At an AIPAC session on Sunday night, Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom proclaimed in a speech praising Secretary of State Colin L. Powell: "We have followed with great admiration your efforts to mobilize the international community to disarm Iraq and bring democracy and peace to the region, to the Middle East and to the rest of the world. Just imagine, Mr. Secretary, how much easier it would have been if Israel had been a member of the Security Council." A parade of top Bush administration officials -- Powell, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, political director Kenneth Mehlman, Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton and Assistant Secretary of State William Burns -- appeared before the AIPAC audience.
The officials won sustained cheers for their jabs at European opponents of war in Iraq, and their tough remarks aimed at two perennial foes of Israel, Syria and Iran. .....
When Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Leon S. Fuerth, the former foreign policy adviser to Al Gore, sat down with Burns for a session yesterday titled
"the Future of the Middle East," the subject was almost exclusively Iraq.
Kirk said the war would be "longer and more expensive than we think," and noted efforts the U.S. military had made to defend Israel. When Fuerth wondered whether there is too much "happy optimism" about Arab democracy, Kirk won cheers and an ovation for rejecting the charge. "God willing, we're going to have a great victory in Iraq," said AIPAC's Steve Rosen, the moderator
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A63578-2003Mar31?language=printerFrom AIPAC's websiteThe President signed the Syria Accountability Act into law on December 12, 2003. This legislation seeks to impose sanctions on Syria, including cutting off U.S. trade and downgrading diplomatic relations with Damascus, until Syria stops supporting terrorism, working to acquire weapons of mass destruction and illegally occupying Lebanon.
A leading sponsor of terrorism, Syria also has harmed American efforts to rebuild Iraq by allowing terrorists who have carried out attacks against American soldiers to cross into Iraq from its territory. The Syria Accountability Act is designed to serve as an additional pressure to encourage Syria to curtail these dangerous activities. Thank your representatives and senators for their support of this legislation.......
http://www.aipac.org/Action1.cfmAIPAC and the Iraqi National Congress
By Nathan Guttman
Ha'aretz
April 07, 2003
WASHINGTON - An unusual visitor was invited to address the annual conference held last week in Washington by AIPAC, the pro-Israeli lobby in the United States: the head of the Washington office of the Iraqi National Congress, Intifad Qanbar. The INC is one of the main opposition groups outside Iraq, and its leaders consider themselves natural candidates for leadership positions in the post-Saddam Hussein era. Qanbar's invitation to the conference reflects a first attempt to disclose the links between the American Jewish community and the Iraqi opposition, after years in which the two sides have taken pains to conceal them. The considerations against openly disclosing the extent of cooperation are obvious - revelation of overly close links with Jews will not serve the interests of the organizations aspiring to lead the Iraqi people. Currently, at the height of rivalry over future leadership of the country among opposition groups abroad, the domestic opposition and Iraqi citizens, it is most certainly undesirable for the Jewish lobby to forge - or flaunt - especially close links with any one of the groups, in a way that would cause its alienation from the others.
"At the current stage, we don't want to be involved in this argument," says a major activist in one of the larger Jewish organizations.....
http://www.inminds.co.uk/boycott-news-0377.htmlSome see victory extending beyond Iraq
Administration supporters also hope Saddam's fall will weaken Syria's economy. The influential lobby group, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), has been arguing that future Iraqi oil shipments should no longer be exported through Syria but through Turkey and Jordan instead.The Bush administration also is stepping up efforts to undermine the government of Iran, which along with Iraq and North Korea forms President Bush's "axis of evil." The United States has a new Web site in Iran's Farsi language and is increasing anti-regime broadcasts on radio and TV.
John Bolton, the hawkish undersecretary of State, told an AIPAC convention last week, that "in the aftermath of Iraq, dealing with the Iranian nuclear weapons program will be of equal importance as dealing with the North Korean nuclear weapons program."http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-04-10-iraq-diplomacy_x.htmnow the infamous A Clean Break:
A New Strategy for Securing the Realm by Richard Perle
Moving to a Traditional Balance of Power Strategy
TEXT:
We must distinguish soberly and clearly friend from foe. We must make sure that our friends across the Middle East never doubt the solidity or value of our friendship.
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. Jordan has challenged Syria's regional ambitions recently by suggesting the restoration of the Hashemites in Iraq. This has triggered a Jordanian-Syrian rivalry to which Asad has responded by stepping up efforts to destabilize the Hashemite Kingdom, including using infiltrations. Syria recently signaled that it and Iran might prefer a weak, but barely surviving Saddam, if only to undermine and humiliate Jordan in its efforts to remove Saddam.
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.
Since Iraq's future could affect the strategic balance in the Middle East profoundly, it would be understandable that Israel has an interest in supporting the Hashemites in their efforts to redefine Iraq, including such measures as: visiting Jordan as the first official state visit, even before a visit to the United States, of the new Netanyahu government; supporting King Hussein by providing him with some tangible security measures to protect his regime against Syrian subversion; encouraging — through influence in the U.S. business community — investment in Jordan to structurally shift Jordan’s economy away from dependence on Iraq; and diverting Syria’s attention by using Lebanese opposition elements to destabilize Syrian control of Lebanon.
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.
King Hussein may have ideas for Israel in bringing its Lebanon problem under control. The predominantly Shia population of southern Lebanon has been tied for centuries to the Shia leadership in Najf, Iraq rather than Iran. Were the Hashemites to control Iraq, they could use their influence over Najf to help Israel wean the south Lebanese Shia away from Hizballah, Iran, and Syria. Shia retain strong ties to the Hashemites: the Shia venerate foremost the Prophet’s family, the direct descendants of which — and in whose veins the blood of the Prophet flows — is King Hussein......
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/archive/1990s/instituteforadvancedstrategicandpoliticalstudies.htmBush received 23 standing ovations Tuesday in his speech to AIPAC, in which he defended his Iraq policy and reiterated his administration’s strong support of Israel. That support won him thunderous ovations throughout the speech, with a smattering of attendees holding up four fingers and shouting, "Four more years!"
While AIPAC’s membership is traditionally Democratic, many AIPAC voters have said they will back Bush in November, because of his stance on Israel. Bush spent much of his speech defending an Iraq policy buffeted by casualties and scandal. He said he remained committed to defeating insurgents in Iraq and transferring power there to a U.S.-friendly government.
"We will not be intimidated by thugs and assassins," Bush said. "We will win this essential, important victory in the war on terror."
Bush has faced much criticism for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the failure there to find weapons of mass destruction, which he cited as the primary justification for war, and the violence that has continued to plague Iraq since the end of large-scale hostilities last year.
Among many supporters of Israel, however, the war is seen largely as positive, with the ouster of Saddam Hussein considered a boon to Israel’s security.....
http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/preview.php?id=12271
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