How Netanyahu has manipulated America into waging his long-planned war against Iran
COMMENT | NNANDA KIZITO SSERUWAGI | The ongoing America-Israel war against Iran, which we can alternatively call “Operation Epic Foolishness” in line with Trump’s code naming, is nothing but a Netanyahu project. While many explanations, or indeed excuses, can be raised to justify the aggression, it is, in fact, as per Netanyahu’s confession, simply a dream he has nursed for 40 years, which has finally come to pass, thanks to his friend Donald and the United States military. When history books are written about this conflict, at the centre of the narrative should be the kernel of truth that this was a dream come true for a psychopathic leader in Israel named Benjamin Netanyahu.
It bores me digging into what the cause of this war could be or what Iran is accused of, for that matter, because even a flippant reading of history would reveal that Israel has always plotted to wreak mayhem and havoc on its Middle Eastern neighbours. It is simply on schedule. The reasons can always be manufactured. In 1996, Netanyahu and his Zionist advisers unveiled a plan in a policy document titled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm”. This famous paper offered a bold strategy to provide “the nation [Israel] the room to engage every possible energy in rebuilding Zionism” and strengthen and increase its influence in the Middle East. The authors noted that “Our claim to the land – to which we have clung for hope for 2000 years – is legitimate and noble.” They added, “Israel will not only contain its foes; it will transcend them” through means including “re-establishing the principle of pre-emption, rather than retaliation alone”.
It is not surprising that Trump and Pete Hegseth, his secretary of war, can hardly articulate themselves clearly on what their plan for this war is. Of course, America/Israel will lose the war even if they win every single battle. This will likely become another Vietnam/Afghanistan for them because they can hardly secure regime change in Iran, given the absorption of Iranian society into their leadership. It is also least likely that they can instigate the Azerbaijanis or the Kurds to wage a civil war and assume power over the majority population of Persians to establish a puppet regime of the Americans. Every time Hegseth answers a question about this war, he sounds like a child confident in the strength of his father as the strongest dad in the world, incapable of any awareness of the world. All he says is that the United States has the world’s strongest military. So what? How come, then, it was defeated in Afghanistan, Vietnam and many other countries? He can not explain how the powerful American military can defeat Iran and establish a new political order in the country. That’s probably because they can’t.
What Trump doesn’t realise, or if he realises it, he is incapable of untying himself out of the web of the Jewish lobby that entangles American politics in general, is that, under the “Clean Break” paper, Israel orchestrated a plan to enhance its strategic position independent of the US, in order to deny the US any leverage it may want to exercise on Israel to maintain stability in the region under the “peace process”.
Netanyahu and his group understood that there could be attempts by American leaders to exercise influence over Israel and therefore planned actively to neutralise it beforehand. But the names of the authors of this paper are also most surprising because they comprised US civilian policymakers, including ex-chairman of the Defence Policy Board Richard Perle, former Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith, and former Vice President Dick Cheney’s adviser for Middle East affairs, David Wurmser. It is both surprising and not surprising that such individuals with such openly stated positions in the American government at the time preferred Israeli interests over those of the US. It is part of the game.
America, and even the world, has now been roped into endless war by extreme Zionists like Bibi. It is apparent that we could even have a greater escalation to full regional war just because Israel/America is pursuing hegemony in the Middle East. Even those of us in Africa who may feel far detached from the violence of the conflict will face dire economic consequences if the war escalates for a few more weeks.
It appears that Trump hoped that after murdering the Ayatollah, Iran would come to its knees and negotiate or basically acquiesce to whatever conditions America/Israel would table. That’s why immediately after bombing Iran initially, he lied to the media by claiming that “they want to talk”. But no, the Iranians are war-ready. They don’t want to talk. Their foreign minister has rightly said that whenever they entered negotiations, they would get bombed midway. So, it is clear that their adversaries simply want to pursue the “Clean Break doctrine” all the way through. There is no point in negotiating with such an adversary.
Trump’s appeal to Iranian fighters and citizens to topple their government and embrace the Americans/Israelis is also psychopathic. Who slaughters hundreds of children in a school, murders the head of state, bombs heritage sites of such a thousand-year-old civilisation – basically attempts to erase its cultural heritage – and then claims, “We love you. Topple your government and embrace us”?
So, how should Iranians embrace American leadership in this context? What examples do they have to look up to? Should they embrace American liberation in the hope of becoming a Libya, Sudan, Somalia, occupied Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, or Afghanistan? This whole American attitude of liberating people from their leaders is such a psychopathic delusion.
How does the United States find time to mass-murder people in the Middle East while running a budget deficit of 7% of GDP, while its infrastructure is broken, airports are dilapidated, escalators and elevators in major public buildings are rusting, thousands of homeless citizens rotting on streets, and with a government half shut down?! Is the price American citizens pay for their country’s quest for global hegemony worth it?
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The writer is a Ugandan thinking about Uganda.
