America's "Long War":
Pentagon Rallies Arab, Israeli Allies
Against Syria and Iran
By Rick Rozoff
Global Research, July 31, 2012
URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=32137
Pentagon
Chief Rallies Arab, Israeli Allies Against Syria, Iran U.S. Defense
Secretary Leon Panetta has begun a five-day, four-nation tour of North
Africa and the Middle East to consolidate military ties with traditional
allies against the backdrop of mounting Western pressure aimed at the
governments of Syria and Iran.
His first two stops are to Tunisia and Egypt,
long-standing American military client states and members of NATO’s
Mediterranean Dialogue partnership program. The next two are to Israel
and Jordan, also Mediterranean Dialogue members, the first the main and
the second one of the largest recipients of American military aid.
The two North African countries were the bellwethers
of the so-called Arab Spring, a topic Panetta dwelled on at some length
during his visit to Tunisia, though in relation to following Pentagon
diktat Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak might
well still be in power for all the difference that now exists. Last
year’s biennial joint U.S.-Egyptian Bright Star military exercise was
cancelled during the early months of the Supreme Council of the Armed
Forces, but there is no reason to believe next year’s won’t go ahead as
usual.
Four months ago Washington released $1.3 billion in
military assistance to the Egyptian junta, with Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton waiving congressional conditions introduced last year
and State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland stating, “These
decisions reflect America’s over-arching goal: to maintain our strategic
partnership with an Egypt made stronger and more stable by a successful
transition to democracy.”
The strategic partnership is one that began with the
Carter-Brzezinski administration buying off President Anwar Sadat in
1978 and in so doing switching the largest and militarily most powerful
Arab nation from non-alignment (Egypt under President Gamal Abdel Nasser
was a founder of the Non-Aligned Movement) and close state-to-state
relations with the Soviet Union to the U.S.’s major military client
state in Africa and the Arab world. It was also initiated to break the
back of Arab unity in relation to Israel and Palestine.
Because of its unique value to the Pentagon, Egypt is
the only African nation not to be assigned to the Pentagon’s Africa
Command (AFRICOM), instead remaining in Central Command. The latter,
launched in 1983, grew out of the Carter administration’s Rapid
Deployment Joint Task Force, which had been established to counter
Soviet bloc influence in Northeast Africa: Egypt, Djibouti, Ethiopia,
Kenya, Somalia and Sudan.
Similarly and for complementary geopolitical
purposes, Israel is the only Middle Eastern nation not in Central
Command’s area of responsibility, instead being assigned to that of
European Command.
Since the Camp David Accords of 1978, Egypt has been
one of the two largest recipients of annual American aid (almost all of
it military) and a dependable Pentagon ally bordering Israel and the
Gaza Strip to the east, Libya to the west and Sudan to the south as well
as controlling the Suez Canal connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the
Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. The Mediterranean is the route through
which U.S. warships, including nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and
their assigned strike groups, pass after leaving the eastern coast of
the U.S. en route to the Suez, whence they pass through the Red Sea to
the Arabian Sea, the Persian Gulf and the broader Indian Ocean for air
strikes in Afghanistan.
Panetta, no matter what he says formally, is visiting
Egypt to ensure it remains in the American political and, especially,
military column.
According to the Pentagon website, “The United States
has had a strong military-to-military relationship with Egypt since the
1970s, and Panetta said he wants that relationship to continue and
grow.”
En route to Tunisia, Panetta stated to reporters:
“Our goal is to advance security by supporting peaceful change
throughout the region. This means establishing strong partnerships with
new democratic governments in the region.”
He also said that the recent Syrian government
offensive against armed insurgents in Aleppo will be – will be made to
be – “a nail in Assad’s coffin.” He, like his civilian opposite number
Hillary Clinton (“Wow!...We came, we saw, he died”), is not noted for
excelling in the powers of abstract thinking, so his comment is not to
be interpreted as merely a metaphor.
As though alleged humanitarian intervention was not
casus belli enough, Panetta also invoked the Iraq war-style menace of
“chemical and biological warfare sites in Syria that U.S. planners say
need to be secured.”
About those exaggerated threats, he said, “We’ve been
in close coordination with countries in the region to ensure that this
is happening.”
He also pledged to strengthen the “very close
partnership” with Israel, particularly in respect to Iran. According to
the Pentagon, “Iran and its pursuit of nuclear weapons technology will
be a discussion point at all stops.”
The defense chief added:
“My view is that when I sit down with my counterpart
in Israel, we are unified in our view with regards to Iran. We’re
unified in the position that they should not obtain a nuclear weapon,
(and) we’re unified in our position that we have to bring every bit of
pressure on them to change their ways.”
“The more we are working together, the more unified
we are in the effort against Iran, the better off we will be in
convincing Iran that there is no room here for them to do anything other
than to back away from the nuclear program they are engaged in.”
Panetta will inspect the U.S.-funded Iron Dome anti-missile system while in Israel.
Again according to the Defense Department’s account
of his position while on the way to Tunisia, “Peaceful, democratic
change has taken place since the Arab Spring, but Syria, Iran and
extremism in general have continued to pose challenges.”
That is, Panetta’s mission is to recruit America’s
Tunisian, Egyptian, Israeli and Jordanian military allies to confront
Syria and Iran.
The Pentagon’s website cited an unnamed senior
Defense Department official affirming that “Panetta plans to lay out the
roadmap for the future military-to-military relationship between the
United States and Tunisia.” He was quoted asserting that “The military
has played a positive role in Tunisia and we want that to continue.”
During the press conference aboard the aircraft
taking him to Tunisia, Panetta explained what Washington understands to
be both the means and the ends of so-called democracy promotion in
stating, “The United States continues to support efforts to strengthen
Tunisia’s democracy, and DOD [the Department of Defense] will play an
important role in that effort.”
In Egypt Panetta will meet with newly installed
President Muhammad Mursi and Defense Minister Field Marshal Mohamed
Hussein Tantawi – “Panetta has been in constant touch with Tantawi since
former President Hosni Mubarak was overthrown” – who led the Supreme
Council of the Armed Forces from February 11, 2011 to June 30, 2012.
In Israel he will consult with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
Then he will hold talks on bilateral military
cooperation with King Abdullah in Jordan. According to the above-cited
Pentagon official, “Syria will obviously be a topic of conversation, as
the Jordanians are on the front line of that.”
As with his visits earlier this year to South America
and Asia, Panetta’s trip to North Africa and the Middle East has a
concrete objective: To solidify military ties with states bordering or
near the remaining handful of nations in the world not enmeshed in the
Pentagon’s global network.