The defeat in Gaza is just the latest of Washington’s debacles in the Middle East. US-Israeli failures in the territories are the result of a misguided policy which is backfiring everywhere. Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh summed up the present policy like this: "We're in the business of creating ... sectarian violence."
Hersh is right. Bush and Olmert are using the familiar “divide and conquer” strategy to provoke “Arab on Arab” violence. The policy is an extension of Henry Kissinger’s dictum during the Iran-Iraq war: “I hope they all kill each other”. The goal is the same today as it was then.
Hersh says that the Bush administration supported the group of Sunni extremists, Fatah al-Islam, who are still battling the Lebanese Army in Nahr al-Bared refugee camp. He said that it is "a covert program we joined in with the Saudis as part of a bigger, broader program of doing everything we could to stop the spread of the Shiite world".
In Lebanon, as in Gaza Strip, the “divide and conquer” strategy has produced appalling results---forcing 30,000 poor Palestinians to flee their homes and search for shelter.
This week’s bombing of the minarets at the Golden Dome Mosque is another example of the Bush Doctrine at work. Bush and his generals assure us that Al Qaeda was responsible, but reports from the New York Times tell a different story.
Here’s an excerpt from an article by Graham Bowley “Minarets on Shiites Shrine in Iraq Destroyed in Attack” (NY Times) which gives us a good idea of what really happened in Samarra. Bowley says:
“Since the attack in 2006, the shrine had been under the protection of local — predominantly Sunni — guards. But American military and Iraqi security officials had recently become concerned that the local unit had been infiltrated by Al Qaeda forces in Iraq. A move by the Ministry of Interior in Baghdad over the last few days to bring in a new guard unit — predominantly Shiite — may have been linked to the attack today.”
No reference is made to the sudden and unexplained changing of the guards at the mosque in future accounts in the mainstream press. And, yet, that is the most important point. The minarets were blown up just days after the new guards took charge. They cordoned off the area, placed snipers on the surrounding rooftops, and then blew up the minarets in broad daylight.
The first explosion took place at 9:30 AM. Ten minutes later the second bomb was detonated.
Al Qaeda?
Not likely.
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