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Politics : Israel to U.S. : Now Deal with Syria and Iran -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: rrufff who wrote (7644)	3/25/2005 4:49:16 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 22250

Re: The only place this has worked in reality is the US and our history is very different. Also it's taken over 200 years and counting to bring real civil rights. It hasn't worked in Europe. Look at how the French, English and others are fighting even the very weak EU, which is certainly not a nation-state. To force this concept on blood enemies is so absurd that it defies comprehension. Actually, it also defies the official, if tacit, US foreign policy... Your despondent cynicism about other peoples' and countries' willingness to get along with each other is what drives the US's relentless drive to stir tensions and mutual distrust between neighbors from the Far East () to the Balkans, to the EU/Turkey relationship, to China/South America relations, etc. While US officials artfully pose as fair do-gooders and honest brokers among contending nations, they actually do their best to pit everybody against each other except the US. Divide and rule. Take Turkey for instance: it's the US strategy to isolate Turkey from all her neighbors --Russia, Greece, Syria-- and to deteriorate the ongoing EU-Turkey talks over Cyprus while locking Turkey up in an exclusive US-Israeli bondage... Ditto with Pakistan and India: Secretary Rice arrogantly called for India to drop her pipeline project with Iran and Pakistan... Ditto with Venezuela's latest arms deal with Russia (). Ditto with Lebanon: spurring the Maronite minority against Syria so as to leave Lebanon with only two "friends" --the US and Israel. All in the name of "freedom" and "peace". Somehow the US geopolitical utopia is for each and every country to alienate all its neighbors while maintaining friendly relations with the US and Israel ONLY. You'll sow the winds of hatred and mistrust until you'll reap the storm at home.... Gus () Japan the spoiler in Northeast Asia By Zhiqun Zhu atimes.com () Rumsfeld criticizes Venezuelan arms bid** Thursday, March 24, 2005 Posted: 0115 GMT (0915 HKT) MANAUS, Brazil (AP) -- U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is criticizing Venezuela's reported efforts to purchase 100,000 AK-47 assault rifles from Russia, suggesting that Venezuela's possession of so many weapons would threaten the hemisphere. Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez, has warned that he will cut off shipments of his country's oil to the United States if the Bush administration supports an attempt to force him from office. Venezuela is the world's fifth largest oil exporter and provides about 13 percent of U.S. crude oil imports. [...] edition.cnn.com

To: rrufff who wrote (7644)	3/25/2005 5:38:55 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 22250

Footnote to my previous post: To make matters worse - far worse - Israel is more zealously shielded by the US from the political consequences of its settlement policies than it has ever been. And US policy is unlikely to change. The United States will never take on the role of active peacemaker long ascribed to it by an anxious international community. Blanket support for Israel's worst actions and, recently, puerile reiterations of Sharon's insistence that Palestinians 'end terror' have put paid to any hope of useful US intervention; the recent attack on an American target in Gaza suggests that, even for long-credulous Palestinians, belief in Washington's role is finally collapsing. International affirmations of the importance of the US as a broker live on because they still serve US interests in pre-empting European action (and European interest in avoiding action?), while suggesting, for the especially gullible, the possibility of policy change. None is pending, for reasons that can be found deep in the US political fabric. The problem does not come down to narrow vision, or 'Jewish money' (the standard anti-semitic explanation), or even to America's long-standing military strategy, which assumes Israel to be a bedrock ally - a more even-handed policy would be more likely to enhance the US strategic profile than to erode it. Rather, the force durably proscribing any more constructive policy is the Congress, where one-sided support for Israel is deeply ingrained. This is the result, very largely, of Israeli-lobby leverage and campaign contributions (of various kinds) but major US business interests in Israel have to be borne in mind, as does the well- organised Christian Right, with its bizarre millennialist fixation on a Jewish Israel as portending the Endtimes. Even more limiting of US foreign policy are the attitudes of individual Congressmen and women. Their public statements indicate that the great majority have internalised right-wing Israeli propaganda. For decades, the Israeli lobby has presented Congress with the narrative of a beleaguered Jewish people trying to build a homeland in a tiny country huddled on the Mediterranean while fending off irrational Islamic/Arab hostility. With members from both parties saturated in these assumptions and hooked by hard financial and electoral clout, the Presidency is greatly constrained in any attempt it might make to lever the Israeli Government towards a loathed and costly policy change - withdrawing or freezing settlements, for instance - even though there are dissenting Israelis who would ardently endorse it. Any move in this direction on the part of any President would be political suicide. The US, then, is not neutral, but neutralised; its foreign policy remains committed to supporting Israel's 'welfare' however the Israeli Government conceives it, which is why it can have no independent impact on settlement policy. [...] lrb.co.uk I'd go even further: I'd say, Any move in this direction on the part of any President would be suicide --literally.