The US-NATO Preemptive Nuclear Doctrine: Trigger a Middle East Nuclear Holocaust to Defend "The Western Way of Life"

by Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, February 11, 2008


What the Western allies face is a long, sustained and proactive defence of their societies and way of life. To that end, they must keep risks at a distance, while at the same time protecting their homelands.

International terrorism today aims to disrupt and destroy our societies, our economies and our way of life. ...

These different sources of [Islamist] propaganda and/or violence vary in their intellectual underpinnings, sectarian and political aims, ... . But what they have in common is an assault on the values of the West – on its democratic processes and its freedom of religion...

Notwithstanding the common perception in the West, the origin of Islamist terrorism is not victimhood, nor an inferiority complex, but a well-financed superiority complex grounded in a violent political ideology.

If the irrational and fanatical [Islamist organizations] get out of hand, there is a risk that, ... the rise of fundamentalisms and despotisms will usher in a new, illiberal age, in which the liberties that Western societies enjoy are seriously jeopardized.

The threats that the West and its partners face today are a combination of violent terrorism against civilians and institutions, wars fought by proxy by states that sponsor terrorism, the behaviour of rogue states, the actions of organised international crime, and the coordination of hostile action through abuse of non-military means.

Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World: Renewing Transatlantic Partnership".

Group report by former chiefs of staff General John Shalikashvili, (US), General Klaus Naumann (Germany), Field Marshal Lord Inge (UK), Admiral Jacques Lanxade (France) and Henk van den Breemen (The Netherlands), published by the Netherlands based Noaber Foundation, December 2007, (emphasis added)


The controversial NATO sponsored report entitled “Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World: Renewing Transatlantic Partnership". calls for a first strike use of nuclear weapons. The preemptive use of nukes would also be used to undermine an "increasingly brutal World" as a means to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction:

"They [the authors of the report] consider that nuclear war might soon become possible in an increasingly brutal world. They propose the first use of nuclear weapons must remain "in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction". (Paul Dibb, Sidney Morning Herald, 11 February 2008)

The group, insists that the option of first strike of nuclear weapons is "indispensable, since there is simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world." (Report, p. 97, emphasis added):

Nuclear weapons are the ultimate instrument of an asymmetric response – and at the same time the ultimate tool of escalation. Yet they are also more than an instrument, since they transform the nature of any conflict and widen its scope from the regional to the global. ...

...Nuclear weapons remain indispensable, and nuclear escalation continues to remain an element of any modern strategy.

Nuclear escalation is the ultimate step in responding asymmetrically, and at the same time the most powerful way of inducing uncertainty in an opponent’s mind. (Ibid, emphasis added)

The Group's Report identifies six key "challenges", which may often result as potential threats to global security:

• Demography. Population growth and change across the globe will swiftly change the world we knew. The challenge this poses for welfare, good governance and energy security (among other things) is vast.

• Climate change. This greatly threatens physical certainty, and is leading to a whole new type of politics – one predicated, perhaps more than ever, on our collective future.

• Energy security continues to absorb us. The supply and demand of individual nations and the weakening of the international market infrastructure for energy distribution make the situation more precarious than ever.

• There is also the more philosophic problem of the rise of the irrational – the discounting of the rational. Though seemingly abstract, this problem is demonstrated in deeply practical ways. [These include] the decline of respect for logical argument and evidence, a drift away from science in a civilization that is deeply technological. The ultimate example is the rise of religious fundamentalism, which, as political fanaticism, presents itself as the only source of certainty.

• The weakening of the nation state. This coincides with the weakening of world institutions, including the United Nations and regional organizations such as the European Union, NATO and others.

• The dark side of globalization ... These include internationalized terrorism, organized crime and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, but also asymmetric threats from proxy actors or the abuse of financial and energy leverage. (Ibid)

Deterrence and Pre-emption

According to the Report, a new concept of deterrence is required directed against both State and non-state actors, This "new deterrence" is based on pre-emption as well as on the ability to "restore deterrence through [military] escalation". In this context, the Report contemplates, what it describes as:

“escalation dominance, the use of a full bag of both carrots and sticks—and indeed all instruments of soft and hard power, ranging from the diplomatic protest to nuclear weapons.” (Report, op city, emphasis added).

Iran

In much the same terms as the Bush administration, the NATO sponsored report states, without evidence, that Iran constitutes "a major strategic threat":

"An Iranian nuclear weapons capability would pose a major strategic threat – not only to Israel, which it has threatened to destroy, but also to the region as a whole, to Europe and to the United States. Secondly, it could be the beginning of a new multi-polar nuclear arms race in the most volatile region of the world." (Report, op. cit., p. 45)

Careful timing? The controversial NATO sponsored report calling for a preemptive nuclear attack on Iran was released shortly after the publication of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report entitled Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities. The latter denies Iran's nuclear capabilities. The NIE report, based on the assessments of sixteen US intelligence agencies, refutes the Bush administration's main justification for waging a preemptive nuclear war on Iran. The NIE report confirms that Iran “halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003.”

"These findings constitute a damning indictment of the Bush administration’s relentless fear-mongering in relation to an alleged nuclear threat from Iran. They demonstrate that just as in the buildup to the war against Iraq five years ago, the White House has been engaged in a systematic campaign to drag the American people into another war based on lies." (See Bill van Auken, 24 January 2008)

It should be noted that this recently declassified intelligence ( pertaining to Iran contained in the 2007 NIE report) was known by the White House, the Pentagon and most probably NATO since September 2003. Ironically, US military documents confirm that the Bush Administration initiated its war preparations against Iran in July 2003, two months prior to the confirmation by US intelligence that Iran did not constitute a nuclear threat.

The July 2003 war scenarios were launched under TIRANNT: Theater Iran Near Term.

The justification for TIRANNT as well as for subsequent US war plans directed against Iran ( which as of 2004 included the active participation of NATO and Israel), has always been that Iran is developing nuclear weapons and plans to use them against us.

Following the publication of the 2007 NIE in early December, there has been an avalanche of media propaganda directed against Tehran, essentially with a view to invalidating the statements of the NIE concerning Tehran's nuclear program.

Moreover, a third sanctions resolution by the UN Security Council, was initiated with a view to forcing Iran to halt uranium enrichment. The proposed UNSC resolution, which is opposed by China and Russia includes a travel ban on Iranian officials involved in the country's nuclear programs, and inspections of shipments to and from Iran "if there are suspicions of prohibited goods" (AFP, 11 February 2008). Meanwhile, French President Nicolas Sarkozy together with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, have been calling for a unified EU sanctions regime against Iran.

Contradicting the US national intelligence estimate (NIE), Bush's most recent speeches continue to portray Iran as a nuclear threat:

"I feel pretty good about making sure that we keep the pressure on Iran to pressure them so they understand they're isolated, to pressure them to affect their economy, to pressure them to the point that we hope somebody rational shows up and says, okay, it's not worth it anymore," Bush said.

Threat to "The Western Way of Life"

The Western media is involved in a diabolical disinformation campaign, the purpose of which is to persuade public opinion that the only way to "create a nuclear free World" is to use nuclear weapons on a preemptive basis, against countries which "threaten our Western Way of Life."

The Western world is threatened. The NATO sponsored report, according to Paul Dibb: "paint(s) an alarming picture of the threats confronting the West, arguing that its values and way of life are under threat and that we are struggling to summon the will to defend them."(Dibb, op cit)

A preemptive nuclear attack -- geographically confined to Middle East (minus Israel?)-- is the proposed end-game. The attack would use US tactical nuclear weapons, which, according to "scientific opinion" (on contract to the Pentagon) are "harmless to the surrounding civilian population because the explosion is underground". (See Michel Chossudovsky The Dangers of a Middle East Nuclear Holocaust, Global Research, 17 February 2006)

B61-11 bunker buster bombs with nuclear warheads Made in America, with an explosive capacity between one third to six times a Hiroshima bomb, are presented as bona fide humanitarian bombs, which minimize the dangers of "collateral damage".

These in-house "scientific" Pentagon assessments regarding the mini-nukes are refuted by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS):

Any attempt to use a [B61-11 bunker buster nuclear bomb] in an urban environment would result in massive civilian casualties. Even at the low end of its 0.3-300 kiloton yield range, the nuclear blast will simply blow out a huge crater of radioactive material, creating a lethal gamma-radiation field over a large area " (Low-Yield Earth-Penetrating Nuclear Weapons by Robert W. Nelson, Federation of American Scientists, 2001 ).

Professor Paul Dibb is a former Australian Deputy Secretary of Defense, who has over the years also occupied key positions in Australia's defense and intelligence establishment. Dibb carefully overlooks the consequences of the use of nuclear weapons in a conventional war theater. According to Dibb, NATO's preemptive nuclear doctrine, which replicates that of the Pentagon, constitutes a significant and positive initiative to "halt the imminent spread of nuclear weapons". .

"They [the group] believe that the West must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the imminent spread of nuclear weapons."

Never mind the nuclear holocaust and resulting radioactive contamination, which would spread Worldwide and threaten, in a real sense, the "way of life".

There is no "way of life" in a World contaminated with deadly radioactive material. But this is something that is rarely discussed in the corridors of NATO or in strategic studies programs in Western universities.

What is frightening in Professor Dibb's article is that he is not expressing an opinion, nor is he analyzing the use of nuclear weapons from an academic research point of view.

In his article, there is neither research on nuclear weapons nor is there an understanding of the complex geopolitics of the Middle East war. Dibb is essentially repeating verbatim the statements contained in NATO/Pentagon military documents. His article is a "copy and paste" summary of Western nuclear doctrine, which in practice calls for the launching of a nuclear holocaust.

The stated objective of a Middle East nuclear holocaust is "to prevent the occurrence of a nuclear war". An insidious logic which certainly out- dwarfs the darkest period of the Spanish inquisition...

Neither NATO nor the Pentagon use the term nuclear holocaust. Moreover, they presume that the "collateral damage" of a nuclear war will in any event be confined geographically to the Middle East and that Westerners will be spared...

But since their in-house scientists have confirmed that tactical nuclear weapons are "safe for civilians", the labels on the bombs have been switched much in the same way as the label on a packet of cigarettes: "This nuclear bomb is safe for civilians"

Nukes: Just Another Tool in the Military Toolbox

The new definition of a nuclear warhead has blurred the distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons:

'It's a package (of nuclear and conventional weapons). The implication of this obviously is that nuclear weapons are being brought down from a special category of being a last resort, or sort of the ultimate weapon, to being just another tool in the toolbox," (Japan Economic News Wire, op cit)

This re-categorization has been carried out. The " green light" for the use of tactical nuclear weapons has been granted by the US Congress. . " Let's use them, they are part of the military toolbox."

We are a dangerous crossroads: military planners believe their own propaganda. The military manuals state that this new generation of nuclear weapons are "safe" for use in the battlefield. They are no longer a weapon of last resort. There are no impediments or political obstacles to their use. In this context, Senator Edward Kennedy has accused the Bush Administration for having developed "a generation of more useable nuclear weapons."

Russia and China

Who else constitutes a threat to " the Western way of life"?

Nukes are also slated to be used against Russia and China, former enemies of the Cold War era.

This post Cold War logic was first revealed, when the Pentagon's Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) was leaked to The Los Angeles Times in January 2002. The NPR includes China and Russia alongside the rogue states as potential targets for a first strike nuclear attack. According to William Arkin, the NPR "offers a chilling glimpse into the world of nuclear-war planners: With a Strangelovian genius, they cover every conceivable circumstance in which the president might wish to use nuclear weapons-planning in great detail." (Los Angeles Times, March 10, 2002)

"Decapitate Their Leadership and Destroy their Countries as Functioning Societies"

The use of nukes against "rogue states", including Iran and North Korea (which lost more than a quarter of its population in US bombings during the Korean war) is justified because these countries could act in an "irrational" way. It therefore makes sense to "take em out" before they do something irrational. The objective is: "decapitate their leadership and destroy their countries as functioning societies":

"One line of reasoning is that so-called rogue states, such as Iran and North Korea, are sufficiently irrational to risk a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the US or its allies, such as Israel and South Korea.

The supposition here is that deterrence - that is, threatening the other side with obliteration - no longer works. But even the nasty regimes in Tehran and Pyongyang must know that the US reserves the right to use its overwhelming nuclear force to decapitate the leadership and destroy their countries as modern functioning societies. (Dibb, op cit., emphasis added)

Use nuclear weapons to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction.

But of course, lest we forget, America's nuclear arsenal as well as that of France, Britain and Israel are not categorized as "weapons of mass destruction", in comparison with Iran's deadly nonexistent nuclear weapons program.

Bin Laden's Nuclear Program

Now comes the authoritative part of the Pentagon-NATO preemptive doctrine: We need to use nukes against bin Laden, because Islamic "fanatics" can actually make a nuclear weapons or buy them from the Russians on the black market.

The Report calls for a first strike nuclear attack directed against Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda, which has the ability, according to expert opinion, of actually producing small nuclear bombs, which could be used in a Second 9/11 attack on America: .

The second line of reasoning [contained in the NATO sponsored report] is more difficult to refute. It argues that extreme fanatical terrorists, such as al-Qaeda, cannot be deterred because (a) they do not represent a country and therefore cannot be targeted and (b) they welcome death by suicide. So, we have to shift the concept of nuclear deterrence to the country or regime supplying the terrorists with fissile material.

Nuclear weapons require materials that can be made only with difficulty. Once these materials are obtained by terrorists, however, the barriers to fabricating a weapon are much lower. In that sense the nuclear threat today is greater than it was in the Cold War and it seems the terrorists cannot be deterred.( Dibb, op cit, emphasis added)

The alleged nuclear threat by Al Qaeda is taken very seriously. The Bush administration has responded with overall defense spending (budget plus war theater) in excess of one trillion dollars. This massive amount of public money has been allocated to financing the "Global War on Terrorism" (GWOT).

Confirmed by Pentagon documents, this military hardware including aircraft carriers, fighter jets, cruise missiles and nuclear bunker buster bombs, is slated to be used as part of the "Global War on Terrorism". In military jargon the US is involved in asymmetric warfare against non-State enemies. ( The concept of Asymmetric Warfare was defined in The National Defense Strategy of the United States of America (2005)

"The American Hiroshima"

The US media has the distinct ability to turn realities upside down. The lies are upheld as indelible truths. The "Islamic terrorists" have abandoned their AK 47 kalashnikov rifles and stinger missiles; they are not only developing deadly chemical and biological weapons, they also have nuclear capabilities.

The fact, amply documented, that Al Qaeda is supported by the CIA and Britain's MI6 is beside the point.

The nuclear threat is not directed against the Middle East but against the USA, the perpetrators and architects of nuclear war are bin Laden's Al Qaeda, which is planning to launch a nuclear attack on an American city:

"U.S. government officials are contemplating what they consider to be an inevitable and much bigger assault on America, one likely to kill millions, destroy the economy and fundamentally alter the course of history,...

According to captured al-Qaida leaders and documents, the plan is called the "American Hiroshima" and involves the multiple detonation of nuclear weapons already smuggled into the U.S. over the Mexican border with the help of the MS-13 street gang and other organized crime groups. (World Net Daily, 11 July 2005, emphasis added)

The New York Times confirms that an Al Qaeda sponsored "American Hiroshima" "could happen" .

"Experts believe that such an attack, somewhere, is likely." (NYT, 11 August 2004)

According to the Aspen Strategy Group which is integrated among others, by Madeleine Albright, Richard Armitage, Philip D. Zelikow, Robert B. Zoellick, "the danger of nuclear terrorism is much greater than the public believes, and our government hasn't done nearly enough to reduce it.":

If a 10-kiloton nuclear weapon, a midget even smaller than the one that destroyed Hiroshima, exploded in Times Square, the fireball would reach tens of millions of degrees Fahrenheit. It would vaporize or destroy the theater district, Madison Square Garden, the Empire State Building, Grand Central Terminal and Carnegie Hall (along with me and my building). The blast would partly destroy a much larger area, including the United Nations. On a weekday some 500,000 people would be killed. (NYT, 11 August 2004)

"Threaten them with a devastating [nuclear] attack"

According to professor Dibb, nuclear deterrence should also apply in relation to Al Qaeda, by holding responsible the governments which help the terrorists to develop their nuclear weapons capabilities:

"Ashton Carter, a former US assistant secretary for defense, has recently argued, the realistic response is to hold responsible, as appropriate, the government from which the terrorists obtained the weapon or fissile materials and threaten them with a devastating [nuclear] strike. In other words, deterrence would work again. (Dibb, op cit)

The real nuclear threat is coming from bin Laden. The objective is to "to do away with our way of life":

None of this is to underestimate the impact of a nuclear weapon being detonated in an American city. It could be catastrophic, but it is highly unlikely to threaten the very survival of the US. To believe otherwise risks surrendering to the fear and intimidation that is precisely the terrorists' stock in trade.

General Richard Myers, another former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, has claimed that if [Islamic] terrorists were able to kill 10,000 Americans in a nuclear attack, they would "do away with our way of life". But Hiroshima and Nagasaki incurred well over 100,000 instant deaths and that did not mean the end of the Japanese way of life. (Ibid, emphasis added)

In an utterly twisted and convoluted argument, professor Dibb transforms the US-NATO threat to wage a nuclear war on Iran into an Al Qaeda operation to attack an American city with nuclear weapon.

Dibb presents the US-NATO menace to trigger what would result in a Middle East nuclear holocaust as a humanitarian operation to save American lives. By implication, the Al Qaeda sponsored "American Hiroshima" would be supported by Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. and this in turn would immediately provide a juste cause (casus belli) for retaliation against Iran

"What a nuclear attack on a US city would mean, however, is an understandable American retaliation in kind. So, those countries that have slack control over their fissile nuclear materials and cozy relations with terrorists need to watch out. A wounded America would be under enormous pressure to respond in a wholly disproportionate manner.

And then we would be in a completely changed strategic situation in which the use of nuclear weapons might become commonplace. Ibid, emphasis added).

Dick Cheney's Second 9/11

The insinuation that Al Qaeda is preparing an attack on America has been on the lips of Vice President Dick Cheney for several years now. Cheney has stated on several occasions since 2004, that Al Qaeda is preparing a "Second 9/11": .

In August 2005, Vice President Dick Cheney is reported to have instructed USSTRATCOM, based at the Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, to draw up a "Contingency Plan", "to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States". (Philip Giraldi, Attack on Iran: Pre-emptive Nuclear War, The American Conservative, 2 August 2005)

Dick Cheney's "Contingency Plan" was predicated on the preemptive war doctrine. Implied in the "Contingency Plan" was the presumption that Iran would be behind the attacks.

The Pentagon in a parallel initiative has actually fine-tuned its military agenda to the point of actually envisaging a Second 9/11 scenario as a means to providing the US administration with a "credible" justification to attack Iran and Syria:

"Another [9/11 type terrorist] attack could create both a justification and an opportunity that is lacking today to retaliate against some known targets [Iran and Syria]" (Statement by Pentagon official, leaked to the Washington Post, 23 April 2006, emphasis added)

Meanwhile,. the US Congress is concerned that an "American Hiroshima" could potentially damage the US economy:

"What we do know is that our enemies want to inflict massive casualties and that terrorists have the expertise to invent a wide range of attacks, including those involving the use of chemical, biological, radiological and even nuclear weapons. ... [E]xploding a small nuclear weapon in a major city could do incalculable harm to hundreds of thousands of people, as well as to businesses and the economy,...(US Congress, House Financial Services Committee, June 21, 2007).

As far as sensitizing public opinion to the dangers of US sponsored nuclear war, there is, with a few exceptions, a scientific and intellectual vacuum: No research, no analysis, no comprehension of the meaning of a nuclear holocaust which in a real sense threatens the future of humanity. This detachment and lack of concern of prominent intellectuals characterizes an evolving trend in many universities and research institutes in the strategic studies, the sciences and social sciences.

Academics increasingly tow the line. They remain mum on the issue of a US sponsored nuclear war. There is a tacit acceptance of a diabolical and criminal military agenda, which in a very sense threatens life on this planet. The US-NATO doctrine to use nukes on a preemptive basis with a view to "saving the Western World's way of life" is not challenged in any meaningful way either by academics or media experts in strategic studies.

Editorial note: At the 46th Munich Security Conference, both the US National Security Adviser and the NATO Secretary-General advocated against Iran and for the extension of NATO’s field of action. In practical terms, the integration of States members of the Gulf Cooperation Council in the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative on the West, plus the Afghanistan-Pakistan conflict on the East, put NATO in a position to encircle Iran. It is too early to tell whether the false accusations levered against Iran are a pretext for NATO’s further deployment or whether its deployment constitutes the premise for a new war.

_________________


NATO’s Role In The Military Encirclement Of Iran

by Rick Rozoff, Voltairenet, 11 February 2010


Following on the heels of identifying himself as the "Commander-in-Chief of a nation in the midst of two wars" and moreover the head of state of no less than "the world’s sole military superpower" [1] while being presented with what is still curiously called the Nobel Peace Prize, U.S. President Barack Obama in his first State of the Union address on January 27 asserted "the international community is more united, and the Islamic Republic of Iran is more isolated" and threatened: "As Iran’s leaders continue to ignore their obligations, there should be no doubt: They...will face growing consequences. That is a promise." [2]

Two days later his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, delivered an address at a major French military academy, revealingly enough, and while there she coupled excoriation of Iran with an anything but diplomatic dressing down of China, stating "China will be under a lot of pressure to recognize the destabilizing impact that a nuclear-armed Iran would have in the [Persian] Gulf...." [3]

Pressure from Washington, of course. On the very day of Clinton’s speech in Paris the White House confirmed the completion of a $6.4 billion weapons transfer to Taiwan.

On February 9 U.S. Department of Defense spokesman Geoff Morrell told the press that his boss, Pentagon chief Robert Gates, wants the United Nations to impose sanctions on Iran within "weeks, not months" and "clearly thinks time is of the essence." [4]

During the First World War Austrian journalist and dramatist Karl Kraus lamented: "What mythological confusion is this? Since when has Mars been the god of commerce and Mercury the god of war?"

If he were alive today he would be equally bemused by the U.S.’s top diplomat delivering an address at a military academy (and condescendingly admonishing the world’s most populous nation) and its defense chief pressuring the world to impose punitive sanctions against a country that has not attacked any other in centuries.

The secretary general of the U.S.-led "world’s sole global military bloc" - Anders Fogh Rasmussen - spoke at the annual Munich Security Conference on February 7, delivering himself of a ponderous and grandiose screed entitled NATO in the 21st Century: Towards Global Connectivity, during which he touted the role of the military bloc in intruding itself into almost every interstice imaginable: The ever-expanding war in Afghanistan, terrorism, cyber attacks, energy cut-offs - the last two references to Russia if not formally acknowledged as such - nuclear non-proliferation, climate change, piracy, failed states, drugs, "humanitarian disasters, conflicts over arable land, and mounting competition for natural resources," [5] North Korea and Iran.

In repeating Alliance and other Western leaders’ demands that "NATO should become a forum for consultation on worldwide security issues," Rasmussen stated that "to carry out NATO’s job effectively today, the Alliance should become the hub of a network of security partnerships and a centre for consultation on international security issues....And we don’t have to start from scratch. Already today, the Alliance has a vast network of security partnership[s], as far afield as Northern Africa, the Gulf, Central Asia, and the Pacific." [6]

Indeed NATO has a broad and expanding network of members and military partners throughout the world. It has one member, Turkey, the second largest contributor of troops to the bloc, which borders Iran, and a partnership ally, Azerbaijan, which does also.

Rasmussen’s allusion to the Persian Gulf refers to increasing military contacts, visits and joint activities between NATO and the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which parallel the intensification of the U.S. buildup in the region [7] and is conducted within the framework of the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI) launched in 2004. [8]

The project received the name it did as it was inaugurated at the NATO summit in Istanbul which, after almost completing the absorption of all of Eastern Europe into the bloc, introduced the same graduated partnership process used earlier to incorporate ten new European members for the seven Mediterranean Dialogue nations in the Middle East and Africa (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia) and six states in the Persian Gulf (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates). All thirteen are covered under the ICI, but extending NATO military partnerships to six Persian Gulf nations for the first time was the most ambitious and significant aspect of the program.

It marked the commencement of NATO’s drive into the Gulf to complement the U.S. strategy of containing and eventually confronting Iran.

One of the stated objectives of the ICI was to "invite interested countries...to join Operation Active Endeavour (OAE)," [9] the NATO naval surveillance and interdiction operation (a de facto blockade) throughout the Mediterranean Sea which will be nine years old this October. The Istanbul Cooperation Initiative links control of the Mediterranean with expansion through the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, where the NATO Ocean Shield naval operation is currently being run, and the Arabian Sea into the Persian Gulf.

An earlier article in this series listed the main objectives of the ICI:

- Employing GCC states to base troops, warplanes, cargo and surveillance for operations both in the area and throughout the so-called Broader Middle East.

- [I]ncorporating the Gulf states into a global missile surveillance and missile shield program.

- Bringing the GCC nations not only under the U.S.’s missile and nuclear umbrella, but effectively under NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense provision, the latter entailing the possibility of claiming that one or more GCC members is threatened by a non-member (that is, Iran) and using that as a pretext for “preemptive” attacks.

- Reprising NATO’s Operation Active Endeavor in the Gulf by inaugurating a comprehensive naval interdiction – that is, blockade – in the Strait of Hormuz where an estimated 40-50% of world interstate oil transportation occurs. [10]

In 2006 NATO signed both military intelligence and transit agreements with Kuwait and initiated a new faculty for the Middle East at the NATO Defense College in Rome. NATO held a conference on the ICI in Kuwait in December attended by all six Gulf Cooperation Council states.

The next year four of the six GCC members - Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates - formally joined the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative.

NATO’s penetration of the Gulf continued steadily and in May of 2009 Admiral Luciano Zappata of the Italian Navy and NATO’s Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (based in Norfolk, Virginia), while speaking of the new NATO Strategic Concept currently in progress, praised the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative as a "successful example" of the new model of "partnership and cooperation" the Alliance plans for most of the world.

What Zappata had in mind - the Iranian pretext for Western military expansion into the Persian Gulf for once wasn’t evoked to hide NATO’s real interests - was detailed in discussion of what was described as the "maritime dimension of the new strategy."

He said that "the network of ports, infrastructure and pipelines as well as vessels sailing along sea lines of communication supports trade and is vulnerable to disruption.

"With the beginning of the exploitation of the resources at the bottom of oceans, there is a shift in security and strategic focus."

The admiral added that the United Arab Emirates are "a significant trading partner and energy supplier in the global economy. The new French military base opening at Port Zayed will be an important addition to the increasing international efforts in support of maritime security." [11]

On the same day as the above report appeared, May 26, 2009, French President Nicolas Sarkozy was in the United Arab Emirates to open a new military base, his nation’s first in the Persian Gulf and the first major foreign base in the UAE. The French facility in Port Zayed, on the coast of the Strait of Hormuz, "contains a navy and air force base and a training camp." [12]

"The base will host 500 personnel from the French navy, the army, and the air force. It will be able to simultaneously accommodate two frigates of the French fleet operating in the region....[T]he French base is the first of its kind in the Arabian [Persian] Gulf."

A Gulf analyst was quoted on the occasion saying, "The US has a number of military, air and maritime bases in Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain. The Abu Dhabi French Maritime Base is the first foreign military base for a friendly army in the UAE." [13]

"For France, the military base certainly improves its status within NATO as well as with the US as it would become the only NATO member other than the US that is stationed in the Gulf." [14]

The following month Sarkozy pushed a deal with the UAE for the purchase of 60 Rafale fighter jets at a cost of $8-11 million.

The previous year France led war games in the UAE, the 12-day Gulf Shield 01, with military counterparts from the host country and Qatar. 4,000 troops participated in the exercises, which "simulated a war pitting two regional countries and their ally against a neighbouring state which has invaded one of the two countries." [15]

In late October of 2009 a two-day conference called NATO-UAE Relations and the Way Forward in the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative was held in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. It gathered "together 300 participants, including the Secretary General of NATO, NATO Permanent Representatives on the North Atlantic Council, the Deputy Secretary General of NATO, the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee and high level NATO officials with government representatives, opinion leaders, academics and senior scholars from countries in the Gulf region invited in the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative." [16]

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told an Al Arabiya correspondent that "NATO considers the Gulf region a continuation of the Euro Atlantic security area," and in reference to Iran - which of course was not invited to the conference - "we all are seriously concerned about nuclear ambitions and about the nuclear domino-effect they could cause in a region that is pivotal for global stability and security." [17]

In recent weeks the United States announced the sale of land-based interceptor missiles to Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. It has supplied both Patriot Advanced Capability-3 and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile systems to GCC states and has deployed sea-based Standard Missile-3 interceptors in the Gulf on Aegis class warships.

In early February the deputy secretary general of NATO, Claudio Bisogniero, was in Qatar and, "Lauding the support extended by Qatar to Nato since the Istanbul Initiative in 2004," said "Qatar has become an active participant in most deliberations held under the aegis of Nato...." [18]

GCC states being integrated into international NATO operations are being recruited for the war in Afghanistan. A U.S. armed forces publication disclosed in late January that 125 security personnel from Bahrain were guarding "the headquarters for U.S. military operations in volatile Helmand province, where more than 10,000 Marines are stationed and more are on the way." [19] The U.S. and NATO are launching the biggest and bloodiest battle of the more than eight-year war in Afghanistan in Helmand.

Troops from the UAE have been serving under NATO command in Afghanistan for years.

The Kuwait News Agency wrote on January 28 that the chairman of NATO’s Military Committee, Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola, said "the Alliance is in discussion with a Gulf state to deploy AWACS planes for reconnaissance mission[s] over Afghanistan in support of its ISAF mission and also for anti-piracy off Somalia."

In addition, Di Paola was quoted saying "The Alliance is close to closing the basic issue with one of the Gulf countries" and "We are looking forward to be in a position to follow on the temporary deployment that we have today in Oman with a more permanent long-term deployment." [20] Oman directly overlooks Iran on the Strait of Hormuz.

The true military powerhouse in the Gulf region, Saudi Arabia - armed to the teeth with advanced U.S. weapons - has been engaged in its first-ever war since last November. Riyadh has launched regular attacks with infantry, armor and warplanes in the north of neighboring Yemen against Houthi rebels. Hundreds of Yemeni civilians have been reported killed in the assaults, which rebel spokesmen claim have been accompanied by U.S. air strikes. [21] 200,000 civilians have been uprooted and displaced by fighting in the north since 2004.

The Saudi government acknowledges over 500 military casualties, both dead and wounded.

The population of northern Yemen is Shia in terms of religious conviction, and the Saudi offensive is not only fraught with the danger of being converted into a war with Iran once removed but in fact can serve as a rehearsal - and training - for the genuine article.

In other countries bordering Iran, last July NATO Deputy Secretary General Claudio Bisogniero signed an agreement with the Iraqi Minister of Defense to train the nation’s security forces. The NATO website reported: "This agreement represents a milestone in the cooperation between the Republic of Iraq and NATO and demonstrates the Alliance’s strong commitment....The agreement will provide the legal basis for NATO to continue with its mission to assist the Government of the Republic of Iraq in developing further the capabilities of the Iraqi Security Forces." [22]

Last month NATO started recruiting ethnic Kurds for Iraq’s national security force in the north of the country near the Iranian border.

On Iran’s western border, during meetings of NATO defense ministers in Turkey late last week Pentagon chief Robert Gates met with Chief of Turkish General Staff General Ilker Basbug and Gates said that he had "discussed, with General Basbug, Turkey’s role in the missile defense system and relations between our armies." [23]

Former NATO secretary general George Robertson, arguing that U.S. nuclear warheads should be kept in Germany, recently divulged that there are between 40 and 90 American nuclear weapons stored at Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base under NATO arrangements.

To Iran’s northwest, Azerbaijan is increasingly being developed as a NATO outpost in the South Caucasus and the Caspian Sea Basin. Early this month "A working group of the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry and the United States European Command (USEUCOM) held a meeting in Stuttgart, Germany....The meeting [was] held within the framework of the Azerbaijan-US action plan for military cooperation" and lasted five days. [24]

The country has been granted a NATO Individual Partnership Action Plan as have other former Soviet states like Georgia, Ukraine and lately Moldova. In January Azerbaijan hosted a planning conference for the NATO Regional Response 2010 military exercise. Last year "the Regional Response 2009 military training was held within the NATO’s Partnership for Peace (PfP) programme in April 2009 in Baku.

"Commander of US Land Forces in Europe Carter Ham participated in the training." [25]

Azerbaijan has doubled its troop strength in Afghanistan and will train Afghan National Army personnel at its military schools. The nation’s Foreign Ministry recently announced that Azerbaijan is interested in joining the NATO Response Force along with Ukraine, regarding which the Alliance provides this description:

"The NATO Response Force (NRF) is a highly ready and technologically advanced force made up of land, air, sea and special forces components that the Alliance can deploy quickly wherever needed.

"It is capable of performing missions worldwide across the whole spectrum of operations...." [26]

In late January a former Azeri presidential adviser, Vafa Guluzade, spoke at a seminar called NATO-Azerbaijan Cooperation: A Civilian View and said, "The territory and people of Azerbaijan are ideal for military cooperation with NATO. The country has a favourable geostrategic location....Azerbaijan has military aerodromes suitable for NATO bases." [27]

To Iran’s east, the U.S. and NATO will soon have over 150,000 troops, and according to a recent study 400 bases, in Afghanistan and both Western belligerents are coordinating military actions with Pakistan, the Alliance through the Trilateral Afghanistan-Pakistan-NATO Military Commission.

The chain is being tightened around Iran from every direction and NATO is supplying several of the key links.

_________________


Notes:

[1] "Obama Doctrine: Eternal War For Imperfect Mankind", by Rick Rozoff, Voltaire Network, December 11, 2009.

[2] "State of the Union Address", by Barack Obama, Voltaire Network, January 27, 2010.

[3] "Speech on Future of European Security", by Hillary Clinton, Voltaire Network, January 29, 2010. "Hillary Clinton’s Prescription: Make The World A NATO Protectorate", by Rick Rozoff, Stop NATO, January 31, 2010

[4] Associated Press, February 9, 2010.

[5] "Speech at the 46th Munich Security Conference", by Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Voltaire Network, February 7, 2010.

[6] Ibid.

[7] "U.S. Extends Missile Buildup From Poland And Taiwan To Persian Gulf", by Rick Rozoff, Stop NATO, February 3, 2010.

[8] "NATO In Persian Gulf: From Third World War To Istanbul", by Rick Rozoff, Stop NATO, February 6, 2009.

[9] "NATO, Istanbul Cooperation Initiative".

[10] "NATO In Persian Gulf: From Third World War To Istanbul", Op, cit.

[11] Khaleej Times, May 26, 2009

[12] Radio Netherlands, May 26, 2009

[13] Gulf News, May 23, 2009

[14] Gulf News, January 27, 2008

[15] Agence France-Presse, March 6, 2008

[16] NATO, October 28, 2009

[17] Al Arabiya, November 1, 2009

[18] Gulf Times, February 8, 2010

[19] Stars and Stripes, January 23, 2010

[20] Kuwait News Agency, January 28, 2010

[21] "Yemen: Pentagon’s War On The Arabian Peninsula", by Rick Rozoff, Stop NATO, December 15, 2009.

[22] NATO, July 26, 2009.

[23] World Bulletin, February 6, 2010.

[24] Azeri Press Agency, February 1, 2010

[25] Azeri Press Agency, January 21, 2010

[26] NATO, The NATO Response Force.

[27] Novosti Azerbaijan, January 22, 2010.

_____________________

What an evil man! He doesn't want there to be another Holocaust! It's like he's some kind of Nazi or something!

If only Ahmedinejad has his way, there wouldn't be any Israel to "defend".

excerpts from: “Wiped Off The Map” - The Rumor of the Century

by Arash Norouzi, Global Research, 20 January 2007


Across the world, a dangerous rumor has spread that could have catastrophic implications. According to legend, Iran's President has threatened to destroy Israel, or, to quote the misquote, "Israel must be wiped off the map". Contrary to popular belief, this statement was never made, as the following article will prove. [...]


THE ACTUAL QUOTE:

So what did Ahmadinejad actually say? To quote his exact words in farsi:

"Imam ghoft een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad."

That passage will mean nothing to most people, but one word might ring a bell: rezhim-e. It is the word "Regime", pronounced just like the English word with an extra "eh" sound at the end. Ahmadinejad did not refer to Israel the country or Israel the land mass, but the Israeli regime. This is a vastly significant distinction, as one cannot wipe a regime off the map. Ahmadinejad does not even refer to Israel by name, he instead uses the specific phrase "rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods" (regime occupying Jerusalem).

So this raises the question.. what exactly did he want "wiped from the map"? The answer is: nothing. That's because the word "map" was never used. The Persian word for map, "nagsheh", is not contained anywhere in his original farsi quote, or, for that matter, anywhere in his entire speech. Nor was the western phrase "wipe out" ever said. Yet we are led to believe that Iran's President threatened to "wipe Israel off the map", despite never having uttered the words "map", "wipe out" or even "Israel".


THE PROOF:

The full quote translated directly to English:

"The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time".

Word by word translation:

Imam (Khomeini) ghoft (said) een (this) rezhim-e (regime) ishghalgar-e (occupying) qods (Jerusalem) bayad (must) az safheh-ye ruzgar (from page of time) mahv shavad (vanish from).

_________________

Plans for Redrawing the Middle East: The Project for a “New Middle East”

by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, Global Research, 18 November 2006


“Hegemony is as old as Mankind…” -Zbigniew Brzezinski, former U.S. National Security Advisor


The term “New Middle East” was introduced to the world in June 2006 in Tel Aviv by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (who was credited by the Western media for coining the term) in replacement of the older and more imposing term, the “Greater Middle East.”

This shift in foreign policy phraseology coincided with the inauguration of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) Oil Terminal in the Eastern Mediterranean. The term and conceptualization of the “New Middle East,” was subsequently heralded by the U.S. Secretary of State and the Israeli Prime Minister at the height of the Anglo-American sponsored Israeli siege of Lebanon. Prime Minister Olmert and Secretary Rice had informed the international media that a project for a “New Middle East” was being launched from Lebanon.

This announcement was a confirmation of an Anglo-American-Israeli “military roadmap” in the Middle East. This project, which has been in the planning stages for several years, consists in creating an arc of instability, chaos, and violence extending from Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria to Iraq, the Persian Gulf, Iran, and the borders of NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan.

The “New Middle East” project was introduced publicly by Washington and Tel Aviv with the expectation that Lebanon would be the pressure point for realigning the whole Middle East and thereby unleashing the forces of “constructive chaos.” This “constructive chaos” --which generates conditions of violence and warfare throughout the region-- would in turn be used so that the United States, Britain, and Israel could redraw the map of the Middle East in accordance with their geo-strategic needs and objectives.

Secretary Condoleezza Rice stated during a press conference that “[w]hat we’re seeing here [in regards to the destruction of Lebanon and the Israeli attacks on Lebanon], in a sense, is the growing—the ‘birth pangs’—of a ‘New Middle East’ and whatever we do we [meaning the United States] have to be certain that we’re pushing forward to the New Middle East [and] not going back to the old one.”1 Secretary Rice was immediately criticized for her statements both within Lebanon and internationally for expressing indifference to the suffering of an entire nation, which was being bombed indiscriminately by the Israeli Air Force.


The Anglo-American Military Roadmap in the Middle East and Central Asia

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s speech on the "New Middle East" had set the stage. The Israeli attacks on Lebanon --which had been fully endorsed by Washington and London-- have further compromised and validated the existence of the geo-strategic objectives of the United States, Britain, and Israel. According to Professor Mark Levine the “neo-liberal globalizers and neo-conservatives, and ultimately the Bush Administration, would latch on to creative destruction as a way of describing the process by which they hoped to create their new world orders,” and that “creative destruction [in] the United States was, in the words of neo-conservative philosopher and Bush adviser Michael Ledeen, ‘an awesome revolutionary force’ for (…) creative destruction…”2

Anglo-American occupied Iraq, particularly Iraqi Kurdistan, seems to be the preparatory ground for the balkanization (division) and finlandization (pacification) of the Middle East. Already the legislative framework, under the Iraqi Parliament and the name of Iraqi federalization, for the partition of Iraq into three portions is being drawn out. (See map below)

Moreover, the Anglo-American military roadmap appears to be vying an entry into Central Asia via the Middle East. The Middle East, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are stepping stones for extending U.S. influence into the former Soviet Union and the ex-Soviet Republics of Central Asia. The Middle East is to some extent the southern tier of Central Asia. Central Asia in turn is also termed as “Russia’s Southern Tier” or the Russian “Near Abroad.”

Many Russian and Central Asian scholars, military planners, strategists, security advisors, economists, and politicians consider Central Asia (“Russia’s Southern Tier”) to be the vulnerable and “soft under-belly” of the Russian Federation.3

It should be noted that in his book, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geo-strategic Imperatives, Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former U.S. National Security Advisor, alluded to the modern Middle East as a control lever of an area he, Brzezinski, calls the Eurasian Balkans. The Eurasian Balkans consists of the Caucasus (Georgia, the Republic of Azerbaijan, and Armenia) and Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan) and to some extent both Iran and Turkey. Iran and Turkey both form the northernmost tiers of the Middle East (excluding the Caucasus4) that edge into Europe and the former Soviet Union.


The Map of the “New Middle East”

A relatively unknown map of the Middle East, NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan, and Pakistan has been circulating around strategic, governmental, NATO, policy and military circles since mid-2006. It has been causally allowed to surface in public, maybe in an attempt to build consensus and to slowly prepare the general public for possible, maybe even cataclysmic, changes in the Middle East. This is a map of a redrawn and restructured Middle East identified as the “New Middle East.”

This map of the “New Middle East” seems to be based on several other maps, including older maps of potential boundaries in the Middle East extending back to the era of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and World War I. This map is showcased and presented as the brainchild of retired Lieutenant-Colonel (U.S. Army) Ralph Peters, who believes the redesigned borders contained in the map will fundamentally solve the problems of the contemporary Middle East.

The map of the “New Middle East” was a key element in the retired Lieutenant-Colonel’s book, Never Quit the Fight, which was released to the public on July 10, 2006. This map of a redrawn Middle East was also published, under the title of Blood Borders: How a better Middle East would look, in the U.S. military’s Armed Forces Journal with commentary from Ralph Peters.5

It should be noted that Lieutenant-Colonel Peters was last posted to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, within the U.S. Defence Department, and has been one of the Pentagon’s foremost authors with numerous essays on strategy for military journals and U.S. foreign policy.

It has been written that Ralph Peters’ “four previous books on strategy have been highly influential in government and military circles,” but one can be pardoned for asking if in fact quite the opposite could be taking place. Could it be Lieutenant-Colonel Peters is revealing and putting forward what Washington D.C. and its strategic planners have anticipated for the Middle East?

The concept of a redrawn Middle East has been presented as a “humanitarian” and “righteous” arrangement that would benefit the people(s) of the Middle East and its peripheral regions. According to Ralph Peter’s:

"International borders are never completely just. But the degree of injustice they inflict upon those whom frontiers force together or separate makes an enormous difference — often the difference between freedom and oppression, tolerance and atrocity, the rule of law and terrorism, or even peace and war.

The most arbitrary and distorted borders in the world are in Africa and the Middle East. Drawn by self-interested Europeans (who have had sufficient trouble defining their own frontiers), Africa’s borders continue to provoke the deaths of millions of local inhabitants. But the unjust borders in the Middle East — to borrow from Churchill — generate more trouble than can be consumed locally.

While the Middle East has far more problems than dysfunctional borders alone — from cultural stagnation through scandalous inequality to deadly religious extremism — the greatest taboo in striving to understand the region’s comprehensive failure isn’t Islam, but the awful-but-sacrosanct international boundaries worshipped by our own diplomats.

Of course, no adjustment of borders, however draconian, could make every minority in the Middle East happy. In some instances, ethnic and religious groups live intermingled and have intermarried. Elsewhere, reunions based on blood or belief might not prove quite as joyous as their current proponents expect. The boundaries projected in the maps accompanying this article redress the wrongs suffered by the most significant "cheated" population groups, such as the Kurds, Baluch and Arab Shia [Muslims], but still fail to account adequately for Middle Eastern Christians, Bahais, Ismailis, Naqshbandis and many another numerically lesser minorities. And one haunting wrong can never be redressed with a reward of territory: the genocide perpetrated against the Armenians by the dying Ottoman Empire.

Yet, for all the injustices the borders re-imagined here leave unaddressed, without such major boundary revisions, we shall never see a more peaceful Middle East.

Even those who abhor the topic of altering borders would be well-served to engage in an exercise that attempts to conceive a fairer, if still imperfect, amendment of national boundaries between the Bosphorus and the Indus. Accepting that international statecraft has never developed effective tools — short of war — for readjusting faulty borders, a mental effort to grasp the Middle East’s “organic” frontiers nonetheless helps us understand the extent of the difficulties we face and will continue to face. We are dealing with colossal, man-made deformities that will not stop generating hatred and violence until they are corrected."6


"Necessary Pain"

Besides believing that there is “cultural stagnation” in the Middle East, it must be noted that Ralph Peters admits that his propositions are “draconian” in nature, but he insists that they are necessary pains for the people of the Middle East. This view of necessary pain and suffering is in startling parallel to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s belief that the devastation of Lebanon by the Israeli military was a necessary pain or “birth pang” in order to create the “New Middle East” that Washington, London, and Tel Aviv envision.

Moreover, it is worth noting that the subject of the Armenian Genocide is being politicized and stimulated in Europe to offend Turkey.7

The overhaul, dismantlement, and reassembly of the nation-states of the Middle East have been packaged as a solution to the hostilities in the Middle East, but this is categorically misleading, false, and fictitious. The advocates of a “New Middle East” and redrawn boundaries in the region avoid and fail to candidly depict the roots of the problems and conflicts in the contemporary Middle East. What the media does not acknowledge is the fact that almost all major conflicts afflicting the Middle East are the consequence of overlapping Anglo-American-Israeli agendas.

Many of the problems affecting the contemporary Middle East are the result of the deliberate aggravation of pre-existing regional tensions. Sectarian division, ethnic tension and internal violence have been traditionally exploited by the United States and Britain in various parts of the globe including Africa, Latin America, the Balkans, and the Middle East. Iraq is just one of many examples of the Anglo-American strategy of “divide and conquer.” Other examples are Rwanda, Yugoslavia, the Caucasus, and Afghanistan.

Amongst the problems in the contemporary Middle East is the lack of genuine democracy which U.S. and British foreign policy has actually been deliberately obstructing. Western-style "Democracy" has been a requirement only for those Middle Eastern states which do not conform to Washington's political demands. Invariably, it constitutes a pretext for confrontation. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan are examples of undemocratic states that the United States has no problems with because are firmly alligned within the Anglo-American orbit or sphere.

Additionally, the United States has deliberately blocked or displaced genuine democratic movements in the Middle East from Iran in 1953 (where a U.S./U.K. sponsored coup was staged against the democratic government of Prime Minister Mossadegh) to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, the Arab Sheikdoms, and Jordan where the Anglo-American alliance supports military control, absolutists, and dictators in one form or another. The latest example of this is Palestine.


The Turkish Protest at NATO’s Military College in Rome

Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters’ map of the “New Middle East” has sparked angry reactions in Turkey. According to Turkish press releases on September 15, 2006 the map of the “New Middle East” was displayed in NATO’s Military College in Rome, Italy. It was additionally reported that Turkish officers were immediately outraged by the presentation of a portioned and segmented Turkey.8 The map received some form of approval from the U.S. National War Academy before it was unveiled in front of NATO officers in Rome.

The Turkish Chief of Staff, General Buyukanit, contacted the U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, and protested the event and the exhibition of the redrawn map of the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.9 Furthermore the Pentagon has gone out of its way to assure Turkey that the map does not reflect official U.S. policy and objectives in the region, but this seems to be conflicting with Anglo-American actions in the Middle East and NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan.

Is there a Connection between Zbigniew Brzezinski’s “Eurasian Balkans” and the “New Middle East” Project?

The following are important excerpts and passages from former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski’s book, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geo-strategic Imperatives. Brzezinski also states that both Turkey and Iran, the two most powerful states of the “Eurasian Balkans,” located on its southern tier, are “potentially vulnerable to internal ethnic conflicts [balkanization],” and that, “If either or both of them were to be destabilized, the internal problems of the region would become unmanageable.”10

It seems that a divided and balkanized Iraq would be the best means of accomplishing this. Taking what we know from the White House's own admissions; there is a belief that “creative destruction and chaos” in the Middle East are beneficial assets to reshaping the Middle East, creating the “New Middle East,” and furthering the Anglo-American roadmap in the Middle East and Central Asia:

"In Europe, the Word “Balkans” conjures up images of ethnic conflicts and great-power regional rivalries. Eurasia, too, has its “Balkans,” but the Eurasian Balkans are much larger, more populated, even more religiously and ethnically heterogeneous. They are located within that large geographic oblong that demarcates the central zone of global instability (…) that embraces portions of southeastern Europe, Central Asia and parts of South Asia [Pakistan, Kashmir, Western India], the Persian Gulf area, and the Middle East.

The Eurasian Balkans form the inner core of that large oblong (…) they differ from its outer zone in one particularly significant way: they are a power vacuum. Although most of the states located in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East are also unstable, American power is that region’s [meaning the Middle East’s] ultimate arbiter. The unstable region in the outer zone is thus an area of single power hegemony and is tempered by that hegemony. In contrast, the Eurasian Balkans are truly reminiscent of the older, more familiar Balkans of southeastern Europe: not only are its political entities unstable but they tempt and invite the intrusion of more powerful neighbors, each of whom is determined to oppose the region’s domination by another. It is this familiar combination of a power vacuum and power suction that justifies the appellation “Eurasian Balkans.”

The traditional Balkans represented a potential geopolitical prize in the struggle for European supremacy. The Eurasian Balkans, astride the inevitably emerging transportation network meant to link more directly Eurasia’s richest and most industrious western and eastern extremities, are also geopolitically significant. Moreover, they are of importance from the standpoint of security and historical ambitions to at least three of their most immediate and more powerful neighbors, namely, Russia, Turkey, and Iran, with China also signaling an increasing political interest in the region. But the Eurasian Balkans are infinitely more important as a potential economic prize: an enormous concentration of natural gas and oil reserves is located in the region, in addition to important minerals, including gold.

The world’s energy consumption is bound to vastly increase over the next two or three decades. Estimates by the U.S. Department of Energy anticipate that world demand will rise by more than 50 percent between 1993 and 2015, with the most significant increase in consumption occurring in the Far East. The momentum of Asia’s economic development is already generating massive pressures for the exploration and exploitation of new sources of energy, and the Central Asian region and the Caspian Sea basin are known to contain reserves of natural gas and oil that dwarf those of Kuwait, the Gulf of Mexico, or the North Sea.

Access to that resource and sharing in its potential wealth represent objectives that stir national ambitions, motivate corporate interests, rekindle historical claims, revive imperial aspirations, and fuel international rivalries. The situation is made all the more volatile by the fact that the region is not only a power vacuum but is also internally unstable.

(…)

The Eurasian Balkans include nine countries that one way or another fit the foregoing description, with two others as potential candidates. The nine are Kazakstan [alternative and official spelling of Kazakhstan] , Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia—all of them formerly part of the defunct Soviet Union—as well as Afghanistan.

The potential additions to the list are Turkey and Iran, both of them much more politically and economically viable, both active contestants for regional influence within the Eurasian Balkans, and thus both significant geo-strategic players in the region. At the same time, both are potentially vulnerable to internal ethnic conflicts. If either or both of them were to be destabilized, the internal problems of the region would become unmanageable, while efforts to restrain regional domination by Russia could even become futile."11 [emphasis added]


Redrawing the Middle East

The Middle East, in some regards, is a striking parallel to the Balkans and Central-Eastern Europe during the years leading up the First World War. In the wake of the the First World War the borders of the Balkans and Central-Eastern Europe were redrawn. This region experienced a period of upheaval, violence and conflict, before and after World War I, which was the direct result of foreign economic interests and interference.

The reasons behind the First World War are more sinister than the standard school-book explanation, the assassination of the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian (Habsburg) Empire, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo. Economic factors were the real motivation for the large-scale war in 1914.

Norman Dodd, a former Wall Street banker and investigator for the U.S. Congress, who examined U.S. tax-exempt foundations, confirmed in a 1982 interview that those powerful individuals who from behind the scenes controlled the finances, policies, and government of the United States had in fact also planned U.S. involvement in a war, which would contribute to entrenching their grip on power.

The following testimonial is from the transcript of Norman Dodd's interview with G. Edward Griffin;

We are now at the year 1908, which was the year that the Carnegie Foundation began operations. And, in that year, the trustees meeting, for the first time, raised a specific question, which they discussed throughout the balance of the year, in a very learned fashion. And the question is this: Is there any means known more effective than war, assuming you wish to alter the life of an entire people? And they conclude that, no more effective means to that end is known to humanity, than war. So then, in 1909, they raise the second question, and discuss it, namely, how do we involve the United States in a war?

Well, I doubt, at that time, if there was any subject more removed from the thinking of most of the people of this country [the United States], than its involvement in a war. There were intermittent shows [wars] in the Balkans, but I doubt very much if many people even knew where the Balkans were. And finally, they answer that question as follows: we must control the State Department.

And then, that very naturally raises the question of how do we do that? They answer it by saying, we must take over and control the diplomatic machinery of this country and, finally, they resolve to aim at that as an objective. Then, time passes, and we are eventually in a war, which would be World War I. At that time, they record on their minutes a shocking report in which they dispatch to President Wilson a telegram cautioning him to see that the war does not end too quickly. And finally, of course, the war is over.

At that time, their interest shifts over to preventing what they call a reversion of life in the United States to what it was prior to 1914, when World War I broke out. [emphasis added]

The redrawing and partition of the Middle East from the Eastern Mediterranean shores of Lebanon and Syria to Anatolia (Asia Minor), Arabia, the Persian Gulf, and the Iranian Plateau responds to broad economic, strategic and military objectives, which are part of a longstanding Anglo-American and Israeli agenda in the region.

The Middle East has been conditioned by outside forces into a powder keg that is ready to explode with the right trigger, possibly the launching of Anglo-American and/or Israeli air raids against Iran and Syria. A wider war in the Middle East could result in redrawn borders that are strategically advantageous to Anglo-American interests and Israel.

NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan has been successfully divided, all but in name. Animosity has been inseminated in the Levant, where a Palestinian civil war is being nurtured and divisions in Lebanon agitated. The Eastern Mediterranean has been successfully militarized by NATO. Syria and Iran continue to be demonized by the Western media, with a view to justifying a military agenda. In turn, the Western media has fed, on a daily basis, incorrect and biased notions that the populations of Iraq cannot co-exist and that the conflict is not a war of occupation but a "civil war" characterised by domestic strife between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.

Attempts at intentionally creating animosity between the different ethno-cultural and religious groups of the Middle East have been systematic. In fact, they are part of carefully designed covert intelligence agenda.

Even more ominous, many Middle Eastern governments, such as that of Saudi Arabia, are assisting Washington in fomenting divisions between Middle Eastern populations. The ultimate objective is to weaken the resistance movement against foreign occupation through a "divide and conquer strategy" which serves Anglo-American and Israeli interests in the broader region.



* Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is in an independent writer based in Ottawa specializing in Middle Eastern and Central Asian affairs. He is a Research Associate of the Center for Research on Globalization (CRG).

_______________________


Notes


1 U.S. State Department; Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, What the Secretary Has Been Saying; Special Briefing on the Travel to the Middle East and Europe of Secretary Condoleezza Rice, Washington, DC. July 21, 2006.

 http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2006/69331.htm


2 Professor Mark LeVine, The New Creative Destruction, Asia Times, August 22, 2006.

 http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HH22Ak01.html


3 Professor Andrej Kreutz; The Geopolitics of post-Soviet Russia and the Middle East, Arab Studies Quarterly (ASQ), Association of Arab-American University Graduates, Washington D.C., January 2002.

 http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2501/is_1_24/ai_93458168/pg_1


4 The Caucasus or Caucasia can be considered as part of the Middle East or as a separate region


5 Lieutenant-Colonel (retired) Ralph Peters; Blood borders: How a better Middle East would look, Armed Forces Journal (AFJ), June 2006

 http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2006/06/1833899


6 Ibid

7 Crispian Balmer; French MPs back Armenia genocide bill, Turkey angry, Reuters, October 12, 2006.

James McConalogue; French against Turks: Talking about Armenian Genocide, The Brussels Journal, October 10, 2006.

 http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/1585


8 Suleyman Kurt; Carved-up Map of Turkey at NATO Prompts U.S. Apology, Zaman (Turkey), September 29, 2006.

 http://www.zaman.com/?bl=international&alt=&hn=36919


9 Ibid

10 Zbigniew Brzezinski; The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geo-strategic Imperatives, Basic Books, New York, 1998

 http://www.perseusbooksgroup.com/basic/book_detail.jsp?isbn=0465027261


11 Ibid

_______________________

Theres too much stuff to read here.
Can you just provide a short overview covering the key points?

But Achmedinejad doesn't even believe there was a holocaust. According to him it either never happened or was "inflated" by "zionists".

I have taken the side of the majority of the world's population vs. the West and its desire for "full spectrum dominance" of the world. The same [b]white, Christian[/b] colonial/imperial West that has been brutalizing most of the World's population for over half a millinium.

That is the definition of [b]white supremacy[/b] and Western societies are its chief perpetratours.

Western, Christian capitalism is devastating the world-it must be stopped-even at the expense of (for now) uniting with the likes of Iran until this scourge is brought to a halt. We can work out the particulars(with Iran, etc.) afterward.

There is a stark similarity between some aspects of the political atmosphere dominant over Iran today and those under Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh right before the U.S.-led coup of 1953 that resulted in the overthrow of the legitimate government of Iran and the establishment of a U.S.-puppet government of the Shah. In the period between 1951-53, the U.S. in a close collaboration with the British colonial power through their channels within Iran's military and political apparatus, particularly the Shah’s court, was able to contrive division within the ruling circle and as a result the society at large.

The U.S.-U.K. sanctions of Iran's oil export at the time pursued a multitude of purposes: political instability, economic hardship, and international isolation. In the final year of Mossadegh's rule, the government was unable to pay the salaries of the civil servants in full, which had resulted in resentment towards the Prime Minister's policy of oil nationalism and his capability to rule. Secondly, Iran could not import consumer and industrial goods necessary for maintaining the normal course of economic and social reproduction. Thirdly, a layer of the ruling class whose interests were the extension of the U.S.-U.K. domination over Iran's natural resources and political system, made every effort to turn the wheels back or make the political system unmanageable. As a result, during the first eight months of 1953, Iran was in constant political turmoil and the ground was being prepared for a coup d'etat by the forces hostile to Iran’s nationalization plan, as well as to its independent direction in its domestic and foreign policies.

The U.S.-U.K. intelligence services under the covers of their diplomatic corps took advantage of the chaotic atmosphere, artfully promoted by the landed aristocracy and their spokesmen in the national congress and Mossadegh's administration. Iranian society in the early 50's was basically agrarian and hence a great majority, up to 65 percent were engaged in farming and played a miniscule role in shaping national policies. In a few large cities of Tehran, Isfahan, Tabriz, Kerman, Abadan and Shiraz, the politically active population was led by several political and ideological groupings. Among them the Tudeh Party that had organized a fraction of the workers, women and the intelligentsia under the banner of socialist ideals was a modern party merely in its infancy. The organizers of the Tudeh Party were Iranian intellectuals who were educated mainly in Western Europe, where the communist parties were strong during and after WWII, and the Soviet Union's army had effectively defeated the Nazi forces in Russia and Eastern Europe.

This party lacked experience and suffered from lack of deep understanding of the character of Iran’s social-economic development, the corresponding class forces and the necessary strategy for transition from a semi-feudal and a semi-colonial society to an independent and democratic social order. Although from the viewpoint of social justice, the Tudeh Party put the working class demands forward and achieved some successes, but in respect to the vital question of nationalization of the Iranian oil industry and the essentiality of forming a united front of working class and the national bourgeoisie which Mossadegh was the representative, the Tudeh did not seize the opportunity of uniting in time to prevent the success of the U.S. coup of 1953.

Ironically, this could be a useful lesson to be learned by all those Iranian groups today that wear the mantle of modernism and progress; however, in the recent unrest they joined the crowd whose aim was to overthrow the legitimate and democratically-elected government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Such association between pro-working class groups and counter-revolutionaries within the "Green Movement" makes some charges by the conservative elements against the "Marxists" and "Socialists" seem credible.

Tremors From Within

The second political grouping that associated itself with Dr. Mossadegh and his foreign policy was an amorphous amalgamation of individuals, tendencies and parties in a broad forum of what was known as the "National Front" of Iran. This conglomeration of loose political groupings represented mainly the interests of the merchant class that viewed the socialist movement and the Soviet Union as a "communist" neighbor with apprehension. In the camp of Mossadegh, in addition to the middle merchants, retailers, artisans, younger intellectuals and students who supported nationalization of Iran’s oil industry and hence Mossadegh's premiership against the Shah's despotism, there were big landlords, rentier strata, speculators, big businessmen, particularly in the import-export sector, and the families of the aristocracy and high echelons of clerics who hand-in-glove conspired to undermine the nationalization of oil movement.

The political organizations that made up the National Front headed by Dr. Mossadegh were: Iran party, Pan-Iranist Party of Nation of Iran, Islamic Mojahedin Party, and Toiling Masses Party of Iran. The leaders of some of the organizations served as representatives in the Iranian Parliament and spokesmen of Mossadegh’s Cabinet. In this group, representatives Shams Ghanatabadi, Abdol-ghadir Azad, Mozafar Baghaee, Hassan Imami, the leader of the House, actively opposed Dr. Mossadegh's plan for nationalization and hand-in-glove collaborated with the agents of foreign powers in undermining the national security and government stability from within the system. Before the final attack against the government of Dr. Mossadegh, on August 19, 1953, the U.S.-U.K. axis with the support of the domestic military and civil agents of foreign powers carried out several "mini-coups" that were neutralized by the great support of the Iranian people.

Patriotic Forces on Guard

Today, 57 years later, Iran faces almost the same dilemma in which the imperialist forces are planning to undermine Iran's political and economic system, using the UN sanctions, while the well-to-do classes frightened by President Ahmadinejad's pro-working class and national independence policies, are engaged in activities aimed at fostering insecurity domestically and weakening Iran's position internationally. The unceremonious role of this segment of the population led partly by the "reformists", is in fact preparing the ground to enhance U.S. influence in Iran, strengthen its supremacy in the Middle East region and change the balance of forces in Central and East Asia. The leadership of this "movement" attempted to use the tenth presidential election as a stepping stone to seize state power by slandering the result of the election, in which President Ahmadinejad with 63% of the votes defeated the reformist candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi.

But here is where similarities between Mossadegh's period and today's situation under Ahmadinejad ends and important differences begin. In sharp contrast to the liberal government of Dr. Mossadegh, President Ahmadinejad's government is an outcome of a revolution. Secondly, Iran is much more developed in comparison and the U.S. in the last 30 years has not been able to bring down Iran's social-economic system and lastly, but not the least important, the Islamic Republic's security forces are the result of the revolution and are trained, equipped and ideologically armed by the world outlook of the Islamic leaders, while the Shah's military forces were trained by the colonial and imperialist powers and were at the service of the monarchy allied with foreign interests. Finally, the economic sanctions of the West have been to some extent derailed by China and Russia that have lost their potency in undermining the Iranian economy.

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* Ardeshir Ommani is an Iranian-born writer and an activist in the U.S. anti-war and anti-imperialist struggle for over 40 years, including against the Vietnam War, and now the Iraq war. During the past seven years, he has participated in the U.S. peace movement, working to promote dialogue and peace among nations and to prevent a U.S.-spurred war on Iran. He holds two Masters Degrees: one in Political Economy and another in Mathematics Education. Co-founder of the American Iranian Friendship Committee, (AIFC), he writes articles of analysis on Iran-U.S. relations, the U.S. economy and has translated articles and books from English into Farsi, the Persian language.

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And the dedicated NAZIS scientist Werner Von Braun, who headed Hitler's missile program did just that when he headed the American Missile program after his capture in 1945. Let us look at what German Imperialism did, Prof. Einstein trained in Imperial dialectics In Berlin University, provided the knowledge to allow the atomic bomb, Oppenheimer--father of the Hydrogen bomb, and although he claims American Citizenship it remains a fact that his theory comes from his heritage and the dialectics of Imperial Germany. The facts also are that Ethel and Julius Rosenburg have German heritage although American citizenship, and that they provided Russia with the knowledge of Nuclear Weapons manufactury. In this the real crime remains Aggressive War and the WMD that could destroy the worlds entire livability six times over if a full exchange took place. Real modern Revisionism in the world today. That is the continuous Holocaust on-going in the world. Everyone has heard of the Nuclear holocaust as a continuation, and it is not over till it is over.

It is this contradiction that the First Canadian Division set out to solve in two world wars, by declaring that its purpose was and is the complete thorough and total dismantling of all WMD, and thus also conventional war machinery and it manufactury on earth so that an era of peace can pertain in each and every country on the planet. The war to end all wars. The set goal of the socialist international meeting in Basle in 1912. That too is not entirely over till its over.

Simply put Einstein, Obama, and Vanunu both decry the nuclear weapons, a cry for their total dismantling, but the fact remains that not until they are dismantled will the world be saved from nuclear destruction. Look at the U.S. Imperialist use of DU in the world's Holyland, and the contamination of over 700,000 American troopers with radiation. Is this not nuclear war? The facts are other than what the Pentagon says that its only Gulf War Syndrome, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which they say is not connected to Radioactive Contamination., but they are playing with semantics because it has been proven that DU is very alive and not depleted (another lingo lie of the Pentagon) and they do their lies to get out of paying the troopers medical bills, which are a huge expense to the Military establishment. The facts are and there is plenty evidence that the limbless, eyeless, earless babies being born genetically deformed is a direct result of radioactice contamination from the Depleated Uranium, and chemical weapons fired by the U.S. Military throughout the countries they have invaded and occupied in the Middle East, and abroad.

The Pentagon twisting of the English language has got the world beginning to disbelieve in the usefulness of English as a peoples language. Phrases such as the military jargon Depleted Uranium, Friendly Fire, Collateral damage, and etc a huge amount of words that decieve the real meaning of their practical applications. Never mind what they have done to the political language of such words as Peace, Freedom, Justice and Democracy, which when seen in practical terms have been turned around to mean exactly the opposite of what is said. We the people need to dismantle the war machine and its manufactury here on earth if we are to experience genuine world peace again, and that includes without pollution. That is the material truth of the matter-in-motion.

The Peoples Republic of China chaired by Mao-tse- Tung has a plaque display at the place of its first atomic bomb test that says, China only aquires the knowledge of nuclear weaponry technology for the sole and only purpose of dismantling nuclear weapons in every country in the world that has them. Dismantle all nuclear weapons is the foreign policy of the Peoples Republic of China that has offered to host or be hosted at a political meeting with one item on the agenda--the complete thorough, total dismantling of all nuclear weapons on the planet eath. The Imperialist camp of Russia, Britain, United States, France and Israel have repeatedly refused China's offer that is written in stone and will not change until all nuclear weapons are dismantled globally.