Addressing the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP, a pro-Israel group closely allied with AIPAC) today, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel sought to stake out a pro-diplomacy position while giving the usual levels of lip-service to military support for Israel.
The result was a somewhat confusing split in reports of his speech, in which he simultaneously called for a “more delicate approach” to the Middle East that required the US to “recognize its limitations,” while emphasizing policies that suggest nothing has really changed.
To that end, Hagel touted “reinforcing” Israel’s military advantage across the region, as well as backing Egypt and selling high end weaponry to the Persian Gulf states, while vowing to keep a “robust military presence” there as well.
Ultimately, if the speech seems to be self-contradictory it is because US policy in the region also is. The recognition of a changing dynamic in the region and the inability of the US to impose its will (or Israel’s will) militarily across the region is quite important. At the same time, the momentum for the old policy of throwing ridiculous amounts of weaponry at the region as a “stabilization” policy is not gone.
Hagel’s speech didn’t appear to make specific note of the disastrous implications of continuing the policy they know is inappropriate for the situation, but given the audience it is hardly surprising.
NO MORE WARS! United States, not just Palestine, has become occupied by Netanyahu's Israel, AIPAC, Israel Firsters and ingenious distribution of enormous amounts of Jewish money. Our representative democracy is severely compromised and the destruction of America as we know it imminent. Termination of the criminal treachery and treason demands immediate priority. The Government of the United States must again serve American interests, not the Jewish state's paranoid pursuit of invulnerability, territorial conquest and racist empire. NO MORE WARS!
Israel's Mideast malevolence is a sideshow. It enables the ever increasing Israeli/Jewish control of America's government, finances and military-industrial complex. The Jewish state has occupied not just Palestine, but America too. Our democracy is being methodically destroyed from within and transformed into a world dominating racist ultrapower, the JEWISH STATE OF AMERICA.
ahha. hahaha… Hagel AIPAC dog just like his boss.
In the meantime, at the rate the Syria Republic is disarming US supported 'rebels' one might wonder if arming pro-Syrian Republic militias is what Hagel et al planned. Heh.snort…and default potentially arming Kurdish factions not in alignment with Kerry's back-handed deals with PKK. OMG…not all Kurds align ethically? NO…what will Hitto do? but I digress into mocking the outsider(s) as political answer for social policy inside Syria..heh. The US by failed policy strengths both anti-American extremism and Syrian nationalism. Go figure arming ME would still be on the table. But you know, insanity is rarely rationale.. Libya is an absolute haven for terrorism and the US, er, Obama can take all the blame..