Oil and Israel: Unalterable Determinants of US Policy (The Herald)
Reason Wafawarova
Thursday 12 January 2012
There is an unquestionable strategic importance always assigned to the Middle East by successive US presidents, regardless of which political party they belong to.
One has to always take into consideration the historical and contemporary intensity of imperial domination in this region, and with this understanding it becomes a lot easier to interpret the recent wave of uprisings that swept across the Arab world, making many people falsely believe there has been a reawakening of Arab nationalism and unification.
The way the uprisings developed can only be fully understood within the context of an understanding of the dynamics of each wave, inasmuch as it is equally important to place each uprising in the context of the location of the Arab world in the international order of world affairs.
Many people have been brainwashed by Western propaganda to believe the Arab world is solely about religion, culture and the Arabic language. It takes an independent inquiry to appreciate that the region is home to Berbers, Tuaregs, Numidians, Persians, Kurds and many other ethnicities.
The Middle East has also been shaped significantly by a series of Western interventions that have been more pronounced than anywhere else in the world. One can look at Anglo-French colonisation which partitioned the region into 22 states and statelets from the Ottoman Empire between 1830 and 1945, plundering the resources of the region for the benefit of the colonial masters.
After World War 11, the United States took over the persecution of the people of the Arab world from the British and the French, and what followed was a Cold War-inspired US hegemony, underwritten by the Zionist obsession that established the new settler-colonial state of Israel. The resolve was exacerbated by the imperial necessity of asserting control over access to Gulf oil, as a “vital national security interest,” in President Eisenhower's words.
As Cold War politics were practised, it was virtually impossible for the US to completely assert its imperial power over the Middle East, not with the countervailing force from the Soviet Union – a force that provided some space for genuine independence in the region and across the world.
Abdel Nasser of Egypt capitalised on the Soviet influence and he led a legendary spate of nationalism that was popularly admired across the African continent, inspiring sub-Saharan Africa into a wave of socialist governance that was countered by US sponsored “anti-Communism” civil wars, killing millions of Africans in Angola, Namibia, Congo, Uganda, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Middle East has been subjected to brazen military interventions by the US – from countless military bases to direct military occupation mostly effected without UN approval. Over a million people have been ruthlessly killed in the Middle East by the US-led Western alliance since 1990.
The EU has been an active junior partner taking it upon itself to restructure the Maghreb States, with Britain resuscitating its colonial interest over Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf. London wants to relive the good old days when it used to run the Arab states through treacherous monarchs it created after what it called “granting of independence”.
In the Gulf, Britain either coerced or duped local families to sign away their birth rights in exchange for protectorate status, and this included the notorious Khalifas of Bahrain, the lapdog Thanis of Qatar, the pliant Sabahs of Kuwait, and the puppet Qaboos of Oman – all owing their treacherous and undeserved existence to the Royal Navy.
France took over the persecution of the people of the Western Maghreb, carrying out a genocide that wiped out half of Algerians, and retaining as pliant clients the local rulers of Morocco and Tunisia.
Libya was left to the brutality of Italy under Badoglio and Mussolini. After 1918 France and Britain declared themselves awarders of Arab independence and they unilaterally carved out the states of modern day Middle East. Britain simply transplanted pliant monarchs across the region, facilitated the House of Saudi's conquest of Arabia, carved out the tiny Kingdom of Kuwait from Iraq, funded and supported Zionist immigration into Palestine, and brutally crushed the 1936-1939 Arab revolt.
France was playing divide and rule games in Lebanon and Syria. At independence the Arab word was made up of a French-controlled Syria, a French-installed Christian-led Lebanon, and weak collaborationist monarchs in Egypt, Tunisia, Iraq, Jordan, and Libya. The British had just installed King Idris 1 in Libya after grabbing the Italian colony during the Desert War. King Idris 1 was toppled by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in 1969 after he had successfully led the country to become the poorest on the planet.
Gaddafi went on to develop Libya to become the richest country in Africa, with over US$70 billion in reserves for a population of 5.8 million. The money was first grabbed and frozen by the United States and its Western allies, before Gaddafi himself was callously murdered in cold blood by US special forces supported by Libyan rebels, who carried out the actual murdering act after US drones blasted Gaddafi's escaping convoy to smithereens, exposing the fleeing occupants to the brutality of US-led Libyan rag tag rebels, or “revolutionaries,” as Western media shamelessly called them. All Conventions governing the handling of prisoners of war were blatantly breached with full approval from Washington.
Washington rhapsodises about the war on terror and successive US presidents have fluently lied about an enemy that does not even exist. Obama has been outstanding in the creation of the image of this monster called “terrorism”. Terrorism has been nothing but a pretext upon which Middle East oil can be accessed by the West, and of course an impressive excuse for the furtherance of Zionist pursuits by Israel.
Michael Sheuer is a former CIA head of the Osama bin Laden Unit. He was recently quoted by the Russian Television saying, “Washington's number one enemy is an enemy that doesn't exist.”
He went on: “It didn't exist when bin Laden was alive and it does not exist now.” He argued that the US will need the image of a monstrous enemy in the Middle East if the Empire is to safely safeguard its support for the police state of Saudi Arabia, and that for the apartheid state of the murderous Israel.
Sending a message to US citizens, Sheuer said, “Whether you support Israel or not, our relationship with Israel is causing these (Arab world) wars.”
The problem is not precisely the existence of a state of Israel as propagandist from the West will always portray. The real problem is the Jewish American leadership influencing and manipulating US Congress to pursue a sabre-rattling foreign policy in the Arab world.
There are two important issues determining US foreign policy in the Middle East. Of course the US wants Middle East oil and it is also pro-Israel, but more importantly there is this US-led Western obsession that is almost Marxist in approach, judging by the proclaimed universality of democratisation.
As Sheuer puts it, the West wrongly believes that “democracy and the spread of democracy is inevitable in all places, to all people at all times.”
It does not matter how hysterical the support for the toppling of Gaddafi may become, there is not going to be a democracy in Libya that resembles democracy in the West. There will never be a democracy in Syria that resembles Western democracy; there will not be one such democracy in Zimbabwe, not in Iraq, or anywhere else. It simply will never happen because it cannot happen, must not happen, and should not happen. The simple reason is that all these people are not Westerners, cannot be Westerners, should not be Westerners, and must not be Westerners.
The US ambassador to Syria was recently deservingly kicked out of Damascus after he reduced himself to a street political activist the way Christopher Dell and James McGee did in Zimbabwe a few years ago. It is this “mindless pursuit of secular democracy” that endangers the world evermore, to borrow once again the words of Sheuer.
Ambassador Charles Ray must be reminded that his mindless pursuit for secular democracy in Zimbabwe will be met with one result – failure. This is not because his personal intentions are evil, but simply because they are misplaced. We all know that the official intentions of Washington in Zimbabwe are inherently untoward and insensitive, and that is by the definition of the imperial doctrine that breeds those intentions.
After Libya, the world is endangered all the more. Africa in particular will be decimated on Obama's instructions – yes; that celebrated “America's first black president”. Somalia, Nigeria and North Africa are likely to be attacked by the US and her allies in 2012 or in the near future. Nigerian leaders were quite foolish in supporting the bombing of Libya for whatever they believed were the reasons. The country is likely to have its own Western-backed and inflicted civil war if the course of events keeps taking the route they are taking right now. This is a matter for another day.
It is now 50 years and the US-led Western policy on the Arab world has entirely depended on tyranny. It is tyranny that gave the West access to Middle East oil, it is tyranny that protected Israel since 1967 to date, and it is tyranny that created the facade of the monster called terrorism, and it is tyranny that has for the last 20 years persecuted Islamists in the name of protecting of Westerners.
Despite claiming supreme civility and modernity, the West is populated by people who are among those with the least amount of common sense in the world of today.
How Westerners fail to see that the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group will not abandon its anti-West doctrine even after the West’s assistance to topple Gaddafi beats logic. The LIFG deployed heavily in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to be allies of the Western coalition, but to kill and boot out “the infidels”. It is hard to imagine that the infidels can become friends simply because they helped topple Gaddafi. We did not have to wait long to hear the NTC declaring a Sharia Law Libya as soon as they were installed by the West.
How the US misses the simple logic that reinforcing the presence of US troops in the Gulf will cause more wars instead of preventing them is another example of how US politicians remarkably struggle in understanding common sense.
Obama simply does not get it that by drone-bombing Pakistanis the US is creating another enemy, just like starving Iranians and Zimbabweans through illegal sanctions will not create darlings for the Americans, but devout enemies. The US is in fact very efficient in creating unnecessary enemies.
Libya opened floodgates for a new wave of problems for Africa and the AU is better advised to be vigilant or perish.
Africa we are one and together we will overcome. It is homeland or death.
. Reason Wafawarova is a political writer based in SYDNEY, Australia.
USA: A victim of Israel influence peddlers
In 2008 Canadian introduced the Lobbying Act, which was designed to regulate the behavior of lobbyists. The Act established an independent office of the Commissioner of Lobbying whose job consists of investigating lobbyists’ activities and reviews the monthly reports of any meetings arranged by Lobbyists between senior government officials and lobbyists. One of his very duties as President of the USA, Barack Obama issued an executive order designed to restrain lobbyists. Lobbyists can be defined innocently as advocates of the national interest but in the USA these lobbyists have become a monopoly of information peddlers crowding the public discourse and choking democracy.
To understand the USA foreign policy we need to comprehend what has become of democracy in the USA. One report suggests that "the cost of a Senate race has exploded from $437,000 to $7.9 million" requiring aspiring representatives to mortgage their soul let alone values to lobbyists.
In their essay titled "The Israel Lobby" John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/john-mearsheimer/the-israel-lobby explained what they called the "the unmatched power of the Israel Lobby" to successfully peddle and sustain their partisan influence over the USA democracy, politics and consequently foreign policy, which is their target.
The Israel Lobby does not only buy loyalty but have over years exposed the American public to systematic and sustained manufactured opinion so much that an average American take it for granted, like our host, that the US-Israel one sided and parastic relationship is "unalterable" and beyond challenge. The emergence of the fanatical evengalical christian sects, provided the the Israel Lobby with new and willing victims, ready to imbibe with passsion the gospel of the Jewish State, being strategic to "the fulfillment of God’s plan and a prerequisite for the end times." One author pointed thus: "It is important to note that two-thirds of evangelicals interpret the Bible literally. This shapes their support for Israel, since biblical literalists believe that God’s commitment of a homeland to the Jewish people is an eternally valid promise."
I am convinced that the USA is a victim: its democracy and politics have been hijacked by Israel interest groups who can decide to or have created n enduring perception that they can empower and disempower leadership in Washington. President Obama, who I hold highly, is under serious threat to lose the next election, because he has launcged a pre-meptive attack on Iran, as wished by Israel and the Israel Lobby.
The possible way out of this scenario is for the USA to create own lobby groups to also systematically peddle influence and control leadership in Israel and reform Israel from within. The only other option, which sadly the USA is setting herself up for, is for the Israel Lobby to influence the US to continue messing up her foreign policy and consequently and progressively its domestic policy so much that the USA loses her political and military glitter and its relavancy for Israel.
Victim or Willing Partner
I do not know if the US is a victim of Israeli lobbyists or simply a willing partner. The mere existence of Israel in the Middle East makes it the US's largest military base in that region, and frankly speaking that aspect is of US economic interest in as far as accessing and controlling Middle East Oil reserves is concerned.
Israel may have its own religious and Zionist obsessions to pursue and protect and they have invested madly towards this, heavily influencing Congress and successive US presidents. It is a two way process. If Israel had successfully been established in Uganda as once the plan of the Zionists, the economic interest of the US was going to diminish a little and I am sure the effect of lobbyists would proportionally diminish as well.
So as opposed to being a victim I think the US is more of a willing partner. Perhaps there is more blackmailing than lobbying going on the Israel-US alliance and I would support that assertion.
You are missing the point
You are missing the point there. Indeed Israel was strategic to US national interest during the Cold War as the only outpost of democracy in the middle east and indeed strategic military base but this has all become irrelevant in the post cold war in which oil and counter terrorism has become dominant strategic interests of the USA in the middle East.
Israel no longer furthers the USA national interest at all. One Alison Weir is quoted thus: "Interestingly, the oil and weapons industries, although very influential over parts of American Middle East policy, are NOT responsible for our relationship with Israel. In fact, quite often both of these industries find our support for Israel undermines their corporate interests in the region."
He is right: USA relies on Middle East oil and most instances the irrational support for Israel has often compromised this strategic interest especilly regarding the oil and military interests with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and such other states who are major suppliers of oil and significant military equipment customers.
What does career diplomats and experts at the US State Depertment and Pentagon say of the US-Israel relationship?
Loy Henderson, a career US diplomat was quoted as far back as World War 11 thus: “....support by the Government of the United States of a policy favoring the settling up of a Jewish State in Palestine would be contrary to the wishes of a large majority of the local inhabitants with respect to their form of government. Furthermore, it would have a strongly adverse effect upon American interests throughout the Near and Middle East...."
Chas Freeman, a veteran American diplomat and former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, in 2009 withdrew before starting work as chairman of the national intelligence council, and argued that "The Israel Lobby was stifling any discussion of US policy options in the Middle East except those endorsed by the ruling faction in Israeli politics."
Whilst there is obvious strategic interest of the USA to Israel including technology theft, military, political and diplomatic support, I am yet to see one sustainable strategic interest of Israel to the USA. This added with the clear advice to the contrary from the career US diplomats suggest to me that it is US politicians who have been hijacked by the Israel Lobby. This relationship is not mutual but very much parastic in favour of Israel and ultimately very dangerous to the USA strategic position in world affairs.
Puppet-Puppeteer Question
The question of whether the US is the puppet of Israel or vice versa is a contentious one. Some writers argue that it is the United States that is a client States of Israel while others argue it is the other way round.Chas Freeman obviously thinks Israeli politicians are so powerful that they control American politicians and they determine what makes US policy.
There is an element of truth in this, but it is not quite true. There is something called "reliability of partnerships" in International Relations. While Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and such countries may be allies of the US today but ditching Israel banking on their support would not be a good idea. Sheurer argues that the US must leave Israel at the mercy of Iranians because they have "baby-seated this problem for over 50 years now", and he says the US economic interests will not be affected.
It is hard to believe that the United States could see it workable to ditch Israel at any point of time. Yes there is the moral-religious aspect to this relationship, but I still see a lot of US economic interest in the alliance.
Please provide any plausible
Please provide any plausible details of how you see or perceive Israel to be relevant and value adding to the USA economic interest in the Middle East or anywhere else. I cant see any.
I can only explain the special relation between Israel and the USA in terms of the dynamics USA domestic democracy and politics.
The US needs
The US is in Afghanistan not because that country has got any resources at all. But it is strategic in surrounding economic rivals and it has always been like that since the Cold War. This same reason is why Israel is of economic interest to the US. The US cannot lose that presence even if at the moment they are not really using Israel as launchpad for any attack. Wait until the US decides to attack Iran and you will see the importance of Israel.
The US presence in
The US presence in Afghanistan is understable. Afghanistan is home to the monster that the US created in its proxy wars with the USSR. The USA thus knew the nature and extent of the potential threat it faced when Osama leveraged on the Taliban infrastructure to execute September 11. I understnd that the potential threat that gave rise to the war on terror may have been deliberately blown out of proportion by the Israel Lobby in the USA to get the USA and Israel military interests to coincide in the Middle East, and so let the USA fight the Israel wars of the Middle East, but it is understable why the USA got involved in Afghanistan. Unlike Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden had elevated himself to become a present danger to USA security, and Osama was hosted by Afghanistan's Taliban.
With regard to the strategic use of Israel to launch military attacks in the Middle East, you should know that in both its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the USA did not use Israel as a launch base because its Middle East Allies could not accept that option. Rather Kuwait anf Pakistan were used. The reason why Israel has not attacked Iran is most likely because it can access Iran without passing through Turkey, Iraq or Saudi Arabia all of which have denied them use of their airspace. This is exctaly why the Israel Lobby is desperately trying to get the USA to find cause to launch the offensive not from Israel but from Iraq, Saudi Arabia or even Turkey. The USA can launch an attack on Iran from these countries but Israel cant. They USA can never us Israel as a lunch base because the USA allies in the Middle East consider Israel a hostile nation.
This is why a number of observers have said, Israel is actually hindering USA diplomacy and influence in the Middle East. Again I put it to you that only the Israel Lobby dominated domestic politics of the USA explain the USA-Israel relationship.
You fail to answer
You fail to answer why the USA fought alongside the Mujahedeen for 20 years, given that Afghanistan has no resources of note at all. Why was it important for the USA to make sure that Afghanistan was not controlled by communists, if you want to call USSR that?
You cannot use the Osama threat to justify the US presence in Afghanistan because they are still there well after Osama's death and they were there when Osama was still their ally. There must something else of interests for the US Taurai, and even a kid can see that.
The attacks doene on Palestine and Lebanon are in effect US-Israeli attacks; they are not just Israeli attacks on its neighbours. The weapons and intelligence are all provided by Washington and Israel provides the face of the attack. So it is meaningless to assert the US will never carry out attacks from Israel.
I did answer: it was proxy
I did answer: it was proxy war against the USSR, which was a common phenomenon of the cold war powers expanding their influence and in this case it was the strategic intent to give the "Soviet Union its Vietnam War." You may not know that the then Democratic Republic of Afghanistan was a Marxist-Leninist government and hence the military support from USSR from 1919.
May be we should debate that which you say: "there must something else of interests for the US Taurai, and even a kid can see that." All I can see in the recent era is Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and in the past is the death of USA Ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan Adolph Dubs, who was killed in 1979 with the assistance and advice from the USSR. Afghanistan is historically a relic of the cold war era and most recently a planning and training base for the September 11 terror. In the post Osama and Cold War world, I see Afghanistan being irrelevant to the USA national interest, hence the planned withdrawal of USA troops with or without democracy.
This remains the truth: the USA has not used its military base in Israel to launch attacks in the Middle East. Thats a fact. You cannot conculde sorely on the basis of supply of weapons that the violence that follows has the blessing of the arms supplier. That is absurd. Mossad is an effective intelligence wing and does not need any help from the CIA to be effective. It probably can teach the CIA and other world intelligence orgnisations a lesson or two. That two is indisputable. The USA did not get involved in the Palestine and Lebanon wars of Israel, but protected Israel at the UN Security Council and in international politics arenas. That is a function of the Israel Lobby influencing USA foreign policy and exctly my argument.
Supplier
I ma happy you say supplier of weapons and not seller. Israel is the biggest beneficiary of US aid. Military aid in particular runs into billions of dollars per year. Lebanon attacked the 200 US marines and the USA has for years been hitting back using Israel.
The US is not going to withdraw from Afghanistan any time soon. Of course Afghanistan used to be run by progressive socialists before the US wrecked it to bring the puppet capitalists. That is common history. If you think the US fought a 20 year old war to avenge the death of a single diplomat I do not what to make of that.
Do you know the importance of ring-fencing China? If you google "the strategic position of Afghanstan United States," I am sure will see a lot other views on that.
Afghanistan, which is
Afghanistan, which is landlocked and with only less than 100 km of border with China is irrelevant to any effective "ring-fencing" strategy on the part of the USA and “creeping encirclement” on the part of China. It is rather Pakistan that is at the centre of "ring-fencing" versus “creeping encirclement” strategies and the USA is losing the game. Pakistan is now China’s foremost ally in South Asia. With Pakistan on its side, China has the strategic access to the Indian Ocean thus enabling "China to project its military presence in proximity of the strategic global petroleum shipping routes as well as the oil-rich Middle East."
In saying this, I do acknowledge and concede that Afghanistan is critical as the transportation link to and from Central Asia. One however needs to understand that the Chinese province of Xinjiang, which has religious (muslim) and cultural links outside China, "poses a security predicment for China" especially if this provice adopts the militant ideology of the Taliban. Thus regarding Afghanistan the USA and China share a common agenda: stable and moderate Afghanistan. Both the USA and China dislike the Taliban for their extremist ideology.
There is no doubt in my mind that just like the USSR military strategy for Afghanistan was economically and politically unsustainable and had to be eventually abandoned, the USA will abandon its military strategy in Afghnistan and will leave in 2014.
With regard to the Middle East, the strategy that will prove to sustainable is one that will acknowledge the demographic and consequent political superiority of the Shia community and find a way to accomodate and subtly influence Shia religious and political choices in the Middle East. None of the "ring-fencing" and “creeping encirclement” strategies currently address this inevitability. Russia has somewhat managed to maintain stable relations with the Shia community from the Cold War days.
This makes the Taliban, the eventual kings or king makers in Afghanistan. Both China and USA need to come to grips with this reality. The strategy should be a moderate Taliban not killing the Taliban.
You talk like an ultra right winger
The language you use is typical ultra-right winger language.What is moderate Taliban? Why don't we have a moderate USA?
I think the US would live Afghanistan right now if that country was as irrelevant as you claim Taurai.
Right wingers do not talk
Right wingers do not talk about moderate Taliban. They believe every Taliban has an extreme and violent ideology where women cant work or go to school and where every christian is an inherent supportes of the USA and Isreal and an inherent infidel not to be tolerated.
This link http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020361140457704379185591186... written by a certain Massouda Jalalprovides such a negative view of the Talaiban. That is right winger my brother. I believe that every human being has the potential to be convinced to respect woman and other religions. Thats being moderate and not sure what you see as right wing in that view.
I guess with regards to Afghanistan, lets time be the judge but I still remain convinced that like the USSR before it the USA will leave Afghanistan as planned.
I will say
I will say that Afghanistan is still of US strategic interest after the death of Osama bin Laden and will remain like that for a very long time.
Yes, we may want to let time tell.
I agree.
"As Sheuer puts it, the West wrongly believes that “democracy and the spread of democracy is inevitable in all places, to all people at all times.”"
I don't think there's a belief in "inevitability" other than in the US, where it's regarded as "Right" and "A Right".
Democracy is, I believe, a privilege and freedom, and that it has to be safeguarded at all costs. Leave a small gap and a despot will walk straight in. Ergo, promulgate democracy where practical.
"The US is in fact very efficient in creating unnecessary enemies."
I agree completely. Try talking to a redneck for five minutes.
I guess
I guess democratic values are desirable and freedom is always equally desirable. IT is the Western models of freedom and democracy that are NOT universally applicable to all people at all times.
Thank you for the rare agreement.
Agreement
The truth is. I hope, that we are not very far apart in overall aim. Appropriate consenting peaceful governance for all.
I just disagree with many of your ultra-left analyses, your support for obvious nutcases (particularly authoritarians), and your assumption that I support "Western" nutcases.
Not everyone is a conspirator.
Western lefitists
I have had friends who suddenly became foes because they have labelled me a Mugabe apologist, whatever that means. I fail to see how an anti-capitalist canbe pro-MDC-T when the whole party is capitalist funded and directed.
But let time tell.