April 6, 2015
Exclusive: With Israel and Saudi Arabia siding with the
Islamic State and Al-Qaeda versus Iran and its allies, President Obama
faces a critical decision – whether to repudiate those old allies and cooperate
with Iran or watch as Sunni terrorist groups possibly take control of a major
country in the Mideast, writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
The foreign policy quandary facing President Barack Obama is
that America’s traditional allies in the Middle East – Israel and Saudi Arabia
– along with Official Washington’s powerful neocons have effectively sided with
Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State out of a belief that Iran represents a greater
threat to Israeli and Saudi interests.
But what that means for U.S. interests is potentially
catastrophic. If the Islamic State continues its penetration toward Damascus in
league with Al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front and topples the Syrian government, the
resulting slaughter of Christians, Shiites and other religious minorities – as
well as the risk of a major new terrorist base in the heart of the Middle East
– could force the United States into a hopeless new war that could drain the
U.S. Treasury and drive the nation into a chaotic and dangerous decline.
To avoid this calamity, Obama would have to throw U.S.
support fully behind the embattled regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,
precipitate a break with Israel and Saudi Arabia, and withstand a chorus of
condemnations from influential neocon pundits, Republican politicians and
hawkish Democrats. Influenced by Israeli propaganda, all have pushed for
ousting Assad in a “regime change.”
But the world has already had a grim peek at what an Islamic
State/Al-Qaeda victory would look like. The Islamic State has reveled in its
ability to provoke Western outrage through acts of shocking brutality, such as
beheadings, incinerations, stonings, burning of ancient books and destruction
of religious sites that the group deems offensive to its fundamentalist version
of Islam.
Over the Easter holiday, there were reports of the Islamic
State destroying a Christian Church in northeastern Syria and taking scores of
Christians as prisoners. An Islamic State victory in Syria would likely mean
atrocities on a massive scale. And, there are signs that Al-Qaeda might bring
the Islamic State back into the fold if it achieves this success, which
would let Al-Qaeda resume its plotting for its own outrages through terrorist
attacks on European and U.S. targets.
Though Al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front and the Islamic State have been
estranged in recent months, the groups were reported to be collaborating in an
assault on the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk, south of Damascus. United
Nations spokesman Chris Gunness told the
Associated Press, “The situation in the camp is beyond inhumane.”
The AP also reported that
“Palestinian officials and Syrian activists say the Islamic State militants
fighting in Yarmouk were working with rivals from the al-Qaida affiliate in
Syria, the Nusra Front. The two groups have fought bloody battles against each
other in other parts of Syria, but appear to be cooperating in the attack on
Yarmouk.”
Syria has become a frontline in the sectarian conflict
between Sunni and Shiite Islam, with Saudi Arabia a longtime funder of the
Sunni fundamentalist Wahhabism, which gave rise to Al-Qaeda under the direction
of Saudi Osama bin Laden. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers in the 9/11 attacks were
Saudi nationals, and elements of the Saudi royal family and other Persian Gulf
sheikdoms have been identified as Al-Qaeda’s financiers. [See Consortiumnews.com’s
“The
Secret Saudi Ties to Terrorism.”]
The Israeli-Saudi Alliance
In seeking “regime change” in Syria, Saudi Arabia has been
joined by Israel whose leaders have cited Syria as the “keystone” in the
pro-Iranian Shiite “strategic arc” from Tehran through Damascus to Beirut. In
making that point in September 2013, Israeli Ambassador to the United States
Michael Oren told the
Jerusalem Post that Israel favored the Sunni extremists over
Assad and the Shiites.
“We always wanted Bashar Assad to go, we always preferred the
bad guys who weren’t backed by Iran to the bad guys who were backed by
Iran.” He said this was the case even if the “bad guys” were affiliated
with Al-Qaeda.
In June 2014, Oren expanded on this Israeli position. Then,
speaking as a former ambassador, Orensaid Israel would
even prefer a victory by the Islamic State.
“From Israel’s perspective, if there’s got to be an evil
that’s got to prevail, let the Sunni evil prevail,” Oren said.
On March 3, in the speech to a cheering U.S. Congress,
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also argued that the danger from Iran
was much greater than from the Islamic State (or ISIS). Netanyahu dismissed
ISIS as a relatively minor annoyance with its “butcher knives, captured weapons
and YouTube” when compared to Iran, which he accused of “gobbling up the
nations” of the Middle East.
He claimed “Iran now dominates four Arab capitals, Baghdad,
Damascus, Beirut and Sanaa. And if Iran’s aggression is left unchecked, more
will surely follow. … We must all stand together to stop Iran’s march of
conquest, subjugation and terror.”
Netanyahu’s rhetoric was clearly hyperbole – Iran’s troops
have not invaded any country for centuries; Iran did come to the aid
of the Shiite-dominated government of Iraq in its fight with the Islamic State,
but the “regime change” in Baghdad was implemented not by Iran but by
President George W. Bush and the U.S. military; and it’s preposterous to say
that Iran “dominates” Damascus, Beirut and Sanaa – though Iran is allied with
elements in Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.
But hyperbole or not, Netanyahu’s claims became marching
orders for the American neocons, the Republican Party and much of the
Democratic Party. Republicans and some Democrats denounced President Obama’s
support for international negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program while
some prominent neocons were granted space on the op-ed pages of the Washington
Post and New York Times to advocate bombing Iran. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “NYT
Publishes Call to Bomb Iran.”]
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia – with U.S. logistical and
intelligence help – began bombing the Houthi rebels in Yemen who have been
fighting a long civil war and had captured several major cities. The Houthis,
who practice an offshoot of Shiite Islam called Zaydism, deny that they are
proxies of Iran although some analysts say the Iranians have given some money
and possibly some weapons to the Houthis.
However, by attacking the Houthis, the Saudis have helped
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula regain its footing, including creating an
opportunity to free scores of Al-Qaeda militants in a prison
break and expanding Al-Qaeda’s territory in the east.
Obama’s Choice
Increasingly, the choice facing Obama is whether to protect
the old alliances with Israel and Saudi Arabia – and risk victories by Al-Qaeda
and the Islamic State – or expand on the diplomatic opening from the framework
agreement on Iran’s nuclear program to side with Shiite forces as the primary
bulwark against Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.
For such a seismic shift in U.S. foreign policy,
President Obama could use the help of Russian President Vladimir Putin,
who assisted in brokering agreements in 2013 in which Syria’s Assad surrendered
Syria’s chemical weapons and in which Iranian leaders signed an interim
agreement on their nuclear program that laid the groundwork for the April 2
framework deal.
In 2013, those moves by Putin infuriated Official
Washington’s neoconservatives who were quick to identify Ukraine as a possible
flashpoint between the United States and Russia. With Putin and Obama both
distracted by other responsibilities, neocon Assistant Secretary of State for
European Affairs Victoria Nuland teamed up with neocon National Endowment for
Democracy President Carl Gershman and neocon Sen. John McCain to help fund and
coordinate the Feb. 22, 2014 coup that ousted elected President Viktor
Yanukovych. The resulting civil war and Russian intervention in
Crimea drove a deep wedge between Obama and Putin.
The mainstream U.S. news media got fully behind the
demonization of Putin, making a rapprochement over Ukraine nearly
impossible. Though German Chancellor Angela Merkel sought to broker a
settlement of the conflict in February – known as Minsk-2 – the right-wing
government in charge in Kiev, reflecting Nuland’s hard-line position, sabotaged
the deal by inserting a poison pill that effectively required the ethnic
Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine to surrender before Kiev would conduct
elections under its control. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ukraine’s
Poison Pill for Peace Talks.”]
The Kiev regime is also incorporating some of its neo-Nazi
militias into the regular army while putting neo-Nazi extremists into
key military advisory positions. Though the U.S. media has put on blinders
so as not to notice the Swastikas and SS symbols festooning the Azov and other
battalions, the reality has been that the neo-Nazis and other far-right
extremists have been the fiercest fighters in killing ethnic Russians in
eastern Ukraine. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Wretched
US Journalism on Ukraine.”]
On Saturday, German Economic News reported that
the Ukrainian army appointed right-wing extremist Dimitri Jarosch as an
official adviser to the army leadership as the Kiev regime – now bolstered by
U.S. military equipment and training and receiving billions of dollars in
Western aid – prepares for renewed fighting with eastern Ukraine.
The problem with Obama has been that – although he himself
may be a “closet realist” willing to work with adversarial countries like Iran
and Russia – he has not consistently challenged the neocons and their junior
partners, the liberal interventionists. The liberals are particularly
susceptible to propaganda campaigns involving non-governmental
organizations that claim to promote “human rights” or “democracy” but have
their salaries paid by the congressionally financed and neocon-run National
Endowment for Democracy or by self-interested billionaires like financier
George Soros.
The effectiveness of these NGOs in using social media and
other forums to demonize targeted governments, as happened in Ukraine during
the winter of 2013-14, makes it hard for honest journalists and serious
analysts to put these crises in perspective without endangering their careers
and reputations. Over the past year, anyone who questioned the demonization of
Putin was denounced as a “Putin apologist” or a “Putin bootlicker.” Thus, many
people not wanting to face such slurs either went along with the propagandistic
“group think” or kept quiet.
Obama is one person who knows better but hasn’t been willing
to contest Official Washington’s narratives portraying Putin or Assad or
the Iranians or the Houthis as the devils incarnate. Obama has generally gone
with the flow, joining the condemnations, but then resisting at key moments and
refusing to implement some of the most extreme neocon ideas – such as bombing
the Syrian army or shipping lethal weapons to Ukraine’s right-wing regime or
forsaking negotiations and bombing Iran.
Pandering to Israel and Saudi Arabia
In other words, Obama has invested huge amounts of time and
energy in trying to maintain positive relations with Netanyahu and the Saudi
royals while not fully joining in their regional war against Iran and other
Shiite-related governments and movements. Obama understands the enormous risk
of allowing Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State to gain firm control of a major
Middle Eastern country.
Of course, if that happens in, say, Syria, Obama would be
blamed for not overthrowing the Assad regime earlier, as if there actually was
a “moderate opposition” that could have withstood the pressure of the Sunni
extremists. Though the neocons and liberal interventionists have pretended
that this “moderate” force existed, it was always marginal when it came to
applying real power.
Whether one likes it or not, the only real force that can
stop an Al-Qaeda or Islamic State victory is the Syrian army and the Assad
regime. But Obama chose to play the game of demanding that “Assad must go” – to
appease the neocons and liberal interventionists – while recognizing that the
notion of a “moderate” alternative was never realistic.
As Obama told the New York Times Thomas L. Friedman in August
2014, the idea that the U.S. arming the “moderate” rebels would have made a
difference has “always been a fantasy.” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Behind
Obama’s Chaotic Foreign Policy.”]
But Obama may be running out of time in his halfway strategy
of half-heartedly addressing the real danger that lies ahead if the Islamic
State and/or Al-Qaeda ride the support of Saudi Arabia and Israel to a victory
in Syria or Iraq or Yemen.
If the United States has to recommit a major military force
in the Middle East, the war would have little hope of succeeding but it would
drain American resources – and eviscerate what’s left of the constitutional
principles that founded the American Republic.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the
Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s.
No comments:
Post a Comment