James Petras

“Pro-Israel Policy groups such as AIPAC work with unlimited funding to divert US policy in the region (Middle East)”
Jack Straw, Member of Parliament and former Foreign Secretary of the British Labor Party

“The United States should drop a nuclear bomb on Iran to spur the country to end its nuclear program”
Sheldon Adelson, biggest donor to the Republican Party and major fundraiser for pro-Israel political action committees, speech at Yeshiva University, New York City, October 22, 2013.

The question of war or peace with Iran rests with the policies adopted by the White House and the US Congress. The peace overtures by newly elected Iranian President Rohani have resonated favorably around the world, except with Israel and its Zionist acolytes in North America and Europe. The first negotiating session proceeded without recrimination and resulted in an optimistic assessment by both sides. Precisely because of the initial favorable response among the participants, the Israeli government escalated its propaganda war against Iran. Its agents in the US Congress, the mass media and in the Executive branch moved to undermine the peace process. What is at stake is Israel’s capacity to wage proxy wars using the US military and its NATO allies against any government challenging Israeli military supremacy in the Middle East, its violent annexation of Palestinian territory and its ability to attack any adversary with impunity. To understand what is at stake in the current peace negotiations one must envision the consequences of failure: Under Israeli pressure, the US announced that its ‘military option’ could be activated – resulting in missile strikes and a bombing campaign against 76 million Iranians in order to destroy their government and economy. Teheran could retaliate against such aggression by targeting US military bases in the region and Gulf oil installations resulting in a global crisis. This is what Israel wants. We will begin by examining the context of Israel’s military supremacy in the Middle East. We will then proceed to analyze Israel’s incredible power over the US political process and how it shapes the negotiation process today, with special emphasis on Zionist power in the US Congress.

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Israel Shamir / Paul Craig Roberts

Paul Craig Roberts: Note: The reports of missile destruction to which Shamir refers might be newspaper fantasy. Regardless, the main point of Shamir’s article seems to be correct. Obama did stand down. The opposition of Russia supported by China, the British Parliament, and the UN and the lack of enthusiasm for another war on the part of the American people, Congress, and NATO was too much for the Washington/Israeli warmongers to overcome. The tide has changed, and Washington can no longer do as it wills.

Israel Shamir, an Israeli writer whom I have long admired, saved me from having to write a column by writing it himself. My readers will recognize similarity of our thoughts.

Shamir, reporting from Moscow on the US/Russian confrontation over Syria, was well positioned to have good information. Shamir reports that according to diplomatic leaks, missiles launched against Syria, apparently by the US but perhaps by Israel, were, according to the Asia Times and Middle Eastern newspapers, either shot down by Russian ship-based sea-to-air defenses or rendered helpless by powerful Russian GPS jammers. This decisive response from a major nuclear power, together with the British Parliament’s loud NO and the same coming from the UN, the US public and Congress together with NATO’s lack of enthusiasm resulted in the Obama regime having second and better thoughts.

Americans are long accustomed to thinking that no one can stand up to America. This crazy idea has perverted the judgment of the government in Washington. If the fools in Washington don’t find a way to recover from their hubris and arrogance, the fools will bring us the end of the world.

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Norman Pollack

The New York Times, a recipient, along with the Guardian, of Snowden’s disclosures about the illegal activities of Obama and USG, is breaking out, as now, of its reticence about the nation’s profound disregard of constitutional principles AND its related policies of global hegemony at all costs—here Scott Shane’s lengthy article (3 Nov.), “No Morsel Too Miniscule for All-Consuming N.S.A.” NSA to all intents and purposes appears as a “rogue” organization, extremism in the putative service of liberty, except that the designation is a way of distracting attention, and removing accountability, from its authorization and mission at the highest levels—call it, licensed roguery, official (with Obama’s eyes supposedly averted). Or better, call it, stripped of all cosmetics, the unerring mark of a Police State, itself become identical with Fortress America, the National-Security State.

Eavesdropping on foreign leaders speaks to an arrogance of power, in which the US claims for itself every right, unilaterally, to script both sides of the foreign dialogue as well as micromanage to its own advantage the rhythm and content of global events, from regional trade partnerships to the use of military force in shoring up alliance systems against a host of enemies, some terrorist groups to be sure, but, using that as pretext, mounting counterrevolution globally against alternative modes, notably, socialist, of modernization: autonomous national and/or radical aspirations seeking distance from US market penetration, the tarnished necklace of its worldwide military bases and CIA stations, and not least, the ideological saturation (assisted by IMF and World Bank applications of pressure) of market fundamentalism, the property right, unrestricted capital flows, and the honor of serving American industry with the lowest possible labor costs, as meanwhile we see the financialization of capitalism here and the gutting of the manufacturing base.

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