That Guy on the Bridge

Sydney is getting weirder by the day:

"A protester is facing jail time and a fine of more than $22,000 after allegedly climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge... The 33-year-old allegedly... hung the US, Iranian, Israeli and Australian flags off the bridge... It is understood the man is part of the Restart group fighting for regime change in Iran... Some 15 environmental activists were charged in May after the group protested on the harbour bridge to demand action on climate change." (Harbour protester faces jail, Emily Ritchie, The Australian, 8/7/19)

"A man who scaled the Sydney Harbour Bridge and unfurled a number of flags to protest against the 'oppressive Iranian regime' has avoided jail... The court heard that [Naghi] Pirzadeh, an Iranian national, was forced to flee his homeland after he stood up to the 'oppressive regime' and was beaten as a result.." (Iranian protester pleads guilty to Harbour bridge climb, avoids jail, smh.com.au, 8/7/19)

Interesting how this guy got off so lightly compared to those environmental activists cited in Richie's report. My initial thought was that this was a Mujahidin Khalq stunt connected to Reza Pahlavi, son of the deceased Shah of Iran (See my 28/3/18 post Bolton Out of the Blue), but, on closer examination of Restart, you'll find a Daily Beast Vendetta for ReStart tweet of 12/9/18 which reads as follows:

"Assuming the role of leader, Hosseini often issues instructions to his supporters via the Restart channel and announced that he wants to revive the empire of Cyrus the Great or create a Sufi empire." You'll see Hosseini in slick, over-the-top videos wearing a swanky bright blue jacket, accompanied by the image of a standing lion holding aloft a slightly curved sword with the the word restart written in Iranian script to its left, which leads me to suspect that what we have here is a member of monarchist group harking back to the dictatorial Shah of Iran.

Like I said, weirder by the day.

Spotlighting Netanyahu's Role in the US War on Iran

The following article (If the US goes to war with Iran, Netanyahu will be the prime suspect, Chemi Shalev, Haaretz, 16/5/19), is of considerable interest when we consider that Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister at the time of the 2003 Iraq War, felt obliged to keep as low a profile as possible with respect to Israel's crucial role as the key detonator of the war. Sharon relied instead on his US Ziocon assets and the Israel lobby to steer the Bush administration in the direction he wanted, that of regime change and the balkanisation of Iraq, and to utililise the US military, as opposed to the Israeli, to bring this about.

Since that time, it should be clear to all and sundry that the current Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has ditched the pretense of Israel as an innocent bystander in matters of regional regime change and balkanisation, and come out, time and again, publicly swinging in favour of a war with Iran. As Shalev points out, if and when the US takes on Iran militarily, there'll be no hiding the key role of Netanyahu's Israel in initiating the move to Iraq Iran. (Note that I have somewhat truncated Shalev's essay in order to highlight his thesis):

"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the only world leader to openly express support for the escalating US campaign against Iran, but his statement is an exception to the general Israeli rule... The attempt to distance itself from an American military operation in the Middle East, as if Israel were merely a fan sitting in the bleachers cheering its favorite team, inevitably sparks analogies to Yitzhak Shamir's policy of restraint in the 1991 Gulf War and Ariel Sharon's similar attitude during the 2003 war in Iraq... And while Israel did not come under direct attack in the 2003 Iraq War, it was nonetheless compelled to defend itself against claims, which proliferated as the war progressed, that it had pushed President George W. Bush to decide on the attack in the first place. In the lead up to that ill-fated war, Netanyahu was once again one of a handful of prominent Israelis who preferred to break the silence. In public testimony before the Government Reform Committee of the House of Representatives in 2002, Netanyahu assured American lawmakers that Saddam either had nuclear weapons or was on the verge of acquiring them... Deposing Saddam, Netanyahu promised, would do wonders for the Middle East as a whole...

"But even without his damning testimony from the past... if war breaks out between the US and Iran, he will be named as the prime suspect as far as its opponents are concerned. Netanyahu... persuaded Donald Trump to abandon Barack Obama's nuclear deal with Iran. Netanyahu convinced Trump that a combination of crippling economic sanctions and a credible military threat will force Tehran to beg for a new and improved nuclear deal, which will include its malevolent regional activities... Netanyahu become a one-man cheerleading squad for Trump's latest moves.

"But while the campaign to blame Israel for the Iraq War was limited to a relatively small clique of its most vociferous critics - the most prominent of which were Professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer in their book about the Israel lobby - conflagration with Iran would dramatically expand the circle of Israel-accusers... It's situation today is substantially worse. After burning his bridges with American liberals, including most Jews... many Democrats are far more likely to point fingers at Netanyahu the moment the first American soldier is killed... Netanyahu believes that the Iranian leadership, like much of the Arab, understands only force. He is convinced that the intense economic pressure coupled with the nightmarish specter of American bombers laying waste to their country will compel Tehran to come back to the negotiating table on all fours in order to carve out the fabled 'better agreement' that both Trump and Netanyahu claim, with no evidence, is eminently achievable... [But] Iran does not view itself as a weak and vulnerable state that has no choice but to capitulate to US ultimatums, but as an equal rival determined to foil Trump or, at worst, survive him...

"Small wonder that in the past 48 hours, White House officials have started to brief US reporters that Trump is less happy with the bellicose approach of his National Security adviser John Bolton, known as one of Israel's closest confidantes in Washington. The catalyst for Trump's reservations was the leaked story of a Pentagon paper prepared for Bolton that envisaged sending 120,000 US troops to fight against the Iranians. Trump boasted that if it came to open conflict, the size of the US force would be much larger, but distanced himself from what critics describe as the warmongering winds emanating from Bolton's office. Experienced Washington observers claim that, based on previous patterns, Trump will soon start criticizing Bolton in public and, after a short hiatus, boot him out of the White House as well... Netanyahu may have to face the possibility that his all-in bet on Trump has failed to produce the dividends he sought and that the anti-Iran strategy built on his beautiful friendship with the US president could be on the verge of collapse.

"The remaining options are both unpalatable for Netanyahu. The first is that Iran will resist recently fortified economics sanctions and continue to incrementally abandon its commitments under the 2015 nuclear accord, without risking any retaliation from the countries that still adhere to it. The second is a military fare-up between Iran and the US, which or may not cripple Tehran's nuclear infrastructure but is certain to inflict human suffering, financial upheaval, escalating internal strife in Washington and the certainty that Netanyahu will be held responsible for them all. Worse, Trump may eventually reach the same conclusion."

A Thing Easily Moved

What was it Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu was caught on videotape saying back in 2001?: "I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction."

For example:

"Unusually specific intelligence reports about Iranian threats to US forces in the Middle East triggered a request by the military for additional assistance as a deterrent against possible aggression, Pentagon officials said yesterday. That threat prompted the Trump administration to deploy the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier and its strike group, along with several bombers, to bolster forces in the region." (Spies expose Iranian 'attack plot', The Wall Street Journal/AFP, The Australian, 8/5/19)

Cue Israel:

"News site Axios said [US National Security Adviser John] Bolton's warning came after Israel which has pushed to isolate Iran, passed on intelligence about a possible plot by Tehran 'against a US target in the Gulf or US allies like Saudi Arabia or the UAE'." (ibid)

Bolton & Friends Trump Trump

In case you are under the illusion that US presidents alone call the shots when it comes to US foreign policy, check this out:

"President Donald Trump's national security adviser, John Bolton, has rolled back Trump's decision to rapidly withdraw from Syria, laying out conditions for a pullout that could leave US forces there for months or even years. Bolton, making a visit to Israel said on Sunday that US forces would remain in Syria until the last remnants of Islamic State were defeated and Turkey guaranteed it would not strike Kurdish forces allied to the United States. He and other top White House advisers have led a behind-the-scenes effort to slow Trump's order and reassure allies, including Israel." (Trump's Syria pull-out on hold, David Sanger, The New York Times/Sydney Morning Herald, 8/1/19)

The US foreign policy establishment, it seems, has reminded Trump who the real target of the US war machine is - not Islamic State, but Syria (and Iran).

In fact, far from being an enemy of the US, Islamic State (as well as al-Qaida's Syrian franchise, the Nusra Front), should properly be seen as a component part of Washington's strategy to wear down the Syrian Arab Army as a prelude to the eventual overthrow of the Ba'athists in Damascus. As Stephen Gowans puts it:

"That Washington regarded the Nusra Front in a different light than Islamic State, was evidenced, in the first instance, in the reality that CIA-armed and trained rebels were embedded with al-Nusra, but not, it seemed, with Islamic State. One could search far and wide through press reports for mention of insurgents on the Western payroll who were cooperating with the Islamic State and turn up nothing. In contrast, references to US-backed rebels operating conjointly with al-Nusra were legion. Islamic State appeared to be a true anathema as far as Washington was concerned, while it was clear that US officials regarded al-Qaeda's official affiliate in Syria on altogether different terms. This became clear when Russia entered the fray in Syria with the stated goal of destroying terrorist groups, and Washington acted as if it had forgotten that it had tarred Jabhat al-Nusra with the terrorist brush. Russia can't be targeting terrorists, Washington complained. If that were its true goal, it would only be attacking Islamic State. It seemed that, unofficially at least, the United States preferred that Jabhat al-Nusra be viewed as part of the agglomeration of 'moderate' rebel groups. So it is that when the US Director of Intelligence James Clapper was asked exactly who the much-talked-about moderates were, he replied: 'Moderate these days is increasingly becoming anyone who's not affiliated with Islamic State.' Hence, as far as Washington was concerned, every non-Islamic State armed group was moderate, including al-Nusra, even though the al-Qaeda affiliate had been designated a terrorist organization by the United States itself, and despite the fact that it was part of an organization - indeed, the largest part - which attacked New York and Washington on September 11, 2001.

"The reason for separating Islamic State from the Islamist insurgency against the Syrian Ba'athists, and regarding it as immoderate, was that, unlike al-Nusra and the al-Qaeda affiliate's CIA-armed auxiliaries, Islamic State aspired to replace more governments than Washington cared to see replaced. The US government was willing to work with any group which shared its goal of de-Ba'athifying Syria, as long as it limited its aims to that end. But it was not willing to work with an organization which also wanted to oust the government in Baghdad - which Washington had installed - or the monarchy in Riyadh, which Islamic State condemned as un-Islamic, but which Washington considered an important ally.

"What recommended Jabhat al-Nusra to Washington was that it was a useful instrument in the campaign to efface Arab nationalist ideology from the Syrian state. The US strategy was to afford the al-Nusra coalition enough support for it to wear down the Syrian government sufficiently enough that the Ba'athists would acquiesce to a political transition, but never so much support that they would be forced to yield power to the Islamists. In other words, Washington had no intention of seeing either of the participants in the decades-long battle between secular Arab nationalism and Sunni political Islam prevail. Washington would let the two sides bleed each other dry, and when they were exhausted, interpose itself with a 'compromise' candidate who would cater to US interests.

"Washington played a similar game with Islamic State, though not by calibrating its level of support, which it wasn't providing anyway, but by calibrating its military campaign against the group. The Pentagon struck Islamic State hard in Iraq, but barely at all in Syria. US airstrikes were concentrated in Iraq, reported The Wall Street Journal, because 'in Syria, US strikes against the Islamic State would inadvertently help the regime of President Bashar al-Assad militarily.' Likewise, France 'refrained from bombing the group in Syria for fear of bolstering' the Syrian government. The British, too, focused their air war overwhelmingly on Islamic State targets in Iraq, conducting less than 10% of their airstrikes on the Islamist organization's positions in Syria. The New York Times reported that 'United States-led airstrikes in Syria... largely focused on areas far outside government control, to avoid... aiding a leader whose ouster President Obama has called for.' Hence, US-coalition 'airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria... were so limited as to make it little more than a symbolic gesture.' Robert Fisk summed up the phony war against Islamic State in Syria with a sarcastic quip: 'And so we went to war against Isis in Syria - unless, of course, Isis was attacking Assad's regime, in which case we did nothing at all'." (Washington's Long War on Syria, 2017, pp 150-52)

Trump Whisperers

Just to revisit the issue of rising petrol prices:

"The risk of a global energy shock is rising rapidly as the looming US sanctions on Iran and a rising US dollar combine to export layers of stress to the rest of the world. While the renewed US sanctions don't officially kick in until early next month they are already having a significant effect as Iran's customers scramble to find different sources of supply. Iranian oil production is falling quite rapidly... Trump, who sometimes appears to have trouble seeing the relationship between cause (his sanctions) and effect (the soaring oil prices) has accused OPEC of 'ripping off' the the rest of the world." (Rising oil prices, $US put pressure on energy costs, Stephen Bartholomeusz, Sydney Morning Herald, 4/10/18)

There is, of course, more to this msm story than meets the eye. But don't expect it to be spelt out in the corporate media. Sure, you'll hear some gibberish on the matter from Trump from time to time, but don't be deceived. It's those who are whispering in his ear that matter here, in particular US national security adviser John Bolton and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.

Bolton is a neocon - more accurately Ziocon - from the Bush era, and a long-time advocate for regime change in the Middle East, including, of course, Iraq. He has a record, like his fellow Ziocons, who became an integral part of the Bush administration, of wanting to topple Middle East governments opposed to Israel, and reconfigure the Middle East in its interests, stretching back to his association with neocon think tank the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) in the 90s. Revealingly, in 2005, Bolton was awarded the Zionist Organisation of America's Defender of Israel award.

Netanyahu's obsession with Iran as a so-called existential threat to Israel also goes back decades. One only has to observe his theatrical sabre-rattling directed against Iran in the UNGA and other international fora, not to mention his unprecedented hold (through the Israel lobby) over both houses of the US Congress and his easy access to the president himself.

If you really want to understand why you're paying more for your petrol, mark these words of former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter from his 2006 book, Target Iran. (p 208):

"The conflict currently underway between the US and Iran is, first and foremost, a conflict born in Israel. It is based upon an Israeli contention that Iran poses a threat to Israel, and defined by Israeli assertions that Iran possesses a nuclear weapons program. None of this has been shown to be true, and indeed much of the allegations made by Israel against Iran have been clearly demonstrated as being false. And yet the US continues to trumpet the Israeli claims, and no individual more loudly than the US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton."

How a Hot War With Iran Might Look

Former UN weapons inspector in Iraq, Scott Ritter, anticipates how Iran might respond to ongoing USraeli* aggression:

"Iran learned the lessons of Hezbollah's ongoing conflict with Israel, and in particular that of the 2006 war, all too well. To win the war, Hezbollah did not need to defeat Israel, it had only to make sure Israel did not defeat it. This is an ambition Iran readily aspires to - it can shut down the Strait of Hormuz, cripple the global economy and ride out any American military response. In the end, the United States will succumb to international pressure and search for a negotiated settlement, and Iran will emerge victorious simply because it survived. Iran would accept this outcome rather than surrender its hard-won diplomatic achievement regarding the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)." From Three reasons why 'fire & fury won't work with Iran, truthdig.com, 3/8/18)

[*USraeli? Of course! Here's Ritter again, laying it on the line in his 2006 book Target Iran: "The conflict currently underway between the US and Iran is, first and foremost, a conflict born in Israel. It is based upon an Israeli contention that Iran poses a threat to Israel, and defined by Israeli assertions that Iran possesses a nuclear weapons program. None of this has been shown to be true, and indeed much of the allegations made by Israel against Iran have been clearly demonstrated as being false. And yet the US continues to trumpet the Israeli claims, and no individual more loudly than the US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton." (p 208)]

Don't Mention Israel

The Guardian 'explains' why Trump - who couldn't find Iran on a map of the world even if he wanted to wipe it off said map - wants the Iran nuclear deal scrapped:

"Trump believes the agreement is a bad deal, which falls short of addressing Iran's regional behaviour or its missile program. He is emboldened by a group of Iran hawks in his inner circle, such as the national security adviser, John Bolton, and the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo. Critics also say it is another example of Trump dismantling Barack Obama's legacy - the Iran deal was his signature foreign policy achievement." (The Iran deal explained: what is it and why does trump want to scrap it? Saeed Kamali Dehghan, 9/5/18)

"Trump believes..."? In Trump. Full stop. End of story.

Now note how coy the Guardian is on the subject of Bolton and Pompeo. "Iran hawks" doesn't begin to do justice to either.

I've already sketched the former's Zio-con affiliations (AEI/PNAC/JINSA/ZOA) in my 28/3/18 post Bolton Out of the Blue. But there's a further, loopier dimension to this rabid warmonger: "Bolton was shepherded into politics by Senator Jesse Helms, a passionate Christian Zionist and a hero of Jerry Fallwell's, who once admiringly described Bolton as 'the kind of man with whom I would want to stand at Armageddon...'" (Allies for Armageddon: The Rise of Christian Zionism, Victoria Clark, 2007, p 250)

If Bolton lies at the interface between the US Zio-cons and its Trumpist Christian Zionist hordes, Evangelical Islamophobe Pompeo is, it seems, the real Christian Zionist deal:

"The threat to America is from people who deeply believe that Islam is the way and the light and the only answer. They abhor Christians and will continue to press against us until we make sure that we pray and stand and fight and make sure we know that Jesus Christ as our savior is truly the only solution for the world." (Pompeo in 2014, quoted in Bolton & Pompeo comments on Islam alarm American Muslims, Tom Gjelten, npr.org, 6/4/18)

"This evil [Islam] is all around us. We will continue to fight these battles. It is a never-ending struggle... until the rapture." (Pompeo in 2015, speaking at the Summit Church's God & Country Rally.)

Certainly, Netanyahu is the only political leader anywhere on the planet in raptures over Trump's latest move, but, hey, don't expect the Guardian to factor that into its pathetic little explainer.

Jordan Peterson & the 13th Rule for Life

I read in Saturday's Sydney Morning Herald mag Good Weekend the feature - Toughen up, snowflake - on professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, Jordan Peterson.

Peterson, apparently, is the latest, trending intellectual guru with all the answers - 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote for Chaos - for the perplexed (and who isn't these days?), so before rushing out to buy his tome, I thought I'd subject him to the infallible guide for sorting the sheep from the goats, the Palestine/Israel litmus test.

It's really quite simple to administer. Just Google the guru's name + 'Palestine' or 'Israel' or both and check out the result.

So I did, and OMFGx10!

Google took me to a YouTube video, beneath which these words appeared:

"Professor of Psychology Jordan Peterson, Professor Salim Mansur, Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and Ezra Levant, co-founder of The Rebel Media give a spirited talk on the historical significance of the Balfour Declaration (May 18, 2017). The event was hosted by Canadians for Balfour 100, a project of the Speakers Action Group in cooperation with The Council for Muslims Facing Tomorrow and the Mozuud Freedom Foundation."

The Gatestone Institute? Chaired by John Bolton? That's right! As to the rest... well, life's too damn short.

I proceeded straight to JP's 16-minute contribution, but could barely manage 10. Here's why:

"Maybe even the enemies [ie Arabs] of the Jews [ie Israelis] respect them because they've done so well and it's just annoying."

"Israel's a shining beacon on the hill [in] a God-forsaken part of the world."

"You think about the common complaint that the Western colonialists, say, were responsible for the divisions of the Middle East. I mean, that's one way of looking at it. If you start history at 1917 after the allies won the First World War and took down the Ottoman Empire... you could say, well, England and France had the upper hand and they arbitrarily divided up the Middle East, but you could just as easily say that the Ottoman Empire collapsed and they had to do something with it. It wasn't obvious, and they gave some of it to the Arabs who really didn't have any land to begin with, or not any independent land that's for sure, because they were dominated by the Ottoman Empire, and they decided to give some of it to the Jews. Well, maybe that wasn't the world's best solution either way but they were maybe making the best of a bad lot."

According to our intellectual guru, empires (and presumably, countries too) just collapse - no push, no shove necessary. In the case of the Ottoman Empire, no foreign interference over decades, no foreign interventions, no final British push in Palestine. One minute it's standing, the next it's in a bloody great heap, just begging to be cleared away.

And guess which innocent bystanders just happen to be around at that precise point: 'Blimey, chaps, just look at that! How frightfully messy. OK, duty calls, roll up your sleeves and pitch in! And when we're done, we can give some of it to those Arab blighters, and some to the Jews.' To which latter suggestion said innocent bystanders exclaim as one: 'What a jolly good idea!'

Hey, Jordan, here's a 13th Rule for Life. Put it in your second edition: If you don't know anything about a subject, don't talk about it.

Here's One for You, Babe

"The White House was in touch with Jerusalem ahead of the overnight airstrikes on Syria. US President Donald Trump's new national security adviser, John Bolton, spoke in the last few days with his Israeli counterpart, Meir Ben Shabbat, to coordinate details of the US-led attack on Syria... " (Trump adviser Bolton coordinated US-led strike in Syria with Israel, Noa Landau, haaretz.com, 14/4/18)

Mugging Syria for Israel 2

Still don't get who's behind the 'get Syria' push? Still don't see who's had it in for Syria for decades. Clearly, you haven't done your homework. Specifically, by reading John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's seminal 2007 study, The Israel Lobby & US Foreign Policy:

"It is worth recalling that some important figures in the lobby had their sights on Syria well before the Twin Towers fell. Damascus was a prominent target in the 1996 'Clean Break' study written by a handful of neoconservatives for incoming Prime Minister Netanyahu.* In addition, Daniel Pipes and Ziad Abdelnour, the head of the US Committee for a Free Lebanon (USCFL), had coauthored a report in May 2000 calling for the United States to use military threats to force Syria to remove its troops from Lebanon, get rid of its WMD, and stop supporting terrorism. The USCFL is a close cousin to the lobby, numerous neoconservatives are among its major activists and supporters, including Elliott Abrams, Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, and David Wurmser. In fact, all of them signed the 2000 report, as did pro-Israel Congressman Eliot Engel (D-NY), another core USCFL supporter.

"This proposal, and others like it, did not gain much traction in Washington during the Clinton years, mainly because Israel was committed to achieving peace with Syria during that period. Apart from these hard-liners, most groups in the lobby had little incentive to challenge Clinton's policy toward Syria, because the president's approach tended to mirror Israel's. But when Sharon came to power in 2001, Israel's thinking about Syria changed dramatically. Reacting to this shift, a number of groups in the lobby began to press for a more aggressive policy toward Damascus.

"In the spring of 2002, when Iraq was becoming the main issue, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) was also promoting legislation to formally place Syria on the 'axis of evil' and Congressman Engel introduced the Syria Accountability Act in Congress. It threatened sanctions against Syria if it did not withdraw from Lebanon, give up its WMD, and stop supporting terrorism. The proposed act also called for Syria and Lebanon to take concrete steps to make peace with Israel. This legislation was strongly endorsed by a number of groups in the lobby - especially AIPAC - and 'framed,' according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 'by some of Israel's best friends in Congress.' JTA also reported that its 'most avid proponent in the administration' was Elliott Abrams, who, as we have seen, is in frequent contact with [Israeli PM Ehud] Olmert's office.

"The Bush administration opposed the Syria Accountability Act in the spring of 2002, in part because it feared that the legislation might undermine efforts to sell the Iraq war, and in part because it might lead to Damascus to stop providing Washington with useful intelligence about al Qaeda. Congress agreed to put the legislation on the back burner until matters were settled with Saddam.

"But as soon as Baghdad fell in April 2003, the lobby renewed its campaign against Syria. Encouraged by what then looked like a decisive victory in Iraq, some of Israel's backers were no longer interested in simply getting Syria to change its behavior. Instead, they now wanted to topple the regime itself. Paul Wolfowitz declared that 'there has got to be regime change in Syria,' and Richard Perle told a journalist that 'we could deliver a short message [to other hostile regimes in the Middle East]: 'You're next.' The hawkish Defense Policy Board, which was headed by Perle and whose members included Kenneth Adelman, Eliot Cohen, and James Woolsey, was also advocating a hard line against Syria.

"In addition to Abrams, Perle, and Wolfowitz, the other key insider pushing for regime change in Syria was Assistant Secretary of State (and later UN Ambassador) John Bolton. He had told Israeli leaders a month before the Iraq war that President Bush would deal with Syria, as well as Iran and North Korea, right after Saddam fell from power. Toward that end, Bolton reportedly prepared to tell Congress in mid-July that Syria's WMD programs had reached the point where they were a serious threat to stability in the Middle East and had to be dealt with sooner rather than later. The CIA and other government agencies objected, however, and claimed that Bolton was inflating the danger. Consequently, the administration did not allow Bolton to give his testimony on Syria at that time. Yet Bolton was not put off for long. He appeared before Congress in September 2003 and described Syria as a growing threat to US interests in the Middle East.

"In early April, WINEP [Washington Institute for Near East Policy] released a bipartisan report stating that Syria 'should not miss the message that countries that pursue Saddam's reckless, irresponsible and defiant behavior could end up sharing his fate.' On April 15, the Israeli-American journalist Yossi Klein Halevi wrote a piece in the Los Angeles Times titled 'Next, Turn the Screws on Syria,' while that same day neoconservative Frank Gaffney, the head of the Center for Security Policy, wrote in the Washington Times that the Bush administration should use 'whatever techniques are necessary - including military force - to effect behavior modification and/or regime change in Damascus.' The next day Zev Chafets, an Israeli-American journalist and former head of the Israeli government press office, wrote an article for the New York Daily News titled 'Terror-Friendly Syria Needs a Change, Too.' Not to be outdone, Lawrence Kaplan wrote in the New Republic on April 21 that Syrian leader Assad was a serious threat to America.

"The charges leveled against Syria were remarkably similar to those previously made against Saddam. Writing in National Review Online, conservative commentator Jed Babbin maintained that even though Assad's army was a paper tiger, he is still 'an exceedingly dangerous man.'  The basis for that claim was an 'Israeli source who had told Babbin that 'Israel's military and intelligence arms are convinced that Assad will take risks a prudent leader wouldn't' and therefore, 'Assad's unpredictability is itself a great danger.' Marc Ginsberg, former US ambassador to Morocco, warned of 'Syria's secret production of weapons of mass destruction and its weaponization of missile batteries and rockets.' And like their Israeli counterparts, American supporters of Israel suggested that Syria was hiding Saddam's WMD. 'It wouldn't surprise me,' Congressman Engel remarked, 'if those weapons of mass destruction that we cannot find in Iraq wound up and are today in Syria.'

"Back on Capitol Hill, Engel reintroduced the Syria Accountability Act on April 12. Three days later, Richard Perle called for Congress to pass it. But the Bush administration still had little enthusiasm for the legislation and was able to stall it again. In mid-August, Engel and a group of politicians and Jewish leaders from New York traveled to Israel and met for ninety minutes with Ariel Sharon in his Jerusalem office. The Israeli leader complained to his visitors that the United States was not putting enough pressure on Syria, although he specifically thanked Engel for sponsoring the Syria Accountability Act and made it clear that he strongly favored continued efforts to push the legislation on Capitol Hill. The following month, Engel, who announced he was 'fed up with the... administration's maneuvering on Syria,' began pushing the bill again. With AIPAC's full support, Engel began rounding up votes on Capitol Hill. Bush could no longer hold Congress back in the face of this full-court press from the lobby, and the anti-Syrian act passed by overwhelming margins (398-4 in the House; 89-4 in the Senate). Bush signed it into law on December 12, 2003." (pp 273-76)

[*See my posts Absent-Minded Professors Inadvertently Set Iraq Ablaze (22/12/08) & Netanyahu & the Cauldronization of Iraq & Syria (14/3/13).]

Bolton Out of the Blue

Bush-era Ziocon and former UN ambassador, John Bolton, is now Trump's National Security Adviser.

We already know what he wants to do:

"Just 8 months ago, at a Paris gathering, Bolton told members of the Iranian exile group, known as the Mujahedeen Khalq, MEK, or People's Mujahedeen, that the Trump administration should embrace their goal of immediate regime change in Iran and recognize their group as a 'viable' alternative. 'The outcome of the president's policy review should be to determine that the Ayatollah Khomeini's 1979 revolution will not last until its 40th birthday,' Bolton said. (The 40th of the Iranian revolution will be on February 11, 2019.) 'The declared policy of the United States should be the overthrow of the mullahs' regime in Tehran,' Bolton added. 'The behavior and the objectives of the regime are not going to change and, therefore, the only solution is to change the regime itself.' As the Iranian expatriate journalist Bahman Kalbasi noted, Bolton concluded his address to the exiles with a rousing promise: 'And that's why, before 2019, we here will celebrate in Tehran!'" (Here's John Bolton promising regime change in Iran by the end of 2018, Robert Mackey, theintercept.com, 24/3/18)

Now check out Bolton's cv to find out why he wants to do an Iraq on Iran:

"Before joining the Bush II administration, Bolton had been Senior Vice President for Public Policy Research at the American Enterprise Institute and a member of the Project for the New American Century and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). Bolton had been a regular contributor to William Kristol's Weekly Standard. In December 2005, after becoming US Ambassador to the United Nations, Bolton would be the keynote speaker at the right-wing Zionist Organization of America's Louis Brandeis Award Dinner, where he received the ZOA's Defender of Israel award." (The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel*, 2008, p 123)

[*Required reading; see also my 7/1/16 post Tom Switzer Channels Oded Yinon in the Herald.]

Tom Switzer Channels Oded Yinon in the Herald

Whatever happened to progress? One hundred years ago we had Britain Sir Mark Sykes and France's Georges Picot, smack bang in the middle of World War I, drawing lines on a map of the Middle East and coming up with the Sykes-Picot Agreement: You take those bits and we'll have these, old chap.

Those were the days, my friend. We thought they'd never end.

Well, they haven't, because now we've got Australia's Tom Switzer and America's John Bolton having another go at drawing lines on a map of the Middle East. Here's Switzer (research associate at the University of Sydney's United States Studies Centre and host of Radio National's Between the Lines):

"The problem boils down to this: Iraq and Syria as we know them are gone. Iraq is not one people, but rather three peoples: Kurds, (minority) Sunnis, and (majority) Shiites. Syria is also three peoples: Kurds, (majority) Sunnis, and (minority) Alawites/Shiites, who protect the Christians and other religious minorities. None of this should surprise a student of modern history. Both Iraq and Syria are artificial states and ethnically divided societies created out of the ruins of the the Ottoman Empire a century ago. What the US-led invasion in 2003 and the so-called Arab Spring in 2011 did was unleash age-old sectarian animosities that are eroding political structures and borders that have more or less prevailed since the end of World War I. What to do? John Bolton, a former US ambassador to the UN and senior fellow at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute, has a good idea: create independent states for the Kurds and Sunnis after the defeat of IS. A 'Sunni-stan', he argues, could be a bulwark against the Iran-backed regimes in Damascus and Baghdad." (Redrawing the map is the best solution, Sydney Morning Herald, 5/1/16)

No, the problem really boils down to this - the Switzers and Boltons of this world.

Just a reminder: John Bolton is an American neoconservative, one of the rum crew, including Cheney, Rumsfeld, Libby, Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith & Abrams, that formed PNAC (Project for a New American Century) back in the 1990s. At the time the PNAC neocons/Ziocons urged Clinton to blitz Iraq - to no avail. Unfortunately for them, they had to wait for Bush Jr, 9/11 and a few plum posts in the Bush administration before they could realise their dream - today's Iraq (and Libya and Syria).

Bolton became US Undersecretary of State and duly went off to confer with USraeli leader Ariel Sharon in February 2003. Needless to say, there was - LOL - a meeting of minds:

Sharon said "that Iran, Libya and Syria should be stripped of weapons of mass destruction after Iraq. 'These are irresponsible states which must be disarmed of weapons of mass destruction, and a successful American move in Iraq as a model will make that easier to achieve'."

And Bolton replied "that he had no doubt America would attack Iraq, and that it would be necessary thereafter to deal with threats from Syria, Iran and North Korea."*

Good old John. As the late Republican Senator (and friend of Jesus) Jesse Helms said in endorsement: "John Bolton is the kind of man with whom I would want to stand at Armaggedon, if it should be my lot to be on hand for what is forecast to be the final battle between good and evil in this world."

Actually, it's not Sir Mark Sykes that Tom Switzer and John Bolton are channeling here. It's Israel's Oded Yinon and his 1982 Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties:

"Iraq... 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... Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us... 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... 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."

But hang on, wasn't Oded Switzer telling us only a matter of weeks ago that "The smartest strategy is for the West to slowly but steadily disengage militarily from the Middle East and allow the people in that region to settle their own differences"?**

Now here he is, hanging with John (Regime Change) Bolton, who wants to create Kurdistan, Sunnistan, Shiastan (and, for all we know, Yazidistan as well). (Hey, maybe they could be called Cheneystan, Rumsfeldistan, Perlestan and so on.)

What ever happened to consistency? Oh, wait, I can guarantee that Oded Switzer will never, ever, want to play around with Israel's borders - wherever they happen to be.

And just remember: Oded Switzer doesn't peddle his dubious wares in the Murdoch press, but in Fairfax and on ABC radio.

Have a nice day!

[*Sharon says US should also disarm Iran, Libya & Syria, Aluf Benn, Haaretz, 18/2/03; **The West should let the Middle East settle its own differences, Sydney Morning Herald, 16/11/15]

Israel's Useful Fool

"Responding to international demands, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday appointed a commission to investigate the naval interdiction of a Gaza-bound humanitarian convoy two weeks ago that left 9 dead. In addition to three Israeli members, the commission will include two foreigners as official observers - David Trimble, a Northern Island Unionist leader who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1998, and retired general Ken Watkin of Canada, a former judge advocate-general. It is the first time Israel has given foreign experts a place in an official probe, reflecting the political sensitivity of the issue, which has stirred anti-Israel sentiment worldwide." (Israel appoints flotilla inquiry, Abraham Rabinovich, The Australian, 15/6/10)

So why Trimble? Well, he's just crazy about Israel:

"Initiated and led by Spain's former prime minister Jose Maria Aznar, a group of international leaders is to meet in Paris on Monday night to launch the 'Friends of Israel Initiative', a new project in defense of Israel's right to exist. The leaders - who include the Nobel Peace Prize laureate David Trimble, Peru's former president Alejandro Toledo, Italian philosopher Marcelo Pear, former United States Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton and British historian Andrew Roberts - say they seek to counter the attempts to deligitimize the State of Israel and its right to live in peace within safe and defensible borders." (Anzar, Trimble to launch new pro-Israel project 'Friends of Israel', Jerusalem Post, 31/5/10)

And Trimble's got form. You know in advance he's not that big on justice and he's not going to do a Goldstone on you:

"The long-awaited report into the Bloody Sunday massacre [Derry, January 1972] will conclude that a number of the fatal shootings of civilians by British soldiers were unlawful killings, the Guardian has learned. Lord Saville's 12-year inquiry into the deaths, the longest public inquiry in British legal history, will conclude with a report published next Tuesday, putting severe pressure on the Public Prosecution Service in Northern Ireland to prosecute soldiers. Lord Trimble, the former leader of the Ulster Unionists and one of the architects of the Good Friday agreement, revealed to the Guardian that when Tony Blair agreed to the inquiry in 1998, he warned the then prime minister that any conclusion that departed 'one millimetre' from the earlier 1972 Widgery report into the killings would lead to 'soldiers in the dock'." (Bloody Sunday killings to be ruled unlawful, guardian.co.uk, 10/6/10)

Gaza-Is-Egypt

As the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, the Murdoch press can always be relied upon to push an unabashed USraeli imperial agenda.

Take this, for example, from John Lyons, The Australian's Middle East correspondent*: "At best, the Israeli ground invasion will provide short-term relief from Hamas rockets. But a long term solution is desperately needed. Perhaps the only answer is for the international community to convince neighbouring Egypt to take control of Gaza... Gaza being forced to become part of Egypt - to abandon its weapons and link with the Egyptian economy - is perhaps the only sustainable hope for this tiny, tragic slip of land." (Close combat: conflict enters danger zone, 5/1/09) That's right, forget all about a Palestinian state, forget all about Palestinian national rights ("The UN is not the solution," asserts Lyons), Israel needs some "relief" from the blowback consequent on its own criminal behaviour as Gaza's serial raider/invader (55, 56, 67, o6, 08, 09), occupier (56-57, 67-05), and jailer (05-09), so "the only sustainable hope" for Palestinians in Gaza is to become - Egyptians!

[*Lyons recently succeeded the unlamented Martin Chulov, who now appears to be working for the UK Guardian. Of Lyons, Nick Cater, editor of The Weekend Australian, said in a letter to The Australian Jewish News (28/9/07) that he "is one of the most experienced and accomplished journalists in Australia." Enough said.]

Lyons is faithfully channelling US neocon John Bolton (former US ambassador to the UN 2005-2006 & senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute), on the desirability of a so-called three-state solution to Israel's Palestine problem: "War in the Gaza Strip demonstrates yet again that the current governance paradigm for the Palestinian people has failed," writes Bolton, "Terrorists financed and supplied by Iran control Gaza; the Palestinian Authority is broken, probably irretrievably; and economic development is stalled in Gaza and the West Bank... Let's start by recognizing that trying to create a Palestinian Authority from the old PLO has failed and that any two-state solution based on the PA is stillborn. Hamas has killed the idea... Instead we should look to a 'three-state' approach, where Gaza is returned to Egyptian control and the West Bank in some configuration reverts to Jordanian sovereignty... Without a larger Egyptian role, Gaza will not, and perhaps cannot, achieve the minimal stability necessary for economic development. Moreover, connecting Gaza to a real economy, rather than a fictional 'Palestinian economy', is the quickest concrete way to improve the lives of Gaza's ordinary citizens." (The three-state option, washingtonpost.com, 5/1/09)

The fact is that the US-financed and supplied terror state Israel, with its metastisizing terrorist infrastructure in the occupied West Bank, never seriously entertained the prospect of a viable and contiguous Palestinian state. Moreover, to pretend, as Lyons and Bolton do, that said terror state, currently engaged in both the economic strangulation of Gaza and the razing of its civic institutions, is not the key impediment to the formation of a "real economy" there, is simply howling bloody nonsense.

We're all familiar with the old Zionist propaganda Palestine-is-Jordan trope. Now it looks like we've got another to deal with: Gaza-is-Egypt. Is there no end to Zionist creativity?

Postscript: Lyons is at it again in today's Australian: "Two men hold the key to halting the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Gaza - French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak... The main card Mr Sarkozy can play is to pressure Mr Assad to force Hamas... to change its behaviour in Gaza... The second card he can play is to convince Mr Mubarak that Egypt embraces Gaza, at least economically, by allowing trade, and using labour from Gaza for its businesses to try to lift the living standards of Gaza." (Sarkozy & Barak hold key) Anyone care to hazard a guess as to what this "distinguished journalist" means by his final clause?

This Lyons is a worry on another score. Israel's Daleks in Gaza are wading through the blood of hundreds of Palestinian men, women and children, yet Lyon's front page report (Hamas terror: every Jewish child now a target) manages to make Hamas Foreign Minister Mahmoud Az-Zahhar's "bloodcurdling" warning that the Israelis "have legitimised the murder of their own children by killing the children of Palestine" the real story. Bizarre!