Reblogged from newswithviews.com
By Cliff
Kincaid
October 3, 2015
NewsWithViews.com
October 3, 2015
NewsWithViews.com
The conventional wisdom is that Vladimir Putin has blindsided
Barack Obama in the Middle East, catching the U.S. off-guard. It’s
another Obama “failure,” we’re told. “Obama administration
scrambles as Russia attempts to seize initiative in Syria,” is how
a Washington Post headline described it. A popular
cartoon shows Putin kicking sand in the faces of Obama and Secretary
of State John Kerry on a beach.
The conventional wisdom is driven by the notion that Obama
has the best of intentions but that he’s been outmaneuvered. What
if his intention all along has been to remake the Middle East to the advantage
of Moscow and its client state Iran? What if he knows exactly what he’s
doing? Too many commentators refuse to consider that Obama is deliberately
working against U.S. interests and in favor of the enemies of the U.S.
and Israel.
In his U.N. address, Obama
said, “As President of the United States, I am mindful of the
dangers that we face; they cross my desk every morning. I lead the strongest
military that the world has ever known, and I will never hesitate to protect
my country or our allies, unilaterally and by force where necessary.”
This is laughable. We still have a strong military, but
the inevitable conclusion from what’s recently transpired is that
he doesn’t want to protect the interests of the U.S. or its allies
in the Middle East. This is not a “failure,” but a deliberate
policy.
The trouble with conventional wisdom is the assumption that
Obama sees things the way most Americans do. In order to understand Obama’s
Middle East policy, it is necessary to consult alternative sources of
news and information and analysis. That includes communist news sources.
A fascinating analysis appears in the newspaper of the Socialist
Workers Party, The Militant, one of the oldest and most influential publications
among the left. You may remember the old
photos which surfaced of Lee Harvey Oswald selling copies of The Militant
before he killed the American president.
The headline over The
Militant story by Maggie Trowe caught my eye: “‘Reset’
with US allows Moscow to send arms, troops to Syria.” It was not
about Hillary Clinton’s reset with Moscow years ago, but a more
recent one.
Here’s how her story began: “Moscow’s
rapid military buildup in Syria is a result of the ‘reset’
in relations forged with the Russian and Iranian governments by the Barack
Obama administration. The deal—reshaping alliances and conditions
from Syria, Iran and the rest of the Middle East to Ukraine and surrounding
region—is the cornerstone of U.S. imperialism’s efforts to
establish a new order in the Mideast, but from a much weaker position
than when the now-disintegrating order was imposed after World Wars I
and II.”
Of course, the idea that “U.S. imperialism”
is served by giving the advantage to Russia and Iran is ludicrous. Nevertheless,
it does appear that a “reset” of the kind described in this
article has in fact taken place. The author writes about Washington’s
“strategic shift to Iran and Russia” and the “downgrading”
of relations with Israel and Saudi Arabia. She notes that Moscow “seeks
more influence and control of the country [Syria] and its Mediterranean
ports and a stronger political hand in Mideast politics.” Iran “has
sent Revolutionary Guard Quds forces to help prop up Assad, and collaborates
with Moscow on operations in Syria,” she notes.
It is sometimes necessary to reject the conventional wisdom
and instead analyze developments from the point of view of the Marxists,
who understand Obama’s way of thinking. They pretend that Obama
is a pawn of the “imperialists” but their analysis also makes
sense from a traditional pro-American perspective. Those who accept the
evidence that Obama has a Marxist perspective on the world have to consider
that his policy is designed to help Moscow and Tehran achieve hegemony
in the region.
At the same time, the paper reported, “Since Secretary
of State John Kerry’s congenial visit with Putin in May, it has
become clear that Washington would accept Moscow’s influence over
its ‘near abroad’ in Ukraine and the Baltics, in exchange
for help to nail down the nuclear deal with Tehran.” Hence, Obama
has put his stamp of approval on Russian aggression in Europe and the
Middle East. This analysis, though coming from a Marxist newspaper, fits
the facts on the ground. It means that more Russian aggression can be
expected in Europe.
The wildcard is Israel and it looks like the Israeli government
is being increasingly isolated, not only by Obama but by Putin. The story
notes that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Putin in
Moscow on September 21, saying his concern was to “prevent misunderstandings”
between Israeli and Russian troops, since Israel has carried out airstrikes
in Syrian territory targeting weapons being transported to the Iranian-backed
Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon.
Some reports indicated that Israel had set up a joint mechanism
with the Russian military to coordinate their operations in Syria.
However, the Russian leader reportedly told Obama during
their U.N. meeting that he opposes Israeli attacks in Syria. The Israeli
newspaper Haaretz
ran a story that Russia intends to “Clip Israel’s Wings
Over [the] Syrian Skies.” The paper added that Putin’s remarks
to Obama showed that despite Netanyahu’s meeting with Putin in Moscow,
“Russia intends to create new facts on the ground in Syria that
will include restricting Israel’s freedom of movement in Syrian
skies.”
It hardly seems to be the case that Obama has been outsmarted
in the Middle East, or that Putin and Obama don’t like each other.
Instead, it appears that Obama is working hand-in-glove with Putin to
isolate Israel and that Obama is perfectly content to let the former KGB
colonel take the lead.
Israel has always been seen by most U.N. members as the
real problem in the region. Obama is the first U.S. President to see Israel
in that same manner and to act accordingly. This is why Putin has not
caught Obama off-guard in the least. They clearly see eye-to-eye on Israel
and Iran.
Don’t forget that Obama actually telephoned Putin
to thank him for his part in the nuclear deal with Iran. The White House
issued
a statement saying, “The President thanked President Putin for
Russia's important role in achieving this milestone, the culmination of
nearly 20 months of intense negotiations.”
Building off the Iran nuclear deal, it looks like the plan
is for Russia and the United States to force Israel to embrace a U.N.
plan for a nuclear-free Middle East. That would mean Israel giving up
control of its defensive nuclear weapons to the world body. Iran will
be able to claim it has already made a deal to prohibit its own nuclear
weapons development.
Such a scheme was outlined back in 2005 in an
article by Mohamed Elbaradei, the director-general at the time of
the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). That’s
the same body that is now supposed to guarantee Iranian compliance with
the terms of the nuclear deal signed by Russia and the U.S.
Elbaradei argued there would have to be “a dialogue
on regional security as part of the peace process,” to be followed
by an agreement “to make the Middle East a nuclear-weapons-free
zone.”
The “dialogue” appears to be taking place now,
mostly under the authority and auspices of the Russian government, with
President Obama playing a secondary role.
The obvious danger is that Israel would be forced to comply
with the plan for a “nuclear-weapons-free-zone,” while Iran
would cheat and develop nuclear weapons anyway.
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