When westerners see 'enemy' governments fall, or civil wars erupt, they are led to think they are the geopolitical equivalent of a natural event. Nothing could be further from the truth
I'm still bemused (to say the least) that this very important article was removed from MEI without explanation (I think we readers are owed one by the MEI editor, a considerable journalist himself).
Zionism was (I now realise) always the wrong answer to European, Christian antisemitism (although I didn't always think that). A friend (who rather like myself describes himself "according to some definitions, Jewish") suggests the following vignette:
You're in a pub one day and overhear a guy at the bar shouting, "Jews shouldn't be living in this country, they should go off and live with their own kind in a country of their own." Is this fellow a Zionist, or an antisemite? He could be either, or, actually both!
Full disclosure: I was brought up in a Jewish family to be Zionist and it took me years, no, decades to rid myself of a highly cherished (brainwashed) delusion, beset by much cognitive dissonance (it's OK folks, I'm cured now!)
Looking back, I can see now that the inherent racism of the Zionist project was always denied or suppressed / repressed into subliminal regions of the preconscious minds of otherwise decent, good people, ie my close family and other relatives.
There were always good rationalisations (we tried assimilation, in Tsarist Russia, in pre-Nazi Europe, we tried the socialist Bund in Poland, nothing worked, we were still persecuted, "they" always hated us, always will, and the rest of it). Many even tried (or were coerced into) religious conversion: no use, according to the Nazis a Roman Catholic could still be a Catholic Jew, a Lutheran, a Lutheran Jew! The postulate was the ineradicable existence of some ultimate 'Jewish essence'. So you can see the motivation, the rationale, background to the illusion of safety.
But what has Israel done for us, especially under the current fascist government regime? Increased our (diaspora) vulnerability to antisemitism, especially because successive Israeli politicians, echoed by their apologists in the UK and elsewhere, have always declared that Israel speaks and acts on behalf of all Jews on the planet.
So it's probably not fair to blame people of good will when they take those spokespeople at their word and they then go on to identify all Jews with Israel's crimes. Thankfully by no means all do so, but it's easy to see how some do, especially when Jewish community leaders, religious and secular, confuse people by referring to "our" IDF, "our" land.
I now view the whole thing as a terrible tragedy, bad for Jews, far worse for so many others, mostly Palestinians, but now including others in the sad middle east region of the world.
Well reported Jonathon, one point regarding Russia and Iran abandoning Syria is not quite true.
As spoken extensively by Alastair Crooke, both Russia and Iran at various times in the last four to five years and in particular recent times had offered to re-equip and train their forces, had urged Assad to strengthen Syria's military and had warned of impending attacks by various Israeli/US/CIA backed militia groups. Iran had offered to send brigades quite recently but Assad had rejected any offers of assistance. He had increasingly moved away from Russia and Iran and aligned himself closer with the Gulf Arab states.
Also crippling sanctions and loss of control of oil resources had left Syria barely able to pay their soldiers, generals were paid $40 per month and soldiers $7 per month. this led to a demoralised military who were ripe for bribes, many were offered $400 to throw down their arms and desert.
So in a nutshell, Russia and Iran did try and were rejected and were not going to commit if Assad was not coming to the party.
And the US has far more pieces on the board: 750 military bases encircling the globe to impose by force a policy of “full-spectrum dominance”.?
Those land bases could be as obsolete as our carrier fleet, thanks to missiles and America's unwillingness to trade Boston for Camp Bondsteel. They give America's adversaries escalation dominance.
Probably the best and most incisive analysis of the power play that's been going on in the Middle East over the past several decades and how this fits with the bigger picture, including other agendas elsewhere in the world. Jonathan's articulation of this is
nothing short of brilliant. There are no "good guys" or "bad guys"....only "might is right", so that any and every means seem to justify the end....even GENOCIDE!
"When the West intervenes, so this narrative goes, it is simply to assist the laggards on their path to a final utopia..."
I'm beginning to wonder how long this narrative is going to be believed after the livestreaming of a genocide for the past 14+ months that has been armed by the West. There is no utopia to be found in the rubble of Gaza. There is no utopia in the bombing of Syria or Lebanon. There's no utopia to be found anywhere.
USA has done this before, destroy a country for years then take it over with proxy terrorists, it's like sick murderous hostile corporate takeovers of other people's sovereign nations. The USA believes in full spectrum dominance, that they own the world, they are a tyrant of our world, provoker of wars to divide and rule, then we hear them speak frankly about owning parts of Syria to protect the oil, because they are a safe corporate run military terrorist empire and destroying another people's lives and sovereign nations is for them just another corporate takeover, the terrible consequences are easily dealt with through lip service and some humanitarian relief petty cash, this corporate terrorist empire is the insulated 'banality of evil' that Hannah Arendt realized when finally seeing the Jerusalem staged war crimes trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the main managers of the Nazi's industrious Genocide of Jews and other ethnic groups it wished to exterminate from the giant capitalist Master Race factory they believed they could transform our world into, just the same these USA/Israel/NATO Full Spectrum Dominance managers talked of picking the next anti ethnic government to divide and rule Ukraine in 2014, deliberately turning the previous multi ethnic democratic peace into an ethnic civil war in order to pivot it into a bigger disposable proxy war against Russia to satisfy the interests of USA Empire's managers like "Fuck the EU" Victoria Nueland did, and 'fuck the EU' USA imperium's corporate managers most certainly have succeeded in doing! Full Spectrum Dominance sees all other prosperity and sovereign interests as a danger to their dominance that must be sabotaged and weakened, including so called allies/vassals like Europe.
USA has been using rent a Jihad mercenaries for decades, 9/11 was just a lovers tiff in an otherwise rotten fruitful relationship, proxy proxy disposable proxies. God protect the Syrian people from the USA's new dictatorship in middle east. The Jihad that "loves Israel"? USA/Israel are desperate for short term win's like their unregulated corporations, they don't care about consequences, the only way for peace is a balance of powers and mutual deterrence, USA/NATO/Israel's impossible homicidal pursuit of an unjust unnatural FULL SPECTRUM DOMINANCE is a tyranny that will sabotage and doom us all to war, mutually assured sustainable peace and prosperity is only possible through maintenance and respect of mutual deterrence, Russia, China, Iran and all the other chosen enemies of USA understand and want this, but USA NATO Israel pursues a doomed self declared FULL SPECTRUM DOMINANCE, it relies on it's so called enemies been the more mature adults in room, and fortunately so far Russia, China, Iran are wiser. I'm from Ireland, we in Europe must not continue following and enabling USA to lead us all into an eventual doomed WW3. A war in which the USA's unelected power structure is the determined instigator trying to lead us all into an otherwise entirely unnecessary abyss, we in Europe must protest against USA's warmongering and coups and proxy war shenanigans, if USA says it is our friend then we must try take the keys off it and stop allowing it drink more alcohol when it is most dangerously drunken on it's own leaderships megalomaniacal reckless stupidity. Love to people of Palestine and the people of Syria.
I don't believe Russia, China, Iran and other chosen enemies of USA's homicidal doomed pursuit of Full Spectrum Dominance are also seeking a similar vice versa check mate domination of the West, they seek to check the West's power into a balance not a domination, so there can be a Multipolar Balance of Power, this creates a secure basis for the reality of mutual trust, sustainable agreements and prosperity, whereas USA led West seeking Full Spectrum Dominance requires they weaken all other sovereign powers and economies, sabotaging, and provoking ethnic civil and regional wars all to try keep itself strong through weakening all others, including allies, it dooms everything and is certain tyranny. Multipolar Balance of Powers through maintenance of mutually effective deterrence's enables any one power dominating to be kept in check and so envisaging and honoring fairer trade and mutual benefit then becomes the more effective necessary force to prosper than sabotaging, usurping and murdering other powers for their resources and markets.
Thank you Jonathan for your great critical articles mainly keeping check on the insidious human disasters caused by the impossible supremacist virus of full spectrum dominance.
The following quote at the end of Hannah Arendt's book 'Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil', I have taken the liberty to change the name of the man on trial from Eichmann to Netanyahu & his victims:
'And just as you Netanyahu supported and carried out a policy of not wanting to share the earth with the Palestinian people and the people of a number of other nations—as though you and your superiors had any right to determine who should and who should not inhabit the world—we find that no one, that is, no member of the human race, can be expected to want to share the earth with you. This is the reason, and the only reason, you must hang.'
It is ironic We wouldn't need to worry about oil in the middle east if we would convert to solar and wind. We would not need to be fighting and financing all these wars and we could have prevented the harmful effects of climate change
Thank You Jonathon. Thanks for your insightful analysis and sharing the truth. its staggering and deeply disturbing. Thank you for your bravery in all of your reporting.
Hezbollah in Lebanon has been isolated from Iran with the expectation that it must now fall. But I can't help thinking of what Hamas has continued to do in Gaza despite the long siege, including continuing to manufacture new weaponry during this genocide, and hope that Hezbollah, too, can overcome their isolation and learn from their Palestinian comrades how to survive and keep fighting.
Evil forces are prevailing!
All roads lead to China.
I'm still bemused (to say the least) that this very important article was removed from MEI without explanation (I think we readers are owed one by the MEI editor, a considerable journalist himself).
Zionism was (I now realise) always the wrong answer to European, Christian antisemitism (although I didn't always think that). A friend (who rather like myself describes himself "according to some definitions, Jewish") suggests the following vignette:
You're in a pub one day and overhear a guy at the bar shouting, "Jews shouldn't be living in this country, they should go off and live with their own kind in a country of their own." Is this fellow a Zionist, or an antisemite? He could be either, or, actually both!
Full disclosure: I was brought up in a Jewish family to be Zionist and it took me years, no, decades to rid myself of a highly cherished (brainwashed) delusion, beset by much cognitive dissonance (it's OK folks, I'm cured now!)
Looking back, I can see now that the inherent racism of the Zionist project was always denied or suppressed / repressed into subliminal regions of the preconscious minds of otherwise decent, good people, ie my close family and other relatives.
There were always good rationalisations (we tried assimilation, in Tsarist Russia, in pre-Nazi Europe, we tried the socialist Bund in Poland, nothing worked, we were still persecuted, "they" always hated us, always will, and the rest of it). Many even tried (or were coerced into) religious conversion: no use, according to the Nazis a Roman Catholic could still be a Catholic Jew, a Lutheran, a Lutheran Jew! The postulate was the ineradicable existence of some ultimate 'Jewish essence'. So you can see the motivation, the rationale, background to the illusion of safety.
But what has Israel done for us, especially under the current fascist government regime? Increased our (diaspora) vulnerability to antisemitism, especially because successive Israeli politicians, echoed by their apologists in the UK and elsewhere, have always declared that Israel speaks and acts on behalf of all Jews on the planet.
So it's probably not fair to blame people of good will when they take those spokespeople at their word and they then go on to identify all Jews with Israel's crimes. Thankfully by no means all do so, but it's easy to see how some do, especially when Jewish community leaders, religious and secular, confuse people by referring to "our" IDF, "our" land.
I now view the whole thing as a terrible tragedy, bad for Jews, far worse for so many others, mostly Palestinians, but now including others in the sad middle east region of the world.
Well reported Jonathon, one point regarding Russia and Iran abandoning Syria is not quite true.
As spoken extensively by Alastair Crooke, both Russia and Iran at various times in the last four to five years and in particular recent times had offered to re-equip and train their forces, had urged Assad to strengthen Syria's military and had warned of impending attacks by various Israeli/US/CIA backed militia groups. Iran had offered to send brigades quite recently but Assad had rejected any offers of assistance. He had increasingly moved away from Russia and Iran and aligned himself closer with the Gulf Arab states.
Also crippling sanctions and loss of control of oil resources had left Syria barely able to pay their soldiers, generals were paid $40 per month and soldiers $7 per month. this led to a demoralised military who were ripe for bribes, many were offered $400 to throw down their arms and desert.
So in a nutshell, Russia and Iran did try and were rejected and were not going to commit if Assad was not coming to the party.
Superb analysis - thanks for posting.
Gee, I wonder who told the pentagon to plan that?
FYI the link to the original article is coming up 'Access denied', 'You are not authorized to access this page'.
Just saw that MEE removed the article.
https://x.com/AsaWinstanley/status/1867208808440983581
And the US has far more pieces on the board: 750 military bases encircling the globe to impose by force a policy of “full-spectrum dominance”.?
Those land bases could be as obsolete as our carrier fleet, thanks to missiles and America's unwillingness to trade Boston for Camp Bondsteel. They give America's adversaries escalation dominance.
Incredible work.
Probably the best and most incisive analysis of the power play that's been going on in the Middle East over the past several decades and how this fits with the bigger picture, including other agendas elsewhere in the world. Jonathan's articulation of this is
nothing short of brilliant. There are no "good guys" or "bad guys"....only "might is right", so that any and every means seem to justify the end....even GENOCIDE!
"When the West intervenes, so this narrative goes, it is simply to assist the laggards on their path to a final utopia..."
I'm beginning to wonder how long this narrative is going to be believed after the livestreaming of a genocide for the past 14+ months that has been armed by the West. There is no utopia to be found in the rubble of Gaza. There is no utopia in the bombing of Syria or Lebanon. There's no utopia to be found anywhere.
USA has done this before, destroy a country for years then take it over with proxy terrorists, it's like sick murderous hostile corporate takeovers of other people's sovereign nations. The USA believes in full spectrum dominance, that they own the world, they are a tyrant of our world, provoker of wars to divide and rule, then we hear them speak frankly about owning parts of Syria to protect the oil, because they are a safe corporate run military terrorist empire and destroying another people's lives and sovereign nations is for them just another corporate takeover, the terrible consequences are easily dealt with through lip service and some humanitarian relief petty cash, this corporate terrorist empire is the insulated 'banality of evil' that Hannah Arendt realized when finally seeing the Jerusalem staged war crimes trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the main managers of the Nazi's industrious Genocide of Jews and other ethnic groups it wished to exterminate from the giant capitalist Master Race factory they believed they could transform our world into, just the same these USA/Israel/NATO Full Spectrum Dominance managers talked of picking the next anti ethnic government to divide and rule Ukraine in 2014, deliberately turning the previous multi ethnic democratic peace into an ethnic civil war in order to pivot it into a bigger disposable proxy war against Russia to satisfy the interests of USA Empire's managers like "Fuck the EU" Victoria Nueland did, and 'fuck the EU' USA imperium's corporate managers most certainly have succeeded in doing! Full Spectrum Dominance sees all other prosperity and sovereign interests as a danger to their dominance that must be sabotaged and weakened, including so called allies/vassals like Europe.
USA has been using rent a Jihad mercenaries for decades, 9/11 was just a lovers tiff in an otherwise rotten fruitful relationship, proxy proxy disposable proxies. God protect the Syrian people from the USA's new dictatorship in middle east. The Jihad that "loves Israel"? USA/Israel are desperate for short term win's like their unregulated corporations, they don't care about consequences, the only way for peace is a balance of powers and mutual deterrence, USA/NATO/Israel's impossible homicidal pursuit of an unjust unnatural FULL SPECTRUM DOMINANCE is a tyranny that will sabotage and doom us all to war, mutually assured sustainable peace and prosperity is only possible through maintenance and respect of mutual deterrence, Russia, China, Iran and all the other chosen enemies of USA understand and want this, but USA NATO Israel pursues a doomed self declared FULL SPECTRUM DOMINANCE, it relies on it's so called enemies been the more mature adults in room, and fortunately so far Russia, China, Iran are wiser. I'm from Ireland, we in Europe must not continue following and enabling USA to lead us all into an eventual doomed WW3. A war in which the USA's unelected power structure is the determined instigator trying to lead us all into an otherwise entirely unnecessary abyss, we in Europe must protest against USA's warmongering and coups and proxy war shenanigans, if USA says it is our friend then we must try take the keys off it and stop allowing it drink more alcohol when it is most dangerously drunken on it's own leaderships megalomaniacal reckless stupidity. Love to people of Palestine and the people of Syria.
I don't believe Russia, China, Iran and other chosen enemies of USA's homicidal doomed pursuit of Full Spectrum Dominance are also seeking a similar vice versa check mate domination of the West, they seek to check the West's power into a balance not a domination, so there can be a Multipolar Balance of Power, this creates a secure basis for the reality of mutual trust, sustainable agreements and prosperity, whereas USA led West seeking Full Spectrum Dominance requires they weaken all other sovereign powers and economies, sabotaging, and provoking ethnic civil and regional wars all to try keep itself strong through weakening all others, including allies, it dooms everything and is certain tyranny. Multipolar Balance of Powers through maintenance of mutually effective deterrence's enables any one power dominating to be kept in check and so envisaging and honoring fairer trade and mutual benefit then becomes the more effective necessary force to prosper than sabotaging, usurping and murdering other powers for their resources and markets.
Thank you Jonathan for your great critical articles mainly keeping check on the insidious human disasters caused by the impossible supremacist virus of full spectrum dominance.
The following quote at the end of Hannah Arendt's book 'Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil', I have taken the liberty to change the name of the man on trial from Eichmann to Netanyahu & his victims:
'And just as you Netanyahu supported and carried out a policy of not wanting to share the earth with the Palestinian people and the people of a number of other nations—as though you and your superiors had any right to determine who should and who should not inhabit the world—we find that no one, that is, no member of the human race, can be expected to want to share the earth with you. This is the reason, and the only reason, you must hang.'
Cheers amigo!
It is ironic We wouldn't need to worry about oil in the middle east if we would convert to solar and wind. We would not need to be fighting and financing all these wars and we could have prevented the harmful effects of climate change
Thank You Jonathon. Thanks for your insightful analysis and sharing the truth. its staggering and deeply disturbing. Thank you for your bravery in all of your reporting.
Hezbollah in Lebanon has been isolated from Iran with the expectation that it must now fall. But I can't help thinking of what Hamas has continued to do in Gaza despite the long siege, including continuing to manufacture new weaponry during this genocide, and hope that Hezbollah, too, can overcome their isolation and learn from their Palestinian comrades how to survive and keep fighting.
Again asking, what about countervailing forces that could bring down the Zionist government and its allies?