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Within the first few months of 2011, the United States and its allies lost three loyal “friends”: Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, Zine el-Abbidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and Saad Hariri in Lebanon. While Mubarak and Ali were driven out of power by widespread popular uprisings, Hariri was ousted by the parliament.

Inspired by these liberating developments, pro-democracy rebellions against autocratic rulers (and their Western backers) soon spread to other countries such as Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

As these revolutionary developments tended to politically benefit the “axis of resistance” (consisting of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas) in the Middle East, the US-Israeli “axis of aggression” and their client states in the region mounted an all-out counterrevolutionary offensive.

Caught off-guard by the initial wave of the Arab Spring in Egypt and Tunisia, the US and its allies struck back with a vengeance. They employed a number of simultaneous tactics to sabotage the Arab Spring. These included: (1) instigating fake instances of the Arab Spring in countries that were/are headed by insubordinate regimes such as those ruling Iran, Syria and Libya; (2) co-opting revolutionary movements in countries such as Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen; (3) crushing pro-democracy movements against “friendly” regimes ruling countries such as Bahrain, Jordan and Saudi Arabia “before they get out of hand,” as they did in Egypt and Tunisia; and (4) using the age-old divide and rule trick by playing the sectarian trump card of Sunnis vs. Shi’ites, or Iranians vs. Arabs.

1. Fake springs, post-modern coup d’etats

Soon after being caught by surprise by the glorious uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, the counterrevolutionary forces headed by the United States embarked on damage control. A major strategy in pursuit of this objective has been to foment civil war and regime change in “unfriendly” places, and then portray them as part of the Arab Spring.

The scheme works like this: arm and train opposition groups within the “unfriendly” country, instigate violent rebellion with the help of covert mercenary forces under the guise of fighting for democracy; and when government forces attempt to quell the thus-nurtured armed insurrection, accuse them of human rights violations, and begin to embark openly and self-righteously on the path of regime change in the name of “responsibility to protect” the human rights.

As the “weakest link” in the chain of governments thus slated to be changed, Gaddafi’s regime became the first target. It is now altogether common knowledge that contrary to the spontaneous, unarmed and peaceful protest demonstrations in Egypt, Tunisia and Bahrain, the rebellion in Libya was nurtured, armed and orchestrated largely from abroad. Indeed, evidence shows that plans of regime change in Libya were drawn long before the overt onset of the actual civil war. [1]

It is likewise common knowledge that, like the rebellion in Libya, the insurgency in Syria has been neither spontaneous nor peaceful. From the outset it has been armed, trained and organized by the US and its allies. Similar to the attack on Libya, the Arab League and Turkey have been at the forefront of the onslaught on Syria. Also like the Libyan case, there is evidence that preparations for war on Syria had been actively planned long before the actual start of the armed rebellion, which is branded as a case of the Arab Spring. [2]

Dr Christof Lehmann, a keen observer of geopolitical developments in the Middle East, has coined the term “post-modern coup d’etats” to describe the recent North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)-Zionist agenda of regime change in the region. The term refers to an elaborate combination of covert operations, overt military interventions, and “soft-power” tactics a la Gene Sharp:

“A network of think tanks, endowments, funds and foundations, which are behind the overt destabilization of targeted sovereign nations. Their narratives in public policy and for public consumption are deceptive and persuasive. Often they specifically target and co-opt progressive thinkers, media and activists. The product is almost invariably a post-modern coup d’ tat. Depending on the chosen hybridization and the resilience of government, social structures and populations perceived need for reform, the product can be more or less overtly violent. The tactics can be so subtle, involving human rights organizations and the United Nations that they are difficult to comprehend. However subtle they are, the message to the targeted government is invariably ‘go or be gone'”. [3]

It is no secret that the ultimate goal of the policy of regime change in the Middle East is to replace the Iranian government with a “client regime” similar to most other regime in the region. Whether the policy will succeed in overthrowing the Syrian government and embarking on a military strike against Iran remains to be seen. One thing is clear, however: the ominous consequences of a military adventure against Iran would be incalculable. It is bound to create a regional (and even very likely global) war.

2. Revolts co-opted

When the Arab Spring broke out in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen, the US and its allies initially tried to keep their proxy rulers Hosni Mubarak, Ben Ali and Abdullah Saleh in power as long as possible. Once the massive and persistent uprisings made the continued rule of these loyal autocrats untenable, however, the US and its allies changed tactics: reluctantly letting go of Mubarak, Ali and Saleh while trying to preserve the socioeconomic structures and the military regimes they had fostered during the long periods of their dictatorial rule.

Thus, while losing three client dictators, the US and its allies have succeeded (so far) in preserving the three respective client states. With the exception of a number of formalistic elections that are designed to co-opt opposition groups (like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt) and give legitimacy to military rulers, not much else has changed in these countries. In Egypt, for example, the NATO/Israel-backed military junta of the Mubarak era, which now rules Egypt in collaboration with Muslim Brotherhood, has become increasingly as repressive toward the reform movement that gave birth to the Arab Spring as it was under Mubarak.

Economic, military and geopolitical policies of the new regimes in these countries are crafted as much in consultation with the United States and its allies as they were under the three autocratic rulers that were forced to leave the political scene. The new regimes are also collaborating with the US and its allies in bringing about “regime change” in Syria and Iran, just as they helped overthrow the regime of Gaddafi in Libya.

3. Nipping the buds

A third tactic to contain the Arab Spring has been the withering repression of peaceful pro-democracy movements in countries headed by US proxy regimes in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and other kingdoms in the Persian Gulf area before those movements grow “out of hand,” as they did in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen. Thus, in collaboration with its Western patrons, Saudi Arabia has over the past year cracked down viciously against peaceful protesters not only within its own borders but also in the neighboring country of Bahrain. Leading the invasion militaries of the Persian Gulf kingdoms into Bahrain last spring, the armed forces of Saudi Arabia continue with the support of Western powers to brutalize peaceful pro-democracy protesters there.

While the Saudi, Qatari and other Persian Gulf regimes have been playing the vanguard role in the US-Israeli axis of aggression against “unfriendly” regimes, NATO forces headed by the Pentagon have been busy behind the scene to train their “security” forces, to broker weapons sale to their repressive regimes, and to build ever more military basses in their territories.

“As state security forces across the region cracked down on democratic dissent, the Pentagon also repeatedly dispatched American troops on training missions to allied militaries there. During more than 40 such operations with names like Eager Lion and Friendship Two that sometimes lasted for weeks or months at a time, they taught Middle Eastern security forces the finer points of counterinsurgency, small unit tactics, intelligence gathering, and information operations – skills crucial to defeating popular uprisings.

…

These recurrent joint-training exercises, seldom reported in the media and rarely mentioned outside the military, constitute the core of an elaborate, longstanding system that binds the Pentagon to the militaries of repressive regimes across the Middle East”. [4]

These truly imperialistic policies and practices show, once again, that the claims of the United States and its allies that their self-righteous adventures of “regime change” in the Greater Middle East are designed to defend human rights and foster democracy are simply laughable.

4. Divide and conquer: Sunni versus Shi’ite

One of the tactics to crush the peaceful pro-democracy movements in the Arab-Muslim countries ruled by the US client regimes is to portray these movements as “sectarian” Shi’ite insurgencies. This age-old divide-and-rule tactic is most vigorously pursued in Bahrain, where the destruction of the Shi’ite mosques is rightly viewed as part of the regime’s cynical policy of “humiliating the Shi’ite” in order “to make them take revenge on Sunnis,” thereby hoping to prove that the uprising is a sectarian one.[5]

Quoting Nabeel Rajab, who describes himself as secular with both Sunni and Shi’ite family relatives, reporter Finian Cunningham writes: “The government is attempting to incite divisive sectarian tensions, to intimidate Sunni people into not supporting the pro-democracy movement because it is being presented as a Shia [Shi’ite] movement.”

Cunningham further writes: “The targeting of the Shia is a tactic by the regime to distort the pro-democracy movement from a nationalist one into a sectarian one. It is also a way of undermining international support for the pro-democracy movement by trying to present it as an internal problem of the state dealing with ‘troublesome Shia’. In this way, the Bahraini uprising is being made to appear as something different from the uprisings for democracy that have swept the region” [5].

In brief, the magnificent Arab Spring that started in Egypt and Tunisia in the early 2011 has been brutally derailed, distorted and contained by an all-out counter-offensive orchestrated by Western powers and their allies in the Greater Middle East, especially Israel, Turkey and the Arab League. How long this containment of democratic and national liberation aspirations of the Arab/Muslim masses will continue, no one can tell. One thing is clear, however: the success of the Arab (or any other) Spring in the less-developed, semi-colonial world is integrally intertwined with the success of the so-called 99% in the more-developed, imperialist world in achieving the goal of defeating the austerity policies of the 1%, reallocating significant portions of the colossal military spending to social spending, and enjoying a standard of living worthy of human dignity.

In subtle and roundabout ways, imperialist wars of choice and military adventures abroad are reflections, or proxies, of domestic fights over allocation of national resources: only by inventing new (and never ending) enemies and engaging in permanent wars abroad can the powerful beneficiaries of war and militarism fend off the “peace dividends” and enjoy the substantial “war dividends” at home.

In the fight for peace and economic justice, perhaps the global 99% can take a cue from the global 1%: just as the ruling 1% coordinate their policies of military aggression and economic austerity on an international level, so can (and should) the worldwide 99% coordinate their response to those brutal policies internationally. Only through a coordinated cross-border struggle for peace and economic justice can the workers and other popular masses bring the worldwide production of goods and provision of services to a standstill, and restructure the status quo for a better world – a world in which the products of human labor and the bounties of Nature could benefit all.

By Ismael Hossein-zadeh

19 April 2012

@ Asia Times Online

Notes

1. Michel Chossudovsky, When War Games Go Live. 2. See, for example, Dr Christof Lehmann, The Manufacturing of the War on Syria.

3. Dr Christof Lehmann, The National Counsel of Syria and US Unconventional Warfare.

4. Nick Turse, Did the Pentagon Help Strangle the Arab Spring?

5. Finian Cunningham, Bahraini Rulers Play sectarian card in Bid to Trump Pro-democracy Movement.

Ismael Hossein-zadeh is Professor Emeritus of Economics, Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa. He is the author of The Political Economy of US Militarism (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2007) and Soviet Non-capitalist Development: The Case of Nasser’s Egypt (Praeger Publishers 1989). He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, forthcoming from AK Press.

Humankind is facing an imminent threat of extinction, according to new research released on Wednesday by the science journal Nature. The report Approaching a state shift in Earth’s biosphere reveals that our planet’s biosphere is steadily approaching a ‘tipping point’, meaning all ecosystems are nearing sudden and irreversible change that will not be conducive to human life.

The authors describe what they see as a fast paced ‘state shift’ once the tipping point is reached, which contrasts with the mainstream view that environmental change will take centuries. “It’s a question of whether it is going to be manageable change or abrupt change. And we have reason to believe the change may be abrupt and surprising,” said co-researcher Arne Mooers, a professor of biodiversity at Simon Fraser University in Canada’s British Columbia.

“The data suggests that there will be a reduction in biodiversity and severe impacts on much of what we depend on to sustain our quality of life, including, for example, fisheries, agriculture, forest products and clean water. This could happen within just a few generations,” stated lead author Anthony Barnosky, a professor of integrative biology at the University of California in Berkeley.

“My colleagues who study climate-induced changes through the Earth’s history are more than pretty worried,” he said in a press release. “In fact, some are terrified,” said co-researcher Arne Mooers, a professor of biodiversity at Simon Fraser University in Canada’s British Columbia.

The report, written by 22 scientists from three continents ahead of this year’s Rio+20 summit, claims that the ‘state shift’ is likely; however, humans may have a small window to curb over-consumption, over-population growth and environmental destruction, with drastic efforts to change the way we live on planet earth through international cooperation.

Agence France-Presse: Environmental collapse now a serious threat: scientists

Climate change, population growth and environmental destruction could cause a collapse of the ecosystem just a few generations from now, scientists warned on Wednesday in the journal Nature.

The paper by 22 top researchers said a “tipping point” by which the biosphere goes into swift and irreversible change, with potentially cataclysmic impacts for humans, could occur as early as this century. […]

The Nature paper, written by biologists, ecologists, geologists and palaeontologists from three continents, compared the biological impact of past episodes of global change with what is happening today.

The factors in today’s equation include a world population that is set to rise from seven billion to around 9.3 billion by mid-century and global warming that will outstrip the UN target of two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

The team determined that once 50-90 percent of small-scale ecosystems become altered, the entire eco-web tips over into a new state, characterised especially by species extinctions.

Once the shift happens, it cannot be reversed.

To support today’s population, about 43 percent of Earth’s ice-free land surface is being used for farming or habitation, according to the study.

On current trends, the 50 percent mark will be reached by 2025, a point the scientists said is worryingly close to the tipping point.

If that happened, collapse would entail a shocking disruption for the world’s food supply, with bread-basket regions curtailed in their ability to grow corn, wheat, rice, fodder and other essential crops.

“It really will be a new world, biologically, at that point,” said lead author Anthony Barnosky, a professor of integrative biology at the University of California in Berkeley.

Montreal Gazette: Earth reaching an environmental ‘state shift’: Report

Or, as Canadian co-author Arne Mooers, at Simon Fraser Univeristy in British Columbia, puts it: “Once the shift occurs, they’ll be no going back.”

A shift or tipping point is “speculation at this point,” Mooers told Postmedia News.

“But it’s one of those things where you say: ‘Hey, maybe we better find out,’ because if it’s true, it’s pretty serious.” […]

The climate is warming so fast that the “mean global temperature by 2070 (or possibly a few decades earlier) will be higher than it has been since the human species evolved,” they say.

And to support the current population of seven billion people, about 43 per cent of Earth’s land surface has been converted to agricultural or urban use. The population is expected to hit nine billion by 2045 and they say current trends suggest that half Earth’s land surface will be altered by humans by 2025.

That’s “disturbingly close” to a potential global tipping point, Barnosky says in a release issued with the report. The study says tipping points tend to occur when 50 to 90 per cent of smaller ecosystems have been disrupted.

“I think that if we want to avoid the most unpleasant surprises, we want to stay away from that 50 per cent mark,” Barnosky says.

The “ultimate effects” of a state shift are unknown, but the researchers suggest it could have severe impact on the world’s fisheries, agriculture, forests and water resources. And they warn that “widespread social unrest, economic instability and loss of human life could result.”

Live Science: Tipping Point? Earth Headed for Catastrophic Collapse, Researchers Warn

Barnosky and his colleagues reviewed research on climate change, ecology and Earth’s tipping points that break the camel’s back, so to speak. At certain thresholds, putting more pressure on the environment leads to a point of no return, Barnosky said. Suddenly, the planet responds in unpredictable ways, triggering major global transitions.

The most recent example of one of these transitions is the end of the last glacial period. Within not much more than 3,000 years, the Earth went from being 30 percent covered in ice to its present, nearly ice-free condition. Most extinctions and ecological changes (goodbye, woolly mammoths) occurred in just 1,600 years. Earth’s biodiversity still has not recovered to what it was.

Today, Barnosky said, humans are causing changes even faster than the natural ones that pushed back.

By Common Dreams Staff

8 June, 2012

@ CommonDreams

Fresh revelations about US involvement in the “Stuxnet” computer virus which damaged an Iranian nuclear facility are likely to complicate the already tense negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programme.

According to a report in the New York Times based on a forthcoming book, President Barack Obama personally ordered the cyberattack on the Iranian nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz in a joint operation with Israel.

Although it has long been widely believed that the US and Israel were behind the 2010 Stuxnet virus, the new details about the Obama administration’s role are likely to add to Iranian mistrust of the US ahead of the next round of negotiations with leading nations over its nuclear programme in three weeks’ time in Moscow.

“The major barrier to any breakthrough in the talks has been the profound lack of trust between the US and Iran,” said Cliff Kupchan, an analyst at Eurasia Group in Washington. “This description is not a game-changer, but it adds to the existing serious obstacles.”

According to Friday’s article, Mr Obama stepped up a project called “Olympic Games” which was started in 2006 under the Bush administration. A spring 2010 virus targeted the Natanz facility and appeared to damage one-fifth of the centrifuges operating there, but after a few months it leaked out into the internet where it became known as Stuxnet.

The report underlines the complicated politics and ethics for the Obama administration of launching such an attack at a time when the US is increasingly worrying about the abilities of other countries to use the techniques of cyberwar against it.

“This is the first attack of a major nature in which a cyberattack was used to effect physical destruction,” Michael Hayden, the former Central Intelligence Agency head, is quoted as saying. “Somebody crossed the Rubicon.”

The revelations come in the same week that security experts have discovered a new virus which has infected computers in Iran and other parts of the Middle East. Known as “Flame”, it is designed to collect information rather than destroy equipment.

Tehran did not react to the New York Times story on Friday. However, the report of US and Israeli involvement in the cyberattack could give more credibility to Iranian claims that the two countries were also behind the assassination of at least four nuclear scientists.

It could also strengthen the Islamic regime’s suspicions that the US and Israel are in much closer agreement than is often thought about the possibility of an Israeli strike on Iran. “It is a lie that the US is against an attack on Iran and Israel may do it on its own,” said one former Iranian official this week. “If Israel attacks the nuclear sites, Iran’s retaliation would be first against the US because Israel is in no place to act without the US permission.”

While former president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani said last week for the second time in recent months that Tehran could not be hostile to the US for ever, Iranian analysts believe Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, still believes Washington is using the nuclear issue to push the broader goal of regime change. He has urged politicians not to be fooled by “smiles” – a clear reference to Mr Obama.

However, Iranian anger over the attack has been tempered by the fact that Stuxnet largely failed in its efforts and the Iranian nuclear programme has quickly made up lost ground.

Although the new revelations come at a delicate time for the nuclear talks with Iran, which the Obama administration is keen to continue and would not want to see collapse in the middle of an election campaign, they could offer some domestic political upside. The fact that Mr Obama stepped up the Bush-era cyberwar programme will help counter Republican attacks that his administration has been too soft on Iran.

However, they complicate US efforts to criticise the cyber activities of other governments. In an unusually blunt report issued last year by US intelligence agencies, the Obama administration said that massive cyberespionage operations by China and Russia posed a “significant and growing threat” to US national security, yet other countries often view US complaints as hypocritical given its own cyber activities.

By Geoff Dyer iand James Blitz

@ The Financial Times

One of the by-products of regional uncertainty and the Arab Spring has been the steady rise in oil prices. And this added revenue has helped rapidly fill state coffers. Today, some of the GCC countries are putting that revenue to task in mega-billion projects across the land.

In Saudi Arabia alone, it is estimated that over $77 billion have been allocated for major projects which include the setting up of industrial cities and massive infrastructure development across the country. With that kind of money floating around, it has become very tempting to be seduced into the arms of corrupt business practices.

It should be noted that corruption has been one of the elements that served as a springboard to the Arab Spring. And we have not been immune to it. Perhaps, the most public example was brought up following the Jeddah rains in 2009 which caused the deaths of over 130 people by the resulting floods. It was determined that bribery played a major part with city officials granting housing permits illegally on city land not zoned as residential areas.

According to a published report at the time, the flood disaster exposed bribery and other corruption practices in government departments, which also suffered from the absence of clear policies. “What happened in Jeddah clearly illustrated the poor performance of government departments because of bribery and widespread corruption. These institutions are also suffering from the lack of clear policies and action plans besides bureaucratic complications in decision-making.”

Three years on, and the trial of that tragic incident is still in progress with charges and counter-charges. Most of the defendants occupied key positions in the Jeddah Mayoralty but are currently under suspension pending the outcome of the trial. Many of the defendants who had previously admitted their complicity in taking bribes and looking the other way are today retracting their confessions, stating that such admissions were made under duress. Those following the case wonder if it would eventually be swept under dismissed or reduced charges as the web of deceit could entangle a wide spectrum of public sector officials.

They may be justified in their reasoning by the recent acquittal of six former soccer club officials accused of bribery and illegal appropriation of public land. According to published reports, the six defendants ‘retracted their earlier testimonies alleging that they were extracted under duress, which the board’s representative denied. After the hearing, the court took a 30-minute recess for consultation with the panel members. They were fined SR10, 000 each. All six defendants expressed their satisfaction with the verdict while the prosecution said it will contest the ruling.’ Such verdicts do not inspire confidence in a judicial system that has become suspect as of late, with charges of malpractices and corruption among those dispensing justice!

In another instance, in a major charitable organization with funding in the millions, the directors of the charity started first with charitable acts towards themselves. Trusted with dispersing much needed relief by the needy, some went so far as to pad up their per diems by falsifying the number of days on their trips or on their flight expenses! And since audit and accountability were sketchy at best, they got away with it.

A new anti-corruption body was formed at the behest of the King himself to stem the rising tide of corruption and report on the offenders. King Abdullah issued a royal decree in March 2011 for the formation of the commission. This body is set up to deal with all forms of financial and administrative graft, and also promote the principle of transparency.

Earlier this year, the chairman of the National Authority for Combating Corruption (NACC) affirmed its intent to spare no one in its campaign to stamp out mismanagement and other malpractices at public establishments, adding that there would be no exception.

“We will not hesitate to strike at corruption wherever it is. Our crackdown will target small and big heads…no one, whoever he is, will be excluded in line with instruction by King Abdullah.” Mohammed bin Abdullah Al Sharif was quoted as saying.

He also added that the public should also play an active part in alerting the appropriate authorities. “Every one has a role to play in this respect whether he is an official, a businessman, a citizen, a journalist or a scholar…the Kingdom’s anti-corruption strategy also stresses that school curricula must include lessons advocating sincerity and protection of public funds.”

There are calls for more social transparency and economic reforms. Declaration of assets by public servants can be one tool of checking and arresting illegal gotten gains. Public institutions will need to set up ‘fair and sustainable compliance management systems.’ This will help to determine areas vulnerable to corruption. They should also launch anti-corruption training for all employees. Whistle-blowing should be encouraged. And finally, public service organizations should promote the message to the business sector that the contract with best bid and not the biggest bribe will be the winner.

It may take a while, and perhaps more than a few jail sentences, but we all must set our course on the road to arresting the rampant spread of bribery and corruption if not stopping it altogether. The alternative would be nothing short of eroding the moral fiber that binds society.

By Tariq A. Al-Maeena

5 June, 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

Tariq A. Al-Maeena is a Saudi socio/political commentator. He lives in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and can be reached at talmaeena@aol.com.

The recent JPMorgan scandal where billions of dollars were lost in risky bets has re-ignited the move to properly regulate the U.S. banking system.

Among those asking for new regulations is Robert Reich, former labor secretary to Bill Clinton. Recently Reich made a plea of sorts to President Obama, whom he wishes would take the commonsense approach to bank regulation by re-installing the depression-era regulation, the Glass-Steagall Act.

Reich’s first sentence places him among those who naively hope that Obama would listen to reason and act boldly, instead of merely putting forth populist catch phrases while obsequiously serving corporations:

“I wish President Obama would draw the obvious connection between Bain Capital and JPMorgan Chase.”

This quote alone proves that Obama’s vilifying of Mitt Romney’s former business venture is hypocritical, since Obama has been simultaneously protecting and praising JPMorgan.  Obama’s populist-style attacks on Mitt Romney are cynical election campaigning.

Reich’s article also points out Obama’s incredible lack of action against the banks that happened during the post financial crisis, assuring that such a crisis will emerge yet again, as the recent JPMorgan scandal has foreshadowed:

“As a practical matter, the Volcker Rule [Obama’s still incomplete regulation attempt] is hopeless. It was intended to be Glass-Steagall lite — a more nuanced version of the original Depression-era law that separated commercial from investment banking. But JPMorgan has proven that any nuance — any exception — will be stretched beyond recognition by the big banks.”

Reich goes on to admonish the banking system’s dominance of the economic system in general, partially the result of the lack of financial regulations:

“It’s the substitution of casino capitalism for real capitalism, the dominance of the betting parlor over the real business of America, financial innovation rather than product innovation. It’s been terrible for the American economy and for our democracy.”

What Reich fails to mention is that he worked directly under a Democratic President, Bill Clinton, who helped tear down key aspects of the financial regulations that Reich hopes to reconstruct, including first and foremost the Glass-Steagall Act. Jimmy Carter, too, helped weaken banking regulations that encouraged the boom of the big banks.

The question that must be asked, then, is why did the Republicans and Democrats alike take turns at undermining banking regulation over the course of decades? And why do they both continue to agree — in varying degrees — that reconstructing the original regulatory policies would be undesirable?

The answer is that the version of capitalism that Reich would like to see cannot be re-created by regulation alone; the idyllic capitalism that Reich waxes nostalgia about has evolved into what we have now: an economy dominated by the highly profitable but volatile financial institutions while manufacturing has migrated to other countries in search of a higher rate of profit.

The capitalists, then, insured themselves that they would have a profitable place to invest their money. The billionaire Warren Buffett, for example, recently invested $5 billion in Goldman Sachs with a guaranteed annual rate of return of 10 percent . The U.S. banking system is one of the few U.S. industries that competes well internationally, and is propped up — as we saw by the bank bailouts — by the U.S. government itself. The industry is now so rich and powerful that it routinely reinforces and expands its power by the purchase of lobbyists and congressmen, not to mention presidential candidates.

The number of politicians calling for real banking reform are insignificant. The banking industry has captured Congress and regulators alike. The banking oligarchy is so intertwined with the political and economic establishment at this point that real regulatory change cannot happen until the system itself is transformed from below, by a powerful social movement.  Pleading to politicians to fix so-called Casino Capitalism is increasingly naive, and Reich should know better.

By Shamus Cooke

26 May 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action ( www.workerscompass.org )

The West just blew its latest chance of reining in Iran’s nuclear enrichment program.

Iranian officials expressed willingness to comply with some of the major demands being made by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the “P5+1” (the permanent five members of the UN Security Council plus Germany). But, evidently, these countries just could not take “yes” for an answer. By refusing to ease sanctions on Iran in any meaningful way, the P5+1 offered no meaningful reciprocity in return for Iranian compliance.

The P5+1’s attitude of “take but not give” directly led to the failure of the talks. And by derailing the possibility of a deal with Tehran, these global powers are essentially helping Iran stockpile even more enriched uranium.

The hawks in the West who don’t seem to want to ease sanctions are helping the hawks in Iran who want to continue gathering more and more enriched uranium, which might give them a nuclear weapon option in the future. Deadlock rewards the hawks on both sides, and increases the chance of armed conflict in the Middle East.

There were two main demands being made of Iran going into the latest round of talks: that it must halt enriching uranium to 20 percent (a level closer to weapons-grade), and that it must shutter its highly secretive Fordow enrichment facility.

The Iranians offered as an initial gesture to give UN inspectors access to the Parchin military base, where the International Atomic Energy Agency believes Iran may have done nuclear-weapons related work in the 1990s. Iranian officials have also conveyed a willingness to compromise on the 20 percent enrichment issue, given the right incentives.

Naturally, in return, Iran asked that at least some sanctions begin to be lifted. This is, of course, the natural give-and-take of negotiations.

Unfortunately, in exchange for these major Iranian concessions, the P5+1 states only dangled the paltry promise of access to some spare parts for civilian airplanes, help with nuclear safety, and supplying Iran with some fuel plates for its research reactor. If Western countries were serious about their alleged worry about Iran’s nuclear program they would have been more willing to reciprocate properly, for example, by beginning to ease the draconian sanctions on Iran.

It makes one wonder if the West is really worried about Iran’s nuclear program or if it just wants to prolong the pain in Iran in hopes of inducing a regime change there.

Why not cap Iran’s enrichment and in return ease some of the sanctions? Certainly, election-year politics and hawkish congressional pressure ensures that the US administration (which leads the P5+1 in these talks) cannot consider easing sanctions no matter what Iran does with its nuclear program. President Obama would be cast as “weak” if any of the sanctions were lifted before the elections. Oddly, a successful diplomatic resolution of the Iran nuclear issue would be spun as a failure.

Unless the P5+1 nations can specify exactly what Iran would need to do in order to begin to ease the sanctions, further talks – planned for next month in Moscow – seem like a waste of everyone’s time.

The sanctions appear to be a one-way street: They are easy to enact as punishment, but evidently cannot be removed to reward positive Iranian behavior. The net result is that the Iranian people suffer, the Iranian regime keeps stockpiling more and more enriched uranium, and the US congressional hawks can feel smug in the false knowledge that continued sanctions will magically lead to regime change in Tehran.

In fact, a careful reading of the legislative text of the sanctions shows that the sanctions have very little to do with Iran’s nuclear program and everything to do with regime change. For instance, the US sanctions can only be lifted after the president certifies to Congress:

that the government of Iran has: (1) released all political prisoners and detainees; (2) ceased its practices of violence and abuse of Iranian citizens engaging in peaceful political activity; (3) conducted a transparent investigation into the killings and abuse of peaceful political activists in Iran and prosecuted those responsible; and (4) made progress toward establishing an independent judiciary.

Just in case those conditions are insufficiently implausible, the president has to certify further that “the government of Iran has ceased supporting acts of international terrorism and no longer satisfies certain requirements for designation as a state sponsor of terrorism; and [that] Iran has ceased the pursuit, acquisition, and development of nuclear, biological, chemical, and ballistic weapons.”

Many US allies, such as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, could not satisfy all these conditions. So even if Tehran were to stop all uranium enrichment and dump all of its centrifuges into the Gulf and shutter its nuclear program entirely, Iran would still continue to be sanctioned by the US.

The Obama administration ought to clarify that it will not really hold Iran to these completely unrealistic standards, else it seems there may never be a resolution.

The irony of it all is that Iran is not currently doing anything that violates its legal right to develop nuclear technology. Even by agreeing to talks about suspending its 20 percent enrichment, Iran is showing a sign of good faith that it is not legally obligated to do. Iran says it needs continued enrichment to this level to fuel its research reactor.

There is a lot of concern in the West about Iran’s “clandestine” nuclear facilities, like Fordow, but it appears we have forgotten the history of Iran’s nuclear program. In 1983, Iran went to the IAEA and asked for help with its nascent nuclear infrastructure. The IAEA agreed to help Iran in setting up a pilot plant to study enrichment, but then the United States intervened to stop this. Only after this political intervention did Iran go clandestine in some of its nuclear work: it certainly was not sneaky from the start.

Under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) – to which Iran is a signatory – it is not illegal for a member state to have a nuclear weapons capability – or a “nuclear option.” If a nation has a well-developed civilian nuclear sector – which, of course, the NPT actually encourages – it, essentially, already has a pretty solid nuclear weapons capability.

Like Iran, Argentina, Brazil, and Japan also maintain a “nuclear option.” They, too, could break out of the NPT and make a nuclear device in a few months. And like Iran, Argentina and Brazil also do not permit full “Additional Protocol” IAEA inspections.

The real legal red line, specified in the IAEA’s “Comprehensive Safeguards Agreements,” is the diversion of nuclear materials to a weapons program. However, multiple experts and official reports have affirmed over the years that they have no evidence that any such program currently exists.

For example Mohamed El-Baradei, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate who spent more than a decade as the director of the IAEA, said that he had not “seen a shred of evidence” that Iran was pursuing the bomb. The November 2011 IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear program also backs up this assessment, stating that Iran’s research program into nuclear weapons “was stopped rather abruptly pursuant to a ‘halt order’ instruction issued in late 2003.”

Even US officials have conceded that they have no proof that Iran is actively pursuing a nuclear bomb at present – and, in fact, that they have good evidence that Iran has not re-started its nuclear weapons program since 2003.

Following the release of the classified National Intelligence Estimate in 2011, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper confirmed in a Senate hearing that he has a “high level of confidence” that Iran “has not made a decision as of this point to restart its nuclear weapons program.”

And Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in early 2012: “Are they [Iranians] trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No. But we know that they’re trying to develop a nuclear capability. And that’s what concerns us.”

By refusing to ease sanctions on Iran, the P5+1 nations so easily gave up on what could have been a golden opportunity to inspect the Parchin facility and suspend Iran’s 20 percent uranium enrichment. This indicates that they are not truly worried about any Iranian nuclear weapons program.

What they really appear to be doing is using nuclear issues as an excuse to attempt to destabilize the regime via never-ending draconian sanctions. All the while Iran will continue to stockpile enriched uranium.

By Yousaf Butt

25 May 2012

@ The Christian Science Monitor – CSMonitor.com

Yousaf Butt, a nuclear physicist, serves as a scientific consultant for the Federation of American Scientists.

© The Christian Science Monitor. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Privacy Policy.

But Obama is familiar with Bob’s “You masters of war/You play with my world like it’s your little toy/You put a gun in my hand/As young people’s blood flows out of their bodies you hide in your mansion/ the money will never buy back your soul.You lie and deceive/But I see through your eyes/And I see through your brain/And I hope you die/And your death’ll come soon/And I’ll stand over your grave ’til I’m sure  you’re dead.”

In a White House ceremony on May 29th, Bob Dylan, a beloved war protest singer and anti-imperialist songwriter celebrity stood before cameras as the Presidential Medal of Freedom was laid on his ches t from behind by the most recent of the twelve US presidents since Truman that have done the bidding of a community of private investors engineering atrocity wars and covert violence upon defenseless and colonially plundered small nations

Tens of thousands of Bob Dylan fans dedicated to making America’s illegal and undeclared wars unacceptable and inoperable in the name slain Martin Luther King Jr’ demand, must have winced.

Obama is ordering death in more than a dozen Muslim nations and taking credit for having initiated the deadly bombing for four of them.

Thousands of the more bitterly disappointed must have thought of no longer being able to stomach listening to Dylan’s, previously inspiring antiwar recordings.

But more thousands, perhaps millions, world wide, your truly included, will discount a strange and contradictory moment, in which, Bob Dylan, now elderly and frail looking, lets himself be used by an corporatist backed angel of death to make it look like even this wonderful singing humanitarian might  perhaps support Obama’s lies for taking the lives of so many of us and our children.

What Bob Dylan expressed in singing of the power of truth that will some day sweep away the insanity of wars for money and put our pathetic war criminals in their place, will always remain infinitely more important than the composer and artist himself to a mankind still imprisoned and tortured after centuries of rule by investment banking.

Of all Dylan’s poignantly sung songs of imperialist wars, his Masters of War stands out as the most penetrating. It projects an bitter determination that masters of war (might we not say, like Obama) and their minions and co-conspirators and accessories before the fact in crimes against humanity will most surely come to be prosecuted.

One suspects as the momentum for bringing the full weight of the law down on sixty-three years of illegal and undeclared wars for maintaining, as Martin Luther King Jr. emphasized, “unjust predatory overseas investments, Obama, in between administrating Wall Street’s violent genocidal reach toward fulfilling absolute global hegemony and economic looting supremacy, might reflect on the lyrics Bob Dylan’s Masters Of War – as much applicable today as when first performed in 1963:

Come you masters of war

You that build all the guns

You that build the death planes

You that build all the bombs

You that hide behind walls

You that hide behind desks

I just want you to know

I can see through your masks.

You that never done nothin’

But build to destroy

You play with my world

Like it’s your little toy

You put a gun in my hand

And you hide from my eyes

And you turn and run farther

When the fast bullets fly.

Like Judas of old

You lie and deceive

A world war can be won

You want me to believe

But I see through your eyes

And I see through your brain

Like I see through the water

That runs down my drain.

You fasten all the triggers

For the others to fire

Then you set back and watch

When the death count gets higher

You hide in your mansion’

As young people’s blood

Flows out of their bodies

And is buried in the mud.

You’ve thrown the worst fear

That can ever be hurled

Fear to bring children

Into the world

For threatening my baby

Unborn and unnamed

You ain’t worth the blood

That runs in your veins.

How much do I know

To talk out of turn

You might say that I’m young

You might say I’m unlearned

But there’s one thing I know

Though I’m younger than you

That even Jesus would never

Forgive what you do.

Let me ask you one question

Is your money that good

Will it buy you forgiveness

Do you think that it could

I think you will find

When your death takes its toll

All the money you made

Will never buy back your soul.

And I hope that you die

And your death’ll come soon

I will follow your casket

In the pale afternoon

And I’ll watch while you’re lowered

Down to your deathbed

And I’ll stand over your grave

‘Til I’m sure that you’re dead.

Post Script:

To add insult to Bob and perhaps seeking to compromise his integrity before media audiences, that afternoon in the same ceremony in the Oval Room, Obama honored, with the same Presidential Medal of Freedom, former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, irrevocably infamous for her heartless reply on 60 Minutes (5/12/96) to a question about U.S. sanctions against Iraq:

‘We have heard that a half million children have died. That’s more   children than died in Hiroshima. Is the price worth it?’  Secretary of State Madeleine Albright replied: “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it.”

In 2003, Albright, while holding a high position on the Board of Directors of the New York Stock Exchange, was involved in a compensation scandal which resulted in her resignation. She currently serves on the Council on Foreign Relations Board of directors [shudder], Not very nice company for a hero of the common man with a world wide reputation of inspiring decent folk to resist the oppression of Wall Street rulers.

Shall we be disappointed? No. Let us just be sorry for a pathetic end to a contribution that spoke to the many suffering death and maiming of loved ones and destruction under capitalism’s final stage of global imperialism, now aiming and preparing for a new world-wide conflict that will realize trillions of dollars in profits monthly from use of its present massive investments in weapons of mass destruction.

Maybe an elderly Bob has been suckered into thinking that murdering Taliban (Students of God) and suspected enemies of America (brave men fighting the most powerful high tech Armed Forces in the histroy of the world in dozens of countries), is somehow different as the murdering of Vietcong defending their poor country that was ongoing at the time of his strongest protest songs.

We end this sad denunciation of a war promotion effort to make Bob Dylan appear to be betraying himself and the poor people he sought to defend and empathize with, with a quote from one of Dylan’s contemporaries, shot down as was Martin Luther King jr., surely for having been too influential in a time of easily exposed deceit to an American public not quite so decadent and war willing as today’s.

“Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal ends.” – John Lennon

We cannot know what Bob Dylan might come to do about this obvious and horrible contradiction intentionally featured in media this week, but throwing medals of honor back by those ashamed of holding them has become a popular practice to relieve one’s conscience.

By Jay Janson

31 May 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

Jay Janson is an archival research peoples historian activist, musician and writer; has lived and worked on all continents; articles on media published in China, Italy, UK, India and the US; now resides in NYC;. Howard Zinn lent his name to various projects of his; Global Research; Information Clearing House; CounterCurrents.org; Minority Perspective, UK; Dissident Voice, OpEdNews; HistoryNews Network; Vermont Citizen News and others have published his articles, 250 of which are available at http://www.opednews.com/author/author1723.html Weekly column, South China Morning Post, 1986-87; reviews for Ta Kung Bao; articles China Daily, 1989.  Is coordinator of the ( King Condemned US Wars) and creator of Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now Campaign fearuting a country by country history of US crimes. Studied history at CCNY, Columbia U., U. Puerto Rico, Dolmetscher Institut München, Germany; Korean National University of Arts, Seoul; Radiotelevisione Italiana, Rome; Zagreb Radiotelevision,Yugoslavia; Hong Kong Arts Academy.