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The Alchemists: Turning Blood Into Gold
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By Chris Floyd
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06/23/06 "Empire
Burlesque"
-- -- This week
an
interesting story appeared
in the Washington Post
– buried on page 16, of course, lest anyone think it was
of the slightest importance. It revealed that
documentary proof has now emerged confirming the fact
that in the spring of 2003, the Bush Regime – flush with
its illusory "victory" in Iraq – spurned
a wide-ranging peace feeler from Iran which offered
"full cooperation" on every issue that the Bushists
claim to be concerned about in regard to Tehran:
"nuclear programs, acceptance of Israel and the
termination of Iranian support for Palestinian militant
groups."
The offer was
made through the Swiss Embassy, which has served as the
conduit for communication between Washington and Tehran
since America's Peacock patsy, the Shah of Iran, was
overthrown in 1979. The 2003 proposal included "full
cooperation on nuclear safeguards, 'decisive action,'
against terrorists, coordination in Iraq, ending
'material support' for Palestinian militias and
accepting the Saudi initiative for a two-state solution
in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict [which called for
all Muslim states to recognize Israel]," the Post
reports. The unprecedented initiative was approved by
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and
then-President Mohammad Khatami – the moderate whose
attempts at dialogue
were mocked and undercut at every turn by the Bush
Regime,
helping to discredit the entire reformist movement
in Iran and leading to Khatami's replacement by the
militant hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
In other
words, everything that George W. Bush says he wants from
the Iranians now, he could have had for the asking –
three years ago. What then can we conclude from the
rejection of this extraordinary initiative? The answer
is obvious: that the Bush Faction is not really
interested in curbing nuclear proliferation or defusing
the powder keg of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and
the regional and global terror that it spawns.
What
are they
interested in? This answer too is obvious, to anyone
who's been paying the slightest attention to the
Faction's words and actions over the years: they are
interested in loot and dominion. What they want from
Iran is nothing less than its return to quasi-colonial
control by the crony conquistadors of the West. And
they're willing to play a (reasonably) long game to get
it.
In the
meantime, it serves their interests well for the entire
Middle East to seethe and boil. War and rumors of war
are engines of limitless profits for the crony-cons. It
sends oil prices sky-high and keeps those pork-laden
contracts for weapons and "military servicing" rolling
in. And the terrorism that thrives in this deliberately
created chaos is another massive money-maker, as vast
armies of "security consultants" ply their political
connections to gobble up tons of insider grease. Bush
Regime minions have led the way in this alchemical
transmutation of fear into gold: more than 90 officials
from the Department of Homeland Security have stampeded
through the revolving door from government service to
lucrative private posts with companies seeking – and
getting – fat deals from, er, the Department of Homeland
Security,
the New York Times reports.
Billions of
dollars are being generated for the fortunate few by war
and terror; why kill the golden goose of chaos by
pursuing Middle East peace? Far better to keep the
madness churning until you see a chance to grab complete
control, as in Iraq; then you can start squeezing your
conquest dry. And if it doesn't work out, if it all
blows up, who cares? You're just back to the same old
profitable chaos, biding your time, banking your wad –
and squeezing your own country dry – until the next
go-round. It's the ultimate win-win scenario.
The only
losers are the rest of us – but above all, the
populations of the Middle East. For it's an indisputable
fact, confirmed every day, by every policy decision made
in Washington, that the Bush Faction doesn't give a damn
about the ordinary people in that tormented region – not
even the Israelis. It doesn't care about their freedom,
their security, their children; it doesn't care if they
live or die; it only cares about their exploitable
resources and their geopolitical usefulness to the
Faction's openly stated desire for "full spectrum
dominance" over the political and economic life of the
globe. There is no other conclusion to be drawn from the
Bushists' actual record – what they actually do, what
they actually support, and what they actually ignore –
once you strip away their cynical, ever-shifting
rhetoric.
If Bush
really wanted peace in the Middle East, he would have
pursued Iran's unprecedented offer of "full cooperation"
in resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. If Bush
really wanted to eliminate the danger of an Iranian
nuclear weapons program, he would have seized on
Tehran's offer of "full cooperation" to do so. It's as
simple as that. But he chose not to take up the offers.
These goals are not priorities for him. His interests
lie elsewhere.
By the way,
Saddam made a very similar offer just before the
invasion,
as the New York Times reported in 2003: acquiescence
to U.S. initiatives on Israel-Palestine; full
cooperation on WMD inspections; even internationally
supervised elections, which would have almost certainly
ousted him from power, were on the table. Everything
that Bush claimed he went to war for in Iraq –
disarmament, regime change, reducing Middle East
tensions, democracy for the Iraqi people – he could have
had, for the asking, without war.
But the
Bushist crony-cons
wanted war in Iraq, come hell or high water – or
even Saddam's surrender. Again, this is not supposition,
it's a fact. As we've often reported here, in September
2000
a "think tank" led by Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld
published a report, "Rebuilding
America's Defenses," stating that the imposition of
an American military presence in Iraq was a strategic
imperative "transcending the regime of Saddam Hussein."
In this same report, the Cheney-Rumsfeld group also
acknowledged that it would take a "new Pearl Harbor" to
"catalyze" the American people into readily accepting
their radical plans for military expansion abroad and
vast new "defense" spending at home. Not only can these
wizards turn fear into gold; they can apparently see
into the future as well.
Now that same
crystal ball shows them the wealth of Persia falling
like ripe fruit into their hands. They may feign
diplomacy for the moment, biding their time, profiting
from chaos -- but as in Iraq, no offer of peace will
deter them from the inevitable smash-and-grab. |
Copyright Chris Floyd
www.chris-floyd.com
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