Tag Archives: Benjamin Netanyahu

Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, Politics

Tagged Benjamin Netanyahu, Iran, Iran nuclear deal, President Trump

Are Bibi and Bolton in the Wheel House Now? by Patrick J. Buchanan

Posted on May 11, 2018 | Leave a comment

Is Trump under the thumb of Netanyahu and the neocons. From Patrick J. Buchanan at buchanan.org:

Brushing aside the anguished pleas of our NATO allies, President Trump Tuesday contemptuously trashed the Iranian nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions.

Prime Minister Theresa May of Great Britain, President Emmanuel Macron of France and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were put on notice that their ties to Iran are to be severed, or secondary sanctions will be imposed on them.

Driving the point home, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin ordered Airbus to cancel its $19 billion contract to sell 100 commercial planes to Iran.

Who is cheering Trump’s trashing of the treaty?

The neocons who sought his political extinction in 2016, the royals of the Gulf, Bibi Netanyahu, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The IRGC had warned Iranians that the Americans were duplicitous.

When Trump finished speaking, Bibi launched strikes on Iranian bases in Syria, and flew to Moscow to persuade Vladimir Putin not to give the Iranians any air defense against Israeli attacks.

Iranian forces responded with 20 missiles fired at the Golan, which ignited a massive Israeli counterstrike Thursday night, a 70-missile attack on Iranian bases in Syria.

We appear to be at the beginning of a new war, and how it ends we know not. But for Bibi and National Security Adviser John Bolton, the end has always been clear — the smashing of Iran and regime change.

Tuesday, Trump warned that Iran is on “a quest for nuclear weapons,” and “if we do nothing … in just a short period of time, the world’s worst sponsor of state terror will be on the cusp of acquiring the world’s most dangerous weapon.”

And where is the evidence for this Bush-like assertion?

If Iran is on a “quest” for nukes, why did 17 U.S. intel agencies, “with high confidence,” in 2007 and 2011, say Iran did not even have a nuclear weapons program?

Saddam Hussein could not convince us he had no WMD, because the nonexistent WMD were the pretext, the casus belli, for doing what the War Party had already decided to do: invade Iraq.

We were lied into that war. And how did it turn out?

To continue reading: Are Bibi and Bolton in the Wheel House Now?

Tagged Benjamin Netanyahu, Iran, Iran nuclear deal, John Bolton, President Trump

The Meaning of Verification, by Ted Snider

Posted on May 9, 2018 | 1 comment

The International Atomic Energy Agency has certified 11 times that Iran is in compliance with the Nuclear Agreement. Now that the US has pulled out of the agreement, Iran can kick out the inspectors and we won’t have that source of information on what Iran is doing. From Ted Snider at antiwar.org:

As North Korea begins to open up to the world, what must they be hearing?

Two of the loudest stories concern Donald Trump’s reactions to countries accused of having active weapons of mass destruction programs. Trump bombed Syria for using chemical weapons, and he has now officially pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear agreement with Iran.

But the first thing that needs to be said in any discussion of Syria’s chemical weapons or Iran’s nuclear weapons is the one thing that is seldom said: Syria has no chemical weapons and Iran has no nuclear ones. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) verified Syria to be chemical free, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has verified Iran’s consistent and continued compliance with the JCPOA. To the best of anyone’s knowledge, Syria has no chemicals and Iran has no nukes: that’s what verification means.

Syria

On September 14, 2013 the United States and Russia finalized a Russian brokered agreement on the removal and destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons. On January 4, 2016, the OPCW declared the completion of the destruction of all chemical weapons in Syria.

Nonetheless, on April 14, Trump ordered the bombing of Syria because of a claimed chemical attack in Douma, near Damascus. Only days before the missile strikes, Defense Secretary James Mattis said that the U.S lacked the intelligence that Assad was responsible for the alleged chemical weapons attack. Mattis admitted that the US was “still assessing the intelligence… We’re still working on it.”

Days after, however, the US bombed three particular buildings that they claimed housed specific chemicals and chemical production equipment. That’s very precise, specific intelligence. Armed with that proof, why would the US rush to bomb Syria? Why not take that intelligence to U.N. inspectors? Why not hand it over to the OPCW? Why not reveal the illegal Syrian clandestine chemical weapons program to the world?

Russian chemical weapons specialists who were on site found no trace of chemical weapon use. Neither did Red Crescent doctors who treated people. The OPCW inspectors might quickly have answered the question, but their access to the site was blocked by the United Nations department of Safety and Security.

To continue reading: The Meaning of Verification

https://www.c-span.org/video/standalone/?c4529433

Tagged Benjamin Netanyahu, Donald Trump, Iran, Iran nuclear deal, Israel, Syria

Benjamin Netanyahu is Once Again Trying to Push the U.S. Into a Disastrous War, by Michael Krieger

Posted on May 1, 2018 | 1 comment

Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to pull the sam weapons-of-mass-destruction rabbit out of the hat that served him so well before the US’s Iraq invasion in 2003. Anything to get the US to fight Israel’s wars. From Michael Krieger at libertyblitzkrieg.com:

H/T to @snarwani for the above

Earlier today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put on a little song and dance about Iran and WMDs intended to provide cover for Trump’s upcoming decision on whether or not to scrap the Iran deal (JCPOA) on May 12th.

Of course, this isn’t the first time Netanyahu aggressively pitched the U.S. on war in the Middle East. He did the exact same thing,using the exact same playbook, in the run up to the Iraq war.

Fortunately, we have video evidence of his 2002 testimony to Congress, during which he hyperventilated and exaggerated about Iraq’s grave threat to the world as a result of its non-existsent WMDs. The guy was so incredibly wrong on Iraq, to such a disastrous degree, it’s amazing anyone listens to him at all anymore.

What follows are two must watch video clips from Netanyahu’s 2002 testimony. One of the more memorable — and spectacularly wrong — claims he made back then was when he proclaimed:

“If you take out Saddam, I guarantee, it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region”

Watch for yourself.

Instead, we got a failed state and the creation of ISIS. But hey, everyone makes mistakes that lead to the pointless murder of hundreds of thousands.

But that’s just a taste. In the clip below he all but guarantees (wrongly) that Saddam was putting all his energy into creating a nuclear bomb, and he talks repeatedly about “washing machine” sized centrifuges being surreptitiously moved around Iraq to evade the watchful eye of weapons inspectors. In reality, Iraq simply didn’t have WMD.

To continue reading: Benjamin Netanyahu is Once Again Trying to Push the U.S. Into a Disastrous War

Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, Intelligence, Morality, War

Tagged Benjamin Netanyahu, Iran

Intelligence Veterans Warn of Growing Risk for War With Iran Based on False Pretexts, by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

Posted on February 26, 2018 | 1 comment

The VIPS believes the Iranian “threat” is being vastly overblown to con the US public into yet another quagmire Middle Eastern war. From the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity at the antimedia.org:

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT: War With Iran

In our December 21st Memorandum to you, we cautioned that the claim that Iran is currently the world’s top sponsor of terrorism is unsupported by hard evidence. Meanwhile, other false accusations against Iran have intensified. Thus, we feel obliged to alert you to the virtually inevitable consequences of war with Iran, just as we warned President George W. Bush six weeks before the U.S. attack on Iraq 15 years ago.

In our first Memorandum in this genre we told then-President Bush that we saw “no compelling reason” to attack Iraq, and warned “the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.” The consequences will be far worse, should the U.S. become drawn into war with Iran. We fear that you are not getting the straight story on this from your intelligence and national security officials.

After choosing “War With Iran” for the subject-line of this Memo, we were reminded that we had used it before, namely, for a Memorandum to President Obama on August 3, 2010 in similar circumstances. You may wish to ask your staff to give you that one to read and ponder. It included a startling quote from then-Chairman of President Bush Jr.’s Intelligence Advisory Board (and former national security adviser to Bush Sr.) Gen. Brent Scowcroft, who told the Financial Times on October 14, 2004 that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had George W. Bush “mesmerized;” that “Sharon just has him wrapped around his little finger.” We wanted to remind you of that history, as you prepare to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu next week.

Rhetoric vs. Reality

We believe that the recent reporting regarding possible conflict with nuclear-armed North Korea has somewhat obscured consideration of the significantly higher probability that Israel or even Saudi Arabia will take steps that will lead to a war with Iran that will inevitably draw the United States in. Israel is particularly inclined to move aggressively, with potentially serious consequences for the U.S., in the wake of the recent incident involving an alleged Iranian drone and the shooting down of an Israeli aircraft.

To continue reading: Intelligence Veterans Warn of Growing Risk for War With Iran Based on False Pretexts

Tagged Benjamin Netanyahu, Iran, President Bush

How Trump and the GOP Exploit Israel, by Jonathan Marshall

Posted on January 31, 2018 | Leave a comment

The Republicans have been trying for years to peel Jews away from the Democrats. Trump is playing this game to perfection. From Jonathan Marshall at consortiumnews.com:

Exclusive: Donald Trump’s Israel policies may have more to do with outmaneuvering Democrats than they do with any concern for Middle East peace, argues Jonathan Marshall.

Vice President Mike Pence addresses the Knesset, Israeli Parliament, in Jerusalem January 22, 2018.

Vice President Mike Pence’s trip to Israel last week revived warnings by foreign policy experts over the Trump administration’s controversial announcement that it will break with past policy and relocate the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.

“It’s still mysterious just how Mr. Trump believes he has advanced the cause of peace, or fortified America’s standing in the world, with that decision,” the New York Times editorialized. “Its costs in terms of American isolation, on the other hand, were evident throughout [Pence’s] trip.”

Henry Siegman, former executive director of the American Jewish Congress, earlier derided the “stunning level of ignorance” displayed by Trump’s decision. The Washington Post called it a “big risk,” predicting rightly that it would inflame opposition in the Arab world and give new ammunition to extremists in the region. Senator Bernie Sanders tweeted that the president’s move would “undermine the prospects for an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement and severely, perhaps irreparably, damage our ability to broker it.”

All these and myriad similar comments were valid, but they missed the point. Trump doesn’t care a whit about peace in the Middle East, or who he alienates abroad: He cares about winning votes at home. Equally important, he cares about splitting the Democratic Party off from its funding base. To that end, Trump and his crew have a pretty good idea what they’re doing.

Defunding the Democrats

For years now, GOP has executed a successful plan to undermine major financial and organizational pillars of the Democratic Party by demonizing once popular groups like plaintiff lawyers (“tort reform”), unions (“right to work”), public employees (“privatization”), and especially public school teachers (“school choice”).

Exploiting the issue of Israel in much the same way, Republican strategists have aimed at neutralizing the Democratic Party’s largest individual donors, who are overwhelmingly Jewish.

Many of those donors also have a long history of financial support for Israel, and of discouraging public debates in the United States over its policies. Raising doubts about the Democratic Party’s commitment to Israel thus became a GOP ploy to dry up portions of that traditional funding base.

To continue reading: How Trump and the GOP Exploit Israel

Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Government, History, Politics

Tagged Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel, President Trump, Republicans

Trump’s Scary Nuclear Doctrine, by Alastair Crooke

Posted on October 12, 2017 | Leave a comment

The scariest part of Trump’s nuclear doctrine is that nobody knows what it is, perhaps not even Trump. From Alastair Crooke at consortiumnews.com:

Pleasing Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and terrifying almost everybody else, President Trump is threatening nuclear war against North Korea and, by implication, war with Iran, as ex-British diplomat Alastair Crooke explains.

There are acres of print analyzing “will he, or won’t he” in respect to President Trump taking military action in North Korea. And equally, volumes on what Trump may intend to do in respect of Iran: Is he engaged primarily in rhetorical “theatre” to please his base, and earn press plaudits; or is he girding up for attrition (hot or cold) against Iran?

Illustration by Chesley Bonestell of nuclear bombs detonating over New York City, entitled “Hiroshima U.S.A.” Colliers, Aug. 5, 1950.

The unanswered question is: does President Trump regard North Korea and Iran as somehow connected (albeit that Iran has no nuclear weapons, and no nuclear weapons program)? Certainly one person – one who talks to the Trump family a lot – does think the two are directly linked.

Jeffrey Sachs, who listened to Trump’s speech at the United Nations, in which the President said he was ready to “totally destroy” North Korea, tells us about the audience reaction: “Well, you could hear shuffling, chuckles, amazement, gasps, a few applause. There was Netanyahu enthusiastically applauding. It was a very odd scene. I am still a bit shaken by it.”

Of course, for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and some neoconservatives, a U.S. attack on the Korean nuclear program sets a wonderful precedent for Iran – for now or for the future.

We just do not know. Trump’s former career as a reality TV host has left him with a predilection for teasing and hype (“just tune in again next week, to learn more”). What is increasingly plain is that those on the inside – such as the Chair of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee – are equally unsure whether President Trump is about to unleash “World War III” – or not.

To continue reading: Trump’s Scary Nuclear Doctrine

Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, War

Tagged Benjamin Netanyahu, Iran, North Korea, Nuclear war, President Trump

Netanyahu Is Meeting Trump To Push For War With Iran, by Trita Parsi

Posted on September 19, 2017 | Leave a comment

Benjamin Netanyahu has long dreamed of a US war waged against Iran, notwithstanding that the last two war Netanyahu thought the US should fight—Iraq and Syria—haven’t turned out too well for the US. From Trita Parsi at antiwar.com:

Today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet with Donald Trump at the White House and push the U.S. to withdraw from the nuclear accord with Iran. Netanyahu will present an argument that Trump already has come to accept: America’s adherence to the nuclear deal cannot solely depend on Iran’s compliance with the agreement, but also whether Iran’s other policies challenge US national interests. It’s a more honest argument compared to the slogans Netanyahu has used in the past. But it is also a line that fundamentally contradicts Netanyahu’s central message of the past decades: That Iran’s nuclear program constitutes an existential threat to Israel.

The Trump administration has desperately sought a pretext to quit the nuclear deal and shed the limits the deal imposed on the US’s ability to pursue aggressive policies against Iran – even if it also sheds the limits the deal imposed on Iran’s nuclear activities. The latest idea is to use the Congressional certification – due every 90 days – where the president has to report to Congress on whether Iran is complying with the deal or not. But unlike the reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency – who is tasked to oversee the implementation of the nuclear deal – the president’s report to Congress goes beyond the nuclear issue: Trump must also report whether the suspension of sanctions against Iran is “appropriate and proportionate to the measures taken by Iran and vital to US national security interests.”

The Trump plan – as telegraphed by several administration officials – is to certify that Iran is in compliance with the deal (Trump has no leg to stand on to claim otherwise – both the IAEA and the US intelligence services have consistently reported that Tehran is living up to its obligations), but to argue that the deal and its sanctions relief nevertheless is unjustified due to Iran’s policies in the region that are anathema to US national security interests.

To continue reading: Netanyahu Is Meeting Trump To Push For War With Iran

Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, Military, War

Tagged Benjamin Netanyahu, Iran, Israel

The Reasons for Netanyahu’s Panic, by Alastair Crooke

Posted on September 7, 2017 | Leave a comment

Things are not going Israel’s way in the Middle East. From Alastair Crooke at consortiumnews.com:

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is pushing the panic button over the collapse of the Saudi-Israeli jihadist proxies in Syria and now threatening to launch a major air war, as ex-British diplomat Alastair Crooke describes.

By Alastair Crooke

A very senior Israeli intelligence delegation, a week ago, visited Washington. Then, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu broke into President Putin’s summer holiday to meet him in Sochi, where, according to a senior Israeli government official (as cited in the Jerusalem Post), Netanyahu threatened to bomb the Presidential Palace in Damascus, and to disrupt and nullify the Astana cease-fire process, should Iran continue to “extend its reach in Syria.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking to a joint session of the U.S. Congress on March 3, 2015, in opposition to President Barack Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran. (Screen shot from CNN broadcast)

Russia’s Pravda wrote, “according to eyewitnesses of the open part of the talks, the Israeli prime minister was too emotional and at times even close to panic. He described a picture of the apocalypse to the Russian president that the world may see, if no efforts are taken to contain Iran, which, as Netanyahu believes, is determined to destroy Israel.”

So, what is going on here? Whether or not Pravda’s quote is fully accurate (though the description was confirmed by senior Israeli commentators), what is absolutely clear (from Israeli sources) is that both in Washington and at Sochi, the Israeli officials were heard out, but got nothing. Israel stands alone. Indeed, it is reported that Netanyahu was seeking “guarantees” about the future Iranian role in Syria, rather than “asking for the moon” of an Iranian exit. But how could Washington or Moscow realistically give Israel such guarantees?

Belatedly, Israel has understood that it backed the wrong side in Syria – and it has lost. It is not really in a position to demand anything. It will not get an American enforced buffer zone beyond the Golan armistice line, nor will the Iraqi-Syrian border be closed, or somehow “supervised” on Israel’s behalf.

Of course, the Syrian aspect is important, but to focus only on that, would be to “miss the forest for the trees.” The 2006 war by Israel to destroy Hizbullah (egged on by the U.S., Saudi Arabia – and even a few Lebanese) was a failure. Symbolically, for the first time in the Middle East, a technologically sophisticated, and lavishly armed, Western nation-state simply failed. What made the failure all the more striking (and painful) was that a Western state was not just bested militarily, it had lost also the electronic and human intelligence war, too — both spheres in which the West thought their primacy unassailable.

To continue reading: The Reasons for Netanyahu’s Panic

Tagged Benjamin Netanyahu, Iran, Israel, Russia, Syria

Has Netanyahu Defeated the Palestinians? by Daniel Levy

Posted on August 31, 2017 | Leave a comment

This is a good analysis of Israel’s foreign policy under Benjamin Netanyahu. From Daniel Levy at antiwar.com:

The long-running police investigations into the affairs of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to cross a Rubicon earlier this month. Netanyahu is under suspicion in a number of cases involving alleged bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, among other things. A deal has now been reached by the State Prosecutor’s Office for Netanyahu’s former chief of staff, Ari Harow, to turn state’s witness – an arrangement rarely agreed to unless a strong case is being built against a more senior and serious criminal actor.

With the likelihood of his being indicted and speculation as to his longevity in office reaching unprecedented levels, Netanyahu struck back. In a support rally convened by his Likud Party, Netanyahu accused “the thought police in the media,” together with the left, and supported by the Palestinians, of conducting an “unprecedented, obsessive witch-hunt campaign” against him and his family. Their goal, he claimed, was to stage “a government overthrow” to topple “the national camp.” Both the style and substance of Netanyahu’s fiery rhetoric should have sounded very familiar to anyone in America not asleep for the past seven months.

That part of his speech was an appeal to his base. But Netanyahu’s lengthy term in office, multiple electoral successes, and ability to hold together a governing coalition in Israel’s rambunctious political system is also predicated on him having a message that resonates with a broader public. It is a sales pitch that Netanyahu repeated at that rally, that he had “brought the state of Israel to the best situation in its history, a rising global force . . . the state of Israel is diplomatically flourishing.” Netanyahu had beaten back what he had called the “fake-news claim” that without a deal with the Palestinians “Israel will be isolated, weakened, and abandoned” facing a “diplomatic tsunami.”

Difficult though it is for his political detractors to acknowledge, Netanyahu’s claim resonates with the public because it reflects something that is real, and that has shifted the center of gravity of Israeli politics further and further to the right. It is a claim that if correct and replicable over time will leave a legacy that lasts well beyond Netanyahu’s premiership and any indictment he might face.

To continue reading: Has Netanyahu Defeated the Palestinians?