Israelis are “visibly happy” in nearly every photo, even when the burning towers are in the background. The photos released are also not original copies and instead appear to be photocopies of photocopies of the original pictures. In addition, of the original 76 pictures developed by authorities from the camera in the Israelis’ possession, only 14 were released.

Based on the impressions of the French website Panamza and subsequently MintPress, three of these photos — despite the heavy redaction and poor quality — appear damning. Since 2001, even though the photos were never released until now, it had been known that one of the Israelis arrested — Sivan Kurzberg — was seen in a photo “holding a lighted lighter in the foreground, with the smoldering wreckage [of the twin towers] in the background,” according to Steven Noah Gordon, then-lawyer for the five Israelis, as cited in a New York Times report from November 2001.

The picture of Kurzberg with the lit lighter appears to be photo #5 in the new FOIA release. Yet, the picture released includes a visible date of September 10, 2001, the day before the attacks, as do two other photos — images #7 and #8 in the collection — whereas all other photos with dates show only the month and the year (9 ‘01). The FOIA release did not provide any information as to the apparent discrepancy in dates.

While this could be explained away as the camera in question being programmed with a slightly inaccurate date, that doesn’t seem to be the case for two reasons. First, only three out of the 14 pictures appear to carry that date and, second, previously declassified FBI reports report an eyewitness adamantly stating that Sivan Kurzberg had visited the Doric Apartments on September 10, 2001 at around 3 p.m. with at least one other man, with whom he was conversing in a foreign language, and had identified himself as a “construction worker” to a tenant (page 61 of declassified FBI report).

Sivan Kurzberg holds a lit lighter with the Manhattan skyline in the background. The date September 10, 2001 visible in the bottom right corner | Photo #5

In addition, the FBI report noted that a van from Urban Moving Systems, the company that employed the five Israelis at the time of their arrest, was present and was involved in moving a tenant out of the complex on September 10 and that the movers all had foreign accents. Thus, images 5, 7 and 8 may have been taken at the same complex a day before the attacks.

This raises two possibilities. First, that there are two images of Kurzberg with a lit lighter in front of the towers, one taken before the attack and one taken at the time of the attack, and that the FBI released only one of them. Second, that Kurzberg took the picture with the lighter only the day before the attack and his lawyer misrepresented the contents of the photo to the New York Times. Given that the background of the photo — particularly the state of the towers — is indiscernible in the recently released photo, it is difficult to determine which is the case.

One of the Israelis points to what is presumably the World Trade Center, in Manhattan on September 11, 2001 | Photo #2

However, other analysts have interpreted the photos quite differently. For instance, Ryan Dawson, formerly of Newsbud, cited the police report that details the clothing of some of the Israelis at the time of their arrest and used that to link identities to the redacted faces in the pictures. He believes that the Israeli holding the lighter is not Sivan Kurzberg, but his brother Paul. Meanwhile, the person who filed the FOIA request that resulted in the picture’s release, who wished to remain anonymous, thought that Omer Marmari was more likely to be the man with the lighter.

Both have stated that all pictures were likely to have been taken on the day of the attacks. One reason given for the appearance of the date of September 10, 2001 in only some of the photos is due to the heavy editing, which rendered it invisible in the remaining photos. Dawson asserted that the incorrect date was due to the Israelis’ panicking when they were pulled over and attempting to edit the date and hour on the camera upon the arrest in an effort to hide the evidence. Another explanation put forth is that it was the result of a camera configuration error.

Given the highly redacted and edited nature of the pictures, what is most notable of all is the fact of what is not seen (i.e. edited out) in the photos. Clearly, there was an interest in preventing the public from seeing the state of the towers at the time of the photos were taken and also in preventing the public from seeing the facial expressions of the Israelis, despite it being known from the FBI report that they are “visibly happy” and “jovial.” The state of the towers being edited out is particularly telling.

As to whether any of the Israelis knew of the attacks in advance, the relevant section of the FBI report that asks “1. Did the Israeli nationals have foreknowledge of the events at WTC and were they filming the events prior to and in anticipation of the explosion?” is notably redacted in its entirety, suggesting that the FBI did not determine the answer to that question to be an emphatic “no.”

 

One of the 9/11 loose-ends coverups?

If images 5 and 7 were indeed taken the day prior to the attack, the question then becomes why the FBI officially concluded that the arrested Israelis had no prior knowledge of the attacks? One report from ABC News dated June 2002 suggests that the Bush administration intervened in the investigation. That report states that “Israeli and U.S. government officials worked out a deal — and after 71 days, the five Israelis were taken out of jail, put on a plane, and deported back home [to Israel].” If the Bush administration had cut a deal with Israel’s government to cover up the incident, it certainly would not have been the first time a U.S. presidential administration had done so on Israel’s behalf.

Further evidence that higher-ups in the administration intervened is the fact that then-Attorney General John Ashcroft personally signed off on the detainees’ release. Upon his entering the private sector as a lobbyist and consultant in 2005, the Israeli government became one of Ashcroft’s first clients.

A cover-up certainly seems to have happened to some extent, between the destruction of records of the investigation and the fact that official conclusions of the investigation do not add up. In the latter case, the FBI  — in a file dated September 24, 2001– officially stated that they “determined that none of the Israelis were actively engaged in clandestine intelligence activities in the United States.” However, that conclusion was directly contradicted by U.S. officials a year later and by the fact that Israel’s own government subsequently acknowledged that the five Israelis had indeed been involved in “clandestine intelligence activities in the United States.”

In addition, the new FOIA release of the photos suggests that another FBI conclusion — that “none of the pictures developed from the film found inside the 35-mm camera depicted the twin towers prior to the attack” — was inaccurate. This may explain why the images released via the recent FOIA request were heavily edited leaving details in the background greatly obscured, making it impossible to determine whether the photos were taken prior to or during the attacks based solely on the state of the towers.

 

“Tourists” with cash-stuffed socks, box cutters, and explosives?

Beyond the photos and observed activities of the so-called “Dancing Israelis,” it is worth revisiting several other suspicious circumstances linked to their arrest that clearly show that the men in question were hardly the “tourists” they had claimed to be. One often cited example is the fact that one of the men, Oded Ellner, had a “white sock-like sack filled with $4,700 in cash,” as well as maps of the city with certain places highlighted, and box cutters. In addition, the van in which the Israelis were arrested was “oddly” lacking “equipment typically used in a moving company’s daily duties,” according to the FBI, and residue of explosives was found in the van.

Of the explosive residue, the declassified FBI report states:

A search of the van and individuals was conducted at the time of the vehicle stop. The vehicle was also searched by a trained bomb-sniffing dog which yielded a positive result for the presence of explosive traces. Swabs of the vehicle’s interior were taken, and those samples were sent to the FBI laboratory for further analysis. Final results are still pending.”

In total, the FBI reported that four items related to explosives were found in the ban and are labeled in the report as “Fabric Sample (Explosive Residue),” “Control Swabs – SA [ – ] Gloves,” “Control Swabs – (Bomb Suits),” and “Blanket Samples For Explosive Residue.” In addition, a VHS tape and some still photographs found in the van “were sent to Laboratory Examiner [ redacted ] (Explosives Unit).”

In addition to the strange nature of some of the Israelis’ possessions in the van and on their person, the company that employed them — Urban Moving Systems — was of special interest to the FBI, which concluded that the company was likely a “fraudulent operation.” Upon a search of the company’s premises, the FBI noted that “little evidence of a legitimate business operation was found.” The FBI report also noted that there were an “unusually large number of computers relative to the number of employees for such a fairly small business” and that “further investigation identified several pseudo-names or aliases associated with Urban Moving Systems and its operations.”

The FBI presence at the Urban Moving Systems search site drew the attention of the local media and was later reported on both television and in the local press. A former Urban Moving Systems employee later contacted the Newark Division with information indicating that he had quit his employment with Urban Moving Systems as a result of the high amount of anti-American sentiment present among Urban’s employees. The former employee stated that an Israeli employee of Urban had even once remarked, “Give us twenty years and we’ll take over your media and destroy your country” (page 37 of the FBI report).

The FBI returned to search the premises of Urban Moving Systems a month later, but by that time found:

The building and all of its contents had been abandoned by…the owner of Urban Moving Systems. This [was] apparently being done to avoid criminal prosecution after the 09/11/2001 arrest of five of his employees and subsequent seizure of his office computer systems by members of the FBI-NK on or around 09/13/2001.”

The company’s owner — Dominik Otto Suter, an Israeli citizen — had fled to Israel on September 14, 2001, two days after he had been questioned by the FBI. The FBI told ABC News that “Urban Moving may have been providing cover for an Israeli intelligence operation.” Surprisingly, since at least 2016, Suter has been living in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he works for a contractor for major tech companies like Google and Microsoft. According to the public records database Intelius, in 2006 and 2007 Suter also worked for a telecommunications company — Granite Telecommunications — that works for the U.S. military and several other U.S. government agencies.

In addition to Urban Moving Systems, another moving company, Classic International Movers, became of interest in connection with the investigation into the “Dancing Israelis,” which led to the arrest and detention of four Israeli nationals who worked for this separate moving company. The FBI’s Miami Division had alerted the Newark Division that Classic International Movers was believed to have been used by one of the 19 alleged 9/11 hijackers before the attack, and one of the “Dancing Israelis” had the number for Classic International Movers written in a notebook that was seized at the time of his arrest. The report further states that one of the Israelis of Classic International Movers who was arrested “was visibly disturbed by the Agents’ questioning regarding his personal email account.”

 

A crowded dance floor

While the case of the “Dancing Israelis” has long been treated as an outlier in the aftermath of September 11, what is often overlooked is the fact that hundreds of Israeli nationals were arrested in the aftermath of the attacks.

According to a FOX News report from December 2001, 60 Israelis were apprehended or detained after September 11, with most deported, and a total of 140 Israelis were arrested and detained in all of 2001 by federal authorities. That report claimed that the arrests, ostensibly including the “Dancing Israelis,” were in relation to an investigation of “an organized [Israeli] intelligence gathering operation designed to ‘penetrate government facilities.’”

The report also added that most of those arrested, in addition to having served in the IDF, had “intelligence expertise” and worked for Israeli companies that specialized in wiretapping. Some of those detained were also active members of the Israeli military; and several detainees, including the “Dancing Israelis,” had failed polygraph tests when asked if they had been surveilling the U.S. government.

Watch | FOX News December 2001 report on Mossad spying prior to 9/11

.
A key aspect of that report, compiled by journalist Carl Cameron, also states that federal investigators widely suspected that Israeli intelligence had prior knowledge of the September 11 attacks. In the report, Cameron stated:

The Israelis may have gathered intelligence about the attacks in advance and not shared it. A highly placed investigator said there are ‘tie-ins’ but when asked for details he flatly refused to describe them saying: ‘Evidence linking these Israelis to 9-11 is classified. I cannot tell you about the evidence that has been gathered. It is classified information.’”

One exchange between Cameron and host Brit Hume included in the report is particularly telling:

HUME: “Carl, what about this question of advanced knowledge of what was going to happen on 9/11? How clear are investigators that some Israeli agents may have known something?”

CAMERON: “Well it’s very explosive information obviously and there is a great deal of evidence that they say they have collected. None of it necessarily conclusive. It’s more when they put it all together a big question they say is, ‘How could they have not known?’ — almost a direct quote, Brit.”

However, it is essential to note that Israeli intelligence did attempt to warn the U.S. government at least twice beginning in August 2001 as did the intelligence agencies of many other countries, including France, the UK, Egypt, Russia and Jordan. Yet, no people connected to any other intelligence agency other than Israel were caught celebrating the attacks as they took place in the area nor were accused by mainstream media of operating a large spy ring within the U.S. at the time. One theory to explain this discrepancy is that the Mossad elements of which the “Dancing Israelis” and other alleged Israeli spies could have been part of a specific section of Israeli intelligence that were acting independently as a rogue agency. Such a possibility is not unusual given that divisions of or groups within the CIA have been known to “go rogue” on several occasions.

 

9/11 as a big — and acknowledged — Israeli win

If the “Dancing Israelis”, and more broadly the Mossad and the Israeli government, had foreknowledge of September 11, why would they remain silent and not attempt to warn the American government or public of the coming attacks? In the case of the “Dancing Israelis,” why would Israelis celebrate such an attack?

One of the detained “Dancing Israelis,” Omer Marmari, told police the following about why he viewed the September 11 attacks in a positive light:

Israel now has hope that the world will now understand us. Americans are naïve and America is easy to get inside. There are not a lot of checks in America. And now America will be tougher about who gets into their country.”

While Marmari’s statement may suggest one reason some of the “Dancing Israelis” were so “visibly happy” in their photographs, there are also other statements made by top Israeli politicians that suggest why the Israeli government and its intelligence agency declined to act on apparent foreknowledge of the attack.

When asked, on the day of the 9/11 attacks, how the attacks would affect American-Israeli relations, Benjamin Netanyahu — the current Israeli prime minister — told the New York Times that “It’s very good,” before quickly adding “Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy.” He then predicted, much as Marmari had, that the attacks would “strengthen the bond between our two peoples, because we’ve experienced terror over so many decades, but the United States has now experienced a massive hemorrhaging of terror.”

Netanyahu, in a candid conversation recorded in 2001, also echoed Marmari’s claim that Americans are naïve. In that recording, Netanyahu said:

I know what America is. America is something that can easily be moved. Moved to the right direction. … They won’t get in our way. They won’t get in our way… 80 percent of the Americans support us. It’s absurd.”

In addition, also on the day of the September 11 attacks, Netanyahu — who at the time was not in political office — held a press conference in which he claimed that he had predicted the attacks on the World Trade Center by “militant Islam” in his 1995 book, Fighting Terrorism: How Democracies Can Defeat Domestic and International Terrorism. In that book, Netanyahu had posited that Iranian-linked “militants” would set off a nuclear bomb in the basement of the World Trade Center.

During his press conference on the day of the attacks, Netanyahu also asserted that the 9/11 attacks would be a turning point for America and compared them to the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Netanyahu’s statement echoes the infamous line from the “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” document authored by the neoconservative think tank, the Project for a New Ameican Century (PNAC). That line reads. “Further, the process of transformation [towards a neo-Reaganite foreign policy and hyper-militarism], even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor.”

Then again, years later In 2008, the Israeli newspaper Maariv reported that Netanyahu had stated that the September 11 attacks had greatly benefited Israel. He was quoted as saying:

“We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq.”

Indeed, it goes without saying that the aftermath of 9/11 — which involved the U.S. leading a destructive effort throughout the Middle East — has indeed benefited Israel. Many of the U.S.’ post-9/11 “nation-building” efforts have notably mirrored the policy paper “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,” which was authored by American neoconservatives — PNAC members among them — for Netanyahu’s first term as prime minister.

That document calls for the creation of a “New Middle East” by, among other things, “weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria” and “removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right.” As is known now, both of those main objectives have since come to pass, each with strong Israeli involvement.

Update | This article was updated to include and accommodate alternative analyses of the newly released photos as well information on Israeli intelligence warnings to the U.S. prior to September 11, 2001 that came to the attention of MintPress after initial its publication.

Feature photo | Four of the Israeli nationals arrested for “puzzling behavior” during the September 11 attacks are seen casually posing together in front of the Manhattan skyline while the September 11 attacks were in progress | Photo #1

Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.

الحلفُ الروسي الإيراني ضرورة لطرفيه

سبتمبر 14, 2019

د. وفيق إبراهيم

التحالفات حاجاتٌ لأصحابها، بالأسباب المباشرة حيناً وبغير المباشرة في مرات اخرى.

لكن ما ينطبق على العلاقات الروسية الإيرانية انها تتدحرج نحو تفاهمات عميقة، لا تنتمي الى فئة عرض قوة بوجه المنافسين فقط، بل لبناء قوة مشتركة تجعل من المحاولات الأميركية لترميم نفوذ بلادها هباء منثوراً.

بداية فإن روسيا وإيران مستهدفتان بدقة من الأميركيين. والدليل ان الأميركيين نجحوا في دفع روسيا الى داخل حدودها منذ عقدين ونيّف، سالبين منها محيطها في اوروبا الشرقية والقوقاز والشرق الأوسط وآسيا الوسطى، فلم يتبق لها مدى إلا قاعدة بحرية صغيرة في سورية تطل على المتوسط وتنتمي الى مرحلة الراحل الاتحاد السوفياتي فورثتها موسكو بالنسب المشترك الى جانب علاقة حنين تاريخية مع كوبا والصين.

بدورها إيران وجدت نفسها بعد 39 سنة على ثورتها الإسلامية انها محاصرة الى حدود الاختناق من حرب أميركية اقتصادية تمنع العالم من بناء علاقات اقتصادية معها لا شراء ولا بيعاً وتهددها عسكرياً من قواعدها في الخليج وتحالفاتها مع دوله العربية بالاضافة الى «إسرائيل» التي تعتبر طهران العدو الاساسي لها في منطقة الشرق الاوسط.

هذا الجانب المشترك بين البلدين، يدفعهما الى استراتيجية تحالفية في وجه قوة عظمى فعلية تجمع كل مقومات الأحادية والنفوذ بالاقتصاد المرعب ومركزية السياسة العالمية و800 قاعدة عسكرية تنتشر في مئات البلدان وجيوش جرارة تملأ البر والبحر والفضاء والانتشار الثقافي والسيطرة على الذوق العالمي في المأكل والملبس وآليات اللهو والتسلية.

بيد أن هذا السبب الاستراتيجي موجود ايضاً مع عشرات البلدان الأخرى ولا يدفعها إلى تقاربات سياسية عميقة، بما يؤكد وجود اسباب عديدة لموضوعية التحالف الروسي الإيراني الذي يتكئ على عشرات المواضيع والابعاد الدافعة الى الاسراع في بنائه.

فإذا كانت العدوانية الأميركية العالمية سبباً استراتيجياً لتقاربهما، فهناك عناصر اخرى لا تقل اهمية واولها ان بحر قزوين المشترك بين البلدين مع دول اخرى من آسيا الوسطى هو معبر روسي بديل بإمكانه تأمين عبور سريع لها نحو إيران والخليج والعراق وسورية وبسرعة سياسية لافتة، ما يسمح لموسكو بالاستغناء النسبي عن خط البحر الأسود والمضائق التركية في مرمره وإيجه نحو البحر المتوسط او يصبح لديها على الأقل خطان مفتوحان يضعفان تأثير السياسة التركية على حرية الحركة الروسية.

ان هذا الخط القزويني يضع منطقتين شديدتي الأهمية امام الحركة الروسية الإيرانية المشتركة، وهما الشرق الأوسط وآسيا الوسطى.

لذلك ظهرت أهمية سورية للشريكين معاً، كبلد محوري له تأثير في المنطقة العربية عموماً والدول المجاورة له خصوصاً.

بما يفسر أسباب تركيز اعنف هجوم أميركي عليه، لا مثيل له منذ الحرب العالمية الثانية.

مستجلباً بالمقابل دعماً إيرانياً كبيراً ادرك ان اسقاط سورية هو اسقاط لكل الشرق العربي واضعاف حظوظ إيران بالصمود، كذلك فإن الروس استوعبوا بسرعة أن هزيمة نظام الرئيس بشار الاسد تسمح للأميركيين بالامساك بكامل الشرق الاوسط وهذا يعني العودة الأميركية السريعة للإمساك بنظام احتكار القوة، والهيمنة على العالم مجدداً.

لذلك ظهر وبشكل واضح حجم الدعمين الروسي والإيراني لسورية التي لم تبخل بدورها عبر جيشها وشعبها بكل امكاناتها للدفاع عن دولتها والمنطقة بأسرها.

قد تبرز تباينات في الأولويات بين روسيا وإيران لكنها لا تدعو الى القلق، لأن مرتكزات التقارب اوسع، وتدفع الى حلول وليس صراعات.

فالعمل في الشرق الاوسط يتطلّب تنسيقاً بين البلدين في اليمن والعراق وسورية ولبنان وفلسطين.

وأمكنة أخرى قابلة للانجذاب الى هذا المحور بفعل التراجعات الأميركية الواضحة، وخصوصاً في آسيا الوسطى، الأمر الذي يضع الحلف الروسي الإيراني – الفنزويلي ولاحقاً السوري أقوى معادلة في اسواق النفط والغاز، وهذه بمفردها من الأسباب العميقة للتقارب السياسي الروسي الإيراني الذي يستطيع بالتعاون مع الصين والهند تشكيل اقوى قوة اقتصادية في العالم.

فمقابل أميركا والسعودية وقطر، تبدو المعادلة الروسية السورية الإيرانية اقوى لأنها تمتلك البلد الذي لديه اكبر احتياطات نفط وهو فنزويلا بالمركز الاول عالمياً وروسيا وإيران بالمركزين الثالث والخامس.

اما الغاز فروسيا وهي الأولى عالمياً وإيران الثانية الى جانب امكانات هائلة في سورية، ما يضع هذه المعادلة على رأس الانجذابات العالمية اليها وخصوصاً اوروبا التي تجد نفسها مضطرة للتقارب مع قوى الطاقة المقبلة اي الغاز.

ألا تفسر هذه الاسباب مدى حاجة البلدين لبعضهما بعضاً وخصوصاً في هذه المرحلة من الصراع العنيف مع الأميركيين الذين لا يوفرون استخدام اي وسيلة تدميرية او ارهابية للمحافظة على سيطرتهم الاحادية.

للاشارة فقط ايضاً فان واشنطن تعكف حالياً على ابتكار آليات صراع جديدة مع الروس والإيرانيين والسوريين بالاضافة الى سياسات تتعمد تعميق التباينات الروسية الإيرانية وتحويلها تناقضات عميقة، فتزعم انها موافقة على نفوذ روسي في سورية انما على اساس انسحاب الإيرانيين منها. ومثل هذه الترهات لا تنطلي على موسكو التي تعرف ايضاً ان الدور الإيراني في سورية مرسوم من قبل دولتها صاحبة القرار النهائي بتحالفاتها، كما هو مرتبط بانسحاب الأميركيين من شرقي الفرات وشمالي سورية مع اعوانهم من الاوروبيين والدانمركيين والارهاب فضلاً عن الاحتلال التركي لإدلب وعفرين واجزاء من الحدود الشمالية.

لذلك فإن الرهان على انفجار التقارب الروسي الإيراني عبثيٌ لان مصالح البلدين تبتدئ انطلاقاً من هذه المرحلة لكنها غير قابلة للتوقف حتى بعد تشكل عالم متعدد القطب، لا تقف إيران بعيداً عن حدوده لقوتها المتصاعدة وتلعب روسيا دوراً محورياً في صناعته وتطوره.

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14 آب ليس يوماً مضى بل صيرورة مستمرة… والمطلوب؟

أغسطس 14, 2019

ناصر قنديل

– في الرابع عشر من آب 2006 تحقق عظيم الإنجاز بما يقارب الإعجاز في نصر تاريخي هزم أعتى قوة يعتمد عليها الغرب في فرض سياساته على الشرق، وبزغ فجر حركات المقاومة لتعيد كتابة التاريخ وترسم حدود الجغرافيا باسم الشعوب التي غيّبت طويلاً عن قضاياها المركزية، حيث ترجمت المقاومة التي احتفلت بانتصارها كل شعوب المنطقة إرادة هذه الشعوب في تعبير نوعي عن مفهوم الديمقراطية والإرادة الشعبية. بالتوازي سقطت أحلام وتهاوت أبراج من الأوهام، حيث كل ما سيهدد به الغرب لاحقاً هو ما سبق وما فعله سابقاً، وكانت حرب تموز البديل الذي راهن عليه لاستعادة ماء وجهه بعد حربين فاشلتين في أفغانستان والعراق، لتشكيل شرقه الأوسط الجديد كما بات ما لا يحتاج دليلاً ولا برهاناً، وأصيبت «إسرائيل» في روحها، حيث لن تنفعها بعد ذلك لا قبب حديدية وفولاذية ولا خطط ترميم لقوة الردع ولا استعادة العافية لجبهة داخلية أصيبت بمرض عضال لا شفاء منه، وخرج الشعب في مسيراته المهيبة فجر الرابع عشر من آب يكلل النصر بالمزيد من التضحيات حاضناً مقاومته وفارضاً تفسيره للقرار الأممي 1701، وخرج الجيش اللبناني المتوّج بالثلاثية الذهبية مع شعب ومقاومة لا ينازعانه الحضور العلني لعروض القوة، كأقوى جيوش المنطقة بهذين الرديفين، لا تعوزه المساعدات ولا الرعاية الأميركية الهادفة لتجريده من أقوى ما عنده، وهو الثلاثية المقدسة التي أكدها النصر.

– الصيرورة المستمرة لمعادلات 14 آب ظهرت مع تعميم نموذج المقاومة من لبنان وفلسطين إلى العراق واليمن، وظهرت في النموذج السوري لمقاومة الغزوة الدولية الكبرى، وفي صمود إيران، وفي نهوض روسيا لدورها كدولة عظمى، وفي استفاقة التنين الصيني للمنازلة في ساحات الاقتصاد تمهيداً لمنازلات مقبلة في سواها. وفي هذه الصيرورة تأكدت معادلات نصر آب، وترسخت وتعملقت، وخلال الأعوام التي مضت حاول الأميركي والإسرائيلي وما بينهما من حكام الخليج والغرب، وبعض الداخل اللبناني والعربي والإسلامي تعويض نواقص الحرب ومعالجة أسباب الهزيمة، فكانت كل حرب لإضعاف المقاومة تزيدها قوة.

– قرأ المعنيون بالهزيمة على تنوّع مشاربهم وهوياتهم أن نصر آب هو نتيجة الطبيعة الخارجية للحرب، وأن تفوق المقاومة على جيش الاحتلال تقنياً جاء بفعل أسلحة لا قيمة لها في مواجهات داخلية، فكانت تجربة الفتنة الداخلية، من محاولة كسر الاعتصام الذي دعت إليه المقاومة وحلفاؤها في مطلع العام 2007، وصولاً لقرار تفكيك شبكة اتصالات المقاومة، تمهيداً لتوريطها في فخ التصادم مع الجيش وتفتيت الشعب إلى قبائل متحاربة، فكانت عملية 7 أيار، التي يقدمها البعض دليلاً على استخدام المقاومة لسلاحها نحو الداخل اللبناني، تأكيداً لمعادلة العجز الشامل عن كسر مصادر قوة المقاومة. ومثلها جاءت الحرب على سورية وما رافقها من استقدام كل منتجات الفكر الوهابي أملاً بتعويض عجز جيش الاحتلال عن بذل الدماء باستحضار من لا يقيم لها حساباً، فجاءت نتائج الحرب تقول إن مصادر قوة المقاومة لم تمسها لا محاولات الفتن الداخلية، ولا المواجهة مع تشكيلات الإرهاب التكفيري.

– اليوم ومع تسيّد معادلات المقاومة على مساحة المنطقة من مضيق هرمز إلى مضيق باب المندب ومضيق جبل طارق، ومضيق البوسفور، وما بينها من بحار ويابسة، تبقى المعضلة في قدرة مشروع المقاومة على بلورة نموذج للحكم يُحاكي نجاحاتها في مواجهة العدوان والاحتلال والإرهاب، فيما السلاح الاقتصادي الهادف لتفجير معادلات الدول من داخلها يشكل أهم استثمارات المشروع الأميركي، ويبدو أن إعادة تنظيم الدولة الوطنية ومؤسساتها يسبق في الأهمية الحلول الاقتصادية والمالية التقنية في خطة المواجهة. وهنا لا بد من التأكيد أن بناء الدولة القوية كهدف يبقى هو العنوان، والمقاومة محور تحالفات عن يمينها وعن يسارها ما يكفي لموازين القوى اللازمة لمفهوم الدولة المرتجاة مع مراعاة ضرورات الواقعية والمرونة، وحيث يتحدث الجميع عن الدولة المدنية كإطار للحل، يتباين المفهوم حول طبيعتها، وتبدو المقاومة معنية ببدء الحوار الجاد حول هذا المفهوم خصوصاً مع حليفيها الاستراتيجيين في حركة أمل والتيار الوطني الحر ومعهما حلفاء أصيلون بالمناداة بالدولة المدنية ويحملون نموذجهم اللاطائفي إثباتاً على إمكان تخطي الطائفية، كما حمل مشروع المقاومة الإثبات على إمكانية هزيمة الاحتلال، وهؤلاء الذين يتقدمهم الحزب السوري القومي الإجتماعي متطلعون لهذا الحوار الجاد من موقعهم الشريك في مشروع المقاومة ومعاركها، والهدف هو البدء ببلورة مفهوم موحد، سيكون وحده الجواب على التحديات، خصوصاً ان الهواجس التي يثيرها طرح التيار الوطني الحر بالدعوة لتطبيق عنوان الدولة المدنية بما يتخطى إلغاء الطائفية كشرط للسير بها، ليست هواجس العلمانيين بل هي هواجس تمسّ ما يهتم به حزب الله من شؤون تتصل بدور الدين في الدولة وكيفية الفصل والوصل بينهما وضمن أي حدود. وما يثيره حلفاء حزب الله الذين يثير هواجسهم خطاب الحقوق المسيحية التي ينادي بها التيار الوطني الحر كتعبير عن تصعيد للعصبيات الطائفية، لا يخشونها من موقع طائفي وهم عابرون للطوائف، بل من موقع الحرص على عدم إثارة العصبيات، بينما في هذه اللغة ما يثير مباشرة هواجس قواعد وجمهور المقاومة وبيئتها الحاضنة.

– المهمة ليست سهلة، لكنها ليست أصعب من مقتضيات النصر في آب 2006، وأهميتها في كونها تكمل حلقات النصر، وتجعله مشروعاً وصيرورة، لا مجرد لحظة تاريخية مجيدة.

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Plans for Redrawing the Middle East: The Project for a “New Middle East”

By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

Global Research, June 30, 2019

Global Research 18 November 2006

This article by award winning author Mahdi Nazemroaya first published by GR in November 2006 is of particular relevance  to an understanding of the ongoing process of destabilization and political fragmentation of Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

Washington’s strategy consists in breaking up Syria and Iraq.

*      *      *

“Hegemony is as old as Mankind…” -Zbigniew Brzezinski, former U.S. National Security Advisor

The term “New Middle East” was introduced to the world in June 2006 in Tel Aviv by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (who was credited by the Western media for coining the term) in replacement of the older and more imposing term, the “Greater Middle East.”

This shift in foreign policy phraseology coincided with the inauguration of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) Oil Terminal in the Eastern Mediterranean. The term and conceptualization of the “New Middle East,” was subsequently heralded by the U.S. Secretary of State and the Israeli Prime Minister at the height of  the Anglo-American sponsored Israeli siege of Lebanon. Prime Minister Olmert and Secretary Rice had informed the international media that a project for a “New Middle East” was being launched from Lebanon.

This announcement was a confirmation of an Anglo-American-Israeli “military roadmap” in the Middle East. This project, which has been in the  planning stages for several years, consists in creating an arc of instability, chaos, and violence extending from Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria to Iraq, the Persian Gulf, Iran, and the borders of NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan.

The “New Middle East” project was introduced publicly by Washington and Tel Aviv with the expectation that Lebanon would be the pressure point for realigning the whole Middle East and thereby unleashing the forces of “constructive chaos.” This “constructive chaos” –which generates conditions of violence and warfare throughout the region– would in turn be used so that the United States, Britain, and Israel could redraw the map of the Middle East in accordance with their geo-strategic needs and objectives.

New Middle East Map

Secretary Condoleezza Rice stated during a press conference that “[w]hat we’re seeing here [in regards to the destruction of Lebanon and the Israeli attacks on Lebanon], in a sense, is the growing—the ‘birth pangs’—of a ‘New Middle East’ and whatever we do we [meaning the United States] have to be certain that we’re pushing forward to the New Middle East [and] not going back to the old one.”1Secretary Rice was immediately criticized for her statements both within Lebanon and internationally for expressing indifference to the suffering of an entire nation, which was being bombed  indiscriminately by the Israeli Air Force.

The Anglo-American Military Roadmap in the Middle East and Central Asia 

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s speech on the “New Middle East” had set the stage. The Israeli attacks on Lebanon –which had been fully endorsed by Washington and London– have further compromised and validated the existence of the geo-strategic objectives of the United States, Britain, and Israel. According to Professor Mark Levine the “neo-liberal globalizers and neo-conservatives, and ultimately the Bush Administration, would latch on to creative destruction as a way of describing the process by which they hoped to create their new world orders,” and that “creative destruction [in] the United States was, in the words of neo-conservative philosopher and Bush adviser Michael Ledeen, ‘an awesome revolutionary force’ for (…) creative destruction…”2

Anglo-American occupied Iraq, particularly Iraqi Kurdistan, seems to be the preparatory ground for the balkanization (division) and finlandization (pacification) of the Middle East. Already the legislative framework, under the Iraqi Parliament and the name of Iraqi federalization, for the partition of Iraq into three portions is being drawn out. (See map below)

Moreover, the Anglo-American military roadmap appears to be vying an entry into Central Asia via the Middle East. The Middle East, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are stepping stones for extending U.S. influence into the former Soviet Union and the ex-Soviet Republics of Central Asia. The Middle East is to some extent the southern tier of Central Asia. Central Asia in turn is also termed as “Russia’s Southern Tier” or the Russian “Near Abroad.”

Many Russian and Central Asian scholars, military planners, strategists, security advisors, economists, and politicians consider Central Asia (“Russia’s Southern Tier”) to be the vulnerable and “soft under-belly” of the Russian Federation.3

It should be noted that in his book, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geo-strategic Imperatives, Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former U.S. National Security Advisor, alluded to the modern Middle East as a control lever of an area he, Brzezinski, calls the Eurasian Balkans. The Eurasian Balkans consists of the Caucasus (Georgia, the Republic of Azerbaijan, and Armenia) and Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan) and to some extent both Iran and Turkey. Iran and Turkey both form the northernmost tiers of the Middle East (excluding the Caucasus4) that edge into Europe and the former Soviet Union.

The Map of the “New Middle East”

A relatively unknown map of the Middle East, NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan, and Pakistan has been circulating around strategic, governmental, NATO, policy and military circles since mid-2006. It has been causally allowed to surface in public, maybe in an attempt to build consensus and to slowly prepare the general public for possible, maybe even cataclysmic, changes in the Middle East. This is a map of a redrawn and restructured Middle East identified as the “New Middle East.”

MAP OF THE NEW MIDDLE EAST

Note: The following map was prepared by Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters. It was published in the Armed Forces Journal in June 2006, Peters is a retired colonel of the U.S. National War Academy. (Map Copyright Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters 2006).

Although the map does not officially reflect Pentagon doctrine, it has been used in a training program at NATO’s Defense College for senior military officers. This map, as well as other similar maps, has most probably been used at the National War Academy as well as in military planning circles.

This map of the “New Middle East” seems to be based on several other maps, including older maps of potential boundaries in the Middle East extending back to the era of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and World War I. This map is showcased and presented as the brainchild of retired Lieutenant-Colonel (U.S. Army) Ralph Peters, who believes the redesigned borders contained in the map will fundamentally solve the problems of the contemporary Middle East.

The map of the “New Middle East” was a key element in the retired Lieutenant-Colonel’s book, Never Quit the Fight, which was released to the public on July 10, 2006. This map of a redrawn Middle East was also published, under the title of Blood Borders: How a better Middle East would look, in the U.S. military’s Armed Forces Journal with commentary from Ralph Peters.5

It should be noted that Lieutenant-Colonel Peters was last posted to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, within the U.S. Defence Department, and has been one of the Pentagon’s foremost authors with numerous essays on strategy for military journals and U.S. foreign policy.

It has been written that Ralph Peters’ “four previous books on strategy have been highly influential in government and military circles,” but one can be pardoned for asking if in fact quite the opposite could be taking place. Could it be Lieutenant-Colonel Peters is revealing and putting forward what Washington D.C. and its strategic planners have anticipated for the Middle East?

The concept of a redrawn Middle East has been presented as a “humanitarian” and “righteous” arrangement that would benefit the people(s) of the Middle East and its peripheral regions. According to Ralph Peter’s:

International borders are never completely just. But the degree of injustice they inflict upon those whom frontiers force together or separate makes an enormous difference — often the difference between freedom and oppression, tolerance and atrocity, the rule of law and terrorism, or even peace and war.

The most arbitrary and distorted borders in the world are in Africa and the Middle East. Drawn by self-interested Europeans (who have had sufficient trouble defining their own frontiers), Africa’s borders continue to provoke the deaths of millions of local inhabitants. But the unjust borders in the Middle East — to borrow from Churchill — generate more trouble than can be consumed locally.

While the Middle East has far more problems than dysfunctional borders alone — from cultural stagnation through scandalous inequality to deadly religious extremism — the greatest taboo in striving to understand the region’s comprehensive failure isn’t Islam, but the awful-but-sacrosanct international boundaries worshipped by our own diplomats.

Of course, no adjustment of borders, however draconian, could make every minority in the Middle East happy. In some instances, ethnic and religious groups live intermingled and have intermarried. Elsewhere, reunions based on blood or belief might not prove quite as joyous as their current proponents expect. The boundaries projected in the maps accompanying this article redress the wrongs suffered by the most significant “cheated” population groups, such as the Kurds, Baluch and Arab Shia [Muslims], but still fail to account adequately for Middle Eastern Christians, Bahais, Ismailis, Naqshbandis and many another numerically lesser minorities. And one haunting wrong can never be redressed with a reward of territory: the genocide perpetrated against the Armenians by the dying Ottoman Empire.

Yet, for all the injustices the borders re-imagined here leave unaddressed, without such major boundary revisions, we shall never see a more peaceful Middle East.

Even those who abhor the topic of altering borders would be well-served to engage in an exercise that attempts to conceive a fairer, if still imperfect, amendment of national boundaries between the Bosphorus and the Indus. Accepting that international statecraft has never developed effective tools — short of war — for readjusting faulty borders, a mental effort to grasp the Middle East’s “organic” frontiers nonetheless helps us understand the extent of the difficulties we face and will continue to face. We are dealing with colossal, man-made deformities that will not stop generating hatred and violence until they are corrected. 6

(emphasis added)

“Necessary Pain”

Besides believing that there is “cultural stagnation” in the Middle East, it must be noted that Ralph Peters admits that his propositions are “draconian” in nature, but he insists that they are necessary pains for the people of the Middle East. This view of necessary pain and suffering is in startling parallel to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s belief that the devastation of Lebanon by the Israeli military was a necessary pain or “birth pang” in order to create the “New Middle East” that Washington, London, and Tel Aviv envision.

Moreover, it is worth noting that the subject of the Armenian Genocide is being politicized and stimulated in Europe to offend Turkey.7

The overhaul, dismantlement, and reassembly of the nation-states of the Middle East have been packaged as a solution to the hostilities in the Middle East, but this is categorically misleading, false, and fictitious. The advocates of a “New Middle East” and redrawn boundaries in the region avoid and fail to candidly depict the roots of the problems and conflicts in the contemporary Middle East. What the media does not acknowledge is the fact that almost all major conflicts afflicting the Middle East are the consequence of overlapping Anglo-American-Israeli agendas.

Many of the problems affecting the contemporary Middle East are the result of the deliberate aggravation of pre-existing regional tensions. Sectarian division, ethnic tension and internal violence have been traditionally exploited by the United States and Britain in various parts of the globe including Africa, Latin America, the Balkans, and the Middle East. Iraq is just one of many examples of the Anglo-American strategy of “divide and conquer.” Other examples are Rwanda, Yugoslavia, the Caucasus, and Afghanistan.

Amongst the problems in the contemporary Middle East is the lack of genuine democracy which U.S. and British foreign policy has actually been deliberately obstructing.  Western-style “Democracy” has been a requirement only for those Middle Eastern states which do not conform to Washington’s political demands. Invariably, it constitutes a pretext for confrontation. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan are examples of undemocratic states that the United States has no problems with because they are firmly alligned within the Anglo-American orbit or sphere.

Additionally, the United States has deliberately blocked or displaced genuine democratic movements in the Middle East from Iran in 1953 (where a U.S./U.K. sponsored coup was staged against the democratic government of Prime Minister Mossadegh) to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, the Arab Sheikdoms, and Jordan where the Anglo-American alliance supports military control, absolutists, and dictators in one form or another. The latest example of this is Palestine.

The Turkish Protest at NATO’s Military College in Rome

Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters’ map of the “New Middle East” has sparked angry reactions in Turkey. According to Turkish press releases on September 15, 2006 the map of the “New Middle East” was displayed in NATO’s Military College in Rome, Italy. It was additionally reported that Turkish officers were immediately outraged by the presentation of a portioned and segmented Turkey.8 The map received some form of approval from the U.S. National War Academy before it was unveiled in front of NATO officers in Rome.

The Turkish Chief of Staff, General Buyukanit, contacted the U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, and protested the event and the exhibition of the redrawn map of the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.9 Furthermore the Pentagon has gone out of its way to assure Turkey that the map does not reflect official U.S. policy and objectives in the region, but this seems to be conflicting with Anglo-American actions in the Middle East and NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan.

Is there a Connection between Zbigniew Brzezinski’s “Eurasian Balkans” and the “New Middle East” Project?

The following are important excerpts and passages from former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski’s book, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geo-strategic Imperatives. Brzezinski also states that both Turkey and Iran, the two most powerful states of the “Eurasian Balkans,” located on its southern tier, are “potentially vulnerable to internal ethnic conflicts [balkanization],” and that, “If either or both of them were to be destabilized, the internal problems of the region would become unmanageable.”10

It seems that a divided and balkanized Iraq would be the best means of accomplishing this. Taking what we know from the White House’s own admissions; there is a belief that “creative destruction and chaos” in the Middle East are beneficial assets to reshaping the Middle East, creating the “New Middle East,” and furthering the Anglo-American roadmap in the Middle East and Central Asia:

In Europe, the Word “Balkans” conjures up images of ethnic conflicts and great-power regional rivalries. Eurasia, too, has its “Balkans,” but the Eurasian Balkans are much larger, more populated, even more religiously and ethnically heterogenous. They are located within that large geographic oblong that demarcates the central zone of global instability (…) that embraces portions of southeastern Europe, Central Asia and parts of South Asia [Pakistan, Kashmir, Western India], the Persian Gulf area, and the Middle East.

The Eurasian Balkans form the inner core of that large oblong (…) they differ from its outer zone in one particularly significant way: they are a power vacuum.Although most of the states located in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East are also unstable, American power is that region’s [meaning the Middle East’s] ultimate arbiter. The unstable region in the outer zone is thus an area of single power hegemony and is tempered by that hegemony. In contrast, the Eurasian Balkans are truly reminiscent of the older, more familiar Balkans of southeastern Europe: not only are its political entities unstable but they tempt and invite the intrusion of more powerful neighbors, each of whom is determined to oppose the region’s domination by another. It is this familiar combination of a power vacuum and power suction that justifies the appellation “Eurasian Balkans.”

The traditional Balkans represented a potential geopolitical prize in the struggle for European supremacy. The Eurasian Balkans, astride the inevitably emerging transportation network meant to link more directly Eurasia’s richest and most industrious western and eastern extremities, are also geopolitically significant.Moreover, they are of importance from the standpoint of security and historical ambitions to at least three of their most immediate and more powerful neighbors, namely, Russia, Turkey, and Iran, with China also signaling an increasing political interest in the region. But the Eurasian Balkans are infinitely more important as a potential economic prize: an enormous concentration of natural gas and oil reserves is located in the region, in addition to important minerals, including gold.

 The world’s energy consumption is bound to vastly increase over the next two or three decades. Estimates by the U.S. Department of Energy anticipate that world demand will rise by more than 50 percent between 1993 and 2015, with the most significant increase in consumption occurring in the Far East. The momentum of Asia’s economic development is already generating massive pressures for the exploration and exploitation of new sources of energy, and the Central Asian region and the Caspian Sea basin are known to contain reserves of natural gas and oil that dwarf those of Kuwait, the Gulf of Mexico, or the North Sea.

Access to that resource and sharing in its potential wealth represent objectives that stir national ambitions, motivate corporate interests, rekindle historical claims, revive imperial aspirations, and fuel international rivalries. The situation is made all the more volatile by the fact that the region is not only a power vacuum but is also internally unstable.

(…)

The Eurasian Balkans include nine countries that one way or another fit the foregoing description, with two others as potential candidates. The nine are Kazakstan [alternative and official spelling of Kazakhstan] , Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia—all of them formerly part of the defunct Soviet Union—as well as Afghanistan.

The potential additions to the list are Turkey and Iran, both of them much more politically and economically viable, both active contestants for regional influence within the Eurasian Balkans, and thus both significant geo-strategic players in the region. At the same time, both are potentially vulnerable to internal ethnic conflicts. If either or both of them were to be destabilized, the internal problems of the region would become unmanageable, while efforts to restrain regional domination by Russia could even become futile. 11

(emphasis added)

Redrawing the Middle East

The Middle East, in some regards, is a striking parallel to the Balkans and Central-Eastern Europe during the years leading up the First World War. In the wake of the the First World War the borders of the Balkans and Central-Eastern Europe were redrawn. This region experienced a period of upheaval, violence and conflict, before and after World War I, which was the direct result of foreign economic interests and interference.

The reasons behind the First World War are more sinister than the standard school-book explanation, the assassination of the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian (Habsburg) Empire, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo. Economic factors were the real motivation for the large-scale war in 1914.

Norman Dodd, a former Wall Street banker and investigator for the U.S. Congress, who examined  U.S. tax-exempt foundations, confirmed in a 1982 interview that those powerful individuals who from behind the scenes controlled the finances, policies, and government of the United States had in fact also planned U.S. involvement in a war, which would contribute to entrenching their grip on power.

The following testimonial is from the transcript of Norman Dodd’s interview with G. Edward Griffin;

We are now at the year 1908, which was the year that the Carnegie Foundation began operations.  And, in that year, the trustees meeting, for the first time, raised a specific question, which they discussed throughout the balance of the year, in a very learned fashion.  And the question is this:  Is there any means known more effective than war, assuming you wish to alter the life of an entire people?  And they conclude that, no more effective means to that end is known to humanity, than war.  So then, in 1909, they raise the second question, and discuss it, namely, how do we involve the United States in a war?

Well, I doubt, at that time, if there was any subject more removed from the thinking of most of the people of this country [the United States], than its involvement in a war.  There were intermittent shows [wars] in the Balkans, but I doubt very much if many people even knew where the Balkans were.  And finally, they answer that question as follows:  we must control the State Department.

And then, that very naturally raises the question of how do we do that?  They answer it by saying, we must take over and control the diplomatic machinery of this country and, finally, they resolve to aim at that as an objective.  Then, time passes, and we are eventually in a war, which would be World War I.  At that time, they record on their minutes a shocking report in which they dispatch to President Wilson a telegram cautioning him to see that the war does not end too quickly.  And finally, of course, the war is over.

At that time, their interest shifts over to preventing what they call a reversion of life in the United States to what it was prior to 1914, when World War I broke out. (emphasis added)

The redrawing and partition of the Middle East from the Eastern Mediterranean shores of Lebanon and Syria to Anatolia (Asia Minor), Arabia, the Persian Gulf, and the Iranian Plateau responds to broad economic, strategic and military objectives, which are part of a longstanding Anglo-American and Israeli agenda in the region.

The Middle East has been conditioned by outside forces into a powder keg that is ready to explode with the right trigger, possibly the launching of Anglo-American and/or Israeli air raids against Iran and Syria. A wider war in the Middle East could result in redrawn borders that are strategically advantageous to Anglo-American interests and Israel.

NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan has been successfully divided, all but in name. Animosity has been inseminated in the Levant, where a Palestinian civil war is being nurtured and divisions in Lebanon agitated. The Eastern Mediterranean has been successfully militarized by NATO. Syria and Iran continue to be demonized by the Western media, with a view to justifying a military agenda. In turn, the Western media has fed, on a daily basis, incorrect and biased notions that the populations of Iraq cannot co-exist and that the conflict is not a war of occupation but a “civil war” characterised by domestic strife between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.

Attempts at intentionally creating animosity between the different ethno-cultural and religious groups of the Middle East have been systematic. In fact, they are part of a carefully designed covert intelligence agenda.

Even more ominous, many Middle Eastern governments, such as that of Saudi Arabia, are assisting Washington in fomenting divisions between Middle Eastern populations. The ultimate objective is to weaken the resistance movement against foreign occupation through a “divide and conquer strategy” which serves Anglo-American and Israeli interests in the broader region.

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya specializes in Middle Eastern and Central Asian affairs. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Notes

1 Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Special Briefing on the Travel to the Middle East and Europe of Secretary Condoleezza Rice (Press Conference, U.S. State Department, Washington, D.C., July 21, 2006).

http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2006/69331.htm

2 Mark LeVine, “The New Creative Destruction,” Asia Times, August 22, 2006.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HH22Ak01.html

3 Andrej Kreutz, “The Geopolitics of post-Soviet Russia and the Middle East,” Arab Studies Quarterly (ASQ) (Washington, D.C.: Association of Arab-American University Graduates, January 2002).

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2501/is_1_24/ai_93458168/pg_1

4 The Caucasus or Caucasia can be considered as part of the Middle East or as a separate region

5 Ralph Peters, “Blood borders: How a better Middle East would look,” Armed Forces Journal (AFJ), June 2006.

http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2006/06/1833899

6 Ibid.

7 Crispian Balmer, “French MPs back Armenia genocide bill, Turkey angry, Reuters, October 12, 2006; James McConalogue, “French against Turks: Talking about Armenian Genocide,” The Brussels Journal, October 10, 2006.

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/1585

8 Suleyman Kurt, “Carved-up Map of Turkey at NATO Prompts U.S. Apology,” Zaman (Turkey), September 29, 2006.

http://www.zaman.com/?bl=international&alt=&hn=36919

9 Ibid.

10 Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geo-strategic Imperatives (New York City: Basic Books, 1997).

11 Ibid.

Related Global Research articles on the March to War in the Middle East

US naval war games off the Iranian coastline: A provocation which could lead to War? 2006-10-24

“Cold War Shivers:” War Preparations in the Middle East and Central Asia 2006-10-06

The March to War: Naval build-up in the Persian Gulf and the Eastern Mediterranean 2006-10-01

The March to War: Iran Preparing for US Air Attacks 2006-09-21

The Next Phase of the Middle East War 2006-09-04

Baluchistan and the Coming Iran War 2006-09-01

British Troops Mobilizing on the Iranian Border 2006-08-30

Russia and Central Asian Allies Conduct War Games in Response to US Threats 2006-08-24

Beating the Drums of War: US Troop Build-up: Army & Marines authorize “Involuntary Conscription” 2006-08-23

Iranian War Games: Exercises, Tests, and Drills or Preparation and Mobilization for War? 2006-08-21

Triple Alliance:” The US, Turkey, Israel and the War on Lebanon 2006-08-06 

The War on Lebanon and the Battle for Oil 2006-07-26 

Is the Bush Administration Planning a Nuclear Holocaust? 2006-02-22 

The Dangers of a Middle East Nuclear War 2006-02-17 

Nuclear War against Iran 2006-01-03 

Israeli Bombings could lead to Escalation of Middle East War 2006-07-15 

Iran: Next Target of US Military Aggression 2005-05-01 

Planned US-Israeli Attack on Iran 2005-05-01

Global Warfare: Militarization of Russia’s Doorstep, Is US-NATO Going to Attack Russia or Iran?

The original source of this article is Global Research

Copyright © Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, Global Research, 2019

On May 25, 2000 the world has changed في 25 أيار 2000 تغيّر وجه العالم

On May 25, 2000 the world has changed

يونيو 25, 2019

Written by Nasser Kandil,

There is no need to indicate that Israel occupied a status in the western system that ruled the world until 2000, when the Soviet Union was disintegrating, Russia was breathtaking after a decline that lasted for ten years, and when Washington was controlling the Eastern Europe and reached to the borders of Russia through its colorful revolutions. As there is no need to prove that the status of Israel in the western system as a wall of protection in the most important region in the world where there is trade lines, oil and gas resources has been affected on the 25^th of May, 2000 when it was obliged to withdraw by force from the South of Lebanon without any negotiation, term, or condition.

Patrick Buchanan; a leader in the Republican Party who competed George W. Bush for presidency in 2000 said in an article on the eve of the US invasion of Iraq that after the resounding fall of the Israeli force, America found itself obliged to be present directly in the region to besiege the rising powers Iran and Syria by occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, hoping to rehabilitate the ability of Israel to launch a war to end the shame of defeat and to prevent the emergence of new equation in the region. The successive facts especially those during the war of July 2006 said that this has happened. Washington announced its responsibility for this war and described it with the opportunity to establish a new Middle East, but the results were contrary, both America and Israel sank in the sea of failure.

Washington tried to involve the region in the wars of chaos hoping that Syria would collapse in these wars and the balances would change. But Russia came to the region, Iran increased its strength, Hezbollah developed its abilities as the pivotal force of the resistance which made the victories of 2000 and 2006, and the resistance of Palestine rose. All of these affected the ability of Israel of occupation and deterrence. Now the region is witnessing a kind of escalation as frequencies of the earthquake of May 25^th 2000, which it became certain that it was greater than the American defeat in the war of Vietnam and the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan, and that the attempts to end it is still the issue that concerns the Americans, the Israelis, and even the rulers of the Gulf. The war of Yemen produced a similar phenomenon to Hezbollah which is growing and creating more equations, contrary to Al-Qaeda Organization which was brought to wage a war by proxy in Syria, but it harvested the double failure.

The complex of May 25^, 2000 is pursuing the Americans; they try hard to avoid it. A little scrutiny will reveal that their issue with Iran is not in its nuclear program and their issue with Syria is not its regime, so what if Iran and Syria accept to meet the requirements of Washington concerning the Israeli security and what if Syria and Iran accept to stop the support of the resistance which always forms the first item in the American book of terms since Colin Powell carried it to the Syrian President after the entry of the American tanks to Baghdad, the result will be no problem with Iran regarding its nuclear program and no problem with the regime in Syria. On the contrary Iran will become the guarantor of security in the region, and Syria will become on the top of the democratic countries.

On the 25^th of May, the history was decisive; time will not return backward, the resisters have written the future of the world and signed it with their blood. So let’s wait and see.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh,

في 25 أيار 2000 تغيّر وجه العالم 

مايو 25, 2019

ناصر قنديل

– لا يحتاج المرء للدلالة على مكانة «إسرائيل» في المنظومة الغربية التي كانت تحكم العالم حتى العام 2000، عندما كان الاتحاد السوفياتي قد تفكك وروسيا تلتقط أنفاسها من غيبوبة عشر سنوات، وعندما كانت واشنطن قد أحكمت قبضتها على أوروبا الشرقية ووصلت حدود روسيا بثوراتها الملوّنة، ولا يحتاج المرء لإثبات أن مكانة «إسرائيل» في المنظومة الغربية كجدار حماية في المنطقة الأهم من العالم، حيث خطوط التجارة وموارد النفط والغاز، قد أصيبت بزلزال في 25 أيار عام 2000 عندما أجبرت على الانسحاب من جنوب لبنان بالقوة، دون تفاوض ودون قيد أو شرط.

– يقول باتريك بوكانن القيادي في الحزب الجمهوري الأميركي الذي نافس جورج بوش على الترشّح للرئاسة داخل الحزب عام 2000، في مقالة له عشية الغزو الأميركي للعراق، إن أميركا وجدت نفسها بعد السقوط المدوّي لجدار القوة الإسرائيلي معنية بالحضور المباشر إلى المنطقة، لاحتواء القوتين الصاعدتين، إيران وسورية وتطويقهما، باحتلال العراق وافغانستان أملاً بردّ الاعتبار لقدرة «إسرائيل» وتمكينها من شنّ حرب تمسح عار هزيمتها وتحول دون نشوء معادلة جديدة في المنطقة. وتقول الوقائع التي جرت بعد ذلك، خصوصاً في حرب تموز 2006 إن هذا ما حدث، وإن واشنطن أعلنت مسؤوليتها عن هذه الحرب ووصفتها بالفرصة لاستيلاد شرق اوسط جديد، لكن النتائج كانت عكسية، وغرقت أميركا و»إسرائيل» في بحر الفشل.

– حاولت واشنطن إدخال المنطقة في حروب الفوضى أملاً بأن تنهار سورية في قلب هذه الحروب، وتتعدل الموازين، فجاءت روسيا إلى المنطقة وزادت قوة إيران وتنامت قدرات حزب الله بصفته القوة المحوريّة في المقاومة التي صنعت انتصارَيْ 2000 و2006، ونهضت مقاومة في فلسطين فرضت المزيد من الإصابات في قدرة «إسرائيل» على الاحتلال والردع معاً، وما تشهده المنطقة من تصعيد ليس إلا من التردّدات التي لا زالت تتفاعل منذ ذلك الزلزال في 25 أيار عام 2000، الذي بات ثابتاً أنه حدث أكبر من الهزيمة الأميركية في حرب فييتنام، واكبر من الفشل في حربي العراق وأفغانستان، وان محاولات محو آثاره لا تزال القضية التي تقلق الأميركيين والإسرائيليين، وقد تعمّم القلق معهما ليصيب حكام الخليج، فإذ بالذهاب لحرب اليمن ينتج نظيراً مقاوماً يسير على خطى حزب الله وينمو ويخلق المزيد من المعادلات، بينما جرى اختبار استجلاب تنظيم القاعدة لخوض حرب بالوكالة في سورية وكانت النتيجة الفشل المضاعف.

– عقدة 25 أيار 2000 تلاحق الأميركيين، وهم يحاولون المستحيل اليوم للتملّص منها، وقليل من التدقيق سيكشف أن قضيتهم مع إيران ليست ملفها النووي، وأن قضيّتهم مع سورية ليست نظام الحكم فيها، فماذا لو قبلت إيران وسورية بقدر من المرونة مع متطلبات واشنطن في الأمن الإسرائيلي، بل ماذا لو قبلت سورية وإيران وقف دعم المقاومة، الذي يشكل دائماً البند الأول في دفتر الشروط الأميركي منذ حمله كولن باول إلى الرئيس السوري بعد دخول الدبابات الأميركية إلى بغداد؟ والجواب معلوم، لا تبقى مشكلة مع إيران في ملفها النووي ولا مشكلة مع سورية في نظام الحكم فيها، وتصير إيران ضامناً لأمن المنطقة وتصير سورية رأس اللائحة في الدول الديمقراطية.

– في 25 أيار قال التاريخ كلمة فاصلة، ولن تعود عقارب الساعة إلى الوراء، لقد كتب المقاومون مستقبل العالم ووقعوا بدمائهم. ومَن يعشْ يرَ!

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New Colonialism and the Colonial Media

The seven Middle East wars of the last two decades mark a new colonial era, driven by a failing empire. But colonization is banned these days, so an ideological cover is needed, and with today’s highly literate populations that cover is provided by an embedded colonial media, backed up by a well-paid NGO sector.

This colonial media is required to recycle the new colonial myths, that vicious predatory invasions are ‘humanitarian interventions’, that terrorist proxy wars are ‘civil wars’ led by peaceful protestors, and that the independent target nations are simply illegitimate ‘regimes’ led by evil ‘dictators’.

That is why we see the durable, if hardly plausible, stories of Palestinian resistance to ethnic cleansing as ‘terrorism’; the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan as a war for the ‘rights of women’ (thank you George W. Bush and Amnesty International) and the repeated ‘false flag’ chemical weapons stunts in Syria (simply pretexts for further intervention), as the actions of a monster president who is (for some unexplained reason) ‘killing his own people’.

The colonial media could be characterized as an embedded state and corporate media sector, which seeks to normalize imperial war and sustain the myths of colonial interventions (in face of substantial reason and evidence) while demonizing independent states and dissident voices. Some criticism is allowed, so long as it does not support the resistance.

This sector has begun to include the giant corporations which control what had been a more diverse social media.

As the weight of global political-economic relations shifts eastwards – and as US industrial and financial power slides and the dollar is undermined – Washington has tried to reclaim its imperial mantle. It is a bold and bloody last stand.

Unlike the Europeans, the USA has always cloaked its imperial projects in the language of ‘freedom’. The fact that this theme has persisted across regimes of slavery, conquest and the purchase of entire nations represents quite an achievement, in both popular persuasion and verbal gymnastics.

That legendary doublespeak can be seen at work today, in the wars against Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Syria and Yemen. Those wars accompany the attempts to isolate Russia, China, and western Europe, which the paranoid American empire sees as its real competitors.

Washington’s grand strategy in the Middle East wars borrows traditional imperial aims. The first of these is to exclude potential ‘big power’ competitors from the resources-rich region, or rather to dictate the terms of their engagement.

The second is to destroy any independent political will in the region, dividing peoples with the help of its main regional agents, the sectarian and backward regimes of apartheid Israel and medieval Saudi Arabia.

While US interventions in the Americas stretch across two centuries, Washington’s first major intervention in West Asia was the 1953 coup in Iran, which imposed a US-backed dictatorship until the Iranian Revolution of 1979.

As a large, central and avowedly independent country, the Islamic Republic of Iran remains the key target of Washington and its regional minions. It has both the capacity and will to lead an independent coalition against Washington’s project for a ‘New Middle East’.

Many in the Middle East regard Israel as the principal enemy. However, this gives too much credit to the Zionist colony. As resistance leaders in Lebanon and Yemen have recently pointed out, the Zionist tail does not wag the imperial dog.

Israel does indeed contribute to colonial media and social media myth-making, but its repression at home undermines much of that.

The US-American colonial media remains central. Both major political parties are rooted in the same self-righteous ‘exceptionalism’, used to justify great crimes. The same large investment groups that dominate the US government also run the colonial media.

Yet in recent years it has been the ‘smart power’ of the ‘exceptionalist’ liberals which has proved more effective in today’s propaganda wars, attracting support from those westerners who like to see themselves as ‘saviours’ of the poor peoples of the world.

This colonial liberalism draws directly from British colonialism liberalism of the mid-19th century. ‘Civilising’ and ‘saving’ the natives are back in fashion.

By Tim Anderson
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