Da‘ish and the West’s cynical games

Yusuf Dhia-Allah

Rabi' al-Awwal 20, 1437 2016-01-01

Main Stories

by Yusuf Dhia-Allah (Main Stories, Crescent International Vol. 44, No. 11, Rabi' al-Awwal, 1437)

The roots of the Da‘ish terrorists (aka ISIS/ISIL or takfiris) can be traced all the way to the American Zionist neo-cons’ agenda to secure the realm for their favorite country Israel.

To solve a problem, it is necessary to first diagnose it correctly. Thrashing about like a wounded beast will only make matters worse. This is the Western regimes’ preferred mode of operations in the Muslim East (aka the Middle East) and South Asia. The takfiri terrorists that have grabbed headlines for several years now are a bunch of nasty head chopping cannibals. They evoke nothing but loathing but the imperialists’ policies are hardly meant to address the problem.

The point that must be borne in mind is that the West’s ruling elites are not sincere in their pronouncements. They have never been. Are they serious about confronting the takfiris? There is incontrovertible evidence to prove that Western regimes and particularly their intelligence agencies are intimately involved in supporting the takfiri terrorists even while rhetorically claiming to fight them.

Western propaganda has a very specific purpose. Led by the US (essentially on behalf of the Zionist regime in Occupied Palestine), one of the constants in Western policy is to wage endless war. The military-industrial-banking complex that controls the policy of all Western regimes wants these wars because they are extremely profitable. No other business comes close. If hundreds of thousands or even millions of people are killed in the process, well that is a small price to pay for their profits. In any case, human lives has no value for them especially if they happen to be brown or dark-skinned people.

What is underway in Syria and has been for nearly five years can be traced back 20 years or more. It would be simplistic to assume that it started in 2011. Though the conspiracy to overthrow the government of President Bashar al-Asad was formally launched in March 2011 (in the non-descript town called Deraa — not Damascus, Aleppo or Latakia; when has any revolution in history ever started from a village?), its roots go much deeper. We can even bypass the revelation by Craig Whitlock in the Washington Post (April 17, 2011) based on WikiLeaks documents revealed in 2010, that the US had been financing Syrian opposition groups since at least 2005.

To understand the roots of this problem, we must refer to the neoconservatives that were deeply embedded in the two Bush regimes, especially the Bush II regime. The neoconservatives claim to follow Leo Strauss of Chicago University. While Strauss called for the overthrow of governments that did not serve America’s interests, he did not put it in such stark terms; instead, he framed it as “states that do not share American democratic values.” His prescription was to change these regimes and cause the progress of democratic values. This, according to Strauss, constitutes “the best method of reinforcing security (of the United States) and peace,” advocating an agenda of active, though not necessarily militant, foreign policy aimed at “regime change.”

A number of self-proclaimed Straussian ideologues can be identified: Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, David Wurmser, William Kristol and Douglas Feith. This bunch of Zionist neocons is joined by the likes of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and John Bolton. Some of them had served in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush regimes and honed their murderous skills that were put to great use when Bush Jr. became president.

The Zionists’ primary aim was to serve the interests of their fellow travelers in Tel Aviv, not those of the US. They were, however, careful to couch their pronouncements in language that appeared as if they shared the same interests.

It was Perle, often referred to as the “dark prince,” who in 1996 prepared a policy document for Benjamin Netanyahu who was preparing to take over as prime minister of Israel. Titled, “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,” this document laid down the framework for a larger Study Group that worked on “A New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000.” In addition to Perle, the study group comprised other well-known Zionists and Israel-firsters. These included David Wurmser and Robert Loewenberg of the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, James Colbert of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, Meyrav Wurmser and Charles Fairbanks Jr., of Johns Hopkins University, Douglas Feith of Feith and Zell Associates and closely associated with Wolfowitz, and Jonathan Torop of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The names and institutions they are linked with clearly show where their loyalties lie.

Perle had served as undersecretary in the Pentagon during the Reagan regime. He popped up again when Bush Jr. became president and was appointed military advisor to the White House. During Senate hearings on November 8, 2002 leading up to the launch of the US war, Perle had said that the US invasion would not cost more than $60 billion and in any case it would be paid for by Iraqi oil (the actual cost turned out to be $3 trillion as per two leading American economists from Harvard, Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda Bilmas who wrote The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict in 2008).

The Zionists’ immediate target was the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. The abrupt end to his war on Iran in August 1988 had left Saddam with a huge stockpile of lethal weapons, including chemical and biological weapons that the West had provided him to destroy Islamic Iran. He failed in that mission but he was now seen as a threat to the Zionist State. Saddam had to be neutralized and Iraq destroyed. He was lured into attacking and occupying Kuwait in August 1990 that the US then used as a pretext to attack and destroy Iraq in January 1991. Thereafter a punishing sanctions regime was imposed on the country that resulted in the death of some one million people, among them 586,000 children, by May 1996, according to statistics compiled by the UN.

Even such indescribable cruelty did not satisfy Washington’s lust for murder and mayhem. In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and with clear knowledge that 11 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, the US was still looking for a pretext to attack Iraq. This is what emerged from discussions at the Pentagon and the White House. The Zionist plan to destroy Iraq was on track. People like Perle and Wolfowitz as well as Cheney and Rumsfeld were in the forefront of pushing for attacking Iraq making the scandalous allegation that Iraq was somehow linked with al-Qaeda and Osama bin Ladin.

Let us be clear: Saddam was a nasty man and a brutal dictator but the manner in which the US and its so-called coalition of the willing (or the coerced) tried to justify their attack on Iraq was scandalous. The Washington warlords in the Pentagon and the White House were clutching at straws to link Saddam to al-Qaeda. When that did not work out, the bogey of chemical weapons was raised. The aim was not to discover the truth but to latch on to any pretext that would enable the US to have an excuse to attack and destroy Iraq.

This became apparent when General Wesley Clark visited the Pentagon soon after 9/11. In an interview with Democracy Now on March 7, 2007, he revealed that a general at the Pentagon told him the US had decided to go to war with Iraq. The Pentagon general showed Clark a list of seven countries the US was going to attack, in addition to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan, Somalia and Iran were on the target list. The ultimate objective was the destruction of the Islamic State of Iran in order to secure the Zionist State, all in the quest to “secure the [Zionist] realm.”

Sudan, Somalia and Libya have been completely destroyed. The Zionists invaded Lebanon in July-August 2006 killing thousands of people and causing an estimated $11 billion worth of infrastructure destruction but the plot to destroy Hizbullah — an important ally of Islamic Iran — failed.

What is currently underway in Syria is part of the same plan hatched by the Zionist cabal to “secure the realm” outlined in their 1996 document. The first part of this plan was to push Syrian forces out of Lebanon. For this, the assassination of Rafik Hariri on February 14, 2005 was used. Hariri’s playboy son Saad was propelled to the forefront and using his father’s murder that was blamed on Syria and Hizbullah, Syrian forces were withdrawn from Lebanon.

While the Zionists’ 1996 paper had called for “rolling back Syria” starting around 2000, it came about in 2005 following the Hariri assassination. It is interesting to note that this is also the time when the Syrian opposition groups were formally co-opted into the US plan to destabilize Syria. Again, the Syrian opposition groups’ contact person was none other than Richard Perle! Jordan and Turkey were also roped in for this diabolical plot. If these two regimes among others (Saudi Arabia, Qatar et al.) are in the forefront of supporting the takfiri terrorists, it should come as no surprise.

The document also mentions clearly what is currently underway in Syria. It states, “Most important, it is understandable that Israel has an interest supporting diplomatically, militarily and operationally Turkey’s and Jordan’s actions against Syria, such as securing tribal alliances with Arab tribes that cross into Syrian territory and are hostile to the Syrian ruling elite.” This has manifested itself in Jordan being the first conduit for terrorists and weapons into Syria followed by active Turkish involvement ever since. Turkey has also been supporting the takfiri terrorist under the pretext of “protecting” the Turkmen in Syria.

In their 1996 document, the neocons had proposed the following strategy, “Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions.” They even talked about creating chaos and controlling it to Israel’s advantage.

Are the Washington warlords unaware of all this or do they believe other people are too ignorant to know this? When President Barack Obama and other American officials talk about fighting the takfiri terrorists, they are telling blatant lies. The takfiris are their creation and doing their dirty work. Nobody should have any illusions on this score.