I am fortunate enough to live in a place where the local paper still prides itself on being a public forum. Every three months, I'm allowed 600 words to say whatever I think is most important for readers to understand.
Keeping in mind the dismal state of American foreign policy literature, I try to stretch the reader as far as possible in that arena. I hope my efforts inspire others to do the same.
This is my most recent submission. It is my second guest column on the nature of the US Empire. Others will follow.
If you wonder why Israel attacked Iran now, with an overextended army tied down in Palestine, Lebanon and Syria, congratulations on refusing to be a passive consumer of what passes for American reporting on foreign affairs.
Bombing Iran was not about fictitious weapons of mass destruction any more than was the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. In a 2012 UN speech, Netanyahu insisted that Iran was already on the verge of having a nuclear weapon. Cheney made a similar claim in 2007 that was debunked by the Intelligence community. This saved the US from a disastrous military confrontation with Iran that would be much worse if attempted today.
National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard stated there is still no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Under pressure from the Israeli lobby and powerful neocons like Israel-first campaign donor Miriam Adelson, President Trump dismissed her assessment and attacked anyway, placing 40,000 American service members at risk of Iranian retaliation.
As many predicted, the attack failed to eliminate the "threat" despite initial claims of success. Now, pressure is mounting for deeper US military involvement in Israel's latest war of choice. Israel knows that without such help, it cannot complete its objective of eliminating the last obstacle to regional dominance, a plan 40 years in the making.
In 1982, Israel publicly debated a strategy to fragment any neighboring country that might oppose its expansion, rendering it too weak to resist Israeli aggression. The "Oded Yinon plan" has been refined over the years but still forms the basis for current US plans for Israel to dominate the region. That is why the US has enabled it to flout international law with impunity since the Nakba in 1948, as the US itself has done in the region.
Since 9/11, Lebanon, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Sudan, Somalia and Iran have been targeted by the US and Israel. Former NATO commander Wesley Clark has publicly stated that within two weeks of 9/11, he learned of plans to undermine all seven countries. Obviously, these plans had been drawn up earlier. Since then, five of the seven have effectively been partitioned, as envisioned by Yinon. Iraq and Libya were not failures. They accomplished their actual objectives.
The purpose of destabilizing these countries is to control this fossil fuel-rich region by militarily dominating the area through Israel. The ultimate prize in this game of Risk is US control of the entire Eurasian land mass, long regarded as the key to global domination. While Netanyahu and other political and military leaders are directly responsible for their genocidal actions and war crimes throughout the region, the US shares the blame.
Like all empires, the American one will fall. The Wall Street denizens whose profits determine "American interests" have hollowed out the real economy in creating an economic system dependent on endless war. An alternative system is being created by Russia, China and others who are not going to continue to tolerate the economic and military threats of an increasingly belligerent US Empire.
The fact that the US has cut off access to critical weapons needed to defend Ukraine so that it can provide them to Israel reveals its weakness. Meanwhile, China has declared that it cannot accept allowing Russia to lose in Ukraine. It knows that if it does, the empire will turn its attention to it. American military and political officials have publicly stated that the US will go to war with China as soon as 2030.
If President Trump really wants to leave a legacy as a peace President, let him start by standing up to Israel and its lobby.
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