Beware Of The
Dog!
By Uri Avnery
22 February, 2005
Gush
Shalom
It
is not very flattering to be paraded like a Rottweiler on a leash, whose
master threatens to let him loose on his enemies. But this is our situation
now.
Vice President
Dick Cheney threatened a few weeks ago that if Iran continues to develop
its nuclear capabilities, Israel might attack her.
This week, President
George Bush repeated this threat. If he were the leader of Israel, he
declared, he would have been feeling threatened by Iran. He reminded
those who are a little slow that the United States has undertaken to
defend Israel if there is a threat to its security.
All this adds up
to a clear warning: if Iran does not submit to the orders of the US
(and, perhaps, even if it does) Israel will attack it with American
help, much as it attacked the Iraqi nuclear reactor some 24 years ago.
The same week,
something quite unexpected happened: Ariel Sharon sent the Chief-of-Staff,
Moshe Yaalon, packing. His successor will most probably be General
Dan Halutz.
Halutz is, of course,
a pilot, and one who played his part in the 1981 attack on the Iraqi
reactor. If he succeeds Yaalon, it will be the first time in the
annals of the Israel Defense Forces that an airman is appointed Chief-of-Staff.
That is rather curious. In the coming year, the army will be called
upon to carry out a very difficult operation on land: the evacuation
of the Gaza Strip settlements. The appointment of an Air Force general
as Chief-of-Staff may hint that the IDF is planning something even more
important in the air.
(Entract:
Nobody will shed a tear at the removal of Yaalon. As Chief-of-Staff,
he bears responsibility for all the terrible things that happened in
the army during the last three years, from the killing verification
of a 13-year old girl to the neighbor practice compelling
a Palestinian civilian to walk in front of soldiers on their way to
kill a militant. But if Yaalon is succeeded by Halutz, it will
confirm the pessimistic dictum that for every bad man removed there
is an even worse one to succeed him.
For those who have
forgotten: Halutz (pioneer, in Hebrew) aroused a public
storm after the Air Force dropped a one-ton bomb on the house of a Hamas
leader and killed him together with 15 civilians, including nine children.
Asked what he feels when dropping such a bomb, he answered a slight
bump, adding that he sleeps well afterwards. On the same opportunity
he vilified Gush Shalom for its actions against war crimes and demanded
that we be put on trial for treason.)
Back to Bush-Cheney
and the Rottweiler.
When Bush came
to power for the first time, the Neo-Cons laid before him a coherent
plan for the extension of the American Empire in the Middle East. It
contained three chapters:
One, to conquer
Iraq in order to take control of its immense oil reserves and place
an American garrison at the critical junction between the Caspian Sea
oil and the Saudi resources.
Two, to break the
Iranian regime and return Iran to the American bloc.
Three, to do the
same to Syria and Lebanon. It was not yet decided whether Iran would
come before Syria, or the other way round.
It might have been
assumed that the experience of the American adventure in Iraq would
cancel the next chapters. The Iraqi people did not receive the occupying
army with flowers. The pretext for the invasion Saddams
weapons of mass destruction was exposed as a blatant lie. The
armed insurrection continues. The future of the Iraqi state hangs in
the balance, even after the recent elections. The country may well break
up into three parts, creating shock waves all around the Middle East.
Naive people believe
that after all this, Bush would not risk more adventures of this kind.
They are wrong.
First, because
a primitive and vain person like him never admits to failure. When one
of his adventures fails, this just drives him on to even more ambitious
ones.
Second, the failure
does indeed cost a lot of lives and destroys the infrastructure of life
in Iraq, but that doesnt matter for the planners of the operation.
The main aim establishing a permanent garrison in the country
- has been achieved. Outside of Iraq, nobody is demanding that the American
soldiers leave. And, whatever the acts of sabotage, the Iraqi oil is
controlled by the US. The oil barons, who are the patrons of the Bush
family, can be well satisfied.
The Europeans and
Russian are trying to block Bushs path. He is now going to pay
a state visit to the EU and NATO, trying to convince them by sweet talk
and threats to cooperate in his adventures.
Therefore, one
must take seriously Bushs and Cheneys threats to unleash
the Rottweiler. The moment they feel that the way is clear, they will
give the sign to Sharon. Sharon will do his duty, in return for an American
agreement to allow him to gobble up some more pieces of the Palestinian
territories.
Will military action
cause the regime of the Ayatollahs to collapse? I doubt it. It is, indeed,
a detestable regime, but faced with an attack from the outside, especially
from Crusaders and Zionists, the Iranian people will unite
behind it. A proud people, with a glorious history like the Iranians,
will not break easily.
Syria is a different
target. Unlike Iraq and Iran, it has no oil resources. But without it
the American Empire will not be contiguous and it is an obstacle to
Israel.
In the 1967 war,
Israel conquered the Golan heights, which until then were known in Israel
as the Syrian heights. In place of many dozens of Syrian
villages, which were wiped from the face of the earth, Israel settlements
sprang up. The Syrians have never given up their resolve to recover
their territory. In 1973, they tried to do this by war but were routed,
in spite of a remarkable initial victory. Since then, the balance of
military power has tilted even more in favor of Israel. Therefore, Syria
is using another method: harassing Israel by proxy, by giving support
to Hisbullah and radical Palestinan organizations, whose leaders reside
in Damascus.
In order to make
permanent its rule over the Golan heights, the Israeli government must
break Syria. The neo-cons in Washington surprise, surprise
have the same aim. The pretext: the fact that Syrian soldiers are stationed
in Lebanon.
Historically, Lebanon
is a part of Syria. Damascus has never resigned itself to the establishment
of a separate Lebanese state by the French colonialists in the first
half of the 20th century. At the most, it accepts Lebanon as a client
state.
The Syrian army
entered Lebanon in 1976, at the height of the terrible civil war there.
The Muslims and Druze, with help of the PLO, were poised to conquer
the Christian areas. It was the Christians (please remember!) who called
upon the Syrians to come and save them. Since then, the Syrians have
remained there. Many Lebanese believe that their departure would cause
the civil war to break out again.
In 1982 Israel
tried to dislodge them. That was the main objective of the army general
staff (as distinct from then Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon, whose
main objective was to drive the Palestinians out). But the invasion
did not achieve its aim: in the end, the Israelis were driven out and
the Syrians remained.
This week, the
Muslim leader Fariq al-Hariri, who lately joined the opposition, was
assassinated in Beirut. It is not yet known who did it. The huge American
propaganda machine, which includes the Israeli media, has pointed at
the Syrians. If they are indeed guilty, it was an act of supreme folly,
since it was obvious that it would help the Americans build up the Lebanese
opposition and arouse a storm of anti-Syrian sentiment. It happened
at exactly the right moment for anyone interested in starting a campaign
against Syria, under the slogan End the Syrian Occupation!
There is something
laughable about this demand, coming as it does from two occupying powers:
the Americans in Iraq and the Israelis in Palestine. But Rottweilers
are not renowned for their sense of humor, any more than those who parade
them around on a leash.