Even before their fateful encounter at the White House this Monday, US President Barack Obama made it clear, on the record, that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu wouldn't face him down.
Or did he?
No matter what the rhetorical gymnastics performed by Obama, a case can be made that Bibi the Bully wags the American dog full-time. Worse; the Likud-dominated Israeli administration, single-handedly, is playing with dispatching vast spheres of the global economy into total depression, as its hysterics progressively hurl oil prices towards the stratosphere.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) get-together in Washington takes place in an intimidating, cavernous Colosseum where the wealthy crowd ululates in unison for Iranian blood. A passable tactician but a lousy strategist, Bibi the Bully's only game in town is "Bomb Iran."
This is justified by the "existential threat" posed by non-nuclear Iran to a nuclear-armed garrison state/settler colony that is literally, graphically wiping a whole people (the Palestinians) off the map.
Still one more proof of the "existential threat" fallacy was provided last week by Iran's Supreme Leader himself, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, even before the absolute victory of his supporters in Friday's parliamentary elections -- which effectively turned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad into a lame duck.
Khamenei's words must be reproduced again and again and again -- because the baying-for-blood US corporate media simply won't do it. He said ...
"The Iranian nation has never pursued and will never pursue nuclear weapons. There is no doubt that the decision makers in the countries opposing us know well that Iran is not after nuclear weapons because the Islamic Republic, logically, religiously and theoretically, considers the possession of nuclear weapons a grave sin and believes the proliferation of such weapons is senseless, destructive and dangerous."
Mr president, tear down this wall
Yet once again, the graphic proof that
Israel exercises virtual complete control of US
foreign policy was the sight of an American
president defensively addressing the AIPAC
Colosseum. Apart from a festival of Orwellian
intimations, to his credit at least Obama
emphasized the word "diplomacy," did not specify
any "red lines," nor endorsed the mere
"capability" of Iran to build a nuclear weapon as
a casus belli. After all, he knows he already has
more American Jewish voters in the bag than among
the US electorate as a whole.
But
ultimately Obama did cave in to Bibi the Bully --
as the rhetoric was not unlike Tony Soprano's and
the ominous "military component" remained very
much on the table.
Still, Bibi the Bully --
mimicking his voracity in devouring Palestinian
land -- wants more.
Whatever route they
take -- overflying Syria and Turkey, and even if
they hit the crucial targets of Natanz, Arak,
Isfahan and Fordow -- Israel's Jericho missiles
have zero chances of paralyzing, not to mention
destroying, the complex decision apparatus of the
Islamic Republic. Forget about "humiliation" and
regime change. Even Major General Amos Gilad, head
of the Israeli Defense Ministry's
Diplomatic-Security Bureau, acknowledged last
October that Israel cannot win. That's why Bibi
the Bully badly wants to extract a formal promise
that the US will do the dirty work.
According to a recent poll in Israel, 34%
are against bombing Iran. But 42% are in favor if
the US is at least supporting it. How sweet it is
to enroll a superpower to fight your fictional
"existential threats."
Bibi the Bully
badly wants a Republican to take out Obama in
November. Obama knows he can't be defeated by King
of Flip Flop Mitt Romney or Ayatollah Rick
Santorum. But he can be defeated by the proverbial
US gas pump. The problem is, submitting or not to
Bibi the Bully's absolutist demands, oil prices go
up; they have already have by 20%, and this growth
may reach 50% or more if speculators deem an
attack imminent.
Tehran may hold the key
to defuse the whole psychodrama -- and the demented
speculation on oil prices. By late March or early
April, with his authority immensely strengthened,
negotiators on behalf of Ayatollah Khamenei will
be back on the table discussing the nuclear
dossier with the P5+1 - US, France, Britain,
Russia and China, plus Germany.
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