Israel, the U.S. and the Arab World

U.S. Warms to Strike on Iran

By Victor Kotsev, Asia Times
April 23, 2010

"With sufficient foreign assistance, Iran could probably develop and test an intercontinental ballistic missile [ICBM] capable of reaching the United States by 2015," claimed a Pentagon report that was declassified on Monday.

The almost simultaneous timing of two key recent revelations -- this and Israeli accusations that Syria had transferred Scud missiles to Hezbollah in Lebanon -- has contributed to a fresh escalation of tensions in the Middle East and to speculation that the stage is being set for a military show-down.

The war of words has become particularly harsh, and threats are now being exchanged openly between the United States and Iran: the first salvo since President Barack Obama's inauguration, and a troubling development.

"We are not taking any options off the table as we pursue the pressure and engagement tracks," the Pentagon's press secretary, Geoff Morrell, said this week. "The president always has at his disposal a full array of options, including use of the military ... It is clearly not our preferred course of action but it has never been, nor is it now, off the table."

Days ago it was revealed that the US military was actively preparing for war against Iran.

“The Pentagon and US Central Command are updating military plans to strike Iran's nuclear sites, preparing up-to-date options for the president in the event he decides to take such action," CNN reported on Monday.

The Iranians, meanwhile, have embarked on a show of force of their own.

“Iranian armed forces on Sunday displayed three generations of modern home-made ballistic missiles in military parades marking the country' Army Day," Fars News reported.

Last week, the agency quoted the chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces, Major General Hassan Firouzabadi, as saying,

"As I have already announced, if the US attacks Iran, none of its soldiers [in the region] will go back home alive."

What is particularly worrisome is that a US (or Israeli) military strike against Iran in the near future would, in a sense, fit in with Obama's goals and public relations image up to now. Firstly, there are growing indications that, after the Democratic nomination, the presidency, and the healthcare bill, the Middle East has become the next major quest for the US president.

For example, this is also reflected in the US administration's massive pressure on Israel to make further concessions to renew the stalled negotiations.

"At the heart of this disagreement [between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] lies a dramatic change in the way Washington perceives its own stake in the game," the former US ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, wrote on Monday in an op-ed for the New York Times. "It actually began three years ago when secretary of state Condoleezza Rice declared in a speech in Jerusalem that US 'strategic interests' were at stake in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- a judgment reiterated by Obama last week when he said resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict is a 'vital national security interest' for the United States."

Moreover, Obama has acquired a reputation for slow, methodical escalation of rhetoric, followed by daring and decisive action. He tends to give his most powerful opponents ample room to debate and negotiate, and to show maximum reserve in an attempt to secure a claim to the moral high ground: a brilliant public relations strategy, if nothing else.

In the case of Iran, he has gone so far as to delay vital support to the Iranian opposition in the post-election demonstrations last summer and to openly pressure Israel not to attack. He kept a lid on all talk about a possible military scenario coming from anywhere important in his administration for close to a year, and has been reluctant to discuss such an option himself to date.

Critics have accused him of being too soft, but the harshness of his administration's rhetoric toward Iran has been growing since late last year, when a first few cautious officials started talking about the possibility of military strikes on Iran's nuclear program. Escalation has been slow but consistent, in a way similarly to the progression of the domestic healthcare debate that ended in a dramatic victory for Obama.

On Saturday, the New York Times reported on parts of a secret memo by US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, accusing the administration of lacking a clear policy to thwart the Iranian nuclear program [1].

Apparently, still-classified portions of the memo called for an adequate preparation for military strikes. Coming from Gates, a Republican who stayed on as defense secretary after the George W Bush administration was dissolved due to his long-standing opposition to war against Iran, this development is significant.

Analysts see the conflict between the US and Iran as complex and far-reaching.

"Until 2003, regional stability -- such as it was -- was based on the Iran-Iraq balance of power," writes prominent think-tank Stratfor. In the wake of the Iraq war, "The United States was forced into two missions. The first was stabilizing Iraq. The second was providing the force for countering Iran."

There are serious doubts whether the rhetoric itself has not gone so far that reconciling now would have to be a failure for one side or the other.

"There is a legitimate concern that if sanctions are considered a political necessity now, will military action be regarded as a political necessity in 2011, once the sanctions have been deemed a failure?" said Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, this month. [2]

Last month, I pointed out that key US regional allies such as Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt had reportedly been pushing for US military action. [3]

"There are countries [in the Gulf] that would like to see a strike [on Iran], us or perhaps Israel, even," said US Central Command chief General David Petraeus to CNN in March.

There are consistent indications that Israel, too, is gearing up for an impending regional war and perhaps is considering initiating action on its own.

"For practical reasons, in the absence of genuine sanctions, Israel will not be able to wait until the end of next winter, which means it would have to act around the congressional elections in November," Brigadier General Ephraim Sneh, a former Israeli deputy defense minister, wrote this month in an op-ed for Israeli daily Ha'aretz.

Sneh's assessment has been among the boldest so far in terms of specific time-frame predictions, but high-ranking Israeli officials and politicians, including Netanyahu, have called for the use of military force as a tool of last resort to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. The Israeli prime minister has repeatedly asserted his belief that a nuclear Iran would pose an existential challenge to the Jewish state, and must be prevented despite the high price tag.

Sources close to him add weight to his words in light of the special relationship between him and his 100-years old father, who predicted the Holocaust in 1937 and who is a prominent hawk on Iran.

"Look the danger straight in the eye, calmly weigh what should be done, and be prepared to enter the fray the moment the chances of success seem reasonable," said the elder Netanyahu as advice to Israel and his son during his centennial celebration address last month. [4]

In this context, last week's Israeli accusation that Syria had supplied Scud missiles to Hezbollah can be seen as, among other things, part of a public relations campaign to discredit Lebanon and Syria in preparation for a possible conflict there. This is not to say that the Israeli claim is incorrect: on the contrary, it appears to be true, and this is yet another indicator of volatility in the region. Even a high-ranking Hezbollah source (albeit an anonymous one), interviewed by Kuwaiti newspaper al-Rai, confirmed the reports. Israel has long maintained that the transfer of sophisticated missiles to Hezbollah would be considered a legitimate reason for preventative military action.

Tensions have risen in the past six months or so despite mutual attempts between Israel and Syria to avoid a full-blown war. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad decided on a surprise visit to Egypt to discuss the possibility of an Israeli-Syrian war, Ha'aretz reported. [5]

Oddly enough, Lebanon appears to be one among few issues in the Middle East on which Israel and the US can agree.

"If such an action has been taken [transfer of Scuds to Hezbollah] ... clearly it potentially puts Lebanon at significant risk," US State Department spokesman P J Crowley told reporters last week.

It is hard to tell whether a major Middle Eastern war is inevitable at this point, but the clouds are getting significantly darker, and the US appears to be rapidly warming up to the idea of a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, whether carried out by the Americans themselves or by Israel. This is a major development, and the next big red line to watch for would be a statement affirming military action coming directly from the US president. If his track record is any indication, when Obama decides to act, he will abandon his reserve and act swiftly and decisively.

Notes
1. Gates Says US Lacks a Policy to Thwart Iran New York Times, April 17, 2010.
2. Israel evades 'ambush' at nuclear summit Asia Times Online, April 15, 2010.
3. Israel puts US on notice Asia Times Online, March 13, 2010.
4. Now the Americans are certain no one is in charge here
5. Report: Assad due in Egypt to discuss fear of Israel-Syria war

Victor Kotsev is a freelance journalist and political analyst with expertise in the Middle East. (Copyright 2010 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Israel Rejects U.S. Calls for East Jerusalem Freeze

Associated Press Writer
April 22, 2010

Israel's prime minister on Thursday rejected U.S. calls to halt construction in disputed east Jerusalem, clouding a new peace mission by Washington's Mideast envoy.

Benjamin Netanyahu's comments were broadcast on Israel's Channel 2 TV shortly after envoy George Mitchell arrived for his first visit in six weeks. Mitchell's efforts had been on hold due to disagreements over east Jerusalem, the section of the holy city claimed by Israel and the Palestinians.

"I am saying one thing. There will be no freeze in Jerusalem," Netanyahu said. "There should be no preconditions to talks."

Although Netanyahu was repeating his long-standing position, the timing of the statement threatened to undermine Mitchell's latest efforts to restart peace talks. Mark Regev, an Israeli government spokesman, denied earlier reports that Israel had officially rejected an American demand for a settlement freeze in Jerusalem.

In Washington, the State Department said the decision to send Mitchell was made late Wednesday after lower-level officials had meetings with Israeli and Palestinian representatives.

"We don't go to meet just to meet. We go there because we have some indication that both sides are willing to engage seriously on the issues that are on the table," said spokesman P.J. Crowley.

"We understand that the Israelis have a long-standing position," he added. "But ... the status quo is not sustainable."

Mitchell arrived after a month-long break sparked by a dispute over Israeli construction in east Jerusalem, hoping to prod the Israelis and Palestinians to launch negotiations for the first time in more than a year.

It was far from certain whether he would succeed, though Israeli and Palestinian officials both indicated that they were ready to get past the deadlock.

The sides were set to begin indirect peace talks in early March when Israel revealed plans to build 1,600 homes for Jews in east Jerusalem. The announcement, which came during a visit by Vice President Joe Biden, infuriated the Americans and prompted the Palestinians to postpone the indirect talks indefinitely.

The U.S. has been pushing Israel to cancel the planned housing project, halt other east Jerusalem construction and make other confidence-building measures to the Palestinians.

Netanyahu has repeatedly refused to curb Jewish construction in east Jerusalem, saying he is following a four-decade-old policy of his predecessors. Israel considers all of the city to be its eternal capital.

But in the TV interview, he said he hopes to resolve the differences with Washington, Israel's closest and most important ally.

"There are ups and downs. There is a very strong fabric of relations that will allow us to overcome these problems in the end and reach understandings," he said.

Israeli officials declined to say what gestures were under consideration. The government has debated proposals to free some of the thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, turn over more West Bank territory to Palestinian control, and possibly curb Jewish construction in the heart of Arab neighborhoods in east Jerusalem.

Some 180,000 Israelis live in east Jerusalem, the vast majority in Jewish neighborhoods that ring the area. But an estimated 2,000 Israeli nationalists live deep inside Arab neighborhoods, creating friction between the sides.

An estimated 250,000 Palestinians live in Arab neighborhoods of the city. A halt to Israeli housing activity in these areas, while short of U.S. and Palestinian demands for a freeze in all of east Jerusalem, would nonetheless mark a concession by Israel.

Netanyahu would have a hard time selling even limited concessions to his government, a coalition dominated by hard-line nationalist parties.

"It is just impossible and unacceptable that people try to impress us that we should limit construction in Jerusalem," Benny Begin, a senior Cabinet minister, told foreign reporters and diplomats Thursday.

The status of east Jerusalem is the most explosive issue dividing Israelis and Palestinians. Israel captured the area — home to key Jewish, Muslim and Christian holy sites — in the 1967 Mideast war and immediately annexed it. The annexation has never been internationally recognized.

Mitchell arrived late Thursday for his first visit since the spat with Israel erupted during Biden's visit in early March. He was scheduled to meet separately with Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat called the Netanyahu position on Jerusalem "very unfortunate" and said he hoped the U.S. "will be able to convince the Israeli government to give peace a chance by halting settlement construction in east Jerusalem and elsewhere."

Nonetheless, he left the door open to resuming talks. Asked if anything short of an east Jerusalem construction freeze would bring the Palestinians back to the negotiating table, he said it would depend on what Netanyahu told the Americans.

Another Palestinian official said Abbas planned to bring any proposal to the 22-member Arab League — a move that would give a stamp of legitimacy for restarting the negotiations. The official spoke on condition of anonymity pending a formal announcement.

Peace talks broke down in late 2008 after Israel launched a three-week military offensive in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians have said they will not hold face-to-face talks with Netanyahu until he freezes all settlement activity in east Jerusalem and the West Bank. Netanyahu so far has curbed only West Bank construction in a temporary freeze.

The indirect talks, to be personally mediated by Mitchell, are meant as a way to break the deadlock.

Last week, Obama issued a surprisingly pessimistic assessment of peacemaking prospects, saying the U.S. couldn't force its will on Israelis and Palestinians if they weren't interested in making the compromises necessary to end their decades-old conflict.

Russian-Georgian War

Russia Says It is Not Involved in Georgia Uranium Seizure

Associated Press
April 22, 2010

Russia on Thursday angrily rejected accusations by Georgia's president linking Moscow to a case of attempted uranium smuggling and suggested he was lying, in a new flare-up of tensions between the hostile neighbors.

The Kremlin's sharp retort followed comments Wednesday by President Mikhail Saakashvili, who told The Associated Press that his country had seized a shipment of highly enriched uranium and blamed Russia for creating the instability that allows nuclear smugglers to operate in the region.

Saakashvili gave few details, saying only that the uranium was intercepted last month coming into his country in the Caucasus region of southeast Europe. But he suggested that Moscow shared some responsibility, saying that under Russian control, Georgia's two breakaway regions have become havens for nuclear smugglers.

Saakashvili's government no longer controls the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which declared independence after the 2008 Russia-Georgia war; the president said the smuggling is evidence of a security black hole in the area.

Such seizures have come "mostly from the direction of Russia," Saakashvili said.

"If you are legally in occupation then you are responsible for controlling proliferation."

The International Atomic Energy Agency refused comment, but a diplomat familiar with the issue said that the Vienna-based U.N. agency had been informed by the Georgian government and was assisting it in its investigations. The diplomat asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

In Moscow, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Igor Lyakin-Frolov sharply rejected the charges.

"This is not the first time that Saakashvili has been caught red-handed while making false statements," Lyakin-Frolov said. "He shouldn't present a lie as the truth."

The head of Georgia's nuclear safety agency, Zaal Lomatadze, told AP Television News in Tbilisi that an "organized group of people tried to smuggle in a small amount of enriched uranium with the purpose of selling it to a would-be buyer."

He blamed Moscow for past incidents, saying Georgia had registered such smuggling attempts involving Russian citizens as well as people from the breakaway Georgian territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Georgia borders Russia to the south, with all but one border crossing going through the breakaway regions.

He pointed to a 2006 sting stemming from an investigation in South Ossetia as evidence of the smuggling problem in the breakaway republics. In that instance, Georgian authorities arrested four people accused of trying to sell a small quantity of highly enriched uranium, allegedly including a Russian national from South Ossetia.

Georgia has figured in several cases of attempted nuclear smuggling in the database maintained by the IAEA that was started in 1993, two years after the breakup of the Soviet Union increased fears that sensitive nuclear material would get into the wrong hands.

But smuggled amounts of weapons-grade uranium enriched to the point where it can serve as the fissile core of nuclear warheads have been minimal — at the most a few hundred grams and much less than the approximately 20 kilograms (44 pounds) needed to produce a rudimentary nuclear bomb.

Neither Saakashvili nor other officials said how much material was seized in the most recent arrests. They also did not say whether the uranium was weapons grade — enriched above 90 percent — or below that.

Reports of the uranium seizure emerged during last week's nuclear security summit in Washington, hosted by President Barack Obama and attended by Saakashvili. It was first reported by Britain's The Guardian newspaper.

Obama has pointed to Russian cooperation as essential to his goal of securing all the world's nuclear materials within four years. At the summit, Russia and the U.S. signed a deal to dispose of tons of weapons-grade plutonium.

Georgia and the U.S. last year signed an agreement boosting efforts to combat illicit nuclear trafficking in the former Soviet Republic. The U.S. has provided over $275 million since the early 1990s to Georgia to improve border monitoring, secure nuclear and radioactive materials and establish other programs to fight such crimes.

Israel, the U.S. and the Arab World

Tehran: If Iran Is Attacked, Nuclear Devices Will Go Off in American Cities

DEBKAfile
April 13, 2010

This warning, along with an announcement that Iran would join the world's nuclear club within a month, raised the pitch of Iranian anti-US rhetoric to a new high Tuesday, April 13, as 47 world leaders gathered in Washington for President Barack Obama's Nuclear Security Summit.

The statement published by Kayhan said:

"If the US strikes Iran with nuclear weapons, there are elements which will respond with nuclear blasts in the centers of America's main cities."

For the first time, debkafile's military sources report [that] Tehran indicated the possibility of passing nuclear devices to terrorists capable of striking inside the United States. Without specifying whether those elements would be Iranian or others, Tehran aimed at the heart of the Nuclear Security Summit by threatening US cities with nuclear terror.

debkafile's Iranians sources report that Tehran is playing brinkmanship to demonstrate that the Washington summit, from which Iran and North Korea were excluded, failed before it began, because terrorist elements capable of striking inside the US had already acquired nuclear devices for that purpose.

Although Iran has yet to attain operational nuclear arms, our military sources believe it does possess the makings of primitive nuclear devices or "dirty bombs."

In an interview ahead of the summit, President Obama warned:

"If there was ever a detonation in New York City, or London, or Johannesburg, the ramifications... would be devastating."

In another shot at the summit, Behzad Soltani, deputy director of Iran's Atomic Commission, announced Tuesday:

"Iran will join the world nuclear club within a month in a bid to deter possible attacks on the country." He added: "No country would even think about attacking Iran once it is in the club."

The Iranian official's boast was run by the Fars news agency, published by Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Behzadi further pointed to the construction of 360 MW nuclear power plant and a 40 MW research reactor in Iran's central city of Arak, claiming the projects were 70 percent complete. This plant is generally believed to have been built to enable Iran to produce weapons-grade plutonium as an alternative weapons fuel to highly-enriched uranium and material for radioactive weapons.

Sunday, April 11, debkafile reported that Iran is making much better progress toward completing the Arak heavy water reactor than Western and Israeli intelligence estimates have held. Click here

Along with the strides made in its nuclear manufacturing capacity, Tehran's anti-US rhetoric has grown more strident in the past week. Thursday, April 8, Iran's Armed Forces Chief of Staff Maj.Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi said if the United States made any military moves on the Islamic Republic "none of the American troops in the region would go back home alive."

debkafile's military sources report the presence of approximately 220,000 US soldiers in the countries around Iran, including Gulf bases and waters, Iraq and Afghanistan. The Iranian general was reacting to US defense secretary Robert Gates' warning that Washington's policy decision to limit the use of nuclear arms if attacked did not apply to Iran and North Korea.

Israel, the U.S. and the Arab World

Time to Cut Off the Cash to Israel

By Avi Shlaim, CommonDreams.org
March 23, 2010

Israelis are not renowned for their good manners, but their treatment of Vice-President Joe Biden during his recent visit to their country went beyond chutzpah.

Biden is one of Israel's staunchest supporters in Washington, and the purpose of his visit was to prepare the ground for the resumption of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. An official announcement that Israel planned to build 1,600 new Jewish settler homes in East Jerusalem scuppered the talks, alienated the Palestinians, and infuriated Biden. It was a colossal blunder that is likely to have far-reaching consequences for the special relationship between the two countries.

America subsidises Israel to the tune of $3bn (around £2bn) a year. America is Israel's principal arms supplier, enabling it to retain the technological edge over all its enemies, near and far. In the diplomatic arena too, America extends to Israel virtually unqualified support, including the use of the veto in the UN Security Council to defeat resolutions critical of Israel. America condemns Iran for its nuclear ambitions, while turning a blind eye to Israel's possession of a large arsenal of nuclear weapons.

This unparalleled generosity towards a junior partner is largely the result of sentimental attachment and shared values. Israel used to present itself as an island of democracy in a sea of authoritarianism. But its own actions have shredded this image to pieces. It is now well on the way to becoming a pariah state. During the Cold War, Israel also used to promote itself as a "strategic asset" in helping to check Soviet advances in the Middle East. But since the end of the Cold War, Israel has become more of a liability than an asset.

America's most vital interests lie in the Persian Gulf; to ensure access to oil, the US needs Arab goodwill. Here Israel is a major liability, as a result of its occupation of Palestinian land and its brutal oppression of the Palestinian people.

There is a broad international consensus in favour of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and America is part of this consensus. A previous Democratic administration provided the most realistic blueprint for such a solution. On 23 December 2000, four weeks before leaving the White House, Bill Clinton unveiled his proposals. He called for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state over the whole of the Gaza Strip and 94 to 96 per cent of the West Bank, with a capital city in East Jerusalem. Both sides rejected this peace plan.

In May 2003, after the invasion of Iraq, the Quartet -- America, Russia, the UN, and European Union -- issued the "Road Map," which envisaged the emergence of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel by the end of 2005. This time, the Palestinians accepted the plan with alacrity, whereas Israel tabled 14 reservations that amounted to a rejection. In August 2005, Israel carried out a unilateral withdrawal from Gaza but, far from being a contribution to the Road Map, this was the prelude to further colonisation of the West Bank.

Ever since 1967, Israel has rarely missed a chance to miss an opportunity to make peace with the Palestinians. Its determination to hold on to the West Bank and East Jerusalem translates into rigid diplomatic intransigence. Settlement expansion has been a constant feature of Israeli policy under all governments since 1967, regardless of their political colour. Settlement expansion, however, can only proceed by confiscating more and more Palestinian land. The basic problem is that land-grabbing and peacemaking cannot proceed together: it is one or the other.

The official American position since 1967, except under George W Bush, held that Jewish settlements on occupied Arab land are illegal and a major obstacle to peace. The Obama administration upholds this position. One can make the argument that maintaining the occupation of the West Bank is in Israel's interest, though I utterly reject this argument. But it cannot be argued that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank serves the American national interest. Should America subordinate its own interests to those of its land-hungry ally? A growing number of Americans think not -- and some are prepared to say so publicly.

General David Petraeus, the head of Central Command, told the Senate armed services committee last week that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a root cause of instability in the Middle East and Asia, and that it "foments anti-American sentiment due to a perception of US favouritism for Israel." In private, Joe Biden told the Israelis that their intransigence was undermining America's credibility with Arab and Muslim nations and endangering American lives in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Small wonder that the announcement of 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem provoked such intense anger at all levels of the Obama administration. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's apology related only to the timing and not to the substance of the announcement. Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, demanded the cancellation of the housing project, a substantial confidence-building measure towards the Palestinians, and a pledge to negotiate on all the core issues of the dispute, including the borders of a Palestinian state. Senator George Mitchell's visit to Israel was postponed.

President Obama correctly identified a total settlement freeze as an essential precondition for restarting the stalled peace talks between Palestinians and Israel, but he allowed Netanyahu to fob him off with a vague promise to exercise restraint for 10 months in building on the West Bank. The promise, however, did not apply to the 3,000 housing units that had already been approved or to East Jerusalem, which Israel had annexed following the June 1967 Six-Day War.

Netanyahu knows that the Palestinians will refuse to resume peace talks unless there is a complete freeze on Jewish house construction there. But he is an aggressive right-wing Jewish nationalist and proponent of the doctrine of permanent conflict. It is because of him and his ultra-nationalist coalition partners that there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

Obama has backed down once, but he is determined to face Netanyahu down this time. His best bet is to use economic leverage to force Netanyahu into meaningful negotiations with the Palestinians on a two-state solution. Even if the current crisis is resolved and the peace talks are resumed, they will go nowhere slowly unless President Obama makes American money and arms to Israel conditional on its heeding American advice.

Israel, the U.S. and the Arab World

Economist Tallies Swelling Cost of Israel to U.S.

By David R. Francis, The Christian Science Monitor
Originally Published on December 9, 2002

Since 1973, Israel has cost the United States about $1.6 trillion. If divided by today's population, that is more than $5,700 per person.

This is an estimate by Thomas Stauffer, a consulting economist in Washington. For decades, his analyses of the Middle East scene have made him a frequent thorn in the side of the Israel lobby.
For the first time in many years, Mr. Stauffer has tallied the total cost to the US of its backing of Israel in its drawn-out, violent dispute with the Palestinians. So far, he figures, the bill adds up to more than twice the cost of the Vietnam War.

And now Israel wants more. In a meeting at the White House late last month, Israeli officials made a pitch for $4 billion in additional military aid to defray the rising costs of dealing with the intifada and suicide bombings. They also asked for more than $8 billion in loan guarantees to help the country's recession-bound economy.

Considering Israel's deep economic troubles, Stauffer doubts the Israel bonds covered by the loan guarantees will ever be repaid. The bonds are likely to be structured so they don't pay interest until they reach maturity. If Stauffer is right, the US would end up paying both principal and interest, perhaps 10 years out.

Israel's request could be part of a supplemental spending bill that's likely to be passed early next year, perhaps wrapped in with the cost of a war with Iraq.

Israel is the largest recipient of US foreign aid. It is already due to get $2.04 billion in military assistance and $720 million in economic aid in fiscal 2003. It has been getting $3 billion a year for years.

Adjusting the official aid to 2001 dollars in purchasing power, Israel has been given $240 billion since 1973, Stauffer reckons. In addition, the US has given Egypt $117 billion and Jordan $22 billion in foreign aid in return for signing peace treaties with Israel.

"Consequently, politically, if not administratively, those outlays are part of the total package of support for Israel," argues Stauffer in a lecture on the total costs of US Middle East policy, commissioned by the US Army War College, for a recent conference at the University of Maine.

These foreign-aid costs are well known. Many Americans would probably say it is money well spent to support a beleagured democracy of some strategic interest. But Stauffer wonders if Americans are aware of the full bill for supporting Israel since some costs, if not hidden, are little known.

One huge cost is not secret. It is the higher cost of oil and other economic damage to the US after Israel-Arab wars.

In 1973, for instance, Arab nations attacked Israel in an attempt to win back territories Israel had conquered in the 1967 war. President Nixon resupplied Israel with US arms, triggering the Arab oil embargo against the US.

That shortfall in oil deliveries kicked off a deep recession. The US lost $420 billion (in 2001 dollars) of output as a result, Stauffer calculates. And a boost in oil prices cost another $450 billion.

Afraid that Arab nations might use their oil clout again, the US set up a Strategic Petroleum Reserve. That has since cost, conservatively, $134 billion, Stauffer reckons.

Other US help includes:

• US Jewish charities and organizations have remitted grants or bought Israel bonds worth $50 billion to $60 billion. Though private in origin, the money is "a net drain" on the United States economy, says Stauffer.

• The US has already guaranteed $10 billion in commercial loans to Israel, and $600 million in "housing loans." (See editor's note below.) Stauffer expects the US Treasury to cover these.

• The US has given $2.5 billion to support Israel's Lavi fighter and Arrow missile projects.

• Israel buys discounted, serviceable "excess" US military equipment. Stauffer says these discounts amount to "several billion dollars" over recent years.

• Israel uses roughly 40 percent of its $1.8 billion per year in military aid, ostensibly earmarked for purchase of US weapons, to buy Israeli-made hardware. It also has won the right to require the Defense Department or US defense contractors to buy Israeli-made equipment or subsystems, paying 50 to 60 cents on every defense dollar the US gives to Israel.

US help, financial and technical, has enabled Israel to become a major weapons supplier. Weapons make up almost half of Israel's manufactured exports. US defense contractors often resent the buy-Israel requirements and the extra competition subsidized by US taxpayers.

• US policy and trade sanctions reduce US exports to the Middle East about $5 billion a year, costing 70,000 or so American jobs, Stauffer estimates. Not requiring Israel to use its US aid to buy American goods, as is usual in foreign aid, costs another 125,000 jobs.

• Israel has blocked some major US arms sales, such as F-15 fighter aircraft to Saudi Arabia in the mid-1980s. That cost $40 billion over 10 years, says Stauffer.

Stauffer's list will be controversial. He's been assisted in this research by a number of mostly retired military or diplomatic officials who do not go public for fear of being labeled anti-Semitic if they criticize America's policies toward Israel.

Israeli-Iranian Conflict

Ahmadinejad: Even War Cannot Save Israel

Press TV
March 11, 2010

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has warned Israel that initiating a new military conflict in the Middle East would not save it from downfall.

Speaking in the southern Iranian Province of Hormozagan on Thursday, Ahmadinejad said that Israel was a Western progeny that had now "reached the end of its road."

"See what has become of Israel. They [the West] gathered the most criminal people in the world and stationed them in our region with lies and fabricated scenarios. They waged wars, committed massive aggression… and made millions of people homeless," he told a crowd of supporters in the provincial capital, Bandar-Abbas.

"Today, it is clear that Israel is the most hated regime in the world… It is not useful for its masters [the West] anymore. They are in doubt now. They wonder whether to continue spending money on this regime or not," said Ahmadinejad.

"But whether they want it or not, with God's grace, this regime will be annihilated and Palestinians and other regional nations will be rid of its bad omen," he added.

The top Iranian executive official pointed out that he did not believe that "even a new military conflict" could save the Israeli regime.

"They think in their underdeveloped minds that if they launch another war against Lebanon or Syria it might help them survive a little longer. I am telling them that you are in a situation now that more aggressions or wars will not save you."

Ahmadinejad also advised the US and its allies to pull their troops out of the Middle East and stop "making mischief."

"What are you doing in our region? Why are you deploying military forces here," he asked.

"If you think military deployment will help you seize the oil in Iraq and in the Persian Gulf, I must tell you that the young generation of the Middle East will cut your hands off from the oil reserves of the Persian Gulf," he added.

World War III

Have a Nice World War, Folks

By John Pilger
March 26, 2010

Here is news of the Third World War. The United States has invaded Africa. US troops have entered Somalia, extending their war front from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Yemen and now the Horn of Africa.

In preparation for an attack on Iran, American missiles have been placed in four Persian Gulf states, and “bunker-buster” bombs are said to be arriving at the US base on the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

In Gaza, the sick and abandoned population, mostly children, is being entombed behind underground American-supplied walls in order to reinforce a criminal siege. In Latin America, the Obama administration has secured seven bases in Colombia, from which to wage a war of attrition against the popular democracies in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Paraguay. Meanwhile, the secretary of “defence” Robert Gates complains that “the general [European] public and the political class” are so opposed to war they are an “impediment” to peace. Remember this is the month of the March Hare.

According to an American general, the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan is not so much a real war as a “war of perception.” Thus, the recent “liberation of the city of Marja” from the Taliban’s “command and control structure” was pure Hollywood. Marja is not a city; there was no Taliban command and control. The heroic liberators killed the usual civilians, poorest of the poor. Otherwise, it was fake.

A war of perception is meant to provide fake news for the folks back home, to make a failed colonial adventure seem worthwhile and patriotic, as if The Hurt Locker were real and parades of flag-wrapped coffins through the Wiltshire town of Wooten Basset were not a cynical propaganda exercise.

“War is fun,” the helmets in Vietnam used to say with bleakest irony, meaning that if a war is revealed as having no purpose other than to justify voracious power in the cause of lucrative fanaticisms such as the weapons industry, the danger of truth beckons. This danger can be illustrated by the liberal perception of Tony Blair in 1997 as one “who wants to create a world [where] ideology has surrendered entirely to values” (Hugo Young, the Guardian) compared with today’s public reckoning of a liar and war criminal.

Western war-states such as the US and Britain are not threatened by the Taliban or any other introverted tribesmen in faraway places, but by the anti-war instincts of their own citizens. Consider the draconian sentences handed down in London to scores of young people who protested Israel’s assault on Gaza in January last year. Following demonstrations in which paramilitary police “kettled” (corralled) thousands, first-offenders have received two and a half years in prison for minor offences that would not normally carry custodial sentences. On both sides of the Atlantic, serious dissent exposing illegal war has become a serious crime.

Silence in other high places allows this moral travesty. Across the arts, literature, journalism and the law, liberal elites, having hurried away from the debris of Blair and now Obama, continue to fudge their indifference to the barbarism and aims of western state crimes by promoting retrospectively the evils of their convenient demons, like Saddam Hussein.

With Harold Pinter gone, try compiling a list of famous writers, artists and advocates whose principles are not consumed by the “market” or neutered by their celebrity. Who among them have spoken out about the holocaust in Iraq during almost 20 years of lethal blockade and assault? And all of it has been deliberate. On 22 January 1991, the US Defence Intelligence Agency predicted in impressive detail how a blockade would systematically destroy Iraq’s clean water system and lead to “increased incidences, if not epidemics of disease.” So the US set about eliminating clean water for the Iraqi population: one of the causes, noted Unicef, of the deaths of half a million Iraqi infants under the age of five. But this extremism apparently has no name.

Norman Mailer once said he believed the United States, in its endless pursuit of war and domination, had entered a “pre-fascist era.” Mailer seemed tentative, as if trying to warn about something even he could not quite define. “Fascism” is not right, for it invokes lazy historical precedents, conjuring yet again the iconography of German and Italian repression. On the other hand, American authoritarianism, as the cultural critic Henry Giroux pointed out recently, is “more nuance, less theatrical, more cunning, less concerned with repressive modes of control than with manipulative modes of consent.”

This is Americanism, the only predatory ideology to deny that it is an ideology. The rise of tentacular corporations that are dictatorships in their own right and of a military that is now a state with the state, set behind the façade of the best democracy 35,000 Washington lobbyists can buy, and a popular culture programmed to divert and stultify, is without precedent. More nuanced perhaps, but the results are both unambiguous and familiar.

Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck, the senior United Nations officials in Iraq during the American and British-led blockade, are in no doubt they witnessed genocide. They saw no gas chambers. Insidious, undeclared, even presented wittily as enlightenment on the march, the Third World War and its genocide proceeded, human being by human being.

In the coming election campaign in Britain, the candidates will refer to this war only to laud “our boys.” The candidates are almost identical political mummies shrouded in the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes. As Blair demonstrated a mite too eagerly, the British elite loves America because America allows it to barrack and bomb the natives and call itself a “partner.” We should interrupt their fun.