Linda Heard,

THE Americans and the Israelis are acting in concert vis-à-vis Iran. The unmistakable message they are putting out loud and clear is that an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities is on the cards in the event Tehran doesn’t cave into their demands. Are they bluffing as part of an arm-twisting strategy or are they seriously planning to transform this region into an inferno?

Pundits have been analyzing the probability of a US or Israeli attack on Iran for several years now. Some have even come up with likely dates but most of those have come and gone eroding the analysts’ credibility and dulling fears. There’s been so much chatter on the subject that we may reach the point when a “will they or won’t they?” discussion will turn into nothing more than an academic exercise on the basis it hasn’t happened so, therefore, it probably never will. The danger is Iran and the region could easily be lured into letting down its guard. Certainly, members of the Iranian leadership have indicated they don’t take the threat very seriously even though they are planning for every contingency and threatening to set the Middle East aflame if attacked.

In recent weeks, since the Israelis launched a supposed dry run in the eastern Mediterranean using 100 fighter planes and aerial tankers, the chatter has reached a crescendo. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has vowed, “Iran will not be nuclear”. Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz has termed a strike on Iran “unavoidable”.

Retired Mossad chief Shabtai Shavit warned that if Israel doesn’t destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities within a year, Israel would be vulnerable to nuclear incineration. He says that even if Israel doesn’t receive a green light from the US, it should be prepared to go it alone. Shavit believes there is a window of opportunity before the upcoming US election when the deed should be done in case of a win by Barack Obama, who has advocated jaw-jaw before war-war.

ARCH neoconservative and former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton says he believes Israel is poised to strike in November once the ballot has taken place.

Knesset member and retired Maj. Gen. Dani Yotom, who isn’t known for his hawkish views, says sanctions against Iran aren’t working and so “a military operation is needed”. Even the normally moderate Israeli historian Benny Morris recently said, “If the issue is whether Israel or Iran should perish, then Iran should perish”.

Suspicions that an attack might be in the pipeline were heightened after leaks supposedly forced the Israeli prime minister to admit he had secretly met with Aviam Sela, a brilliant military tactician said to be the architect of Israel’s 1981 strike on Iraq’s Osirak reactor. It is believed that Sela was asked to give his opinion on the feasibility of similarly putting Iran’s nuclear facilities out of action.

There is no doubt that Israelis genuinely fear a nuclear-armed Iran, which they believe would constitute an existential threat, but why are Israelis being so upfront about their intentions when history tells us they normally strike first and answer questions later?

Given that Iran is not Iraq circa the 1980s as far as airpower, weaponry, technology and sophisticated communications go and in light of the fact Iran’s main nuclear facilities are buried under layers of steel and concrete as much as 100 feet underground, eradicating Tehran’s nuclear capability would be challenging for any military unless it was prepared to unleash nuclear bunker-busters. Moreover, unlike the Osirak surprise strike, an attack on Iran would trigger serious military repercussions that could involve Syria, Hezbollah and pro-Iranian Shiite Iraqi groups. Such a pre-emptive move would probably result in a massive loss of life on all sides and would have a devastating effect on the global economy with oil prices reaching hitherto unimaginable heights.

Further, since neither Israel nor the US are in any position to launch a ground invasion without the complicity of anti-government Iranian surrogates, strikes on Iranian nuclear plants would probably result in Tehran not only reconstructing but setting their sights on developing nuclear weapons even if they’ve no plans to do so now. It’s worth mentioning that the Osirak reactor was for peaceful purposes and it was only after it was hit that Saddam Hussein actively sought a bomb.

According to the New Yorker’s veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh in an article titled “Preparing the Battlefield”, President George W. Bush has sanctioned covert operations and requested $400 million designed to destabilize Iran outside the sphere of the US military. These will largely be carried out by Iranian dissidents rather than Americans in the field, he says. But, once again, Iran is not Iraq. It’s a far more cohesive country and although not all of its citizens support the government, most identify themselves as proud Iranians who harbor a historical aversion to neoimperialist plots. There is no doubt that Israel and the US would like the Iranian government to be wiped off the face of the earth along with its nuclear ambitions but both countries are divided on what to do. So far their joint and separate belligerency isn’t working. If their bellicose words and provocative actions are, indeed, a giant bluff they are ineffective. They are simply causing the Iranian leadership to dig its heels in further and assert its right under the NPT to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. Even if this is a coordinated bluff, it could so easily reach the point of no return when to maintain strategic credibility, the players will have to make good on their threats. Certainly, one Iranian commander Brig. Gen. Mir-Faisal Baqerzadeh is taking these to heart already. According to Press TV, he has already got his troops digging more than 320,000 graves within Iran’s bordering provinces to provide any invading force with “the respect they deserve”.

Now here is a interesting letter that a reader wrote to this article today.

War drums

To add to the excellent overview by Linda Heard (July 1), I wish to state the following:

1. Is not Jerusalem sacred to all of Islam? What are the Israelis thinking? I cannot imagine any nation of Islam launching any kind of nuclear strike on Israel for the simple reason that in doing so, Jerusalem would become either destroyed or simply irradiated to the point of making any pilgrimages to it untenable.

2. Iran has become too important to many nations in the region. With its current pipeline projects to supply gas and other cooperative ventures in its neighboring states, Iran has shown itself to be a valuable resource to those neighboring countries. An attack on it would endanger its important role in helping stabilize the nations of the region, a role for which Washington is no doubt jealous.

3. The truth has become transparent. Democracy is spread by subversion! The right of a people to choose its own government and its own form of government is a myth as proven by the election of Hamas in Gaza and the resultant oppression by America and Israel against it. The right of a nation not engaged in aggression to be secure within its borders is a myth. It is shameful for a nation that cries democracy for the world to use terrorists and dissidents to undermine those governments that it is in contention with. In the case with Iran, it is now clear that the only aggressors in the region are the US and Israel.

4. Who are Israel’s real enemies? It is not the Arabs. History has shown that Arabs have historically protected and sheltered their Semitic brethren, the Jews, when they were being persecuted and murdered by the Europeans. While the Arab states are opposed to the illegal creation of Israel and the dispossession of Arab peoples from Palestine, it has been Europe that has shown the greatest hatred toward Jews and even to this date, despite harsh laws criminalizing anti-Semitism such hatred remains. Even in the US many groups exist that hold Jewry in disdain. As the current economic crises deepen within America, this hatred is bound to increase as it becomes obvious who the rich are. Perhaps Israel should be looking westward to see if the dragon is rising out of the sea, as foreseen by John in Revelation, and recognizing just who that dragon is.

5. The only solutions to the dilemmas facing the Middle East must come from the nations of the region, not from outsiders.

The obligation of each nation in the region including Israel is to protect the integrity of the region. This means protecting it against any hegemonic interests that would attempt to dominate the region for whatever excuse. While hatred exists among nations it is time to put aside such feelings. While accepting that major differences do exist and that there are valid reasons for those feelings, what is more important is to find a way so that each can exist without allowing outsiders to impose their might or will upon the region. Be warned the dogs are at the doors; whether you let them into your home is your choice. (Even though the beasts have already entered by the back door!) With all due consideration.

Jerry Copeland, United States published 5 July 2008

The world is certainly no safer than when you took over, Mr. Bush.

By Tariq A. Al-Maeena

President George Bush should be out of office in a matter of months. “The sooner, the better”, mutter those Americans who view his two terms as president of the United States as one laced heavily with wars and aggression overseas, and poverty at home.

While many Americans still believe he only came into office as a result of vote manipulations in Ohio and Florida during the elections, it cannot be denied that his leadership has been bad for America, period!

While there are still a diminishing number of diehards who believe in Bush’s message body and soul, an increasing number of Americans have been turned off by what he has turned America into. This is the impression I gathered in the course of my conversations with Americans from all walks of life. America has become a land where dissenters are seized and imprisoned without due process of the law.

There is wiretapping and forced entries into homes on the faintest of suspicion. Thousands who were brave enough to speak out against their president’s policies are detained.

It has become a land where a “spook” is believed to be found behind every corner, not much unlike the McCarthy era. Anthrax and the poisoning of water reservoirs were tactics used to shepherd a gullible public along those lines.

It is a land where the investigations and the real truth behind the 9-11 disaster still remain shrouded in controversy. The findings of the 9-11 Commission leave a lot of unanswered questions, and the US media’s failure to investigate such claims has destroyed their credibility around the world and among their own people.

Bush can also perhaps be linked to the delay in sending relief and federal support to the victims of the Katrina disaster. The support given was inadequate. Money and resources that could have provided immediate relief to the disaster victims were spent on more glamorous adventures abroad.

And today, while America bleeds under the onslaught of rising prices and home foreclosures, his tenure was not a loss for all. Those connected to the presidency such as Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld have reportedly done remarkably well, and their personal portfolios have shown positives gains.

The trillions of dollars gone to support Bush’s foreign adventures could and should have been spent on the welfare of his people.

The money spent could have averted the current financial crisis many Americans are experiencing. Old age care, improved health coverage and funding for more schools would have been a far more palatable alternative to Americans than dead bodies littering the killing fields of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bush is using the little time left for him in the White House for more warmongering. Iran has become the buzzword of his administration, just as Saddam Hussein’s WMDs were then. He does want to shape the world to his distorted view of democracy and peace, and he does that by waging more wars and creating more mayhem.

Most Americans agree today that their quality of life has suffered. And why not? The cost of maintaining Bush’s overseas adventures has taken away critically needed federal funds from domestic use. And with the cost of his war on the rise, very little relief can be forecast, unless dramatic measures are taken as soon as Bush departs. But with his clone in the shape of John McCain waiting in the shadows, is there any hope for Americans?

“I made a decision to lead,” he once said, “One, it makes you unpopular; two, it makes people accuse you of unilateral arrogance, and that may be true. But the fundamental question is, is the world better off as a result of your leadership?”

The world is certainly no safer than when you took over, Mr. Bush. While he would like to be remembered for doing the right thing, I wonder how many of the homeless and destitutes today would agree with such a rosy picture.

- Tariq A. Al-Maeena is a Saudi socio/political commentator. He works out of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and can be reached at this address.

Ken Gude | The Guardian

As George Bush flaps helplessly across Europe like a lame duck with a broken wing, the eagerness on display for his departure from the international scene has not been met with an appreciation of the size and scope of the problems that have festered during his tenure. The Bush presidency has been an unmitigated disaster and it is understandable to hope that it ends as quickly as possible. Yet we must be prepared for the consequences of the last eight years and simply ushering Bush out of the door will not wipe away all the damage no matter who is elected to succeed him.

I count no fewer than six multifaceted top-tier issues that require urgent and sustained attention as Bush arrives in London today: Iraq and the broader Middle East; climate change and energy geopolitics; trade, debt, and systemic poverty; Afghanistan, Pakistan, and international terrorism; the rise of Asian powers China, Russia, and India; and, Iran and nuclear proliferation — and that list does not even include other pressing crises such as Darfur or Guantanamo. Yet before we can even begin to address these problems, the threshold challenge for the new administration will be to rejuvenate the trans-Atlantic alliance.

The United States is weaker now than at any point since the end of the Cold War and perhaps far longer than that. Suspicions about American power have grown both because it has been deployed recklessly and because its limits have been clearly exposed. America’s traditional European allies have been in turn rebuked from abroad for a perceived lack of support or undermined at home because of it.

A good deal of the responsibility for the current state of trans-Atlantic relations can be traced to Washington, but that has also made it easier for the Europeans to say no to things they would rather not do. The United States is still the world’s dominant military and economic power, but reasonable questions persist about whether any post-Bush American president can hope to lead the international community in the manner of his predecessors or whether that leadership is in fact desired.

The total failure of the Bush foreign policy has made one lesson abundantly clear; even a nation as powerful as the United States cannot accomplish its objectives in today’s international environment without meaningful contributions from a broad set of allies. Another consequence of the Bush debacle is the task of securing that support is now vastly more difficult. The next president must rebuild the moral foundation of American international leadership and convince Europeans to join the United States in a true partnership as we work to address the challenges of the modern world. Some will be understandably reticent, others outright opposed. Yet the problems we face are so great that we no longer have the luxury of sitting on the sidelines in the hope that someone else will take care of our problems.

For those looking for clues to what the world would be like without a strong and respected United States leading an alliance of capable partners, go no further than the faltering NATO effort in Afghanistan. With US forces bogged down in Iraq, it is not possible for America to contribute enough ground forces so NATO has had to go hat in hand to other member-states seeking to fill the void. Some countries have admirably stepped up, but others have not, and as a result the success of the Afghan mission hangs in the balance. Make no mistake, Afghanistan is not Iraq. It was a United Nations approved military mission in direct response to an unprovoked attack on the United States. Its early success had the potential to finally return Afghanistan to the community of nations after decades of conflict.

NATO took over the mission, its first beyond the borders of Europe, in 2003 and now the most successful and enduring multilateral security institution of the 20th century is struggling to demonstrate its relevance in the radically different global security environment of the 21st.

Amid the rubble of the Bush presidency and even in the face of these enormous challenges, there is still hope. His reign has been such an obvious catastrophe that it may be easier to turn the page on the last eight years, creating the opening for a new era of trans-Atlantic relations.

The next administration will have to earn its way back to international leadership, a process that comes with an implicit challenge to America’s allies. The burdens of global leadership are going to be shared more broadly.

Is Europe ready?

Unmasking the real plans of American occupiers/invaders/terrorists sitting in the Pentagon

Patrick Cockburn, The Independent

LONDON, 7 June 2008 — A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.

The terms of the impending deal, details of which have been leaked to The Independent, are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq. Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilize Iraq’s position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country.

The accord also threatens to provoke a political crisis in the US. President Bush wants to push it through by the end of next month so he can declare a military victory and claim his 2003 invasion has been vindicated. But by perpetuating the US presence in Iraq, the long-term settlement would undercut pledges by the Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, to withdraw US troops if he is elected president in November.

The timing of the agreement would also boost the Republican candidate, John McCain, who has claimed the United States is on the verge of victory in Iraq — a victory that he says Obama would throw away by a premature military withdrawal.

“The essence of this agreement is to turn the Iraqis into slaves of the Americans.”-Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani

America currently has 151,000 troops in Iraq and, even after projected withdrawals next month, troop levels will stand at more than 142,000 — 10,000 more than when the military “surge” began in January 2007. Under the terms of the new treaty, the Americans would retain the long-term use of more than 50 bases in Iraq. American negotiators are also demanding immunity from Iraqi law for US troops and contractors, and a free hand to carry out arrests and conduct military activities in Iraq without consulting the Baghdad government. The precise nature of the American demands has been kept secret until now. The leaks are certain to generate an angry backlash in Iraq. “It is a terrible breach of our sovereignty,” said one Iraqi politician, adding that if the security deal was signed it would delegitimize the government in Baghdad that will be seen as an American pawn.

The US has repeatedly denied it wants permanent bases in Iraq but one Iraqi source said: “This is just a tactical subterfuge.” Washington also wants control of Iraqi airspace below 29,000 ft and the right to pursue its “war on terror” in Iraq, giving it the authority to arrest anybody it wants and to launch military campaigns without consultation.

Bush is determined to force the Iraqi government to sign the so-called “strategic alliance” without modifications, by the end of next month. But it is already being condemned by the Iranians and many Arabs as a continuing American attempt to dominate the region. Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the powerful and usually moderate Iranian leader, said that such a deal would create “a permanent occupation”. He added: “The essence of this agreement is to turn the Iraqis into slaves of the Americans.”

Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki is believed to be personally opposed to the terms of the new pact but feels his coalition government cannot stay in power without US backing.

The deal also risks exacerbating the proxy war being fought between Iran and the United States over who should be more influential in Iraq.

Although Iraqi ministers have said they will reject any agreement limiting Iraqi sovereignty, political observers in Baghdad suspect they will sign in the end and simply want to establish their credentials as defenders of Iraqi independence by a show of defiance now.

The Iraqi government wants to delay the actual signing of the agreement but the office of Vice President Dick Cheney has been trying to force it through. The US ambassador in Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, has spent weeks trying to secure the accord.

Dalia Mogahed & Ahmed Younis

The Gallup Organization — a world leader in global opinion research — has recently self-funded a World Poll which gathers opinion data in the areas of leadership, law and order, food/shelter, work, economics, health, well-being, citizen engagement from the peoples of 130 countries.

The World Poll gathers opinions around the world annually following Gallup’s guiding principles of independence and integrity.

The Coexist Foundation, a UK-registered charity, has a mission to promote better understanding between members of the Abrahamic faiths and also their relations with other religions and the secular world through education, dialogue and research.

As part of the World Poll, Gallup gathers data from the Muslim World and the West about people’s beliefs about education, religion, culture and democracy.

The Coexist Foundation has developed a not-for-profit relationship with the Gallup Organization. Together, these two entities share the belief that the accurate collection and dissemination of this data to key opinion leaders will lead to a better understanding between people of different faiths and cultures and consequently better relations.

Gallup and the Coexist Foundation will be pursuing collaborating partners in order to advance the facilitation and dissemination of this information. The first of these collaborating partners is the Coexistence Trust, a UK-based organization of parliamentarians, whose mission is to provide senior Muslim and Jewish political leaders with information to combat Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, worldwide.

Can Conflict Be Avoided?

How do Muslims around the world view relations between the West and the Muslim world? Do they see cooperation or conflict? Where there are problems, who do they think is at fault? Are they optimistic or pessimistic about the future?

Though majority of Muslim populations around the world have a great deal of pessimism about the state of the relationship, they also believe that violent conflict between the West and the Muslim world can be avoided. Though many Muslims believe the West does not respect them, they still believe greater interaction with the West is more a benefit than a threat. Americans and Canadians also believe greater interaction with the Muslim world is a benefit. Though both sides wish for better relations, both sides lack trust in the other’s good intentions.

Palestinians are among the most likely to say Muslim-West relations are worsening, reflecting the acute conflicts currently raging in the Palestinian territories and underscoring the importance of their resolution to the state of the dialogue.

With tensions between Iran and the United States intensifying, one might expect the Iranian public to be among the most pessimistic about the future of Muslim-West relations. It is therefore worth noting the relative ambivalence among the Iranian public on this question. Iranians may be drawing a distinction between disliked US policies directed at their country and the overall state of the Muslim-West relationship, especially because some US actions in the region are considered positive by many Iranians. Hostile to Saddam Hussein’s regime, Iranians have held less negative opinions of the invasion of Iraq than have residents of other Muslim majority countries, for example.

Moreover, Iran’s relatively favorable trade relationship with some European nations may make Iranians less prone to regarding the United States as a proxy for the West. The majority of Iranians also believe that tension between the West and the Muslim world is due to political, not underlying cultural or religious factors, which may make them less pessimistic than one might expect about Muslim-West relations as a whole.

The Reality-Perception Gap

Among both Muslim majority and non-Muslim majority nations, the proportion that say they think the “other side” is committed to better relations rarely rises above a minority. However, majority of residents in nations around the world say that better interaction between the Muslim and Western worlds is important to them.

Three in four US residents say the Muslim world is not committed to improving relations with the West; an identical percentage of Palestinians attribute the same apathy to the West. At least half of respondents in Italy (58 percent), Denmark (52 percent) and Spain (50 percent) agree that the Muslim world is not committed to improving relations.

Israelis represent a notable exception; almost two-thirds (64 percent) believe the Muslim world is committed to improvement.

Among the majority-Muslim nations surveyed, we see roughly the same pattern; majorities in every Middle Eastern country studied believe the West is not committed to better relations with the Muslim world, while respondents in majority-Muslim Asian countries are about evenly split.

Despite low levels of confidence in the commitment of those on the “other side,” majority in most nations surveyed in both the Muslim and Western worlds say that the quality of interactions between the two is important to them. In some Western countries, including Denmark, the United States, Belgium, Italy, Canada and Spain, and Israel, the percentage who say the issue is important to them is even higher than the percentage who give the Western world credit for commitment to improved relations.

In other words, some respondents believe their personal level of concern is higher than that of their own leadership, not to mention the leadership of the “other side.”

In the Middle East, Iranians are most likely to say the interaction between the West and the Muslim world is important, at 70 percent, followed by Turks at 64 percent. The US-imposed sanctions, as well as the threat of a US-led attack, make better relations with the West a vital priority for Iranians. Turkey’s geographic and economic ties with Europe, as well as its bid for EU membership, make improving relations an imperative there as well.

The implication is that residents in these countries are most likely to see potential for positive or negative change in their individual and regional realities stemming from the actions and policies of the West.

Respect

Though most Muslims say the Muslim world respects the West, many of them feel that the West does not respect the Muslim world.

In 2005, Gallup asked residents of several Muslim majority countries to explain in their own words what the West could do to improve relations with the Muslim world. The most frequent response, from countries as different as Turkey and Saudi Arabia, can be summed up with this statement: “Show greater respect for Islam and stop regarding Muslims as inferior.”

Many Muslim populations believe that the Western world lacks respect for the Muslim world. The vast majority of Palestinians (84 percent) and Egyptians (80 percent) say this is the case, while the numbers from Turkey (68 percent), Saudi Arabia (67 percent) and Iran (62 percent) are only somewhat lower.

These findings illustrate a consistent sense of being disrespected across nations that have very different economic, political and geostrategic relationships with the West.

In contrast, most residents in all but one majority-Muslim nation believe that the Muslim world respects the Western world. Two-thirds of respondents in Indonesia (65 percent), the country with the world’s largest Muslim population, believe that the Muslim world respects the West; similar numbers are seen in Saudi Arabia (72 percent), the Palestinian Territories (69 percent) and Egypt (62 percent). On this question, as on others within the index, non-Arab nations of the Middle East diverge from their Arab neighbors. In Iran the percentage who say the Muslim world respects the West is somewhat lower at 52 percent, while Turkey is the only country in which this figure represents less than a majority, at 45 percent.

However, while most respondents in almost all Muslim-majority countries say the Muslim world respects the Western world, majorities of those in Western countries (and Israel) disagree. Eighty-two percent of Americans and 73 percent of Israelis believe that the Muslim world does not respect the West. Similarly high figures are seen in Spain (63 percent), site of the Madrid terrorist bombing of 2004, Denmark (69 percent), where the international firestorm over the cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) originated in 2005, and the Netherlands (55 percent), where the 2004 killing of a Dutch filmmaker by a young Muslim has sparked controversy.

However, the index reveals that even in the nations studied with no obvious conflicts or significant dysfunction with local Muslim minority communities — such as Italy (70 percent), Canada (67 percent) and Sweden (54 percent) — high percentages of respondents feel the West is disrespected.

If residents of Muslim majority countries mostly say their society respects the West, why do Westerners feel disrespected? A possible explanation is that Westerners may conflate negative opinion of the United States common in the Muslim world with a rejection of the West and its values as a whole.

This perception is intensified by cultural firestorms such as the Danish cartoon controversy, which leave some Westerners feeling that Muslims do not respect “Western values” of free speech, and therefore do not respect the West. For example, nearly 1 in 2 Danes say they consider Islam to be incompatible with democracy, and a slight majority said in 2006 that they believed the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten was right to print the controversial cartoon as a demonstration of free speech. While most Americans (61 percent) said they believed it was irresponsible to print the cartoons, the same percentage blamed Muslims’ intolerance to other points of view rather than Western disrespect for Islam for the controversy. In other words, many Westerners regarded the reaction of some Muslims to the printing of the cartoon as disrespectful to Western values, just as many Muslims saw the wide distribution of the caricature as an assault on their tradition.

Data suggest, however, that Muslims’ unfavorable views of the United States are more often driven by resentment of its perceived policies than by rejection of its values, and that the diverse reactions to the Danish cartoons observed across the Muslim world were much more complex than simply a rejection of free speech. Often incited by local factors and aggravated by longstanding seemingly unrelated political grievances with Western powers, the actions of a violent and vocal minority in response to the caricature do not represent populations who oppose liberty.

In reality, the vast majority of Muslims support the value of free speech in principle. Ninety-four percent of Egyptians and 92 percent of Iranians, for example, say they would guarantee the right of free speech if they were asked to draft a constitution for a new country. Many Muslim-world respondents also cite freedom of expression as among the qualities of the West that they most admire.

And yet, the Danish cartoon was clearly offensive to many Muslims who felt it violated the boundaries of free speech. Some Europeans agreed; 30 percent of the German public, 45 percent French and a majority (57 percent) of the British public said in 2007 that printing the cartoon was not protected by freedom of speech.

Though Europeans were split about the acceptability of printing the Danish cartoon, there was broad consensus rejecting other expressions; strong majorities said that newspapers should not be allowed to print racial slurs, child pornography or jokes about the holocaust. For example, more than 8 out of 10 of the German public said that racial slurs and jokes about the holocaust were not protected by free speech.

These trends suggest that while Western and Muslim communities both claim free speech as a value, each society creates what it considers are appropriate limits to this freedom — sometimes differing even among societies who share a common faith.

Discriminating between a more manageable difference in cultural definitions on the one hand and an insurmountable clash of basic values on the other is essential to moving the dialogue forward.

Greater Interaction

Though some might expect the United States, Israel and the Middle East to be more likely than Europe to feel threatened by the “other”, the opposite is the case. In the United States (70 percent), Canada (72 percent) and Israel (56 percent) majorities say that greater interaction is a benefit. Similarly, residents of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the Palestinian Territories, Malaysia, Turkey and Iran were more likely to feel that greater interaction between Muslim and Western worlds is a benefit than a threat.

These findings are supported by a 2005-2006 Gallup World Poll which found that Americans favored greater cultural interaction as a way to improve relations with the Muslim world. The same study revealed that the two statements that Muslim-world residents most frequently associate with the Muslim world were: 1) “Attachment to their spiritual and moral values is crucial to progress” and 2) “Eager to have better relations with the West” suggesting that many Muslims do not regard religious devotion and cross-cultural cooperation as mutually exclusive.

(Dalia Mogahed and Ahmed Younis are respectively executive director of and senior analyst at the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies. With John L. Esposito, Mogahed co-authored “Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think”)

Also Read : What Muslims Think

My Pledge to Israel

Barack Obama, the US Democratic presumptive presidential nominee, has pledged to safeguard Israel’s security if elected president in November. Obama also described the US bond with Israel as “unbreakable today, unbreakable tomorrow, unbreakable for ever” and said he spoke as a “true friend” of Israel. Hours after securing his party’s nomination, Obama told the influential annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Council (AIPAC) on Wednesday, June 4, 2008 that “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided.” Obama drew a standing ovation as he addressed the gathering of one of US politics’ most influential lobbying groups, and said that as president “I will never compromise when it comes to Israel’s security”. He also said any deal between Israelis and Palestinians should preserve Israel’s identity as a Jewish state and that Hamas should be isolated.

Also Visit : The Three Stooges and Israel

Aijaz Zaka Syed

Unlike English poet Alexander Pope — I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came — I suffer from a natural discomfort with numbers. Which is why one had to be more than dependent on one’s more calculating classmates when it came to mathematics. Even now I often fail to fathom the fundamentals of my modest monthly budget.

So while everybody who’s somebody holds forth on the perils of rising inflation and declining dollar (Emirati dirham, like other Gulf currencies, is handcuffed to the greenback), I can’t join the conversation thanks to my ineptitude with numbers. But even if one doesn’t understand the first thing about inflation and budgetary constraints we brown expats of subcontinental variety currently face in the Gulf, one constantly feels its effects.

Six years ago when I landed in Dubai, my weekly grocery bill used to range between 250 dirhams to 300 dirhams at Lulu, the neighborhood supermarket. Today, we feel blessed if we can keep it between 500 dirhams and 600 dirhams, even though my wife still checks the price tag and thinks twice before throwing anything in her trolley. The bag of Basmati rice that would be yours for 60 dirhams now costs you more than 110 dirhams. The humble “roti” that you’d get two for a dirham now costs the double. The monthly school fees for my children used to be well under 1,500 dirhams. These days, I have to write a check of 2,500 dirhams. These two being my biggest monthly expenses after housing, they are my budgetary benchmarks.

They also leave two huge holes in my pocket. And like so many other struggling expats, one finds the going increasingly tough. This despite the substantial pay rise most companies and governments have given their staff over the past couple of years.

I hate talking about my financial and domestic woes. And this is not a veiled appeal to my bosses for a raise either. But I am genuinely perplexed by the unparalleled rise in cost of living. If a guy like me who has a reasonably nice job with a big media organization finds the daily grind challenging, I wonder how people whose pay is less than what I shell out for my kids’ school fee or groceries manage?

A great deal has been said about the world food crisis. But it is not as if food and the staples like rice and wheat are scarcer today. They are not. They have only got too pricey. There is no shortage of food for those who can offer the right price. Supermarket shelves are still bursting with bags of rice and wheat flour. Only their prices have shot up — out of reach of less fortunate.

Some of our friends in the West, especially pundits like Thomas Friedman of New York Times, have been running a campaign against oil-producing countries — read Arabs and Muslims — blaming the high oil prices for the world’s economic woes.

The crude prices may be partly responsible for global economic problems. But have holier-than-thou wonks like Friedman ever wondered what is driving the oil prices?

It is the quirky dollar that is driving the oil. And why has the mighty dollar gone berserk? The people of Iraq and Afghanistan would tell you why. It is Bush’s disastrous wars that have broken the greenback’s back. And it is not just the luckless people of Iraq and Afghanistan who are paying for this cowboy president’s Oedipal insecurities. From the suicidal farmers in India to the hungry multitudes of Africa, all of us are paying for these wars.

There is strong evidence now to suggest that the shooting price of energy is a direct result of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the accompanying geopolitical instability.

As if these two disastrous campaigns were not enough to drive nervous energy markets crazy, our neocon friends are pitching for a war with Iran.

Can you blame the markets then if they are getting jittery? After all, Iran is one of the world’s biggest producers of oil. And in case some of us fail to recall, Iraq, the main front of the neocon war, too was a big producer of oil. Under Saddam, it was the second largest producer after Saudi Arabia.

So is this a mere coincidence that the oil prices shot up soon after the US attack on Iraq? When Bush took the Americans, and the rest of us, into the morass called Mesopotamia, the crude was selling at about a quarter of what it is today. And look where we are today, at $129 a barrel.

If things continue in this fashion, top economic brains warn, before long the world could be looking at $200 a barrel. Imagine what it could do to multiply our current economic woes.

Even a layman like me can see that markets are sensitive to bad news and their short- and long-term effects. Especially when it is inspired by the US, the world’s biggest economy and the custodian of the international trade and financial system. And all Bush has done over the past seven years is bombard markets with bad news.

Oil prices began to climb after the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and have risen in tandem with the escalation of conflict and turbulence in the Middle East. There’s clearly a method in the madness. These wars are also contributing to the escalation of fuel cost and economic woes in indirect ways; by plunging the US ever deeper into debt and depreciating the dollar. The oil is largely priced in US dollars. And as the greenback’s value is eroded, oil-exporting countries demand more and more dollars for their produce.

Aside from pushing up oil and inflation, the war is also at the heart of the global food crisis. The prices of essential foodstuff and grains like rice and wheat have shot up because fuel prices have gone up; food production and its transportation are critically dependent on fuel.

The World Bank says food prices have more than doubled over the past three years. The price of rice, the staple for billions of Asians, is up 147 percent over the past year alone. The mounting food prices have caused hunger and riots across the Third World.

Maybe it is time for the Americans and the rest of the world to see that the disastrous consequences of Bush wars go beyond Iraq and Afghanistan. They have set the whole world on fire. And the first thing the Americans can do to put out the blaze is persuade the cowboy in the White House to bring the troops home.

— Aijaz Zaka Syed is a Dubai-based journalist and commentator.

Jonathan Power

Osama Bin Laden has made Al-Qaeda’s position crystal clear in his latest tape released on May 16. He said the fight for the Palestinian cause is the most important factor driving Al-Qaeda’s war with the West and that was the primary reason for 9/11.

It sounds topical enough given the amount of attention that the Washington is presently giving the Israel/Palestinian peace quest. But, in truth, Bin Laden may well be behind the curve.

A two-state solution can no longer be a viable political goal, because: a) in terms of the demographics a Muslim majority in Israeli-controlled territory is less than a decade away, b) the Israelis have effectively created a single state encompassing both Jews and Palestinians. To all intents and purposes it imitates the South Africa of apartheid days, a unitary state with a minority group attempting to rule by oppression over a minority.

The only way to bring peace is to do what the white South Africans did under President F.W. de Klerk. As he once explained it to me, he felt compelled to negotiate with the African National Congress led by Nelson Mandela, not because of the outside world’s sanctions, but because he realized that South Africa was becoming unlivable for all and a way had to be found for the minority to live safely under the rule of the majority.

Perhaps it’s time overdue for the US and Europe to make clear that the preservation of Israel as a pure Jewish state is no longer of strategic concern whose interests must be preserved at all costs, by money, by political muscle and, in case of a showdown, by the support of the force of arms. If this penny can be made to drop in the Israeli mind and the Jewish diaspora then, as did the white South Africans, it would be time to sit down with the Palestinians and work out how to hold an election in a unitary state.

But first, for this to happen, the West has to shed its notion of the whole of the Middle East being strategically important. In an important essay last year in Prospect magazine Edward Luttwak from the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC, made a convincing argument for this.

Israel and Palestine are not at “five minutes to midnight”, he argues. “It is the same old cyclical conflict which always restarts when peace is about to break out, and always dampens down when the violence becomes intense enough.”

In strategic terms the Arab-Israeli conflict has become almost irrelevant since the end of the Cold War. The conflict has had no impact on oil prices since the 1973 Saudi embargo, the last time the “oil weapon” was wielded.

Continuously, the West seems to have bought the Israeli argument that they are up against the threat of the combined armies of the Arab world. But military expenditure in all the Arab states has fallen rapidly since the 1973 war. Even when Egypt was aided by massive Soviet military purchases and gifts in the 1960s it was quickly defeated in both 1967 and 1973.

The West made the same mistake of overestimating Iraqi military power in the 1990s. Saddam Hussein’s divisions were counted as if they were well-trained German Panzers. But when the war came the Iraqi air force fled to Iran and the tanks became target practice for the Western invaders. The second Gulf War had an even more farcical rationale (but it wasn’t that funny) with the assumptions that well-sanctioned Iraq had built a terrifying arsenal of ultra modern weapons of mass destruction.

Even with non-Arab Iran and its acolytes, Hezbollah and Hamas, we are whipped into hysterics of “fear of the terrorist”. Yet their activities are very localized, unlike the Palestinian strikes of the 60s and 70s, and Iran’s special international terrorist department has produced only one major bombing in the Middle East in 1996. Compared with what the Soviet Union threatened the West with and with what Hitler actually did, this is derisory. Even if Iran is developing nuclear weapons to say that the people of Iran patriotically support the endeavor is a large overstatement. Persian nationalism is a minority position in a country where half the population is not even Persian. Clever diplomacy would play to these cleavages.

In short, the West should de-couple itself from the Middle East, from both the Arab side and the Israeli side. It should declare it has no strategic interest in the region. This would create the space for both the Palestinians and the Israelis to look each other in the eye and realize it is they who have to find a way to peace.

By Remi Kanazi

Free speech is not without consequence. In the United States, for example, criticism of Israel is tantamount to heresy.

Former US President Jimmy Carter felt a societal backlash last year after the release of his book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, which condemned Israel’s apartheid-style policies in the occupied Palestinian territories. Consequently, and without foundation, Carter was branded by many in the American press as a one-sided, anti-Semitic propagandist. Similarly, Harvard professor Stephen Walt and University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer were lambasted for a paper the two co-authored that discussed the power of the Israel lobby and its adverse effect on American policy. Additionally, Norman Finkelstein, an esteemed professor at Depaul University and author of the bestselling book, The Holocaust Industry, witnessed a McCarthyite-style campaign mounted against him when he came up for tenure. Finkelstein, the son of Holocaust survivors, has been an outspoken critic of Israel’s human rights abuses and of pro-Israel apologist and Harvard professor, Alan Dershowitz. Predictably, it was Dershowitz who led the anti-tenure campaign against him; ultimately, Finkelstein was not only denied tenure, but he lost his job at Depaul.

The attacks against Carter, Finkelstein, Walt and Mearsheimer serve as a few well-known examples of the consequences writers and intellectuals face when they breach the line and criticize Israel. Furthermore, the condemnation writers and intellectuals of Arab descent face are invariably higher than Jews of conscience, former presidents, and highly regarded academics. As a result, many writers often acquiesce to the demands of the mainstream. Their self-censorship usually appears in the form of “toning down the message,” be it to please editors or critics—essentially to conform to the reality of purported pragmatism. Yet, this “pragmatism” is a euphemism for acceptance of a repressive status quo and is analogous to the “necessary” practical thinking that silenced a multitude of commentators during the Oslo years - the supposed time of peace. Unsurprisingly, untold Palestinian suffering followed as a result of increased settlement expansion, land confiscation, checkpoints and seizures, and the ultimate failure of Camp David 2000.

Shying away from perceived controversial matters may help to protect a mainstream career, but the intent of a political analyst should not be to produce works of fiction. The vast majority of Americans weren’t open to criticism of US policy during the run-up to the war on Iraq, mainly due to the media’s complicity in promoting the war, but criticism was still the appropriate course of action based on the facts, and Americans would have been better off for it today.

A man who combined principle, activism, and human appeal quite masterfully was distinguished educator and commentator, Edward Said. In the realm of academia and Middle East analysis, Said was by no means viewed as the quintessential radical. Nonetheless, his positions were radical when juxtaposed with “conventional wisdom”: he was a proponent of the one-state solution, an unwavering critic of the Israeli government, and an ardent supporter of the ostensibly controversial right of return. Said was still heavily criticized throughout his career and endured incessant attacks by his detractors, yet his accessible personality and articulate message kept him relevant.

Sadly, Said’s relative acceptance has been the exception rather than the rule. In recent years, there has been increased emphasis on putative pragmatic dialogue. However, this accentuation on so-called rational and balanced thinking has proven to be little more than a sinister means to pressure the oppressed to accept the position of the oppressor. The greatest leaders of the last hundred years didn’t shy away from controversy; they remained persistent, and saw their visions brought to fruition; be they Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, or Mahatma Gandhi. Nevertheless, one cannot overlook that even paramount figures have been castigated for “overstepping” their boundaries, namely Martin Luther King who was chided for speaking out against the war in Vietnam, imperialism, and social injustices that plagued the US.

This week, Palestinians across the US commemorated 60 years of displacement. Yet, the lens the Palestinian people are expected to look through under the pragmatist vision is one that sees a dispossessed people as necessary victims for a righteous state to take form. Unfortunately, waves of writers and commentators continue to adopt this line in fear of retribution, in exchange for nicer houses and comfortable livings, or a combination of both. That is their free will. Free speech is not without consequence. Nonetheless, losing piece of mind is the only repercussion a writer should fear.

-Remi Kanazi is the editor of the forthcoming anthology of poetry, Poets For Palestine, which can be pre-ordered at www.PoetsForPalestine.com. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. Contact him at: remroum@gmail.com.

Bush began by praising Sharon as ‘one of Israel’s greatest leaders.’

By Ira Glunts

In a talk eerily reminiscent of his “Axis of Evil” speech, President George W. Bush told the Israeli Knesset on May 15 of his commitment to vanquish any group that opposes his vision of American hegemony in the Middle East. He specifically included Syria, Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and Al Qaeda as the enemies in his “war against terror and extremism.” Oddly he did not include the Taliban, whom the US military is currently fighting in Afghanistan, on his list of Muslim enemies. Perhaps this is because his Israeli hosts do not perceive the Taliban as an immediate threat to their security.

It is difficult to know whether Bush’s exaggerated bellicosity derives from his desire to please the Israelis, play to his political base in the United States, or is simply another occasion for him to engage in the type of ominous saber-rattling that has been characteristic of his administration. President Bush emphasized his dedication and resolve to press on with his aggressive foreign policy by proclaiming that the war on terror is “an ancient battle between good and evil.” Considering the current unstable political situation in both Gaza and Lebanon, plus the diplomatic crisis in US/Iranian relations, one has to wonder if the President’s words signify that the US has immediate plans for an increased military engagement in the region.

Bush began his remarks by praising Ariel Sharon as “one of Israel’s greatest leaders” and reiterating his provocative statement that the former Israeli Prime Minister was “a man of peace.” Sharon, who is considered the major architect of the Israeli settlements, is reviled among Palestinians. Apparently oblivious to how his Sharon statement compromised his credibility, Bush compounded his flight of fancy by telling his listeners that “Israel has always worked tirelessly for peace.” I imagine that many of the members of the Knesset in their self-serving obtuseness may actually believe that this is true, but to the rest of the world this is simply a statement that Israel will not, at least under Bush’s watch, be required to make any concessions to its enemies.

The present practice among American politicians is to shamelessly pander to Israeli and Jewish-American interests as they are understood and transmitted by lobbying groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Bush, rising to the celebratory occasion, did not disappoint his listeners. First Bush substituted the name “Eretz Yisrael” for Israel. This biblical term is generally associated with the settlers who believe that Israel should retain all of the West Bank. He then reiterated the false argument, albeit popular among Israelis, that to be against a Jewish state is anti-Semitic. This is obviously not true, since all Jews do not support the State of Israel, especially as it is represented by its current policies of occupation and human rights violations. Bush further endeared himself to his audience by comparing the futility of negotiating with the groups he labeled “terrorists” with trying to negotiate with the Nazis in 1939. The Israelis often recall the British appeasement of the Nazis when attempting to counteract criticism of their own actions. Ariel Sharon famously employed the appeasement argument to criticize the US for opposing his 2002 reinvasion of the West Bank. In that case, President Bush backed down from his blunt admonitions to the Israelis to withdraw their invading troops from Palestinian-controlled areas.

The Palestinians were notably excluded from Mr. Bush’s speech except for one brief mention of a future state. In the context of this speech, such a state could be easily interpreted as the truncated mini-state that many in the Israeli establishment would be willing to consider. There was no mention of the so-called Annapolis Peace Process that the Americans are currently sponsoring, and which Bush occasionally trumpets as his Israeli/Palestinian plan for peace. There was no mention of the ongoing creation and expansion of settlements, which the Bush administration sometimes timidly proclaims are not helpful in moving the peace process forward. These omissions surprised and delighted many of the Israelis who were present. The fact that Bush was so effusive in his praise of the Israelis and basically neglected the Palestinians was a clear signal that the President is not committed to the peace negotiations in which his Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is now involved.
The best Bush could come up with as a rosy future for the Middle East in 60 years was decidedly modest. He described the relationship among nations there by stating “it doesn’t mean Israel and its neighbors will be the best of friends.” The American President’s hope for the region in the future is a Pax Isra-Americana over which the Arabs will have no choice.

What was most startling about the speech was Bush’s aggressive talk about Israel’s enemies and how the US was ready to act against the many groups that both countries consider “terrorists,” groups that in the US President’s mind, are beyond redemption. One such group is the Iranian government. The US administration’s war drums are beating louder and louder for military confrontation against Iran. There have been reports that the neocons in the government feel that now is the time for at least a “surgical” attack against that country’s nuclear sites. In Lebanon there is an increasingly unstable political and security situation where Hezbollah forces are flexing their military muscle. In 2006 Israel, with American backing, tried to vanquish Hezbollah, but failed. Will Bush now use the American military in Lebanon or encourage the Israelis to do so? In Gaza, Hamas is gaining support due to the failure of its opponents to deliver on their promise to improve conditions and achieve statehood. Could this bellicose tone from Bush signal that the Israelis have a green light for a massive reinvasion of the Gaza Strip, as proposed by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak?

In a speech filled with hyperbole and emotional appeals, Bush derided those who cannot “fathom the darkness in these men [the terrorists]” and those that harbor the “foolish delusion” that we can negotiate a peaceful settlement. This latter statement has been interpreted to be an implied criticism of ex-President Jimmy Carter who met with Hamas leaders recently. It has also been seen as directed against Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama, who, despite the pointed objection of administration officials and his Democratic primary opponent Senator Hillary Clinton, has continually expressed a willingness to negotiate with Syrian and Iranian leaders. Obama issued a statement which said that he has never advocated negotiating with terrorists. The Illinois Senator does not perceive the governments of Iran or Syria to be terrorists, as Bush does. Additionally, by criticizing those who want to talk to the terrorist enemy, Bush is again telling the Israelis that the US will not pressure them into engaging in meaningful negotiations with the Palestinians, since Hamas is part of the evil enemy. Unfortunately, like Bush Obama also considers Hamas a terrorist organization who is not an appropriate negotiating partner, despite its standing as a legally and democratically-elected government.

As we learned from the “Axis of Evil” speech, tough talk from George Bush can foreshadow disastrous consequences for both his enemies and the people of the United States who will be paying for his military adventures in countless ways for many years. Hopefully, Bush’s term will expire before he can act militarily against those whose names he called out during his speech. However, even if Bush does not order US forces into another ill-conceived military engagement, the next President will inherit not only the armed conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, but a huge war lobby with a very effective propaganda machine, that will make it difficult for any US leader to avoid staying the same horrific course.

What are the underpinnings of Hilary Clinton’s threat to obliterate Iran?

By Robert Weitzel

“To misunderstand the nature and threat of evil is to risk being blindsided by it…An evil unchecked is the prelude to genocide.” - Dr. Mordechai: The Ezekiel Option

There are over 70 million human beings living in Iran, 17.5 million of whom are under the age of fifteen. Hillary Clinton vowed to attack Iran and “totally obliterate” the majority of the Persian race in a furnace of primordial fire should the Iranian government attack Israel with nuclear weapons, which they do not now possess or are likely to for some time - if ever.

Hillary’s “final solution” to the Persian problem bests Adolf Hitler by a magnitude of ten. Missing in Clinton’s campaign trail pandering to America’s pro-Israel lobbies and the mushrooming evangelical Christian Zionist movement is the “inconvenient truth” that Israel has the most modern and most deadly army in the Middle East thanks to an annual $3.5 billion in American aid - one third of the U.S. aid budget.

Israel is also a major nuclear power in the region - though it refuses to admit it - with up to 200 nuclear warheads and the inter-continental-range ballistic missiles to deliver them and, according to the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment, also has an undeclared offensive chemical and biological warfare program. Israel, along with India and Pakistan are the only three nations not to have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran is a signatory of the NNPT, by the way.

The most inconvenient truth, however, is that Israel has a 60-year history of attacking - with American-supplied armaments - any Arab country it perceives as a threat, nuclear-armed or slingshot-armed alike. Israel’s bombing of Iraq’s Osirak nuclear facility in 1981 comes to mind as an example of the former, its shelling of Gaza the latter. Israel can and will “ pre-emptively defend” itself against Iran, the country that a February 2008 International Atomic Energy Agency report concluded has not diverted nuclear material to non-peaceful purposes.

Unfortunately for the 70 million Persians in Hillary’s bombsight, Iran’s biggest liability is its president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - but then the U.S. is equally burdened. So the real truth behind Clinton’s “final solution” to the Persian problem or John McCain’s “bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran” off-key hyperbole is not simply a “David and Goliath” struggle for survival, but is instead a cynical exploitation of the unholy marriage of convenience between fanatical Jewish Zionists who want a Muslim-free Eretz Israel in order to fulfill Old Testament prophecy and bring about the first coming of their Messiah and fanatical Christian Zionists who want the entire Middle East in flames to fulfill New Testament prophecy and bring about the Second Coming of their Messiah. Jewish Zionists need the money and the political clout of the Christian Zionists. Christian Zionists need the Semitism and the chutzpah of the Jewish Zionists. Politicians need the votes that both groups can deliver, which in religion-drenched America is a hefty consignment. According to a 2006 Pew Research Center poll, fully 44 percent of Americans believe that “God gave the land that is now Israel to the Jewish people” and 36 percent believe the “creation of the state of Israel is a step toward the Second Coming of Jesus.”

Depending on which poll is the most accurate, there are between 105-135 million evangelical and born-again Christians in the United States. Of these Christians, a 2004 International Fellowship of Christians and Jews poll found that 31 percent identified U.S. support for Israel as their “primary consideration” in selecting a presidential candidate, while 64 percent cited it as an “important factor.”

Predictably then, when Hillary Clinton or John McCain threaten to obliterate Iran, or any predominately Muslim country in the Middle East, with nuclear weapons, the primary audience for their saber rattling is not the Muslim “evildoers” but is, instead, the pro-Israel lobby and the Christian Zionist muscle in America who are willing to see the “ultimate evil” committed to further their ideological and eschatological agenda.

Nowhere does “ultimate evil” play a more prominent role than in the End Time machinations of two well-connected Christian Zionists, Tim LaHaye and John Hagee.

Tim LaHaye is best known as the co-author of the blockbuster Left Behind series, which has sold over 60 million copies worldwide. The pulp fiction series takes the Book of Revelation as its inspiration and chronicles the tribulations that will occur between the Rapture of born-again Christians and the Second Coming of Jesus. The blood and viscera of millions of infidels and heretics—unrepentant Atheists, Jews, Muslims, and Catholics—are spattered on every page.

Tim LaHaye is least known as the founder and first president of the secretive Council for National Policy. The CNP was formed in 1981 as an umbrella organization to advance an ultra-conservative, right wing Christian agenda. LaHaye’s particular agenda items include replacing U.S. secular law with Old Testament biblical law and a Middle East foreign policy that expedites the Second Coming.

According to the New York Times, the CNP consists of “a few hundred of the most powerful conservatives in the country” who meet “behind closed doors at undisclosed locations…to strategize about how to turn the country to the right.” Though the membership of the CNP is a guarded secret, a list of those known to have been associated with it reads like a who’s who of Christian Zionists and neocon ideologues whose passion is to see the Middle East in flames and in chains.

A short list includes: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, former Attorney Generals John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales, former U.N. ambassador John Bolton, the late Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Phyllis Schlafly, and Oliver North - the guy who sold weapons to Iran using Israel as the middleman.

Do not be blindsided. The CNP is a major player in domestic and foreign policy decisions and the “evil” that results.

John Hagee, televangelist and pastor of the 19,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, is the founder of Christian United for Israel. Hagee formed CUFI in 2005 following the publication of his book, The Jerusalem Countdown: A Warning to the World, which sports a mushroom cloud on its cover and argues for a pre-emptive nuclear strike on Iran to fulfill God’s plan for both Israel and the West.

Hagee’s theology - and vision of the future - focuses on selected apocalyptic passages from the Old Testament. He believes that a nuclear strike against Iran will cause Arab nations to unite under Russian leadership, as outlined in the Book of Ezekiel, leading to an “inferno [that] will explode across the Middle East, plunging the world toward Armageddon.” Consequently, CUFI exists to set the fires of the Apocalypse and bring about the Rapture and the Second Coming, but it needs Jewish Zionists to strike the match.

Christians United for Israel is the evangelical equivalent of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the powerful pro-Israel lobby courted and placated by every American politician who has national aspirations. John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and Barak Obama have each pledged their fealty to AIPAC.

John Hagee is not without his own short list of beltway benefactors. The list includes, but is not limited to: George W. Bush, House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, Senator Joe Lieberman—who called Hagee an “Ish Elokim,” a man of God—and John McCain who was “very honored by Pastor John Hagee’s endorsement [for president].”

When Christian Zionists with the stature of LaHaye and Hagee shill for fanatical Jewish Zionists who are promoting the ethic cleansing of Eretz Israel for biblical or nationalistic reasons or the pre-emptive “defensive” nuking of Iran, politicians with the stature of Hillary Clinton and John McCain, along with a hefty consignment of the electorate, are their willing dupes. It’s just the politics of religion as usual in America.

But Jewish Zionists need to understand that the difference between Christian Zionists and Muslim suicide bombers is scale, a nuclear warhead versus a backpack bomb, and a willingness to let others do the killing - and the dying - for them.

Jewish Zionists should also keep in mind that Christian Zionists have no intention of being around when the sands of the Middle East are turned to glass in a furnace of primordial fire. They will have been Raptured and out of harm’s way in Paradise. Their Bible tells them so.

- Robert Weitzel is a contributing editor to Media With a Conscience. His essays regularly appear in The Capital Times in Madison, WI. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. Contact him at: robertweitzel@mac.com

Bertrand Russell wrote: The tragedy of the people of Palestine is that their country was ‘given’ by a foreign power to another people.

By Ron Forthofer

After WWII, political pressure increased for a Jewish state instead of a homeland in Palestine. This pressure was due in part to the terrible guilt felt by people in the U.S. and other nations over the horrific suffering of several groups during the Nazi era, especially that of the Jews during the Holocaust. The pictures detailing the wretched conditions of Jews barely surviving the concentration and extermination camps and of the piles of bones from some of the millions killed were incredibly powerful.

In addition, a weakened Britain was ready to end its control of the Palestine Mandate partly due to the burden of maintaining 100,000 troops there and partly due to the guerilla campaign waged by Jewish terrorists. One additional factor in the British decision to end the mandate by May 1948 was the intense pressure put on Britain after it prevented Holocaust survivors from entering Palestine.

This decision by the British prompted the United Nations to form the U.N. Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) on May 15, 1947. The committee issued a majority report on August 31, 1947 recommending the partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states and an U.N. administered area around and including Jerusalem. Three members (India, Iran and Yugoslavia) of the eleven nations on the committee voted instead in favor of a single federal state with separate Arab and Jewish constituent states. Australia abstained. The U.N. General Assembly discussed the partition resolution in November.

Before that session, on September 22nd, Loy Henderson, director of the State Department’s Office of Near Eastern and African Affairs, warned Secretary of State George C. Marshall of the dangers of partition. Here is an excerpt of his comments:

“The UNSCOP [U.N. Special Committee on Palestine] Majority Plan is not only unworkable; if adopted, it would guarantee that the Palestine problem would be permanent and still more complicated in the future.

“The proposals contained in the UNSCOP plan are not only not based on any principles of an international character, the maintenance of which would be in the interests of the United States, but they are in definite contravention to various principles laid down in the [U.N.] Charter as well as to principles on which American concepts of Government are based.

“These proposals, for instance, ignore such principles as self-determination and majority rule. They recognize the principle of a theocratic racial state and even go so far in several instances as to discriminate on grounds of religion and race against persons outside of Palestine.”

The U.S. State Department was firmly against the partition. However President Truman overrode the Department. In 1945, Truman spoke to four U.S. ambassadors to Arab countries and bluntly said: “I’m sorry, gentlemen, but I have to answer to hundreds of thousands who are anxious for the success of Zionism. I do not have hundreds of thousands of Arabs among my constituents.”

On November 29th, U.N. General Assembly Resolution 181 calling for the partition passed. Following the adoption of the resolution, Arab countries proposed to query the International Court of Justice on the competence of the General Assembly to partition a country against the wishes of the majority of its inhabitants. This attempt was narrowly defeated.

Jews generally welcomed the partition plan while Palestinians and Arabs strongly opposed it. Palestinians supported a one democratic state solution. They also were outraged that the U.N. General Assembly was taking their land against their will and giving it to another people. For perspective, in 1947 Jews owned about 6% of the land in Palestine and accounted for about 1/3 of the population. The partition gave Jews control of about 55% of Palestine, including most of the coastal area.

Some of the numerous people who have commented on the injustice of this situation are quoted next. In 1956 David Ben-Gurion, the first Israeli prime minister, told Nahum Goldman, the president of the World Jewish Congress: “If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country . . . There has been anti-semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?”

Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s prime minister-designate in 1947, made a similar point saying the Zionist plan neglected “one not unimportant fact…Palestine was not a wilderness or an empty, uninhabited place. It was already somebody else’s home.”

In 1956, Moshe Dayan, a military hero to Israelis, said: “What cause have we to complain about their fierce hatred to us? For eight years now, they sit in their refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we turn into our homestead the land and villages in which they and their forefathers have lived.”

Shortly before his death in 1970, Bertrand Russell, one of the leading philosophers of Western thought during the 20th century, summarized the issue very well, saying:

“The tragedy of the people of Palestine is that their country was ‘given’ by a foreign power to another people for the creation of a new state. The result was that many hundreds of thousands of innocent people were made permanently homeless. With every new conflict their numbers increased. How much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty? It is abundantly clear that the refugees have every right to the homeland from which they were driven, and the denial of this right is at the heart of the continuing conflict. No people anywhere in the world would accept being expelled en masse from their country; how can anyone require the people of Palestine to accept a punishment which nobody else would tolerate? A permanent just settlement of the refugees in their homeland is an essential ingredient of any genuine settlement in the Middle East.”

After the partition passed, fighting began almost immediately and quickly escalated. On March 19th, 1948 the situation had become so critical that the U.S. renounced partition as unworkable and called for a U.N. trusteeship. It was too late.

Commenting on the fighting, Israeli historian Benny Morris wrote: “In truth, however, the Jews committed far more atrocities than the Arabs and killed far more civilians and POWs in deliberate acts of brutality in the course of 1948.” As a result of these atrocities and other military actions, about 250,000 Palestinians had already fled their homes before Israel declared its independence on May 14th. Fighting intensified when, on May 15th, neighboring Arab countries sent troops to aid the beleaguered Palestinians. Contrary to Israeli propaganda, Israeli forces substantially outnumbered Arab forces in battles and were also better armed. By the end of the fighting in 1949, Israel controlled 78% of Palestine and had driven approximately 750,000 Palestinians from their homes. These Palestinians lost their lands, homes and most of their possessions. Israel also destroyed well over 400 Palestinian villages. There is debate about whether or not the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians was planned or simply happened as a result of the fighting. It is clear that the removal of large numbers of Palestinians was necessary if Israel were to be a majority Jewish state.

On December 11, 1948 the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 194 that, among other items, called for the right of return of the Palestinian refugees to their homes or for compensation to those choosing not to return. Unfortunately, the world has not yet dealt with the terrible effects of the Nakba.

The past and current Israeli dispossessions of Palestinians represent grave violations of human rights. However, it is arguable that the U.N. partition resolution was an even greater crime. In a misguided effort to atone for the horrific human tragedy of the Holocaust, the U.S. led the effort that forced Palestinians to pay the price for atonement. The partition plan stole Palestinian land and gave it to another people without much if any consideration for Palestinian rights. Truman’s support for this partition trumped U.S. interests, morality and international law, not to mention the rights of Palestinians. Shamefully, the U.S. continues to support the ongoing dispossession of Palestinians.

-Ron Forthofer is a retired professor and former Green Party candidate for Congress in 2000 and for Governor of Colorado in 2002. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

Next Stop Iran? Part of the cover page for the Economist in 2007.

By Stephen Lendman

Led by Dick Cheney, Bush administration neocons want war on Iran. So does the Israeli Lobby, but it doesn’t mean they’ll get it. Powerful forces in Washington and the Pentagon are opposed and so far have prevailed. Nonetheless, worrisome recent events increase the possibility and must be closely watched.

Recall George Bush’s January 10, 2007 address to the nation. He announced the 20,000 troop “surge” and more. “Succeeding in Iraq,” he said, “also requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenges. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing ‘terrorists’ and ‘insurgents’ to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt (those) attacks….we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.”

That was then; this is now. On May 3, Andrew Cockburn wrote on CounterPunch: “Six weeks ago, President Bush signed a secret ‘finding’ authorizing a covert offensive against the Iranian regime that, according to those familiar with its contents, (is) ‘unprecedented in its scope.’ ” The directive permits a range of actions across a broad area costing hundreds of millions with an initial $300 million for starters. Elements of the scheme include:

– targeted assassinations;

– funding Iranian opposition groups; among them - Mujahedin-e-Khalq that the State Department designates a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO); Jundullah, the “army of god militant Sunni group in Iranian Baluchistan; Iranian Kurdish nationalists; and Ahwazi arabs in southwest Iran;

– destabilizing Syria and Hezbollah; the current Lebanon turbulence raises the stakes;

– putting a hawkish commander in charge; more on that below; and

– kicking off things at the earliest possible time.

These type efforts and others were initiated before and likely never stopped. So it remains to be seen what differences emerge this time and how much more intense they become.

More concerns were cited in a Michael Smith May 4 Times Online report headlined “United States is drawing up plans to strike on Iranian insurgency camp.” It refers to a “surgical strike” against an “insurgent training camp.” In spite of hostile signals, however, “the administration has put plans for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities on the back burner” after Gates replaced Rumsfeld. The article makes several other key points:

– “American defense chiefs (meaning top generals and admirals) are firmly opposed to (attacking) Iranian nuclear facilities;”

– on the other hand, they very much support hitting one or more “training camps (to) deliver a powerful message to Tehran;”

– in contrast, UK officials downplay Iranian involvement in Iraq even though Tehran’s Revolutionary Guard has close ties to al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army; and

– Bush and Cheney are determined not to hand over “the Iran problem” to a successor.

Earlier on April 7, Haaretz reported still more stirrings. It was about Israel’s “largest-ever emergency drill start(ed) to test the authorities’ preparedness for threats (of) a missile attack on central Israel.” Prime Minister Olmert announced that the “drill (was) no front for Israeli bellicose intentions toward Syria” and by implication Iran. Both countries and Hezbollah see it otherwise and with good reason. Further, Israeli officials indicated that this exercise might be repeated annually because they say Iran may have a nuclear capability by early 2009, so Israel will prepare accordingly.

No one can predict US and Israeli plans, but certain things are known and future possibilities can be assessed. Consider recent events. In mid-March, Dick Cheney toured the Middle East with stops in Israel, the West Bank, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Oman, Afghanistan and Iraq. It came after Centcom commander Admiral William Fallon “resigned” March 10 (a year after his appointment) after reports were that he sharply disagreed with regional administration policy.

Public comments played it down, but speculation was twofold - Fallon’s criticism of current Iraq policy and his opposition to attacking Iran. Before the March 10 announcement, smart money said he’d be sacked by summer and replaced by someone more hawkish. It came sooner than expected, and, even more worrisome, by a super-hawk. One with big ambitions, and that’s a bad combination. More on that below.

First, recall another Pentagon sacking last June, officially announced as a “retirement.” George Bush was said to have “reluctantly agreed” to replacing Joint Chiefs Chairman Peter Pace because of his “highest regard” for the general. At issue, of course, was disagreement again over Middle East policy with indications Pace was far from on board. He signaled it on February 17, 2006 at a National Press Club luncheon. Responding to a question, he said: “It is the absolute responsibility of everybody in uniform to disobey an order that is either illegal or immoral.” He later added that commanders should “not obey illegal and immoral orders to use weapons of mass destruction….They cannot commit crimes against humanity.”

These comments and likely private discussions led to Pace’s dismissal. This administration won’t tolerate dissent even by Joint Chiefs Chairmen. It’s clear that officials from any branch of government will be removed or marginalized if they oppose key administration policy. Some go quietly while more notable ones make headlines that omit what’s most important. For one thing, that the Pentagon is rife with dissent over the administration’s Middle East policy.

For another, the law of the land, and there’s nothing more fundamental than that. The administration disdains it so it’s no fit topic for the media. Law Professor Francis Boyle champions it in his classroom, speeches, various writings and books like his newest - Protesting Power: War, Resistance, and Law.

Boyle is an expert. He knows the law and has plenty to cite - the UN Charter; Nuremberg Charter, Judgment and Principles; Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide; Universal Declaration of Human Rights; Hague Regulations; Geneva Conventions; Supreme and lower Court decisions; US Army Field Manual 27-10; the Law of Land Warfare (1956); and US Constitution.

He unequivocally states that every US citizen, including members of the military and all government officials, are duty bound to obey the law and to refuse to carry out orders that violate it. Doing so makes them culpable. Included are all international laws and treaties. The Constitution’s supremacy clause (”the supreme law of the land” under Article VI) makes them domestic law. General Pace, Fallon and others on down aren’t exempt. Neither is the president, vice-president, all administration members and everyone in Congress.

Before Fallon’s sacking, things were heating up. Three US warships (including the USS Cole guided-missile destroyer) were deployed to the Lebanese coast - officially “to show support for regional stability (and over) concern about the situation in Lebanon.” It’s been in political crisis for months, and it’s got Washington and Israel disturbed - because of Hezbollah’s widespread popularity and ability to defend itself.

Any regional US show of force causes concern, especially when more is happening there simultaneously. Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin criticized it, and Hezbollah said it “threat(ened)” regional stability - with good reason. It believes conflict will erupt in northern Occupied Palestine close to the Lebanese border. It’s also preparing to counter Israel’s latest threat - an Israeli Channel 10 News report that the IDF is on high alert “inside and outside Israel” and is prepared to launch a massive attack if Hezbollah retaliates for the assassination of one of its senior leaders, Imad Fayez Mughniyah, by a February 12 Damascus car-bombing.

Then came Cheney’s Middle East tour with likely indications of its purpose - oil, Israeli interests and, of course, isolating Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas further, and rallying support for more war in a region where Arab states want to end the current ones. What worries them most, or should, is the possibility that Washington will use nuclear weapons. If so, consider the consequences - subsequent radioactive fallout that will contaminate vast regional swaths permanently.

After Cheney left Saudi Arabia, the state-friendly Okaz newspaper reported that the Saudi Shura Council (the kingdom’s elite decision-making body) began formulating “national plans to deal with any sudden nuclear and radioactive hazards that may affect the kingdom” should the Pentagon use nuclear weapons against Iran. It’s a sign Saudi leaders are worried and a clear indication of what they discussed with Cheney.

Saudi, Iranian and other world leaders know the stakes. They’re also familiar with Bush administration strategy and tactics post-9/11.

Exhibit A: the December 2001 Nuclear Policy Review; it states that America has a unilateral right to use first strike nuclear weapons preemptively; it can be for any national security reason, even against non-nuclear states posing no discernible threat;

Exhibit B: the 2002 and hardened 2006 National Security Strategies reaffirm this policy; the latter edition mentions Iran 16 times stating: “We may face no greater challenge from a single country country than Iran;” unstated is that Iran never attacked another nation in its history - after Persia became Iran in 1935; it did defend itself vigorously when attacked by Iraq in 1980;

Exhibit C: post-9/11, the Bush administration scrapped the “nuclear deterrence” option; in his 2005 book “America’s War on Terrorism,” Michel Chossudovsky revealed a secret leaked report to the Los Angeles Times; it stated henceforth nuclear weapons could be used under three conditions:

– “against targets able to withstand non-nuclear attack;

– in retaliation for attack with nuclear, biological or chemical weapons; or

– in the event of surprising military developments;” that can mean anything the administration wants it to or any threats it wishes to invent.

WMD echoes still resonate. Now it’s a nuclearized Iran. Preemptive deterrence is the strategy, and Dick Cheney places the Islamic Republic “right at the top of the list” of world trouble spots. He calls Tehran a “darkening cloud” in the region; claims “obviously, they’re heavily involved in trying to develop nuclear weapons enrichment….to weapons grade levels;” cites fake evidence that Iran’s state policy is “the destruction of Israel;” and official post-9/11 policy identifies Iran and Syria (after Iraq and Afghanistan) as the next phase of “the road map to war.” Removing Hezbollah and Hamas are close behind plus whatever other “rogue elements” are identified;

Exhibit D: former Defense Undersecretary Douglas Feith’s new book, “War and Decision;” in it, he recounts the administration’s aggressive Middle East agenda - to remake the region militarily; plans took shape a few weeks post-9/11 when Donald Rumsfeld made removing Saddam Hussein official policy; the same scheme targeted Afghanistan and proposed regime change in Iran and elsewhere - unnamed but likely Syria, Somalia, Sudan, at the time Libya, removing Syria from Lebanon, and Hezbollah as well.

On the Campaign Trail - Iran in the Crosshairs

John McCain is so hawkish he even scares some in the Pentagon. Here’s what he said about Iran at a May 5 campaign event. He called the Tehran government the gravest danger to US Middle East interests and added: a “league of nations” must counter the “Iranian threat. Iran ‘obviously’ is on the path toward acquiring nuclear weapons. At the end of the day, we cannot allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. They are not only doing that, they are exporting very lethal devices and explosives into Iraq (and) training people (there as) Jihadists.”

It’s no surprise most Democrats have similar views, especially the leadership and leading presidential contenders. Obama calls Iran “a threat to us all.” For him, a “radical (nuclearized) Muslim theocracy” is unthinkable, and as president he won’t rule out using force. Nor will he against Pakistan or likely any other Muslim state. Obama also calls his support for Israel “unwavering.” He fully endorsed the 2006 Lebanon war, and it’s no secret where Israel stands on Iran and Syria.

Clinton is even more menacing. One writer calls her a “war goddess,” and her rhetoric confirms it. On the one hand, “Israeli security” tops “any American approach to the Middle East….we must not - dare not - waver from this commitment.” She then calls Iran “pro-terrorist, anti-American and anti-Israel.” She says a “nuclear Iran (is) a danger to Israel (and we’ve) lost critical time in dealing” with the situation. “US policy must be clear and unequivocal. We cannot and should not - must not - permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons.”

Worst of all was her comment on ABC’s Good Morning America in response to (a preposterous hypothetical) about Iran “launch(ing) a nuclear attack on Israel.” Her answer: “I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran. And I want them to understand that. We would be able to ‘totally obliterate’ them (meaning, of course, every man, woman and child).” She then added: “I don’t think it’s time to equivocate. (Iran has) to know they would face massive retaliation. That is the only way to rein them in.”

At the same time, she, the other leading candidates, and nearly everyone in Washington ignore Iran’s official policy. The late Ayatollah Khomeini banned nuclear weapons development. Today, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad affirm that position, but western media won’t report it. They also play down IAEA reports confirming that no evidence shows Iran has a nuclear weapons program or that it’s violating NPT.

Media Rhetoric Heating Up

It happens repeatedly, then cools down, so what to make of the latest Iran-bashing. Nothing maybe, but who can know. So it’s tea leaves reading time again to pick up clues about potential impending action. Without question, the administration wants regime change, and right wing media keep selling it - Iranian leaders are bad; removing them is good, and what better way than by “shock and awe.”

Take Fouad Ajami for example from his May 5 Wall Street Journal op-ed. It’s headlined - “Iran Must Finally Pay A Price.” He’s a Lebanese-born US academic specializing in Middle East issues. He’s also a well-paid flack for hard right policies, including their belligerency. He shows up often in the Wall Street Journal (and on TV, too) and always to spew hate and lies - his real specialty.

His latest piece is typical. Here’s a sampling that’s indicative of lots else coming out now:

– “three decades of playing cat-and-mouse with American power have emboldened Iran’s rulers;

– why are the mullahs allowed to kill our soldiers with impunity;”

– in Iraq, “Iranians played arsonists and firemen at the same time; (it’s) part of a larger pattern;

– Tehran has wreaked havoc on regional order and peace over the last three decades;”

– earlier, George HW Bush offered an olive branch to Iran’s rulers;

– “Madeleine Albright (apologized) for America’s role in the (1953) coup;”

– all the while, “the clerics have had no interest in any bargain;” their oil wealth gives them great latitude;

– “they have harassed Arab rulers while posing as status quo players at peace with the order of the region;”

– they use regional proxies like “Hezbollah in Lebanon, warlords and militias in Iraq, purveyors of terror for the hire;

– the (earlier) hope….that Iran would refrain from (interfering) in Iran (was) wishful thinking;” now there’s Iran’s nuclear “ambitions” to consider; the “Persian menace” has to “be shown that there is a price for their transgressions.”

Sum it up, and it spells vicious agitprop by an expert at spewing it. He’s not alone. Disputing one of his assertions, a May 5 AFP report quotes Iraq government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh saying no “hard evidence” shows Iran is backing Shiite militiamen or inciting violence in the country.

Consider the Arab street as well. It’s unconcerned about Iran but outraged over US adverturism. Recall also that on March 2 Iranian President Ahmadinejad became the first Iranian head of state to visit Iraq in three decades. Prime Minister al-Maliki and President Talabani invited him and welcomed him warmly as a friend.

That doesn’t deter The New York Times Michael Gordon. He’s taken up where Judith Miller left off, and his May 5 piece is typical. It’s headlined “