Israel's Place in the US Empire

The following AFP report turned up in today's Australian:

"US and Israeli intelligence services collaborated to develop a computer worm to sabotage Iran's nuclear efforts. Western intelligence and military experts said Israel had tested the effectiveness of the Stuxnet computer worm, which reportedly shut down a fifth of Iran's nuclear centrifuges in November in a bid to delay its ability to make nuclear weapons. The testing took place at Israel's heavily-guarded Dimona complex in the Negev desert, which houses the Middle East's sole - but undeclared - nuclear weapons arsenal, The New York Times reported yesterday. The push to create the Stuxnet worm was a US-Israeli project with the help, knowingly or not, of Britain and Germany." (Israel, US behind tech attack)

Another example of why, in relation to the Middle East, I often refer to USrael, Siamese twins joined at the hip. This is consistent with the imperial framework conceived by James Petras, referred to in my previous post.

In Petras' schema of the "Hierarchy of Empire" - A. Central Imperial Powers (CIP); B. Newly Emerging Imperial Powers (NEIP); C. Semi-Autonomous Client Regimes (SACR); D. Client Collaborator Regimes (CCR) - Israel is something of an "anomaly":

"Israel is clearly a colonialist power, with the fourth or fifth biggest nuclear arsenal, and the fouth biggest arms exporter in the world. Its population, territorial spread and economy, however, are puny in comparison with the imperial and newly emerging imperial powers. Despite these limitations Israel exercises supreme power in influencing the direction of US war policy in the Middle East via a powerful internal Zionist political apparatus, which permeates the state, the mass media, elite economic sectors and civil society. Through Israel's direct political influence in making US foreign policy, as well as through its overseas military collaboration with dictatorial imperial client regimes, Israel can be considered part of the imperial power configuration despite its demographic constraints, its near universal pariah diplomatic status, and its externally sustained economy." (Rulers & Ruled in the US Empire: Bankers, Zionists, Militants, 2007, p 64)

Implicit in USrael's development of the anti-Iranian Stuxnet worm is the complete subordination within the imperial system of the two CIP states mentioned, Britain and Germany (as well as those not mentioned), to the US's Israeli twin, a bizarre state of affairs surely without parallel in history.