[Paleopsych] Stephen J. Sniegoski: Next Stop, Iran

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Stephen J. Sniegoski: Next Stop, Iran
http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_future.htm
4.10.14

[The author is quite biased against neocons and American empire policy, 
but read it anyhow. It warns of the impossible quagmire the United States 
is heading toward. But remember this may be a blessing in disguise if we 
can somehow rope 30 surplus MegaChinese males into it instead of attacking 
us.]

      Editor's note.  Dr. Sniegoski presented an earlier version of this
      article as a paper at the 12th [2]Mut zur Ethik Conference held
      September 3-5, 2004, in Feldkirch/Vorarlberg, Austria. The
      conference theme was "Giving Inner Courage: democracy, values,
      education, and dialogue."

      That version is to be published by [3]Zeit-Fragen ([4]Current
      Concerns). Zeit-Fragen/Current Concerns is published in Zurich,
      Switzerland.

                                                      -- Nicholas Strakon
                     ___________________________________


                   The future of the global War on Terror:
                               Next stop, Iran
                           By STEPHEN J. SNIEGOSKI

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    More information appears below.



    What will be the next front in the war on terror? I don't claim to be
    Nostradamus and I don't have a crystal ball, but I can confidently say
    that the current situation points to a wider war in the Middle East.
    That result has been sought and planned for by the American
    neoconservatives; it is what they have referred to as World War IV. It
    is all in the published record; no conspiracy-theorizing is necessary
    to see it.

    Also on the record, but receiving much less attention, is the fact
    that the drive toward World War IV reflects the long-held Israeli
    Likudnik goal of destabilizing and fragmenting Israel's Middle Eastern
    enemies in order to ultimately facilitate the elimination of the
    single greatest danger to the Jewish state -- its large and
    ever-growing Palestinian population. (I will not repeat here all of
    [5]what I have written elsewhere about the neocon/Likudnik background
    for the war in the Middle East -- how the neocons were the driving
    force for the war on Iraq and how the war plans were conceived in
    Israel.)

    Neoconservatives do not control American policy to the extent that
    they can lead the country directly into the wider war in the Middle
    East. Other U.S. elites, especially the financial elite, do not want
    such a wider war. Instead, it seems likely that the neocons will use
    the momentum of their invasion and occupation of Iraq to thrust the
    United States into the wider war, and it seems likely that it will
    begin with an attack on Iran.

    The neocons have been focusing on the danger of Iran for some time,
    and it now appears that much of what they have said about that country
    may actually be true. Numerous experts now report that the Islamic
    Republic of Iran possesses an extensive and intensive nuclear program
    that could develop weapons. Moreover, Iran has developed substantial
    ballistic-missile capabilities; it can probably hit targets throughout
    the Middle East, including Israel. An interesting point, however, is
    that Iran does not seem to be violating any international laws in
    importing materials for its suspected nuclear-weapons program. That
    program uses the same basic technology involved in a civilian
    nuclear-energy program, which Iran is permitted to have under the 1968
    Non-Proliferation Treaty. [6][1]

    [future_qt1.gif] If Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons, that
    would fit with its declared strategy of "deterrent defense," as
    opposed to an offensive threat to Israel or, certainly, to the United
    States. Iran wants to be a regional power able to defend itself
    against Israel and the United States, which it apparently believes are
    more apt to attack weak countries unable to fight back. As Middle East
    news commentator Youssef Ibrahim writes: "I have little doubt Iran is
    pursuing nuclear weapon systems. Its officials privately assert it is
    so because they view Israel as a real menace to them and the region
    with its 200 nuclear warheads.... The United States completely ignores
    that double standard, which resonates widely among Arabs and Muslims.
    Added to that is the suspicion the Bush administration is still bent
    on, or addicted to, more American-induced regime changes." [7][2]

    Commentator Edward S. Herman aptly observes: "Iran is the next U.S.
    and Israeli target, so the mainstream U.S. media are once again
    serving the state agenda by focusing on Iran's alleged menace and
    refusing to provide context that would show the menace to be pure
    Orwell -- that is, while Iran is seriously threatened by the U.S. and
    its aggressively ethnic-cleansing client, Iran only threatens the
    possibility of self-defense." [8][3]

    Iran's very effort to develop strategic weapons prompts Israel and the
    United States to press for a pre-emptive attack. It might be also
    argued that while the rulers of Iran certainly want to avoid a
    destructive American or Israeli attack, at the same time they can use
    a war atmosphere to unify their country, now divided between religious
    militants and moderates.

    Israel is especially concerned -- it is obsessed, even -- about Iran's
    developing nuclear weapons because it regards its regional nuclear
    monopoly as a fundamental pillar of its security. We might recall that
    Israel bombed Iraq's Osiraq nuclear reactor in 1981 when it feared
    that Iraq was trying to develop nuclear weapons there. Iran is, of
    course, an active enemy of Israel, providing support to Hezbollah in
    Lebanon and to a number of Palestinian resistance groups. In the past
    couple of years numerous Israeli officials have sounded grave warnings
    about the potential Iranian nuclear threat. For example, in November
    2003 testimony before the Israeli parliament's Foreign Affairs and
    Defense Committee, Mossad chief Meir Dagan warned that Iran's nuclear
    program posed "the biggest threat to Israel's existence since its
    creation" in 1948. [9][4]
    And addressing a conference on national security in December 2003, Avi
    Dichter, the head of Shin Bet, Israel's internal-security agency, said
    that Iran was sponsoring terrorism and developing non-conventional
    weapons, which posed "a strategic threat to Israel." Dichter declared
    that "Iran is the No. 1 terror nation in the world." [10][5]

    Israeli leaders emphasized concern about Iran before the U.S. attack
    on Iraq. In January 2002, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, a leading
    member of the Labor Party and a former prime minister, claimed that
    Iran posed a grave missile threat to Israel: "The ayatollah leadership
    in Iran is also threatening to destroy Israel ... inflicting genocide
    through the use of missiles." [11][6]
    And in an interview with the New York Post in November 2002, Prime
    Minister Ariel Sharon said that as soon as Iraq had been dealt with,
    he would "push for Iran to be at the top of the 'to do' list." Sharon
    called Iran the "center of world terror" and declared that "Iran makes
    every effort to possess weapons of mass destruction ... and ballistic
    missiles.... That is a danger to the Middle East, and a danger to
    Europe." [12][7]


    As usual, neoconservatives acted in tandem with Israel. The point man
    here would seem to be veteran neoconservative Michael A. Ledeen. On
    April 30, 2003, in an address titled "Time to Focus on Iran -- the
    Mother of Modern Terrorism" at a policy forum of the Jewish
    Institutite for National Security Affairs (JINSA), Ledeen declared:
    "The time for diplomacy is at an end; it is time for a free Iran, free
    Syria and free Lebanon." [13][8]
    Elsewhere Ledeen would write: "We are now engaged in a regional
    struggle in the Middle East, and the Iranian tyrants are the keystone
    of the terror network. Far more than the overthrow of Saddam Hussein,
    the defeat of the mullahcracy and the triumph of freedom in Tehran
    would be a truly historic event and an enormous blow to the
    terrorists." [14][9] Ledeen actually argued that the United States
    should first attack Iran, which he portrayed as the "keystone of the
    terror network," even while the Bush administration was preparing its
    attack on Iraq. "I have long argued that it would be better to
    liberate Iran before Iraq," he wrote in November 2002, "and events may
    soon give us that opportunity." [15][10]

    In early 2002 Ledeen set up the Coalition for Democracy in Iran (CDI),
    an action group focusing on producing regime change in Iran. His
    principal collaborator is Morris Amitay, vice chairman of JINSA and a
    former executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs
    Committee (AIPAC), Israel's ultra-powerful lobby in the United States.
    CDI also includes members of key neoconservative policy institutes and
    think tanks, including Raymond Tanter of the Washington Institute for
    Near East Affairs (WINEA) -- an off-shoot of AIPAC -- Frank Gaffney,
    president of the Center for Security Policy, American Enterprise
    Institute (AEI) scholars Joshua Muravchik and Danielle Pletka, and
    former CIA director James Woolsey. The organization proclaims that
    diplomatic engagement with Iran has proved to be an utter failure, and
    that the only way to end the reign of Iran's "terror masters" is to
    actively support opponents of the regime in their efforts to topple
    the reigning mullahs. [16][11]

    [future_qt2.gif] The move on Iran enlisted broad support among
    neocons. On May 6, 2003, AEI hosted an all-day conference titled "The
    Future of Iran: Mullahcracy, Democracy, and the War on Terror," whose
    speakers included Ledeen, Amitay, and Uri Lubrani from the Israeli
    Defense Ministry. The convenor, Hudson Institute Middle East
    specialist Meyrav Wurmser (whose husband David worked as her AEI
    counterpart until joining the Bush administration), set the tone. "Our
    fight against Iraq was only one battle in a long war," she said. "It
    would be ill-conceived to think that we can deal with Iraq alone....
    We must move on, and faster." [17][12]
    As Marc Perelman pointed out in the Jewish newspaper Forward in May
    2003, "A budding coalition of conservative hawks, Jewish
    organizations, and Iranian monarchists is pressing the White House to
    step up American efforts to bring about regime change in Iran."
    [18][13]

    It is worth noting that despite their reputation as advocates of
    global democracy, the neoconservatives have proposed restoring the
    monarchy in Iran, in the person of Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the
    former shah. Perelman wrote: "The emerging coalition is reminiscent of
    the buildup to the invasion of Iraq, with Pahlavi possibly assuming
    the role of Iraqi exile opposition leader Ahmed Chalabi, a favorite of
    neoconservatives. Like Chalabi, Pahlavi has good relations with
    several Jewish groups. He has addressed the board of the hawkish
    Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs and gave a public
    speech at the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Museum of Tolerance in Los
    Angeles, and met with Jewish communal leaders." [19][14]

    A strong Israeli connection was apparent here. According to Perelman,
    Pahlavi has had direct contacts with the Israeli leadership: "During
    the last two years ... [Pahlavi] has met privately with Prime Minister
    Sharon and former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as
    Israel's Iranian-born president, Moshe Katsav." [20][15]

    Another writer, Iraj Pakravan, maintained that the neocon and overall
    Zionist support for Pahlavi was to be reciprocated by his support for
    Israel, should he ever take power. Pahlavi and his supporters must
    "give guarantees that they will conduct a policy that supports
    Israel's position against the Palestinians and abide by the U.S.'s
    energy needs. Furthermore, and most importantly, the opposition group
    must accept that Israel will be the leading state in the hierarchy of
    the regional system, a position that many states in the Middle East
    covet." [21][16]


    Indicating the seriousness of the American move to destabilize Iran
    was the fact that preparations were being made by the Defense
    Department's Office of Special Plans (OSP), which played such a key
    role in the U.S. attack on Iraq. Perelman wrote in May 2003: "Iran
    expert Michael Rubin is now working for the Pentagon's 'special plans'
    office, a small unit set up to gather intelligence on Iraq, but
    apparently also working on Iran. Previously a researcher at the
    Washington Institute for Near East policy, Rubin has vocally advocated
    regime change in Tehran." [22][17]

    As a result of a leaked FBI probe in the late summer of 2004, it has
    come out that Israel might have had direct contacts with members of
    the OSP on the Iran issue. The implication is not simply that
    individuals involved were pro-Israel but that some of them might be
    conspirators in a clandestine operation launched by Sharon's Likud
    Party. Robert Dreyfuss, writing in the Nation, has called them "agents
    of influence" for a foreign government.

    Dreyfuss reports that "the point of the FBI probe, sources believe, is
    not to examine the push to war but rather to ascertain whether Sharon
    recruited or helped place in office people who knowingly, and
    secretly, worked with him to affect the direction of U.S. policy in
    the Middle East." Tom Barry of In These Times writes that, unbeknownst
    to the CIA or the State Department, the office of Douglas Feith
    (assistant secretary of defense for policy) engaged in "back-channel
    operations" and over the past three years participated in clandestine
    meetings in Washington, Rome, and Paris "to discuss regime change in
    Iraq, Iran, and Syria." Attending the meetings, Barry writes, were
    "Office of Policy officials and consultants ... [Lawrence] Franklin,
    Harold Rhode, and Michael Ledeen..., an expatriate Iranian arms dealer
    (Manichur Ghorbanifar), AIPAC lobbyists, Ahmed Chalabi, and Italian
    and Israeli intelligence officers, among others." The direct link to
    Sharon's government was most obvious in the plan for regime change in
    Iran, which Barry says would most likely involve "a combination of
    preemptive military strikes (either by the United States or Israel)
    and support for a coalition of Iranian dissidents." [23][18]

    [future_qt3.gif] It was not just the neoconservatives in the Bush
    administration who were moving to attack Iran: President George W.
    Bush himself identified Iran as a member of the "Axis of Evil" in his
    first State of the Union Address in January 2002. And National
    Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice made this aspect of U.S. policy
    clear in her August 8, 2004, appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press": "We
    cannot allow the Iranians to develop a nuclear weapon." [24][19]
    The next day, while campaigning for re-election, Bush asserted that
    Iran "must abandon her nuclear ambitions," and he vowed to stand with
    U.S. allies to pressure Tehran to do so. [25][20]

    Ominously, on May 6, 2004, a U.S. House of Representatives resolution
    authorized "all appropriate means" to put an end to Iranian
    nuclear-weapons development; the administration could use that
    resolution as legal justification to launch an attack. [26][21]


    There are strong rumors floating that Israel plans to attack Iran's
    nuclear installations, as it attacked Iraq's reactor in 1981. "For
    Israel it's quite clear, that we're not going to wait for a threat to
    be realized," says Ephraim Inbar, head of the Jaffee Center for
    Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University. "For self-defense we have to
    act in a preemptive mode." [27][22]
    But some Israeli authorities believe that destroying Iran's nuclear
    capabilities would be a far more difficult mission than the 1981
    attack. "I don't think there's an option for a pre-emptive act because
    we're talking about a different sort of a nuclear program," maintained
    Shmuel Bar, a fellow at the Institute for Policy and Strategy at the
    Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel. "A hit-and-run
    preemptive attack can't guarantee much success." [28][23]

    In late September 2004, however, Israel announced that it would
    purchase 500 "bunker-busting" bombs from the United States (paid for
    by U.S. military aid) -- weapons that could destroy Iran's underground
    nuclear stores and laboratories. [29][24]

    [future_qt4.gif] In the event of any Israeli strike on its nuclear
    installations, Iran has threatened to unleash its forces in an all-out
    retaliation, including long-range missile attacks and terror attacks
    from Lebanon. Iran's claim to be able to wreak great damage on Israel
    may just be bluster to ward off an attack, but defense experts do
    report that the latest version of Iran's Shahab-3 medium-range
    ballistic missile can reach Israel.

    Threats of an Israeli attack, which could ignite an all-out Middle
    East war, might induce the United States to move on Iran. Moreover,
    American attacks on Iranian missile sites would probably be more
    effective than anything Israel could carry out and would make it less
    likely that Israel would suffer from Iranian retaliation. Thus, the
    safety of Israel would likely motivate those influential Americans who
    identify with Israel to push for an American attack.

    Ironically, by eliminating the hostile regimes bordering Iran --
    Afghanistan and Iraq -- the United States provided Tehran with
    opportunities to greatly expand its power in the region. At the same
    time, however, the presence of American forces in those bordering
    countries puts considerable geopolitical pressure on Iran. The
    stabilization of those neighbors under American domination would
    seriously endanger Iran, especially since the United States already
    controls the Persian Gulf. Historian Juan Cole describes the situation
    this way: "The Iranians are very afraid that the United States will
    find a way to maneuver an anti-Iranian government into power" in Iraq.
    [30][25]
    The current Iraqi government of Iyad Allawi definitely seems
    anti-Iranian; thus it is in Iran's interest to work against stability
    for the existing Iraqi government.

    With American occupation forces in neighboring Iraq, the situation
    with Iran is a veritable powder keg. American officials and Prime
    Minister Allawi have claimed that Iran is aiding the violent Shi'ite
    resistance in Iraq led by the radical cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr. [31][26]

    The situation is ripe for incidents leading to conflict. Iranian
    Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani told Al-Jazeera TV on August 18, 2004,
    that Iran might even launch a preemptive strike against U.S. forces in
    the region to prevent an attack on its nuclear facilities. "We will
    not sit (with arms folded) to wait for what others will do to us. Some
    military commanders in Iran are convinced that preventive operations
    which the Americans talk about are not their monopoly." Shamkhani
    continued: "The U.S. military presence (in Iraq) will not become an
    element of strength (for Washington) at our expense. The opposite is
    true, because their forces would turn into a hostage" in the event of
    an attack. [32][27]


    In light of the American public's disenchantment with the bloody
    quagmire in Iraq, it is highly unlikely that the Bush administration
    would dare to attack Iran before the November election. But what could
    the United States do after the election? Although the Iranian military
    is not in any way comparable to that of the United States, it is
    larger and better equipped than the Iraqi forces that the United
    States faced in 2003. The Iranians also have the benefit of having
    learned from U.S. military operations in Iraq. And Iran's military
    power has not been sapped by a decade of bombing, as Iraq's had been.

    The occupation of Iraq has stretched the U.S. Army so thin that a
    large-scale ground invasion of Iran, followed by a comparable military
    occupation, seems to be out of the question. But bombing of Iran's
    nuclear sites and military infrastructure is highly likely. After all,
    neither the Air Force nor the Navy, with its cruise missiles, is mired
    in Iraq. However, since many Iranian facilities are located in urban
    areas, even "precision" bombing would cause extensive civilian
    casualties. Furthermore, precision bombing alone might not knock out
    Iran's nuclear installations, many of which are said to be built
    underground. [33][28]

    [future_qt5.gif] Neocons would undoubtedly press for the severest
    attack possible, not just to set back Iran's nuclear program but also
    to weaken its military and economic potential. That would dramatically
    set the stage for regime change in Iran. Hence, a limited ground
    invasion of Iran with air support would not be out of the question;
    the aim would be not to occupy Iran but rather to destroy Iranian
    forces. A ground invasion could oblige Iran to position its military
    forces in defensive positions that American airpower could then
    destroy.

    What would be the impact of such an American attack on Iran? A war
    against Iran is liable to set off a tidal wave of terror in the rest
    of the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, already shaken by terror, could fall
    into chaos. The concomitant danger to the Saudi oil supply would
    threaten the economy of the world. A call would arise in the United
    States to militarily occupy the Saudi oil-producing regions; that is a
    move for which Washington is reported to have had contingency plans
    for a long time, and it has been publicly advocated by the neocons.
    Since anti-Saudi feeling is high in the United States, such a move
    might enjoy considerable support here even among those who identify
    with the anti-war American Left (i.e., the moderate Left). It is worth
    noting that Michael Moore's popular anti-war movie "Fahrenheit 9/11"
    blames the Saudi government for the 9/11 attacks and the war on Iraq.

    While the U.S. military could manage to occupy Saudi Arabia's Eastern
    Province, maintaining the oil supply would not necessarily be easy.
    The pipelines would also have to be secured, including, presumably,
    the vitally important pipeline that stretches across the country to
    the Red Sea. Such an undertaking would further stretch the depleted
    military and financial resources of the United States.

    Any aggression directed against Saudi Arabia, the center of the
    Islamic religion, would undoubtedly have a galvanizing effect on the
    peoples of the entire Muslim world. Thousands of fanatical Muslim
    fighters would not only pour into Saudi Arabia but would also attack
    American and Western interests throughout the world. The pro-American
    regimes in Jordan and Egypt would face destabilization.

    [future_qt6.gif] The turmoil would cause oil prices to skyrocket,
    which would have dire economic consequences around the world,
    provoking social and political upheavals far beyond the Middle East.

    Obviously, important American economic interests -- Big Oil,
    international finance -- as well as the foreign-policy elite would not
    want that nightmare scenario to develop. But those groups have
    generally opposed the American war in the Middle East all along, with
    little success. They are currently pushing for negotiation with Iran;
    Zbigniew Brzezinski, for example, headed a recent study for the
    Council on Foreign Relations that recommended the diplomatic approach.
    But the war skeptics among the elites -- defenders of the imperialist
    status quo -- have been overtaken by events. Things have slipped
    beyond their control. As the American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson
    exclaimed during the American Civil War: "Events are in the saddle and
    ride mankind."

    As long as the United States stays in Iraq, the widening of the war is
    very likely. Earlier I referred to the U.S. occupation of Iraq as a
    powder keg; it is now ready to explode. And a couple of crucial actors
    threaten to light the fuse. The Islamic regime in Iran believes its
    survival depends on keeping Iraq unstable and on developing a powerful
    military deterrent, probably including nuclear weapons. Militant
    Islamic terrorists -- al Qaeda -- see an all-out war between the
    United States and Islam as a chance to overthrow the existing Arab
    regimes and gain power. Sharon and the American neocons realize that
    destabilizing the Middle East can save the Jewish state by
    facilitating a final solution to the Palestinian demographic threat,
    which if ignored will soon overwhelm the Jewish population in the
    areas controlled by Israel. Consequently, Israel and its influential
    American supporters push for a U.S. hard line -- to bring about the
    neoconservatives' World War IV.

    It is probably beyond the power of the Bush administration to pull out
    of Iraq, given the influence of the neocons and the fact that its
    prestige is on the line. In fact, its justification for attacking Iraq
    is even more applicable to attacking Iran, as many have pointed out.
    The Bush administration is just not willing to throw in the sponge and
    walk away from Iraq; to do so would be to admit that its whole policy
    had been a failure.

    Although John Kerry, the Democratic candidate for president, has the
    support of most of the substantial anti-war vote, he is likely to
    pursue a policy in the Middle East similar to Bush's. [34][29]
    Kerry, in fact, doesn't even promise much change; some of his critics
    have styled the Kerry program on the Middle East "an echo, not a
    choice." [35][30] Kerry has said he would retain American troops in
    the Middle East. Only recently, finding himself behind in the polls,
    has he begun to actually admit that the invasion of Iraq was a
    mistake. As late as August 2004, Kerry was saying that he would have
    voted in the Senate to give the president the power to wage war on
    Iraq even if he had known that the WMD danger was non-existent. In
    regard to his plan for Iraq, Kerry differs with Bush only in respect
    to the former's much-touted internationalism, though it is doubtful
    that Kerry could attract much international support to occupy Iraq.

    [future_qt7.gif] It should be added that Kerry's major organizational
    backers -- the Democratic Leadership Council and the Progressive
    Policy Institute -- are peopled by liberals who supported the war on
    Iraq. Moreover, like the neocons, they identify closely with Israel.
    Kerry himself has said that the "cause of Israel must be the cause of
    America" -- at a time when the actual "cause" of the Sharon government
    is to destabilize the Middle East in the interests of Israel. [36][31]
    It also should be noted, however, that Kerry, under the guise of
    progressive internationalism, could more effectively intensify and
    widen the war in the Middle East than could the Bush administration,
    whose credibility is much tarnished by lies, torture, and corruption.

    The fact is that even if the neoconservatives themselves should lose
    their grip on the reins of government power, the war policy that they
    initiated in the Middle East has taken on a life of its own. And that
    holds true despite the influence of the Establishment figures who,
    unlike Kerry, opposed the American attack on Iraq. In large measure,
    the neoconservatives have placed their Establishment adversaries in a
    position where they cannot undo what the neocons have done. That is
    because the American foreign-policy elite believes that withdrawing
    from Iraq would destroy America's image as a world superpower. As
    columnist Paul Krugman writes: "Even among harsh critics of the
    administration's Iraq policy, the usual view is that we have to finish
    the job. You've heard the arguments: We broke it; we bought it. We
    can't cut and run. We have to stay the course." [37][32]
    According to this line of thinking, if the United States looked like a
    paper tiger in Iraq, it would not have the credibility to exercise its
    necessary role of world leadership.

    For the United States to pull out would put it on the defensive in the
    rest of the world. That demonstration of weakness would invite attacks
    on other parts of the American empire. Elite opinion on this issue is
    supported by much of the general populace, who see American honor at
    stake in staying the course and not giving in.

    In stipulating that the United States must not retreat, the
    foreign-policy elite inadvertently reveals the genius of
    neoconservative foreign policy on Iraq. The neocons have driven
    American policy into a position that their foreign-policy adversaries
    -- insofar as they support the American global empire -- must accept.
    Essentially, the neocons tied the interests of the American empire to
    those of Israel, which the non-neoconservative foreign-policy elite
    believes it cannot now abandon without undermining its own globalist
    agenda.

    But why can't the United States jettison its empire? Some say American
    wealth depends on its military empire -- an economic view I reject.
    Arnaud de Borchgrave, a critic of the attack on Iraq, presents the
    non-economic rationale for global militarism: "Not to see this mission
    [the Iraq business] through to a successful conclusion would relegate
    the United States to the role of Sweden or Switzerland in a world
    increasingly populated by pariah states. A new world disorder would be
    well-nigh inevitable." [38][33]

    But Sweden and Switzerland do quite well without a military empire.
    And it seems unlikely that the United States could be the country
    indispensable for maintaining prosperity for the rest of the world.
    All producers have a vital self-interest in trade, as opposed to
    self-sacrificing embargoes. If there arose [39][comment.gif] some
    terrible threat to cut off vital resources to the industrial world,
    other countries would undoubtedly intervene in some manner -- even by
    bribing dictators, as the dastardly French are supposed to do on
    occasion.

    The standard of living in the United States does not depend on the
    regime's global military empire. Unfortunately, the necessity of such
    an empire is ingrained in the thinking of the foreign-policy elite and
    of most educated Americans. Therefore it is hardly likely that the
    United States will pull out of Iraq. And that means there is a global
    debacle in the making.

References

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   11. http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_future_notes.htm#note6
   12. http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_future_notes.htm#note7
   13. http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_future_notes.htm#note8
   14. http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_future_notes.htm#note9
   15. http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_future_notes.htm#note10
   16. http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_future_notes.htm#note11
   17. http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_future_notes.htm#note12
   18. http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_future_notes.htm#note13
   19. http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_future_notes.htm#note14
   20. http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_future_notes.htm#note15
   21. http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_future_notes.htm#note16
   22. http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_future_notes.htm#note17
   23. http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_future_notes.htm#note18
   24. http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_future_notes.htm#note19
   25. http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_future_notes.htm#note20
   26. http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_future_notes.htm#note21
   27. http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_future_notes.htm#note22
   28. http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_future_notes.htm#note23
   29. http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_future_notes.htm#note24
   30. http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_future_notes.htm#note25
   31. http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_future_notes.htm#note26
   32. http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_future_notes.htm#note27
   33. http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_future_notes.htm#note28
   34. http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_future_notes.htm#note29
   35. http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_future_notes.htm#note30
   36. http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_future_notes.htm#note31
   37. http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_future_notes.htm#note32
   38. http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_future_notes.htm#note33
   39. mailto:ditch at thornwalker.com?subject=StephenJ.Sniegoski--NEXTSTOP,IRAN
   40. http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/donor_update_info.htm
   41. http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/subscribe_tld.htm
   42. http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/index.html



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