by Paul Craig Roberts
“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” If neoconservatives have their way, Americans will soon be repeating this refrain.
The identical lies used to deceive Americans about Iraq are now being recycled to justify invading Syria and Iran.
Before exploring this fact, first understand that there is nothing conservative about neoconservatives. Neocons hide behind “conservative” but they are in fact Jacobins.
Jacobins were the 18th century French revolutionaries whose intention to remake Europe in revolutionary France’s image launched the Napoleonic Wars.
In an outstanding article, “The Ideology of American Empire,” in the current issue of Orbis, Professor Claes Ryn conclusively shows that neocons are, in truth, neo-Jacobins. More dangerous an enemy of the US and its traditional values than Muslims, neo-Jacobins have seized control of the Bush presidency and US foreign policy. They will stop at nothing to achieve their goal of World War IV in the Middle East.
It is now absolutely certain that the American public and President Bush were bamboozled into invading Iraq by Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, Undersecretary of State John Bolton, an unsavory assortment of lesser neo-Jacobin notables who inhabit the higher reaches of the Bush administration, and their neo-Jacobin allies in the Likud Party controlled media in New York City and Washington DC.
On September 17 President Bush confessed his folly: “We’ve had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in September 11.” Yet according to polls, a majority of Americans still believe that Iraq was responsible for the destruction of the World Trade Center. Whose propaganda led Americans to this utterly mistaken belief?
An extensive search in Iraq has failed to turn up any evidence of any weapons of mass destruction, much less nuclear weapons. The image of “mushroom clouds going up over American cities,” which was used to panic Congress into accepting an invasion of Iraq, has turned out to be – as every expert knew at the time – nothing but propaganda worthy of Heinrich Himmler and Paul Joseph Goebbles. The fabrications about Iraq’s intentions toward the US rival Hitler’s declaration that Poland had attacked Germany.
Consider the implications if Saddam Hussein really had possessed WMD – especially ones that could be deployed in 45 minutes as asserted by British Prime Minister Tony Blair: the entire US-British invasion force, concentrated in a tiny area of Kuwait, could have been destroyed by one or two weapons. If Bush really believed Iraq had WMD, he was criminally negligent for making sitting ducks out of our troops.
Senator Ted Kennedy is correct when he said on September 18 that the case against Iraq was “a fraud” made up to give Republicans a political boost. As much as I hate to admit it, the evidence is on Senator Kennedy’s side.
However, being caught red-handed in fraud does not deter neo-Jacobins with an agenda. Clutching firmly to their propaganda that Iraqis are desperate to shower US troops with flowers and kisses but are prevented by dead-enders among the Saddam Hussein remnants, neo-Jacobins now agitate for invading Syria and Iran.
On September 16, Undersecretary of State John Bolton in testimony before Congress declared Syria to be a “rogue state” armed with weapons of mass destruction and called for “regime change.”
On September 17, Assistant Secretary of State Paula DeSutter testified to Congress that Iran has the ability to launch missiles with biological warheads and that Iran’s nuclear program is a genuine threat both to the Middle East and the US.
On September 19, Paul Bremer, head of the US occupation government in Iraq, suggested in an interview with The Telegraph (UK) that Iran was involved in the bombings and killings of occupational forces in Iraq, echoing neo-Jacobin Michael Ladeen’s assertion that the US cannot win in Iraq unless it overthrows Iran.
Here we go again. The same propaganda. Only the targets are new.
Where will the troops come from to invade Iran and Syria?
It is now widely known that we have insufficient forces to pacify Iraq. The US government has been forced to dishonor its contract with the reserves and National Guard by forcing these weekend soldiers to stand in for regular army troops.
Not even billions of dollars have sufficed to bribe other governments to send their soldiers to Iraq. Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the US commander of our occupation army in Iraq, said on September 18 that in order to protect his troops, he would consider pulling his forces out of major Iraqi cities the moment Iraqi security forces were prepared to take control.
Yet, President Bush’s anti-Arab policymakers want to greatly multiply the attacks on our troops by inserting them into Syria and Iran!
Are the neo-Jacobins in charge of the US government totally delusional? Are they totally disconnected from reality? Or is this more fraud to start two more wars before the American public wakes up to the neo-Jacobin agenda?
The neo-Jacobins are rushing to get America involved in a general Middle Eastern war before Americans have time to think. The terrorist scare which worked the first time is being employed again. Once we have attacked other sovereign Islamic countries, we will have to bring back the draft in order to raise the necessary armies or resort to nuclear weapons.
If the American public falls for the second round of neo-Jacobin propaganda, neither do they deserve, nor will they have, liberty and democracy.
The only weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East are Israel’s 200 nuclear warheads. Israel has the real thing, not a mere desire for a program that might produce a weapon in the future.
It is Israel – not Iran – who has refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
It is Israel that occupies by force of arms parts of Syria and Palestine. Arabs do not occupy Israeli territory.
It is Israel that treats Palestinians the way National Socialists treated Jews by bottling them up in ghettos and assassinating them at will.
On September 18 President Bush declared: “Arafat has failed as a leader.” What Bush means is that Arafat, unlike Bush, has failed to carry out Israel’s orders. Arafat’s support in Palestine far exceeds Bush’s support in the US or Sharon’s support in Israel.
Every day the Israelis bite off another piece of Palestine. Arafat is a “failed leader” because he has not led Palestinians off into the wilderness for 40 years, the better to deliver Palestine up to Israel.
The root of the Middle Eastern problem is Israel’s uncanny ability to manipulate American public opinion and US foreign policy. This unique power means Israel doesn’t have to compromise. Instead, the Israelis escalate and involve us ever more deeply and one-sidedly in their disputes with Arabs.
The inability of the US to impose an evenhanded settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the breeding ground of terrorists.
The US invasion of Iraq has bred more terrorists.
Bush’s neo-Jacobins will not be content until they have 600 million enraged Muslims at our throats.
How did maniacs dead set on World War IV get in control of the US government?
September 20, 2003
Dr. Roberts [send him mail] is John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy and Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.
