Cross-posted from Blue News Tribune.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ratcheted up bellicose US rhetoric against Iran Wednesday, accusing the country of funding “terrorism” and interfering in the internal affairs of states throughout the Middle East. Her statements coincided with the release of a report by a Washington think tank with ties to the Obama administration suggesting that the US should establish a “nuclear umbrella” over the region.
(snip)
Making it clear that the question of Iran had been central to her talks in Israel, the occupied West Bank and Egypt, Clinton declared, “It is clear that Iran intends to interfere with the internal affairs of all these people and try to continue their efforts to fund terrorism, whether it’s Hezbollah or Hamas or other proxies.”
http://www.globalresearch.ca/i…
What was that, Madam Secretary?
Washington has branded as “foreign terrorist organizations” both Hamas, which is the elected government of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and Hezbollah, which is one of the most powerful political organizations in Lebanon and part of the national unity government, because both have resisted Israeli occupations.
There’s more. A report issued by a think tank thinks this is a good idea. (I think “pro-Israeli” may be an overstatement, and Obama-linked seems to be a stretch.)
http://www.washingtoninstitute…
The report issued by the Washington Institute on Near East Policy (WINEP), a pro-Israeli think tank, was billed as the work of a “Presidential Task Force” and was titled, “Preventing a cascade of instability: US engagement to check Iranian nuclear progress.”
The 15-member panel that prepared the document included former State Department and National Security Council officials, members of Congress and the former chief of the US Strategic Command.
Also listed as having endorsed an earlier draft of the report was Dennis Ross, who worked at WINEP for seven years before being recently appointed as the Obama administration’s special envoy for the Persian Gulf.
The report frames the US confrontation with Iran over the nuclear question as part of a broader struggle for American hegemony throughout the region, including the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. By taking strong measures against Iran, it argues, Washington can strengthen its position throughout the Middle East. “Vigorous steps to shore up regional stability could check unfounded perceptions by some that the US star is waning,” the report states.
Clearly suggesting that the conflict has been deliberately sought as a means of furthering key strategic objectives, the authors write, “Confronting the Iran nuclear program also offers opportunities to advance US interests… to deepen US relationships with its Middle East friends.”
I can’t imagine the secretary is freelancing here; she was widely criticized for her “obliterate” comment.
During the course of the 2008 election campaign, then-Democratic Party presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton declared her support for just such an umbrella, vowing that as president she would “obliterate” Iran in the event it attacked Israel.
“An attack on Israel,” she said in a Democratic candidates’ debate last April, “would trigger massive retaliation. But so would an attack on those countries [she mentioned by name the monarchies of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Kuwait] that are willing to go under the security umbrella and forswear their own nuclear ambitions.”
The WINEP report notes, “The Cold War experience suggests that deployments of weapons and troops are often necessary to make pledges [of deterrence] credible.” It likewise indicates that such a nuclear umbrella should be formalized through a congressionally approved treaty.
Obviously, such proposals encompass far more than the US confrontation with Iran. They would have the effect of turning the other oil-rich countries of the Persian Gulf and much of the Middle East into a declared American military protectorate. Such an arrangement would have far-reaching strategic implications, above all in the conflict between American imperialism and its rivals in Europe and Asia for control of markets and resources under conditions of the deepening global slump.
That’s probably a bit over the top at the end there. But this is serious business. There is a word for the widespread application of military power to secure our interests.
That word is neoconservatism.
It was statements like these, and other hawkish statements by Mark Penn (he was fired for attending a trade hearing, but nothing was said when he appeared at a hearing on behalf of Blackwater) that made me decide, after months of keeping an open mind, that I could not vote for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary. (Naturally, I would support her over any Republican.)
Now Hillary Clinton is Secretary of State, serving at the pleasure of the more diplomatically inclined President Barack Obama.
I look forward to our vigilant, issue-oriented press asking the president about Secretary Clinton’s statement.
It sounds to me like she’s advocating a NATO-like organization consisting of peace Middle East nations anchored by the United States, whereby an attack on one is considered an attack on all. If this setup can get Israel and it’s more moderate neighbors to see each other as strong allies, so much the better for everyone.
The potential for endless conflict worries me.
A nuclear umbrella is merely a deterrent to prevent Iran from even thinking of using nuclear weapons. It is not a hawkish stance in my view but a pragmatic one. Honestly if an ally of the US was hit by a nuclear weapon I am sure we would respond in kind. NATO, France, Germany, and Japan have long been protected by a nuclear umbrella so I see no reason why we can’t extend that same protection to our good friend Israel.
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p>Also Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations by definition. An organization that kills civilians in attacks designed to spread terror to the population is a terrorist organization. Are you denying Hamas and Hezbollah have committed those acts in the past? They themselves admit responsibility to their many heinous attacks so I would call a spade a spade and call them terrorists.
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p>I consider myself a middle of the roader on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. I think both sides have done terrible things to one another and are unwilling to make the essential compromises necessary for peace. I am also a staunch Irish nationalist who wants to see my ancestral homeland reunited and free of British rule, but I consider the IRA an illegitimate terrorist group that cools people. If Hamas agreed to disarm and join the political process like Sinn Fein then I would respect it. It hasn’t.
Power disparities around the world have led to what we call terrorism, because it is a means for aggrieved groups (aggrieved in their opinion) to express their discontent through low-level, low-tech means of attack.
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p>To fix this, a nuclear umbrella run by a superpower that half of them hate is proposed. How will that work?
This is collective security against WMDs. It probably wouldn’t help much against most terrorist attacks. Of course if we play our cards right maybe we can get Hamas and Hezbollah to go the way of the PLO and become a FORMER terrorist organization.
But jconway used the existence of terrorist organizations to justify the proposal.
I was replying to two separate points
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p>1) The existence of Iranian nukes or the potential for Iranian nukes justifies the umbrella as a war-free alternative that deters them
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p>2) I was saying that it is not hawkish to call Hamas and Hezbollah, even if they part of elected governments, terrorist organizations since they have not renounced violence as a means to achieving their goals.
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p>Two separate points.
Maybe next time you could stay on topic.
In your original post you claimed that HRC was a neocon for supporting a nuclear umbrella against Iran in addition to asserting that she was also a neocon for calling Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist organizations, which to me is akin to calling her a neocon for stating that the sky is blue. In my reply post I stated that the nuclear umbrella is justified to deter Iran and then replied separately to your other assertion that anyone who calls Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist groups is a neocon. You then confused those two separate replies by asking me how a nuclear umbrella deters terrorists. And then I clarified a nuclear umbrella deters a state actor-in this case Iran and then I reasserted my reply that it is not ‘neocon’ to call Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist organizations. Again two separate points-sorry if that was two too many for you.
If I’m going to discuss this with you, you need to stop misrepresenting what I say.
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p>I am saying that the philosophy of using the military to maintain peace by force is neoconservatism, and it appears that Secretary Clinton is endorsing that approach (though perhaps by another name).
I can think of a whole lot of elected governments that “have not renounced violence as a means to achieving their goals.”
Would you allow a political party that had a track record of killing Americans, was committed in its platform to wiping the US off the face of the Earth, and otherwise wanted to kill and threaten the security of the US? Would you insist on allowing Al Qaeda to have political representation in the US Congress?
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p>The liberal democratic world is really asking a lot of the state of Israel and I admire them for their restraint. As an American of Irish descent I also sympathize deeply with the Palestinians, resent right-wing Israeli settlers, resent Israeli policies that collectively punish whole communities for the actions of a few extremist kooks among them, and I understand that in choosing between the corrupt kleptocrats of Fatah and the seemingly incorruptible Islamist Hamas, Hamas might have appeared to them to be the lesser of two evils at the time. Of course Hamas turned out to be equally if not more corrupt, failed to deliver on its economic reforms, and has basically waged a civil war against Fatah in addition to killing Israeli civilians and taking their soldiers hostage which invited three military incursions and their current isolation. Not to mention liberals should be outraged at how they repress women and religious minorities, not to mention how they intentionally target gay Israeli’s in particular for assassination.
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p>But no its more fun for liberals to attack Israel, the one bastion next to Turkey of progressive liberalism in the Middle East, and claim as ‘legitimate democratic governments’ repressive theocratic states that make Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell look tolerant in comparison.