Netanyahu Takes Away Trump’s Off-ramp
Paul Craig Roberts
I have concluded that there is no government on Earth involved in major events that is based in reality. Let’s begin with Israel, Washington, Iran, Russia, China.
Israel’s unrealism is the Zionist agenda of Greater Israel–Israel from the Nile in Egypt to Pakistan, the entirety of the Muslim Middle East. This agenda is the driver of the current Israeli-American war against Iran, with Turkey, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia waiting in the wings. Israel has already successfully used Washington to destroy Libya, Iraq, and Syria as functioning Arab states. The Middle East is a large area comprising many people. Israel is tiny with a small population and has no possibility of occupying and controlling such a large area as the Middle East. Yet the Zionist agenda is the predominant goal of the Israeli government. No one in Washington, Europe, Russia, India, China, and the Middle East comprehends that as long as Greater Israel is the Zionist agenda peace is totally impossible in the Middle East. Yet, no government, not even Iran, is sufficiently grounded in reality to see this glaring fact and propose negotiating away Israel’s commitment to Greater Israel. Instead, negotiations are focused on negotiating away Iran’s right to enrich uranium and to manufacture missiles. Such negotiations do nothing to deter Israeli aggression. They make Israeli aggression easier.
Iran’s unrealism is the belief as evidenced by Iran’s 10-point program that peace can be obtained without addressing the Zionist agenda. Iran believes that if the 10 points are accepted and enforced, peace will be the consequence. Yet Iran’s 10 points make no reference to the Zionist agenda of Greater Israel, expressed by America’s Zionist neoconservatives as seven countries destroyed for Israel in five years. Clearly, the Iranian government has no understanding that peace in the Middle East depends on one thing and one thing only–Israel’s abandonment of the Zionist agenda.
The Gulf states, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia share Iran’s lack of realism about Greater Israel. The Middle East has never united against the Israeli threat and has been content to be knocked off one by one. The stupid Gulf states have even allied with Israeli-America against their fellow Muslims.
Putin’s unrealism is his inability to understand that “the root cause of the conflict” is not the absence of a mutual security agreement with the West but Washington’s hegemonic agenda. Just as Israel pursues hegemony in the Middle East, Washington pursues hegemony over the world. Washington’s agenda is no more realistic than Israel’s, but the Wolfowitz Doctrine is nevertheless the operative factor in American foreign policy. Putin does not comprehend that when he negotiates with Washington, he is negotiating with American hegemony. Trump has not renounced American hegemony. He recently extended American hegemony to Iran, the Hormuz Strait, Venezuela, Greenland, and Cuba. He enforces American hegemony over Russia with sanctions and over China with threats of sanctions, tariffs, and trouble with Taiwan.
China’s unrealism is Xi’s belief that with a policy of non-involvement China can outlast its adversaries. Xi has gone so far as to purge the Chinese military of all officers who would fight for China and to replace them with politicians who will be guided by Xi’s delusions, not by military realities. This has made China a useless ally for Russia and Iran. The failure of the three countries to form a mutual security treaty has left each isolated and thus an easier target for American hegemony. Iran alone among the three countries is willing to fight.
Washington’s unreality is that negligence of US sovereignty has permitted Israel to send America to war in the Middle East for the first quarter of the 21st century at a cost of trillions of dollars and many American lives. Israeli influence in the US is predominant in finance, media, universities, and entertainment where Americans imbibe a Zionist worldview. Many Americans, as evidenced by “Christian Zionists,” conservatives with their slogan that “you can’t be an American if you don’t love Israel,” and the US Congress’ submission to every Israeli demand, are more Israeli than American.
Iran does not understand that it is not at war with America. America is merely a proxy for Israel. Iran is at war with Greater Israel. Thus, Iran’s 10-point program is worthless as it does not address the Zionist agenda. Iran’s 10-points served Trump, not Iran. It provided Trump with an off-ramp before he had to renege on his vow to extinguish Iranian civilization.
Iran is celebrating “a historic victory as Trump accepts 10-point plan.” But Trump did not accept the Iranian plan. He said he accepted it as a basis for negotiations, the same thing he has told the Russians time and again. The victory in the short-run is Trump’s, not Iran’s. Iran vowed it would not accept a ceasefire, but Iran has.
Actually, there is no ceasefire. Israel promptly bombed civilian residential districts in a Christian city in Lebanon, killing and wounding some 2,000 civilians. Iran promptly announced that the Strait was again closed.
Clearly Netanyahu intends Iran’s destruction, not peace. Trump will have to fight Netanyahu for his off-ramp. Iran says the ceasefire included Lebanon. Israel and US vice president Vance says it doesn’t. Whether he realizes it or not, Vance has given Netanyahu a green light to continue the attack on Lebanon. If Iran adjusts its 10 points to the Vance-Netanyahu interpretation, Iran will be entering negotiations having already given up one of its 10 points. As there is no ceasefire, can there be negotiations? If not, where is Trump’s off-ramp?
The disregard that Netanyahu has demonstrated for America’s president is an indication that Netanyahu is confident that, as Israeli prime ministers have said, “Israel controls America.” Unless Trump breaks Israel’s control over America, it seems we will be mired in war with Iran.