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February
11, 2002
Walt Brasch
The
Synergizing of America
John Troyer
Enron's
Deep Throat?
February
9, 2002
John Blair
Criticize
Cheney, Go to Jail
February
8, 2002
CounterPunch
Wire
Ashcroft
the Bigot
Molly
Secours
Racism
and Real Estate
Wole Akande
World
Economic Forum:
The Aftermath
Cockburn/St.
Clair
Dita
Sari Tells Reebok
to "Shove It"
February
7, 2002
Patrick
Cockburn
Taliban's
War on Chess
John Chuckman
Howdee,
Dick!
Tariq
Ali
Mullahs
and Heretics
February
6, 2002
Amira
Hass
On
the Edge of the
Non-Violent Demonstrations
Vivian
Berger
Sentenced
to Rape
Vladimir Georgiyev
Russian Intelligence:
War on Iraq Begins in Sept.
Tom Turnipseed
"Axis
of Evil" a Cover for Corporate Corruption?
David
Vest
The
Enron Creature
February
5, 2002
Norman
Madarasz
Dispatch
from Pôrto Alegre
Tom Malinowski
What
to do with
Our "Detainees"?
Dita Sari
Why
I Rejected the
Reebok Human Rights Award
February
4, 2002
Eric Miller/Beth
Daley
Five
Weapons Systems
That Bilk the Taxpayers
Kenneth
Roth
Dear
Condoleezza,
You've Misstated the
Geneva Convention
Robert
Jensen
The
Occupation Must End
Shahid
Alam
How
Different Are
Islamic Societies?
David
Vest
Everybody
Says I Loathe You
John Chuckman
American
Politics of Grief
February
3, 2002
Zoltan
Grossman
War
and New Military Bases
February
2, 2002
Francis
Schor
Carlucci's
Strange Career
February
1, 2002
Dr. Susan
Block
The
Great Ashcroft Cover Up
Jeremy
Voas
Why
We're Suing Ashcroft
David
Vest
10
Things I Know About Him
January
31, 2002
Rahul
Mahajan
The
State of the Union:
A New Cold War
Dave Marsh
Miles
Copeland, War
and the Future of Music
John Pilger
The
Colder War
Alexander
Cockburn
American
Journal:
Killer Dog, Weird Couple
Dr. Susan
Block
Blowback
and Daniel Pearl
January
30, 2002
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Linda
Lay, Hill and Knowlton and the Tears of a Clown
Jack McCarthy
Free
Noelle Bush!
Michael
Ratner
Memo
to Bush: Adhere to
the Geneva Convention
Jay Moore
Proud
to be an American?
Susan
Block
The
Great Pretzel Swallower
and Guantanamo Porn
January
29, 2002
Gary Leupp
Why
This War Was, and Remains, Utterly Wrong
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Birds of Kandahar
Patrick
Cockburn
Afghan
Opium Trade
Back in Business
January
28, 2002
Larry
Chin
Brosnahan
for the Defense
Mokhiber/Weissman
Tyranny
of the Bottom Line
George
E. Curry
Civil
Rights Nominee Called Affirmative Action "Racist"
Sen. Russ
Feingold
Campaign
Finance Reform?
Think Enron
John Chuckman
Liberal?
Media?
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
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EXCLUSIVE
TO
COUNTERPUNCH
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Published Oct. 15, 2001
8-Page Special Issue
War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em
Search
CounterPunch
Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
Buy
This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
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February 11,
2002
Oil, Sharon and
the Axis of Evil
The Great Game
By Uri Avnery
Some weeks ago, something curious happened: Israel
discovered that Iran is the Great Satan.
It happened quite suddenly. There was
no prior sensational news, no new discovery. As if by the order
of a drill-sergeant, the whole Israeli phalanx changed direction.
All the politicians, all the generals, all the enlisted media,
with the usual complement of professors-for-hire, - all of them
discovered overnight that Iran is the immediate, real and terrible
danger.
By wondrous coincidence, at exactly the
same moment a ship was captured that, allegedly, carried Iranian
arms to Arafat. And in Washington Shimon Peres, a man for all
seasons and the servant of all masters, accosted every passing
diplomat and told him stories about thousands of Iranian missiles
that have been given to the Hizbullah. Yes, yes, Hizbullah (included
by President Bush in the list of "terrorist organizations")
is receiving horrible arms from Iran (included by President
Bush in the "Axis of Evil") in order to threaten Israel,
the darling of the Congress.
Does this sound mad? Not at all. There
is method in this madness.
On the face of it, the matter is easy
to explain. America is still in a state of fury after the Twin-Towers
outrage. It has won a amazing victory in Afghanistan, hardly
sacrificing a single American soldier. Now it stands, furious
and drunk with victory, and does not know who to attack next.
Iraq? North Korea? Somalia? The Sudan?
President Bush cannot stop now, because
such an immense concentration of might cannot be laid off. The
more so, as Bin-Laden has not been killed. The economic situation
has deteriorated, a giant scandal (Enron) is rocki ng Washington.
The American public should not be left to ponder on this.
So here comes the Israeli leadership
and shouts from the roof-tops: Iran is the enemy! Iran must
be attacked!
Who has made that decision? When? How?
And most importantly - Where? Clearly not in Jerusalem, but
in Washington DC. An important component of the US administration
has given Israel a sign: Start a massive political offensive
in order to pressure the Congress, the media and American public
opinion.
Who are these people? And what is their
interest? A wider explanation is needed.
The most coveted resource on earth is
the giant oil-field in the Caspian Sea region, that competes
in scale with the riches of Saudi Arabia. In 2010 it is expected
to yield 3.2 billion barrels of crude oil per day, in addition
to 4850 billion cubic feet of natural gas per year.
The United States is determined (a) to
take possession of it, (b) to eliminate all potential competitors,
(c) to safeguard the area politically and militarily, and (d)
to clear a way from the oil-fields to the open sea.
This campaign is being led by a group
of oil people, to which the Bush family belongs. Together with
the arms industry, this group got both George Bush senior and
George Bush junior elected. The President is a simple person,
his mental world is shallow and his pronouncements are primitive,
bordering on caricature, like a second-rate Western. That is
good for the masses. But his handlers are very sophisticated
people indeed. It's they who guide the administration.
The Twin Towers outrage made their job
much easier. Osama Bin Laden did not comprehend that his actions
serve American interests. If I were a believer in Conspiracy
Theory, I would think that Bin Laden is an American agent. Not
being one, I can only wonder at the coincidence.
Bush's "War on Terrorism" constitutes
a perfect pretext for the campaign planned by his handlers.
Under the cover of this war, America has taken total control
over the three small Muslim nations near the oil reserves: Turkmenistan,
Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. The whole region is now completely
under American political-military domination. All potential
competitors - including Russia and China - have been pushed
out.
For a long time, the Americans have been
arguing among themselves about the best route for piping this
oil to the open sea. Routes that may be under Russian influence
have been eliminated. The 19th century, deadly British-Russian
competition, then called the "Great Game", is still
going on between America and Russia.
Until recently, the western route, leading
to the Black Sea and Turkey, seemed most feasible, but the Americans
did not like it very much, to say the least. Russia is much
too near.
The best route leads south, to the Indian
Ocean. Iran was not even considered, since it is governed by
Islamic fanatics. So there remained the alternative route: from
the Caspian Sea, through Afghanistan and the western part of
Pakistan (called Beluchistan), to the Indian Ocean. To this
end, the Americans conducted, ever so quietly, negotiations
with the Taliban regime. They bore no fruit. Then the "War
on Terrorism" was started, the US conquered all of Afghanistan
and installed their agents as the new government. The Pakistani
dictator, too, was bent to the American will.
If one looks at the map of the big American
bases created for the war, one is struck by the fact that they
are completely identical to the route of the projected oil
pipeline to the Indian Ocean.
That would have been the end of the story,
but the appetite grows with the eating. The Americans drew two
lessons from the Afghani experience: (a) that every country
can be subdued by sophisticated bombs, without putting any soldiers
in harm's way, and (b) that by military might and money America
can install client governments anywhere.
And so a new idea came up in Washington:
Why lay a long pipeline around Iran (through Turkmenistan, Afghanistan
and Pakistan) if one can lay a much shorter pipeline through
Iran itself? One has only to topple the Ayatullah regime and
install a new pro-American government. In the past, that seemed
impossible. Now, after the Afghani episode, it looks eminently
practicable. One has only to prepare American public opinion
and to acquire the support of the congress for an attack on
Iran.
For this, Israel's good services are
needed. It has an enormous influence in the Congress and the
media. It works like this: Israeli generals declare every day
that Iran is producing weapons of mass-destruction and threatens
the Jewish State with a second Holocaust. Sharon announces that
the capture of the Iranian arms-ship proves Arafat is a part
of the Iranian conspiracy. Peres tells everybody that Iranian
missiles threaten the whole world. Every day some newspaper
tells its readers that Bin Laden is in Iran or with the Hizbullah
in Lebanon.
President Bush knows how to reward those
who serve him well. Sharon got a free hand to oppress the Palestinians,
imprison Arafat, assassinate militants and enlarge the settlements.
It's a simple deal: You deliver the support of the Congress
and the media, I deliver the Palestinians on a platter.
This could not happen if America was
still in need of allies in Europe and the Arab world. But in
Afghanistan, the Americans learned that they don't need anybody
anymore. They can spit in the eyes of the pitiful Arab regimes,
that are always begging for money, and disregard Europe altogether.
Who needs the negligible armies of Britain and Germany, when
America alone is mightier then all the armies of the world
combined?
The idea of American-Israeli cooperation
against Iran is not new for Sharon. On the contrary, in 1981,
when he was just appointed Minister of Defense, he offered the
Pentagon a daring plan: in the event of Khomeini's demise, the
Israeli army would immediately occupy Iran, in order to forestall
the Soviet Union. The IDF would turn the country over to the
slow-moving Americans, once they arrived. For this purpose,
the Pentagon would stockpile in advance the most sophisticated
arms in Israel, under American control, to be used in this operation.
The Pentagon did not accept the idea
at that time. Now, the cooperation is being established against
a different background.
What conclusions should we draw from
all this?
First of all, that we shall be located
on the frontline of this coming war. Beyond the exchange of
curses between the "two Persian Chiefs-of-Staff" (as
the joke goes in Israeli command circles, alluding to the fact
that Shaul Mofaz was born in Iran), an Iranian reaction to an
American assault may hurt us grievously. There are missiles.
There are chemical and biological weapons.
Second, that those of us who desire an
Israeli-Palestinian peace cannot rely on America. Now everything
depends on us alone, the Israelis and the Palestinians. Our
blood is more precious than Caspian Sea oil. At least to us.
Uri Avnery
lives in Israel. He has written extensively about the life and
career of Ariel Sharon.
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