Can Saud And Israel Drag Trump Into War With Iran?
Saeed
Naqvi
The New York
Times Op-Ed page headline said it all:
“I Helped Sell
the False Choice of War Once. It’s Happening Again.” The column written by Col.
Lawrence Wilkerson appeared on February 5, 2018. The date is significant
because exactly 15 years ago, on February 5, 2003, Colin Powell, former
Secretary of State, spoke at the UN, making out a case for a pre emptive war
with Iraq. Remember those satellite pictures, sinister vehicular movement, “confirming”
the presence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in that blighted country.
Powell’s Chief
of Staff who actually helped draft the speech was Lawrence Wilkerson, now a
much chastened man. He learnt the hard way that both he and his boss Powell had
been set on a Fool’s Errand by the Intelligence community. There were no WMD’s
in Iraq.
The “war of
choice” with Iraq “resulted in catastrophic losses for the region and the
US-led coalition, that destabilized the entire Middle East”, he says.
Wilkerson, the
perennial insider, then draws comparisons with the current mood in Washington.
“Just over a
month ago, the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, said that the
administration had ‘undeniable’ evidence that Iran was not complying with the
Security Council Resolutions regarding its ballistic missile programme and
Yemen. Just like Mr. Powell, Ms. Haley showed satellite images and other
physical evidence available only to the US Intelligence community to prove her
case.”
“It’s
astonishing how similar that moment was to Powell’s 2003 presentation.”
For obvious
reasons, in his New York Times article, Wilkerson is circumspect. He does not
name Israel as driving President Trump’s policies. But speaking at National
Press Club, he is much more unfettered and direct in answering the basic
question: who is pushing America into a conflict with Iran?
“Avigdor
Lieberman (Israeli Defence Minister) and Benjamin Netanyahu and their acolytes
in this country (US), among whom I put Nikki Haley – they have determined that
it would be best if American troops also participated in the overthrow of the
Tehran regime.”
Wilkerson is
full of admiration for the Israeli Defence Forces which could handle “anything
Iran threw at it militarily”. Also, “Israel’s 200 nuclear weapons could
decimate Iran”. Wilkerson then asks: “so, why this attempt to suck America into
this conflict?” He puts it down to “crass opportunism” – “better to squander
your ally’s blood and treasure than your own.”
It is possible
to argue that if Wilkerson went along with the exaggerations in 2003, what is
the guarantee that he is not once again exaggerating present dangers?
There is
nothing about the present White House that leaves one sanguine on any count. It
would be rank bad form to compare the President of the United States with
Caligula but folks are making that comparison to good effect. Caligula elevated
his horse to a cabinet rank. Donald Trump has committed no such misdemeanor
thus far. But no one can bet on the future.
While his
buddies across the Atlantic are in convulsions over Putin dispensing nerve
agents on the streets of Britain, Trump has made a quiet telephonic contact
with the same Russian gent. No one can make out whether he is cooing or barking
on the telephone line.
Washington’s
current policy towards Iran, which carries Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner’s
imprimatur, is quite transparent: leave it outside the regional order the US
seeks to impose in West Asia (Middle East). And then defang Iran in every
possible way, including military action.
This is the
exact opposite of the order Barack Obama-John Kerry had sketched for the
region.
The 2015
nuclear deal with Iran was signed within a certain conceptual framework. Pivot
to Asia had acquired greater saliency in Obama’s scheme. China’s extraordinary
rise required the US to pay greater attention to the Pacific region. This
entailed that day to day supervision of West Asian affairs by the US would no
longer be possible.
The US was not
running away from its West Asian responsibilities. The legitimacy conferred on
Iran after the nuclear deal made it a key player in the new West Asian balance
of power which Washington was proposing. Other players in this arrangement
would be Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar. But Saudi Arabia and
Israel, sleeping in the same bed in Syria, were totally averse to having Iran
as a player in the new West Asian balance. It was galling for the Israeli-Saudi
duet when Russia with the help of Iran-controlled
militias and Turkey’s switch in favour of Assad, turned the tide in Syria.
This is when
Trump appeared in the White House, not quite Caligula incarnate but more or
less there. As candidate he had told Jake Tapper of the CNN that billions of
dollars had been given to groups in Syria who may well have been the Islamic
State. “I think they were the Islamic state”, he said with certainty. The
interview is available on youtube.
Instead of wasting
money on questionable groups, Trump has fallen back on a strategy closest to his
heart: making money. Towards this end he has American boots on the ground in Syria
for which a prohibitive bill will be submitted to an embattled, Saudi King-to-be,
running helter skelter between Yemen, Syria, Qatif and the occupants of Riyadh’s
Ritz Carlton hotel.
Mohammad bin Salman
is not a comforting sight to a Benjamin Netanyahu, on sixes and sevens with the
noose of corruption allegations tightening around his neck. Meanwhile, Syria, Hezbollah,
Hamas, Iran axis continue to menace.
Might Trump, in
search of some success, be pushed into a pre emptive war on Iran? Can he at a time
that Putin is glaring at him, eye-ball to eye-ball? True, key appointments around
him can only add to Trump’s recklessness and hawk of hawks Nikki Haley is not budging
from her position.
If he goes down
that route he should glance at the elementary data Wilkerson has furnished: Polls
show at least 4 billion people think we’re (the US) the number one threat to their
security in the world; think about that for a minute – “We’ve already done Iraq,
Libya, Afghanistan and Syria. We’d just be seen as continuing trend if we embark
on Iran”. Is this to be America’s lasting heritage?
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