LaRouche: Israeli Moves in Syria
Threaten World War
by Jeffrey Steinberg
[Parts of this article appeared as an August 4 LaRouche PAC press release.]
Aug. 6—Lyndon LaRouche warned on Aug. 3 that ongoing Israeli actions, including the July 5 Israeli Air Force (IAF) bombing of a depot near Latakia, Syria which held Russian-made anti-ship cruise missiles, could trigger a wider war, drawing the United States into thermonuclear conflict with Russia.
LaRouche charged that Israel's behavior is "criminally insane," adding that the financial and economic breakdown crisis in Europe and the United States has reached an advanced stage, such that any day, there could be a triggering event that leads to global conflict. He cited the period between now and the end of September as the final phase of an economic cycle, in which the prospects of a systemic crash are greatly increased, moving to the end of the fiscal year. He warned that this fact exacerbates the grave danger of an eruption of conflict. One cannot rule out the outbreak of some kind of general war between now and November, he concluded.
Israeli Detonator?
The Netanyahu government in Israel is apoplectic because war-avoidance elements within the Pentagon and the U.S. intelligence community leaked the fact of the July 5 IAF bombings to the U.S. media. It was the first and only disclosure of the latest in a series of Israeli bombing raids against targets in Syria. The fact that Russian arms are being targeted by the Israelis has profound strategic implications, and Israel had intended to keep the attacks secret.
But on July 31, Michael Gordon posted a story in the New York Times under the headline "Some Syria Missiles Eluded Israeli Strike, Officials Say." Gordon report on the July 5 IAF bombing raid said that U.S. intelligence community sources believe that the raid failed to destroy all of the Russian-made Yakhont anti-ship missiles in storage. He added that "further Israeli strikes are likely."
The Gordon article was followed Aug. 2 by a story in the Jerusalem Post, accusing Pentagon and U.S. intelligence circles who "do not have Israeli interests at heart" of leaking the story of the IAF strikes to damage Israel. The author of the Jerusalem Post piece, Yaacov Lappin, accused "elements in the U.S. intelligence community, not in the Obama Administration," of being behind the damaging leaks. Prof. Efraim Inbar, of the Sadat-Begin Center, charged that the U.S. leaking of the secret Israeli raids was intended to embarrass Israel, and could lead to retaliation by the Assad government.
The U.S. Message
According to U.S. intelligence sources contacted by EIR, the leaks are intended to make clear that the United States is not supporting the Israeli strikes against Russian targets against Syria. Such strikes could lead to an escalation that directly draws the United States into a head-on confrontation with Russia, which has delivered weapons to the Assad government, based on long-standing government-to-government contracts.
The fact that elements in the U.S. intelligence community blew the whistle on the Israeli air strikes, including details about how the IAF conducted the air-to-surface attacks on the Latakia depot from over the Mediterranean, was a message to Israel from the Pentagon and the U.S. intelligence community faction: Further Israeli attacks on Russian SAM sites inside Syria are not in the U.S. interest, and Israel should cut it out. The source concurred with LaRouche's evaluation that the Israeli actions are insanely dangerous and could trigger a much larger conflict.
The Gordon exposé in the Times comes in advance of a trip to Israel by Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, announced for mid-August. According to one senior Pentagon source, Dempsey's message to the Israelis will be blunt: Any Israeli action against Syria or Iran is a potential trigger for general war, and must be understood as such by the top leadership of the Israeli Defense Forces. Dempsey will demand that the IDF take no unilateral actions that could be the trigger for a broader war, dragging the United States in.
Any pre-emptive Israeli action against Iran will also be on the agenda between Dempsey and his Israeli counterparts.
The Strategic Context
LaRouche emphasized that the madmen in London and Washington are out to start a thermonuclear confrontation, targeting Russia and China, unless they are stopped. The intelligence leaks and the insane Israeli behavior must be seen in this overall context.
Taking the point in Washington for military escalation has been Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who has specialized recently in vitriolic attacks on General Dempsey, for his unwillingness to launch war against Syria. Showing what LaRouche called a "certain degree of instability," McCain took to the floor of the Senate on Aug. 1, to attempt to refute Dempsey's July 19 letter on the dangers involved in the U.S. commiting an "act of war" against Syria. McCain's so-called authority for the detailed script of his rant came from the neo-con Institute for the Study of War, a group run by the same crew that brought us the "cakewalk" in Iraq!
McCain was given his comeuppance, when he was forced to withdraw his hold against Dempsey's confirmation for a second term as JCS chairman. However, the Senator continues to beat the war drums, and to serve as one of President Obama's close political allies in the Senate. In addition to hosting McCain frequently at the White House, to discuss matters ranging from budget-cutting to foreign policy, Obama chose this warmonger, who openly pushes for a military alliance with the al-Qaeda jihadists in Syria (as he did in Libya), as his personal envoy to Egypt, allegedly to seek a deal to protect the ousted Muslim Brotherhood.
Fortunately, the U.S. channels of communication with the Egyptian military and the interim government it's protecting are not all run by the White House, but also run through the military-to-military communication. In a wide-ranging interview with the Washington Post published Aug. 4, Egyptian Defense Minister Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi castigated the U.S. for its support for the Brotherhood, but noted that there is daily communication between U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and the Egyptian military.
The United States is finally ending two decade-long wars that ultimately served no American strategic interests, and cost trillions of dollars and the lives of many American troops. Now, Dempsey and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, among other U.S. institutions, are concerned that, with British agent and "humanitarian interventionist" Susan Rice now running the National Security Council and having daily access to President Obama, there is a growing danger that the U.S. will be dragged into a third war. Unless British puppets Obama, and secondarily Netanyahu, are dramatically weakened now—through such actions as the passage of Glass-Steagall or moves toward impeachment—that danger can only increase to the threshold of general war.
