WHO obeyed the "Israeli Lobby?"

The Israeli lobby is powerful, but the main article about it and most others ignore US interests. The Middle East has been the focus of our foreign policy since the end of World War II. We don't need an Israeli lobby determining our policy there. In fact, we were doing just fine making things awful over there before we made Israel our mercenary state. Pointing out the lobby is important, but forgetting that the United States has interests over there that have nothing to do with Israel beyond making it a proxy state puts the cart in front of the horse.

Read what Jeremy Blankfort has been saying lately in his critiques of Chomsky. Or read anything by Michael Neumann on Counterpunch (they're both Jews by the way, not that that represents any protection from "self-hate" accusations these days).

Neumann points out that the US position vis-a-vis Israel actually GOES AGAINST its own interests in the region. Notice afterall who has all the oil and who doesn't. So if US leaders were really looking out solely for US interests, why would they foolishly go around angering the very people who have what they want, and helping out people who don't have any of it??

There's something else at work here, that's for sure...

Have read Blankfort, and while this is somewhat irrelevant, disagree with his critique of Chomsky. Simply, he is wrong about how Chomsky talks about Israel and the Palestinians, particularly Chomsky's sympathies.

As to oil, we don't care about owning it. We care about controlling it. Those are two very different items as the latter--and this has been made clear in released documents, particularly those of John Foster Dulles--lets us decide what other countries will get. Israel serves as our mercenary state to help enforce such things; because far more important after the Shah fell.

Not sure about the point re angering people who have the oil. That is nothing new in history when it comes to resources. We certainly are not angering the Saudi royal family and are not trying to anger those who we want in charge in Iraq. And we loved Sadaam until he stopped obeying orders. But we don't and never have given a shit about the people. Pick your resource, it is always true.

Helping out people who don't have oil? Why do we care if they have oil regarding helping them? We care if they want oil. That is part of the problem for those in power regarding Venezuela these days. They can use their oil to make friends, and we cannot. That is why we would like to get Chavez out of power and install somebody friendly to our interests. That may or may not affect oil prices here--that's a matter of how much gets here and while obviously linked to oil nations, is not as important as controlling other countries' access.

Related to this is one aspect of going into Iraq was Sadaam threatening to make Euros the currency of exchange for oil. If that were to catch on, it would seriously devalue the dollar. In that respect, getting rid of Sadaam was in our interest, and to an extent the occupation still is. That may be why almost no leaders have come forward demanding complete withdrawal from Iraq. It is usually limited to bringing soldiers home and keeping/building the bases there.

Israel gets 6 billion dollars from us a year, seconded by Egypt (or at least this was true for a long time up until a few years ago--where is the Egyptian lobby?). I am not saying the Israeli lobby (and to be specific, the one that supports a violent, expansionist, and religious Israeli state) does not have influence, but it is the tail, and the dog wags it.

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Israel serves as our mercenary state to help enforce such things
[...] As to oil, we don't care about owning it. We care about controlling it.
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a) Saddam didn't disobey orders:
http://www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/glaspie.html

and, b)
from
Oded Yinon's
"A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties"
(w/notes by translator, Israel Shahak)

Foreword:

The following essay represents, in my opinion, the accurate and detailed plan of the present Zionist regime (of Sharon and Eitan) for the Middle East which is based on the division of the whole area into small states, and the dissolution of all the existing Arab states. I will comment on the military aspect of this plan in a concluding note. Here I want to draw the attention of the readers to several important points:

1. The idea that all the Arab states should be broken down, by Israel, into small units, occurs again and again in Israeli strategic thinking. For example, Ze'ev Schiff, the military correspondent of Ha'aretz (and probably the most knowledgeable in Israel, on this topic) writes about the "best" that can happen for Israeli interests in Iraq: "The dissolution of Iraq into a Shi'ite state, a Sunni state and the separation of the Kurdish part" (Ha'aretz 6/2/1982). Actually, this aspect of the plan is very old.

2. The strong connection with Neo-Conservative thought in the USA is very prominent, especially in the author's notes. But, while lip service is paid to the idea of the "defense of the West" from Soviet power, the real aim of the author, and of the present Israeli establishment is clear: To make an Imperial Israel into a world power. In other words, the aim of Sharon is to deceive the Americans after he has deceived all the rest.

3. It is obvious that much of the relevant data, both in the notes and in the text, is garbled or omitted, such as the financial help of the U.S. to Israel. Much of it is pure fantasy. But, the plan is not to be regarded as not influential, or as not capable of realization for a short time. The plan follows faithfully the geopolitical ideas current in Germany of 1890-1933, which were swallowed whole by Hitler and the Nazi movement, and determined their aims for East Europe.
[...]

---

A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties

by Oded Yinon

This essay originally appeared in Hebrew in KIVUNIM (Directions), A Journal for Judaism and Zionism; Issue No, 14--Winter, 5742, February 1982, Editor: Yoram Beck. Editorial Committee: Eli Eyal, Yoram Beck, Amnon Hadari, Yohanan Manor, Elieser Schweid. Published by the Department of Publicity/The World Zionist Organization, Jerusalem.

[...]
Lebanon's total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precendent for the entire Arab world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula and is already following that track.

[...]
Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel's targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. An Iraqi-Iranian war will tear Iraq apart and cause its downfall at home even before it is able to organize a struggle on a wide front against us.
Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon.
In Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities:
Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and Shi'ite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north.
A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s