Cheney is going deaf:
On the Current Mideast Situation
by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.
Hussein al-Nadeem of EIR submitted questions to Lyndon LaRouche on March 26—on the eve of the Arab League summit meeting—on developments in the Middle East, the new war threats in the region, and the possibility of a solution.
EIR: U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney has just concluded an 11-nation tour in the Middle East. In each of these states, leaders gave him a clear "No" signal on the U.S. plans to launch a new military strike against Iraq. On the other hand, they expressed their deep concerns about the Israeli Army's brutal practices against the Palestinian people and its leadership. However, upon returning to Washington, Cheney stressed that he got a message contrary to this, from the Arab leaders, concerning Iraq. What is your assessment of such behavior?
LaRouche: Since Vice-President Cheney has permitted no disclosure of the content of these privileged exchanges, we must assess the situation in light of both our knowledge of the situation and the high degree of unreliability of most official U.S. statements on these and related matters. Mr. Cheney must be appreciated as speaking publicly for effect, just as the usual practice of his administration has been on virtually every other topical area, and increasingly so, over the course of recent months. We must continue to view such matters in light of the persisting absence of any truthful representation of the actual conduct of Israel's government and military forces, from the U.S. government during recent months.
In addition to other considerations, knowledgeable U.S. political observers will continue to take into account the impact of the scheduled November U.S. elections, on the current behavior of the administration on all topics, concerning all areas of the world, especially the Middle East.
EIR: In view of your insight into the American political and economic-financial situation, is the United States capable of launching a new major war, either individually or together with Britain and Israel, against Iraq or any of the so-called "rogue states," and what is the time frame for such an operation, if it really exists?
LaRouche: From a military standpoint, any U.S. attack upon Iraq, excepting a preemptive nuclear strike against a non-nuclear state, is currently estimated, among relevant military and related circles, to require between 200,000 and 300,000 troops. It is estimated that this could not be put into place earlier than the Autumn, and, politically, not before the November 2002 Federal and state elections. However, under present circumstances, all normal sorts of estimates and related forecasts are put into doubt. Anything is possible, at any time. The fact that some option is insane, on logistical or other premises, does not mean that the governments involved in the threatened attack are sane, or realistic in any other sense.
To illustrate that point, look at the current situation in Afghanistan, which the United States claims to have virtually won, at precisely the moment the expected long-range phase of the war has just recently only begun. All rational military expectations, including studies of both British Nineteenth-Century experience there, and the Soviet experience during the 1980s, implied that no sane power would ever make so foolish a mistake, as to repeat the Soviet experience in mountain warfare in that area. To strike a posture of a wider, "hundred years-long" war in many parts of the world, including Iraq, while suppressing reports of the embarrassing recent developments in Afghanistan, is not the behavior of a realistic strategic power, but a government made desperate by the combinations of an impossible global economic-financial and strategic situation. One thinks of England's fabled Richard III crying out in desperation for a horse. |
