Cliff Kincaid
When the “conservative” media are not debating the antics of Taylor Swift, Bill Maher and Saturday Night Live, they are demanding that Joe Biden further deepen U.S. military involvement in the Middle East. “Biden Faces pressure to Respond Forcibly to Iran” is a constant headline on Fox.
As if the drumbeat for an escalation of Biden’s war with Iran is not enough to completely depress the American people, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is negotiating a Biden “border deal” that can easily be accomplished by Biden alone, by returning to Trump policies. McConnell would rather give Biden a political victory with a bogus bill than demand that Biden fulfill his legal and constitutional responsibility to protect American sovereignty.
At the same time, McConnell is demanding more war in the Middle East, declaring that the United States must impose “serious, crippling costs – not only on front-line terrorist proxies, but on their Iranian sponsors who wear American blood as a badge of honor.”
McConnell knows that Congress has failed to pass a Declaration of War to justify any such action. Senator Tom Cotton knows this as well. Yet he goes on Fox to demand that Biden launch military attacks on Iran without congressional approval.
This unfolding disaster is another example of how the United States tries to manipulate various Muslim terrorist groups and regimes fighting one another, with the result being more dead and wounded American soldiers. Israel is the only Middle East country than has a democracy, and we had better understand that basic fact.
Five Americans have already died during Biden’s war with Iran and dozens have been wounded. More carnage is on the way and nothing will be accomplished as a result of further American intervention under this president.
The typical U.S. response is to play into Russia’s hands by supporting one Marxist terrorist group over another. Hence, Biden wants Israel to accept a Palestinian state that can openly import weapons from Russia, China, and Iran. Both Hamas and Fatah (the Palestinian Authority) depend on Moscow for support. Such a policy is suicide for the state of Israel.
Biden’s approach is a continuation of Barack Hussein Obama’s disastrous policies. Obama supported Al Qaeda in Libya, leading to the Benghazi massacre, and then armed the Marxist terrorist PKK/YPG Kurdish forces in Syria fighting Islamic Turkey, a NATO member.
Consider the current crisis being manufactured by the Biden administration so that Biden can look like a tough war-time president, rally the American people, and save his presidency while U.S. soldiers become cannon fodder in that effort.
The Reuters news agency has run a story, “What Is Tower 22, Site of the Attack on US Troops in Jordan?” We learn that it was a support base for the Al Tanf garrison, which is located across the border in Syria, and which houses a small number of U.S. troops. “Tanf had been key in the fight against Islamic State [ISIS],” the story explains.
We learn from other sources, such as the Wall Street Journal and CNN, that the Biden administration “secretly warned Iran that ISIS was planning a potential terror attack inside Iran's borders” before the group carried out its attack near the burial site of slain military commander Qasem Soleimani on January 3.
But Esmail Qaani, the head of IRGC Qods Force, blamed “bloodthirsty criminals” encouraged by “the US and Zionists.”
If the U.S. secretly warned Iran about the attack in advance, you cannot expect the State Department to admit it, since an Iranian-backed group has responded with an attack on a U.S. base supposedly monitoring and battling ISIS.
Based on the leaks to the Wall Street Journal and CNN, the U.S. base has been used to collect intelligence to protect Iran. That means his illegal war constitutes a treasonous and impeachable offense.
In effect, if the stories are true, the U.S. is defending Iran while Iran kills our troops.
On January 25, the Biden State Department was asked about this:
QUESTION: According to the report by Wall Street Journal, the U.S. warned about the recent attack in Iran and shared information with the Iranian government. Does this imply intelligence cooperation between the U.S. and IRGC?
MR. VEDANT PATEL, U.S. State Department spokesman: "I don’t have any comment or any public assessment to offer on that time. Again, we – based on all the information that was available, we do believe that that terrorist attack in Kerman was a terrorist attack. It had all the hallmarks of an ISIS attack, and we reiterate our sympathy for the victims and their loved ones."
Yet, the victims of of this approach are American troops and their loved ones.
There is another analysis of what happened, which also helps explain why the Iranian regime blames Israel and America.
The website known as Iran International Newsroom reports, “Thousands of Iranians on social media have claimed the attack was organized by the Islamic Republic itself in an attempt to further its domestic and foreign policies.” These Iranians cite the absence of Soleimani’s family members and high-ranking political and military officials at Qasem Soleimani's tomb during the terrorist attack.
This makes sense. Russia’s Putin used the same strategy when the KGB in 1999 staged a series of bombings of Russian apartment buildings, killing ordinary Russians and blaming it on Muslims, as the KGB solidified its control of the regime and rallied the Russian people behind it.
The only sensible U.S. policy in the Middle East is to support Israel, in the same way Nixon supplied Israel the weapons it needed to survive and win the 1973 war with the Arab states. The Soviet Union supported the anti-Israel side.
Red Jihad: Moscow’s Final Solution for America and Israel is a 2016 book from America’s Survival, Inc. that examines Soviet/Russian strategy. Nothing in the Middle East makes sense unless you analyze how many of the Arab/Muslim states and the Muslim terrorist groups are Marxist in orientation and based on the concept of “liberation” from the West.
Consider that President Jimmy Carter abandoned the Shah of Iran, leading to the takeover by the Russian-supported terrorists now running the country and on the verge of acquiring a nuclear weapon. The only “alternative” to the regime is the MEK, or Mujahideen-e Khalq of Iran, a Marxist-oriented Islamic opposition group run by a Muslim feminist. Some Republicans support this communist outfit.
To understand how the Russians benefit from U.S. involvement in the Middle East, remember that Obama’s CIA had set up the YPG, a front of the Communist terrorist PPK, and then integrated that outfit into another front, the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). This was supposedly an alternative to the pro-Russian Assad regime.
In the end, Obama’s legacy was up to 500,000 dead in Syria, Libya became a disaster, and Germany, under Angela Merkel, welcomed a Muslim invasion of Europe.
The PBS Newshour ran an interview with Obama’s CIA Director, John Brennan, in 2017 in which he called the outcome “regrettable.” It only benefitted Russia.
On what legal orconstitutional basis did Obama take America to war in Syria anyway?
When Trump shut down Obama's illegal and costly secret war in Syria, it was big news, as the New York Times acknowledged in an August 2017 story, “Behind the Sudden Death of a $1 Billion Secret C.I.A. War in Syria.” The paper said Trump ended the $1 billion program, after reports surfaced that some of the CIA-supplied weapons had somehow “ended up in the hands” of Al Qaeda.
The Obama-Biden policies do not benefit the United States and Trump wisely reversed them. If they are not reversed again, we can anticipate more disabled American veterans, if they are able to avoid losing their lives during Biden’s re-election campaign.
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.