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Wednesday, November 20, 2024
[Salon] The Real Israel -
[Salon] The Real Israel - micheletkearney@gmail.com - Gmail
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-real-israel?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=151920903&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=210kv&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
The Real Israel
[Salon] TO ACHIEVE MIDEAST PEACE, MIKE HUCKABEE IS THE WRONG CHOICE FOR U.S. AMBASSADOR TO ISRAEL - Guest Post by Allan Brownfeld
TO ACHIEVE MIDEAST PEACE, MIKE HUCKABEE IS THE WRONG CHOICE FOR U.S. AMBASSADOR TO ISRAEL BY ALLAN C. BROWNFELD——————————————————————————————————————————
During his first term as president, Donald Trump visited Saudi Arabia and entered into the Abraham Accords. In this historic agreement, Saudi Arabia and a number of Gulf states, including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, agreed to recognize Israel—-but only if it proceeded to establish a Palestinian state. The so-called two-state solution has been U.S. policy for many years, under both Republican and Democratic administrations.
Recently, President-elect Trump announced his choice to be ambassador to Israel, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. Mr.Huckabee does not believe in the two state solution or in creating a Palestinian state. He openly declares that there is no such thing as a “Palestinian people.” He advocates Israeli annexation of the occupied West Bank, which he refers to, as does Israel’s extreme right wing, by the biblical terms “Judea and Samaria.”
Those who look forward to peace and to the creation of a Palestinian state are alarmed by Mr. Huckabee’s selection. The Jewish newspaper The Forward carried an article (Nov. 15, 2024) with the headline, “Mike Huckabee’s Old-School Christian Zionism is Bad News For Anyone Who Wants Middle East Peace.” The author is Tristan Stura, Reader in Human Geography at Queens University in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
He writes that, “Trump’s Abraham Accords and Huckabee’s pro-settlement ideology are not compatible designs for the Middle East…Huckabee is an old-school Christian Zionist, with the goal,of establishing full Israeli sovereignty over Gaza and the West Bank. The goal of the ideology Huckabee preaches is the removal of Palestinians from the biblically defined land of Israel to facilitate Christ’s return…under Huckabee’s ambassadorship, Israel will become markedly less likely to find a peaceful resolution to this brutal conflict.”
Stura points out that, “I refer to Huckabee’s beliefs as ‘old school’ because he follows a form of what is known as ‘dispensational premillennialism’—-a belief that ‘the Rapture will,come,’ sucking up all evangelicals to Heaven to watch Israel be invaded by the world’s armies, culminating in Armageddon and Christ’s return. Advancing this outcome is Huckabee’s four-year goal.”
Huckabee envisions a State of Israel that extends from the river to the sea—-from the Mediterranean Sea to the river Euphrates and down to the River Nile. Stura notes that, “For Huckabee, what happens next in the Middle East will not be about politics, it will be about a violent vision of religion, one in which violence, war and dismal fates for Palestinians and Jews alike are coordinated by God.”
Israel Ganz, head of a council representing Israeli settlers across the occupied West Bank, celebrated Donald Trump’s victory as an historic opportunity for the settlement movement. Prime Minister Netanyahu announced the appointment of Yechiel Leiter as Israel’s new ambassador to the U.S. He is himself a West Bank settler and is a strong proponent of the expansion of illegal West Bank settlements. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz declared: “By appointing a prominent settler activist as Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Netanyahu is signaling his belief that Trump will support the unilateral annexation of the West Bank and parts of the Gaza Strip.”
According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, “Netanyahu’s appointment likely signals that he expects the incoming Trump administration to take a friendlier approach to Israeli West Bank settlements than President Joe Biden’s administration. Trump unveiled a peace plan in the final year of his first term that would have left Israel in control of vast swaths of the West Bank and Trump’s ambassador to Israel during his first term, David Friedman,was also a supporter of settlements. In 2020, Leiter, the new Israeli ambassador, sent a letter to American Christians. He hailed Trump’s presidency and encouraged U.S. support for settlements. He called the first Trump administration ‘the best three years in U.S.-Israel relations ever.’”
At the present time, Israel, using billions of dollars in U.S. weapons and aid, is engaged in a continuing war in Gaza and Lebanon. More than 43,000 people have already been killed, mostly the elderly, women and children. With the Abraham Accords in his first administration, Donald Trump opened a pathway to peace between Israel, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and the Gulf states. He must decide whether he wants to advance peace, or continuing conflict in the region. If he wants to advance peace, Mike Huckabee is the wrong choice to be U.S. ambassador.————————————————————————-
Allan C. Brownfeld is a nationally syndicated columnist and is editor of ISSUES, the quarterly journal of the American Council for Judaism.
Tuesday, November 19, 2024
[Salon] ‘That Means World War III’ -
‘That Means World War III’
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow.
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Yevgeny Balitsky (not pictured), the Kremlin-installed head of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, in Moscow on Nov. 18.Vyacheslav Prokofyev/AFP via Getty Images
Russian President Vladimir Putin formally lowered Moscow’s nuclear threshold on Tuesday in response to U.S. President Joe Biden authorizing Ukraine to use long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (known as ATACMS) to strike limited targets inside Russia. Putin first proposed such changes to the doctrine in September, when he warned NATO that the use of Western-supplied long-range weapons against Russia would mean that Moscow is at war with the military alliance.
The new doctrine says any attack against Moscow by a nonnuclear actor with the “participation or support of a nuclear power” will be seen as a “joint attack on the Russian Federation.” The policy also outlined that any aggression against the Kremlin by a member of a military bloc will be viewed as “an aggression by the entire bloc,” signaling a thinly veiled threat against NATO.
Moscow “reserves the right” to use nuclear weapons to respond to a conventional weapons attack that threatens Russia’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov said on Tuesday. He affirmed that a Ukrainian attack using long-range U.S. missiles could trigger such a response, though the doctrine remains broad enough to allow Putin to avoid committing to nuclear engagement.
“Russia’s new nuclear doctrine means NATO missiles fired against our country could be deemed an attack by the bloc on Russia. Russia could retaliate with [weapons of mass destruction] against Kiev and key NATO facilities, wherever they’re located,” former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev posted on X. “That means World War III.”
Early Tuesday, Ukrainian troops fired six U.S.-made ATACMS missiles at a military facility in Russia’s Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine. According to Ukrainian defense official Andrii Kovalenko, the strike hit warehouses holding “artillery ammunition, including North Korean ammunition for their systems; guided aerial bombs; antiaircraft missiles; and ammunition for multiple-launch rocket systems.” Russian authorities said Moscow’s air defenses intercepted five of the missiles and damaged one more, reporting no casualties. Russia largely uses S-400 and the newer S-500 missile systems to counter ballistic missiles.
This was the first time that U.S.-supplied ATAMCS were used to hit targets inside Russia; previously, they have only been used to strike locations in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, including Crimea. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called their usage in the Bryansk region “a signal that they want escalation,” referring to the United States and its Western allies.
Washington first supplied Kyiv with a version of ATACMS in October 2023 that had the capability of hitting targets roughly 100 miles away; in April 2024, it began supplying longer-range versions with the ability to travel 190 miles with the restriction that they only be used to hit targets in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine. Biden was reportedly reluctant to expand their usage into Russia proper for fear of escalation. However, that changed when intelligence officials learned that North Korea had deployed thousands of troops to Russia to help retake the Kursk region. As the war hit its 1,000th day on Tuesday, analysts argue that Putin’s altered nuclear doctrine indicates his readiness to force the West to back down.
Monday, November 18, 2024
[Salon] CURTAIN CALL: BIDEN AND THE NEOCONS DECIDE TO ATTACK RUSSIA - Guest Post by Garland Nixon
CURTAIN CALL: BIDEN AND THE NEOCONS DECIDE TO ATTACK RUSSIA
Neocons Hate the Voters and Have Decided That They Must All Die!
Garland Nixon
Nov 18, 2024
I noticed a strange dynamic after the recent presidential election. Not only were the Democrats soundly defeated, they bled mightily from their traditional constituencies. Their arguments of moral superiority and economic success not only fell on deaf ears, but seemed to infuriate an increasingly impoverished population. When the dust cleared, overwhelming numbers of voters of various races, ethnicities, and genders (which may have shrunken back to the traditional number of two as various members of Congress raced to remove pronouns from their X profiles) either voted for alternative candidates or simply voted by omission. They stayed home and raked leaves on November 5th. The argument that the neoliberal warmongers were the standard bearers of democracy and morality was steamrolled by a war weary electorate who could no longer afford the basic necessities of life. “No more money for foreign wars” screamed the voters, who seemed to be articulating the Trumpian cry to put America first. I argue that Donald Trump did not create the MAGA movement, he simply gave a name to the pain and desperation resulting from 50 years of neoliberal deterioration. It was a rebranding of Barack Obama’s hope and change crusade with a little more meat on its bones. In particular, the “America First” slogan was particularly attractive in relation to the $180 billion dollars that had been laundered in the Ukraine proxy war against Russia. The electorate gathered around the radio to listen to that old American radio station, WIIFM, “What’s in it for me.” I do not honestly believe that most of the non GOP Trump voters actually expect his administration to crack the neoliberal economic nut and rebirth the industrial economy of the 1960’s, but, as in Malcolm X’s famous myth about the suffering of the field slave, anyplace is better than here! The Democrat’s vast array of claims about the moral shortcomings of Mr. Trump slammed head first into the price of groceries and exploding animosity over the bottomless money pit of never ending wars. Additionally, it would be irresponsible of me to leave out the fury throughout the Democrat’s base over the slaughter in Gaza and Lebanon.
Shocked by the failure of the masses to do as they were instructed, the Democrats’ leadership and media mouthpieces struck out in contemptuous rage. No self reflection would be in order for the party that just had been thoroughly rejected by the electorate. Instead, the wealthy prognosticators of neoliberal imperialism reminded their loyal followers of the righteousness of their cause and proceeded to attack the ungrateful masses of whom they had suffered the effrontery to exist for far too long. What had once been a political party had devolved into a brainwashed cult. The smaller and more politically isolated the group became, the more convinced they were of their moral superiority. One thing became abundantly clear, this new version of the Democrats despised the voters with the flame of a thousand suns. Their passionate loathing of all things that could be interpreted as “Trumpian” was immediately extended from the voters who had voted for the president elect, to those who had voted third party, and even those who had refused to vote for any candidate. Their assessment was complete and the results were horrifying. This lonely island of virtue and morality (The Democrats) was trapped in a nation of Putin loving sexists, racists, and transphobes. If you are rich, it’s time to leave, if not, then simply avoiding your evil former friends and family members who had failed to demonstrate their morality on election day would be a good start. The party of all things moral was effectively retreating from society to curl up in the fetal position and hide under the covers. Be gone you Trumpian, Putin enabling, White supremacists… may you die with festering boils!.. Did I mention that we hate you?
But what could have caused so many former and current Democrats to cross into the dark realm of Trumpism? In their moral paradigm, Donald Trump is clearly the most pure expression of evil that this universe has ever wrought? In the context of this discussion, the voters in the 2024 election were faced with a stark contrast between the two parties regarding the continuance of the Ukraine conflict. The Democrats framed the discussion in the paradigm of good versus evil while the Republicans made a more transactional argument about the conflict. The Democrats argued that economic strife is a modest price to pay for upholding such nondescript virtues as democracy and the opposition to autocracy around the world. Besides, the economy is doing great and if you would simply ignore your empty bank account and maxed out credit cards and look a little closer at these graphs and pie charts on our website you would understand that you’re actually far wealthier than you could ever imagine. While the GOP argument was somewhat murky, it seemed to posit that the Ukraine venture was bleeding money and lives while bearing no outcome of value to US interests. This argument aligned perfectly with, and was enhanced by, their acknowledgement of the dire economic situation for America’s vast population of working poor. Notwithstanding the complex historical context of the conflict, large swaths of voters saw this as an opportunity to lower the likelihood of an extinction level nuclear confrontation between super powers. Many non conservative voters climbed on board the Trump train out of economic desperation and, dare I say, a basic human instinct for survival. Donald Trump’s staunch opposition to the Ukraine proxy war and the subsequent counter by the Democrats to paint him as a Putin loving fascist set the table for a clear decision by the voters. In the end, the voters made a choice. Above all other issues, it is clear that the electorate clearly articulated their preference for a prompt negotiated settlement to the Eastern European crisis.
Enter one Joseph Robinette Biden, a man who seems to hold great resentment towards his own party for forcing him out of the presidential race and has legitimate concerns about the likelihood of a vindictive Trump Administration launching investigations into the world wide influence peddling operation of the Biden family. Also, numerous members of his inner circle, in particular Jake Sullivan and Antony Blinken, could face the reopening of previous inquiries into past behavior. Individually, these issues undoubtedly create significant fear inside the Biden sphere of political activity, but in the aggregate, the outcome of a sprawling series of investigations into all things Biden could be catastrophic for Joe and everyone who is dear to him.
The outcome of the election, the neocon fury at the defiant voters, and the potential for a calamitous fall from grace after Trump takes office creates a direct path to a Sunday article in the New York Times. Despite repeated warnings from Moscow, the usual “unnamed US officials” have leaked that,” “President Biden has authorized the first use of U.S.-supplied long-range missiles by Ukraine for strikes inside Russia.” The unnamed officials “admit they do not expect the shift to fundamentally alter the course of the war” and that it could “prompt President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to retaliate with force against the United States and its coalition partners.” However, they justify the decision because it will “send a message to the North Koreans” and “Ukraine will be able to reach certain high-value targets that it would not otherwise be able to.” In their final argument, “they said Mr. Biden determined that the potential benefits,” “outweighed the escalation risks.” As any reasonable person could deduce, the escalation risks involve a nuclear exchange and the extinction of all life on earth. Let’s just say that personally, as I contemplate my own version of this cost/benefit analysis equation, I find the weight of the “human extinction” side of the analysis considerably more compelling than the “send a message to the North Koreans” side. However, if you are so furious at an insubordinate electorate that you welcome their collective doom, going out in a blaze of glory may be a welcome alternative to living in a world where the epitome of all evil, Donald Trump, takes office on January 20th of 2025.
This exercise in thought leaves us with three critical observations.
The neoliberal hostility towards the electorate is irrational and overpowering.
Joe Biden is an angry spiteful man who faces a potential landslide of criminal liabilities
The Biden team’s irrational racial hatred towards all things Russian is focused on both Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin and no amount of reason or logic can be injected into their suicidal Moby Dick-esque drive to destroy the great white Russian whale.
Therefore, we can only deduce that the cost/benefit analysis proposed by the “unnamed US officials” quoted by the New York Times is quite far from reality. In truth, everyone involved understands that Joe Biden has, by choice and with full knowledge of all potential outcomes, set the world on a course that could manifest an easily avoidable extinction level nuclear event.
Paradoxically, the true hope for humanity lies in the hands of the very people that the Biden team has labeled as pure unadulterated evil. We can only hope that President Putin and the Russian leadership is wise and analytical enough to see this move as the proverbial “cheese in the mouse trap” that is set to both slam shut the window of opportunity for Donald Trump to get a conflict ending deal and provoke a violent Russian reaction that will drag the world into its final conflict. I suspect that, as long as the Russians are able to blunt any missile attacks and avoid catastrophic damage such as a missile strike on a nuclear power plant, they will choose alternate responses to these long range attacks including, but not limited to, providing Yemen and other US adversaries with powerful anti-ship and air defense capabilities and cutting off critical supplies that they currently sell to NATO countries. Even then, the odds of Donald Trump getting a deal to end a war that Russia has already won is slim, but at least we will be alive to evaluate the outcome. Let’s cross our fingers and prepare for a bumpy ride from here to January 20th, and probably long after.
[Salon] OPEC: ‘No Clear Option’ - ArabDigest.org Guest Post
OPEC: ‘No Clear Option’
Summary: confronted by economic and geopolitical uncertainty, OPEC+ ministers will still have no good options to turn to when they next meet on 1 December, pointing to a probable further postponement in unwinding voluntary cuts in output.
We thank our regular contributor Alastair Newton for today’s newsletter. Alastair worked as a professional political analyst in the City of London from 2005 to 2015. Before that he spent 20 years as a career diplomat with the British Diplomatic Service. In 2015 he co-founded and is a director of Alavan Business Advisory Ltd. You can find Alastair’s latest AD podcast, Of peak oil, grey rhinos and $70 a barrel here.
“When there’s no clear option, it’s better to do nothing.”
Erwin Rommel (1891-1944)
When OPEC+ members assemble in Vienna on 1 December for their next bi-annual ministerial meeting, they would do well to keep in mind the advice on options offered by the man known popularly as ‘the Desert Fox’. After all, if anything the choices confronting them have become even less palatable since they first delayed the ratcheting back of their voluntary production cuts of 2.2 million barrels per day (bpd) on 5 September and then agreed to hold off again on 3 November.
Consider first the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) November Oil Market Report, published last week. The key points in its forecast are as follows:
Global demand is expected to grow from an average of 102.8mbpd this year (up slightly on the October forecast despite Chinese demand contracting in September for the sixth month in succession) to 103.8mbpd in 2025;
The United States will continue to lead non-OPEC+ supply growth of 1.5mbpd in both 2024 and 2025; and,
Even if the voluntary cuts remain in place, supply in 2025 is therefore set to exceed demand by around 1mbpd.
As usual, the OPEC secretariat’s latest Monthly Oil Market Report is not as bearish as the IEA’s despite some further moderation. However, its forecast will still be seen by investors against the backdrop of it having consistently overestimated demand (from China especially) since the start of the year.
Second, there are two big and related economic ‘known unknowns’ on which little, if any, additional light is likely to be shed until January at the earliest, as follows.
Although all the signs emanating from Washington since the 11 November newsletter was published are consistent with my view that Donald Trump’s pre-election promises should be taken seriously, it is still far from clear how far and how fast he will move on tariffs. Even before the US election, the IMF was warning that, if higher tariffs hit a “sizeable swath” of world trade by mid-2025, at best it would likely wipe 0.8 per cent from economic output next year and 1.3 per cent in 2026; and that in what was a ‘worst case’ scenario, i.e. widespread tit-for-tat retaliation, they could shave around seven percent off global GDP, equivalent to “losing the French and German economies”.
In addition to what I believe to be its inevitable retaliation, China may finally be spurred into the major consumer stimulus, for which some economists have been pressing for months to drag the economy clear of deflation; this despite spurning another opportunity to unveil a ‘bazooka’ earlier this month. The optimistic view is that Beijing was waiting to see exactly what the Trump Administration does on trade. However, more cautious commentators such as the Peterson Institute’s Tianlei Huang warn that "doing so would require Beijing to overcome both its longtime fiscal conservatism and its bias against direct spending on households, which will not be easy."
OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais speaking at the African Energy Week that took place in Cape Town, South Africa, from 4-8 November 2024 [photo credit: @OPECSecretariat]
Third — and, some might argue, ‘on the other hand’ — there is geopolitics. How the conflict in the Middle East will evolve in the coming weeks also remains far from certain (even before the self-proclaimed ‘first buddy’ Elon Musk allegedly met ‘secretly’ with Iran’s ambassador to the UN last week, a meeting which Tehran “categorically denies” took place). However, Mr Trump’s hawkish nominations in the past few days — Macro Rubio, Mike Waltz, Mike Huckabee — are arguably consistent with the opinion I set out on 11 November that he would seriously consider directly involving US forces in the strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities on which Benjamin Netanyahu seems intent. Although investors have been remarkably relaxed, to date, about conflict-related supply side risk, this scenario could see Brent “heading towards, or even through, US$100pb”, as I argued in the 28 October Newsletter. However, any spike would likely be short-lived if the US were directly engaged; and a successful campaign could be worth US$3-5pb off the current price of Brent (i.e. US$72.50pb) as perceived political risk across the region eased.
Also on geopolitics, the emerging consensus appears to be that any agreement over Russia/Ukraine is unlikely to be struck quickly, meaning no major change in the volume of Russian oil finding its way into the international market in the foreseeable future. As Russia expert John Lough wrote in a 12 November note for Chatham House:
…a charge that he was a weak negotiator would offend [Mr Trump’s] vanity and damage his image in the view of Chinese policymakers – who will be watching closely. It is fair to assume that Trump will want to avoid this perception since he has worked hard to create the impression that China, Iran and others should continue to fear him in his second term.
Pulling all this together, I am reminded of the 5 September note by Bloomberg’s commodities expert Javier Blas from which I quoted in the 27 September Newsletter as follows:
…looking at the 2025 balance of supply and demand, OPEC+ is simply kicking the can down a very uphill road. In two months, the group will have to take another fateful decision. If it wants higher oil prices in 2025, it will have to do far more than delaying the almost 2 million barrels a day of extra production that it penciled in by the end of next year. It will need to cut output outright. Without curbing production, further price drops loom.
OPEC+ chose to duck that “fateful decision” earlier this month. Doing so again on 1 December would be no easier as the eight voluntary cutters in particular chaff at idle capacity. They may decide enough is enough. However, barring a major and seemingly sustainable supply side shock between now and then, a ‘decision’ again to do nothing still looks to be their least bad option.
Members can leave comments about this newsletter on the Arab Digest website
[Salon] [Mbrenner] MORAL SUICIDE - Guest Post by Michael Brenner
From: Brenner, Michael via mbrenner
Date: Mon, Nov 18, 2024
Friends & Colleagues
Western societies are committing moral suicide in Palestine. Collective suicide always is an ugly business to observe – especially when it’s your own country debasing itself. Yet, we seem unfazed. Indeed, we redouble our acts of inhumanity as if reiteration somehow normalizes the perversity of what we have done. The systematic insulating of ourselves from the magnitude of our turpitude is all the more remarkable for its requiring the constant filtering of graphic images of odious criminality to which we are accomplices. There may be some faint recognition, subliminally, of our culpability in the diligence with which dissenters and truth-tellers are suppressed and punished. That repression, an insult to our supposedly hallowed civic principles, is the most immediate price Western societies are paying for this depravity.
Other deleterious consequences will register down the road. For the disconcerting truth is that the majority of the world sees our sins for what they are, and scorns out gross hypocrisy. In America and Europe, we pay scant attention to what the ‘others’ think – out of long habit. They are discounted. Our elites in particular seem to feel that – like the proverbial tree falling in the silent forest – if we don’t hear it, there is no sound made. There is a sound, of course. We soon will learn that the falling tree has brought down power lines and blocked roads. That is to say, the reactions of the ‘others’ – China, Russia, India, Brazil, Indonesia along with the rest of South/Southeast Asia, the greater Middle East, Africa, and most of Latin America – will cause us considerable, tangible harm. The ensuing impact on Western governments’ status and influence in the world is being greatly accentuated by the collapse of their moral authority.
So, our overall losses will be profound – in practical terms, in the serious degradation in public discourse and civil liberties at home. Any move toward restoration will be retarded by lost self-esteem accompanied by a deep reluctance to face the shame were our deeds exposed and recognized. For once one has demonized Palestinians in general as guilty, thereby justifying gruesome acts, it becomes almost impossible to retreat into a position of condemning those selfsame acts of criminal vengeance that you previously blessed since that means inculpating oneself.
What this tells us is that the phenomenon that we are describing is most pronounced among Western political elites. There: mutually reinforcing collective emotion, uniform attitudes and entrenched reference points combine to produce perverse behavior. The extremity of callousness toward the genocide of Palestinians, the enthusiastic cheerleading for the Israeli atrocities, the tangible support for this most grotesque campaign of elimination, the deaf ear to desperate pleas for humanitarian aid, inflicting additional pain by the summary defunding of UNHCR – together form a pattern of behavior that borders on the sadistic. It obliges us to ask a painful question: are we witnessing the final playing out of the West’s long felt (and more recently sublimated) compulsion to abuse ‘other’ peoples in order to affirm their own superiority and prowess? A contemptuous Parthian shot as Westerners sense the turn of the historical wheel of fortune - with the Jews providing the perfect cover?
Explanations of how we willfully inflicted these wounds upon the body politic, and our moral foundations, without evident cause or interest do not come readily at hand. For the tangled causal threads lie deep within ourselves. Self-reflection is always discomforting, often agonizing, and – in the West these days - simply intolerable.
As to America, isn’t it fanciful to imagine a society that has selected a freakish Fascist like Trump – for a second time – as its leader (while deluding itself that there is no historic deviation from its honored path of enlightened politics) could have the emotional stability and strength of character to admit its heinous sins committed against the Palestinians?
One singular feature of the current situation stands out: it is all about Israel and Jews. That evokes a host of deep emotions that shape attitudes and actions. The following essay addresses that topic. It was written a year ago. The first part focuses on Europe. It then expands the analysis to cover the United States in the context of Western societies’ historical condescendence of the non-West.
Michael Brenner
mbren@pitt.edu
MORAL SUICIDE
I. EUROPE -JEWS-MUSLIMS
Europe has an obsession about Jews. For nearly 2 millennia, it shunned them, despised them and persecuted them. Now, after a respite of a few decades, it condemns and abuses Muslims in a similar way - all in the name of supporting Jews. Israel's inhumane treatment of the Palestinians - culminating in their massacre and mass eviction from Gaza - leaves Europeans unmoved. European political elites above all. Instead, they cheer on the Israelis, outdo themselves in effusive displays of solidarity, in the quick dispatch of weapons so that the IDF can better carry out their odious campaign, in providing instant validation for the most outrageous lies in the wake of the most outrageous atrocities. Propinquity has accentuated their moral support. Leaders scurry to Tel Aviv to get as close to the action as possible and to steal a photo of themselves embracing Bibi Netanyahu – a copy for the evening news, a copy for the next campaign brochure, a copy for the eventual memoir.
The West generally clearly has a big problem with matters of religion, race and ethnicity. It is multiform, it mutates, it waxes and wanes, it shifts focus and fixation - but it remains lodged in the collective psyche. While this obviously is not universal among Europe’s population of 400 million, it is manifestly prevalent and deep-seated. When the stimulus is strong and acute, it flares like a gas field when the drill hits paydirt. The entire panoply of institutions - public and private - rise up as if choreographed to vent the same emotions, make the same harsh, unqualified judgments, use the same crude slogans, drape themselves in the same banners of self-righteousness and self-proclaimed moralism. Government leaders, politicos, media, pundits, make the same cacophonous noises, aggressively impose the same uniformity of opinion, and punish the few dissenters.
Thus, the exaltation of the Jews of Israel - honored and cosseted - is matched by the dehumanization of Palestine's Muslims. Of course, it is not just the long-suffering Palestinians who are at once denied - in principle - the right to the privileged status of victimhood and collectively are condemned as guilty of the most heinous crimes committed by al-Qaeda, the Islamic State or Hamas. Men, women, children - without exception. It is all Muslim communities – Islamo-phobia.
What are the sources of this psychopathology? Some are immediately identifiable. 1) The residual, latent desire to absolve Europe of the sins committed against the Jews ever since they were stigmatized as the killers of the Christians' Lord & Saviour. It took roughly 1,900 years for the truest Jew-haters to take the final, macabre act of revenge. Volunteers from 16 European countries formed SS divisions that participated - directly or indirectly (the largest contingents made up of Ukrainians). That holocaust had a powerful sobering effect on the contemporary soul of European Christians whether believers, practicing or nominal. The fears, wounds and pangs of conscience associated with it gradually have faded into the background and discrimination of Jews largely has gone away - despite the attempts in recent years to inflate every minor incident as part of an campaign to conflate criticism of Israel with old-fashioned anti-Semitism. As a consequence of the campaign’s success, antipathy toward Israel aroused by its actions in Gaza, the number of those incidents has risen. The confected identity of Judaism with a rogue Israeli state is a boon for the die-hard anti-Semites.
The very words 'Jewish' and 'Israel' have the power to paralyze European minds and consciences. Again, most strikingly among the political class. Hence, Britain's most erudite commentator renowned for his frankness and rare skill at cutting through official cant and mendacity, declares himself unable to pronounce on who destroyed the hospital in Gaza - hiding behind the weasel words 'we should await the outcome of an impartial United Nations investigation.' Who did the evil deed? The people who already had dropped 1,500 bombs on Gaza City or Ali Baba & the 40 Thieves? Make your choice - personal preference. Hence, French President Emmanuel Macron bans all protests that express sympathy for the Palestinians on the grounds that they cause Jews/Israel emotional distress. He then makes a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to urge the Israelis to pursue Hamas “without mercy” – adding, for the record, “within the law.” (His recent conversion ‘On The Road To Damascus/Berlaymont/Turtle Bay’ lifts the ban only on himself). One is reminded of Peter O’Toole (aka T.E. Lawrence) shouting the command “no prisoners!” as he drives his Arab army to throw themselves on a retreating Turkish column. Without the hypocrisy of adding “within the law”.
Hence, German authorities ruthlessly enforce their own ban on Gaza-sympathy protests and threaten criminal prosecution of participants. Foreign Minister Braebock uses a Tel Aviv platform to inform the world that “Israel cares about the welfare of Gazans.” Hence, the Prime Minister-designate of the U.K., Keir Starmer, conducts Stalinist-style purges from the Labour ranks of anyone who utters a word critical of Israel - that includes Corbyn now obliterated from party annals. No surprise that he now demands explicitly, and in a public interview, that the party’s official position is to give license to the Israelis to continue their bombing; to cut off all food, water, electricity; to expel the Gazans into the Sinai desert where Qatar is pressed to finance a tent city for a million or two.
Hence, on November 11 2023, the EU Foreign Ministers’ issued an official statement that “[the] EU condemns the use of hospitals and civilians as human shields in Gaza” – in what amounts to an eerie resemblance to the holocaust deniers. Hence, Joe Biden struck the same note in declaring that civilian casualties have been exaggerated by Hamas. This was the starkest evidence at that we had left the realm of reasoned and reasonable discourse for the nether world of psychopathology.
Second, relations between Europeans and Muslim communities have become increasingly fraught. Above all, the growth of large immigrant communities, settled mainly in Western Europe, has generated a host of social problems arising from the complications of imperfect cultural assimilation and the intrusions of influences from the external Muslim world. They are all too familiar: the rapid spread of intolerant, fundamentalist Islam; the threats posed by violent jihadist groups whose tentacles have reached into European cities; the turbulent state of politics across the Middle East; the periodic oil crises that made the region a tense arena for great power politics; and - by no means least - the lingering effects of Western colonialism that never have been expunged.
The two most striking features of that 450-year experience are: 1) the profound superior-inferior relationship on which it was grounded and which it entrenched in European minds; and 2) it was the 'whites' who were dominant and the 'colored' peoples who were subordinate. That too readily devolved into the racist belief that the latter were inherently inferior - somehow not quite fully human. Tho enduring psychic scars never have entirely faded - on both sides. Let's recall that it is within our lifetime that the imperial dependents liberated themselves from thralldom - with much blood-shedding - in North Africa, Indo-China, Kenya, Angola, Indonesia, Mozambique, Iraq. More recently, wars between the West and Muslim societies have been fought in several places: Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Libya, the Sahel. All on Muslim soil. Domestic terrorists across Western Europe cite as their immediate motivation those attacks on Muslims – rather than their devotion to a Quranic jihadist creed per se.
II.
That brings our attention to the biggest external factor: the United States. More specifically, Europeans’ enduring dominant/subordinate relationship. European countries have been denatured by America, in the sense that they are shed of sovereign status and its attendant political will. That perverse trans-Atlantic bond has been cultivated by both sides. It's significance for understanding the European attitude towards Israel/Palestine is two-fold. One, there is an eerie inversion of roles for European polities who participate in dominant-subordinate relations with both America and Arab Muslims. It matches the classic profile of the "Authoritarian Personality." Toward the superior one is docile, obedient, obsequious; toward the inferior one is arrogant, demanding and patronizing. The latter compensates for the former in terms of maintaining a positive sense of self.
A variation of this psychological pattern is visible in the attitude of Western government leaders toward their own populace. In effect, they assume the dominant role in treating their citizens as subordinates from whom deference is expected on matters of state. Strikingly, today we see overwhelming and growing popular advocacy of a ceasefire in Gaza while the political elites – those holding official positions, the media and the punditry – vigorously suppress the dissent. Example: London has seen an unprecedented demonstration of half a million, a reflection of public opinion that favors the ceasefire by a 3:1 margin (roughly the same in the U.S.) That in the face of bitter, slanderous denunciation from both Prime Minister Sunak and Labour leader Keir Starmer who vies to surpass him in passionate embrace of Bibi Netanyahu and who ruthlessly purges anybody who is disobedient to his hard line. Hence, not a single Labour or Tory M.P. joined an historic march on a Saturday at the risk of losing access to the Members’ Bar at Westminister. [The dramatic event was all but ignored by the Establishment print media. By Sunday, all had airbrushed the story out of existence; no photo showing the massive crowd].
In more concrete ways, Europe's vassalage to the United States obliges it to follow Washington down whatever policy road the seigneur takes - however reckless, dangerous, unethical, and counter-productive. In predictable fashion, they have walked (or run) like lemmings over whatever cliff the United States chooses next under its own suicidal impulses. So it’s been in Iraq, in Syria, in Yemen, in Afghanistan, in regard to Iran, in Ukraine, on Taiwan and on all matters involving Israel. The string of painful failures and heavy costs produces no change in loyalty or mindset. It cannot - for the Europeans have asimilated totally the habit of deference, the Americans' worldview, their skewed interpretation of outcomes, and their shamefully fictious narratives. The Europeans no more can throw this addiction than a life-long alcoholic can go cold-turkey.
That condition impels them to downplay the ominous trends in American politics and foreign policy. The choice of mentally unstable and/or incompetent leaders, erratic actions by unhinged political forces, high risk ventures abroad, the baiting of designated rivals – none of it moves Europeans to throw off the yoke placed on their minds, their emotions, and their morals.
Moreover, we should bear in mind that contemporary America has become hysteria prone. First came the Global War On Terror that for twenty-odd years had it rampaging around the globe on the hunt for jihadis from the Hindu Kush to the Sahara desert while shredding its Constitutional guarantees of individual rights and due process. Then, the manic Russo-phobia: Dostoyevski removed from literature courses, Anna Netrebko summarily cancelled in all Western opera houses on the grounds that she once accompanied Putin to a fundraiser for refugees from Donetsk who fled Ukrainian artillery strikes that killed 14,000 of their fellows, boycotts of Russian goods including sewing needles, etc. etc. Simultaneously, the conjured China ‘menace’ has been stoking our fevered imaginings. That hysteria triggered the ‘spy’ balloon psychodrama. Congruent with this psychopathological syndrome, America today is a culture where draconian measures are taken, by all manner of institutions under pressure from braying militants, to rid themselves of persons who as much as suggest that gender identity is not just a matter of personal preference.
The Europeans, for their part, are no less hysteria prone. It spreads from the United States at epidemic speed. Imagine a convent circa 1623. The most emotionally flammable young woman loses it in declaiming that she is possessed by a lecherous demonic agent. Soon, the other nuns are infected and mass hysteria breaks out. Today, when a whole society is dissociated from reality, there are no Mothers Superior or exorcists around to contain the ensuing bedlam. Indeed, the universal hysteria serves the purpose of those who calculatingly promote and use that hysteria to draw a “line of blood” between the collectivity and responsible, humane behavior. For once one has demonized Palestinians in general as guilty, thereby justifying gruesome acts, it becomes almost impossible to retreat into a position of condemning those selfsame acts of criminal revenge that you previously blessed since that means inculpating oneself. Even those prominent public figures who simply have kept silent in the face of atrocity thereby fall into this trap.
The stunning, frightening truth is that Western societies - American & European – are behaving mindlessly. For the Senate in Washington to pass a near unanimous resolution condemning what it called “anti-Israel, pro-Hamas student groups” is a clear sign of abnormality. It is unmistakable from statements by supporters that the label is applied to anyone who protests the onslaught in Gaza or expresses support for the Palestinian people. Widespread denunciations and purges of individuals who voice those sentiments confirm that. Some might question how one can describe as hysterical the actions of private institutions and governments as well as individuals of being part of an irrational mass psychosis – and on a matter that does not concern them directly.
After all, these countries are composed of educated, autonomous, diverse members schooled in civic ethics – the majority secular and unattached to any dogmatic creed or movement. We are not speaking of medieval cloisters or theocracies or totalitarian societies. That is exactly the point. The observed phenomenon meets all of the criteria for a diagnosis of mass hysteria – speaking objectively. Manifest hysteria where you do not expect to see it at once underscores the psychopathology and raises the most profound questions as to what species of social entity we have become. The few, very rough historical analogies are not ones we want to contemplate.
Collective hysteria does have predictable effects. One is that participants cease to think independently – some, including leaders, are unable to think at all. That is to say, to interpret reality in ways other than that dictated by the fixed, unqualified and simplistic narrative of what is happening, why it is happening, as well as with whom the rights and wrongs lie. Uniformity of outlook impervious to observed facts is what we have seen in the impassioned Russo-phobia, and now regarding the Palestinians. This phenomenon, orchestrated at the top by leaders who themselves are prey to dogmas and irrational emotions, stifles critical thought and judgment even when faced with the most stark, most bloody and gross sins against the very principles that we celebrate as underlying our morally superior Western societies.
A related effect is that deception and self-deception blend into a homogenous mindset. It is insulated from encroachments by a mental Hepa filter which keeps out anything – even the smallest particle of truth - that could stimulate doubt or self-awareness. Consider the likes of Biden, Trudeau, Sunak/Starmer, Schulz, Macron, Rutte, von der Leyen et al. Their endorsement, and thereby encouragement, of mass murder in Gaza – once expressed - becomes imprinted. Thus, if you were to probe for justification in a quiet one-on-one exchange, you would get the same canned, elusive sloganeering that marks their public statement. The mental faculty has become paralyzed. Sustaining this unnatural state is helped by the systematic suppression of dissent. Doing so serves two purposes: it keeps at bay any dissonant, reality-based idea or evidence challenging the fixed mindset, and unjust suppression/punishment of dissenters creates an additional disincentive to critical reflection since that threatens to evoke feelings of shame for those revealed misdeeds.
What this tells us is that the phenomenon that we are describing is most pronounced among Western political elites. There: hysteria, mutually reinforcing collective emotion, uniform attitudes and entrenched reference points combine to produce perverse behavior. The extremity of callousnesstoward the genocide of Palestinians, the enthusiastic cheerleading for the Israeli atrocities, the tangible support for this most grotesque campaign, the deaf ear to desperate pleas for humanitarian aid, inflicting additional pain by the summary defunding of UNHCR – together form a pattern of behavior that borders on the sadistic. It obliges us to ask a painful question: are we witnessing the final playing out of the West’s long felt (and more recently sublimated) compulsion to abuse ‘other’ peoples in order to affirm their own superiority and prowess? A contemptuous, ruthless Parthian shot as Westerners sense the turn of the historical wheel of fortune?
[The one aspect of the situation that shows a measure of conscious cerebration is the political – in particular, the electoral. It is Biden’s worries about his faltering Presidential campaign that led him to the surprise declaration that Israel was at risk of exceeding its (generous) quota in killed Palestinians. That is accompanied by a cavalier rewriting of the earlier record of when Washington promoted unrestricted Israeli retaliation and lobbied neighboring governments to accept the expelled Gazan population. Accommodating media are only too happy to go along with the mendacity since it erases memory of their own cheerleading for those draconian actions.
We should understand Emmanuel Macron’s sudden advocacy of a ceasefire in the same vein. It is a mistake to imagine that this shift was the outcome of a somber reflection on the moral and diplomatic issues involved. Macron is another one of those self-designated messiahs without message or mission – like Barack Obama – whose sole concern is self-promotion and self-advancement. In Macron’s case, he has his eye on an even bigger position than President of France – Secretary-General of the United Nations or President of the European Union. Preferably the former. So, presenting himself as a Gaza humanitarian could win him votes in the global South and also make him more palatable to Russia and China. The rest of the French political elite are still insisting that protesting crimes against humanity in Gaza is tantamount to an act of anti-Semitism.]
Back to Europe. In the Middle East, the net effects are 1) that Europe is burdened with the heavy baggage of interventions that inflame Muslim hostility toward the West, and 2) to create the psychological imperative to find some way to assuage their own sense of guilt by finding, and magnifying, the sins of their victims. That dubious enterprise acquires a thick veneer of contrived virtue by making a tight embrace of Jewish Israel the ultimate symbol of their good intentions and by blinding themselves to the transference of their accumulated guilt for historical abuse of the Jews into empathy for their former victims' abuse of Arab Muslims.
P.S. The internal dynamics of the United States are very similar to those of Europe – with three exceptions. One, guilt regarding historical mistreatment of Jews is largely absent. Yes, individuals may feel something about the Christian scapegoating of ‘Christ-killers,’ but generally speaking it is far more abstract. The empathy for Israel has arisen, and intensified, mainly from an instinctive sympathy for the underdog threatened by people you view negatively (1956, 1967) – a heart-wrenching narrative that has been vastly strengthened by vivid accounts, cinematic and written, of the tragic 20th Century Jewish saga. Moreover, there is the exceptional influence exerted by the powerful pro-Israel lobby.
Two, the dramatic growth in the influence of a politicized Evangelical movement has added a significant factor to the equation. The Book of Revelation is their guide and inspiration. Therein, they are told that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and Armageddon will be signaled by the restoration of the Jews in their Hebrew homeland. What happens next, of course, is blurred by both Israelis and the Evangelicals.
Three, the United States’ rededicated project to entrench its global dominance has spurred American assertiveness around the world. Its long-time focus on the Middle East for multiple reasons inclines Washington to secure what it sees as prized assets. That strong impulse is accentuated by its declining influence elsewhere in the region – especially the Gulf. With creeping doubts as to its prowess, and of its presumed calling to be the prophet of progress for all the world’s peoples, America compulsively grasps every occasion in order to confirm that it is Destiny’s child and to be reassured that its national mythology is inscribed in the heavens.
Sunday, November 17, 2024
Saturday, November 16, 2024
Friday, November 15, 2024
[Salon] There are no “Easy Wars” left to fight, but do not mistake the longing for one - Guest Post by Alastair Crooke
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/11/15/there-are-no-easy-wars-left-fight-but-not-mistake-longing-for-one/
There are no “Easy Wars” left to fight, but do not mistake the longing for one
Alastair Crooke, November 15, 2024
Israelis, as a whole, are exhibiting a rosy assurance that they can harness Trump, if not to the full annexation of the Occupied Territories (Trump in his first term did not support such annexation), but rather, to ensnare him into a war on Iran. Many (even most) Israelis are raring for war on Iran and an aggrandisement of their territory (devoid of Arabs). They are believing the puffery that Iran ‘lies naked’, staggeringly vulnerable, before a U.S. and Israeli military strike.
Trump’s Team nominations, so far, reveal a foreign policy squad of fierce supporters of Israel and of passionate hostility to Iran. The Israeli media term it a ‘dream team’ for Netanyahu. It certainly looks that way.
The Israel Lobby could not have asked for more. They have got it. And with the new CIA chief, they get a known ultra China hawk as a bonus.
But in the domestic sphere the tone is precisely the converse: The key nomination for ‘cleaning the stables’ is Matt Gaetz as Attorney General; he is a real “bomb thrower”. And for the Intelligence clean-up, Tulsi Gabbard is appointed as Director of National Intelligence. All intelligence agencies will report to her, and she will be responsible for the President’s Daily briefing. The intel assessments may thus begin to reflect something closer to reality.
The deep Inter-Agency structure has reason to be very afraid; they are panicking – especially over Gaetz.
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have the near impossible task of cutting out-of-control federal spending and currency printing. The System is deeply dependent on the bloat of government spending to keep the cogs and levers of the mammoth ‘security’ boondoggle whirring. It is not going to be yielded up without a bitter fight.
So, on the one hand, the Lobby gets a dream team (Israel), but on the other side (the domestic sphere), it gets a renegade team.
This must be deliberate. Trump knows that Biden’s legacy of bloating GDP with government jobs and excessive public spending is the real ‘time bomb’ awaiting him. Again the withdrawal symptoms, as the drug of easy money is withdrawn, may prove incendiary. Moving to a structure of tariffs and low taxes will be disruptive.
Whether deliberate or not, Trump is keeping his cards close to his chest. We have only glimpses of intent – and the water is being seriously muddied by the infamous ‘Inter-Agency’ grandees. For example, in respect to the Pentagon sanctioning private-sector contractors to work in Ukraine, this was done in coordination with “inter-agency stakeholders”.
The old nemesis that paralysed his first term again faces Trump. Then, during the Ukraine impeachment process, one witness (Vindman), when asked why he would not defer to the President’s explicit instructions, replied that whilst Trump has his view on Ukraine policy, that stance did NOT align with that of the ‘Inter-Agency’ agreed position. In plain language, Vindman denied that a U.S. president has agency in foreign policy formulation.
In short, the ‘Inter-Agency structure’ was signalling to Trump that military support for Ukraine must continue.
When the Washington Post published their detailed story of a Trump-Putin phone call – that the Kremlin emphatically states never happened – the deep structures of policy were simply telling Trump that it would be they who determine what the shape of the U.S. ‘solution’ for Ukraine would be.
Similarly, when Netanyahu boasts to have spoken to Trump and that Trump “shares” his views regarding Iran, Trump was being indirectly instructed what his policy towards Iran needs to be. All the (false) rumours about appointments to his Team too, were but the interagency signalling their choices for his key posts. No wonder confusion reigns.
So, what can be deduced at this early stage? If there is a common thread, it has been a constant refrain that Trump is against war. And that he demands from his picks personal loyalty and no ties of obligation to the Lobby or the Swamp.
So, is the packing of his Administration with ‘Israel Firsters’ an indication that Trump is edging toward a ‘Realist’s Faustian pact’ to destroy Iran in order to cripple China’s energy supply source (90% from Iran), and thus weaken China? – Two birds with one stone, so to speak?
The collapse of Iran would also weaken Russia and hobble the BRICS’ transport-corridor projects. Central Asia needs both Iranian energy and its key transport corridors linking China, Iran, and Russia as primary nodes of Eurasian commerce.
When the RAND Organisation, the Pentagon think-tank, recently published a landmark appraisal of the 2022 National Defence Strategy (NDS), its findings were stark: An unrelentingly bleak analysis of every aspect of the U.S. war machine. In brief, the U.S. is “not prepared”, the appraisal argued, in any meaningful way for serious ‘competition’ with its major adversaries – and is vulnerable or even significantly outmatched in every sphere of warfare.
The U.S., the RAND appraisal continues, could in short order be drawn into a war across multiple theatres with peer and near-peer adversaries – and it could lose. It warns that the U.S. public has not internalized the costs of the U.S. losing its position as the world superpower. The U.S. must therefore engage globally with a presence—military, diplomatic, and economic—to preserve influence worldwide.
Indeed, as one respected commentator has noted, the ‘Empire at all Costs’ cult (i.e. the RAND Organisation zeitgeist) is now “more desperate than ever to find a war it can fight to restore its fortunes and prestige”.
And China would be altogether a different proposition for a demonstrative act of destruction in order “to preserve U.S. influence worldwide” – for the U.S. is “not prepared” for serious conflict with its peer adversaries: Russia or China, RAND says.
The straitened situation of the U.S. after decades of fiscal excess and offshoring (the backdrop to its current weakened military industrial base) now makes kinetic war with China or Russia or “across multiple theatres” a prospect to be shunned.
The point that the commentator above makes is that there are no ‘easy wars’ left to fight. And that the reality (brutally outlined by RAND) is that the U.S. can choose one – and only one war to fight. Trump may not want any war, but the Lobby grandees – all supporters of Israel, if not active Zionists supporting the displacement of Palestinians – want war. And they believe they can get one.
Put starkly and plainly: Has Trump thought this through? Have the others in the Trump Team reminded him that in today’s world, with U.S. military strength slipping away, there no longer are any ‘easy wars’ to fight, although Zionists believe that with a decapitation strike on Iran’s religious and IRGC leadership (on the lines of the Israel’s strikes on Hizbullah leaders in Beirut), the Iranian people would rise up against their leaders, and side with Israel for a ‘New Middle East’.
Netanyahu has just made his second broadcast to the Iranian people promising them early salvation. He and his government are not waiting to ask Trump to nod his consent to the annexation of all Occupied Palestinian Territories. That project is being implemented on the ground. It is unfolding now. Netanyahu and his cabinet have the ethnic cleansing ‘bit between their teeth’. Will Trump be able to roll it back? How so? Or will he succumb to becoming ‘genocide Don’?
This putative ‘Iran War’ is following the same narrative cycle as with Russia: ‘Russia is weak; its military is poorly trained; its equipment mostly recycled from the Soviet era; its missiles and artillery in short supply’. Zbig Brzezinski earlier had taken the logic to its conclusion in The Grand Chessboard (1997): Russia would have no choice but to submit to the expansion of NATO and to the geopolitical dictates of the U.S.. That was ‘then’ (a little more than a year ago). Russia took the western challenge – and today is in the driving seat in Ukraine, whilst the West looks on helplessly.
This last month, it was U.S. retired General Jack Keane, the strategic analyst for Fox News, who argued that Israel’s air strike on Iran had left it “essentially naked”, with most air defences “taken down” and its missile production factories destroyed by Israel’s 26 October strikes. Iran’s vulnerability, Keane said, is “simply staggering”.
Kean channels the early Brzezinski: His message is clear – Iran will be an ‘easy war’. That forecast however, is likely to be revealed as dead wrong. And, if pursued, will lead to a complete military and economic disaster for Israel. But do not rule out the distinct possibility that Netanyahu – besieged on all fronts and teetering on the brink of internal crisis and even jail – is desperate enough to do it. His is, after all, a Biblical mandate that he pursues for Israel!
Iran likely will launch a painful response to Israel before the 20 January Presidential Inauguration. Its riposte will demonstrate Iran’s unexpected and unforeseen military innovation. What the U.S. and Israel will then do may well open the door to wider regional war. Sentiment across the region seethes at the slaughter in the Occupied Territories and in Lebanon.
Trump may not appreciate just how isolated the U.S. and Israel are among Israel’s Arab and Sunni neighbours. The U.S. is stretched so thin, and its forces across the region are so vulnerable to the hostility that the daily slaughter incubates, that a regional war might be enough to bring the entire house of cards tumbling down. The crisis would pitch Trump into a financial crisis that could sink his domestic economic aspirations too.
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