Obama’s Iran Echo Chamber Smears Politico Magazine

Except our betters don’t like it, not one bit, because it reflects poorly on the most significant (yet dubious and controversial) achievement of Barack Obama’s second term. In a tactic familiar to opponents of the Iran deal, the criticism is not aimed not at the facts behind Meyer’s article but at Meyer himself. “It’s a shabby neocon hit piece,” says Valerie Plame’s bestie Joe Cirincione. “A disgusting hit job by both the cabal of people with this agenda and by the reporter who paid lip service to the criticisms of this group,” says Brian O’Toole, a “non-resident senior fellow” at the Atlantic Council. Neocon … cabal … I wonder whom these guys are referring to? (Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.)

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Trump continues Obama’s wars against democracy

Examples will be cited here, and the silenced lessons will be drawn from them, about the actual nature of the post-1952 U.S. government—the global fascist victory that has increasingly emerged after the immediate ashes of fascism’s global defeat in 1945. This far-right, imperialist or “neoconservative,” international ideology has risen like a phoenix from those physical ashes of World War II, and has increasingly won—led by the U.S. government—against the shrinking democratic world, and now seriously threatens to bring World War III to finish it, against the now non-communist lone nation of Russia, after the U.S. and its so-called ‘capitalist’ (but actually and increasingly fascist) NATO military alliance had won the ideological Cold War, and the communist Soviet Union broke up and ended its Warsaw Pact military alliance in 1991, while the U.S. secretly continued its side of the Cold War and has already brought into its anti-Russian NATO alliance virtually all of the Warsaw Pact nations, and all nations except Russia from the former Soviet Union.

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How Obama Enables Atrocities

As the New Year dawns, the neocons and their liberal interventionist sidekicks remain firmly in control of Official Washington’s storylines – on Syria, Russia and elsewhere – even as their policies continue to wreak havoc across the Mideast and threaten the stability of Europe and indeed the future of civilization.

The latest proof of this dangerous reality came when Saudi Arabia’s repressive Sunni monarchy executed prominent Shiite political leader Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr for criticizing the nation’s kings and princes. Before the killing, the Obama administration held its tongue in public so as not to antagonize the Saudi royals. (Nimr’s nephew awaits Saudi “crucifixion” for his role as a teenager in Arab Spring protests.)

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Obama Surrounds Himself With Neocons and Other Hawkish Lunatics

Most recently, there was his request for unlimited war powers, a new AUMF, a shrewdly and deceptively worded legislative authorization which allows him to attack any country, anywhere on the earth, targeting individuals, groups and nations which he alone decides are deserving of some tough love __ aka annihilation by military force.

If this weren't incriminating enough, just look at the people he is surrounded by.

First, the hard-core psychopaths . . .

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Barack Obama, Neocon?

Yesterday Barack Obama had an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times titled, “Our fight against violent extremism.” It was intended, I think, as a prelude to the White House summit on Countering Violent Extremism–no particular extremism, just the violent kind–that is now under way. Obama articulated his vision for how we can defeat “violent extremism”:

In Syria and Iraq, the terrorist group we call ISIL has slaughtered innocent civilians and murdered hostages, including Americans, and has spread its barbarism to Libya with the murder of Egyptian Christians. In recent months, we’ve seen deadly attacks in Ottawa, Sydney, Paris and Copenhagen.

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Why President Obama is a Neocon

In a Tuesday op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, the president wrote, "Efforts to counter violent extremism will only succeed if citizens can address legitimate grievances through the democratic process and express themselves through strong civil societies." At a speech at the summit on Wednesday, Obama said that "the essential ingredient to real and lasting stability and progress is not less democracy. It's more democracy. It's institutions that uphold the rule of law and apply justice equally." Finally, his Thursday speech at a Summit session hosted at the State Department reiterated the points made in his Wednesday speech, covering the importance of democratic institutions in CVE.

To be fair, the idea that the US should actively promote democracy and rule of law because it's in America's national interest is not unique to neoconservatism. It's also a core premise of the Wilsonian perspective on foreign policy (a.k.a. liberal internationalism or liberal interventionism). The difference is that neocons tend to have far less faith in the ability of squishy, fuzzy international drum circles like the United Nations — née League of Nations — to do anything useful on this front.

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Neocons Revive Syria ‘Regime Change’ Plan

Official Washington’s ever-influential neoconservatives and their “liberal interventionist” allies see President Barack Obama’s decision to extend U.S. airstrikes against Islamic State terrorists into Syria as a new chance to achieve the long-treasured neocon goal of “regime change” in Damascus.

On the surface, Obama’s extraordinary plan to ignore Syrian sovereignty and attack across the border has been viewed as a unilateral U.S. action to strike at the terrorist Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), but it could easily evolve into a renewed effort to overthrow Bashar al-Assad’s government, ironically one of ISIS’s principal goals.

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Behind Obama’s ‘Chaotic’ Foreign Policy

So, we have Obama covertly arming Syrian rebels, many of whom were interchangeable with Islamic jihadists, but then sending the U.S. military back into Iraq to fight some of these same extremists who spilled back into Iraq, the country where they got their start after President George W. Bush’s neocon-inspired invasion.

We also have Obama spending years ratcheting up sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program – despite Iran’s repeated offers to accept limits that would guarantee no military applications – and now finding that he needs Iran’s help to broker political changes in Iraq.

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Return of the living (neo-con) dead

Amid much hysteria, the notion has been widely peddled in the United States that President Obama's "new" foreign policy doctrine, announced last week at West Point, rejects neo-cons and neo-liberals and is, essentially, post-imperialist and a demonstration of realpolitik.

Not so fast. Although stepping back from the excesses of the Cheney regime - as in bombing whole nations into "democracy" - the "desire to lead" still crystallizes might is right.

Moreover, "exceptionalism" remains the norm. Now not so blatant, but still implemented via a nasty set of tools, from financial warfare to cyber-war, from National Endowment for Democracy-style promotion of "democracy" to Joint Special Operations Command-driven counter-terrorism, drone war and all shades of shadow wars.

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How Neocons Constrain Obama’s Message

As American neocons continue to shape the narratives that define the permissible boundaries for U.S. foreign policy thinking, the failure to enforce any meaningful accountability on them for their role in the criminal and disastrous invasion of Iraq has become painfully clear.

In any vibrant democratic system, it would be unthinkable that the neocons and other war hawks who yahooed the United States into Iraq a little more than a decade ago would still be exercising control over how Americans perceive today’s events. Yet, many of the exact same pundits and pols who misled the American people then are still misleading them today.

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Jeremy Scahill Lambasts ‘Imperialist’ Obama’s ‘Neocon’ Foreign Policy

Appearing on Democracy Now! Wednesday afternoon, The Nation‘s national security correspondent Jeremy Scahill tore into President Obama‘s United Nations General Assembly speech, lamenting how the president has capitulated to “neoconservative” norms of imperialism and the exporting of American values at gunpoint.

Scahill recalled how his jaw dropped at the portion of Obama’s speech in which he declared it America’s role to ensure the “free flow of energy” resources around the world. “[The president] basically came out and said the United States is an imperialist nation and we are going to do whatever we need to conquer areas to take resources from around the world,” he asserted. “It was a really naked sort of declaration of imperialism, and I don’t use that word lightly, but it really is.”

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Barack Obama, NeoCon Warmonger…Who Knew?

In 2009, Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize despite barely getting his seat warmed up in the Oval Office. In 2009 current Secretary of State John Kerry called Assad’s Syria “an essential player in bringing peace and stability to the region.” In 2011, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad as a “reformer.” In 2007, then-candidate Obama attacked President George W. Bush for considering military strikes against Iran’s nuclear capability without the approval of Congress, declaring it a violation of the Constitution.

A few years later Obama attacked Libya without congressional approval, and now seeks that approval to attack Syria, even while maintaining that he does not need it in order to act.

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Neocons Are Back—But Not in the GOP

After years of what seemed to be a self-imposed dormancy, the war hawks Barack Obama repudiated as a candidate are suddenly the biggest supporters of his Syrian intervention, proving there might be a second act for the neoconservative wing of the Republican Party after all.

But the new friendship comes with a catch: Obama’s Republican spear points, Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, want an extended American intervention in Syria—beginning with the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. So far, the administration is only asking Congress to pursue limited air strikes in Syria: no regime change.

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Obama’s Wild Neocon Dream

What explains the US strategy shift? Evidently, Washington has concluded that a direct intervention has become necessary to overthrow the Bashar al-Assad regime and the objective of regime change cannot be realized by merely arming the rebels. It seems a matter of time before some sort of no-fly zone is imposed. The concerted attempt to demonize the Syrian regime by pointing finger at it for allegedly using the chemical weapons is reminiscent of the build-up leading to the US intervention in Iraq in 2003. Now, in the case of Syria, as was then in the case of Iraq in 2003, evidence is being fragmented to justify the military invasion.

Doesn’t the US know that it could open a Pandora’s Box since the fate of Syria and the Middle East are inextricably linked? Of course, it does. But then, that is precisely the point why a US intervention in Syria could be on the cards. In a candid interview with the National Interest magazine last week, former US national security advisor and well-known strategic thinker Zbigniew Brzezinski probed the reasons why Obama allowed himself to be drawn into the Syrian problem. Brzezinski spoke darkly of a «mysterious aspect» to all of this.

 

He obliquely hinted at the Obama administration due to the domestic political pressure picking up the threads of the US’ Middle Eastern policy from where they were left by President George W. Bush, namely, the old neocon agenda to «create a larger Fortress Israel» that would be pivoted on a regime change in Iraq, followed by the overthrow of the Syrian and Iranian regimes.

 

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If A Neocon Is Happy With Obama, You Shouldn't Be

President Obama gave a national security speech this afternoon. It appears that many are latching onto the following statement from the speech:

"This war, like all wars, must end."

He was referring to the War on Terror, and supposedly the statement shows that a different approach or tone is being taken than that of George W. Bush.

I don't buy it for a second.

I immediately thought of the slick one, who in one of his State of The Union addresses said:

"The era of big government is over."

Source 

Obama, Neocons openly back terrorism

The tragic comedy of the phony War on Terror is being exposed as never before for the sham that it is. Press TV reported yesterday the opening of the MKO terrorist organization office a block away from the White House. What a message that sends to the world...that we look out for our terrorists and take good care of them, but it just might take a little time to do it.

This is the group who inflicted four 911's on Iran by murdering 12,000 in terrorist attacks, much of it under Saddam, and then under US protection when we took over Iraq. Israel was involved, also...no surprise there.

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Obama’s Retreat to Neocon Strategies

With Syria and Iran, President Barack Obama faces getting mired in two wars that could set the entire Middle East aflame, and perhaps the rest of the Islamic world, too.

Such an outcome would be in part due to Mr. Obama’s Middle Eastern policy, and the willingness of the current U.S. Congress to support Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s aggressive posture toward Iran. The lobbying effort in the U.S. by hard-line, pro-Israel interests is a pivotal factor here we cannot ignore.

In his first presidential visit to Israel last week, Mr. Obama gave every assurance to its citizens that the United States will stand by Israel. Fair enough, but which Israel? Since Mr. Obama became president, Israeli settlers on the West Bank increased from 500,000 to 560,000.

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Obama’s Drone Gang vs. Neocon Battalions

The principal distinctions between Obama’s faction and the opposing group of more extreme warmongers would seem to be along the following lines: Obama represents a faction which wishes to avoid the large-scale commitment of US conventional military forces to foreign wars. This kind of costly conventional warfare is by contrast the stock in trade of the opposing forces who sometimes choose to speak through the neocons. Instead, the group above and behind Obama proposes the use of economic warfare and economic sanctions, color revolutions, coups, subversion, special forces raids, drone attacks, assassinations, and multilateral buck-passing or leading from behind - playing an ally or an enemy against an enemy in the hopes of destroying or weakening both, as with Obama’s current use of Turkey against Syria.

Brennan presides over Terror Tuesdays at the White House, when the drone death list for the week is compiled. John Kerry ran for president in 2004 promising not to end the Iraq war, but to fight it smarter - meaning along the lines now embraced by Obama in Afghanistan. The Afghanistan policy favored by Obama has been articulated by Joe Biden and also in the CIA’s Devine Plan - special forces, drones, occasional bombing, and espionage, with very few boots on the ground.
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PNAC's neocon agenda continues unabated under Barack Obama

There is ZERO difference between Barack Obama & GW Bush.


The neocon agenda, PNAC published in 1997, called for regime change in 6 countries by force. Iraq, Libya, Syria, Iran, Lebanon & Jordan.

Iraq was done under GW Bush.

Libya was done by Obama (installing an Islamic Extremist government in the process.)

Syria in progress (the rebels in the Free Syrian Army also contain a high proportion of Islamic Extremists). The rebels are being openly armed by Saudi Arabia. Libyan weapons including shoulder held ground to air missile launchers have found their way into Syria.

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Crisis in Syria: Obama vs. the Neocons

Just in case you were wondering if President Barack Obama is any different from, say, “President Mitt Romney” or some hypothetical “President Neocon,” the answer is: Yes. Proof: Syria.

Just take a glimpse at the hysteria of the neoconservatives about what ought to be done in Syria.

To be sure, at the outset there’s this disclaimer: since the start of the Syrian uprising, I’ve been extremely critical of Obama’s actions. When the protests against President Assad were still relatively peaceful and only limited government repression was reported, and when moderate, establishment-leaning (and non-Islamist) opposition figures were beginning to gather steam, Obama jumped the gun and called for Assad’s ouster. That was stupid enough. Since then, though, he’s placated Assad’s external enemies—among them Qatar and Saudi Arabia, who’ve backed Islamism from Tunisia to Afghanistan, and of course Israel—by encouraging, allowing and facilitating the supply of increasingly deadly weapons to the rebels. Some in the Obama administration seem enchanted by the idea that the fall of Assad will deal a huge blow to Iran, even though the United States ought to be fearful of a Sunni-Shiite war in the region that will spark renewed civil war in Iraq and Lebanon. And, of course, OP has seemed unwilling to truly engage Russia (and Iran) in search of a transition in Damascus.

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