[A-List] Robert Fisk on US imperialism

["Keaney Michael" <Michael.Keaney@xxxxxx>]

Bush is intent on painting allies and enemies in the Middle East as evil
By Robert Fisk
The Independent, 10 September 2002

Just as Americans are recovering from the harrowing television re-runs
of the 11 September attacks, their President is going to launch the
biggest reshaping of the Middle East since the British and French
parcelled out the Arab lands after the 1914-18 war. When he addresses
the United Nations on Thursday, George Bush will be threatening not only
Iraq - which had absolutely nothing to do with the crimes against
humanity in New York and Washington - but Syria, Iran and, by extension,
Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

The Syrian Accountability Act, which accuses Damascus of supporting
"terrorism", will come into force as President Bush is speaking and will
follow only days after the State Department branded the Lebanese
Hizbollah as the "A-team of terrorism", more dangerous even than Osama
bin Laden's al-Qa'ida. Like Iraq, the Hizbollah had nothing to do with
the 11 September attacks - indeed, they were among the first to condemn
them - but the White House now seems set on painting allies and enemies
alike in the Middle East as a focus of evil.

Only The Nation among all of America's newspapers and magazines has
dared to point out that a large number of former Israeli lobbyists are
now working within the American administration and the Bush plans for
the Middle East - which could cause a massive political upheaval in the
Arab world - fit perfectly into Israel's own dreams for the region. The
magazine listed Vice-President Dick Cheney - the arch-hawk in the US
administration - and John Bolton, now under-secretary of state for Arms
Control, with Douglas Feith, the third most senior executive at the
Pentagon, as members of the advisory board of the pro-Israeli Jewish
Institute for National Security Affairs (Jinsa) before joining the Bush
government. Richard Perle, chairman of the Pentagon's Defence Policy
Board, is still an adviser on the institute, as is the former CIA
director James Woolsey.

Michael Ledeen, described by The Nation as "one of the most influential
'Jinsans' in Washington" has been calling for "total war" against
"terror" - with "regime change" for Syria, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and
the Palestinian Authority. Mr Perle advises the Defence Secretary,
Donald Rumsfeld - who refers to the West Bank and Gaza as "the so-called
occupied territories" - and arranged the anti-Saudi "kernel of evil"
briefing by Laurent Murawiec that so outraged the Saudi royal family
last month. The Saudi regime may itself be in great danger as the
princes of the House of Saud attempt to seize more power for themselves
in advance of the depart-ure of the dying King Fahd.

Jinsa's website says it exists to "inform the American defence and
foreign affairs community about the important role Israel can and does
play in bolstering democratic interests in the Mediterranean and the
Middle East". Next month, Michael Rubin of the right-wing and
pro-Israeli American Enterprise Institute - who referred to the outgoing
UN human rights commissioner Mary Robinson as an abettor of "terrorism"
- joins the US Defence Department as an Iran-Iraq "expert".

According to The Nation, Irving Moskovitz, the California bingo magnate
who has funded settlements in the Israeli-occupied territories, is a
donor as well as a director of Jinsa.

President Bush, of course, will not be talking about the influence of
these pro-Israeli lobbyists when he presents his vision of the Middle
East at the United Nations on Thursday.

Nor will he give the slightest indication that the region is, in the
words of its own kings and dictators, a powder keg of resentment and
anger. The tectonic plates of the Arab world are now grinding with
increasing violence. Into this political earthquake zone, Mr Bush now
seems intent on leading his country, with his loyal British ally.

Most of today's Arab nations were fashioned out of the ruins of the
Ottoman Empire by Britain and France in the aftermath of the First World
War - and Palestinians still blame Britain today for supporting the
formation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

Both European nations stationed tens of thousands of troops across the
region, suppressing Arab revolts in Palestine, Syria and Lebanon -
itself created by the French at the request of its Christian Maronite
community. The whole colonial framework led to the loss of tens of
thousands of lives before both the British and French retreated from the
Middle East.

Now President Bush seems set on following the colonial powers into the
region for another military and political adventure - ostensibly to
spread "democracy" among those nations it most despises (Iraq, Palestine
and Iran) but in fact more likely to increase American control of an
increasingly anti-Western Arab world.

The Arabs themselves warn that this will lead to massive instability and
widespread violence. The Israelis - and their allies in the US
administration - are hell bent on the whole shebang.