by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, GB

The name “Arab Spring” is a catch phrase
concocted in distant offices in Washington, London, Paris, and Brussels by
individuals and groups who, other than having some superficial knowledge of the
region, know very little about the Arabs. What is unfolding amongst the Arab
peoples is naturally a mixed package. Insurgency is part of this package as is
opportunism. Where there is revolution, there is always
counter-revolution.
The upheavals in the Arab World are not an Arab
“awakening” either; such a term implies that the Arabs have always been sleeping
while dictatorship and injustice has been surrounding them. In reality the Arab
World, which is part of the broader Turko-Arabo-Iranic World, has been filled
with frequent revolts that have been put down by the Arab dictators in
coordination with countries like the United States, Britain, and France. It has
been the interference of these powers that has always acted as a counter-balance
to democracy and it will continue to do so.
Divide and Conquer: How the
First “Arab Spring” was Manipulated
The plans for reconfiguring the
Middle East started several years before the First World War. It was during the
First World War, however, that the manifestation of these colonial designs could
visibly be seen with the “Great Arab Revolt” against the Ottoman
Empire.
Despite the fact that the British, French, and Italians were
colonial powers which had prevented the Arabs from enjoying any freedom in
countries like Algeria, Libya, Egypt, and Sudan, these colonial powers managed
to portray themselves as the friends and allies of Arab
liberation.
During the “Great Arab Revolt” the British and the French
actually used the Arabs as foot soldiers against the Ottomans to further their
own geo-political schemes. The secret Sykes–Picot Agreement between London and
Paris is a case in point. France and Britain merely managed to use and
manipulate the Arabs by selling them the idea of Arab liberation from the
so-called “repression” of the Ottomans.
In reality, the Ottoman Empire was a
multi-ethnic empire. It gave local and cultural autonomy to all its peoples, but
was manipulated into the direction of becoming a Turkish entity. Even the
Armenian Genocide that would ensue in Ottoman Anatolia has to be analyzed in the
same context as the contemporary targeting of Christians in Iraq as part of a
sectarian scheme unleashed by external actors to divide the Ottoman Empire,
Anatolia, and the citizens of the Ottoman Empire.
After the collapse of
the Ottoman Empire, it was London and Paris which denied freedom to the Arabs,
while sowing the seeds of discord amongst the Arab peoples. Local corrupt Arab
leaders were also partners in the project and many of them were all too happy to
become clients of Britain and France. In the same sense, the “Arab Spring” is
being manipulated today. The U.S., Britain, France, and others are now working
with the help of corrupt Arab leaders and figures to restructure the Arab World
and Africa.
The Yinon Plan: Order from Chaos…
The Yinon
Plan, which is a continuation of British stratagem in the Middle East, is an
Israeli strategic plan to ensure Israeli regional superiority. It insists and
stipulates that Israel must reconfigure its geo-political environment through
the balkanization of the surrounding Arab states into smaller and weaker
states.
Israeli strategists viewed Iraq as their biggest strategic
challenge from an Arab state. This is why Iraq was outlined as the centerpiece
to the balkanization of the Middle East and the Arab World. In Iraq, on the
basis of the concepts of the Yinon Plan, Israeli strategists have called for the
division of Iraq into a Kurdish state and two Arab states, one for Shiite
Muslims and the other for Sunni Muslims. The first step towards establishing
this was a war between Iraq and Iran, which the Yinon Plan discusses.
The
Atlantic, in 2008, and the U.S. military’s Armed Forces Journal, in 2006, both
published widely circulated maps that closely followed the outline of the Yinon
Plan. Aside from a divided Iraq, which the Biden Plan also calls for, the Yinon
Plan calls for a divided Lebanon, Egypt, and Syria. The partitioning of Iran,
Turkey, Somalia, and Pakistan also all fall into line with these views. The
Yinon Plan also calls for dissolution in North Africa and forecasts it as
starting from Egypt and then spilling over into Sudan, Libya, and the rest of
the region.
Securing the Realm: Redefining the Arab
World…
Although tweaked, the Yinon Plan is in motion and coming to
life under the “Clean Break.” This is through a policy document written in 1996
by Richard Perle and the Study Group on “A New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000″ for
Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel at the time. Perle was a former
Pentagon under-secretary for Roland Reagan at the time and later a U.S. military
advisor to George W. Bush Jr. and the White House. Aside from Perle, the rest of
the members of the Study Group on “A New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000″ consisted
of James Colbert (Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs), Charles
Fairbanks Jr. (Johns Hopkins University), Douglas Feith (Feith and Zell
Associates), Robert Loewenberg (Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political
Studies), Jonathan Torop (The Washington Institute for Near East Policy), David
Wurmser (Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies), and Meyrav
Wurmser (Johns Hopkins University). A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing
the Realm is the full name of this 1996 Israel policy paper.
In many
regards, the U.S. is executing the objectives outlined in Tel Aviv’s 1996 policy
paper to secure the “realm.” Moreover, the term “realm” implies the strategic
mentality of the authors. A realm refers to either the territory ruled by a
monarch or the territories that fall under a monarch’s reign, but are not
physically under their control and have vassals running them. In this context,
the word realm is being used to denote the Middle East as the kingdom of Tel
Aviv. The fact that Perle, someone who has essentially been a career Pentagon
official, helped author the Israeli paper also makes one ask if the
conceptualized sovereign of the realm is either Israel, the United States, or
both?
Securing the Realm: The Israeli Blueprints to Destabilize
Damascus
The 1996 Israeli document calls for “rolling back Syria”
sometime around the year 2000 or afterward by pushing the Syrians out of Lebanon
and destabilizing the Syrian Arab Republic with the help of Jordan and Turkey.
This has respectively taken place in 2005 and 2011. The 1996 document states:
“Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and
Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can
focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli
strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional
ambitions.” [1]
As a first step towards creating an Israeli-dominated
“New Middle East” and encircling Syria, the 1996 document calls for removing
President Saddam Hussein from power in Baghdad and even alludes to the
balkanization of Iraq and forging a strategic regional alliance against Damascus
that includes a Sunni Muslim “Central Iraq.” The authors write: “But Syria
enters this conflict with potential weaknesses: Damascus is too preoccupied with
dealing with the threatened new regional equation to permit distractions of the
Lebanese flank. And Damascus fears that the ‘natural axis’ with Israel on one
side, central Iraq and Turkey on the other, and Jordan, in the center would
squeeze and detach Syria from the Saudi Peninsula. For Syria, this could be the
prelude to a redrawing of the map of the Middle East which would threaten
Syria’s territorial integrity.” [2]
Perle and the Study Group on “A New
Israeli Strategy Toward 2000″ also call for driving the Syrians out of Lebanon
and destabilizing Syria by using Lebanese opposition figures. The document
states: “[Israel must divert] Syria’s attention by using Lebanese opposition
elements to destabilize Syrian control of Lebanon.” [3] This is what would
happen in 2005 after the Hariri Assassination that helped launch the so-called
“Cedar Revolution” and create the vehemently anti-Syrian March 14 Alliance
controlled by the corrupt Said Hariri.
The document also calls for Tel
Aviv to “take [the] opportunity to remind the world of the nature of the Syrian
regime.” [4] This clearly falls into the Israeli strategy of demonizing its
opponents through using public relations (PR) campaigns. In 2009, Israeli news
media openly admitted that Tel Aviv through its embassies and diplomatic
missions had launched a global campaign to discredit the Iranian presidential
elections before they even took place through a media campaign and organizing
protests in front of Iranian embassies. [5]
The document also mentions
something that resembles what is currently going on in Syria. It states: “Most
important, it is understandable that Israel has an interest supporting
diplomatically, militarily and operationally Turkey’s and Jordan’s actions
against Syria, such as securing tribal alliances with Arab tribes that cross
into Syrian territory and are hostile to the Syrian ruling elite.” [6] With the
2011 upheaval in Syria, the movement of insurgents and the smuggling of weapons
through the Jordanian and Turkish borders has become a major problem for
Damascus.
In this context, it is no surprise that Arial Sharon and Israel
told Washington to attack Syria, Libya, and Iran after the Anglo-American
invasion of Iraq. [7] Finally, it is worth knowing that the Israeli document
also advocated for pre-emptive war to shape Israel’s geo-strategic environment
and to carve out the “New Middle East.” [8] This is a policy that the U.S. would
also adopt in 2001.
The Eradication of the Christian Communities of
the Middle East
It is no coincidence that Egyptian Christians were
attacked at the same time as the South Sudan Referendum and before the crisis in
Libya. Nor is it a coincidence that Iraqi Christians, one of the world’s oldest
Christian communities, have been forced into exile, leaving their ancestral
homelands in Iraq. Coinciding with the exodus of Iraqi Christians, which
occurred under the watchful eyes of U.S. and British military forces, the
neighbourhoods in Baghdad became sectarian as Shiite Muslims and Sunni Muslims
were forced by violence and death squads to form sectarian enclaves. This is all
tied to the Yinon Plan and the reconfiguration of the region as part of a
broader objective.
In Iran, the Israelis have been trying in vain to get
the Iranian Jewish community to leave. Iran’s Jewish population is actually the
second largest in the Middle East and arguably the oldest undisturbed Jewish
community in the world. Iranian Jews view themselves as Iranians who are tied to
Iran as their homeland, just like Muslim and Christian Iranians, and for them
the concept that they need to relocate to Israel because they are Jewish is
ridiculous.
In Lebanon, Israel has been working to exacerbate sectarian
tensions between the various Christian and Muslim factions as well as the Druze.
Lebanon is a springboard into Syria and the division of Lebanon into several
states is also seen as a means for balkanizing Syria into several smaller
sectarian Arab states. The objectives of the Yinon Plan are to divide Lebanon
and Syria into several states on the basis of religious and sectarian identities
for Sunni Muslims, Shiite Muslims, Christians, and the Druze. There could also
be objectives for a Christian exodus in Syria too.
The new head of the
Maronite Catholic Syriac Church of Antioch, the largest of the autonomous
Eastern Catholic Churches, has expressed his fears about a purging of Arab
Christians in the Levant and Middle East. Patriarch Mar Beshara Boutros Al-Rahi
and many other Christian leaders in Lebanon and Syria are afraid of a Muslim
Brotherhood takeover in Syria. Like Iraq, mysterious groups are now attacking
the Christian communities in Syria. The leaders of the Christian Eastern
Orthodox Church, including the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, have
also all publicly expressed their grave concerns. Aside from the Christian
Arabs, these fears are also shared by the Assyrian and Armenian communities,
which are mostly Christian.
Sheikh Al-Rahi was recently in Paris where he
met President Nicolas Sarkozy. It is reported that the Maronite Patriarch and
Sarkozy had disagreements about Syria, which prompted Sarkozy to say that the
Syrian regime will collapse. Patriarch Al-Rahi’s position was that Syria should
be left alone and allowed to reform. The Maronite Patriarch also told Sarkozy
that Israel needed to be dealt with as a threat if France legitimately wanted
Hezbollah to disarm.
Because of his position in France, Al-Rahi was
instantly thanked by the Christian and Muslim religious leaders of the Syrian
Arab Republic who visited him in Lebanon. Hezbollah and its political allies in
Lebanon, which includes most the Christian parliamentarians in the Lebanese
Parliament, also lauded the Maronite Patriarch who later went on a tour to South
Lebanon.
- Al-Rahi is now being politically attacked by the Hariri-led
March 14 Alliance, because of his stance on Hezbollah and his refusal to support
the toppling of the Syrian regime. A conference of Christian figures is actually
being planned by Hariri to oppose Patriarch Al-Rahi and the stance of the
Maronite Church. Since Al-Rahi announced his position, the Tahrir Party, which
is active in both Lebanon and Syria, has also started targeting him with
criticism. It has also been reported that high-ranking U.S. officials have also
cancelled their meetings with the Maronite Patriarch as a sign of their
displeasure about his positions on Hezbollah and Syria.
The Hariri-led
March 14 Alliance in Lebanon, which has always been a popular minority (even
when it was a parliamentary majority), has been working hand-in-hand with the
U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the groups using violence and terrorism
in Syria. The Muslim Brotherhood and other so-called Salafist groups from Syria
have been coordinating and holding secret talks with Hariri and the Christian
political parties in the March 14 Alliance. This is why Hariri and his allies
have turned on Cardinal Al-Rahi. It was also Hariri and the March 14 Alliance
that brought Fatah Al-Islam into Lebanon and have now helped some of its members
escape to go and fight in Syria.
There are unknown snippers who are
targeting Syrian civilians and the Syrian Army with a view of causing chaos and
internal fighting. The Christian communities in Syria are also being targeted by
unknown groups. It is very likely that the attackers are a coalition of U.S.,
French, Jordanian, Israeli, Turkish, Saudi, and Khalij (Gulf) Arab forces
working with some Syrians on the inside.
A Christian exodus is being
planned for the Middle East by Washington, Tel Aviv, and Brussels. It has been
reported that - Al-Rahi was told in Paris by President Nicolas Sarkozy that the
Christian communities of the Levant and Middle East can resettle in the European
Union. This is no gracious offer. It is a slap in the face by the same powers
that have deliberately created the conditions to eradicate the ancient Christian
communities of the Middle East. The aim appears to be either the resettling of
the Christian communities outside of the region or demarcate them into enclaves.
Both could be objectives.
This project is meant to delineate the Arab
nations along the lines of being exclusively Muslim nations and falls into
accordance with both the Yinon Plan and the geo-political objectives of the U.S.
to control Eurasia. A major war may be its outcome. Arab Christians now have a
lot in common with black-skinned Arabs.
Re-Dividing Africa: The Yinon
Plan is very Much Alive and at Work…
In regards to Africa, Tel Aviv
sees securing Africa as part of its broader periphery. This broader or so-called
“new periphery” became a basis of geo-strategy for Tel Aviv after 1979 when the
“old periphery” against the Arabs that included Iran, which was one of Israel’s
closest allies during the Pahlavi period, buckled and collapsed with the 1979
Iranian Revolution. In this context, Israel’s “new periphery” was conceptualized
with the inclusion of countries like Ethiopia, Uganda, and Kenya against the
Arab states and the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is why Israel has been so
deeply involved in the balkanization of Sudan.
In the same context as the
sectarian divisions in the Middle East, the Israelis have outlined plans to
reconfigure Africa. The Yinon Plan seeks to delineate Africa on the basis of
three facets: (1) ethno-linguistics; (2) skin-colour; and, finally, (3)
religion. To secure the realm, it also so happens that the the Institute for
Advanced Strategic and Political Studies (IASPS), the Israeli think-tank that
included Perle, also pushed for the creating of the Pentagon’s U.S. Africa
Command (AFRICOM).
An attempt to separate the merging point of an Arab and
African identity is underway. It seeks to draw dividing lines in Africa between
a so-called “Black Africa” and a supposedly “non-Black” North Africa. This is
part of a scheme to create a schism in Africa between what are assumed to be
“Arabs” and so-called “Blacks.”
This objective is why the ridiculous
identity of an “African South Sudan” and an “Arab North Sudan” have been
nurtured and promoted. This is also why black-skinned Libyans have been targeted
in a campaign to “colour cleanse” Libya. The Arab identity in North Africa is
being de-linked from its African identity. Simultaneously there is an attempt to
eradicate the large populations of “black-skinned Arabs” so that there is a
clear delineation between “Black Africa” and a new “non-Black” North Africa,
which will be turned into a fighting ground between the remaining “non-Black”
Berbers and Arabs.
In the same context, tensions are being fomented
between Muslims and Christians in Africa, in such places as Sudan and Nigeria,
to further create lines and fracture points. The fuelling of these divisions on
the basis of skin-colour, religion, ethnicity, and language is intended to fuel
disassociation and disunity in Africa. This is all part of a broader African
strategy of cutting North Africa off from the rest of the African
continent.
Preparing the Chessboard for the “Clash of
Civilizations”
It is at this point that all the pieces have to be
put together and the dots have to be connected.
The chessboard is being
staged for a “Clash of Civilizations” and all the chess pieces are being put
into place. The Arab World is in the process of being cordoned off and sharp
delineation lines are being created. These lines of delineation are replacing
the seamless lines of transition between different ethno-linguistic,
skin-colour, and religious groups.
Under this scheme, there can no longer
be a melding transition between societies and countries. This is why the
Christians in the Middle East and North Africa, such as the Copts, are being
targeted. This is also why black-skinned Arabs and black-skinned Berbers, as
well as other North African population groups which are black-skinned, are
facing genocide in North Africa.
After Iraq and Egypt, the Libyan Arab
Jamahiriya and the Syrian Arab Republic are both important points of regional
destabilization in North Africa and Southeast Asia respectively. What happens in
Libya will have rippling effects on Africa, as what happens in Syria will have
rippling effects on Southeast Asia and beyond. Both Iraq and Egypt, in
connection with what the Yinon Plan states, have acted as primers for the
destabilization of both these Arab states.
What is being staged is the
creation of an exclusively “Muslim Middle East” area (excluding Israel) that
will be in turmoil over Shiite-Sunni fighting. A similar scenario is being
staged for a “non-Black North Africa” area which will be characterized by a
confrontation between Arabs and Berber. At the same time, under the “Clash of
Civilizations” model, the Middle East and North Africa are slated to
simultaneously be in conflict with the so-called “West” and “Black
Africa.”
This is why both Nicolas Sarzoky, in France, and David Cameron,
in Britain, made back-to-back declarations during the start of the conflict in
Libya that multiculturalism is dead in their respective Western European
societies. [9] Real multiculturalism threatens the legitimacy of the NATO war
agenda. It also constitutes an obstacle to the implementation of the “Clash of
Civilizations” which constitutes the cornerstone of U.S. foreign
policy.
In this regard, Zbigniew Brzezinski, former U.S. National
Security Advisor, explains why multiculturalism is a threat to Washington and
its allies: “[A]s America becomes an increasingly multicultural society, it may
find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues [e.g.,
war with the Arab World, China, Iran, or Russia and the former Soviet Union],
except in the circumstances of a truly massive and widely perceived direct
external threat. Such a consensus generally existed throughout World War II and
even during the Cold War [and exists now because of the 'Global War on
Terror'].” [10] Brzezinski’s next sentence is the qualifier of why populations
would oppose or support wars: “[The consensus] was rooted, however, not only in
deeply shared democratic values, which the public sensed were being threatened,
but also in a cultural and ethnic affinity for the predominantly European
victims of hostile totalitarianisms.” [11]
Risking being redundant, it
has to be mentioned again that it is precisely with the intention of breaking
these cultural affinities between the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) region and
the so-called “Western World” and sub-Saharan Africa that Christians and
black-skinned peoples are being targeted.
Ethnocentrism and Ideology:
Justifying Today’s “Just Wars”
In the past, the colonial powers of
Western Europe would indoctrinate their people. Their objective was to acquire
popular support for colonial conquest. This took the form of spreading
Christianity and promoting Christian values with the support of armed merchants
and colonial armies.
At the same time, racist ideologies were put forth.
The people whose lands were colonized were portrayed as “sub-human,” inferior,
or soulless. Finally, the “White Man’s burden” of taking on a mission of
civilizing the so-called “uncivilized peoples of the world” was used. This
cohesive ideological framework was used to portray colonialism as a “just
cause.” The latter in turn was used to provide legitimacy to the waging of “just
wars” as a means to conquering and “civilizing” foreign lands.
Today, the
imperialist designs of the United States, Britain, France, and Germany have not
changed. What has changed is the pretext and justification for waging their
neo-colonial wars of conquest. During the colonial period, the narratives and
justifications for waging war were accepted by public opinion in the colonizing
countries, such as Britain and France. Today’s “just wars” and “just causes” are
now being conducted under the banners of women’s rights, human rights,
humanitarianism, and democracy.
Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is an
award-winning writer from Ottawa, Canada. He is a Sociologist and Research
Associate at the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal. He was a
witness to the “Arab Spring” in action in North Africa. While on the ground in
Libya during the NATO bombing campaign he was Special Correspondent for the
syndicated investigative KPFA program Flashpoints, which is aired from Berkeley,
California.
NOTES
[1] Richard Perle et al., A Clean Break: A
New Strategy for Securing the Realm (Washington, D.C. and Tel Aviv: Institute
for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies), 1996.
[2] Ibid.
[3]
Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Barak Ravid, “Israeli diplomats told to take offensive
in PR war against Iran,” Haaretz, June 1, 2009.
[6] Perle et al., Clean
Break, op. cit.
[7] Aluf Benn, “Sharon says U.S. should also disarm Iran,
Libya and Syria,” Haaretz, September 30, 2009.
[8] Richard Perle et al.,
Clean Break, op. cit.
[9] Robert Marquand,”Why Europe is turning away from
multiculturalism,” Christian Science Monitor, March 4, 2011.
[10] Zbigniew
Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic
Imperatives (New York: Basic Books October 1997), p.211
[11]
Ibid.