| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 6:15 pm Post subject: Olmert Counting on Jewish Lobby to foil Baker-Hamilton |
| Subject: Olmert Counting on Jewish Lobby to foil Baker-Hamilton
"On his way home from Los Angeles, the prime minister "calmed" the reporters - and perhaps even himself - by saying there is no danger of U.S. President George W. Bush accepting the expected recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton panel, and attempting to move Syria out of the axis of evil and into a coalition to extricate America from Iraq. The prime minister hopes the Jewish lobby can rally a Democratic majority in the new Congress to counter any diversion from the status quo on the Palestinians."
w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/789919.html
Last update - 09:47 20/11/2006
The Gewalt agenda
By Akiva Eldar
Ehud Olmert reminds us of a guy who shouts Gewalt! from the roof of his burning home, instructs his neighbors and disrupts the fire brigade trying to find the blaze. Meanwhile, he keeps adding logs to the fire. The prime minister embarked on a performance tour in Israel and the world to cry out Hamas!, and warn against Iran's nuclear program and the spread of radical Islam through the Middle East. He is asking the international community for help while meanwhile fanning the flame of radical Islam and fending off concerned neighbors and volunteer firemen seeking to block it from taking over the region.
One cannot expect a leader who declares he has no need for an agenda to contribute to the regional and international efforts to stabilize the Middle East. Nonetheless, unintentionally, Olmert's anti-Iranian campaign places this region at the top of the agenda of every country interested in what goes on here. The significance and urgency the international community gives the crisis increases with the intensity of the Gewalt. When a Jewish leader draws a parallel between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hitler, he should not be surprised when Europe rushes to his aid.
The closer the nuclear threat gets to center stage, the higher the Arab-Israeli conflict climbs on the list of international priorities. Anyone who fears radical Islamic elements will take control of the territories and spread out over the neighboring Arab states must offer the occupied Palestinian population a just and acceptable solution. Whether this does or does not fit Olmert's "no agenda," even the friendly United States has discovered that pictures of children killed by an Israeli artillery shell do not contribute to a moderate Arab coalition.
Olmert recognizes that a coalition of this sort is invaluable in the struggle against a radical Shi'ite-Sunni coalition that refuses to come to terms with Israel's existence. In his address to the General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities of North America in Los Angeles, he called on the pragmatic Sunni leaders to cooperate in the struggle against Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and their partners.
And for its part, what is Israel willing to do, besides offering military advice, undermining diplomatic initiatives, cutting off electricity in the Gaza Strip and starving its population? The Olmert-Peretz government has not even carried out its commitment to evacuate the illegal outposts.
The deadlock in the international community's diplomatic exchanges with Iran, and the American quagmire in Iraq, are transforming the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into the easier nut to crack: While Iran and global Jihad do not appear willing to reconcile with the "infidels," most of the Palestinian people are (still) interested in a diplomatic solution. Bashar Assad's pronouncements calling for renewed peace talks place the burden of proof on Israel. Syria, like the rest of the Arab League, supported the Beirut Declaration of 2002, which offers normalization with Israel in return for a withdrawal to the 1967 lines.
However, Olmert is foiling any possible progress on this track: On his way home from Los Angeles, the prime minister "calmed" the reporters - and perhaps even himself - by saying there is no danger of U.S. President George W. Bush accepting the expected recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton panel, and attempting to move Syria out of the axis of evil and into a coalition to extricate America from Iraq. The prime minister hopes the Jewish lobby can rally a Democratic majority in the new Congress to counter any diversion from the status quo on the Palestinians.
Just like a field of dry shrub, the slightest spark in the Gaza Strip may light up the entire region. The largest powers in the world, including the U.S. and Britain, played with fire in the Middle East and got burned. Hopefully Olmert's Gewalt will encourage them to put out the flames.
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Last update - 13:57 19/11/2006
Report: Syria to demand Golan as price for aiding U.S. on Iraq
By The Associated Press
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/789801.html
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The Israel Lobby
John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html
Additional about Mearsheimer/Walt paper at following URL:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2006/03/17/u-s-middle-east-policy-motivated-by-pro-israel-lobby.php
Nancy Pelosi and Israel
"As for foreign policy, [Nancy] Pelosi is as Zionist friendly as any Straussian neocon, albeit in a fuzzy Democrat sort of way, and thus we can expect more murder and mayhem in the Middle Eastern neighborhood.
"Pelosi 'denies that the key issue is Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza,' writes Mark Gaffney. 'The real issue, she states, is the survival of Israel' and 'the biggest danger to Israel today comes from Iran, whose nuclear ambitions, though still unproved, also threaten the US. Her perspective contains the seed of ominous things to come, because, after all, something will have to be done about Iran, right? Yes, and soon.... Meanwhile, Pelosi manages to overlook Israel's brutal treatment of the Palestinians,' a consistent crime, recently magnified to disgusting dimension by Israel's recent attack on Beit Hanoun in the Gaza, killing innocents in their beds.
"'The United States will stand with Israel now and forever. Now and forever,' Pelosi avowed last year at the AIPAC meeting, never mind the seeming inexhaustible crimes against humanity."
--Kurt Nimmo, "George and Nancy Make Nice" (Nov. 9, 2006)
http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=646
US support of Israel's brutal oppression of the Palestinians PRIMARY MOTIVATION for tragic attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993 and on 9/11:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/08/05/the-gorilla-in-the-room-is-us-support-for-israel.php
Democrats owned by pro-Israel lobby as well:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2006/11/14/how-israel-corrupts-and-controls-the-us-congress-and-media-page-243.php
Read about Chalabi and the 'A Clean Break' agenda from Bamford's 'A Pretext for War' book at the following URL:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/02/11/a-clean-break-from-james-bamford-s-a-pretext-for-war.php
I think the neocons are now falling back to the 'Plan B' option (which is the 'divide and conquer' civil war option) which Israeli Oded Yinon describes (Dr. Stephen Sniegoski discusses Yinon's plan in his following 'Israeli Origins of Bush II's War') via the following URL:
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
Cheney and the Neo-Cons Plotting More War for Israel:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2006/11/18/cheney-and-neo-cons-plotting-more-wars.php
Caller asks President Carter about AIPAC and other pressure groups within the US.
President Carter reveals the intense pressures used to prevent public discussion of the facts concerning Israel. He admits that some Universities have actually turned him away, telling him that discussing Israel was "too controversial!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBJgaBe5NgM
Carter answers a question about the paper "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt. Mearsheimer and Walt's paper discusses groups like AIPAC and the influence on the US political system and the support of Israel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbapmPR0ZeQ
The following came from a former US intel operative:
I suspect the Baker-Hamilton report will serve to expose the neocons and the Israelis for what they stand for and what they want to do. I hope the study committee keeps the study on the front pages for the next six months. If Bush brushes it aside totally I think he would lay the foundations for an impeachment. It will also expose whether Bush is a psychopath or a pathological nitwit dupe of the Likudnik-Zionist-Neocon cabal. The report appears to be eminently sensible. It is certainly more sensible than Bush’s perverse policies. I demur on the embedding of US soldiers in Iraqi units, however, because a lot of them will get shot in the back. The fact that Israel refuses to deal with anyone than the Palestinians and then perversely provokes them means that the US will be in a permanent state of war with Islam. If Bush follows the Israeli Likudnik line, he should be impeached for doing the bidding of an alien nation—which might be called treason by some.
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Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2006 16:08:51 -0500
From: "IRmep" <irmep@inre.org>
Subject: IRmep on the VOA: "Israel Lobby and Neocons Bury the Baker Plan"
On December 15, 2006 Grant Smith appeared on the Voice
of America program "InterAmerican Forum" to analyze
the Bush administration's strategy change in Iraq, and how
authors of the invasion are attempting to discredit the
Iraq Study Group findings.
Excerpts and article links attached.
******************************************************************
Full Program Transcript): http://IRmep.org/voa7.htm
Ruben Barrera, Notimex, Mexico: Does all of this shine
light on a long US presence in Iraq?
Grant Smith, IRmep: Of course. Let's speak like adults.
The authors of this war had three real objectives. Control
the petroleum, project force over the region from a new
central military base, and third secure Israeli interests in
the region. All of this appears in the plan of the "Project
for a New American Century" called "Rebuilding America's
Defenses". The groups working to bury the Baker plan, the
majority, were also the authors of this plan.
I don't see the withdrawal of US military forces from Iraq at
any time in the next thirty years.
******************************************************************
Full Roundtable Transcript): http://IRmep.org/voa7.htm
******************************************************************
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Last edited by Alpha on Mon Dec 18, 2006 8:26 pm; edited 10 times in total | |  | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 6:27 pm Post subject: |
| From: BGJDAVID
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2006 10:16:15 EST
Subject: Olmert Disagrees With U.S. Iraq Group
You will see in this article that the only side who refuses to talk peace is not Syria or the Palestinians--it's Israel. Yet, how many times do we hear in the media and from our politicians that it's the Arabs that don't want peace? It's not the Arabs who don't want peace; it's Israel who doesn't want peace. Afterall, if there is peace then Israel will not be able to portray themselves as victims and their $5.6 billion in annual foreign aid may be in jeopardy. The U.S. passionate attachment to Israel is the most costly relationship this country has ever experienced. And how has this relationship benefited the American people? I think we all know the answer. It hasn't benefited the American people one iota. Instead, it has cost us thousands of American lives, billions of American dollars, and the loss of friendship around the world.
Olmert Disagrees With U.S. Iraq Group
By STEVEN GUTKIN
.c The Associated Press
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) - Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Thursday rejected a U.S. advisory group's conclusion that a concerted effort to resolve Israel's conflict with its neighbors will help stabilize the situation in Iraq, saying there is no connection between the two issues.
Olmert also rebuffed the group's recommendation that Israel open negotiations with Syria, but said Israelis want ``with all our might'' to restart peace talks with the Palestinians.
The Iraq Study Group report, released Wednesday in Washington, calls for direct talks between Israel and its neighbors, Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinians and says resolving the Israeli-Arab conflict would improve conditions in Iraq.
Olmert rejected that finding. ``The attempt to create a linkage between the Iraqi issue and the Mideast issue - we have a different view,'' Olmert said during the prime minister's annual meeting with Israeli journalists. ``To the best of my knowledge, President Bush, throughout the recent years, also had a different view on this.''
Answering reporters' questions for more than an hour, Olmert said conditions were not ripe to reopen long-dormant talks with Syria and added that he received no indications from Bush during his recent visit to Washington that the U.S. would push Israel to start such talks.
White House officials were noncommittal about the report of the Iraq Study Group, headed by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., saying only that Bush would review it.
Palestinian officials were more receptive to the panel's recommendations.
``We welcome the Hamilton-Baker report and hope the U.S. administration will translate it into deeds,'' Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said. ``The region needs peace, the region needs dialogue and we have always stuck to dialogue toward a comprehensive peace.''
Syrian President Bashar Assad has called in recent months for a new round of talks with Israel. Syria is a key backer of the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Hezbollah, the Lebanese guerrilla group that battled Israel during an inconclusive monthlong war last summer.
While some top Israeli officials have urged Olmert to accept Assad's offer, the prime minister said he didn't think talks would change Syria's close ties to radical anti-Israel groups.
``I don't think there is a Syrian desire for war with us. We certainly don't have a desire to fight with them. That doesn't mean conditions are ripe for us to negotiate with them,'' he said.
Olmert, however, said that Israel was deeply interested in restarting talks with the Palestinians and said Israel would work ``with all our might'' to make them happen.
He also welcomed a peace initiative put forward by Saudi Arabia, saying it contains ``interesting innovations that should not be ignored.'' However, he did not fully endorse the plan, first floated in 2002, which called for Israel to withdraw from all of the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, a stipulation Israel rejects.
Olmert also rejected suggestions that Israel's recent cease-fire with Palestinian militants in Gaza would allow the militants to rearm and regroup for another round of fighting, saying that Israel would not allow that to happen.
He said that despite occasional rocket attacks by Gaza militants at Israel, ``we will continue to show restraint.''
Olmert also addressed the controversy over Iran's nuclear ambitions, reiterating Israel's position that it will not tolerate a nuclear Iran, but will not take unilateral action, preferring that the dispute should be settled by the international community as a whole.
He also reiterated his support for the U.S. war in Iraq, a position that caused some controversy during his U.S. trip last month.
``We always felt, like other nations in our region, that the removal of Saddam Hussein was a major, major contribution to stability in our part of the world,'' he said.
12/07/06 08:14 EST
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Last edited by Alpha on Fri Dec 08, 2006 11:36 am; edited 2 times in total | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 2:42 am Post subject: The Geriatric Squad |
| The real Iraq Study Group
Forget Jim Baker's crew. The neocon hawks who sold the war, joined by John McCain and Joe Lieberman, unveiled their new plan for "victory": At least 25,000 new troops in combat roles well into 2008.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/01/06/aei/print.html
By Mark Benjamin
Jan. 06, 2007 | Hawks gathered in the plush, carpeted suites of the conservative American Enterprise Institute on Friday to discuss a new course in Iraq they say should be spearheaded by tens of thousands of new troops camped out in Baghdad neighborhoods in active combat roles well into 2008.
The plan is not to be dismissed. Unlike the much ballyhooed Iraq Study Group, these are the people President Bush listens to, many of them the same influential voices who were predicting in 2002 that the war would establish a flower of democracy in the Middle East. Sitting in the overheated, standing-room-only conference hall, a Department of Homeland Security official leaned over to me to note the irony that reporters had paid so much attention to the workings of the Iraq Study Group, as opposed to the troop-surge plans being cooked up at AEI. "This is the Iraq Study Group," he quipped.
Bush is expected to release a new Iraq strategy next week that reportedly hinges on a troop increase, and many have said his thinking has been influenced by the AEI experts who gathered on Friday.
The think tank's plan is not for the lighthearted. The glossy 47-page AEI report, titled "Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq," envisions sending 25,000 additional troops to clear Baghdad house by house. Then, as report author Frederick W. Kagan put it, those soldiers would not pull back to their bases but remain stationed in Baghdad neighborhoods, providing security for civilians. "We can clear and hold critical terrain in Baghdad," Kagan told the crowd.
This is no small surge, nor a temporary one. For better or for worse, it is an escalation of the war. Supporters envision a last-ditch effort to forget about all the mistakes of the past and return, four years into the war, to the overwhelming force envisioned in the so-called Powell doctrine, which held that the United States should never commit less than the overwhelming force needed for a decisive military victory. For die-hard supporters of the war, this is a chance to finally do it right. The plan calls for increased troop levels for at least another 18 months.
This plan also flips on their head the key ideas emphasized by the Iraq Study Group: that the solution in Iraq is political and not military, and that U.S. forces must transition quickly away from combat roles and into training Iraqis. In the AEI plan, the United States would force a military solution that would, in turn, enable a political compromise. Retired Gen. Jack Keane, a plan supporter, called a military victory "the precondition for political, social and economic development."
And there is flat-out disagreement between the war-escalation crowd and a growing chorus of military experts on whether the stressed-out Army can muster this many boots on the ground. While former Secretary of State Colin Powell last month argued against a surge of troops into Iraq because the "active Army is about broken," Kagan said flatly that his analysis shows that the additional tens of thousands of troops "do exist." Supporters readily admit that more troops, in the short term, will mean more bloodshed. Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, a big supporter of the plan, warned the crowd to expect more casualties and said that things in Iraq "will get worse before they get better."
McCain and Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman -- who delivered a neoconservative pep talk that could have come off former Bush speechwriter David Frum's hard drive -- were there to formally embrace the plan.
"We have got to see it in the broader context of the war against Islamic extremism and terrorism," Lieberman said about Iraq. "The Middle East is dividing along new lines. I'm speaking here about the Arab world. And the lines are ever clearer and more intense between what I would call moderates and extremists, dictators and democrats," he intoned. "The fact is that we are engaged against an axis of Islamist extremists and terrorists. It is an axis of evil," he warned.
Lieberman made sweeping historical comparisons between the war in Iraq and the Spanish Civil War, the failure to grasp the growing threat of fascism in Europe in the late 1930s and the start of World War II for America. "Pearl Harbor has already happened on 9-11-01," Lieberman said darkly.
McCain and Lieberman emphasized that they are not advocating a plan to blindly throw more troops into the Baghdad meat grinder. Kagan's report appears to be meticulously thought out, detailing the specific forces that will be required to clear and hold Baghdad. The operation would start with securing the Sunni and mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhoods closest to the Green Zone and between there and Baghdad International Airport. "Choosing Victory" comes complete with color-coded maps to help envision the neighborhood-by-neighborhood process of successfully pacifying the capital once and for all.
To Kagan and McCain, eliminating insurgents, holding territory and protecting the civilian population in the capital represent a return to classic counterinsurgency tactics that should have been employed long ago, rather than more of the same bumbling around Iraq in Humvees. Such stability then provides the breathing room for enhanced economic development activities and a new focus on forging a lasting political settlement.
The plan looks good on paper, just as the plans to establish democracy in Iraq did back in 2002. But its framers failed to explain how, after three years of shocking mismanagement, the Bush administration would somehow now be stricken with a case of icy competence. Nobody explained how the White House would better manage the war with more troops. McCain said the war had been "very badly mishandled" but said that might be all over now. "I believe that the war is still winnable," he announced. "But to prevail, we will need to do everything right and the Iraqis will have to do their part. Are we concerned about doing everything right and having the Iraqis do their part?" he asked rhetorically. "Of course we are."
At AEI on Friday, there was some palpable concern that even with the color-coded road map to victory the White House might still screw things up. Half measures would lead to failure, according to supporters of this escalation. The Iraq Study Group warned last month against adopting only part of its plan. The same was true of the hawks in the AEI conference room. "This troop surge must be significant and sustained," McCain said. "Otherwise, do not do it. Otherwise, there will be more needless loss of American lives."
That kind of messy carnage couldn't have felt more removed from the posh 12th-floor AEI offices in downtown Washington. Even the roughly 120 war protesters marching out front seemed far away, as reporters and think tank experts snacked on delicately rolled sandwich wraps and a chilled pasta salad, coolly chatting about sending another 25,000 troops into a war that has already cost more than 3,000 American lives.
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VDARE.COM - http://www.vdare.com/roberts/070105_surge.htm
January 05, 2007
The Surge: Political Cover or Escalation?
By Paul Craig Roberts
The New Year began on the hopeful note that Bush’s illegal war in Iraq would soon be ended. The repudiation of Bush and the Republicans in the November congressional election, the Iraq Study Group’s unanimous conclusion that the US needs to remove its troops from the sectarian strife Bush set in motion by invading Iraq, Donald Rumsfeld’s removal as defense secretary and his replacement by Iraqi Study Group member Robert Gates, the thumbs down given by America’s top military commanders to the neoconservatives’ plan to send more US troops to Iraq, and new polls of the US military that reveal that only a minority supports Bush’s Iraq policy, thus giving new meaning to "support the troops," are all indications that Americans have shed the stupor that has given carte blanche to George W. Bush.
When word leaked that Bush was inclined toward the "surge option" of committing more troops by keeping existing troops deployed in Iraq after their replacements had arrived, NBC News reported that an administration official "admitted to us today that this surge option is more of a political decision than a military one." It is a clear sign of exasperation with Bush when an administration official admits that Bush is willing to sacrifice American troops and Iraqi civilians in order to protect his own delusions.
The American Establishment, concerned by Bush’s egregious mismanagement, moved to take control of Iraq policy away from him. However, recent news reports and analysis suggest that Bush has turned his back to the American establishment and his military advisers and is throwing in his lot with the neoconservatives and the Israeli lobby. This will further isolate Bush and make him more vulnerable to impeachment.
In the January 5 issue of CounterPunch John Walsh gives a good description of the struggle between the American establishment and the neocons.
Peter Spiegel, the Pentagon correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, reported on January 4 that the neocons have used the failure of the administration’s policy in Iraq to convince Bush to launch an aggressive counterinsurgency requiring the buildup of troop levels by extending deployments beyond the agreed terms. [Old guard back on Iraq policy, January 4, 2007]
Raed Jarrar (CounterPunch, January 4) suggests that the Shi’ite militias, such as the one led by Al-Sadr, are the intended targets of the "surge option." There seems no surer way to escalate the conflict in Iraq than to attack the Shi’ite militias. For longer than the US fought Germany in WW II, 150,000 US troops in Iraq have been thwarted by a small insurgency drawn from Iraq’s minority population of Sunnis. It hardly seems feasible that 30,000 additional US troops, demoralized by extended deployment, can succeed in a surge against the Shi’ite militias when 150,000 US troops cannot succeed against the minority Sunnis.
The reason the US has not been driven out of Iraq is that the majority Shi’ites have not been part of the insurgency. The Shi’ites are attacking the Sunnis, who are forced to fight a two-front war against US troops and Shi’ite militias and death squads.
The US owes its presence in Iraq, just as the colonial powers always owed their presence in the Middle East, to the disunity of Arabs. Western domination of the Muslim world succeeded by not picking a fight with all of the disunited Arabs at the same time.
Attacking the Shi’ite militias while fighting a Sunni insurgency would violate this rule. If Bush ignores US military commanders and expert opinion and accepts the surge option advanced by the delusional neocon allies of Israel’s right-wing Likud Party, US troops will be engulfed in general insurgency. This is why General John Abizaid resigned on January 5. He wants no part of the Republican Party’s sacrifice of US soldiers to sectarian conflict.
In recent Senate Armed Services Committee hearings, Republican Senator John McCain, who believes in the efficacy of violence and not in diplomacy, pressed General Abizaid to request more US troops to be sent to Iraq. General Abizaid replied as follows:
"Senator McCain, I met with every divisional commander, General Casey, the core commander, General Dempsey, we all talked together. And I said, in your professional opinion, if we were to bring in more American troops now, does it add considerably to our ability to achieve success in Iraq? And they all said no."
Bush is like Hitler. He blames defeats on his military commanders, not on his own insane policy. Like Hitler, he protects himself from reality with delusion. In his last hours, Hitler was ordering non-existent German armies to drive the Russians from Berlin.
By manipulating Bush and provoking a military crisis in which the US stands to lose its army in Iraq, the neoconservatives hope to revive the implementation of their plan for US conquest of the Middle East. They believe they can use fear, "honor," and the aversion of macho Americans to ignoble defeat to expand the conflict in response to military disaster.
The neocons believe that the loss of an American army would be met with the electorate’s demand for revenge. The barriers to the draft would fall, as would the barriers to the use of nuclear weapons.
Neocon godfather Norman Podhoretz set out the plan for Middle East conquest several years ago in Commentary Magazine. It is a plan for Muslim genocide. In place of physical extermination of Muslims, Podhoretz advocates their cultural destruction by deracination. Islam is to be torn out by the roots and reduced to a purely formal shell devoid of any real beliefs.
Podhoretz disguises the neoconservative attack against diversity with contrived arguments, but its real purpose is to use the US military to subdue Arabs and to create space for Israel to expand.
Not enough Americans are aware that this is what the "war on terror" is all about.
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Neoconservatism as 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
BBC: Bush 'to reveal Iraq troop boost' (for Israel!):
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2007/01/02/bbc-bush-to-reveal-iraq-troop-boost-for-israel.php
Bombing Iran for Israel:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2007/01/04/bombing-iran-for-israel.php
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November 20, 2006
The Geriatric Squad
by Charley Reese
The Baker commission – or more accurately, the Geriatric Squad – is not likely to come up with a solution to the Iraq War.
The commission consists of some old political types – two ex-secretaries of state, Jim Baker and Lawrence Eagleburger; two ex-senators, Chuck Robb and Alan Simpson; two ex-congressmen, Leon Panetta and Lee Hamilton; an ex-Supreme Court justice, Sandra Day O'Connor; an ex-attorney general, Ed Meese; an ex-defense secretary, William Perry; and a lone black representative, Vernon Jordan. There's not a Middle East expert in the bunch.
Baker has already said in a public speech that the solution must be between "cut and run" and "staying the course." I don't know what that might be, unless it is a phased withdrawal. At any rate, they have held off making their report, in part due to the election.
It has occurred to me that perhaps the real goal of the invasion of Iraq has already been accomplished. That is, the real goal all along might well have been to half-destroy the country and create chaos. A country in chaos is not a strong country. It's been taken out of the play. That might explain Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's statement that the Iraq invasion has contributed greatly to Israel's security.
That could be the Middle East plan: Either become an obedient lackey of the U.S., or we'll turn your country into a chaotic mess. If that's the plan, then Syria and Iran are next on the list. That scheme, cruel and immoral as it is, would at least make more sense than believing democracy was ready to bloom in the desert. I suspect, however, it is beyond the brainpower available in the administration.
Robert Fisk, the British Independent's outstanding correspondent in the Middle East, believes we will eventually just blame the Iraqis, declare them too backward to take advantage of our help and use that as an excuse to withdraw.
Whatever the excuse or cover, we will eventually withdraw. The American people have finally woken up to the fact that there is no prize to be won with a so-called victory. There's not even a way to define victory. All of those young people's deaths and wounds are buying Americans nothing of value. They are dying for people who hate them.
I think a good case can be made that most of the leaders who take their countries to war are stupid. It became clear in World War I that with the advent of high explosives and the machine gun, nobody really wins a modern war. The cost in blood and treasure to the victor is usually not worth it. It takes a pretty dumb person not to figure out a better way to resolve some petty conflict other than by going to war.
Wars are usually fought over land and resources, so greed is at the bottom of most wars. It's easy, looking backward, to think that the way things happened was inevitable and the only way they could have happened. That's not true, however. There are nearly always alternatives to war.
An old Marine general once suggested that as soon as war breaks out, all of the munitions and weapons makers should be drafted and paid a private's salary until the war is over. I wish there were a way to make the political leaders who start wars stand in the front lines and catch the first bullets.
Alas, we live in the era of chickenhawk jingoists and behind-the-lines leaders. Nearly every one of those men who pushed so ardently for war in Iraq has never heard the whiz of a bullet past his ear.
Last edited by Alpha on Sat Jan 06, 2007 11:54 am; edited 1 time in total | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 11:37 am Post subject: |
| December 6, 2006
Neocons Move to Preempt Baker Report
by Jim Lobe
To have read the neoconservative press here over the past month, one would think that former Secretary of State James Baker poses the biggest threat to the United States and Israel since Saddam Hussein.
As the ur-realist of U.S. Middle East policy who once had the temerity to threaten to withhold U.S. aid guarantees from Israel if former right-wing Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir failed to show up at the 1991 Madrid Conference, Baker has long been seen by neoconservatives, as well as the Christian Right, as close to the devil himself.
But his role as co-chairman and presumed eminence grise of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group (ISG), whose long-awaited recommendations on how the U.S. can best extract itself from a war the neoconservatives did so much to incite will be released here Wednesday, has provoked a new campaign of vilification of the kind that they normally reserve for the "perfidious" French.
The specific aim of the campaign – which has been waged virtually daily on the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times, and the online and printed versions of the Weekly Standard and National Review – has been to discredit the ISG's presumed conclusions, even before they are published.
Its recommendations, general and remarkably vague accounts of which have appeared in the New York Times and the Washington Post, reportedly include a gradual reduction in the U.S. combat role in Iraq in favor of a much bigger effort at training and strengthening Iraq's army. It is a strategy that the military brass appear to have already adopted and that ISG consultants have said could reduce the number of U.S. troops there from around 140,000 today to 70,000 in 2008.
On the other hand, neoconservatives, backed by Sen. John McCain, among others, favor a "surge" of as many as 50,000 more troops to stabilize the country. They have attacked any troop reduction as a betrayal of Bush's dream of democratizing Iraq and the region, leaving their harshest attacks for the ISG's anticipated call for Washington to seriously engage Syria and Iran, as well as Iraq's other neighbors, as part of its diplomatic strategy.
Baker himself telegraphed this aspect of his approach after meeting with Damascus's foreign minister and Tehran's UN ambassador, Mohammed Javad Zarif, who reports directly to Iran's supreme leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. "[I]n my view, it's not appeasement to talk to your enemies," he said.
Those remarks set off a tidal wave of protest and criticism beginning with the published announcement in the Weekly Standard by Michael Rubin, a fellow at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI), that he had resigned from an "expert working group" advising the ISG. Rubin accused Baker and his Democratic co-chair, former Rep. Lee Hamilton, of having "gerrymandered [the] advisory panels to ratify predetermined recommendations" – panels, he noted, which included Middle East experts who had actually opposed the Iraq war.
In a preview of attacks that appeared with increasing frequency over the following month, Rubin also assailed Baker for what he called the former secretary of state's "legacy" in the Middle East – namely, his approval of the 1989 Taif Accords which "sacrificed Lebanese independence" to Syria and his "betrayal" of Kurdish and Shi'ite rebels after the first Gulf War.
Rubin was quickly followed by Eliot Cohen, a member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, who, writing in the Wall Street Journal, mocked the ISG as a "collection of worthies commissioned by Congress that has spent several days in Iraq, chiefly in the Green Zone."
"To think that either [Syria or Iran], with remarkable records of violence, duplicity, and hostility to the U.S., will rescue us bespeaks a certain willful blindness," Cohen wrote.
The campaign against Baker and the ISG hotted up after the Nov. 7 Democratic landslide followed by the resignation of Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and his replacement by Robert Gates, an ISG member who two years ago had called for negotiations with Tehran.
The Journal published a series of harsh attacks in mid-November by both Rubin and columnist Bret Stephens on Baker and other alumni, like Gates, who held top posts in the realist-dominated administration of former President George H. W. Bush.
In an appeal to "progressives" who had opposed the realism of both the Reagan and senior Bush administrations, Rubin noted that Baker served as Ronald Reagan's chief of staff and Gates as his deputy CIA director when Washington sided with Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war and "sent people across the third world to their graves in the cause of U.S. national interest."
The following day, Stephens blamed Baker for forcing Israel to take part in the Madrid conference "which set the groundwork for the Oslo Accords [which] for Israel … meant more terrorism, culminating in the second intifada, and for the Palestinians it meant repression in the person of Yasser Arafat and mass radicalization in the movement of Hamas."
Things got even more personal with columns by Frank Gaffney, president of the neoconservative Center for Security Policy, and Mark Steyn in the Washington Times suggesting that Baker's thinking was motivated as much by anti-Semitism as by realism.
"Jim Baker's hostility towards the Jews is a matter of record and has endeared him to Israel's foes in the region," wrote Gaffney, suggesting that the ISG – which, in another column published Tuesday, he called the "Iraq Surrender Group" – would recommend a regional approach similar to Madrid that would "throw free Iraq to the wolves" and "allow the Mideast's only bona fide democracy, the Jewish State, to be snuffed in due course."
Indeed, the past week has witnessed a veritable orgy of Baker- and ISG-bashing, beginning with a Weekly Standard article by former Republican House of Representatives Speaker and AEI fellow Newt Gingrich that warned that "any proposal to ask Iran and Syria to help is a sign of defeat" and "appeasement."
At the same time, the Washington Post's Charles Krauthammer, an Iraq war hawk who has blamed Washington's troubles in that country on the Iraqis themselves, resurrected the charge that "Baker gave Lebanon over to Syria as a quid pro quo" for its backing in the 1991 Gulf War and mocked the notion that "Iran and Syria have an interest in stability in Iraq."
For sheer consistency, however, the Weekly Standard, which in this week's edition featured no less than three articles denouncing the ISG – including one that described the Commission's membership as "deeply reactionary" and the "K-Mart version of the Congress of Vienna" – has led the field.
In successive lead editorials by chief editor William Kristol and Robert Kagan, the magazine first assailed the notion that Washington should engage Syria and Iran as "capitulation," and then, reassured by Bush's declaration last week that he was not prepared to follow the ISG's advice on talking with either Damascus or Tehran, accused Baker of having "quite deliberately created … the disastrous impression … that the United States is about to withdraw from Iraq."
"At home and broad, people have been led to believe that Jim Baker and not the president was going to call the shots in Iraq from now on. Happily, that is not the case," according to Kagan and Kristol, who recently called Bush "the last neocon in power."
(Inter Press Service)
Find this article at:
http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=10115
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Posted on Tue, Dec. 05, 2006
Roots of debacle in Iraq are in neocon ideology
The leading advocates of the war were wrong about nearly every aspect of it.
By Justin Logan
This week, the Baker-Hamilton commission will make its recommendations on U.S. Iraq policy, and Congress will begin hearings on defense secretary nominee and Cold War realist Robert Gates. Both events will reflect the failings of the Bush administration's policy in Iraq. But even as a grudging acceptance of reality takes hold in Washington, the architects of the war are urging that we double down on the losing bet in Iraq.
Amid spiraling sectarian violence, the leading advocates of invading Iraq seem now to have centered on an explanation for how their idea has driven that country to blood-soaked disaster: Deposing Saddam Hussein and replacing him with a secure, stable and democratic government would have required around 400,000 troops - as well as a willingness to occupy Iraq for many, many years.
But that was never going to happen. America was never going to make such a commitment. So the strategy itself was the flaw.
Early reports indicate that the Baker-Hamilton commission will recommend that U.S. troops "pull back" from the fighting in Iraq, perhaps cutting the U.S. presence in half.
But James Baker and Lee Hamilton aren't in charge of U.S. foreign policy, and the report itself can do little more than provide political cover for the president to change course - if he wants to. However, as President Bush said on Thursday: "This business about a graceful exit just simply has no realism to it at all."
Part of the problem is rooted in the neoconservative ideology by which the president is inspired. The track record of neoconservative thought is not good. Max Boot, the Council on Foreign Relations fellow, wrote in 2003 that 60,000 to 75,000 troops could stabilize Iraq. Oddly enough, that disaster has ensued with twice that number, Boot concedes that "pacifying the entire country would probably require 400,000 to 500,000 troops, an obvious nonstarter."
But it was equally an obvious nonstarter three years ago. The passion with which the neocons argued for invading Iraq was never coupled with a serious examination of what it would require to achieve our goals there. An honest discussion about the costs of war would have greatly diminished the case for invading.
But hawks have now settled on the way to fix things: pour an additional 50,000 troops into Baghdad in an attempt to secure the capital. This plan would try to tamp down the civil war by demonstrating that the capital is secure, providing a clear symbol that the country is on the path to stability.
To be sure, the importance of securing the capital of a state pervades the literature on reconstruction and stabilization. But in Iraq, the capital city was not quickly brought under control, and could not be now, even with 50,000 more troops. A low-level civil war is continuing, and in order for it to stop, either one side is going to have to win, or both sides must become fatigued enough that they compromise.
The Baker-Hamilton commission cannot change this reality. The only thing that can right our course at this point is an outright rejection of the neoconservative approach that steered us into the quagmire in Iraq in the first place.
Neoconservatives have been wrong about every possible aspect of Iraq: wrong about the threat from Saddam, wrong about the way to deal with it, wrong about the costs of war, wrong about the insurgency, and wrong about staying the course. The only question left is how long the country and the Bush administration will continue listening to them on foreign policy. And at what cost?
Justin Logan (jlogan@cato.org) is a foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute (www.cato.org) in Washington.
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/editorial/16164905.htm
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http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3340750,00.html
Neocons: We expected Israel to attack Syria
They are a unified group of American intellectuals, who held key positions in Bush administration and were blamed for getting US into Iraq. Most of them are Jews, so they are obviously accused of risking America in favor of Israel. Israeli Meyrav Wurmser claims that if situation is bad, Israelis are also to blame
Yitzhak Benhorin Published: 12.16.06, 16:07
WASHINGTON - It hasn't been a good year for neocons, that group of conservative American intellectuals pulling some strings of US policy, particularly during the George W. Bush administration.
The strongest indictment against them is the war in Iraq, a quagmire in which the US is currently stuck up to its neck. And as Bush's days in the White House grow numbered, they are leaving one by one.
Baker-Hamilton Report
Key to Iraq: Solving Israeli-Arab conflict / Reuters
Bipartisan Iraq Study Group calls for direct talks between Israel, Syria as part of revived US commitment to a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace 'on all fronts.' Report also recommends that US forces begin to withdraw from combat in Iraq, calls for new diplomatic, political push to improve 'grave and deteriorating' situation
Full story
Among the few remaining neocons is David Wurmser, an advisor for Vice President Dick Cheney on Middle Eastern affairs. Wurmser is a Middle East expert, just like his wife, Israeli Meyrav Wurmser, a researcher at the conservative Hudson Institute.
Meyrav Wurmser was also one of the co-founders of MEMRI, which tracks Arab leaders and translating their political statements from Arabic to English.
Despite the fact that many neocons are no longer part of the government, it turns out they're still one big happy family, who make sure to remain in touch.
Many are Jews, who share a love for Israel . Some of the accusations against the government regarding the war in Iraq is that it was undertaken primarily for Israel's sake and that the attack on Iraq was actually an Israeli objective.
In an interview with Ynet, Dr. Meyrav Wurmser refutes the accusations and criticism.
"Since I'm an Israeli in the gang, you wouldn't believe what's been written about me," she said. "That I'm proof of the covert neoconservative connection with Israel and the Mossad."
What are you trying to achieve?
"We believe in a strong and active American foreign policy. America is a good force in the world, a nation that believes in freedom. We believe in exporting American ideas of freedom and democracy, to promote greater stability."
Did you, in practice, bring about the war in Iraq?
"We expressed ideas, but the policy in Iraq was taken out of neocon hands very quickly. The idea was that America has a war on terror and that the only actual place for coping with it is in the Middle East and that a fundamental change would come through a change in leadership. We had to start somewhere.
"The objective was to change the face of the Middle East. But it was impossible to create a mini-democracy amidst a sea of dictatorships looking to destroy this poor democracy, and thus, where do insurgents in Iraq come from? From Iran and Syria ."
Should they have been conquered?
"No. There was a need for massive political action, of threats and pressure on these governments, financial pressure, for example. The sanctions on Syria were nothing. There was a period of time when the Syrians were afraid that they were next. It would have been possible to use this momentum in a smarter way. There's no need to go in militarily."
Everyone feels beaten after last 5 years
At their prime, the neocons held the reigns of American decision making. In the Pentagon, there were Deputy Defense Minister Paul Wolfowitz, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith, and Harold Rhode, a senior Pentagon advisor on Islam.
In the vice president's office were Louis Libby and John Hannah. Richard Perle headed the committee advising to the Pentagon. In the White House were Deputy National Security Adviser for Global Democracy Strategy Elliott Abrams and Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton, who later became the US ambassador to the UN.
Iraq. Today it's already a disaster (Photo: AP)
According to Wurmser's description, the group is comprised of academics, most of them lacking operational experience, who became part of the Bush administration but failed to get their ideas through bureaucracy.
"These are intellectuals who came with great ideas, in which I still believe, but did not find a way to promote their beliefs in the complexities of bureaucracy," she says.
Your people held senior positions in the Pentagon. Didn’t Deputy Defense Minister Paul Wolfowitz and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith implement your theories?
"The final decisions were no in their hands. In the Pentagon, the decisions were in the hands of the military, and the political leadership had a lot of clashes with the military leadership."
Did the military leadership ask for more soldiers in Iraq?
"Rumsfeld prevented that. He was a failure. The State Department opposed the neocons' stances. Also John Bolton, who is also part of the family, and was no. 4 at the State Department under Colin Powell, was incapable of passing decisions…
"Powell curbed our ideas and they did not pass. There was a lot of frustration over the years in the administration because we didn’t feel we were succeeding.
"Now Bolton left (the UN – Y.B.) and there are others who are about to leave. This administration is in its twilight days. Everyone is now looking for work, looking to make money… We all feel beaten after the past five years… We miss the peace and quiet and writing books…
"When you enter the administration you have to keep your mouth shut. Now many will resume their writing… Now, from the outside, they will be able to convey all the criticism they kept inside."
In the meantime you left the US inside Iraq?
"We did not bring the US into Iraq in such a way. Our biggest war which we lost was the idea that before entering Iraq we must train an exile Iraqi government and an Iraqi military force, and hand over the rule to them immediately after the occupation and leave Iraq. That was our idea and it was not accepted."
Your man was Ahmed Chalabi, who was later suspected of spying for Iran?
"That is true, but we didn’t want him as a dictator but as a person in a government that will act democratically… We must help the current democratic government. The borders with Iran and Syria should have been blocked immediately when we entered Iraq. Now it's already a disaster."
Why didn’t you attack Syria?
Many of Wurmser's friends believe the disaster is not only in Iraq, but in the entire region. They are also very frustrated over the way in which Israel embarked on the war against Hizbullah this summer, and on the way it returned from it.
"Hizbullah defeated Israel in the war. This is the first war Israel lost," Dr. Wurmser declares.
IDF in Lebanon (Photo: Dan Bronfeld, IDF Spokesperson's Office)
Is this a popular stance in the administration, that Israel lost the war?
"Yes, there is no doubt. It's not something one can argue about it. There is a lot of anger at Israel."
What caused the anger?
"I know this will annoy many of your readers… But the anger is over the fact that Israel did not fight against the Syrians. Instead of Israel fighting against Hizbullah, many parts of the American administration believe that Israel should have fought against the real enemy, which is Syria and not Hizbullah."
Did the administration expect Israel to attack Syria?
"They hoped Israel would do it. You cannot come to another country and order it to launch a war, but there was hope, and more than hope, that Israel would do the right thing. It would have served both the American and Israeli interests.
"The neocons are responsible for the fact that Israel got a lot of time and space… They believed that Israel should be allowed to win. A great part of it was the thought that Israel should fight against the real enemy, the one backing Hizbullah. It was obvious that it is impossible to fight directly against Iran, but the thought was that its strategic and important ally should be hit."
"It is difficult for Iran to export its Shiite revolution without joining Syria, which is the last nationalistic Arab country. If Israel had hit Syria, it would have been such a harsh blow for Iran, that it would have weakened it and changes the strategic map in the Middle East.
"The final outcome is that Israel did not do it. It fought the wrong war and lost. Instead of a strategic war that would serve Israel's objectives, as well as the US objectives in Iraq. If Syria had been defeated, the rebellion in Iraq would have ended."
Wurmser says that what most frustrates her is hearing people close to decision makers in Israel asking her if the US would have let Israel attack Syria.
"No one would have stopped you. It was an American interest. They would have applauded you. Think why you received so much time and space to operate. Rice was in the region and Israel embarrassed her with Qana, and still Israel got more time. Why aren't they reading the map correctly in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem?"
Last edited by Alpha on Sun Dec 17, 2006 1:00 am; edited 1 time in total | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 11:41 am Post subject: |
| Baker panel's mention of Palestinian "right of return" raises eyebrows
AFP via Breitbart, 12 Dec '06
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/12/06/061206204349.qjq06iek.html
A reference to Palestinians' "right of return" in the report issued by
the high-level Iraq Study Group broke a diplomatic taboo which sparked
immediate concern in Israel and surprise among Middle East policy
experts. The reference was buried deep inside a 160-page report that
urged US President George W. Bush to renew efforts to revive
Israel-Palestinian peace talks as part of a region-wide bid to end the
chaos in Iraq. "This report is worrisome for Israel particularly
because, for the first time, it mentions the question of the 'right of
return' for the Palestinian refugees of 1948," said a senior Israeli
official, who was reacting to the US policy report on condition he not
be identified. A Middle East analyst who was involved in the Iraq Study
Group discussions but did not participate in drafting the report
expressed surprise when the reference was pointed out to him by a
reporter. "It's hard to know whether that language got in there because
of carelessness -- I know there were many revisions up to the very last
minute -- or whether it was a deliberate attempt to fuse something to
the Bush rhetoric which wasn't there before," the analyst said.
The 1993 Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians calls
for a resolution of the issue of Israeli and Palestinian "refugees" as
part of a final status agreement that would include the creation of a
Palestinian state. But they do not use the term "right of return",
which
is a long-standing Palestinian demand -- rejected by Israel -- that
Palestinians who fled or were driven out of what was to become the
Jewish state in 1948, as well as their descendants, be allowed to
return
home. Bush, in a 2002 speech in the White House Rose Garden, became the
first US president to formally back the creation of an independent
Palestinian state alongside Israel, but he also did not mention a right
of Palestinian 'return'.
The bipartisan Iraq Study Group's co-chairman is former secretary of
state James Baker, who as the top diplomat for Bush's father in the
early 1990s clashed with Israel over its handling of the Palestinian
issue. Among his group's 79 recommendations for a policy shift on Iraq,
number 17 concerned five points it said should be included in a
negotiated peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The final point
in
the list was: "Sustainable negotiations leading to a final peace
settlement along the lines of President Bush's two-state solution,
which
would address the key final status issues of borders, settlements,
Jerusalem, the right of return and the end of conflict." "'Right of
return' is not in Oslo I or Oslo II, it's not in the Bush Rose Garden
speech, it's not even in UN 181, the original partition resolution --
it's part of the Palestinian discourse," said the US analyst. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 1:08 pm Post subject: |
| http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15853.htm
Baker vs. “The Lobby”
By Mike Whitney
“The great value of the Baker-Hamilton report is that it reasserts the necessity of pursuing American interests, as opposed to purely Israeli interests.” Justin Raimondo, “We Can’t Wait for 2008” antiwar.com
12/09/06 "Information Clearing House" -- -- The tension between the Bush administration and the members of the Iraq Study Group, illustrates the widening chasm between old-guard U.S. imperialists and “Israel-first” neoconservatives. The divisions are setting the stage for a major battle between the two camps. The winner will probably decide US policy in the Middle East for the next decade.
The failed occupation of Iraq has put the entire region on the fast-track to disaster. That’s why James Baker was summoned from retirement to see if he could change the present trajectory and mitigate the long-term damage to US interests. Baker was opposed to the invasion from the onset but his 4 day trip to Baghdad convinced him that something had to be done quickly. The ISG report reflects the unanimous view of its authors that Iraq is disintegrating into chaos and that action must be taken to reduce the level of bloodshed.
Baker is not merely an objective observer in this process. He clearly “has a dog in this fight”. As Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan he put together the basic scaffolding for America’s imperial presence in the region and he continues to be connected to many of the corporations which benefit from US relations in the Middle East. But he has also always taken a “pragmatic” approach to regional policy and cannot be considered a war-monger. Some critics of Baker say that his business interests suggest that he indirectly supports the Bush policy. But this is an oversimplification. In fact, Baker sees war as a blunt instrument that is essentially incompatible with commercial interests. There are simply more efficient ways for clever men to achieve their objectives.
In Antonia Juhasz’s recent article “Oil for Sale: Iraq Study Group Recommends Privatization” shows how Baker was more than happy to overlook Saddam’s domestic repression as long as it didn’t damage business dealings. As Juhasz’s says:
“Baker’s interest was focused on trade, which he described as “the central factor in the US-Iraq relationship”. From 1982, when Reagan removed Iraq from the list of countries supporting terrorism until August 1990, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, Baker and Eagleburger worked with others in the Reagan and Bush administrations to aggressively and successfully expand trade.
The efficacy of such a move can best be described in a memo written in 1988 by the Bush transition team arguing that the US would have ‘to decide whether to treat Iraq as a distasteful dictatorship to be shunned where possible, or to recognize Iraq’s present and potential power in the region and accord it relatively high priority. We strongly urge the latter view.’ Two reasons offered were Iraq’s ‘vast oil reserves’ which promised ‘a lucrative market for US goods’ and the fact that the US oil imports from Iraq were skyrocketing. Bush and Baker took the transition teams advice and ran with it”.
This is the real James Baker. He’s not ideological and he’s certainly not on a religious crusade. His approach may seem cynical, but it shows that he prefers commerce (even with a brutal dictator) over war. This proves that his role with the ISG is not simply to provide cover for Bush. Baker’s task is to salvage the imperial system which he helped to create. Besides, it’s clear that Bush is unhappy with the report and has already rejected its two critical recommendations; negotiations with Syria and Iran, and a commitment to troop reduction. Furthermore, Bush is doing everything in his power to minimize the effects of the report. In fact, he even flew Tony Blair to Washington so that he wouldn’t look as isolated in his position.
Baker has done a good job grabbing headlines and making his case directly to the American people, but his effect on Bush has been negligible. Bush appears to be brushing the report aside just like he brushed aside the results of the midterm elections. His summation of the ISG’s work was intentionally condescending; he dismissed it as “interesting” and “sincere”, blah, blah, blah.
But Baker won't be patronized or put-off. In fact, his tone has been unusually threatening at times. As more than one critic has noted, Baker appears to be offering Bush an “ultimatum” not merely recommendations. He warned Bush not to “pick and choose” the recommendations as he saw fit:
“I hope this is not like a fruit salad and I say I like this but I don’t like that. This is a comprehensive strategy designed to deal with this problem we’re facing in Iraq, but also designed to deal with other problems that we face in the region to restore America’s standing and credibility in that part of the world”.
Baker is courteous to the point of seeming unctuous, but his point is clear. He is demanding that Bush execute his plan in its totality and without deviation. This is the cautionary advice of a Mafia consigliore not the empty musings of a retired bureaucrat.
Whatever one thinks about James Baker, he is a seasoned diplomat and a serious man. His record shows that he has broad support among the leaders in the American oligarchy, so he can’t simply be ignored. He represents a powerful constituency of corporate chieftains and oil magnates who are conspicuously worried about the deteriorating situation in Iraq and want to see a change of course. Baker’s their man. He’s the logical emissary for the growing number of jittery plutocrats who see that the Bush policy-train has jumped the tracks.
But if Big Oil wants a change of direction than where is Bush getting his support for “staying the course”?
An AP poll conducted this week shows that only 9% of Americans believe that “victory” in Iraq is possible. Even the hard-core Bush loyalists have abandoned the sinking ship. The only group left touting Bush’s failed policy is the “Israel first” camp which continues to wave the bloody shirt of incitement from their perch at the Weekly Standard and the American Enterprise Institute. These same diehards are leading the charge for a preemptive attack on Iran; a criminal act which will have catastrophic effects on America’s long-term energy needs.
An article which appeared in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz shows how confident Prime Minister Olmert is in the ability of the Jewish Lobby to torpedo the Baker-Hamilton report and steer the US away from changes in Iraq:
“On his way home from Los Angeles, the Prime Minister ‘calmed’ the reporters –and perhaps even himself—by saying there is no danger of the US President George Bush accepting the expected recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton panel, and attempting to move Syria out of the axis of evil and into a coalition to extricate America from Iraq. The Prime Minister hopes the Jewish Lobby can rally a Democratic majority in the new Congress to counter any diversion from the status quo on the Palestinians. (Akiva Eldar, “The Gewalt Agenda”) http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/789919.html
Olmert has good reason to be “calm”. While the new Congress is being apprised of its duties to Israel, the Brookings Institute is convening a forum at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy entitled: “America and Israel: Confronting a Middle east in Turmoil”. The meeting will be attended by Israeli right-wing extremist, Avigdor Lieberman, as well as political big-wigs, Bill and Hillary Clinton.
The context of the meeting suggests that right-leaning Israelis will be informing their friends in the Democratic Party about the anticipated attack on Iran, as well as discussing strategies for sabotaging Baker’s report. If we see the Dems lambasting the ISGs recommendations next week; we’ll know why.
So, the battle lines have been drawn. On one side we have James Baker and his corporate classmates who want to restore order while preserving America’s imperial role in the region. And, on the other side, we have the neo-Trotskyites and Israeli-Jacobins who seek a fragmented and chaotic Middle East where Israel is the dominant power. (see "A Clean Break")
The one group that has no voice in this “Battle of the Titans” is the American people. They lost whatever was left of their shrinking political-clout sometime around the 2000 Coronation of George Bush.
In any event, Baker and his ilk are not going to sit back and watch the empire (and the military) they put together with their own two hands be systematically pulverized by a cabal of zealots pursuing an agenda that only serves Israeli hardliners.
That ain’t gonna happen.
Expect Baker to wheel out the heavy artillery and fight tooth-and-nail to reassert the primacy of the American ruling class. “The Lobby” may be powerful, but it’s going to be tough-going to take the country away from the people who believe they own it.
The struggle between the political heavyweights is about to break-out into open warfare.
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Jeffrey Blankfort wrote:
This article, by an AIPAC member, critical of the organization' s right-wing leanings, nevertheless expresses the limits of how far "humane" Zionists are willing to go and exposes the illusion that a more moderate form of AIPAC will be any less of an obstacle in securing justice for the Palestinians.
Wanted: A Moderate Pro-Israel Lobby
Date posted: November 18, 2006
By Gidon D. Remba
http://www.miftah. org/Display. cfm?DocId= 11977&CategoryId=5
I am a member of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the premier American pro-Israel lobby. AIPAC plays a vital role in bolstering America's alliance with the Jewish state, from galvanizing Congressional backing for U.S. military and economic aid, to marshaling moral and political support for its right to self-defense. But AIPAC has not always defined "support for Israel" the way many American Jews and Israelis do.
AIPAC claims that it champions the policies of the elected Israeli government, whatever they may be. But it does not faithfully live up to this promise: Over the past 20 years, it has supported right-wing governments in Israel wholeheartedly, while being halfhearted, or worse, about the policies of left-wing administrations. And when Israel is ruled from the right, AIPAC's credo makes supporting Israel synonymous with lining up behind policies which many American Jews - and often the other half or more of the Israeli public - think baneful for Israel's quest for peace and security.
Indeed, AIPAC sometimes tries to be more Israeli than the Israeli government, urging American Jews and their elected representatives in Washington to oppose moderate, responsible positions on Israel, while hewing to the hardest line on the Israeli and American Jewish political spectrum.
Earlier this year, following the Hamas electoral earthquake in the Palestinian Authority, AIPAC wrote and championed a bill called the Palestinian Anti- Terrorism Act of 2006, which fortunately failed to become the law of the land. This bill called not only for sanctions against the Hamas-led PA, but for a sweeping and unprecedented boycott of Fatah and PLO officials like Palestinian Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and his allies in the Palestinian Legislative Council. In contrast to Hamas, Abbas advocates peace and negotiations with Israel and opposes terrorism and violence. He merits support, not sanctions.
Furthermore, the bill incorporated a laundry list of pie-in-the-sky conditions for removing the new sanctions that were unrelated to Hamas or to stopping terror. It would have blocked the United States from aiding or dealing with any part of the Palestinian leadership, even were Hamas sent packing. It deprived the president of a national security waiver (common to other sanctions legislation) for special circumstances when such flexibility is deemed essential for safeguarding American security interests. And after U.S. intelligence agencies failed to predict Hamas' electoral victory, the bill virtually barred the CIA from operating covertly in the Palestinian arena to gather intelligence on Islamic extremists - another blow to U.S. and Israeli national security.
The bill was so blunt an instrument it might well have strengthened Hamas, spawning greater anarchy and chaos in the West Bank and Gaza, escalating the security threats facing both Israel and the United States in the region. Indeed, the Bush administration itself strenuously opposed the AIPAC-backed House bill. It would have hamstrung U.S. efforts to ensure that Abbas "can fulfill his duties as president, prevent Hamas from taking over the rest of the PA and the PLO, and prevail in any confrontation with Hamas," according to a memo sent by the administration to Congress. Nor did the bill's follies end there.
The saga of the bill's demise has become the butt of a new controversy sparked by the initiative of three of America's leading center-left Zionist groups - Americans for Peace Now, Israel Policy Forum and Brit Tzedek v'Shalom - and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism to explore, with philanthropist George Soros and others, the possibility of forming a moderate, pro-Israel American Jewish lobby in Washington. These groups have worked to change the terms of AIPAC's House bill, for which they now stand accused, by AIPAC partisans, of irresponsibly opposing "legislation penalizing the Palestinians for putting their government in the hands of terrorists." They came together, charge the critics, "in an ad hoc coalition to shield the Hamas-led PA from Congressional sanctions." In fact, all the groups supported sanctions against Hamas, but not the AIPAC bill's more sweeping bid to ostracize all Palestinian leaders.
The Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act was not scuttled by a cabal of left-wing American Jewish Benedict Arnolds, but by AIPAC's own overreaching ultra-hawkish House bill, which was not amended along the lines requested by the Bush administration. To no one's surprise, it proved difficult to reconcile with the Senate legislation favored by the administration. Nor is the battle over: AIPAC is mobilizing still to pass the anti-terrorism act. Will it now encourage the United States and Israel to seize the opening of a new Palestinian technocrat government to help Israel achieve a truce and progress toward a two-state solution? Or will it continue to throw unreasonable obstacles in the way?
Few expect AIPAC to fight for a U.S.-Israeli peace initiative involving Syria or the Palestinians when it is needed most, creating incentives for curbing Hezbollah and Hamas militants. We must, to prevent a new and more ruinous war.
A new pro-Israel umbrella group or resource center would likely work in tandem with AIPAC for the same robust American backing for Israel's military, economic and diplomatic needs, as its constituent groups have long done. But when AIPAC sabotages the mission of dovish Israeli governments, or of a U.S. president collaborating with them; when it flexes its political muscles to push Congress to adopt reckless legislation which jeopardizes the chance for a future Arab-Israeli peace; when it marches in lock step off the cliff with a pro-settlement Israeli coalition opposed even to the most cautious peace probes with Israel's Arab neighbors - a new Israel lobby could actively work to give voice to the many American Jews who see eye-to-eye with the sensible and the sane.
I'm going to continue contributing to AIPAC, an indispensable bulwark for Israel. But that won't stop me from helping other Jewish organizations and a pro- Israel American Jewish citizens' lobby that is in better synch with my pragmatic Zionist outlook, my centrist American politics, my commitment to the progressive values of the Jewish tradition, and to the policies that I am convinced Israel's welfare and America's own national security demand.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sun Dec 10, 2006 10:32 pm Post subject: |
| Stephen Sniegoski (who wrote the 'Israeli Origins of Bush II's War via 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 ) responded with the following regarding the 'Baker vs. 'The Lobby' article posted above:
The differences between the old imperialists and the neocons have always
been there. The neocons had the support of the average yahoos after 911 and
thus were able to shape foreign policy. They don't have their support now.
What they have are the pro-Zionist congressional leaders among the Dems and
Reps. The fact that American forces would remain in Iraq under the Baker
scheme always leaves the possibility of an incident with Iran. This could
enable the neocon war propaganda to gain public support again. So Baker's
establishment plan can always be derailed. In order to prevent a possible
war with Iran and the resuscitation of the neocon Middle East war agenda, it
is essential to have an anti-war movement come out and demand that US forces
be totally removed from Iraq. The Baker plan is a move in the right
direction, but is essential to transcend it as soon as possible.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Jeffrey Blankfort"
Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2006 12:11:09 -0800
Subject: Uri Avnery on Baker versus The Lobby
"Since 1967 and the beginning of the occupation, several American Secretaries of State have submitted plans to end
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. All these plans met the same fate: they were torn up and thrown in the trash.
"The same sequence of events has been repeated time after time: In Jerusalem, hysteria sets in. The Foreign Office
stands up on its hind legs and swears to defeat the evil design. The media unanimously condemns the wicked plot. The
Secretary of State of the day is pilloried as an anti-Semite. The Israeli lobby in Washington mobilizes for total
war....
"For example: the Rogers Plan of Richard Nixon's first Secretary of State, William Rogers. In the early 70s he
submitted a detailed peace plan, the principal point of which was the withdrawal of Israel to the 1967 borders,
with, at most, "insubstantial alterations" .
"What happened to the plan?
"In face of the onslaught of "the Friends of Israel" in Washington, Nixon buckled under, as have all presidents
since Dwight D. Eisenhower, a man of principle who did not need the Jewish votes. No president will quarrel with the
government of Israel if he wants to be re-elected, or - like Bush now - to end his term in office with dignity and
pass the presidency to another member of his party. Any senator or congressman who takes a stand that the Israeli
embassy does not like, is committing Harakiri, Washington-style. "
For more than 20 years, Israeli journalist Uri Avnery has been observing and commenting on the ability of the Jewish lobby to determine US policy regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict. Here he spells it out again in commenting on the Baker-Hamilton Report. Note: Baker was backed in the actions Avnery describes by Pres. George Bush St., who also refused to knuckle under to the lobby and paid a political price for it. JB
Uri Avnery
9.12.06
Baker's Cake
NO ONE likes to admit a mistake. Me neither. But honesty leaves me no choice.
A few days after the collapse of the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, I happened to go on a lecture tour in the US.
My message was optimistic. I expected some good to come out of the tragedy. I reasoned that the atrocity had exposed
the intensity of the hatred for the US that is spreading throughout the world, and especially the Muslim world. It
would be logical not only to fight against the mosquitoes, but to drain the swamp. Since the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict was one of the breeding grounds of the hatred - if not the main one - the US would make a major effort to
achieve peace between the two peoples.
That was what cold logic indicated. But this is not what happened. What happened was the very opposite.
American policy was not led by cold logic. Instead of drying one swamp, it created a second swamp. Instead of
pushing the Israelis and Palestinians towards peace, it invaded Iraq. Not only did the hatred against America not
die down, it flared up even higher. I hoped that this danger would override even the oil interests and the desire
to station an American garrison in the center of the Middle East.
Thus I committed the very mistake that I have warned others against many times: to assume that what is logical will
actually happen. A rational person should not ignore the irrational in politics. In other words, it is irrational to
exclude the irrational.
George W. Bush is an irrational person, perhaps the very personification of irrationality. Instead of drawing the
logical conclusion from what had happened and acting accordingly, he set off in the opposite direction. Since
then he has just insisted on "staying the course".
Enter James Baker.
SINCE I am already in a confessional mood, I have to admit that I like James Baker.
I know that this will shock some of my good friends. "Baker?!" they will cry out, "The consigliere of the Bush
family? The man who helped George W steal the 2000 elections? The Rightist?"
Yes, yes, the very same Baker. I like him for his cold logic, his forthright and blunt style, his habit of saying
what he thinks without embellishment, his courage. I prefer this style to the sanctimonious hypocrisy of other leaders,
who try to hide their real intentions. I would be happy any time to swap Olmert for Baker, and throw in Amir Peretz for free.
But that is a matter of taste. More important is the fact that in all the last 40 years, James Baker was the only
leader in America who had the guts to stand up and act against Israel's malignant disease: the settlements. When
he was the Secretary of State, he simply informed the Israeli government that he would deduct the sums expended
on the settlements from the money Israel was getting from the US. Threatened and made good on his threat.
Baker thus confronted the "pro-Israeli" lobby in the US, both the Jewish and the Christian. Such
courage is rare in the United States, as it is rare in Israel.
THIS WEEK the Iraq Study Group, led by Baker, published its report.
It confirms all the bleak forecasts voiced by many throughout the world - myself included - before Bush & Co.
launched the bloody Iraqi adventure. In his dry and incisive style, Baker says that the US cannot win there. In
so many words he tells the American public: Let's get out of there, before the last American soldier has to scramble
into the last helicopter from the roof of the American embassy, as happened in Vietnam.
Baker calls for the end of the Bush approach and offers a new and thought-out strategy of his own. Actually, it is an
elegant way of extricating America from Iraq, without it looking like a complete rout. The main proposals: an
American dialogue with Iran and Syria, an international conference, the withdrawal of the American combat brigades,
leaving behind only instructors. The committee that he headed was bi-partisan, composed half and half of
Republicans and Democrats.
FOR ISRAELIS, the most interesting part of the report is, of course, the one that concerns us directly. It interests
me especially - how could it be otherwise? - because it repeats, almost word for word, the things I said
immediately after September 11, both in my articles at home and in my lectures in the US.
True, Baker is saying them four years later. In these four years, thousands of American soldiers and tens of thousands
of Iraqi civilians have died for nothing. But, to use the image again, when a giant ship like the United States turns
around, it make a very big circle, and it takes a lot of time. We, in the small speed-boat called Israel, could do
it much quicker - if we had the good sense to do it.
Baker says simply: In order to stop the war in Iraq and start a reconciliation with the Arab world, the US must
bring about the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He does not say explicitly that peace must be imposed on
Israel, but that is the obvious implication.
In his own clear words: "The United States will not be able to achieve its goals in the Middle East unless the United States deals directly with the Arab-Israeli conflict."
His committee proposes the immediate start of negotiations between Israel and "President Mahmoud Abbas", in order to
implement the two-state solution. The "sustainable negotiations" must address the "key final status issues of
borders, settlements, Jerusalem, the right of return, and the end of conflict."
The use of the title "President" for Abu Mazen and, even more so, the use of the term "right of return" has alarmed
the whole political class in Israel. Even in the Oslo agreement, the section dealing with the "final status"
issues mentions only "refugees". Baker, as is his wont, called the spade a spade.
At the same time, he proposes a stick and carrot approach to achieve peace between Israel and Syria. The US needs
this peace in order to draw Syria into its camp. The stick, from the Israeli point of view, would be the return of the
Golan Heights. The carrot would be the stationing of American soldiers on the border, so that Israel's security
would be guaranteed by the US. In return, he demands that Syria stop, inter alia, its aid to Hizbullah.
After Gulf War I, Baker - the same Baker - got all the parties to the conflict to come to an international
conference in Madrid. For that purpose, he twisted the arm of then Prime Minister Itzhak Shamir, whose entire
philosophy consisted of two letters and one exclamation mark: "No!" and whose slogan was: "The Arabs are the same
Arabs, and the sea is the same sea" - alluding to the popular Israeli conviction that the Arabs all want to throw
Israel into the sea.
Baker brought Shamir to Madrid, his arms and legs in irons, and made sure he did not escape. Shamir was compelled to
sit at the table with representatives of the Palestinian people, who had never been allowed to attend an
international conference before. The conference itself had no tangible results, but there is no doubt that it was a
vital step in the process that brought about the Oslo agreement and, more difficult than anything else, the
mutual recognition of the State of Israel and the Palestinian people.
Now Baker is suggesting something similar. He proposes an international conference, and cites Madrid as a model. The
conclusion is clear.
HOWEVER, THIS baker can only offer a recipe for the cake. The question is whether President Bush will use
the recipe and bake the cake.
Since 1967 and the beginning of the occupation, several American Secretaries of State have submitted plans to end
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. All these plans met the same fate: they were torn up and thrown in the trash.
The same sequence of events has been repeated time after time: In Jerusalem, hysteria sets in. The Foreign Office
stands up on its hind legs and swears to defeat the evil design. The media unanimously condemns the wicked plot. The
Secretary of State of the day is pilloried as an anti-Semite. The Israeli lobby in Washington mobilizes for total
war.
For example: the Rogers Plan of Richard Nixon's first Secretary of State, William Rogers. In the early 70s he
submitted a detailed peace plan, the principal point of which was the withdrawal of Israel to the 1967 borders,
with, at most, "insubstantial alterations" .
What happened to the plan?
In face of the onslaught of "the Friends of Israel" in Washington, Nixon buckled under, as have all presidents
since Dwight D. Eisenhower, a man of principle who did not need the Jewish votes. No president will quarrel with the
government of Israel if he wants to be re-elected, or - like Bush now - to end his term in office with dignity and
pass the presidency to another member of his party. Any senator or congressman who takes a stand that the Israeli
embassy does not like, is committing Harakiri, Washington-style.
The fate of the peace plans of successive Secretaries of State confirms, on the face of it, the thesis of the two
professors, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, that caused a great stir earlier this year. According to them, whenever
there is a clash in Washington between the national interests of the United States and the national interests
of Israel, it is the Israeli interests which win.
WILL THIS happen this time, too?
Baker has presented his plan at a time when the US is facing disaster in Iraq. President Bush is bankrupt, his
party has lost control of Congress and may soon lose the White House. The neo-conservatives, most of them Jews and
all of them supporters of the Israeli extreme Right, who were in control of American foreign policy, are being
removed one by one, and this week yet another, the American ambassador to the United Nations, was kicked out.
Therefore, it is possible that this time the President may listen to expert advice.
But that is in serious doubt. The Democratic Party is subject to the "pro-Israeli" lobby no less than the
Republican Party, and perhaps even more. The new congress was indeed elected under the banner of opposition to the
continuation of the war in Iraq, but its members are not jihadi suicide bombers. They depend on the "pro-Israeli"
lobby. To paraphrase Shamir: "The plan is the same plan, and the trash bin is the same trash bin."
In Jerusalem, the first reaction to the report was total rejection, expressing a complete confidence in the ability
of the lobby to choke it at birth. "Nothing has changed," Olmert declared. "There is no one to talk with," -
immediately echoed by the mouth and pen brigade in the media. "We cannot talk with them as long as the terrorism
goes on," a famous expert declared on TV. That's like saying: "One cannot talk about ending the war as long as
the enemy is shooting at our troops."
On the Mearsheimer- Walt thesis I wrote that "the dog is wagging the tail and the tail is wagging the dog." It will
be interesting to see which will wag which this time: the dog its tail or the tail its dog.
__._,_.___ | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2006 7:16 am Post subject: |
| From: "Jeffrey Blankfort"
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2006 22:22:40 -0800
Subject: [IntelligentMinds] Ha'aretz: Baker redux (A MUST READ)
"Because of Baker's personality, which radiates aggressive
imperiousness, and because for the first time a senior American figure has acknowledged that the absence of an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians contributes to the unrest in the Middle East and even beyond it. All that was missing was that someone there would come to the conclusion that this unending conflict is endangering American interests in the region and even beyond it."
This article describes what former Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Arens detailed in his book, Broken Covenant, that I recommended yesterday. It is particularly important because it clearly refutes the wide spread and mistaken belief among "The Left" that the White House has consistently backed Israel's policies of occupation and settlement. Perhaps, that is why it remains "unknown" among Palestinian solidarity activists. Arens's book has been out 10 years and this is the first time that I have seen this critical meeting between James Baker and Shamir mentioned in print.-JB
http://www.haaretz. com/hasen/ spages/800260. html
Baker redux
By Daniel Ben Simon
One Friday afternoon 15 years ago, the U.S. secretary of state, James Baker, sat in prime minister Yitzhak Shamir's bureau in Jerusalem and discussed with him the need to implement the diplomatic initiative that bore his name. Great tension prevailed in the room. One of the Israeli participants has related that Shamir evinced impatience and restlessness and constantly looked at his watch. "He was shocked by the secretary of state's style of speaking and his bluntness," added the source. This was yet another in the series of the secretary's pressuring visits, aimed at persuading Israeli leaders to agree to conduct direct talks with Palestinian representatives. Israel demanded that talks be held only with Palestinians living in the territories; the Americans insisted on including representatives from the Palestinian diaspora, so as to give official recognition to the Palestine Liberation Organization, which had its headquarters in Tunis. Prior to that, the unity government in which the Labor party had participated had broken up because of disagreement on this issue.
The watch hands moved slowly. One of the participants in the meeting suggested that it be stopped because of the approach of the Sabbath. After ascertaining the precise time that the Sabbath would begin, Baker insisted on continuing. Suddenly an American official came into the bureau and whispered something into the ear of one of the secretary's aides, who transmitted the contents to the secretary. Baker blanched. He rose and in a trembling voice said to the prime minister that he had just been informed that his mother had passed away. He apologized that he would not be able to continue the meeting and left, followed by the other members of the American peace team.
A sigh of relief was heard in the prime minister's bureau. One of the senior people present thanked God aloud for His intervention, which had saved Israel from Baker's talons. However, after he recovered from his mother's death, Baker refused to leave Israel to its own devices. He succeeded in seating its representatives at the Madrid conference next to Palestinian and other Arab delegates. When Israel hardened its heart, he threatened to block the transfer of the special American aid for the absorption of immigrants from the Commonwealth of Independent States. At that time the "Baker initiative" looked to the Likud government like a dangerous attempt on the part of president George H.W. Bush's administration to force a peace agreement on Israel. Baker was so keen on advancing an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians that among Likud members the rumor spread that the man was motivated by anti-Semitism. Otherwise, why was he so indefatigably engaged with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? What was wrong with that man, they wondered, that was making him act so obsessively about trying to make the Israelis live in peace? "There is no doubt that this individual is a bit anti-Semitic, " asserted a senior person in the prime minister's bureau, whose feelings reflected Shamir's. "Let him leave us alone. Is there a dearth of conflicts in the world?" The conflict between the two administrations ended badly and threatened to muddy the relations between Israel and the United States. In June of 1992, Shamir lost the election to Yitzhak Rabin, and half a year later Baker followed him into retirement, together with his boss, the first president Bush. Now, 14 years later, the ghost of James Baker is again hovering above the skies of Jerusalem. Now sitting on Shamir's chair is Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who was serving as a junior minister during the days Baker was first haunting Israel. Immediately upon taking up his exalted position, Olmert once again donned his old Likud garments, as though he had never taken them off.
It is no wonder that in Olmert's immediate environs, paranoid talk about Baker the Terrible is again being heard. Once again, preposterous diversionary maneuvers are being undertaken with the goal of depicting the document that bears his name as hallucinatory. "This is an internal American document that does not concern us," was the prime minister's description this week of the Baker-Hamilton document.
Why has the Israeli leadership gone on the defensive? Because of Baker's personality, which radiates aggressive imperiousness, and because for the first time a senior American figure has acknowledged that the absence of an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians contributes to the unrest in the Middle East and even beyond it. All that was missing was that someone there would come to the conclusion that this unending conflict is endangering American interests in the region and even beyond it. This linkage resonates in Europe and is endlessly reiterated in the ears of Israeli representatives. Every Jewish child in France can explain the connection between the new Muslim anti-Semitism in his country and the second intifada. Everyone understands what a terrible price this conflict is exacting; it's only Israel that is insisting on reducing its dimensions as though it were a neighborhood spat.
The attitude toward Israel that is expressed in the Baker-Hamilton document is a direct result of the diplomatic paralysis and the prime minister's perpetuation of the status quo in all arenas. This is one of the reasons, along with the wretched war in Lebanon, for the mortal blow to his popularity.
Olmert will save himself - and us - only if he starts to implement the desire of the voters who put their trust in him. Only by taking diplomatic initiatives will Olmert be able to dispose of the need to take defensive measures against the Baker-Hamilton report and dispel at least some of the unease that has spread in this country since Ehud Olmert sat down in former prime minister Ariel Sharon's chair. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Dec 15, 2006 9:55 am Post subject: |
| December 14, 2006
Is James Baker a Match
for AIPAC?
by Paul Craig Roberts
The report by the Iraq Study Group is an attempt by elder statesmen of the American political establishment to take U.S. foreign policy out of the incompetent hands of President Bush and the self-serving hands of the Israeli Lobby. The Iraq Study Group's effort may or may not succeed.
Others have expressed disappointment that the ISG elder statesmen did not call for Bush's impeachment and immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq. Such wishful thinking caused writers to pour cold water over the establishment's attempt to save Bush and the U.S. from a "grave and deteriorating" situation.
Even war critic Pat Buchanan is dismissive of the ISG report. Buchanan, however, comes closer to the truth than the report's other critics when he writes that the purpose of the report is to save the establishment from any responsibility for the debacle that Bush and his neoconservative government have produced.
The Iraq Study Group, which includes Bush's new secretary of defense, Robert Gates, realizes that far from being the macho superpower that controls the world's destiny, the U.S. does not even control its own destiny. The U.S. is in a "grave and deteriorating" situation that can easily result in a far greater calamity than merely a bruised ego from a lost war. The entire Middle East can come undone.
The real problem is the Israeli Lobby's powerful influence – about which the Lobby brags – over U.S. policy in the Middle East and Israel's inflexibility toward the Palestinians, whose land Israel has stolen. As long as Israel exercises a veto over U.S. policy in the Middle East, the powder keg will remain alight.
The members of the ISG are elder statesmen. They have held high positions and accumulated the honors. Their careers are behind them. They have nothing to lose. They can afford to tell the truth and to address the real problem.
If news reports are correct (see, for example, this), former Secretary of State James Baker has proposed a Middle East peace conference without Israeli participation. According to an official quoted by Insight magazine, "As Baker sees this, the conference would provide a unique opportunity for the United States to strike a deal without Jewish pressure. This has become the hottest proposal examined by the foreign policy people over the last month."
According to Insight, "officials said the Baker proposal to exclude Israel garnered support in the wake of Vice President Dick Cheney's visit to Saudi Arabia on Nov. 25. They said Mr. Cheney spent most of his meetings listening to Saudi warnings that Israel, rather than Iran, is the leading cause of instability in the Middle East." The official told Insight that the administration "has fallen in line," but that "Bush is not in the daily loop. He is shocked by the elections and he's hoping for a miracle on Iraq."
President Bush lacks the knowledge, judgment, and experience to be in the Oval Office. He has been deceived and manipulated by neoconservatives who live in the fantasy world of their own ideology and who have been aligned with Israel's right-wing Likud Party for most of their careers.
The neoconservatives put Bush and the U.S., along with Iraqis, Afghans, and Lebanese, in harm's way. Their fantasy enterprise failed, and now they damn Bush for a lost war that they said would be a cakewalk. Neoconservatives told Bush that U.S. troops would have flowers thrown at them, not bombs.
Many neoconservatives have been cleared out of the Bush administration. But other neoconservatives still occupy media positions, which they will continue to use to lie to the American public. As long as the neoconservatives' protector, Vice President Cheney, continues to have influence, the Israeli Lobby might again succeed in overthrowing American public opinion and win its war against the Iraq Study Group.
Find this article at:
http://www.antiwar.com/roberts | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 12:54 am Post subject: |
| December 16, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
Farewell, Dense Prince
By MAUREEN DOWD
http://www.nytimes.com
WASHINGTON
James Baker ran after W. with a butterfly net for a while, but it is
now clear that the inmates are still running the asylum.
The Defiant Ones came striding from the Pentagon yesterday, the
troika of wayward warriors marching abreast in their dark suits and
power ties. W., Rummy and Dick Cheney were so full of quick-draw
confidence that they might have been sauntering down the main drag of
Deadwood.
Far from being run out of town, the defense czar who rivals Robert
McNamara for deadly incompetence has been on a victory lap in
Baghdad, Mosul and Washington. Yesterday's tribute had full military
honors, a color guard, a 19-gun salute, an Old Guard performance with
marching musicians - including piccolo players - in Revolutionary War
costumes, John Philip Sousa music and the chuckleheaded neocons and
ex-Rummy deputies who helped screw up the occupation, Paul Wolfowitz
and Douglas Feith, cheering in the audience.
It was surreal: the septuagenarian who arrogantly dismissed initial
advice to send more troops to secure Iraq, being praised as "the
finest secretary of defense this nation has ever had" by his pal, the
vice president, even as a desperate White House drafted ways to
reinvade Iraq by sending more troops in a grasping-at-straws effort
to reverse the chaos caused by Rummy's mistakes.
Just imagine the send-off a defense secretary would have gotten who
hadn't sabotaged the Army, Iraq, global security, our chance to get
Osama, our moral credibility, the deficit and American military
confidence.
Even Joyce Rumsfeld got a Distinguished Public Service Award ribbon
placed around her neck. The grandiose ceremony featured everything
but the gold-plated matching set of pistols Tommy Franks, another
failed warrior, and his wife, Cathy, recently received from a weapons
manufacturer. (His had four stars and diamonds; hers, rubies and
their marriage date.)
W. never seems as alarmed about the devastation in Iraq as he should
be. He told People magazine, "I must tell you, I'm sleeping a lot
better than people would assume," and he told Brit Hume that his
presidency was "a joyful experience."
He slacked off on his slacker effort to form a new Iraq plan. (Can't
these guys ever order pizzas and pull some all-nighters?) Mr. Bush
was busy this week hosting Christmas parties for a press corps he
disdains; convening a malaria conference at the National Geographic
with Dr. Burke of "Grey's Anatomy," Isaiah Washington; and presiding
over a hero's departure for the defense secretary he actually dumped,
not because of incompetence but for political expediency.
The Rummy hoopla was a way for W. to signal his decision to shred
the Baker-Hamilton study, after reportedly denouncing it as a flaming
cow pie. Condi Rice signaled the same, telling The Washington Post
that she did not want to negotiate with Syria and Iran, as the Iraq
Study Group had proposed, because "the compensation" might be too
high.
The Democrats thought that when they had won the election, they won
the debate on the war and they had W. cornered. But the president is
leaning toward surging over the Democrats, voters, Baker and the Bush
41 crowd and some of his own commanders.
W. seems gratified by the idea that rather than having his ears
boxed by his father's best friend, he's going to go down swinging, or
double down, in the metaphor du jour, on his macho bet in Iraq. He's
reading about Harry Truman and casting himself as a feisty Truman,
but he's heading toward late L.B.J. The White House budget office is
studying how much it will cost to finance The Surge, an infusion of
20,000 to 50,000 troops into Baghdad to make one last try at
"victory." The policy would devolve from "We stand down as they stand
up" to "We stand up more and maybe someday they will, too."
Some serving commanders are not in favor of The Surge because they
fret that it will infantilize Iraqis even more about assuming
responsibility for their own security. They also fear that the
insurgents, who have nowhere to go, will outwait our troops.
But W. would rather take a risk in Iraq than risk being a wimp. So
he continued to wrap himself in muscular delusions, asserting that on
Rummy's watch, "the United States military helped the Iraqi people
establish a constitutional democracy in the heart of the Middle East,
a watershed event in the story of freedom."
Dick Cheney offered this praise to his friend: "On the professional
side, I would not be where I am today but for the confidence that Don
first placed in me those many years ago."
Alas, we wouldn't be where we are today, either. | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
