Atlas Monitor | 16 July 2015
I recently read email correspondence between forest and dairy industry experts that quickly turned into a geopolitical debate. Two of the experts are New Zealanders and the other American. One of the New Zealanders was lamenting US foreign meddling as a major contributor to the instability in world markets and the American took exception.
American Jeff suggests that NZ’er Dennis has a warped world-view, clouded by NZ’s “interests”. Jeff suggests that the US is focused on geopolitical issues, sovereign freedom and finding peaceful solutions to regional conflicts and implies that America is a pillar of these implicitly righteous principles. Jeff also seems to suggest that Dennis’ labelling of the US as “war-mongering” is unreasonable. Jeff also implies that the sanctions on Iran are justified. Jeff also asserts that the US does not pick sides in regional conflicts such as in Syria and Iraq and did not start the conflict in the Ukraine. I will examine Jeff’s position in the geopolitical context of the Iraq-Syria and Ukraine crises; the Iran nuclear deal; US policies and what and who is driving those policies.
American Oligarchy
America’s world-view has, since the early 20th Century and perhaps earlier, been formed by the interests of an oligarchic clique that runs America (Mills 1956) and by implication the world; not necessarily in the interests of the American people let alone the people of the rest of the world. This well documented clique can be found on the membership lists of so-called think-tanks such as the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and Trilateral Commission (Quigley 1966, 1981; Sutton & Wood, 1974, 1981; Sklar 1980; Shoup & Minter 2004; Allen 1971; Domhoff 1967; Lasell 1963; Archer 1973).
The Gilens and Page (2014) study Testing theories of American politics: elites, interest groups, and average citizen, demonstrated the existence of an oligarchy within the US that has overwhelmingly more influence and success in lobbying for their preferences over the preferences of other groups. Gilens and Page concluded that the preferences of the ruling elite regularly prevail and that “policymaking is dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans” (2014: 24). They used a diverse set of 1,779 policy issues between 1981 and 2002 to demonstrate this. Furthermore, the research suggested that America’s claims to being a democracy could not be sustained and that an oligarchy was a more accurate characterization (Gilens and Page, 2014: 21-24).
This clique, using American economic and military might, has acted unrestrained. In a report commissioned by the TC, entitled The crisis of democracy: report on the governability of democracies to the Trilateral Commission, it was suggested that the problems of governance in the world today stem from an “excess of democracy”. This report’s controversial thesis argued that democracies are essentially ungovernable for the US dominated global power elite (oligarchy) and that a reduction of democratic freedom was required (Huntington et al 1975: 113). The Trilateral Commission policy can be seen in a series of US attempts to overthrow more than 50 democratically elected governments; attempts to supress liberation movements in 20 countries; grossly interfere in democratic elections in at least 30 countries; drop bombs on the people of more than 30 countries; as well as attempt, successful or otherwise, to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders (Blum 1995, 2011).
For Dennis to describe the US as “war-mongering” is not entirely without foundation; for Jeff to suggest that America promotes sovereign freedom is at best arguable and at worst not supported.
Middle East
On the subject of the conflict in the Middle East, President Obama admits that the rise of ISIS is a direct consequence of the American led; illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003. Rather than trying to find peaceful solutions to regional conflicts, the conflict today in the Middle East was caused and exacerbated in no small part by the hubris of US foreign policy. This conflict has come about precisely because the US has picked sides; and furthermore some of the sides that the US has taken have been with the most diabolical regimes. In the Middle East the US has allied itself with the absolute monarchies of the Gulf states including Saudi Arabia where people are beheaded for “witchcraft” as well as the equally diabolical apartheid regime of Israel.
What is worse and perhaps less well known, but now documented, is the evidence that the US has in fact supported the rise of ISIS. A recent US Defense Intelligence Agency report obtained by FOIA request shows that the US knew all along that the so-called Syrian opposition, which the USG refers to euphemistically as “moderate”, were Al-Qaeda and its affiliates such as Shabat Al-Nusra. The document shows that the US knew that providing support to the Syrian “opposition” would lead to the rise of an Islamic caliphate and that this would serve US (as well as Saudi and Israeli) geopolitical interests; which is a Balkanized Middle East. A strong and stable Shia Iran, Iraq and Syria threatens the regional hegemony of Sunni Saudi Arabia and Zionist Israel as well as, by implication, the hegemony of the globalist US. The declassified Pentagon document proves the US and her allies enabled and facilitated the rise of ISIS on top of providing materiel support as well as training and funding for the takfiri group. This support for Islamic fundamentalists was also articulated in Foreign Policy magazine in a 2012 article. This article entitled Two cheers for the Syrian Islamists suggested that although “the rebels aren’t secular Jeffersonians. As far as America is concerned, it doesn’t much matter” and that the US should support them. Today the US foreign policy community is attempting to rehabilitate Al-Qaeda as depicted in this CFR journal article “Accepting Al-Qaeda”.
The Middle East crisis is about an ongoing US and NATO led, in collaboration with the feudal Persian Gulf Monarchies of the GCC, destabilizing campaign designed to reconfigure the Middle East by forging strategic alliances in the region to precipitate regime change. This plan serves US & NATO geopolitical interests and has been exposed, articulated and documented by various sources including former US-NATO General Wesley Clark, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh and the neocon Project for the New American Century. It is ultimately about the hegemony of globalists and internationalists, such as David Rockefeller, George Soros and the House of Rothschild, using the US as well as other Western countries and global institutions as a vehicle for world domination.
Clearly the US has picked sides in the current Middle East conflict and this is a US policy that has a history. This is admitted by Hillary Clinton who acknowledged that US support of radical Islamic groups goes back to 1980s war in Afghanistan and has been the root cause of many problems in the Middle East. This policy continues today.
Ukraine
The origins of the crisis in the Ukraine can also be found in the hubris of American foreign policy and specifically the inequitable conclusion to the Cold War and the failure to create a mutually beneficial post- Cold War world order. This is the ultimate root cause of the current Ukraine crisis (Sakwa 2015). Rather than taking an inclusive approach towards the new Russian Federation, the Clinton administration immediately expanded NATO eastwards and took a winner takes all attitude towards Russia. The continuation of NATO’s existence, which should have dismantled after the fall of the USSR, is justified by mitigation of threats caused by NATO’s existence. According to American experts on Russia and international relations, such as John J Mearsheimer and Stephen F Cohen, Russia’s response to the crisis has been cautious, logical and ultimately understandable. The resulting new Cold-War is a direct result of US meddling in Ukraine’s affairs by supporting a neo-fascist coup regime; now admitted as being fascist by the US House of Representatives.
Ultimately the US promoted the overthrow of a democratically elected government and supported a coup regime that had neo-fascists in key cabinet positions. Jeff’s characterization of Putin’s “expansionist, totalitarian, KGB run Russia” as the aggressor in the Ukraine crisis ignores the fact the Russia’s national security was directly threatened, right on its border.
Iran Sanctions
The Iran sanctions are ultimately hypocritical. The so-called international community (the Anglo-American-Israeli-Saudi axis) will tolerate Pakistan, India and Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons but not Iran’s. The sanctions were not necessary to bring Iran to the negotiating table as Jeff suggests. The sanctions came about as a response to the 1979 Islamic revolution and then updated in 2006 when Iran refused to halt its uranium enrichment program. The fundamentalist structure of Iran’s post-revolution government was a response to the unscrupulous actions of foreign powers, such as supporting the tyrannical regime of the Shah, which served as a catalyst for the Islamic revolution and its subsequent radicalization. The Shah’s emulation of the West and subservience to foreign powers, manifest through various reforms, caused a domestic backlash in Iran’s traditionalist society which ultimately created fertile ground for the radicalization of a revolution on a fundamentalist trajectory. The radicalization of the revolution can be attributed to the Iran-Iraq war which occurred during the revolution as Iraq, supported by foreign powers; led by the US, invaded; taking advantage of Iran’s chaotic domestic situation (Afshah 2013).
There shouldn’t be a need for a deal with Iran because the sanctions are unjustified and ignore the West’s historical role in the evolution today’s Iran.
Conclusion
It is clear that the US is indeed, by its actions, “war-mongering”. A review of recent history demonstrates this clearly, such as the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003; the support of terrorist organisations for geopolitical purposes (the Mujahideen, ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Al-Nusra); the support of a neo-fascist coup on Russia’s back door (Ukraine); as well as the support of the invasion of Iran by Iraq in 1980.
It is certainly true as Jeff suggests that the US is focused on geopolitical issues. However, sovereign freedom and finding peaceful solutions to regional conflicts as well as the suggestion that America is infused with the moral rectitude that ought to be emulated is not supported by the historical record.
What is unfortunately the problem with the US, and which is infecting the world, is that there has been a post-modern coup by globalist special interests in America that have seized the political, economic and military might of the US and are using it to project their power globally.
Selected bibliography
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Allen, G. (1971), None dare call it conspiracy, Seal Beach, Concord Press.
Archer, J. (1973), Plot to seize the White House, New York, Hawthorne.
Blum, W. (1995), Killing hope: U.S. military and CIA interventions since World War II, Monroe, Me., Common Courage Press.
Blum, W. (2011), “The anti-empire report” Killing Hope.
Domhoff, G. W. (1967), Who Rules America? New Jersey, Prentice Hall.
Domhoff, G. W. (2013), “Power in America: wealth, income, and power”, Who Rules America?
Gilens, M. & Page B. I. (2014), “Testing theories of American politics: elites, interest groups, and average citizens”, forthcoming in Perspectives on Politics.
Huntington, S. P., Crozier M. & Watanuki, J. (1975), The crisis of democracy: report on the governability of democracies to the Trilateral Commission, New York, New York University Press.
Lasell, H.P. (1963), Power behind the government today, New York, Liberty.
Mills, C. W. (1956), The Power Elite, New York, Oxford University Press.
Quigley, C. (1966), Tragedy and hope: a history of the world in our time, New York, MacMillan.
Quigley, C. (1981), The Anglo-American establishment: from Rhodes to Cliveden, New York, Books In Focus.
Sakwa, R. (2015), Ukraine: crisis in the borderlands, London, Tauris.
Shoup, L. H. & Minter, W. (2004), Imperial brain trust: the Council on Foreign Relations & United States foreign policy, New York, Authors Choice Press.
Sklar, H. (1980), “Trilateralism: managing dependence and democracy” in H. Sklar (Ed), Trilateralism: the Trilateral Commission and elite planning for world management, Boston, South End Press.
Sutton, A. C. & Wood, P. M. (1978), Trilaterals over Washington, Scottsdale, Ariz., The August Corporation.
Sutton, A. C. & Wood, P. M. (1981), Trilaterals over Washington II, Scottsdale, Ariz., The August Corporation.
