by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.
Date: February 4, 1998
Of course, a senior British diplomat said to EIR, on February 4, it is "we British" who have been prodding the Americans to take action against Saddam Hussein. "We have to encourage the Americans to have more backbone." He reported that an American colleague had asked him recently, "why the British always go along with what the U.S. is doing." He had replied to that naive American: "That is the wrong question; the question is: Why does it take the British so long to prod the United States to act?"
That source continued: "The British are encouraging the U.S. to have more backbone. We are not lackeys of the U.S. We believe the Americans aren't tough enough, when it comes to these matters. We are harder than the Americans." Asked if he thought Tony Blair would be doing, now, what Margaret Thatcher did in 1990-91, when she "stiffened up" George Bush, to attack Iraq, he said, "I think that parallel is correct." He explained, that the British prodding was being done through "normal channels, you don't have to look for underhanded or conspiratorial mechanisms."
He described the British-American relationship in the planned new attack on Iraq as follows."It does not surprise me, that Blair would be going over to Washington, to toughen up Clinton." Asked if this was, yet again, the old British view, that the British are "the Greeks", to the Americans being "the Romans," he laughed, and said, "Yes, I think so. ... I can tell you, that it was confirmed to me, at a much lower level than Kissinger, that the British Ambassador in Washington now knows more about the proceedings of the National Security Council, and the discussions among deputy NSC directors, than do those actually involved in the discussions.""
Another leading British source stated the following. "I can't see anything more disastrous for American policy in the Middle East than this attack on Iraq," was the cold-blooded comment of Chatham House (Royal Institute for International Affairs-RIIA) Middle East hand George Joffe. "It would immediately complicate relations with Arab governments. It would lead to further charges of U.S. double standards in the way it deals with Israel. It would mean the Israel-Palestinian peace process would be virtually dead. In all respects, the expected results couldn't really be worse."
In short, taking all factors into consideration, if President Clinton were to continue to be duped by Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair, into launching such an attack upon Iraq, as he seems presently determined to do, the global chain-reaction would soon create the conditions under which a new, successful impeachment drive could be launched against a globally self- isolated Clinton himself. Worse, the economic and political chain-reaction effects of the U.S.A.'s efforts to prod continental European and other nations to tolerate such an attack, would mean that the U.S. would soon be despised and isolated in current international factional line-ups. That global chain-reaction would create the climate of isolation around the President, which would destroy the political sympathy the President has gained from his own and Hilary Clinton's clear response to Prosecutor Starr's efforts to orchestrate a "Lewinsky Affair."
For that case, the logic of impeachment works as follows.
The strategic center of today's world has been shifted away from the Atlantic crossing, to Eurasia, especially East and South Asia. The present explosion of Weimar-style hyperinflation which Michel Camdessus' IMF and the Japan government are unleashing within East and Southeast Asia, and the failure of the U.S.A. to oppose and denounce this openly, is, justly or not, already creating waves of deep resentment throughout East and South Asia, resentment which could soon turn to hatred.
The nations which would react directly against the U.S.A. in the case of such a attack upon helpless Iraq, are not only virtually all nations of the Arab world, but also Asia's Islamic population generally. The latter means Pakistan, an India which has the largest Islamic population of any nation of the world, and Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia. This would be a serious diplomatic break with Russia at the time Russia is headed into the worst crisis since the 1993 attack on Moscow's White House. It would be a serious blow to U.S.-China relations. Japan's current government is already, presently, totally in London's pocket, against the U.S.A.
Western Europe is dependent economically on its relations with the nations of the Asia markets. Already, the leading financier circles of continental Europe are allied in a "Maastricht"-keyed preparation for financial warfare against the U.S.A. Under the chain-reaction effects of a U.S. complicity in savage new attacks against a defenseless Iraq, the present European resistance to London-led anti-Americanism would wilt.
Chatham House's George Joffe described relevant highlights of this scenario in the following terms.
Joffe portrayed the coming attack on defenseless Iraq as inevitable, barring some "terrible mishap, like Saddam conceding." He said: "Clinton will do it, he {wants} to do it. He thinks this will improve his domestic situation; he's being goaded on by the media."
Joffe disagreed with EIR's assessment of the political blow- back against Clinton inside the U.S.A.: "I find your view that this would lead to his impeachment to be very interesting, but I think it is working the opposite way."
Nonetheless, he volunteered a view which tends to support EIR's estimate of the impeachment risk. "The coming attack, as the Americans have made clear, will be very heavy, indeed," he went on. "It will involve new generation weapons, smart-smart weapons, to minimize collateral damage. There will be 3-4 days of intensive bombing."
Additionally, in his analysis, Joffe purveyed the usual, cynical British double game. He insisted that Blair was simply supporting a policy made in Washington, and that Britain would stand to lose, by a backlash against its interests in the Middle East and broader Islamic world, for "going along with" the United States. However, later in the discussion, he acknowledged that the British would be the first to rush in and try to capitalize on and exploit the damage done to U.S. interests. "The French will be right next to us, and the Germans right behind."
It must be remembered, that President Clinton's personal strength in office, is his commitment to foreign policy. His domestic policy has been essentially a rear-guard operation; although he still has some knowledgeable advisors in the field of economic policy left over from his first administration, Clinton himself has a very poor comprehension of both economics, and of the way in which economic policy's effects impact the population generally. It was the subject of foreign policy, which was his strong point of interest as a student; it is in the domain of foreign policy, that, until now, a significant part of the U.S. "establishment" finds the President's role a crucial one, and his continued incumbency worth defending. If the President destroys his credibility in foreign policy, as this proposed Iraq adventure would do over the months ahead, what happens to most of his present "establishment" allies, those influentials who have tipped the balance in defending him against both {Wall Street Journal} Republicans and {Washington Post} Democrats?
If Clinton goes, a potentially vulnerable Vice-President Al Gore, already targetted by Katharine Graham's {Washington Post}, is more vulnerable than was Dick Nixon's (recently deceased) running mate, Spiro Agnew, under somewhat analogous, post-August 1971 conditions. What happens to the poor United States, then? What happens to this poor, crisis-wracked world, without the indispensable role which only a politically viable U.S. sitting President could supply?
Presently, the preponderance of evidence is, that just as President Richard Nixon was duped into committing his August 15- 16, 1971 act of ritual political suicide, Clinton will be duped into bombing Iraq once again. It appears likely, at this moment, that Clinton will receive Britain's new "Ramsay Macdonald," Tony Blair, as that dumb, snarling knuckle-dragger, George Bush, received Britain's murderous Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
This present EIR strategic study of the issue is, in part, our last-ditch effort to bring official Washington to its senses on this specific issue, and to save the Clinton Presidency thereby. It is also a summary of four special factors contributing to London's apparent success in foisting this wild- eyed scheme for bombing Iraq upon the President: 1.) As was also the case in the British-created 1990-1991 Gulf War scenario, the present threat by London's puppet, Prime Minister Netanyahu's Israeli right-wing lunatics, to launch a "nuclear Armageddon" scenario, to bomb Iraq (and, Iran and possibly Sudan), under the cover of Israel's "nuclear umbrella," if the U.S.A. does not do it first. 2.) The way in which such a savage action would turn the Islamic world against Clinton's U.S.A. 3.) How virtually all of Eurasia would be quickly turned against the U.S.A., as George Joffe sensed might be the case. 4.) How the "triangulation" hoax, foisted upon President Clinton during the May-August 1996 interval, works to make the President susceptible to manipulation by his enemies on certain points, including, but not limited to the Iraq policy announced during the "State of the Union" address.
This feature is also the first step to lay the basis for fall-back options to be put into place, should the President go ahead with perpetrating such a folly as the proposed, London- created new warfare against the helpless nation and people of starved Iraq.
