The announcement last week by the United
States of the largest military aid
package in its history – to Israel – was
a win for both sides.
Israeli prime
minister Benjamin Netanyahu could boast
that his lobbying had boosted aid from
$3.1 billion a year to $3.8bn – a 22 per
cent increase – for a decade starting in
2019.
Mr Netanyahu has presented this as a
rebuff to those who accuse him of
jeopardising Israeli security interests
with his government’s repeated affronts
to the White House.
In the past weeks alone, defence
minister Avigdor Lieberman has compared
last year’s nuclear deal between
Washington and Iran with the 1938 Munich
pact, which bolstered Hitler; and Mr
Netanyahu has implied that US opposition
to settlement expansion is the same as
support for the “ethnic cleansing” of
Jews.
American president Barack Obama,
meanwhile, hopes to stifle his own
critics who insinuate that he is
anti-Israel. The deal should serve as a
fillip too for Hillary Clinton, the
Democratic party’s candidate to succeed
Mr Obama in November’s election.
In reality, however, the Obama
administration has quietly punished Mr
Netanyahu for his misbehaviour. Israeli
expectations of a $4.5bn-a-year deal
were whittled down after Mr Netanyahu
stalled negotiations last year as he
sought to recruit Congress to his battle
against the Iran deal.
In fact, Israel already receives
roughly $3.8bn – if Congress’s
assistance on developing missile defence
programmes is factored in. Notably,
Israel has been forced to promise not to
approach Congress for extra funds.
The deal takes into account neither
inflation nor the dollar’s depreciation
against the shekel.
A bigger blow still is the White
House’s demand to phase out a special
exemption that allowed Israel to spend
nearly 40 per cent of aid locally on
weapon and fuel purchases. Israel will
soon have to buy all its armaments from
the US, ending what amounted to a
subsidy to its own arms industry.
Nonetheless, Washington’s renewed
military largesse – in the face of
almost continual insults – inevitably
fuels claims that the Israeli tail is
wagging the US dog. Even The New York
Times has described the aid package as
“too big”.
Since the 1973 war, Israel has
received at least $100bn in military
aid, with more assistance hidden from
view. Back in the 1970s, Washington paid
half of Israel’s military budget. Today
it still foots a fifth of the bill,
despite Israel’s economic success.
But the US expects a return on its
massive investment. As the late Israeli
politician-general Ariel Sharon once
observed, Israel has been a US
“aircraft carrier” in the Middle East,
acting as the regional bully and
carrying out operations that benefit
Washington.
Almost no one blames the US for
Israeli attacks that wiped out Iraq’s
and Syria’s nuclear programmes. A
nuclear-armed Iraq or Syria would have
deterred later US-backed moves at regime
overthrow, as well as countering the
strategic advantage Israel derives from
its own nuclear arsenal.
In addition, Israel’s US-sponsored
military prowess is a triple boon to the
US weapons industry, the country’s most
powerful lobby. Public funds are
siphoned off to let Israel buy goodies
from American arms makers. That, in
turn, serves as a shop window for other
customers and spurs an endless and
lucrative game of catch-up in the rest
of the Middle East.
The first F-35 fighter jets to arrive
in Israel in December – their various
components produced in 46 US states –
will increase the clamour for the
cutting-edge warplane.
Israel is also a “front-line
laboratory”, as former Israeli army
negotiator Eival Gilady admitted at the
weekend, that develops and field-tests
new technology Washington can later use
itself.
The US is planning to buy back the
missile interception system Iron Dome –
which neutralises battlefield threats of
retaliation – it largely paid for.
Israel works closely too with the US in
developing cyberwarfare, such as the
Stuxnet worm that damaged Iran’s
civilian nuclear programme.
But the clearest message from
Israel’s new aid package is one
delivered to the Palestinians:
Washington sees no pressing strategic
interest in ending the occupation. It
stood up to Mr Netanyahu over the Iran
deal but will not risk a damaging clash
over Palestinian statehood.
Some believe that Mr Obama signed the
aid package to win the credibility
necessary to overcome his domestic
Israel lobby and pull a rabbit from the
hat: an initiative, unveiled shortly
before he leaves office, that corners Mr
Netanyahu into making peace.
Hopes have been raised by an expected
meeting at the United Nations in New
York on Wednesday. But their first talks
in 10 months are planned only to
demonstrate unity to confound critics of
the aid deal.
If Mr Obama really wanted to pressure
Mr Netanyahu, he would have used the aid
agreement as leverage. Now Mr Netanyahu
need not fear US financial retaliation,
even as he intensifies effective
annexation of the West Bank.
Mr Netanyahu has drawn the right
lesson from the aid deal – he can act
against the Palestinians with continuing
US impunity.
- See more at: http://www.jonathan-cook.net/2016-09-19/palestinians-lose-in-us-military-aid-deal-with-israel/#sthash.fL4Eq28N.dpuf
The
Warnings of a New World War
The U.S.-Russia confrontation over Ukraine
and now Syria is far more dangerous than is
understood by mainstream U.S. analysts as
Russia lays down clear warnings that are
mostly being ignored.
By Gilbert Doctorow
October 15, 2016 "Information
Clearing House"
- "Consortium
News"-
In an
interview with the Bild newspaper
on Oct. 8, German Foreign Minister
Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who is known for
his cautious rhetoric, described the present
international situation in the following
woeful terms: “unfortunately it is an
illusion to believe this is the old Cold
War. The new times are different; they are
more dangerous. Previously, the world was
divided, but Moscow and Washington knew each
other’s red lines and respected them. In a
world with many regional conflicts and
dwindling influence of the great powers, the
world becomes more unpredictable.”
For
these reasons, said Steinmeier, “The USA and
Russia must continue talking with each
other.” He concluded his appeal with fairly
balanced recommendations to resolve the
humanitarian crisis in east Aleppo, urging
both Russia and the other powers to apply
their influence with their clients on the
ground.
Sad to
say, this call to reason fell on deaf ears.
On the same day, a U.S. State Department
spokesman explained to journalists
Washington’s decision over the weekend to
end the joint peace process with Moscow,
saying that there was “nothing left to talk
about with the Russians.”
Meanwhile, the Russian side took as the last
straw this unilateral and trumpeted decision
of the Americans to bury the deal signed on
Sept. 9 between Secretary of State John
Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey
Lavrov that had taken 14 hours to negotiate
and was seen as a triumph of cooperation
versus confrontation.
De
facto, from the Russian view, that deal was
sabotaged on Sept. 17 by the Pentagon when
U.S. and coalition aircraft bombed a Syrian
government military outpost at Deir Ezzor
killing more than 60 Syrian soldiers. And de
facto, the Russians had suspended the
implementation of the ceasefire on Sept. 23
when they renewed heavy bombing of east
Aleppo in close collaboration with the
Syrian air force and ground units. Now that
the U.S. had formalized the end of
cooperation over Syria, Russia set out its
own full-blooded response which it called a
“radical change in relations” between the
two countries.
Several of the components of the Russian
response of Oct. 3 and over the week to
follow were noted in the U.S. and Western
mainstream media. We heard about the
decision to cancel the bilateral convention
concluded with the U.S. in 2000 on
reprocessing excess weapons-grade plutonium
for electricity generation. This was widely
considered to be of marginal importance,
since the U.S. had been unable to implement
its part of the bargain for lack of
appropriate conversion installations and
costs of upwards of $18 billion if it did
what was necessary.
We
heard about Russia holding civil defense
exercises to provide for 40 million
citizens, though no one could make much
sense of it. We heard about the announcement
of the Russian Ministry of Defense that it
now has brought to Syria and made
operational its most advanced air defense
missile systems, the S300 and S400, but
Pentagon spokesmen professed to be
dumbfounded and asked rhetorically what was
the purpose of the move.
Finally, we all heard this week that Russia
has officially deployed its hypersonic,
potentially nuclear-tipped, 500
kilometer-range Iskander ground-to-ground
missiles in its Kaliningrad enclave on the
Baltic Sea sandwiched between Poland and
Lithuania. The Polish military officials
immediately expressed dismay, feeling under
threat and said they were putting all their
defense facilities on alert. But Pentagon
spokesmen said there was no reason to view
this deployment as different from the last
deployment in Kaliningrad two years ago,
which was just a training exercise.
Playing Down the Danger
From
the foregoing, it would appear that the U.S.
government was keen to play down to the
general public the significance of the
separately noted Russian moves last week. It
is in this context that one must appreciate
what an unofficial but authoritative Russian
state television program last Sunday night
did to add a few more important dots, to
connect them all and to interpret for laymen
what is the significance of the Russian
démarches.
The
state television
program on the
Rossiya 1 channel, Vesti nedeli
(News of the Week), is presented by Dmitri
Kiselyov. This two-hour show on prime time
is the single most widely watched news
broadcast in Russia with tens of millions of
viewers. However, in cases like the Oct. 9
show, the real hoped-for audience of the
first half-hour segment was in Washington,
D.C., where its intent was to pour cold
water over hotheads in the Pentagon and CIA
– and bring the American leadership back to
its senses.
Dmitri
Kiselyov is not merely the anchorman of
Vesti nedeli. He is also the boss of
all news and information programming on
state radio and television. He is tough and
wears his patriotism on his sleeve. We may
assume that what he says has been approved
by the Kremlin.
Because of the importance of the message
Kiselyov was delivering, I am going to quote
heavily from my transcript of his narrative,
only making minor cuts:
“This
past week relations between the USA and
Russia went through a sharp but expected
turn. To bend over backwards further in the
face of [American] lies has lost all sense
and is simply harmful. By bending over
backwards we mean looking for diplomatic
compromises.
“We
held endless expectations that the USA will
finally separate the non-terrorists from the
terrorists [in Syria]. We waited more than a
year for this. But it is clear they did not
want to. They are taking us and the whole
world for fools. America is working on the
side of Al Nusra [Al Qaeda’s Syrian
affiliate], providing them with diplomatic
cover; providing them with additional arms;
helping them by their supposedly mistaken
bombing of a Syrian army position.
“See
the outbursts of anti-Russian statements in
the U.S. mass media. If we continue with the
Americans, our very presence in Syria will
lose sense. Instead, working with the legal
Syrian government, we can rid the country of
terrorists, thereby ensuring security of the
Middle Eastern region, Russia and Europe.”
Kiselyov continued: “Those who want to can
join us. The U.S. seemed to want to join,
then thought again and cut their military
cooperation with Russia over Syria on
Monday, with one exception, the channel of
communication to avoid military clashes in
Syria remains in force. For the time being.
“Formally the situation returned to where it
was before Sept. 9 when Kerry and Lavrov
reached their agreement on a truce. But then
[U.S. Defense Secretary] Ashton Carter
entered the picture. He opened a second
front. He forced Kerry to fight on two
fronts. If Kerry previously thought he was
competing with the Russians, now he came
under “friendly fire” from the Pentagon.
“American forces directly bombed a Syrian
military outpost. This was no mistake. It
was coordinated with the terrorists, who
followed up with an attack. Then there came
a camouflaged attack on the humanitarian
convoy near Aleppo [Sept. 20]. Finally, it
became clear to Moscow that diplomacy is
merely a ‘service’ for the Pentagon. Kerry,
in intellectual style, justifies the actions
of the Pentagon. Often, post factum.
“We
will review tonight the radical changes in
our relations with America. This includes
the dispatch to the region of three of our
cruise missile vessels with Kalibr on board.
The roll-out in Syria of additional air
defense systems S300. The dispatch to Egypt
of 5,000 of our paratroopers. The tearing up
of our agreements with America in the atomic
sphere. And the civil defense exercise of
the past week which involved 200,000 civil
defense personnel covering 40 million
population. To my recollection such a
constellation of events never before took
place.”
Terrorists and Hostages
Kiselyov went on: “The center of attention
has been east Aleppo, still in control of
terrorists with hundreds of thousands of
civilians kept hostage as a human shield.
They execute people who want to leave. We
cannot tolerate this anymore. The terrorists
are not capable of abiding by agreements.
The Syrian army is carrying out a storm
operation.
“There
is so much lying and shrieking going on in
the world about this. … It’s a serious
matter that the U.S. is looking at Russia’s
actions to combat terrorists in Syria as a
threat to its own exceptionalism. The
scenario is not developing according to the
U.S. plan, so what is the sense of all the
claims to U.S. domination and leadership. It
looks as if Barack Obama will leave office
before Bashar Assad. And their nasty tricks
against Russia, the sanctions, aren’t
working…
“To be
sure, Washington has loudly announced that
it is shifting now to the so-called Plan B.
Formally there are no details. But in
general terms, everyone understands what we
are talking about. Plan B is when America
applies in Syria direct military force. It
is not hard to guess against whom, against
Bashar Assad, the government army, and that
means against the armed forces of Russia,
who are present in Syria on legal grounds.
“Can
we exclude such a variation? No. We cannot
exclude provocations to justify the start of
war, as happened in the past in the two
world wars. The Vietnam War also began with
a provocation organized by the Americans.
See the false pretenses for invading Iraq
and the action in Libya. U.S. ignored
international law, decided there can be no
obstacles in the path of their assaults.”
Kiselyov continued: “Moscow reacted calmly
to Plan B. Russia saddles up slowly, but
then rides fast. To understand how
Russian-American relations have just quickly
changed directions, we have to rewind and go
back to the start of the week. Let us now
scrupulously go over events since Monday.
“First
I want to direct your attention to the very
public speech of [Russian President
Vladimir] Putin. He spoke more quietly and
more slowly than usual. Formally it was to
open the session of the new 7th Duma. But it
was addressed to the very core issues of our
souls and minds. His words were not about
draft laws, but to the essence of the
moment. Putin considered it important to
talk about the general basis of support. He
spoke about unity of the people as an
essential element for the existence of our
country. Strength is essential to
maintaining our statehood.
“At
this Duma session, Putin introduced draft
law to halt the convention on plutonium with
the USA.”
Kiselyov here makes an association between
Putin’s speech to the Duma and the draft law
halting the convention on plutonium that
would not be obvious to outsiders. Still
more important, he called attention to the
contents of that draft law, beginning with
the reason given for this event, namely what
is called a “radical change in
circumstances, the emergence of a threat to
strategic stability as a result of hostile
actions of the United States of America in
relation to the Russian Federation and the
inability of the United States of America to
ensure execution of the obligations it
assumed to reprocess the excess weapons
grade plutonium in accordance with the
Agreement and the protocols to the
Agreement.”
Kiselyov then moved to the all-important
Point 2 of the draft law. The
text was
projected onto the television screen, with
its provisions highlighted in yellow as
Kiselyov read from it. The highlighted
passages are as follows:
“The
validity of the Agreement and protocols to
the Agreement can be renewed after the
elimination by the United States of America
of the causes which have led to a radical
change in the circumstances which existed on
the day of the coming into force of the
Agreement and the protocols to the Agreement
on condition:
“1)
that the military infrastructure and numbers
of the contingent of troops of the United
States of America stationed on the
territories of member states of the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) which
entered NATO after 1 September 2000 be
reduced to their levels on the day of coming
into force of the Agreement and protocols to
the Agreement
“2)
that the United States of America renounces
its hostile policy with respect to the
Russian Federation which must be expressed:
“a) by
the repeal of the 2012 law of the United
States of America
(Sergei Magnitsky law)
and the repeal of provisions of the 2014 law
of the United States of America in support
of freedom of Ukraine directed against
Russia
“b) by
the cancellation of all sanctions introduced
by the United States of America with respect
to separate subjects of the Russian
Federation – Russian individuals and legal
entities
“c)
compensation of damages borne by the Russian
Federation as a result of the sanctions
indicated in line ’b’ of this point,
including losses from the introduction of
necessary counter-sanctions against the
United States of America
“d)
presentation by the United States of America
of a clear plan for irreversible
reprocessing of plutonium coming under the
scope of the Agreement.”
A
Breathtaking Ultimatum
Kiselyov rightly called these provisions an
“Ultimatum” addressed to the White House.
Their scope is breathtaking. But the
Kremlin’s message to Washington was action,
not just words.
Kiselyov explained that on Tuesday the
government stopped an ongoing program of
scientific contacts with the U.S. in the
nuclear field. On the same day it cancelled
a program of cooperation between Rosatom and
the U.S. Department of Energy over nuclear
reactors.
Then,
as Kiselyov noted, the Russians “moved from
the brakes to the gas pedal.” They
dispatched three missile bearing naval
vessels from the Black Sea fleet to the
Eastern Mediterranean as a back-up in case
the U.S. proceeds on Plan B. These are
equipped with two types of missiles: the
Kalibr cruise missile which may be
nuclear tipped and has a 2,600 kilometer
range for striking ground targets plus the
supersonicOniks for attacking
ships.
Also
on what he chose to call “Black Tuesday,”
the Russian government confirmed that it has
installed its S300 air defense system in
Syria. For the explanation, Kiselyov pulled
up video recordings of the televised
statement by the chief of the press and
information service, the Russian Federation
Ministry of Defense Igor Konashenkov, who
was responding to questions about the Syrian
campaign.
Konashenkov said the air defense was
installed because of U.S. and French threats
to impose a “no fly zone” and because of the
lessons learned from the U.S. coalition
strike against Syrian forces at Deir Ezzor
on Sept. 17. Konashenkov stressed that there
will likely be no time for any hot-line
discussions with Americans about stealth
aircraft or incoming missiles: they will be
shot down, “whatever the dilettantes” in
American military circles may think.
He
explained that Russian military are in
settled areas across Syria performing
humanitarian work and dealing with local
Syrian militia who are laying down their
arms under Russian-brokered deals.
Therefore, any U.S. air strikes in Syria
will likely also hit Russian forces, which
is utterly unacceptable.
Next,
Kiselyov reminded his audience, on
Wednesday, Russia officially notified
Washington that it deems the missile defense
installations that the United States has
built in Romania and is building in Poland
are in violation of the convention on
intermediate-range missiles since they can
be used for offensive as well as defensive
rockets.
Russia is not presently
withdrawing from the convention
on intermediate-range missiles,
which was the single biggest
arms control agreement of the
Reagan-Gorbachev years, but it
is preparing the way for
abrogation at its choosing. This
was the context for Moscow’s
announcement on the same day
that they have installed their
Iskander missile system in
Kaliningrad. The suggestion is
that this is permanent, not
linked to any exercises.
During the same week, the
Russian Ministry of Defense
announced an unprecedented
military exercise in Egypt with
dispatch there of 5,000
paratroopers equipped with new,
desert-condition uniforms and a
new design parachute.
Russian Overseas Bases
According to Kiselyov, Russian
Deputy Minister of Defense
Pankov said his ministry is
reviewing the question of
reestablishing military bases in
Cuba and Vietnam. And, on the
anniversary of its launch into
space of the first Sputnik,
Moscow celebrated the Day of the
Rocket Corps by showing clips of
recent “awesome” rocket
launches.
Summing up, Kiselyov
acknowledged that all these
events give the impression of a
highly charged atmosphere. They
are, he said, all the
consequence of America’s steady
campaign of expanding NATO, its
renunciation of the ABM treaty,
its color revolutions, its
vilification of Russia, and its
information war based on lies.
These unfriendly acts had to be
a stop.
He asked rhetorically: is this
dangerous? To which he responded
in the affirmative.
And yet, if Russia is morally
and physically prepared for war
with the United States to defend
what it sees as its national
interests, including in Syria,
Kiselyov ended the half-hour
segment of his weekly news
wrap-up on a non-belligerent
note. He said the message of the
Russian government was its
preparedness for the worst while
it hopes for better outcomes. He
quoted Dmitri Peskov, Putin’s
press secretary, who insisted
that Russia is always ready for
cooperation.
Bad as the enumeration of
Moscow’s “radical change in
relations” with the United
States sounds, the overview of
Russian actions and intentions
on the Kiselyov program was not
exhaustive. In the same week,
there were leaks of Russian
plans to establish what never
existed in the Cold War, a naval
base in Egypt, which it is said
would support their operations
in the Western Mediterranean.
It bears mention that the whole
subject of military bases abroad
came up on another prime-time
flagship program of Russian
state television, the Oct. 9
edition of “Sunday Evening with
Vladimir Soloviev,” the most
popular and respected talk show
of the same Rossiya 1channel.
In a departure from common
practice, this edition featured
only Russian panelists, mostly
of high standing. The single
highest-rated politician
panelist was Irina Yarovaya, the
tough-as-nails and very smart
Duma deputy known best as the
author of what Edward Snowden
called the Big Brother law this
past July. Yarovaya was newly
named as Deputy Chair of the
State Duma and opened the show,
which focused on U.S.-Russian
relations and comparative
military strength.
Yarovaya remarked on how in 1992
the U.S. defense budget was 77
times greater than Russia’s
whereas last year it was just 10
times greater. Today, she noted,
the U.S. accounts for 36 percent
of total global military
expenditures while Russia
represents 4 percent. Why does
the United States need this
disproportionately sized
military establishment? Answer:
to dominate the political
landscape. In this context, she
explained, Russia now is
throwing cold water on that
notion of domination.
At this point, the
second-ranking politician on the
show entered the debate with an
important qualification.
Vladimir Zhirinovsky is the
leader of the nationalist LDPR
party, which did remarkably well
in the September elections and
was given the Duma committee
chairmanship of foreign
relations as a reward, another
detail of Russian political life
that has gone virtually
unnoticed in U.S. and Western
commentary.
Zhirinovsky insisted that the
correlation of military
capabilities is more favorable
to Russia than the gross figures
suggest. After all, he
explained, a large chunk of the
U.S. defense budget goes on
toilet paper, sausages and
similar housekeeping expenses in
support of its 700 foreign
bases.
Notwithstanding that caustic
remark about bases generally and
eyes-open understanding that
such force projection is also
debilitating, Zhirinovsky later
in the program suggested that
Russia would do well to
establish 100 overseas bases.
To understand properly what this
question of possible Russian
military bases overseas means,
we have to recall that, in the
not so distant past, Vladimir
Putin pointed to the country’s
having no overseas bases as a
distinguishing point setting
Russia apart from superpowers.
We have no ambition to be a
superpower, he said then.
The Risky U.S. ‘War Party’
Those in the U.S. “war party”
who talk about Putin’s dream of
reestablishing the Soviet Union
are repeating endlessly complete
nonsense. But there is a dream,
a very new dream in Moscow which
did not exist until the present
direct and existential
confrontation with the U.S. that
Russia will be understood to be
not just a great power but a
superpower with global
interests.
In this sense, by presenting
Russia with hostility and
enormous challenges, the United
States has been creating the
very Russia it fears.
All of the information that I
have used in this commentary are
open source. The television
programs are all accessible as
they are to the U.S.
intelligence officers stationed
in the U.S. embassy in Moscow.
They are also accessible to any
Russian-speaking analysts in
Langley who happen to be
interested since they are posted
within 24 hours on youtube.com.
Moreover, the CIA has its own
agent taking part in the
prime-time talk shows several
days a week. He is a welcome and
paid guest of the Russian state
television because of his
outstanding Russian language
skills and his defense of the
policy line coming from
Washington, which makes him the
American that Russian viewers
love to hate.
In this capacity, he rubs
shoulders regularly with the
leading Russian politicians on
the shows and has a chance, in
the breaks, to put to them the
kind of question that one such
politician said he raised a week
ago: “Will there be a war?”
If the U.S. intelligence
establishment is doing its job
professionally, and we must
assume that is the case, then
they have been briefing
President Obama and the two
presidential candidates on the
developments in U.S.-Russian
relations that I have outlined
above.
In that case, a puzzling and
scandalous question arises: why
has the President not said a
word about the “radical change
in relations” with Russia? And
why is it that neither candidate
when asked about how to respond
to the killings in east Aleppo
on Debate Two, that very same
evening, on Oct. 9, were
clueless.
Indeed, the remarks of Hillary
Clinton to the effect that the
United States must stand up to
the Russians and impose a
“no-fly zone” in Syria missed
the point that to do so now will
mean destruction of U.S.
aircraft and naval vessels, or,
in other words, the onset of
World War III. Either she and
her policy team do not have
their eye on the ball or they
are playing a reckless game.
For his part, Donald Trump came
out marginally better on the
issue of what to do about east
Aleppo. He said that, as he
understands, it’s lost already.
That appraisal is much closer to
reality.
The end result of the official
silence in the U.S. about
Russia’s message of defiance and
about its military wherewithal
in place in Syria to defend what
it construes as its national
interest is that as a nation the
U.S. is flying blind.
Gilbert
Doctorow is
the European
Coordinator,
American
Committee
for East
West Accord,
Ltd. His
latest book Does
Russia Have
a Future? (August
2015) is
available in
paperback
and e-book
from
Amazon.com
and
affiliated
websites.
For
donations to
support the
European
activities
of ACEWA,
write to
eastwestaccord@gmail.com.
|
