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