The Middle East According to Tony Blair

Tony Blair, one of the Chief architects of the wholly illegal, and barbaric act of aggression put upon the state of Iraq and its population in 2003 – resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians – has once again been given a platform to further the West’s Imperial agenda and designs for the Middle East.

A recent article in the Mail on Sunday penned by Mr. Blair, reveals how very little this man truly thinks of the public’s collective and individual ability to see straight through his ‘liberal’ veneer and blatant war propaganda. The man British citizens once voted into the office of Prime Minister, is now, a de-facto figurehead for the vast apparatus’ of the Western Corporate Military Industrial Complex (MIC), and a fully fledged leader of the MIC’s quasi-’humanitarian’ facade. Can one honestly believe this man – thought by many of his own former constituents to be a proven war criminal – holds the title of Middle East Peace Envoy? One looks on at this scenario and sees nothing more than a sickening insult to the Palestinian’s and their brethren. You want peace? The right of return? Your indigenous land? And compensation for the brutality the UK and the rest of the Western world has encouraged and abetted Israel to commit unhindered? Here, have ‘our’ Tony; a proven war criminal responsible for the death and suffering of millions of Arabs, a man so despised in the region he is supposed to be helping; he dare not step foot in it outside of Zionist control and a small army in tow.

The simplistic narrative Mr. Blair is trying to force onto readers is that, contrary to all available evidence and the vast majority of informed scholarly opinion, even indeed, contrary to his first paragraph in which he uses his charm and ‘liberal’ facade to portray an understanding of peaceful Islam; that there is an “ideology” behind the brutal murder of Lee Rigby by extremists on the streets of London, and that this ideology is “profound and dangerous”. Tony then veers straight into the Neo-Con/AIPAC dominated western narrative on the Middle East, casually inferring that the “ideology” he speaks of is “out there”: (my emphasis.)

However, we are deluding ourselves if we believe that we can protect this country simply by what we do here, the ideology is out there, it isn’t diminishing.

This one sentence alone, is complete Neo-Con fantasy. In 2012 – and this is a recurring statistic – more Americans died as a result of being crushed by their TV or furniture (16) than by ‘terrorism’ (10). When is Tony going to warn the Western world of the imminent danger and “profound ideology” which is inherent in every Panasonic superstore or large furniture outlet? I for one agree, we should do all we can to combat such a “profound” threat. Three-piece-suite ‘terror cells’ are currently gathering at Ikea superstore’s across the whole of  Britain. The country must be prepared for this imminent, pernicious “ideological” attack from sofa’s, TV’s and extremist chaise lounge alike.

Tony takes us on a tour of the current conflagrations erupting throughout the Middle East, yes, of course, this man has the right to opine and the status to gain platform, who is to stop him? The millions across the globe that strongly feel he should be prosecuted for his murderous actions don’t have a say, the Corporate Elite that run the editorial boards of western media outlets willingly parade this man’s opinion as credible. Tony asks us, subservient citizens of the west to “consider the Middle East”. Has this man ever considered the Middle East in any other context than an oil-well, for him and his corporate cronies and warmonger’s alike to rape and pillage? Yet we, as hapless subordinates should “consider the Middle East”?

Of course Tony’s considerations fall alongside such prominent peace activists as US Senator John McCain, currently to be found posing with Islamic extremists guilty of war crimes. On Syria, Tony tells us:

Many in the region believe that the Assad intention is to ethnically cleanse the Sunni from the areas dominated by his regime and then form a separate state around Lebanon. There would then be a de facto Sunni state in the rest of Syria, cut off from the wealth of the country or the sea.

Again, this could not be further from reality, or even come close to the Syrian Governments intention’s. The intention of his great friend George Bush and his administration on the other hand, dutifully carried out by Obama and their GCC partners, is exactly what has transpired inside Syria and is now engulfing Lebanon. This intention through covert policy was de-facto: the sectarian division and destruction of the Syrian state; Hezbollah, and Lebanon along with it; to ultimately lay the ground for the “Path to Persia”. Western and Gulf nations sponsorship of supposed ‘rebels’ fighting for democracy has done nothing but bolster Al Qaeda affiliated ideologues and groups that openly espouse sectarian hatred against Shia Muslims, Christians, and any other minority sect residing in Syria or on this planet.

Yet Assad, whose domestic popularity has apparently never been higher according to NATO sources, and the President of a secular and multi-ethnic state is now willingly dividing his own country to escape a sectarian extremist takeover that has the support of around a meager 10% of Syria’s population? It beggars belief, and Tony is turning the conflict on its head. Since the very start of the Syrian conflict it has been the groups that espouse this sectarian agenda that have directly received the most support, arms and funding from Western and Gulf donors alike, and has undoubtedly resulted in the vast amount of extremist dominated militia currently waging war on the Syrian state, its whole social fabric, and its once tolerant and peaceful population.

“The Syrian opposition is made up of many groups. The fighters are increasingly the Al Qaeda- affiliated group Jabhat al-Nusra. They are winning support, and arms and money from outside the country.

Surely the question Tony should be asking himself is: who is sending “support, arms and money from outside the country“? He doesn’t seem to be able to determine that it is his allies in the region and across the Atlantic that have poured billions of dollars into the insurgency. Qatar alone, have thrown $3 billion dollars at the Salafi/Jihaddi dominated ‘opposition’, along with thousands of tonnes of arms. Yet the spread of extremism is the fault of the Syrian Government?

In Tony’s eye’s, the billions of dollars provided by the West, along with thousands of tonnes of western coordinated arms sent to ‘rebels’ in Syria has absolutely no relevance to the proliferation of extremists. Western intelligence agencies training the very same militia for the last two years simply doesn’t correlate. Does he think the CIA, MI6 and their Turkish, Qatari, Saudi and Jordanian counterparts are training Greenpeace activists in Mafraq and Incerlik to go and wage war against the Syrian Army? Or do these ‘freedom fighters’ only become radicalized once set-loose from their Western/GCC mentors and trainers the minute they cross the Syrian border?

Of all those least qualified to make an assumption about chemical weapons, Tony provides his readers with another Golden Nugget of complete falsehood:

“Assad is using chemical weapons on a limited but deadly scale.”

The man has absolutely nothing to back this claim, he probably has less ‘evidence’ than the first time he used the “chemical weapons” Cassus Belli to wage war on Iraq. UN investigator Carla Del Ponte, may well like to correct him, as it was her – along with many other analysts and informed individuals – that pointed the finger directly at the “freedom fighting” rebels Tony and his ilk have been supporting for over two years. Not to mention the fact that just this week, Syrian ‘rebel’ cells tied to Jabhat al Nusra (Al Qaeda) – the prominent ‘opposition’ fighting force in Syria – were arrested in possession of Sarin Gas canisters in neighboring Iraq and Turkey. False flag anyone?

Tellingly, Tony tells us: “we are at the beginning of this tragedy”. Revealing his true desire in such a way as to say: look, i told you so, we should have ‘intervened’ and bombed them back to the stone age two years ago. Again, his cognitive dissonance and ability to whitewash any western culpability for the increase in sectarianism, destruction and conflict spread throughout the Middle East goes far beyond ignorance or hypocrisy. Blair uses “we” to pull in readers as if he is a spokesperson for the world, when in reality he is a willing public relations shill for western-led aggression. He says “we are at the beginning” just at the point of him addressing Iran, at which he offers another complete ‘fear-factor’ falsehood to his readers:

Then there is the Iranian regime, still intent on getting a nuclear weapon, still exporting terror and instability to the West and the east of it.

Without even bothering to address the Neo-Con-led lie that Iran is “intent on getting a nuclear weapon”, we should simply sit back and take a look at the current reality of the situation. Israel has had for years, an illegal and rather huge nuclear warhead stockpile. Has Tony ever thought about challenging that illegality in his efforts as ‘Middle East Peace Envoy”? Of course not.It goes without saying that Iran have every right to engage in their nuclear energy program; they are a party to the IAEA and comply regularly with US-led invasive measures, not to mention Iran is also party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty,  Israel on the other hand, are a not a member of either, yet it is often Israel found at the forefront of allegations against Iran.  All the while Israel sit on a huge illegal nuclear stockpile; engage in decades long occupation and land theft; apartheid; and multiple acts of violent aggression including invasion of several neighboring states; all of which is only possible with the enablement and approval of hegemonic Western states. But of course, Iran is the threat in the Middle East. And Israel’s security is of utmost importance.

Tony must be so fearful of his security within the occupied territories, or anywhere else in the Arab world for that matter, that he is failing to speak to the people he claims to know so much about. It would only take a quick review of the plethora of polls held in the region for him to realize, it is not Iran or Syria that Arabs fear. In the vast majority, Arab’s think of the United States and Israel as the two main threats to peace in the region. It is not in Tony’s or his paymasters interest’s to point this out.

But as Blair warns himself “lets not get carried away”. This isn’t all down to Iraq and Israel after all. No, the policy of fomenting and using radical Islam for geopolitical gain runs far deeper and wider, decades at least. Blair touches on an enlightening subject when he states:

The Taliban grew out of the Russian occupation of Afghanistan and made the country into a training ground for terror.

To some extent, this is true; but what Tony is willfully omitting is the fact the Russian invasion of Afghanistan was a result of the US-led proxy war against it. Tony knows full well that the US was arming the very same ideologues he pretends to rally against in Afghanistan, often with the tacit coordination of British military and intelligence agencies. It was the West that enabled, funded and armed Osama Bin Laden, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the Haqqani network and many other extremists during the eighties, all for the value of “giving Russia its Vietnam”. It was US and UK military trainers, alongside their Pakistani and Saudi counterparts, that armed and trained these men in the finer arts of warfare and terrorism; according to ‘official’ documentation, much of these western-led efforts commenced long before the Russian’s decided to invade. Thousands of Islamic extremist’s were given billions of dollars and armed to the teeth during the Yugoslavia break-up, this had far more relevance to economic designs for the region than the West enabling “freedom and democracy”. A policy which the US, along with its NATO ally Turkey has continued along Russia’s North Caucasus; the blowback of which can be seen on the streets of Boston today. Much the same happened in Libya when that ‘Dictator’ got above his station and actually dared to provide his people independence from the Western economic stranglehold. And has also been happening on Syria’s borders since at least the original protest movement kicked off in March 2011.

This provides just a few examples of the plethora of evidence that proves outright Western leaders are in no rush to defeat ‘Radical Islam’. It is for them, the modern communism, a multifaceted oppression tool. While western domestic populations are whipped into Islamophobic fever and their civil liberties encroached upon through false “National Security” measures; whole populations of “others”, over “there” are dehumanized and demonized to enable Western-led military aggression. Coddling extremist and brutal leaderships and their ideologues has for decades provided the West the ultimate subversion tool abroad, from Nasser to the Soviet Union, using radical Islamists as foot soldiers in proxy wars in the Middle East is but one of the West’s weapon’s of choice.

To further the point of Tony’s glaring moral expediency, it just so happens the West’s biggest ally in the region since its UK-designed inception: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, gets no mention in Blair’s article, of course, this is the nation we have supplied and armed throughout its existence to wage war on our behalf. Saudi Arabia is the state that oppresses its population through archaic and barbaric interpretations of Islam. But Tony’s wallet will not allow a harsh word to be said.

While the Saudi Arabian leaders arm and fund Islamic extremists all over the Middle East, and pours billions into Madrassa’s all over the world to spread the brutal Saud monarchy’s Wahhabi abomination of Islam; western Governments such as Blair’s are more than happy to sell them billions of dollars worth of war materiel at knock-off prices, and indeed, have used Saudi Arabia as a key conduit and enforcer of all things ‘terror’ in the region, on the West’s behalf, for decades on end.

Lets not pretend we don’t know why these counterintuitive dynamics continue to occur. One has to take a serious look at the disparities that are inherent within Western Governments to understand the very nature of the real “threats” and establishment “ideologies” that are forced upon us. It is not Islam, nor any other religion that is the threat, it is not even the extremist marginal ideologies that our leaders use to entrap and enslave us at home, or promote and foment war and subversion abroad. Neither can compare to the destruction and death Western leaders have willingly caused. It is Tony and his ilk that have proven to be the biggest detriment to mankind and peace.

Phil Greaves is a UK based writer/analyst, focusing on UK/US Foreign Policy and conflict analysis in the Middle East post WWII.http://notthemsmdotcom.wordpress.com/