Same Iraq WMD Fabricators Planned US Attack by "Drawing Attention" to Syria's WMDs in 1996

[leveymg]

Last edited Fri Aug 30, 2013, 12:35 AM - Edit history (6)

They almost did it again - manipulated the US into a direct military role in Mideast conflict. Tonight, the US is once more poised to launch yet another Shock and Awe-style missile strike, again on the basis of a selective reading of intelligence, most of it provided by Israel.

The NYT reports this evening:

WASHINGTON — President Obama is prepared to move ahead with a limited military strike on Syria, administration officials said on Thursday, even with a rejection of such action by Britain’s Parliament, an increasingly restive Congress, and lacking an endorsement from the United Nations Security Council.

That news comes on the heels of revelations yesterday that the original source of intercepts of Syrian communications on which the Obama Administration is basing its decision to launch unilateral attacks on Syria is Israeli intelligence, specifically IDF Unit 8200, the Israeli NSA. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/28/israeli-intelligence-intercepted-syria-chemical-talk

Certain Obama officials have been pushing direct US military intervention since March 2011, while similar urgings for action against neighboring Mideast countries goes back at least 15 years before that to release in 1996 of a neocon manifesto, A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm written for the then newly installed conservative Likud Party of Benjamin Netanyahu (has Bibi been in and out of the top office for that long, now?). The best-known authors of that planning paper were Richard Perle, the Wurmsers, and Doug Feith, who went on to establish the notorious Pentagon Office of Special Plans (OSP), the DoD unit under Undersecretary for Intelligence Steven Cambone that fabricated much of the intelligence to justify Bush's invasion of Iraq.

"A Clean Break" is a remarkably candid and concise document that accurately predicted U.S. and Israeli policy and actions in the region, particularly events in Syria involving external agitation of internal ethnic conflict, foreign military responses, and Israel "drawing attention" to Syria's WMDs -- all events that have finally come to fruition during the last couple weeks.

The 1996 document extracted below explicitly states that Syria's WMD along with Turkish and Jordanian-sponsored ethnic conflict inside Syria will serve as a pretext for western intervention, leading to the possible breakup of Syria, while at the same time PM Netanyahu should reject U.S. pressures to accept land for peace. That is exactly what has come to pass in 2013.

As A Clean Break makes clear, serial regime change in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and then Iran has long been the goal of a core group of Washington power players in both parties going back to that era. Here's the plan to transform the Mideast (and the U.S.) so as to expand Israel's regional hegemony, along with Turkey and Jordan, with Saudi Arabia the silent partner of the Rightwing parties in Israel, the US, and the UK. This plan of serial regime change was later euphemistically termed, "The Arab Spring", when conditions were deemed ripe for overthrow of a string of governments of states surrounding Israel.

The "Clean Break" document was submitted to then PM Benjamin Netanyahu. It is remarkably prescient, and has come to pass through the wars and covert operations waged by the past two U.S. Administrations, with a few bumps in the road, almost exactly as planned 17 year ago.

Ironically, as alluded to below (and developed at greater length in later sections of the document not excerpted below,) make clear, the ultimate point of neocon regime change is to invert the relationship of Israel with the US, and to make the former autonomous of the constraints imposed by the latter. The U.S. is the ultimate target of Right-wing regime change planned in Israel by the same Neocons advising Netanyahu's Likud Party who went on to carry out the Iraq War WMD fabrications: http://www.israeleconomy.org/strat1.htm

A Clean Break:
A New Strategy for Securing the Realm

Following is a report prepared by The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies’ "Study Group on a New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000." The main substantive ideas in this paper emerge from a discussion in which prominent opinion makers, including Richard Perle, James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Douglas Feith, Robert Loewenberg, David Wurmser, and Meyrav Wurmser participated. The report, entitled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," is the framework for a series of follow-up reports on strategy.

Israel has a large problem. Labor Zionism, which for 70 years has dominated the Zionist movement, has generated a stalled and shackled economy. Efforts to salvage Israel’s socialist institutions—which include pursuing supranational over national sovereignty and pursuing a peace process that embraces the slogan, "New Middle East"—undermine the legitimacy of the nation and lead Israel into strategic paralysis and the previous government’s "peace process." That peace process obscured the evidence of eroding national critical mass— including a palpable sense of national exhaustion—and forfeited strategic initiative. The loss of national critical mass was illustrated best by Israel’s efforts to draw in the United States to sell unpopular policies domestically, to agree to negotiate sovereignty over its capital, and to respond with resignation to a spate of terror so intense and tragic that it deterred Israelis from engaging in normal daily functions, such as commuting to work in buses.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s government comes in with a new set of ideas. While there are those who will counsel continuity, Israel has the opportunity to make a clean break; it can forge a peace process and strategy based on an entirely new intellectual foundation, one that restores strategic initiative and provides the nation the room to engage every possible energy on rebuilding Zionism, the starting point of which must be economic reform. To secure the nation’s streets and borders in the immediate future, Israel can:

* Work closely with Turkey and Jordan to contain, destabilize, and roll-back some of its most dangerous threats. This implies clean break from the slogan, "comprehensive peace" to a traditional concept of strategy based on balance of power.

* Change the nature of its relations with the Palestinians, including upholding the right of hot pursuit for self defense into all Palestinian areas and nurturing alternatives to Arafat’s exclusive grip on Palestinian society.

* Forge a new basis for relations with the United States—stressing self-reliance, maturity, strategic cooperation on areas of mutual concern, and furthering values inherent to the West. This can only be done if Israel takes serious steps to terminate aid, which prevents economic reform.

This report is written with key passages of a possible speech marked TEXT, that highlight the clean break which the new government has an opportunity to make. The body of the report is the commentary explaining the purpose and laying out the strategic context of the passages.

A New Approach to Peace

Early adoption of a bold, new perspective on peace and security is imperative for the new prime minister. While the previous government, and many abroad, may emphasize "land for peace"— which placed Israel in the position of cultural, economic, political, diplomatic, and military retreat — the new government can promote Western values and traditions. Such an approach, which will be well received in the United States, includes "peace for peace," "peace through strength" and self reliance: the balance of power.

A new strategy to seize the initiative can be introduced:

TEXT:

We have for four years pursued peace based on a New Middle East. We in Israel cannot play innocents abroad in a world that is not innocent. Peace depends on the character and behavior of our foes. We live in a dangerous neighborhood, with fragile states and bitter rivalries. Displaying moral ambivalence between the effort to build a Jewish state and the desire to annihilate it by trading "land for peace" will not secure "peace now." Our claim to the land —to which we have clung for hope for 2000 years--is legitimate and noble. It is not within our own power, no matter how much we concede, to make peace unilaterally. Only the unconditional acceptance by Arabs of our rights, especially in their territorial dimension, "peace for peace," is a solid basis for the future.

Israel’s quest for peace emerges from, and does not replace, the pursuit of its ideals. The Jewish people’s hunger for human rights — burned into their identity by a 2000-year old dream to live free in their own land — informs the concept of peace and reflects continuity of values with Western and Jewish tradition. Israel can now embrace negotiations, but as means, not ends, to pursue those ideals and demonstrate national steadfastness. It can challenge police states; enforce compliance of agreements; and insist on minimal standards of accountability.

Securing the Northern Border

Syria challenges Israel on Lebanese soil. An effective approach, and one with which American can sympathize, would be if Israel seized the strategic initiative along its northern borders by engaging Hizballah, Syria, and Iran, as the principal agents of aggression in Lebanon, including by:

* striking Syria’s drug-money and counterfeiting infrastructure in Lebanon, all of which focuses on Razi Qanan.

* paralleling Syria’s behavior by establishing the precedent that Syrian territory is not immune to attacks emanating from Lebanon by Israeli proxy forces.

* striking Syrian military targets in Lebanon, and should that prove insufficient, striking at select targets in Syria proper.

Israel also can take this opportunity to remind the world of the nature of the Syrian regime. Syria repeatedly breaks its word. It violated numerous agreements with the Turks, and has betrayed the United States by continuing to occupy Lebanon in violation of the Taef agreement in 1989. Instead, Syria staged a sham election, installed a quisling regime, and forced Lebanon to sign a "Brotherhood Agreement" in 1991, that terminated Lebanese sovereignty. And Syria has begun colonizing Lebanon with hundreds of thousands of Syrians, while killing tens of thousands of its own citizens at a time, as it did in only three days in 1983 in Hama.

Under Syrian tutelage, the Lebanese drug trade, for which local Syrian military officers receive protection payments, flourishes. Syria’s regime supports the terrorist groups operationally and financially in Lebanon and on its soil. Indeed, the Syrian-controlled Bekaa Valley in Lebanon has become for terror what the Silicon Valley has become for computers. The Bekaa Valley has become one of the main distribution sources, if not production points, of the "supernote" — counterfeit US currency so well done that it is impossible to detect.

Text:

Negotiations with repressive regimes like Syria’s require cautious realism. One cannot sensibly assume the other side’s good faith. It is dangerous for Israel to deal naively with a regime murderous of its own people, openly aggressive toward its neighbors, criminally involved with international drug traffickers and counterfeiters, and supportive of the most deadly terrorist organizations.

Given the nature of the regime in Damascus, it is both natural and moral that Israel abandon the slogan "comprehensive peace" and move to contain Syria, drawing attention to its weapons of mass destruction program, and rejecting "land for peace" deals on the Golan Heights.

Moving to a Traditional Balance of Power Strategy

TEXT:

We must distinguish soberly and clearly friend from foe. We must make sure that our friends across the Middle East never doubt the solidity or value of our friendship.

Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions. Jordan has challenged Syria's regional ambitions recently by suggesting the restoration of the Hashemites in Iraq. This has triggered a Jordanian-Syrian rivalry to which Asad has responded by stepping up efforts to destabilize the Hashemite Kingdom, including using infiltrations. Syria recently signaled that it and Iran might prefer a weak, but barely surviving Saddam, if only to undermine and humiliate Jordan in its efforts to remove Saddam.

But Syria enters this conflict with potential weaknesses: Damascus is too preoccupied with dealing with the threatened new regional equation to permit distractions of the Lebanese flank. And Damascus fears that the 'natural axis' with Israel on one side, central Iraq and Turkey on the other, and Jordan, in the center would squeeze and detach Syria from the Saudi Peninsula. For Syria, this could be the prelude to a redrawing of the map of the Middle East which would threaten Syria's territorial integrity.

Since Iraq's future could affect the strategic balance in the Middle East profoundly, it would be understandable that Israel has an interest in supporting the Hashemites in their efforts to redefine Iraq, including such measures as: visiting Jordan as the first official state visit, even before a visit to the United States, of the new Netanyahu government; supporting King Hussein by providing him with some tangible security measures to protect his regime against Syrian subversion; encouraging — through influence in the U.S. business community — investment in Jordan to structurally shift Jordan’s economy away from dependence on Iraq; and diverting Syria’s attention by using Lebanese opposition elements to destabilize Syrian control of Lebanon.

Most important, it is understandable that Israel has an interest supporting diplomatically, militarily and operationally Turkey’s and Jordan’s actions against Syria, such as securing tribal alliances with Arab tribes that cross into Syrian territory and are hostile to the Syrian ruling elite.

King Hussein may have ideas for Israel in bringing its Lebanon problem under control. The predominantly Shia population of southern Lebanon has been tied for centuries to the Shia leadership in Najf, Iraq rather than Iran. Were the Hashemites to control Iraq, they could use their influence over Najf to help Israel wean the south Lebanese Shia away from Hizballah, Iran, and Syria. Shia retain strong ties to the Hashemites: the Shia venerate foremost the Prophet’s family, the direct descendants of which — and < . . .>

[TwilightGardener]

1. You have to ask yourself, though, who is left in the Obama administration that has any connection

to the neocon authors of this plan. Not enough are there (or influential enough) to sway Obama to get that deeply involved in Syria, IMO.

[blm]

2. Hmmmm....wonder how many leave behinds Clinton left.......

I know both she and Bill were supporting an invasion of Syria back in 2005 if Bush wanted to extend war there. Had the Downing Street Memos not been revealed, Syria was the invasion on deck.

[leveymg]

3. The current crop of neocon-lite includes National Security Advisor Rice.

Another name that is often associated with the hawkish wing of the Administration driving Syria policy is Samantha Powers, followed by recently departed Anne-Marie Slaughter, director of policy planning at the State Department from 2009 to 2011.

While most of the name principals have been retired, there are numerous key staffers in the NSC, at the State Dept., in the agencies, and on Congressional committees who have been carrying this torch for what has become known as the PNAC Agenda.

Susan Rice's statements and agitation for a Security Council Resolution justifying "humanitarian intervention" in Syria, following the initial successful push for regime change in Libya, are well-documented.

Outside of the Administration, it's largely the same fish, large and small, that urged the invasion of Iraq a decade ago, As David Corn points out: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/08/neocons-push-obama-go-beyond-punitive-strike-syria

On Wednesday, the Foreign Policy Initiative—which was started by Bill Kristol, Dan Senor, Robert Kagan, and other hawkish-minded policy wonks—sent a letter to Obama, urging him to slam Assad in response to the use of chemical weapons in Syria: "At a minimum, the United States, along with willing allies and partners, should use standoff weapons and airpower to target the Syrian dictatorship’s military units that were involved in the recent large-scale use of chemical weapons."

But the letter—which was signed by Elliott Abrams, Fouad Ajami, Max Boot, Ellen Bork, Eliot Cohen, Douglas Feith, Joseph Lieberman, Clifford May, Joshua Muravchik, Danielle Pletka, Karl Rove, Randy Scheunemann, Kristol, Kagan, Senor, and dozens of others—demands that Obama go further. It calls on the president to provide "vetted moderate elements of Syria's armed opposition" with the military support necessary to strike regime units armed with chemical weapons. That is, the neocons and their allies have CW-ized their pre-existing demand for the United States to arm the rebels.

[grasswire]

4. this needs more attention

even if it is a holiday weekend coming up....

[polly7]

5. Yep! +1000. nt.