Dr. J.'s Commentary: The Big Battle Over the Middle East

It's got all the hallmarks of a heavyweight fight: two big, bruising contenders, itching for battle and determined to win at all costs. Both are getting up there in age, but both are very experienced in the ways of such fights and do have similar styles: for the most part they both fight on the inside, going for body blows and the long haul. The big difference between the two is their goals. One simply wants to win this particular fight. The other wants not only to win the fight but also to completely change the rules of the fight game they are in. The big difference between this fight and the usual kind of heavyweight championship is that, unlike the latter, its outcome will have a major influence in the course of world history for the indefinite future.

The contenders are, of course Jim "All I want from Iraq is the oil and possibly the bases" Baker, and Dick "Give me Permanent War and that ol' 'Unitary Executive' " Cheney. Despite his sharing with Baker, backers in the oil patch, Cheney is after a much bigger fish: getting rid of that pesky ol' U.S. Constitution and all its nasty rules that hem in the rich and powerful. In this space we have followed this battle with a several reports from the ring over the last couple of months.

Until a couple of days ago, Cheney seemed to be ahead on points. The Report of the Iraq Study Group disappeared from consideration as quickly as it took Bush to emerge from a meeting with the members without asking a single question. While the military preparations for a major attack on Iran are going ahead, as has been widely reported on BuzzFlash and on many other sites (reports originally going back as far as two years with reports from Scott Ritter and Seymour Hersh), Bush and Snow within the last 7-10 days both said words to the effect of "no attack is being contemplated." But in the region Cheney, before Pakistani intelligence likely tipped their Taliban/al-Qaeda allies in Afghanistan that he was on his way there so that they could try to kill him, said "all options are on the table."

The Administration line on possible negotiations with Iran, recommended by Baker's ISG, was "no way, Jose." That is unless they were to give up their principal bargaining chip, their developing nuclear program, before negotiations started. It's a common pre-condition the U.S. makes of opponents it simply does not want to negotiate with under any circumstances, like demanding that Hamas give up its principal bargaining chip, recognition of the State of Israel, before negotiations over Israel/Palestine can begin. Of course the Iranians could always demand that the U.S. withdraw its ever-growing fleet from the Persian Gulf, before starting negotiations. Hey, maybe they should try that: you withdraw and we'll put a hold on enriching, as Putin has asked them to do. No one has pointed out that whether they want the bomb or not (and with the U.S. constantly threatening them with carpet bombing, possibly using nukes, if I were them I would sure want it), they realize that someday their oil is going to run out and they do want to have alternate energy sources, nuclear being one of them.

But now, all of a sudden, Baker, very silent in the bout recently, comes up with a punch out of left field (to mix metaphors). All of a sudden, the U.S. will be attending those regional talks on "stability in the region," arranged by its putative ally, the present government of Iraq. The goal is to achieve that stability, mirabile dictu, not by force arms, as the Cheneyites would have it, but by NEGOTIATIONS!! "How about that?" as the old New York Yankee broadcaster Mel Allen used to say. Yes, right out of the ISG Report, supposedly shelved for the duration. What happened?

As I have said, here and elsewhere (and in my view, this position bears repeating), I am firmly convinced that an increasing proportion of the U.S. power elite, with which Baker directly connects, will in no way allow CheneyBush to do anything in Iran other than what they are already doing, supporting the anti-government MEK terrorists. A strong signal in this regard is the Baker victory over Cheney in the latest round of their ongoing struggle on this matter of regional negotiations.

Why now? With the recent tentative agreement on how Iraq's oil and its revenues are to be handled, Baker knows the U.S. now will likely have access to a goodly chunk of the oil and who knows, may be able to keep some or all of our bases in the Western Iraqi Desert as well. At the same time, Baker knows that every day it stays in Iraq, is a day the U.S. military becomes weaker and weaker. Cheney is totally focused on permanent war, hardly what the Baker wing of the power elite wants. For sure, the last thing Big Oil in the U.S. (represented most directly by Jim Baker, NOT Permanent War Cheney who is tangentially related to the oil industry but first and foremost represents the American fascists) wants is an attack on Iran that would, if nothing else (and there would be plenty of "else," none of it fun for the American people or our military) send the price of oil sky-rocketing and would probably make all of Iraq a no-pump zone.

CheneyBush have so wrecked the U.S. military that that this "Support the Troops" Administration cannot even keep up either with repairing damaged armored vehicles (which they actually do in Texas), of which there are thousands, while our troops are becoming increasingly desperately short of them, or with providing anything like proper care for "our brave men and women" at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. So for now, Baker is ahead in this bout. But don't count Cheney out quite yet. For him much too much is riding on its outcome to stop fighting now.

Steven Jonas, MD, MPH is a Professor of Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook University (NY), a weekly contributing author for The Political Junkies, and contributing editor for The Moving Planet Blog.