The British Monarchy’s leading foreign policy think tank, Chatham House, published an article Oct. 7 under the title, “Lasting Israel–Palestine Peace Will Not Be Possible without a New Policy To Neutralize the Iranian Threat.” Its author is not just another Chatham House Associate Fellow. This was by Sir John Jenkins—Great Britain’s former British Ambassador to Syria, Iraq, Libya and Saudi Arabia, a proud Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (KCMG) and a Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order (LVO), who was considered to be the “senior Arabist” in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in his day before retiring in 2015. Sir John laid out the line that you hear constantly parroted by the U.S. war party: There will be no “peace” in Southwest Asia until Iran is taken down.
“Some people may have thought the Gaza war was all about Palestine. The dramatic events of the last two weeks suggest it was always really about Iran,” he pronounced. He never once mentions the genocide, ethnic cleansing, and reduction of Gaza to dust. He is explicit, in fact, that in his view “the Palestine-Israel conflict should be a second order issue,” in the creation of the new order he envisions for Southwest Asia. However, since “the one real success Palestinians have had is in internationalizing their cause,” he grudgingly writes that settling that conflict has to be done—but only after Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran are taken care of. As he puts it:
“The hard truth is that … a settlement cannot be achieved simply by ceasefires or negotiations with the Palestinian Authority (PA) or Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). It can only happen once Hamas and particularly Hezbollah cease to be major threats to Israel, and Iran no longer has the power to disrupt the emergence of a new regional order. A ceasefire now, without resolving the bigger problems, simply guarantees the resumption of conflict in another year or two….”
Granted, Sir John never writes “bomb Iran.” What he says is that, while “ideally” regime-change in Iran is what’s needed, at this time “the way for external actors”—we imperialists—to intervene in the region is to “dismantle [Iran’s] influence in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Gaza and Yemen.” And at the same time:
“Above all, the U.S. and its partners must keep close to Israel and provide iron-clad long-term security guarantees. That has to mean helping Israel neutralize Hezbollah and Hamas—and also the Houthis, who cannot be allowed to become a Hezbollah of the South.”
He adds three more policy prescriptions: shut down “mosques, cultural centers, and bogus human rights organizations which Iran has used to shape opinion in its favor” in Western countries; slap more sanctions on Iran, unilaterally, if necessary by the U.K., “perhaps with allies within the EU”; and “proscribe the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization.”
And that is a policy package which guarantees war.
