Cheney wants to "remodel the entire middle east"--"Shadow Government"

11/03/03

> New Player Added to Secret White House Cabal

> QUOTE:

> "The question is, how does the vice president's [national security staff]

> function in relation to the president's national security staff and how

> important policy decisions are made in the White House. While the vice

> president has a critical role to play, the secrecy surrounding his

> unusually large foreign-policy staff raises many questions which the

> American public needs answered."

>

>

> http://www.forward.com/issues/2003/03.10.31/news2.wurmser.html

>

>

>

> FORWARD

> OCTOBER 31, 2003

>

> Cheney Taps Syria Hawk As Adviser On Mideast

> By MARC PERELMAN

> FORWARD STAFF

>

> Despite mounting criticism of the administration's Iraq policy, Vice

> President Dick Cheney appears to be ratcheting up his commitment to the

> circle of neoconservative intellectuals who helped spearhead President

> Bush's war policy, adding one of its most controversial proponents to his

> national security staff in a little-noticed move last month.

>

> David Wurmser, a neoconservative scholar known for his close ties to the

> Israeli right, was appointed in mid-September to join the team led by

> Cheney's national security adviser, Lewis "Scooter" Libby. In recent years

> Wurmser, who boasts a complex network of relationships to a variety of

> pro-Likud think tanks and activist groups, has frequently written articles

> arguing for a joint American-Israeli effort to undermine the Syrian

regime.

>

> Wurmser's appointment sheds light on the prominent role played by Cheney

> and his national security staff in shaping foreign policy and coincides

> with the deterioration in the relations between Washington and Damascus.

In

> recent months, Washington has accused Syria of sheltering Iraqi leaders,

> weapons and money and of allowing terrorists into Iraq. The administration

> backed Israel's recent bombing of a suspected terrorist training camp in

> Syria and dropped its objections to a congressional bill that grants the

> president the right to impose sanctions on Damascus.

>

> "The vice president undoubtedly chooses staff whose views are compatible

> with the policies of the administration," wrote Judith Kipper, a Middle

> East scholar with the Council on Foreign Relations, in an e-mail to the

> Forward. "The question is, how does the vice president's [national

security

> staff] function in relation to the president's national security staff and

> how important policy decisions are made in the White House. While the vice

> president has a critical role to play, the secrecy surrounding his

> unusually large foreign-policy staff raises many questions which the

> American public needs answered."

>

> Cathy Martin, a spokeswoman for Cheney, confirmed that Wurmser had

recently

> been hired, adding that he is serving as one of many foreign-policy

> advisers to the vice president. She declined to comment on questions about

> Cheney's or Wurmser's ideological leanings.

>

> Before his appointment, Wurmser had served as a senior adviser to John

> Bolton, the undersecretary of state for arms control and international

> security and one of the sharpest critics of Syria within the

> administration. In speeches and testimonies over the past year, Bolton has

> sounded increasingly alarmist far more so than the intelligence

> community about Syria's weapons programs.

>

> Wurmser's appointment was first reported by Inter-Press Service and

> elicited criticism from the Arab American Institute, an advocacy

organization.

>

> Wurmser is the main author of a 1996 policy paper drafted for then-Israeli

> prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu by a task force composed of

> neo-conservative scholars. The white paper, titled "A Clean Break: A New

> Strategy for Securing the Realm," advocated a remodeling of the Middle

East

> that some critics see as a rough blueprint for the policy adopted by the

> Bush administration after the September 11 attacks. The paper advocated a

> strategy of preemptive action to remove Saddam Hussein from power, a

> "rollback" of Syria and the search for alternatives to Yasser Arafat.

>

> "Whoever inherits Iraq dominates the entire Levant strategically," said

the

> paper, which was commissioned by the Jerusalem-based Institute for

Advanced

> Strategic and Political Studies, where Wurmser was working at the time.

>

> The task force was headed by Richard Perle, now a key Pentagon adviser who

> sits on the Defense Policy Board. Its members included Douglas Feith,

> currently the undersecretary of defense for policy and one of the main

> proponents of the war in Iraq.

>

> Another member of the task force was Wurmser's Israeli-born wife, Meyrav

> Wurmser, who heads the Middle East studies department at the conservative

> Hudson Institute. She is a founder of the Middle East Media Research

> Institute, or Memri, which translates Arabic press reports and which

> critics say highlights negative views of the West.

>

> The policy paper suggested that in order to transform the "balance of

> power" in the Middle East in favor of an axis consisting of Israel, Turkey

> and Jordan, Saddam should be removed and replaced by a Hashemite ruler.

>

> The next step would be a "rollback" of Syria by sponsoring proxy attacks

in

> Lebanon and even striking at selected targets in Syria. In the late 1990s,

> Wurmser wrote frequently, arguing for a joint U.S.-Israeli effort to

> undermine the Syrian regime.

>

> On Tuesday, retired Air Force General James Clapper, director of the

> National Imagery and Mapping Agency, told reporters he was not surprised

> that U.S. forces had not discovered any chemical, biological or nuclear

> weapons in Iraq, citing a big increase in the number of vehicles heading

to

> Syria before the war. The administration also has renewed long-standing

> accusations that Damascus is developing chemical and biological weapons

and

> is supporting terrorist groups operating against Israel, despite pledges

to

> crack down on them

http://www.nowarforisrael.com

How US hawks hijacked Mideast policy

By Mark Mazower

FT.com site; Nov 03, 2003

Tony Blair's backing last year for George W. Bush over war with Iraq was based on an American commitment to the "roadmap" for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. In June, after victory in Iraq, the US president publicly identified himself with the schedule the roadmap laid out, and the next month Mr Blair himself, in his triumphant speech to the US Congress, reaffirmed the role of international diplomacy when he stated categorically that terrorism would not be defeated without peace between Israel and Palestine. Yet, within weeks of Mr Blair's visit to Washington, the roadmap had been killed off by a combination of Palestinian suicide bombers and Israeli assassinations. This particular peace process is not likely to revive this side of the presidential elections - which is to say it will not re-emerge at all. However, another kind of peace process is still very much alive. For the hawks around Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, regime change in Iraq is only the first step in the most radical reshaping of the Middle East since the first world war. Barely one week after September 11 2001, they not only urged the president to tackle Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein; they also recommended going after Hizbollah, Syria and Iran. Their assumption was clear: a threat to Israel is a threat to the US. Under the guise of the war on terror, their argument went, America should identify its interests with those of Israel - or, to be more precise, with the way the current leadership in Israel defines those interests. Although a war with Syria has not materialised, the Bush administration is pursuing a more aggressive line against the country. The US's refusal to join international condemnation of the recent Israeli bombing raid on an abandoned camp near Damascus highlighted Syria's new vulnerability. There are now American troops next door and senior US officials have been accusing the Syrian authorities of facilitating attacks across its desert border on American soldiers. Not everyone in the administration sees this anti-Syrian policy as helpful to American interests. Many in the US Army do not. And the CIA - which relies heavily on Syrian intelligence co-operation to monitor Islamic terrorist groups - is dismayed by the belligerent attitude towards Syria. Most people familiar with Syria find it hard to believe that regime change in this majority Sunni country will produce a more co-operative government than the ruling minority Alawi dictatorship. To the hawks, though, such cautionary talk is weak-kneed nonsense. In their highly militarised view of the world, force is the only route to peace and the only language Arabs understand. War on Syria - or even just the threat of it - will allow the Israelis to expand their influence again in Lebanon and put Hizbollah on the back foot. With Syria weakened, the Palestinians will become more pliant, since Palestinian terrorism is not a response to tyranny, injustice and occupation but the work of evil agents of foreign backers. There is, in other words, no place for diplomacy before force has cowed the Palestinians into obedience. Ariel Sharon's government now follows with impunity policies once recommended by Richard Perle, a US hawk, to an earlier Likud government: disengagement from the internationally sponsored peace process, pressure on the US to withdraw funding from the Palestinian Authority and no trade of land for diplomatic concessions. Mr Sharon now mentions the roadmap only to squash even less palatable peace proposals such as the one under discussion in Geneva. His government now enjoys unprecedented scope to combine the militaristic Iron Wall philosophy of Vladimir Jabotinsky - who advocated separation and strength as prerequisites for peace - with the takeover of land and build-up of settlements characteristic of previous Labour governments. As Jewish settlers move in, and the wall goes up, Arabs will be forced either out of the occupied territories or behind the wall into a statelet far removed from the viable state outlined only a few months ago by Mr Bush. This is a far cry from the peace process Mr Blair believed he persuaded Mr Bush to sign up to. Will a future generation of historians be asking their students to explain how a small and un- elected group succeeded so comprehensively in changing the meanings of the US national interest, and of peace itself, while everyone else - from the CIA to Mr Blair and much of the world - looked on in disbelief?

The writer is a professor of history at Birkbeck College London