Geopolitical observers of the Middle East turbulence tend to blame the raging chaos in the area on the presumed failure of the \u201cincoherent,\u201d \u201cillogical\u201d or \u201ccontradictory\u201d policies of the United States. Irrefutable evidence (some of which presented in this study) suggests, however, that in fact the chaos represents the success, not failure, of those policies\u2014policies that are designed by the beneficiaries of war and military adventures in the region, and beyond. While U.S. policies in the region are certainly irrational and conflicting from the standpoint of international peace, or even from the standpoint of the U.S. national interests as a whole, they are quite logical from the viewpoint of economic and geopolitical beneficiaries of war and international hostilities, that is, from the viewpoint of (a) the military-industrial complex, and (b) the militant Zionist proponents of \u201cgreater Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n
The seeds of the chaos were planted some 25 years ago, when the Berlin Wall Collapsed. Since the rationale for the large and growing military apparatus during the Cold War years was the \u201cthreat of communism,\u201d U.S. citizens celebrated the collapse of the Wall as the end of militarism and the dawn of \u201cpeace dividends\u201d\u2014a reference to the benefits that, it was hoped, many would enjoy in the United States as a result of a reorientation of part of the Pentagon\u2019s budget toward non-military social needs.<\/p>\n
But while the majority of the U.S. citizens celebrated the prospects of what appeared to be imminent \u201cpeace dividends,\u201d the powerful interests vested in the expansion of military\/security spending felt threatened. Not surprisingly, these influential forces moved swiftly to safeguard their interests in the face of the \u201cthreat of peace.\u201d<\/p>\n
To stifle the voices that demanded peace dividends, beneficiaries of war and militarism began to methodically redefine the post-Cold War \u201csources of threat\u201d in the broader framework of the new multi-polar world, which goes way beyond the traditional \u201cSoviet threat\u201d of the bipolar world of the Cold War era. Instead of the \u201ccommunist threat\u201d of the Soviet era, the \u201cmenace\u201d of \u201crogue states,\u201d of radical Islam and of \u201cglobal terrorism\u201d would have to do as new enemies.<\/p>\n
Publicly, most of the reassessment of the post-Cold War world was presented by the top military brass. For example, General Carl Vuno, Chief of Staff of the US Army, told a House Committee in May 1989: \u201cMuch more complex [than any peril posed by the Soviet Union] is the threat situation developing in the rest of the world. . . . In this increasingly multipolar world, we face the potential of multiple threats from countries and factors which are becoming more sophisticated militarily and more aggressive politically\u201d [2].<\/p>\n
General Colin Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, likewise argued before a Senate Committee that despite the collapse of the Soviet Union the United States needed to continue its military buildup because of numerous other obligations: \u201cWith all these challenges and opportunities confronting our nation, it is impossible for me to believe that demobilizing or hollowing out the American military is a feasible course of action for the future. The true \u2018peace dividend\u2019 is peace itself. . . . Peace comes about through the maintenance of strength\u201d [3].<\/p>\n
While the military brass, often donned in nifty and flamboyant uniforms, publicly took the center stage in the fight against the downsizing of the military-industrial complex, civilian militarists, working in and around the Pentagon and the associated hawkish think-tanks, schemed from behind the scenes. These included the then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, his Undersecretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz, Zalmay Khalilzad, then a Wolfowitz aide, and I. Lewis \u201cScooter\u201d Libby, then principal Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Strategy. This group of men and their co-thinkers and collaborators (such as Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Michael Ladeen, Elliott Abrams, Donald Rumsfeld, William Kristol, John Bolton, and others) worked diligently together on averting post-Cold War cutbacks. \u201cWhat we were afraid of was people who would say, \u2018Let\u2019s bring all of the troops home, and let\u2019s abandon our position in Europe\u2019,\u201d recalled Wolfowitz in an interview [4].<\/p>\n
While these military planners were officially affiliated with the Pentagon and\/or the Bush (Sr.) administration, they also closely collaborated with a number of jingoistic lobbying think-tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute, Project for the New American Century and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs that were set up to serve either as the armaments lobby or the Israel lobby or both. Even a cursory look at the records of these militaristic think tanks\u2014their membership, their financial sources, their institutional structures, and the like\u2014shows that they are created to essentially serve as institutional fronts to camouflage the incestuous business and\/or political relationship between the Pentagon, its major contractors, the top military brass, the Israel lobby, and other similarly hawkish bodies in and around the government [5].<\/p>\n
In a carefully calculated effort to redefine the post-Cold War world as a \u201cmore dangerous\u201d world, and accordingly craft a new \u201cNational Security Strategy\u201d for the United States, this team of military planners and militaristic think-tanks produced a new military-geopolitical document in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union which came to be known as \u201cDefense Planning Guidance,\u201d or \u201cDefense Strategy for the 1990s.\u201d The document, unveiled by the White House in the early 1990s before the Congress, focused on \u201cunpredictable turbulent spots in the Third World\u201d as new sources of attention for the U.S. military power in the post-Cold War era: \u201cIn the new era, we foresee that our military power will remain an essential underpinning of the global balance . . . that the more likely demands for the use of our military forces may not involve the Soviet Union and may be in the Third World, where new capabilities and approaches may be required\u201d [6].<\/p>\n
To respond to \u201cturbulences in the most vital regions,\u201d the new situation called for a strategy of \u201cdiscriminate deterrence\u201d\u2014a military strategy that \u201cwould contain and quell regional or local conflicts in the Third World with lightning speed and sweeping effectiveness before they get out of hand.\u201d In the post-Cold War world of \u201cmultiple sources of threats\u201d the United States would also need to be prepared to fight \u201clow-intensity\u201d and \u201cmid-intensity\u201d wars. Low or mid-intensity does not refer to the level of firepower and violence employed but to the geographic scale compared to an all-out war on a global or regional war that could disrupt international trade and paralyze global markets.<\/p>\n
The \u201cDefense Strategy for the 1990s\u201d also spoke about maintaining and expanding America\u2019s \u201cstrategic depth\u201d\u2014a term coined by the then Defense Secretary Dick Cheney. \u201cStrategic depth\u201d had a geopolitical connotation, meaning that, in the aftermath of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the United States must extend its global presence\u2014in terms of military bases, listening and\/or intelligence stations, and military technology\u2014to areas previously neutral or under the influence of the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n
Policy prescriptions of these self-fulfilling prophecies were unmistakable: having thus portrayed (and subsequently created) the post-Cold War world as a place fraught with \u201cmultiple sources of threats to U.S. national interest,\u201d powerful beneficiaries of the Pentagon budget succeeded in maintaining military spending at essentially the Cold War levels. Proponents of continued militarism \u201cmoved with remarkable speed to ensure that the collapse [of the Soviet Union] would not affect the Pentagon\u2019s budget or our \u2018strategic position\u2019 on the globe we had garrisoned in the name of anti-communism\u201d [7].<\/p>\n
To carry out the thus-outlined \u201cNational Security Strategy\u201d of the post-Cold War world, militaristic U.S. planners need pretexts, which often means inventing or manufacturing enemies. Beneficiaries of war dividends sometimes find \u201cexternal enemies and threats\u201d by definition, \u201cby deciding unilaterally what actions around the world constitute terrorism,\u201d or by arbitrarily classifying certain countries as \u201csupporters of terrorism,\u201d as Bill Christison, retired CIA advisor, put it [8].<\/p>\n
They also create international frictions by insidious policies of provoking anger and violence, thereby justifying war and destruction, which will trigger further acts of terror and violence in the fashion of a vicious cycle. Of course, the nefarious driving force behind this self-fulfilling strategy of war and terrorism is to maintain the high dividends of the business of war. The late Gore Vidal has satirically characterized this wicked need of the beneficiaries of war and militarism to constantly come up with new threats and enemies as an \u201cenemy of the month club: each month we are confronted by a new horrendous enemy at whom we must strike before he destroys us\u201d [9].<\/p>\n
A small war here, a small war there, a \u201clow-intensity\u201d war in country x, and a \u201cmid-intensity\u201d war in country y\u2014cynically scripted as \u201ccontrolled wars\u201d\u2014are strategies that would keep military appropriations flowing into the coffers of the military-industrial complex without causing a major or worldwide conflict that could cripple world markets altogether.<\/p>\n
Against this backdrop\u2014the collapse of the Soviet Union, the \u201cthreat of peace dividends\u201d to the interests of the military-industrial complex, and the consequent need of the beneficiaries of war dividends for substitutes for the \u201ccommunist threat\u201d of the Cold War era\u2014the U.S. government\u2019s approach to the heinous attacks of 9\/11 as an opportunity for war and aggression should not have come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the vicious needs of militarism. The monstrous attacks were treated not as crimes but as \u201cwar on America.\u201d Once it was thus established that the United States was \u201cat war,\u201d military buildup and imperialist aggressions followed accordingly. As the late Chalmers Johnson put it, the 9\/11 tragedy \u201cserved as manna from heaven to an administration determined to ramp up military budgets\u201d [10].<\/p>\n
Champions of the U.S. wars of choice had already labeled \u201cunfriendly\u201d governments such as those ruling in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and North Korea as rogue and\/or supporter of terrorism, which required \u201cregime change.\u201d Before the 9\/11 attacks, however, such demonizing labels were apparently not enough to convince the American people to support U.S. wars of preemption. The 9\/11 tragedy served as the militarists\u2019 coveted pretext for such wars\u2014hence, the regime change in Iraq, to be followed by similar changes of \u201cunfriendly\u201d regimes in many other countries in the region and around the world.<\/p>\n
Just as the beneficiaries of war dividends, the military-security-industrial complex, view international peace and stability inimical to their interests, so too the militant Zionist proponents of \u201cgreater Israel\u201d perceive peace between Israel and its Palestinian\/Arab neighbors perilous to their goal of gaining control over the \u201cpromised land.\u201d The reason for this fear of peace is that, according to a number of the United Nations\u2019 resolutions, peace would mean Israel\u2019s return to its pre-1967 borders, that is, withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But because proponents of \u201cgreater Israel\u201d are unwilling to withdraw from these occupied territories, they are therefore afraid of peace\u2014hence, their continued attempts at sabotaging peace efforts\/negotiations.<\/p>\n
By the same token, these proponents view war and convulsion (or, as David Ben-Gurion, one of the key founders of the State of Israel, put it, \u201crevolutionary atmosphere\u201d) as opportunities that are conducive to the expulsion of Palestinians, to the geographic recasting of the region, and to the expansion of Israel\u2019s territory. \u201cWhat is inconceivable in normal times,\u201d Ben-Gurion pointed out, \u201cis possible in revolutionary times; and if at this time the opportunity is missed and what is possible in such great hours is not carried out\u2014a whole world is lost\u201d [11].<\/p>\n
Echoing a similarly evil sentiment that the dissolution and fragmentation of the Arab states into a mosaic of ethnic groupings is possible only under conditions of war and sociopolitical convulsion, the notoriously hawkish Ariel Sharon likewise pointed out on March 24, 1988, \u201cthat if the Palestinian uprising continued, Israel would have to make war on her Arab neighbors. The war, he stated, would provide \u2018the circumstances\u2019 for the removal of the entire Palestinian population from the West Bank and Gaza and even from inside Israel proper\u201d [12].<\/p>\n
The view that war would \u201cprovide the circumstances\u201d for the removal of Palestinians from the occupied territories is premised on the expectation that the United States would go along with the notion and would, therefore, support Israeli expansionism in the event of the contemplated war. The expectation is by no means outlandish or unusual, as the beneficiaries of war and military spending in the U.S. do, indeed, gladly oblige, not so much for the sake of Israel or the Jewish people as for their own nefarious purposes\u2014hence, the de facto alliance between the military-industrial complex and the Israel lobby.<\/p>\n
Because the interests of these two powerful interest groups converge over fomenting war and political convulsion in the Middle East, an ominously potent alliance has been forged between them\u2014ominous, because the mighty U.S. war machine is now supplemented by the almost unrivaled public relations capabilities of the hardline pro-Israel lobby in the United States. The convergence and\/or interdependence of the interests of the military-industrial complex and those of militant Zionism on war and political convulsion in the Middle East is at the heart of the perpetual cycle of violence in the region.<\/p>\n
The alliance between the military-industrial complex and the Israel lobby is unofficial and de facto; it is subtlely forged through an elaborate network of powerful militaristic think tanks such as The American Enterprise Institute, Project for the New American Century, America Israel Public Affairs Committee, Middle East Media Research Institute, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Middle East Forum, National Institute for Public Policy, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, and Center for Security Policy.<\/p>\n
In the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, these militaristic think tanks and their hawkish operatives in and around the government published a number of policy papers that clearly and forcefully advocated plans for border change, for demographic change, and for regime change in the Middle East. For example, in 1996 an influential Israeli think tank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, sponsored and published a policy document titled \u201cA Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,\u201d which argued that the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu \u201cshould \u2018make a clean break\u2019 with the Oslo peace process and reassert Israel\u2019s claim to the West Bank and Gaza. It presented a plan whereby Israel would \u2018shape its strategic environment,\u2019 beginning with the removal of Saddam Hussein and the installation of a Hashemite monarchy in Baghdad, to serve as a first step toward eliminating the anti-Israeli governments of Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Iran\u201d [13].<\/p>\n
In an \u201cOpen Letter to the President\u201d (Clinton), dated 19 February1998, a number of hawkish think tanks and individuals, representing the military-industrial complex and the Israel lobby, recommended \u201ca comprehensive political and military strategy for bringing down Saddam and his regime.\u201d Among the letter\u2019s signers were the following: Elliott Abrams, Richard Armitage, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, David Wurmser, Dov Zakheim, Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, William Kristol, Joshua Muravchik, Leon Wieseltier, and former Congressman Stephen Solarz [14].<\/p>\n
In September 2000, another militaristic think tank, called Project for the New American Century (PNAC), issued a report, titled \u201cRebuilding America\u2019s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century,\u201d which explicitly projected an imperial role for the United States the world over. It stated, for example, \u201cThe United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in [Persian] Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.\u201d\u00a0 The sponsors of the report included Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Lewis Libby, and William Kristol, who was also a co-author of the report [15].<\/p>\n
The influential Jewish Institute for the National Security Affairs (JINSA) also occasionally issued statements and policy papers that strongly advocated \u201cregime changes\u201d in the Middle East. Its advisor Michael Ladeen, who also unofficially advised the Bush administration on Middle Eastern issues, openly talked about the coming era of \u201ctotal war,\u201d indicating that the United States should expand its policy of \u201cregime change\u201d in Iraq to other countries in the region such as Iran and Syria. \u201cIn its fervent support for the hardline, pro-settlement, anti-Palestinian Likud-style policies in Israel, JINSA has essentially recommended that \u2018regime change\u2019 in Iraq should be just the beginning of a cascade of toppling dominoes in the Middle East\u201d [16].<\/p>\n
In brief, the evidence is overwhelming (and irrefutable) that the raging chaos in the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe\/Ukraine is not because of the \u201cmisguided\u201d policies of the United States and its allies, as many critics and commentators tend to maintain. It is, rather, because of premeditated and carefully-crafted policies that have been pursued by an unholy alliance of the military-security-industrial complex and the Israel lobby in the post-Cold War world.<\/p>\n
Ismael Hossein-zadeh<\/b>\u00a0is Professor Emeritus of Economics (Drake University). He is the author of\u00a0Beyond Mainstream Explanations of the Financial Crisis\u00a0(Routledge 2014),\u00a0The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism\u00a0(Palgrave\u2013Macmillan 2007), and the\u00a0Soviet Non-capitalist Development: The Case of Nasser\u2019s Egypt\u00a0(Praeger Publishers 1989). He is also a contributor to\u00a0Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion\u00a0(AK Press 2012).<\/em><\/p>\n References<\/b><\/p>\n [1] Extensive excerpts from my book,\u00a0The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism<\/i>, especially from chapters 4 and 6, are used in this essay.<\/p>\n [2] Quoted in Sheila Ryan, \u201cPower Projection in the Middle East,\u201d inMobilizing Democracy<\/i>, edited by Greg Bates (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1991), p. 47.<\/p>\n [3] Ibid., p. 46.<\/p>\n [4] James Mann, \u201cThe True Rationale? It\u2019s a Decade Old,\u201d Washington Post, Sunday (7 March 2004), page B02.<\/p>\n [5] For a detailed exposition of this dubious relationship see Ismael Hossein-zadeh,\u00a0The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism<\/i>\u00a0(Palgrave-Macmillan 2007), chapter 6.<\/p>\n [6] Chalmers Johnson,\u00a0The Sorrows of Empire<\/i>\u00a0(New York, NY: Metropolitan Books, 2004), pp. 20-21.<\/p>\n [7] Ibid., p. 20.<\/p>\n [8] Bill Christison, \u201cThe Disastrous Foreign Policies of the United States,\u201dCounterpunch<\/i>.org<\/i>\u00a0(9 May 2002), <http:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/christison0806.html>.<\/p>\n [9] Gore Vidal,\u00a0Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got To Be So Hated<\/i>\u00a0(New York: Thunder\u2019s Mouth Press\/Nation Books, 2002), pp. 20-1.<\/p>\n [10] Chalmers Johnson,\u00a0The Sorrows of Empire<\/i>\u00a0(New York, NY: Metropolitan Books, 2004), p. 64.<\/p>\n [11] Quoted in Stephen J. Sniegoski, \u201cThe War on Iraq: Conceived in Israel,\u201d <http:\/\/vho.org\/tr\/2003\/3\/Sniegoski285-298.html<\/a>>.<\/p>\n [12] Ibid.<\/p>\n [13] Ibid.<\/p>\n [14] Ibid.<\/p>\n [15] Ibid.<\/p>\n [16] William D. Hartung,\u00a0How Much Are You Making on the War, Daddy<\/i>? (New York: Nation Books, 2003), p.109.<\/p>\n Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Geopolitical observers of the Middle East turbulence tend to blame the raging chaos in the area on the presumed failure of the \u201cincoherent,\u201d \u201cillogical\u201d or \u201ccontradictory\u201d policies of the United States. Irrefutable evidence (some of which presented in this study) … Continue reading