by
Craig Murray
Even the
neo-con warmongers’ house journal The Guardian, furious at
Trump’s attempts to pull US troops out of Syria, in producing a map
to illustrate its point, could only produce one single, uncertain,
very short pen stroke to describe the minute strip of territory it
claims ISIS still control on the Iraqi border.
Of
course, the Guardian produces the argument that continued US
military presence is necessary to ensure that ISIS does not spring
back to life in Syria. The fallacy of that argument can be easily
demonstrated. In Afghanistan, the USA has managed to drag out the
long process of humiliating defeat in war even further than it did in
Vietnam. It is plain as a pikestaff that the presence of US
occupation troops is itself the best recruiting sergeant for
resistance. In Sikunder Burnes I trace how the battle lines of tribal
alliances there today are precisely the same ones the British faced
in 1841. We just attach labels like Taliban to hide the fact that
invaders face national resistance.
The
secret to ending the strength of ISIS in Syria is not the continued
presence of American troops. It is for America’s ever closer allies
in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf to cut off the major artery of money and
arms, which we should never forget in origin and for a long time had
a strong US component. The US/Saudi/Israeli alliance against Iran is
the most important geo-political factor in the region today. It is
high time this alliance stopped both funding ISIS and pretending to
fight it; schizophrenia is not a foreign policy stance.
There
has been no significant Shia Islamic terrorist or other threat
against the West in recent years. 9/11 was carried out by Saudi Sunni
militants. Al Qaida, ISIS, Al Nusra, Boko Haram, these are all Sunni
groups, and all Saudi sponsored. It is a matter of lunacy that the
West has adopted the posture that it is Iran – which has sponsored
not one attack on the West in recent memory – which is the threat
in the Middle East.
The
origin of this stance appears to lie in the fact that the Shia group
Hezbollah proved to have the only military force among Israel’s
neighbours capable of halting an Israeli invasion. After the
disastrous invasion of Iraq resulted in an Iran friendly regime in
Baghdad, the US decided for balance of power reasons to back Saudi
regional power plays, only for Saudi Arabia to fall into the hands of
the psychopathic warmonger Mohammed Bin Salman who escalated an
already flawed policy to breaking point.
The
chaos of this incoherent and counterproductive strategy is,
peculiarly enough, what the neocons actually want. Perpetual war and
destabilisation in the Middle East is their goal. One of the findings
I had not expected to discover in writing Sikunder Burnes was that
the British had been deliberately exploiting and exacerbating the
Shia/Sunni divide as early as 1836 to the Imperial purpose. Today, by
keeping Arab populations poor and politically divided, the neo-cons
believe that they enhance the security of Israel, and they certainly
do facilitate the access of western companies to the oil and gas of
the region, as we see in destabilised Iraq and Libya.
The
Clintons and Blair were the apotheosis of the capture of the
mainstream “left” political parties by this neo-con Imperialist
agenda in the Middle East. Sanders, Trump and Corbyn were the first
politicians with any chance of power for many decades who did not pay
lip-service to the neo-con agenda. Trump’s lack of enthusiasm for
Cold War politics has been neutralised from any possible action on
his part by the ludicrous lie that Russia hacked his election.
Furthermore his greed has led to deals with Saudi Arabia which have
largely undercut his declared preference for non-interventionism. And
now in Syria, the very hint that Trump may not be fully committed to
the pursuit of perpetual war has the entire neo-con establishment,
political media and NGO, screaming in unison, both sides of the
Atlantic.
I have
written before that Trump may be a rotten President for Americans,
but at least he has not initiated a major war; and I am quite sure
Hillary would have done by now. For a non-American, the choice
between Hillary and Trump ended up in balancing on one side of the
scale the evil of millions more killed and maimed in the Middle East
and the launching of a full on, unreserved new Cold War, against on
the other side of the scale poorer Americans having very bad
healthcare and social provision and America adopting racist
immigration policies. I do hope that the neo-con barrage today
arguing for more American troops in the Middle East, will help people
remember just how very unattractive also is the Hillary side of the
equation.
It is
also very helpful in revealing the startling unanimity of our bought
and paid for political, media and NGO class here in the UK.
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