Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is under investigation by the FBI for passing on classified Defense Department documents to Israel. In particular, the documents relate to American position papers about our future relationship with Iran – one of three countries Bush referred to as “The Axis of Evil.”

This investigation has quietly been going on for over a year, but gained new traction when a Pentagon analyst named Lawrence Franklin came into the picture. Franklin is a protégé of Douglas Feith, Defense Undersecretary for Policy, one of the well-known members of the “Neoconservative” pro-Likud group within Rumsfeld’s Pentagon.

Richard Perle, Douglas Feith

This group, which includes Paul Wolfowitz (Deputy Secretary of Defense under Donald Rumsfeld), Richard Perle (former chairman of the Defense Policy Board, a civilian group that advises the Pentagon), “Scooter” Libby (Chief of Staff to Dick Cheney), David Wurmser (Middle East advisor to Dick Cheney), David Frum (former speechwriter for George W. Bush), Elliott Abrams (Special Assistant to George W. Bush on Near East and North African Affairs), Harold Rhodes (official in the Defense Intelligence Agency),

David Wurmser, Elliott Abrams, “Scooter” Libby

Bill Luti (Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs), and others, represents, in the opinions of many, the hijacking of American foreign policy by a cabal of advisors who puts the interests of Israel above those of their own country, the United States. In particular, their allegiance seems to be to SHARON’S LIKUD PARTY exclusively.

They defy the great majority of the Jewish population in the United States and in Israel – who actively favor a peaceful solution in the Middle East and an independent Palestinian state.

This mirrors the drift in emphasis of AIPAC as well, which now appears to be simply a PRO-LIKUD PRO-Sharon lobbying organization. There are many pro-Israel lobbying groups in this country, but none of them have the narrow focus and intimidating clout that AIPAC does. AIPAC, along with the “EVANGELICALS,” in this country has become a powerful voting block and effective lobbying effort that moves quickly and effectively to intimidate and silence anyone who disagrees with their agenda … as they tried to do with Howard Dean.

Congress has been intimidated for years by AIPAC’s willingness to work for the defeat of anyone who doesn’t vote as they desire — which means they’ll be targeted for defeat if they don’t vote every year for the 2.2 billion dollars in foreign aid to Israel, as well as demonstrate a healthy public disdain for Palestinians in general and the peace process in particular.

Last month, in a little-noticed piece of news, we saw further evidence that Sharon’s allies in the Bush Administration had done their job. Yediot Ahronot, an Israeli newspaper, stated that Israel was no longer using the Bush Road Map (not that anyone was still under any delusions that it was working). The Bush Administration responded with silence — a sad commentary that they are giving tacit approval for Sharon to do whatever he pleases — and again ignore and abuse the rights of the Palestinians.

What has become apparent, with Bush’s approval, is that Sharon now intends to get out of Gaza — his worst festering sore — while initiating a once-and-for-all power grab on most of the West Bank, using walls, tanks, and fighter jets to enforce his will forever.

The “American Likud” — the “Neoconservatives” who advise Bush — has won two great victories in Bush’s first term. They convinced him to invade and occupy Iraq. And they convinced him to put forward a weak and halfhearted peace plan — the Road Map. These two victories — “the hijacking of our foreign policy” — will haunt us for years to come, and will cost us dearly in blood, money, and national prestige.

U.S. President George W. Bush & Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon

“Neoconservatives” in this country and in Israel have for years envisioned a Middle East revolutionized by war — wars fought by Americans but for the security of Israel. They decided there could be no real security in the Middle East until Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Lebanon were disarmed. Until Bush was elected, these outrageous and dangerous ideas were given little attention by past presidents. But with George W. Bush and his “Evangelical” followers, they found a useful front man for their theories.

September 11th changed everything and turned contemporary thinking on its head. The “American Likud” saw its opportunity to push their violent, visionary agenda on a parochial but arrogant “cocky” president as part of the overall war on terrorism.

Before the war, many experienced voices told Bush that the war on terrorism had to go through Jerusalem — that finding a just and honorable solution to the Palestinian question would do wonders for our international reputation. By throwing the prestige of the American presidency into such an effort, Bush could have demonstrated to the Arab world that we were genuine in our desires for justice.

THIS COULD HAVE BEEN ACCOMPLISHED FOR A FRACTION OF THE COST OF THE IRAQ WAR AND WITH NO LOSS OF AMERICAN OR IRAQI LIVES.

But Bush invaded Iraq instead! We now know that the “American Likud” in the Pentagon manipulated and overstated the intelligence that took us to war, while ignoring the intelligence that didn’t support their preconceived plans. We now are bogged down in an endless bloody occupation of a fractured foreign country on the verge of civil war.

By doing so, we may have pleased ARIEL SHARON and AIPAC, but we have also fractured our own electorate, diluted our national will and purpose, and demoralized the moderate forces in the Middle East who have been counting on us.

Now … President George W. Bush’s Road Map to Peace “Rests in Peace” … Buried by Sharon

While Iraq burns, the more quiet victory of the “American Likud” is just as much a disaster. Bush’s Road Map was always a slow-motion excuse to allow Sharon to consolidate his power over the Palestinians. This has only served to justify Israel’s land grab for the future, and to doom whatever hope actually existed in the Peace Plan.

Sharon’s constant vilification of Arafat served as an excuse for Bush and Sharon to begin the quiet sabotage of the Peace Plan. Thus, the brazen announcement by the Israeli prime minister that Israel is now free to act as if the plan never existed. In the shadow of Iraq, Sharon can now act with impunity in the construction of the great wall and in settlement enlargements and reinforcements.

Which brings us back to the investigations of Lawrence Franklin, and AIPAC’s possible complicity in espionage. The FBI has quietly conducted exhaustive interviews within the civilian Pentagon — the “Neoconservatives” — in this effort, as well as with AIPAC employees …

… AND, it is vital for the FBI to investigate carefully the role that the Israeli Secret Service — the Mossad — played throughout this entire process.

For its part, AIPAC has launched a vigorous public defense, and not surprisingly, issued veiled accusations of “anti-Semitism” about the investigation.

Lawrence Franklin, who works for Douglas Feith and Paul Wolfowitz, became an overnight expert on Iran. He has had many contacts with the corrupt Iranian arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar, who was deeply involved in the Iran-Contra scandal in the mid-80s — for which Elliott Abrams was removed from the U.S. Government.

Franklin is being investigated for giving AIPAC a draft of a presidential directive on Iran — a directive that was probably composed by his “Neoconservative” bosses, the same advisors who brought us the Iraq war. The suspicion is that AIPAC was passing on this directive to Israel, not simply as information, but also as a request for directions and recommendations, to be passed back to the “Neoconservatives” in the Pentagon.

Does this indicate the beginning of a campaign within the Bush Administration, encouraged by Israel, to find justifications for an invasion of Iran? And if so, does this also indicate another egregious example of a foreign government influencing our American foreign policy?

President Bush addresses AIPAC in Washington on 5/18/04

Until recently, the moderates in the Bush Administration have held their own against the “Neoconservative” — and Israeli/Likud — agenda for an expanded war against Iran and possibly Syria. Because of this stalemate, Bush hasn’t gone much beyond his “Axis of Evil” declaration and his Iran positions have been muddled and mixed.

But this could change dramatically if Bush is reelected, and his “Neoconservative” advisors retain their sway over him. Their first job would be to refer Iran’s violations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to the U.N. Security Council. But, as we now know from the Iraq war, this might only be another cosmetic effort at legitimacy before plunging ahead on our own into another Middle East war.

The exhaustive investigations of the “March to War” have revealed how our intelligence agencies were compromised in their analysis, and how that information was manipulated to promote a false sense of urgency and danger. But, incredibly, not a single person involved in this failure has lost his job. George Tenet’s resignation as CIA director represents the only action remotely resembling someone being held responsible for this monumental failure. President Bush shows little concern for having been terribly misled.

This sort of cavalier leadership can only embolden the “Neoconservatives” — the “American Likud.” Their commitment to their utopian vision of Middle East wars seems unaltered. And the Franklin investigation may reveal just how much influence AIPAC and the Mossad have in shaping U.S. foreign policy behind closed doors.

There are powerful forces within the Bush Administration that will do everything in their power to stonewall or derail this investigation. The FBI is to be commended for going forward with it, no matter where the evidence leads.

We cannot afford to allow this investigation to become sidetracked or buried under the cloud of executive privilege. Nor can we allow it to be kicked down the road, because the White House says it interferes with the war on terrorism.

IT’S TIME FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE TO CLEARLY SEE WHO PROMOTED THE IRAQ WAR, AND WHY.

AND IT’S TIME FOR US AMERICAN CITIZENS TO SEE WHO INFLUENCES THE DECISIONS THAT PRESIDENT BUSH MAKES.

The “Planters” of the Seeds of War in Iraq: Elliot Abrams, Richard Perle, and Paul Wolfowitz

Nothing in history happens in a vacuum, especially wars. And that is certainly true with our 2003 preemptive war against Saddam Hussein and our current occupation of that broken and violent country.

Most Americans think the plans for this war against Iraq originated in the Bush administration either before or immediately after September 11, 2001. But its foundation was laid long before, in a little-known 1996 policy paper entitled “A CLEAN BREAK: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm” (meaning Israel), written by a group of American “neoconservatives” including David Wurmser and Richard Perle, for the Israeli think tank The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies.

“A CLEAN BREAK” spelled out a simple but aggressive plan that called for Israel to sabotage any “land for peace” initiatives, including any peace plans that called for an independent Palestinian state. It called for the isolation or elimination of Yasser Arafat and the political strangulation of the Palestinian Authority.

Its most ambitious — and outrageous — proposal was to compel the United States to force a confrontation with Iraq that would end with an invasion and the removal of Saddam Hussein. This would be followed by the “rolling back” of Syria through military strikes and the pacification of Lebanon. The idea behind this plan was that brute force was the only way Israel could insure its security. And it called for this force to be directed ultimately at any Middle Eastern state that didn’t fall into line, including Egypt.

The authors of this policy paper dreamed of an AXIS OF POWER between Israel, Turkey, and Jordan with a puppet Hashemite ruler installed in Baghdad after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

Richard Perle

Richard Perle’s last incarnation was Chairman of the Defense Policy Board — a civilian advisory group within the Pentagon, which he resigned from months ago because of conflict-of-interest issues involving business ties that some described as war profiteering.

David Wurmser

One of the coauthors of the “CLEAN BREAK” paper, David Wurmser, now works with Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby. Wurmser has long advocated the overthrow of the Assad/Baathist government in Syria. He was one of the early supporters of Ahmed Chalabi, the now-discredited con artist and would-be Iraqi savior who was embraced by Wolfowitz, Cheney, and Rumsfeld.

Libby is one of the prime suspects in the exposing of Valerie Plame as an undercover CIA agent, a serious federal crime that is now under a grand jury investigation. He has also assembled a large foreign-policy staff within the vice president’s office — an unprecedented move in White House history.

Meyrav Wurmser

Wurmser’s wife, Meyrav Wurmser — another coauthor of the “CLEAN BREAK” paper, works for the Hudson Institute, an ultraconservative think tank that has advocated the invasion of Saudi Arabia and the occupation of their oil fields by American troops.

Douglas Feith, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy, was also involved in the paper. He was most recently involved with the super-secret Office of Special Plans, which many people believe was the group that manipulated CIA raw intelligence to convince Bush and the American people to invade Iraq.

These coauthors have long-standing ties with Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, and Vice President Dick Cheney. And, as a group, they represent the informal war cabinet that promoted the war against Iraq based on two rationales, both of which have been discredited by time and by Congressional investigations.

Benjamin Netanyahu

Richard Perle personally delivered this policy paper to then-Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996, who agreed with it on ideological terms but lacked the political muscle at home and the influence in Washington, D.C., to get Clinton to buy into any of it.

In 1998, a group of American “neoconservatives” wrote an open letter to President Clinton urging him to invade Iraq. The Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf, as they were called, was actually calling on Americans to be a proxy army of invasion for Israel.

Signers of this letter include many of the familiar faces within the “neoconservative” movement: Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Elliot Abrams, Douglas Feith, David Wurmser, Donald Rumsfeld, William Kristol, Richard Armitage — all current high-level employees of the Bush foreign-policy team or influential advisors.

Clinton resisted these efforts and, instead, supported the Iraq Liberation Act, which provided $97 million for equipment and training for Iraqi exile groups.

Lewis “Scooter” Libby

In 2000, this group went on to organize a “neocon” think tank called the Project for the New American Century. Its manifesto mirrored many of the points in the “CLEAN BREAK” policy blueprint for Israel. The founders of this group include Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Lewis Libby, and Paul Wolfowitz.

Three influential pro-Israel think tanks promoted these same ideas: The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), and the Center for Security Policy (CSP). Many of “the Vulcans” were, or continue to be, board members of these organizations that advocate total war in the Middle East — all in the name of Israel’s security. And lost in all this war talk was any concern for a just and lasting peace with the Palestinians.

During Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign, these “neoconservatives” became his principal foreign-policy advisors, later referred to as “the Vulcans.” Essentially a disinterested and intellectually dull man, Bush was easily influenced by these powerful personalities with their ideological obsessions. Their agenda became his agenda, especially after September 11.

Today, some of these high-ranking individuals in the Bush administration are collectively known as “Israeli Firsters,” implying that they put the interests of Israel over those of the United States.

Left: U.S. President George W. Bush Right: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon

The Sharon administration eventually resurrected the heart and soul of “A CLEAN BREAK” and has been dealing with the consequences ever since. He has done so with the quiet enthusiasm of the Bush administration.

On September 20, 2001, the Project for the New American Century issued a call for the Bush administration to attack Iraq as part of the war on terrorism, even though then, as now, no collaborative relationship had ever been established between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. As their own letter reads, “…even if evidence does NOT link Iraq directly to the attack, any strategy aimed at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein.”

Just days after the September 11 attacks, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld posed the question, “Why shouldn’t we go after Iraq, not just al Qaeda?” And with the arrogant confidence of someone who is positive he knows what he’s talking about, Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz said, “attacking Afghanistan would be uncertain.” But that Iraq “would break easily … and was doable.”

Secretary of State Powell was one of the few rational voices against this rush to war, arguing that the war on terrorism must stay focused on the actual perpetrators and that we needed international support for this worldwide effort. But he was eventually co-opted, undermined, and, in the end, made a willing partner in the charade about Iraq being a grave and imminent threat. As a statesman, Colin Powell has lost much of his credibility as an independent thinker and a man of rock-solid principles.

Bush, under intense pressure from his coterie of “neoconservative” advisors and endowed with a new sense of “religious righteousness,” began to turn the war on terrorism away from the people who actually attacked us and toward Iraq — as Israel and their allies within the Pentagon and the Vice President’s office had always wanted us to do.

Douglas Feith

This complete shift in focus was finalized in Bush’s State of the Union speech in January 2002, when he issued the famous “Axis of Evil” term, which singled out North Korea, Iran, and Iraq as the biggest threats to international security. Bush never mentioned Osama bin Laden, the terrorist leader who masterminded the September 11 attacks.

The original “CLEAN BREAK” policy of preemptive war in the Middle East came true in the spring of 2003 with our invasion of Iraq! The disastrous consequences of this foreign-policy blunder will haunt us for years to come — in the bloodshed of over 880 dead young American men and women in uniform, over 5,100 of our soldiers wounded or maimed, plus countless innocent Iraqi men, women, and children killed by our missile strikes that missed their target or by insurgent suicide bombers, and in our National Treasury — over $160 billion spent so far on the war and occupation — and the huge loss of international prestige and respect.

How did it come to pass that a small group of like-minded extremists could hijack the foreign policy of a superpower and bend it to their will?

President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld

At face value, the “CLEAN BREAK” policy paper and outline for Middle East wars was a strategic plan for Israel, with the United States providing the military might to do what the ISRAELI Defense Forces (IDF) could never hope to accomplish. But it was essentially a hyperaggressive Israeli survival plan.

Part of the mystery involves President Bush’s fundamentalist religious beliefs, which few Americans are aware of or the extent to which his religion shapes the way he sees his place in the world. White House insiders — who wish to remain nameless — describe how Bush went from being a bored and careless president to an avenging “god of wrath” after September 11. And that the “neoconservatives” used this passion to turn Bush toward their hidden agenda — the “CLEAN BREAK” imperative for preemptive war in the Middle East to promote Israel’s security and dominance.

The attacks on September 11 gave new life to this ambitious and deadly plan. The war hawks within the Bush administration saw their opportunity to subvert the legitimate war on terrorism to include the “CLEAN BREAK” notion of Israeli/American supremacy in the entire Middle East region. And Bush bought into it completely.

One of the most important pieces in the puzzle — if not the most — was the formation within the Pentagon of an entirely new and separate intelligence unit called the Office of Special Plans. It was run by Deputy Under Secretary of Defense William J. Luti, who served in the Navy during the first gulf war. He had been recruited by Wolfowitz and Albert Wohlstetter,* who was also a mentor to Perle and Wolfowitz. This unit, under Luti, discarded or ignored any intelligence that disagreed with its preconceived conclusion that Iraq posed a grave and imminent threat. And any scrap of gossip or questionable intelligence that supported their conclusion got star treatment and was immediately presented at the White House as rock-solid fact. It was this unit — which intimidated the Defense Intelligence Agency and the CIA — that was primarily responsible for the manipulation and distortion of intelligence that was used by Bush to advocate war.

*Albert Wohlstetter had a profound effect on Perle and Wolfowitz about forcefully changing the Middle East and Arab countries … “the seeds of our war” with Iraq.

Ahmed Chalabi

This was also the unit that promoted Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress as the savior of Iraq — even though he had been convicted in Jordan of multiple counts of bank fraud and was a fugitive from justice. Chalabi had been living in luxurious exile, on American taxpayer dollars, for many years and had virtually no support within Iraq. He spoon-fed Luti and his group the information they wanted to hear about WMDs in Iraq — information we now know was contorted or fabricated so Chalabi could remain in high favor with Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz.

Ahmed Chalabi was finally cut off from U.S. support this June when it was discovered that he had been revealing top secrets to Iran, in his continuing role as a self-serving con artist.

George Tenet has fallen on his sword by resigning as director of the CIA for the whole intelligence failure but it is this group — the Office of Special Plans — that deserves to be singled out and exposed for the great disservice it performed to our nation. Hopefully, the final report from the 9-11 Commission will do just that.

Our invasion and occupation of Iraq may give Israel some temporary peace of mind but it will prove to be a disaster in the long run. It has inspired a whole new generation of terrorist recruits and it has made it more difficult than ever for moderates in the region to make their voices heard above the din of extremism.

Instead of reducing terror, this whole controversial war on Iraq has multiplied terrorist activity against us a thousandfold.

Several Congressional investigations are now looking into the lead-up to war and the 9-11 Commission is due to release its damning report this July. It apparently paints a dark picture of distorted and manipulated intelligence to convince the American people that an invasion of Iraq was a legitimate extension of the war on terrorism.

Now that the 9-11 Commission has issued a preliminary announcement that says, “there was no credible connection between Saddam Hussein and the September 11 attacks,” the “neoconservatives” are scrambling to discredit their president’s own commission. Their arguments about WMDs have turned out to be a complete embarrassment for the administration. That leaves them with this single spurious claim as their justification for war. If it fails, so does their entire argument — and what’s left of their credibility, competence, and honesty.

9-11 Commission Officials

Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, and Perle are now engaged in a desperate attempt to rewrite the history of their own words. Instead of claiming or implying that there was a direct link between Iraq and September 11 — as the record proves that they did — they are now claiming that they were simply “suggesting” and “indicating” a connection or relationship. They are now saying that because al Qaeda “approached” Saddam Hussein their war was justified — even though the truth is that Hussein, a secular despot, had nothing in common with Islamic fundamentalists and, in fact, feared their influence to incite Iraqis against him.

The tragic irony is that the war and occupation has turned Iraq into a prolific recruiting ground and on-the-job training facility for al Qaeda, with American soldiers and civilian contractors now serving as targets for car bombs, sniper fire, roadside bombs, and rockets.

What does the future hold if Bush is reelected for a second term and retains his “neoconservative” advisors to shape our foreign-policy decisions? The Washington gossip circuit says it’s a fair bet that Colin Powell will not return — which would leave a high-profile Cabinet position to be filled with another ideologue from this group. And it’s also clear that Cheney wants to return for a second term. Because he’s one of the founding members of “the Vulcans,” this indicates more of the same.

If the “CLEAN BREAK” policy paper is any guide, the Middle East will become inflamed with more war after we have formally transferred the government to the new Iraqi leaders.

Their “policy” calls for the “rolling back” of the regime in Syria, by preemptive war if necessary, as well as belligerent pressure on Iran. And it would be American soldiers doing the “rolling back,” because Bush and Cheney have already started campaigning for it in their own subtle way. As soon as it started to become clear that stockpiles of WMDs were never going to be found in Iraq, they started suggesting that Saddam Hussein had secreted them for safekeeping in Syria.

This flawed “policy” would also spell disaster for the Palestinians. The Bush administration remains firmly and uncritically on the side of Sharon and his Likud extremists — which means an independent Palestinian state will be talked about, debated, and finally ignored for another four years. And during that time, the Palestinian refugee camps will remain fertile ground for terrorism and resentment — a simmering anger that is now ready to explode will be focused on us as much as it is on Israel.

Ambassador Joseph Wilson

To bring all of this diverse and disturbing activity into focus, we refer to the vital message of Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who was castigated by the Bush administration because he, after a fact-finding mission to Africa, revealed that there was no validity to the claim that Iraq was getting nuclear material from Niger.

Because of his revelation, which went counter to Bush’s statement in his State of the Union speech, Ambassador Wilson was ostracized from his role as a time-honored government servant — and apparently someone in the White House leaked to columnist Robert Novak that Wilson’s wife was an agent for the CIA … an unthinkable breach of honor, patriotism, and federal law.

The CIA is presently interviewing President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and “Scooter” Libby to help determine who, if any of them (or how many of them), were involved in this nefarious, criminal and un-American activity.

As a result, Ambassador Joseph Wilson has written a book, The Politics of Truth, in which he reveals startling information about how our government has been subverted by a “cell” of like-minded ideologues who has wormed its way into the inner circle of our government to fulfill the mission of achieving the “CLEAN BREAK” plan, and the forceful transformation of the Middle East into democratic societies friendly to Sharon and the Likud Party of Israel — for whom it is engaged in this secret effort of influencing American foreign policy.

Here is what Ambassador Joseph Wilson has to say in the following excerpt from his book:

In his new book, The Politics of Truth, Ambassador Joseph Wilson presents a case for President Bush to make strategic changes in his administration — advice we believe to be well-founded in this election year. “President Bush could fundamentally change the direction of his administration by firing fewer than 15 senior officials, beginning with those signatories of the ‘Project for the New American Century’ and those currently holding government posts who signed a 1998 letter that urged President Clinton to wage war on Iraq. “They are clustered at the National Security Council (NSC) in the Defense and State Departments, and within Vice President Cheney’s own parallel National Security Office … “… Never in the history of our democracy has there been established such an influential and pervasive center of power with the ability to circumvent long-standing reporting structures and to skew decision-making practices. “It has been described to me chillingly by a former senior government official as a coup d’état within the State. That’s all it would take — firing fewer than 15 officials, and the scuttling of Cheney’s questionable office — to alter this administration’s radical course.” From The Politics of Truth by Ambassador Joseph Wilson © 2004

Finally, we would like to leave you with the thoughts and recommendation of Senator Richard Lugar on “Meet the Press” in October 2003, “The President has to be President. That means the President is over the Vice President and over the Secretaries [of State and Defense].”

President Bush owes this to the American people — not to be controlled by these alien forces who along with AIPAC and Sharon are “pulling his strings.” The purpose of Goals for Americans Foundation is to set a course for America that will bring honor, meaning, and purpose to our nation and to be a beacon for the rest of the world.

President Bush still has time, before our November election, to make these corrections — take a firm hand in cleaning up our government and not just “look like” a strong and reckless president to the outside world but be a strong and noble president like Teddy Roosevelt for the sake of the American people and our American values!

Mr. President, we, the American people, want to be proud of you. Please give us that opportunity!

How did America go from being the most admired democracy in the world to what many now consider to be a reckless, self-righteous, militaristic superpower? How did we waste all the goodwill we engendered after September 11 to the point now where many fear us?

A new group has emerged to challenge the foreign-policy assumptions and directions of the Bush administration — and it’s not just a bunch of disgruntled “liberals.”

The group is called Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change and it includes many heavy hitters from past administrations, both Republican and Democratic, going back to the Reagan administration. The group went public this past weekend and its announced goal is the defeat of President Bush in November.

What has inspired this group of retired diplomats and military people to organize and come forward to oppose a second Bush presidency?

A major issue is the group’s belief that the Bush administration has squandered the goodwill of the American people and their government. The group believes this administration has seriously damaged the alliances America spent the 20th century cultivating and has alienated our friends around the world to such a degree that we risk isolating ourselves just when we need our friends the most.

The group believes the blame for this disaster belongs to the Bush White House. And it doesn’t think our national prestige can survive four more years of the Bush Doctrine.

The group believes the Iraq War was a strategic blunder that has drained our resources away from the pursuit of our real enemies, Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.

And the group believes Bush has failed to be an honest and even-handed broker for peace between Palestine and Israel — a tradition about which his father was resolute.

The list of members is impressive: former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman (under Reagan) Admiral William J. Crowe; former Air Force chief of staff (under Bush Sr.) General Merrill McPeak; former commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East (under Bush Sr.) General Joseph Hoar; former ambassador to Israel (under Reagan) William Harrop, former ambassador to Russia (under Reagan and Bush Sr.) John Matlock; former CIA chief (under Carter) Admiral Stansfield Turner; former ambassador to Saudi Arabia (under Bush Sr.) Charles Freeman; and others.

This distinguished group will be publishing open letters to the public this week as they begin a campaign to gather support in their effort to deny the Bush administration another four years. The majority of the group does not, at this time, openly endorse John Kerry for the presidency, yet that is the implicit message of its campaign. The main focus is the inept and arrogant mishandling of our national prestige. And the members believe the removal of Bush from office is the most important step that needs to be taken in order to begin the reversal of this destructive course of action.

It remains to be seen to what extent this group partners with other groups to bring about this change. And it remains to be seen how many more former top leaders in government, the military, and society at large join with Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change or supports its mission.

John Kerry has lost the courage of his earlier pro-Palestine convictions!

The 2004 presidential election should offer voters a stark contrast between the two major candidates regarding the Middle East. The war and occupation of Iraq does offer such a contrast, but, unfortunately, Bush and Kerry, at the moment, are reading from the same tired script about Israel and Palestine. If this doesn’t change, the Middle East will be doomed to four more years of stalemate and chaos, regardless of who wins.

It hasn’t always been this way, and it doesn’t have to remain! Earlier in the campaign, Kerry was much more articulate and forceful in his calls for a return to evenhandedness in the Middle East.

“Ignoring or downplaying the conflict is a dangerous game,” he said earlier this year in criticizing the Bush administration’s on-again-off-again interest in the Palestinians. He has often talked of Bush’s disengagement from the situation, of his refusal to initiate a top-level diplomatic effort to bring both sides together.

To the dismay of many of his supporters, however, as well as the Arab-American community, Kerry has been falling back on the same old clichés and generalizations about Israeli security needs and Palestinian intransigence. He originally called the Israeli security wall “provocative and counterproductive.” Later he referred to it as a legitimate act of self-defense.

Both candidates seem to be pandering to the Jewish-American voters, and both seem terrified of the powerful lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

The Bush administration has abandoned the historic American position of being an evenhanded peace broker in the Middle East. It has tilted in favor of the minority right-wing faction controlling the Likud Party in Israel and has given Prime Minister Sharon a blank check to rewrite or simply ignore Bush’s own peace plan blueprint.

If Kerry wants to offer himself as a viable alternative to this disastrous relationship, now is the time for him to show the courage of his real convictions.

Kerry’s national campaign chairperson is Jeanne Shaheen, former governor of New Hampshire. She promises that Kerry’s Middle East ideas will be “a breath of fresh air,” and “completely evenhanded.”

If this is true, there’s no better time than the present. Kerry must present a detailed foreign-policy paper on how his administration would reverse our current lopsided approach and ruinous pro-Sharon position. He needs to demonstrate a vision and a sense of history. And he must be willing to incur the wrath of the pro-Sharon factions of both parties as they attempt to discredit and intimidate him. And he must tell the AIPAC lobby that they cannot control his views and policy.

Architects of President Bush’s pro-Israel Middle East plan: Elliott Abrams, Richard Perle, and Paul Wolfowitz

In 2000, Bush won a majority of the Arab-American vote (which numbers over three million). He won them over during the election year by promising to be a fair and honest peace broker, as his father had been. But after September 11, Bush pandered to his right-wing constituents and advisors and AIPAC and took a hard line against Muslims and Palestinians. His administration’s uncritical acceptance of Sharon’s draconian tactics and West Bank policies have disillusioned them to the point where Kerry now commands a decisive lead in the Arab-American community.

One of the primary causes of terrorism is the terrible way the Israelis and Americans have treated the Palestinians — since 1948! Israelis took Palestinians’ land and had them live in tents outside of the land that had been taken from them. This is a classic way to generate hatred.

The Bush Road Map has turned out to be a map to nowhere, with the president failing for three years to put the full moral authority of the presidency behind it. His Christian fundamentalist base supports Israel no matter what it does — so Bush does as well.

What a way to generate worldwide hatred toward the United States!

Recently, Sharon proposed his unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, with Bush’s approval. This plan also called for the largest Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be annexed by Israel instead of negotiated — thus rendering a major component of the Bush peace plan effectively dead and buried.

This action by Sharon barely registered a whimper from the Bush administration. And it represents one more reason why he has lost the majority of Arab-Americans, and why Kerry needs to step forward and offer a serious alternative if he wants to be an honorable player on the world stage and to win over votes and support.

If he doesn’t, he’s courting political disaster. These communities, with over 500,000 voters, are concentrated in four important swing states: Michigan, Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania. The Iraq war has galvanized these communities and the continuing mess in Palestine remains a focus of their concern and passions.

But this is not only in the best interest of fair play and justice for the Palestinians. It is even more a measure of whether the United States can become a true and honorable leader by demonstrating GLOBAL LEADERSHIP!

The Bush administration’s original Middle East envoy, retired Marine General Anthony Zinni, said recently that he couldn’t believe one of the reasons given for the Iraq War — that the road to Jerusalem led through Baghdad. He said that just the opposite has always been true, that the solution to most Middle East problems started with Jerusalem — solving once and for all the Israeli-Palestinian problem.

The Bush administration has arrogantly ignored this reality to disastrous results. If Kerry will come forward and present a bold alternative to the morally bankrupt Bush-Sharon team, he may win over many of the undecided voters throughout the country.

Zinni failed as a peace broker in 2001 because his efforts to be evenhanded were sabotaged by Bush’s willingness to be manipulated by pro-Sharon allies deep within the Bush administration, specifically the civilian leadership at the Pentagon. General Zinni is now speaking out about that frustrating experience, and the terrible planning that went into the Iraq War by those same Pentagon leaders.

Is John Kerry listening?

Palestinians salvage water tank from Israeli bulldozer that just leveled their homes in Gaza

Radical Minority Likud Party of Israel Kills Palestinians and Hope for Peace With Bulldozers and Tanks to Destroy Homes, Farms, and Olive Groves!

Last week’s reckless incursion into the Rafah Refugee Camp in Gaza laid bare the moral bankruptcy of Sharon’s government. And it revealed complacency on the part of the moderate majority of Israeli citizens that is sad and disturbing.

While most of us in America were focused on the chaos in Iraq, the rest of the world was watching in disgust as Israeli tanks and bulldozers terrorized the impoverished refugees of the sprawling Rafah Refugee Camp.

The incursion, code-named “Operation Rainbow,” was put into operation to locate and destroy weapons-smuggling tunnels that supposedly run between Rafah and the Egyptian border. After a week of random destruction, only two tunnels were discovered while scores of homes were destroyed, leaving almost a thousand people homeless.

Over forty men died in the fighting, while scores of civilians were injured in the crossfire. The incursion dragged on for a week, forcing thousands of refugees to cower in their homes while food and fresh water ran out.

In acts of wanton destruction that had no possible military value, Israeli tanks destroyed ancient olive tree groves, chicken coups, and orchards and even destroyed the only zoo in Gaza, releasing many wild animals to roam the streets until they starved to death or were shot. Paved roads were reduced to unusable rubble under the overwhelming weight of the Centurion tanks — turning an already horrible existence into an even more difficult one.

Israeli commanders always say that they go out of their way to avoid civilian casualties. But how can they make such specious claims while laying waste to the world the refugees are forced to live in? How can they make these claims while intentionally destroying the means of livelihood and simple survival for the refugees?

In one of the most horrific incidents of the past week, Israeli tanks fired on a peaceful demonstration in Rafah, killing eight teenagers and seriously wounding many others. The demonstrators were approaching an army checkpoint with white flags, to appeal to them on behalf of all the families trapped in their homes. A helicopter gunship fired warning shots, as did a tank, but two of the tank’s shells ended up hitting the crowd. The army issued an apology, but that was small consolation for the beleaguered community that was being methodically destroyed by Israeli bulldozers and tanks.

On May 18th, Rawan Abu Zeid, a 13-year-old girl on her way to the store on the dangerous streets, was gunned down by sniper fire. Two days later, Saber Abu Libdah, a 13-year-old boy, opened the front door of his family’s house. He and his brother were going to make a run for fresh water. They had empty Coke bottles in each hand to fill. He was shot three times by an Israeli sniper before he could get out the door. He died at the local hospital. His older brother, also shot, is expected to survive.

Nobody knows for sure how many homes were bulldozed during the weeklong incursion, or how many more were damaged to the point of being uninhabitable. What we do know is that the worst is yet to come — unless the international community, and the United States in particular, lets Sharon know that his plans are unacceptable and unconscionable.

Sharon — Leader of minority Likud Party (Israel’s radical hardliners) that doesn’t want peace with Palestine

Sharon intends to go ahead with his plans to withdraw from Gaza. But before he does, he feels this need to punish and injure Hamas and its supporters in a way that negates the impression that Hamas is successfully driving the Israelis out. There is no military advantage to this strategy, and his commanders know it, yet few will speak out. Since 2000, over 11,000 Palestinians have been displaced by house demolition and almost 3,000 killed.

Sharon believes that the security road that runs between Egypt and Rafah needs to be widened considerably in order to discourage tunnel building. His plan would require the destruction of hundreds of more refugee homes, leaving thousands homeless. The citizens of Rafah, already humiliated and terrorized, would not stand passively by and allow this to happen — which is to say that last week’s chaos and tragedies will pale in comparison to what will transpire.

Opposition is finally becoming vocal and public in Israel — but not nearly enough. Israel’s attorney general has said that the mass demolition plan is illegal under international law.

Justice Minister Yosef Lapid created an uproar when he said the images of refugees digging in the rubble for their possessions reminded him of his parents’ experience in Nazi Germany. “We look like monsters in the eyes of the world,” he said.

He’s right and Israelis are wrong and misdirected to condemn him for daring to use a Nazi analogy. More voices like his need to be heard. Lapid was not saying that IDF soldiers were acting like Nazis. He was simply saying that the general horror and stupidity of the operation reminded him of what he had seen and experienced as a boy in the Budapest ghetto during the war.

At Goals for Americans Foundation, we have always supported Israel’s right to a vigorous self-defense against terrorism. But we also believe that under Sharon, and the fundamentalist extremists who control his Likud Party, the moral stature of Israel is being eroded and corrupted to disastrous ends.

The brutalization of entire refugee communities can never be justified. We implore the Bush Administration to end its fawning approval of Sharon and his policies of intimidation. Our involvement in Iraq is no excuse for putting this problem on the shelf. The Palestinian question has been, and remains, the fundamental problem in the Middle East.

Left: U.S. President George W. Bush Right: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon

This week the Bush Administration is revisiting the Israel/Palestine conflict with back-to-back meetings with the Middle East heads of state — Mubarak of Egypt, Sharon of Israel, and Crown Prince Abdullah of Jordan. It’s about time!

Bush has been preoccupied — many would now say obsessed — with Iraq ever since the buildup to the war and the current chaotic occupation. His Road Map to peace died of neglect in the process, and the popular Geneva Accord has barely registered on the administration’s radar screen, to the dismay of American scholars and patriots.

And you can almost hear the chorus of voices out of the Middle East screaming in unison: “It’s the Palestinian problem, stupid!”

But this week the subject is front and center at the White House, for better or worse. Ariel Sharon has pressed the issue with his plan to abandon the Gaza Strip and to close down 21 small settlements in the area and four isolated smaller settlements in the West Bank, out of a total of 140. This is the first move in his disengagement plan, and it is on a collision course with the Road Map. Sharon’s plan is a transparent attempt to do what he has always done best: Sabotage the Road Map piece by piece, while claiming to be working for its success. It is time for President Bush to say no!

Sharon knows very well that the Road Map calls for the removal of all settlements in the West Bank and Gaza as part of final negotiations. Yet his disengagement plan calls for the retention of five large settlement blocs within the West Bank (Ariel, Givat Zeev, Maaleh Adumim, Etzion, and Kiryat Arba). Three of these blocs are deep within the territory, and would effectively negate the possibility of a contiguous Palestinian State.

Over the weekend, Sharon visited the largest West Bank settlement, Maaleh Adumim, with over 30,000 inhabitants. He assured then that the permanent settlements would be “strengthened and developed.” These aren’t the words and deeds of a man committed to the Road Map. These are the words of a man committed to killing it.

When asked recently when he expected to begin his disengagement, Sharon answered, “I hope that next Passover we will be in the middle of the plan.” This is vintage Sharon: Between now and next Passover he will find a thousand reasons to postpone the disengagement. He also said that the five large settlement blocs will “… be here for all eternity,” and will be off the negotiation table.

It’s time for Americans to stand up to Sharon and say “Enough!”

This past Monday, Hosni Mubarak visited Bush at his ranch to discuss Sharon’s plan to disengage from the Gaza Strip. With the occupation in Iraq getting bloodier and more unstable by the week, Bush is desperate to attach himself to something positive in the Middle East — or so Sharon is gambling. He wants Mubarak’s assurances that once the Israeli Defense Forces pull out of Gaze, the Egyptians will shut off the flow of weapons across their border with the Gaza Strip, and generally discourage Hamas from gaining any more power. That seems like wishful thinking, because Hamas just conducted a fund-raising campaign in the poor streets of Gaze and came up with over a million dollars. This is something the Palestinian Authority could never accomplish, as its support among average Palestinians continues to evaporate.

Mubarak knows who butters his bread. (The United States has provided about 50 billion dollars in aid to Egypt since they made peace with Israel in 1978.) He made vague assurances to Bush and gave conditional support to the Gaze pullout, as long as it is compatible with the Road Map — which he knows it is not. But he mainly wanted to tell Bush how inflamed the entire region is over the occupation of Iraq.

Next week, Jordan’s King Abdullah comes to visit. But the big fish is this week’s visit by Sharon. This is “put-up-or-shut-up” time for Bush. Sharon’s disengagement plan is clearly beyond the framework of the Road Map. In fact, Sharon has stated many times that it represents his response to the failure — the death certificate — of the Bush Road Map. He blames the failure on the Palestinian Authority for failing to jump through the “confidence-building” hoops dangled in front of them.

President Bush should tell Sharon that his disengagement plan is an assault on the Road Map, the plan Sharon pledged to support. And Bush should tell him that he would use the full power of the presidency to convince Congress to cut off aid to Israel if Sharon moves ahead with his plans to thwart an independent Palestinian State.

But indications are that Bush will give tentative approval to Sharon’s plan, once again kicking the hard decisions and difficult compromises down the road. An appeasement of this kind will translate into nothing but trouble for the Bush Administration. It will be seen as another American capitulation to Israel at the expense of the Palestinians. It will be seen as more evidence that Bush is long on talk and short on leadership, backbone, and inspiration.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia said that Sharon’s plan will destroy the peace process — this from a man known as a career optimist.

In the troubled streets of Gaza City, the refugee camps, and other Palestinian communities, the Iraqi insurgents fighting American Marines now have wide support. This is how everything in the Middle East is connected. And this is what Bush and his advisors still don’t understand.

Actions produce reactions, and memories are long in this part of the world. Just today, a plot to blow up a new Holocaust Memorial in Budapest was uncovered by Hungarian police. Israeli President Moshe Katsav arrived in Budapest today for the dedication of the museum, but it remains unclear whether or not the plot also involved an assassination attempt. The Hungarian police have suggested that the plot was in retaliation for Israel’s March 22 assassination of Hamas spiritual leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin. Khaled Mashaal, Yassin’s successor, has said that all Palestinians are duty bound to kill Sharon in revenge. The bloody cycle continues.

Anti-American feelings in the Middle East have a history that goes back many years. The main objection has always been that America is completely pro-Israel instead of being pro-peace. Our support for Israel has always been unconditional, while our support for Palestine has always been lacking. This is why so many people in the Middle East hate us.

From the very beginning of the Bush Administration, veteran diplomats who understood the Middle East told him that the single most important issue threatening our national-security needs in the region was the Palestinian question. It had festered for far too long, and it had become the primary focus for anti-American sentiments. The president needed to use the full moral authority of the presidency to ensure equal respect and deference for everyone involved in the conflict, especially the Palestinians.

The president, they said, had to get personally involved, as Carter did to achieve the historic 1978 Camp David Peace Accords between Egypt and Israel. Sending special envoys back and forth across the Atlantic would not do it. If the newly elected president didn’t fix this problem first, they said, nothing else he did in the Middle East would matter.

Bush didn’t listen. He decided to declare war on Iraq instead.

What happens after this week’s visit? If Bush caves in, then Sharon will have his Likud Party vote on the disengagement plan, which now enjoys the support of a slight majority of party members. If it passes, then he will present it to his Cabinet, and then to the Knesset. If it fails the Likud referendum, it will represent a stinging defeat for the combative Prime Minister. Such a vote of no confidence, and the possible indictment hanging over him, could topple his government. But Sharon has survived many other self-inflicted wounds, only to rise up again. He has survived while many U.S. presidents have come and gone. Whether this legacy ends up being a blessing or a curse for Israel, only time will tell. What we do know is that Sharon represents the primary obstacle to the realization of Palestinian dreams and lasting peace between the two neighbors.

It is time for us to stand up for our principles and demand that Israel bargains in good faith, and works with us to find a just solution, either through the Bush Road Map or the Geneva Accord. No more detours, no more stonewalling, no more excuses! We have the ability — the moral imperative — to oppose the powerful Israeli lobby that has for too long dictated our slanted policies in the Middle East. It’s time for us to become the true champions of peace. It’s time to stand up for the Palestinians.

Fanatical Shiite Cleric Muqtada al–Sadr

The first week of April has been disastrous for our occupation forces in Iraq — with no end in sight. On June 30, 2004, we are scheduled to transfer authority to an interim Iraqi government. But realities on the ground show that this will be nothing more than a cosmetic event that will fool nobody.

March saw the second highest American casualty rate, with over 50 dead and many more wounded and moved back home for treatment. The insurrections that we were promised would taper off over time and eventually be handled by local police forces have only increased and become more sophisticated. The insurgents were always referred to as outsiders or dead-enders from the Hussein regime. After the horrible events of this past week, the U.S Central Command now concedes that regular Iraqi citizens are now taking part in the escalating and deadly attacks on our coalition forces. In plain English, this means that we are coming under increasing deadly attacks from the very people we liberated, the people who are receiving hundreds of billions of dollars of aid from American taxpayers.

One aspect of the increase in American casualties is the major troop rotation that is taking place now. Thousands of seasoned troops that have served in Iraq since the invasion a year ago are now being rotated back home, while their ranks are being filled with inexperienced young servicemen and women who are going right into combat situations — and the insurgents know it.

The first week of April will be remembered as a new chapter in the escalating breakdown of order in Iraq, as the Shiite majority starts down the road from passive annoyance to violent resistance to our occupation. And as they do, the Sunnis of the north will become more emboldened and threatened. Many who opposed the war warned of the danger of religious civil war following the fall of Saddam. They warned that American occupying forces and administrators would be caught in the middle and blamed for everything — helpless to enforce order and helpless to retreat.

The events of this past week involve the emergence of the radical Shiite cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr and his fanatical following. Al-Sadr has been a distant second in terms of influence over the Shiite majority. The much older Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has been a moderating and calming influence since the war — to our relief — but just up to a point. He has advocated early elections, and started denouncing the interim constitution soon after he signed it last month. Ali al-Sistani’s desires and intentions carry far more weight than al-Sadr’s, so we have been careful to be respectful and patient with him. Our greatest fear has always been that the Shiite majority would actively turn against us while we are tied down dealing with the Sunni insurgents up north in the Sunni Triangle.

Al-Sadr has been ratcheting up his appeal to the disenfranchised with heated rhetoric over the past few months. Early in the occupation, he formed his own militia, the al-Mahdi Army, which numbers in the thousands and now increases daily. In April, he refused to renounce violence and now calls for armed resistance. Last week, the Provisional Authority shut down his newspaper, Al Hawza, for 60 days, which sparked major street demonstrations. Paul Bremer has been criticized for shutting down the paper. How, critics ask, can we promote Democracy in Iraq and at the same time deny free-speech rights to a newspaper just because we don’t like what they are writing?

On Friday, al-Sadr announced he was inviting two Middle Eastern terrorist organizations — Hamas from Palestine and Hezbollah from Lebanon — to begin recruiting in Iraq.

“I am the beating arm of Hamas and Hezbollah in Iraq! Death to America, death to Jews,” he proclaimed. He has called on his followers to “terrorize your enemies” and to give up peaceful demonstrations.

In Kafu, near the holy shrines of Najif, pro-al-Sadr demonstrations against the Spanish garrison turned deadly as shooting broke out leaving scores dead. In Sadr City, a Baghdad slum named after the cleric’s father, U.S. soldiers fought a pitched battle for hours as al-Sadr followers attempted to take over a police station. Eight Marines were killed and scores wounded. Major General Martin Dempsey said at the scene: “It’s really a mob, a mob with a lot of weapons.”

On Monday, fighting raged all over Iraq between Shiites and coalition forces, resulting in the deaths of eight more Americans and scores of Iraqis. Cities like Ramadi, Nasiriyah, and Kafu, which were previously quiet, have erupted with resistance. Marines have encircled the entire city of Fallujah and are now fighting door-to-door, in search of those involved in last week’s terrible ambush of four civilian bodyguards.

Army Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt said, “We will pacify Fallujah.” This is a city of over 200,000 — Kimmitt’s remark is eerily reminiscent of the failed Vietnam mentality. (Will we end up destroying Fallujah in order to “save” it?)

Al-Sadr is now under an arrest warrant for the murder of another cleric last April. He is now in hiding somewhere in Najaf, along with many of his heavily armed followers. Al-Sadr claims he will never be taken alive. Nobody knows how much more the security situation will deteriorate should al-Sadr go down in a blaze of gunfire. By issuing this arrest warrant now, the coalition is now obligated to enforce it. If it doesn’t, then the rule of law means nothing, and our occupation becomes a hollow and tragic foreign-policy misadventure of the first magnitude.

Al-Sadr, and all that he represents, is just one of many occupation problems the Bush administration failed to consider in its rush to war. We now have over 134,000 troops tied down in Iraq, and less than 13,000 in Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden is still at large and al Qaeda still operates. More and more Americans are asking, Why isn’t it the other way around? Why didn’t we apply the bulk of our resources to apprehending the perpetrators of September 11 instead of suddenly taking a left turn into Iraq?

Colin Powell formulated The Powell Doctrine following the first Gulf War. He stated that American military power should never be used unless our objectives were concise and achievable and our exit strategy clear and clean. The failure to apply this doctrine to this war has brought us to this terrible week. And it will insure our paralysis in the weeks and months of casualties to come.

Like it or hate it, we are stuck with the horrendous costs of occupying and governing Iraq into the future — a cost in bodies and spirits, resources and dwindling moral capital.

Elliott Abrams was infamous for the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s. Now Bush has appointed him to the National Security Council to “mediate” the Israeli-Palestinian problem. “Aggravate” is more like it unfortunately.

If you are looking for reasons why the Middle East peace process is as deadlocked as usual, here is one big reason: The infamous Elliott Abrams, major figure in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 80s and all-purpose apologist for Central American human rights atrocities, has been appointed to a high-level post within the National Security Council. In December 2002, Bush appointed Abrams to become senior director of the Near East and North Africa office of the NSC. This appointment effectively makes him the behind-the-scenes point man on the administration’s efforts to mediate the Israeli/Palestinian problem.

Abrams once wrote, “American Jews must arise from their slumber and face the facts that peace will never happen.” This from the man who President Bush picked to head his peace effort.

James Zogby of the Arab-American Institute (AAI) said of the appointment: “He will be yet another filter blocking reality from the president.”

Rashid Khalidi, respected Middle Eastern scholar at the University of Chicago, said: “This is a tragedy for the American people as well as for Palestinians and Israelis.” He refers to Abrams and the like as “American Likudniks.”

Retired admiral and diplomat William Crowe said: “He’s a snake who is hard to kill.”

The consensus is that Abrams ended up with this job instead of others because NSC appointments don’t require Senate confirmation, which would have been a major embarrassment for the administration. Abrams has a well-deserved reputation for lying under oath and showing contempt and hostility for anyone who dares question him about his inept and sordid past. He once referred to critics as “vipers.”

Like previous assignments for which he clearly had no qualifications, Abrams came to this high-level position in the NSC without any expertise on the Middle East. His only qualification, it seems, was a relentless hostility towards the Palestinian peace efforts of the past, and his unwavering and uncritical support of Israel. Abrams never saw an Israeli action or military intervention he didn’t like. His support for Sharon borders on adoration, and his dismissal of Palestinian aspirations is well documented in his own writings and public statements.

In 1982, Ariel Sharon left office in disgrace after a commission found him complicit in the massacre of many civilian Muslims in the Lebanese refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. Abrams was contemptuous of the decision, claiming that Sharon’s forces had merely stood by and allowed the massacres to take place. It is frightening to think that a man with this kind of moral numbness is now formulating Middle East policy in the name of the American people.

Abrams’ convoluted approach to the Middle East is documented in his book Present Dangers which was produced by the Netcom think tank “Project for the New American Century.” Abrams wrote: “Our military strength and willingness to use it should be our key factor in promoting peace.”

He also wrote, “Our intentions in the Middle East will not be realized for the most part through painstaking negotiations.”

In other words, might equals right — our might gives us the right to impose our will on the Palestinians. And Americans wonder why so many people in that region fear and distrust us. The question becomes why did President Bush think Elliott Abrams was the man for this important job if he was serious about working for a fair and just peace for the Palestinians? For the Arab-American community, the appointment of Abrams was the final straw that convinced them that the Bush Road Map to Peace was just a public-relations snow job. It is hard to argue to the contrary.

Behind the scenes, one of the most vocal critics to the Abrams appointment was George Bush Sr.’s highly respected NSC chairman, Brent Scowcroft. The first Bush administration declined to ever hire Abrams during its four years in office. It wanted nothing to do with his disgraceful reputation as Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs (1985-1989) during the Reagan presidency — one of several assignments Abrams was given for which he had no obvious qualifications other than being known as a Cold War hawk and a right-wing ideologue, which Bush Sr. decidedly was not.

In his post as assistant secretary (1985-1989) Abrams consistently defended the brutal El Salvador dictatorship against an avalanche of human-rights-abuse charges — over 22,000 atrocities in a 12-year period, including the infamous El Mozote village massacre. In a 1992 National Review article, Abrams wrote of our role in El Salvador: “American policy was right, and it was successful.”

Nor did Bush Sr. want anything to do with Abrams’ complicity in the Iran-Contra fiasco. Abrams was indicted by the special prosecutor for giving false testimony to a congressional committee and for illegal fund-raising for the Contras. He pleaded guilty to two lesser charges in the hope of avoiding a trial. But for reasons still not understood today, Bush Sr., just before leaving office, pardoned Abrams and others saving them from having to serve jail time.

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Not true! The turmoil in the Middle East is a festering sore that drains our attention, resources, and political capital — not to mention our good name. As long as it goes unsettled and unresolved in a fair and just manner for both sides, it will remain so. The people our government appoints to work on this problem must be of unassailable character and integrity. They represent all of us.

Elliott Abrams fails on all accounts — therefore, we would all fail with him.

We cannot afford to fail — therefore, Abrams must go.

Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was the spiritual leader of Palestine’s Hamas until an Israeli helicopter assassinated him on March 22, 2004. By turning him into a martyr, Prime Minister Sharon has “opened the gates of hell!”

It’s hard to imagine things getting any worse in the Middle East — but they just did. Just when you think the situation between Israel and Palestine couldn’t become any more hopeless, it does. The targeted assassination by missile fire on March 22 of Hamas spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, by an Israeli helicopter accomplished two things for sure: It guaranteed Hamas and other terrorist organizations a furious new flock of recruits and it weakened the moderates on both sides. If this is Sharon’s idea for gaining added security, it sure isn’t for the rest of us. A Hamas spokesman said this killing “opened the gates of hell,” and that includes us.

In a radical departure from the past, Hamas has implicated the United States in this killing, saying Israel wouldn’t have gone forward with it without the tacit approval of the White House. Whether that’s true or not is beside the point. The point is they believe it. And they have indicated that all allies of Israel are now fair game as future targets for their bombers, snipers, homemade rockets, and mortars.

Mohammed Mahdi Akef of the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt put it this way: “There can be no life for the Americans and Zionists in the region.” A spokesman for the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the terrorist wing of Arafat’s Fatah movement, said: “War, war, war on the sons of Zion.” Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia of the Palestinian Authority, and a leading moderate, put it this way: “This is a crazy and dangerous act. It opens the door wide to chaos.”

For those who think this act will only make things worse in the region, the words of a Palestinian college student are ominous and depressing: “Now thousands of us will be Sheikh Yassin!”

The White House issued a lukewarm condemnation, saying, “We are troubled” by the assassination. Their ambivalence is understandable. Israel says it is only applying the same concept of “preemptive action” against an established terrorist threat that the Bush administration has promoted and encouraged. “How can you condemn us for doing exactly what you did to justify the Iraq invasion?” Sharon could rightly ask us.

Fair enough, but Israel is not convincing anyone that this killing will contribute to their future security. “Why now?” everyone is asking.

Sheikh Yassin was well-known for his role in the ongoing intifada over the past 3 1/2 years. Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shalom refers to Yassin as “The Godfather of suicide bombers.” Few would dispute this description on either side of the conflict. Almost 400 Israelis have been killed and over 2,000 seriously wounded in 50 suicide bombings and other attacks with his approval, if not direction. Hamas has military leaders that are also on the Israeli hit list, but Yassin represents something different, something special in this terrible equation.

Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was the spiritual leader of Hamas, which means his loyal followers, and many others throughout the Middle East and the world, see his assassination as a direct and intentional attack on Islam. This distinction brings a whole new dimension to the problem, enlarging it from a regional conflict to a religious conflict. Israel says they simply eliminated another terrorist leader. But many in the Muslim war see it as the initiation of a Holy War against the faith. They have killed a wheelchair-bound invalid who was of great symbolic significance, terrorist or not. By turning him into an overnight martyr, Israel has unleashed forces it cannot possibly control.

This miscalculation on the part of Israel will come back to haunt them. It feeds into the conspiracy theory that there is a Jewish-American effort to paint all Muslims as potential terrorists. They have further alienated their allies in Europe who have cut back on their support for Hamas since it was designated a terrorist state by the European Union. And Egypt has cancelled a trip to Israel by a delegation of legislators to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their peace treaty. Hezbollah has launched attacks across the Lebanese border. Large crowds of angry protesters are filling the streets of every major Middle East city calling for immediate revenge.

Sheikh Yassin has been targeted for months, yet he’s been living a relatively open life in Gaza City, tempting fate. He must have come to the conclusion that the IDS wouldn’t carry through on the threat, even though he barely survived a September 6th attack. The answer to the question, Why now? may be found in Sharon’s current dilemma. He’s been making vague references to a complete pullout from the Gaza Strip, which would involve the relocation of 7,000 Jewish settlers. Some of his supporters are in an uproar over this idea, because they think it will allow Hamas and the other terrorist organizations complete freedom in the area to launch raids. Two recent suicide bombers who originated from Gaza City appear to have pushed Sharon to intensify his effort to severely wound Hamas before the pullout. He also doesn’t want to leave the impression that Hamas drove them out of Gaza, as Hezbollah claims they drove Israel out of Lebanon in the late 80s. In killing Yassin, Sharon is wrong in thinking he has wounded Hamas and like-minded groups. He has, in fact, empowered them!

The tragic irony of this is that Hamas came into existence in the late 80s with the help of Israel, when they were encouraging other Palestinian groups to challenge Arafat’s Fatah movement. Israel is now facing an emboldened and popular terrorist movement as Arafat’s Palestinian Authority becomes increasingly marginalized.

The other casualties of this event include the Bush Road Map to Peace, which is on life support at the moment, if not terminal. As the Palestinian Authority is weakened, so too is Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia, our best hope to bridge the gap with Israeli moderates. The Geneva Accord will also be pushed out of the spotlight as emotionalism runs its course throughout the region and violence begets violence.

In 2001 Sheikh Yassin said about the suicide bombers, “When one of us dies, it’s like a wedding day for him, because we know he’ll be so high in heaven.” In the region, it is the prospects for peace that have died with him.