[OPE] Mr Bush's forked tongue in the Knesset: an invitation to terror

adsl675281@telfort.nl

If you are really interested in international relations, Mr Bush's Rumsfeldian speech to the Knesset - a kind of mania from a rogue president who has created more enemies for America with his adversial policies than there ever were before - is compulsory reading. Every sentence in this speech conveys a lie or a half-truth, in the Zionist tradition of mythmaking. Complete text: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/05/20080515-1.html

"By the way, the quote Bush used about talking to Hitler (...) [is] also stripped from some relevant context -- Borah wasn't saying that solely out of naiveté, as Bush, Krauthammer [and Rumsfeld] and others have implied. He was a prominent isolationist and an admirer of Hitler. In 1938, speaking of the German dictator, Borah said, "There are so many great sides to him." After Hitler occupied the Sudetenland, Borah said, "Gad, what a chance Hitler has! If he only moderates his religious and racial intolerance, he would take his place beside Charlemagne. He has taken Europe without firing a shot." http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/

In this event, Mr Obama quite pertinently responded:

"It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a false political attack. George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the president's extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel." http://www.examiner.com/a-1392721~Obama_says_Bush_falsely_accuses_him_of_appeasement.html

That is exactly correct. Note that, at the very same time all this was happening, Robert Gates actually said:

"My own view, just my personal view, would be we ought to look for ways outside of government to open up the channels [with Iran] and get more of a flow of people back and forth," he said in a speech to the American Academy of Diplomacy, a group of retired U.S. diplomats. "There are actually a fair number of Iranians that come to the United States to visit. We ought to increase the flow going the other way," he said. "I think that may be one opening that creates space, perhaps, over some period of time." He also said the United States needs to find more leverage over Iran, saying a negotiation would only be possible if Washington had something to offer Tehran. The United States has offered to talk to Iran about any subject if it first suspends its uranium enrichment work, which could provide fuel for power plants or nuclear weapons. Iran has refused to do this and has not taken up U.S. overtures, including one by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. "We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage with respect to the Iranians and then sit down and talk with them," Gates said. "If there's going to be a discussion, then they need something too." http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080515/pl_nm/iran_usa_gates_dc_1

Mr Gates realises very well that, beyond Mr Bush's christofascist rhetorics and Judaic noise, there is no real "threat" from Iran to the US (of course, there are differing geostrategic interests, and Iran supports Shiites in Iraq etc. but that is not a threat to the US, unless the US = the world, but that is true only in imperialist fantasy). Rather, as I've pointed out before ("Iran and imperialist intervention", Marxmail January 2004) , the core problem is that the US unilaterally broke off relations with Iran after the Iranian revolution, and therefore does not have much scope of negotiating or bargaining with Iran - at best the US can cajole, spy or threaten, or work via corporates illegally doing business within Iran. 

This has also been acknowledged by Zbig Brzezinski (a central US imperialist strategist) who has therefore proposed a rapprochement with Iran, analogous to Nixon's 1972 visit to China (Brzezinski negotiated in Beijing in 1978, and Jimmy Carter normalized Sino-Chinese relations from 1979; it was of course the "Carter doctrine" which enshrined US imperialism in the Gulf, and under Carter/Brzezinski a multi-billion dollar programme was started to arm and train Islamic fundamentalists in Pakistan and Afghanistan against the Soviets ("Charlie Wilson's war") - the murderous results of which ultimately backfired on the US, so that suddenly Islam becomes "the enemy").

Rather prophetically - this guy is very bright - Brzezinski wrote in 2004:

"In fact, in the Islamic world at large as well as in Europe, Mr. Bush's policy is becoming conflated in the public mind with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's policy in Gaza and the West Bank. Fueled by anti-American resentments, that policy is widely caricatured as a crude reliance on power, semicolonial in its attitude, and driven by prejudice toward the Islamic world. The likely effect is that staying on course under Mr. Bush will remain a largely solitary American adventure. This global solitude might make a re-elected Bush administration more vulnerable to the temptation to embrace a new anti-Islamic alliance, one reminiscent of the Holy Alliance that emerged after 1815 to prevent revolutionary upheavals in Europe. The notion of a new Holy Alliance is already being promoted by those with a special interest in entangling the United States in a prolonged conflict with Islam. Vladimir Putin's endorsement of Mr. Bush immediately comes to mind; it also attracts some anti-Islamic Indian leaders hoping to prevent Pakistan from dominating Afghanistan; the Likud in Israel is also understandably tempted; even China might play along. For the United States, however, a new Holy Alliance would mean growing isolation in an increasingly polarized world. That prospect may not faze the extremists in the Bush administration who are committed to an existential struggle against Islam and who would like America to attack Iran, but who otherwise lack any wider strategic conception of what America's role in the world ought to be. It is, however, of concern to moderate Republicans. Unfortunately, the predicament faced by America in Iraq is also more complex than the solutions offered so far by the Democratic side in the presidential contest." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/25/opinion/25brzezinski.html?_r=1&scp=12&sq=+Brzezinski&st=nyt&oref=slogin: [OPE] Zbigniew Brzezinski on the descent into irrational politics and imbecile societal conditions

Jurriaan

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