Except for a short period during its inception, when the Zionist state was backed by the USSR, on the basis that its terror campaign against British colonialism, in Palestine, was part of the global “anti-imperialist alliance”, the role of the Zionist state has been to act as a proxy for Western imperialism. The Zionist terrorists of the Irgun and Lehi, became the politicians and Ministers of the Zionist state. The terrorists that murdered British representatives, and blew up hotels, now sat down with representatives of the British and French states, in 1956, to plan the seizure of the Suez Canal.
The old European colonial powers, however, fell into a trap, much as did Saddam Hussein in 1990. Saddam had been assigned the role of US proxy against Iran, after the fall of the Shah, in 1979. His regime was provided with chemical and biological weapons (WMD) to use against Iran, as well as technical-military advice on how to best use them, by the US and Europe. But, after years of conflict, Iraq was unable to defeat Iran, despite all of this assistance. In 1990, as Iraq attempted to rebuild its economy, it, also, faced economic crisis. On the one hand, it had large debts to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, run up during the Iran-Iraq War, which they refused to cancel. On the other, the US and NATO was pressing OPEC to increase oil production to reduce global oil prices, as the 1980's period of stagnation dragged on, and as the USSR was sustained by its own global oil revenues. It was the subsequent fall in oil prices that put the final nail in the coffin of the USSR, and of Gorbachev's policies of détente and perestroika.
Iraq also saw the actions of other Gulf states as effectively “economic warfare” against it. That was exacerbated by the fact that Kuwait was “slant-drilling”, into Iraqi oil fields in Rumallah. In discussions with the US, Iraq was given the impression that the US was not concerned with disputes between Arab countries. Of course, once Iraq invaded Kuwait, that provided a basis for the US mobilising military forces behind it for its invasion of Iraq. Saddam had failed to be the US's effective proxy against Iran, and now paid the price. As the USSR collapsed, US imperialism, saw the possibility of forging new alliances in the Middle-East, with the oil rich Gulf states, especially as their petrodollars fed back into a developing financial market bubble that, eventually, led to the global financial crisis of 2008.
Similarly, in 1956, when Britain, France and Israel invaded Egypt, to seize the Suez Canal, they saw their erstwhile ally, the United States, condemn their actions. Richard Nixon, later explained,
"We couldn't on one hand, complain about the Soviets intervening in Hungary and, on the other hand, approve of the British and the French picking that particular time to intervene against Nasser".
That has echoes of today's hypocrisy of NATO's position in relation to Russia's invasion of Eastern Ukraine, as against its position in relation to Israel's invasion of its neighbours, and the US war against Iran. But, although Eisenhower, also, later, argued that if the US had supported the invasion of Egypt, it would have swung the Arabs behind the USSR, the real motivation was that US imperialism used this opportunity to assert its hegemony, to tell the old European colonial powers, “You do not start wars, unless we tell you,” and it, also, meant that it put the nail in the coffin of those old European colonial powers in the Middle-East, introducing US imperialism to them, as the new sheriff in town.
To the Zionist state, in Israel, it also conveyed that message loud and clear. Its future depended on acting as the Deputy to the US Sheriff.
No comments:
Post a Comment