M. K. Bhadrakumar |
Government officials can be broadly put into two categories — those who take to bureaucratic skullduggery like fish to water and the rest who survive the shenanigans. It’s a matter of both DNA and acquired skills. Then, there is a minuscule category to which the US State Secretary Rex Tillerson belongs who either fail or refuse to reconcile with their fate. Do not be surprised if he takes voluntary retirement from Washington establishment and heads for the Deep South to his roots to be with his clan, his family. (Read here and here the vicious attacks by America’s “Jewish Press” on Tillerson.)
What lends urgency to the Israeli “takeover” is no doubt the endgame in Syria where Israel faces a crisis that has existential overtones.
There is, of course, a policy twist to it. The rising star is the US’ ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, a protégé of the Jewish lobby. She has no background in diplomacy and seems a woman of average intelligence – remember her silly remarks on Kashmir? – an unseen (Jewish) hand is plotting her career. Haley is a permanent invitee to the president’s National Security Council meetings.
Read more: Israel’s Air Strikes on Syria are Unacceptable: Russia
Is the Israeli lobby sponsoring Haley as Tillerson’s replacement? (See the kite-flying, here, by National Review, which is a supporter of Trump.) Israel is likely taking sweet revenge on Obama administration by making the US its junior partner. Or, is it simply taking charge of a sinking ship? Indeed, it could be a combination of both. What lends urgency to the Israeli “takeover” is no doubt the endgame in Syria where Israel faces a crisis that has existential overtones.
Israel was an activist in the US project to overthrow the government of Bashar al-Assad. Israel’s motivations were to:
- weaken and destroy its lone remaining military adversary in the Arab world;
- balkanize Syria to accelerate the creation of an oil-rich Kurdistan that will be an enclave of Israeli influence bordering Iran and Turkey;
- vanquish Hezbollah and assert Israel’s dominance over Lebanon (and Gaza);
- legitimize the occupation of Golan Heights; and,
- annex the Syrian territory straddling Golan Heights.
Israel’s focus now is to come to terms with the grim reality that Assad is going to be around for quite a while. So its Plan B is to see to it that the Syrian government forces (supported by Iran-backed militia and Hezbollah) do not regain the territory controlled by the al-Qaeda groups in the southern regions bordering Golan Heights.
Once the conflict in Syria morphed into a proxy war against Iran and Hezbollah, Israel did exactly what the US’ other allies (Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar) did – namely, sponsor al-Qaeda affiliates and ISIS as “strategic assets”. The project was well under way when Russia intervened in September 2015. The rest is history.
Read more: Of oil, economy, and Israel: US stakes in Syria
The Russian-Iranian-Syrian-Iraqi-Hezbollah axis reversed the tide of the war and Israel today stares at defeat in the war zone in southern Syria (here and here). Israel’s focus now is to come to terms with the grim reality that Assad is going to be around for quite a while. So its Plan B is to see to it that the Syrian government forces (supported by Iran-backed militia and Hezbollah) do not regain the territory controlled by the al-Qaeda groups in the southern regions bordering Golan Heights.
Enter Haley. Israel sees her as its most reliable “cats-paw” in the US foreign policy establishment under Trump. She, in turn, senses that if she ‘delivers’, the Jewish lobby will catapult her political career.
Israel expects Pentagon to take control of the proposed “de-confliction zone” in southern Syria, and draw a “red line” to create a buffer zone that de facto accepts its continued occupation of Golan Heights. Israel hopes to eventually annex the buffer zone.
Read more: Tehran attacks: Is the US-Saudi-Israel team getting ahead of Iran?
Enter Haley. Israel sees her as its most reliable “cats-paw” in the US foreign policy establishment under Trump. She, in turn, senses that if she ‘delivers’, the Jewish lobby will catapult her political career. Meanwhile, Israel too will get a dream team with Haley in Faggy Bottom and a Rasputin in the Trump’s White House – the president’s influential son-in-law Jared Kushner (Orthodox Jew and a rabbi) – to navigate Middle East policies. Unsurprisingly, the US media, which is heavily under Jewish influence, builds up Haley as a visionary stateswoman.
How far Damascus and Tehran (and Moscow) will allow Israel to realize its shenanigans remains to be seen since, in the ultimate analysis, everything depends on the new facts on the ground. There are ominous signs that Israeli army is preparing to invade Syria. The Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah warned on June 23,
- The Israeli enemy must know that if an Israeli war is launched on Syria or Lebanon, it is not known that the fighting will remain Lebanese-Israeli or Syrian-Israeli. This doesn’t mean there are states that might intervene directly. But this could open the way for thousands, even hundreds of thousands of fighters from all over the Arab and Islamic world to participate.
Three of the most important spy planes in US inventory – two RC-135 aircraft and a Navy P-8 Poseidon – which can eavesdrop and pinpoint enemy radio and radar signals, have been “snooping” off the Syrian coast over the past week. The American aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush arrived in Haifa port Sunday on a 4-day visit – first time in 17 years that a US aircraft carrier is visiting Israel.
The big question is whether Israel gets away with a land grab or ends up creating another resistance front.
M. K. Bhadrakumar has served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with postings as India’s ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001). He writes extensively in Indian newspapers, Asia Times and the “Indian Punchline”. This piece was first published in Indian Punchline. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Global Village Space’s editorial policy.