November 18, 2006
Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, was in Washington recently, and made the following remark:
"We in the Middle East have followed the American policy in Iraq for a long time, and we are very much impressed and encouraged by the stability which the great operation of America in Iraq brought to the Middle East. We pray and hope that this policy will be fully successful so that this stability which was created for all the moderate countries in the Middle East will continue."
The Americans have bought greater stability to the Middle East through the war in Iraq? What kind of fantasy is that? The war is seen to be successful? Even the Washington neocons are jumping ship!
The Israeli hawks are hawkish around Iran. Israel has no doubt about Iran's nuclear intentions and has begun a new, public relations offensive against Iran, which it brands as "Islamo-fascist" and bent on the "existential destruction" of the State of Israel and that "the whole world has to join forces in order to stop it". They frame the conflict in terms of "war on terror", with Israel as America's staunch ally against the rogue states of Iran and Syria. Though they accept US global supremacy -but they seem to have little grasp of the actual limits of US power
The dominant tendency within the Zionist movement always regarded itself as a branch of Western civilization, and strategically exploited this sense to gain support, first from Britain, and subsequently from the United States, and indeed, Europe as a whole. And Western imperial powers, beginning with Britain and now especially, the United States, have used Israel as a cats paw in their expansive strategies in the Middle East.
|
He must mean it in the context that Iraq is now so fucked up that it won't be in a position to endanger Israel's interests for the medium to long term.
I don't think I agree with that analysis, but I think that was his actual meaning. What he really thinks, who knows. (And remember, this is the same Olmert that ordered the Israeli Army into Lebanon to get its arse kicked this summer.)