Is Bush planning an attack on Iran in March?

[Ron Ecker]

"Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children and other people. Such a practice is forbidden even in the course of a battle."

That's a puzzling statement from "Bin Laden." Islamic "insurgents" in Iraq are daily blowing up innocent people by the dozens. Somebody ask a mullah who's right!

Re the videotape in which "Bin Laden" claimed responsibility for 9/11, I suggest that anyone in the U.S. who is sure that that's Bin Laden should watch the opening segment of Saturday Night Live on any Saturday night. Quite frequently "George W. Bush" is on to say a few words. I know it's him because it looks like him and sounds like him. What more proof do I need?

[Sid Walker]

Noam Chomsky

Friday March 9, 2007

The Guardian

In the energy-rich Middle East, only two countries have failed to subordinate themselves to Washington's basic demands: Iran and Syria. Accordingly both are enemies, Iran by far the more important. As was the norm during the cold war, resort to violence is regularly justified as a reaction to the malign influence of the main enemy, often on the flimsiest of pretexts.

Unsurprisingly, as Bush sends more troops to Iraq, tales surface of Iranian interference in the internal affairs of Iraq - a country otherwise free from any foreign interference - on the tacit assumption that Washington rules the world.

In the cold war-like mentality in Washington, Tehran is portrayed as the pinnacle in the so-called Shia crescent that stretches from Iran to Hizbullah in Lebanon, through Shia southern Iraq and Syria. And again unsurprisingly, the "surge" in Iraq and escalation of threats and accusations against Iran is accompanied by grudging willingness to attend a conference of regional powers, with the agenda limited to Iraq.

Presumably this minimal gesture toward diplomacy is intended to allay the growing fears and anger elicited by Washington's heightened aggressiveness. These concerns are given new substance in a detailed study of "the Iraq effect" by terrorism experts Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank, revealing that the Iraq war "has increased terrorism sevenfold worldwide". An "Iran effect" could be even more severe.

For the US, the primary issue in the Middle East has been, and remains, effective control of its unparalleled energy resources. Access is a secondary matter. Once the oil is on the seas it goes anywhere. Control is understood to be an instrument of global dominance. Iranian influence in the "crescent" challenges US control. By an accident of geography, the world's major oil resources are in largely Shia areas of the Middle East: southern Iraq, adjacent regions of Saudi Arabia and Iran, with some of the major reserves of natural gas as well. Washington's worst nightmare would be a loose Shia alliance controlling most of the world's oil and independent of the US.

Such a bloc, if it emerges, might even join the Asian Energy Security Grid based in China. Iran could be a lynchpin. If the Bush planners bring that about, they will have seriously undermined the US position of power in the world.

To Washington, Tehran's principal offence has been its defiance, going back to the overthrow of the Shah in 1979 and the hostage crisis at the US embassy. In retribution, Washington turned to support Saddam Hussein's aggression against Iran, which left hundreds of thousands dead. Then came murderous sanctions and, under Bush, rejection of Iranian diplomatic efforts.

Last July, Israel invaded Lebanon, the fifth invasion since 1978. As before, US support was a critical factor, the pretexts quickly collapse on inspection, and the consequences for the people of Lebanon are severe. Among the reasons for the US-Israel invasion is that Hizbullah's rockets could be a deterrent to a US-Israeli attack on Iran. Despite the sabre-rattling it is, I suspect, unlikely that the Bush administration will attack Iran. Public opinion in the US and around the world is overwhelmingly opposed. It appears that the US military and intelligence community is also opposed. Iran cannot defend itself against US attack, but it can respond in other ways, among them by inciting even more havoc in Iraq. Some issue warnings that are far more grave, among them the British military historian Corelli Barnett, who writes that "an attack on Iran would effectively launch world war three".

Then again, a predator becomes even more dangerous, and less predictable, when wounded. In desperation to salvage something, the administration might risk even greater disasters. The Bush administration has created an unimaginable catastrophe in Iraq. It has been unable to establish a reliable client state within, and cannot withdraw without facing the possible loss of control of the Middle East's energy resources.

Meanwhile Washington may be seeking to destabilise Iran from within. The ethnic mix in Iran is complex; much of the population isn't Persian. There are secessionist tendencies and it is likely that Washington is trying to stir them up - in Khuzestan on the Gulf, for example, where Iran's oil is concentrated, a region that is largely Arab, not Persian.

Threat escalation also serves to pressure others to join US efforts to strangle Iran economically, with predictable success in Europe. Another predictable consequence, presumably intended, is to induce the Iranian leadership to be as repressive as possible, fomenting disorder while undermining reformers.

It is also necessary to demonise the leadership. In the west, any wild statement by President Ahmadinejad is circulated in headlines, dubiously translated. But Ahmadinejad has no control over foreign policy, which is in the hands of his superior, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The US media tend to ignore Khamenei's statements, especially if they are conciliatory. It's widely reported when Ahmadinejad says Israel shouldn't exist - but there is silence when Khamenei says that Iran supports the Arab League position on Israel-Palestine, calling for normalisation of relations with Israel if it accepts the international consensus of a two-state settlement.

The US invasion of Iraq virtually instructed Iran to develop a nuclear deterrent. The message was that the US attacks at will, as long as the target is defenceless. Now Iran is ringed by US forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkey and the Persian Gulf, and close by are nuclear-armed Pakistan and Israel, the regional superpower, thanks to US support.

In 2003, Iran offered negotiations on all outstanding issues, including nuclear policies and Israel-Palestine relations. Washington's response was to censure the Swiss diplomat who brought the offer. The following year, the EU and Iran reached an agreement that Iran would suspend enriching uranium; in return the EU would provide "firm guarantees on security issues" - code for US-Israeli threats to bomb Iran.

Apparently under US pressure, Europe did not live up to the bargain. Iran then resumed uranium enrichment. A genuine interest in preventing the development of nuclear weapons in Iran would lead Washington to implement the EU bargain, agree to meaningful negotiations and join with others to move toward integrating Iran into the international economic system.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/st...2030015,00.html

As usual, Chomsky:

(1) Underplays and de-emphasizes the role of the Israel Lobby in driving US middle east policy

(2) Implies that the US (not Israel) is the prime mover behind possible attacks against Syria and Iran and that they are primarily motivated by American (not Israeli) hostility.

(3) Hypes up the 'War for Oil' distraction that helped fool a lot of the peace movement earlier in the decade - and at the time of the First Gulf War in 1990.

________________________

As Noam Chomsky's has given us his take on these topics so often already, one wonders why he just keeps repeating it?

I guess 'repetition' is needed in any soft sell - and there's always a new cohort of suckers to welcome into the fold?

[Len Colby]

Ah, Bin Laden's pre-election special?

It makes interesting viewing in historical perspective.

No, I don't think that's a credible "confession".

I am not alone, either.

Check out THIS or THIS.

Wow a raving nut job like Alex Jones and some anonymous guy from a site I never heard of agree with you! Now I’m convinced! LOL

The head of an Arab media studies think tank and the head of Al-Jazera’s London bureau (both Arabs) think it’s real, but hey what do they know?

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...ost&p=94907

[Len Colby]

As usual, Chomsky:

(1) Underplays and de-emphasizes the role of the Israel Lobby in driving US middle east policy

(2) Implies that the US (not Israel) is the prime mover behind possible attacks against Syria and Iran and that they are primarily motivated by American (not Israeli) hostility.

(3) Hypes up the 'War for Oil' distraction that helped fool a lot of the peace movement earlier in the decade - and at the time of the First Gulf War in 1990.

________________________

As Noam Chomsky's has given us his take on these topics so often already, one wonders why he just keeps repeating it?

I guess 'repetition' is needed in any soft sell - and there's always a new cohort of suckers to welcome into the fold?

You’re right Sid, Chomsky is obviously a deep cover Mossad agent and has been one since the 1960’s!

[Ron Ecker]

(3) Hypes up the 'War for Oil' distraction that helped fool a lot of the peace movement earlier in the decade - and at the time of the First Gulf War in 1990.

Distraction? There's no doubt in my mind that this is a "war for oil." The U.S. supports Israel, but we would not be in the mess we are in if it wasn't for oil and Cheney's PNAC coup of 2000.

[Sid Walker]

(3) Hypes up the 'War for Oil' distraction that helped fool a lot of the peace movement earlier in the decade - and at the time of the First Gulf War in 1990.

Distraction? There's no doubt in my mind that this is a "war for oil." The U.S. supports Israel, but we would not be in the mess we are in if it wasn't for oil and Cheney's PNAC coup of 2000.

Most expensive oil ever, Ron.

Cost of invasion / barrels shipped from Iraq since 2003 = very poor investment.

Of course, things might 'improve' for American oil interests in Iraq. I'm aware US companies are grasping at long-term contracts. But without US troops there, they can't be sure any contracts signed will be honored, as they were clearly obtained under the duress of occupation. With US troops there, it'll keep being the most expensive oil ever.

Take Britain. Blair joined the war - yet the CEO of only Oil major based in Britain specifically spoke out against the 2003 invasion beforehand.

This was no war for oil, IMO. Easier for the USA to invade Venezuela than Iraq if direct military occupation of oilfields is the goal. But why bother?

Easiest and cheapest just to buy oil on the world market. I even recall Richard Perle saying as much, when laughing off the claim it was a war for oil prior to the invasion.

Just because the man's a xxxx doesn't mean he can't sometimes tell the truth.

[Ron Ecker]

Easiest and cheapest just to buy oil on the world market.

I agree. But you and I do not run things. The U.S. is run by PNAC zealots, led by Cheney, who stole the 2000 election, when everyone thought at the time that it was George W. Bush who stole it. It was a coup d'etat, with Bush retained as a blithering puppet. Their agenda, as put in writing before they ever took power, is American world hegemony, Pax Americana, including control of the world's oil. The latter need was put in writing by Brzezinski in 1997 in his book The Grand Chessboard, according to which the key to world power is control of the vast oil reserves of Central Asia. All that was needed to get this world conquest ball rolling was, to borrow the PNAC's phrase, "a new Pearl Harbor," which obligingly happened seven months after Cheney took office.

The result has been an absolute debacle, a world tragedy. But that's what happens when control of the world's one great superpower is handed to wild-eyed ideological sociopaths.

[Sid Walker]

- duplicate post -

Edited March 10, 2007 by Sid Walker

[Sid Walker]

Easiest and cheapest just to buy oil on the world market.

I agree. But you and I do not run things. The U.S. is run by PNAC zealots, led by Cheney, who stole the 2000 election, when everyone thought at the time that it was George W. Bush who stole it. It was a coup d'etat, with Bush retained as a blithering puppet. Their agenda, as put in writing before they ever took power, is American world hegemony, Pax Americana, including control of the world's oil. The latter need was put in writing by Brzezinski in 1997 in his book The Grand Chessboard, according to which the key to world power is control of the vast oil reserves of Central Asia. All that was needed to get this world conquest ball rolling was, to borrow the PNAC's phrase, "a new Pearl Harbor," which obligingly happened seven months after Cheney took office.

The result has been an absolute debacle, a world tragedy. But that's what happens when control of the world's one great superpower is handed to wild-eyed ideological sociopaths.

Ron,

You say "U.S. is run by PNAC zealots"

What is a PNAC zealot, for heavens sake?

When do PNAC zealots meet? Where are their conferences? What are they planning next? How are they also represented in Britain, France, Germany and Russia? How did a brand new organization come to 'run' the USA only a decade after its formation?

I submit that you use misleading terminology.

The word you really need, Ron, is Zionist. In Zionism we find a century-old movement with a rich international history and the potential to achieve great political power.

It is Zionists who dominate US policy, Ron. Their project - and ultimate goal - has little to do with An 'American' Century, IMO. Americans will probably figure this out as the century progresses.

Because you fail to recognize - or for some reason don't want to identify - the nature of the political movement that has gained ascendancy in your country's politics, you also seem to have a strange notion that the cock-up in Iraq is pure accident, that the neocons really did believe their own rhetoric about rapid victory and that the strength of Iraqi insurgency came as a complete surprise to them.

I think that rather unlikely.

A few questions to ponder.

Do you also think the people behind the Iraq invasion really believed Iraq had WMDs? Do you believe they really intended to make Iraq an exemplar of a prosperous, modern Arab nation?

Do you think that Rupert Murdoch's unswerving support for attacking Iraq is because he's a closet member of the PNAC?

Is Brzezinski is a PNAC member too?

[Peter McKenna]

Easiest and cheapest just to buy oil on the world market.

I agree. But you and I do not run things. The U.S. is run by PNAC zealots, led by Cheney, who stole the 2000 election, when everyone thought at the time that it was George W. Bush who stole it. It was a coup d'etat, with Bush retained as a blithering puppet. Their agenda, as put in writing before they ever took power, is American world hegemony, Pax Americana, including control of the world's oil. The latter need was put in writing by Brzezinski in 1997 in his book The Grand Chessboard, according to which the key to world power is control of the vast oil reserves of Central Asia. All that was needed to get this world conquest ball rolling was, to borrow the PNAC's phrase, "a new Pearl Harbor," which obligingly happened seven months after Cheney took office.

The result has been an absolute debacle, a world tragedy. But that's what happens when control of the world's one great superpower is handed to wild-eyed ideological sociopaths.

Zbigniew Brzeznski's arc of crisis has been the core of strategic policy in the middle east since the era of the Nadir of Soviet influence in Afghanistan, Iraq, their influence across North-East Africa and the Soviet Bloc around the Black Sea.

The strategic importance of dominating the region's oil became obvious and following the collapse of the Soviet Bloc did nothing to alter how vulnerable the world (especially the US) economies were to lost access (or threat of blackmail via control of mid-east oil) to this oil supply.

Strategic application of western control over the Middle East, North Africa, and the Persian Gulf - Arabian Sea has long been at the center of policy in the middle east.

I believe that most people know, although there have been radical changes in governement, names, and faces at the forefront of mid-east controversy, the nexus of Middle East involvement and policy by the West (primarily the US) has been, and remains Oil, and the largest known petroleum reserves we are aware of.

The fact that we no longer need fear a tactical Soviet threat in this area, the fact that we now have a military presence or allies in all but Syria, Iran, Sudan, and Somalia, has not changed the continued and inexorable exertion of the West's policy interests with respect to Syria and Iran. We have established tactical bases of operations in locations around Syria and Iran such that if and when policy makers are green lighted for any tactical operations, we would have every advantage. Fortunately, it appears that public opinion against such an intrusive geo-political agenda is strong enough to prevent it. Some big brains have even prognosticated that an attack on Iran would initiate World War III.

The loss of access to Mid East oil, along with what appears to be a solid possibility that Latin America would deny the US access, and the lack of other viable sources (Russia would probably keep their available oil, African oil has not been sufficently accessed, and China needs all it can get for its own infrastructure) for long term assured petroleum supply places the US in a strategically untenable position. The US could not sustain a large protracted conflict, even with the technological superiority we enjoy, if we don't have sufficient fuel.

This may be a stretch, but I believe at the root of all the Middle East conflict and controversy with the West, you'll find oil. I guess this is stating the obvious.

Israel, finding itself as at the center of this conflict, and long having been seen by the Islamic world as the antagonist in the conflict for Palestine, has an obvious interest in protecting itself and maintaining its security from elements of Syria and Iran, who have consistently supported radical Palestinian elements seeking to destabilize Lebanon and to eliminate Israel from Palestine. Israel in seeking to protect itself sees Syria and Iran as the remaining bastions of anti-Israeli policy in the Middle East (there have been many reported links between anti-Israeli radicals and both Syria and Iran). It should be no mystery then that to protect itself, Israel would take an anti-Syria/Iranian position.

There has been an extreme amount of propoganda on both sides, but ever since the establishment of the anti-Jewish campaign of the Gand Mufti, Hate Haj amin al-Husseini, the Israelis have been paranoid of radical Islamic elements in the region, and rightfully so.

American interests in the Middle East have been oriented in tactical control of oil, which is a big hitter on our agenda. This is no big secret. Israel has its own interests in self protection, again no big secret. Is Iran producing weapons grade uranium? That cannot be demonstrated unequivically, but does not appear to be much in dispute. Would Iran use a nuclear weapon on Israel? That is the big question. When Iraq was producing weapons grade uranium Saddam Hussein publicly admitted this and stated that such a weapon would be used agaist Israel, which appeared to be a tacit admission that they had a common aim to destroy Israel by any means, including the use of nuclear weapons.

Crying wolf as to Iraq's stocking of WMD has had a politically negative effect on any argument over a US campaign against Iran's alleged nuclear ambitions. In fact it now appears that there is no longer much steam behind any ambition to strike Iran's Nuclear facilities (some pundits have even prognosticated that such an attack would start World War III). Israel's paranoia over the use of WMD against them is still a very real threat to stability in this region. Hopefully Iran can see the destabilizing effect that such a weapon can have if and when such a weapon is discovered to exist.

That (Iran's nuclear capability), therefore, may be the most pressing and real threat to middle east stability, and that would be as much in a reaction to this fact as in the fact itself.

Edited March 10, 2007 by Peter McKenna

[Peter McKenna]

Duplicate Post

Edited March 10, 2007 by Peter McKenna

[Sid Walker]

Can anyone please tell me when the 'Oil Lobby' - or any other lobby for that matter - got this kind of line-up at any its annual events?

Under fire, Israel lobby rallies US backers By Tony Czuczka

dpa German Press Agency

Published: Friday March 9, 2007

Washington- After a sustained attack by critics including

former US president Jimmy Carter, the most powerful pro-Israel

lobbying group in the US still boasts impressive political pull in

Washington.

When the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) opens

its annual conference Sunday, a high-powered group of politicians,

academics and policy analysts - more than 6,000 people in all - is

expected to pack the capital's glassy convention centre.

US Vice President Dick Cheney is due to give a keynote speech

Monday stressing strong ties with Israel. The top four leaders of the

Republican and Democratic parties will also speak, underscoring the

tradition of bipartisan support for Israel in the US Congress.

"There's one issue - that is, support for the US relationship with

Israel - that brings everyone together," AIPAC spokesman Josh Block

said.

AIPAC says the three-day conference will be its biggest ever - a

signal of self-confidence and, in its own way, a rebuttal of

unusually harsh questioning of the Israel lobby's influence.

Two US political scientists sparked a furious debate last spring

with an essay that portrayed Washington as slavishly devoted to

Israel and accused US President George W Bush's administration of

launching the war in Iraq to help Israeli interests.

Harvard professor Stephen Walt and the University of Chicago's

Walter Mearsheimer said their paper, published in the London Review

of Books, aimed to bring a largely taboo topic into the open.

Critics condemned the essay as historically inaccurate and an

opening for anti-Semitism. The authors insisted they were not

suggesting a Jewish conspiracy to hijack US foreign policy.

The dust had barely settled when Carter, who brokered the 1978

Israel-Egypt peace deal, hit US bookstores in November with a

broadside provocatively titled Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.

Carter charges that a "free and balanced discussion" of the Arab-

Israeli conflict has been impossible in the US.

"This reluctance to criticize any policies of the Israeli

government is because of the extraordinary lobbying efforts of the

American-Israel Political Action Committee and the absence of any

significant contrary voices," he wrote in the Los Angeles Times.

The book details "the abominable oppression and persecution" of

Palestinians, which in many ways "is more oppressive" than apartheid

was for black South Africans, Carter said.

Again, a storm erupted. Dennis Ross, a former US envoy to the

Middle East, accused Carter of manipulating facts. Kenneth Stein, a

Mideast scholar at Emory University's Carter Centre quit in disgust.

Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal

Centre, a Jewish human rights group, accused Carter of hostility to

Israel.

Carter's own centre-left Democratic Party also distanced itself.

Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, one of the

highest elected US officials, said it was "wrong to suggest" that

Jews would support "ethnically based oppression."

In the White House, Bush and his Republican administration have

been one of the most staunchly pro-Israel governments of recent

times, partly due to a religious affinity for Israel among Christian

conservatives who strongly support Bush.

But public backing for Israel is also solid. A February poll on

the Middle East conflict found 58 per cent of Americans sympathize

with Israel and 20 per cent with the Palestinians. The Gallup survey

had a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.

"All trends indicate that Americans ... understand quite clearly

that the basic values we celebrate are reflected in only one country

in the Middle East - our ally Israel," AIPAC's Block said.

© 2006 - dpa German Press Agency

Edited March 11, 2007 by Sid Walker

[Peter McKenna]

Easiest and cheapest just to buy oil on the world market.

I agree. But you and I do not run things. The U.S. is run by PNAC zealots, led by Cheney, who stole the 2000 election, when everyone thought at the time that it was George W. Bush who stole it. It was a coup d'etat, with Bush retained as a blithering puppet. Their agenda, as put in writing before they ever took power, is American world hegemony, Pax Americana, including control of the world's oil. The latter need was put in writing by Brzezinski in 1997 in his book The Grand Chessboard, according to which the key to world power is control of the vast oil reserves of Central Asia. All that was needed to get this world conquest ball rolling was, to borrow the PNAC's phrase, "a new Pearl Harbor," which obligingly happened seven months after Cheney took office.

The result has been an absolute debacle, a world tragedy. But that's what happens when control of the world's one great superpower is handed to wild-eyed ideological sociopaths.

Zbigniew Brzeznski's arc of crisis has been the core of strategic policy in the middle east since the era of the Nadir of Soviet influence in Afghanistan, Iraq, their influence across North-East Africa and the Soviet Bloc around the Black Sea.

The strategic importance of dominating the region's oil became obvious and following the collapse of the Soviet Bloc did nothing to alter how vulnerable the world (especially the US) economies were to lost access (or threat of blackmail via control of mid-east oil) to this oil supply.

Strategic application of western control over the Middle East, North Africa, and the Persian Gulf - Arabian Sea has long been at the center of policy in the middle east.

I believe that most people know, although there have been radical changes in governement, names, and faces at the forefront of mid-east controversy, the nexus of Middle East involvement and policy by the West (primarily the US) has been, and remains Oil, and the largest known petroleum reserves we are aware of.

The fact that we no longer need fear a tactical Soviet threat in this area, the fact that we now have a military presence or allies in all but Syria, Iran, Sudan, and Somalia, has not changed the continued and inexorable exertion of the West's policy interests with respect to Syria and Iran. We have established tactical bases of operations in locations around Syria and Iran such that if and when policy makers are green lighted for any tactical operations, we would have every advantage. Fortunately, it appears that public opinion against such an intrusive geo-political agenda is strong enough to prevent it. Some big brains have even prognosticated that an attack on Iran would initiate World War III.

The loss of access to Mid East oil, along with what appears to be a solid possibility that Latin America would deny the US access, and the lack of other viable sources (Russia would probably keep their available oil, African oil has not been sufficently accessed, and China needs all it can get for its own infrastructure) for long term assured petroleum supply places the US in a strategically untenable position. The US could not sustain a large protracted conflict, even with the technological superiority we enjoy, if we don't have sufficient fuel.

This may be a stretch, but I believe at the root of all the Middle East conflict and controversy with the West, you'll find oil. I guess this is stating the obvious.

Israel, finding itself as at the center of this conflict, and long having been seen by the Islamic world as the antagonist in the conflict for Palestine, has an obvious interest in protecting itself and maintaining its security from elements of Syria and Iran, who have consistently supported radical Palestinian elements seeking to destabilize Lebanon and to eliminate Israel from Palestine. Israel in seeking to protect itself sees Syria and Iran as the remaining bastions of anti-Israeli policy in the Middle East (there have been many reported links between anti-Israeli radicals and both Syria and Iran). It should be no mystery then that to protect itself, Israel would take an anti-Syria/Iranian position.

There has been an extreme amount of propoganda on both sides, but ever since the establishment of the anti-Jewish campaign of the Gand Mufti, Haj amin al-Husseini, the Israelis have been paranoid of radical Islamic elements in the region, and rightfully so.

American interests in the Middle East have been oriented in tactical control of oil, which is a big hitter on our agenda. This is no big secret. Israel has its own interests in self protection, again no big secret. Is Iran producing weapons grade uranium? That cannot be demonstrated unequivically, but does not appear to be much in dispute. Would Iran use a nuclear weapon on Israel? That is the big question. When Iraq was producing weapons grade uranium Saddam Hussein publicly admitted this and stated that such a weapon would be used agaist Israel, which appeared to be a tacit admission that they had a common aim to destroy Israel by any means, including the use of nuclear weapons.

Crying wolf as to Iraq's stocking of WMD has had a politically negative effect on any argument over a US campaign against Iran's alleged nuclear ambitions. In fact it now appears that there is no longer much steam behind any ambition to strike Iran's Nuclear facilities (some pundits have even prognosticated that such an attack would start World War III). Israel's paranoia over the use of WMD against them is still a very real threat to stability in this region. Hopefully Iran can see the destabilizing effect that such a weapon can have if and when such a weapon is discovered to exist.

That (Iran's nuclear capability), therefore, may be the most pressing and real threat to middle east stability, and that would be as much in a reaction to this fact as in the fact itself.

It may of some note that the architect of the "Arc of Crisis" philosophy was Bernard Lewis, a man who has been given well in excess of his due credit as a sage of middle east politics. Bernard Lewis may have had more influence than any other individual in forming US policy on the middle east.

Bernard Lewis' was Zbigniew Brzezinski's mentor and considered to be a keynote member of the Council on Foreign Relations concerning middle east politicis and policy. Lewis likely got some and maybe a good deal of the historical basis for the Palestinian conflict between Arabs and Isrealis wrong. He failed to fully consider the influence of the Mufti Haj amin al-Husseini on anti-Jewish sentiments following the rise of Nazi germany in the 1930's. Prior to that period, Jews and Arabs lived in relative peace in Palestine (at least by comparative standards today).

As Bernard Lewis' influence on Middle East policy, by way of Brzezinski and other modern day pundits, is substantial, a review of his publications should be interesting and is highly recommended. The modern West should reconsider some its policy that has been overly influenced by Lewis, his proteges, and subscribers. I recommend that people look up and review Bernard Lewis' writings, as well as criticism.

[Ron Ecker]

What is a PNAC zealot, for heavens sake?

A member of PNAC is by definition a zealot, signatory to the PNAC agenda (Pax Ameicana, "a new Pearl Harbor" etc.).

When do PNAC zealots meet? Where are their conferences?

The two most powerful PNAC zealots, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, used to meet regularly in the White House. Rumsfeld has since resigned, leaving Cheney as chief PNAC puppet master.

What are they planning next?

The bombing of Iran.

How are they also represented in Britain, France, Germany and Russia?

In Britain they're represented by a U.S. lapdog named Blair. I'm not sure about the others.

How did a brand new organization come to 'run' the USA only a decade after its formation?

The PNAC's Cheney appointed himself as Bush's running mate in 2000. It was then just a matter of giving key government positions to fellow PNAC zealots like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, the top two men at the Pentagon. You didn't know all this?

Is Brzezinski is a PNAC member too?

No, but his eloquently stated position on gaining control of oil is reflected in the PNAC's imperialistic agenda.

[Sid Walker]

What is a PNAC zealot, for heavens sake?

A member of PNAC is by definition a zealot, signatory to the PNAC agenda (Pax Ameicana, "a new Pearl Harbor" etc.).

When do PNAC zealots meet? Where are their conferences?

The two most powerful PNAC zealots, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, used to meet regularly in the White House. Rumsfeld has since resigned, leaving Cheney as chief PNAC puppet master.

What are they planning next?

The bombing of Iran.

How are they also represented in Britain, France, Germany and Russia?

In Britain they're represented by a U.S. lapdog named Blair. I'm not sure about the others.

How did a brand new organization come to 'run' the USA only a decade after its formation?

The PNAC's Cheney appointed himself as Bush's running mate in 2000. It was then just a matter of giving key government positions to fellow PNAC zealots like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, the top two men at the Pentagon. You didn't know all this?

Is Brzezinski is a PNAC member too?

No, but his eloquently stated position on gaining control of oil is reflected in the PNAC's imperialistic agenda.

So... is Daniel Pipes in the "PNAC", Ron?

David Horowitz?

Martin Indyck?

Is AIPAC part of the 'PNAC'?

Is it that you don't believe a Zionist movement exists?

Or that you believe the 'PNAC' is more powerful?