Power Makes Men Mad
By
Patrick Seale
04/14/06 "Dar
Al-Hayat" -- -- Enormously powerful and yet
paranoid with fear, the U.S. and Israel act as if the possession
of overwhelming force is the only guarantee of their security.
An extraordinary paradox of the current international scene is
that the most powerful countries in the world are also the most
afraid - and fear has caused them to lose their senses.
Globally, the United States has no immediate military rival;
certainly no other state has the power to strike anywhere on our
planet - and far beyond it into space - at very short notice.
American strategists call this the doctrine of Global Strike.
Similarly, in terms of military power, both conventional and
non-conventional, Israel has no challenger in a vast region from
Central Asia, across the Arab world, to north, east and central
Africa. At a conservative estimate, it has a nuclear arsenal of
between 200 and 300 warheads, as well as highly effective
long-range delivery systems. As Ariel Sharon, its stricken
leader, used to be fond of saying, Israel's sphere of influence
extends as far as an F16 can fly.
And yet the U.S. and Israel behave as if they are about to be
attacked by a formidable enemy. They scold and threaten, huff
and puff, flex their muscles and brandish their weapons as if
facing an imminent danger to their very existence.
Instead of putting their formidable power to work reducing
tensions and resolving conflicts - as they should be doing -
they go about stoking the fires of anger and hate, apparently
unaware that the destabilization they cause must in due course
engulf them too.
'Destabilization' is, in fact, too mild a term to describe the
profound disturbance to the regional and global order which the
United States and Israel are creating by their violently hostile
approach to the Islamic Republic of Iran and to the Islamic
resistance movement Hamas, which the Palestinians democratically
elected as their government.
Demonisation and vilification, international isolation,
sanctions, boycotts and military strikes, these are just some of
the policies and threats directed at both Iran and Hamas. In the
United States, pro-Israeli groups, such as the powerful Jewish
lobby AIPAC, and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy,
the influential think-tank AIPAC created, are beating the drums
of war against Iran, while Israel has led the world-wide
campaign to boycott Hamas. Shimon Peres, Israel's wolf in
sheep's clothing, even travelled to the Vatican to persuade the
Pope to join the boycott!
In the past week or so, as Palestinian groups continue their
pinpricks of Israel with a few harmless home-made rockets,
Israel launched repeated air strikes and fired more than one
thousand artillery shells at the northern Gaza strip, killing at
least sixteen Palestinians, including several children. It has
killed about 50 Palestinians and wounded many more since the
Palestinian elections last January. Last Tuesday, the Israeli
Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz warned that 'Our operations are
going to intensify!' The real scandal is that the rich Arab Gulf
states have not rushed to help the bankrupt Palestinian
government.
In the case of Iran, U.S. air and sea strikes at hundreds of
targets - including the use of tactical nuclear weapons - are
being seriously considered in the more demented higher reaches
of the U.S. government, according to Seymour Hersch, the usually
well-informed American journalist writing in the current issue
of the New Yorker magazine.
Not daring to stand up for its own values, the European Union
has shamefully joined in the pressure on Iran and the boycott of
Hamas. Reeking of hypocrisy and double standards, the chorus
raised is that Hamas must renounce violence, recognize Israel's
right to exist and abide by past agreements.
The truth is that Hamas has honored a truce for the past 15
months in spite of Israel's ceaseless attacks and killings. It
has declared itself ready for Quartet-sponsored peace talks with
Israel which, if successful, would inevitably lead to mutual
recognition. But Israel refuses to negotiate with a Hamas
government, has severed all political contacts with it, has
demonized it as a 'terrorist organization', and has withheld
some $50m a month of the Palestinians' own money raised from
taxes and customs dues. Needless to say, Israel has violated
every agreement concluded with the Palestinians.
Enormously powerful and yet paranoid with fear, the U.S. and
Israel act as if the possession - and indeed the use - of
overwhelming force is the only guarantee of their security.
Dialogue and diplomacy, mutual accommodation, the search for a
balance of power, the mediation of international institutions -
all these traditional instruments for conflict resolution have
been discarded and, as a result, the world has become a very
dangerous place.
Iran claims to have successfully enriched small quantities of
uranium for research purposes, up to a low level of 3.5 per
cent, appropriate for use as nuclear fuel in power stations,
such as the Bushehr plant now under construction by Russia. Does
this Iranian achievement constitute a threat to either the U.S.
or Israel? No objective expert thinks so, and certainly not the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its chief Muhammad
AlBaradei, who is this week visiting Tehran.
Should the U.S. attack Iran to put a halt to its nuclear
program? The usually sober New York Times this week denounced as
'reckless folly' the possibility of such an American war.
Iran has pledged that its nuclear program is for purely peaceful
purposes. It cooperates closely with the IAEA. It has signed the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the so- called
Additional Protocol, which allows for intrusive and surprise
inspections of its nuclear facilities. Under the NPT rules, Iran
has every right to master the uranium fuel cycle in order to
produce nuclear fuel. Even if it wished to build a nuclear
weapon - which is by no means certain - this would require many
more years of work.
So why the fuss? Why the hysteria? Rehashing the tired old
cliché, General Dan Halutz, Israel's chief of staff, declared
this week that a nuclear Iran was a 'threat not only to Israel
but to the entire free, democratic world.' He was thus echoing
the overheated rhetoric of John Bolton, that finger-wagging
neocon scare-monger, surely the worst envoy the United States
has ever sent to the United Nations.
The war in Iraq, ruthlessly promoted by pro-Israeli neocons, has
resulted in a strategic catastrophe for the United States - with
the painful end still not in sight. A war in Iran would set the
region on fire; unleash a world-wide wave of anti-U.S. and
anti-Israeli terror; expose U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan
to devastating attack; put intolerable strain on the trans-
Atlantic relationship between Europe and the U.S.; endanger the
oil flow from the Gulf; and trigger a world economic recession.
In the view of Zbigniew Brzezinski, former President Jimmy
Carter's national security adviser, it could put an end to
America's role in the world.
Washington should stop its senseless sabre-rattling and instead
engage Tehran in wide- ranging political talks leading to
diplomatic relations, security guarantees and a recognition of
Iran's important place in the Gulf. Israel, in turn, should talk
to Hamas, not seek to destroy it. Peace and integration into the
region are of far greater value than a few kilometers of stolen
territory on the West Bank.
Commenting on Iran's claim to have enriched uranium, Scott
McClellan, the White House press secretary declared this week
that 'This is a regime that needs to be building confidence with
the international community. Instead they're moving in the wrong
direction.' With greater lucidity, he might have offered this
advice to his own government and that of its Israeli ally.
-Dr Patrick Seale is a leading British writer and consultant on
the Middle East and is the author of many books including “Assad
of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East”.
© Dar Al-Hayat
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