Dump Condi: Foreign policy conservatives charge State Dept. has hijacked Bush agenda

The warmongers are furious. They had their plans and now certain people are ruining them and they are not ready to accept defeat.

The plan was that Israel was to invade Lebanon with such reckless abandon that, hopefully, Syria or Iran would intervene giving the warmongers their long dreamed of wider Middle Eastern war.

Indeed, as I pointed out in a recent post, the secret wish of the extreme right for this wider conflict was shown in Victor Davis Hanson's solemn plea:

Why do not Iran and Syria — or for that matter other Arab states — now attack Israel to join the terrorists that they have armed?

You can almost hear the desperate disappointment in his voice .

Now neo-conservatives such as Newt Gingrich and Richard Perle have decided who they are going to blame for "reversing the administration’s national security and foreign policy agenda."

They are calling on Bush to fire Condaleezza Rice for incompetence.

The conservatives, who include Newt Gingrich, Richard Perle and leading current and former members of the Pentagon and National Security Council, have urged the president to transfer Miss Rice out of the State Department and to an advisory role. They said Miss Rice, stemming from her lack of understanding of the Middle East, has misled the president on Iran and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

"The president has yet to understand that people make policy and not the other way around," a senior national security policy analyst said. "Unlike [former Secretary of State Colin] Powell, Condi is loyal to the president. She is just incompetent on most foreign policy issues."

Now what can Rice have done to be deserving of such wrath from these nutcases? After all she has refused to criticise Israel and certainly, as I pointed out yesterday, she gave Israel so much time to complete whatever it may have wanted to do in Lebanon that she'd have been quicker getting to the Middle East on a pogo stick.

"North Korea firing missiles," Mr. Gingrich said. "You say there will be consequences. There are none. We are in the early stages of World War III. Our bureaucracies are not responding fast enough. We don't have the right attitude."

Perhaps Miss Rice is unaware that we are in the middle of WWIII, though to be fair to her not many of us have ever been told that we are in such a conflict, so you'll have to cut Rice a little slack there.

It is left to Richard Perle, the Prince of Darkness, to spell out the real sin that Rice - and by implication, Bush - has committed.

The failure of successive U.S. administrations, including this one, to give moral and political support to the (Iranian) regime's opponents is a tragedy.

By which he means Israel. The fury can surely only be because Rice has now arrived in the Middle East and the shooting match they have been enjoying so much will eventually be brought to an end before the great battle against Iran can even commence. This fact infuriates the nutbags of the far right.

Of course, with the US forces tied up in Iraq any idea of a war with Iran, as any sensible person could tell you, is solely for fantasists.

However, these dangerous fantasists surround Bush, and their dream is of an all out Middle East war - leaving Israel at the top of the pile - and they are hoping to use US military might to pull it off.

They have been scheming and planning this for decades and they are furious that, with it seeming so tantalisingly close, it about to be snatched away from them.

Although there have, indeed, been hints that they have been planning this for decades, for anyone to have suggested they wanted the US to fight a war for Israel would have instantly been dismissed as anti-Semitic nonsense. However, all that changed when William Kristol made his soon to be infamous remarks, that Israel's wars are the US's wars too.

This was an astonishing comment. Thanks to the US, Israel possesses the world's fourth largest army. The idea that they need the US to fight their wars would baffle most Americans and force them to ask why they give Israel $6 billion a year in aid. Surely that was to equip Israel to fend off any foes?

However, the logic employed by most of us misunderstands the neo-con way of thinking. They essentially see no difference between the well being of Israel and the well being of the United States. To them they are the same.

Indeed, Wurmser, Perle and Feith were the principal authors of the 1996 100-day policy plan for incoming Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. None ever registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act for this work.

Perle has even transmitted classified information to the Israelis, proving that he sees no essential difference between the security needs of the US and the security needs of Israel. To him, as to all neo-cons, they are the same.

"An FBI summary of a 1970 wiretap recorded Perle discussing classified information with someone at the Israeli embassy."

In Bush, the neo-cons thought they had finally found the man who would allow them to unleash US and Israeli forces towards Israel's enemies in the Middle East.

And they thought now was the time. A glance at this site tells us that over at the Rapture Ready Forum they were so excited about the coming conflict that they were preparing to meet the Lord.

The neo-cons have not yet given up on Bush, so the blame must belong at Rice's door, hence the calls for her to be fired.

The idea of young Americans laying down their lives for the citizens of another nation would appal most Americans, who believe their troops should only risk their lives when their country faces maximum danger.

But that's because most Americans, whilst supporting Israel, recognise that Israelis are not Americans. The neo-cons do not make this distinction.

And having sent US troops into Iraq based on a set of lies, why should we suppose that they wouldn't send them to fight their great war in the Middle East for Israel? They never cared about whether the troops needed to be employed in Iraq, they were simply determined that Saddam would be overthrown and, if we lost troops, that was the price we had to pay. Indeed, Perle, especially, has never shown any concern for US troops.

When discussing his new book "Battle Ready" co-authored with retired general Anthony Zinni, author Tom Clancy stated that he almost came to blows with Perle. According to Clancy:

"He was saying how (Secretary of State) Colin Powell was being a wuss because he was overly concerned with the lives of the troops," Clancy said. "And I said, 'Look ..., he's supposed to think that way!' And Perle didn't agree with me on that. People like that worry me.

Perle's attitudes are typical of the "chickenhawks" who make up the neo-cons. These are people desperate to send the sons and daughters of America's poor into battle zones and yet, they themselves, when the opportunity presented itself to them in their youth, avoided combat.

But their hypocrisy doesn't stop there. These men claim to believe in God. Whether they are Jews or Christians, they claim to believe in a Higher Being and to live by his teachings.

And yet they are salivating to send young men and women into war and calling for the dismissal of anyone who they perceive to be standing in their way.

All of us must now stand in their way. William Kristol overplayed his hand when he claimed Israel's wars were the wars of the USA. They can no longer brand anyone who opposes what they are proposing as anti-Semitic.

Israel's wars are not the US's wars. And the neo-cons are being unpatriotic when they claim that they are. American soldiers should only ever die defending American causes. Anyone who argues otherwise is a traitor.

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Tags: Perle, Rice, Middle East, Israel, Iran, neo-con, neo-cons, Iran, war,