PEACE WOULD WRING THEIR NECKS

How the hell do you interpret this interview, clearly heavily edited? Note again Bush speaking about those “awfully difficult decisions”, previously mentioned here, and the nonchalant reference to “World War III”, suggesting its a term Bush and his ilk bandy about a lot.

Me, I just can’t help anticipating another Gulf-of-Tonkin-type* incident, doubling as another Reichstag fire, providing the neocons with an excuse to launch an attack upon Iran and at the same time use the mass protests against it – which I imagine it would spark – as a means to impose some form of martial law.

I’m just so mindful of that incident in the Straits of Hormuz, on the eve of Bush’s trip to the Middle East to drum up support for tougher action against Iran, a move to create another “alliance of the willing”. And I’m mindful, too, that he went there with the CIA’s National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) fresh off the press and dismissing Washington’s line that Iran was an inch away from a nuclear capability. He told Israel that he doubted the report’s reliability and Israel concurred, cautioning that they could go it alone, launching an Osirak-like attack against Iran’s fledgling nuclear installation - and which brought no condemnation from Congress.

And if Bush doesn’t attack Iran, then his successor will.

Many US “liberals” I’ve argued with in recent weeks (in chat rooms and via emails resulting from posts I've made on Yahoo Answers) seem to think presidential hopeful Barack Obama signifies the changing tide of US politics, that he’ll not be the war monger Bush is. However, in a speech delivered before AIPAC lobbyists in Chicago, his language was clearly jingoistic. He stands, like the neocons in Washington, on a strong pro-Israel platform. He argued that the US must preserve ‘total commitment to a unique defence relationship with Israel’, that it must work to stop Iran’s nuclear program even if military action is necessary. He said that “no option, including military action, (should be taken) off the table” in the effort to stop Iran gaining a nuclear capacity. The world must work to stop Iran's uranium enrichment program and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. It is far too dangerous to have nuclear weapons in the hands of a radical theocracy.”

On the Sunday before the Florida primary, John McCain sounded off just like Bush: “It’s a tough war we’re in. It’s not going to be over right away. There’s going to be other wars. I’m sorry to tell you, there’s going to be other wars. We will never surrender but there will be other wars.”

Prior to the the New Hampshire primary, January 3rd, McCain was asked how he felt about Bush’s remarks that the US would be in Iraq for 50 years. His reply: “make it 100 [years]".

McCain, himself a veteran of the Vietnam War, shot down after a murderous bombing run over Hanoi, has, for many years argued for unleashing hell on countries from Serbia to Iraq and Sudan to Iran. Indeed, Matt Welch , in his new book The Myth of a Maverick, argues McCain “envisions a more militaristic foreign policy than any US president in a century."

Not only would he let loose the US war machine on large parts of the world, he’s all for the militarization of US society too. Check out this piece of writing from The Washington Monthly, back in 2001, entitled Putting the “National” in National Service.

In the meantime, Bush is making sure that if he doesn’t flatten Iran and similar defiers of US hegemony, then whoever succeeds him as president has the weaponry at their disposal to pursue US interests for a few years to come. His demand for $515.4 billion for the Defence Department is minus the expenditure of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which accounted to nearly $200 billion over the last budget year and which is estimated to cost $140 billion in 2009. Then append to those sums $17.1 billion for the Department of Energy's weapons program and over $40 billion for the Department of Homeland Security and other national security initiatives spread throughout the federal government, and you begin to realise just how obsessed with militarism, at home and abroad, the forces of reaction are in the US. This is one huge amount!!

Remember also that the $3 trillion budget, released Monday, includes $2.55 billion in defence assistance for the US Middle East satellite Israel and which increases in increments until 2013, when it will settle at $3.1 billion a year until 2018.

Call me a panic merchant, but maybe it’s because I’m all too aware of the nature of the beast! What was that line from Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage, the one where the protagonist, who traipses her family around with her, as she makes a living from trading with Europe’s war machines of the 1600s, despairs at the cessation of hostilities? Oh yes, “Peace will wring my neck.”

__________

* The Gulf of Tonkin incident was an alleged attack by North Vietnamese ships upon American boats. As a result of this alleged aggression, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving President Johnson permission to expand the Vietnam War.

A war with Iran to save the US Dollar?

Mike Whitney, writing over on Dissident Voice, senses logic in Bush’s recent trip to the Middle East, locating the visit in an issue covered by this blog some time ago – Iran’s desire to set up an oil bourse.

Witney suggests, as most of us have, that the trip had sod all to do with Middle East peace, as the White House claimed, noting how “three days after Bush left Jerusalem, Israel stepped-up its military operations in the occupied territories and resumed its merciless blockade of food, water and medicine to the 1.5 million people of the Gaza Strip. Bush must have green-lighted Israel’s aggression or it would have been seen as an insult to the President of the United States.” Rather, the trip was all about the US trying to restore Middle East confidence in the falling dollar, which seems to have worked for the moment. Indeed, as Reuters reported:

“After a flurry of public disagreements over currency reform last year, Gulf central bankers are trying to close ranks, talking up the pegs as a source of stability and playing down the dollar’s weakness as a temporary phenomenon.”

Gulf states have watched the economic woes in the US closely, not least because the petro-dollar props up the US economy, as it does in the Middle East oil states, and because they are having their own economic anguish. In Saudi Arabia and neighbouring Oman inflation has reached a 16-year high and is at a 19-year peak in th UAE. Currency traders anticipate another 8% rise in the dirham and riyal by April. Gulf policymakers are intervening directly in loans, property and commodity markets to offset rate cuts. Property prices has rocketed in the Gulf; doubled in the UAE in the last year. Gulf states regularly provide food subsidies and employers grant pay increases of up to 70%. In Dubai, workers have rioted, demanding a living wage. It is expected that throughout the Gulf interest rates will compel Central bankers to covert to either the euro or a basket of regional currencies. For the moment, the loyal Saudi princes have, their fingers crossed, continued their support for the dollar.

Whitney posits, convincingly in my opinion, that Bush’s trips to the Middle East, all this sabre-rattling, and supplying of arms to Israel and Saudi Arabia, is all down to Iran’s belated plans to launch an oil bourse – this week!!

Whitney writes:

So, how important is it that oil continues to be denominated in dollars? Would the United States really wage war to defend the dollar’s status as the world’s “reserve currency”?

The answer to this question could come as early as this week, since the long-awaited Iranian Oil Bourse is scheduled to open between February 1-11. According to Iran’s Finance Minister Davoud Danesh-Jafari “All preparations have been made to launch the bourse; it will open during the 10-day Dawn (the ceremonies marking the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran). The bourse is considered a direct threat to the continued global dominance of the dollar because it will require that Iranian “oil, petrochemicals and gas” be traded in “non-dollar currencies”. (Press TV, Iran)

The petrodollar system is no different than the gold standard. Today’s currency is simply underwritten by the one vital source of energy upon which every industrialized society depends—oil. If the dollar is de-linked from oil; it will no longer serve as the de-facto international currency and the US will be forced to reduce its massive trade deficits, rebuild its manufacturing capacity, and become an export nation again. The only alternative is to create a network of client regimes who repress the collective aspirations of their people so they can faithfully follow directives from Washington.

As to whether the Bush administration would start a war to defend dollar hegemony; that’s a question that should be asked of Saddam Hussein. Iraq was invaded just six months after Saddam converted to the euro. The message is clear; the Empire will defend its currency.

Iran switched from the dollar in 2007 and has insisted that Japan pay its enormous energy bills in yen. The “conversion” infuriated the Bush administration and has moved Iran to the top of the White House’s target list. In fact, even though 16 US Intelligence agencies issued a report (NIE) saying that Iran was not developing nuclear weapons; and even though the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, found that Iran was in compliance with its obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation (NPT) Treaty; a preemptive US-led attack on Iran still appears likely.

And, although the western media now minimizes the prospects of another war in the region; Israel is taking the precautions that suggest that the idea is not so far-fetched. “Israel calls for shelter rooms to be set up in a bid to prepare the public for yet another war, this time, one of raining missiles.” (Press TV, Iran)

“The next war will see a massive use of ballistic weapons against the whole of Israeli territory,” claimed retired general Udi Shani.

Russia also sees a growing probability of hostilities breaking out in the Gulf and has responded by sending a naval task force into the Mediterranean Sea and the North Atlantic.

According to an article on the Global Research site: “The flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, the Moskva guided missile cruiser, joined up with Russian naval warships in the Mediterranean on January 18 to participate in the current maneuvers….The current operation is the first large-scale Russian Navy exercise in the Atlantic in 15 years. All combat ships and aircraft involved carry full combat ammunition loads.

France is also planning military maneuvers in the Straits of Hormuz. Operation “Gulf Shield 01,” will take place off the coast of Iran and will employ thousands of personnel in combined arms operations that will include simulated attacks on oil platforms.”

Exercises are scheduled to take place from Feb. 23 to March 5, and will involve 1,500 French, 2,500 Emirate, and 1,300 Qatari personnel operating on land, at sea and in the air, the ministry said…Around a half-dozen warships, 40 aircraft and dozens of armoured vehicles will be in the war games, Fusalba said.

The Jerusalem Post reports: “An American missile ship set to dock at Haifa port on Monday is equipped with anti-missile defence system that could be deployed in the region in the event of an Iranian missile attack against Israel….The US San Jacinto is an Aegis Cruiser in the Ticonderoga Class …It carries the most advanced underwater surveillance system available today and is equipped with the Aegis Missile System to protect against aircraft and missiles. The ship will remain in Haifa for three days.”

Also, within the last week, three of the main underwater cables which carry Internet traffic to the region have been cut in the Persian Gulf. As a result, three-quarters of the international communications between Europe and the Middle East have been lost. Large parts of the Middle East have been plunged into darkness.

Is this merely a coincidence or is it part of a broader military operation?

Ian Brockwell, of the American Chronicle said:

On the assumption that the cables cut were no accident, we must ask ourselves who would do such a thing and why. Clearly Iran, who were most affected, would gain nothing from such an action and are perhaps the target of those responsible?…Maybe this is a prelude to an attack, or perhaps a test run for a future one?

Communication has always been an important factor in military action, and cutting these cables might affect Iran´s ability to defend itself.

Despite the lack of media coverage, the build-up for war in the Gulf has continued and the probability of a US-led attack on Iran is quite high. Bush is convinced that if he doesn’t confront Iran, then no one will. He also believes that if he doesn’t militarily defend the dollar, then America’s days as “the world’s only superpower” will soon be over. The question is whether Bush will realize that America is already bogged-down in two “unwinnable” conflicts or if he will “go with his gut” once again and lead us into a ruinous region-wide conflagration.

Michael Ruppert - the whole picture

This is a lengthy (lecture) film - some 2 hrs and 17 minutes - but well worth watching if you really want to know just what the hell is going on in the US. There is shit going on that even the more widely read politicos haven't even imagined. This lecture covers the Rockefeller family - CFC - Bush - 9/11 - Bin Laden - Oil - Carlyle Group - the CIA - investment banks - Patriot Act - Oil - internment camps - financial fraud - Iran Contra - cocaine - heroin - Wall Street - the drug trade - S & L crisis - the DEA - Iraq - Iran - Oil- Pakistan - nuclear weapons - looting social security - smallpox vaccine - Citibank - Oil and more.

It's all connected and Ruppert shows how.

After having his life threatened numerous times, Michael Ruppert left the United States and says he will no longer engage in investigative reporting. His last article before leaving the United States, fearing for his own life can be found here For further info on Michael Ruppert, click here.

Round about the 1hr 14 minute mark, Ruppert quotes from an important book by Zbigniew Brzezinski, entitled The Grand Chessboard and which can be downloaded from Sandiago Indymedia here.

The Grand Chessboard - American Primacy And It's Geostrategic Imperatives

Key Quotes From Zbigniew Brzezinksi's Seminal Book

"Ever since the continents started interacting politically, some five hundred years ago, Eurasia has been the center of world power."- (p. xiii)

"... But in the meantime, it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America. The formulation of a comprehensive and integrated Eurasian geostrategy is therefore the purpose of this book.” (p. xiv)

"In that context, how America 'manages' Eurasia is critical. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world's three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa's subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania geopolitically peripheral to the world's central continent. About 75 per cent of the world's people live in Eurasia, and most of the world's physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for about three-fourths of the world's known energy resources." (p.31)

“Never before has a populist democracy attained international supremacy. But the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public's sense of domestic well-being. The economic self-denial (that is, defense spending) and the human sacrifice (casualties, even among professional soldiers) required in the effort are uncongenial to democratic instincts. Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization." (p.35)

“The momentum of Asia's economic development is already generating massive pressures for the exploration and exploitation of new sources of energy and the Central Asian region and the Caspian Sea basin are known to contain reserves of natural gas and oil that dwarf those of Kuwait, the Gulf of Mexico, or the North Sea." (p.125)

"In the long run, global politics are bound to become increasingly uncongenial to the concentration of hegemonic power in the hands of a single state. Hence, America is not only the first, as well as the only, truly global superpower, but it is also likely to be the very last." (p.209)

"Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat." (p. 211)

More Quotes

"...The last decade of the twentieth century has witnessed a tectonic shift in world affairs. For the first time ever, a non-Eurasian power has emerged not only as a key arbiter of Eurasian power relations but also as the world's paramount power. The defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union was the final step in the rapid ascendance of a Western Hemisphere power, the United States, as the sole and, indeed, the first truly global power...” (p. xiii)

"... But in the meantime, it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America. The formulation of a comprehensive and integrated Eurasian geostrategy is therefore the purpose of this book.” (p. xiv)

"The attitude of the American public toward the external projection of American power has been much more ambivalent. The public supported America's engagement in World War II largely because of the shock effect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.” (pp 24-5)

"For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia... Now a non-Eurasian power is preeminent in Eurasia - and America's global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained.” (p.30)

"America's withdrawal from the world or because of the sudden emergence of a successful rival - would produce massive international instability. It would prompt global anarchy." (p. 30)

"In that context, how America 'manages' Eurasia is critical. Eurasia is the globe's largest continent and is geopolitically axial. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world's three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa's subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania geopolitically peripheral to the world's central continent. About 75 per cent of the world's people live in Eurasia, and most of the world's physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for 60 per cent of the world's GNP and about three-fourths of the world's known energy resources." (p.31)

“It is also a fact that America is too democratic at home to be autocratic abroad. This limits the use of America's power, especially its capacity for military intimidation. Never before has a populist democracy attained international supremacy. But the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public's sense of domestic well-being. The economic self-denial (that is, defense spending) and the human sacrifice (casualties, even among professional soldiers) required in the effort are uncongenial to democratic instincts. Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization." (p.35)

"Two basic steps are thus required: first, to identify the geostrategically dynamic Eurasian states that have the power to cause a potentially important shift in the international distribution of power and to decipher the central external goals of their respective political elites and the likely consequences of their seeking to attain them;... second, to formulate specific U.S. policies to offset, co-opt, and/or control the above..." (p. 40)

"...To put it in a terminology that harkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together." (p.40)

"Henceforth, the United States may have to determine how to cope with regional coalitions that seek to push America out of Eurasia, thereby threatening America's status as a global power." (p.55)

"Uzbekistan, nationally the most vital and the most populous of the central Asian states, represents the major obstacle to any renewed Russian control over the region. Its independence is critical to the survival of the other Central Asian states, and it is the least vulnerable to Russian pressures." (p. 121)

[Referring to an area he calls the "Eurasian Balkans" and a 1997 map in which he has circled the exact location of the current conflict - describing it as the central region of pending conflict for world dominance] "Moreover, they [the Central Asian Republics] are of importance from the standpoint of security and historical ambitions to at least three of their most immediate and more powerful neighbors, namely Russia, Turkey and Iran, with China also signaling an increasing political interest in the region. But the Eurasian Balkans are infinitely more important as a potential economic prize: an enormous concentration of natural gas and oil reserves is located in the region, in addition to important minerals, including gold." (p.124)

"The world's energy consumption is bound to vastly increase over the next two or three decades. Estimates by the U.S. Department of energy anticipate that world demand will rise by more than 50 percent between 1993 and 2015, with the most significant increase in consumption occurring in the Far East. The momentum of Asia's economic development is already generating massive pressures for the exploration and exploitation of new sources of energy and the Central Asian region and the Caspian Sea basin are known to contain reserves of natural gas and oil that dwarf those of Kuwait, the Gulf of Mexico, or the North Sea." (p.125)

"Uzbekistan is, in fact, the prime candidate for regional leadership in Central Asia." (p.130)

"Once pipelines to the area have been developed, Turkmenistan's truly vast natural gas reserves augur a prosperous future for the country's people.” (p.132)

"In fact, an Islamic revival - already abetted from the outside not only by Iran but also by Saudi Arabia - is likely to become the mobilizing impulse for the increasingly pervasive new nationalisms, determined to oppose any reintegration under Russian - and hence infidel - control." (p. 133).

"For Pakistan, the primary interest is to gain Geostrategic depth through political influence in Afghanistan - and to deny to Iran the exercise of such influence in Afghanistan and Tajikistan - and to benefit eventually from any pipeline construction linking Central Asia with the Arabian Sea." (p.139)

"Turkmenistan... has been actively exploring the construction of a new pipeline through Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Arabian Sea..." (p.145)

"It follows that America's primary interest is to help ensure that no single power comes to control this geopolitical space and that the global community has unhindered financial and economic access to it." (p148)

"China's growing economic presence in the region and its political stake in the area's independence are also congruent with America's interests." (p.149)

"America is now the only global superpower, and Eurasia is the globe's central arena. Hence, what happens to the distribution of power on the Eurasian continent will be of decisive importance to America's global primacy and to America's historical legacy." (p.194)

"Without sustained and directed American involvement, before long the forces of global disorder could come to dominate the world scene. And the possibility of such a fragmentation is inherent in the geopolitical tensions not only of today's Eurasia but of the world more generally." (p.194)

"With warning signs on the horizon across Europe and Asia, any successful American policy must focus on Eurasia as a whole and be guided by a Geostrategic design." (p.197)

"That puts a premium on maneuver and manipulation in order to prevent the emergence of a hostile coalition that could eventually seek to challenge America's primacy..." (p. 198)

"The most immediate task is to make certain that no state or combination of states gains the capacity to expel the United States from Eurasia or even to diminish significantly its decisive arbitration role." (p. 198)

"In the long run, global politics are bound to become increasingly uncongenial to the concentration of hegemonic power in the hands of a single state. Hence, America is not only the first, as well as the only, truly global superpower, but it is also likely to be the very last." (p.209)

"Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat." (p. 211)

Zbigniew Brzezinski's Background

According to his resume, Zbigniew Brzezinski lists the following achievements:

Harvard Ph.D. in 1953

Counselor, Center for Strategic and International Studies

Professor of American Foreign Policy, Johns Hopkins University

National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter (1977-81)

Trustee and founder of the Trilateral Commission

International advisor of several major US/Global corporations

Associate of Henry Kissinger

Under Ronald Reagan - member of NSC-Defense Department Commission on Integrated Long-Term Strategy

Under Ronald Reagan - member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board

Past member, Board of Directors, The Council on Foreign Relations

1988 - Co-chairman of the Bush National Security Advisory Task Force.

Brzezinski is also a past attendee and presenter at several conferences of the Bilderberger group - a non-partisan affiliation of the wealthiest and most powerful families and corporations on the planet.

Friends Reunited

"The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia recognizes the principle of freedom upon which the United States was founded, including the freedoms enshrined under the first amendment of the United States Constitution. (Joint Statement by President Bush and Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, 25th April, 2005)

I wrote yesterday about Bush and his “awfully difficult decisions.” Today we learn of another Bush decision which is more imbecilic than ”awfully difficult.” In his two day trip to Saudi Arabia, a country already armed to the teeth courtesy of Britain, Bush announced plans to sell Saudi Arabia £120 million of 'sophisticated' missiles as part of a $20 billion arms package for the region.

He certainly makes some contradictory decisions. On the one hand he announces his intended Middle East trip is all about making peace and assuring ‘democratisation’ of the region and then we learn of this £20 billion arms deal. Nice one, George. If you want peace, prepare for war. And with democratisation high on his agenda, just who else does he go kowtowing to? None other than the Saudi regime, some of the worst human rights abusers in the world (see a previous piece on this blog). Did he slate King Abdullah for his outlawing of trade unions, the ban on political dissent, demonstrations, the lack of democracy, the oppression of women? Not on your nelly!

As Michael Hirsh, writing for Newsweek, observes :

“What could not be found on Bush's schedule was one Saudi dissident or political activist, much less a democrat. Just a day after his speech in Abu Dhabi—and three years after declaring in his second inaugural address that "it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture"—the president made time for a tour of Saudi Arabia's National History Museum but not for a meeting with Fouad al-Farhan. Farhan, Saudi Arabia's most popular blogger, was arrested in Jidda last month for daring to defend a group of Saudis who wanted to form a civil rights group.”

Creating an alliance against Iran aside, high on Bush’s agenda is the oil crisis back home. At the moment oil stands at almost $100 dollars a gallon, a four fold increase in recent years, and Bush is desperate the price comes down – well, there’s an election coming up and oil prices might reflect badly on the repukes -and thus he urges the Saudis to increase production:

"I would hope, as OPEC considers different production levels, that they understand that if . . . one of their biggest consumers' economy suffers, it will mean less purchases, less oil and gas sold."

In a round table talk with reporters, whilst in Saudi Arabia, Bush was asked about the alleged incident in the Strait of Hormuz. His reply was reminiscent of that he gave when asked about Osama bin Laden and replied that he didn’t give a shit, that he wasn’t a priority any more:

"It's not going to matter to me one way or the other if they hit our ships, and the Iranian government has got to understand that"

And days after Bush’s historic visit to Israel, to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace we find violence erupting on two fronts, with an Israeli air strike killing 17 Palestinians in Gaza and a car bomb destroying a U.S. Embassy vehicle and killing four in Beirut.

Interestingly, at a press conference in Israel this week, a spokesman for the Israeli government said that the missiles they were getting from the US were smarter than those being sold to Saudi Arabia.

I wonder if King Abdullah will take Bush aside and say: “Yo, Bush, about these weapons you’re giving Israel. How come they’re better than the crap you’re selling us?”

And I can just see Bush answering: “And what’s all this about you sucking up to Iran? Here’s me trying to form an alliance against Iran these past two years and there’s you at the Gulf Council of Cooperation walking hand in hand with Ahmadinejad! Let’s just say I’m hedging my bets.”

Bush scares me shitless

"I can predict that the historians will say that George W. Bush recognized the threats of the 21st century, clearly defined them, and had great faith in the capacity of liberty to transform hopelessness to hope, and laid the foundation for peace by making some awfully difficult decisions." George W. Bush, January 4th, 2008 Interview for Israel's Channel 2

I must confess to being a mite fearful of late, fearful for my class, my fellows throughout the world and for whom I hold no ill feelings. It’s like those crazy days when Reagan rattled his nuclear sabre at the Soviet Union in the 1980s, when I was first married and had a baby daughter; in the days when it was advised that the best way to survive a nuclear blast was to remove the doors from your house and lay them at a 60 degree angle to a wall, piling pillow cases filled with soil from your garden against the outside, thus creating your very own shelter – the days when I lived on the top floor a fucking block of flats, for Christ’s sake!

And It’s people like George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condi Rice and John Bolton, the US Ambassador to the UN and the rest of those war mongering bastards that cause this fear. I cursed their kind a quarter of a century ago and I curse them still.

Despite the claim from the IAEA that there is “no evidence of a nuclear weapons program or any diversion of nuclear material [in Iran],” the masters of war are hell bent on making the case that another Middle East conflict will be necessary. It matters not that an IAEA inspection team have meticulously searched Iran’s nuclear sites, the case is being made in Washington, and promoted by the US media, that Iran is an aspiring nuclear power with its cross-hair sites trained on the US.

Nobody in Washington seems concerned that the CIA’s National Intelligence Estimate reported in November of last year: “Tehran has not restarted its nuclear weapons programme as of mid-2007…We continue to assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Iran does not currently have a nuclear programme…Tehran’s decision to halt its nuclear weapons programme suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005”.

Even as the NIE was doing the rounds in Washington, Bush’s language was belligerent in the extreme, with talk about “world war three”,

Oh, I’m fearful alright, fearful because I can honestly see these blood thirsty maniacs in Washington ordering “pre-emptive” nuclear strikes on Iran. No way will they make an attempt to invade the country and fight battles the old fashioned way, hand to hand.

Cheney recently ranted on about “meaningful consequences” if Iran forged ahead with its legitimate nuclear enrichment programme. Bush has reiterated those very words in the last few days. Rice, ever keen to raise the stakes, says: “We face no greater challenge from a single country than Iran… This is a country that seems determined to develop a nuclear weapon in defiance of the international community that is determined that they should not get one.”

And despite the fact that there is as much evidence for Tehran’s desire to build atomic bombs as there was for Saddam to lob a missile at the west within 45 minutes, Bush has been in the Middle East for the past week stirring up the shit, trying to build an Arab alliance that will sanction the bombing of Iran. Israel is already as keen as hell for war.

Speaking yesterday in the UAE, Bush said that Iran is threatening the security of the world, and that the United States and Arab allies must join together to confront the danger "before it's too late." Bush said: "Iran is today the world's leading state sponsor of terror. It sends hundreds of millions of dollars to extremists around the world while its own people face repression and economic hardship at home. It seeks to intimidate its neighbours with ballistic missiles and bellicose rhetoric. It defies the United Nations and destabilises the region by refusing to be open and transparent about its nuclear programmes and ambitions."

Any critic of US foreign policy could easily have levelled those same words at the US and backed them up with sound evidence. I know could easily.

Bush continued: "Iran's actions threaten the security of nations everywhere. So the United States is strengthening our long-standing security commitments with our friends in the Gulf, and rallying friends around the world to confront this danger before it is too late."

Earlier that day in Bahrain, U.S. Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff, commander of the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, which patrols the Gulf, informed Bush that he took it "deadly seriously" when an Iranian fleet of high-speed boats charged at and threatened to blow up a three U.S. Navy vessels near Iranian waters.

This timely, though bullshit, incident happened on the eve of Bush’s visit to the Middle East, with the Pentagon claiming Iranian patrol boats had threatened to attack and blow up US naval vessels in the Straits of Hormuz, The Pentagon even released a recorded radio message - “I am coming to you. You will explode after a few minutes.” - and it was reported the ship’s commander was a split second from opening fire on the Iranian patrol boats. However, new information over the past three days has emerged that suggests that the incident did not involve such a threat and that no US commander was on the verge of firing at the Iranian boats.

Serious damage to the US version of the incident was the video released by Iran last Thursday showing an Iranian naval officer on a small boat hailing one of three ships. The Iranian commander is heard to say, "Coalition warship 73, this is Iranian navy patrol boat." He then asks for the "side numbers" of the US warships. A voice with a US accent replies, "This is coalition warship 73. I am operating in international waters." It is now apparent that the Iranian message released by the US was a fake. What, the US war machine fake intelligence? Never!

I think that few, if any, politicos, believed the official version when they heard about it, seeing this as another “false flag”, the type that has been hoisted by the US in the past and in order to justify military aggression. And as if Iranian seamen would be so stupid as to attack a US naval vessel spark such bloodbath in their own country! I myself forecast such a “false flag”! incident and I sincerely believe there will be another.

Roger Bybee, at Znet writes:

“The US hostility toward Iran remains so intense that when European nations and the US developed a package of incentives to steer Iran off its nuclear course, the US "insisted that all language addressing Iran's security interests be removed," as Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett, former National Security Council staffers, wrote in a New York Times op-ed (12/11/07)

“…The Bush Administration has repeatedly proven itself not only impervious to, but utterly dis-interested in hard evidence like the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. The Bush Administration now sees itself as bolstered by the illusory success with the "surge" in Iraq, although only 38% of Americans believe it has improved conditions, according to a CBS/New York Times poll conducted Dec. 5-9.

“But based upon the continuing ferocity of post-NIE statements by Bush and Gates, don't be too surprised by a "faith-based" US strike against Iran before George W. Bush leaves office. “

Over on Information Clearing House, William H White sees another dimension to a war with Iran – namely the pretext to enforce a state of national emergency in the US, and the link highlighted below is well worth following up:

“Assuming a decision to attack Iran, given weather and other logistical concerns, combined with attention to the domestic political schedule, the timing would likely be within two to three months or early fall.

“Should this occur, the potential for destabilizing domestic and foreign consequences increase substantially, approaching near certainty. This nominally unattractive and reckless gamble would fit Bush's character as well as the pattern of his governance. Also, this is his last shot, with a chance to create conditions in the Mideast that lock in future policy options, as he has in domestic policy with a massive deficit. Given the consequences, he would attack not only his foreign enemies, but at the same time strike at his domestic foes under the cover of the resulting emergency.

”The later the attack on Iran comes, or a significant response from Iran, the more likely it would be combined with or be followed by a formal declaration of a national emergency, possibly affecting US national elections. The result would be a de facto coup d'état.

”Finally, to further assess its likelihood, ask the question: who is to stop him? Not Congress; not the courts; not pubic opinion nor the press. The only chance, however slight, of stopping Bush would rest almost entirely with the British government, if Parliament became aware of the plan prior to the commencement of hostilities.”

I can’t help but feel there is a lot more than comes across in that opening quotation from Bush –“awfully difficult decisions”!

At the end of the day, Bush, like me and hopefully most readers of this bog is a class warrior, the big, big difference being that we fight on different sides of the class divide and with diametrically opposed interests. Whereas the class conscious are all for peace and harmony and ending waste and want and war, Bush and the clique he represents see profits everywhere, are after ‘full spectrum dominance’ and the freedom to go about their business without criticism from any corner. For workers everywhere, we will see any attack on Iran as an out and out atrocity, a catastrophe for humanity of mammoth proportions; for Bush it will be simply another “awfully difficult decision.”

Tony Blair - Iraq is a disaster

Only those suffering from selective amnesia will not recall the nauseating lengths to which Tony Blair went in promoting the case for the invasion of Iraq, how he used 10-year-old information gleaned from the internet, and some student’ dissertation, to argue that Saddam Hussein was quite capable of lobbing a missile at Britain within 45 minutes.

Prior to the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, well over a million people took part in a mass protest in London - people fully aware at the time that the events of 9/11 had no link to Saddam Hussein (something George Bush promoted and later denied) and that he posed no military threat to the West. Likewise, the many who marched to Hyde Park that day were right in believing that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction—a fact that was proved within months—and that any war in Iraq would fully destabilise the country (ex-president George Bush Snr. in fact cautioned Dubya that invasion would lead to destabilisation). And you would have been in a minority had you not realised the link between the intended war and the fact that beneath the sands of Iraq lay huge oil resources.

Three years after the invasion, with 650,000 Iraqis dead, the country’s infrastructure in total tatters, the country racked by a civil-war that threatens the lives of hundreds of thousands more Iraqis, global terrorism far more of a reality than before the invasion, Blair has admitted that the whole damned episode is a ginormous cock-up.

Interviewed by David Frost on Al-Jazeera on Friday night, Blair sent a shock-wave through Westminster when, responding to Frost’s querying whether the Western invasion of the country had "so far been pretty much of a disaster", Mr Blair said, firmly: "It has."

However, rather than locating the problem in the invasion, the toppling of Saddam, the setting up of a stooge pro-Western government, Blair continued: "You see what I say to people is why is it difficult in Iraq? It's not difficult because of some accident in planning, it's difficult because there's a deliberate strategy - al Qaeda with Sunni insurgents on one hand, Iranian-backed elements with Shia militias on the other - to create a situation in which the will of the majority for peace is displaced by the will of the minority for war."

And who trained Al-Qaeda? British and US special forces, Mr Blair. And what has always been the will of the majority in Iraq, Mr Blair? That the Western occupying armies get the hell out of Iraq.

Notwithstanding the carnage engulfing Baghdad and British-controlled Basra, Blair maintained that British troops were not ready to cut and run.

"We are not walking away from Iraq," he said. "We will stay for as long as the government needs us to stay.” Or rather British and American forces will stay until the country’s oil wealth is secured for Western interests.

"And the reason for that is that what is happening in Iraq, as in Afghanistan, as elsewhere in parts of the Middle East, is a struggle between the decent majority of people, who want to live in peace together, and those who have an extreme and perverted and warped view of Islam, who want to create war.”

One wonders whether Blair gets his political weltanschauung from the same sources as his war-mongering counterpart across the pond. Nowhere do the politics of oil enter the equation – the real reason for the invasion.

Jut one day after the Frost interview and Blair was back-pedalling – for sure his telephone hotline buzzing all night with concerned messages from the jingoistic fraternity in Washington and the oil cartel at home – and his spokesman adamant that his apparent concession was a "straightforward slip of the tongue" – perhaps the kind is slip Mr Bush is so famous for! Blair’s spokesman continued: "He doesn't think that a democratically-elected government in Iraq is a disaster; he doesn't think that getting rid of Saddam was a disaster, but he does acknowledge there are difficulties, and he doesn't try to downplay those."

We wonder just what “difficulties” Mr Blair is thinking of. That in securing the ‘world’s richest prize’ people have to be killed and democratic elections – as in Iraq – have to be subverted. What, the elections were democratic, Mr Blair? Then why did all candidates first have to be cleared by the White House?

How can an election be construed as legitimate when it is carried out under foreign military occupation and when the country is apparently ruled by, and the election will be officially run by, a stooge government installed and kept in power by the army of occupation? Where the democracy in holding an election that is to be orchestrated from the US Embassy and which will be under the ultimate control of US forces? Where the democracy and freedom of expression when a raging civil war prevents large sections of the population casting a vote and when the election is so tailored as to bring into being a new assembly responsible for drafting a Washington–vetted constitution and selecting a government that will be allowed to exist only so long as it functions under the conditions of military occupation?

Toppling Saddam was not a disaster? The very reason Saddam was not toppled in the wake of the first Gulf War - when the US prompted northern Kurds and the southern Marsh Arabs to rebel against Baghdad, offering they would come to their aid, and then sat back as Saddam annihilated them – was exactly because it was recognised an unstable Iraq was not in US interests, that it was safer to keep Saddam in power. Saddam might have been an utter bastard, but as far as Washington was concerned in 1991 he was holding the country together. This is not to say that we, as socialists, believe Saddam should have been left in power, but it is instructive to point to glaring changes in US policy.

As socialists we do maintain that it is dangerous to listen to leaders of any party and from any country, regardless of their flower cant, and insist that anything they say is taken with a pinch of salt and that workers should organise against them and in their ilk and in our own interests. The concept of leadership has emerged with class society and will end when we abolish class society, when we abolish the profit system and all that goes with it. The master class have been allowed to lead because of their control over the means of living and by virtue of their control of the education system and their monopoly of the media and other information processes.

It doesn’t have to be this way. The greatest weapons we posses are our class unity, our intelligence, our ability to question every corrupt word that is uttered by politicians, and to imagine a world fashioned in our own interests. Leaders perceive all of this to be a threat and so will do anything to keep us in a state of oblivion, dejection and dependency – not least of these methods is to further lie to us at every opportunity. Our apathy is the victory they celebrate each day. Our unwillingness question everything they say, to unite as a globally exploited majority and to confront them on the battlefield of ideas is the subject of their champagne toasts.

When it comes to commenting on Iraq, on would have thought that Blair would have learnt his lesson and kept his ill-informed mouth shut. For over 3 years he has lied incessantly about Iraq. It is staggering that anyone in Britain still finds anything he says believable. Just to remind visitors to this blog of some of his untruths we’re listing a sample few of his Iraq-related porkies. If you think anything Blair says is trustworthy, consider the following:

1) "The assessed intelligence has established beyond doubt … that Saddam has continued to produce chemical and biological weapons" (Tony Blair’s foreword to the dossier on Iraq, 24 September 2002)

Fact: After over three months of inspections, the UN weapons inspectors reported on 6 March that "No proscribed activities, or the result of such activities from the period of 1998-2002 have, so far, been detected through inspections”.

2) "There is no doubt about the chemical programme, the biological programme, indeed the nuclear weapons programme. All that is well documented by the United Nations." (Tony Blair, 30 May 2003)

Fact: The UN had found no evidence of any on-going programmes since the mid-1990s. Dr Hans Blix said on 23 May that "I am obviously very interested in the question of whether or not there were weapons of mass destruction and I am beginning to suspect there possibly were not."

3) "The reason why the inspectors couldn't do their job in the end was that Saddam wouldn't co-operate." (Tony Blair, interview on 4 April 2003)

Fact: Hans Blix told the Security Council on 7 March 2003 that "the numerous initiatives, which are now taken by the Iraqi side with a view to resolving some long-standing open disarmament issues, can be seen as 'active', or even 'proactive'".

4) "the UN has tried unsuccessfully for 12 years to get Saddam to disarm peacefully." (Tony Blair, interview in the Independent on Sunday, 2 March 2003)

Fact: In 1999, the Security Council set up a panel to assess the UN's achievements in the peaceful disarmament of Iraq. It concluded that: "Although important elements still have to be resolved, the bulk of Iraq's proscribed weapons programmes has been eliminated."

5) "We have already found two trailers, both of which we believe were used for the production of biological weapons" (Tony Blair, press conference in Poland on 30 May 2003)

Fact: Government experts believed that the trailers were used for the production of hydrogen for artillery guidance balloons - a system, incidentally, sold by the UK to Iraq in the 1980s.

6) “There is some intelligence evidence about linkages between members of al-Qaeda and people in Iraq." (Tony Blair to the House of Commons Liaison Committee, 21 January 2003)

Fact: In early February, a classified British intelligence report, written by defence intelligence staff in mid-January and presented to Tony Blair just prior to his 21 January presentation at the Liaison Committee, stated that there were no current links between the two, and that Bin Laden's "aims are in ideological conflict with present day Iraq".

7) "As the Foreign Secretary has pointed out, resolution 1441 gives the legal basis for this [war]" (Tony Blair to the House of Commons, 12 March 2003)

Fact: Resolution 1441 was secured on the British assurance that it did not authorise military action, even if the UK or US believed it was being violated by Iraq. Britain's UN ambassador Jeremy Greenstock informed the Security Council on 8 November 2002 that "There is no 'automaticity' in this Resolution. If there is a further Iraqi breach of its disarmament obligations, the matter will return to the Council for discussion".

8) "On Monday night, France said it would veto a second Resolution whatever the circumstances." (Tony Blair to the House of Commons, 18 March 2003)

Fact: President Chirac said that France would vote against any resolution that authorised force whilst inspections were still working. Chirac said that he "considers this evening that there are no grounds for waging war in order to ... disarm Iraq.

9) "The oil revenues, which people falsely claim that we want to seize, should be put in a trust fund for the Iraqi people administered through the UN." (Tony Blair to the House of Commons, 18 March 2003)

Fact: Britain co-sponsored a resolution to the Security Council, which was passed in May as Resolution 1483, that gave the US and UK control over Iraq's oil revenues.

10) "Our aim has not been regime change; our aim has been the elimination of weapons of mass destruction" (Tony Blair, press conference, 25 March 2003 )

Fact: UN weapons inspectors were reporting Iraq's "proactive" cooperation, and were offering that Iraq could be confirmed as fully disarmed within three months if that assistance continued. If Mr Blair's aim was the elimination of prohibited weapons, why terminate the inspection process just when it was most effective?

Today, meanwhile, Gordon Brown is in Iraq and no doubt the trip will be used as a damage limitation exercise in the wake of Blair’s unwitting confession. Brown’s remit? To visit and placate British troops who may have thought this was Blair saying they were going home, and announce at least £100 million in new aid for reconstruction. For what it’s worth, the figure is peanuts. On July 18th of this year US government's top auditor told Congress that the new Iraqi government would require at least $50 billion in aid just to rebuild the country's oil facilities and electrical grids to pre-invasion levels. Brown’s £100 million would not cover the damage that is done to Iraq as a direct result of the ongoing civil war each week.
This piece is also posted here.

AFTER HEZBULLAH, WAR WITH IRAN?

Was Israel’s attack on Hezbullah part of preparations for a coming US attack on Iran?

As I write, it with no great belief that the coming month will be one of peace in the Middle East. I personally anticipate a serious and threatening crisis will commence the instant the Iranian government - at the moment under a UN deadline to stop uranium enrichment (actually Iran's legitimate rights under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) by August 31st - tells the UN what it can do with that resolution.

Sanctions will no doubt be immediately announced, but to what effect and with what response from Iran remains to be seen. Iran has already intimated it would spark a global oil price crisis in response to UN sanctions, and it is unclear whether China and Russia – each with vested oil interests in Iran, will go along with any sanctions. The worse case and perhaps more likely scenario is that the US will express feigned frustration at Iran’s unwillingness to cooperate and use the rejected resolution as a chequered flag to attack Iran militarily.

Make no mistake about it. Syria and Iran – part of the “axis of evil” have been in the US’ cross hairs for some time - the evidence for this is well documented – and lined up for a military bombardment, the likes of which will make the war in Iraq look like a street fight.

It is against this backdrop that we can begin to set the present Middle East crisis in context, particularly the recent Israeli attack upon Lebanon. This latest act of Israeli aggression had nothing to do with capturing back two kidnapped Israeli soldiers on 14th July and everything to do, it would seem, with oil and the securing of other resources and preparing for a wider conflict against Syria and Iran.

There are numerous reports that the war in Lebanon had been planned in advance by Israel. Reporting from Tel Aviv for the San Francisco Chronicle on 21st July, Matthew Kalman wrote: "More than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving PowerPoint presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to U.S. and other diplomats, journalists and think tanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail."

Speaking to CNN, veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersch said: “July was a pretext for a major offensive that had been in the works for a long time. Israel's attack was going to be a model for the attack they really want to do. They really want to go after Iran.” (The Guardian, August 14th, 2006).

In bombarding Lebanon and the Gaza strip - Gaza is still being bombed - there can be no other objective than to neutralise two opponents of Israel and indeed the US, and softening the backlash from Hezbullah and Hamas when Iran is eventually bombed.

Hezbullah’s fire power and missile capabilities needed to be tested in advance of any attack on Syria and Iran. For one thing, Israel is unsure of the number of rockets in the hands of Hezbulah (some say 20,000) or indeed their range. Now they know. The Israeli bombardment of key roads and bridges and passage to Syria can serve no other function than to cut of the weapons supply route to Hezbullah. By striking pre-emptively Israel seems to have planned to destroy as many Hezbullah weapons as possible in advance of any Hezbullah rocket attack on Israel resulting from a US-allied bombardment of Iran.

Now, widely unreported in the western popular media and brought to a wider audience by Michel Chossudovsky, a Canadian economics professor, on the Global Research website, was the inauguration of the Ceyhan-Tblisi-Baku (BTC) oil pipeline linking the Caspian sea to the Eastern Mediterranean, and one day before Hezbullah’s kidnapping of the two Israeli soldiers that ostensibly started the recent ware in Lebanon. The BTC pipeline is anticipated to carry a million dollars of oil a day to Western markets.

In attendance at this inauguration ceremony were BP’s CEO Lord Browne and senior officials from the UK and USA, along with Israel's Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, accompanied by a delegation of top Israeli oil officials.

The British Petroleum dominated pipeline skirts the Russian Federation, cutting through new pro-US states Georgia and Azerbaijan, countries allied with NATO and with a standing military pact with Israel. Israel already gets 20% of its oil from Azeri oil fields and this new pipeline is set to increase Israeli imports from the Caspian basin. Israel is now tipped to be a key player in the East Mediterranean oil transport protection racket.

Israel’s military programme is increasingly looking to be tailored to the region’s strategic oil pipelines and by the Western oil companies commanding the pipeline passages. The war against Lebanon can perhaps be best seen as Israel’s first overt move for territorial control over the East Mediterranean coastline.

Officially, the BTC pipeline will be channelling oil to Western markets. What is not admitted, however, is that some of this oil will be redirected towards Israel via a proposed underwater pipeline from Ceyhan in Turkey to the Israeli port of Ashkelon, and from there via a pipeline system to the Red Sea.

The plan seems to serve not only Israeli oil consumption needs, but plays a part in the US’ wider game of global-politics. Oil channelled from Ashkelon to the Red Sea will then be re-exported from the Red Sea port of Eilat to Asian markets. This will help undermine the inter-Asian energy market eventually weakening the position of Russia in Central Asia and cutting off China from Central Asia’s oil reserves.

In April of this year Ankara and Tel Aviv publicised their intention to create four pipelines which would bypass Syrian and Lebanese territory. As the Jerusalem Post reported on 11th May:

"Turkey and Israel are negotiating the construction of a multi-million-dollar energy and water project that will transport water, electricity, natural gas and oil by pipelines to Israel, with the oil to be sent onward from Israel to the Far East.”

The scheme further envisages a pipeline to carry water to Israel from upstream Anatolian rivers Tigris and Euphrates. Not only is this plan catered for in the recently announced military pact between Israel and Ankara, its implementation will be devastating for Syria and Iraq. The execution of this joint Israeli-Turkish venture requires that land and sea routes between the Ceyhan border, through Syria and Lebanon, and to the Lebanese-Israeli border, be militarised. Michel Chossudovsky asks in his article The war on Lebanon and the battle for oil:“Is this not one of the hidden objectives of the war on Lebanon? Open up a space which enables Israel to control a vast territory extending from the Lebanese border through Syria to Turkey.” (http://www.globalresearch.ca/)

Israel is keen to play a more dominant role in the Middle East and seeks to achieve a degree of economic autonomy by becoming a key player in oil politics. Of course to punch above its weight it needs outside help, hence alliances with the US and more recently with Turkey and NATO.
Chossudovsky’s well cited piece Triple Alliance: The US, Turkey, Israel and the War on Lebanon details the alliances and agreements which apparently underpin the war with Hezbullah:

“We are not dealing with a limited conflict between the Israeli Armed Forces and Hezbullah as conveyed by the Western media. The Lebanese War Theatre is part of a broader US military agenda, which encompasses a region extending from the Eastern Mediterranean into the heartland of Central Asia. The war on Lebanon must be viewed as ‘a stage’ in this broader ‘military road map’.” (ibid.)

Significant for Chossudovsky is the Turkey-Israel alliance which involves military and intelligence sharing on Iraq, Iran and Syria, as well as joint military exercises and trainingFurthermore, in early July, just one week before Israeli forces commenced the bombing of Lebanon, Turkey and the US jointly signed a "Shared Vision" contract, validating a new Turkey-US alliance. In attendance for the signing was US Secretary of State Condi Rice and Abdullah Gul, the Turkish Foreign Minister.

This "Shared Vision" contract depicts the Turkish-US alliance as being "characterized by strong bond of friendship, alliance, mutual trust and unity of vision. We share the same set of values and ideals in our regional and global objectives: the promotion of peace, democracy, freedom and prosperity."

More importantly, the document commits Turkey to lend its full support to the “war on terrorism” and to approve US foreign policy with regards the defence of Israel.

Off the coast of Israel, preliminary drilling and seismographic results suggest that the Eastern Mediterranean is also rich in gas reserves. One recent report states that:"… Palestinian and Israeli waters in the Mediterranean appear to contain at least 100bn cu metres of gas reserves, divided about 60:40 in the Palestinians ' favour. Almost all of this gas is expected to go to the Israeli market which, by 2015, will probably be consuming at least 12bn cu metres/yr. A small portion (about 0.5bn cu metres/yr) might also be reserved for a new power plant in the Gaza Strip."(See http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reportinfo.asp?report_id=19835&t=e&cat_id=)

Seeking greater independence and an enhanced role in the Middle East, the smell of profits all around, Israeli aggression now becomes more understandable.

Pepe Escobar, writing for Asia Times, stresses Israel’s water needs as partly behind the recent war in Lebanon. :

“There's also the all-important matter of the waters of the Litani River in southern Lebanon. Israel might as well prepare the terrain now for the eventual annexation of the Litani. ”Beyond Lebanon, Israel is mostly interested also in Syria. The motive: the all-important pipeline route from Kirkuk, in Iraqi Kurdistan, to Haifa. Enter Israel as a major player in Pipelineistan.

”So Israel wants to grab water (and territory) from Palestine, water (and territory) from Lebanon and oil from Iraq. This all has to do with the inevitable - the 21st-century energy wars.” (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HG26Ak02.html)

Tel Aviv recently announced it was in for a “long war” – clearly not with Hezbullah. It has been stockpiling weapons for several years and was re-supplied throughout the war with Hezbullah by the US. On top of its arsenal of 200 nuclear warheads it has in excess of 500 bunker-busting bombs, only a few, by all accounts, used recently in Lebanon. Clearly Israel is preparing for a widening and intense conflict.

With its military alliances, its stockpiling of WMD, its hankering after control of vital resources, its regional hegemonic ambitions, and ultra-strong links to belligerent US Neocons who have already intimated they can hit Iranian targets with 30 minutes notice and that they reserve their right to use nuclear weapons, are we being unrealistic in prophesising Israel’s desire to get involved in a more serious conflict.

Just how do we interpret Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s promise that he will officially proclaim Israel's "new" and in theory "final" borders before 2010, as anything other than a veiled hint at region-wide conflict?

Speaking of the Israeli-Hezbullah conflict, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said: “We need to make clear to Syria and Iran that there is a choice: come into the international community and play by the same rules as the rest of us, or be confronted.” Can this hypocritical statement be interpreted as anything other than a serious threat of violence to those Middle Eastern countries that would stand in the way of profit hungry masters of war and their ambitions for global domination of the planet’s vital resources?

Seymour Hersch repeatedly asserts that President Bush ordered all out war against Iran shortly after his re-election in 2004. Pat Buchanan's American Conservative amongst other sources, sides with Hersh in arguing that vice-president Dick Cheney has drawn up a war plan for Iran inclusive of the possible use of nuclear weapons.

US Defence Secretary Don Rumsfeld has placed US forces on alert and Lieutenant-Colonel Bruce Carlson, commander of the 8th Air Force acknowledges: "We're now at the point where we are essentially on alert. We have the capacity to plan and execute global strikes in half a day or less."
Dan Plesch (The Guardian, 8th August) suggests President Bush has at his disposal:

“200 strategic bombers (B52-B1-B2-F117A) and US Navy Tomahawk cruise missiles. One B2 bomber dropped 80,500lb bombs on separate targets in 22 seconds in a test flight. Using just half the available force, 10,000 targets could be attacked almost simultaneously. This strike power alone is sufficient to destroy all major Iranian political, military, economic and transport capabilities.”

We live at a dangerous stage of human history, in which the greatest crime a country can commit is to have more than its fair share of resources in a world in which the leading superpower is seeking full spectrum dominance. Iran’s real and unforgivable crime – leaving aside its refusal to halt its legitimate uranium enrichment programme - is to have enviable oil and gas reserves, to control access to the Persian Gulf - a vital oil and gas transhipment route to Europe, Japan, and the rest of the world - and to have contemplated oil deals with a series rival for US supremacy, China. With China expected to have oil demands similar to US levels within 20 years, already consuming vast resources of coal, iron and steel, not to mention almost 70% of the world’s cement supplies on one dam project - the panic button has clearly been pressed.

As a Socialist I’m naturally fearful as I watch events unfold; fearful for my class, my fellows throughout the world and for whom I hold no ill feelings. As always, Socialists refuse to take sides in conflict, seeing all war as rooted in the desire to make profit, and viewing workers, wherever they are, united as one class with the same basic needs and common interest, diametrically opposed to the interests of those who would urge them to kill each other.

Before the slaughter once again commences, myself and fellow Socialists once more take the opportunity to declare our heartfelt solidarity with the workers of all nations, and their true common cause. We appeal to workers to organise consciously and politically and to use the power at their disposal to head off the threatening bloodshed, and secure the space we need in order to build a world of peace and stability. As ever, we appeal to the workers of al lands to join with us in campaigning for a system of society where there are no leaders, no classes, no states or governments, no borders, no force or coercion; a world where the earth’s natural and industrial resources are commonly owned and democratically controlled and where production is freed from the artificial constraints of profit and used for the benefit of all; a world of free access to the necessaries of life. A world without waste, or want, or war.