July 31, 2005
There is an article (or here) by Clayton Hallmark in which he ties together Karl Rove, Michael Ledeen, the Niger uranium scandal, and even Robert Lady,
the Milan-based CIA agent who is wanted in Italy for the kidnapping,
rendition and torture of Abu Omar (the Italians gave everybody a
heads-up that they were going to arrest a bunch of CIA agents, allowing
the agents, including Lady, to flee the jurisdiction). Lady possibly
used to be in charge of a covert American unit in Honduras, El
Salvador, and Nicaragua which infiltrated anti-American groups. I don't
know the timing of this, but if it goes back twenty years ago - Lady is
supposed to be 51
- it might tie into Iran-Contra, and through Iran-Contra to Ledeen.
That would make for a huge Unified Theory of American Political
Corruption, tying everything from Iran-Contra to the Niger forgeries
(did Ledeen actually get Jonathon Pollard his job in the Navy?), to the
rendition of Abu Omar, all back to Michael Ledeen, making him the most
powerful living American! This is all very interesting, but I was
struck by a comment made on this article by Jebelia at the Portland
Indy Media site, and I reprint it in full: "Ledeen
may say he wants the US to attack Iran, but when you are as corrupt as
Michael Ledeen, words are meaningless. Watch what the neocons do; don't
put too much faith in what they say. And keep in mind that when Ledeen
was on Reagan's National Security Council his major responsibility was
to supply US arms to Iran through Israel.
Bush and his
collective brain used the pretext of an attack on the US by Islamic
extremists to overthrow a secular Arab government - that of Iraq. The
entirely predictable result of the Iraq invasion is that the Arab
consensus which was always the source of whatever integrity and
stability Iraq possessed has broken down. This breakdown inevitably
resulted in a civil war between the Arab Shi'ite and Sunnite
communities in Iraq which will negatively affect all of Iraq's Arab
neighbors. (Actually a civil war was not the inevitable consequence of
the fall of Saddam's government. If the US had not disbanded the Iraqi
military, or if it had quickly organized a large peacekeeping force
from surrounding Arab countries as Dilip Hiro urged, the disaster we
are seeing could have been avoided, but either of those options were
anathema to the neocons.) For decades the main goal of Israeli foreign
policy has been to prevent the Arabs from getting together economically
politically, and secular Arab nationalism has been seen as the greatest
threat to Israel.
The Shi'ite clerical hierarchy that has
controled Iran for 26 years now controls Iraq as well, thanks to the US
of A. I foresaw this result before the invasion, and I am not psychic,
terribly bright or especially well-informed. It is therefore difficult
for me to believe that the experts at the Pentagon and Herzliya who
planned this operation did not foresee it as well. It must be that
either 1) there was a deal made between Iran, Israel and the Bushies in
advance of the invasion of Iraq (even in advance of 911?), or 2) that
the Israelis and neocons believed that the chaos caused to the Arab
world would be worth the danger of empowering the Shi'ite theocrats
without striking a deal.
So maybe the end game of the War on
Terror/Clash of Civilizations will include a nuclear attack on Iran,
but we're now just in the early stages. The next target is the only
country in the region that has not surrendered to the US or Israel and
has remained true to non-sectarian Arab nationalism - Syria."
I agree with this ten thousand percent. Ledeen writes a column in the National Review
each week advocating an American attack on Iran ("faster, please"). Do
you think he wants an American attack on Iran? He was heavily involved
in Iran-Contra, which involved illegally supplying the leaders of Iran
with arms. He hangs out with Manocher Ghobanifar, a man connected with
the people who run Iran. The Americans have now clearly manipulated the
situation in Iraq - through disbanding the Iraqi army, setting up an
election guaranteed to disenfranchise Sunnis and create a wider
Sunni-Shi'ite rift, provoking a civil war through failing to provide
security and probably through faked terrorist attacks on Shi'ites, and
installing a very Iran-friendly Iraqi government, including neocon
friend Chalabi - to lead to a de facto annexation of Iraq by Iran. Are we to believe this was an accident or a mistake?
It's
clear that calls by various neocons, including Ledeen, for an attack on
Iran are not directed at the American people or lawmakers, but at the
people and leaders of Iran. The talk of war, even nuclear
attack, coupled with other American actions, including the neocon
support of the anti-Iranian MEK terrorist group, probable CIA
incursions into Iran to create havoc by setting off bombs, and the
recent highly publicized crash of a U-2 obviously spying on Iran, are
intended to create a strategy of tension in Iran, pushing the country
into the hands of religious leaders. The results of the recent Iranian
elections prove the success of this strategy. Why would the Zionist
neocons want to create an Islamic dictatorship in Iran, led by Shi'ite
clergy, with effective control over Iraq?
The Israelis and
their agents in the American government tricked the Americans into the
attack on Iraq, in part through the use of the forged Niger documents.
The long-term Israeli plan has to answer the question of how Israel
will build 'Greater Israel' when faced with a completely hostile Muslim
world. The only answer is based on three principles:
- The divide-and-conquer approach as set out by Oded Yinon (and written about here many times);
- The
'doctrine of the periphery', the idea that Israeli interests can be
advanced by making alliances with those non-Arab states like Turkey and
Iran which are not adjacent to Israel; and
- The Shi'ite-Sunni rift within Islam.
Israel's
obvious enemies are mostly Sunnis. If you're going to be fighting
Sunnis, the obvious trick is to create a new ally, a Shi'ite empire
consisting of Iran and Iraq. The minor annoyance of Iranian support to
Hezbollah is far outweighed by the advantages of creating a new and
very powerful player in the Middle East, a player who, for religious
reasons, probably hates your enemies more than it hates you. 'Greater
Israel' can extend all the way to the Euphrates over Sunni lands, and
your new friend may even help you (it will be a much bigger challenge
heading towards the Nile!). In connection with this, watch the American
media to sharpen its distinctions within Islam and concentrate on the
fact that 'terrorists' are mostly Sunnis.
Looked at in
terms of the necessary arrangements in the Middle East for the creation
of 'Greater Israel', the neocon plan is rather obvious (although it
took this constant pushing of the idea of a war on Iran coupled with
the contradictory action of Americans in Iraq to make it obvious to
me). Neither Ledeen nor any other neocon has any intention of actually
attacking Iran. The talk of attacks is merely intended to keep Iran in
the hands of the radical theologians, who have been given a Shi'ite
Empire through the handing over of Iraq. You need no other proof than
the forced presence of the detested Chalabi, whose job all along was to
forge an alliance with Iran. The new Shi'ite Empire will completely
mess up the Middle East, and create tensions that will keep Israel's
enemies busy for years, while Israel slowly builds 'Greater Israel'. It
is a brilliant plan, which can only be foiled if pan-Arab nationalism
can win out over fractures within Islam. The two countries most in
danger of an American attack are Syria and, eventually, Egypt, and it
is not a coincidence that these are the two countries most associated
with pan-Arab nationalism. Nasser's version of pan-Arab nationalism led
to the first American support of his enemies in the Egyptian
Brotherhood, the most notorious manifestation of which is now called al
Qaeda, so you can see how the world fits together.
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