UK, Lost Empire, Knackered Trojan Horse

Letter From America

Written By: Ian Williams

Published: June 17, 2017 Last modified: June 17, 2017

Maybe the so-called Special Relationship gets extra spirit from the Tory “understanding” with the DUP. In both Washington and London, the purported leaders of their countries do not have a mandate from a majority of the electorate, but both depend on the votes of bigoted anti-Diluvian evangelists, who do actually believe in the Flood described in The Bible, but do not believe in the flood lapping around their feet from sea ice melts.

The former Ian Paisley’s degree from the Bob Jones University did not endow him or the DUP with the ecumenism of modern American Evangelists who have now expediently forsworn their traditional anti-Papism to ally with reactionary Catholic Bishops against their common enemy – modern tolerance.

And both the DUP and Republican evangelical right in the US share an apocalyptic Christian Zionist view that makes them support Netanyahu and the far right in Israel. It is worth remembering that theological roots of this are not based on some sentimental philosemitism but on a reading of the book of Revelations that sees the gathering of the Jews in the Holy Land as a necessary precursor to the rapture, Armageddon and the Second Coming. It is only good for the Jews if you regard being converted to Christianity or being thoroughly smitten by a vengeful deity as a blessing.

Sadly, Trump’s unbounded admiration for Nigel Farage seems to have inhibited him from tweeting support for May. We can assume that a blessing from the US president might have lost her even more seats. Domestic resistance, even in his own party, tempers some of Trump’s policy eccentricities at home but the presidency’s powers over foreign policy give him more leeway abroad, although, even there, the foreign policy establishment has inhibited some of his wayward options. For example, although like so many previous presidents he promised to move the US Embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem as Congress has mandated, the State Department’s residual attachment to international law has forced him to postpone it yet again.

However, Farage notwithstanding, the Trump administration has even less time than Obama for the so-called special relationship with Britain, a phrase very rarely heard in the US media except when Washington is looking for London to send sepoys to lend international flavour to yet another military folly.

However, we sometimes forget that the “special relationship” was very much a Labour invention. After fighting World War Two alone for over two years Ernest Bevin wanted NATO to cement an American commitment. Churchill condemned Attlee’s permission for US bases in Britain as a derogation of sovereignty while Attlee committed troops and treasure to support the US in Korea, even if that was mandated by the UN.

Suez showed who was in charge of that special relationship. Indeed, forgotten now, but newsworthy at the time was that Senator Joe McCarthy (and his sidekick Robert Kennedy) had Winston Churchill and the UK in their sites for trading with China during the Korean War. They pointed out that the tan­gential British contribution to the Chinese war effort probably equalled the value of the British input into the Korean war itself.

While on the one hand, Brexit adds cogent geopolitical reasoning for keeping friendly with the Americans, since the UK is now again just an isolated off-shore island, on the other hand Trump’s silence on the matter has devalued the US commitment to NATO’s common defence. Recent Tory miscalculations, on the referendum and the election do indeed suggest that belief in fairies is a strong component in conservative politics, but can even they believe that an isolationist Trump administration feels any special regard for Britain?

Geoffrey Howe at a UN briefing once explained that British foreign policy was the same now as in the days of Pitt – to ensure that no combination of powers could arise in Europe that could threaten our island, and I suspect that most conservative governments did indeed thwart and sabotage European unity with that in mind. EU foreign policy has almost always been a joke, depending as it did on consensus and thus effective abstention on controversial issues. Britain lost its empire and found a role as Washington’s Trojan horse in Brussels.

The current chaos suggests other possibilities. Perhaps it is time to audition for a new role, or rather resume the position of supporter of the UN Charter and international law. It is something that Labour should be thinking about, taking up where Robin Cook left off.

About Ian Williams

Madness over Iran

Rein in Israel from madness and mayhem

by Ian Williams

Tribune January 27th, 2012

The financial and fornicatory hypocrisy of the Republican ­candidates is nauseating. But the salacious interest it excites allows the media and the electorate to overlook foreign policy. But then, in some ways we are fortunate that the rest of the world has not been a big item in the debates. Texas Governor Rick Perry dropped out shortly after saying Turkey, a Nato member and recently a voice of balanced reason in the region, was run by an Islamic dictator and should not be allowed to be a member.
However, the other turkeys are every bit as bad, as they pander their way to see who can get most primary votes from Christian Zionists and cheques from Likud reactionaries. British leaders still bask in the illusion of the “special relationship”, but on Capitol Hill, the term is almost ­exclusively used for Israel and the United States. For better or worse, two world wars, Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan, and the half century of Britain being a prime nuclear target on America’s behalf, is not exactly at the front of legislative thoughts.
Between them, the candidates seem to have made it axiomatic that Israel should attack Iran, with US support. However, polls suggest, not surprisingly after the ­debacles of Iraq and Afghanistan, that one of the few points of unity for an otherwise bitterly divided American electorate is ­opposition to a new war. Even in Israel only 41 per cent support an attack, which is ­surprisingly high, considering who would suffer most in any exchange of weapons with Tehran. But Republican candidates happily cheer terrorist assassinations of Iranian scientists.
The one exception among the candidates, Ron Paul, has become the standard bearer of some on America’s alleged left, who are prepared to overlook his profoundly reactionary domestic policies because his America-firster views lead him to oppose Israeli influence in Washington.
This is no time to get sentimental about ayatollahs, and the appropriate response to Israeli threats is certainly not adulation for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The regime in Iran is almost as attached to fundamentalist religion and the death penalty as a southern Republican governor. It does appear to have stolen the last election, but some informed observers think that it might have won anyway.
However, if there is one thing that seems to unite Iranians, it is the nuclear programme, with many Iranians probably going beyond the government, which still disclaims a military nuclear option. As an aside, I am often invited as a pundit on Iran’s Press TV, and have told them, live, that they should disclaim civilian, let alone military nuclear programmes, abide by even unjust United Nations resolutions, and invest in their refining capacity instead. Last week I reached the limits of their ­tolerance. They called me about the ­Falklands, and when I told them I would say that even English speakers had the right to self-determination, my slot was immediately dropped.
I also said that Argentina used the issue to divert domestic discontent about the economy – which is a role that Iran plays for Benjamin Netanyahu and his supporters in the Israel lobby in the US, where Iran can whip the majority of liberal-minded Jews into support for the occupying state.
So, begin with principles. It is useful to treat it like a mathematical equation and substitute the terms. Take out Iran and put it in Israel, Pakistan or India, the real rogue states. The difference is that Iran has signed the non-proliferation treaty and they have not. However, it could withdraw from the treaty, like North Korea, and it has not. If Israel attacks Iranian facilities and murders its citizens, it should not complain if its Dimona nuclear facility is targeted.
Even the International Atomic Energy Agency, despite some worries, has not concluded that Iran has moved decisively towards military nuclear capability. The UN Security Council only became involved when a kangaroo court on the IAEA’s ­ruling body referred the case – with nuclear India one of those supporting the referral, strongly instigated by Israel, the one ­definite nuclear state in the Middle East, with its several hundred war heads.
So is this a crusade, or jihad (since the Saudis seem to be onside) for civil rights? The Wahhabi theocracy in Saudi Arabia makes the most conservative ayatollahs appear positively Anglican in their ­tolerance. We are being invited to support or condone an illegal and unethical war that would unite Iranians and much of the Middle East against Israel and the West, and risk the destruction of Israel with collateral damage to its neighbours not to mention a high chance of casualties among the “oppressed” Iranians.
One does not expect our lords and ­masters to be too concerned about mere human body counts, but they should worry that one sure consequence would be a drastic spike in oil prices that could push the world economy, already teetering on the brink, over the edge, with a calculable chance of escalation. It seems a high price to pay so Netanyahu can keep on building settlements.

The Tombstone of the Special Relationship?

CIA, Rendition, British Independence, and Diego Garcia. in the Guardian CiF