According to neocon Walid Phares, writing for FrontPageMagazine, Iran and Syria are “involved in a regional campaign to seize as much physical terrain and score as many victories across the Middle East in order to consolidate their strategic posture” before Bush leaves office. Phares’ “Tehran-Damascus axis” is “arming and supplying neo-Taliban and other Jihadi forces in Afghanistan,” stirring up sectarian divisions in Iraq, and “has unleashed two blitzkrieg-like offensives” in Lebanon and Gaza.

Phares, a darling of the neocon “talent” agency Benador Associates, believes the “heavy fighting in Gaza represents an important decision made by the regional masters: The acceleration of the axis offensive so that by the end of summer, four battlefields will be fully ignited against the U.S., its allies and regional democracies: Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza (Palestinian territories). But just as important is the fact that an entire Taliban-like zone has been established on the eastern Mediterranean under Hamas control and with Syro-Iranian backing. Our expectations are that, short of a large-scale counter-operation aimed at dislodging the “coup” in the enclave, the area will become a massive terror base of operations.”

Of course, this is nonsense, but then Benador operatives are known for telling lies and making things up, as Iranian exile Amir Taheri made up the story about Iranian Jews forced to wear a yellow insignia, thus attempting to rekindle images of Nazi Germany era Jews forced to wear identifying stars. Eleana Benador, grand dame of the Benador Associates propaganda operation, admitted that her “PR firm” had planted the piece, according to Larry Cohler-Esses, writing for the Nation.

In addition, Juan Cole notes that it “is very dangerous for the US cable news channels to depend so heavily for analysis of things like Iraq and the war on terror, on retired military officers and on well-connected cyphers like Walid Phares.” But then, of course, neocons are stock and trade “consultants” for the corporate media, “experts” tasked with the neocon propaganda effort to convince Americans “Jihadi forces” are determined to take over the world, beginning with the Middle East.

“Seizing Gaza would, in their estimation, curtail U.S. efforts in Iraq, and pressure Israel away from Syria and Hezbollah. The Jihadi strategic mind is in its full offensive mode in the region,” Phares concludes.

On the other hand, we learn that the CIA was “in its full offensive mode” in Gaza, and “US-Israeli intelligence agencies have been collaborating with high-ranking members of the PA to help crush the Palestinian national liberation movement,” according to Mike Whitney. “When Hamas gunmen stormed the Fatah security compounds in Gaza last week they found…. CIA files which purportedly contain ‘information about the collaboration between Fatah and the Israeli and American security organizations; CIA methods on how to prevent attacks, chase and follow after cells of Hamas and the Committees; plans about Fatah assassinations of members of Hamas and other organizations; and American studies on the security situation in Gaza.’”

In fact, Israel and the United States nurtured the “neo-Taliban” and “Jihadi forces” in Gaza in standard problem-reaction-solution fashion—the “solution” comprised not only of the dismantling of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation, but “transfer,” i.e., ethnic cleansing, of the remaining population as well, a project well documented in Zionist literature (note: it is increasingly considered “antisemitic” to reference this large body of literature).

As we know, Hamas is as an outgrowth of the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Muslim Brotherhood itself was long ago penetrated and compromised by the CIA and British intelligence. “The CIA was following the example of British Intelligence and sought to use Islam to further its goals,” writes Peter Goodgame. “They wanted to find a charismatic religious leader that they could promote and control and they began to cooperate with groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood.” Moreover, as mentioned often here but dutifully ignored by the corporate media, Israel supported Hamas and this “was a direct attempt to divide and dilute support for a strong, secular PLO by using a competing religious alternative,” according to CIA sources quoted by UPI correspondent Richard Sale. “According to documents United Press International obtained from the Israel-based Institute for Counter Terrorism, Hamas evolved from cells of the Muslim Brotherhood,” a puppet on CIA strings.

In short, Israel and the United States have supported both sides in an effort to destroy Palestinian nationalism, no matter its ideological or religious persuasion, an effort that has produced a “year zero” situation in the Gaza and will soon enough on the West Bank.

Of course, this is simply divide et impera—divide and rule, divide and conquer—a tactic long employed in the Middle East, as journalist Robert Dreyfuss notes in his book, Devil’s Game. Dreyfuss, according to Wikipedia, “discusses how the West used Islamic radicalism to suppress Communist movements in the Middle East and the rest of the Islamic world. He provides a comprehensive review of the support of Western governments for the Mujahadeen and Jihadi Islamic fighters, who were trained and sent into Afghanistan. With the close support and advice of CIA paramilitaries, these Islamic jihadists helped defeat Soviet forces in Afghanistan. The book also describes the work of Dr. Bernard Lewis and his model of Islamic Balkanization, where the CIA secretly supported Islamic movements within the Soviet Union to utilize them as Anti-Communist insurgents in the event of war.”

In the current context, communism is irrelevant, as the point is to undermine and render ineffective Arab nationalism, most effectively from the inside out, as the CIA-Fatah link demonstrates. Now that yet another intelligence contrivance, Hamas, is in control of Gaza, the Israelis and their neocon collaborators will tell us the “Tehran-Damascus axis” is busy at work. Naturally, all of this slips nicely into the larger Zionist context, i.e., that both Iran and Syria must be “confronted,” that is to say their lands bombed and people slaughtered in an effort to realize Bernard Lewis’ balkanization model and the “strategy” of Oded Yinon as well, a plan resulting in “a world of Arab fragments that is ready to succumb to Israeli hegemony,” as Khalil Nakhleh describes it.

Walid Phares, the neocon operative by way of Benador Associates, tells us “short of a large-scale counter-operation aimed at dislodging the ‘coup’ in the enclave, the area will become a massive terror base of operations,” although he neglects to tell us these “operations” will be conducted at the behest of Israel and the United States, not Iran or Syria. In fact, Iran and Syria figure prominently on Israel’s target list and Phares, a former Lebanese Forces commander—that is to say, a former commander within the Maronite Phalange, a fascist Lebanese construct in cahoots with Israel—was trotted out to sell this Houdini illusion by way of the corporate media.

As should be expected, the logical terminus of this latest propaganda effort will end in the bombing of Iran and Syria. Walid Phares, of course, is simply doing his part to bring about the mass murder of thousands of Iranians and Syrians, as is David Horowitz, the former Marxist gone to neocon seed, running his website on fascist foundation money, primarily provided by the Bradley, Olin, Sarah Scaife and Smith Richardson foundations. Scaife is a CIA asset, as the late Steve Kangas notes, thus demonstrating the circularity of the neocon agenda, from the set at Fox News to the soon-to-be blood spattered killing fields of Tehran and Damascus.