McMaster, MEATO and the war against Iran and ISIS
McMaster, MEATO and the war against Iran and ISIS

Over 3 years ago, on April 13, 2014, the social media response to my article, “MEATO: The Trans-Riyadh-Jerusalem-Athens Alliance” was disparaging, to say the least.  The Arutz Sheva article predicted not only a middle east NATO-type mutual defense pact among the Arab Sunni Muslim states against Iran, but also a military pact with Israel, Greece and even with NATO itself.  The MEATO concept was really just a re-hash of a 2006 article I wrote, “Iran: The 4th Reichastan” which described the basic theory and threats facing the Middle East from Iran, and the strategic requirement of collective Israeli-Sunni defense in the face of the waxing Iran threat.

But in a speech Sunday night, President Trump’s National Security Advisor, H.R. McMaster stated, there was a  “reassessment of regional relationships, most notably between Israel and a number of our Arab partners — all friends of America, but too often adversaries of each other. Today their interests are converging. This is an opportunity.”  McMaster’s added, using the Six Day War as a historic example, that to Israel what can appear to be an unprecedented challenge can present opportunities. And as a current example, he stated that in the face of threats from Hamas, Hezbollah, the Islamic State and Iran, Israel “has adapted and performed amazingly well” because it “consistently recognized and acted on opportunities when others may have seen only difficulties.”

The issue here is two-fold:

1. Will Israel rise to the challenge and form a military alliance with the Sunnis without militarily crippling itself by agreeing to the  1967 borders thereby neutering the only reason the Sunnis straegically need Israel in the first place.

2.Whether President Trump can capitalize on the Israel-Sunni détente and form a Trans-Europe-NATO-Middle East alliance to protect everyone against Iran and ISIS.

With McMaster’s enunciation of the blooming alliance between Israel and the Sunni Arab states, and the greater twin goals of creating an Israel/Sunni alliance without a truncated Israel, and the creation of a Trans-Med NATO-Israel-Sunni Alliance, it is appropriate to review the article I wrote over 3 years ago:

Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Physics states “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”  

It often seems that the Third Law applies not only to the world of physical objects, but also to the world of foreign affairs.  Evidence of Newton’s Third Law application can be found in Obama’s “withdrawal” from the Middle East, and his concomitant anointing of the Islamic Republic of Iran as the new Muslim Hegemonic Imanate. 

For, it is now clear that tectonic shifts in alliances are taking place that could place Israel’s military might as the cornerstone to a new Middle East-Mediterranean alliance from Riyadh to Athens that will transform history.  The Pan-Greek-Israel-Saudi alliance will be called MEATO, Middle East Alliance Treaty Organization.

In what is a ground-breaking event, the New York Times reported:

“Emerging from meetings with his Israeli counterparts on Monday, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that discussions included 'an outreach to other partners who may not have been willing to be partners in the past'.”

"He added, 'What I mean is the Gulf states in particular, who heretofore may not have been as open-minded to the potential for cooperation with Israel, in any way.' While General Dempsey did not go into specifics, other American military officials said that possibilities include intelligence-sharing, joint counterterrorism exercises and perhaps looking for how Israeli and Saudi troops could jointly work on the training of Syrian opposition fighters."

For the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to openly state that “what I mean is the Gulf states in particular” - that these are the countries with which the “outreach to other partners” will occur is a 10 on the geo-political Richter scale.  Either he was trying to sabotage the budding Israeli-Saudi alliance, and failed, or, he was incapable of escaping the reality and robustness of the alliance. Either way, in the wake of Obama’s abandonment of America’s historical allies, things are dramatically in flux.

That was the first half of the article. What’s even more amazing, and puzzling, was the second half of the article that went on to report:

“Another thing potentially bringing Israel and Gulf states together is their intensifying criticism of American foreign policy. When President Obama met in Riyadh with Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, for example, he heard the same disquiet over the continuing talks on Iran’s nuclear program that General Dempsey heard on Monday in Jerusalem.

"A Defense Department official, who like others agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, noted that 'there’s a convergence of agreement between them, and in opposition to what we’re doing'.”

In light of the above, why is the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff assisting a non-American alliance where a US Defense Department official goes on record telling the New York Times that “there’s a convergence of agreement between them [between Israel and Saudi Arabia], and in opposition to what we’re [i.e. Obama is] doing”? 

Could Chairman Dempsey be trying to work in opposition to what Obama is doing?  After all, Obama is attempting to destroy every last vestige of America’s strategic hold in the Middle East. More likely, when Obama visited Riyadh, he realized the US didn’t know how far the Israelis and Saudis had connected, so Obama sent the only person in the world he thinks the Israelis trust (Dempsey) to pry out of the Israelis the actual state of Israeli-Saudi rapprochement.

What is the latest Obama-Israel-Saudi scorecard?

In Egypt, Israel and the Saudis support the secular General Sisi, and Obama wants to actively overthrow General Sisi.  Obama is grotesquely withholding from Egypt the urgently needed IMF loans to stabilize his country, and the Apache helicopters necessary to rout the terrorists in the Sinai.  Strike one against Obama.

Israel and the Saudis want Iran’s nuclear program destroyed, Obama is doing anything, and everything to, de facto, protect and enhance Iran’s nuclear weapons’ program.  Strike two against Obama.

Israel and Saudi Arabia see the destruction of Syria’s Assad as a prime element in the destruction of Iran’s waxing hegemonic enterprise from Tehran to the Mediterranean Sea. And, Obama has starved the Syrian rebels of the weapons it needs to destroy Iran’s puppet, and its house of terrorist cards.  Strike three.  Obama is out.

Still, why is Saudi Arabia forced to ally itself with Israel?

First, Saudi Arabia eliminated the other Muslim heavyweights.  The only other two possibilities for Saudi Arabia are two 80 million plus populations of either Turkey or Egypt. 

Anyway, by supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, and due to Erdogan’s delusions of Ottoman Caliphate grandeur, Turkey and Qatar are working in the opposite direction than is Saudi Arabia.   

Next, Egypt can barely support itself, let alone militarily help the Saudis.  

Unlike everybody, the Israelis don’t covet Saudi oil, or have designs on Mecca.  They just want to tan themselves on Tel Aviv beaches, pray to the G-d of Abraham, and invent internet billion-dollar companies.   The only way for the Saudis to cost-effectively keep their northern front of Jordan stable is to have Israel, de facto, protecting Jordan’s western and northern borders, and to supply Jordan with gas from the Med.

Without Israel stabilizing the strategic Med Sea seamline, Saudi Arabia would be crushed from the north.  

Only through Israel can the Eastern-Theater-Saudis also graft into Israel’s Western-Theater-Mediterranean Sea alliance with Greece.  A joint Middle East alliance between the Saudis, Israel, Egypt, and Mediterranean Greece would be a watershed event.  Such a topologic-geographic connective east-west span through the Levant could open a gas-oil-pipeline from the Persian Gulf to Europe that would change history. 

In fact, in the 1936-39 “First” Arab-Israel War, Britain trained and armed the Jewish “Special Night Squads” (SNS)  (Hebrew: Plugot Ha'Layla Ha'Meyukhadot ) that protected the critical British east-to-west-to-Med-Sea oil pipeline from Iraq through to Haifa.  The Mandate Jewish SNS saved Britain’s oil pipeline and refinery at Haifa that fueled Britain’s WW2 fight against Hitler’s Rommel Panzers in North Africa, and the Queen’s navy and air force in the Mediterranean Sea. 

The crystal of the pre-1948 Jewish SNS special operations force soon morphed into the post-1948 present-day Israel IDF.

Today, the IDF would serve a modern-day SNS protecting Europe’s oil and gas supply from the Sunni Gulf.  Such an energy pipeline would render Israel as a strategic-lifeline of Europe’s energy existence.

Apart from the United States, the Saudis know that only Israel has the order-of-battle necessary to damage Iran’s nuclear program.  Since, Obama has made it abundantly clear that the United States is reaching an entente with Iran, Obama has left the Saudis no choice but to seek out Israel.  It’s the Saudi’s ally of last resort, but an ally nevertheless.  It’s a classic case of: "If you can't be with the one you love, honey, love the one you're with."   

It’s also clear that Iran will attempt to go nuclear under Obama’s tenure.  So, a move against Iran will have to be made inside of the next 2+ years.

Even outside the Obama’s remaining two-plus years, Israel, and only Israel, can deliver the cost-efficiency stability and trustworthiness the Sunnis and the Saudis need to remain the Sunni’s and the Saudi’s cornerstone ally.

So, we may be witnessing a revolution in alliances that could determine the fates of Israel, Saudi Arabia, the Sunnis, Greece, Cyprus, and Europe for a century."

Prophecy, anyone?

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