|
Obama Implements Neocon Strategy Against Iran
There are various signs in today's news that the Obama administration policy is pressed to and is actually following a neocon policy towards Iran that is designed to end in a U.S. attack on Iran for the benefit of Israel.
Several political actions reported in recent days seem to follow the recommendations of 2008 study that was written by neocon's hosted at the American Enterprise Institute.
Dennis Ross seems to be a main actor in this effort.
Today's Israeli demands towards the U.S. and the Obama administration with regards to Iran were published as:
-
More and harsher sanctions before any talk with Iran
-
An international action plan for the case that such talks fail
-
A time limit for eventual talks and to define them as "one-time opportunity"
Israel threatens that in case the U.S. does not concede these points, it will attack Iran. An event that would have harsh consequences for the U.S. position in the Middle East.
I called this an Israeli dictate. Steve Clemons writes:
Israel is crossing the line by instructing the American Secretary of State and President where there lines "should be".
The "Israeli demands" listed above, especially the time limit, is construed to let any talks with Iran fail. The plan is to press the U.S. into a pre-committed chain of events that, in the end, means pursuing Israeli interests by blockading and thereby waging war against Iran.
The points above, published in Haaretz, are said to come from the Israeli government. But to me it seems that these were rather created in Washington.
The "Bipartisan Policy Institute" issued a study developed by a task force last year titled Meeting the Challenge – U.S. policy toward Iranian nuclear development. The actual authors of that study were two neocons, AEI’s Michael Rubin and Michael Makovsky. The task force members included various other rightwing and neocon faces and especially Dennis Ross, now Middle East adviser to Sec State Clinton.
Jim Lobe characterized the report as a Roadmap to War with Iran.
The recommendations in the executive summary of the report include:
The United States must prioritize its effort to motivate Russia to step up its support for international efforts to pressure Iran to abandon its quest for nuclear weapons. One point of friction between the United States and Russia is the U.S. initiative to install missile defenses in Eastern Europe. Th e United States insists that these defenses are directed against the emerging nuclear and missile threat from Iran. Moscow, however, has strongly objected to U.S. missile defense in the Czech Republic and Poland on grounds that they pose a threat to Russia. The United States should make clear to Moscow that operationalization of the initial missile defense capability, as well as any future expansion of it, will depend on the evolution of the nuclear and missile threat from Iran. Should Russia contribute to successful international efforts to restrain the Iranian threat, it will lessen the need to further develop and expand missile defenses in Europe.
This fits point 2 of the Israeli demand above – the preparation of an international action plan. This also fits today's administration leak to the NYT on the implementation of exactly that Missile Defense/Iran pressure point on Russia discussed in an earlier piece here.
Another point in the recommendations:
U.S. policymakers must
recognize the grave and existential danger that the Islamic Republic poses to Israel.
…
It will be up to the President to consult with Israel and provide sufficient assurance so that they do not feel compelled to undertake unilateral action.
The Israeli threat today to act alone unless the U.S. does XYZ is issued to generate that sufficient assurance.
To build additional leverage, states and international organizations should apply both unilateral and multilateral sanctions before and during any diplomatic
rapprochement.
…
[I]t must be clear that any U.S.-Iranian talks will not be open-ended, but will be limited to a predetermined time period so that Tehran does not try to ‘run out the clock.’
See the time limit demand in point 3 above.
The study recommends a sea blockade of Iran as a the endpoint of negotiations designed to fail. In international law a blockade is an act of war.
So lets piece this together.
We have administration officials leaking about pressure on Russia with the real target being Iran as recommended in the AEI authored study.
We have Israeli officials demanding U.S. concern by threatening independent action (with harsh negative consequences for U.S. interests in the Middle East) as recommended in the AEI authored study.
We have Israeli officials demanding several points which are take right out of the recommendations of the AEI authored study.
In the late 1990s the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), with many neocon members from the AEI, published lots of letters and recommendations that urged to attack Iraq for the hidden benefit of Israel. Several of the authors and signers of those papers joined the Bush administration and implemented that policy.
We have now another think tank that published a study and op-eds primarily written by neocon AEI members with recommendations for a new administration. They now urge to attack Iran, again for the benefit of Israel.
Dennis Ross, a signer of the various PNAC papers as well as the study discussed above and similar efforts pressing in the same direction has joined the Obama administration in a quite important position. The Financial Times wrote yesterday that a another new document pressing for more Iran sanctions will be released this week:
The document, due to be released this week by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, is the result of a bipartisan working group of Washington-based analysts including Dennis Ross, the administration's point-man on Iran and the Gulf, and Gary Samore and Robert Einhorn, whom Mr Obama is set to name as his top officials on nonproliferation at the White House and the State Department, respectively.
We are now quite obviously seeing the implementation of exactly the recommendations those various neocon authored studies give.
Anybody who wants to understand the Obama administration's policies with regards to Iran should read these neocon and AEI influenced studies. Their recommendations are now in the process of being implemented point by point by the Obama administration under the guiding hands of Dennis Ross.
There are several other recent items in the news that support the above thesis (and need follow ups) that the neocon advised policies versus Iran are in the implementation phase.
- The Obama administration kept the main actor in implementing financial sanctions against Iran by pressuring foreign banks in his place. What are his connections?
- There was leak by someone that allegedly Sec State Clinton thinks negotiations with Iran are futile.
- …
Colonel Pat Lang thinks that maybe Dennis Ross is behind the "Clinton said.." and should register as the "Foreign Agent" he obviously is. I agree.
Parviz@44: But the AIE and others like it are alive, vibant and thriving. I mean, SOMEone is running all these insane GOP and NEOCON media campaigns in opposition to Obama’s Admin. Those SOMEone’s I suspect are PNAC minions. Who drives them? The same one’s in opposition to Obama’s stated visions and goals.
To back up a bit, I’d like to posit one singular thing that runs thru the insanity, details, and complexity and confusion that’s upon us right now . . .
1) There are likely roughly ten or more MAIN characters/orgs/interests all competing for at times, similar needs, at times singular needs. By needs, I mean either publicly or not publicly goals.
So when one speaks of War With Iran, as in the context B has posted in the thread, it’s IMPOSSIBLE to figure out, because each and every one of those ‘ten’ elements is at play, in accord, in opposition . . .
When one speaks of failed fiscal/econ policies in USA, built on houses of inflated debt ratings, it’s IMPOSSIBLE to figure it all out, definitively, because again there are ‘ten’ in play.
Factor in deregulation of business and government across the board, consolidation in biz, outsourcing, elimination of small owners (farms/businesses), lowered wages . . . influences on building weapons, maintaining ‘war’, centralization of wealth and power upwards . . . .
Tell me, just who the hell is gonna figure any of this out as it plays out?
And so, I close with this wrap. Obama is who he says he is. Within his admin, and without, are forces and personnel who are part of the ‘ten’, fighting and jousting and weaving all their ways around and thru our nations challenges, our nations peoples, and our nations elected officials . . . all to get an upper hand for ‘their’ agenda(s).
In other words, a total clusterfuck that CAN’T be explained from any one point of view, by any one theory.
It’s a myriad of forces at work and in play layered with all the intelligence and sophistication and mind boggling planning, details, subterfusion and designed confusion that goes into furthering one’s particular agenda/goals.
Sometimes dots connect. Sometimes they don’t. EVERYONE releases information, writes articles quoting ‘unnamed hi level sources’, everyone is running psyops distortions in the media, be it mainstream or not, be it domestic or international . . . . everyone is gaming.
To make sense of it at times, is simply not possible. Sometimes the tea leaves can be read, sometimes the entrails tell a different tale. And sometimes, no one, NO one really knows what the fuck is gonna happen.
And that’s where we are at with at LEAST Iran, likely Iraq and Afghanistan, our financial situation, and the balance of power and control in the USA . . . will the people ever get back any sense of power and control of their potential to better themselves?
Not without jobs, education, healthcare and the elected officials who will fight and deliver those things.
Will the wealth of our sweat equity continued be be diminished as it is forced upwardly into the hands of the few?
Likely, if the ‘system’s’ not fought and changed.
Are we headed to global wreck and doom as a species? Likely.
Can we figure any of that out? Not phreakin hardly.
But it’s always entertaining and illuminating to read about it all from those who know more than I do, or ever will. And I’m one skeptical and pessimistic person. And still, individual people and their courage and efforts on behalf of others jump up to command my attention and surprise me.
Figure it out? HAH!
All we know is we are born into this ride, and at some point, we get off the ride.
Where and when the ride starts and stops even the gods are only 7/10th’s sure about, at times.
Thanks for the ride, so far . . . MOB and all in here.
Posted by: Larue | Mar 4 2009 9:48 utc | 45
Israel and the US are locked together at the hip in an unholy alliance, which is based on just one thing – dominating, or even outright attacking, other countries in the ME.
The US has to maintain and show military dominance, even if its ‘wars’ achieve precious little, except for the usual, funding the military industrial complex, scaring other people and nations to death, and keeping many Americans deluded in power fantasies, etc. Its indulgence to its minuscule and dependent ally, or better partner, thus knows no bounds, and obliges them to be on Israel’s side on the Palestine question.
— The US would on the one hand prefer this problem to vanish, have a ‘united’ Israel, a ‘true democracy’ which actually ‘works’ on their side, as State number X – I believe this was Bush’s stance though I’d be hard put to document it, in view of his submissiveness to the neo-cons, better simply called pro-Zionist, faction. His obsession with Iraq and his being a ‘war’ president after 9/11 fitted in with the Zio crowd.
— On the other hand, to keep Israel stuck in its aggressive and paranoid path, it is necessary to support, applaud, or at least not hinder, its territorial expansionism, its crazed ethnicism, its crackpot laws, its violent military sorties. And to fund it to keep it alive. If a one-state solution (or even possibly a two-state solution, though I myself don’t believe in it) could be achieved, Israel would be at ‘peace with its neighbors’ as the current expression goes. Israel would rapidly stop its fear, hate, mad killing, there would be no reason for it. As a ‘normal’ country it would trade with Syria, Jordan, they would have ‘paired cities’, folklore meets, the border with Egypt would be a 3 minute zip, they would enter the Euro Vision song contest together, etc. Israel would have a grand time, as with the certain massive US/EU/etc. financial support it would become a ‘hub’ at the edge of the ME. It would also solve its water/oil etc. resources problems speedily.
> That is not acceptable to the US who wants to conserve the little snarling mad dog. The US wants to be able to excuse actions of its shoddy, tiny partner with all the usual blah…. the special status of Israel, the Holocaust, etc. etc. Wearing thin by now.
> At the same time, a solution (‘peace’) is not acceptable to Israel in its present state. The people who run the place, not the ppl living there, lives off its aggression, its paranoid hubris, its ‘fake democracy’, its financial high jinks (ignored), its presumed military clout, etc. With ‘peace’ Israel would be subject to International law, would no longer be an extraordinary exception, would not be able to collect tremendous booty from rich patrons..
Therefore, neither party will envisage changing the arrangement.
Posted by: Tangerine | Mar 4 2009 18:22 utc | 58
b, I just spotted this on the IHT Blog. It’s so superb you may wish to consider highlighting it on a new thread:
Israel Is Nobody’s Friend
If civilization can survive the cynical path it’s on, future historians will identify three great cons that were played out upon the world during this time; the fractional-reserve central-banking system, the war on terrorism and Israel. All three are equally dangerous to the future of mankind, are presented with equal deception, and emanate from the same source.
Much of the intentional confusion surrounding Israel is due to Israel presenting itself as a Jewish state – it’s not Israel is a Zionist state. When people mention the word Jewish, they are usually mixing together three very distinct, different elements.
There are the Hebrews…the Semitic race generally referred to in the bible. Many Hebrews, however, are not Jews, there are also Christian and Arab Hebrews…all are true Semitic peoples. Then there is Judaism, the religion. Lastly, there is world Zionism, a geopolitical movement that is atheistic in nature and worships wealth and power…and all that follows in its wake. As Joe Biden recently pointed out in a speech given in Israel, “I’m a Zionist; you don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist.”
The roots of Zionism, and the House of Rothschild, can be traced back to the Kazars of Southern Russian an important piece of history that’s been swept under the rug. The Kazars were of mixed Turkish and Mongol blood who made their living by raiding caravans traveling through their territory. Eventually, Kazaria became an empire and developed Kings and an aristocracy who began to look for a way of making a living that was less hazardous to their health.
With their empire situated at the nexus of the caravan route, the Kazarian aristocracy decided to create wealth through usury – by charging interest on money lent. The Kazarian population was about one-third Christian, one-third Moslem and one-third Jewish – all getting along pretty well together. The problem was, at that time in the Middle Ages, both the Moslems and Christians considered charging interest – usury – a sin. Only Judaism allowed for the charging of interest to the Goyim – the non-Jews.
The aristocrats of the Kazars made the calculated announcement that they had converted to Judaism, and from that time on, made their living loaning and exchanging money. After being driven out of Russia, these Kazarian (pseudo) Jews moved into Eastern Europe, and eventually into Western Europe and Germany.
Over the centuries, the Kazarians perfected the practice of usury and came to acquire great wealth and influence in the countries they occupied with the House of Rothschild emerging as the undisputed master of manipulation.
After seeing that the Rothschilds were financing both sides of the war between England and France, Napoleon made this insightful statement that reflects the enormous power they wielded, “When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes. Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain.”
While genuine history shows that the Rothschilds financed the Nazi’s into power; while at the same time financing the war effort in England, the story of Rabbi Michael Dov-Ber Weismandel illustrates the hidden hand of the Rothschilds in sacrificing orthodox Jews to allow for the state of Israel to be created.
In November 1942, Rabbi Weismandel negotiated a deal with the Nazi government to have all the Jews in Western Europe and the Balkans released out of Germany for a mere 2 million dollars. Weismandel sent a courier to the Rothschild-led World Zionist Organization in Switzerland. The request was refused with a message for him… “If we do not sacrifice any blood, by what right shall we merit coming before the bargaining table when they divide nations and lands at the war’s end? ….for only with blood shall we get the land.”
From 1933 to 1935, the World Zionist Organization turned down two-thirds of all the German Jews who applied for immigration certificates. As late as 1943, while countless Jews in Europe were dying, the U.S. Congress proposed to set up a commission to “study” the problem. Rabbi Stephen Wise, who was the principal American spokesperson for Zionism, came to Washington to testify against the rescue bill because it would divert attention from the colonization of Palestine.
From the perspective of genuine history, there’s no paradox in seeing Israel emulating the Nazis in waging a genocidal war against the 4 million Palestinians imprisoned in the concentration camp Israel has created in Gaza. Nor is it surprising to see the extreme racial prejudice of the Israelis being brainwashed into thinking themselves the ‘chosen people’ while looking upon the Palestinians as worthless humanity. In the case of Nazism and Zionism, as one philosopher put it, “the poison and the antidote were brewed in the same vat.”
It should come as no surprise that Baron Rothschild is commemorated in Israel as ‘The Father of the Settlement’ nor that the motto of the Israeli Mossad reads “By way of deception, thou shalt do war.” The fractional-reserve central-banking system, the war on terrorism and Israel are all reflective of a war by way of deception – a war on humanity itself.
Unless Jews, Christians and Moslems can find some way of breaking free of the web of deceit together, we’ll all find ourselves trampled under the crushing boot of Zionism.
[56] Posted by: John Lund UK — 04 March 2009 7:24 pm
IHT Blog Comment #56
Posted by: Parviz | Mar 5 2009 5:51 utc | 65
One of the most sober and intelligent articles I have come across, written by someone highly qualified to judge:
Why negotiating with Iran won’t be easy
By John Mundy, February 25 2009, Ottawa Citizen and Canada’s last Ambassador to Iran who was expelled in 2007
It won’t be easy for U.S. President Barack Obama to negotiate with Iran. I had the chance to live there for most of 2007 and observe its government — before being expelled. Here are 10 reasons why the Americans are going to have a very hard time establishing a better and more productive relationship with Iran and its leader:
1) The top man does not travel.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad travels all the time but he is not Iran’s leader. The top man, Iran’s Supreme Leader, is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He has not travelled outside of Iran since he succeeded Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989. Not only does he have virtually no first-hand experience of the outside world, but he also makes little effort to meet any world leader who might challenge him.
2) Khamenei is not Khomeini.
Ayatollah Khomeini, the famous leader of Iran’s 1979 revolution had the charisma, revolutionary credentials, religious authority and political dominance to make really big foreign policy decisions on his own (e.g. peace with Iraq’s Saddam Hussein in 1988). Iran’s current leader doesn’t have the same stature, despite his longevity. He needs the backing of Iranian power brokers for such an important decision.
3) There are a lot of Iranian power brokers.
Iranians themselves have trouble figuring out who has real influence in their government system. For the foreign observer, very few of whom have long living experience in Iran or speak Farsi, it is very difficult. When I was in Tehran a partial list of Iranian power brokers would have included: the Supreme Leader and at least one of his sons, President Ahmadinejad and former presidents Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammed Khatami, various ayatollahs including one under house arrest, serving and retired generals particularly from the Revolutionary Guard, former presidential candidates, key officials in the Supreme Leader’s office, at least one newspaper editor, the national oil company, the heads of the biggest Bonyads, key Bazaaris, key Majlis MPs and the heads of the many security services.
4) Negotiating with the U.S. is a toxic file.
Probably nothing is more dangerous for an Iranian power broker than negotiating with the Americans. The Mossadegh coup of 1953 is not forgotten. The 1979 revolution painted the Shah as a tyrannical American puppet. The Iranian government took me on a special tour of the Shah’s old torture prison, now a lurid museum, just to make this point. The huge revolutionary murals around the old American compound in downtown Tehran are being kept up. When the United States and Iran last tried a public rapprochement in 1998 (With overtures between Khatami and secretary of state Madeleine Albright), Iranian hard-liners quickly emasculated then president Khatami, whose political career was subsequently almost destroyed by president George W. Bush’s Axis of Evil speech.
5) The regime is afraid of the Americans.
Many Iranian power brokers fear that a rapprochement with the U.S. would undermine their intimidation of Iran’s middle class — whose children face a lifetime of unemployment or underemployment. It almost happened in 1999 when Khatami and Albright were reaching out to each other and the students revolted.
6) The regime is not afraid of the Americans.
The regime seems to believe that it could absorb the most aggressive military option still on the table — the bombing of its many, nuclear sites (by America’s ally, Israel). The leadership must believe that its population would rally to them.
7) Nuclear ambiguity doesn’t look that bad — seen from Tehran.
Iran has few real friends and is surrounded by nuclear powers: Russia to the north, Pakistan to the east, the American Navy to the south and Israel to the west. Looking in just one of these directions and recalling that Iran almost went to war against Afghanistan when its Taliban government executed Iranian diplomats in 1998, how best should Iran protect itself should the Pakistani state fall under the influence of the Taliban? While we may not like it, some sort of nuclear capability is an option Iranian security planners will want to retain.
8) Iran is a zero sum game negotiator.
In Tehran, the idea of engaging in a win-win negotiation is considered to be naïve.
9) American diplomacy has already given Iran much of what it wants.
The American invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan deposed two regimes implacably hostile to Iran and replaced them with leaders much more friendly to Iranian interests. These are important geopolitical gains for Iran. Why would Iran’s leadership pay for them now by making concessions to the United States?
10) Iran miscalculates its influence.
With 5,000 years of culture and historical tradition, Persian chauvinism impedes a realistic calculation of Iran’s true power and influence. Iran often does not respect its near neighbours (e.g. Iranian editorials about the territorial illegitimacy of Bahrain). Iran’s diplomatic allies are friends of convenience (Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and Belarus). Iranian power brokers have very little or very dated western experience. Iran’s support for Hamas and Hezbollah is brinkmanship that could miscalculate with terrible consequences for the region.
For these reasons it won’t be easy for the United States to develop a more productive relationship with Iran’s current leadership despite the many advantages of doing so. Alas, there is another unpredictable factor at play that is likely to bedevil President Obama. Iran seems to have a genius for gratuitously offending other countries.
It has happened many times, with many different countries. For Canada it happened in 2006 when our foreign minister attended the first meeting of the new UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. For reasons known only to Iran, it included Saeed Mortazavi in its own delegation to this meeting. Mortazavi was (and remains) the Prosecutor General of Tehran who had been implicated by Iran’s own Parliament in its report accusing the Government of covering up the brutal death of poor Zahra Kazemi, a Canadian citizen, in Tehran’s Evin prison. When he turned up at this meeting Peter MacKay and the whole country went ballistic and our relations with Iran have yet to recover.
Perhaps the Americans will have more luck.
Posted by: Parviz | Mar 6 2009 6:31 utc | 69
|
