di Akiva Eldar. - Ha'aretz, 17 febbraio 2003
The sigh of relief that arose from the throats of opponents of war with Iraq
following Hans Blix's report to the United Nations was premature. And the joy
expressed by supporters of the peace process over Yasser Arafat's announcement
that he will appoint a prime minister was exaggerated. The shapers of the U.S.
administration's policy who, in the end, will determine the fate of the Middle
East, decided years ago to change the face of the region.
Their vision does not include an arms-control agreement with Iraq - an
alternative to toppling Saddam Hussein. It also has no place for restarting the
Oslo process - as an alternative to getting rid of Arafat.
They do not need a "smoking gun" to prove the existence of Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction or the connection between Saddam and Osama bin Laden.
Their vision was not born on September 11, 2001, and did not expire on February
14, 2003. If it were up to them, Ariel Sharon would long since have been allowed
to exile the Palestinian Authority's leadership.
The current shapers of American policy have never hidden their opinions and
plans.
Everything is written in black and white, in letter and position papers that
they have sent over the years to decision-makers in the administration and
Congress. Two of their names also appear on a memorandum submitted by the
Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies to Benjamin Netanyahu,
after he was elected prime minister in the spring of 1996.
The neo-conservative strategists, Richard Perle, today head of the Pentagon's
advisory committee, and Doug Feith, currently undersecretary of defense, signed
onto the following sentence: "Since Iraq's future could affect the strategic
balance in the Middle East profoundly, it would be understandable that Israel
has an interest in supporting the Hashemites in their efforts to redefine Iraq."
The document continued: "Israel can shape its strategic environment, in
cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing and even rolling
back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in
Iraq."
On June 3, 1997, a group of Republicans signed a "statement of principles"
criticizing the "incoherent" foreign and defense policies of the Clinton
administration. The signatories included Dick Cheney (currently America's
vice-president), Donald Rumsfeld (the current secretary of defense), Paul
Wolfowitz (today deputy secretary of defense), Governor Jeb Bush (brother of
President George W. Bush) and Elliot Abrams (current head of the National
Security Council's department for Middle East affairs.)
The statement's authors urged the president "to meet threats before they become
dire" and to challenge regimes that are hostile to American values and interests
(all those who complain that the Europeans' opposition to war with Iraq is
merely due to their "interests" please take note).
The statement continued: "We need to accept responsibility for America's unique
role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security,
our prosperity and our principles" (America's security and prosperity - not "those
of the free world," for example).
After they gave up on Clinton, this same group wrote to the Republican
leadership of Congress and declared that only the overthrow of Saddam and his
regime would eliminate the Iraqi threat. Even then, three years before the
terror attacks in the heart of the United States and the creation of the "axis
of evil," they urged the "democratization of Iraq."
Another letter signed by Perle and dated September 20, 2001, nine days after the
attacks, urged Bush to replace Saddam with members of the Iraqi opposition, "even
if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack." But in a letter dated
April 3, 2002, one of the reasons Perle gives for overthrowing Saddam is that
Iraq maintains ties with al-Qaida.
To remove any doubt that this security lobby does not need a "smoking gun" in
order to open fire, here is a key sentence from the memorandum that Netanyahu
received: Israel, it said, must make a "clean break from the slogan,
`comprehensive peace,' to a traditional concept of strategy based on balance of
power." And as if for the benefit of those Israelis who hope that after Bush
realizes his "Iraqi dream," his policy-makers will convince him to impose order
on Israel's relations with its neighbors, the memorandum details what that
balance of power entails: "`peace for peace,' `peace through strength' and self
reliance."