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In testimony before a Senate committee Wednesday, the Pentagon’s civilian and uniformed chiefs confirmed that they are drawing up war plans against Syria at the request of the Obama White House.

The statements by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey came amid mounting evidence that Washington and its key European allies, working in conjunction with the right-wing monarchical regimes in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are escalating a covert intervention aimed at bringing about Syrian regime-change.

Much of the media coverage of Wednesday’s hearing focused on the jingoistic intervention of Arizona’s Senator John McCain, the former Republican presidential candidate. He is demanding US air strikes against Syria to carve out “safe havens” in which Western-backed armed groups can prepare military strikes against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“How many additional civilian lives would have to be lost in order to convince you that the military measures of the kind we are proposing necessary to end the killing and force Assad to leave power?” McCain demanded of Panetta.

The defense secretary responded by asserting, “We are not divided here.” He insisted that the Pentagon is “reviewing all possible additional steps that can be taken” to hasten the downfall of the Assad regime, “including potential military options if necessary.”

General Dempsey cautioned that a US intervention in Syria would be more difficult than the NATO war in Libya given the country’s “far different demographic, ethnic, religious mix.” However, he assured the Senate panel, “Should we be called upon to defend US interests, we will be ready.” The Joint Chiefs chairman added that military operations under consideration included the imposition of a “no-fly zone,” the opening up of a “humanitarian corridor,” a naval blockade of the Syrian coastline and air strikes.

Panetta and Dempsey both echoed statements made the day before at a White House press briefing by President Obama that it would be a “mistake” to “to take military action unilaterally.”

None of them, however, raised a United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing use of military force as a pre-condition for US military intervention in Syria.

An unnamed senior Defense Department official made it clear to CNN that the administration does not see a UN resolution—which has so far been blocked by Russia and China, which both wield veto power on the Security Council—as indispensable. “Some kind of mandate from a regional organization” would suffice, the official indicated, or any multi-lateral cover for US intervention, such as the “coalition of the willing” the Bush administration cobbled together before the Iraq war.

Particularly important in this regard is Turkey, which is hosting a conference of the “Friends of Syria” this month. While formally opposing a military intervention by any military force “from outside the region,” Turkey has called for Assad’s downfall and demanded that Syria allow the opening up of “humanitarian aid corridors.”

Similarly, the United Nations has prepared a 90-day “emergency contingency plan” to deliver food aid to Syrian civilians. The US State Department seized on the plan, demanding “immediate, safe and unhindered access” to all “affected areas” in Syria.

In response, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem said that his government would resist any foreign intervention. “Humanitarian corridors mean military corridors,” he said. “You can’t have humanitarian corridors without military protection.”

During his testimony, Panetta was asked whether the US would provide “communications equipment” to the armed groups seeking to topple the Assad government. Panetta responded that he would “prefer to discuss that in a closed session,” while allowing that the administration is “considering an array of non-lethal assistance.”

In fact, there are multiple reports indicating that the US administration has already gone well beyond that.

In a report on Tuesday, Foreign Policy cited senior administration officials confirming that a meeting of the Deputies Committee of the National Security Council had already adopted a policy “for expanding US engagement with Syrian activists and providing them with the means to organize themselves.”

“US policy is now aligned with enabling the opposition to overthrow the Assad regime,” one official told the journal. “This codifies a significant change in our Syria policy.”

This official added that steps are being taken to support the military committee formed recently by the Syrian National Council, which Washington sees as a more reliable puppet force than the Free Syrian Army. “There is recognition that lethal assistance to the opposition may be necessary, but not at this time,” he said.

However, an email released by WikiLeaks as part of the internal documents obtained from the private US intelligence firm Stratfor indicates that such “lethal assistance” has been in place for months.

The December 2011 email was from Reva Bhalla, Stratfor’s director of analysis. It recounts a meeting with military intelligence officers at the Pentagon, including one British and one French officer. The officers, part of the US Air Force’s strategic studies group, suggested that “SOF [special operations forces] teams are already on the ground focused on recce [reconnaissance] mission and training opposition forces.”

The officers, according to Bhalla, said that the aim of the special forces teams was to “commit guerrilla attacks, assassination campaigns, try to break the back of the Alawite forces, elicit collapse from within.”

The day before Panetta’s and Dempsey’s appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Marine Gen. James Mattis, the head of US Central Command (Centcom) in charge of all US forces in the Middle East, addressed the same panel and gave a candid assessment of US aims in Syria.

“If we were to provide options, whatever they are, to hasten the fall of Assad,” Mattis testified, “it would cause a great deal of concern and discontent in Tehran.”

Declaring Iran “the most significant threat in the region,” Mattis added, “It would be the biggest strategic setback for Iran in 20 years, when Assad falls.”

Behind all of Washington’s posturing about defending civilians in Syria, the real methods and aims of US imperialism begin to emerge clearly. It is waging a terrorist campaign in Syria in preparation for more direct military intervention.

It seeks Assad’s overthrow not out of any interest in human rights or democracy, but rather to advance US strategic interests by weakening Iran, Syria’s ally, which Washington views as the principal obstacle to its bid to assert hegemony over the oil-rich regions of the Persian Gulf and Central Asia. Thus, contained within the steadily escalating American intervention in Syria are the preparations for a far wider war, with global consequences.

By Bill Van Auken

9 March, 2012

@ WSWS.org

Granting No Quarter: A Call for the Disavowal of the Racism and Antisemitism of Gilad Atzmon

Note: This statement was first published by the US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN) and is authored by all of the undersigned.

For many years now, Gilad Atzmon, a musician born in Israel and currently living in the United Kingdom, has taken on the self-appointed task of defining for the Palestinian movement the nature of our struggle, and the philosophy underpinning it. He has done so through his various blogs and Internet outlets, in speeches, and in articles. He is currently on tour in the United States promoting his most recent book, entitled, The Wandering Who.

With this letter, we call for the disavowal of Atzmon by fellow Palestinian organizers, as well as Palestine solidarity activists, and allies of the Palestinian people, and note the dangers of supporting Atzmon’s political work and writings and providing any platforms for their dissemination. We do so as Palestinian organizers and activists, working across continents, campaigns, and ideological positions.

Atzmon’s politics rest on one main overriding assertion that serves as springboard for vicious attacks on anyone who disagrees with his obsession with “Jewishness”. He claims that all Jewish politics is “tribal,” and essentially, Zionist. Zionism, to Atzmon, is not a settler-colonial project, but a trans-historical “Jewish” one, part and parcel of defining one’s self as a Jew. Therefore, he claims, one cannot self-describe as a Jew and also do work in solidarity with Palestine, because to identify as a Jew is to be a Zionist. We could not disagree more. Indeed, we believe Atzmon’s argument is itself Zionist because it agrees with the ideology of Zionism and Israel that the only way to be a Jew is to be a Zionist.

Palestinians have faced two centuries of orientalist, colonialist and imperialist domination of our native lands. And so as Palestinians, we see such language as immoral and completely outside the core foundations of humanism, equality and justice, on which the struggle for Palestine and its national movement rests. As countless Palestinian activists and organizers, their parties, associations and campaigns, have attested throughout the last century, our struggle was never, and will never be, with Jews, or Judaism, no matter how much Zionism insists that our enemies are the Jews. Rather, our struggle is with Zionism, a modern European settler colonial movement, similar to movements in many other parts of the world that aim to displace indigenous people and build new European societies on their lands.

We reaffirm that there is no room in this historic and foundational analysis of our struggle for any attacks on our Jewish allies, Jews, or Judaism; nor denying the Holocaust; nor allying in any way shape or form with any conspiracy theories, far-right, orientalist, and racist arguments, associations and entities. Challenging Zionism, including the illegitimate power of institutions that support the oppression of Palestinians, and the illegitimate use of Jewish identities to protect and legitimize oppression, must never become an attack on Jewish identities, nor the demeaning and denial of Jewish histories in all their diversity.

Indeed, we regard any attempt to link and adopt antisemitic or racist language, even if it is within a self-described anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist politics, as reaffirming and legitimizing Zionism. In addition to its immorality, this language obscures the fundamental role of imperialism and colonialism in destroying our homeland, expelling its people, and sustaining the systems and ideologies of oppression, apartheid and occupation. It leaves one squarely outside true solidarity with Palestine and its people.

The goal of the Palestinian people has always been clear: self determination. And we can only exercise that inalienable right through liberation, the return of our refugees (the absolute majority of our people) and achieving equal rights to all through decolonization. As such, we stand with all and any movements that call for justice, human dignity, equality, and social, economic, cultural and political rights. We will never compromise the principles and spirit of our liberation struggle. We will not allow a false sense of expediency to drive us into alliance with those who attack, malign, or otherwise attempt to target our political fraternity with all liberation struggles and movements for justice.

As Palestinians, it is our collective responsibility, whether we are in Palestine or in exile, to assert our guidance of our grassroots liberation struggle. We must protect the integrity of our movement, and to do so we must continue to remain vigilant that those for whom we provide platforms actually speak to its principles.

When the Palestinian people call for self-determination and decolonization of our homeland, we do so in the promise and hope of a community founded on justice, where all are free, all are equal and all are welcome.

Until liberation and return.

Signed:

Ali Abunimah

Naseer Aruri, Professor Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth

Omar Barghouti, human rights activist

Hatem Bazian, Chair, American Muslims for Palestine

Andrew Dalack, National Coordinating Committee, US Palestinian Community Network

Haidar Eid, Gaza

Nada Elia, US Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel

Toufic Haddad

Kathryn Hamoudah

Adam Hanieh, Lecturer, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London

Mostafa Henaway, Tadamon! Canada

Monadel Herzallah, National Coordinating Committee, US Palestinian Community Network

Nadia Hijab, author and human rights advocate

Andrew Kadi

Abir Kobty, Palestinian blogger and activist

Joseph Massad, Professor, Columbia University, NY

Danya Mustafa, Israeli Apartheid Week US National Co-Coordinator & Students for Justice in Palestine- University of New Mexico

Dina Omar, Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine

Haitham Salawdeh, National Coordinating Committee, US Palestinian Community Network

Sobhi Samour, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London

Khaled Ziada, SOAS Palestine Society, London

Rafeef Ziadah, poet and human rights advocate

By Many Authors

14 March 2012

@ Uspcn.org

Saturday, 31 March 2012 / Ma’an News Agency – (Bethlehem) Organizers of the Global March to Jerusalem commemorating Land Day say the march on Friday made big strides as most of its goals were realized.

General coordinator of the march Ribhi Halloum told Ma’an from Jordan that the organizers put forward three major goals. The first goal, he said, was to lay the grounds for future activities in line with this goal. The rally was divided into two parts the first of which was organizing rallies and sit-in strikes in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt.

Part two of this goal, added Halloum, was demonstrations and face-to-face confrontations with the occupation inside Palestine “to prove that the Palestinian people are still present and are still holding fast to their land.”

The second goal, according to Halloum, was to maintain that the question of Palestine is no longer the cause of the Palestinian people alone, but rather a global cause, and that was evident in the participation of solidarity activists from 84 countries.

The third goal was to show that occupation will eventually disappear no matter how long it might survive, he said.

The organizers, added Halloum, do not pay great attention to the number of participants in the rallies, but rather to the number of countries joining the protests, as that reflects the support for Palestine.

Halloum highlighted that for the first time in Jordan more than 57,000 Jordanian citizens joined in different activities commemorating Land Day.

For his part, member of the organizing committee from inside Israel aja Aghbariyya told Ma’an that the march achieved its goals at an international level and in Arab countries.

He highlighted that there are plans to organize similar rallies on May 15 commemorating the Nakba anniversary. Preparations are underway, he said.

By Ma’an News Agency

31 March 2012

US President Barack Obama and international diplomats gathered at the “Friends of Syria” meeting in Tunis issued statements yesterday pressing for military intervention in Syria. They cited as a pretext escalating warfare between US-backed Syrian “rebel” forces and the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Obama spoke in Washington shortly after the end of the Tunis meeting, saying it was “imperative” to halt the fighting in Syria. “It is time to stop the killing of Syrian civilians by their own government,” he declared. He did not say, however, what action the US government was considering.

After the Tunis meeting, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denounced the February 4 veto by Russia and China of a UN Security Council resolution moved by the Arab League demanding that Assad step down. She said, “It is quite distressing to see two permanent members of the Security Council using their veto while people are being murdered—women, children, brave young men—houses are being destroyed. It is just despicable and I ask you whose side are they on? They are clearly not on the side of the Syrian people.”

Clinton’s pose of outrage is a contemptible ploy. Its aim is to seize upon reports of fighting between the army and “rebel” forces to justify what would be an even bloodier, US-led intervention in Syria along the lines of last year’s NATO war in Libya.

It is possible to advocate such a policy only by engaging in the most shameless lying. On the one hand, US officials claim to be considering only “humanitarian” assistance for the Syrian people, while on the other they fan the flames of war—militarily backing a right-wing, Islamist-led insurgency. Their goal is the colonial re-subjugation of Syria, either by direct military conquest or by fomenting a palace coup by members of the regime who fear the loss of Russian and Chinese support.

Syrian opposition spokesmen at the Tunis meeting told Reuters: “We are bringing in defensive and offensive weapons… It is coming from everywhere, including Western countries and it is not difficult to get anything through the borders.”

Other diplomats speaking in Tunis also backed military intervention, choosing their words to avoid confirming that it had already begun. Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal called sending weapons and ammunition to pro-US forces in Syria “an excellent idea.” French and Qatari officials spoke in favor of sending forces into Syria to clear a path for “humanitarian corridors”—that is, conquering parts of Syria through which supplies can be sent to the “rebels.”

US officials’ statements made clear that, though they do not openly acknowledge it, they are supporting the Syrian “rebels” militarily. Speaking on Thursday in London, while meeting with British, French, German and Arab diplomats before the Tunis meeting, Clinton said Assad would face “increasingly capable opposition forces.” She added, “They will from somewhere, somehow find the means to defend themselves as well as begin offensive measures.”

Such comments expose the utterly deceitful character of the position of the US and its allies. Its hands dripping with the blood of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans killed and wounded in counter-insurgency campaigns by US occupation forces, the US government is preparing a new war on the basis of hypocritical claims that it considers Assad’s suppression of a foreign-backed insurgency to be intolerable. Responsibility for ongoing fighting in Syria lies primarily with the US and its allies.

The pose of “humanitarian” anguish by Clinton and her accomplices is but one more weapon in the US diplomatic arsenal, alongside sanctions, targeted assassinations, drone strikes and mass murder.

Yesterday, leading newspapers openly aired the plans being drawn up by imperialist diplomats and intelligence agencies for the conquest of Syria by the United States and its allies.

In a Financial Times comment, former CIA official Emile Nakhleh wrote: “The assistance should begin with establishing a haven for the opposition and the military personnel who defect from the regime, as in northern Iraq in 1991. Food, water, clothes, medical supplies and technical equipment should be dropped into the safety zone. Ankara [the Turkish government] would have to play a critical role in planning, and ultimately in maintaining and supplying the zone, as it would almost certainly have to be contiguous to Turkey. If Syrian forces violate the sanctuary, the West should arm the opposition and work with military defectors to organize more effective resistance.”

Similar plans were laid out by former US State Department official Anne-Marie Slaughter in the New York Times. Calling for the supplying of “anti-tank, counter-sniper, and portable anti-aircraft weapons” to the US-backed forces, she called for the establishment of “no-kill zones” in which US-backed Syrian forces could find sanctuary. Once Syrian government forces in these misnamed “no-kill zones” were “killed, captured or allowed to defect without reprisal, attention would turn to defending and expanding the no-kill zones.”

Such plans do not describe a “humanitarian” operation, but a US-led war of extermination against any Syrian forces that refuse to submit to the colonial-style subjugation of the country.

A substantial part of the Tunis meeting was devoted to trying to unify the disparate forces of the Syrian opposition into a viable proxy guerrilla force for US imperialism, similar to the National Transitional Council in the war in Libya. This has proven difficult amid deep tensions between three opposition factions: the National Coordination Committee (NCC), the Syrian National Council (SNC), and the Syrian Free Army (SFA), which largely consists of Syrian army defectors who fled to Turkey.

US officials have also reported ties between Al Qaeda and Islamist elements of the US-backed Syrian opposition. (See, “International tensions mount over Syria conflict”).

Negotiations with the “rebel” factions have highlighted the fact that none of the US proxies in Syria have mass popular support. The Financial Times itself complained that the Syrian opposition is “splintered along ethnic and social lines.”

The NCC, composed largely of Stalinist and Kurdish nationalist parties, did not attend the Tunis meeting, where diplomats declared the SNC—which is dominated by Islamist forces around the Muslim Brotherhood—to be a “legitimate interlocutor.”

The meeting declined to name the SNC a “representative of the Syrian uprising,” however, as some had initially proposed. This appears to reflect the hope that further negotiations can secure the NCC’s full participation in Washington’s plans. British officials told the press that they hoped to get the opposition to “set out a shared set of principles, with a strong message of inclusion to all ethnic groups in Syria.”

The character of the opposition highlights the politically criminal character of the imperialist intervention in Syria. Supposedly carried out to protect Syrian protesters, it is also presented as an extension of the revolutionary struggles that have swept the Middle East. In fact, US policy is a counterrevolutionary response to the working class struggles that overthrew US-backed dictators in Tunisia and Egypt last winter.

In Tunisia and Egypt, mass struggles of the working class spread throughout the country, weakening the loyalty of the armed forces to the regime and forcing the resignation of hated heads of state. Washington backed both Ben Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt and worked feverishly to keep them in power.

In Syria, the US and its allies rapidly moved to turn regional protests, based in Sunni parts of the country and led by organizations with no mass base, into a right-wing insurgency with virtually no support in either of Syria’s two largest cities, Damascus and Aleppo. It is not a revolution, but a US-directed drive to oust a regime allied to Iran so as to further isolate that country and strengthen American hegemony in the oil-rich Middle East.

By Alex Lantier

Following a bellicose speech before the principal pro-Israel lobbying group on Sunday and a White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, President Barack Obama reiterated the readiness of the United States to go to war against Iran at a press conference on Tuesday.

At the same time, Obama defended his policy of continued diplomatic and political pressure on the Iranian regime backed by crippling sanctions, holding in reserve for now a military attack should Tehran reject the dictates of Washington and its European allies.

The first presidential press conference of 2012 was dominated by questions on Iran and Syria and tactical differences between the US and Israel. In talks with Obama and a speech Monday night at the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) convention in Washington, Netanyahu made clear that Israel was prepared to carry out unilateral military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities and was hostile to further talks between Tehran and the P5 +1 countries—the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (the US, Britain, France, Russia and China) plus Germany.

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton announced Tuesday that the P5+1 powers had accepted an offer from Iran to resume talks on Iran’s nuclear program. The announcement coincided with two other moves by Iran aimed at easing tensions and facilitating talks.

The Iranian Supreme Court on Monday overturned a death sentence against former US Marine Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, who had been convicted of spying for the US. On Tuesday, a semi-official Iranian news agency said the country would grant International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors access to parts of the Parchin military complex, located 18 miles southeast of Tehran.

At Washington’s behest, the IAEA has demanded access to the site, which is a non-nuclear facility and not subject to the agency’s oversight. It has responded to Tehran’s previous denials by suggesting the site is being used to carry out secret nuclear weapons development.

At the press conference, Obama countered attacks by Republican presidential candidates, three of whom addressed the AIPAC conference on Tuesday and charged Obama with failing to sufficiently back Israel and procrastinating in attacking Iran. He did so first by reiterating the statement he had made to AIPAC and Netanyahu: “My policy is not containment, my policy is to prevent them [Iran] from getting a nuclear weapon.”

He then accused his opponents of political grandstanding and taking a “casual” attitude toward war, noting some of the costs and dangers involved in an attack on Iran. He touted his own “success” in imposing brutal economic sanctions that are having a growing impact on the country, and isolating the Iranian regime diplomatically and politically.

In what the media has generally portrayed as an endorsement of diplomacy over war, Obama said, “At this stage, it is my belief that we have a window of opportunity where this can still be resolved diplomatically…. To resolve this issue will require Iran to come to the table and discuss in a clear and forthright way how to prove to the international community that the intentions of their nuclear program are peaceful.”

In reality, this supposed defense of diplomacy reflects a further turn toward military action. The Obama administration has gone from speaking of the military option as a somewhat remote possibility to suggesting that there “still” remains a slight chance that it can be avoided.

Obama’s talk of a “window of opportunity” for Iran to carry out the impossible task of proving a negative—that its nuclear program is not for military purposes—as well as his profession of concern for the “costs of war” are eerily reminiscent of the statements of George W. Bush about Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction” in the run-up to the US attack on that country.

There are many indications that the Obama administration wants to delay a military attack on Iran until after the elections—in part to avoid the electoral fallout from an explosion in oil prices, in part to use negotiations to deliver Tehran ultimatums and then cite its “defiance” of the “international community” as justification for military aggression. The resulting war would aim to topple the current regime and install a puppet government, as in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.

To this end, Obama was effusive in his speech to AIPAC on Sunday and remarks made prior to his talks with Netanyahu on Monday in declaring his unqualified support for Israel and citing his record of backing Israeli aggression against its Arab neighbors in Gaza and elsewhere. He made a point of explicitly rejecting a policy of containing a nuclear-armed Iran in favor of a policy of preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, and directly stating Washington’s commitment to using military means to do so if necessary. He also declared his support for Israel’s “sovereign right” to unilaterally attack Iran or any other country.

He told AIPAC that his administration was committed to “use all elements of American power to pressure Iran and prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon.” This is an open-ended formulation that could include not only the current measures—economic warfare, terrorist attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists, and cyber-attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities—but also missiles, troops and even nuclear weapons. It should be recalled that the current secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, declared in 2009 that she would support the “annihilation” of Iran should it attack Israel.

This appears to be aimed at convincing Netanyahu to refrain from launching what Obama has referred to as a “premature” attack on Iran. Meanwhile, Washington is moving ahead with plans to attack the country. It has doubled the number of aircraft carrier battle groups stationed in the Persian Gulf area, deploying both the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Carl Vinson. In comments to the media last week, US Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz confirmed that plans for attacking Iran have not only been prepared, but have been sent to the president and the defense secretary.

“What we can do, you wouldn’t want to be in the area,” Schwartz declared. Pentagon officials said the options included wide-ranging attacks on every aspect of Iran’s military, security and intelligence apparatus.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the Central Command, which oversees US military operations in the region, has requested the re-allocation of $100 million in military spending to step up war preparations against Iran.

By Barry Grey

7 March 2012

@ WSWS.org

The Biblical Book of Esther that was given to President Obama by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday was far from being a cryptic message. The Book of Esther is a genocidal recipe. It is there to educate Jews how to infiltrate into foreign administrations. In my latest book The Wandering Who I explore the role of The Biblical text in shaping contemporary Jewish political Lobbying and its open attempt to dominate American and British foreign policies. In contemporary American politics we detect the following.

>> Esther’s and Mordechai’s role is played by AIPAC and American Jewish Committee (AJC) – Both openly push for a war against Iran.

>> President Obama is the Persian king Ahasuerus. Like the Persian king, Obama is asked to kill the ‘enemies of the Jews’

>> Haman, the ‘murderous Antisemite’ is clearly Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Iranian people. In the Biblical tale, both Haman and his sons end up massacred.

>> And sadly enough repudiated queen Vashti, is played by the American people and humanity. seemingly, our prayer for peace and harmony is clearly ignored.

The Book of Esther (The Wandering Who? by Gilad Atzmon, Chapter 19)

‘Haman said to King Achashvairosh, “There is a nation scattered and separated among the nations [the Jews] throughout your empire. Their laws are different than everyone else’s, they do not obey the king’s laws, and it does not pay for the king to tolerate their existence. If it pleases the king, let a law be written that they be destroyed, and I will pay to the executors ten thousand silver Kikar-coins for the king’s treasury.”’ (The Book Of Esther, Chapter 3)

The Book of Esther is a biblical story that forms the basis for the celebration of Purim, probably the most joyously celebrated Jewish festival. The book tells of an attempted Judeocide, but also of Jews who manage to change their fate. In the Book of Esther, the Jews rescue themselves, and even get to mete out revenge.

It is set in the third year of the reign of the Persian king Ahasuerus (commonly identified with Xerxes I). It is a story of a palace, a conspiracy, the aforementioned attempted Judeocide and a brave and beautiful Jewish queen – Esther – who manages to save her people at the very last minute.

Ahasuerus is married to Vashti, whom he repudiates after she rejects his command to show herself off to his assembled guests during a feast. Esther is selected from amongst many candidates to be Ahasuerus’s new bride. As the story progresses, Ahasuerus’s prime minister, Haman, plots to have all the Jews in the Persian empire killed in revenge for a refusal by Esther’s cousin Mordechai to bow to him in respect. Esther, now queen, plots with Mordechai to save the day for the Persian Jews. At the risk of endangering her own safety, Esther warns Ahasuerus of Haman’s murderous anti-Jewish plot. (As she had not disclosed her Jewish origins beforehand, the king had been unaware of them.) Haman and his sons are hanged on the fifty-cubit-high gallows he had originally built for Mordecai. As it happens, Mordecai takes Haman’s place as prime minister. Ahasuerus’s edict decreeing the murder of the Jews cannot be rescinded, so he issues another one allowing the Jews to take up arms and kill their enemies – which they do.

The moral of the story is clear. If Jews want to survive, they had better infiltrate the corridors of power. In light of The Book of Esther, Mordechai and Purim, AIPAC and the notion of ‘Jewish power’ appears to be an embodiment of a deep Biblical and cultural ideology.

However, here is the interesting twist. Though the story is presented as a record of actual events, the historical accuracy of the Book of Esther is in fact largely disputed by most modern Bible scholars. The lack of clear corroboration for any of the book’s details with what is known of Persian history from classical sources has led scholars to conclude that the story is mostly or even totally fictional. In other words, the moral notwithstanding, the attempted genocide is fictional. Seemingly, the Book of Esther encourages its (Jewish) followers into collective Pre-TSS, making a fantasy of ‘destruction’ into an ‘ideology of survival’. Indeed, some read the story as an allegory of quintessentially assimilated Jews, who discover that they are targets of anti-Semitism, but who are also in a position to save themselves and their fellow Jews.

Reading the Haman quotes above, while keeping Bowman in mind, the Book of Esther shapes an exilic identity. It sews existential stress and is a prelude to the Holocaust religion, setting the conditions that turn the Holocaust into reality. Interestingly a very similar, threatening narrative is explored in the beginning of Exodus. Again, in order to set an atmosphere of a ‘Shoah to come’ and a liberation to follow, an existential fear is established:

‘Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph. And he said unto his people, “Behold, the people of the children of Israel are too many and too mighty for us; come, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there befalleth us any war, they also join themselves unto our enemies, and fight against us, and get them up out of the land.” Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh store-cities, Pithom and Raamses.’ Exodus 8-11

Both in Exodus and The Book of Esther, the author of the text manages to predict the kind of accusations that would be leveled against Jews for centuries to come, such as power-seeking, tribalism and treachery. Shockingly, the text in Exodus evokes a prophesy of the Nazi Holocaust. It depicts a reality of ethnic cleansing, economic oppressive measures that eventually lead to slave labour camps (Pithom and Raamses). Yet, in both Exodus and the Book of Esther it is the Jews who eventually kill.

Interestingly, the Book of Esther (in the Hebrew version of the Bible; six chapters were added to the Greek translation) is one of only two books of the Bible that do not directly mention God (the other is Song of Songs). As in the Holocaust religion, in the Book of Esther it is the Jews who believe in themselves, in their own power, in their uniqueness, sophistication, ability to conspire, ability to take over kingdoms, ability to save themselves. The Book of Esther is all about empowerment. It conveys the essence and metaphysics of Jewish power.

From Purim to Washington

In an article titled ‘A Purim Lesson: Lobbying Against Genocide, Then and Now’, Dr Rafael Medoff expounds on what he regards as the lesson bequeathed to the Jews by Esther and Mordechai: the art of lobbying. ‘The holiday of Purim,’ Medoff says, ‘celebrates the successful effort by prominent Jews in the capitol [sic] of ancient Persia to prevent genocide against the Jewish people.’[1] This specific exercise of what some call ‘Jewish power’ (though Medoff does not use this phrase) has been carried forward, and is performed by modern emancipated Jews: ‘What is not well known is that a comparable lobbying effort took place in modern times – in Washington, D.C., at the peak of the Holocaust.’[2]

Medoff explores the similarities between Esther’s lobbying in Persia and her modern counterparts lobbying inside FDR’s administration at the height of the Second World War: ‘The Esther in 1940s Washington was Henry Morgenthau Jr., a wealthy, assimilated Jew of German descent who (as his son later put it) was anxious to be regarded as ‘one hundred percent American.’ Downplaying his Jewish-ness, Morgenthau gradually rose from being FDR’s friend and adviser to his Treasury Secretary.’[3]

Clearly, Medoff also spotted a modern Mordechai: ‘a young Zionist emissary from Jerusalem, Peter Bergson (real name: Hillel Kook) who led a series of protest campaigns to bring about U.S. rescue of Jews from Hitler. The Bergson group’s newspaper ads and public rallies roused public awareness of the Holocaust – particularly when it organized over 400 rabbis to march to the front gate of the White House just before Yom Kippur in 1943.’[4]

Medoff’s reading of the Book of Esther provides a glaring insight into the internal codes of Jewish collective survival dynamics, in which the assimilated (Esther) and the observant (Mordechai) join forces with Jewish interests on their minds. According to Medoff, the parallels to modern times are striking: ‘Mordechai’s pressure finally convinced Esther to go to the king; the pressure of Morgenthau’s aides finally convinced him to go to the president, armed with a stinging 18-page report that they titled “Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of This Government in the Murder of the Jews.” Esther’s lobbying succeeded. [Ahasuerus] cancelled the genocide decree and executed Haman and his henchmen. Morgenthau’s lobbying also succeeded. A Bergson-initiated Congressional resolution calling for U.S. rescue action quickly passed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee – enabling Morgenthau to tell FDR that “you have either got to move very fast, or the Congress of the United States will do it for you.” Ten months before election day, the last thing FDR wanted was an embarrassing public scandal over the refugee issue. Within days, Roosevelt did what the Congressional resolution sought – he issued an executive order creating the War Refugee Board, a U.S. government agency to rescue refugees from Hitler.’[5]

Doubtless Medoff sees the Book of Esther as a general guideline for a healthy Jewish conduct: ‘The claim that nothing could be done to help Europe’s Jews had been demolished by Jews who shook off their fears and spoke up for their people – in ancient Persia and in modern Washington.’ In other words, Jews can and should do for themselves. This is indeed the moral of the Book of Esther as well as of the Holocaust religion.

What Jews should do for themselves is indeed an open question. Different Jews have different ideas. The neoconservatives believe in dragging the US and the West into an endless war against Islam. Some Jews believe that Jews should actually position themselves at the forefront of the struggle against oppression and injustice. Indeed, Jewish empowerment is just one answer among many. Yet it is a very powerful one, and dangerous when the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and AIPAC act as modern-day Mordechais and publicly engage in an extensive lobbying efforts for war against Iran.

Both AIPAC and the AJC are inherently in line with the Hebrew Biblical school of thought. They follow their Biblical mentor, Mordechai. However, while the Mordechais are relatively easy to spot, the Esthers – those who act for Israel behind the scenes – are slightly more difficult to track.

Once we learn to consider Israeli lobbying within the parameters drawn by the Book of Esther and the Holocaust religion, we are then entitled to regard Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the current Haman/Hitler figure. In addition to the AJC and AIPAC, President Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Lord Levy are also Mordechais, Obama is obviously Ahasuerus, yet Esther can be almost anyone, from the last Neocon to Dick Cheney and beyond.

[1] Medoff, Rafael, ‘A Purim Lesson: Lobbying Against Genocide, Then and Now’; see http://www.wymaninstitute.org/articles/2004-03-purim.php

[2] Ibid

[3] Ibid

[4] Ibid

[5] Ibid

By Gilad Atzmon

8 March 2012

@ Gilad.co.uk

Gilad Atzmon is an Israeli-born musician, writer and anti-racism campaigner..His New Book: The Wandering Who? A Study Of Jewish Identity Politics Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a two-hour meeting at the White House Monday, including a half-hour one-on-one discussion with no aides present. Their talks focused on the joint US-Israeli drive to target Iran for economic warfare and military assault.

The meeting was held in the aftermath of Obama’s appearance Sunday before the convention of the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the principal pro-Israel lobbying group, where he made an extraordinary pledge of support for Israel in any future military confrontation with Tehran.

Obama said that his administration was committed to “use all elements of American power to pressure Iran and prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon.” This formulation has an ominously open-ended character. “All elements” necessarily include not only economic sanctions and terrorist attacks in the streets of Tehran—a feature of the past three years—but also special ops forces, air strikes, ground troops and even nuclear weapons.

In a statement responding to the speech to AIPAC, Netanyahu said he “very much appreciated” Obama’s “position that Iran must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons and that all options are on the table.”

In an effort to minimize reported differences between the Obama administration and Netanyahu, the president and prime minister held a joint photo-op for the press and made brief statements before their meeting rather than going before the press corps afterwards and answering questions on their discussions.

Neither Obama nor Netanyahu varied from their scripts in their preliminary public remarks. Obama was effusive, declaring, “I want to assure both the American people and the Israeli people that we are in constant and close consultation. I think the levels of coordination and consultation between our militaries and our intelligence—not just on this issue, but on a broad range of issues—has been unprecedented. And I intend to make sure that that continues during what will be a series of difficult months, I suspect, in 2012.”

Netanyahu replied that “Israel and America stand together,” while declaring that Israel “must reserve the right” to attack Iran regardless of US concerns. “When it comes to Israel’s security, Israel has the right, the sovereign right, to make its own decisions,” he said. He added that “my supreme responsibility as prime minister of Israel is to ensure that Israel remains the master of its fate.”

There are tactical differences between Washington and Israel, although much of the public conflict may be more a “good cop, bad cop” routine aimed at exploiting fissures in the Iranian regime than actual policy conflicts.

Netanyahu has proposed as the “red line” for military action that Iran should be compelled to halt all nuclear enrichment and be deprived of the “capability” of building nuclear weapons—a demand that if taken literally would require the extermination of most Iranian physicists and ballistic missile engineers.

Obama has rejected this as an effort to prevent any negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 countries—the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (China, France, Russia, Britain and the US) plus Germany—and set as his own “red line” a verifiable decision by the Iranian government to build a nuclear weapon. Since this would be “verified” by US intelligence agencies, it still gives considerable room for provocation and the manufacture of pretexts for war, should Washington decide to do so.

Israel lacks the military power to do more than incidental damage to Iranian targets, unless its leaders are prepared to murder tens of millions through the use of Israel’s nuclear arsenal. Short of that, they must coordinate action with the United States, which has the forces in place in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere to carry out sustained and repeated attacks on Iranian nuclear reactors and enrichment facilities.

A full-scale war against Iran, a country with three times the population of Iraq and three times the land area, would require an all-out US military mobilization, including restoration of the draft and conscription of hundreds of thousands of new and unwilling soldiers.

What is striking is the degree to which both governments, the Israeli and the American, are acting in defiance of broad popular opposition to war in both their countries.

A poll of Israelis last month conducted by the University of Maryland found only 19 percent favoring a unilateral Israeli attack on Iran, and only 42 percent favoring military action even in conjunction with the United States.

Several polls in the United States have shown overwhelming popular opposition to yet another US war in the Middle East. A poll by the Hill newspaper conducted March 1 found only 21 percent very supportive of a US attack on Iran and 20 percent somewhat supportive, while 52 percent were somewhat or very much opposed. The poll also found 57 percent opposed to any US intervention in the civil war in Syria, Iran’s principal ally.

Even more remarkable is the Pew Research Center poll in February that found a narrow majority believing the United States should remain neutral in a war between Iran and Israel. Less than 40 percent said the United States should side with Israel, an astonishing figure given that 100 percent of the corporate-controlled media and almost 100 percent of the Democratic and Republican politicians would back the US joining Israel in such a war.

Obama’s speech to AIPAC produced a telling response in the American media. The Wall Street Journal, normally a strident ultra-right critic of the White House, published an editorial hailing “Obama’s Hawkish Iran Turn.” It praised the speech, “whose strong talk on Iran kept the audience coming to its feet,” while noting the ominous comment of one Israeli official that the Netanyahu-Obama meeting “will be the last time they can speak face-to-face before a decision is taken.”

The liberal Nation magazine published a commentary by Robert Dreyfuss which declared: “Despite President Obama’s election-inspired rhetoric about the US-Israeli alliance, which filled the president’s speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, there’s zero chance that Obama will endorse either an Israeli attack on Iran or an American one, either in 2012 or later.”

The political voice of the super-rich nods approvingly that Obama is coming around on Iran. The liberal cheerleaders for Obama delude their audience with a guarantee that there will be no war. In different ways, both are preparing to back the American president in the event he initiates one of the greatest crimes in world history—an unprovoked war of aggression on a country of 80 million people.

By Patrick Martin

6 March 2012

@ WSWS.org

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The world community can heave a sigh of relief since there might not be an outbreak of wars led by the United States between now and November. That was one message of President Barack Obama’s press conference in the White House on Tuesday.

Obama spoke on the two Middle Eastern “hotspots” – Iran and Syria – with a common thread: while he is tenaciously looking for ways to pursue policies that serve American interests, his preferred option is not to resort to the use of force.

Obama launched a frontal offensive on the Republican right, saying they were being irresponsible and vacuous in beating the war drums on Iran and Syria. Obama knows he is in sync with the mood of the American public, which is preoccupied with the economy.

The press conference came a day after Obama’s talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and he visibly took pleasure in giving a knockout punch to media hype (inspired largely by the Israelis) that his re-election bid might be in jeopardy unless he agreed Iran was fast nearing the “zone of immunity” in its nuclear program.

Obama warned that any premature action by Israel would have “consequences” for the US as well and that a “careful, thoughtful, sober approach” was needed.

The intriguing part is that Obama knew very well that he was also speaking to another foreign audience – in the highest echelons of power in Tehran – who were listening attentively when he said:

“Now, the one thing that we have not done is we haven’t launched a war. If some of these folks think that it’s time to launch a war, they should say so. And they should explain to the American people exactly why they would do that and what the consequences would be. Everything else is just talk.” [Emphasis added.]

On the one hand, Obama sounded even more hopeful than in the week before about engaging Iran:

“At this stage … we have a window of opportunity where this can still be resolved diplomatically. That’s not just my view. That’s the view of our top intelligence officials … The Iranians just stated that they are willing to return to the negotiating table. And we’ve got the opportunity … to see how it plays out.”

But on the other hand, he spelt out his expectations:

To resolve this issue will require Iran to come to the table and discuss in a clear and forthright way how to prove to the international community that the intentions of their nuclear program are peaceful. They know how to do it … It obviously has to be methodical. I don’t expect a breakthrough in a first meeting … And there are steps that they can take that would send a signal to the international community and that are verifiable, that would allow them to be in compliance with international norms, in compliance with international mandates, abiding by the non-proliferation treaty, and provide the world an assurance that they’re not pursuing a nuclear weapon.

The Iranians would be justified in estimating that Obama is setting the pace. Ali Larijani, former nuclear negotiator and influential speaker of the outgoing Majlis (parliament), reacted on Wednesday saying it would be counter-productive if “the West continues to put Iran under pressure”.

“If they [the West] seek to go with their previous course of action and try to force concessions under pressure, negotiations will yield no results”, Larijani, who is close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned. But then, he also reiterated that Iran is not after nuclear bombs.

Iran’s deputy foreign minister in charge of Europe and America, Ali Asghar Khaji, in turn urged the West to be “innovative” and to come up with “more initiatives”. Clearly, sparring has begun.

One at a time

Moving on to Syria, Obama said there isn’t going to be a unilateralist US military intervention in that country. However, the strategy will be to seek regime change. In short, call “regime change” by any other name if you will, and, second, it will have to be by means other than a US invasion of Syria.

Obama said the issue is not whether or if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would go, “it’s a question of when”. However, he made a careful distinction between what happened in Libya and the Syrian situation.

The international community is yet to be mobilized on Syria; no mandate from the United Nations Security Council is available; the “full cooperation” of the Arab states is not yet realized; and, the project may not even be achievable in a “relatively short period of time”. All of this makes the Syrian situation much more complicated.

All the same, the US will continue to work on the project with “key Arab states and key international partners” and is planning “how do we support the opposition; how do we provide humanitarian assistance; how do we continue the political isolation [of Bashar]; how do we continue the economic isolation.”

Obama avoided explicitly committing on any form of military assistance to the Syrian opposition, although Foreign Policy magazine claimed separately on Tuesday on the basis of extensive deep briefings by unnamed senior US officials that Washington is edging close to doing that.

One factor could be that a number of diplomatic moves are under way. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is about to engage the Arab League on Saturday; Beijing has mooted a six-point plan on Syria; yet another Chinese special envoy arrived in Damascus on Tuesday.

Besides, Kofi Annan, joint special envoy of the UN and Arab League, was expected to commence his mediatory mission in Cairo on Wednesday before reaching Damascus in the weekend; last but not the least, Syria has agreed to schedule a visit by Valerie Amos, UN under-secretary for humanitarian affairs.

Alongside, a revised US draft resolution on Syria has just been mooted in the UN Security Council, on which Washington hopes to negotiate Russian and Chinese acceptance.

Clearly, Obama made no overtures to Russia or China. Nor did he evince any interest to work with them, leave alone acknowledge their robust efforts at peacemaking. Plainly put, he showed indifference towards the Russians and Chinese.

The US diplomacy could be estimating that while the Russian and Chinese diplomatic efforts on Syria converge in many respects, they also may have an independent character. But both Moscow and Beijing insist on dialogue and oppose foreign interference; they also endorse Assad’s reform program.

Russia’s Ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, accused in an open meeting of the Security Council on Syria in New York on Wednesday, “We have received information that in Libya, with the support of the authorities, there is a special training center for the Syrian revolutionaries and people are sent to Syria to attack the legal government. This is, according to international law, completely unacceptable.”

The Russian imputation couldn’t have been lost on Washington, although Churkin didn’t exactly point a finger at who could be putting the fragile Libyan government through such a high-risk enterprise. Meanwhile, the Russian foreign ministry specifically warned the West not to expect any change in Moscow’s Syria policy following the election victory of Vladimir Putin. (Putin made global meddling by the US one of his campaign themes.)

The foreign ministry said, “Russia’s position on a Syrian settlement was never subject to political considerations and is not formed under the influence of electoral cycles, unlike those of some of our Western colleagues. Our approaches to a resolution of internal conflicts are based on international law and the UN Charter. We are talking primarily about strict adherence to the principle of inadmissibility of interference from the outside.”

Obama’s intention, partly at least, would have been to grandstand before the American public on a Super Tuesday when the Mitt Romney campaign moved aggressively. Nonetheless, without resorting to propaganda blast or showing signs of hand-wringing, he struck a diplomatic balance by stressing negotiations with Iran, while largely maintaining the tough course on Syria.

And if there were indeed any linkage between the situation around Iran and the Syrian crisis, Obama wouldn’t talk about it. One at a time – that’s the Obama way. Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey. (Copyright 2012 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd

9 March 2012

By M K Bhadrakumar

@ Asia Times

In his most explicit threat against Iran to date, US President Obama declared yesterday that he would “not hesitate to use force” to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons. The speech was pitched not just to his immediate audience—the pro-Israeli American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)—but to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who he meets today.

Obama spelled out the meaning of his oft-repeated phrase that “all options are on the table” in relation to Iran. “That includes all elements of American power,” he said, “a political effort aimed at isolating Iran, a diplomatic effort to sustain our coalition and ensure that the Iranian program is monitored, an economic effort that imposes crippling sanctions and, yes, a military effort to be prepared for any contingency.”

Obama’s only note of caution was against “too much loose talk of war”, as he urged Israel to allow time for punitive sanctions to force Tehran into negotiations. However, he also left no doubt that the US was prepared to attack Iran. Citing US President Theodore Roosevelt’s maxim “speak softly and carry a big stick,” Obama added menacingly: “Rest assured that the Iranian government will know of our resolve.”

Obama’s comments come after months of intensifying pressure on Iran, which includes the imposition of an embargo on Iranian oil by the European Union and US sanctions aimed on the Iranian banking system aimed at blocking its oil exports. These measures, which are on top of a broad range of existing penalties, come into full force in July.

The US military has also been building up its forces in the Persian Gulf, including the stationing of two aircraft carrier battle groups in the area.

In comments to the media last week, US Air Force Chief of Staff, General Norton Schwartz, confirmed that plans for attacking Iran had not only been prepared, but had now been sent to the president and the defence secretary. “What we can do, you wouldn’t want to be in the area,” he declared. Unnamed Pentagon officials told the press that the options included wide-ranging attacks on every aspect of Iran’s military, security and intelligence apparatus.

Israel is also making barely disguised threats to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. In his meeting with Obama today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will press for the US to spell out “red lines” that would trigger American military strikes against Iran.

Speaking in Canada on Friday, Netanyahu insisted that “the international community” should lay down requirements for any negotiations with Iran. “I think the demands on Iran should be clear: dismantle the [Fordow] underground nuclear facility in Qom, stop [uranium] enrichment inside Iran and get all the enrich uranium out of Iran.” Such preconditions virtually assure that Tehran would not agree to talks.

Sections of the Israeli military and political establishment have been pressing for an attack on Iran in the coming months. An article in the British-based Telegraph on Saturday reported that Israeli “military planners have concluded that never before has the timing for a unilateral strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities been so auspicious.”

The Telegraph pointed to the “near civil war” in Iran’s ally Syria as a key factor in Israeli military calculations about Tehran’s ability to retaliate against an Israeli attack. “Iran’s deterrent has been significantly defanged. As a result some of those opposed to military action have changed their minds,” a source close to Israel’s defence chiefs told the newspaper.

In discussions with Obama, Netanyahu will exploit the threat of an Israeli strike to extract US guarantees and “red lines” for an American attack on Iran. Iran has denied that it is building a nuclear weapon, and there is no evidence that it is doing so. Israel, however, is intent on destroying any Iranian potential to construct a nuclear bomb, thus preserving its own military supremacy as the only country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons.

A pre-emptive attack by Israel or the US would be in complete breach of international law. Unlike Israel, Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and its nuclear programs meet its obligations on the treaty. Waging an unprovoked war of aggression was the chief crime for which Nazi leaders were convicted at the Nuremburg Trials following World War II.

The AIPAC lobby group has been pressing the Obama administration to accede to Israeli demands. Much of Obama’s speech yesterday was devoted to the record of his administration’s unequivocal support for Israel, including the staunch US defence in the UN of Israeli crimes such as the 2008 invasion of Gaza and its supply of advanced weaponry, which includes bunker buster bombs that would be used in any attack on Iran.

In a lengthy interview with the Atlantic last week, Obama reiterated his determination to halt Iran’s nuclear program, by military means if need be. “I don’t bluff,” he declared. Obama did, however, warn against any immediate Israeli strike, declaring: “At a time when there is not a lot of sympathy for Iran and its only real ally [Syria] is on the ropes, do we want a distraction in which suddenly Iran can portray itself as a victim?”

Obama’s comments also underscored the fraudulent character of US/Israeli allegations about Iran’s nuclear programs. “Our assessment, which is shared by the Israelis, is that Iran does not yet have a nuclear weapon and is not yet in a position to obtain a nuclear weapon without us having a pretty long lead time in which we will know if they are making that attempt,” he admitted.

A New York Times article yesterday went further, noting: “Recent assessments by American spy agencies have reaffirmed intelligence findings in 2007 and 2010 that concluded that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program.”

Commenting on previous tensions with Netanyahu, Obama told the Atlantic that any differences that had emerged were “tactical and not strategic.” While Israel has been hinting at an attack on Iran within months, the Obama administration has urged that the US and EU sanctions due to come into full force in July be given time to take effect.

Obama is clearly calculating that a war on Iran before the November presidential election would send oil prices skyrocketting, creating further social distress and impacting on his chances for re-election.

Whatever the exact outcome of today’s haggling between Obama and Netanyahu, it has the character of two gangsters plotting the details of their next crime. Any attack on Iran would be an utterly reckless enterprise that would inevitably inflame tensions throughout the Middle East and has the potential to trigger a broader regional and international conflict.

By Peter Symonds

5 March 2012

@ WSWS.org

How shall the world view the apology by President Obama for the massacre of 16 Afghan villagers allegedly by a lone U.S. serviceman in Kandahar Province when the President is himself personally responsible for the extra-judicial killing of hundreds of civilians by means of drone aircraft strikes whose crime he defends? Army Staff Sgt., Robert Bales, of Lake Tapps, Wash., is being held in prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kan. Mr. Obama is free to travel the campaign trail.

“We’re heart-broken over the loss of innocent life,” the president said of the Kandahar massacre. His seeming expression of contrition rings hollow, though, particularly if one considers how Mr. Obama goes about his daily routine ordering drone strikes and seemingly is unaffected by the “loss of innocent lives” they cause, as well as by the hated companion night raids on Afghan homes, also the result of his policy.

As The New York Times reported March 17th, President Hamid Karzai said “many civilians have died in the (night) raids,” adding, “This has been going on for too long. It is by all means the end of the rope here. This form of activity, this behavior, cannot be tolerated.”

Obama is more than willing to investigate anyone other than himself for war crimes. “I can assure the American people and the Afghan people that we will follow the facts wherever they lead us, and we will make sure that anybody who was involved is held fully accountable with the full force of the law.” To “follow the facts” the president need look no further than his own mirror. Not surprisingly, he termed the drone strikes “very precise, precision strikes against al-Qaeda and their affiliates.” Given the facts, this is a falsehood.

As investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill writes in the March 5/12 issue of “The Nation,” “President Obama’s first known authorization of a missile strike on Yemen, on Dec. 17, 2009, killed more than 40 Bedouins, many of them women and children, in the remote village of al Majala in Abyan.”

And the Bureau of Investigative Journalism based at City University, London, put the number of Pakistani children killed in drone strikes at 168. In one raid directed by the Central Intelligence Agency, a drone was dispatched to kill the headmaster of a school, which it did—but 60 children attending classes there were killed as well. “Even one child’s death from drone missiles or suicide bombings is one child too many,” a UNICEF spokesperson said. President Obama takes a very different view. He claims drones have “not caused a huge number of civilian casualties” and it is “important for everybody to understand that this thing is kept on a very tight leash.”

Since 2004, the U.S. has made nearly 300 drone attacks just in N.W. Pakistan alone, killing between 1,700 and 2,800 individuals, of whom an estimated 17 percent were said to be civilians, not so-called “militants,” according to the New America Foundation of Washington, D.C.

In Somalia, last October 14th alone, U.S. drones killed 78 and injured 64 in one raid and killed 11 civilians and wounded 34 more the same day in another. And from March 3-12, the U.S. killed 64 people in Yemen by drone strikes. The government called them “militants” but local residents countered they were civilians.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon reportedly is building 60 drone bases across the world and its clamor for more planes is so great that contractors cannot keep up with demand. Rather than halt the use of these indiscriminate killing machines, indications are the Pentagon sees them as the future weapon of choice, and by some accounts they have now been used in six countries.

On the website of Iraq Veterans Against the War, the AP reports, organizer Aaron Hughes declared that Afghan war veterans “believe that this incident is not a case of one ‘bad apple’ but the effect of a continued US military policy of drone strikes, night raids, and helicopter attacks where Afghan civilians pay the price.’’

Mr. Obama has continued and expanded the criminal drone policies begun by his predecessor George W. Bush and both warmongers are eminently qualified to stand trial for their crimes.

By Sherwood Ross

@ Countercurrents.org

(Sherwood Ross is a Miami-based public relations consultant. Reach him at sherwoodross10@gmail.com)