The Conspiracy’s Kernel of Truth

Bush Plan Eliminated Obstacle to Gaza Assault

Analysis by Gareth Porter |

Until mid-2007, there was a serious political obstacle to a massive conventional war by Israel against Hamas in Gaza: the fact that Hamas had won free and fair elections for the Palestinian parliament and was still the leading faction in a fully legitimate government.

But the George W. Bush administration helped Israel eliminate that obstacle by deliberately provoking Hamas to seize power in Gaza. That plan was aimed at getting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to dissolve the democratically elected Hamas government—something Bush had tried unsuccessfully to do for many months.

Hamas won 56 percent of the seats in the Palestinian parliament in the January 2006 elections, and the following month, the Palestinian Legislative Council voted for a new government under Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. The Bush administration immediately began to use its control over the "Quartet" (the United States, European Union, United Nations, and Russia) to try to reverse the results of the election.

The Quartet responded to the Hamas victory by demanding that Hamas renounce all armed resistance to Israel and even "disarm" before a political solution was reached. That was in effect a demand that Israel be allowed to use its military and economic controls over the West Bank and Gaza to impose its own unilateral solution on the Palestinians.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration and the Europeans cut off all financing for the Palestinian government, while Israel refused to hand over to the Palestinian authorities the valued-added tax and customs duties it collected on behalf of the Palestinians under the Paris Protocol signed with the Palestinian Liberation Organization as part of the Oslo Accords.

When Abbas continued to resist U.S. demands for an end to the elected government, both Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told him at the United Nations in September 2006 that they would not accept a Palestinian government with Hamas participation.

Then Rice was dispatched to Ramallah in early October 2006 to tighten the screws on the Palestinian president. She demanded a commitment from Abbas to dissolve the Haniyeh government within two weeks, and then accepted his promise to do so within four weeks, according to a later U.S. State Department memorandum published in Vanity Fair magazine.

There was one problem, however, with the U.S. demand: under Article 45 of the Palestinian Authority's "Basic Law," Abbas could fire the prime minister, but he could not appoint a new one who did not represent the majority party in the Palestinian Legislative Council.

Abbas failed to act on the dissolution promise, so the Bush administration gave him a memo demanding that Hamas be given a "clear choice, with a clear deadline" to accept or reject "a new government that meets the Quartet principles." The memo, published in part last January in Vanity Fair, said that if Hamas refused that demand, "you should make clear your intention to declare a state of emergency and form an emergency government explicitly committed to that platform."

It further demanded that Abbas "strengthen his team" by bringing in "credible figures of strong standing in the international community." That was a reference to the longtime director of Fatah's paramilitary forces, Muhammad Dahlan, who had long been regarded as the candidate of the Bush administration and its allies. In April 2003, Yasser Arafat had been under pressure from British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to name Dahlan as head of Palestinian security.

In late 2006, Rice got Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates to agree to provide covert military training and money to equip a major increase in Dahlan's militia.

But there was another element of the Bush administration plan. It encouraged Dahlan to carry out attacks against the Hamas security and political infrastructure in Gaza, which were well known to be far stronger than that of Abbas's Fatah faction. In a later interview with Vanity Fair, Dahlan admitted that he had carried out "very clever warfare" against Hamas in Gaza for many months.

Other sources said that Dahlan's militia was carrying out torture and kidnappings of Hamas security personnel.

Alvaro de Soto, then U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, wrote in his confidential “End of Mission Report” that the U.S. "clearly pushed for a confrontation between Fatah and Hamas." He recalled that the "U.S. envoy" to a February 2, 2007 meeting of the Quartet in Washington had twice declared, "how much I like this violence," because "it means that other Palestinians are resisting Hamas."

That U.S. envoy was Secretary of State Rice.

The Bush administration seemed to want Hamas to know about its plan to help Fatah use force against the Hamas organization in Gaza. A January 5, 2007 Reuters story filed from Jerusalem revealed an internal U.S. document showing that the United States had pledged $86 million to "strengthen and reform elements of the Palestinian security sector controlled by the PA presidency" and "dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism and establish law and order in the West Bank and Gaza."

When Abbas negotiated a new agreement with Hamas in Mecca in February 2007 on a Palestinian unity government, the Bush administration responded by drafting a secret "action plan for the Palestinian presidency," which threatened that the "international community" would "no longer deal exclusively with the Presidency" if it did not go along with U.S. demands, and that "[m]any countries in the EU and the G8" would "start looking for more credible interlocutors on the Palestinian side who can deliver on key issues of security and governance."

The plan, dated March 2, 2007, called for Abbas to "start taking necessary action against groups undermining the ceasefire with the goal of ensuring all armed groups within Palestine security institutions in stages (between 2007 and 2008)." It promised to help Abbas to "impose necessary order on the Palestinian street" through "superiority" of Fatah forces over Hamas, after which there would be new elections in autumn 2007.

That U.S. plan was leaked in April 2007 by the Jordanian newspaper Al-Majd. That could only have happened if Jordanian intelligence services, which cooperate very closely with the United States, made the decision to leak it to the press.

Then, on June 7, 2007 the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz revealed that Israel had been asked to authorize the shipment of dozens of Egyptian armored cars and hundreds of rockets and thousands of hand grenades for the Fatah security forces.

The leaked plans for a military buildup were an open invitation to Hamas to take preemptive action. The day after the Haaretz story, Hamas launched a campaign that eliminated the Fatah security presence in Gaza in five days.

The day after the complete defeat of Dahlan's forces in Gaza, Abbas dissolved the Haniyeh unity government and named his own prime minister, in violation of the Palestinian charter.

The rout of Dahlan's forces was a predictable consequence of the Bush administration's policy. As the commander of Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Khalid Jaberi, told Vanity Fair's David Rose, "We can only conclude that having Hamas in control serves [the Bush administration's] overall strategy, because their policy was so crazy otherwise."

But the Bush administration had not only accomplished its goal of eliminating a Hamas-dominated government; it had also set up a new argument that could later be used to justify an all-out Israeli offensive in Gaza: that Hamas had mounted an "illegal coup" in Gaza. That was the term that Rice used on January 2 in justifying the Israeli operations against Gaza.

Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specializing in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was published in 2006.

The Conspiracy’s Kernel of Truth

The Conspiracy’s Kernel of Truth

By Laura Carlsen

The North American Union conspiracy theory grew out of a kernel of truth, called the “Security and Prosperity Partnership” (SPP). But cultivated by xenophobic fears and political opportunism, the NAU outstripped its reality-based progenitor so fast that it has become hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. A little history helps.

After the North American Free Trade Agreement went into force in 1994, the three governments began to talk about expanding the scope of the agreement. Mexico, in particular, hoped to negotiate a solution to the border/immigration problem. However, the process was brought to a grinding halt by the attacks of Sept. 11th. In a 2005 summit of then-Presidents George W. Bush, Vicente Fox, and Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Texas plans for “deep integration” between the three countries finally progressed with the official launch of the SPP. In the post-September 11th political context, immigration was definitively off the table and U.S. security interests, along with corporate interests in obtaining even more favorable terms for regional trade and investment, dominated the agenda.

The SPP established working groups, rules, recommendations, and agreements without Congressional oversight or public participation in—or even knowledge of—its proceedings. It created a “North American Competitiveness Council” that reads like a “Who’s Who” of the largest transnationals based on the continent. While the lack of transparency and the U.S. corporate and security- dominated agenda are cause for great concern, they are not evidence of a plot to move toward a North American Union. Even a perfunctory analysis of politics in the three NAFTA countries shows that a North American Union was, is, and always will be a non-starter. It began as an academic proposal and never got off the ground politically.

Among the most bizarre assumptions of NAU scare-mongers is the contention that the SPP will threaten U.S. sovereignty and erase borders. The idea of a regional union that effaces U.S. sovereignty is light-years away from George W. Bush’s foreign policy of unilateral action and disdain for international law and institutions. On the contrary, the precepts of the Bush administration’s foreign policy point to a return to the neoconservative belief that the world would be a better place if the U.S. government just ran everything.

Officially described as “... a White House-led initiative among the United States and the two nations it borders—Canada and<>As for moving toward a borderless North America, the years since the SPP began have witnessed a hardening of the U.S.-Mexico border never seen before in modern history. Fifteen thousand Border Patrol agents, 6,000 members of the National Guard and a border fence powerfully belie any suggestion that the U.S. government aims to eliminate borders.

The NAU myth obscures the very real globalization issues raised by NAFTA—job loss, labor insecurity, the surge in illegal immigration, and racial tensions caused by the portrayal of immigrants as invaders. This is convenient for both right-wing politicians and the government and business elites they attack because real solutions to these problems would include actions anathema to them all, including unionization, enforcement of labor rights, comprehensive immigration reform, and regulation of the international market. Instead, these options are shunted aside with the redefinition of the problem as a conspiracy of anti-American elites.

In this context, outrage over a nonexistent NAU should not be confused with growing criticism of the Security and Prosperity Partnership. The SPP has proceeded to change national regulations, and create closed business committees without the participation of labor, environmental, or citizen voices. SPP negotiations provide a vehicle for more of the corporate integration that has eliminated jobs, impoverished workers, and threatened the environment across borders.

It has also served to extend the dangerous Bush security doctrine to Canada and Mexico, despite its lack of popularity in those countries and among the US public. It’s latest outgrowth, the $1.4 billion-dollar Merida Initiative or Plan Mexico, would provide money, U.S. training, and equipment to the Mexican military, police, and intelligence services. This militarized model of fighting real problems of drug-trafficking and human smuggling would lead to greater violence and heightened binational tensions. It’s time to separate out false threats from real threats. A good place to start is to demand transparency in trinational talks and informed public debate on regional integration.

Laura Carlsen is Director of Americas Policy Program in Mexico City.

When Maynard Met Nancy

When Maynard Met Nancy

By Rich Lowry

Nancy Pelosi doesn't, in Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel's words, want to "waste a crisis." She has concocted a hideous stimulus brew brimming with eye of newt, toe of frog, and every other exotic ingredient favored by her Democratic colleagues.

On This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Pelosi defended the inclusion of millions in funding for contraception. She suggested that the funding would reduce costs to the states by discouraging the bearing of children--if we can't create more jobs, at least we can forestall the creation of more people. Maybe the House speaker doesn't realize that John Maynard Keynes, not Thomas Malthus, is the economist of the hour.

The bright shining original Keynesian conception of the stimulus bill was that it would rebuild the nation's famously "crumbling" infrastructure--roads, schools, the energy sector--while immediately creating jobs. A glorious win-win! If only it were possible to build things quickly enough.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, only $4 billion out of $30 billion in highway spending, $3 billion of $18.5 billion in renewable-energy spending, and less than $7 billion of $14 billion of school-construction spending would be spent in the first two years. If spending will take place in 2011 or later, there's no reason for it to be jammed into a hastily passed stimulus bill.

Unless, of course, Democrats want to use the crisis atmosphere to bypass the normal budgetary process for long-term spending. Almost $16 billion for Pell Grants for college students and $1.9 billion for basic scientific research won't stimulate the economy in the near term. Neither will funding for the National Endowment for the Arts ($50 million) or for the National Mall ($200 million).

Pelosi's old criteria were that stimulus be "timely, targeted and temporary." That was before her caucus weighed in with the tardy, ramshackle, and permanent. Countering the CBO, Democrats note that non-construction elements of the bill reach people faster--both the boosts for food stamps and unemployment insurance and the $275 billion in tax relief. This concedes that putting money directly in people's hands is the timeliest stimulus.

Building on that insight, a cut in the payroll-tax rate--paid by both individuals and businesses--should be the bill's centerpiece. By rights, such a cut should have bipartisan appeal. For Democrats, a payroll-tax cut helps those lower-income workers who don't make enough to pay income taxes. (President Obama already supports a tax credit to offset the payroll tax.) For Republicans, it's a genuine tax cut that benefits employers, too.

But Democrats prefer spending on their pet causes. Many congressional Republicans, meanwhile, foolishly act as if only the income tax matters, when roughly 60 percent of wage earners pay more payroll taxes than income taxes.

A cut in the payroll rate would appear in small increments in workers' paychecks, making it more likely to be spent than a lump-sum payment (like last year's rebate checks). It would increase the take-home pay of strapped workers who would have no choice but to spend it. Finally, it would reduce the cost of labor for employers and make it easier at the margin to make new hires or avoid layoffs.

Nearly immediate, a payroll tax cut would be felt now, at what is likely the nadir of the recession. A halving of the payroll rate would funnel $400 billion to individuals and businesses, for a total of $800 billion. The cut could be indefinite, to be rolled back when the economy picks up again, or made permanent and replaced by something else (say, an increased gas tax). The payroll tax funds Social Security and Medicare, but those programs can subsist on borrowing for now--like the rest of the federal government.

No one can be sure if fiscal stimulus will work. We do know that relief for individuals and businesses right away must help more than subsidizing a wind farm in 2012.

RNC Chairman Michael Steele's Acceptance Speech

More Obama Cabinet "Tax Problems"

Gregg's Appointment to Commerce on Track

Gregg's Appointment to Commerce on Track

By Anne E. Kornblut
Republican Sen. Judd Gregg is the leading candidate to become the next Commerce Secretary, a move that could happen in the next day or two, White House officials said on Saturday.

Gregg's selection and exit from the Senate would clear the way for the New Hampshire governor, John Lynch (D), to appoint a Democrat as his replacement - giving Pres. Barack Obama the 60-vote majority he needs for a filibuster-proof majority. But Lynch, a moderate, could appoint a Republican instead, filling the seat with a caretaker senator until the next election, in 2010.

Gregg acknowledged on Friday that he was under consideration for the post. Administration officials took it a step further, saying he is atop the list to fill a job that has sat empty since New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) withdrew his nomination because of an investigation involving government contracts.

For Obama, picking Gregg would bolster his argument that he is truly building a bi-partisan Cabinet. Gregg is a fiscal conservative, a longtime supporter of Sen. John McCain and a Republican Party stalwart, though his state has grown increasingly moderate in recent years. Two other Republicans - former Rep. Ray LaHood, the Transportation Secretary, and Robert Gates, the holdover Defense Secretary from the Bush administration - are already in place.

But Gregg would also bring more than bragging rights: he could help Obama sell entitlement and budget reform to a wary Congress and to the business community, of which Gregg has been a strong advocate. Gregg, a three-term senator, is former chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, and helped devise the $700 billion bank bailout package that passed last year.

Among the potential Republican candidates Lynch might consider to replace Gregg: Bonnie Newman, the former president of the University of New Hampshire; Doug Scamman, the former New Hampshire House Speaker; former Gov. Walter R. Petersen, Jr.; and former Attorney General Tom Rath. On the Democratic side, it is likely that the two members of Congress, Paul Hodes and Carol Shea Porter, would at least be considered. New Hampshire's other senator is Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat who was elected in November.