One of my masked correspondents, "Mark" (who provided me with all
the thinking a few weeks back when we unmasked the religious columnist "Shushon" as the highflown double of a vengeful neocon operating under another pseudonym) has been thinking about geopolitics in the wake of the American
dabbling in the Georgia-Russia crisis on the side of Georgia and our
warming to India over nukes.
In both cases, there is an Israel interest
that goes largely unspoken. And by extension, a neoconservative push in Washington for the U.S. to take positions that might not be in our national interest. Where is the American reporting on this issue? It isn't. There is, incredibly, still enormous reluctance on the part of the media to examine the political/institutional power of the neocons–apart from such spasmodic efforts as Chris Matthews blurting that they have coached Sarah Palin on her Israel answer.
I'll turn it over to Mark in a minute, but a couple of texts first.
Here's a great piece of analysis in Stratfor (out of Austin, TX) by George Friedman, about Israel's game in Georgia.
Friedman
concludes that Israel behaved like a tough realist state, pushing
Georgia forward (before Israel backed away a lot quicker than the U.S. did) as
part of a strategy to thwart Russia's reemergence as a world power that
might arm
Israel's enemies.
The other front that's interesting is the U.S. plan to drop the nuclear trade ban on India, welcoming it as a member in good standing of the nukes club. The Asia Times sees an Israel interest in the deal:
Delhi keeps up the pretense that the nuclear deal is all about India's energy
security, but it has succumbed to US-Israeli pressure against proceeding with
the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project, which had a much shorter
gestation period and would have been a far cheaper source of energy. The heart
of the matter is that the nuclear deal eases the flow of US military technology
to India, paving the way for the "interoperability" of the two armed forces and
making India a potential ally in coalitions that the US might assemble from
time to time as part of its global strategy.
From
the Asia Times, we learn that Israel and the U.S. are pressuring India
to join the U.S. as a potential ally in coalitions for the U.S.'s
"global strategy." How does Israel enter into the equation? Since the early 1990s India and Israel have cooperated closely in military and intelligence matters.
But
who is directing US strategy and for what purposes? Well, for the past eight
years US foreign policy has been largely directed by Neocon obsessions
and concerns. Beyond the Iraq war, we know that the Georgia policy and
the Central Asia policy were probably forged by
neocons with an obsessive hatred for Russia, dating back to their
formative years with Scoop Jackson. That hostility appears to be
motivated in part by the Israel interest that Friedman cites: fear of possible Russian support for Israel's enemies (and
maybe too by lingering resentment of Russia for its treatment of
Jews.)
The issue, of course, is whether it is in the interests of the US
to allow Israel/Neocons (and I recognize that the views of the two may
not always coincide) to dictate our relations with significant
geopolitical players,
such as Russia and Iran. In the case of Russia, the evidence advanced
by Friedman suggests
that US neocons may be far more doctrinaire than Israel itself is. The
Bush Administration
has consistently followed a policy that
is designed to marginalize Russia and deny it a say in areas
that have historically been of concern to Russia, and thus is virtually
guaranteed to alarm Russia
with threats of encirclement by a ring of US proxy states. These
initiatives are essentially those of Cold War "containment," and send a
clear signal to Russia that the US believes it neither needs nor
desires a strategic partnership with Russia. From this perspective
Putin's reactions are hardly surprising.
Neocons have
played leading roles in forging that policy. And yet there
are many areas in which it seems clearly in the interests of Russia and
the US to cooperate–above all, ensuring stability in Central Asia, a
volatile region that combines vast energy resources, unstable regimes
offering terrorist sanctuaries, and strategic location.
If you consider the region realistically, US setbacks in Mesopotamia and/or Afghanistan are not in Russian
interests, either.
Speaking of Afghanistan, here is Tariq Ali, writing for the Asia Times:
What is really required in the region is an American-NATO
exit strategy from Afghanistan, which should entail a regional solution
involving Pakistan, Iran, India and Russia. These four states could guarantee a
national government and massive social reconstruction in that country.
If Ali's assessment is correct, then we've
set up as enemies two of the four nations that 1) have major stakes in
stability in the region and which 2) we need. Who's been running our foreign policy here? Who convinced us to treat Russia and Iran as ultimate enemies? For what purpose?
I am not saying that Russia hasn't made mistakes–and serious
ones. Since the end of the Cold War, Russia has foolishly antagonized
former Soviet bloc states such as Poland, and now is met with suspicion
when it attempts to reach out to them. But as "victor" in the Cold War
we should be
leading the way. If we were able to come to terms with Germany and
Japan, it isn't beyond the realm of possibility that we can reach some
accommodation with Russia. Humiliation as a tool of foreign policy
should be a tool of last–not first–resort. Under the neocons, I'm
afraid we have repeatedly and needlessly humiliated the Russians.
The situation with Iran is complicated by the hostage crisis of the
Carter years, but once again it is clearly in our interests in both
Central Asia and the Gulf region to have more cooperative relations
with Iran. We need to put aside neocon fantasies of dictating
Iran's future through fomenting internal revolt. Iranians will
ultimately decide their own future, whatever short term "success" we may enjoy. A chaotic, humiliated Iran, such
as one resulting from Israeli/US strikes at its nuclear industry and
military, will still play an influential role in the Middle East simply by
virtue of its location, population and energy resources. In
neither case–Russia, Iran–are we in a position to militarily impose
settlements that will not raise further problems down the road. While
the US military is an 800 pound gorilla, what we really need is more
insightful diplomacy that will build relatively-enduring
relationships.
