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Plus
ça change, plus ça devient le même. French proverb In
his campaign, Donald Trump denounced indiscriminate immigration of Muslims and
Barack Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s presumed reluctance to confront the
Islamic State (ISIS), Iran, and jihadist terrorism more generally. Excited
Israeli patriots now await a tough line against jihadism in the Middle East
and elsewhere. They dare to imagine a great US policy turnaround: a
pro-Israeli Donald Trump. My
students and readers want to know what I make of him. Is he for real? Will
anything change? DEBKAfile researchers
say it will: “Not
much can be ascertained about President-elect Donald Trump’s administration
future policies for the Middle East – any more than for most other parts of
the world, except that his starting points are likely to be diametrically
opposed to those of Barack Obama.”[1] But
we must consider the hypothesis that nothing much will change, that all that sturm und drang was for show. For even
before being sworn in, Trump is already singing different tunes. El Financiero (Mexico) was reporting
in late Novemeber that Trump was already then, somewhat hurriedly, weakening
or dropping his campaign promises.[2]
What he said about the border wall, global warming, and having Hillary
Clinton tried—this was not, it seems, entirely serious.[3] And his
Middle East promises? Among other things, Trump promised to “dismantle” the US nuclear treaty with Iran,
echoing the criticisms made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when
he traveled to Washington to explain to Congress the danger to his country
and to the world. That agreement, he said, will allow Iran to become a
nuclear power. The
text of the treaty backs him up, for it frees up gigantic rivers of money for
Iran without imposing an adequate inspections regime or proper guarantees.[4] The facts: Iran has already received 100 billion dollars, and
when she violates the terms of the agreement nothing is done about it.[5] The damage is already done—thoroughly
done—even if Trump keeps his word and abolishes the treaty. But
now that Trump is president-elect, “Netanyahu isn’t looking to end the Iran
deal,” reports the Jerusalem Post.
“[H]e instead is looking for Trump to have a firm stance against Iran.”[6] Political grammar:
if the ‘tough hawk’ ‘Israeli patriot’ in the Iranian crosshairs can live with
the deal, Trump can back down. What
will the “firm stance against Iran” even mean, then? All sorts of pusillanimous proposals are being floated:
renegotiate some points, do more conscientious inspections, re-impose
sanctions to punish terrorist aggression. None of this will matter; it will
be a distraction. To halt the growing power of Iran in Western Asia, and
jihadism more generally, Trump will have to have a real face-off. What
is the probability of that? That is not the subject of this article. We are
interested here in the following question: How can we evaluate what direction
Trump is going in? We
will hear, no doubt, lots of anti-Iranian rhetoric, denunciations of jihadist
extremism galore, and the obligated homilies about supposed US support for
Israel. We hear it every time. But perhaps we should ask ourselves: What cold
and hard foreign policy facts will be consistent with a true anti-jihadist
and pro-Israel push? We
shan’t demand that Trump defeat jihadism. Simply that “his starting points”
be “diametrically opposed to those of Barack Obama.” In which case he should
implement, at bare minimum, the following policies: 1) no more weapons for the jihadists; 2) support for the Rojava Revolution; and 3) no to the ‘Two State Solution,’ and yes to exposing the ties
that bind PLO/Fatah (the
‘Palestinian Authority’) and Iran. No more weapons for jihadists During
his presidential campaign, Trump accused Obama and his ex-Secretary of State
Clinton for the emergence of the Islamic State (ISIS). He was right about
this. It
has been amply documented that the Islamic State emerged from the US military
prisons in Iraq, whose custodians, so obliging to the jihadists, made them
lords of prison social life. There jihadists could recruit (by force, when
necessary) and teach, using blackboards, the principles of jihad, how to make
a bomb, and how to overcome fear to become a suicide bomber. The very general
in charge called his prison system “jihadi university.” After
5 years of this (a bachelor’s degree), US authorities dismantled the system
and… they let everybody go! Then came the Islamic State. All of its main
leaders, including ‘caliph’ Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, are graduates of this
“jihadi university.” If that were not enough, after causing a civil war in
Syria, the Islamic State received US-trained personnel and armament when the
Syrian ‘rebels’ favored by the US government joined ISIS en masse.
If the Trump administration were to dry the channels that
convey arms and training to the jihadists, that would signal a real change in
policy. If, on the contrary, jihadists continue to be replenished by the
United States and its allies, we will know there is continuity. Support
the Rojava Revolution The great hope to reverse the jihadist trend is the Rojava
Revolution, a multi-ethnic movement led by the Kurds in northern Syria, who
are allied politically with the beleaguered Kurds of the PKK in Turkey,
against whom Recep Tayyip Erdogan has launched a war of ethnic cleansing. The
Rojavans have made impressive gains against the Islamic State despite
fighting virtually alone while suffering Turkish bombs.
These Kurds and their Arab and other ethnic allies are almost
all Muslim. They believe in popular democratic participation, gender
equality, religious freedom, ethnic tolerance, and environmental
sustainability. They protect, and bring into the democratic process, all
ethnic and religious minorities in northern Syria. If they succeed, they will
become a beacon of hope, empowering moderate Muslims all over the world to
defend the democratic alternative. Therefore, should Trump make a major push to mobilize US symbolic
and military resources in favor of the Rojavans, creating an ideological and
political oasis for freedom-loving Muslims, and strengthening the Islamic
State’s nemesis, we would have a policy that is truly consistent with his
public protestations against jihadism. It would be a geopolitical
masterstroke not only for peace in the Middle East, but for the defense of
the West. If, by contrast, an important effort to assist the Rojavan movement
is not made, we will have to ask ourselves in what sense Trump’s government
is opposed to jihadism, really. No to the ‘Two State Solution’; yes to exposing the ties that
bind PLO/Fatah (the ‘Palestinian
Authority’) and Iran Since
Ruhollah Khomeini to this day, the Iranian ayatollahs have promised to
exterminate the Israeli Jews.[9] It
follows that if Trump is really with Israel against Iran then he cannot favor
an Iranian policy in Israel. He should therefore oppose
that PLO/Fatah (better known today
as the ‘Palestinian Authority’) be given a state in Judea and Samaria. Why?
Because PLO/Fatah created the
theocratic Iranian state of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. You read correctly. Nobody
remembers this. I saw this for myself 3 years ago when I traveled to Israel
for a brief political-anthropology tour to understand better the Israeli
patriots—the ‘right-wingers,’ as they are called. Not even these people, the
most worried about Israeli security, can remember something that was on the
front page of the New York Times in
1979: PLO/Fatah armed and trained
Khomeini’s guerillas. After
the Islamic Revolution, PLO/Fatah functioned
for a while as Khomeini’s de facto foreign ministry, and it
helped to create SAVAMA, the Iranian secret police, and the Revolutionary
Guard. The latter 1) protects the
regime; 2) exports Iranian
terrorism all over the world; and 3)
created Hezbollah, the terrorist militia dedicated to the destruction of
Israel. This was
all reported in the main newspapers between 1979 and 1981. Why can’t anybody
remember it? Because our relationship to the world is mediated, and the media ceased making any mention of this a long
time ago.
But anyone willing to invest 5 minutes will discover online an
abundance of images of Yasser Arafat celebrating the Islamic Revolution with
Khomeini in Teheran. He and Mahmoud Abbas—his longtime partner and PLO/Fatah co-leader—were the first
international dignitaries who, immediately after the coup, alighted in
Teheran for the festivities. The Iranian masses received
Yasser Arafat like they would a messiah, and they competed to
snatch the scarf on his head (keffiyeh)
in hopes of treasuring it as a relic. While Khomeini and his son announced that Iran’s priority
would be ‘Palestine,’ Abbas explained to the Arab reporters in Teheran his
‘Plan of Phases.’ PLO/Fatah would
promise peace in order to gain a piece of Israeli territory (first phase),
and then they would proceed, with the help of Iran, to destroy Israel (second
phase). Now they call it the ‘Peace Process.’ Nothing has changed. In August 2015, while Obama prepared the
nuclear agreement with Iran, the official Iranian press reported a fact that
the New York Times did not bother
to share with Western audiences: PLO/Fatah
and Iran renovated their vows with a “deal for all-out cooperation.”[11] What can Trump do? In democratic politics you can only do those things which the
population can understand. And in politics, as in language, if
something is not grammatical it becomes difficult to understand.
For many, to hear that PLO/Fatah
must be removed from Israeli soil is like hearing some kind of sacrilege.
After hearing this they will say: “What nonsense! Didn’t they tell us that
the world’s geopolitical health hinges on concluding the Peace Process with a
state for the Palestinian Authority?” Yes, they did tell us that. So it
follows that, for someone who sees the world like that, to remove PLO/Fatah from Israel is not a
‘grammatical’ idea; in other words, it is not a ‘politically correct’ decision. Can it become grammatical?
Well sure, but only if the true PLO/Fatah—the
true ‘Palestinian Authority’—first becomes well known to all. Who could be the one to educate the public? Why Trump. If Trump really is the
enemy of Iran and the friend of Israel that he so histrionically claims to
be, then he can, perched on his new podium, holding his world megaphone, make
known the relationship between PLO/Fatah
and Iran. He can, by showcasing the evidence, explain that PLO/Fatah, allied with Iran, proposes to
turn the entire Palestinian Arab population into a suicide bomber to
exterminate the Israeli Jewish people. Once everybody understands this, PLO/Fatah’s prestige will have been destroyed. Then Trump can propose
that the genocidal instrument of Iran, and oppressor of the Palestinian
Arabs, PLO/Fatah, be removed from
Israel. When you say it like that it’s grammatical. It computes. And in this
manner a true solution to the conflict may be found.
In the blink of an eye, then, Trump can protect the Muslim and
Jewish populations of the Middle East, jump-start a serious defense of the
West, and turn around the chess game of world geopolitics. That—in
principle—is the power of the president of the United States. What can we expect? We suspect that, though the discourse will
be different, Trump’s policies in the Middle East will be quite similar to
Obama’s. We shall explain this suspicion in our following article.
[1] “Who’s afraid of Donald Trump in the Middle East?”;
DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis;
December 19, 2016, 4:50 PM (IDT) NOTA:
Many readers of DEBKAfile believe
they are reading ‘alternative’ and ‘independent’ research. In fact, the editors of DEBKA, Giora
Shamis and Diane Shalem, for 23 years, were the voice of the Economist on
matters Middle Eastern. There is nothing more Establishment and mainstream tan the Economist,
unless we speak of the New York Times. [2] “Trump se retracta
de sus polémicas promesas”; El
Financiero; 23 noviembre 2016; p.38 [3] The big concrete ‘wall’ that was
supposed to rise on our common border, it seems, will be a wire-mesh fence.(a) Expect further reductions. Perhaps
‘serious study’ will discover that some areas hardly need a fence at all.
After ‘further study,’ those areas will grow. In
California, in any case, it seems they will not allow it. Climate
change, a “hoax” while the campaign lasted, has suddenly acquired substance.
Now Trump keeps an “open mind.” And to New
York Times editors he “was also reported to have affirmed that human
activity and global warming may be linked. ‘I think there is some
connectivity [sic],’ he
said. ‘Some, something. It depends on how much.’ ”(b) Soon after this he sat down for a chat with Al Gore, world
Messiah of climate catastrophism, and Gore seemed quite pleased with the
result.(c) Ever
the consummate—and gallant!—gentleman, the gracious winner alert to a lady’s
feelings, Trump has naturally renounced his campaign promise to prosecute
Hillary Clinton and “lock her up!” He told New York Times reporters that Clinton has “ ‘suffered greatly’ ”;
prosecuting her is “ ‘just not something that I feel very strongly about.’ ”(c) SOURCES: (a) “Donald Trump Says His Wall With Mexico Could Be a Fence
‘For Certain Areas’ ”; Wall Street Journal;
13 Nov 2016; by Yuka Hayashi. (b) “Trump shifts stance on climate change: President-elect
says he's willing to keep an ‘open mind’ about Paris climate deal”;
CBC NEWS; 24 November 2016; by Associated
Press (c) “Al Gore just had ‘an extremely interesting conversation’ with Trump on climate change”; Washington Post; 5 December 2016; By Juliet Eilperin and Jenna Johnson (d) “Trump flips, now opposes prosecution for Clinton”;
CNN Politics; 23 November 2016; by
David Wright and Z. Byron Wolf. [4] For a thorough analysis of the deficiencies
of the Iran nuclear deal, which links to the text of the agreement itself,
see: “A Bad Deal”; Times of Israel; August 2, 2015; by Nevet Basker. [5] “President Trump and the Iran Nuclear Deal”; Foreign Policy; November 16, 2016; By Eric B. Lorber [6] “Netanyahu to urge Trump to ‘tighten noose’ on Iran, not scrap nuke
deal”; Jerusalem Post; 18 November 2016 [7] “NOW YOU
SEE IT...: Just where did ISIS come from?”; Historical and Investigative Research; 23 Nov 2015; by Francisco
Gil-White [8] “These Muslims are democrats, so why isn’t the west
helping?”; from THE ROJAVA REVOLUTION; Historical and Investigative Research; 28 March 2016; by Francisco
Gil-White [9] “Netanyahu: Iran’s Ayatollah Tweets That Israel Must Be Destroyed”; CNSNEWS.com; March 3, 2015 - 12:15 PM; by Melanie Hunter [10]
“PLO/Fatah
and Iran: The Special Relationship”;
Historical and Investigative Research;
25 May 2010; 8 September 2010; by Francisco Gil-White [11] “PLO figure:
Iran, Palestine in deal for all-out cooperation”; IRNA; 11 August
2015. |
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