Peaceful options, democracy
set aside
The exposé of the Bush administration's "redirection" policy
-- by veteran investigative reporter Seymour M. Hersh
in the March 5 New Yorker -- is not only ominous
in its content but also for its authority, buttressed
by Hersh's 40-year investigatory record consistently
proven to be right on the mark.
Regardless of the exposé, or possibly in reaction
to it, Saudi King Abdullah has openly rejected the
U.S. role in the Middle East and demanded that Arab
governments come together in a common nonsectarian
front to reject the United States' "divide and
conquer" strategies for controlling the Middle
East's future.
Hersh records the "Redirection" policy's
inception two years ago with the formation of another
cabal similar to the Office of Special Plans in the
Defense Department, which cherry-picked bits of information
to build a false picture of Saddam Hussein's existential
threat to U.S. security.
The "Son of OSP" is a cabal led by former
Iran-Contra felon and now Deputy National Security
Adviser Elliott Abrams (pardoned by Bush 41) and other
neocons who concocted the secret plan at a Sunday meeting
away from public view in Vice President Dick Cheney's
office. They agreed that the Iran-Contra conspiracy
failed not because of its blatant illegality
(in violation of the Boland Amendment), but because
the CIA and Pentagon were involved and secrecy could
not be maintained.
They anticipated using black-box monies purloined from
the $11 billion gone missing in Iraq to enlist surrogate
fighters to foment Sunni-Shiite civil wars from the
same fundamentalist groups we empowered in Afghanistan
-- and whose blowback effect brought us 9-11.
The 1990s' neoconservative plan for the Middle East
was to construct a crescent of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq
and finally Iran, characterized by friendly puppet
regimes with democratic trappings under America's thumb,
in firm control and dispensation of the world's last
untapped oil reserves.
The first attempt to realize that dream has turned
into a nightmare. Democratic elections in Iraq have
resulted in its being ruled by the long-repressed Shiite
majority and the Sunni minority refusing to give up
dominant power. Israel's Lebanese invasion this summer,
planned with the U.S. four months beforehand with the
express purpose of destroying Hezbollah, resulted in
disaster. Lebanon, in turn, faced a Shiite majority
long denied political power by its "confessional" system
of apportioning government offices among religious
and ethnic groups.
Redirection would throw democracy under the bus, leaving
realignment with the now-termed "moderate" dictatorial
or royal regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan
and re-enlistment of Saudi fundamentalist Salafis to
spread Sunni-Shiite civil war to Lebanon, intensify
the civil war in Iraq and destabilize Syria.
Apparently Prince Bandar bin Sultan, former Saudi ambassador
to the U.S. and now director of the Saudi National
Security Council, was the brain behind the Saudi involvement
in this plan.
King Abdullah was either kept out of the loop or has
decided that Saudi Arabia -- and the rest of the Middle
East -- can no longer be the "useful idiots' in
U.S. policies that only lead to disaster. He has brokered
a deal between Hamas and Fatah to form a unity government
to deal directly with Israel in seeking peace, and
called for the end of the boycott of the democratically
elected Palestinian government. He has visited Tehran
and met with President Ahmadinejad.
He also has described Iraq as a country "where
the bloodshed is continuing under an illegal foreign
occupation and detestable sectarianism," and cancelled
his appearance at a White House dinner in his honor.
We would be well-advised to heed Hersh's investigative
report on Bush's "redirection" policy, which
finally gives the lie to the so-called "War on
Terror" and façade of support for democracy.
It is a policy so bizarre and hypocritical that Saudi
King Abdullah has rejected it and called on all Middle
Eastern nations to unite in opposition.
This administration policy is antithetical to peaceful
resolution of Middle East conflicts and, as important,
to our cherished ideal of open, democratic government.
Jim Mullins is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy in
Washington, D.C., and a resident of Delray Beach.
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