Category Archives: Iran

Israel Maintains An Oil Pipeline With Iran, While Urging The US To Aggress Against The Islamic Republic

Foreign Policy, Iran, Israel, Neoconservatism, Trade

My-my. Israel maintains an oil pipeline with Iran. It is alleged that “Iranian oil no longer flows through the pipeline.” What’s not in dispute is that Israel urges the US to aggress against Iran, while it keeps its options open.

Trade is excellent always. It forestalls war (something that makes neocons like Mad Max Boot a very sad boy). Israel should trade with regional powers. It should just refrain from hypocrisy—getting the US to fight battles Israel itself is trying to admirably avert via trade.

There is great secrecy, not least a gag order, involved in the dealings of the Eilat-Ashkelon Pipeline Co (EAPC) a joint venture with Iran, set up in 1968.

Israel, worried about national security, maintains tight control over EAPC, to the extent that articles about its business dealings must pass through the military censor.

Instead of renewing EAPC’s concession, which came up this year, Israel formed a new company with the same initials, the Europe Asia Pipeline Co, owned by the government. It will take over the original EAPC’s responsibilities by September, with an option to extend the handover period an additional six months.

Parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee said in a statement on Sunday that it had extended the gag order on EAPC for five more years and broadened it to include the new company, known as EAPC-B, as well.

MORE.

Comments Off on Israel Maintains An Oil Pipeline With Iran, While Urging The US To Aggress Against The Islamic Republic

Written by on

UPDATED (11/13): Apparently It’s The Saudi-Israeli-American Axis Of Angels

Iran, Islam, Israel, Middle East, War

In Saudi Arabia, a new, more dangerous regime is consolidating regional power, plotting to destabilize Lebanon and blame Iran. Almost overnight has the kingdom shifted from rule by family/dynasty to a more authoritarian style of one-man rule.

Yemenis have dared defend themselves meekly against the Saudi-US coalition of obliteration. So Saudis are now threatening war with/on Iran. Meanwhile, Israel is urging its diplomats to push for international support for the Saudi assaults against Yemen’s Houthi. (Link died mysteriously.)

The Kushner-Trump Administration will likely appreciate Israel’s attempts at an international, diplomatic putsch. Trump has already endorsed the Saudi crackdown to ostensibly “neutralize Iran.” The president now stands with the Clintons and the Bushes along the Saudi-Israeli-American Axis Of Angels, as far as foreign policy goes.  But not everyone in the Old Right, America-First, anti-dumb-wars camp IS THAT PLEASED.

UPDATE (11/13):

NEW COLUMN. Niger: Finally, A War John McCain Doesn’t Love

Africa, Foreign Policy, Iran, John McCain, Middle East, War

NEW COLUMN. No war makes Johnny a sad boy. But finally, “Niger: A War John McCain Doesn’t Love.” It’s on the Mises Wire, standing for Austrian Economics, Freedom and peace. An excerpt:

News first broke about America’s Niger misadventure on October 4. “The real news here is that the US has forces in Niger, where they’re conducting covert operations,” this writer tweeted out. “Hashtag America First.”

Official media ignored the ambush of the American Special Forces, until the story gained anti-Trump traction. No word came from John McCain. Three weeks hence, the senator from Arizona is making history. McCain, who has never encountered a war he wasn’t eager to prosecute, is questioning the folly in Niger.

The senator from Arizona can run but can’t hide from the pollution he has left along his political path. Republicans wisely rejected war in Kosovo; McCain jettisoned party loyalty to call for bombs from above and “more boots on the ground.” At the prospects of war with Iran, McCain burst into song, “Bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb-Iran.” The possibility still makes this war ghoul smile. Before that, McCain promised a 100-year war in Iraq.

Senator McCain’s jingoism has encompassed Syria, Georgia, Mali, Nigeria, and China. Where the US could not effect regime change, as it did fecklessly in Afghanistan and Libya—McCain would typically call to side with an imagined local “friend of America” against an imagined “foe of America.” McCain has many imaginary friends.

Where his target country was beyond US bullying (Russia), the idea of the resumption of a cold war was an option McCain liked. He is currently fulminating over a slight delay in sanctions against Russia. When all efforts to tame the world militarily fail, McCain is partial to the idea of UN troops acting as his surrogates, say in Sudan.

No war makes Johnny a sad boy. But now he’s considering a subpoena over Niger.

GLOBAL CENTRALIZER

Playing out in Niger are the permanently entrenched, unchanging, American foreign-policy interests. Keen observers will detect a familiar pattern. Once again, the American bias everywhere is toward a powerful, overweening central state. This conceit has put our forces on a collision course with the tribal interests America toils to tame. …

… READ THE REST. The complete column is “Niger: Finally, A War John McCain Doesn’t Love.” It’s on the Mises Wire.

 

 

Trump’s Saudi Best Friends Are A Major Threat To Regional Stability

Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, Iran, Islam, Middle East

Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates have enlisted the West in “a proxy Sunni-Shia religious war,” Riyadh’s ultimate aim. The scary part: Donald Trump seems perfectly willing to partake.

Via Doug Bandow at Forbes.com:

Wealthy and pampered Saudi Arabia and the UAE, along with their satellites, particularly Bahrain and Egypt, whose loyalty has been purchased with abundant cash and military support, have declared diplomatic war on Qatar. They blame the latter for supporting terrorism, but almost certainly more important to them, dictatorships all, is the desire to silence criticism of their own crimes.

Doha supports opposition groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, the chief target of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s brutal rule in Egypt, and TV channel Al Jazeera, which speaks ill of most of the oppressive Gulf regimes. Qatar also maintains civil relations with Iran …

… Indeed, under Saudi Arabia’s ruthless new Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman—who apparently has put his cousin and ousted predecessor under palace arrest—Riyadh has become the major threat to regional stability. Although U.S. officials blame Tehran for destabilizing the Gulf, it is the Saudi royals who supported radical insurgents in Syria, launched an aggressive war against Yemen, and sent troops to support Bahrain’s Sunni monarchy against the oppressed Shia majority. If the House of Saud ever loses its hold on power, the crash will be heard around the world.

At one level there isn’t much to choose between the assorted Gulf kingdoms. They are monarchies in a world which mostly abandoned that ancient form of government a century ago. They are largely dictatorships. Kuwait is the freest, with an elected assembly and robust media; otherwise the picture is bleak. Most sit atop sizeable energy reserves and hire foreigners to do their dirty work. Including Americans to defend them.

Saudi Arabia is the Gulf colossus and usually takes the lead. But Qatar, with the largest natural gas reserves in the world—and consequently the world’s wealthiest nation—long has followed a very different foreign policy. This rankled Riyadh’s royals, who were used to being obeyed. Worse was Doha’s creation of Al Jazeera, which promoted the Arab Spring and has attained wide viewership in a region where the media is highly controlled. (Confession: I’ve appeared on the channel.) Egypt’s al-Sisi, who in 2013 ousted a democratically elected president from the Muslim Brotherhood and imposed a reign of terror to crush all opposition, most objects to Qatar’s support for the MB. …

…
A stupid title for what is a good analysis. READ: “Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates Should Put Own Houses In Order Before Accusing Qatar.”