War in West Asia: Another Point-of View

One of the Deans of the history and methods used to advance the Imperialism of the Outlaw US Empire Michael Hudson had a very long talk with Ben Norton of the Multipolarista website that hosts the Geopolitical Economy Hour. His contextual background allows him to see what’s happened and happening in Gaza from a different, more holistic, perspective. His views seem to have influenced those of his fellow analyst Pepe Escobar, whose recent essay’s title gives a strong hint, “Why the US needs this war in Gaza.”

Ben Norton provides critical context by reminding readers about the Outlaw US Empire’s change in its Imperial Policy after the USSR’s implosion—the adoption of the Wolfowitz Doctrine of Full Spectrum Dominance. In his intro, Norton makes the following observation:

It is crucial to stress that Israel is an extension of U.S. geopolitical power in one of the most critically important regions of the world. 

In fact, it was current U.S. President Joe Biden, back in 1986, when he was a senator, who famously said that, if Israel didn’t exist, the United States would have to invent it.

And even before 1986, Dr. Hudson tells us this:

And I can give you an anecdote. Netanyahu’s main national security advisor for the last few years has been Uzi Arad. I worked at the Hudson Institute for about five years, 1972 to ‘76. And I worked very closely with Uzi there.

Uzi and I made two trips to Korea and Japan to talk about international finance. So we had a good chance to get to know each other. And on one trip, we stopped over from New York to San Francisco. And in San Francisco, there was a party or a gathering for people to meet us.

And one of the U.S. generals came over and slapped Uzi on the back and said, you’re our landed aircraft carrier over there. We love you.

Well, I could see Uzi feeling, tightening up and getting very embarrassed and didn’t really have anything to say. But the United States has always viewed Israel as just our foreign military base, not Israel.

So of course, it wants to secure this military base.

Hudson’s take is quite different from the Establishment Narrative that aims to tie Christian Zionists to their kin in Occupied Palestine. Many have claimed a link between Occupied Palestine and the Empire’s use of Ukraine in its war against Russia. That was true up to the current temporal point where the West Asian military base became threatened. Here’s Hudson again:

So from the United States, it’s not Israel’s wagging the American tail, just the opposite. You mentioned that America is supporting Israel. I don’t think America is supporting Israel at all, nor do most Israelis, nor do most Democrats.

America is supporting Netanyahu. It’s supporting Likud, not Israel. The majority of Israelis, certainly the non-religious Israelis, the core population of Israel since its founding, is opposing Likud and its policies.

And so what really is happening is that to the United States, Netanyahu is the Israeli version of Zelensky in the Ukraine….

The United States is trying to say, well, we’re only there to give help to an ally. The whole world has noticed that the U.S. now has two aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean, right off the Near Eastern shore, and it has an atomic submarine near the Persian Gulf.

Why are they there? President Biden and Congress say we are not going to have American troops fighting Hamas in Gaza. We’re not going to get involved. Well, if the troops are not going to get involved, why are they there?

Well, we know what the American planes are doing. Yesterday, they bombed yet another airport and a fuel depot in Syria. They’re bombing Syria. And it’s very clear that they’re there not to protect Israel, but to fight Iran.

Again and again, every American newspaper, when it talks about Hamas, it says Hamas is acting on behalf of Iran. When it talks about Hezbollah, and is there going to be an intervention from Lebanon against northern Israel, they say Hezbollah are the Iranian puppets.

Any time they talk about any Near Eastern leader, it’s really that all these leaders are puppets of Iran, just like in Ukraine and Central Europe, they talk about Hungary and other countries as all being puppets of Putin in Russia.

Their focus, really – America isn’t trying to fight to protect Ukraine. It’s fighting for the last Ukrainian to be exhausted in what they’d hoped would be depleting Russia’s military. Well, it hasn’t worked.

Well, the same thing in Israel. If the United States is pushing Israel and Netanyahu to escalate, escalate, escalate, to do something that at a point is going to lead Nasrallah to finally say, okay, we can’t take it anymore. We’re coming in and helping rescue the Gazans and especially rescue the West Bank, where just as much fighting is taking place. We’re going to come in.

And that’s when the United States will then feel free to move not only against Lebanon, but all the way via Syria, Iraq, to Iran.

What we’re seeing in Gaza and the West Bank today is only the catalyst, the trigger for the fact that the neocons say we are never going to have a better chance than we have right now to conquer Iran.

So this is the point for the showdown, that if America is to control Near Eastern oil, and by controlling Near Eastern oil, by bringing it under the US control, it can control the energy imports of much of the world.

And therefore, this gives American diplomats the power to cut off oil and gas and to sanction any country that tries to go multipolar, any country that tries to resist US unipolar control. [My Emphasis]

And all the above was picked up by Pepe Escobar. The subtitle to his article is “Washington needs to win its Gazan war against Iran because it failed to win its Ukrainian war against Russia.” And one could say the Hegemon abandoned Afghanistan so it could concentrate on Ukraine/Russia, while it could still sow chaos there with its Terrorist Foreign Legion. The attack in West Asia aims at disrupting BRICS+ since the Empire knew well the utter weakness and control it exerts on most Arab and Islamic nations. Pepe takes aim and delivers a searing indictment:

The Global South was expecting the Dawn of a New Arabian Reality. 

After all, the Arab street - even while repressed in their home nations - has pulsed with protests expressing ferocious rage against Israel's wholesale massacre of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. 

Arab leaders were forced to take some sort of action beyond suspending a few ambassadorships with Israel, and called for a special Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit to discuss the ongoing Israeli War Against Palestinian Children. 

Representatives of 57 Muslim states convened in Riyadh on 11 November to deliver a serious, practical blow against genocidal practitioners and enablers. But in the end, nothing was offered, not even solace.  

The OIC's final statement will always be enshrined in the Gilded Palace of Cowardice. Highlights of the tawdry rhetorical show: we oppose Israel's “self-defense;” we condemn the attack on Gaza; we ask (who?) not to sell weapons to Israel; we request the kangaroo ICC to "investigate" war crimes; we request a UN resolution condemning Israel.  

For the record, that’s the best 57 Muslim-majority countries could drum up in response to this 21st-century genocide.  

History, even if written by victors, tends to be unforgiving towards cowards.

The Top Four Cowards, in this instance, are Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Morrocco - the latter three having normalized relations with Israel under a heavy US hand in 2020. These are the ones that consistently blocked serious measures from being adopted at the OIC summit, such as the Algerian draft proposal for an oil ban on Israel, plus banning the use of Arab airspace to deliver weapons to the occupation state.

Egypt and Jordan - longtime Arab vassals - were also non-committal, as well as Sudan, which is in the middle of a civil war. Turkiye, under Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan, once again showed it is all talk and no action; a neo-Ottoman parody of the Texan “all hat, no cattle.” 

The Top Four Cowards deserve some scrutiny. Bahrain is a lowly vassal hosting a key branch of the US Empire of Bases. Morocco has close relations with Tel Aviv - it sold out quickly after an Israeli promise to recognize Rabat's claim on Western Sahara. Moreover, Morocco heavily depends on tourism, mainly from the collective west.  

Then we have the big dogs, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Both are stacked to the rafters with American weaponry, and, like Bahrain, also host US military bases. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) and his old mentor, Emirati ruler Mohammad bin Zayed (MbZ), do factor in the threat of color revolutions tearing through their regal domains if they deviate too much from the accepted imperial script.  

But in a few weeks, starting on 1 January, 2024, under a Russian presidency, both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi will expand their horizons big-time by officially becoming members of the BRICS 11.

Pepe then goes on to detail the mechanism that will be used to Divide and Rule BRICS+, IMEC, which he follows with further indictment:

Yet, at the same time, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi also stand to benefit immensely from the not-so-secret 1963 plan to build the Ben Gurion canal, from the Gulf of Aqaba to the Eastern Mediterranean, arriving – what a coincidence – very close to now devastated northern Gaza. 

The canal would allow Israel to become a key energy transit hub, dislodging Egypt's Suez Canal, and that happens to dovetail nicely with Israel’s role as the de facto key node in the latest chapter of the War of Economic Corridors: the US-concocted India-MidEast Corridor (IMEC).

IMEC is a quite perverse acronym, as is the whole logic behind this fantastical corridor, which is to position international law-breaking Israel as a critical trade hub and even energy provider between Europe, part of the Arab world, and India. 

I asked him at his VK if he now thought the expansion of BRICS wasn’t well considered, for which there appears to be a strong argument. Pepe closes his invective with what might be seen as pity:

It wouldn’t happen any other way. Many key Arab states are not Sovereign entities. They are all boxed in, victims of a vassal mentality. They’re not ready – yet - for their close-up facing History. And sadly, they still remain hostage to their own “century of humiliation.”

Pepe saves his linking with Dr. Hudson for his conclusion:

The catastrophic debacle of Project Ukraine and the revival of an intractable West Asian war are deeply intertwined. 

Beyond the fog of Washington's “worry” about Tel Aviv’s genocidal rampage, the crucial fact is that we are right in the thick of a war against BRICS 11.      

The Empire does not do strategy; at best, it does tactical business plans on the fly. There are two immediate tactics in play: a US Armada deployed in the Eastern Mediterranean – in a failed effort to intimidate Resistance Axis behemoths Iran and Hezbollah - and a possible Milei election in Argentina tied to his avowed promise to break Brazil-Argentina relations. 

So this is a simultaneous attack on BRICS 11 on two fronts: West Asia and South America. There will be no American efforts spared to prevent BRICS 11 from getting close to OPEC+. A key aim is to instill fear in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi – as confirmed by Persian Gulf business sources.  

Even vassal leaders at the OIC show would have been aware that we are now deep into The Empire Strikes Back. That also largely explains their cowardice.

Little’s been discussed about Argentina whose precariousness was noted when it was chosen as a BRICS+ member. The first round of Argentina’s Presidential Elections was concluded several weeks ago with this snippet telling us what and who’s next:

There will therefore be a second round on 19 November in which voters will have to choose between Mr Massa, from the left-wing Peronist movement [36%], and Mr Milei, a far-right libertarian [30%].

Yes, the Peronists have made many mistakes, but Milei is worse than Reagan and would destroy Argentina. Now that the Arab weakness is exposed, lets return to Hudson’s point-of-view:

Iran, Russia, China have all looked at the Gaza situation not as if it’s an Israeli action, but as if it’s the U.S. action. They all see exactly that it’s all about Iran, and the American press only says when it talks about Gaza or Hamas or Hezbollah or any other group, it’s always the Iranian tool so-and-so.

They’re demonizing Iran in the same way that the neocons have demonized Russia to prepare for America declaring an undeclared war against Iran. And they may even declare war.

Last night, on [November] 8, the Republicans had their presidential debate without Trump, and Nikki Haley said, you know, we’ve got to fight Iran, we’ve got to conquer it. And DeSantis of Florida said, yes, kill them all. He didn’t say who the them was. Was it Hamas? Was it everybody who lives in Gaza? Was it all of the Arabs in the Middle East?

And we’re really seeing something very much like the Crusades here. It’s a real fight for who is going to control energy, because, again, the key, if you can control the world’s flow of energy, you can do to the whole world what the United States did to Germany last year by blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines.

Hudson has documented the Outlaw US Empire’s attempts to control energy flows for over 50 years. It ought to be very clear to anyone with a brain that energy sits at the core of its overall Imperial policy. Of all of West Asia’s energy states, only Iran is sovereign; all others have Imperial Stormtroopers and weapons stationed there to exert control. A commentator at MoA, The Fox, asked about energy yesterday and I made the following reply:

Yep! Energy is the key. IMO, the fracking panacea was seen similarly to Ukraine's supposed military prowess--both are illusions as nothing's being done to access the hydrocarbons in the Beaufort Sea. Not even infrastructure is being built, nor are any ice breakers being built that would be needed in that region. This site lists the proven reserves of the top ten oil extracting nations, with the Outlaw US Empire at #10 with 47.1 billion barrels of proven oil reserves. However, it extracts an average of 13.1 million barrels per day, which is 4.7 Billion barrels annually. Simple math says that's only a ten year supply at the current rate of extraction. Of course, there's the ever mystical probable reserves, but only proven reserves are allowed to be listed on corporate balance sheets. You'll notice that Canada is listed as #4, but that is very misleading as most of Canada's hydrocarbon reserves are in the form of bitumen, which is a solid, and for it to flow and thus be refined it must be mixed with water and natural gas--two resources that don't exist in the amounts required to turn those proven reserves into something usable.

One ought to be able to connect the two very prominent dots—the Outlaw US Empire is running out of the fuel upon which it’s 100% dependent, and the Empire has a very formidable strike force off the shore of West Asia to back up the garrisons it has within the energy nations. The attempt to get Hezbollah to further escalate so the Empire can make a Gulf of Tonkin-like claim and attack is clearly seen, which is why Hezbollah is going slow, attritting the IDF just as the Russians are doing to Ukraine/NATO. Ansar Allah (Houthis) is a big surprise, although its motive is correct. And then there’re the Iraqi Militias fighting to expel the Empire that’ve been shown to be independent of Iran as well as openly declaring their intentions. Will Iran block the Strait of Hormuz? It might erect a naval blockade and only allow transit of tankers to non-Western destinations since the Empire has had 50 years to game that possibility. Will the Empire back-off? No, because it won’t have this same opportunity again. Hudson’s conclusion must be taken seriously:

It’s all about oil. America is not giving all this money to Israel because it loves Israel, but because Israel is the military base from which the United States can attack Syria, Iraq, and Iran and Lebanon. So it’s a military base.

And of course, it can frame this in terms of pro-Israeli, pro-Jewish policy, but this is only for the public relations view of the State Department.

If American strategy is based on energy in the Near East, then Israel is only a means to this end. It’s not the end itself. And that’s why the United States needed to have an aggressive Israeli government.

You can look at Netanyahu as being, in a way, a U.S. puppet, very much like Zelensky. Their positions are identical in their reliance on the United States against the majority of their own people.

So you keep talking about America’s support of Israel. It’s not supporting Israel at all. It rejects the majority of Israelis. It supports the Israeli military, not the Israeli society or the culture, have nothing to do with Judaism at all. This is pure military politics, and that’s how I’ve always heard it discussed among the military and national security people.

So you want to be careful not to be taken in by the cover story

The Zionists were quick to say 7 October was their Pearl Harbor; their 911. Many pointed to the possibility of 7 October being a false-flag of sorts, like that of 7 December 1941. I can see the Neocons manipulating the Zionist Genocidal Project to use for their own purposes. Russia doesn’t need West Asian hydrocarbons but China does. What will Xi tell Biden in San Francisco. Putin and Lavrov have been quiet since the Kazakhstan Summit and allowed Medvedev to be the mouthpiece. Will the Zionists be used like Ukrainians? One might say they’re already.

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