Annapolis : INDEED, A WAR CONFERENCE

Some of my friends and most of the local media consider the Annapolis
Summit as a non-event. The decision of Ehud Olmert to exclude any
substantial topic from the agenda, and to limit the summit’s output to a
vague « declaration of principles » and, may be, a time-table, seems to
confirm this impression. For, we have already been in such a scenario,
more than decade ago, at Oslo : a declaration of principle that was
already ignored after a week, and a time-table about which PM Yitshak
Rabin said almost immediately, « there care no holly dates ». Only a
strong US interference could oblige the Israeli government to change its
course and start dealing with the substantial issues which are at the
heard of the Israeli-Arab conflict. Such an interference is much
unlikely.

If indeed the Annapolis summit is supposed to move the so-call
peace-process forward, there is, indeed, no reason to expect any
concrete result. I do not think however that Annapolis is a non-event.
It has an agenda : a war agenda.

Decades ago, I learn from my grand-father a very useful advice : « if you
are invited to a dinner, a party or any kind of meeting, and you don’t
know what it is about, check who is not invited, and you will know », he
used to tell me. This was a wise advice that served me well throughout
my personal and public lives.

Who is not invited in Annapolis ? Iran, Lebanon, Hezbollah and Hamas. At
the last moment, Syria was taken off the hit-list, and will finally
participate at the summit, despite the strong objections of the
hard-line neo-cons who want to keep Damascus in the axis of evil.
Disconnecting Syria from Iran is considered by the less extreme sectors
of the US and Israeli administrations as an important objective in the
preparations for the war against Iran.

War is on the agenda, under the banner of « clash of civilizations ». The
declarations about the « threat of Islam » by French Foreign Minister,
Bernard Kouchner, after his return from Washington, leave no room for
ambiguity, as well as the blatant anti-Muslim racist statement of French
President Nicolas Sarkozy, published recently by Liberation. When
President Bush speaks about World War III, he is not describing a
reality, but a strategic plan, the Neo-Cons Non-Ending pre-emptive war
against Islam. And when Israeli Minister for Strategic Affairs, Avigdor
Lieberman threats to use « tactical nuclear bombs », he is playing with
fire.

Obviously, Israel is volunteering to be at the front-line of such a
war... in a most un-responsible way. For there is no doubt that Teheran
has strong capacities of retaliation, if attacked : not only can Iran
destroy oil facilities in the Gulf States, close the Hurmuz straights
and cut most of the oil supply to Europe, but it can also send hundreds
of missiles on Tel Aviv. If Ehud Olmert thinks that Iran is as helpless
as Gaza, and the Iranian people can be molested as the Palestinians, he
will have painful surprises if he dares attacking Iran.

West Asia is today a nuclear powder keg, and, in Tel Aviv as well as in
Washington, irresponsible leaders have their fingers on the trigger. The
last year in power of Bush and of Olmert (he is soon going to be charged
for corruption and obliged to resign) may be a global nightmare. One
needs not only to be worried, but to act fast in order to rebuild a
strong global anti-war movement in order to mobilize millions of women
and men throughout the whole planet in order to stop the catastrophe.