Bush, Oil — and Moral Bankruptcy
By Ray McGovern on September 28, 2007 at 9:24 PM in Current Affairs
It is an exceedingly dangerous time. Vice President Dick Cheney and his hard-core “neo-conservative” protégés in the administration and Congress are pushing harder and harder for President George W. Bush, isolated from reality, to honor the promise he made to Israel to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
On Sept. 23, former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski warned pointedly:
“If we escalate tensions, if we succumb to hysteria, if we start making threats, we are likely to stampede ourselves into a war [with Iran], which most reasonable people agree would be a disaster for us…I think the administration, the president and the vice president particularly, are trying to hype the atmosphere, and that is reminiscent of what preceded the war in Iraq.”
So why the pressure for a wider war in which any victory will be Pyrrhic—for Israel and for the U.S.? The short answer is arrogant stupidity; the longer answer—what the Chinese used to call “great power chauvinism”—and oil.
The truth can slip out when erstwhile functionaries write their memoirs (the dense pages of George Tenet’s tome being the exception). Kudos to the still functioning reportorial side of the Washington Post, which on Sept. 15, was the first to ferret out the gem in former Fed chairman, Alan Greenspan’s book that the Iraq war was “largely about oil.”
But that’s okay, said the Post’s editorial side (which has done yeoman service as the White House’s Pravda) the very next day. Dominating the op-ed page was a turgid piece by Henry Kissinger, serving chiefly as a reminder that there is an excellent case to be made for retiring when one reaches the age of statutory senility.
Dr. Kissinger described as a “truism” the notion that “the industrial nations cannot accept radical forces dominating a region on which their economies depend.” (Curious. That same truism was considered a bad thing, when an integral part of the “Brezhnev Doctrine” applied to Eastern Europe.) What is important here is that Kissinger was speaking of Iran, which—in a classic example of pot calling kettle black—he accuses of “seeking regional hegemony.”
What’s going on here seems to be a concerted effort to get us accustomed to the prospect of a long, and possibly expanded war? Don’t you remember? Those terrorists, or Iraqis, or Iranians, or jihadists…whoever…are trying to destroy our way of life. The White House spin machine is determined to justify the war in ways they think will draw popular support from folks like the well heeled man who asked me querulously before a large audience, “Don’t you agree that several GIs killed each week is a small price to pay for the oil we need?”
Consistency in U.S. Policy?
The Bush policy toward the Middle East is at the same time consistent with, and a marked departure from, the U.S. approach since the end of World War II. Given ever-growing U.S. dependence on imported oil, priority has always been given to ensuring the uninterrupted supply of oil, as well as securing the state of Israel. The U.S. was by and large successful in achieving these goals through traditional diplomacy and commerce. Granted, it would overthrow duly elected governments, when it felt it necessary—as in Iran in 1953, after its president nationalized the oil. But the George W. Bush administration is the first to start a major war to implement U.S. policy in the region.
Just before the March 2003 attack, Chas Freeman, U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia for President George H.W. Bush, explained that the new policy was to maintain a lock on the world’s energy lifeline and be able to deny access to global competitors. Freeman said the new Bush administration “believes you have to control resources in order to have access to them” and that, with the end of the Cold war, the U.S. is uniquely able to shape global events—and would be remiss if it did not do so.
This could not be attempted in a world of two superpowers, but has been a longstanding goal of the people closest to George W. Bush. In 1975 in Harpers, then-secretary of state Henry Kissinger authored under a pseudonym an article, “Seizing Arab Oil.” Blissfully unaware that the author was his boss, the highly respected career ambassador to Saudi Arabia, James Akins, committed the mother of all faux pas when he told a TV audience that whoever wrote that article had to be a “madman.” Akins was right; he was also fired.
In those days, cooler heads prevailed, thanks largely to the deterrent effect of a then-powerful Soviet Union. Nevertheless, in proof of the axiom that bad ideas never die, 26 years later Kissinger rose Phoenix-like to urge a spanking new president to stoke and exploit the fears engendered by 9/11, associate Iraq with that catastrophe, and seize the moment to attack Iraq. It was well known that Iraq’s armed forces were no match for ours, and the Soviet Union had imploded.
Some, I suppose, would call that Realpolitik. Akins saw it as folly; his handicap was that he was steeped in the history, politics, and culture of the Middle East after serving in Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait, Iraq, as well as Saudi Arabia—and knew better.
The renaissance of Kissinger’s influence in 2001 on an impressionable young president, together with faith-based analysis by untutored ideologues cherry picked by Cheney explain what happened next—an unnecessary, counterproductive war, in which over 3,800 U. S. troops have already been killed—leaving Iraq prostrate and exhausted.
A-plus in Chutzpah, F in Ethics
In an International Herald Tribune op-ed on Feb. 25, 2007, Kissinger focused on threats in the Middle East to “global oil supplies” and the need for a “diplomatic phase,” since the war had long since turned sour. Acknowledging that he had supported the use of force against Iraq, he proceeded to boost chutzpah to unprecedented heights.
Kissinger referred piously to the Thirty Years’ War (1618-48), which left the European continent “prostrate and exhausted.” What he failed to point out is that the significance of that prolonged carnage lies precisely in how it finally brought Europeans to their senses; that is, in how it ended. The Treaty of Westphalia brought the mutual slaughter to an end, and for centuries prevented many a new attack by the strong on the weak—like the U.S. attack on Iraq in 2003.
It was, it is about oil—unabashedly and shamefully. Even to those lacking experience with U.S. policy in the Middle East, it should have been obvious early on, when every one of Bush’s senior national security officials spoke verbatim from the talking-point sheet, “It’s not about oil.” Thanks to Greenspan and Kissinger, the truth is now “largely” available to those who do not seek refuge in denial.
The implications for the future are clear—for Iraq and Iran. As far as this administration is concerned (and as Kissinger himself has written), “Withdrawal [from Iraq] is not an option.” Westphalia? U.N. Charter? Geneva Conventions? Hey, we’re talking superpower!
Thus, Greenspan last Monday with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now:
“Getting him [Saddam Hussein] out of the control position…was essential. And whether that be done by one means or another was not as important. But it’s clear to me that, were there not the oil resources in Iraq, the whole picture…would have been different.”
Can we handle the truth?
“All truth passes through three stages.
First, it is ridiculed.
Second, it is violently opposed.
Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”
–Schopenhauer
As the truth about our country’s policy becomes clearer and clearer, can we summon the courage to address it from a moral perspective? The Germans left it up to the churches; the churches collaborated.
“There is only us; there never has been any other.”
–Annie Dillard
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. He was an analyst with the CIA for 27 years and is now on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
This article appeared first on consortiumnews.com.
Interesting think piece.
Thank you for this very excellent article. I would like to add a few words about Kissinger (leaving aside the fact of him being a serial war criminal) and use them to lead off onto some other things.
Kissinger did a fair amount of academic work on Otto von Bismarck, who, of course, is the role model for Realpolitik. Now Bismarck is problematic for his legacy in German history, but he did have a fairly good sense of the dangers and limitations of warfare as an instrument of state policy as well as a recognition of the necessity of a strong system of alliances. Indeed, what Kissinger has carried out during his career has been the very opposite of rational Realpolitik restraint. It’s been an increasingly pathological hypernationalistic strong-arm tactic that appears to be on the delusions of the PNAC and has more in common with the irrational aggression of Germany in the two world wars than with Realpolitik.
As for this business of securing America’s future by seizing Arab oil — aside from the fact that it’s the behavior of gangsters, which apparently doesn’t matter to the Bush cronies — it seems to me these Nimrods might do well to heed the free market they’re always blathering about. Just negotiate with the rightful owners of the resources for the going rate on the product. And start to develop the famous alternative energy sources. It would have been a helluva lot cheaper in oil, blood, and treasure, and we wouldn’t be destroying our country in the process.
Delia,
Bismarck had kittens when the German Consul in Samoa damn near started a war with the U.S. over the islands in 1889. A hurricane swept in and destroyed the three German and three U.S. warships that were facing off against each other. Going to war over “a speck in the Pacific Ocean” was something undreamt of in Bismarck’s realpolitic. He quickly ordered the status quo restored and the war clouds dissipated.
[...] by Charles on September 28th, 2007 Ray McGovern got in some good lines in a very good post on the role of oil in conflict in the Middle [...]
It could only be about oil. To posture otherwise is to insult our intelligence.
We certainly didn’t need sand, did we?
I recently reread Dreadnought , a scholarly work about the battleship-building race between Germany and England in the run-up to World War I.
If Fisher and Churchill hadn’t been so desperate for larger guns aboard ship, necessitating the change from coal to oil for propulsion, it might be a different world.
“It could only be about oil.”
It’s about something much bigger, and more sinister, than oil.
“We certainly didn’t need sand, did we?”
To the extent that it IS about oil, it is not about obtaining oil for use by Americans - there are a lot easier ways to do that, like, for example, buying it - instead, it is about controlling the oil supply and distribution.
Then its about greed and profit and getting the control of this natural resource in the hands of as few people as possible.
Control the oil supply and and its distribution and
CONTROL THE WORLD.
Well, yes. They think it’s about controlling the supply and distribution. But when it comes right down to it, it’s still utterly irrational and they’d be much better off letting this wonderful free market take care of things. I read somewhere that the Big Oil Companies were in fact not too pleased with these neocon fever dreams of selling off the Iraqi oil fields in competitive bids and were much more comfortable dealing with an entity like OPEC which they regard as rational and businesslike.
The Iraq war, and their further projected wars are not rational. They may be about oil; they may be about protecting Israel, but they are all insane. Let me pursue the Bismarck and Germany narrative a little further. After he departed the scene in about 1890, German foreign policy drifted further from rationality and deeper into dangerous waters, as Fred C. Dobbs reference to Dreadnought and the pre-WWI arms race indicates. But by that time there was a real crackpot theory that had taken over the far reaches of German foreign policy that held that Germany had a destiny to expand to the East, i.e., into Russia, to take it over and make it German for an expanding population. To my mind, this is roughly analogous to the nutcases at the PNAC who have been advocating that the US has a destiny to take over the Middle East and run it for its own ends. It took two world wars and a total of thirty years for the first crackpot vision to bring utter ruin, depravity, and devastation to Germany, but I’m betting the neocons can manage to wreck the US in less time than that. Of course Germany took much of the world along with it, and of course, the danger is that we will, too. The problem is, that once these sorts of characters get well ensconced, it’s very problematic to know how to deal with them.
Delia, these people want to control the oil supply and distribution because that is one of the means by which they see the United States as achieving unchallengeable world domination. Letting the “wonderful free market take care of things” is exactly what they DON’T want because it will not get them what they are after.
The are not INTERESTED in what is rational. Megalomaniacs never are.
“Germany took much of the world along with it, and of course, the danger is that we will, too.”
Don’t look now, but you already have. And mark my words, there is simply no way the Democrats are going to let go of Iraq once they get it in their hot little hands. Just as Vietnam got passed from Democrat to Republican to Democrat to Republican, so Iraq will get passed from one to the other with each wreaking more death and destruction and committing more plunder than the one before until finally something happens to force whoever is president at the time to abandon the project. And when that happens they will get out so quickly if you blink you will miss it. All that blather about how it is going to take years or decades or centuries to get out will be shown for the lie that it is.
Shirin, My words about the “wonderful free market” were written with a certain level of irony. I know damn well the level of damage we’re already doing and it leaves me in despair. I use irony as a rhetorical tool in dealing with reality.
The fact is, the current regime’s policy makes no rational sense on ANY level, not even the most primitive (and criminal) one of grabbing the most stuff for our side. It is clinically, systemically, criminally insane, just as imperial Germany’s drive to the east was insane. It will end in catastrophic ruin for America. Very few people see this yet. As you say, most of them are still preoccupied with whatever — video games or American Idol, I guess.
We’re not going to be holding on to a thing
The American government has come to resemble the characters in The Wizard of Oz. We have the Cowardly Congress, a president without a brain, and a foreign-policy establishment without a heart
We are like all empires in their final stages. We have grown soft. We like our comforts. We don’t wish to be inconvenienced. We like poor Mexicans to do our stoop work and poor Americans to do our fighting, provided they do it far away so we won’t be disturbed by explosions and screams. We enjoy our decadence, and there are always people in the media who can rationalize anything, no matter how sick and revolting it is.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese399.html
Actually, I thought that it was also about letting other oil-producing states know that shifting their price structure from US dollars to Euros, as Saddam and, SURPRISE!, Iran have done might be Hazardous to their Health and/or territorial integrity.
When the US dollar ceases to be the reserve currency of choice, the US becomes a vast, over-extended version of Belgium, but without the great diversity of beer.
No, but maybe its worth the few hours a week it takes to keep up a home supply of biofuels. In fact, since technology can now convert animal wastes onto energy, you could say it’s worth a few hours a week of shoveling sh*t.
Instead this idiot thinks that SEVERAL human sacrifices a week to the Oil God is the right thing to do???
It just shows how many people have fallen victim to the Neocon Psy-Ops War on our own people.
We need a massive anti-brainwashing and de-conditioning effort for our people.
It appears to be about the oil, but not really about controlling the oil distribution. As Delia says, the Big Oil companies had that already, at least in the west. But the chaos and disruption of the oil distribution has meant increased revenue.
I think their goal was chaos, not control. From chaos in the rest of the world, they can engender fear at home, making it easier for them to take firmer control of our government.
Luke, that seems to make sense. Something about it bothers me though… there would be many easier and faster ways to gain control of the government. I guess after 911, many have let fear control their actions, esp in areas of security, but why the war, when there are so many other, easier ways to create the kind of chaos you speak of?
It actually does not make sense to me at all. And it does not coincide either with the neocon agenda, or with the manner in which the whole thing was planned and executed (the fact that it failed does not mean it was not planned - it was, in fact, very much planned. They just forgot to consider that the Iraqis might not go along with it).
The popular notion that they planned to create chaos and that it was about increased oil revenue, and scaring Americans simply does not fit the facts and the realities of how they conducted themselves.
Why are they preparing for endless war, with an election just a year away? Because they have figured out how to steal our vote. And while the Dems bemoan the war and wring their hands over how to stop it - the easiest way - reclaiming our vote - has dropped off the radar.
Rush Holt’s bill, HR 811, which would provide mandatory paper ballots, which would make the printed paper receipt from machines the official ballot in any audit or recount, and which mandates an audit that would give 99% certainty of whether the outcome was honest in all but the closest of races, has been suppressed by the rules committee and is not being sent to the floor for a vote.
Mission accomplished, if you’re a warmonger.
This worries me, too. I think the recent elections have been much less close than the records have shown, but they’ve all been tampered with. Greg Palast thought the 2006 election was fixed, but it wasn’t fixed enough. The repugs underestimated the depth of the anger in the country and they lost control. There’s been speculation that’s why George Allen didn’t contest his loss in Virginia; he didn’t want details coming up. But they won’t make that mistake again.
BIG PICTURE !!
I for one , think they’d ( the Bushies) be perfectly happy in shutting down the oil flow out of Iran and Iraq , all-together. Example: There seems to be “no rush” in getting Iraq back on-line. Every time I hear a status report on this , there seems to be “much less” oil coming out of Iraq than before the war and no great push to correct the situation. Thats not to say the Texans wouldn’t be more than glad to take possesion of any petroleum holdings they can get their hands on (legal ,or not).
I don’t think its as important to them , whether we have oil or not — as much as it is in “controlling the flow”. In a demented way , it would make sense that they know that the world-wide oil reserves are running low and as a means of maximizing their profits out of what is left , they create a “forced rationing” of what is left. That way , they can drag-out the inevitable over a longer period of time and at the same time , create bigger profit margins as a result of this “manipulated” supply and demand.
Just as with the previous “bogus” shortages in the 70’s & the last 7 years , created by big oil (known to all as , price-fixing) , this unfolding long-range scenario would further enable their ultimate goal of “more money for less oil”. Think about it , if you were a cold-hearted unscrupulous oil magnate (see; the Enron tapes) and think of the vital needs of your own countrymen and other innocent parties (survival) as an “opportunity” to take un-due advantage of them (with no mercy) , it might occur to you that all the elements listed above create a “win-win situation”. Hell , the fat bastard that runs Exxon , holds the public in “utter contempt” (a far cry from the 50’s “Service Station”). Its as basic as: $3.– for 1 gallon vs. $7.– for 1 gallon (current cost in Iceland). More than twice as much money for less than half as much oil. And all the while , they take the same “cut” (percentage) of profits , no matter the end cost and hardships created as a result (sometimes , the death of innocents). Ya’ these guys are a “real piece of work”. Real “loyal” to their own country and never mind “the difference between right and wrong” (that would make them “sociopaths” , right ?).
Now WHO was it that is supposed to be “the enemy” here ??
This is about something much more sinister than merely increasing the oil companies’ profits.
BIG PICTURE (further thoughts , not that anybody cares)
It also occurs to me that , given that those same unscrupulous oil magnates are allowed to maintain a “constant” percentage of the profits , no matter how bad off the situation is (a proven FACT) , it follows that they would also (unjustly) profit from any and all disruptions in the flow of oil (and the subsequent price hikes).
The cold , hard fact is that , they have an interest (demented , as it may be) in “seeing to it” that their emissaries (Cheney & Co.) “do their bidding” and create as much “turmoil” as possible in the Middle East (& step on anybody that gets in the way). “THEY PROFIT FROM WAR” (among other things). It wouldn’t surprise me at all if it turned out that these were the topics discussed by Cheney and the big oil reps. in their “secret” Whitehouse meeting (in 2001 , as I recall).
You know , we are in a LOT of trouble here folks. A lot more than the public chooses to admit. The Bush- Cheney- Big Oil- “fascist” state (per Wikipedia definition) is so thoroughly entrenched in Washington , that its hard to envision anything short of “__________________” (you fill-in the blank) , getting us back where we “used” to be (before Bush).
Makes you understand the (extremely important) reasoning behind the “Monopoly” , “Price Fixing” and “Conflict of Interest” laws. Some control over their “profit margins” in times of emergency and hardship would be in order here as well as , punishing them for “war profiteering”.
They have built-in interest in seeing to it that we are “ALWAYS AT WAR” , forever. By God , we have to make this STOP ( or as history has proven , somebody will stop it for us ).
Also heavily intertwined in all of this is the concept of the “Signing Statement”. As it is , it wouldn’t make any difference if all these problems were fixed with new laws (& enforcing existing laws) by the Legislator. Bush would just “sign” it away. Check “signing statement basis” at Wikipedia for the history and propriety of this , now abused , Presidential option. It seems that , the 140,000 member ABA as well as , even some Republican Senators (Spector etc.) “strongly” feel this option is contrary to the principles of “law” itself (its nowhere to be found in the Constitution) and should be banished.
This Presidency has shown us all how very “fragile” , Democracy really is — the weaknesses are being exploited to never before envisioned heights — loop holes are the word of the day — our President and his hence-mouth Cheney have appointed themselves as KING (or Emporer , like Napolean) . And , the only way this will EVER be fixed is “IF” a consciencous and “truly” patriotic soul is elected to the Presidency and “voluntarily” allows the Congress to Amend the Constitution to correct these injustices. I have a hard time seeing that “ever” happening ———- the Pandora’s Box effect !!
Too bad — Democracy was a good idea — “WHILE IT LASTED”. We are all witness to its demise. Thankyou for that , “Red States”.
Once again, while increased profits for the oil companies are certainly a nice side effect, that is not what is driving the Bush administration’s Middle East program. It is something far more sinister and dangerous and much, much more far reaching than a mere profit motive on the part of oil companies.
OK, I’ll bite: what IS it about?
There are certain drives which I assume, as an American. These include (but are not limited to):
Extension of American hegemony;
Maintenance of extra-continental sources of supply of extracted resources;
Overwhelming need to stick our noses in others’ affairs;
Blind defense of Israel, irrespective of its actions and/or their motivation;
Empire maintenance.
There are several things I omitted, such as being sure that whoever wins in the Caliph Derby is beholden to the USA, and the desire to make certain that all other consumers of petroproducts pay the same price we do.*
What did I miss?
* Mentioning and delinating these drives should not be considered an endorsement or condemnation of them. After all, even your sainted Grandmother has bad breath now and then.
Fred, are you familiar with PNAC, and the PNAC doctrine? That spells it out very well. Iraq was phase I.
AH, OK. Their Manifesto is on my hard drive under, “Ein Reich, Ein Volk.” I was hoping for something a little more arcane and/or exotic than that…as if PNAC’ery weren’t insidious enough.
You see, I take it as a matter of faith that the Republican agenda (”Republican” herein being defined as the US political party of those who want a return to pre-Gilded Age times) is to do away with every reform of the US system of government since Theodore Roosevelt; to reduce the Working Man to a state of peonage that would make an 1880 coal miner’s life seem utopian; to destroy the judicial system of the US as a means of redress of grievances of the citizenry; and to, generally, show us un-washed working types just who Runs The Show.
Their Agenda assumes a zero-sum game: they cannot be happy unless we are miserable. They cannot succeed individually unless we fail individually.
The PNAC’ers have found the Republican party to be the perfect vehicle to advance this agenda.
What the PNAC folk fail to understand is a simple fact of biology, to wit: a successful parasite does not destroy its host organism.
So long as the body politic slumbers, lulled with visions of turbo-charging AND intercooling in their next sled, scoring a great deal on a Sub-Zero for their drywall Fuck Box in the ‘Burbs and concerns itself with the gamboling of heiresses, athletes and entertainers who, at large with their dogs and drugs in their Maybachs, would not swerve to avoid running down a small child, the PNAC’ers will likely prevail.
And, since they are so determined to trash their own citizens, it’s not hard to envision them as self-appointed Masters of the Universe, reducing the rest of the planet to serfdom.
Particularly the denizens of places where the taxes are low, the land is cheap, there’s no snow and the Locals Know Their Place.
But, that’s just me. Mao said that all political power comes from the end of a gun. I think that political reform in this country should come at the end of a rope. No blindfold, no cigarette.
This is an unfortunate delusion caused, primarily, by half a century’s belief in the tenets of that, “…goddamned piece of paper…” with which our Most Glorious Decider cleans his fundament.
That old Oded Yinon plan about remaking the Middle East is at work. Iraq was the first step.
http://www.counterpunch.org/heard04252006.html
Shirin writes: This is about something much more sinister than merely increasing the oil companies’ profits.
Well, I concluded some time ago that the “collateral damage” wasn’t collateral damage; it was the whole point.
For Dubya, thinking is work, and having to think about different places and different ideas and different peoples makes him unhappy, so his middle east foreign policy seems to be simply “Kiil ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out.”
More on that old plan that Joe Biden is pretending is his
An old Zionist dream: the partition of Iraq
By Gabriele Zamparini
Finally the Imperial Senate calls for Iraq’s partition.
US lawmakers voted Wednesday to split Iraq into a loose federation of sectarian-based regions and urged President George W Bush to press Iraqi leaders to agree.
The proposal came from Senator Joseph Biden, the smart-ass who heads the chamber’s foreign relations committee and is running for the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nomination.
A few months ago, Sen. Biden, interviewed by Shalom TV, an American mainstream Jewish cable television network, called Israel “the single greatest strength America has in the Middle East”. “I am a Zionist,” stated Senator Biden. “You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist.”
We know the Israel Lobby is not a very convincing thesis, at least for Noam Chomsky. So, let’s talk about coincidences.
In 1982, Israel Shahak, a professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and chairman of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights, wrote:
The idea that all the Arab states should be broken down, by Israel, into small units, occurs again and again in Israeli strategic thinking. For example, Ze’ev Schiff, the military correspondent of Ha’aretz (and probably the most knowledgeable in Israel, on this topic) writes about the “best” that can happen for Israeli interests in Iraq: “The dissolution of Iraq into a Shi’ite state, a Sunni state and the separation of the Kurdish part” (Ha’aretz 6/2/1982). Actually, this aspect of the plan is very old.
Israel Shahak’s The Zionist Plan for the Middle East is based on Oded Yinon’s A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties, an essay originally appeared in Hebrew in KIVUNIM (Directions), A Journal for Judaism and Zionism; Issue No, 14–Winter, 5742, February 1982, Editor: Yoram Beck. Editorial Committee: Eli Eyal, Yoram Beck, Amnon Hadari, Yohanan Manor, Elieser Schweid. Published by the Department of Publicity/The World Zionist Organization, Jerusalem.
Here two passages from Oded Yinon’s A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties:
(…) Iraq is, once again, no different in essence from its neighbors, although its majority is Shi’ite and the ruling minority Sunni. Sixty-five percent of the population has no say in politics, in which an elite of 20 percent holds the power. In addition there is a large Kurdish minority in the north, and if it weren’t for the strength of the ruling regime, the army and the oil revenues, Iraq’s future state would be no different than that of Lebanon in the past or of Syria today. The seeds of inner conflict and civil war are apparent today already, especially after the rise of Khomeini to power in Iran, a leader whom the Shi’ites in Iraq view as their natural leader. (…)
(…) Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel’s targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. An Iraqi-Iranian war will tear Iraq apart and cause its downfall at home even before it is able to organize a struggle on a wide front against us. Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon. In Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and Shi’ite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north. It is possible that the present Iranian-Iraqi confrontation will deepen this polarization (…)
Just coincidences, of course…
http://www.thecatsdream.com/blog/2007/09/old-zionist-dream-partition-of-iraq.htm
Who Is Responsible For or Enforce The Law…
In any state, a government has three functions. These are the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary….
I’ve been thinking a lot about Richard Perle.
Something about Perle, Toucan Sam (he of fruit loops), the abilty to smell the flavor of fruit, wherever it goes.
And no, it has NOTHING to do with Keith Haring.