Official Washington\u2019s neocons still influence U.S. foreign policy despite their Iraq War disaster. Forever pushing what they view as Israel\u2019s strategic needs, the neocons now are stoking\u00a0fires of war against\u00a0Iran and Syria by piling on\u00a0old and new arguments.<\/i><\/p>\n
Journalistically, there\u2019s a problem with this passage<\/a> from Monday\u2019s [3 Feb 2014] New York Times: \u201cDefense Minister Moshe Yaalon of Israel \u2026 castigated Iran as being dedicated to a nuclear weapon and acting to deceive, and he repeated Israel\u2019s warning that it would not allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon.\u201d Can you tell what the flaw is?<\/p>\n If the New York Times were acting in a professional and objective manner, the next line would have read something like: \u201cOf course, Israel itself developed a nuclear bomb in secret decades ago and now has possibly the most sophisticated undeclared nuclear arsenal on earth.\u201d But the Times chose not to remind its readers of Israel\u2019s stunning hypocrisy as a rogue nuclear-armed state condemning Iran for supposedly harboring a desire for a nuke, a weapon that Iran doesn\u2019t have and says it doesn\u2019t want.<\/p>\n That sort of double standard is common in the mainstream U.S. news media when reporting on Israel and its Muslim adversaries. But to let an Israeli official get away with castigating Iran for\u00a0contemplating something that Israel has already done \u2013 without mentioning the hypocrisy \u2013 is a clear violation of\u00a0journalistic standards. Indeed, it is\u00a0evidence of bias.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the neocon editors of the Washington Post are continuing their new campaign to pressure President Barack Obama into issuing more military ultimatums to Syria, another Israeli \u201cenemy.\u201d The logic seems to be that if Obama keeps issuing ultimatums eventually Syria won\u2019t\u00a0comply or won\u2019t be able to\u00a0comply, thus creating a casus belli<\/i>, much as when President George W. Bush demanded that Iraq surrender WMD that it didn\u2019t have.<\/p>\n In a double-barreled blast on Tuesday, the Post published a lead editorial<\/a> and then a separate op-ed<\/a> by its editorial-page editor Fred Hiatt making essentially the same argument \u2013 that Obama\u2019s diplomacy over Syria has failed and that it\u2019s time for more military threats or even a military intervention in Syria\u2019s civil war. That \u201ctheme\u201d was quickly picked up by other U.S. news outlets, including \u201cliberal\u201d MSNBC.<\/p>\n Yet, the real problem with Obama\u2019s Syria strategy is that it is still based on his blustering pronouncements during Campaign 2012 when he was trying to sound tough in order to fend off the more hawkish, neocon rhetoric\u00a0of Republican Mitt Romney.<\/p>\n During that period, Obama was drawing \u201cred lines\u201d regarding Syria and declaring that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad \u201cmust go.\u201d Obama insisted that the purpose of any peace talks must be to dissolve Assad\u2019s government and replace it with one organized by Assad\u2019s opponents, in other words, Assad\u2019s negotiated surrender.<\/p>\n But that was never realistic, however unsavory Assad and his regime might be. He still represents major segments of Syrian society, including\u00a0blocs of\u00a0Alawites (an offshoot of Shiite Islam) and Christians. Plus, the strongest part of the rebel movement, seeking Assad\u2019s ouster, is the contingent of radical jihadists representing extreme Sunni groups, including some affiliated with al-Qaeda and some even more extreme who are vowing to exterminate the Alawites and other \u201cheretics.\u201d<\/p>\n Baiting Obama<\/b><\/p>\n In the midst of this complex and dangerous mix, the Post\u2019s neocon editors are baiting Obama to stop being so weak, so \u201cinert,\u201d as Hiatt wrote.<\/p>\n On Sunday, the Post\u2019s editors demanded that Obama issue a new military ultimatum<\/a> regarding delays in Assad\u2019s delivery of chemical weapons to a UN agency for destruction. On Tuesday, the argument was that Obama must intervene militarily to prevent Syria from becoming a base for al-Qaeda militants to plot attacks against the American \u201chomeland.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOnce again, terrorists linked to al-Qaeda may be using territory they control to plot attacks against the United States, even as [Secretary of State John] Kerry pursues his long-shot diplomacy and Mr. Obama offers excuses for inaction,\u201d the Post\u2019s editorial read.<\/p>\n \u201cWith or without U.N. action, it is time for the Obama administration to reconsider how it can check the regime\u2019s crimes and the growing threat of al-Qaeda. As Mr. Kerry reportedly conceded, for now it has no answers.\u201d<\/p>\n Hiatt reiterated the same points in his companion op-ed: \u201cIt is no secret that the Obama administration\u2019s Syria policy, to the extent that one exists, is failing. Now the man with the unenviable task of implementing that policy, Secretary of State John F. Kerry, has acknowledged as much, according to two U.S. senators who spoke with him Sunday, John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.).<\/p>\n \u201cKerry said that the Geneva negotiating process hasn\u2019t delivered, they said, and that new approaches are needed. \u2026 Now, though, a new factor has emerged. Last week, in Senate testimony that got less attention than it deserved, Obama\u2019s director of national intelligence, James Clapper, said <\/a>Syria \u2018is becoming a center of radical extremism and a potential threat to the homeland.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Hiatt continued: \u201cHavens in Syria, in other words, could play the same role that Afghan refuges offered al-Qaeda before 9\/11. As the West cold-shouldered moderate and secular forces, extremist ranks have swelled in Syria to as many as 26,000, including 7,000 foreigners, Clapper said.\u201d<\/p>\n Not surprisingly, given the always-hawkish views of McCain and Graham, their proposed \u201cnew approaches\u201d to this new threat involved military interventions in Syria. Graham wanted to unleash armed drones over the country, while McCain called for establishing \u201ca safe zone in which to train the Free Syrian Army and care for refugees, protected by Patriot missiles based in Turkey,\u201d Hiatt wrote.<\/p>\n Which Side?<\/b><\/p>\n Of course, a big part of the Syrian problem is that al-Qaeda-connected extremists are fighting as part of the rebel coalition against Assad\u2019s army. Indeed, the jihadists are considered, by far, the most effective part of the rebel force. To a significant degree, the Sunni jihadists \u2013 funded and armed by Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states \u2013 are the rebel army.<\/p>\n In other words, the semantic\u00a0trick that the Post is pulling off is to conflate the existence of al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria with the Syrian government when they are actually on opposite sides, bitterly fighting one another. The Post\u2019s argument is a bit like blaming Fidel Castro for harboring al-Qaeda operatives in Cuba without mentioning that they are locked up at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo and thus outside Castro\u2019s control.<\/p>\n Currently, the Syrian government is engaged in a brutal campaign to root out these \u201cterrorists\u201d \u2013 as well as other armed rebels \u2013 and is killing lots of civilians in the process. While there may be no easy solution to this catastrophe, the idea of another U.S. military intervention could easily lead to even more death and destruction.<\/p>\n As Hiatt noted, \u201cObama has doubted that the United States could intervene in such a messy conflict without making things worse. He reportedly worries that even a limited commitment would inexorably suck the nation into something deeper. There certainly is no public clamor to intervene.\u201d<\/p>\n But lack of public support for another Mideast war is no concern\u00a0to Hiatt and\u00a0other Post editors who have never\u00a0really apologized for helping to mislead the American people into the Iraq invasion which resulted in the deaths of nearly 4,500 U.S. soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Indeed, the Iraqi bloodbath \u2014 initiated by President Bush and promoted by the neocons \u2014 has\u00a0already been forgotten, as the Post cited the Syrian civil war as the worst humanitarian disaster since the Rwanda genocide in the 1990s, jumping over the Iraqi carnage of the past decade.<\/p>\n Now,\u00a0Hiatt and the other neocons\u00a0are\u00a0promoting\u00a0\u201cthemes\u201d designed to maneuver\u00a0Obama into another Mideast conflict,\u00a0pushing the hot button of al-Qaeda \u201crefuges\u201d as if Assad is protecting the extremists, not trying to kill them.<\/p>\n Yet, if preventing al-Qaeda from establishing a safe haven in Syria is now\u00a0the top U.S.\u00a0concern \u2013 and not just the latest neocon excuse for another U.S. invasion of a Muslim country \u2013 then a more logical approach might be to seek a power-sharing arrangement between Assad\u2019s government and the more moderate opposition, creating a united front against the jihadists.<\/p>\n Such an agreement could be followed by a coordinated strategy to rid Syria of these extremists. Obama also might put the squeeze on the Saudis and other oil-rich sheiks to stop funding the Sunni jihad inside Syria.<\/p>\n But the\u00a0U.S. insistence that Assad\u00a0negotiate his own surrender \u2013 especially when his forces have gained the upper hand militarily \u2013 will simply ensure more\u00a0fighting and killing, while the neocons ramp up their pressure on Obama for\u00a0one more \u201cregime change.\u201d<\/p>\n _____________________<\/p>\n Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his new book, America\u2019s Stolen Narrative, either in print here<\/a> or as an e-book (from Amazon<\/a> and barnesandnoble.com<\/a>). For a limited time, you also can order Robert Parry\u2019s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America\u2019s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here<\/a>.<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n