US policy of containment - use of its Israeli proxy

By Laurie Meadows
First published 23 October 2024

Gaming Nuclear strikes
War is a profit center for rich individuals
The war system run on autopilot
Israel - the US's oldest proxy
Franchising the Israeli proxy
Ideology - the tool of the rich
Case study - Israel
Israel is a profit center for the US elite
US machinations - use Israel to help access other countries resources
Israeli role in the US plan to control the rimland now redundant

Israel is a US proxy

In late May 2024 I noted that Israel is a proxy of the US. Four months later a prominent European historian came to the same conclusion (The text is [square brackets] added by me to clarify meaning):

"the big picture on this is that it fits entirely into line with the thinking that explains Russia's changed nuclear doctrine, the lowering of the threshold of using nuclear weapons; and more specifically the readiness to use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state that is being supported, in its attack on Russia, by a nuclear state.

The first half of what I just said is in violation of conventions regarding the use of nuclear weapons by nuclear States. And what this is all about is a changed understanding by the Russians of American nuclear doctrine. And of American strategic doctrine, from the [American] use of its triad to strike - a global strike - against an adversary like Russia that would be decapitating and possibly utterly devastating. That [US] policy has been dropped, as Putin sees it.

The reasons why it would be dropped? One reason is that the Russians have vastly superior strike weapons now so that a [US] decapitating strike would not spare the United States from [Russian retaliatory] utter destruction. That realization has surely explained why the United States has changed its policy to [one of] proxy wars...what we are seeing in the Middle East - and nobody's to my knowledge has said it yet - it's a US proxy war using Israel to do America's bidding, not, as Colonel Macgregor said not long ago that the United States is lost at sea, is acting on autopilot. No, no, no, the United States is not acting on autopilot the United States is directing the Israeli war, enabling the Israeli war - as the United States wants it to go.
Professor Gilbert Doctorow 4 October 2024

The Professor attributes the use of proxies to fight on the US behalf to the very well justified fearfulness of the US elites. Fear that if Russia becomes involved in a US instigated conflict, the conflict may escalate out of control, ultimately ending in strike a Russian on the US homeland. Either a preemptive attack 'out of the clear blue sky', or a Russian response to a US strike on Russia.

Gaming nuclear strikes

If the US was involved in a conflict somewhere and at any level, even without 'boots on the ground, and it escalated to extreme levels, then the US may also reason if a military exchange between the two nuclear powers is inevitable anyway, it is 'best' to launch a preemptive nuclear strike on Russia. This thinking is fully in line with the doctrine (and US law) that the US President may launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike on a state 'for any reason or no reason at all'.

But Russia's advanced anti-missile systems would knock many incoming ballistic nuclear missiles down, and in any case there would be sufficient time to launch Russia's Intercontinental ballistic weapons with their unstoppable hypersonic multiple nuclear warheads. In addition, Russian nuclear submarines off the East coast of USA can hit any part of USA. Worse, nuclear unmanned torpedoes waiting off the US east coast would be remotely activated to drive a radioactive tsunami deep into the eastern seaboard. The US can no longer risk attacking Russia directly. It would be suicide.

And as of October 2024 the new Russian nuclear policy eliminates the possibility of the US using a proxy to attack Russia, even with conventional weapons. If Russia's statehood is put at risk, Russia will strike not just the US-backed party attacking them, but also the US itself. The new doctrine allows Russia to launch a strike on USA with nuclear weapons.

Professor Doctorow is correct in his analysis with regard to Ukraine. The US public will no longer accept their soldiers being killed in US aggressions overseas.

But war is a profitable business for the USA, and it must continue, or the flow of profits to the elites stop.

War is a profit center for rich individuals

"War is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious.

It is the only one international in scope.

It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described...as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people.

Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about.

It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many.

Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."
Major General Smedley Butler 1935

The war system runs on autopilot

Colonel Macgregor is right. 'The system' runs on autopilot. It is no accident.

The structure and function of American power is maintained by a small group of self-selected societal vampires growing rich and sleek, wallowing in a sea of blood. It is not 'lost at sea' - the sea of blood is the destination. There are institutions to program new prospective members. The lucky few, the 'golden ones', wearing black suits and a smirk, are ready to keep the ship afloat. The 'gold level' simply requires a willingness to implement death and destruction; the only caveat is that the doomed must be 'somewhere else', not the USA.

The fact that 'somewhere else' are all sovereign nations and, like the USA, have signed the United Nations Charter means nothing to the elite. Sovereignty is an obstacle to US business profits, whether war-business, resource extraction or anything else that enriches the US rich. War is best of all, because old stock, whose eventual disposal is a cost, is used up at a profit. New stock is always very profitable to build, even if it isn't used. (The immensely expensive F-35 program is just one example.) The US-Soviet proxy war in Korea started in 1950 and ended in 1953, the American war on Vietnam started in 1954 and ended in 1975. The US was involved in numerous small scale conflicts thereafter until the war on Iraq. The war on Iraq started in 2003 and ended in 2011, the war on Afghanistan started in 2001 and ended in 2021. The end of the war on Afghanistan more or less marked the end of American soldiers fighting in conflicts overseas. America switched to aerial warfare, with the exception of low level aggressions in Syria, and residual cooperative anti-terrorist actions in Iraq and parts of Africa.

There must be conflicts everywhere if the USA is to profit from sale of missiles, anti missile batteries, radars, bombs, fighter planes, tanks, armoured infantry fighting vehicles, myriad small arms items, training packages, repairs and so on. It is a big list.

The US also wants to sell missiles capable of striking deep into Russia - mostly to countries on Russia's borders. This is a strategy to 'contain' Russia (and China). Once again, the US exports risk, passing it off on their proxies, dupes who they call 'allies'. I elaborate on the intellectually bankrupt US (and west european) 'containment policy' here.

Israel - the US's oldest proxy

Israel has been the US proxy in the Middle East long before September 2024 when Russia formulated it new nuclear defense policy. Israel has long been a tool of destabilisation in the Middle East. Israel has long been the US governments primary tool to destabilise Syria, Lebanon and Jordan (at least). Destabilisation is easy in corrupt, socially stressed Missile East countries. Destabilisation of adjacent countries by Israel has been very useful in creating conditions for US arms sales to nervous Gulf countries, such as Saudi Arabia.

Israeli religous extremist sects committed brutal aggressions on Palestinians in 1948 when a sovereign Israeli state was created by western powers. The promised Palestinian sovereign state simply didn't happen, and very large numbers of Palestinians were displaced from their land by the Israeli violence. Many ended up in neighbouring states. The bitterness and resentment caused by being forced out by European colonisers made ideal conditions for endless internal and regional conflict, to the steady profit of the US and Israeli war and 'security' manufacturers.

As Israel has a very large expatriot US population it was easy for the United States to informally base itself there, in what is, after all, essentially a friendly country. And as Israel receives very large amounts of money from USA, both directly and indirectly, Israel is obliged to implement projects that ultimately benefit US profits. Israeli businesses also benefit from the implicit protection (and diplomatic advocacy) of 'big brother'.

Franchising the Israeli proxy Added 9 October 2024

"...the expansion of Israel and its proxies is an absolute fundamental necessity for the United States to have steady leadership”
Minnesota (USA) Governor Tim Walz 1 October 2024

The most important Israeli proxy is the Kurd population in northern Syria and northern Iraq. In Syria they prevent the Syrian government accessing its most important oil fields, and in Iraq the oil helps fund Kurdish separatists in Turkey. America has boots on the ground in both regions (illegally in Syria), under the cover of 'fighting terrorists'. Separatist terrorist groups in northern Iran are another USA proxy franchised to Israel.

The Kurdish populations (funded by the west) wish to occupy more territory within their respective countries, which means the legitimate governments territory shrinks, weakening the government, bleeding the people, and creating conditions for the US's Israeli proxy to seize more territory in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. These territories are, unsurprisingly, well watered and fertile. In other words, capable of generating a good cash flow for US and Israeli investors. And the cost of military protection for these stolen territories leads to another recurring profit line on the US military-industrial-political complex's books - and more red ink for the American public. That is what Mr. Walz's "steady leadership" is. Steady cashflow for the elites.

Ideology - the tool of the rich

People are easily divided, easily incited. Those who profit from war exploit this character to the hilt. Willingness to band together against an 'other' is possibly a conserved evolutionary self-protective trait. 'Otherness' is judged by different physical appearance, different speech, and different cultural behaviour and hierarchies (often based on different self-origin stories).

It doesn't matter what the ideology is - religion, politics, race hate, anything that divides will do. What does matter is the effectiveness of propaganda. This is key. From that key principle comes the principle that the control or manipulation of the media is essential. If religion is the tool, then denigaration of non-believers is essential, perhaps even incitement to violence against them. Leadership is perhaps the most important. On-message, persuasive, emotional, appeal to the animal brain, not the logical thinking brain. These techniques are the mark of the rabble rousing leader, the perfect implementer of profitable conflict-based policies.

There are many cases where the rich elites have used ideology to create dissent and conflict, and then profit by it. The opposite, creating harmony, is so rare it stands out. China. The 'peace dividend' coupled with education and a culture of compromise and consensus has given China a great yield. In the one case the rich elites profit from destruction as a matter of state policy; in the other case everybody shares the profits from the state policy of peace and cooperation.

Case study - Israel

Israel's defiance of international law, its brutality, its messianic religious fervor, its overconfidence and arrogance - these are perfect ingredients to create anger and resentment in the Arab population of the land, and especially in the Arab land Israel stole, and in the Arab land it has illegally occupied. The results are predictable - unending resistance to these inequities, which Israel uses to 'justify' further crimes against Israel's victims. Unending land seizures, forced displacement and physical and psychological violence against the Arab population ensures unending resistance, unending conflict internally.

Externally, Israel's Mossad is behind numerous murders of officials and scientists in Iran, and, with the USA aids terrorists trying to undermine the Iranian government. Israel helped the jihadi terrorists that US and others backed in Syria. Israel launches barrages of missiles at Syria on a relatively regular basis. One purpose is strike Iranian military advisors in Syria (perfectly legitimate, whereas US bases there are utterly illegitimate). This is terrorism, regardless the Israeli-Syria war has yet to have a formal peace treaty. The other purpose is to add terror-pressure on top of the desperate economic pressure caused by the western countries illegal trade sanctions they impose on the Syrian people.

Israel is a profit center for the US elite edited 9 October 2024

According to Brown University’s Cost of War project the US elites have soaked US taxpayers for $300 billion - inflation adjusted - between 1946 and early 2024 (Israel may have paid for a part of the cost). Nearly 18 billion dollars in arms 'aid' were supplied to Israel in the 2023-2024 12 month period studied. Bear in mind, this money is paid to the US weapons manufacturers from US taxes (or government borrowing - ultimately a form of temporarily deferred tax on US citizens). The Israeli's then give some of it back in the form of election donations. Furthermore, the politicians benefit from owning weapons industry shares. The weapons industries locate right throughout the US electorates, bringing jobs - a form of taxpayer funded warfare-welfare. Once again, to the benefit of local politicians.

The Middle East is a major profit center. According to Sputnik, quoting Brown University's 'Cost of War' project, the US weapons industry has supplied Israel with:

"57,000 artillery shells, 36,000 rounds of ammunition for cannons, 20,000 M4A1 rifles, nearly 14,000 anti-tank missiles (though Israel’s Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthi adversaries possess no tanks), and 8,700 MK 82 500 pound bombs. Other assistance included $4 billion to replenish Israel’s Iron Dome and David’s Sling air and missile defense systems, $1.2 billion for the Iron Beam laser air defense system, still in development, and $4.4 billion to replenish US armories emptied by the emergency deliveries to Tel Aviv. US aid also included 4,127,000 kg of JP-8 jet fuel, 14,100 MK 84 unguided 2,000 bombs, 3,000 Joint Direct Attack Munition dumb-to-smart bomb conversion kits, 3,000 Hellfire missiles, 2,600 250-pound GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs, 1,800 M141 bunker buster bombs, 3,500 night vision devices, 200 Switchblade drones, 100+ Skydio X drones, and 75 Joint Light Tactical Vehicles."

Much of this has been dropped on the very small area of the Gaza strip, murdering and maiming thousands and thousands of innocent men, women and children, a war crime (the Palestinian death in Gaza toll so far is over 41,700, with the wounded a far, far, greater number). Malnutrition and starvation are rampant. This is not the place to list the crimes being committed. They will be well known in time. It is simply to re-affirm that the US capitalises - literally - on the popularly stoked fanatical zeal to cause conflict to the point it is a genocide.

The fact that the US aids a genocide, and under International law thereby becomes a genocidiare, shows beyond doubt that the elites who control the highly profitable war industry have literally no hesitation when it comes to making money from genocide.

The US elites can stop the genocide within a day by denying the Israelis the tools of war. They choose not to.

The global community will condemn them forever. Their names will appear in the history books.

They just don't care.

Why should they?

They have made 'their' money.

Blood money.

US machinations - use Israel to help access other countries resources

"And what Herman Kahn [founder of the Hudson Institute] did was say to Senator Jackson look this is the solution for how we are able to progress the empire in the Middle East because we need the oil, we must have the oil, and we've got to have the oil, and this is the way to do it.

We can't field an army, really,after the Vietnam War. ...Having conscription, a draft, was just no longer acceptable so war had to be supported by, not actually occupying and invading,.. it had to be done by bombing, and terrorism, about actually subjugating people.

So the plan from 73-74 was to make life so unbearable for Palestinians that the they either decide it wasn't worth living and just go and find somewhere to go to, or if they wouldn't go, you bomb them. And you bomb them and you kill them.

Because you don't have to lose forces if you bomb. You don't lose your own men in this process. This is what was said. Professor Hudson says 'I was in these meetings I was there in the Hudson when all of this was discussed and scoop Jackson bought into this'. And so then he made sure to put Zionist in the state department and he made sure to put the Zionist in the National Security Council.

And so they were there to make sure that this idea and this thinking was built out and developed and embedded so that it couldn't be easily rolled back. And so for all these years it's done. And what happened to the Palestinians was an exact copy from Vietnam the hamlets the dividing of hamlets, the dividing of the Palestinians. A lot of the Vietnam Theory came in through that period and through scoop Jackson and the Jacksonites - Wolfwitz, Richard Pearl, all these people who then became the neocons.

And the aim was not just to take the Palestinian area but to to take Lebanon to take all of the ...if you think of the Middle East divided East and West it's Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States - which weren't difficult for the United States to manage - but the other part in the west - Iraq, Syria, Lebanon - all of these had to be taken by bombing and by force so that they could be brought to some form of surrender.

On one side you had the jihadis as a proxy force, and on the other side you had Israel as the other proxy force. But the aim was to go right through.

The question is, is it going to work today? Is there going to be push back in the United States that will stop it?"
Alastair Crooke 'Is Israel America’s Tool or Boss?' On 'Judging Freedom' 15 October 2024

It is still about the oil. Although most people don't understand it, the USA, an oil exporter, is also an oil importer. Netted out, USA depends on oil imports to meet its full domestic needs. Israel and Jordan are key to moving oil from the Persian Gulf overland to Israel's deepwater oil terminal. Thus avoiding the Red Sea chokepoint, which can be blocked by the Houthis, and the Persian gulf Strait of Hormuz chokepoint, which can be blocked by Iran. The overland route also bypasses the Suez canal which is not deep enouth for the modern very large crude carriers. In short, the USA is ensuring its secure access to oil from the Middle East. But Israel is used for another major US project.

The Israelis are intimately involved in the US attempt to pull Syria's Kurdish region away from the Syrian government. Why? Because the US wants to use its illegal Syrian bases to continue its missile ring around Russia's southern borderlands. The US steals the Syrian oil and wheat there as part of its foreign policy of emisserating people in the service of destabilising Syria.

Israel is doubtless at work in the Kurdish part of Iraq, in the interests of pulling it away from the Iraqi government, potentially into a 'pseudostate' with the Syrian Kurd population.

It is clear that the US intends to place the majority of its 'influence' effort in Lebanon. They are building a massive modern complex there. It is close to Israel, Syria, Cyprus, Turkey, and Greece. These countries form part of the 'Rimland', they are close to substantial marine oil and gas resources, a significant part of which nominally belongs to the non-existent 'state' of Palestine - offshore Gaza. Lebanon is close to North African phosphate and oil and gas reserves. The Americans clearly (erroneously) believe they can 'threaten' or blockade the Russian base close by in Syria using Israel and Cyprus, and, in their dreams, bases in Lebanon.

The rimland countries in Europe and the Middle East block Russia from the sea. (The NATO Ukrainian proxy operation was to place US and British military bases in Crimea, taking over Russia's long-standing and sole ice-free Black Sea port. And in addition, acquire minerals such as lithium, titanium and nickel, as well as Black Sea oil and gas resources. They failed.)

Israel was to be the US-owned 'unsinkable aircraft carrier' in the Mediterranean. Iran sunk that idea on October 01 2024.

Israel was allowed by the US elites to develop nuclear weapons to intimidate neighbours - especially Egypt, with its very large land army. In reality, Israeli nuclear weapons are now useless. In the event Israel used nuclear weapons anywhere, conventional missiles fired from the most responsible countries of the world would permanently eliminate the Israeli military-political potential. Israel is a very small land area.

The US greatest fear is that stability and peace will come to the Middle East and countries will reconcile in the interests of trade. Israel's usefulness to the US will then drop. At the point that the US is forced to take urgent action to electrify its domestic transport fleet (if it ever does) the US interest in Israel be very low. At that point, USA will talk undying loyalty, but in reality it will more or less walk away, as it always does (and that is the correct thing to do).

Israeli role in the US plan to control the rimland now redundant
The long term plan - the 30,000 foot view as one US Secretary of State once put it - is fully in line with the US 'containment' policy. The idea was to ring Russia and China with cruise missiles (which will eventually be hypersonic missiles) carrying tactical nuclear weapons. Once these missiles are hypersonic, they are virtually unstoppable. The leadership of Russia and China could be killed in the middle of the night, before they had a chance to do anything.

Notice I said 'was'. This idea has now been rendered useless as I explained above.

Israel has limited blue water naval potential. They can play no part in 'containing' China in South East Asia. That farcical notion will be for Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines to think about.

Once the US-Israeli Kurdish project fails - and Russia will ultimately make sure it does - Israel, once a US proxy, will slowly lose economic support.

"Those who count on such assistance should recall the sad experience of all leaders of countries that had relied on the United States. As soon as the situation changed, Washington remorselessly left those leaders to their own devices and launched a new stage of its selfish policy."
Sergey Lavrov 5 November 2023

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