Monday, February 26, 2007
In Seymour Hersh’s latest article passing on what the CIA thinks about the Middle East (I’m not being dismissive, as it is worth knowing what the CIA thinks), he does a cloak-and-dagger routine to meet the smartest man in the area (by far), Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah (my emphasis in red; super-emphasis in green):
“Nasrallah accused the Bush Administration of working with Israel to deliberately instigate fitna, an Arabic word that is used to mean ‘insurrection and fragmentation within Islam.’ ‘In my opinion, there is a huge campaign through the media throughout the world to put each side up against the other,’ he said. ‘I believe that all this is being run by American and Israeli intelligence.’ (He did not provide any specific evidence for this.) He said that the U.S. war in Iraq had increased sectarian tensions, but argued that Hezbollah had tried to prevent them from spreading into Lebanon. (Sunni-Shiite confrontations increased, along with violence, in the weeks after we talked.)
Nasrallah said he believed that President Bush’s goal was ‘the drawing of a new map for the region. They want the partition of Iraq. Iraq is not on the edge of a civil war – there is a civil war. There is ethnic and sectarian cleansing. The daily killing and displacement which is taking place in Iraq aims at achieving three Iraqi parts, which will be sectarian and ethnically pure as a prelude to the partition of Iraq. Within one or two years at the most, there will be total Sunni areas, total Shiite areas, and total Kurdish areas. Even in Baghdad, there is a fear that it might be divided into two areas, one Sunni and one Shiite.’
He went on, ‘I can say that President Bush is lying when he says he does not want Iraq to be partitioned. All the facts occurring now on the ground make you swear he is dragging Iraq to partition. And a day will come when he will say, ‘I cannot do anything, since the Iraqis want the partition of their country and I honor the wishes of the people of Iraq.’’
Nasrallah said he believed that America also wanted to bring about the partition of Lebanon and of Syria. In Syria, he said, the result would be to push the country ‘into chaos and internal battles like in Iraq.’ In Lebanon, ‘There will be a Sunni state, an Alawi state, a Christian state, and a Druze state.’ But, he said, ‘I do not know if there will be a Shiite state.’ Nasrallah told me that he suspected that one aim of the Israeli bombing of Lebanon last summer was ‘the destruction of Shiite areas and the displacement of Shiites from Lebanon. The idea was to have the Shiites of Lebanon and Syria flee to southern Iraq,’ which is dominated by Shiites. ‘I am not sure, but I smell this,’ he told me.
Partition would leave Israel surrounded by ‘small tranquil states,’ he said. ‘I can assure you that the Saudi kingdom will also be divided, and the issue will reach to North African states. There will be small ethnic and confessional states,’ he said. ‘In other words, Israel will be the most important and the strongest state in a region that has been partitioned into ethnic and confessional states that are in agreement with each other. This is the new Middle East.’
In fact, the Bush Administration has adamantly resisted talk of partitioning Iraq, and its public stances suggest that the White House sees a future Lebanon that is intact, with a weak, disarmed Hezbollah playing, at most, a minor political role. There is also no evidence to support Nasrallah’s belief that the Israelis were seeking to drive the Shiites into southern Iraq. Nevertheless, Nasrallah’s vision of a larger sectarian conflict in which the United States is implicated suggests a possible consequence of the White House’s new strategy.
In the interview, Nasrallah made mollifying gestures and promises that would likely be met with skepticism by his opponents. ‘If the United States says that discussions with the likes of us can be useful and influential in determining American policy in the region, we have no objection to talks or meetings,’ he said. ‘But, if their aim through this meeting is to impose their policy on us, it will be a waste of time.’ He said that the Hezbollah militia, unless attacked, would operate only within the borders of Lebanon, and pledged to disarm it when the Lebanese Army was able to stand up. Nasrallah said that he had no interest in initiating another war with Israel. However, he added that he was anticipating, and preparing for, another Israeli attack, later this year.”
It is wise for Arab leaders to memorize Yinon’s writings and Wurmser’s Zionist Plan for the Middle East. Saudi leadership, by falling for the Israeli idea that Iran is the real danger, are leading to their own destruction. The plan is to replace the current Iranian leadership and then take over the Saudi oil fields, leaving the current Saudi royals in charge of the oil-less Islamic holy areas. By supporting the Zionist campaign against Iran, the Saudis are just hastening their own marginalization as leaders of a ‘small tranquil’ statelet.
Hersh quotes Leslie Gelb, who has recently been shilling his infamous Yinon-inspired plan to break Iraq up into three statelets. In another ‘debate’ between ultra-ultra-ultra-Zionist Gelb, and ultra-Zionist Indyk (like the presentation recently arranged by House Democrats, where a group of ultra-Zionists ‘debated’ whether it would be better to kill the Palestinians by starving them to death, or shooting them), note the Gelb joke in response to a question:
“QUESTIONER: I’m Ragida Dergham, Al Hayat. Les, yes, I also have been speaking to several – I’m sure they are just as credible as the Kurds you’ve been speaking to, and are very afraid of a landlocked Kurdistan independent state at this point, in a very unfriendly neighborhood. So my question to you is, you must be aware of the fact that this idea of dividing Iraq into three states really has been going around in the last few months, from different circles. The fact that you put it in writing gave it a different dimension, in fact, a harmful one amongst Iraqis, they are interpreting it as, this is what the United States is going to do to us. And I’m wondering if you have given this a thought, knowing that the idea came from the neo-conservatives, extremists amongst them, you put it out there, and as a continuity of what has been heard in the Arab world, that Saudi Arabia will be next to be divided. This is what I’d like you to address, why on earth did you do it?
GELB: I actually did it as part of the neo-conservative, Zionist, Jewish conspiracy.”
It’s no joke – Gelb is the real deal, part of the Cabal. Gelb fits right in to the Big Conspiracy to remove the oil weapon from the Arabs and put Israel in permanent charge of the Middle East (if you want a laugh, read this article linked to in the piece by Larsson). The Muslims, and in particular the Saudis, should stop fighting each other, and recognize what Nasrallah knows, that their real enemy is, and always will be, Zionist Israel.
