Electric Monkey Pants

Proving once again that they are not interested in attaining peace in the Middle East, the neocons and their UK allies have rejected UN calls for a cease-fire and expressed support for Israel’s actions:

Criticism has mounted that the two countries are blocking the 15-nation Security Council from endorsing the UN secretary-general’s call for an immediate suspension of fighting.

More than 300 Lebanese civilians and nearly 30 Israelis have died since the fighting started, and half a million Lebanese civilians have been displaced. Israel has warned that it is now preparing a ground invasion to eradicate Hezbollah strongholds in the south of Lebanon, a move that can only add to the misery of the civilian population.

The British and American proposal called for the Security Council to express its intention “to create the conditions for a permanent solution and to bring about an immediate end to hostilities.” It also called on all sides to exercise restraint and to allow humanitarian access.

The neocon position is merely a stalling tactic. “Create the conditions for a permanent solution?” How are they supposed to do that in the midst of open war? The ceasefire is necessary first step. You can’t replace the brakes on a car while you’re driving it.

It’s clear that peace is not the goal of the Bush administration. Let’s hear it straight from the mouthpiece of the neoconservative movement:

William Kristol, writing in the neo-conservative US magazine Weekly Standard, does not see the crisis in Lebanon as a local war requiring a local solution. Rather, he depicts the conflict as part of a global struggle between Islam and “liberal democratic civilization.”

“What’s happening in the Middle East, then, isn’t just another chapter in the Arab-Israeli conflict. What’s happening is an Islamist-Israeli war. You might even say this is part of the Islamist war on the West.”

Kristol called upon the US government to focus less on Hamas and Hizbollah and more “on their paymasters and real commanders – Syria and Iran.” The United States needs to forcefully reassert its power in the region and “pursue […] regime change in Syria and Iran,” even considering “a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities.”

The US has stood aside for too long, making itself appear weak in the eyes of its Islamist enemies, Kristol said.

Weakness, to Kristol, is the failure of the U.S. to rule the world with an iron fist. This man is a fascist.

Kristol is trying to start a war between the West and Islam. That seems to be the plan, anyway. He accuses the Islamists of waging a war on the West. Is he fucking serious? The Islamic nations would never try that — they would get crushed. Kristol is, as usual, lying out his ass. He’s got it exactly backwards. Fascist Westerners like him are trying to wage war against Islamists because they know the West will win, thus gaining more power for him. He knows he’s full of shit. These guys are some really cynical assholes.

So, I hope you like war. ‘Cause there’s a lot more of it on the way as long as the neocons are in charge.

Perhaps you’ve seen news reports of Israel blowing the ever-loving shit out of Lebanon in a Middle East already drowning in tension. What’s this all about? Is it really just about one captured Israeli soldier?

Jeff over at Rigorous Intution implies that Israel is working behind the scenes with American neocons to spark a war with Iran:

Israel’s war upon Lebanon would be a disproportionate response if Israel were actually responding to the kidnapping of two of its soldiers. It isn’t, of course. (If it were, we may have seen a limited cross-border incursion that resembled a rescue mission, rather than these blunt-force deep attacks on Lebanese infrastructure.) Rather the war, like most wars of aggression, is a response to the pathological necessities of the aggressor’s ideology.

America’s Countdown: Tehran has been stuck at 20 minutes and holding for a couple of months now, derailed by Iran’s rational posture regarding its nuclear ambitions and the ongoing thwarting of anything approaching even the Bush administration’s benchmark for a casus belli. Israel’s hawks, by smashing in the back door, are baiting Iran to action, which would goad the US to crash through the front. Israeli military claims, trumpeted by FoxNews, that the Haifa rockets were fired by Iranian Guard units, and the absurd suggestion that Hezbollah intends to transport their captured soldiers to Iran, say forcefully that this isn’t about Lebanon, though for now it will be mostly the Lebanese who perish.

Could it be that this war is just a provocation for Iran? Iran has already taken the bait by saying they will defend Syria if Israel attacks Syria. Israel has reportedly given Syria a 72-hour ultimatum to stop Hezbollah activity within its borders or face attack. Interestingly, this warning was revealed by a Pentagon official. Other neocons are insisting that Syria and Iran are behind the kidnapping of the Israeli soldier(s) that is the ostensible impetus behind the attacks.

Meanwhile, the right-wing talk show hosts are already saying that we’re witnessing the beginning of World War III or World War IV, depending on how you count (I prefer WWIV). Since they are the mouthpieces of the ones planning and instigating these wars, I tend to believe them.

This is a dangerous game the neocons are playing. First, they accuse Hezbollah, Syria and Iran of making a dangerous bid for more influence (how does supposedly masterminding the kidnapping of one or two soldiers in Gaza gain you more influence? The neocons never seem to explain that line of reasoning), then they let Israel go nuts and bomb the hell out of whoever they want — so of course they go after Hezbollah in Lebanon since Lebanon can’t really fight back.

What’s next according to the neocon plan? I’m guessing that Israel will try it’s best to lure Syria into the fight. Syria would be stupid to fall for this, but if they are attacked I’m sure they will respond. Israel doesn’t want to be seen as being the aggressor so I doubt they will simply invade. They need a pretext. Hezbollah provides that as a terrorist organization that is supposedly hiding in Lebanon and Syria. Israel can claim to be chasing fleeing Hezbollah fighters right into Syria.

That still doesn’t absolve Israel’s actions in the international community, however. They need something more. No doubt the neocons will try to manufacture some sort of excuse for Israel — just as every other part of this exercise in preemptive warfare has been manufactured. If the neocons can’t deke Syria and Iran into open warfare they’ll have to go through the tiresome process of starting a Coalition of the Willing (part 2) and convincing the U.N. Security Council that we need to invade and conquer Iran before they attack us with their mighty turbans.

We just have to hope that Iran and Syria keep their cool while the pressure all around them mounts. They last thing they should do is make any threatening moves. That will only spell destruction for them and their people.

They need to stall for time before the neofascists manage to draw them into a fight. What they really need is, well…. us! We, the people of the United States of America, need to take back our government from the tyrant Bush and end his reign of terror across the globe. Only then will the situation return to some level of calmness. As long as Bush is in power the King of Terror rules.

The Iranians are threatening to cutoff oil supplies if they are attacked. Condi Rice responded that we’ll “wait and see.”

“Well, I think we shouldn’t place too much emphasis on a move of this kind; after all Iran is very dependent on oil revenue,” Rice told Fox News Sunday.

Asked whether Iranian leaders had already rejected a six-nation diplomatic initiative, by insisting there be no preconditions for new talks on their nuclear program, Rice said Iran had not yet received the proposal and would need time to assess it.

“It’s sort of a major crossroads for Iran, and it’s perhaps not surprising that they will need a little bit of time to look at it,” she told Fox News.

Washington has offered to join European countries in talks with Iran about the nuclear program, but says Iran must first suspend uranium enrichment. Iran has so far said enrichment is a national right.

I like how the precondition for negotiations is for Iran to give us exactly what we’ve been demanding all along. If they stopped enrichment, what more would there be to negotiate? I don’t think Iran is meant to take this proposal very seriously at all. In fact, they are meant to reject it so that they look stubborn and irrational. In reality it’s the Americans who are acting strangely. But I guess that all boils down to the fact that we plan to invade Iran soon. Probably within the next year.

Wouldn’t it be convenient for the Republicans if Iran were to provoke us somehow, say right before the midterm elections in November? It sure seems like we’re trying to goad Iran into doing something stupid, but some have raised the possibility of a false flag attack. That would mean that we’d attack ourselves and then blame it on Iran. It’s been an old standby trick for Americans going back decades if not centuries. Still works like a charm.

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Iran will not be a cakewalk. Iran is much larger than Iraq and their economy has not been crippled by sanctions like Iraq’s was. I think it would be insane to attack them, but just because it’s insane doesn’t mean the neocons won’t do it. In fact, it probably increases the odds that they will. They like to keep people off-balance.

If it looks like we’re about to go into Iran we need to have massive protests in every American city. We need to shut down commerce and the government by use of strikes, civil disobedience and massive protests. We cannot let this happen. To attack Iran would be to basically start World War III (or World War IV if you count the Cold War as WWIII). Of course, that’s assuming it hasn’t started already with our invasion of Iraq. It’s hard to know what has begun until you’re well into it.

Personally, I think the Cold War counts as World War III if you include all of the sub-wars within it, such as Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and stand-offs like the Cuban missile crisis. Conflicts like the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Vietnam and Korea were really just proxy-wars, with the USSR and USA each backing a different side in the fight. We were still fighting, but it didn’t get too “hot” which might’ve resulted in the usage of nuclear weapons. The fact that we used all of these proxies is what makes it a global war in my opinion. And certainly, many millions of people died.