Pompeo and Netanyahu Paved a Path to War With Iran, and They’re Pushing Trump Again

by Gareth Porter Posted on March 21, 2020

https://original.antiwar.com/porter/2020/03/20/pompeo-and-netanyahu-paved-a-path-to-war-with-iran-and-theyre-pushing-trump-again/

The administration of President Donald Trump may escape the most recent conflict with Iran without war, however, a dangerous escalation is just over the horizon. And as before, the key factors driving the belligerence are not outraged, Iraqi militia leaders or their allies in Iran, but Trump’s secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long sought to draw the US into a military confrontation with Iran.

Throughout the fall of 2019, Netanyahu ordered a series of Israeli strikes against Iranian allies in Iraq and against Lebanese Hezbollah units. He and Pompeo hoped the attacks would provoke a reaction from their targets that could provide a tripwire outright war with Iran. As could have been expected, corporate US media missed the story, perhaps because it failed to reinforce the universally accepted narrative of a hyper-aggressive Iran emboldened by Trump’s failure to “deter” it following Iran’s shoot-down of a U.S. drone in June, and an alleged Iranian attack on a Saudi oil facility in September.

Pompeo and John Bolton set the stage for the tripwire strategy in May 2019 with a statement by national security adviser John Bolton citing “troubling and escalatory indications and warnings,” implying an Iranian threat without providing concrete details. That the vague language echoed a previous vow by Bolton that “any attack” by Iran or “proxy” forces “on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force.”

Then came a campaign of leaks to major news outlet suggesting that Iran was planning attacks on the US military personnel. The day after Bolton’s statement, the Wall Street Journal reported that the unnamed US officials cited “US intelligence” showing that Iran “drew up plans to target the US forces in Iraq and possibly Syria, to orchestrate attacks in the Bab el-Mandeb strait near Yemen through proxies and in the Persian Gulf with its own armed drones….”

The immediate aim of this campaign was to gain Trump’s approval for contingency plans for a possible war with Iran that included the option of sending as many 120,000 US troops in the region. Trump balked at such war-planning, however, complaining privately that Bolton and Pompeo was pushing him into a war with Iran. Following Iran’s shoot-down of the US drone over the Strait of Hormuz on June 20, Pompeo and Bolton suggested the option of killing Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani in retaliation. But Trump refused to sign off on the assassination of Iran’s top general unless Iran killed an American first, according to current and former officials.

From that point on, the provocation strategy was focused on trying to trigger an Iranian reaction that would involve a US casualty. That’s when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu interjected himself and his military as a central player in the drama. From July 19 through August 20, the Israeli army carried out five strikes against Iraqi militias allied with Iran, blowing up four weapons depots and killing as many Shiite militiamen and Iranian officers, according to press accounts.

The Israeli bombing escalated on August 25, when two strikes on the brigade headquarters of a pro-Iranian militia and on a militia convoy killed the brigade commander and six other militiamen, and a drone strike on Hezbollah’s headquarters in south Beirut blew the windows out of one of Hezbollah’s media offices.

Netanyahu and Pompeo sabotage Trump and Macron’s attempt at diplomacy

Behind those strikes was Netanyahu’s sense of alarm over Trump toying with the idea of seeking negotiations with Iran. Netanyahu had likely learned about Trump’s moves toward détente from Pompeo, who had long been his primary contact in the administration. On August 26, French President Emanuel Macron revealed that he was working to broker a Trump-Rouhani meeting. Netanyahu grumbled about the prospect of U.S.-Iranian talks “several times” with his security cabinet the day before launching the strikes.

Two retired senior Israeli generals, Gen. Amos Yadlin and Gen. Assaf Oron, criticized those strikes for increasing the likelihood of harsh retaliation by Iran or one of its regional partners. The generals complained that Netanyahu’s attacks were “designed to prod [Iran] into a hasty response” and thus end Trump’s flirtation with talking to Iran. That much was obviously true, but Pompeo and Netanyahu also knew that provoking an attack by Iran or one of its allies might cause one or more of the American casualties they sought. And once American blood was spilled, Trump would have no means to resist authorizing a major escalation.

Kataib Hezbollah and other pro-Iran Iraqi militias blamed the United States for the wave of lethal Israeli attacks on their fighters. These militias responded in September by launching a series of rocket attacks on Iraqi government bases where US troops were present. They also struck targets in the vicinity of the US Embassy.

The problem for Netanyahu and Pompeo, however, was that none of those strikes killed an American. What’s more, US intelligence officials knew from NSA monitoring of communications between the IRGC and the militias that Iran had explicitly forbidden direct attacks on US personnel.

Netanyahu was growing impatient. For several days in late October and early November, he met with his national security cabinet to discuss a new Israeli attack to precipitate a possible war with Iran, according to reports by former Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren. Oren hinted at how a war with Iran might start. ‘[P]erhaps Israel miscalculates,” he suggested, “hitting a particularly sensitive target,” which, in his view, could spark “a big war between Israel and Iran.”

But on December 27, before Netanyahu could put such a strategy into action, the situation changed dramatically. A barrage of rockets slammed into an Iraqi base near Kirkuk where US military personnel were stationed, killing a US military contractor. Suddenly, Pompeo had the opening he needed. At a meeting the following day, Pompeo led Trump to believe that Iranian “proxies” had attacked the base, and pressed him to “reestablish deterrence” with Iran by carrying out a military response.

In fact, US and Iraqi officials on the spot had reached no such conclusion, and the investigation led by the head of intelligence for the Iraqi federal police at the base was just beginning that same day. But Pompeo and his allies, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Chairman of Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark A Milley, were not interested in waiting for its conclusion.

A deception brings the US and Iran to the brink of war

The results of a subsequent Iraqi investigation revealed that the rocket barrage had been launched from a Sunni area of Kirkuk with a strong Islamic State presence and that IS fighters had carried out three attacks not far from the base on Iraqi forces stationed there in the previous ten days. US signals intercept found no evidence that Iraqi militias had shifted from their policy of avoiding American casualties at all costs.

Kept in the dark by Pompeo about these crucial facts, Trump agreed to launch five airstrikes against Kataib Hezbollah and another pro-Iran militia at five locations in Iraq and Syria that killed 25 militiamen and wounded 51. He may have also agreed in principle to the killing of Soleimani when the opportunity presented itself.

Iran responded to the attacks on its Iraqi militia allies by approving a violent protest at the US Embassy in Baghdad January 31. The demonstrators did not penetrate the embassy building itself and were abruptly halted the same day. But Pompeo managed to persuade Trump to authorize the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s second most powerful figure, presumably by hammering on the theme of “reestablishing deterrence” with Iran.

Soleimani was not only the second most powerful man in Iran and the main figure in its foreign policy; he was idolized by millions of the most strongly nationalist citizens of the country. Killing him in a drone strike was an open invitation to the military confrontation Netanyahu and Pompeo so desperately sought.

During the crucial week from December 28 through January 4, while Pompeo was pressing Trump to retaliate against Iran not just once but twice, it was clear that he was coordinating closely with Netanyahu. During that single week, he spoke by phone with Netanyahu on three separate occasions.

What Pompeo and Netanyahu could not have anticipated was that Iran’s missile attack on the US sector of Iraq’s sprawling al-Asad airbase in retaliation would be so precise that it scored direct hits on six US targets without killing a single American. (The US service members were saved in part because the rockets were fired after the Iraqi government had passed on a warning from Iran to prepare for it). Because no American was killed in the strike, Trump again decided against further retaliation.

Towards another provocation

Although Pompeo and Netanyahu failed to ignite a military conflict with Iran, there is good reason to believe that they will try again before both are forced to leave their positions of power.

In an article for the Atlantic last November, former Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren, channeled Netanyahu when he declared it would be “better for conflict [with Iran] to occur during the current [Trump] administration, which can be counted on to provide Israel with the three sources of American assistance it traditionally receives in wartime,” than to “wait until later.”

Oren was not the only Israeli official to suggest that Israeli is likely to go even further in strikes against Iranian and Iranian allies targets in 2020. After listening to Israeli army chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi speak in late December, Haaretz military correspondent Amos Harel reported that the Israeli army chief conveyed the clear impression that a “more serious confrontation with Iran in the coming year as an almost unquestionable necessity.” His interviews with Israeli military and political figures further indicated that Israel would “intensity its efforts to hit Iran in the northern area.”

Shockingly, Pompeo has exploited the Coronavirus pandemic to impose even harsher sanctions on Iran while intimidating foreign businesses to prevent urgently needed medical supplies from entering the country. The approaching presidential election gives both Pompeo and Netanyahu a powerful reason to plot another strike or a series of strikes aimed at drawing the US into a potential Israeli confrontation with Iran.

Activists and members of Congress concerned about keeping the US out of a war with Iran must be acutely aware of the danger and ready to respond decisively when the provocation occurs.

Gareth Porter, an investigative historian, and journalist specializing in US national security policy, received the UK-based Gellhorn Prize for journalism for 2011 for articles on the U.S. war in Afghanistan. His new book is Manufactured Crisis: the Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare. He can be contacted at porter.gareth50@gmail.com. Reprinted from The Grayzone with the author’s permission.

China-US ideological friction intensifies amid COVID-19

By Ling Shengli Source: Global Times Published: 2020/3/19

China and the US have been hit hard by the novel coronavirus outbreak, which has dealt a heavy blow to the economies of both countries. However, instead of mounting a joint effort to fight the pandemic, the US has chosen to escalate ideological competition by playing the blame game. This decades-old ideological struggle has been profoundly influential and is now set to generate an even greater negative impact on bilateral ties. The coronavirus could be the likely trigger. 

As China was battling the virus, the Wall Street Journal cast a hurtful, sarcastic tone by labeling China "the real sick man of Asia," and refused to apologize after repeated demands from China's Foreign Ministry. This led China to revoke the press credentials of three Journal reporters in China. 

The US government added fuel to the fire by then designating five Chinese media outlets in the US as "foreign missions" and effectively expelling dozens of Chinese journalists. 

On Wednesday China took further countermeasures against the US for placing unwarranted restrictions on Chinese media agencies and personnel working in the US. Beijing's measures require US nationals working for the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal to return their press accreditation within 10 days if their credentials expire before the end of 2020. The newspapers, and Voice of America and Time, are also required to report to the ministry details on their staffing, finances, operation and real estate in China. 

This is a manifestation of the ideological competition between China and the US. The US holds a deep-seated obsession with its ideology, and cannot recognize that other systems and ideologies have merit. The US seems incapable of tolerance and reconciliation when it comes to the ideological differences between China and the US.

During the Cold War, the US adopted all-around suppression of China solely over ideological differences. In the 1960s, Washington began adjusting its strategy toward Beijing to counter the Soviet Union. When the Cold War ended, the US once again intensified ideological confrontations with China. That's when former US president Bill Clinton tried to link so-called human rights affairs with China's most-favored-nation-treatment.

US politicians have never stopped their ideological hostility toward China, and continue to attempt to reshape China. Imposing more pressure on China has become a consensus among Washington strategists, who viewed engagement policy as a failure. 

Since President Donald Trump took office, the US began a much fiercer competition with China, which has increasingly become more ideological. Trump has repeatedly used the "Chinese virus" to define the novel coronavirus, and the US Congress attempted to interfere in China's domestic affairs. These moves and others reflect an ideological competition that is becoming increasingly vehement and can no longer be overlooked. It needs to be properly dealt with, otherwise, it could strike US-China ties hard. 

Strategic competition between the US and China has, to some extent, fanned the flames of these ideological frictions. But the critical reason lies in the divergence and contradictions in the two countries' media outlets and drivers of public opinion.

Previously, Beijing tried to deal with an ideological battering from the US in a low-profile manner that was designed to avoid ideological competition from escalating. In recent years, Washington has become more aggressive, and China decided its sometimes less defensive approach led the US to regard China as weak and allowed Washington to become more arrogant. This is a lesson China has learned from the US-launched trade war - Beijing responded to Washington's unrelenting demands in a strong manner. 

Even a rabbit will bite when it's irritating, and China is no rabbit. It has become impossible for China not to respond to the US' constant enmity toward China's system and chosen ideology. 

As the Chinese people suffer through the novel coronavirus pandemic, they mostly feel disgusted when US politicians make a groundless accusation against China. China's countermeasures against US news outlets are just and restrained. They are not aimed at escalating tensions and its hoped the US will realize China's reasonable concerns and deal with China-US ideological divergences rationally to ensure their peaceful coexistence. 

However, with the ongoing US presidential election campaign, the bruised economy and the pandemic, it's hard to see the struggle between Beijing and Washington easing. Even more worrisome are negative interactions that could create a more pessimistic mood that could harm ties well into the future. Both China and the US should be aware of this. Otherwise, the risk of a new cold war will increase sharply. 

The author is secretary-general of the International Security Study Center at China Foreign Affairs University. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn

Coronavirus y política económica

Orlando Delgado Selley

https://www.jornada.com.mx/2020/03/19/opinion/020a1eco

La pandemia está llevando a que en el mundo se tomen decisiones en materia económica de gran alcance, mientras en México nos mantenemos en la fase 1, que quiere decir que estamos en espera de que se desate nacionalmente la epidemia. Los ministros de Finanzas de los países del G-7, que ya se encuentran en una fase avanzada de la epidemia, han decidido que usarán todos los instrumentos de política económica para contener la amenaza que ha planteado el coronavirus. El Sistema de la Reserva Federal, por su parte, decidió reducir la tasa de los fondos federales en 100 puntos base, llevándola a entre 0 y 0.25 por ciento anual, junto con la reactivación de la política de compra de valores de Tesorería, incrementando su cartera en al menos 500 mil millones de dólares. En contraste, nuestro banco central, ajustado a su mandato fundamental de ocuparse de mantener estabilidad de precios, se mantiene a la expectativa sosteniendo una tasa de referencia de 7 por ciento anual.

Además, gobiernos de países europeos han publicado un conjunto de decisiones de carácter fiscal que procurarán contener los efectos negativos de la parálisis de las actividades. Francia ha suspendido el cobro de servicios públicos, así como el pago de contribuciones fiscales, al tiempo que ha dispuesto de 300 mil millones de euros para salvar a sus empresas. España ha destinado 20 mil millones de euros para resarcir a empresas por las pérdidas generadas por el confinamiento. En marcado contraste, en México AMLO ha señalado que con los recursos rescatados por el combate a la corrupción habrá suficiente para enfrentar la contingencia, sin especificar nada más.

De modo que hay en curso, en efecto, medidas fiscales y monetarias que gobiernos y banqueros centrales de los principales países infectados están poniendo en marcha, para contener los devastadores impactos económicos que está generando la suspensión de actividades de todo tipo en el mundo. Los mexicanos, evidentemente tarde, también viviremos la suspensión de todas nuestras actividades y, en consecuencia, se producirán impactos económicos muy negativos para el país y, como siempre, serán particularmente graves para los que menos tienen.

Lo grave es que, como escribe Barry Eichengreen, en Project Syndicate, ni las decisiones de los bancos centrales, ni la de los gobiernos podrán reparar la ruptura de las cadenas de abastecimiento, ni los créditos a la producción recuperarán la producción pérdida. Es importante reconocer que es indispensable hacer uso de todas las capacidades de respuesta que existen desde la política económica, pero que no detendremos la contracción, sólo lograremos mitigar sus mayores consecuencias.

Lo verdaderamente importante es la detección, la contención y el tratamiento de la enfermedad. 

Estas tres tareas globales demandan recursos fiscales, pero igualmente importante será que los gobiernos tengan la capacidad administrativa para enfrentar eficientemente el desafío. Se requiere que se restablezca la confianza pública en los gobiernos, lo que exigirá absoluta transparencia para hacer del conocimiento el avance de la infección y, por supuesto, el número de decesos.

Pese a que las respuestas que se han dado no resuelven, es indudable que tienen efectos positivos, aunque limitados. Peor sería, como es hasta ahora nuestro caso, que ni las autoridades monetarias, ni las fiscales se ocuparan de utilizar todos los instrumentos de política económica necesarios para mitigar el impacto de esta pandemia. De modo que es indudablemente cierto que es el momento en que el mando nacional y global tiene que estar en manos de las autoridades de salud pública, de los epidemiólogos y, en general, de los médicos. Mando que, por supuesto, tiene que coordinarse a escala global. Las medidas unilaterales y los exabruptos demagógicos no ayudan, sino complican.

Todo indica que el gobierno mexicano tendrá que tomar medidas firmes, como las que han instrumentado China, Corea del Sur, Italia, España y Francia, entre otros. Lo que significa que será indispensable paralizar las actividades de todo tipo en el país lo más pronto posible. El riesgo de salud es alto, incluso tomando estas medidas. De no tomarlas el riesgo se incrementará exponencialmente. Hemos tenido tiempo para observar la manera en que esos países han actuado, los problemas que han enfrentado y, lo más importante, los resultados en términos de la contención de la epidemia. Podemos actuar con la información disponible y, en consecuencia, cometer los menos errores posibles. Lo que ya no puede hacerse es seguir funcionando como si no hubiera certeza que los contagios comunitarios ocurrirán. Es el momento de actuar y mostrar la capacidad de un gobierno que presuntamente cuenta con respaldo mayoritario de la población.

‘Zionist’ Biden in His Own Words: ‘My Name is Joe Biden, and Everybody Knows I Love Israel’

by Ramzy Baroud Posted onMarch 18, 2020

https://original.antiwar.com/ramzy-baroud/2020/03/17/zionist-biden-in-his-own-words-my-name-is-joe-biden-and-everybody-knows-i-love-israel/

“I am a Zionist. You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist,” current Democratic Presidential candidate, Joe Biden, said in April 2007, soon before he was chosen to be Barack Obama’s running mate in 2008 elections. 

Biden is, of course, correct, because Zionism is a political movement that is rooted in 20th-century nationalism and fascism. Its use of religious dogmas is prompted by political expediency, not spirituality or faith.

Unlike US President, Donald Trump, or Bernie Sanders, Biden’s only serious opponent in the Democratic primaries, Biden’s stand on Israel is rarely examined.

Trump has made his support for Israel the cornerstone of his foreign policy agenda since his inauguration into the White House in January 2017. The American President has basically transformed into Israel’s political genie, granting Tel Aviv all of its wishes in complete defiance of international law. 

Sanders, on the other hand, came to represent the antithesis of Trump’s blind and reckless support for Israel. Himself Jewish, Sanders has promised to restore to the Palestinian people their rights and dignity, and to play a more evenhanded role, thus ending decades of US unconditional support and bias in favor of Israel. 

But where does Biden factor into all of this?

Below is a brief examination of Biden’s record on Palestine and Israel in recent years, with the hope that it gives the reader a glimpse of a man that many Democrats feel is the rational alternative to the political imbalances and extremism of the Trump administration.

August 1984: Palestinians and Arabs are to Blame

Biden’s pro-Israel legacy began much earlier than his stint as a Vice-President or presidential candidate. 

When Biden was only a Senator from Delaware, he spoke at the 1984 annual conference of "Herut Zionists of America." Herut is the forerunner of Israel’s right-wing Likud Party. 

In his speech before the jubilant right-wing pro-Israel Zionist crowd, Biden derided the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Arab governments, for supposedly derailing peace in the Middle East. 

Biden spoke of "three myths (that) propel U.S. policy in the Middle East" which, according to the American Senator, are, "the belief that Saudi Arabia can be a broker for peace, the belief that King Hussein (of Jordan) is ready to negotiate peace and the belief that the Palestine Liberation Organization can deliver a consensus for peace."

April 2007: ‘I am a Zionist’ 

Time only cemented Biden’s pro-Israel’s convictions, leading to his declaration in April 2007 that he is not a mere supporter of Israel – as has become the standard among US politicians – but is a Zionist himself. 

In an interview with Shalom TV, and despite his insistence that he does not need to be Jewish to be a Zionist, Biden labored to make connections with the ‘Jewish State’, revealing that his son is married to a Jewish woman and that "he had participated in a Passover Seder at their house," according to the Israeli Ynet News.

March 2013: ‘Qualitative Edge’

This commitment to Israel became better articulated when Biden took on greater political responsibilities as the US vice-president under Obama’s administration.

At a packed AIPAC conference in March 2013, Biden elaborated on his ideological Zionist beliefs and his president’s commitment to ‘the Jewish state of Israel’. He said:

"It was at that table that I learned that the only way to ensure that it could never happen again was the establishment and the existence of a secure, Jewish state of Israel. I remember my father, a Christian, being baffled at the debate taking place at the end of World War II .." that any country could object to the founding of Israel on the ruins of the Palestinian homeland.

"That’s why we’ve worked so hard to make sure Israel keeps its qualitative edge in the midst of the Great Recession. I’ve served with eight Presidents of the United States of America, and I can assure you, unequivocally, no President has done as much to physically secure the State of Israel as President Barack Obama."  

December 2014: ‘Moral Obligation’ 

In one of the most fiercely pro-Israel speeches ever given by a top US official, Biden told the annual Saban Forum at the Brookings Institution in Washington on December 6, 2014, that, "If there weren’t an Israel, we would have to invent one".

In his speech, Biden added a new component to the American understanding of its relationship with Israel, one that goes beyond political expediency or ideological connections; a commitment that is founded on "moral obligation".

Biden said, "We always talk about Israel from this perspective as if we’re doing (them) some favor. We are meeting a moral obligation. But it is so much more than a moral obligation. It is overwhelmingly in the self-interest of the United States of America to have a secure and democratic friend, a strategic partner like Israel. It is no favor. It is an obligation, but also a strategic necessity."

April 2015: ‘I Love Israel’ 

"My name is Joe Biden, and everybody knows I love Israel," Biden began his speech at the 67th Annual Israeli Independence Day Celebration held in Jerusalem in April 2015.

"Sometimes we drive each other crazy," the US vice-president said in reference to disagreements between Israel and the US over Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu’s refusal to halt construction of illegal Jewish settlements. 

"But we love each other," he added. "And we protect each other. As many of you heard me say before, were there no Israel, America would have to invent one. We’d have to invent one because … you protect our interests like we protect yours."

July 2019: US Embassy Stays in Jerusalem

In response to a question by the news website, AXIOS, which was presented to the various Democratic party candidates, on whether a Democratic President would relocate the American embassy back to Tel Aviv, the Biden campaign answered:

"Vice President Biden would not move the American embassy back to Tel Aviv. But he would reopen our consulate in East Jerusalem to engage the Palestinians."

October 2019: Support for Israel Unconditional 

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on October 31, 2019, Biden was asked whether he agrees with the position taken by his more progressive opponent, Bernie Sanders, regarding US financial support to Israel and Jewish settlement.

Sanders had said that "if elected president he would leverage billions of dollars in US military aid to Israel to push Jerusalem to change its policies toward the Palestinians," The Hill news website reported. 

Biden’s response was that" ..  the idea that we would draw military assistance from Israel, on the condition that they change a specific policy, I find to be absolutely outrageous. No, I would not condition it, and I think it’s a gigantic mistake. And I hope some of my candidates who are running with me for the nomination – I hope they misspoke or they were taken out of context."

  

March 2020: ‘Above Politics, Beyond Politics’

Biden’s fiery speech before the pro-Israel lobby group, AIPAC, at their annual conference in March 2020, was a mere continuation of a long legacy that is predicated on his country’s blind support for Israel.

Biden’s discourse on Israel – a mixture of confused ideological notions, religious ideas, and political interests – culminated in a call for American support for Israel that is "above politics and beyond politics".  

"Israelis wake up every morning facing an existential threat from their neighbors’ rockets from Gaza, just like this past week. That’s why I’ve always been adamant that Israel must be able to defend itself. It’s not just critical for Israeli security. I believe it’s critical for America’s security." 

Palestinians "need to end the rocket attacks from Gaza," Biden also said. "They need to accept once and for all the reality and the right of a secure democratic and Jewish state of Israel in the Middle East."

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author, and editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons (Clarity Press, Atlanta). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University (IZU). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net.