IS OBAMA A STEALTH PEACENIK?

Today's blog is by Karl Eysenbach, who posts as Old New Lefty in Open Salon. The opinions expressed are those of the author. This blog may be reproduced, unedited and with attribution, without prior permission.


Conservatives rightly sneered when Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. After all, it was pretty much equivalent to a freshman college football player winning the Heisman Trophy for suiting up for his first game. And as we all know, there've been plenty of reasons during the Obama administration where it was pretty obvious that he might not have been as worthy a recipient as Mother Theresa.

Failure to close Guantanamo, drones, the surge in Afghanistan and Iraq...

No need to list them all.

But now it's time to play the game of "Let's Pretend."

First, let's think of Barack Obama who's actually just a regular human being. If you were in the position that he's in (winning the Nobel Prize) -- wouldn't you feel just a teeny bit guilty about the crap that you've had to ladle because of the demands that the American Empire has put on you? We can get into psychoanalyzing the man in the Oval Office, but believe me. 99.9% of the time when you're Prez -- you better jump when the Defense Department tells you what to do.

 We can get all liberal and whiny about Obama's lack of leadership and everything, but let me tell you. A stronger, better person than Barack Obama as POTUS would have only a 5% chance to do anything different than what Obama has done. And sure, I wish that he'd never appointed Timmy Geithner or Eric Holder, but a lot of crap is baked into the cake in DC. And there's nothing that anybody can do about it.

 Needless to say, President Obama was and is no doubt trying to figure out how to justify winning the Nobel Peace Prize for himself, but he is in many respects just a creature of circumstance. But once, in a great while (a real blue moon), opportunity reveals itself. And in this case, opportunity came from Syria.

I have no secret knowledge of the inner workings of the Obama White House. However, I do know that power does have its privilege. And princes do talk only to princes. So let's just pretend that we have 100% access to all of Barack Obama's phone calls.

First, let's go back in time to the middle of 2012 or thereabouts. The Syrian conflict had been boiling over for a couple of years, and the Defense Intelligence Agency has a better handle on the day to day situation on the ground in Syria than the CIA. Monitoring military developments is the exclusive job of the DIA. The CIA, unfortunately, is sometimes capable of allowing ideological zealots to color its analyses.

Most people pay more attention to what the CIA says. During the fall campaign, I had a brief conversation with Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, and I expressed serious concerns about the way DC appeared to be handling Syria. I told Wyden that the Russians should definitely be the lead sled dogs with regards to Syria, and Wyden's first impulse was to spout off some 'Merkan BS about how we'll show those Russkies because 'Merka is exceptional. Yadda yadda yadda, or something like that.

Checkmate to ONL? No, my last words to him were, "Please get a briefing from the DIA."

Wyden (self-satisfied) said, "They're under my committee!" End of conversation, but I put odds that the Senator actually did what I told him to do.

 I make this point not for self-aggrandizement about my psychic powers in foreign policy. But I want to make a point that anyone with even a modicum of understanding about the situation on the ground knew that a real path to peace in Syria might actually start with Russian intervention. Unfortunately, this common sense proposal couldn't possibly fly in Washington, DC!

Imagine Barack Obama going on television and saying, "My friends -- the only way to solve the problem of peace in Syria is to allow the Russians to be the lead sled dog. We will follow." Can you IMAGINE the shit storm that would set loose, not only from the Republicans, but from the lame stream media? Politically, as they say, this approach by Obama would be a non-starter, and I think that is a severe understatement.

So what's a Prez to do? The first rule for any elected is to do nothing when you're bollixed. Obama mouthed words about freedom fighters, evil Assad, etc. etc. for a year. And oh yeah, there was that "red line" remark somewhere. So fast forward to what I still think was a false flag operation on the part of rogue elements of the Syrian Army that had gone over to the other side from the chemical weapons corps.

And here, the president was put into a major dilemna. The way policy works in any White House is that the President's words are sacred, and that any development that goes counter to the President's words must be retaliated against. In the case of Syria, there was the ever present lobbying power of the Saudis, Big Oil, and the Israelis. And any president's administration is larded with clowns who pretend to advocate for the national interest. But in fact, they're captured national security advisors whose hearts are with Bandar Bush or AIPAC. That's just the cost of doing business to get into the Oval Office.

What's an Obama to do????

As I explained too briefly in an extended remark in my previous blog, it was necessary to appear to be an idiot to get the job done. And it was necessary to pick up the telephone and talk with other world leaders. For our purposes, Barack Obama only had to talk to two. #1 was of course, Vladimir Putin. I'm thinking Obama and Putin had many a heart to heart chats about the Syrian situation. And no doubt, Obama mentioned more than once in different ways how important it was for Russia to be the lead sled dog, but there were political problems at home getting in the way of implementing this very sensible strategy.

Here's where phone call #2 comes in. That was the call to London. Someone, somewhere (I don't know who) said that George Osborne, Prime Minister of Great Britain could do the trick. So Barack picks up and dials. And the fix is in.

 Washington has been going around all over the world looking for the usual suspects to be a coalition of the willing to bomb the shit out of Syria, but no action is to be found. George Osborne is more than willing to be thrown into the tank for Barack. There is a remarkable vote in the House of Parliament where the majority of back benchers express a vote of no confidence in the proposed policies of the British government and there's no cabinet shake-up, dissolution of Parliament, or call for an election? And you think Worldwide Wrestling is a put up job?????

This little action gives Obama all the excuse he needs to go to Congress to ask for an authorization of the War Powers Act. Mind you, this was never a problem for Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, or Iraq, not to mention those hundreds of little military incursions to places like Grenada, Panama, etc. etc. But surprise, surprise! It turns out to be a problem for Barack Obama! Now how could that just happen?

Of course, the chattering classes go all nuclear. That Barack Obama is so inept and foolish! What's wrong with that boy? Yadda yadda yadda. And we can see the results. John Kerry's supposed off the cuff remarks lead to a remarkable chain reaction where peace appears to be breaking out all over the Middle East.

Not only does Basher Assad have no problems in giving up his stockpile of chemical weapons, but elements of the Free Syrian Army are now attempting to negotiate with the Assad government to guarantee the safety of Syrian government employees in contested territory if the more liberal elements of the FSA can work with Assad's forces to fight the Islamists who've been bought and paid for by our freedom-loving allies, the Saudis.

We haven't heard the end of the Syrian peace process by a long shot. But you will note that a surgical American air strike against Syria is now totally unthinkable.

Meanwhile, we have the developments in Iran. The election of Hassan Rouhani to be the President of Iran in August is a "BFD," to paraphrase Joe Biden. I will not spend too much time on the horrible, twisted relations between the USA and that country. However, it's worth noting that Rouhani is closely related not only to the Ayatollah Rasfanjani (and more importantly) President Khatami, both very much good guys in comparson to Nutjob Ahmadinejad.

Khatami, in case you didn't know was a true liberal, serving from 1997 up to 2005. President Khatami went so far as to offer the United States assistance in hunting down the terrorists who were responsible for 9/11. And of course, what did George Bush do? "Iran is part of the axis of evil...."

Say no more.... No need to talk about the non-existant Iranian atomic bomb. But that alligator in the sewer has been the Great White Whale of Captain Netanyahu & Co. for a long time, and it's been driving our foreign policy machinery. I mix my metaphors, but you get the drift.

And so, Rouhani and Obama can't shake hands in public because both are afraid of their domestic reprecussions. But John Kerry can meet privately with Hassan Rouhani for a half hour and come out with both guys grinning and basically saying, "We can do business!" And Barack Obama can call Rouhani on the telephone and wish him well in Persian, while Rouhani thanks him in English.

It's a long way from now to Point Z in the case of both Syria and Iran. But I think that President Obama is close to actually deserving that Nobel Peace Prize.



Regular readers of this blog will recall that I also argued that there is good evidence that the President has shown a pattern of deliberately undermining his own arguments for war in Syria that is consistent with his resistance to hawks who have been pushing for war with Iraq since before his election.

Former senior CIA analyst Ray McGovern recently wrote a column which gave evidence to back up the belief that Obama, a Presidential history buff, is fully aware of why and how Kennedy was killed and wants to avoid the same fate.

To those who would call him a coward for not more directly challenging the power of the military-industrial complex: consider whether you would be willing to give your life and leave your daughters fatherless in a futile symbol of resistance. That is all it would mean if he were to die for a country whose people are so focused on their hatred for one another that they cannot come together to save the nation and the world. To quote President Obama himself, we "have to be the change that will make (him) do the right thing."

LEADERSHIP WITHOUT LEADERS

Every one of you devoted friends should consider himself the only person in the entire world who is wearing the luminous crown of divine teachings and the only one who holds in his hands the life-giving banner of the Cause of Baha'u'llah for the world of humanity; so that he may strive, with a firm resolution, unflinching determination, steadfast steps and hopeful heart, to tread his undeviating path in the chosen highway of God and, with a brilliant countenance and head held high, continue with an unwavering attitude to focus his radiant gaze on the golden horizon of the Cause of God.

With those words, the administrative order of Iran's long-oppressed Baha'i religious minority tried to prepare its membership for another bloody era in 1980. The earliest days of the Baha'i Faith in its native land had seen 20,000 martyrs, with practically every leader killed or exiled, by the time its age of martytrdom was declared over in the early part of the 20th Century. The restoration of Persia's monarchy had brought a new wave of oppression; Tehran's Baha'i temple was razed with official ceremony; but this bought them no credibility with the ayatollahs now leading the popular revolution.

It is impossible to overstate the intensely democratic form that Baha'i elections take. No one can mention any names, trade any horses, or advocate for any position. Wherever nine or more Baha'is live in any community, they gather once a year to pray and write names on secret ballots. Taking as many rounds as necessary, the assembly chooses a chairperson, a treasurer, and a secretary. Writings and prayer between ballots exhort each adult Baha'i to name the worthiest ones among them for the post in question. It can, indeed usually does, require much more time than your average voting experience in America.

The entire Baha'i administrative order mirrors this process of consensus. Baha'i organization subverts the ordinary lines of political geography: "clusters" of assemblies form communities. Regions overlap states. Alaska has its own "National Spiritual Assembly;" so do Sicily and Puerto Rico. Members of the highest international council -- the Universal House of Justice -- are elected regularly in much the same manner and mode as local assemblies. There are no clerics, and no administrative class. Merit is the order of a sober selection.

Before 1980 was over, all nine Baha'is in that photograph had been arrested and disappeared, never to be seen again. With astounding courage, the Baha'is of Iran immediately re-elected another National Spiritual Assembly. They, too, were arrested and executed -- and a third immediately elected in its place.

That assembly disbanded itself after the revolutionary government passed a law making Baha'i assemblies illegal. It was one of several repressive acts by the regime: Baha'is were denied state education, government jobs, or civic recognition of marriage. Baha'is in Iran resisted by not resisting. For the next three decades, Baha'is would see the heightened oppression of the revolution muted by the Iran-Iraq War, relaxed in the thermidor of Khatami's presidency, and returned to official policy in the Ahmadinejad years. By this time, an entirely informal -- and web-based! -- Baha'i education system had sprung up, and a highly-organized informal system to replace the assembly. From June of 2010:

NEW YORK — The trial of seven Baha'i leaders imprisoned for more than two years in Iran seems to have come to a conclusion after three days of successive court hearings.
The seven appeared in Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran on the morning of Saturday, 12 June and returned to Evin Prison shortly after noon.

All seven were convicted last August and sentenced to 20 years in prison for "establishment of an illegal administration." Calling themselves asyaran ("friends"), this simple coordinating group had committed the crime of providing basic community functions, like burial services and counseling. These convictions are ironic, as Baha'is created these informal arrangements to stay in compliance with the laws. Baha'i scriptures actually tell them to obey their national authority -- and they had been.

Yet even this repression has failed to end the Baha'i Faith in Iran. Indeed, it has obtained the opposite effect, kindling sympathy as the regime's popular support crumbles. Every Baha'i hanged, murdered, or imprisoned becomes a martyr of peaceful resistance instead of a warning to others. Every innovation by the state has engendered equal or greater innovation by the Baha'is, who continue to put their best and brightest forward without fear.

SUBMISSION AND FREEDOM

In Arabic, Islam means “submission.” As with devout Christians, Buddhists and others of faith, they recognize that surrendering the self to a larger One is the ultimate act of liberation. Only by surrendering to God, they reason, does one find the strength to resist submitting to any man out of fear of death or lesser punishment.

The lessons of Iran should not be lost on the leaders of the uprisings in Egypt and elsewhere in the Muslim world. We are witnessing once again the violent attempt to suppress the will of the People of Iran by a religious leader once exalted by the masses for his piety and wisdom. To many outside observers in the West, it is astonishing that so many people who have known secular government would surrender their freedom so easily to any one man. The only religious autocrat to have ever served his People wisely was Mohammad, whose followers resorted to murder immediately after his death in order to gain control of the power that he had wielded so wisely and justly, praised be his name.

The Shah was a fascist autocrat and the will of the People was done in removing him from the Puppet throne. The mistake was in replacing one autocratic regime for another. While Iran has some of the trappings of a democracy, mass resistance to illegal vote tampering is put down with violent force. Demonstrating in solidarity with the Egyptian revolutionaries has now produced the same result. It is in giving away the power of the People to any man that we lose our ability to determine our individual and collective destinies.

The situation is closely analogous to how fascism has taken root in the United States. In a nation still suffering from the trauma of the Vietnam war and Watergate, we chose a smiling representative of the corporatocracy whose infectious grin caused us to instinctively like him better than a man who had finally taken on the difficult work America had abandoned after the political murder of John F. Kennedy for trying to undermine the forces of fascism in the United States and the world.

Carter was not a perfect President. None has ever been, although those whose visages grace the cliffs of Mount Rushmore deserve all the praise they have been given. Carter did not apply evenly the doctrine that the interests of peace always trump corporate interests, but he came close. I believe that when an objective observer looks at the plans that he had started to implement that he or she cannot help but see what a visionary Carter was and is.

Despite extensive televised hearings on the Iran-Contra scandal that revealed how Reagan’s October surprise was a back-door deal with someone in authority in Iran to order the release of the hostages, few seem to realize that the Ayatollah must have been involved in authorizing the deal. This makes him complicit in dealing with the CIA, who late in the Revolution had given up resisting the exit of the Shah. Can this be coincidence? One has to wonder how much of the apparently insane behavior of the Iranian government has been orchestrated by the CIA on behalf of the international corporate terrorists whose ultimate aim he knows to be to remove him from power to be replaced by another of their Puppets.

Reagan was so popular that his complicity in the coup that took Carter out was ignored. Marine Colonel Oliver North testified that he had committed treason before Congress and the world, yet he is a “free” man. A true Muslim or Christian would say otherwise. North like too many of us is a prisoner of the tribal mentality that is the ultimate cause and justification for the crime of war. 

Whether the “tribe” is a nation, a cultural group, a religion or even a family is irrelevant. In this time of unprecedented global interconnectedness, we are all citizens of the world and world leaders should be our servants, not our masters. Kurt Vonnegut coined the term "granfaloon" to describe the artificial groups into which we divide ourselves out of fear of being considered outside of them. This is the reason few of us are free, even within our own minds. To quote Vonnegut: "If you wish to study a granfaloon, just remove the skin of a toy balloon."

We can only stop the imposition of a fascist New World Order by demanding as a unified citizenry of the world that we create a democratic New World Order instead. The UN is a puppet government because if the veto power of the permanent members of the Security Council. Those who direct the actions of the Ambassadors of the council are representing the interests not of the world but of the international corporate terrorists who are competing in a massive game of Risk to determine who will be the Bankers in the game of Monopoly that they are playing. 

The Monopoly money they are using is worth nothing but what they determine it is worth. Since wealth is created by workers, that means that they get to determine what we are worth and how little it will take to appease us so that we do not take to the streets in open revolt. Slow to change their mindset, they are still playing by old rules that the free Peoples of the world are rewriting faster than they can respond with their usual tools of bribery, brutality, murder and war. It is time that together, we end this game of Risk so that we can resume a game of Life that we have a chance at winning.

The closest thing we have to a One World Government is the World Trade Organization. This is not a government but an organization of international corporate terrorists who make the rules that member nations must obey or risk economic retaliation. As with all such arrangements, the power players are the ones who profit from war and the tools of war and they call the shots. 

The WTO exists only to maximize profits for the bankers and other war profiteers who do not hesitate to create the conditions where war appears inevitable. If we accept that self-fulfilling prophecy, they will continue to succeed. We must learn to believe that war is not inevitable if the Peoples of the World act as one and demand liberty and justice for all.


Those who enjoyed this blog may be interested in reading the following essays from Stop the Madness: The Diary of a Soldier For Peace in the War to Take Back America: 

DEFANGING TEHRANYSAURUS REX

CLEAR AS ICE


A BRIEF HISTORY OF SLAVERY