'A Clean Break' (from James Bamford's 'A Pretext for War')

Alpha · Last edited by Alpha on Mon Jan 15, 2007 1:08 pm; edited 63 times in total

'A Clean Break'(War for Israel) agenda of the Likudnik JINSA/CSP/PNAC Neocons (pages 261-269/318-321 of James Bamford's 'A Pretext for War' book"):

Then Bush addressed the sole items on the agenda for his first high level national security meeting. The topics were not terrorism--a subject he barely mentioned during the campaign --or nervousness over China or Russia, but Israel and Iraq. From the very first moment, the Bush foreign policy would focus on three key objectives: get rid of Saddam, end American involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and rearrange the dominoes in the Middle East. A key to the policy shift would be the concept of pre-emption.

The Blueprint for the new Bush policy had actually been drawn up five years earlier by three of his top national security advisors. Soon to be appointed to senior administration positions, they were Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David Wurmser. Ironically the plan was orginally intended not for Bush but for another world leader, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

At the time, the three officials were out of government and working for conservative pro-Israel think tanks. Perle and Feith had previously served in high level Pentagon positions during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. In a very unusual move, the former--and future--senior American officials were acting as a sort of American privy council to the new Israeli Prime Minister. The Perle task force to advise Netanyahu was set up by the Jerusalem based Institute for Advanced Stategic and Political Studies, where Wurmser was working. A key part of the plan was to get the United States to pull out of peace negotiations and simply let Israel take care of the Palestinians as it saw fit. "Israel," said the report, can manage it's own affairs. Such self-reliance will grant Israel greater freedom of action and remove a significant lever of pressure used against it in the past.

But the centerpiece of the recommendations was the removal of Saddam Hussein as the first step in remaking the Middle East into a region friendly, instead of hostile, to Israel. Their plan "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," also signaled a radical departure from the peace-oriented policies of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by a member of an extreme right-wing Israeli group.

As part of their "grand strategy" they recommended that once Iraq was conquered and Saddam Hussein overthrown, he should be replaced by a puppet leader friendly to Israel. Whoever inherits Iraq, they wrote, dominates the entire Levant strategically. Then they suggested that Syria would be the next country to be invaded. Israel can shape it's strategic environment, they said.

This would be done, they recommended to Netanyahu, by re-establishing the principle of pre-emption and by rolling back it's Arab neighbors. From then on, the principle would be to strike first and expand, a dangerous and provocative change in philosophy. They recommended launching a major unprovoked regional war in the Middle East, attacking Lebanon and Syria and ousting Iraq's Saddam Hussein. Then, to gain the support of the American government and public, a phony pretext would be used as the reason for the original invasion.

The recommendation of Feith, Perle and Wurmser was for Israel to once again invade Lebanon with air strikes. But this time to counter potentially hostile reactions from the American government and public, they suggested using a pretext. They would claim that the purpose of the invasion was to halt Syria's drug-money and counterfeiting infrastructure located there. They were subjects in which Israel had virtually no interest, but they were ones, they said, with which America can sympathize.

Another way to win American support for a pre-emptive war against Syria, they suggested, was by drawing attention to its weapons of mass destruction program. This claim would be that Israel's war was really all about protecting Americans from drugs, counterfeit bills, and WMD--nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.

It was rather extraordinary for a trio of former, and potentially future, high-ranking American government officials to become advisors to a foreign government. More unsettling still was a fact that they were recommending acts of war in which Americans could be killed, and also ways to masquerade the true purpose of the attacks from the American public.

Once inside Lebanon, Israel could let loose--to begin engaging Hizballah, Syria and Iran, as the principle agents of aggression in Lebanon. Then they would widen the war even further by using proxy forces--Lebanese militia fighters acting on Israel's behalf (as Ariel Sharon had done in the 80's)--to invade Syria from Lebanon. Thus, they noted, they could invade Syria by establishing the precedent that Syrian territory is not immune to attacks emanating from Lebanon by Israeli proxy forces.

As soon as that fighting started, they advised, Israel could begin striking Syrian military targets in Lebanon, and should that prove insufficient, striking at select targets in Syria proper [emphasis in original].

The Perle task force even supplied Nentanyahu with some text for a television address, using the suggested pretext to justify the war. Years later, it would closely resemble speeches to justify their own Middle East wars; Iraq would simply replace Syria and the United Staes would replace Israel: Negotiations with repressive regimes like Syria's require cautious realism. One cannot sensibly assume the other side's good faith. It is dangerous for Israel to deal naively with a regime murderous of its own people, openly aggressive towards its neighbors, criminally involved with international drug traffickers and counterfeiters, and supportive of the most deadly terrorist organizations.

The task force then suggested that Israel open a second front in its expanding war, with a focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq--an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right--as a means of foiling Syria's regional ambitions.

For years the killing of Saddam Hussein had been among the highest, and most secret, priorities of the Israeli government. In one stroke it would pay Saddam Hussein back for launching Scud missiles against Israel, killing several people, during the Gulf War. Redrawing the map of the Middle East would also help isolate Syria, Iraq's ally and Israel's archenemy along its northern border. Thus, in the early 1990's, after the US-led war in the Gulf, a small elite team of Israeli commandos was given the order to train in absolute secrecy for an assassination mission to bring down the Baghdad ruler.

The plan, code-named Bramble Bush, was to first kill a close friend of the Iraqi leader outside the country, someone from Hussein's hometown of Tikrit. Then, after learning the date and time of the funeral to be held in the town, a funeral Hussein was certain to attend, they would have time to covertly infiltrate a team of commandos into the country to carry out the assassination. The murder weapons were to be specially modified "smart" missiles that would be fired at Hussein as he stood in a crowd at the funeral.

But, the plan was finally abandoned after five members of the team were accidently killed during a dry run of the operation. Nevertheless, removing Saddam and converting Iraq from threat to ally had long been at the top of Israel's wish list.

Now Perle, Feith, and Wurmser were suggesting something far more daring--not just an assassination but a bloody war that would get rid of Saddam Hussein and also change the face of Syria and Lebanon. Perle felt their "Clean Break" recommendations were so important that he personally hand-carried the report to Netanyahu.

Wisely, Netanyahu rejected the task force' plan. But now, with the election of a receptive George W. Bush, they dusted off their pre-emptive war strategy and began getting ready to put it to use.

The new Bush policy was an aggressive agenda for any president, but especially for someone who had previously shown little interest in international affairs. We're going to correct the imbalances of the previous administration on the Mideast conflict, Bush told his freshly assembled senior national security team in the Situation Room on January 30, 2001. We're going to tilt it back toward Israel. . . .Anybody here ever met Ariel Sharon? Only Colin Powell raised his hand.

Bush was going to reverse the Clinton policy, which was heavily weighted toward bringing the bloody conflict between Israel and the Palestinians to a peaceful conclusion. There would be no more US interference; he would let Sharon resolve the dispute however he saw fit, with little or no regard for the situation of the Palestinians. The policy change was exactly as recommended by the Perle task force's "Clean Break" report.

I'm not going to go by past reputations when it comes to Sharon, Bush told his newly gathered national security team. I'm going to take him at face value. We'll work on a relationship based on how things go. Then he mentioned a trip he had taken with the Republican Jewish Coalition to Israel. We flew over the Palestinian camps. Looked real bad down there, he said with a frown. Then he said it was time to end America's efforts in the region. I don't see much we can do over there at this point, he said.

Colin Powell, Secretary of State for only a few days, was taken by surprise. The idea that such a complex problem, in which America had long been heavily involved, could be simply brushed away with the sweep of a hand made little sense. Fearing Israeli-led aggression, he quickly objected.

He stressed that a pullback by the United States would unleash Sharon and the Israeli army, recalled Paul O'Neill, who had be sworn in as Secretary of the Treasury by Bush only hours before and seated at the table. Powell told Bush, the consequences of that could be be dire, especially for the Palestinians. But Bush just shrugged. Sometimes a show of strength by one side can really clarify things, he said. Powell seemed startled, said O'Neill.

Over the following months, to the concern of Powell, the Bush-Sharon relationship became extremely tight. This is the best administration for Israel since Harry Truman, said Thomas Neuman, executive director of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs "JINSA" a pro-Israel advocacy group. In an article in the Washington Post titled "Bush and Sharon Nearly Identical on Middle East Policy," Robert G. Kaiser noted the dramatic shift in policy.

For the First time, wrote Kaiser, a US administration and a Likud government in Israel are pursuing nearly identical policies. Earlier US administrations, from Jimmy Carter through Bill Clinton's, held Likud and Sharon at arm's length, distancing the United States from Likud's traditionally tough approach to the Palestinians. Using the Yiddish term for supporters of Sharon's political party to the new relationship between Bush and Sharon, a senior US government official told Kaiser, "The Likudniks are really in charge now."

With America's long struggle to bring peace to the region quickly terminated, George W. Bush could turn his attention to the prime focus of his first National Security Council meeting; ridding Iraq of Saddam Hussein. Condoleezza Rice led off the discussion. But rather than mention anything about threats to the United States or weapons of mass destruction, she noted only that Iraq might be the key to reshaping the entire region. The words were practically lifted from the "Clean Break" report, which had the rather imperial-sounding subtitles: "A New Strategy for Securing the Realm."

Then Rice turned the meeting over to CIA Director George Tenet, who offered a grainy overhead picture of a factory that he said "might" be a plant "that produced either chemical or biological materials for weapons manufacture." There were no missiles or weapons of any kind, just some railroad tracks going to a building; truck activity; and a water tower--things that can be found in virtually any city in the US. Nor were there any human intelligence or signals intelligence reports. There was no confirming intelligence, Tenet said.

It was little more than a shell game. Other photo and charts showed US air activity over the "no fly-zone," but Tenet offered no more intelligence. Nevertheless, in a matter of minutes the talk switched from a discussion about very speculative intelligence to which targets to begin bombing in Iraq.

By the time the meeting was over, Treasury Secretary O'Neill was convinced that "getting Hussein was now the administration's focus, that much was already clear," But, O'Neill believed, the real destabilizing factor in the Middle East was not Saddam Hussein but the Israeli-Palestinian conflict--the issue Bush had just turned his back on. Ten years after the Gulf War, said O'Neill, "Hussein seemed caged and defanged. Clearly, there were many forces destabilizing the region, which we were now abandoning."

The war summit must also have seemed surreal to Colin Powell, who said little during the meeting and had long believed that Iraq had not posed a threat to the United States. As he would tell German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer just a few weeks later, "What we and other allies have been doing in the region, have succeeded in containing Saddam Hussein and his ambitions. . . .Containment has been a successful policy."

In addition to the "Clean Break" recommendations, David Wurmser only weeks before the NSC meeting had further elaborated on the way the United States might go about launching a pre-emptive war throughout the Middle East. America's and Israel's responses must be regional not local, he said. Israel and the United Staes should adopt a coordinated strategy, to regain the initiative and reverse their region-wide strategic retreat. They should broaden the conflict to strike fatally, not merely disarm, the center of radicalism in the region--the regimes of Damascus, Baghdad, Tehran, Tripoli, and Gaza. That would re-establish the recognition that fighting with either the US or Israel is suicidal. Many in the Middle East will then understand the merits of being an American ally and of making peace with Israel.

In the weeks and months following the NSC meeting, Perle, Feith and Wurmser began taking their places in the Bush administration. Perle became chairman of the reinvigorated and powerful Defence Policy Board, packing it with like-minded neoconservative super-hawks anxious for battle. Feith was appointed to the highest policy position in the Pentagon, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. And Wurmser moved into a top policy position in the State Department before later becoming Cheney's top Middle East expert.

With the Pentagon now under Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz--both of whom had also long believed that Saddam Hussein should have been toppled during the first Gulf War--the war planners were given free reign. What was needed, however, was a pretext--perhaps a major crisis. Crisis can be opportunities, wrote Wurmser im his paper calling for an American-Israeli pre-emptive war throughout the Middle East.

Seeing little reason, or intelligence justification, for war at the close of the inaugural National Security Council meeting, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill was perplexed. Who, exactly, was pushing this foreign policy? He wondered to himself. And "why Saddam, why now, and why [was] this central to US interests?"

The following includes pages 318-322 from Bamford's 'A Pretext for War' book:

Hadley and Libby were part of another secret office that had been set up within the White House. Known as the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), it was established in August 2002 by Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card, Jr., at the same time the OSP (Office of Special Plans) was established in Feith's office. Made up of high-level administration officials, its job was to sell the war to the general public, largely through televised addresses and by selectively leaking the intelligence to the media.

In June 2002, a leaked computer disk containing a presentation by chief Bush strategist Karl Rove revealed a White House political plan to use the war as a way to "maintain a positive issue environment." But the real pro-war media blitz was scheduled for the fall and the start of the election season "because from a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August," said Card.

At least once a week they would gather around the blonde conference table downstairs in the Situation Room, the same place the war was born on January 30, 2001, ten days into the Bush presidency. Although real intelligence had improved very little in the intervening nineteen months, the manufacturing of it had increased tremendously. In addition to Hadley and Libby, those frequently attending the WHIG meetings included Karl Rove, Condoleezza Rice, communications gurus Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin and James R. Wilkinson; and legislative liaison Nicholas E. Calio.

In addition to ties between Hussein and 9/11, among the most important products the group was looking to sell as Labor Day 2002 approached were frightening images of mushroom clouds, mobile biological weapons labs, and A-bomb plants, all in the hands of a certified "madman." A key piece of evidence that Hussein was building a nuclear weapon turned out to be the discredited Italian documents purchased on a street corner from a con man.

The WHIG began priming its audience in August when Vice President Cheney, on three occasions, sounded a shrill alarm over Saddam Hussein's nuclear threat. There "is no doubt," he declared, that Saddam Hussein "has weapons of mass destruction." Again and again, he hit the same chord. "What we know now, from various sources, is that he . . . continues to pursue a nuclear weapon." And again: "We do know, with absolute certainty, that he is using his procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs in order to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon."

Facing network television cameras, Cheney warned, "We now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. . . . Among other sources, we've gotten this from firsthand testimony from defectors, including Saddam's own son-in-law." The relative was Hussein Kamel, who defected to Jordan in 1995 with a great deal of inside information on Iraq's special weapons programs, which he managed. He was later convinced by Saddam to return to Iraq, but executed by the ruler soon after his arrival.

But what Kamel told his interrogators was the exact opposite of what Cheney was claiming he said. After numerous debriefings by officials from the United States, the UN, and Jordan, he said on August 22, 1995, that Saddam had ended all uranium-enrichment programs at the beginning of the Gulf War in 1991 and never restarted them. He also made clear that "all weapons --biological, chemical, missile, nuclear--were destroyed." Investigators were convinced that Kamel was telling the truth, since he supplied them with a great deal of stolen raw data and was later murdered by his father-in-law as a result. But that was not the story Feith's OSP, Bush's WHIG, or Cheney wanted the American public to hear.

At the same time that Cheney began his media blitz, Ariel Sharon's office in Israel, as if perfectly coordinated, began issuing similar dire warnings concerning Hussein and pressing the Bush administration to go to war with Iraq. Like those from Cheney, pronouncements from Sharon's top aide, Ranaan Gissin, included frightening "evidence" --- equally phony --- of nuclear, as well as biological and chemical, threats.

"As evidence of Iraq's weapons building activities, " said an Associated Press report on the briefing, "Israel points to an order Saddam gave to Iraq's Atomic Energy Commission last week to speed up its work, said Sharon aide Ranaan Gissin. 'Saddam's going to be able to reach a point where these weapons will be operational,' he said. . . . Israeli intelligence officials have gathered evidence that Iraq is speeding up efforts to produce biological and chemical weapons, Gissin said."

It was clear, based on the postwar reviews done in Israel, that Israeli intelligence had no such evidence. Instead, the "evidence" was likely cooked up in Sharon's own Office of Special Plans unit, which was coordinating its activities with the Feith/Wurmser/Shulsky Office of Special Plans. The joint get-Saddam media blitz would also explain the many highly secret visits by the Israeli generals to Feith's office during the summer..

"Israel is urging U.S. officials not to delay a military strike against Iraq's Saddam Hussein, an aide to Prime Minister Ariel Minister said Friday," the AP report continued. " "Any postponement of an attack on Iraq at this stage with serve no purpose,' Gissin told the Associated Press. 'It will only give him [Saddam] more of an opportunity to accelerate his program of weapons of mass destruction.'"

As expected. Sharon's callw as widely publicized and increased pressure on Congress, which often bows to Israel's wishes, to vote in favor of the Bush war resolution. "Israel To U.S.: Don't Delay Iraq Attack," said a CBS News headline. "Israel is urging U.S. officials not to delay a military strike against Iraq's Saddam Hussein, an aide to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Friday," said the report.

The story also made the news in London, where the Guardian newspaper ran the headline: "Israel Puts Pressure on US to Strike Iraq." It went on, "With foreign policy experts in Washington becoming increasingly critical of the wisdom of a military strike, and European governments showing no willingness to support an attack, the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, wants to make it clear that he is the US president's most reliable ally."

It was as if the Feith-Wurmser-Perle "Clean Break" plan come full circle. Their plan for Israel to overthrow Saddam Hussein and put a pro-Israel regime in his place had been rejected by former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Now Bush, with Sharon's support, was about to put it into effect.

Across the Atlantic, British Prime Minister Tony Blair also contributed to the war fever by releasing a much-hyped report that reinforced the White House theme that Iraq was an imminent threat not only to the United States but also to Britain. In addition to including a reference to the bogus Iraq-Niger uranium deal, the report -- later dubbed the "doggie dossier"--made another frightening claim. It warned that Iraq could launch a deadly biological or chemical attack with long-range ballistic missiles on British tourists and servicemen in Cyprus with just forty-five minute's notice.

Only after the war would it be publicly revealed that the reference was not to a strategic weapon that could reach Cyprus, but simply to a short-range battlefield weapon that could not come anywhere close to Cyprus. And because all the missiles were disassembled, even to fire on them on the battlefield would take not forty-five minutes but days of assembly and preparation. At least three times prior to the war, Blair was warned by intelligence officials that the report was inaccurate, but he made no public mention of it..

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Bamford discusses 'A Clean Break'/war for Israel agenda on MSNBC's 'Countdown with Keith Olbermann':

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2006/08/07/bamford-discusses-a-clean-break-on-msnbc-s-countdown.php

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385506724/qid%3D1106243696/sr%3D2-1/ref%3Dpd%5Fka%5Fb%5F2%5F1/103-6200440-0847015

Michael Duffy's review of James Bamford's 'A Pretext for War' book can be read via the following URL:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101040614-646366-2,00.html

Ex-producer for ABC World News Tonight:"Iraq war for Israel"

A Pretext for War:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/zeese1.html

http://www.counterpunch.org/zeese05232005.html

http://www.antiwar.com/av/?articleid=3440

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040801/news_lz1v1pretext.html

You can hear JINSA/PNAC Neocon Richard Perle basically lying to Congressman Walter Jones (R-NC) about the 'A Clean Break'/war for Israel agenda which he co-authored via the audio link at the following URL at one hour and fourteen minutes into it:

http://gorillaintheroom.blogspot.com/2005/04/operating-off-different-agenda.html

http://www.irmep.org/Policy_Briefs/3_27_2003_Clean_Break_or_Dirty_War.html

You can read the transcript of Perle and Chris Matthews related to discussion of 'A Clean Break' and Perle denying that he had anything to do with it via the following URL:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/01/20/hardball-s-chris-matthews-asks-neocon-about-a-clean-break.php

More on James Bamford's 'A Pretext for War' book:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/02/28/james-bamford-iraq-war-for-israel.php

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Iraq is on the brink of civil war which is just what the neocons had plotted for using the mask of 'democracy' for their long desired war for Israel ('A Clean Break') agenda which has resulted in over 1600 American soldiers/marines killed and thousands more maimed and psychologically scarred for life:

Israeli Origins of Bush II's Iraq War:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/04/26/the-israeli-origins-of-bush-ii-s-war.php

Neocon advocates civil war in Iraq:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2006/03/16/neocon-advocates-civil-war-in-iraq-as-strategic.php

Complete timeline of the 2003 Invasion of Iraq: Motives :

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_timeline_of_the_2003_invasion_of_iraq&general_topic_areas=motivesBehindWar

Americans turn against Bush and the Iraq war (for Israel):

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/06/09/americans-turn-against-bush-and-a-war-on-iraq-that-is-gettin.php

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Neocons Resurrect Plans For Regional War In The Middle East:

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/07/17/neocons-middle-east-war/

'A Clean Break'/war for Israel Wurmser mentioned at following URL:

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1392

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http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385506724/qid%3D1106243696/sr%3D2-1/ref%3Dpd%5Fka%5Fb%5F2%5F1/103-6200440-0847015

The Sales Pitch Begins - Iran

http://gorillaintheroom.blogspot.com/2005/04/sales-pitch-begins-iran.html

Jewish JINSA/PNAC Neocon (Richard Perle) Calls for the invasion of Iran for Israel:

http://gorillaintheroom.blogspot.com/2005/05/perle-calls-for-invasion-of-iran.html

Zionist agenda for Lebanon:

http://www.geocities.com/alabasters_archive/sacred_terror.html#Chapter_5

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JINSA Israel firsters: 'IRAQ DOWN, IRAN LEFT TO GO':

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/04/06/jinsa-israel-firsters-iraq-down-iran-left-to-go.php

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Inventing a Pretext for War - an Interview with James Bamford:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/05/23/inventing-a-pretext-for-war-an-interview-with-james-bamford.php

I also think that most of the Zionist (Israel first) JINSA/CSP/PNAC Neocons only have one allegiance and that is to Israel.. Cheney, Woolsey and others seem to be in the game to benefit financially.... Check out the following URL:

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/nc-green.html

The following should be unacceptable as well (for any patriotic American who serves the best interests of America first):

Treason at a high level: Pentagon Zionist Neocons, AIPAC and Israel:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2004/09/08/treason-in-high-places-pentagon-zionists-aipac-and-israel.php

Scott Ritter: Sleepwalking to Disaster in Iran:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/03/30/scott-ritter-sleepwalking-to-disaster-in-iran.php

Leading America into the ABYSS:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/04/10/leading-america-into-the-abyss.php

Eric Alterman: Can We Talk (about the Jewish Neocons)

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030421&s=alterman

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A Zionist War:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/05/02/a-zionist-war.php

Forwarded:

Here is an article written over 5 years ago by David
Wurmser, "Let's Defeat Syria, Not Appease It" By David
Wurmser ON THE ISSUES American Enterprise Institute
(AEI) Online (Washington) Publication Date:
February 25, 2000. Wurmser is one of the top neocon's
in the George W. Bush Administration. He is Middle
East adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney. Neocons
are not afraid to promote their war mongering views,
even 5 years ago. The real problem is putting people
like this, who advocate war which is a crime against
peace and a war crime under the Nuremberg Code, into
positions of power.

Ed Corrigan

Let's Defeat Syria, Not Appease It
By David Wurmser
Posted: Friday, February 25, 2000

ON THE ISSUES
AEI Online (Washington)
Publication Date: February 25, 2000

Although Syria has been
conducting peace
negotiations with Israel, past events show
that Syria's Baathist regime
creates conflict to
survive. Therefore, as long as that
regime survives, Israel cannot
hope to achieve
peace with Syria.

As the violence in Lebanon
escalated in recent
weeks, one thing was certain: Israel
would attack Lebanese targets
but leave the
roughly 40,000 Syrian troops that were
deployed in Lebanon untouched.
This was so
because both Israel's Labor
government and the Clinton
administration
believe Syria wants to make peace but is
perched precariously between
two trends:
Iranians and other "enemies of peace" face
the United States and the
"peace camp." It is a
neatly packaged story. It is also wrong.

The theory was articulated a
year ago by U.S.
Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk: "Syria
has become a type of nexus
point between the
negative, disturbing trends . . . and
other underlying trends that could, if the United
States succeeds in
advancing the peace process, coalesce and allow
the United States to advance its agenda while
containing the enemies
of peace. . . . The Syrian government would
prefer to follow the route of peace." The most
effective response for
Israel, then, is to restrain itself, offer Syria more
in
the negotiations, and downplay any Israeli or
American strategic
advantages in the region.

Yet, Israel has four times, under four different
Israeli governments
in the last five years, offered Syria the entire Golan
Heights. The current Israeli government also has
signaled that it will
recognize Syria's takeover of Lebanon and lobby
for a monster economic payoff from the U.S. Congress
and massive
international development assistance from
elsewhere. Israel's prime minister, against the
strong objections of
his military, argues for U.S. military sales to Syria.
The United States and the European Union have also
pressed Turkey to
warm its relations with Damascus, in line with
Mr. Indyk's theory that Syria acts disturbingly
because it feels
vulnerable and isolated.

In other words, in exchange for the Golan Heights,
money, U.S. arms,
Lebanon, diplomatic support, strategic surrender,
and an international guarantee to help the Assad
regime survive, Syria
would only have to rein in Hezbollah and allow
Israel to plant its flag atop one embassy in
Damascus. It takes
considerable imagination to envision what more could
be offered to tempt Syria into peace.

Conflict: A Pillar of the Syrian Regime

Syria's rejection of Israel's two demands?reining in
Hezbollah and
diplomatic normalization?shows how impossible
it is for this regime in Damascus to ever make peace
with Israel.
Regimes fall not when they impoverish their nations
but when they lose their will to survive. Conflict
remains the pillar
of the Syrian regime's legitimacy and the excuse for
its
repression and poverty. It would be suicidal for
Syria to surrender
the definitive idea of its regime?conflict with the
imperialist West and its local representative,
Israel?by allowing an
Israeli flag to fly in Damascus and disarming the
symbol of its continued struggle, Hezbollah.
Conflict is safe since
Damascus is confident that with each challenge,
Israel, under American encouragement, will shrink
from conflict and
instead limit itself to attacking easy but useless
targets. It also understands that Israel's bombing
of Lebanese targets
is viewed in the region as weakness, since
everyone knows the Lebanese are mere Syrian puppets.

By now, Syria's modus operandi should be clear. Ever
since Mr. Assad's
secular Baathist regime took control of Syria, it
has behaved consistently. Since its Stalinist system
bars it from
accomplishing anything constructively, it vindicates
and enriches itself by creating problems and then
reaping the benefits
of "solving" them.

In 1964, it tried to trigger a conflict with Israel
and then offered
to enter Lebanon to "protect" it from Israel?a trap
the
Lebanese wisely, but only temporarily, averted.
Syria fomented a civil
war in Lebanon in 1976 and then came in as a
"peacekeeper," confiscating much of Lebanon's wealth
in the process.
It shot down a U.S. plane in 1983 and then
"intervened" with the Lebanese to surrender the
pilot in a
well-choreographed scene. It created and encouraged
terror
groups to take U.S. hostages in the early 1980s and
then "helped"
release them, with equally impressive theatrics. It
unleashed Hezbollah in 1993 and 1996 against
Israel's northern border,
and then stepped in to work out a cease fire.

That worked so well the second time?since it brought
U.S. Secretary of
State Warren Christopher to Damascus in
such a state of despair that he was willing to cool
his heals on
Damascus airport's tarmac and return home without
meetings?that Mr. Assad has now returned to this
formula. After all,
it is not often that a tiny country with a collapsing
economy and few global allies can so easily tweak
the world's only
superpower.

A Challenge to the Syrian Regime

In fact, conditions have never been riper for a
challenge to the
Baathist Syrian regime. Syria's lordship over Lebanon
is
shaky. The Christian community harbors seething
hatred for Syria. The
new majority in Lebanon, The Shiite Muslims,
are beginning to focus on their own interests at
Syria's cost. A large
body of Lebanese Shia are openly rejecting the
influence of the Iranian revolution, its
totalitarian religious
theories, and its military. Inter-clerical strife in
Lebanon
mirrors a similar development in Iran. The chances
for a
Shiite-Christian alliance emerging to expel Syria
haven't been
brighter since 1982.

Israel should realize that it will have peace only
after it destroys
Syria's Baathist regime. Then it could view each round
of conflict with Syria as an opportunity to strike
Syria's forces and
fragile infrastructure in Lebanon. The Lebanese, many
of whom are waiting impatiently for the day in which
Syria is weakened
or shows signs of cracking, will take matters
into their own hands, and Syria will slowly bleed to
death there. The
Baathist regime in Syria is addicted to conflict. If
Israel raises the cost of this addiction, it will
trap Mr. Assad's
government in a death spiral from which it cannot
extract
itself.

Such a shift in understanding would require more
than just a change of
heart in the United States and Israel. For the
peace process elite?like their antecedents, the
1970s arms-control
elite?the concept of regime destruction and
unabashed victory are simply unfathomable and
ludicrous. It would be
no more imaginable to defeat Baathism than it
would have been to defeat communism. Whole cottage
industries,
embellished with impressively powerful and
well-endowed institutions, have sprung up over the
last decade in
Washington and Israel dedicated to this ideology.
Careers and jobs are at stake. If there is ever to
be peace, it will
have to be preceded by a serious spring cleaning both
in the United States and in Israel. The real
question is, How much
more anguish in Israel and Lebanon will it take for
Israel's Labor Party and the Clinton administration
to understand how
much war this peace process is causing?

David Wurmser is the director of Middle East studies
at AEI.

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Hariri killed by US and Israel?

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/03/13/hariri-killed-by-us-and-israel.php

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Bring Our Troops Back Home:

http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/review/article_full_story.asp?service_ID=7691

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Jewish Neocons use 'democracy and freedom/liberty' propaganda to mask their long desired war for Israel agenda:

Thinking about (Jewish) Neoconservatism:

http://www.vdare.com/macdonald/030918_neoconservatism.htm

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Neoconservatism is a Jewish Movement:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/04/06/neoconservatism-as-a-jewish-movement.php

Whose War?:

http://www.amconmag.com/03_24_03/cover.html

http://www.nowarforisrael.com

http://www.nogw.com/warforisrael.html

http://student.cs.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/articles/article0005345.html

A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties
by Oded Yinon (with a foreword by, and translated by Israel Shahak)

Foreword
The following essay represents, in my opinion, the accurate and detailed plan of the present Zionist regime (of Sharon and Eitan) for the Middle East which is based on the division of the whole area into small states, and the dissolution of all the existing Arab states. I will comment on the military aspect of this plan in a concluding note. Here I want to draw the attention of the readers to several important points:

1. The idea that all the Arab states should be broken down, by Israel, into small units, occurs again and again in Israeli strategic thinking. For example, Ze'ev Schiff, the military correspondent of Ha'aretz (and probably the most knowledgeable in Israel, on this topic) writes about the "best" that can happen for Israeli interests in Iraq: "The dissolution of Iraq into a Shi'ite state, a Sunni state and the separation of the Kurdish part" (Ha'aretz 6/2/1982). Actually, this aspect of the plan is very old.

2. The strong connection with Neo-Conservative thought in the USA is very prominent, especially in the author's notes. But, while lip service is paid to the idea of the "defense of the West" from Soviet power, the real aim of the author, and of the present Israeli establishment is clear: To make an Imperial Israel into a world power. In other words, the aim of Sharon is to deceive the Americans after he has deceived all the rest.

3. It is obvious that much of the relevant data, both in the notes and in the text, is garbled or omitted, such as the financial help of the U.S. to Israel. Much of it is pure fantasy. But, the plan is not to be regarded as not influential, or as not capable of realization for a short time. The plan follows faithfully the geopolitical ideas current in Germany of 1890-1933, which were swallowed whole by Hitler and the Nazi movement, and determined their aims for East Europe. Those aims, especially the division of the existing states, were carried out in 1939-1941, and only an alliance on the global scale prevented their consolidation for a period of time.

The notes by the author follow the text. To avoid confusion, I did not add any notes of my own, but have put the substance of them into this foreward and the conclusion at the end. I have, however, emphasized some portions of the text.

Israel Shahak
June 13, 1982
A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties
by Oded Yinon
This essay originally appeared in Hebrew in KIVUNIM (Directions), A Journal for Judaism and Zionism; Issue No, 14--Winter, 5742, February 1982, Editor: Yoram Beck. Editorial Committee: Eli Eyal, Yoram Beck, Amnon Hadari, Yohanan Manor, Elieser Schweid. Published by the Department of Publicity/The World Zionist Organization, Jerusalem.

SNIPPED.......please use LINK at top of page to retrieve the rest of this fascinating read...
Mimi

Related Links

Listing of all On the Issues

AEI Print Index No. 11555

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The Spies who pushed for War:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,999737,00.html

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One can read the actual 'A Clean Break' document via the embedded link at the following URL:

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j100603.html

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FF30Ak07.html

The following URL (link) will take you straight to the 'A Clean Break' document:

http://www.israeleconomy.org/strat1.htm

See the 'A Clean Break' discussion via the the following URL:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5306.htm

http://www.irmep.org

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More on the 'A Clean Break' agenda:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/wiki.phtml?title=Iraq_War

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JINSA (Jewish Institute on National Security Affairs):

http://www.robert-fisk.com/articles114.htm

The following is the 'Men from JINSA and CSP' article (for 'The Nation' by Jason Vest) which Fisk refers to in the above article:

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020902&s=vest

And what professor Kevin MacDonald conveys in his 'Thinking about Neoconservatism' article:

http://www.vdare.com/misc/macdonald_neoconservatism.htm

Analysis: U.S. (ZOG) Targets Syria (for Israel)

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/02/16/analysis-u-s-zog-targets-syria-for-israel.php

The Anti-Conservatives...

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/02/19/the-anti-conservatives.php

RITTER SAYS THAT US PLANS JUNE ATTACK ON IRAN

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/02/21/scott-ritter-says-u-s-plans-june-attack-on-iran.php

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Neocon Middle East Policy: 'Clean Break' Damage Assessment

Neocon Middle East Policy:

The 'Clean Break' Plan Damage Assessment

http://www.irmep.org/cbda.htm

A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm is a definitive Middle East Policy strategy authored and implemented by operatives in the highest levels of the US government.

There is just one problem. The plan was a strategy for Israel , not the United States of America .

Neocon Middle East Policy reviews strategies and consequences of the "Clean Break" plan authored by Richard Perle, David Wurmser, and Douglas Feith in 1996. It analyzes the core assumptions of the policy, cost of tactics that have already been implemented and discusses the likelihood others will be executed in the future.

Neocon Middle East Policy then turns to the most difficult questions of all, "Can a policy crafted for a foreign government and presented to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu serve as a blueprint for US regional policy? At what cost in credibility, blood, treasure and American integrity? At what cost to Israel?" Neocon Middle East Policy is a must-read for anyone concerned about the convergence of US and Israeli foreign policy in the Middle East.

Contributors: Adib Farha, Adam Shapiro, Dr. E.Faye Williams, Grant F. Smith, Khaled Dawoud, Mohammed Kaddam.

Publication Date: March 1, 2005

ISBN # 0-9764437-3-2

Cover Price $9.95

Shipping Weight 9 Ounces

http://www.irmep.org/cbda.htm

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Bush's Inaugaral Address: The Israeli Connection Continues

http://www.thornwalker.com:16080/ditch/snieg_inaugural.htm

http://www.nowarforisrael.com

http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_oilwar.htm#1

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Even Israelis Say that the Iraq war was for Israel:

http://www.counterpunch.org/avnery04102003.html

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Neocons after More war for Israel

http://www.motherjones.com/news/dailymojo/2005/03/israel.html

How the Zionist (JINSA/CSP/PNAC) Neocons 'cooked' intelligence for their war for Israel:

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2004/01/12_405.html

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2004/01/12_400.html

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5398.htm

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http://zfacts.com/p/780.html

Why Iraq? The short answer?neocons

Why? ? Neoconservatives!

Neocon's 7-Year March to Iraq

Nine Most Effective Neocons in Starting War: Cheney Vice President Libby Cheney's chief of Staff
Rumsfeld Sect. of Defense Wurmser Cheney's Mideast Advisor
Wolfowitz Under Rumsfeld Abrams Security Council, Mideast
Feith Under Wolfowitz Podhoretz President's Freedom Medal
Perle Defense Polocy Board
(Quotes are from neocon web sites.) The Neocons Page

Phase 1: The Focus on Israel
In early 1996 at IASPS, a ?Jerusalem-based think tank with an office in Washington.? Wurmser, Feith, Perle and others wrote a report for the new Israeli prime minister, calling the removal of Saddam from power "an important Israeli strategic objective." Perle flew to Israel and presented the report to Netanyahu.

December, 1996. In Commentary Magazine, Podhoretz explained that Iraq was a threat to Israel because of its Scud missiles--this thinking seems to be the origin of the WMD rationale. Wurmser, however, wrote a report saying the danger of Iraq was that it was ?crumbling? and was likely to be taken over by Syria or Iran, so pre-em-tive action was needed.

Phase 2: Joining Forces?PNAC is Born

June 1997. PNAC, the neocon think tank that lobbied hardest for the war was founded by Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Libby, Abrams, and Podhoretz, among others.

January 1998. PNAC's first public statement, an open letter to Clinton (from Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Abrams, Perle, etc.) urged necessary ?military steps?... ?for removing Saddam's regime from power? to protect, our troops, Israel, and moderate Arab states from the ?possibility? of Saddam acquiring the capability to deliver possible WMD. In May it wrote a similar letter to Senator Lott.

Phase 3: Theory, Planning and Positioning

March 1999. Wurmser publishes his book on Iraqi regime change. "Iraq's strategic importance to the US derives from a source beyond the pernicious, extortionist character of Saddam's regime. Iraq occupies some of the most strategically blessed and resource-laden territory of the middle east. ... Iraq also has large, proven oil reserves, water, ..." Wurmser also notes that Iraq threatens its neighbors, but in so saying, mentions only Israel.

January, 2001. Writing for OurJerusalem.com, Wurmser argues "Instead, Israel and the United States should ... strike fatally, not merely disarm, the centers of radicalism in the region?the regimes of Damascus, Baghdad, Tripoli, Tehran, and Gaza. That would [prove] fighting with either the U.S. or Israel is suicidal."

Cheney fights for and gets Rumsfeld, the rest of the neocon team follows.

May 2001. Reuel Gerecht, the Director of the Middle East Initiative, at PNAC, publishes ?Liberate Iraq? in the neocon magazine ?The Weekly Standard.? He says Chalabi is more informed than the CIA, and Bush is retreating, and lays out a strategy for war quite similar to the one eventually followed.

Phase 4: 9/11 and the Team Swings into Action

September 19, 2001. Rumsfeld calls a 19-hour meeting of Defense Policy Board (Perl, Wolfowitz, Feith, Chalabi, etc.). A letter is written, but published by PNAC in Washington Times (Sept. 20). It contains only two sentences on Bin Laden and Afghanistan, but large paragraphs on (1) Iraq (with Iran and Syria) and (2) Hezbollah as well as a paragraph on Israel and Palestine. One week after 9/11, the neocons focused almost entirely on Iraq and threats to Israel, did not mention Al Qaeda, and used Osama only as a stepping stone to their real goal?Iraq.

May 2003. Wolfowitz says ?The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction.? Then four days later, "The war in Iraq was impressively quick and successful."

more neocon background: PNAC Project for the New American Century. Neocon foreign and defense policy think tank. Includes: Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Libby, Abrams, and Podhoretz.
JINSA The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs is committed to explaining the link between U.S. national security and Israel's security. Served on Advisory Board: Cheney (1994), Wolfowitz, Feith, Perle.
Rumsfeld Cheney's pick for Secretary of Defense
Wolfowitz Earliest critique of Bush I's decision to leave Saddam in Power. Time magazine's "godfather" of the 2nd Iraq war. Served under Cheney in first Iraq war.
Wurmser Cheney's Middle East advisor
Feith Undersecretary of Defense (to Wolfowitz) for policy
Perle Rumsfeld's pick for chairman of Defense Policy Board. Forced to step down as chairman, but still on the Board.
Libby Cheney's Chief of Staff. Wrote controversial ?Defense Planning Guidance? with Wolfowitz in 1992 for Cheney. Wolfowitz and Libby were upset that Bush 1 did not remove Saddam.
Abrams Top Mideast advisor on the National Security Council. Author of Faith or Fear: How Jews Can Survive in a Christian America. Son-in-law of Podhoretz. Pled guilty to making false statements to Congress.
Podhoretz Now retired edi

Who's Most Responsible? Cheney ! He brought in neoconservatives to control the Defense Department and his section of the White House and even pushed one into Powell's State Department. These neoconservatives brought in more neoconservatives.

The role of the neoconservatives. They were the only group pushing to invade Iraq from 1997 through 2001. They gained the support of Bush only after 9/11 and false stories about Iraq's link to Al Qaeda. In fact all major aspects of the invasion?including major mistakes?were planned by the neoconservatives before 9/11. Timeline of Evidence

Why did they want to take Iraq? Wurmser, Dick Cheney's assistant, wrote in 1996 "Iraq ... occupies some of the most strategically important and well-endowed territories of the Middle East. ... whoever inherits Iraq dominates the entire Levant [Mideast] strategically." Wurmser was particularly worried that Syria or Iran, Israel's two most implacable enemies, would gain control of Iraq, which he viewed as a "crumbling state."

7-Year Leadup to War

Neoconservatives also wanted military bases in Iraq, oil company contracts and to control more oil (not to steal it). The U.S. was hoping to move military bases out of Saudi Arabia and into Iraq, thus helping stabilize the Saudi regime which had been under attack by bin Laden and other fundamentalist Muslims for harboring U.S. troops.

What about the official reasons for the war?
Weapons of mass destruction?
? Didn't exist. Faked evidence. Actual worry was danger to Israel not U.S.

Al Qaeda?
? Not mentioned first 4 years. Said connection irrelevant.
? After 9/11 focused on Hezbolla not Al Qaeda.

Because Iraqis deserved freedom?
? Sure they do and Saddam was horrific. But Rumsfeld tried to sell him a pipeline while he knew Saddam was gassing his own people. The neocons never mention evil dictators in Africa or Cambodia or Pakistan.

Sanctions and inspections could not stop Saddam's weapons program?
? The military new they were working and the war proved them right.
? Wurmser told us in 1997 that Iraq was too weak.

Only neocons pushed for the war from 1997 through Rumsfeld's secret meeting to plan the war just after 9/11.

It's Cheney's War
Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and 16 other neocons founded PNAC (see www.newamericancentury.org and the PNAC links at the top of www.informationclearinghouse.info ) in 1997. It has openly pushed for the IRAQ war ever since. Cheney fought to bring Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz into the Defense Department and other neocons into the White House. Then a week after 9/11, Rumsfeld called a secret 19-hour expanded PNAC meeting, and the neocons planned the war--without Powell or Bush.

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Jason Vest co-wrote the following article about the Office of Special Plans (OSP) which Bamford discusses on pages 307-308 of his 'A Pretext for War' book (Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, who was interviewed in your documentary, is also mentioned there by Bamford):

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2004/01/12_405.html

Notice via this article (How Ahmed Chalabi Conned the Neocons) conveyed that Chalabi promised the neocons that he would have good relations with Israel and an oil pipeline from Iraq to Israel after being put in place as the leader of Iraq:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/01/31/how-ahmed-chalabi-conned-the-neocons.php

Note the following article about how Karen Kwiatkowski
witnessed Israeli military officials walking through the Pentagon like they owned the place:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5829.htm

Revealing Arrogance Of
Israeli Generals In Pentagon

A Strange Thing Happened On The Way To The War
By Karen Kwiatkowski
? 2004 The American Conservative
1-10-4

Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, a former Pentagon insider, concludes her observations on the run-up to the Iraq war in this last of a three-part series.
As the winter of 2002 approached, I was increasingly amazed at the success of the propaganda campaign being waged by President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and neoconservative mouthpieces at the Washington Times and Wall Street Journal. I speculated about the necessity but unlikelihood of a Phil-Dick-style minority report on the grandiose Feith-Wolfowitz-Rumsfeld-Cheney vision of some future Middle East where peace, love, and democracy are brought about by pre-emptive war and military occupation.
In December, I requested an acceleration of my retirement after just over 20 years on duty and exactly the required three years of time-in-grade as a lieutenant colonel. I felt fortunate not to have being fired or court-martialed due to my politically incorrect ways in the previous two years as a real conservative in a neoconservative Office of Secretary of Defense. But in fact, my outspokenness was probably never noticed because civilian professionals and military officers were largely invisible. We were easily replaceable and dispensable, not part of the team brought in from the American Enterprise Institute, the Center for Security Policy, and the Washington Institute for Near East Affairs.
There were exceptions. When military officers conspicuously crossed the neoconservative party line, the results were predictable-get back in line or get out. One friend, an Army colonel who exemplified the qualities carved in stone at West Point, refused to maneuver into a small neoconservative box, and he was moved into another position, where truth-telling would be viewed as an asset instead of a handicap. Among the civilians, I observed the stereotypical perspective that this too would pass, with policy analysts apparently willing to wait out the neocon phase.
In early winter, an incident occurred that was seared into my memory. A coworker and I were suddenly directed to go down to the Mall entrance to pick up some Israeli generals. Post-9/11 rules required one escort for every three visitors, and there were six or seven of them waiting. The Navy lieutenant commander and I hustled down. Before we could apologize for the delay, the leader of the pack surged ahead, his colleagues in close formation, leaving us to double-time behind the group as they sped to Undersecretary Feith's office on the fourth floor. Two thoughts crossed our minds: are we following close enough to get credit for escorting them, and do they really know where they are going? We did get credit, and they did know. Once in Feith's waiting room, the leader continued at speed to Feith's closed door. An alert secretary saw this coming and had leapt from her desk to block the door. "Mr. Feith has a visitor. It will only be a few more minutes." The leader craned his neck to look around the secretary's head as he demanded, "Who is in there with him?"
This minor crisis of curiosity past, I noticed the security sign-in roster. Our habit, up until a few weeks before this incident, was not to sign in senior visitors like ambassadors. But about once a year, the security inspectors send out a warning letter that they were coming to inspect records. As a result, sign-in rosters were laid out, visible and used. I knew this because in the previous two weeks I watched this explanation being awkwardly presented to several North African ambassadors as they signed in for the first time and wondered why and why now. Given all this and seeing the sign-in roster, I asked the secretary, "Do you want these guys to sign in?" She raised her hands, both palms toward me, and waved frantically as she shook her head. "No, no, no, it is not necessary, not at all." Her body language told me I had committed a faux pas for even asking the question. My fellow escort and I chatted on the way back to our office about how the generals knew where they were going (most foreign visitors to the five-sided asylum don't) and how the generals didn't have to sign in. I felt a bit dirtied by the whole thing and couldn't stop comparing that experience to the grace and gentility of the Moroccan, Tunisian, and Algerian ambassadors with whom I worked.
In my study of the neoconservatives, it was easy to find out whom in Washington they liked and whom they didn't. They liked most of the Heritage Foundation and all of the American Enterprise Institute. They liked writers Charles Krauthammer and Bill Kristol. To find out whom they didn't like, no research was required. All I had to do was walk the corridors and attend staff meetings. There were several shared prerequisites to get on the Neoconservative List of Major Despicable People, and in spite of the rhetoric hurled against these enemies of the state, most really weren't Rodents of Unusual Size. Most, in fact, were retired from a branch of the military with a star or two or four on their shoulders. All could and did rationally argue the many illogical points in the neoconservative strategy of offensive democracy-guys like Brent Scowcroft, Barry McCaffrey, Anthony Zinni, and Colin Powell.
I was present at a staff meeting when Deputy Undersecretary Bill Luti called General Zinni a traitor. At another time, I discussed with a political appointee the service being rendered by Colin Powell in the early winter and was told the best service he could offer would be to quit. I heard in another staff meeting a derogatory story about a little Tommy Fargo who was acting up. Little Tommy was, of course, Commander, Pacific Forces, Admiral Fargo. This was shared with the rest of us as a Bill Luti lesson in civilian control of the military. It was certainly not civil or controlled, but the message was crystal.
When President Bush gave his State of the Union address, there was a small furor over the reference to the yellowcake in Niger that Saddam was supposedly seeking. After this speech, everyone was discussing this as either new intelligence saved up for just such a speech or, more cynically, just one more flamboyant fabrication that those watching the propaganda campaign had come to expect. I had not heard about yellowcake from Niger or seen it mentioned on the Office of Special Plans talking points. When I went over to my old shop, sub-Saharan Africa, to congratulate them for making it into the president's speech, they said the information hadn't come from them or through them. They were as surprised and embarrassed as everyone else that such a blatant falsehood would make it into a presidential speech.
When General Zinni was removed as Bush's Middle East envoy and Elliot Abrams joined the National Security Council (NSC) to lead the Mideast division, whoops and high-fives had erupted from the neocon cubicles. By midwinter, echoes of those celebrations seemed to mutate into a kind of anxious anticipation, shared by most of the Pentagon. The military was anxiously waiting under the bed for the other shoe to drop amidst concerns over troop availability, readiness for an ill-defined mission, and lack of day-after clarity. The neocons were anxiously struggling to get that damn shoe off, gleefully anticipating the martinis to be drunk and the fun to be had. The other shoe fell with a thump on Feb. 5 as Colin Powell delivered his United Nations presentation.
It was a sad day for me and many others with whom I worked when we watched Powell's public capitulation. The era when Powell had been considered a political general, back when he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, had in many ways been erased for those of us who greatly admired his coup of the Pentagon neocons when he persuaded the president to pursue UN support for his invasion of Iraq. Now it was as if Powell had again rolled military interests-and national interests as well.
Around that same time, our deputy director forwarded a State Department cable that had gone out to our embassy in Turkey. The cable contained answers to 51 questions that had been asked of our ambassador by the Turkish government. The questions addressed things like after-war security arrangements, refugees, border control, stability in the Kurdish north, and occupation plans. But every third answer was either "To be determined" or "We're working on that" or "This scenario is unlikely." At one point, an answer included the "fact" that the United States military would physically secure the geographic border of Iraq. Curious, I checked the length of the physical border of Iraq. Then I checked out the length of our own border with Mexico. Given our exceptional success in securing our own desert borders, I found this statement interesting.
Soon after, I was out-processed for retirement and couldn't have been more relieved to be away from daily exposure to practices I had come to believe were unconstitutional. War is generally crafted and pursued for political reasons, but the reasons given to Congress and the American people

Alpha · Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2005 9:58 pm Post subject: Whose War?

Pat Buchanan also mentions ( in his 'Whose War?' article included below) the 'A Clean Break' (war for Israel) agenda of the Zionist -JINSA/CSP/PNAC- Neoconservative Israel firsters:

http://www.amconmag.com/03_24_03/cover.html

March 24, 2003 issue
Copyright © 2003 The American Conservative

Whose War?

A neoconservative clique seeks to ensnare our country in a series of wars that are not in America’s interest.

by Patrick J. Buchanan

The War Party may have gotten its war. But it has also gotten something it did not bargain for. Its membership lists and associations have been exposed and its motives challenged. In a rare moment in U.S. journalism, Tim Russert put this question directly to Richard Perle: “Can you assure American viewers ... that we’re in this situation against Saddam Hussein and his removal for American security interests? And what would be the link in terms of Israel?”

Suddenly, the Israeli connection is on the table, and the War Party is not amused. Finding themselves in an unanticipated firefight, our neoconservative friends are doing what comes naturally, seeking student deferments from political combat by claiming the status of a persecuted minority group. People who claim to be writing the foreign policy of the world superpower, one would think, would be a little more manly in the schoolyard of politics. Not so.

Former Wall Street Journal editor Max Boot kicked off the campaign. When these “Buchananites toss around ‘neoconservative’—and cite names like Wolfowitz and Cohen—it sometimes sounds as if what they really mean is ‘Jewish conservative.’” Yet Boot readily concedes that a passionate attachment to Israel is a “key tenet of neoconservatism.” He also claims that the National Security Strategy of President Bush “sounds as if it could have come straight out from the pages of Commentary magazine, the neocon bible.” (For the uninitiated, Commentary, the bible in which Boot seeks divine guidance, is the monthly of the American Jewish Committee.)

David Brooks of the Weekly Standard wails that attacks based on the Israel tie have put him through personal hell: “Now I get a steady stream of anti-Semitic screeds in my e-mail, my voicemail and in my mailbox. ... Anti-Semitism is alive and thriving. It’s just that its epicenter is no longer on the Buchananite Right, but on the peace-movement left.”

Washington Post columnist Robert Kagan endures his own purgatory abroad: “In London ... one finds Britain’s finest minds propounding, in sophisticated language and melodious Oxbridge accents, the conspiracy theories of Pat Buchanan concerning the ‘neoconservative’ (read: Jewish) hijacking of American foreign policy.”

Lawrence Kaplan of the New Republic charges that our little magazine “has been transformed into a forum for those who contend that President Bush has become a client of ... Ariel Sharon and the ‘neoconservative war party.’”

Referencing Charles Lindbergh, he accuses Paul Schroeder, Chris Matthews, Robert Novak, Georgie Anne Geyer, Jason Vest of the Nation, and Gary Hart of implying that “members of the Bush team have been doing Israel’s bidding and, by extension, exhibiting ‘dual loyalties.’” Kaplan thunders:

The real problem with such claims is not just that they are untrue. The problem is that they are toxic. Invoking the specter of dual loyalty to mute criticism and debate amounts to more than the everyday pollution of public discourse. It is the nullification of public discourse, for how can one refute accusations grounded in ethnicity? The charges are, ipso facto, impossible to disprove. And so they are meant to be.

What is going on here? Slate’s Mickey Kaus nails it in the headline of his retort: “Lawrence Kaplan Plays the Anti-Semitic Card.”

What Kaplan, Brooks, Boot, and Kagan are doing is what the Rev. Jesse Jackson does when caught with some mammoth contribution from a Fortune 500 company he has lately accused of discriminating. He plays the race card. So, too, the neoconservatives are trying to fend off critics by assassinating their character and impugning their motives.

Indeed, it is the charge of “anti-Semitism” itself that is toxic. For this venerable slander is designed to nullify public discourse by smearing and intimidating foes and censoring and blacklisting them and any who would publish them. Neocons say we attack them because they are Jewish. We do not. We attack them because their warmongering threatens our country, even as it finds a reliable echo in Ariel Sharon.

And this time the boys have cried “wolf” once too often. It is not working. As Kaus notes, Kaplan’s own New Republic carries Harvard professor Stanley Hoffman. In writing of the four power centers in this capital that are clamoring for war, Hoffman himself describes the fourth thus:

And, finally, there is a loose collection of friends of Israel, who believe in the identity of interests between the Jewish state and the United States. … These analysts look on foreign policy through the lens of one dominant concern: Is it good or bad for Israel? Since that nation’s founding in 1948, these thinkers have never been in very good odor at the State Department, but now they are well ensconced in the Pentagon, around such strategists as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Douglas Feith.

“If Stanley Hoffman can say this,” asks Kaus, “why can’t Chris Matthews?” Kaus also notes that Kaplan somehow failed to mention the most devastating piece tying the neoconservatives to Sharon and his Likud Party.

In a Feb. 9 front-page article in the Washington Post, Robert Kaiser quotes a senior U.S. official as saying, “The Likudniks are really in charge now.” Kaiser names Perle, Wolfowitz, and Feith as members of a pro-Israel network inside the administration and adds David Wurmser of the Defense Department and Elliott Abrams of the National Security Council. (Abrams is the son-in-law of Norman Podhoretz, editor emeritus of Commentary, whose magazine has for decades branded critics of Israel as anti-Semites.)

Noting that Sharon repeatedly claims a “special closeness” to the Bushites, Kaiser writes, “For the first time a U.S. administration and a Likud government are pursuing nearly identical policies.” And a valid question is: how did this come to be, and while it is surely in Sharon’s interest, is it in America’s interest?

This is a time for truth. For America is about to make a momentous decision: whether to launch a series of wars in the Middle East that could ignite the Clash of Civilizations against which Harvard professor Samuel Huntington has warned, a war we believe would be a tragedy and a disaster for this Republic. To avert this war, to answer the neocon smears, we ask that our readers review their agenda as stated in their words. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. As Al Smith used to say, “Nothing un-American can live in the sunlight.”

We charge that a cabal of polemicists and public officials seek to ensnare our country in a series of wars that are not in America’s interests. We charge them with colluding with Israel to ignite those wars and destroy the Oslo Accords. We charge them with deliberately damaging U.S. relations with every state in the Arab world that defies Israel or supports the Palestinian people’s right to a homeland of their own. We charge that they have alienated friends and allies all over the Islamic and Western world through their arrogance, hubris, and bellicosity.

Not in our lifetimes has America been so isolated from old friends. Far worse, President Bush is being lured into a trap baited for him by these neocons that could cost him his office and cause America to forfeit years of peace won for us by the sacrifices of two generations in the Cold War.

They charge us with anti-Semitism—i.e., a hatred of Jews for their faith, heritage, or ancestry. False. The truth is, those hurling these charges harbor a “passionate attachment” to a nation not our own that causes them to subordinate the interests of their own country and to act on an assumption that, somehow, what’s good for Israel is good for America.

The Neoconservatives

Who are the neoconservatives? The first generation were ex-liberals, socialists, and Trotskyites, boat-people from the McGovern revolution who rafted over to the GOP at the end of conservatism’s long march to power with Ronald Reagan in 1980.

A neoconservative, wrote Kevin Phillips back then, is more likely to be a magazine editor than a bricklayer. Today, he or she is more likely to be a resident scholar at a public policy institute such as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) or one of its clones like the Center for Security Policy or the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). As one wag writes, a neocon is more familiar with the inside of a think tank than an Abrams tank.

Almost none came out of the business world or military, and few if any came out of the Goldwater campaign. The heroes they invoke are Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Harry Truman, Martin Luther King, and Democratic Senators Henry “Scoop” Jackson (Wash.) and Pat Moynihan (N.Y.).

All are interventionists who regard Stakhanovite support of Israel as a defining characteristic of their breed. Among their luminaries are Jeane Kirkpatrick, Bill Bennett, Michael Novak, and James Q. Wilson.

Their publications include the Weekly Standard, Commentary, the New Republic, National Review, and the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal. Though few in number, they wield disproportionate power through control of the conservative foundations and magazines, through their syndicated columns, and by attaching themselves to men of power.

Beating the War Drums

When the Cold War ended, these neoconservatives began casting about for a new crusade to give meaning to their lives. On Sept. 11, their time came. They seized on that horrific atrocity to steer America’s rage into all-out war to destroy their despised enemies, the Arab and Islamic “rogue states” that have resisted U.S. hegemony and loathe Israel.

The War Party’s plan, however, had been in preparation far in advance of 9/11. And when President Bush, after defeating the Taliban, was looking for a new front in the war on terror, they put their precooked meal in front of him. Bush dug into it.

Before introducing the script-writers of America’s future wars, consider the rapid and synchronized reaction of the neocons to what happened after that fateful day.

On Sept. 12, Americans were still in shock when Bill Bennett told CNN that we were in “a struggle between good and evil,” that the Congress must declare war on “militant Islam,” and that “overwhelming force” must be used. Bennett cited Lebanon, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and China as targets for attack. Not, however, Afghanistan, the sanctuary of Osama’s terrorists. How did Bennett know which nations must be smashed before he had any idea who attacked us?

The Wall Street Journal immediately offered up a specific target list, calling for U.S. air strikes on “terrorist camps in Syria, Sudan, Libya, and Algeria, and perhaps even in parts of Egypt.” Yet, not one of Bennett’s six countries, nor one of these five, had anything to do with 9/11.

On Sept. 15, according to Bob Woodward’s Bush at War, “Paul Wolfowitz put forth military arguments to justify a U.S. attack on Iraq rather than Afghanistan.” Why Iraq? Because, Wolfowitz argued in the War Cabinet, while “attacking Afghanistan would be uncertain … Iraq was a brittle oppressive regime that might break easily. It was doable.”

On Sept. 20, forty neoconservatives sent an open letter to the White House instructing President Bush on how the war on terror must be conducted. Signed by Bennett, Podhoretz, Kirkpatrick, Perle, Kristol, and Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, the letter was an ultimatum. To retain the signers’ support, the president was told, he must target Hezbollah for destruction, retaliate against Syria and Iran if they refuse to sever ties to Hezbollah, and overthrow Saddam. Any failure to attack Iraq, the signers warned Bush, “will constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism.”

Here was a cabal of intellectuals telling the Commander-in-Chief, nine days after an attack on America, that if he did not follow their war plans, he would be charged with surrendering to terror. Yet, Hezbollah had nothing to do with 9/11. What had Hezbollah done? Hezbollah had humiliated Israel by driving its army out of Lebanon.

President Bush had been warned. He was to exploit the attack of 9/11 to launch a series of wars on Arab regimes, none of which had attacked us. All, however, were enemies of Israel. “Bibi” Netanyahu, the former Prime Minister of Israel, like some latter-day Citizen Genet, was ubiquitous on American television, calling for us to crush the “Empire of Terror.” The “Empire,” it turns out, consisted of Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, Iraq, and “the Palestinian enclave.”

Nasty as some of these regimes and groups might be, what had they done to the United States?

The War Party seemed desperate to get a Middle East war going before America had second thoughts. Tom Donnelly of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) called for an immediate invasion of Iraq. “Nor need the attack await the deployment of half a million troops. … [T]he larger challenge will be occupying Iraq after the fighting is over,” he wrote.

Donnelly was echoed by Jonah Goldberg of National Review: “The United States needs to go to war with Iraq because it needs to go to war with someone in the region and Iraq makes the most sense.”

Goldberg endorsed “the Ledeen Doctrine” of ex-Pentagon official Michael Ledeen, which Goldberg described thus: “Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show we mean business.” (When the French ambassador in London, at a dinner party, asked why we should risk World War III over some “shitty little country”—meaning Israel—Goldberg’s magazine was not amused.)

Ledeen, however, is less frivolous. In The War Against the Terror Masters, he identifies the exact regimes America must destroy:

First and foremost, we must bring down the terror regimes, beginning with the Big Three: Iran, Iraq, and Syria. And then we have to come to grips with Saudi Arabia. … Once the tyrants in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia have been brought down, we will remain engaged. …We have to ensure the fulfillment of the democratic revolution. … Stability is an unworthy American mission, and a misleading concept to boot. We do not want stability in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and even Saudi Arabia; we want things to change. The real issue is not whether, but how to destabilize.

Rejecting stability as “an unworthy American mission,” Ledeen goes on to define America’s authentic “historic mission”:

Creative destruction is our middle name, both within our society and abroad. We tear down the old order every day, from business to science, literature, art, architecture, and cinema to politics and the law. Our enemies have always hated this whirlwind of energy and creativity which menaces their traditions (whatever they may be) and shames them for their inability to keep pace. … [W]e must destroy them to advance our historic mission.

Passages like this owe more to Leon Trotsky than to Robert Taft and betray a Jacobin streak in neoconservatism that cannot be reconciled with any concept of true conservatism.

To the Weekly Standard, Ledeen’s enemies list was too restrictive. We must not only declare war on terror networks and states that harbor terrorists, said the Standard, we should launch wars on “any group or government inclined to support or sustain others like them in the future.”

Robert Kagan and William Kristol were giddy with excitement at the prospect of Armageddon. The coming war “is going to spread and engulf a number of countries. … It is going to resemble the clash of civilizations that everyone has hoped to avoid. … [I]t is possible that the demise of some ‘moderate’ Arab regimes may be just round the corner.”

Norman Podhoretz in Commentary even outdid Kristol’s Standard, rhapsodizing that we should embrace a war of civilizations, as it is George W. Bush’s mission “to fight World War IV—the war against militant Islam.” By his count, the regimes that richly deserve to be overthrown are not confined to the three singled-out members of the axis of evil (Iraq, Iran, North Korea). At a minimum, the axis should extend to Syria and Lebanon and Libya, as well as ‘“friends” of America like the Saudi royal family and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, along with the Palestinian Authority. Bush must reject the “timorous counsels” of the “incorrigibly cautious Colin Powell,” wrote Podhoretz, and “find the stomach to impose a new political culture on the defeated” Islamic world. As the war against al-Qaeda required that we destroy the Taliban, Podhoretz wrote,

We may willy-nilly find ourselves forced … to topple five or six or seven more tyrannies in the Islamic world (including that other sponsor of terrorism, Yasir Arafat’s Palestinian Authority). I can even [imagine] the turmoil of this war leading to some new species of an imperial mission for America, whose purpose would be to oversee the emergence of successor governments in the region more amenable to reform and modernization than the despotisms now in place. … I can also envisage the establishment of some kind of American protectorate over the oil fields of Saudi Arabia, as we more and more come to wonder why 7,000 princes should go on being permitted to exert so much leverage over us and everyone else.

Podhoretz credits Eliot Cohen with the phrase “World War IV.” Bush was shortly thereafter seen carrying about a gift copy of Cohen’s book that celebrates civilian mastery of the military in times of war, as exhibited by such leaders as Winston Churchill and David Ben Gurion.

A list of the Middle East regimes that Podhoretz, Bennett, Ledeen, Netanyahu, and the Wall Street Journal regard as targets for destruction thus includes Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, and “militant Islam.”

Cui Bono? For whose benefit these endless wars in a region that holds nothing vital to America save oil, which the Arabs must sell us to survive? Who would benefit from a war of civilizations between the West and Islam?

Answer: one nation, one leader, one party. Israel, Sharon, Likud.

Indeed, Sharon has been everywhere the echo of his acolytes in America. In February 2003, Sharon told a delegation of Congressmen that, after Saddam’s regime is destroyed, it is of “vital importance” that the United States disarm Iran, Syria, and Libya.

“We have a great interest in shaping the Middle East the day after” the war on Iraq, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told the Conference of Major American Jewish Organizations. After U.S. troops enter Baghdad, the United States must generate “political, economic, diplomatic pressure” on Tehran, Mofaz admonished the American Jews.

Are the neoconservatives concerned about a war on Iraq bringing down friendly Arab governments? Not at all. They would welcome it.

“Mubarak is no great shakes,” says Richard Perle of the President of Egypt. “Surely we can do better than Mubarak.” Asked about the possibility that a war on Iraq—which he predicted would be a “cakewalk”—might upend governments in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, former UN ambassador Ken Adelman told Joshua Micah Marshall of Washington Monthly, “All the better if you ask me.”

On July 10, 2002, Perle invited a former aide to Lyndon LaRouche named Laurent Murawiec to address the Defense Policy Board. In a briefing that startled Henry Kissinger, Murawiec named Saudi Arabia as “the kernel of evil, the prime mover, the most dangerous opponent” of the United States.

Washington should give Riyadh an ultimatum, he said. Either you Saudis “prosecute or isolate those involved in the terror chain, including the Saudi intelligence services,” and end all propaganda against Israel, or we invade your country, seize your oil fields, and occupy Mecca.

In closing his PowerPoint presentation, Murawiec offered a “Grand Strategy for the Middle East.” “Iraq is the tactical pivot, Saudi Arabia the strategic pivot, Egypt the prize.” Leaked reports of Murawiec’s briefing did not indicate if anyone raised the question of how the Islamic world might respond to U.S. troops tramping around the grounds of the Great Mosque.

What these neoconservatives seek is to conscript American blood to make the world safe for Israel. They want the peace of the sword imposed on Islam and American soldiers to die if necessary to impose it.

Washington Times editor at large Arnaud de Borchgrave calls this the “Bush-Sharon Doctrine.” “Washington’s ‘Likudniks,’” he writes, “have been in charge of U.S. policy in the Middle East since Bush was sworn into office.”

The neocons seek American empire, and Sharonites seek hegemony over the Middle East. The two agendas coincide precisely. And though neocons insist that it was Sept. 11 that made the case for war on Iraq and militant Islam, the origins of their war plans go back far before.

“Securing the Realm”

The principal draftsman is Richard Perle, an aide to Sen. Scoop Jackson, who, in 1970, was overheard on a federal wiretap discussing classified information from the National Security Council with the Israeli Embassy. In Jews and American Politics, published in 1974, Stephen D. Isaacs wrote, “Richard Perle and Morris Amitay command a tiny army of Semitophiles on Capitol Hill and direct Jewish power in behalf of Jewish interests.” In 1983, the New York Times reported that Perle had taken substantial payments from an Israeli weapons manufacturer.

In 1996, with Douglas Feith and David Wurmser, Perle wrote “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,” for Prime Minister Netanyahu. In it, Perle, Feith, and Wurmser urged Bibi to ditch the Oslo Accords of the assassinated Yitzak Rabin and adopt a new aggressive strategy:

Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq—an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right—as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions. Jordan has challenged Syria’s regional ambitions recently by suggesting the restoration of the Hashemites in Iraq.

In the Perle-Feith-Wurmser strategy, Israel’s enemy remains Syria, but the road to Damascus runs through Baghdad. Their plan, which urged Israel to re-establish “the principle of preemption,” has now been imposed by Perle, Feith, Wurmser & Co. on the United States.

In his own 1997 paper, “A Strategy for Israel,” Feith pressed Israel to re-occupy “the areas under Palestinian Authority control,” though “the price in blood would be high.”

Wurmser, as a resident scholar at AEI, drafted joint war plans for Israel and the United States “to fatally strike the centers of radicalism in the Middle East. Israel and the United States should … broaden the conflict to strike fatally, not merely disarm, the centers of radicalism in the region—the regimes of Damascus, Baghdad, Tripoli, Tehran, and Gaza. That would establish the recognition that fighting either the United States or Israel is suicidal.”

He urged both nations to be on the lookout for a crisis, for as he wrote, “Crises can be opportunities.” Wurmser published his U.S.-Israeli war plan on Jan. 1, 2001, nine months before 9/11.

About the Perle-Feith-Wurmser cabal, author Michael Lind writes:

The radical Zionist right to which Perle and Feith belong is small in number but it has become a significant force in Republican policy-making circles. It is a recent phenomenon, dating back to the late 1970s and 1980s, when many formerly Democratic Jewish intellectuals joined the broad Reagan coalition. While many of these hawks speak in public about global crusades for democracy, the chief concern of many such “neo-conservatives” is the power and reputation of Israel.

Right down the smokestack.

Perle today chairs the Defense Policy Board, Feith is an Undersecretary of Defense, and Wurmser is special assistant to the Undersecretary of State for Arms Control, John Bolton, who dutifully echoes the Perle-Sharon line. According to the Israeli daily newspaper Ha’aretz, in late February,

U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton said in meetings with Israeli officials … that he has no doubt America will attack Iraq and that it will be necessary to deal with threats from Syria, Iran and North Korea afterwards.

On Jan. 26, 1998, President Clinton received a letter imploring him to use his State of the Union address to make removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime the “aim of American foreign policy” and to use military action because “diplomacy is failing.” Were Clinton to do that, the signers pledged, they would “offer our full support in this difficult but necessary endeavor.” Signing the pledge were Elliott Abrams, Bill Bennett, John Bolton, Robert Kagan, William Kristol, Richard Perle, and Paul Wolfowitz. Four years before 9/11, the neocons had Baghdad on their minds.

The Wolfowitz Doctrine

In 1992, a startling document was leaked from the office of Paul Wolfowitz at the Pentagon. Barton Gellman of the Washington Post called it a “classified blueprint intended to help ‘set the nation’s direction for the next century.’” The Wolfowitz Memo called for a permanent U.S. military presence on six continents to deter all “potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.” Containment, the victorious strategy of the Cold War, was to give way to an ambitious new strategy designed to “establish and protect a new order.”

Though the Wolfowitz Memo was denounced and dismissed in 1992, it became American policy in the 33-page National Security Strategy (NSS) issued by President Bush on Sept. 21, 2002. Washington Post reporter Tim Reich describes it as a “watershed in U.S. foreign policy” that “reverses the fundamental principles that have guided successive Presidents for more than 50 years: containment and deterrence.”

Andrew Bacevich, a professor at Boston University, writes of the NSS that he marvels at “its fusion of breathtaking utopianism with barely disguised machtpolitik. It reads as if it were the product not of sober, ostensibly conservative Republicans but of an unlikely collaboration between Woodrow Wilson and the elder Field Marshal von Moltke.”

In confronting America’s adversaries, the paper declares, “We will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense by acting preemptively.” It warns any nation that seeks to acquire power to rival the United States that it will be courting war with the United States:

[T]he president has no intention of allowing any nation to catch up with the huge lead the United States has opened since the fall of the Soviet Union more than a decade ago. … Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military buildup in hopes of surpassing or equaling the power of the United States.

America must reconcile herself to an era of “nation-building on a grand scale, and with no exit strategy,” Robert Kagan instructs. But this Pax Americana the neocons envision bids fair to usher us into a time of what Harry Elmer Barnes called “permanent war for permanent peace.”

The Munich Card

As President Bush was warned on Sept. 20, 2001, that he will be indicted for “a decisive surrender” in the war on terror should he fail to attack Iraq, he is also on notice that pressure on Israel is forbidden. For as the neoconservatives have played the anti-Semitic card, they will not hesitate to play the Munich card as well. A year ago, when Bush called on Sharon to pull out of the West Bank, Sharon fired back that he would not let anyone do to Israel what Neville Chamberlain had done to the Czechs. Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy immediately backed up Ariel Sharon:

With each passing day, Washington appears to view its principal Middle Eastern ally’s conduct as inconvenient—in much the same way London and Paris came to see Czechoslovakia’s resistance to Hitler’s offers of peace in exchange for Czech lands.

When former U.S. NATO commander Gen. George Jouwlan said the United States may have to impose a peace on Israel and the Palestinians, he, too, faced the charge of appeasement. Wrote Gaffney,

They would, presumably, go beyond Britain and France’s sell-out of an ally at Munich in 1938. The “impose a peace” school is apparently prepared to have us play the role of Hitler’s Wehrmacht as well, seizing and turning over to Yasser Arafat the contemporary Sudetenland: the West Bank and Gaza Strip and perhaps part of Jerusalem as well.

Podhoretz agreed Sharon was right in the substance of what he said but called it politically unwise to use the Munich analogy.

President Bush is on notice: Should he pressure Israel to trade land for peace, the Oslo formula in which his father and Yitzak Rabin believed, he will, as was his father, be denounced as an anti-Semite and a Munich-style appeaser by both Israelis and their neoconservatives allies inside his own Big Tent.

Yet, if Bush cannot deliver Sharon there can be no peace. And if there is no peace in the Mideast there is no security for us, ever—for there will be no end to terror. As most every diplomat and journalist who travels to the region will relate, America’s failure to be even-handed, our failure to rein in Sharon, our failure to condemn Israel’s excesses, and our moral complicity in Israel’s looting of Palestinian lands and denial of their right to self-determination sustains the anti-Americanism in the Islamic world in which terrorists and terrorism breed.

Let us conclude. The Israeli people are America’s friends and have a right to peace and secure borders. We should help them secure these rights. As a nation, we have made a moral commitment, endorsed by half a dozen presidents, which Americans wish to honor, not to permit these people who have suffered much to see their country overrun and destroyed. And we must honor this commitment.

But U.S. and Israeli interests are not identical. They often collide, and when they do, U.S. interests must prevail. Moreover, we do not view the Sharon regime as “America’s best friend.”

Since the time of Ben Gurion, the behavior of the Israeli regime has been Jekyll and Hyde. In the 1950s, its intelligence service, the Mossad, had agents in Egypt blow up U.S. installations to make it appear the work of Cairo, to destroy U.S. relations with the new Nasser government. During the Six Day War, Israel ordered repeated attacks on the undefended USS Liberty that killed 34 American sailors and wounded 171 and included the machine-gunning of life rafts. This massacre was neither investigated nor punished by the U.S. government in an act of national cravenness.

Though we have given Israel $20,000 for every Jewish citizen, Israel refuses to stop building the settlements that are the cause of the Palestinian intifada. Likud has dragged our good name through the mud and blood of Ramallah, ignored Bush’s requests to restrain itself, and sold U.S. weapons technology to China, including the Patriot, the Phoenix air-to-air missile, and the Lavi fighter, which is based on F-16 technology. Only direct U.S. intervention blocked Israel’s sale of our AWACS system.

Israel suborned Jonathan Pollard to loot our secrets and refuses to return the documents, which would establish whether or not they were sold to Moscow. When Clinton tried to broker an agreement at Wye Plantation between Israel and Arafat, Bibi Netanyahu attempted to extort, as his price for signing, release of Pollard, so he could take this treasonous snake back to Israel as a national hero.

Do the Brits, our closest allies, behave like this?

Though we have said repeatedly that we admire much of what this president has done, he will not deserve re-election if he does not jettison the neoconservatives’ agenda of endless wars on the Islamic world that serve only the interests of a country other than the one he was elected to preserve and protect.

March 24, 2003 issue
Copyright © 2003 The American Conservative

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1424885,00.html

Neocon pressure for regime change in Damascus is building up, by Jonathan Steele

Syria is at the top of the bad guys' league table

Neocon pressure for regime change in Damascus is building up

Jonathan Steele
Friday February 25, 2005
The Guardian

In the world of the American neocons, salsa is not a sexy dance. It is in-group jargon based on the initial letters of a congressional bill which George Bush signed into law just over a year ago. At the time, European chancelleries barely noticed the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act. If spotted at all, it was written off as ideological froth with little practical relevance. Even now, in spite of the international interest caused by Washington's accusations of Syrian involvement in last week's murder of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri, salsa has not got many European policy-makers jumping.

More's the pity, since the act increasingly looks like a key marker in setting the tone for Bush's second term. Don't be fooled by the president's visit to Europe this week. With its grand talk of a new era in transatlantic relations, the trip was designed to sound a note of reconciliation, like the earlier foray by the new secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice.

Washington understands European concerns about the need for multilateral consultation and more use of diplomacy, we were told. Even on Iran, where Europe clearly diverges from Washington, Bush put the soap on softly.

Welcome though these assurances on Iran are, they do not go to the heart of the matter, which remains the neocons' agenda for the Arab world and their support for the most hardline elements in Israel. Europe needs to be highly wary. What Bush does in the Middle East is more important than what he says in Europe.

Ariel Sharon and his Likud party have long seen their Syrian neighbour as a more direct menace than distant Iran, and the evidence suggests the Bush administration shares this view and has started to take action accordingly. Removing Saddam Hussein was the primary foreign policy goal in Bush's first term. The No 1 focus for regime change under Bush Two is Damascus, not Tehran.

For one thing, the government of Bashar al-Assad is seen as less popular and more fragile than the Iranian mullahs. With no oil resources, Syria's economy is weaker. Top army and security service posts are in the hands of a minority sect. Long-standing unrest from banned Islamic fundamentalist groups, as well as Kurds, can be manipulated.

This is not to deny that Iran's nuclear ambitions are a major concern for Israel. But it is Syria's support for Hizbullah guerrillas in Lebanon and the Hamas movement in the Palestinian territories which irritates Sharon most. Hizbullah's reputation within the Arab world as the only group which has forced the Israeli army to retreat is a constant source of annoyance, even though the withdrawal from Lebanon took place under an Israeli Labour prime minister.

Iran also backs the two movements, but removing Syria from the equation is seen as a quicker route to weakening them. So neocon pressure on Syria has been building for several years. The key text, which analysts of US policy have been hastily dusting down, is called A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm. Drafted in 1996 for the government of Binyamin Netanyahu, it was signed by several men including Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser, who later joined the Bush team. Though some have since left, they remain influential.

Rejecting the notion of "land for peace", the paper advocated "weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria". Salsa emerged from the same stable. Under it Bush imposed economic sanctions on Syria last May. In September he persuaded France to co-sponsor a UN security council resolution which called for Syria to withdraw the troops it has had in Lebanon since the civil war.

Bush's notorious axis of evil in 2002 did not include Damascus, but in his latest state of the union address Bush named Syria alongside Iran, signalling its rise up the bad guys' league table. It should have been no surprise that, whoever assassinated Rafik Hariri, Washington quickly activated a plan for international pressure, which was already prepared.

As the US campaign developed last year, Damascus reacted in confusion. It made the mistake of pressing the Lebanese parliament to extend the pro-Syrian president's term. On the other hand it accepted several Washington demands. It agreed to joint US-Iraqi-Syrian controls over its border to stop insurgents passing into Iraq. While Iraqi radicals called for a boycott, Syria organised polling stations for expatriates to vote in last month's Iraqi elections.

Unlike over Iran, European policy on Syria is in danger of getting too close to Washington's. Jack Straw says Syria is the prime suspect behind the Hariri assassination, though there is no evidence to prove it. France joined the US this week in calling for a withdrawal of foreign troops from Lebanon. Both countries may soon come under US pressure to impose sanctions.

President Chirac did at least tell Bush that he is not ready to put Hizbullah on a list of "terrorist" organisations. The group has widespread support in Lebanon, with 12 members in parliament. Those who want a fair election in Lebanon in May can hardly advocate banning important parties.

The same is true in Palestine, where Hamas is making a similar transition from resistance movement to political party, a decade later than Hizbullah. In contrast to the Iraqi polls, it was little noted in the western media when Palestinians queued to vote in municipal elections in Gaza, giving Hamas significant victories over the Fatah party of the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. Hamas won 75 out of 118 seats on a turnout of 85%.

Next week Tony Blair hosts a conference on Palestine. It will mainly be ceremonial now that Sharon and Abbas have started their own dialogue, but it is important that it is not used to give the new Palestinian leadership monopoly support, particularly on security issues. Europe has to resist the Bush-Sharon agenda of wanting Abbas to "crack down on terrorism" in advance of Israel's Gaza withdrawal, especially when all Palestinians have accepted a ceasefire.

Hamas's election success shows Palestinian politics are in a state of great fluidity in the post-Arafat era, as does the strong showing in the presidential poll by Mustafa Barghouti's civic reform movement, the Palestinian National Initiative. This week's row in the Palestinian parliament as to whether the new cabinet should be technocratic or political shows the same desire for competence and professionalism in place of corruption and suppression of debate.

The west has erred in too many countries by favouring personalities over process. Palestine should not be added to the list. Just as on Syria, Europe must take a sensitive and independent line.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (and War)

Bob Feldman, The Electronic Intifada, 1 March 2005
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Most U.S. anti-war activists opposed the Bush Administration's 2003 military invasion and occupation of Iraq because it was an immoral violation of the Nuremberg Accords and international law.

Justifications from the pro-war side emphasised the supposed threat posed by Saddam Hussein. In an interview with Paula Kaufman that appeared on Insight magazine's website on May 13, 2002, former CIA Director James Woolsey, a member of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs Board of Advisors, said the following:

"I would hope that by this autumn we would have rid the region of Saddam...So sometime in early fall would be reasonable. First, we need to build our stockpile of smart weapons and prepare logistically to put 100,000 to 200,000 troops on the ground...

"Saddam's top nuclear scientist, Khidhir Abdul Abas Hamza, who in 1994 defected to the U.S., has claimed that nuclear weapons equipment and facilities exist all over Iraq, many buried under schools, mosques and the like...

"...Saddam may have obtained radioactive materials such as cesium and strontium...

"...I am inclined to believe defectors' claims that Saddam's biological weapons laboratories are mobile and carried on trucks and, hence, difficult to detect...

"...The CIA has a close relationship with Israeli intelligence dating back to the inception of the state of Israel...

"...The U.S. must rid the Mideast of its tyrants..."

Coincidentally, in January 2004, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs Board of Advisors Member Woolsey's wife, Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) Trustee Suzanne Woolsey, became a director of Fluor Corporation, which has $1.6 billion in Iraq-related reconstruction contracts.

Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs board member Woolsey, himself, is also a vice-president of the Booz Allen Hamilton consulting company which was given a $75 million sub-contract for a telecommunication reconstruction project in Iraq, according to an August 15, 2004 Los Angeles Times article. (The same article also noted that the U.S. universities-linked Institute for Defense Analyses weapons research think-tank, on whose board Woolsey's wife sits, "provided senior Pentagon officials with assessments of the operation" during "the U.S.-led attack on Iraq.")

Most people in the U.S. now realize that Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs board member Woolsey's pre-war talk about the Iraqi government's alleged hidden "nuclear weapons equipment" and "biological weapons laboratories" was inaccurate. Yet the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs role as a pro-war pressure group with an annual budget of $2.5 million, is rarely mentioned by the U.S. media.

According to the 1984 book The Armageddon Network by Michale Saba, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs became fully operational in December 1979 when former U.S. Deputy Under-Secretary of Defense Stephen Bryen was named as its first executive director. The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs' founders included pro-war U.S. political operatives like Max Kampelman and pro-Israeli government lobbyists like Morris Amitay, a former head of AIPAC.

According to its website at www.jinsa.org, the mission of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs is to address "the security requirements of both the United States and the State of Israel" and strengthen "the strategic cooperation relationship between" the U.S. government and the Israeli government. Its annual program includes "a study program in Israel for cadets and midshipmen from the Naval Academy, the Military Academy at West Point, and the Air Force Academy" and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs also "arranges interchanges between Pentagon officials and Jewish community leadership."

Since 1982, at least twelve trips to Israel have been sponsored by the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs for retired Pentagon admirals and generals who are connected to the American security establishment. More than 135 retired Pentagon admirals and generals have gone on these trips to Israel to meet with the Israeli MInister of Defense, the Israeli Chief of Staff and Israeli weapons manufacturers. And, according to the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs website, "upon their return" from their Israeli Ministry of Defense-hosted trips to Israel/Palestine, the retired U.S. military "officers take a number of active steps to translate their newfound understanding into concrete cooperation and assistance" to the Israeli war machine.

The pro-war Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs pressure group has 17,000 members nationwide and is "governed by a board of directors comprised of key figures in the national security community and leadership throughout the country," according to its website. In addition to being a member of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs board and a vice-president of Booz-Allen Hamilton, for instance, former CIA Director Woolsey is also a former board member of British Aerospace and Martin Marietta, chairman of the board of Freedom House, a Center for Strategic & International Studies trustee and a principal in the Paladin Capital Group's Homeland Security Fund. The Paladin Capital Group's Homeland Security Fund is a $235 million fund which profits from its investments in the U.S. "homeland security" growth industry.

The chairman of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs Board of Advisors, American Securities, LP Managing Director David Steinmann, is also a member of the American-Israel Friendship League board of directors, the Center for Jewish Studies at Queens College Advisory Board, the Golan Fund board, the Center for Security Policy board and the Executive Board of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), the pro-Israel pressure group which works to increase censorship of pro-Palestinian perspectives in U.S. mainstream media reporting about the Middle East.

With assets of $2,769,154 and annual revenues of $2,072,620 in 2002, the Zionist movement's CAMERA "media watchdog" group apparently has more funds at its disposal than most U.S. anti-war movement media activist groups. According to its website at www.camera.org, CAMERA will be holding a conference with the Jewish Community Relations Council of Southern New Jersey in Cherry Hill, NJ on March 20, 2005, entitled "Israel and the Media: A Global Challenge," at which members of the media such as Fox News Consultant Claudia Rossett will speak.

Other members of the Jewish Institute for National Security Board of Advisors include the following pro-war figures:

1. Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell who, according to the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs website, "serves as Ohio's chief elections officer." Coincidentally, some U.S. anti-war activists have claimed in recent months that the official presidential election results in Ohio in 2004 which insured Bush's re-election were obtained by violating the democratic rights of anti-Bush voters in Ohio.

2. Former Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs Executive Director and former U.S. Deputy Under-Secretary of Defense Stephen Bryen, who presently is the President of Finmeccanica Inc., a global aerospace and defense company based in Italy.

3. Lt. General Anthony Bushick USAF (retired)

4. Republican Congressional Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia. In recent years Rep. Cantor has been a member of the House International Relations Committee, a chairman of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare and a Chief Deputy Majority Whip in the U.S. House of Representatives.

5. Lt. General Paul Cerjan (retired), a former president of the National Defense University.

6. Admiral Carlisle Trost (retired).

7. General Louis Wagner (retired).

8. Former World Zionist Organization Executive Member Jacques Torczyner.

9. Democratic Congressional Representative from New York Steve Israel. Rep. Israel is the only New York Democratic who sits on the House Armed Services Committee.

10. The Deputy Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, Michael Berkow.

11. Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick; and

12. Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle. Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs board member Perle "came under fire in 1983 when newspapers reported he received substantial payments to represent the interests of an Israeli weapons company," according to the book They Dare To Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby by Paul Findley. In 1996, Perle also co-authored a paper for Israel's Likud government leaders, entitled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," which apparently encouraged it to disregard the Oslo agreement of the early 1990s.

The Washington, D.C. office of the pro-war Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs pro-Israel pressure group is located in Suite 515 at 1779 Massachusetts Avenue NW, according to its website.

Bob Feldman is an anti-war Movement writer and activist who contributed "Inspecting Nuclear Israel" to Counterpunch magazine and is an occasional contributor to EI.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/printer3645.shtml

Alpha · Last edited by Alpha on Fri Feb 11, 2005 10:19 pm; edited 1 time in total

Treason in High Places: Pentagon Neocons, AIPAC and Israel

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2004/09/08/treason-in-high-places-pentagon-zionists-aipac-and-israel.php

Former Republican Congressman
Paul Findley Nails the Pro-Israel (AIPAC) Lobby:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/02/08/former-congressman-findley-nails-pro-israel-aipac-lobby.php

FBI AIPAC Probe Leads to Zionist Neocon Doorstep

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/02/09/aipac-probe-leads-to-zionist-israel-first-neocon-doorstep.php

Alpha

Elliott Abrams: A Neocon's Neocon

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/02/11/elliott-abrams-the-neocon-s-neocon.php

Alpha · Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2005 10:11 pm Post subject: Iraq War: A War for Israel

Iraq War: A War for Israel

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/01/06/iraq-a-war-for-israel.php

Alpha

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/01/31/how-ahmed-chalabi-conned-the-neocons.php

Alpha

More War for Israel Coming: Bush Warns Iran and Syria

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/02/03/more-war-for-israel-coming-bush-warns-syria-and-iran.php

Alpha

Jewish racist (Israel first) neocons use 'democracy and freedom' to mask their Zionist extremist ('War for Israel') agenda:

http://www.vdare.com/misc/macdonald_neoconservatism.htm

British MP Tam Dalyell: Bush influenced by Jewish Cabal of Israel first neoconservatives:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/05/13/179248&mode=thread&tid=25

Alpha

http://www.wrmea.com (the following appears in the March, 2005 issue of the 'Washington Report on Middle East Affairs' magazine):

Neocons Concentrate on Promoting U.S.-Iran War

By Andrew I. Killgore

Steven P. Weisman wrote in The New York Times of Nov. 19 that the “biggest challenge” in President George W. Bush’s second term is “how to contain” Iran’s nuclear program. In fact, however, Iran constitutes no threat to the United States. Its “threat” is to Israel, according to “some” (read neocons) in the administration who believe that Iran supports violence against Israel and helps the resistance in Iraq.

In 1996 the Zionists put Iran back in the American doghouse by means of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shi’i guerrilla group which Iran was helping to fight Israel’s illegal occupation of south Lebanon. With the Zionists charging that Hezbollah was a terrorist group, the United States passed legislation imposing sanctions against any company spending $20 million on Iran’s or Libya’s oil or gas industry. In 2001 the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA), which effectively meant that no oil or gas pipeline could transit Iran from the Caspian region, was extended for five years.

Since Hezbollah eventually forced Israel to withdraw from south Lebanon in 2000, Weisman, an neocon/Zionist front man, now claims that Tehran is supporting Hamas and Islamic Jihad. One can only express disappointment that the neocons’ latest tactic – self-serving as always, of course – is so lacking in subtlety and imagination.

During the American war on Iraq, Israel has been free to expand its settlements in the West Bank and to build its apartheid wall. With Washington effectively encouraging Israel, the other “Quartet” members – Russia , the European Union and the United Nations – likewise have been unable to stop Israel from its campaign to ethnically cleanse all of Palestine.

The ultimate neocon goal is a U.S. war with Iran over the nuclear issue. That would serve to postpone indefinitely Washington’s attention to the Palestine question. In “A Clean Break’: A New Strategy For Securing the Realm,” the 1996 white paper prepared for Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu by the neocons/Zionists Richard Perle, David Wurmser and Douglas Feith, the authors envisaged America fighting Israel’s enemies in the Middle East. It contained not a word about the consequences for the United States – raising a question about the judgment, if not the loyalty, of the three authors.

In November Iran finally agreed that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) could inspect its nuclear sites with no prior notice. Japan, which had withheld its agreement, then signed a contract to develop Azadegan, Iran’s largest oil field. The New York Times on Nov. 23 reported that Iran had “frozen” its nuclear activities in an effort to persuade the world that it does not seek nuclear weapons. Accusing Iran of lying, the National Council of Resistance in Iran, the political front of the People’s Mojahedin resistance organization, which works closely with Israel firsters in Congress, claimed Iran was running a secret uranium enrichment program in Tehran. Dr. Mohamed El Baradi, head of the IAEA, charged the Mojahedin with making accusations with no proof.

When Iran was secretly allied with Israel from 1972-1979, Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi declared, without objection from the U.S. or Israel, that Iran planned to build 10 nuclear power plants. Now, however, Iran faces a threat of U.S. – sponsored sanctions, if not war, if it doesn’t “prove” itself innocent of seeking nuclear weapons.

If Iran is determined to get the nuclear bomb it may go ahead and risk military attack – a formidable challenge for any military adversary. China is a long-time friend of Iran, and one potential attackers would not want to offend. More importantly, perhaps Iran’s size (628,000 square miles), topography and weak neighbors render it geopolitically nearly impregnable. An attack from the south –which could only be mounted by the United States – would be launched 500 miles from Tehran, and troops and supplies would have to traverse the rugged Zagreb Mountains.

With Washington’s tepid approval, Britain, France and Germany have been negotiating with Iran to stop processing uranium to the “bomb” level. Tehran finally has agreed to cease – but only temporarily. The Europeans see Iran’s agreement as progress, but the U.S. charges Iranian deceit. Nevertheless, the temporary agreement means that the U.S. will be unable to get European approval to impose U.N. sanctions against Iran.

A NUCLEAR IRAN INEVITABLE

It is probably inevitable that, sooner or later, Iran will get the atomic bomb. The Persian Cyrus the Great became head of the then – largest empire stretching from the Mediterranean to the Hindu Kush in the 6th century BC. The Iranians are proud of their history and of themselves. The most populous country in the region, it has always been important. So we can count on Iran becoming a nuclear power. This does not mean, however, that it will constitute a danger to Israel – which according to informal speculation, possesses 200 nuclear weapons.

Nevertheless, Israel will continue to harp on the danger to the Jewish state of Iran getting the bomb, and the necessity of a U.S. attack to prevent it. This would tie up the United States and divert American efforts to address Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

But as settling the Palestinian issue would go far to removing the main cause of hatred and violence against the United States, Americans must not fall for the neocons’ agenda of permanent U.S. war against Israel’s enemies. In a Dec. 13 Washington Post op-ed article signed by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and the former foreign ministers of Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Denmark, Spain and the Netherlands, the diplomats urge the United States to support, as a first step, the agreement concluded between Iran and the European powers.

Entitled “How to Approach Iran, “the article recommends that Washington consider launching commercial and diplomatic engagement with Iran. “Some in Washington hope and expect the Euro-Iranian talks will collapse altogether,” the diplomats note. Again, the “some” are the neocons/Zionists who fanatically refuse to abandon their campaign to promote an Iranian-American war.

The Dec. 15 Financial Times reported that Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi is willing to talk to the U.S. about his country’s nuclear program. One thus can still hope that the neocons will not succeed in igniting an Iranian-American war.

TELLING LIKE IT IS

A Jan. 12 panel discussion on U.S. policy toward Iran hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C. and broadcast on C-SPAN ended with a statement remarkable for its frankness. In response to an audience question regarding the “Israel factor” in U.S. policy toward Iran, Kenneth Pollack, research director of the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy, responded:

“Look, I’ll be very blunt…I know we all would like the Israelis to take care of this problem for us. They can’t. That’s why they are on such a war path. The problem Israel has is: a) they have the same intelligence problem we have. As I said, the Israelis, their intelligence analysts, also do not feel they know enough about the Iranian nuclear program to strike those facilities. Second, they have the tyranny of distance. Osiraq was in reach of Israeli F-16s, refueled once. Iranian nuclear facilities are not. Israel has 25 aircraft that can make it to the main Iranian nuclear facilities – 25 F-15 Is, that would be getting there on fumes—OK? They would probably be carrying bombs about the size of this water glass, because they would require that much fuel to get out there. I spent a lot of time with Israeli air force officers who were looking hard at this problem, and they all believed they cannot do it. And that is why you are hearing the government of Israel shouting so loudly, because they believe that the United States has been ignoring this problem for too long. They are deathly afraid that the Iranians are getting close. They know they can’t take care of it, and they want us to so.”

MORDECHAI VANUNU NOMINATED FOR NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

On Dec. 19, 2004 over 40 journalists, including seven TV cameras, attended a standing-room-only press conference in East Jerusalem to hear Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire, Mordechai Vanunu and Knesset member Issam Makhoul. Below is the press conference issued afterward by the International Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu.

AT A PRESS CONFERENCE held in East Jerusalem on Dec. 19, Irish Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire announced that she is nominating the Israeli nuclear whistleblower for the 2005 prize. Vanunu has been nominated for the prize every year since 1989. Maguire received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976, in recognition of her work for peace in Ireland. “Mordechai Vanunu has paid a heavy prize in order to protect us all from nuclear weapons. We are all indebted to him for telling the truth to power and I have come to thank him on behalf of his human family,” Maguire said. Explaining that she had arrived in Israel from a women’s peace conference in Jordan, Maguire urged Israelis and Palestinians to work nonviolently for peace. The Nobel Peace Prize Laureate urged the Israeli government to free Vanunu from the restrictions that keep him hostage in Israel and to “let Mordechai come home for Christmas.” Maguire added that she would continue to nominate Vanunu for the award “until he gets it.”

Issam Makhoul, member of the Israeli Parliament (Knesset), who in February 2000 initiated the first parliamentary debate on nuclear policy ever to be held in Israel, stated: “Only those who struggle for total disarmament of the Middle East, including Israel, of all weapons of mass destruction—nuclear, biological and chemical—have the moral right to condemn Iran for its nuclear project. The countries that equip Israel with the means to launch nuclear warheads, that supply it with submarines and enable it to develop its missiles, do not have the moral right to condemn the Iranian nuclear arsenal.

“Along with Mordechai Vanunu, I and other Israeli activists refuse to be silenced. We continue to demand that our government reveal the truth about its WMDs, enable a full international inspection of all WMD sites and dismantle its arsenal. To this end, we are currently involved in organizing an international conference on a nuclear-free Mediterranean area, to be held in April 2005. This date marks the first anniversary of Vanunu’s release from prison. This date will hopefully mark the beginning of an anti-nuclear movement in Israel.

“Mordechai Vanunu is not a traitor, he is an Israeli hero. The nuclear bomb does not protect Israel, it endangers Israel.”

Mordechai Vanunu, recently elected rector of Glasgow University in Scotland, described the restrictions that were imposed on him when he was released from 18 years’ imprisonment in April 2004, the subsequent police harassment and threats to which he has been subjected, and the impact that they have on his ability to rebuild his life. Asked why he refuses to speak to the Israeli media in Hebrew, Vanunu answered—in Hebrew: “The government of Israel refuses to recognize my human rights. I am prohibited from speaking to foreigners. I say to the Israeli public: I am not your enemy. All I want is for Israel to abolish its nuclear weapons, to respect the rights of the Palestinian people and to let me go free.” Continuing in English, Vanunu stated that he has no further secrets to reveal about Israel’s nuclear reactor and that he demands the right to express his anti-nuclear views, to speak freely to the media and to write his prison memoirs. All he wants for Christmas, Vanunu said, was to be free to leave Israel and celebrate with his adoptive family in the USA.

Alpha · Last edited by Alpha on Tue Feb 15, 2005 12:39 pm; edited 1 time in total

Neocons Concentrate on Promoting U.S.-Iran War

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/02/13/neocons-concentrate-on-promoting-u-s-iran-war.php

http://www.antiwar.com/reese/?articleid=4816

Could Bush Possibly Make the Same Mistake Twice? Yeah.

by Charley Reese
The Bush administration is making the same mistakes with Iran that it made with Iraq. It makes allegations unsupported by facts, refuses to negotiate and threatens sanctions or military action, neither of which is feasible.

In short, it has no rational Iran policy.

The Bush administration seems to be under the impression that the Iranians are pursuing the development of a nuclear weapon. Sound familiar? The Iranians deny it. The administration says, in effect, that they are lying. If the administration has any proof, let's see it. It was so all-fired certain that Iraq was not only pursuing nuclear weapons but had stockpiles of other weapons, all of which has been proven untrue. That was a mistake that has cost us 1,400 lives and 10,000 wounded. Make that mistake with Iran, and you'll see a heck of a lot more body bags coming back to the United States.

Our silly secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, says that the Iranians must live up to their international obligations. Again, a familiar propaganda note. The Bush people claimed Iraq was not complying with U.N. resolutions, but in fact it had. The trouble is that, so far as we can tell, the Iranians are also complying. They signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which the Bush administration's pet country, Israel, has refused to sign. The Iranians are cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency and are allowing inspections, which Israel does not. They have a right under the treaty to enrich uranium, but are negotiating with the European Union to forgo that right.

The United States refuses to participate in those negotiations and several times has tried to get the IAEA to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council, where it hopes sanctions will be applied. The IAEA has rightfully refused to do so. Even if it did so, China or Russia would certainly veto any resolution mandating sanctions.

Ms. Rice coyly said recently that a military attack against Iran is not on the Bush agenda "at this point." That's a nothing statement, because it does not rule out a military attack.

Are the Iranians pursuing a nuclear weapon? I don't know. They say they are not. But they are more or less surrounded by nuclear powers – the United States, Israel, India and Pakistan. Their reasoning for pursuing nuclear plants is feasible. They know their main export, oil, will run out one day, so by using nuclear fuel to produce internal power, they can extend the life of their most profitable export. They are certainly wise to disperse their facilities, given the fact that the Israelis bombed Iraq's only nuclear reactor in the 1980s.

But let's assume Iran does develop a nuclear weapon. I don't care. I've lived most of my life 30 minutes from total destruction by tens of thousands of the Soviet Union's nuclear warheads. The Bush administration's claim that nuclear deterrence, which worked against a superpower, will not work against a smaller and poorer country is bunk. Israel alone has enough nuclear warheads to pulverize Iran.

Oh, the administration says the Iranians will hand over a nuclear weapon to a terrorist organization. Well, where is any evidence of that? The evidence does show that once countries develop nuclear weapons, they keep pretty tight control over them.

But more to the point, if we don't want Iran to develop a nuclear weapon, why not negotiate? Why keep threatening the Iranians? It doesn't make any sense. If I were an Iranian, I would assume that President Bush intends eventually to attack the country. That would be stupid, but if you look at the stupidity of the Iraqi mess, you can't rule it out. Never believe that Bush won't do something just because it's dumb.

Iraq, with just over 20 million people, a flat terrain and a dilapidated military, has given us quite a bit of trouble. Try Iran, which has nearly 70 million people, a mountainous terrain and a much more effective military. You Bush lovers should write your man and advise him to let that sleeping dog lie.