    Will Russia Stop the War?

    By Israel Shamir

    Israel and the US , the terrible Siamese twins conjoined by their Jewish
    communities, are on the warpath. The usually knowledgeable Uzi Mahanaimi
    wrote in the Sunday Times that the plans have been laid out, and
    preparations are being completed for the resumption of the war on Syria
    and Iran temporarily stopped by the Hezbullah fighters in the mountains
    of Southern Lebanon . President Bush hopes to improve his sagging
    popularity by the war, says Alex Cockburn. A condemnation of Iran by the
    Security Council is all he needs before the attack at dawn. Until now,
    such resolutions were produced after a short period of haggling. Now
    there is a chance Russia will use its veto, and then the US plans would
    be shelved and the assault on Iran cancelled.

    Before 1990, such a vote would be certain. In those days of the
    much-maligned Soviet Union, the Russians advanced many causes of which
    we still enjoy the fruits: together with their Cuban allies they stopped
    the apartheid tanks in Angola and brought about Mandela’s release and
    the creation of a more egalitarian South Africa . The Russians supported
    European trade unions and Communist parties, preventing the onslaught of
    privatisation, outsourcing and globalisation. If you had it better
    before 1990, and you probably did, it was due to this Russian influence.
    The Russians supplied the enemies of the Empire with their cheap and
    good weapons, and they blocked the Empire’s attempts to legitimise its
    aggressions via UN resolutions. Their planes and their ground-to-air
    missiles helped the Vietnamese and the Koreans to win the war. Their
    influence and abilities were limited: the Russians never could compete
    on an equal footing with the immense power of the West harnessed by
    Washington . But they could spike the wheels of the American Juggernaut,
    and so they did. The Empire hated them and wished them dead, and many
    Western intellectuals supported this wish.

    My friend, Russian maverick poet Edward Limonov, wrote a short story in
    the 1980s: what would happen if Russia were to disappear altogether from
    the face of Earth? The US would intervene all over the world on massive
    scale, and capitalism and imperialism would regain ground lost since
    1917 with a vengeance, he prophesied; and so it has happened: Panama,
    Nicaragua, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan were invaded. The rich grew
    richer, the middle class shrank, freedoms were undone on the pretext of
    a "War on Terror."

    The Western Left contributed a lot to this unhappy development, for
    Soviet Russia was undone by double perfidy. In the end, their elites
    betrayed their masses and privatised the wealth created by the Soviet
    people. But before that, we, the Western Left, had internalized the Evil
    Empire cliché and repeated every slogan manufactured by the enemy. We
    chanted Let My People Go, and demanded an extra privilege for Jews, the
    right to emigrate. We did not care that the Palestinians had no right to
    return to their homes, while the Russian Jews wanted to move into
    settlements in occupied Palestine . We supported Russian dissidents,
    though they hated all we stood for and considered Pinochet ‘a soft
    leftist’. We accused Russians of their long-gone Gulag, and brought in
    Abu Ghraib. We condemned Russians too much, and contributed to their
    feeling of isolation, and to the second, fatal betrayal by their elites.

    We, good and sincere people, were misled and tricked by the media
    machine into an outburst of condemnation against our only mighty ally.
    The Western Left did not survive the collapse: it went into
    self-destruct mode, and what remains is represented by the likes of Tony
    Blair. All over the Western world, the elites celebrate their unlimited
    wealth and luxury, while ordinary people are worse and worse off. Not
    only industrial workers: unless you are a CEO you live worse than you
    did, and your chances to improve your lot are worse than they ever were.

    But luckily Russia did not disappear forever, though it was a close
    call. Boris Yeltsin sold its resources to his cronies and to Western
    companies, shelled the Parliament and transferred media and oil into the
    hands of Jewish oligarchs. Yeltsin installed Vladimir Putin, an ex-KGB
    officer and would-be Pinochet, with orders to keep the stolen property
    in the hands of thieves and the country in the Western grip. Now it
    appears that the enemies of Russia miscalculated with this man. Instead
    of doing a Pinochet on behalf of the oligarchs, Putin broke the
    oligarchs’ grip; he exiled and jailed some crooked tycoons, and restored
    a semblance of law and order in the country. He returned the main TV
    channels to the people. My wealthy Jewish acquaintances in Russia tell
    me that money does not rule in the country anymore. One can buy
    comforts, but not the power.

    The oil revenues began to flow into the country, not only to private
    coffers in Swiss banks. This revitalised the economy. The infrastructure
    ruined by Gorbachev and Yeltsin is being restored and improved; housing
    is being built in vast amounts; the once-degraded army is receiving new
    hardware; main streets shine with bright new shops; new and repaired
    highways with millions of cars connect villages and cities. The Chechen
    war is over; that republic has been reintegrated into Russia , and its
    dwellers enjoy full civil rights. Russian ballet again captures eyes and
    hearts. After the total collapse of the film industry in the 1990s,
    Russians are again making many movies, even blockbusters with mass
    appeal (like The Night Guard) as well as “festival art”. Obsessive,
    guilt-ridden lamentation has given way to new prose and poetry.
    Thousands of churches have been refurbished and their onion domes
    gilded; all the churches are full on Sundays. Historically a country of
    Orthodox Christianity and Sunni Islam, Russia preserves this tradition,
    and here the Christians and Muslims live in relative harmony despite the
    efforts of pro-American forces to inject Islamophobia into Russian
    hearts. The state TV, taken away from Jewish oligarchs and freed from PC
    tyranny, shows a lot of footage of the venerable grey-bearded Patriarch
    (the Russian Pope) and the nimble karate-fighter of a President
    enforcing the faith-and-authority tradition of Russia.

    A mammoth 1500-page-long novel by the Russian painter Maxim Kantor, The
    Drawing Textbook , le dernier cri of Russian literature, has been
    received by many readers as a proclamation of volte-face: Russia ’s
    ideological subservience to the Mammonite West is over! Kantor does not
    stop at condemning comprador capitalists: they were preceded by
    comprador intellectuals. Kantor defends Christ from the humanist
    assaults: Christianity was betrayed by humanists, in his view. Kantor is
    not fond of the new Russian regime: he regrets that Russia gave up its
    socialism, and considers 20 years of capitalist development as a flop:
    “barracks’ socialism was replaced by barracks’ capitalism”. With this
    book, a modern War and Peace, Russia’s re-invention is officially on the
    way, and this great country with its great people may yet turn the tide
    of history.

    It is doubtful whether Russia will turn leftwards anytime soon. But the
    international activism of adventure-seeking Americans is not acceptable
    to any independent Russian state. Russians are not happy with the
    American military bases surrounding Russia, with the aggressive push of
    NATO, or with politically motivated limitations on Russian companies.
    The Russians feel that they were cheated 20 years ago, when the West
    proclaimed its desire to reach full peace and harmony, and to respect
    the independence of nations. Believing this bull, the Russian troops
    left East Europe, but American troops still lounge in Germany, Italy,
    Japan; they advanced into Poland and this summer tried to land in
    Crimea, next to the Russian fleet's home base. The Russians left
    Vietnam, but the Americans still occupy Okinawa .

    Russia’s leaders feel unsafe: since the Soviet Union’s demise, leaders
    of independent sovereign states – Noriega, Saddam Hussein, Milosevic -
    have been snatched and imprisoned for denying the will of Washington.
    Neither is Russian wealth safe: Russia, like many nations, is obliged to
    keep its savings in the bottomless pit of the American economy, but
    nobody can collect on these investments yet. Norway invested all its oil
    income in the US stock market, and lost all of it; Swedish pension funds
    went the same way. If this is the case with the best friends of the US ,
    what will happen to its enemies? Iran, Iraq, Palestine lost all their
    savings by decisions of the US administration. Moreover, its legal
    system allows the US to sue foreign states for unlimited amounts. Thus,
    the families of victims of the Lockerbie crash received from besieged
    Libya a cool ten million dollars per passenger, although the American
    courts authorise ten thousand times smaller sums for the victims of
    American bombings – if indeed they receive anything at all.

    Russia feels unsafe, for the US has invaded other sovereign countries
    more often and with greater impunity than Hitler ever did. This feeling
    is shared by a less vocal China. “The great issue that divides the U.N.
    is no longer Communism versus capitalism, as it once was; it is
    sovereignty”, preached the New York Times. Its scribe, James Traub,
    lists many countries that “abuse their citizens under protection of
    sovereignty”. In vain will you look there for the name of Israel, though
    the Jews killed over a thousand people in Lebanon, and over 200
    civilians last month in Gaza alone.

    The great divisive issue of our times is actually somewhat different:
    whether the US and Israel are the only sovereign countries, while others
    have a limited "demo" version. Why does Israel get away with aggression
    (and now with its sea and air blockade of a sovereign UN member state,
    Lebanon) while peaceful Iran must be censured? Why has Israel been able
    to reject all pertinent UN resolutions and yet never had sanctions
    applied against it, while Iran is about to be bombed? Are non-Jews less
    valuable than Jews? The case of Iran provides a good opportunity for
    Russia and China to present a case for sovereignty and non-interference.

    The better Soviet policies were embedded with the Christian ethos of
    Russia: the tradition of helping the downtrodden and the weak, of
    resisting aggressor is one of them. Post-Soviet Russia inherited these
    traditions. But in this case practical need coincides with the call of
    compassion. Unless President Putin views with equanimity the possibility
    of being snatched and brought to some American kangaroo court himself,
    he may want to contemplate stopping this orgy of invasions. Iran is a
    case of one invasion too far. Iran is a sovereign country; it did not
    break international law. Its decision to enrich uranium is fully within
    its rights according to the NPT. Whether they worship Allah or Jehovah
    is entirely their internal affair. And by applying its right of veto,
    Russia would signal that interference in internal affairs of sovereign
    states will not be tolerated and legitimised in the UN. Russia won’t be
    alone – China, equally unhappy with US interference, may support it with
    its own veto.

    The alternative is too much to consider: even if the UN resolution
    doesn't refer to sanctions, the US is famous for its cavalier way of
    interpreting UN text. Any condemnation (even a soft one) will be used as
    carte blanche for nuking Iran and taking it over; then the US chain of
    military bases will run continuously around the south flank of Russia
    and China, through Turkey, Georgia, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan .
    "Rebellious" Ahmadinejad will be brought to Tel Aviv in iron chains,
    while the US takes over the oil resources of Iran, and by using Iran and
    Iraq oil, undermines the Russian position in the world economy.
    Afterwards, under this or some other pretext, they may confiscate
    Russia’s assets, threaten Putin with Ahmadinejad’s fate and return
    Russia to its miserable position of Yeltsin’s days. Thus, using their
    veto in the Security Council would be a very prudent and wise step for
    both Russia and China, especially if it were accompanied by granting
    Iran full membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

    The results of a Russian veto would be greater than just postponement of
    the US assault on Iran : it would send a strong signal that the end of
    Pax Americana is nigh. The “Old” Europe may take it as a cue and regain
    its independence, even demanding to remove those vestiges of WWII - US
    military bases - from Europe. The “New” Europe may understand it is out
    of step, and curtail its pro-American and anti-Russian partisanship.
    Japan could demand an end to the occupation of Okinawa. The Law of
    Nations will rule the world again, instead of the will of the Pentagon.

    And then the time for a new American independence drive will come,
    independence of America from its Jewish Lobby. Such a drive took place
    in the revolutionary Russia of the 1920s, when Russian Communists argued
    about whether they should go for world revolution, as Trotsky demanded,
    or for creating socialism in their own country, as proposed by Stalin
    and Bukharin. If their militant activism is rejected, Americans may
    discard their neo-Trotskyites, both Republicans and Democrats keen on
    spreading their “world democratic revolution”, in favour of
    isolationists who prefer building to spreading. Supporters of spreading
    – from George W. Bush to Hilary Clinton – are great friends of Israel.
    The bipartisan support of Israel within the US political elites means
    also their subservience to the Jewish Lobby. Rejection of the Lobby may
    become the single slogan of a new American revolution, of a new American
    political party of independence and non-interference on the way to
    creating a United States the world can live with.

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    Unwillingly, the world rolls down to a next bout of war, as Israel and
    the US are pushing for sanctions on Iran . Of the great powers, the UK
    seems to follow orders of Washington, Germany is unable to say “no” to
    Jews, while France is about to elect the most pro-American and
    pro-Israel president, Nicolas Sarkozy, in its history. China is
    unwilling to get involved, and is rumoured to go along as long as
    sanctions do not refer to oil and gas. Russia appears to be a lonely
    voice for peace in the Middle East , for reasons of its own.

    A few days ago President Putin called Prime Minister Olmert, and
    enquired whether Israel intentionally goes the way of the Crusader
    Kingdom to perish and oblivion by refusing to settle with its
    neighbours? Olmert was shocked: nobody dared to speak to him like that.
    European and American leaders usually stood up smartly and declared
    their support of Israel ’s right to defend itself. Russians were equally
    considerate towards Israel - since 1991, when its ambassador in Tel
    Aviv, a late Mr Bovin, was frequently mistaken for an Israeli ambassador
    in Russia .

    When Russia began to assert itself after the catastroyka, and Russian
    leaders made their first modest proposals regarding the Middle East,
    Israel took it as an insult. This defeated country should never give us
    advises, fumed Shimon Peres in live broadcast. But Russia continued to
    gather strength, and Russians again became active participants in the
    process. The recent visit of Russian Foreign Minister Mr Lavrov to
    Damascus and Tel Aviv gave another _expression to it. Lavrov tried to
    convince Israeli leaders to give up on Iran sanctions. Sanctioned Iran
    will feel isolated, threatened and will leave the NPT. Sanctions will
    lead to war, explained Lavrov, but Israeli officials did not mind the
    war, they insisted on sanctions. Then, the Russians pulled out their
    proposal of a new international conference for Middle East, Madrid-2.
    This idea has support of Arab states, but Israel rejected it, as well.
    It seems that Israel marches to war and considers it inevitable.

    This feeling of inevitability has much to do with the US policy.
    Unravelling of 9/11 mystery in the US may push Bush administration to
    speed up its war plans. For the first time since 2001, the mainstream US
    media gave coverage to “conspiracy theories”, and revealed that more
    than a third of American population believes in Administration
    involvement. Major European newspapers followed the path. Though there
    are many faulty small and large details in the official version, the
    main reason for public doubt lays elsewhere: if some bad and hard Muslim
    terrorists could perpetrate the 9/11 attack, why they failed to do
    anything similar afterwards? Ridiculous attempts to present ‘liquid
    explosives plot’ as a new 9/11 further undermined popular trust. Bush
    may feel that the war with Iran is the only way to escape trial.

    There are hard-nosed Russian experts who do not mind the forthcoming
    war. In their view, America ’s involvement in Iran will mirror Russia ’s
    own unfortunate experience in Afghanistan . If you call Vietnam ‘bogging
    down’, and Iraq ‘quagmire’, you’ll have to invent a new word for Iran .
    The oil price will go up to $200, - enough to gold-plate every loo in
    oil-producing Russia , as Marx prophesied. Attack on Iran will destroy
    America – why bother? Why should we try and stop it, say the experts.

    But Putin has strong internal reason for trying to defuse the war, as
    the Zionist plot of inflaming inter-religious conflict may undermine
    Russia . The roots of the plot are to be found in the transition period
    from the USSR to post-Soviet Russia , when a young and fresh Israeli
    Lobby in Moscow was formed. Its members were supporters of Market
    Democracy, Neo-liberalism and Privatisation. Support for Israel was a
    shibboleth for deference to the West’s wishes. While ordinary Russians
    regretted the demise of the Soviet Union , Russian Jews – together with
    upwardly mobile Russians - actively supported the market reforms and
    cheered suppression of democratically elected Parliament in 1991 and
    1993.[1] These pro-Market forces seized media; like in the West, Jews
    own large share of media owners and editors, as well as large banks and
    capitalist enterprises. Though not obsessively Zionist, they still
    harbour a warm feeling for Israel . For them Israel is not a place to
    escape mythic antisemitism, but a place to escape criminal police, as so
    many Jewish crooks from the US, France, England and Russia did.

    Pro-Israeli forces in Russia successfully promoted a conflict between
    the Christians and the Muslims; proposing to integrate Russians into
    anti-Muslim “white” front. The Jewish-owned and edited media imported
    anti-Muslim discourse wholesale. Though it was quite foreign to Russians
    who are used to live together with Muslim Tatars since the dawn of their
    history, media succeeded to poison minds. Chechnya was the key to this
    development: generously supported by the Jewish tycoon Berezovsky,
    Chechen fighters by their acts of terror enforced anti-Muslim feelings.
    “ Gaza is our Chechnya ”, used to say Israeli emissaries, though
    Chechens (as opposed to Gazans) had all civil and political rights of
    Russian citizens.

    In the same time, hundreds of thousands of Chechens and other Muslim
    ethnic groups migrated into northern Russian cities, where – as opposed
    to Western Europe – they were economically very successful and caused
    much envy among the native population. Recent riots in Kandapoga were a
    result of this success. Immigration is a tricky issue, and on the whole
    it is good for Zionists, whether in Europe or in Russia . The Russian
    nationalists of Le Pen style (and worse) became friends of Israel and of
    Zionism. They support Israel’s fight against the Muslims, and they hope
    the Jews will go away to Israel (needless to say, this pipedream is not
    likely to occur with thousands of Russian Jews moving back to prospering
    Russia each month). Heads of the Russian Jewish Congress were reported
    to transfer large sums of money to the more obnoxious racist groups in
    order to point them against the Muslim immigrants.

    Thus Putin’s administration is gripped in a vice between pro-Western
    liberals with their sympathy to Israel on the ‘left’, and on the ‘right’
    by Russian ‘white’ nationalists who object to influx of Muslim
    immigrants and support rabidly anti-Muslim Tel Aviv. This vice endangers
    cohesiveness of the country, as not only North Caucasus , but Tatarstan
    may break away. As opposed to Europe, Russia has not only Muslim
    immigrants, but a prominent native Muslim minority. Preservation of
    Russia depends on defeating this anti-Muslim trend, for otherwise, the
    country will be devastated and broken into warring fiefs. Thus Putin’s
    Russia opposes the Conflict of Civilisations’ paradigm.

    But will it suffice? The Jews, that is organised Jewry and the Jewish
    state, are definitely keen on promoting war between Christians and
    Muslims. Their powerful media gave us recently the Satanic Pictures and
    cared to deliver them to each Muslim. Now they gave great publicity to
    the Pope speech, while pro-Zionist Pakistan delivered the Muslim
    opinion. This is not the first direct involvement of Pakistan ’s ruler
    in promotion of the Zionist plans: a few weeks ago Pakistani Secret
    services provided support for the “liquid explosives plot”, totally
    discredited since then. (No less an authority than Lieutenant-Colonel
    (ret.) Nigel Wylde, a former senior British Army Intelligence Officer,
    who was awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal for his command of the
    Belfast Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit, has suggested that the police
    and government story about the "terror plot" was part of a “pattern of
    lies and deceit.”)

    Nor are they satisfied with media coverage: Amira Haas, the courageous
    Haaretz reporter in the West Bank, indirectly accused (in Haaretz
    September 20, 2006) Israeli Secret Services of an attack and arson of
    churches in Nablus , Tubas and other Palestinian cities. Our American
    correspondent Tom Mysiewicz wrote: “This is obviously just another
    effort to create a war of mutual extermination between the Christian and
    Islamic worlds.” While our French friend Xavier Lavaud explained: “The
    goal of Zionists was to obscure the recent condemnation of Christian
    Zionists by the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem. They chose a sentence of
    the Pope out of context.” While regretting the Pope’s comment, we should
    spend more effort in trying to defuse this situation than in blaming the
    head of the Catholic Church beset as he is by the enemies of the Church
    and of Christ. The war can be stopped, but it calls for our strong and
    concerted effort.

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    [1] Over 50 % of the Jews (as opposed to 13 % of the Russians) supported
    the pro-Western coup of President Yeltsin. In 1995, 81% of the Jews
    voted for pro-Western parties, and only 3% for the Communists (as
    opposed to 46% of Russians), according to the publication by the Jewish
    sociologist Dr. Ryvkina in her book, Jews in Post-Soviet Russia (1996).
    The divergence was even greater in the following election campaigns.