What are We Fighting For?

The freak-out continues among the Western power elite. In the last six months, two main pillars of the neoliberal neoconservative "New World Order" have begun to buckle.

First, the Global War on Terror (GWOT) that has been front and center in the United States since at least the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the first failed attempt of Al Qaeda's 9/11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, took a hit last September when citizens refused to grant Obama the authority to attack Syria. Though many might have been unclear as to the politics at play in the Levant and were merely objecting to another costly, open-ended war in the Middle East, many did in fact know what was going on. Uncle Sam was prepared to act as Al Qaeda's air force; our Nobel Peace Prize winning president, acting in concert with the corrupt Gulf Sheikhs, was about to replace a secular government with a Wahhabi caliphate.

This was a big wake-up call. The organizing principle for the unwashed masses after the collapse of the Soviet Union -- Reagan's "Evil Empire" -- and the disappearance of global communism was Islamic fundamentalism. Suddenly last summer, after 20 years of indoctrination telling us that radical Sunni Islam is evil incarnate, we plebs were told, "No, no, it is okay. We can fight for these guys." Wow. How did the Beltway smart set think that was going to play?

Now, as of this month, the second pillar, the gradual eastward movement of NATO and the eurozone following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, is crumbling; hence, the howls.

A story this morning by Michael Gordon, "NATO Weighs Assistance for Ukraine to Dissuade Further Moves by Moscow," built out of quotes from acting and former heads of NATO, as well as assorted NATO functionaries, makes clear that the power elite have not given up on pillar #2. Ukraine will be armed and aligned with the West:

The secretary general of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said on Wednesday that the alliance was considering providing assistance to Ukraine to help deter Russia from another military intervention there. 

Mr. Rasmussen, who was in Washington to consult on the crisis in Ukraine, did not meet with President Obama. But he conferred Tuesday evening with Secretary of State John Kerry, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Susan E. Rice, Mr. Obama’s national security adviser. 

In his speech at the Brookings Institution, Mr. Rasmussen described the Russian military intervention in Crimea as the “gravest threat” to European security since the end of the Cold War. He said the annexation of Crimea was especially serious for three reasons: the size of the military intervention, the fact that it affected a nation of 45 million, and Ukraine’s location on NATO’s doorstep. 

“This is a wake-up call, for the Euro-Atlantic community, for NATO and for all those committed to a Europe whole, free and at peace,” he said. “We had thought that such behavior had been confined to history, but it’s back, and it’s dangerous because it violates international norms of accepted behavior.” 

Mr. Rasmussen said the alliance was reviewing the full range of its cooperation with Moscow and had suspended its plans to escort Russian ships that are ferrying chemicals for making poison gas from Syria. The alliance has also canceled staff-level meetings between NATO and Russian officials, though it has kept the door open to political talks. 

NATO members have also taken a series of relatively modest military steps to reassure its East European members. The United States has sent six F-15 fighters to Lithuania to bolster NATO’s air policing mission in the Baltic states and has sent 12 F-16s to Poland, which borders Ukraine.

Two NATO surveillance planes are patrolling Polish and Romanian airspace. Britain also recently announced that it planned to send several Typhoon aircraft to join the Baltic mission. 

Mr. Rasmussen said that he expected additional steps, but he did not say what they might be.

But the elites should pay heed. They do not rule by divine right. They still have to win elections. And the voters have no interest in war. Within the United States, the animated wings of both of the moribund, corporate-controlled political parties are anti-war. Non-aligned independents are anti-war. There is no popular basis for war. There is no organizing principle for conflict: the Russian Bear is now a capitalist like Uncle Sam, and Al Qaeda is now an ally of Samantha Power descrying the savagery of Bashar al-Assad.

Who could, in his or her right mind, fight for any of this? It is all nonsense.

Larger War Predicted + Al Qaeda & Israel

A much wider war is a near certainty. The BBC is reporting this morning, "Syria crisis: UN launches largest ever aid appeal," that the United Nations estimates that by year's end the number of Syrian refugees will jump from 1.5 million to 3.5 million. Take a moment to consider this projection. Syria's civil conflict began during the Arab Spring of 2011. In the next six months Syria will produce more refugees than it did in more than two years. That's why the UN is trying to raise $5 billion.

And an argument can be made that this refugee estimate could be on the conservative side. It is clear now, based on press stories of the last couple of days, that Lebanon's Hezbollah is to be punished for its part in maintaining Assad in power. The problem here is that Hezbollah is an integral part of the Lebanese state. If you bleed Hezbollah, you bleed Lebanon. Today Jodi Rudoren has a story, "As Syrian Fighting Nears Border, Israel Considers Its Options," which makes clear that Israel is going to attack Hezbollah:

Israel continued to plan intensively for a third war in Lebanon, where it believes Hezbollah has amassed 60,000 rockets aimed in its direction. Military leaders say that they have learned the lessons of their 34-day battle with Hezbollah in 2006, and that the next round will be short, deadly and urban: one top general recently described Lebanese homes as having “a living room and a missile room” right next to each other.

When this happens, and if the reporting is accurate, there will be a lot of cognitive dissonance for Western consumers of information because Israeli soldiers will be fighting in alliance with bin Laden-inspired jihadists (as they are now in a more clandestine fashion). We in the West will be forced to ask ourselves questions that only seem to be voiced by outlets such as Alex Jones' Infowars.com. Why has Al Qaeda never directly attacked Israel? If one studies the timeline of Al Qaeda bombings one struggles to find any assault on Israel. The only thing that provides a tenuous connection is the Ghriba synagogue bombing in 2002. But it is unclear what the connection of the suicide bomber, Nizar bin Muhammad Nasar Nawar, was to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

A world war in the Middle East seems to be coming just when troops were to be pulled out of Afghanistan. Of course it doesn't have to be this way. But clearly the West and its allies in the Gulf cannot operate without war.