Those of us who supported President Trump in last year’s election because he promised a less interventionist foreign policy need to be aware of a rising danger. Neo-con influence in the Trump administration seems to be on the increase. Rumored high-level personnel changes could put neo-cons into key foreign policy positions. Just as their neo-con predecessors led President George W. Bush into the disastrous Iraq war, a gift that keeps on giving, so today’s neo-cons want a war with Iran.
The obvious question is, how could anyone be so stupid? War with Iran is a lose-lose proposition. If the Iranians defeat us, we lose. If we defeat them, we also lose because there is a high probability the Iranian state would disintegrate and Iran would become another stateless region. That would be a huge victory for our real enemies, Islamic non-state entities such as Al Qaeda and ISIS that wage Fourth Generation war.
The neo-cons refuse to see this because they are playing another game, a game driven by the misconceived interests of a foreign power. To put it bluntly, many influential neo-cons are part and parcel of Israel’s Likud party. Years ago, around the beginning of the George W. Bush administration, they helped Likud devise a strategy for Israel. That strategy called for the United States to destroy every Middle Eastern state that could be a threat to Israel. That was why the neo-cons pushed the Bush administration into war with Iraq.
Likud has largely abandoned that strategy since, because Iraq, Libya, and Syria showed them that destroying neighboring states merely creates new basis for far more dangerous enemies, Islamic 4GW forces. Israel now works quietly with a number of Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, to prevent further state collapses in the region.
But there is one state Likud still seeks to destroy: Iran. It needs the United states to attack Iran not only because it sees Iran as a deadly threat but because it wants a major Middle East war for cover as it solves the Palestinian problem.
While Likud and the U.S. both pretend to be working for a two-state solution to the problem of Palestine, in reality Likud wants a one-state solution. The whole of the West Bank is to be annexed. But unless Israel is then to have a majority Arab population, it must take the land but not the people. The Palestinians must be pushed into Jordan.
Such an act of ethnic cleansing is impossible in peacetime. World reaction would be disastrous to Israel. In fact, population transfers, voluntary or compulsory, are sometimes the only way to solve otherwise intractable problems. The Greek/Turkish population transfer after World War l is an example. But left-wing world opinion now categorically rejects population transfers under any circumstances. If, that is, they are visible.
Just as the Holocaust was only possible because something far larger was going on around it, to the point where it was hardly noticed, so ethnically cleansing the West Bank can only be done in the context of a much larger regional war. There is only one such war that would be big enough to provide the necessary cover: a war with Iran.
Here is where the neo-cons come in. Likud does not want to fight that war itself. Israel can only reach Iran with air and missile attacks. That kind of war is not sufficient to provide the necessary cover. Enter the United States: unlike Israel, we could actually invade and attempt to conquer Iran. The attempt would be folly and the result would be disaster for both us and Iran. But with all that going on, who would notice some ethnic cleansing in the West Bank (at least until the job was done)?
If all this seems far-fetched, remember this is exactly how and why we invaded Iraq. American neo-cons created that war in service to Likud and Likud’s strategy at that time. Now, Likud has a different strategic objective. But it still requires America to go to war, and some American neo-cons remain Likud’s humble and obedient servants.
President Trump’s supporters need to remind him that “America First” means exactly that. We go to war only for our own interests, not for the interests of any foreign power or party. No “America First” president would ever turn this country’s foreign policy over to agents of a foreign power. He would never send American soldiers to die to provide cover for another country’s actions. The neo-cons used a Republican president once. Never again.
(((NeoCons))) are pulling a neo-con.
Actually, we invaded Iraq because after Desert Storm, Saddam violated the ceasefire terms repeatedly, and there was a legitimate worry that he might be supporting the jihadis with chemical weapons. Relying on air power and diplomacy didn’t work, so we went to Plan B: Beat the **** out of the ****ing guy. We found the weapons alright, but thankfully the jihadis didn’t have access to them.
https://warisboring.com/iraq-not-afghanistan-is-americas-longest-war/
Where we went wrong in Iraq was in trying to fight a politically correct war. After we forced Japan to surrender, we tore out from all their books anything that said their race/culture was superior and destined to rule over humanity. We forced them to allow women to vote and own property. We humbled them, and were ready to kill as many of them as needed to avoid giving them any hope of success:
http://www.atimes.com/article/humiliation-path-peace-middle-east/
http://www.atimes.com/the-30-solution-when-war-without-end-ends-spengler/
Like Japan, Iraq was semi-modern at the time, and many Iraqis were brave enough to come out and show they supported us. We had everything we needed, and the force to back it up. Instead, we tried to play nice, allowed a backwards culture fester, and told the enemy we weren’t planning to stay long. Quick, decisive victories, the maneuver warfare fanboy’s wet dream. Only problem is, the other team gets a vote, too. Had we humbled the islamists the same way we humbled Japan, and given them no indication of when we planned to leave, then they wouldn’t fight as long or hard as they have. Bodies matter little to them, pride is everything. Humiliate them, and they’ll stop. Otherwise, we need to kill 30% of their fighters before they’re crippled.
You’re really a special kind of stupid, aren’t you?
I could say the same about somebody who doesn’t offer any proof to back up his claim. At least Mr. Lind offered something, even if it reads like a ‘it’s all the juuuuice fault!’ article that you find online. 😛
So, by all means offer a counterpoint. Infantile name-calling doesn’t prove/disprove anything.
Sorry, specially stupid people who still believe Saddam really had dem WMD’s aren’t worth typing in many characters. All you rate is derision. Accurate descriptions of people like you aren’t “infantile name-calling” because you indeed are a special kind of stupid.
I’ve heard people saying that there were no WMDs for years, but there are 2 problems with that argument: first, it’s wrong. There were a number of US servicemen who had to be medically treated after handling the weapons we did find. The weapons also have appeared recently in Syria, when Assad used chemical weapons against the US-backed ‘moderate’ ISIS rebels. Assad didn’t develop those chemical weapons, he got them from Iraq right before we invaded.
Second, even if it were true, it’s irrelevant to the argument. Reading the present into the past is something good historians take great pains to avoid. At the time, we thought he had them, and we acted based on what we knew. The fact that we didn’t find mountains of them doesn’t prove that the argument of them being a threat is bogus. You want a smoking gun, but for that you need to wait for a smoking US city.
So again, where’s your counter-proof? Claiming you don’t need no stinking proof is a good indication that you don’t have any. 😉
(((Neo-Cohens)))
He’s not stupid but you’re a dick.
Thanks for taking the time to shoot your mouth off, asshole. You and your boyfriend can go back to trying on womens’ pantyhose now.
I’m sorry you’re an idiot. There’s nothing worse than a moron who continues to buy swampland from the same huckster just to prove to himself that he isn’t stupid.
That you’re stupid enough to use the “You want a smoking gun, but for that you need to wait for a smoking US city.” line shows you are not only an absolute imbecile, but deserving of hatred.
Shall I remind you that more than 30,000 Americans were killed or wounded because of that lie? Tens of thousands of Americans lost their lives, their limbs, their eyesight, were burned horribly or were simply scarred mentally by what they saw. They endured that because vile, disgusting armchair warriors who go by some stupid handle like “gladius” can get their jollies playing armchair general.
To make matters worse, even after the brainless dork president that sent those Americans to be killed or maimed gave up telling the lie about WMD’s, a vile, asinine piece of shit like you still pretends to believe it just so he won’t have to admit he was dead wrong – dead for other people but not yourself.
Next time you see some 28 year-old guy in a wheelchair who will never walk again, have children or swim at the beach because disgusting assholes like you wanted to play armchair general, tell him about the “smoking city”.
Fuck you, you brainless, despicable bastard.
And… you still haven’t proven anything. Heck, you haven’t even disproven any of my points. You’ve just dismissed them outright and resorted to name-calling. Neither of those qualify as ‘proof.’ And before you call me an armchair general, you might want to consider that you’ve chosen a science-fiction alien name for your alias. You’re no admiral, miss.
Yes, men die in war. Big shock. Men were getting killed and wounded since 1991 because of Iraq. We’ve been fighting them for 27 years, even during the ‘truce’ periods. The war was going to happen, one way or another. In a world run by prison rules, the other team cheats to win. Backing out was not an option, except to idealists who drop the soap on purpose.
You think you are morally and intellectually superior, but you can’t prove your case, and resort to infantile, petulant name-calling like a special snowflake. Or perhaps you were drunk when you wrote it; hell, I don’t care. You lecture me about the cost of war, as if that proves anything about whether the war was justified or not. You parrot CNN’s lines, and then say I’m an idiot who believes the swamp/deep state. You ignore the chemical attacks by Assad using the weapons whose existence you deny, and then call me an imbecile.
And lastly, the veterans who did the work can speak for themselves. They don’t need you to speak for them. Who the hell appointed you?
Syria has had a chemical weapons program of its own since the 1970s as a deterrent against Israel’s nuclear weapons. Yeah, Bashar didn’t develop those weapons, his father did.
The Iraq War wasn’t sold to us on the premise of a chemical weapons threat anyway, that is just grasping at straws. When they said “imminent WMD threat,” they weren’t talking about a few old crates and shells of mustard gas buried in a warehouse somewhere, which is all that was ever found. They were talking about nukes, telling ludicrous lies about how Saddam could have had a bomb making program hidden in basements and trailers – just compare to the infrastructure North Korea needed, or to the level Iran has (which they still can’t make a bomb with) to see how absurd this was.
Spare us all your ’27 years’ nonsense, apparently in addition to not knowing anything about chemical or nuclear weapons even simple arithmetic such as 2003-1991 is beyond you.
This guy ought to die of Kool Aid poisoning…
If there were any serious “Weapons of Mass Destruction” in Iraq, the Bush Cheney team would have been on the media 24/7 showing them for all the world to see, not on YouTube admitting there were no WMDs.. People like this Gladisass clown represent foreign powers in a disinformation marathon to get Americans to fight their wars, and all the while spy on us Americans and steal our secrets to sell to the Russians like their HERO Jonathan Pollard. They thrive on deception, because their goals are beneath contempt… Good people only tolerate so many lies, deceptions and ripoffs. People who think they have a license to lie, cheat & steal are a danger to everyone, especially themselves as history shows. And those who live by the sword, perish also by the sword…
After his National Security position paper speech, is he more or less likely to start wars?
It’s called the Millitary-Industrial Complex; and it’s present on both sides of politics. No matter what side gets in; it’s there to keep the wars of the world going. This is the true face of America.
“But left-wing world opinion now categorically rejects population transfers under any circumstances. If, that is, they are visible.”
Obviously left wing opinion does not reject the ethnic cleansing of Designated Villains such as the Serbs in Krajina and Kosovo.