Showing posts with label Middle East. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Middle East. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Operation Clear Skies

A platoon of ten thousand cops are to guard President George Bush on his historic visit to Isreal tomorrow. It will be the first visit by a US president in more than a decade. The huge security exercise has been aptly named Operation Clear Skies.

So, what exactly is the purpose of this visit? Is he going to broker a deal between the increasingly isolated Fatah and Israel or peace between the katyusha-firing Lebanese Hezbollah and the Israelis? No one is sure.

Meanwhile Iran has denied that five Iranian boats made aggressive manoeuvers and showed hostile intent against three U.S. Navy ships in the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil shipping route in the Gulf. It is also reported that the Iranian vessels dropped small white boxes into the water.

Monday, September 10, 2007

New middle east Project and redrawing of borders

The term "New Middle East" was introduced to the world in June 2006 in Tel Aviv by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

What is the New Middle East Project?
The New Middle East project, which had been conceptualised and in the planning stages for several years, consists in creating an arc of instability, chaos, and violence extending from Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria to Iraq, the Persian Gulf, Iran, and the borders of NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan.It was introduced publicly by Washington and Israel in 2006. Its aim is the unleashing of forces of "constructive chaos" which generates conditions of violence and warfare throughout the region- would in turn be used so that the United States, Britain, and Israel could redraw the map of the Middle East in accordance with their geo-strategic needs and objectives. Its final envisaged conclusion is the 'balkanisation'(division)and finlandization (pacification)of the Middle East. It will also enable easier American entry into Central Asia where the ex-Soviet Republics like Azerbaijan,Uzbekistan,Turkmenistan,Georgia,Tajikistan and others are situated.

The concept of a redrawn Middle East has been presented as a "humanitarian" and "righteous" arrangement that would benefit the people of the Middle East and its peripheral regions.(so say the know-it-alls)

How is this Project being implemented?
Many of the problems affecting the contemporary Middle East are the result of the deliberate aggravation of pre-existing regional tensions. Sectarian division, ethnic tension and internal violence have been traditionally exploited and fostered by the Anglo-American Governments in various parts of the globe including Africa, Latin America, the Balkans, and the Middle East.Israeli agenda is taken into consideration in aggravations in the Arab world. Long-standing economic, strategic and military objectives are hoped to be realised with this redrawing of the mid-east boundaries.

NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan has been successfully divided, all but in name. Animosity has been inseminated in the Levant, where a Palestinian civil war is being nurtured and divisions in Lebanon agitated. The Eastern Mediterranean has been successfully militarized by NATO. Syria and Iran are in imminent danger of being pre-emptively struck.Israel has recently tested Syrian airspace with its bombers making sorties there. The ethnic populations of Iraq cannot co-exist and there is widespread domestic strife between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.

As long back as 2003, on the eve of the Iraq invasion, Syrian President had warned the arab world that the US had initiated a roadmap to redraw the borders of the Middle East starting with Iraq. Events there have now proved to us that Iraq has been put into a mindless chaos with sectarian interests and being exploited for its energy resources. The 'oil law' which is in the making is proof enough of that.
According to Damascus the capture of the two Israeli soldiers was merely used as a justification for the bombardment of Lebanon in 2006 by Israel and used as a “trump card” for a pre-planned war.Condoleezza Rice, triumphantly declared that the bombardment of Lebanon was the “birth pangs of a new Middle East”.


Click on map for an enlarged view

What does the redrawn map show?
Iraq with its three Sunni-majority provinces would be a truncated state that might eventually choose to unify with a Syria that loses its littoral to a Mediterranean-oriented Greater Lebanon. The Shia south of old Iraq would form the basis of an Arab Shia State rimming much of the Persian Gulf. Jordan would retain its current territory, with some southward expansion at Saudi expense. For its part, the unnatural state of Saudi Arabia would suffer as great a dismantling as Pakistan.A part of it consisting of its holy places would become a different state and a southeastern quadrant would go to Yemen. Confined to a rump Saudi Homelands Independent Territory around Riyadh, the House of Saud would be incapable of exerting its current considerable influence.

Iran would lose a great deal of territory to Unified Azerbaijan, Free Kurdistan, the Arab Shia State and Free Baluchistan, but would gain the provinces around Herat in today's Afghanistan — a region with a historical and linguistic affinity for Persia. Iran would, in effect, become an ethnic Persian state again.

What Afghanistan would lose to Persia in the west, it would gain in the east, as Pakistan's Northwest Frontier tribes would be reunited with their Afghan brethren.Pakistan,would also lose its Baluch territory to Free Baluchistan. The remaining "natural" Pakistan would lie entirely east of the Indus, except for a westward spur near Karachi.

The city-states of the United Arab Emirates would have a mixed fate — as they probably will in reality. Some might be incorporated in the Arab Shia State ringing much of the Persian Gulf (a state more likely to evolve as a counterbalance to, rather than an ally of, Persian Iran).Kuwait would remain within its current borders, as would Oman.

Source: Globalresearch

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Is the next 'war on terror' drawing near?

Is the Bush/Cheney administration gearing up for a strike on Iran?
The administration has, just this month,targeted Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard,a sovereign nation's standing army numbering in hundreds of thousands, on the terrorism list. When you want a war that badly, you'll pretty much do or say anything to get it. Adding to their warcries is the mainstream media here which seems to be cheering them more into this pre-emptive strike. To make matters worse, Iran is aggressively posturing itself and making pugnacious noises.

The delusional neoconservative thinking that still guides White House policy concludes that an attack on Iran would lead to the fall of the clerics and the rise of a more friendly Iran. To maintain a precarious balance of position in the Middle East,Bush is all set to sell $20 billion in high-tech military equipment to Saudi Arabia and has sanctioned $3 billion in aid to Israel.

The Reps are conveniently brushing aside the findings of The National Intelligence Estimate which has, in its study, concluded that though Iran is building nuclear power stations (it has the legal right to do so under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,which is endorsed by both the United States and Iran),it could not acquire a nuclear weapon until early to mid-next decade. But the war cheerleaders and the powers that be are not ready to give credence to the report. Bush has now stated that Iran’s pursuit of the atomic bomb could lead to a nuclear holocaust in the Middle East, and promised to confront Tehran “before it is too late”.This is a repeat of the same lies about weapons of mass destruction that he used to justify invading Iraq.

According to a study made by the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy and published by the Rawstory the US has made military preparations to destroy Iran’s WMD, nuclear energy, regime, armed forces, state apparatus and economic infrastructure within days if not hours of President George Bush giving the order

Rationality and common sense have not exactly been the strong points of this administration which is yet to come out of its earlier reckless adventure in Iraq. Another massive war exercise in Iran will push America and the world into a horrific slideback in every way.Scary.