Jamal Wakim Then Another Crooke Monday

Bummer being knocked offline due to a severed cable. Unexpected interruptions, grr.

Hat tip to Pepe Escobar for noting Jamal Wakim’s essay at Al-Mayadeen, “Russia's victory in struggle with collective West will be achieved in Middle East, not Eastern Europe,” which presents a different, credible, historical interpretation, although his future outlook isn’t very well thought-out primarily because of Russia’s Constitution, which I’ve explained before and will do so again. Following his essay, we’ll move on to Crooke’s SCF essay which is the primary topic of this week’s chat with Judge Napolitano.

This article discusses the importance of what is happening in the Middle East and the battle taking place there specifically in the region extending from Egypt in the west to Iraq in the east to determine the fate of the world. When we talk about this region, there is a connection between the battle taking place in the Middle East and the battle that has always been taking place in the heart of Eurasia, specifically against Russia.

In the past two centuries, Russia was the one facing the so-called collective West, and it was the spearhead in confronting this collective West. In the early nineteenth century, this collective West was represented by Napoleon, and after that, during World War II, the collective West was represented by Nazi Germany, and after World War II, the collective West was represented by the United States of America.

Experience facing Napoleon

In the face of Napoleon's invasion, we must understand that there was a project for this collective West, represented by global hegemony, and this collective West began its attack in Egypt and the occupation of Egypt in the year 1799. France's failure in Egypt two years later was what determined Napoleon's fate, and therefore his defeat was a matter of time in the confrontation against Russia. After that, Napoleon did not succeed in isolating Russia after the Battle of Austerlitz in December 1805, despite his victory in this battle. After that, Napoleon had to invade Russia in an attempt to subjugate it, and in this way, he recruited an army from various parts of Europe to begin his invasion of Russia.

On June 24, 1812, and the following days, the first wave of the multinational French Grande Armée crossed the Niemen River, beginning the French invasion of Russia. Despite the great advance of the French forces inside Russian territory, and despite their tactical victory over the Russian army in the Battle of Borodino, and then Napoleon’s occupation of Moscow itself, he was unable to achieve victory over Russia and began his withdrawal five weeks after his entry into Moscow, only to be defeated tactically in the battle. Bonaparte began his retreat before the Russian forces, which pursued him until Paris, where he was forced to abdicate and accept exile to the island of Elba, off the coast of Corsica. Despite his desperate attempt to return to power in early 1815, Napoleon was actually defeated by Russia, but his strategic defeat had begun with his failure in Egypt a decade and a half before that date.

World War II experience

Then, during World War II, Nazi Germany launched a military campaign in North Africa as part of its larger strategic goals. This campaign, led by General Erwin Rommel, was known as the North African Campaign. However, Nazi Germany's primary focus in Eastern Europe was not initially directed toward the Russian heartland. Instead, it invaded Poland in 1939, which led to the outbreak of the war in Europe. Later, in June 1941, Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, a massive invasion of the Soviet Union, with the intention of capturing key cities like Moscow and Leningrad.

At the time, the advance of Erwin Rommel's forces in North Africa constituted an attempt to isolate it and reach the Suez Canal and cut off British access to the Middle East. In parallel, Nazi forces had begun to invade the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. They advanced toward major cities like Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad; where they faced tough resistance from the Soviet military and encountered numerous logistical challenges due to the vastness of the territory and the harsh conditions. But it was Erwin Rommel's failure in the Middle East that sealed the final failure for Nazi Germany, and it was only a matter of time before Nazi Germany was defeated. 

Rommel's defeat at the Battle of El Alamein in the fall of 1942 represented a colossal failure. Therefore, this defeat in the Middle East was followed by the Soviet victory in the Battle of Stalingrad in February 1943. The Battle of Stalingrad weakened the German army and boosted Soviet morale, contributing to the eventual Soviet counteroffensive. Then, the Battle of Kursk occurred in July 1943 and was a major offensive launched by Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union. The battle ended in a decisive Soviet victory and marked the beginning of a series of successful Soviet offensives that pushed German forces back toward Eastern Europe. The defeat of Nazi Germany was announced in May 1945. 

Brezhnev's geopolitical shortsightedness

The Soviet Union emerged victorious in the war against Nazi Germany, only to find itself facing the United States, which would take the banner of leadership of the collective West from Nazi Germany. According to the divisions of the Yalta Conference, the Soviets expanded their influence into Eastern and Central Europe, securing a defensive depth in the heart of Russia. But Soviet leader Joseph Stalin did not have the opportunity to reach the eastern Mediterranean after the defeat of the communists in Greece in the civil war in 1947, nor did he have the opportunity to reach the Adriatic Sea after a dispute broke out with Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito, who accepted generous offers from the West to stay away. 

About the bloc of socialist countries

Here, the United States began to encircle the bloc of socialist countries by establishing NATO in 1949, which was supposed to besiege the communist bloc and contain the communist influence in Southeast Asia. The Baghdad Pact, also known as the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), was established in 1955 among Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom. It aimed to foster cooperation and mutual defense among its member states, particularly in the face of perceived Soviet expansionism and influence in the Middle East. However, the main target of the United States was to attack the Soviet interior. What hindered this plan was the coup led by Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt, which brought him to power. Abdel Nasser declared his blatant opposition to the policy of Western alliances and declared his own policy of non-alignment in the Cold War, and, at the same time, he began to take rapprochement initiatives toward the Soviet Union and the bloc of socialist countries in order to balance Western support for "Israel". After his victory against Britain, France, and "Israel" during the tripartite aggression, Abdel Nasser was able to overthrow the Baghdad Pact in 1958 after the coup that he supported against the Hashemite monarchy in Iraq in the summer of 1958.

The Soviet rapprochement with Abdel Nasser contributed to opening the African arena to the growth of African-Russian relations and led to the liberation of African countries from Western colonialism.

But after the year 1965 and the coup against Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in the Soviet Union, the arrival of a bureaucratic class with a “Eurocentrism” orientation in the Soviet Union that gave priority to Moscow’s relations with Europe led to the neglect of Soviet-Arab relations and pushed them to second place in terms of importance. What made matters worse was the communist dogmatism of short-sighted Soviet leaders, which made them neglect the geopolitical dimension. Unfortunately, during the Cold War, the Soviet Union, and specifically the leadership that took power after 1965, did not realize the importance of what was happening in the Middle East as a result of its European-centric vision. Therefore, they were content and happy with what was happening with their share of influence in Eastern and Central Europe, and they neglected their influence in the Middle East.

After 1965, the United States took advantage of the short-sightedness of the new Soviet leadership to resolve the battle in the Middle East. The defeat of the Arab countries in 1967 was not against "Israel", but it was in fact against the collective West, primarily the United States of America, which supports "Israel". It also constituted the first major defeat for the Soviet Union. Then, the American attack began in Eastern Europe via the destabilization of Czechoslovakia and Poland. And when the Soviet Union left the region, and after Egypt turned toward the United States under Anwar Sadat, the issue of defeating the Soviet Union was only a matter of time. This brings us back to what the late Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser said in 1969 when he announced that the battle on the banks of the Suez Canal would decide the fate of the world. Therefore, the defeat of the progressive Arab countries, led by Egypt, constituted a defeat for the Soviet Union as a whole, making it lose strategic superiority in favor of the United States, which began achieving one victory after another, leading to victory in the Cold War.

In summary

Now what is happening in the Middle East is also a renewed attempt launched by the collective West, led by the United States, to win global hegemony. They began this attack by occupying Afghanistan in 2002, then Iraq in 2003, before heading to the Russian heartland. They began their attack in Afghanistan, occupying Afghanistan, and then invading Iraq, only to begin shortly after the process of the so-called "Arab Spring" aimed at changing regimes through the use of soft power. After the outbreak of the "Arab Spring", an indirect war was launched against Russia in the year 2014. Therefore, what is happening in the Middle East, in my estimation, is that any victory in Eastern Europe will not be decisive until the Middle East is done, and, therefore, the Eurasian powers led by Russia must focus their attention on the battle currently taking place in the Middle East because this is the one that could end American influence.

If the Americans win this battle, all the victories that Russia could achieve in Ukraine or Eastern Europe will have no strategic benefit, because the main battle would have been lost, as it happened during the Cold War. Therefore, in the year 1969, during a visit by the late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser to the Suez Canal, when Sinai was occupied and the Israeli enemy was on the other side of the canal, he said that on the banks of the Suez Canal the fate of the world was decided, and unfortunately the fate of the world was decided not in our favor, but in their favor. What he meant was the American hegemony with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Now, the focus must be on this battle. What is happening in the Middle East is a major battle centered on the main axis: Palestine. What is happening in Palestine is something mentioned in religious books. I may have my own interpretation. Hence, we find that some of the signs mentioned in the Bible are being witnessed now: the killing of children at the hands of Rhodes two thousand years ago is being repeated at the hands of Netanyahu in Gaza. The attempt to deport the Palestinians to Egypt is similar to the story of the Virgin Mary and her son Jesus taking refuge in the land of Egypt. It is worth mentioning that the Resistance in Palestine receives assistance from Iran, similar to the gifts that the Three Magi gave to the child Jesus in the cave. Note that what led the three wise men to the cave was mainly the North Star seen in the Middle East as Russia. Could it be a sign that guides the current Russian leadership toward the region to achieve a decisive victory in the contemporary battle of Armageddon? [Emphasis Original]

It’s not my aim to argue with this POV. Rather, it’s to point to the major problem Russia will have intervening with the Zionists to force them to halt their Genocide as Russia’s Constitution mandates supporting Russian citizens abroad, such as those within Occupied Palestine, even if they support or are actively involved in Genocide. And IMO, it’s clear Team Putin doesn’t want to enact enabling legislation to surmount that problem. So, how does Russia defeat the Outlaw US Empire in West Asia if it can’t defeat the Empire’s proxy. Enter Alastair Crooke and his observation that a “rupture” has occurred between Biden and Netanyahu. It’s now very overt that the Outlaw US Empire cannot and will not control its Zionist proxy, a situation that’s been apparent for several months. Although US laws demand all weapon shipments to the Zionists cease because of their unlawful use, Biden is unwilling to enforce that law, which represents the most powerful lever that could be employed to control Zionist behavior. Thus, there’s no solving the negotiation impasse between Hamas and the Zionists and the Genocide continues. The Iraqi Resistance’s pause has ended but instead of attacking Outlaw US Empire’s regional assets, Haifa’s being targeted with missiles instead. IMO, the Resistance has decided to concentrate on the Zionist’s weak point—its economy that’s highly dependent on imports, particularly of foodstuffs—If Gaza is to starve, then so shall the Zionists.

Related, IMO, is the upsurge in terrorist activity in Syria that’s called the SAA and Russian forces into action in Idlib. After three years of ceasefire, HTS deemed itself to be rearmed enough to go on an offensive, likely upon the orders of its Zionist Masters to keep the SAA occupied so it won’t join Resistance attacks. It’s hard to say how this will unfold. The Turks have done little to reduce the HTS’s numbers and likely still provide logistical aid as it does for Occupied Palestine despite Erdogan being called the Biggest regional Anti-Semite in response to his accusations, which is 100% theatre given the Turk’s logistical support which goes against Turkish public opinion. The Turkish Street is being very slow in condemning Erdogan’s duplicity. Lavrov was just in Astana for the latest round of the Conference being held there that’s supposed to be solving regional issues mostly related to the Kurds. All that provides some of the regional context for Crooke’s SCF essay and chat with Napolitano.

“‘Out of Touch With Reality’ – White House Fails to Navigate the Israeli Re-calibration” is Crooke’s apt title. All emphasis and format original:

Alon Pinkas, a former senior Israeli diplomat, well-plugged into Washington, tells us that a frustrated White House finally has “had enough”. The rupture with Netanyahu is complete: The Prime Minister does not comport himself as ‘an U.S. ally’ should; he severely criticises Biden’s Middle East policies, and now the United States has come to understand this fact.

Biden cannot afford any further Israel-affects to jeopardise his electoral campaign, and so – as his State of the Union Speech makes clear – he will double-down on misconstrued policy frameworks for both Israel and Ukraine.

So what does Biden intend to do about Netanyahu’s act of defiance against the ‘holy grail’ of U.S. policy recommendations? Well, he invited Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s War Cabinet to Washington, and wrapped him around an agenda “reserved for a prime minister, or someone they think will, or should be, premier”. Officials apparently thought that by initiating a visit outside of usual diplomatic protocols, they may “have unleashed a dynamic that could lead to an election in Israel”, Pinkas notes, resulting in a leadership more amenable to U.S. ideas.

It was clearly intended as a first step to ‘soft power’ régime change.

And the prime reason for the declaration of war on Netanyahu? Gaza. Biden apparently didn’t appreciate the snub received in the Michigan primary when the Gaza protest vote surpassed 100,000 ‘uncommitted votes’. Polls – especially amongst the young – are flashing red warning signals for November (in no small part because of Gaza). Democratic national leaders are beginning to worry.

Leading Israeli commentator, Nahum Barnea, warns that Israel is “loosing America”:

“We are accustomed to thinking of America in familial terms … We receive weapons and international backing and the Jews give their votes in the key states and money to the campaigns. This time, the situation is different … Since the votes in [presidential] elections are counted regionally, only a few states … actually decide … Like Florida, [a] key state, where the votes of the Jews can decide who will move into the White House, so too can the votes of the Muslims in Michigan decide … [Activists] called on the primary voters to vote “uncommitted” to protest Biden’s support for Israel … Their campaign succeeded beyond expectations: 130,000 Democratic voters supported it. The slap in the face to Biden reverberated across the entire length and breadth of the political establishment. It not only attested to the rise of a new, efficient and toxic political lobby, [but] also to the revulsion that many Americans feel when they see the pictures from Gaza”.

 “Biden loves Israel and is truly afraid for it”, concludes Barnea “but he has no intention of losing the elections because of it. That is an existential threat”.

The problem however, is the converse: It is that U.S. policy is deeply flawed, and wholly incongruent with majority public sentiment in Israel. Many Israelis feel they are fighting an existential struggle, and must not become ‘just fodder’ (as they see it) to a U.S. Democratic electoral strategy.

The reality is that Israel is rupturing with Team Biden – not the converse.

Biden’s key plan which rests on a revitalised Palestinian security apparatus is described – even in the Washington Post – as ‘improbable’. The U.S. tried a PA security ‘revitalising’ initiative under U.S. General Zinni in 2002 and Dayton in 2010. It did not work – and for good reason: Palestinian Authority security forces are simply viewed by most Palestinians as the hated stooges enforcing continued Israeli occupation. They work to Israeli security interests, not Palestinian security interests.

The other main components to U.S. policy is an even more improbable ‘de-radicalised’ and anaemic ‘two-state solution’, buried within a regional concert of conservative Arab States acting as its security overseer. This policy approach reflects a White House out of kilter with today’s more eschatological Israel, and one failing to move on from perspectives and policies hailing from decades past which, even then, were failures.

The White House therefore has resorted to an old trick: To project all of its own policy failings onto a foreign leader for not making the ‘unworkable’ work, and to try to replace that leader with someone more compliant. Pinkas writes:

“Once the United States became convinced that Netanyahu was not being cooperative, not being a considerate ally, behaving like a crude ingrate … focused only on his political survival after the October 7 debacle, the time was ripe to try a new political course”.

However, Netanyahu’s policy – for better or worse – reflects what a majority of Israelis think. Netanyahu has his well-known personality defects and is seriously unpopular in Israel, yet that does not mean that a plurality disagrees with his, and his government’s programme.

So “enter Gantz”, unleashed by Team Biden as prospective PM-in-waiting into the Washington and London diplomatic pool.

Except that the ploy didn’t work as expected. As Ariel Kahana writes (in Hebrew, in Israel Hayom on 6 March):

“Gantz met with all of the top administration officials with the exception of President Biden, and presented positions that are identical to the positions that Netanyahu has presented in his talks with them over the past number of weeks”.

“Not destroying Hamas in Rafah means sending a fire truck to put out 80% of the fire”, Gantz told Sullivan. Harris and other officials retorted that it would be impossible to evacuate 1.2 million Gazans from the Rafah area—an evacuation that they view as an essential precondition for any military operation in that southern Gaza Strip city”. “Gantz flatly disagreed”.

“Even larger gaps came to the fore in discussions about humanitarian aid. Whereas many Israelis are livid about the decision to allow the delivery of supplies to the enemy — [which they view as] an act that has helped Hamas, has prolonged the war and has delayed a hostage deal—the Americans believe that Israel isn’t doing enough. Biden’s aides have even accused Israeli officials of lying about the quantity of aid that has been delivered and the pace of its delivery. 

Aid of course, has become (rightly) the neuralgic issue pressing on the Democratic Party’s electoral prospects, but Gantz was not having it. As Kahana notes:

“Regrettably, the most senior American officials are also out of touch with reality when it comes to other aspects of the war as well. They still believe that the Palestinian Authority should govern Gaza, that peace can be achieved in the future by means of the “two-state solution,” and that a normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia is within reach. Gantz was forced to address that flawed reading of the situation”.

So, U.S. administration officials heard from Gantz the very same policy agenda that Netanyahu has repeated to them in recent months: Gantz also warned that trying to ‘play him off’ against Netanyahu was pointless: He might very much wish to replace Netanyahu as prime minister at some point, but his policies wouldn’t be substantively different from those of the present government, he explained.

Now that the visit is over and now that Gantz has said what he said, the White House is coming to terms with a new experience: The limitations to U.S. power and to automatic compliance by other states – even the closest of allies.

The U.S. can neither force its will on Israel, nor compel an ‘Arab Contact Group’ to come into being, nor compel a putative Arab Contact Group to support and fund Biden’s “fantastical” Gaza ‘solutions’. It is a salutary moment for U.S. power.

Netanyahu is an experienced ‘old Washington hand’. He prides himself on his ability to read U.S. politics well. No doubt he calculates that whilst Biden can raise the rhetoric a pitch or two, the latter is on a tight leash in respect to how much of a gap he can open between him and the Jewish mega-donors in an election year.

Netanyahu, on the other hand, seemingly has concluded that he can safely ignore Washington – at least for the next ten months.

Biden is desperate for a ceasefire; but even here – on the hostage issue, on which the U.S. policy array stands or falls – the U.S. has a ‘tin ear’. A last minute demand is made to Hamas to say which of the original hostages are alive.

The request may seem reasonable to outsiders, yet the U.S. must know that neither Hizbullah, nor Hamas, give hostage ‘proof of life’ for free: there is a cost in terms of the exchange ratio for dead bodies and for live hostages. (There is a long history of Israeli failed ‘proof of life’ demands).

Reports indicate that Israel is refusing to agree on withdrawal from Gaza; it is refusing to allow Palestinians from northern Gaza to return to their homes, and it is refusing to agree to a comprehensive ceasefire.

All these are original Hamas demands – they are not new. Why should it surprise or offend Biden when they are repeated again. It is not an escalation of demands by Sinwar (as the western and Israeli media allege). It reflects rather, an unrealistic negotiating strategy embraced by Washington.

According to Al-Quds newspaper, Hamas has presented in Cairo “a final document that is not subject to negotiation”. This includes, inter alia, a demand to halt the fighting in Gaza for a full week before executing a hostage-release deal, and a clear Israeli statement about full withdrawal from the Strip – complete with international guarantees.

Hamas is also demanding that all Gazans have the unconditional right to return to their homes, as well as to the entry of supplies to the entire Gaza Strip without security division, beginning on the first day of the deal. According to the Hamas document, the release of hostages would begin a week after the ceasefire begins. Hamas rejects Israel’s demand that any of its members or leaders be exiled and sent abroad. (This occurred in the release of hostages from the Church of Nativity siege, where a number of Palestinians were exiled to EU states – an act that was heavily criticised at the time.)

In a separate clause, Hamas has said that neither it, nor any other Palestinian groups, would provide a list of hostages until 48 hours before implementing the deal. The list of prisoners Hamas is demanding to be released is long, and includes the release of 57 people who were released as part of the 2011 Gilad Shalit deal and subsequently re-arrested; all female and minor security prisoners; all sick security prisoners and everyone over the age of 60. According to the report, only after the first stage is completed will negotiations on the next stage of a deal begin.

These demands should not surprise anyone. It is all too common that people with little experience believe that hostage deals can be reached relatively easily and quickly, by means of rhetoric, media and diplomatic pressure. The history is different. The average time to agree a hostage release is more than a year.

Team Biden urgently needs to reassess its approach, starting from the understanding that it is Israel that is rupturing from the stale, ill-judged U.S. consensus. Most Israelis agree with Netanyahu, who said again yesterday that “the war is existential and must be won”.

How is it that Israel can contemplate severing from the U.S.? Possibly because Netanyahu understands that the ‘power structure’ in the U.S. – as in Europe – that controls much, if not most of the money shaping U.S. politics, and particularly the stance of Congress, is heavily dependent on the Israeli ‘cause’ existing, and continuing to exist, and it is not therefore the case that Israel is wholly dependent on the U.S. power structures and its ‘good will’ (as Biden pre-supposes).

The ‘cause of Israel’ both gives domestic U.S. structures their political meaning, their agenda and their legitimacy. A ‘No Israel’ outcome would pull the carpet from under them, and would leave U.S. Jews experiencing existential insecurity. Netanyahu knows this – and also appreciates that the existence of Israel, per se, offers Tel Aviv a certain degree of control over U.S. politics.

To judge from yesterday’s State of the Union Address, the U.S. Administration is incapable of navigating the present impasse with Israel, and is instead doubling down rather on its time-worn and platitudinous notions. Using the State of Union Address as a bully-pulpit for old thinking is no strategy. Building a jetty in Gaza has a history, too. It solves nothing – except further consolidating Israeli control over Gaza’s borders and any possible prospects for post-occupation Gaza – Cyprus in place of Rafah for Israeli security checks. (Gaza once had both a harbour and an international airport – all long reduced to rubble, of course, by previous rounds of Israeli bombing).

The inattention to reality is not an electorally ‘incidental’ and irksome issue that needs better PR management by the campaign team:

Israeli and U.S. officials have been warning for some time of a possible spike in tension to coincide with the start of Ramadan on 10 March. Israel’s Channel 12 (in Hebrew) reports that the head of the Military Intelligence Division, ‘Aman’, has warned the Israeli government in a confidential document of the possibility of a religious war breaking out during the month of Ramadan, starting with an escalation in the Palestinian territories; extending to several fronts, and then turning into a regional war.

This warning – Channel 12 claims – was the main reason behind Netanyahu’s decision not to impose harsher than usual restrictions on Palestinians entering Al-Aqsa for Ramadan prayers.

Yes, things might get worse, much worse, for Israel.

Crooke’s chat with Napolitano is 32-minutes plus ad interruptions that’s polluted by snippets of Biden, but those can be skipped if you loathe him like I do. The points made above are elaborated. IMO, it can be safely said that Biden’s West Asia policy doesn’t exist just as there’s no coherent plan for Ukraine nor was aside for Colonizing Europe, which is accomplished. Will the Zionist Lobby finally be seen as a threat to national security and treated as such?

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