[NYTr] Avnery: The Last Refuge - Musharraf's Coup is Bush's Ultimate Humiliation

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Gush Shalom - Nov 10, 2007
http://http://www.gush-shalom.org

"As in a Hollywood comedy, George Bush is standing there with 
a custard pie splattered all over his face. He looks ridiculous.

"NO PRESIDENT likes being ridiculous. Scary -- OK. Evil -- OK.
Dumb -- OK. But ridiculous -- never!

"That may have a direct bearing on a question that is worrying 
the whole world, myself included: Will he attack Iran?"


The Last Refuge

by Uri Avnery

ISRAEL IS an island in the global sea. We live in a bubble. This week I
was sharply reminded of this.

I was returning home from Germany. On the eve of the flight, all TV
networks, from CNN and BBC to the German channels, were reporting on
the events in Pakistan. In the airplane, I opened Israel's largest
circulation tabloid, Yedioth Aharonoth, in order to read about the
Pakistani mess. I did not find any mention of it on page 1. Nor on page
2. I found a small item on page 27. The first pages were devoted to
something much more important: the shouts of protest by right-wing
football hooligans when they were requested to stand up in memory of
Yitzhak Rabin.

The next day, Yedioth found an Israeli angle that enabled it to put
Pakistan on the front page after all: the fear that the Pakistani
nuclear bomb would fall into the hands of Osama bin Laden, who would
aim it at Israel. Hallelujah, there is again something to be afraid of.

But the putsch by Pervez Musharaf is a serious matter. It could well
have far-reaching effects for the world in general, and for Israel in
particular.

THE MAIN victim - besides, of course, the hundreds of political
activists who have been thrown into prison - is George W. Bush.

Machiavelli said that it is preferable for the prince to be feared
rather than loved. In the same vein, it can be said that it is
preferable for a president to be hated rather than derided. 

And derision is what George W. is attracting. He has asserted in the
past that his main task was to bring democracy to the Muslim world, and
has assured us that the implementation of this aim was well under way.
That is a laughable pretense.

What is happening in fact?

-  In Iraq one tyrant has been overthrown, and dozens of small local
tyrants have taken over. The country is bleeding and falling apart. The
"democratic elections" have brought to power a government that hardly
governs the Green Zone in Baghdad, which has to be secured by American
soldiers.

-  In Afghanistan an "elected" president hardly rules the capital,
Kabul. In the rest of the country, local chieftains are in control. And
the Taliban are slowly and steadily re-conquering the country.

-  In Iran, democratic elections have brought to power an uninhibited
politician with a big mouth and small achievements, whose favorite
occupation is to curse the American Crusaders and the "Zionist entity".

-  In Syria there is a stable dictatorship, which can carry on mainly
because the Syrians believe that any alternative would be worse.

-  Turkey is ruled by a religious Islamic government, with the wife of
the president wearing a headscarf. More than 10 million Kurdish
citizens are oppressed and discriminated against. Not a few of them are
fighting a guerilla war. In the course of the campaign against the
Kurds, the Turkish army is about to invade neighboring Iraq, happy to
have an opportunity to destroy the practically independent Kurdish
regime there.

-  Lebanon is as far from democracy as ever. Real democratic elections,
in which every citizen can vote directly for parliament without
sectarian divisions, are out of the question. A new president has to be
elected, but that is well-nigh impossible, the gulf between the sects
is so wide. This week, Hizbullah conducted large-scale maneuvers near
the Israeli borders. Even the Israeli army was impressed.

-  In Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, the three "moderate" (read:
dictatorial and pro-American) countries, there is a very original kind
of democracy. Political opposition is languishing in prison.

-  In Palestine, impeccable elections were held under strict
international supervision, the only really democratic elections in the
Arab world. George Bush would have been proud of them, if - alas - they
had not been won by the "wrong" crowd - Hamas. Now, Israeli army
intelligence prophesies that President Mahmoud Abbas, Bush's favorite,
may fall immediately after the Annapolis conference, if, as expected,
it ends in failure.       

-  And now, Pakistan. It seemed that there, at least, Bush was
harvesting successes. He had brought back Benazir Bhutto, another Bush
favorite, and everything looked fine: a democratic regime was about to
be re-installed, the president was about to hang up his uniform and
form a coalition with Bhutto. But then a bomb exploded next to her
armored car, dozens were killed. The president-general, who was just
waiting for such an opportunity, carried out a coup d'etat against
himself, and, instead of his moderate dictatorship, has set up a much
more harsh regime, like a Pakistani version of the late Saddam Hussein.

As in a Hollywood comedy, George Bush is standing there with a custard
pie splattered all over his face. He looks ridiculous.

NO PRESIDENT likes being ridiculous. Scary - OK. Evil - OK. Dumb - OK.
But ridiculous - never!

That may have a direct bearing on a question that is worrying the whole
world, myself included: Will he attack Iran?

The temptation is almost overwhelming. In another year, his term in
office will come to an end. After eight years, he has nothing to show
for it - except a continuous series of failures. But a man who (he
says) holds daily talks with God cannot leave the stage of history like
that.

He is longing for some sort of success in Annapolis. At the most, there
will be an empty declaration signed by the leaders of Israel and the
Palestinian Authority. There will be some good photo opportunities, but
that will not satisfy the lions. Something much bigger is needed,
something that will leave its mark in the annals of history.

What better than saving humanity from the Iranian nuclear bomb?

The German language has the expression "Flucht nach vorne" - an escape
forwards. If you don’t know what to do any more, attack your nearest
enemy. Thus Napoleon invaded Russia, followed years later by Hitler.
Bush may attack Iran for similar reasons.

I suspect that the decision has already been made and that the
preparations are already rolling. There is no proof of that, but Bush
behaves as if he has decided on war.

Washington's huge propaganda machine is working full-time to prepare
the ground. Anyone who opposes is run over. According to the polls, the
American public's support for the war is rising from day to day. The
majority is already in favor. The new French president, behaving like a
hyperactive schoolboy, has already jumped on the bandwagon and has
supplanted Tony Blair as Bush's poodle.

ISRAEL IS SUPPOSED to play a central role in this piece.

Here, too, a huge brain-washing machine is already at work. The Foreign
Office has joined the effort and has started a world-wide campaign to
besmirch Mohammed al-Baradei, the highly respected chief of the
International Atomic Energy Agency.  Every day, the obedient media
publish reports by correspondents and commentators, who are but thinly
disguised spokesmen for the army and the government. They tell us that
within a year and a half Iran will already have a nuclear bomb, and
that this will be the end of Israel and the world. As the Hebrew
expression goes, the remedy must come before the disease. Therefore:
Bomb! Bomb! Bomb!  

One of the possible scenarios: Israel will bomb first. The Iranians
will respond by launching missiles at Israel. The US will enter the
action "to save Israel". Which American politician will dare to object?
Who? Hillary Clinton??

Bush is dreaming again about a war without American casualties. A
"surgical" air strike. A hail of "smart" bombs pours down on thousands
of Iranian targets - nuclear, governmental, military and civil. What a
sweet dream: Iran soon surrenders. The regime of the Ayatollahs
collapses. The son of the late Shah takes his place on the throne of
his father, who himself was once restored to power by American bayonets.

As I have said in the past, I am not convinced by this scenario. What
will actually happen is that Iran will close the strait of Hormuz.
Through this strait, named after an ancient Persian deity, flows 20% of
the world's oil supplies. It is 270 km long and, at its narrowest, only
35 km wide. A few missiles and mines are enough to close it. That would
be tolerable if the war lasted a few days. But if it goes on for weeks
and months, it will cause a profound world-wide crisis.

And the war will indeed go on. There will be no escape for the US from
committing very large ground forces to conquer first the region
bordering on the straits, and then the entire big country. The US has
no available ground forces left - even before the American forces in
Iraq are exposed to missile attacks from Iran and to guerilla actions
from the Shiites, who make up the majority in Iraq.

This will not be a quick and easy war. Iran is different from Iraq.
Unlike Iraq, with its various peoples and sects, Iran is comparatively
homogenous. This war will be an Iraq war multiplied by 10, perhaps by
100.

AND WE? How shall we get through this war?

Since the government of Israel and its American allies are pushing with
all their political might for the attack, Israel will not be able to
avoid contributing to the fighting, if the Americans request it. First
our Air Force will be deployed, later land forces may be required.

But Israel itself will also become a battlefield. The pathetic missiles
of Saddam Hussein caused, in their time, panic in Tel-Aviv. What will
the Iranian missiles do?

The Arab governments will be compelled to support the US, at least with
their tongues. But the hearts and souls of the Arab peoples, from
Morocco to Iraq, will be with the Iranians defending themselves against
the Americans and Israelis. Especially if the Annapolis meeting does
end, as expected, without bringing redemption to the Palestinian people.

There is only one way to come out of this in one piece - not to get
into it in the first place. But, after all the dismal failures he has
suffered in Iraq, in Afghanistan and now in Pakistan - what can
persuade Bush to resist the temptation? And how to persuade Ehud
Olmert, who longs for a way out of the quagmire he is stuck in?

It has been said that "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel".
For a failed politician, the last refuge is war.