Regime change in Iraq was never about dictator Saddam Hussein. Under Reagan and poppy Bush he was a useful idiot to fight the Mullahs of Iran with support from the medieval kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
After the first Gulf War, the UN sanctions put in place weighed heavily on the Iraqi population with unknown number of deaths as result. The Neocon agenda to back the State of Israel was clear what nations were next to face the wrath of regime change. The Libyan president Muamar Gaddafi got a reprieve under George Bush and Tony Blair to surrender oil contracts and depose of WMDs.
The secular Syrian president Assad was seen as a reformer by the EU, US and Israel. In the year 2010 Assad was visited by many representatives of Western democracies and Netanyahu was close to a peace deal over the Golan Heights.
However, the forces of the MIC and the neocon operatives in Washington DC, on the Hill, in US Congress and across Western funded think-tanks joined in to target Iran as the global power of terrorism. The overthrow of Saddam Hussein and Syrian president Assad should be seen as breaking Iran’s allies and Israel’s enemies, especially Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Just as the invasion and occupation of Iraq was a fool’s errand, so was the option of regime change in Libya and Syria. Stupidity reigned in foreign policy circles of the Atlantic Alliance.
Interesting article I came across today:
For Pro-israel Crowd, Iraq Report Has Some Unwelcome Proposals | JTA News – Dec. 2006 |
The Iraq Study Group‘s near-term recommendations for resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict — international conferences, dealings with Syria and Iran — already are raising hackles in some pro-Israel quarters. Long-term expectations could be even more problematic.
The report from the blue-ribbon panel, headed by former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker and former U.S. Rep. Lee Hamilton, was presented Wednesday. It mostly hews to the Bush administration principle of making an end to hostility toward Israel a prerequisite for improved relations with the United States: The Palestinians and Syrians first must demonstrate good faith through ending terrorism and recognizing the Jewish state before they can repair relations with Washington.
Baker, Hamilton and the eight other commissioners go further than the Bush administration, however, in describing the payoff for such good behavior: a return to the U.N.-conceived “land-for-peace” formulations of previous administrations in dealings with the Palestinians, and an Israeli handover of the Golan Heights to Syria.
On the Palestinian issue, the report recommends “adherence to U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 and to the principle of land-for-peace, which are the only bases for achieving peace.”
Israel and the Bush administration are committed to 242 and 338, which date back to the period just after Israel captured the West Bank and Golan Heights in 1967. However, making these resolutions the “only” bases for achieving peace could be interpreted as negating the signal Israeli accomplishment of recent years: the April 14, 2004 letter from President Bush that recognized some Israeli West Bank settlements as facts on the ground.
On Syria, the commission recommends that “the Israelis should return the Golan Heights, with a U.S. security guarantee for Israel that could include an international force on the border, including U.S. troops if requested by both parties.”
That represents a considerable shift for Israel, primarily by announcing Syria’s payoff if it makes peace. Israel has not come out so explicitly, preferring to say it will match the depth of its concessions to the depth of peace Syria offers.
Additionally, the recommendation ignores a question that dogged previous negotiations with Syria: whether the Golan includes a slice of the Sea of Galilee. Israel insists it does not, arguing that Syria took the seashore by force in the 1948 war.
The recommendation also would scuttle Israel’s principle accomplishment in earlier negotiations, which stuttered throughout the 1990s: getting the Syrians close to agreeing to demilitarize a chunk of land beyond the Golan, effectively nullifying the mountain range’s height advantage. A small force policing the border would be considered a poor substitute for the strategic advantage of demilitarization.
President Bush is not obliged to heed the advice of the congressionally mandated commission, and is suggesting he will approach it piecemeal.
A new Booz Allen guy to replace Negroponte by BooMan in Jan. 2007
- ○ NSC Chief Hadley asked Italy for a Bashar Replacement by susanhu @BooMan in June 2005
○ Decision to not engage Iran and Syria will likely have much bigger consequences by clammyc @BooMan in Dec. 2006
○ Mideast leaders seek their own solutions for region | CSM – Dec. 2006 |
○ Iran: Is it Really the Next War? by Steven D @BooMan in Jan. 2007
○ War Powers: James Baker’s Next “Non-binding” Commission by Jeff Huber @BooMan in 2007
