Michael Hudson 犹太复国主义者：美国的麻烦制造者
风萧萧_Frank (2026-03-14 09:01:53) 评论 (0)犹太复国主义者：美国的麻烦制造者
迈克尔·哈德森 2024年10月7日
https://michael-hudson.com/2024/10/zionists-the-usas-trouble-makers/
理查德·D·沃尔夫和迈克尔·哈德森：中东局势动荡，乌克兰濒临崩溃！美国会采取行动吗？
NIMA：很高兴再次见到你们，理查德和迈克尔。让我来主持一下。我们先来谈谈最关键的问题：为什么美国对结束中东和乌克兰的冲突不感兴趣？我们都知道，在这两个地区，美国都有能力做到这一点。
在回答这个问题之前，我想播放一段黎巴嫩外长与克里斯蒂安·阿曼普尔的对话，他谈到了自己的观点以及双方未能达成停火协议的原因。
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克里斯蒂安·阿曼普尔：……我采访了黎巴嫩外交部长阿卜杜拉·布·哈比卜，他目前正在华盛顿会见美国官员。这是自最近局势升级以来，他首次接受我们的采访。外交部长，欢迎您再次来到节目。
阿卜杜拉·布·哈比卜：谢谢。谢谢。
克里斯蒂安：自从我们上次通话以来，贵国的局势已经发展到非常严重的危机程度。我想问您，您现在身在美国。您知道，一些美国政府官员支持以色列对贵国的地面入侵。您身在华盛顿，努力争取各方支持以达成停火协议，对此您有何看法？
阿卜杜拉：他们也同意拜登-马克龙的声明，该声明呼吁停火，并呼吁实施为期21天的停火。之后，霍赫斯坦先生将前往黎巴嫩，就停火进行谈判。他们告诉我们，内塔尼亚胡先生同意了这一点。我们也得到了真主党的同意。你知道之后发生了什么。那天我们在纽约见到了你。
克里斯蒂安：我知道。你当时正在谈到要向安理会提交停火协议。结果不到24小时，真主党领导人就被暗杀了。你是说哈桑·纳斯鲁拉在被暗杀前不久同意了停火吗？
阿卜杜拉：他同意了，他同意了。是的，是的。我们完全同意；黎巴嫩在与真主党协商后同意了停火。议长贝里先生与真主党进行了磋商，我们也把情况告知了美国和法国。他们告诉我们，内塔尼亚胡先生也同意了两国总统发表的声明。
[视频片段结束]
尼玛：是的。问题就在这里，因为如果你还记得的话，伊斯梅尔·哈尼亚在卡塔尔与真主党谈判期间被暗杀。
就在他们与黎巴嫩政府达成某种协议，真主党表示“好，我们就按这个计划来”之后，他们又暗杀了他。
现在的问题是，为什么美国也参与其中，迈克尔？请继续。
迈克尔·哈德森：嗯，美国不希望停火，因为它想控制整个近东。它想利用以色列作为傀儡。今天发生的一切都是50年前，也就是1973年和1974年策划好的。我曾旁听过乌齐·阿拉德的会议，他曾任摩萨德局长，后来成为内塔尼亚胡的首席军事顾问。
整个战略基本上是由国防部和新自由主义者制定的，而且几乎是分阶段进行的，我稍后会解释。
[亨利·马丁]“斯库普”·杰克逊是需要记住的关键人物。斯库普·杰克逊是极右翼新保守主义者，他资助了所有这些计划。他曾于1960年担任民主党全国委员会主席，之后与军事顾问合作。
这些年，我与赫尔曼·卡恩（《奇爱博士》的原型人物）在哈德逊研究所共事，我参加了一些会议，我会描述这些会议的内容，但我更想描述的是，导致美国如今不愿和平、想要控制整个近东的整个战略是如何逐步形成的。
这一切都被详细阐述过了。我写了一本书，记录了我在20世纪70年代与战争学院、白宫以及空军和陆军各个智库举行的会议。
美国所有战略的出发点在于，民主国家已无法通过征兵制组建一支国内军队。美国无力组建足够强大的军队入侵他国，而没有入侵，就无法真正占领他国。你可以轰炸他国，但这只会激起抵抗。你无法占领他国。
越南战争表明，任何征兵尝试都会遭到强烈的反征兵抵制，这种抵制会演变为反战情绪，因此，任何领导人必须由选举产生的国家都无法再次承担征兵的角色。
诚然，美国确实向伊拉克派遣了一支小规模军队，而且美国在全球拥有800个军事基地，但这并非一支作战军队——而是一支占领军，几乎没有遭到任何抵抗。
例如，乌克兰与俄罗斯之间的冲突就是个例子，正如我们在那里看到的。近东的情况则截然不同。
反战学生运动表明，1968年林登·约翰逊不得不退出总统竞选，因为他所到之处都会爆发反对他、要求停止战争的示威游行。毋庸置疑，如今已不会再发生此类示威游行。
因此，我不会称美国或欧盟为民主国家，但没有任何一个需要通过选举产生的政府能够派遣自己的军队参与大规模战争。
这意味着，如今的战争策略仅限于轰炸，而非占领。以色列军队只能向加沙和真主党投掷炸弹，试图摧毁目标，但无论是以色列军队还是其他任何军队，都无法像二战时期那样入侵并占领一个国家。
如今一切都变了，鉴于美国与俄罗斯、伊朗和中国的联盟关系，美国不可能再占领他国。
五十年前人们就认识到了这一点，当时似乎美国支持的战争必须缩减规模。但这种情况并没有发生。原因在于美国还有后备方案：依靠外国军队作为代理人作战，而不是亲自出战。这是一种获得军事力量的办法。
“第一个例子是阿富汗瓦哈比圣战分子的出现，他们后来发展成为基地组织。吉米·卡特动员他们对抗阿富汗的世俗利益，并以‘没错，他们是穆斯林，但归根结底，我们都信仰上帝’为借口。”
因此，对付阿富汗世俗政权的答案是瓦哈比狂热主义和圣战。美国意识到，要想拥有一支愿意战斗到最后一人——最后一名阿富汗人、最后一名以色列人、最后一名乌克兰人——的军队，就必须建立一个充满仇恨的国家，一个与美国和欧洲精神截然不同的国家。
布热津斯基正是这一切的幕后策划者。逊尼派圣战分子成为了美国在中东的“外籍军团”，其势力范围包括伊拉克、叙利亚和伊朗，以及一直延伸到俄罗斯边境的穆斯林国家。
美国的目标，石油，是这项政策的核心。这意味着美国必须确保近东的安全，为此它扶植了两支代理军队。这两支军队至今仍是盟友，并肩作战。一方面是基地组织圣战分子，另一方面是他们的幕后操纵者——以色列人，他们沆瀣一气。
他们替美国打仗，使美国不必亲自出手。
美国的外交政策支持以色列和乌克兰，向他们提供武器，用巨额资金贿赂他们的领导人，并为他们的一切行动提供电子卫星制导。
拜登总统不断对内塔尼亚胡说：“我们刚刚给了你一个全新的掩体、集束炸弹和巨型炸弹——请把它们扔向你的敌人，但要轻柔一些。我们不希望你在投掷这些炸弹时伤及任何人。”
这就是虚伪之处——一味粉饰太平。过去50年来，拜登和美国一直扮演着“好警察”的角色，批评它所支持的“坏警察”。“坏警察”包括ISIS和基地组织，以及内塔尼亚胡。
然而，在这一切战略的制定过程中，赫尔曼·卡恩的伟大成就，在于他成功说服了美国的帝国主义扩张者们，让他们相信控制中东的关键在于依靠以色列作为其外援。
正如我所说，这种保持距离的安排使得美国得以扮演“好警察”的角色，指定以色列来执行其任务。而以色列则组织并资助了努斯拉阵线和基地组织，美国却假装谴责他们。这一切都是军方、国务院和国家安全局共同支持的计划的一部分。
正因如此，国务院才将美国外交的管理权移交给了犹太复国主义者，表面上将以色列的行为与美国的帝国主义扩张区分开来。但简而言之，以色列人已经加入了基地组织和伊斯兰国的阵营，成为了美国的“外籍军团”。
尼玛：是的。正如你刚才提到的，问题是：为什么美国对结束中东和乌克兰的冲突不感兴趣？迈克尔指出了美国这种行为的最终目的。你现在的看法是什么？
理查德·沃尔夫：嗯，我认为就乌克兰而言，目前美国只是出于一种模糊的、残存的削弱俄罗斯的愿望。这种愿望并不奏效，所以我估计很快就会结束。至于以色列，我认为迈克尔说得对，这是一笔交易：以色列人或许能给美国在中东局势上提供一些筹码，如果没有以色列，美国就无法获得这种筹码。否则，我无法理解。
为什么美国允许内塔尼亚胡先生制定其政策？我们现在面临的是一个奇怪的局面：制约内塔尼亚胡先生的是以色列人，而不是美国人。考虑到这是两个不同的国家，这确实很奇怪，美国人比以色列人更难反对内塔尼亚胡。但我不想否认双方在塑造中东格局方面存在共同利益，并且都希望能够实现这一目标。
但我认为这种合作方式并不奏效。我怀疑，尤其是在大选之后，他们会对这一切进行大量的反思，因为目前的情况并不乐观。
尼玛：是的。迈克尔呢？
迈克尔：是的，我认为我们可以更多地了解背景。因为在我提到美国意识到需要外国军队之后，它也意识到，民主国家唯一能够承受的全面战争就是核战争。问题在于，这种策略只对那些无法进行报复的对手有效。
但近年来，美国的军事政策过于激进，迫使其他国家联合起来，支持拥有核武器的盟友。因此，现在世界上所有国家都拥有核武器后备力量。我们之前也讨论过这个问题。
结果是，如今的军事联盟意味着，任何使用核武器的企图都将面临全面核战争的风险，这场战争不仅会摧毁所有参战国，还会波及整个世界。那么，美国还能怎么办呢？我认为，民主国家能够承受的非核战争形式只有一种，那就是恐怖主义。我认为，应该把乌克兰和以色列视为核战争之外的恐怖主义选择。安德烈·马尔季亚诺夫最近也解释过，这就是核战争之外的选择。除非北约西方愿意冒着爆发核战争的风险（而他们似乎并不愿意），否则恐怖主义就成了他们唯一的选择。这正是美国在与俄罗斯、中国以及其他被其视为敌对国家的邻国推行政权更迭计划的根源。我们在乌克兰，尤其是在以色列，目睹了这一切，以色列正在对加沙地带的巴勒斯坦民众发动战争。
乌克兰人和以色列人的全部意图就是轰炸平民，而不是军事目标。这是一场以种族灭绝意识形态为指导，旨在彻底摧毁民众的战争。这绝对是核心所在。这并非偶然——而是计划的一部分。黎巴嫩虽然基督教人口众多，但也身处其中。
因此，美国拥有的另一件武器是经济武器。那就是石油和粮食——这早在1973-74年就已决定。那正是石油战争时期，为了应对美国将粮食价格提高四倍的局面，石油价格也随之翻了四倍。于是美国说道：“避免战争、恐怖主义和政权更迭的办法，就是让其他国家挨饿屈服——要么切断他们的粮食供应，要么切断他们的石油供应。因为没有石油，他们怎么维持工业运转、供暖和发电呢？”
而石油是美国最大的私营垄断企业。自第一次世界大战以来，七姐妹石油公司一直控制着石油贸易，而英国则是她们的协调者。
石油战争结束后，沙特阿拉伯被承诺——或者说是被告知——“你可以随意提高油价，但你必须把所有利润都留在美国。你可以购买国债、公司债券和股票，但其中用于自身发展的资金不能超过一部分；你必须把剩下的交给美国金融部门。” 因此，沙特阿拉伯成了关键人物，其结果是石油美元涌入美国银行，增加了流动性，导致20世纪70年代第三世界债务激增，最终引发80年代的债务危机。基本上，美国意识到，“好吧，我们想要扩大控制范围，征服近东，征服那些拥有重要原材料的国家；我们想要利用世界银行确保全球南方国家无法自给自足——我们会给种植园出口作物提供资金，而不是用于粮食生产。”
拉丁美洲和非洲作为美国盟友的条件并非是自己种植粮食，而是依赖美国的粮食出口。你知道，这种经济计划与军事计划相辅相成，共同构成了美国帝国的组织力量。
理查德·沃尔夫：我再补充几点，让情况更加复杂。据我了解，美国政治体制中的许多势力将苏联在1989、1990和1991年的解体解读为美国长期政策的结果，该政策包括军备竞赛和其他机制，使得苏联无力承担美国所能承担的军事行动规模。
出于政治和军事原因，他们别无选择。
因此，苏联试图在这种非此即彼的困境中挣扎，最终在核军备竞赛的需求和占领阿富汗的巨额开支之间崩溃。他们无能为力。他们不得不四处节省开支，未能完全兑现对人民承诺的消费增长计划，最终还是失败了。
如果你相信事情就是这样，那么你或许可以试着理解，他们现在对俄罗斯采取的策略与此如出一辙。换句话说，这又是一场军备竞赛，但这次不是为了在阿富汗作战，而是为了在乌克兰作战。在那里与他们交战，将他们拖出战线，让他们付出惨重的代价，并假设他们无力应对所有军备竞赛，而对于你们这个比他们富裕得多的国家来说，这样做要容易得多。
而最大的错误在于没有意识到俄罗斯人非常清楚自身的不足，并且在过去25年中为此付出了巨大的努力，以避免重蹈覆辙。军事思想中有一句格言：“每个人都在打上一场战争。” 你必须打好眼前的这场战争，而不是上一场。上一场战争的胜利者认为他们找到了制胜法宝，而上一场战争的失败者则意识到他们必须另辟蹊径。俄罗斯的军事实力和军事准备程度令所有人感到惊讶。他们之所以能在乌克兰战争中获胜，正是因为这一点。这才是真正的误判。
好的，这是第一点。我怀疑，乌克兰不仅在重演旧战略，而且他们还希望通过在中东地区制造某种军备竞赛——部分是以色列与阿拉伯国家和伊斯兰国家之间的军备竞赛，部分是什叶派与逊尼派之间的军备竞赛——来达到目的。
记住，伊拉克和伊朗战争，通过分裂两国，收买阿布扎比或迪拜，或者其他种种阴谋诡计——他们希望以此资助他们的盟友以色列，并耗尽以色列的所有敌人，最终迫使他们与以色列达成某种协议。以色列必须非常非常谨慎：它需要安抚美国才能达成这些协议，但同时也必须竭力确保这些协议无法成功，因为它想成为美国在该地区代理人。
最后一点，以色列和乌克兰之间还有另一个相似之处：鉴于他们所处的劣势——人数上的悬殊——乌克兰的泽连斯基和以色列的内塔尼亚胡都没有获胜的希望。别忘了，美国人根本不明白：以色列现在不仅与哈马斯交战——他们在加沙地带尚未击败哈马斯——还与约旦河西岸和黎巴嫩的真主党交战，此外，他们还在也门与胡塞武装交战，与幕后黑手伊朗交战，而且或多或少也与黎巴嫩交战。
还有与伊朗关系密切、在伊拉克和叙利亚势力强大的什叶派民兵。我得告诉你：敌人太多了。胡塞武装最近展示了他们能够向以色列发射导弹。我估计我刚才提到的其他势力要么已经具备这种能力，要么很快就能做到。
以色列不可能同时打五场战争。它只是个小国。天知道为了打仗，以色列的经济实际上已经停滞了。他们唯一的希望就是寻求美国的帮助。这是乌克兰唯一的希望。否则，乌克兰会迅速战败，而以色列则会慢慢失败。
在我看来，情况就是这样，这也是我所看到的，围绕着如何应对的种种猜测和恐慌的根源所在。但这同时也让我产生了一个疑问：为什么以色列无法或不愿达成协议？我的感觉是，埃及会同意。而且我的感觉是，以色列的许多邻国至少在原则上愿意坐下来，至少尝试达成一些协议。然后，以色列不会选择扩张领土，而是向上发展，建造高楼大厦。你们在做什么？从巴勒斯坦农民手中窃取土地。你们在做什么？你们的未来是农业的吗？别傻了——不是；也不需要是。
这就像我们突然面临卢森堡要求割让比利时、荷兰或法国的土地一样，因为他们需要扩张。他们一直乐于向上发展，而不是横向扩张。而且这种情况持续了几十年，比以色列关注扩张的时间要长得多。所以，这到底是怎么回事？
总之，我想这些应该是……你知道，我正在努力学习如何用一种不受主流媒体分析人士思维局限的方式来思考这个问题，他们的思维方式毫无用处。
迈克尔：理查德，你准确地描述了正在发生的事情，你也指出了“战斗到最后一个乌克兰人”的理念现在是如何被“战斗到最后一个以色列人”的理念所取代的。他们为什么要这样做？答案是：如果他们追求和平——如果埃及和你提到的其他国家能够达成和平协议
如果美国与以色列结盟，就不会有战争。如果没有战争，美国又如何能接管该地区的其他国家呢？正如我之前所说，50年前美国的政策（我稍后会详细阐述），是基于美国实际上接管所有这些国家，再次利用以色列作为攻城槌，也就是美军所说的“美国登陆的航空母舰”。这一切始于20世纪60年代，与亨利·“斯库普”·杰克逊有关。
最初，以色列在美国的计划中并没有扮演什么角色。杰克逊憎恨共产主义，憎恨苏联，他在民主党内获得了大量支持。他是华盛顿州的参议员，而华盛顿州正是军工复合体的中心。
由于他对军工复合体的支持，他被戏称为“波音参议员”。军工复合体支持他担任民主党全国委员会主席。嗯，他得到了赫尔曼·卡恩的支持——正如我所说，他是《奇爱博士》的原型——卡恩后来成为美国军事霸权和哈德逊研究所的关键战略家——我跟他没有任何关系，我的祖先发现了我们俩名字都来源于的那条河。他们利用哈德逊研究所及其前身兰德公司（赫尔曼的母公司）作为主要的长期规划机构。
我被请来讨论美元汇率和国际收支平衡问题。我的专业是国际金融。赫尔曼把哈德逊研究所设立为摩萨德和其他以色列机构的训练基地。那里有很多摩萨德人员，正如我提到的，我曾两次与乌兹·阿拉德（??后来成为摩萨德局长）一起前往亚洲。
所以我们讨论的不仅是未来长期的发展方向，还有当下正在发生的事情。一天晚上吃饭时，赫尔曼告诉我，他生命中最重要的事情就是以色列。正因如此，他甚至无法从美国的盟友，比如加拿大，那里获得军事情报，因为他说他不会效忠加拿大，甚至不会效忠美国，尽管他已经宣誓效忠了另一个国家。他还说，杰克逊对犹太复国主义者的“优点”恰恰在于他不是犹太人，而是美国军事巨头的捍卫者，以及当时正在进行的军备控制体系的反对者。杰克逊反对一切军备控制——“我们必须打仗。”于是，他开始往国务院和其他美国机构安插新保守主义者，这些人从一开始就计划发动一场永久性的世界大战，而这场对政府政策的掌控正是由杰克逊的前参议院助手们主导的。
这些参议院助手包括保罗·沃尔福威茨、理查德·珀尔、道格拉斯·费夫等人，他们被提拔到国务院的要职，最近又进入了国家安全委员会。 1974年美国贸易法的杰克逊-瓦尼克修正案成为后来对苏联实施制裁的蓝本。
其理由是该修正案限制了犹太人的移民和其他人权。于是，国务院立刻意识到：我们可以利用这些人作为美国政策的理论家和执行者——而他们想要占领所有阿拉伯国家。
有一次，我带我的导师特伦斯·麦卡锡去哈德逊研究所，讨论伊斯兰世界观。结果，乌兹每说两句话就打断他：“不，不，我们必须把他们都杀了。”研究所的其他成员也一直在谈论杀阿拉伯人。
我不认为当时有哪个非犹太裔美国人像犹太复国主义者那样对伊斯兰教怀有如此根深蒂固的仇恨，或者像他们那样对俄罗斯怀有如此根深蒂固的仇恨，尤其是对过去几个世纪以来俄罗斯的反犹主义，顺便一提，这些反犹主义大多发生在乌克兰和基辅。
嗯，那是50年前的事了，杰克逊推行的这些制裁措施，也就是美国贸易制裁，成为了如今新保守主义者对所有被视为敌对国家的制裁的雏形。乔·利伯曼继承了杰克逊民主党人的传统——姑且这么称呼他们——这些亲犹太复国主义的冷战鹰派对俄罗斯怀有同样的仇恨，这使得以色列成为了这些冷战分子的傀儡。
他们与我20世纪50年代一起长大的大多数犹太朋友截然不同。我认识的犹太人都已经融入主流社会——他们都是成功的中产阶级。但杰克逊引进的那些人并非如此。他们不愿被同化，他们也像内塔尼亚胡今年早些时候所说的那样，认为“犹太复国主义的敌人是那些想要同化的世俗犹太人——鱼与熊掌不可兼得”。20世纪70年代的这项政策将犹太教分裂成两大阵营：主张和平的同化派和主张战争的冷战派。而冷战派正是由美国扶持和资助的——国防部向杰克逊研究所提供了超过1亿美元的巨额拨款，用于制定本质上带有种族仇恨色彩的军事政策。
过去，这种仇恨曾被用来煽动整个近东地区的反伊斯兰情绪。这景象令人不忍直视。
如今，经历过那段历史的人寥寥无几，很难记得当时的情形。但正如我所说，我们现在看到的，不过是一场闹剧，仿佛以色列的所作所为都是“内塔尼亚胡的错，都是新保守主义者的错”。然而，从一开始，他们就得到了大力扶持，获得了巨额资金、所需的炸弹、武器和资金。以色列是一个需要外汇来维持货币偿付能力的国家。所有这一切都是为了让他们做今天正在做的事情而提供的。所以，当拜登假装说“难道不能采取两国方案吗？”时，这简直是自欺欺人。不，不可能有两国方案，因为内塔尼亚胡在联合国大会上说过：“我们恨加沙人，我们恨巴勒斯坦人，我们恨阿拉伯人——不可能有两国方案，这是我的地图，”他说，“这就是以色列：以色列没有非犹太人——我们是一个犹太国家”——他直言不讳。
这在50年前是不可能被如此直白地说出来的。这会令人震惊，但当时说这话的是那些从一开始就被拉拢进来的新保守主义者，他们的目的正是做他们今天正在做的事情。他们充当美国的代理人，征服产油国，使之成为“大以色列”的一部分，就像英国、德国或日本那样，成为美国的卫星国。他们认为，为了获得所需的一切支持，他们会继续执行美国的政策，这已经成为他们自身生存的前提条件，但正如理查德刚才所说，这套方法现在看来已经行不通了。它无力回天——以色列把自己逼入的这个黑洞无解。
然而，他们却不愿意建立一个统一的国家，因为拜登和整个国家安全委员会——国会、军方，尤其是军工复合体——都认为巴勒斯坦人和以色列人之间不可能有任何共同生活，就像乌克兰不可能让乌克兰语者和俄语者在同一个国家共存一样。情况完全一样，遵循着完全相同的政策，而这一切都是由美国策划和资助的，并投入了巨额资金。
尼玛：是的，理查德。
理查德·沃尔夫：是的，让我们从以色列犹太复国主义者的角度来看待这个问题，因为合作需要双方配合：无论美国的目标是什么，它们都必须与以色列人——至少是那些掌权者——正在做的事情有所契合，否则就行不通。
设身处地地想一想，如果你是一个犹太复国主义者：你已经脱离了欧洲和亚洲的起源。你们离开故土，又在巴勒斯坦重新定居，这都要感谢《贝尔福宣言》和英国帝国主义者。他们把原本属于其他人的土地给了你们，那片土地位于中东。一个根本性的认知是：以色列国的独立存在是脆弱的。
如果你是一名犹太复国主义者，那么你就能理解，鉴于世界各地大量犹太人反对建国，而且即便有机会，世界上大多数犹太人也没有去以色列。他们知道，他们在其他犹太社群中的支持并不均衡。
他们也知道，二战后唯一能够维持他们生活、能够依靠的国家是美国。这当然是他们想要依靠的国家，因为美国战后比战前更加富裕，而且没有竞争对手。如果可以选择美国，为什么还要选择英国或法国呢？即使有可能，又何必呢？好了，现在他们不得不担心——而且我相信他们确实很担心——美国迟早会出于自身原因意识到，未来更好的选择是阿拉伯人，而不是以色列人，因为阿拉伯人数量众多，而以色列人数量稀少，而且两国之间的财富差距对以色列不利。情况恰恰相反。
几周前，我了解到不久前在北京举行的一次会议。中国政府邀请了巴勒斯坦运动的所有派别派代表参加一次旨在团结各方的会议——其中包括哈马斯、真主党以及其他许多组织。这些会议是由中国赞助的。这肯定会让内塔尼亚胡先生感到担忧，非常担忧。
为什么？并非因为中国会参与其中。他们不会那样做。但我相信，在与美国错综复杂的谈判中，中国最终会通过牺牲他人来达成协议，从而彼此和睦相处。
我怎么知道呢？因为这正是欧洲一半焦虑的潜台词——欧洲会成为替罪羊，欧洲会像当年欧洲为了自身冲突瓜分非洲一样，被美国和中国的利益瓜分殆尽。所以
现在以色列人迫切需要……什么？
他们需要美国持续的经济、政治和军事支持。为了获得这种支持，他们会不惜一切代价。如果你还记得，就在几年前，曾有传言说伊朗门事件是由以色列人幕后操纵的；据说以色列秘密支持了南非的种族隔离政权。最近又有传言——我不知道真假——说俄罗斯人发现了以色列在乌克兰军队内部的雇佣兵行动。好吧，我对这些都不感到惊讶。这就是像以色列这样的国家所能提供的：它会扮演坏人；它会说出那些不该说的话；它会为美国摇旗呐喊；它会承受一切压力，包括来自阿拉伯世界和伊斯兰世界的愤怒。因为如果这些压力不集中在以色列身上，你觉得它们会集中在谁身上？就在这里。9·11事件就发生在这里。正因如此，它才在伊斯兰世界被人们所庆祝。所以，这就是法国人所谓的“权宜婚姻”。
这里存在着一种权宜婚姻，一方是自认为依赖美国的犹太复国主义者——而他们确实依赖美国。这就是为什么他们在美国的外交努力主要集中在福音派群体，而不是犹太社区——因为他们得不到想要的支持——而是福音派群体。他们找到了圣经中的安排：耶稣再来时，必须找到犹太人掌管圣地。哦，太好了，犹太人发现他们可以利用新约圣经中的这个故事建立联盟。每年以色列电影节规模最大的活动都在美国的新教大型教堂举行，而不是在犹太教堂。这到底是怎么回事？以色列人迫切需要在这里获得支持。他们一直感到恐惧——他们原本指望的福音派人士正越来越倾向于特朗普，他们对此感到担忧。对吧？
讽刺的是：犹太人的态度恰恰相反，他们似乎更热衷于帮助乌克兰——那些世俗的、非犹太复国主义者。所以，局势瞬息万变。但我猜，迈克尔，也许你也知道，无论亨利·杰克逊的势力多么强大，或者他的后代多么成功，总有一些高层人士一直在公开质疑，美国在中东是不是押错了宝。他们也在质疑，是否能找到比以色列犹太复国主义者更合适的人选。
一旦这种情况发生，内塔尼亚胡先生就会消失。而最担心这一点的，正是内塔尼亚胡夫妇。
迈克尔：嗯，你描述的正是这种动态。
过去几周，尼玛邀请了许多嘉宾，他们都解释说，这一切的反对者是美国军方，因为据这些嘉宾所说，美国在近东进行的每一次军事演习都以失败告终。在乌克兰与俄罗斯进行的每一次军事演习，美国也都以失败告终。
显然，目前军方内部存在着一种对立——我们姑且称他们为现实主义者——他们认为，如果真的想延长战争，那行不通。但正如你所指出的，反对他们的不仅是美利坚帝国的逻辑，更是一种近乎宗教的仇恨宗教。犹太复国主义已经基督教化——它接受了所有针对“他者”的仇恨。美国军事战略家不想结束在亚洲和乌克兰的战争，因为正如我所说，如果战争结束，那么现状就会维持下去。而美国无法将这些国家变成其卫星国。和平意味着依赖型国家——伊拉克将重获独立；叙利亚也将如此；伊朗将被允许保持独立——但这不会让美国直接拥有石油。
如果你观察新保守主义者，你会发现他们几乎把这当成一种宗教。我在哈德逊研究所遇到过很多新保守主义者；他们中的一些人，或者他们的父辈，是托洛茨基主义者。他们接受了托洛茨基的“不断革命论”。也就是说，一场不断展开的革命——托洛茨基认为，始于苏俄的革命将会蔓延到其他国家，比如德国等等。但新保守主义者却接受了这一观点，并宣称：“不，真正的‘不断革命’是美利坚帝国——它将不断扩张，没有任何东西能够阻止我们征服世界。”
所以，我们看到的是一种或多或少务实的军事力量——即便最高层并非如此（最高层基本上是政治任命的），至少那些真正参与过战争演习的将军们是务实的——这种务实与宗教狂热的对抗，因为狂热分子比务实主义者更愿意为最后一个以色列人或最后一个乌克兰人而死。务实主义者会审视局势，并努力实现习近平主席和中国所倡导的双赢局面。事实上，早在20世纪70年代这种分裂开始出现时，我就听到过这样的讨论：让我们重新思考第二次世界大战，它实际上
争论的焦点在于“战后社会主义会是什么样的？是国家社会主义——纳粹主义——还是从工业资本主义的动态和自身利益中涌现出来的民主社会主义？” 事实上，从1945年和平伊始，美国政府就开始支持纳粹主义。我们之前也讨论过这个问题。
美国政府招募纳粹领导人，并将他们派往拉丁美洲各地，即便不是在美国，也是为了对抗共产主义。一旦美国下定决心“必须摧毁苏联”，他们发现纳粹分子是那些愿意为信仰献身的战士。他们不会坐下来思考“我这样做是否理性？它是否可行？” 因此，正如理查德所讨论的，以色列的问题之一在于，它没有走上一条能够确保以色列作为一个经济国家生存下去的道路。美国已经在经济、金融和军事上对欧洲实行了配给制，就像二战后英国实行配给制，一战后整个欧洲实行配给制一样。托洛茨基写了一篇文章——《美国与欧洲》——说：“美国已经对欧洲实行了配给制。” 这篇文章大约写于1921年。
所以，可以说纳粹精神已经获胜——这种试图通过“非我即敌”的思维来扩张帝国的精神——是一种仇恨和恐怖主义精神，通过暗杀和反战罪行等手段，成为避免核战争的替代方案。美国人意识到“我们其实并不想要核战争，但我们可以通过恐怖主义尽可能地接近它。” 这就是为什么美国今天支持乌克兰一个公开的纳粹政权和以色列类似的恐怖分子，目的是最终将西亚地区纳入“大以色列”的版图。这是一种心态，几乎可以说是一场宗教战争，我们正身处其中。
理查德·沃尔夫：我再补充一点，迈克尔，我想接上你刚才说的，我同意你的观点：美国民众的焦虑源于一场旷日持久的地面战争，他们担心美国民众无法忍受这种战争超过几个月。
以色列人如果没有这些军事冲突，根本无法生存下去。我们经历了赎罪日战争、1967年战争、1973年战争——我的意思是，我们一直在打仗，每一场战争——至少在以色列方面——都以维护和平与安全为由，但显然这些战争并没有带来和平与安全。
所以他们又发动了一场战争。而现在，他们面对的是有史以来规模最大、最惨烈的战争。我们有什么理由相信战争不会继续下去？他们又在做什么呢？好吧，他们正在扩大战争范围，在加沙造成了更加惨重的破坏，现在又将战火蔓延到真主党和也门，他们轰炸等等。好吧。
他们避免自取灭亡的唯一办法——首先是组织所有什叶派社群之间的合作，然后最终扩展到逊尼派和更广泛的伊斯兰社群——他们唯一的希望就是让美国介入。正如我所说，就像泽连斯基先生除非……否则毫无希望。即使是最近争取授权向俄罗斯境内发射导弹的举动，也行不通——俄罗斯人已经把导弹藏起来了，或者转移到更远的地方，使其无法触及。所以，已经没有任何希望了。
除了让美国介入，别无他法。然而你的论点是：美国看到这种情况会说，“我们做不到。不是我们没有导弹——我们有。也不是我们杀伤力不够——我们能杀伤力足够。”好吧，我们不可能速战速决。
上帝知道，即使在地球上最贫穷的国家，比如阿富汗和越南，我们也做不到。更何况是在欧洲，或者中东，我们肯定做不到。这意味着以色列唯一的成功就是让美国介入，而美国却因为自身受到的种种限制而无法介入。
这意味着，总有一天，双方必须做出让步。难道不应该期待美国突然顿悟，意识到阿拉伯人比以色列人更适合做我们的盟友吗？如果这意味着要清除政府高层的新保守主义者，那么，二战后我们知道，如果他们想清除，他们知道如何做到——他们可以这样做，并以犹太人的身份（如果真有犹太人的话）、犹太复国主义者的身份，或者以“误入歧途的顾问”的身份来对付他们。有很多方法可以做到。关键是要做出决定。
也许，我想，如果我没理解错你的意思，劳埃德·奥斯汀在授权任何事情上的明显犹豫——他现在几乎公开地对拜登先生的其他顾问说“别去那里，别那样做”——表明我们在这里所说的或许有道理。
迈克尔：嗯，理查德，你说得太好了——这正是关键所在。
什么
让美国介入意味着什么？美国不会派兵，因为你可以想象，无论是在乌克兰还是在以色列，美军的处境都会很糟糕——很多人会牺牲。你可以想象，如果民主党政府派兵前往那里，会造成怎样的后果。所以他们不能这么做。
他们尝试过恐怖主义，而恐怖主义的结果??是让全世界都与我们为敌。但即便如此，我们仍然处于革命前夕的局面。世界其他国家对恐怖主义感到震惊，对联合国最初在其协定中制定的所有战争规则和文明规则的践踏感到震惊。因此，你现在看到的是世界其他国家维护文明的能力彻底崩溃。当然，你我都希望美国政府中能有一些头脑清醒的人。
我没看到国会里有多少人支持吉尔·斯坦的候选资格，她反对战争。我觉得国会不会讲道理。我认为国务院、国家安全局和民主党领导层，他们根植于军工复合体，绝对奉行“如果我们不能如愿以偿，谁还想生活在这样的世界里”的信条。你还记得吗？当美国以原子弹威胁俄罗斯时，人们都在问，俄罗斯真的会进行核反击吗？普京总统的回答是：“毕竟，谁还想生活在一个没有俄罗斯的世界里呢？”
新保守主义者、参议院、众议院、总统、媒体以及两党的竞选捐款人都在说：“谁愿意生活在一个我们无法掌控的世界？谁愿意生活在一个其他国家独立自主、拥有自己政策的世界？谁愿意生活在一个我们无法攫取其经济盈余的世界？如果我们不能攫取一切、主宰世界，谁愿意生活在这样的世界里？”
这就是我们现在面临的心态。我一直在关注中国和伊朗的动向：比如，两天前，伊朗向美国发射导弹袭击以色列一处停放着F-16战斗机和其他飞机的机场，他们仍然抱有侥幸心理。伊朗此举意在向美国发出警告，提醒以色列伊朗即将炸毁他们的机场。他们最好赶紧让所有飞机升空。
伊朗说：“哦，我们不想得罪任何人。我们能不能让他们明白，战争毫无意义？” 然后以色列那边又有人说：“等等，你们没炸掉的那些飞机现在要飞到伊朗上空，轰炸我们了。”
先发制人的国家会占上风——我们本来有机会摧毁伊朗空军，让他们停止轰炸黎巴嫩、加沙地带和其他国家，也停止轰炸我们，但我们没这么做，因为我们想继续向世界展示我们是正义的一方。
这就好比二战时期，或者今天在乌克兰，你是一个赤身裸体的好人，径直走向纳粹的坦克——这才是问题的症结所在。
理查德·沃尔夫：如果我们是对的，那为什么……或者说，我们是不是忽略了什么？有什么证据表明美国明白自己正被拉向一个它并不想去的方向？迈克尔，我先就你刚才说的这一点补充一下，请听我说完。
美国明白……假设他们和你理解的一样，他们收到了通知——我也注意到了这一点——伊朗事先告知了美国他们的行动计划，给了美国时间通知以色列。
好吧，那些说“他们帮了我们一个大忙”的美国人呢？因为如果他们没有这么做，如果他们没有摧毁以色列空军或其他什么，那么以色列就会来找我们，要求我们立即提供更大规模的支持——这可不是什么好事，这很危险。
下一步伊朗就会把目标对准我们。你看，如果我没理解错的话，胡塞武装得到了伊朗的支持，他们一直在用导弹袭击美国军舰。好吧，情况越来越接近了，越来越接近了，你会被卷入其中，然后你自身的内部政治会迫使你做出反应，然后你就真的卷进去了，然后以色列人就赢了，他们把你拖进了泥潭。现在它有了自己的逻辑，自己的升级机制，而你却面临着所有人都以为你永远不会做的事情：一场在亚洲进行的地面战争，这场战争让你损失了自己的军队。越战之后，每一位总统都说过他们永远不会再这样做。
甚至在朝鲜战争之后，有些人也说过同样的话，因为他们明白。所以，如果我能看到一些迹象表明，有美国人意识到了某种类似的事情，我们可以指出来，我会更安心一些。
迈克尔：嗯，我认为人们的意识已经发生了变化。
虽然目前主要还是阿拉伯和波斯方面的问题，但我认为现在他们没有击落飞机。现在，我认为伊朗人是在说“不再当好人了”。他们明确表示会采取怎样的报复行动；他们说，如果以色列或美国胆敢攻击他们，他们将摧毁美国在伊拉克和叙利亚的军事基地，而他们已经证明自己能够精准打击这些目标。我认为在伊朗看来，他们已经向世界其他国家表明，“过去半年里，美国一直在试图挑起战争，就像美国在乌克兰战争中一直试图挑起俄罗斯的战争一样”，而普京之所以能够抵制住这种挑衅，是因为他拖得越久，就越能赢得这场战争；欧洲正在被撕裂。
同样地，伊朗人可以说：“美国会攻击我们，然后说我们只是因为伊朗的袭击才去保卫可怜的以色列。但现在伊朗发动了袭击——首先，他们没有杀害平民，只是轰炸了军事目标——而以色列人却想杀人；他们想杀阿拉伯人，因为他们仇恨阿拉伯人。伊朗人只袭击了军事目标，没有伤及平民。所以现在毫无疑问，我认为，世界其他地区——中国、俄罗斯、全球南方国家、全球大多数国家——都不会屈服。这使得美国军方和国务院无法再声称他们是在回应伊朗对以色列和加沙的无端袭击，那次袭击导致10万加沙人丧生，少数以色列人也丧生。还有俄罗斯对乌克兰的无端袭击，乌克兰人在卢甘斯克和顿涅茨克杀害平民。”
这让美国失去了任何……美国假装除了恐怖主义和破坏之外，还有任何其他意识形态或外交政策，并且违反了过去几个世纪以来陆路国际法所规定的所有文明战争规则。
所以，美国正在与文明开战，世界其他国家也意识到了这一点。你说得对，在美国，谁会像你我一样发出这样的声音？为什么像我们这样身居要职的人会站出来说话？好吧，我们是在尼玛的节目上，而不是在《纽约时报》或《华尔街日报》上；我们没有来自军工复合体的任何资金，也没有来自国务院和国家民主基金会资助的非政府组织的资金；我们孤立无援，而那些持有这种观点的人却不得不从国务院辞职，像麦戈文那样从中央情报局辞职，像尼玛节目邀请的嘉宾——麦格雷戈上校和斯科特·雷德——那样从军队辞职——他们被排除在讨论之外。这就是这种紧张局势的根源。当今世界局势如此动荡，暴力事件也随之而来。
这些人真的……美国人真的会以“哦，我们只使用战术武器”为由，挑起原子战争吗？这才是问题的关键——美国人的立场违背了文明最基本的原则。其他国家会作何反应？他们会意识到威胁吗？还是会说：“美国，让我来告诉你你的自身利益是什么：你的自身利益在于采纳理查德的建议——与阿拉伯国家合作，与我们合作，这是双赢的局面。”
究竟是谁，在捐助者的支持下，这些美国人会说：“是的，我们宁愿拯救文明，也不愿为了短期利益而赚取金钱。”美国的视角是短期的；而世界其他国家则着眼于长远——谁会最终获胜？
理查德·沃尔夫：讽刺的是，如果历史可以借鉴，他们会发动战争，然后战争会旷日持久，届时我们现在提出的所有这些论点都会得到回应，争论会展开，最终才会做出艰难的决定。
问题在于，美国在很多方面都陷入了死胡同，而当没有出路时，这本身就存在着危险和动态。如果内塔尼亚胡轰炸贝鲁特后，他在以色列的支持率大幅上升（我看到有报道确实如此），那将是一个非常严肃的事实，因为它意味着我们不能仅仅把这看作是一个右翼政府在做X、Y和Z。我们必须看到，这是一个右翼政府至少到目前为止能够团结民众的政府，而这正是我们对这个国家的民主党和共和党所要说的。他们也这么做了。
这很可怕，因为这意味着他们还能采取更多措施，而且他们很可能会这么做。坦白说，我们会像过去两周一样，真正地感到恐惧，害怕事情会朝着多么愚蠢、多么可怕的方向发展。
具有破坏性。
我唯一能说的是，特朗普、哈里斯、万斯或沃尔兹的言论都表明，他们对所有这些问题都漠不关心，而且态度轻率……这些人都在假装“美国治下的和平”（Pax Americana）依然存在，我们可以没完没了地谈论边境入侵、吞食猫狗以及其他一些琐事，因为真正的大问题根本不存在。你我，还有我们三个，都花了很长时间处理他们根本不想谈的其他问题……这真是令人匪夷所思。
迈克尔：我们现在就坐在纽约，就在炸弹之下，你知道，谁想在世界末日之后继续生活下去。
你用了“右翼”这个词，欧洲的反战候选人都被称为右翼，这真是太讽刺了——以前都是左翼。奥地利刚刚举行了一次选举，反对乌克兰战争的右翼候选人赢得了选举。德国已经举行了三次选举，右翼基本上三次都反对乌克兰战争——德国政府终于暴露了他们真正的纳粹本质，宣布“我们要取缔反对战争的AFG”，他们还称之为右翼政府。所以，欧洲的纳粹分子取缔了反战政党，而反战政党却被称为“右翼”，纳粹分子则被称为“民主党人和社会民主党人”。这真是太不可思议了——整个语言体系都卷入其中——世界颠倒了。
理查德·沃尔夫：不仅如此，每个人都在互相“拯救”民主。你知道，民主正在衰落……总之，是的，是的。
迈克尔：嗯，我知道你和我喜欢“寡头政治”这个词。
理查德·沃尔夫：是的。但与你不同的是，我只在俄罗斯使用这个词——他们有寡头；我们有实业家。
迈克尔：是的。
尼玛：很高兴来到这里，非常感谢理查德和迈克尔今天能和我们一起。和你们聊天真是太棒了。
理查德·沃尔夫：好的。也谢谢你们。我很荣幸能参与到这场持续进行的三方对话中。
迈克尔：尼玛，你这段视频的观看量应该有20万吧。
尼玛：顺便说一句，我不会插手，因为我觉得你们俩的对话很完美，不需要我在场。是的，一切都很顺利。非常感谢。
理查德：好的。再见。
Zionists the USA's Trouble Makers
NIMA: So nice to have you back, Richard and Michael. And let me just manage this. And let’s get started with the main question here that would be: Why is the United States not interested in putting an end to the conflict in the Middle East and in Ukraine? Which we know in both of these cases, they’re capable of doing this.
And before going to the answer of this question, I’m going to play a clip that the foreign minister of Lebanon is talking with Christiane Amanpour about his point of view and why they couldn’t reach a ceasefire.
[Video Clip begins]CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: … I spoke with Lebanon’s Foreign Minister, Abdallah Bou Habib, who’s in Washington to meet with American officials and he joined us for his first interview since the latest escalations. Foreign minister, welcome back to the program.
ABDALLAH BOU HABIB: Thank you. Thank you.
CHRISTIANE: Things have reached a major crisis in your country since we last spoke. And I want to ask you, you are in the United States right now. You know that several of the administration officials agree with Israel’s ground incursion into your country. What do you make of that as you’re in Washington trying to get support for a ceasefire?
ABDALLAH: Well, they also agreed on the Biden-Macron statement that calls for a ceasefire and that calls also for the implementation of a 21 days ceasefire. And then Mr. Hochstein would go to Lebanon and negotiate a ceasefire. And they told us that Mr. Netanyahu agreed on this. And so we also got the agreement of Hezbollah on that. And you know what happened since then. That was the day we saw you in New York.
CHRISTIANE: I know. And you were talking about going into the Security Council for this ceasefire. And barely 24 hours later, the head of Hezbollah was assassinated. Are you saying Hassan Nasrallah had agreed to a ceasefire just moments before he was assassinated?
ADBALLAH: He agreed, he agreed. Yes, yes. We agreed completely; Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire by consulting with Hezbollah. The Speaker, Mr. Berri, consulted with Hezbollah and we informed the Americans and the French that [that is] what happened. And they told us that Mr. Netanyahu also agreed on the statement that was issued by both presidents.
[Video Clip ends]NIMA: Yeah. Here is the question here, because if you remember, with the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh while they were talking with Ismail Haniyeh, negotiating with Ismail Haniyeh in Qatar, they assassinated him.
And right after they reached some sort of agreement with the government in Lebanon and just Hezbollah said, okay, we’re going to go with that plan, they assassinated him.
And the question right now is here, why is this with the United States, Michael? Go ahead.
MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, the United States doesn’t want a ceasefire because it wants to take over the entire Near East. It wants to use Israel as the cat’s paw. Everything that’s happened today was planned out just 50 years ago back in 1973 and 1974. I sat in on meetings with Uzi Arad, who became Netanyahu’s chief military advisor after heading Mossad.
And the whole strategy was worked out essentially by the Defense Department, by neoliberals, and almost in a series of stages that I’ll explain.
[Henry Martin] “Scoop” Jackson is the main name to remember. Scoop Jackson was the ultra right wing neo-con was sponsored them all. And he was the head of the Democratic National Committee in 1960 and then worked with military advisors.
I was with Herman Kahn, the model for Dr. Strange Love, at the Hudson Institute during these years, and I said in on meetings and I’ll describe them, but I want to describe how the whole strategy that led to the United States today, not wanting peace, wanting to take over the whole Near East, took shape gradually.
And this was all spelled out. I wrote a book about the meetings that I had a War College and the White House and various Air Force and Army think tanks back in the 1970s.
The starting point for all the U.S. strategy here was that democracies no longer can field a domestic army with a military draft. America is not in a position to really field enough of an army to invade a country, and without invading a country you can’t really take it over. You can bomb it but that just is going to incite resistance. But you can’t take it over.
The Vietnam War showed that any attempted draft would be met by so much anti-draft resistance taking the form of an anti-war [sentiment] that no country whose leaders have to be elected can ever take that role again.
Now it’s true that America sent a small army into Iraq, and there are 800 U.S. military bases around the world, but this wasn’t a fighting army – it was an army of occupation without really much resistance of the kind that Ukraine is experiencing with Russia for instance, as we’re seeing there. That situation in the Near East is very different.
The anti-war students showed that Lyndon Johnson in 1968 had to withdraw from running for election because everywhere he’d go there would be demonstrations against him to stop the war. No such demonstrations are occurring today, needless to say.
So I won’t call the U.S. or the European Union democracies, but there is no government that has to be elected that is able to send their own soldiers into a big war.
And what that means is that today’s tactics are limited to bombing, not occupying, countries. They are limited to what the Israeli forces can drop the bombs on Gaza and Hezbollah and try to knock out things, but neither the Israeli army, nor any other army, would really be able to invade and try to take over a country in the way that armies did in World War II.
Everything has changed now and there can’t be another occupation by the United States of foreign countries, given today’s alliances with Russia and Iran and China.
So, this was recognized 50 years ago and it seemed at that time that the U.S.-backed wars were going to have to be scaled down . But that hasn’t happened. And the reason is the United States had a fallback position: it was going to rely on foreign troops to do the fighting as proxies instead of itself. That was a solution to get a force.
“The first example was the creation of Wahhabi jihadists in Afghanistan, who later became al-Qaeda. Jimmy Carter mobilized them against secular Afghan interests and justified it by saying, ‘Well, yes, they’re Muslims, but after all, we all believe in God.'”
So the answer to the secular state of Afghanistan was Wahhabi fanaticism and jihads, and the United States realized that in order to have an army that’s willing to fight to the last member of its country — the last Afghan, the last Israeli, the last Ukrainian — you really need a country whose spirit is one of hatred towards the other, a spirit very different from the American and European spirit.
Well, Brzezinski was the grand planner who did all that. The Sunni Jihad fighters became America’s foreign legion in the Middle East and that includes Iraq, Syria and Iran and also Muslim states going up to Russia’s border.
And the aim of the United States was, oil was the center of this policy. That meant the United States had to secure the Near East and there were two proxy armies for it. And these two armies fought together as allies down to today. On the one hand, the al-Qaeda jihadis, on the other hand, their managers, the Israelis, hand in hand.
And they’ve done the fighting so that the United States doesn’t have to do it.
The foreign policy has backed Israel and Ukraine, providing them with arms, bribing their leaders with enormous sums of money, and electronic satellite guidance for everything they’re doing.
President Biden keeps telling Netanyahu, “Well, we’ve just given you a brand new bunker, cluster bombs and huge bombs – please drop them on your enemies, but do it gently. We don’t want you to hurt anybody when you drop these bombs.”
Well, that’s the hypocrisy – it’s a good cop, bad cop. Biden and the United States for the last 50 years has posed as a good cop criticizing the bad cops that it’s been backing. Bad cop ISIS and al-Qaeda, bad cop Netanyahu.
But when all of this strategy was being put together, Herman Kahn’s great achievement was to convince the U.S. Empire builders that the key to achieving their control in the Middle East was to rely on Israel as its foreign legion.
And that arms-length arrangement enabled the United States to play the role, as I said, of the good cop, designating Israel to play its role, and Israel has organized and supplied al-Nusra, al-Qaeda while the United States pretends to denounce them. And it’s all part of a plan that’s been backed by the military, the State Department, and the National Security Operation.
And that’s why the State Department has turned over management of U.S. diplomacy to Zionists, seemingly distinguishing Israeli behavior from U.S. empire building. But in a nutshell, the Israelis have joined al-Qaeda and ISIS as troops, as America’s foreign legion.
NIMA: Yeah. As you were talking about, the question was: why is the United States not interested in putting an end to the conflicts in the Middle East and in Ukraine? And Michael was pointing out the endgame of the United States in this type of behavior. And what’s your take right now?
RICHARD WOLFF: Well, I think in the case of Ukraine, at this point, it is merely a kind of vague, left-over desire to weaken Russia. It isn’t working very well, so my guess is it’ll be over pretty soon. And in the case of Israel, I think, Michael is right, that this is a deal: the Israelis, hopefully, will give the Americans some kind of leverage over what happens in the Middle East, that they wouldn’t have if they didn’t have Israel. Otherwise I do not understand why the United States allows its policies to be made by Mr. Netanyahu. We have the strange situation that the people holding back Mr. Netanyahu are Israelis, not Americans, which given that it’s two different countries is rather strange, Americans feel more difficulty in opposing Netanyahu than Israelis do. But I don’t want to take away from the fact that there is a mutuality of interest in shaping the Middle East and hoping to be able to do it.
But I don’t think this is working very well. And I think my suspicion is that they are going, particularly after the election, to do a lot of rethinking about all of this, because this is not going well.
NIMA: Yeah. And Michae?
MICHAEL: Yeah, I think we can more of the context. Because after I mentioned that the U.S. realized it needs foreign troops, it also realized that the only kind of full-scale war that democracy could afford is atomic war. And the problem is that that only works against adversaries that can’t retaliate.
But in recent years, U.S. military policy has been so aggressive that it’s driven other countries to band together and back their allies with nuclear powers. So all of the countries of the world now are associated with nuclear backups. And we’ve discussed that before.
The result is that today’s military alliances mean that any attempt to use nuclear weapons is going to risk a full-scale nuclear war that’s going to destroy all the participants and the rest of the world as well. So what is left for the United States? Well, I think there’s only one form of non-atomic war that democracies can afford, and that’s terrorism. And I think you should look at Ukraine and Israel as the terrorist alternative to atomic war. I think Andrei Martyanov recently has explained that that’s the alternative to atomic war. And this, unless NATO-West is willing to risk atomic war, which it doesn’t seem to be willing to, then terrorism is the only alternative left to it. And that is the basis of the regime change plans that the United States has in countries bordering Russia, China, and other countries that it views as adversaries. That’s what we’re seeing in Ukraine and above all in Israel, as it’s fight against the Palestinian population in Gaza.
The whole idea of the Ukrainians and Israelis is to bomb civilians, not military targets, but civilians. It’s a fight literally to destroy the population under an ideology of genocide. And that is absolutely central. It’s not an accident – it’s built in, built in to the program. And Lebanon, even though it’s largely Christian, is part of that.
So the other weapon that the United States has is economic. And that’s oil and grain – it was decided way back in 1973-74. That was right the time of the oil war, when oil prices were quadrupled in response to the United States quadrupling its grain prices. So the United States said, well, “the way to avoid a war, terrorism, regime change, is just to starve countries into submission – either by cutting off their food supply or cutting off their oil supply. Because without oil, how can they run their industry, heat their homes and produce electricity?”
And oil is the largest private sector monopoly in the country. The seven sisters controlled the oil trade ever since World War I, and England have been their coordinator.
And after the oil war, Saudi Arabia promised – sort of was told, “you can raise your oil prices as much as you want, but you have to keep all of your expert earnings in the United States. You can buy treasury bills, you can buy corporate bonds, you can buy stocks, but you cannot use more than a portion of it for your own development; you have to turn it over to the U.S. financial sector. So Saudi Arabia became the key and the result was the petrodollar that was put into U.S. banks and just increased the liquidity, the whole growth of third world debt that exploded in the 1970s, leading to the debt crisis of the ‘80s was all of that. And basically the United States realized, “okay, we want to extend control to conquer the Near East, conquer countries that have vital raw materials; we want to use the World Bank to make sure that global South countries don’t feed themselves – we’ll give money for plantation export crops, not for food.”
The condition of foreign Latin America and Africa being an ally of the United States was not to grow their own grain and food, but to depend on U.S. grain export. You know, that’s the sort of economic plan that goes together with the military plan to be the organizing force of the American empire.
RICHARD WOLFF: Let me introduce a couple of other considerations, just to add to the stew here. It is my understanding that many forces in the American political establishment interpret the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, ‘90 and ’91 as the fruit of a long-term U.S. policy that included the arms race and other mechanisms where the Soviet Union could not afford the level of military activity that the United States could afford, but for political and military reasons could not afford not to do it.
And so the Soviet Union tried to ride that either-or and collapsed between the demands of the nuclear arms race, the cost of their occupation of Afghanistan. They couldn’t do it. And they scrimped here and there and they didn’t quite fulfill the consumer growth plan that they had promised their people and they couldn’t do it.
If you believe that that’s what went on, then you might try to understand that what they’re doing with Russia now is the same policy. In other words, it’s again the arms race, but this time not to fight in Afghanistan, but to fight in Ukraine. Fight them there, draw them out, cost them a fortune and assume that they cannot manage all that they’re doing and that it’s much easier for you, being a richer – much, much richer – country to do this than it is for them.
And the big mistake here was not to understand that the Russians were acutely aware of what their shortcomings were and have worked very hard in the last 25 years not to be in that position again. There’s an aphorism in military thinking: “Everybody fights the last war.” That you got to fight this one, not the last one. The winner of the last one thinks they found the magic bullet. The loser of the last one realizes they have to do something different. Russia is surprising everybody by the extent of its military capability and its military preparation. They’re winning the war in Ukraine because of it. That’s a miscalculation here.
Okay, that’s the first thing. And I suspect that not only is Ukraine re-running the old strategy, but that they hope that by imposing a kind of arms race on the Middle East, partly an arms race between Israel and the Arabs and the Islamics, but also arms races where they could between Shiite and Sunni.
Remember, the war in Iraq and Iran, by splitting them up, by buying off Abu Dhabi or Dubai, or all of the machinations that are going on – they hope that they can fund their ally -Israel- and exhaust all the enemies of Israel, forcing them eventually into some sort of deal with Israel. And Israel has to be very, very careful: it needs to appease the United States to make these deals, but it also has to try to make sure these deals don’t work out, because it wants to be the American agent in that part of the world.
And so my last point. Here’s another similarity between Israel and Ukraine: Mr Zelenskyy in the Ukraine, and Mr. Netanyahu in Israel have no hope of prevailing, given the odds against them – the sheer numbers. And let’s remember, Americans are not understanding: it’s not just now that Israel is at war with Hamas – whom they have not yet defeated in the Gaza – and they are at war with Hezbollah on the West Bank and in Lebanon, bu they are at war with the Houthis in Yemen and they are at war with the Iranians behind all of that, and they are at war, more or less, with the Lebanese.
And then there are the Shiite militias, which are very close to Iran, and are very powerful in both Iraq and Syria. Well, I got news for you: that’s too many enemies. The Houthis recently showed they can send missiles into Israel. My guess is all of the others I’ve just named either can also do that already or will soon be able to do that.
Israel can’t fight five wars at the same time. It’s a small country. God knows what has happened to its economy, which has effectively shut down in order to fight a war. Their only hope is to bring the United States in; it’s the only hope for Ukraine. Otherwise, Ukraine will lose quickly and Israel will lose slowly.
That’s how it looks to me and that’s for me what governs the hysteria around trying to figure out what to do. But it leaves me also with a question: Why is Israel unable or unwilling to cut deals? My sense is, the Egyptians would cut them. And my sense is, many of its neighbors would at least in principle be willing to sit down and at least try to reach some. And then Israel, instead of expanding geographically would go up, build high rises. What are you doing? Stealing land from Palestinian peasants. What are you doing? Is your future agricultural? Don’t be silly – it isn’t; it doesn’t need to be.
It’s as if we were suddenly confronted with Luxembourg demanding pieces of Belgium or Netherlands or France or something because they had to expand. They’ve been perfectly happy building vertical rather than horizontal. For many, many, many decades longer than Israel has been concerned. So what is this?
Anyway, I thought these would be, you know, I’m trying to learn how to think about this in ways that are not constricted by the way the mainstream media analysts do, which is useless.
MICHAEL: Well Richard, you’ve described exactly what’s going on and you’ve shown how fighting to the last Ukrainian is now being superseded by fighting to the last Israeli. Why are they doing this? Well, the answer is: If they were peace – if Egypt and the other countries that you mentioned were to make a peaceful arrangement with Israel – then there’d be no war. And with no war, how could the United States take over the other countries in the region? The U.S. policy, as I said, 50 years ago, and I’ll go into that more now, was based on the U.S. actually taking over all of these countries, again using Israel as the battering ram, as what the army called “America’s landed aircraft carrier” there. Well, all this began to take place in the 1960s with Henry “Scoop” Jackson.
It initially, Israel didn’t really play a role in the U.S. plan. Jackson simply hated communism, he hated the Russians, and he had got a lot of support within the Democratic Party. He was a senator from Washington State, and that was the center of military-industrial complex.
He was called, nicknamed, “The Senator from Boeing,” for his support for the military-industrial complex. And the military-industrial complex backed him for becoming chair of the Democratic National Committee. Well, he was backed by Herman Kahn – as I said, the model for Dr. Strangelove – who became the key strategist for U.S. military hegemony and the Hudson Institute – no relation to me, an ancestor discovered the river we were both named after. They used the Hudson Institute and its predecessor, the Rand Corporation, where Herman came from, as it’s major long-term planner.
And I was brought in to discuss the dollar exchange rate and the balance of payments. My field was international finance. Well, Herman set up the institute to be a training ground for Mossad and other Israeli agencies. There were numerous Mossad people there, and I made two trips to Asia, as I mentioned, with Uzi Arad, who became, as I said, the head of Mossad.
So we had discussions about just what was going to happen for the long term, and they were about just what’s happening today. Herman told me over dinner one night that the most important thing in his life was Israel. And that’s why he couldn’t get military information even from U.S. allies, like Canada, because he said he wouldn’t pledge allegiance to their country or even the United States, when he swore loyalty to another country. And he described the virtue of Jackson for Zionists was precisely that he was not Jewish, but a defender of the dominant U.S. military complex and an opponent of the arms control system that was underway. Jackson was fighting all the arms control – “we’ve got to have war.” And he proceeded to stuff the State Department and other U.S. agencies with neo-cons, who was planned from the beginning for a permanent worldwide war, and this takeover of government policy was led by Jackson’s former senate aids.
These senate aids were Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Pearl, Douglas Fife, and others who were catapulted into the commanding heights of the State Department and more recently the National Security Council. The Jackson-Vanik amendment to the U.S. Trade Act of 1974 became the model for subsequent sanctions against the Soviet Union.
The claim was it limited Jewish immigration and other human rights. So right then, the State Department realized: here is a group of people who we can use as the theoreticians and the executors of the U.S. policy that we want – they both want to take over all of the Arab countries.
On one occasion, I’ve brought my mentor, Terrence McCarthy, to the Hudson Institute, to talk about the Islamic worldview, and every two sentences, Uzi would interrupt: “No, no, we’ve got to kill them all.” And other people, members of the Institute, were also just talking continually about killing Arabs.
I don’t think there were any non-Jewish Americans that had that visceral hatred of Islam that the Zionists had, or also the visceral hatred of Russia, specifically for anti-Semitism of past centuries, most of which was in Ukraine and Kiev, by the way.
Well, that was 50 years ago, and these sanctions that Jackson introduced, the U.S. Trade, became the prototypes for today’s sanctions against all the countries that the neo-cons viewed as adversaries. Joe Lieberman was in the tradition of the Jackson Democrats – the word for them – the pro-Zionist Cold War hawks with this hatred of Russia, and that made Israel the cat’s paw for these Cold Warriors.
They were completely different from most of my Jewish friends, who I grew up with in the 1950s. The Jewish population that I know were all assimilated – they were successful middle-class people. That was not true of the people Jackson brought in. They did not want to be assimilated, and they said just what Netanyahu said earlier this year, that “the enemy of Zionism are the secular Jews who want to assimilate – you can’t have both.” This policy of the 1970s has split Judaism into these two camps: assimilationists, who are for peace and the Cold Warriors, who were for war. And the Cold Warrios were nurtured and financed by the United States – the Defense Department gave a big grant of over $100 million to the Jackson Institute to help work out essentially race-hatred military policies to use to spur this anti-Islamic hatred throughout the Near East. It’s not a pretty sight.
There are not many people around today that were there then, and to remember how all of this was occurring, but what we’re seeing is, as I said, a charade that somehow what Israel is doing is “all Netanyahu’s fault, all the fault of the neo-cons there,” and yet from the very beginning they were promoted, supported with huge amounts of money, all of the bombs they needed, all the armaments they needed, all the funding they needed, and Israel is a country whose economy needs foreign exchange in order to keep its currency solvent. All of that was given to them precisely to do exactly what they’re doing today. So when Biden pretended to say, “can’t there be two-state solution?” No, there can’t be a two-state solution because Netanyahu said, “we hate the Gazans, we hate the Palestinians, we hate the Arabs – there cannot be a two-state solution and here’s my map,” before the United Nations, “here’s Israel: there’s no one who’s not Jewish in Israel – we’re a Jewish state” – he comes right out and says it.
This could not have been said explicitly 50 years ago. That would have been shocking, but it was being said by the neo-cons who were brought in from the beginning to do exactly what they’re doing today. To act as America’s proxy, to conquer the oil-producing countries and make it part of greater Israel as much of a satellite of the United States that England or Germany or Japan have become. The idea that they will continue the U.S. policy to receive all the support they need has become a precondition for their own solvency that, as Richard has just said, looks like it’s not working anymore. It isn’t solvent – there’s no solution to the black hole that Israel’s painted itself into.
And yet, there’s no willingness to have a single state because Biden and the entire national security council – Congress, and the military, and especially the military industrial complex, says there cannot be any common living between Palestinians and Israelis anymore than there can be in Ukraine, Ukrainians speakers and Russian speakers in the same country. It’s exactly the same, it’s following exactly the same policy and all of this is planned and sponsored by the United States and funded with enormous amounts of money.
NIMA: Yeah, Richard.
RICHARD WOLFF: Yeah, let’s take a look at this from the Israeli Zionist perspective because it takes two to tango: whatever the American goals were, they also have to somehow mesh with what the Israelis -at least those in power- are trying to do or else it doesn’t work.
Put yourself in the position of a Zionist: you’ve left the European Asian origins. You’ve left and you’ve resettled thanks to the Balfour Declaration and the British Imperialists. They gave you other people’s land there in the Middle East in Palestine. Fundamental recognition: the independent existence of a state of Israel is fragile.
It is logical to understand, if you’re a Zionist, that given the disagreement of large numbers of Jews around the world with the whole idea of a country and the fact that the majority of Jews of the world didn’t go to Israel even when they could have. They know that their support from the rest of the Jewish community is mixed.
They also know that the only country that could sustain them, that they could rely on after the war in Europe – the Second World War – was the United States. It was certainly the one they would want to rely on, because it came out of the war basically richer than it went in with no competitor. Why would you choose England or France, even if it were possible, if you could have the United States? Okay, now they have to worry – and I believe they do, deeply – that sooner or later, the United States, for its own reasons, will realize that the better bet for the future is on the Arabs, not the Israelis, because the Arabs are many and the Israelis are few, and the wealth gap between them is not working in Israel’s favor. It’s going the other way.
A few weeks ago I learned about a meeting that was held not so long ago. In Beijing, the Chinese government invited all of the factions involved in the Palestinian movement to send representatives for a meeting to unite them all – that included Hamas, Hezbollah, and a whole bunch of others. And they had those meetings in the sponsorship of China. That’s got to worry Mr. Netanyahu, that’s got to worry him a lot.
Why? Not because of some fanciful motion that the Chinese would enter. They’re not going to do that. But that the Chinese, in their complicated negotiation with the United States, will eventually come to agreements by sacrificing somebody else and getting along with each other that way.
How do I know it? Because it’s the subtext of half of Europe’s anxiety – that Europe will be the fall guy, that Europe will be carved up in the interests of the United States and China, much as Europe carved up Africa in the interests of its conflicts. So now the Israelis desperately need… what?
They need an ongoing economic, political, and military support from the United States. And they will be willing to do anything and everything to secure it. If you remember, not that many years ago, there were heavy rumors that the Iran-Contra scandal was brokered by Israelis; that secret support for the apartheid regime in South Africa was coming from Israel. Recently there was a claim – I don’t know if it’s true – that the Russians discovered a Israeli mercenary operation within the Ukrainian army. Okay, I’m not surprised at any of that. That’s what a country like Israel offers: it will be the bad guy; it will say the unsayable; it will advocate for the United States; it will take the heat, including the rage of the Arab world and the rage of the Islamic world. Because if it weren’t focused on Israel, where the hell do you think it would be focused? Here. 9/11 happened here. It was celebrated around the Islamic world for that reason. So there’s what the French would call “un marriage de convenience.”
There’s a marriage of convenience here between the Zionists who feel that they are dependent on the United States – and they are. That’s why their major push diplomatically in the United States of their personnel is not in the Jewish community – they don’t get the support they want – it’s in the evangelical community. They found that scriptural arrangement in which when Jesus returns, he has to find the Jews in charge of the Holy Land. Oh good, the Jews discovered that in that New Testament story they could build an alliance. The biggest festivals every year of Israeli films are held in mega-churches of the Protestant faith in this country, not in synagogues. What the hell is going on? The Israelis are desperate to have support here. And they’re constantly frightened – the very evangelicals who they counted on are going more towards Trump , and they’re worried about that. Right?
It’s the irony: the Jews go more the other way, the Jews seem more interested in helping Ukraine, the secular, the non-Zionists. So this is a constantly shifting scenario. But my guess is, and Michael, maybe you know about this, my guess is that there are voices – no matter how strong Henry Jackson was or his progeny had become – that there are also voices pretty high up that keep wondering out loud whether the United States isn’t betting on the wrong horse in the Middle East. And whether maybe there’s someone you can find to do the job better than the Israelis Zionists.
The minute that happens, Mr. Netanyahu disappears. And the person who worries a lot about that is Mr. and Mrs. Netanyahu.
MICHAEL: Well, you’ve described exactly the dynamics that are as work.
And for the last few weeks, Nima has had numerous guests on who have been explaining that the opponents of all this are the U.S. military, because every war game, according to his guests, that has been done, the U.S. loses in the Near East. Every war game that it does in Ukraine against Russia, the U.S. loses.
So obviously there is an opposition right now between the army – we’ll call them the realists – who say that if you really want to extend the war, it’s not going to work. But against them are, as you point out, not only a logic of the American Empire, but a virtual religion, a religion of hatred. Zionism has been Christianized – it’s accepted all of the hatred of the other that has taken place. And U.S. military strategists don’t want to put an end to the war in Asia and Ukraine, because if there was an end, as I said, then the status quo remains. And the United States couldn’t take over these countries as satellites. Peace would mean dependent country – Iraq would be regain of independence; Syria would; Iran would be left alone to be independent – that would not give the United States personal direct ownership of the oil.
And if you look at the neo-cons, they had a virtual religion. I met many at the Hudson Institute; some of them, or their fathers, were Trotskyists. And they picked up Trotsky’s idea of permanent revolution. That is, an unfolding revolution – what Trotsky said began in Soviet Russia was going to spread to other countries, Germany and the others. But the neo-cons adopted this and said, “No, the permanent revolution is the American Empire – it’s going to expand and expand and nothing can stop us for the entire world.”
So what you have is a more or less realistic military -if not at the top, which is sort of a political appointee, at least the generals who have actually done the war games – is realism against a religious fanaticism that has been back because fanatics are more willing to die to the last Israeli or the last Ukrainian than realists who look at the situation and try to do what, let’s say, President Xi and China talks about: the win-win situation. Well already, when this split began to occur in the 1970s, I actually heard discussions of the idea that: let’s rethink World War II, that it was really fought over was “what kind of socialism is going to be after the war? Is it going to be national socialism -Nazism- or democratic socialism emerging out of the dynamics and self-interest of industrial capitalism?” Well, much of the government was backing from 1945, the minute of peace, the American government began supporting Nazism. We talked before about this.
The government recruited Nazi leaders and put them, if not in America, throughout Latin America, to fight the communists. As soon as the United States decided, “we’ve got to destroy the Soviet Union,” they found the Nazis to be the fighters who were willing to die for their belief. Not sit and think, “is what I’m doing rational? Is it going to work?” So one of the problems with Israel is, just as Richard has discussed, that it’s not taking a path that is going to lead to the survival of Israel as an economic state. It’s already been put on rations by the United States economically, financially and militarily, just as England was put on rations after World War II and all of Europe was put on rations after World War I. Trotsky wrote an article -America and Europe- and said, “America has put Europe on rations.” Right around 1921, he wrote that.
So again, you could say that the Nazi spirit has won -the spirit of trying to extend an empire by”it’s us or them” – it’s a spirit of hatred and a spirit of terrorism, personally by assassination and anti-war crimes, is the alternative to well-to-atomic war. The Americans realize “well, we really don’t want atomic war, but we can come as close as we can to it by terrorism.” And that’s why the United States today is backing an openly Nazi regime in Ukraine and similar terrorists in Israel to make essentially West Asia part of greater Israel over time. That is a mentality and almost a religious war that we’re in.
RICHARD WOLFF: Again, let me extend it a little bit, and let me pick up on something you said, Michael, earlier at the beginning, which I agree with: that the anxiety in the United States is a long drawn-out land war for fear that the American population will not tolerate it beyond a few months or something like that.
Well, the Israelis can’t survive where they are without these military explosions. We’ve had the Yom Kippur war, the ’67 war, the ’73 war – I mean, we keep having wars, every one of which is justified -at least on the Israelis side- by the need for peace and security, which clearly these wars do not secure.
And so they have another one. And now they have the biggest and the worst one ever. And why is there any reason to believe it’s not going to continue? And what are they doing about it? Well, they’re widening the war, they’re doing much more terrible destruction in Gaza, and now they’re widening it to Hezbollah and to Yemen, they’re bombing and all of that. Okay.
The only way they can not be producing their own demise – literally organizing the cooperation, first among all the Shiite communities, and then eventually beyond that with the Sunni and the broader Islamic communities – their only hope in that eventuality to bring the United States in. As I’ve said, just like Mr. Zelensky has no hope unless he brings… Even this latest business with getting the authority to send missiles deep into Russia, that’s not going to work either – the Russians have hidden those, their missiles, or moved them further away so they can’t be reached. So there’s nothing left.
There is nothing left, but to bring the United States in. And yet your argument is: the United States looks at that situation and says, “We can’t do that. It’s not that we don’t have missiles – we do. It’s not that we can’t do much damage – we can.” Well, we can’t make a quick winning of this war.
Lord knows we couldn’t do it in the poorest countries on Earth, like Afghanistan and Vietnam. Be sure as hell are not going to do it in Europe or for that matter in the Middle East, which means that the only success of the Israelis is to bring the U.S. in and the U.S. can’t go in because of the constraints it feels.
And that means that at some point something’s got to give here, and wouldn’t the logical thing be to expect that the United States will have an epiphany moment in which it decides that Arabs are better allies for us than Israelis. And that if that requires purging the highest levels of government of neo-cons, well, we know after World War II, they know how to purge if they want to purge – they can do that and go after them as Jews, if that’s there, or as Zionists, or as mistaken advisors. There’s lots of ways of doing it. It’s just that a decision has to be made.
And maybe, I think if that’s what I heard you say, the obvious hesitancy of Lloyd Austin to authorize anything – to almost openly now be a voice saying, “don’t go there, don’t do that” to his fellow advisors of Mr. Biden, suggested maybe we have a point in what we’re saying here.
MICHAEL: Well, you’ve said it wonderfully, Richard – that’s exactly the point.
What does it mean to bring the United States in? It’s not going to send troops, because you can just imagine how the American troops, either in Ukraine or in Israel, were just – many of them would die. You can imagine what that would do to the Democratic administration that would be sending it there. So they can’t do that.
They’ve tried terrorism and the result of terrorism is to align the whole rest of the world against us. But still, we’re in a pre-revolutionary situation. The rest of the world is appalled by the terrorism that it sees, by the breaking of all of the rules of war and rules of civilization that the United Nations wrote into its original articles of agreement and is not following. So what you’re seeing is a whole breakdown of the ability of the rest of the world to enforce civilization. And of course, the hope of you and me is that somehow there would be right-thinking people in the U.S. government.
I don’t see many people in Congress supporting the candidacy of Jill Stein, who’s against the war. I don’t see Congress being reasonable. I think that the State Department and the National Security Agency and the Democratic Party leadership, with its basis in the military-industrial complex, is absolutely committed to “if we can’t have our way, then who wants to live in such a world.” Well, you remember how President Putin, when threatened with American atomic war and people were saying, well, would Russia really retaliate atomically? And what Putin said was, “well, who wants to live in a world without Russia after all?”
Well, the neo-cons and the Senate and the House of Representatives and the President and the Press and the campaign donors to both parties say, “well, who wants to live in a world where we can’t control? Who wants to live in a world where other countries are independent, where they have their own policy? Who wants to live in a world where we can’t siphon off their economic surplus for us? If we can’t take everything and dominate the world, well, who wants to live in that kind of a world?”
That’s the mentality we’re dealing with. And I’m watching what China is doing and Iran is doing: they kept hoping, for instance two days ago, when Iran sent missiles to the United States missiles against one of the airfields in Israel that had the F-16s and other airplanes, it let the United States know -and warned Israel- that Iran’s going to blow up your airfield. You better get all the airplanes in the air.
Well, Iran said, “oh, we don’t want to upset anybody. Can we just show them that a war doesn’t make sense?” Well, and then now there’s an argument in Israel saying, “wait a minute, these airplanes that you didn’t blow up are now going to be flying over Iran and dropping bombs on us.”
The country that does the first strike is going to get an advantage – we had a chance to wipe out the air force so they could stop bombing Lebanon, stop bombing Gaza Strip and other countries and stop bombing us and we didn’t do it because we wanted to keep showing the world that we’re the good guys.
Well, it’s like you’re a good guy naked walking right up against the Nazi tanks that are coming right at you in World War II, or today in the Ukraine – that’s really the problem.
RICHARD WOLFF: If we’re right, then why isn’t… or are we missing it? Where’s the evidence that the United States understands it’s being pulled in a direction it really doesn’t want to go. Just to pick up on your last point, Michael, hear me out for a minute.
The United States understands… let’s suppose they understand it the way you do, that they got the notification -and I picked up on that too- that the Iranians told the United States beforehand that they were going to do it, giving them the time to let the Israelis know.
Okay, where are the Americans who are saying “they did us a service,” because had they not, had they not, had they wrecked the Israeli Air Force or whatever, then the Israelis would have come to us requiring us to give them even more immediate massive support – and this isn’t good; this is dangerous.
The next step will be for the Iranians to target us. Look, the Houthis who are, if I understand correctly, supported by Iran, have been rocket-missiling American warships. Okay, it’s getting close, it’s getting close that you’re drawn in and then your own internal politics will make you respond and then you’re in, and then the Israelis have won, they’ve got you in there. And now it has its own logic, its own escalatory mechanisms and you’ve got what everybody thought you were committed never to do: a land war in Asia that cost you your own troops. Every president after Vietnam said they would never do that again.
There were some who even said it after Korea, because they understood. So I would be more comfortable that we’re onto something, if I could see some sign that there are American voices that sense one or another version of this that we could point to.
MICHAEL: Well, I think there has been a change of consciousness, but it’s been mainly on the Arab and Persian side. I think now that they didn’t shoot down the airplanes. Now, I think the Iranians are saying “no more Mr. Nice Guy.” They made it clear exactly what they can do to retaliate; they’ve said that if Israel tries to attack them or if the United States tries to attack them, they’re going to wipe out the American military bases in Iraq and Syria, which they’ve already shown they can pinpoint and do very well. I think in Iran’s mind, what they’ve achieved is showing the rest of the world, saying “the United States has been trying to goad to the war for the last half year, just as the United States has been trying to goad to Russia in the war in Ukraine,” and Putin has been able to resist that because he’s the longer he takes – he’s winning the war; Europe is being pulled apart.
Well, similarly, the Iranians can say: “the United States would have attacked us and said we’re only defending the poor little Israel because of the Iranian attack. But now that the Iranians did the attack -without killing civilians, first of all only bombing the military sites- whereas the Israeli wants to kill people; they want to kill Arabs, because they hate them. The Iranians only hit military sites, not the population. So now there’s no question, I think, that the whole rest of the world -China, Russia, the global South, the global majority- is not going to fall. It has deprived the United States military and state department from the ability to claim that they are responding to Iran’s unprovoked attack on Israel and to the Gaza, unprovoked attack on Israel that after 100,000 Gazans were killed, a few Israelis were killed. And Russia’s unprovoked attack on the Ukrainians, who were killing the civilians in Luhansk and Donetsk.
They’ve deprived the United States of any pretense of having any ideology or foreign policy besides terrorism and destruction and violating every civilized rule of war that is under land international law for the last few few centuries.
So the United States is in a war against civilization, and the rest of the world is realizing that. And so you’re right, where is the voice in the United States saying what you and I are saying, why somebody like us in a position of authority? Well, we’re on a Nima’s show, not in the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal; we don’t have any money coming to us from the military-industrial complex, from the non-government organizations that the State Department and the National Endowment for Democracy fund; we’re by ourselves and people who think like that find themselves obliged to resign from the State Department, resign from the CIA like McGovern, resign from the army like the guests that Nima’s had – Colonel McGregor and Scott Redder – they’ve been excluded from the discussion. That’s the tension that the world’s in today and that’s what makes it so violent.
Are these people really… will the Americans really force atomic war by saying, “oh, we’re only using tactical weapons?” That’s really the question – the Americans are taking a position against the most basic principles of civilization. What are other countries going to do about it? Are they going to realize the threat? Or are they going to say, “let’s explain to you what your self-interest is America: your self-interest is doing what Richard suggests – work with the Arab countries, work with us, it’s a win-win situation.”
Who are the Americans, who, with their donors backing them, who are going to say, “yes, we prefer saving civilization to making money this week and next week for living in the short term.” The American point of view is short term; the rest of the world is taking a longer term position – who’s going to win?
RICHARD WOLFF: Well, the irony is if the history is any guide, they will make a war and then it will drag on and then all of these arguments that we’re making now will find their voices and will have it, you know, will have the argument and then the hard decisions will be made.
The problem is that there are many dimensions of the United States, waltzing itself into a dead end and that has its own dangers and dynamics when there is no way out. If it is correct that after Netanyahu bombed Beirut, his polling numbers in Israel improved dramatically, which I read they did.
That is a very serious fact because it means that one cannot see this as just a right-wing government doing X, Y, and Z. One has to see a right-wing government that has been able to bring its people along with it at least so far, which is what we have to say about the Democrats and Republicans in this country who have done that too.
And that’s frightening because that suggests there are some more steps that they’re going to be able to take, and they probably will, and we will be left as I have been in the last two weeks, I don’t mind telling you, genuinely frightened about where this is going and how close we are coming to something to unspeakably stupid and unspeakably destructive.
The only thing that I can say is that the glib disinterest in all these questions, evidenced by what comes out of Trump’s mouth or Harris’ mouth or Vance’s or Wolz’s… these people are all pretending that the Pax Americana is alive and well and that we can talk endlessly about border incursions and the ingestion of cats and dogs and other minor matters because the big ones aren’t a problem and you and I and all three of us have just spent a long time dealing with all the other problems that they don’t feel the need to talk about ever… it’s remarkable.
MICHAEL: We’re sitting right here in New York, underneath the bomb, you know, whoever wants to live in the world once it’s fallen.
You used the word right wing, and it’s very humorous that the anti-war candidates in Europe are all called right wing – it used to be left wing. Austria has just had an election where the right winger won opposing the war in Ukraine. We’ve had three German elections, the right wing is one basically all three for opposing the war in Ukraine – the German government has found, you know, their true Naziism and said “we’re going to ban the AFG for opposing the war,” they’re calling it a right wing government. So you’re having the Nazis in Europe banning the anti-war parties and yet the anti-war is called “right wing” and the Nazis are called “Democrats and the social Democrats”. That’s what’s so amazing – the whole language is part of this – the world being turned inside out.
RICHARD WOLFF: Not only that, everybody is saving democracy from everybody else. You know, it’s the deterioration… anyway, yes, yes.
MICHAEL: Well, I know you and I like the word “oligarchy.”
RICHARD WOLFF: Yes. But unlike you, I reserve it for only in Russia – they have oligarchs; we have captains of industry.
MICHAEL: Yes.
NIMA: So nice to come to this and then thank you so much for being with us today, Richard and Michael. That was so great to talk with you.
RICHARD WOLFF: Okay. Thank you also. And it’s a pleasure to be part of this ongoing three-way conversation.
MICHAEL: You’ve got to have 200,000 views of this Nima.
NIMA: By the way, I don’t interfere because I do find that you two talk to each other, it’s just perfect, it doesn’t need me to be there. Yeah, it’s just going well. Thank you so much.
RICHARD: Okay. Bye bye.
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