More than just a dangerous provocation aimed at Russia, the ATACM and Storm Shadow attacks represent an attempt to turn foreign policy on its head.

“The Deep State whispered to Trump: ‘You cannot withstand the storm’. Trump whispered back: “I am the storm”. The war is on. The Deep State has launched a war of disruption to disable Trump’s ‘storm’. This week’s ATACM strike was but one part to an inter-agency counter-insurgency – a political strike directed at Trump; so too are all the inter-agency false narratives attributed to the Trump camp; and so too, the escalating provocations directed at Iran.

Be assured the Five Eyes are full participants in the counter-insurgency. Macron and Starmer openly conspired together in Paris ahead of the U.S. announcement to promote the ATACMS strike. The inter-agency grandees clearly are very fearful. They must worry that Trump may expose the ‘Russia Hoax’ (that Trump in 2016 was a Russian ‘asset’) and put them in jeopardy.

But Trump understands what’s afoot:

“We need peace without delay … The foreign policy establishment keeps trying to pull the world into conflict. The greatest threat to Western civilization today is not Russia. It’s probably more than anything else ourselves… There must be a complete commitment to dismantling the entire Globalist Neo-con establishment that is perpetually dragging us into endless wars, pretending to fight for freedom and democracy abroad while they turn us into a Third World country and a Third World dictatorship right here at home. The State Department, the Defense bureaucracy, the intelligence services and all of the rest need to be completely overhauled and reconstituted. To fire the Deep Staters and put America first – we have to put America First”.

Whilst the long-range ATACM launch on ‘deep Russian pre-2014 territory’ is no game-changer – it will not change the course of the war (ATACMS regularly are – at 90% – downed by Russian Air Defences); the salience of this act however, is not strategic; rather, it lies with the crossing into the realm of direct NATO attacks on Russia.

Colonel Doug MacGregor reports that two sources are telling him that “Russian nuclear rocket forces are on full alert. They are at the highest level of readiness ever achieved. It suggests that Russia has taken this crossing of the line very seriously”.

Yes, it was a provocation, and President Putin will respond appropriately. He has to – but not necessarily through nuclear escalation. Why? Because the war in Ukraine is moving rapidly in his direction, with Russian forces closing-in on the Dnieper east bank. Effectively, facts on the ground will be the outcome determinant, leaving little point to external mediation.

But more than just a dangerous provocation aimed at Russia, the ATACM and Storm Shadow attacks represent an attempt to turn foreign policy – literally – on its head. Instead of policy being aimed directly at a rising foreign adversary threatening U.S. hegemony, it is being transformed into a loaded weapon locked onto America’s domestic war. It is aimed specifically at Trump – to ‘hog tie’ him in, and to divert his attention to wars that he does not want.

Logic suggests that Trump would want to keep clear of Netanyahu’s scheming for a war against Iran. But the ‘Israel Firsters’ and the Lobby (as Professor Jeffrey Sachs argues) long have had effective control over Congress and the U.S. military – more than does the President. Explains Sachs:

“Because the Zionist Lobby is so powerful, Netanyahu basically has had control over the Pentagon to fight wars on behalf of Israeli extremism. The war in Iraq in 2003 was a Netanyahu War. The attempt to overthrow Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the overthrow of Moamar Gaddafi – All were ‘Netanyahu Wars’”.

The important point is that Netanyahu can ‘do what he does’ because it was always planned this way – a plan that has been 50 years in execution. The ‘Israel First’ strategy was fully embraced by Scoop Jackson (a two-times Presidential candidate). And just so the policy could not be rolled back, Scoop insisted on Zionists staffing the State Department, and that neo-cons and Zionists hold the reins at the NSC. That same pattern continues until today.

At bottom lies the ultimate boondoggle by which the political class of both U.S. parties become wealthy and afford the campaign costs of remaining legislators: “It’s quite a dandy deal that the Israel Lobby or the Zionist Lobby puts in, say, a hundred million dollars into campaigns and it gets trillions out –trillions, not billions, trillions out [in government] expenditures. And so, when Netanyahu speaks, it’s bizarre to me, but it is not Trump who is appointing or naming [those ‘Israel Firsters’ who are part of his Team, but Netanyahu]”, Sachs says.

When Netanyahu describes Trump’s ‘Israel First’ nominations as his ‘dream U.S. team’, the explanation is not difficult to see. On the one hand, Trump has a ‘Revolution’ to conduct in America and wants his nominations to office approved. And, on the other, Netanyahu has a further war he wants the U.S. to fight for him.

“The ‘Big Ugly’ was always a description of the battle that few understood”,another commentator notes:

“The Senate is factually the core of republican opposition to MAGA and President Trump. The visible battle … consumes the most attention. However, it is the less-visible battle against the entrenched ideological Republicans that proves to be the hardest”.

“The Republicans in the upper chamber will not relinquish power easily. They have a multitude of weapons to use against the (Trump) insurgency … We are seeing this play out now in the alignment of Republican Senators who stand in opposition to Trump’s nomination of Matt Gaetz as Attorney General, [as] this recent report[explains]”.

“The basic outline is that the senate leadership will reluctantly support Matt Gaetz for Main Justice, where ‘support’ means they will not directly oppose; in exchange for the nomination of FBI Director Mike Rogers [a co-founder of the ‘Never Trump’ group] to defend inter-agency interests at FBI”.

The prospective Republican Senate Leader, John Thune, will play his cards carefully in order to extract maximum damage . He has leverage by trying to connect Trump to Netanyahu’s carnage in the region.

Thune, whilst announcing huge quantities of weapons for Israel, said:

“To Our Allies in Israel, and to the Jewish People Around the world, my message to you is this: Reinforcements are on the way. In six weeks, Republicans will reclaim the Senate Majority, and we will make clear that the United States Congress stands squarely In Israel’s Corner”.

Trump will need to play his cards carefully, too. Since, for his purposes, the absolute priority are his two domestic wars: First, “dismantling the entire Globalist Neocon Establishment”, and secondly, ending the out-of-control government expenditure that has bloated the Deep State boondoggle and turned the U.S. real economy into a shadow of its former self.

Trump needs those radical reform nominations to pass, even if he has to sacrifice one or two to secure Senate approval for the others. The Israel First nominees, needless to add, will be approved seamlessly.

Of the two ‘entanglement’ threats to Trump’s reform agenda, Russian escalation is the lesser of the two. The Ukraine war is motoring steadily towards some form of dénoument. One that works for Russia. Putin is in the driving seat, and does not need a major war with NATO. Nor does Putin need Trump’s ‘art of the deal’. A resolution of some sort will occur without him.

However, Trump’s role will be important subsequently to define a new border between the security interests of the Atlanticists and those of the Asian heartland (including China and Iran).

The other putative war – Iran – is the more dangerous to Trump. Jewish political influence and the Lobby has taken the U.S. into multiple disastrous wars before. And now, Netanyahu desperately needs a war and he is not alone. Much of Israel is clamouring for war that would end ‘all the fronts’ facing it. There is a profound conviction in this prospect as the solution and the ‘Great Victory’ that Netanyahu and Israel so desperately need.

The ground has been dug-over, both by propaganda that Iran’s nuclear programme is ‘staggeringly vulnerable’ (which it isn’t), and by the media’s onslaught that replays the meme that to attack Iran now represents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, with Hizbullah and Hamas already weakened. War with Iran – totally erroneously – is thus being sold as an ‘easy war’.

There is an unshakeable certitude that it must be so. ‘We are strong, and Iran is weak’.

Who will roll-back the Israel Firsters? They have the momentum and the fervour. A war against Iran will fare badly for Israel and the U.S. The wide ramifications likely will precipitate precisely the severe financial and market crisis that could derail Trump’s ‘Storm’.

https://www.unz.com/article/the-counter-insurgency-is-on-against-trumps-storm/

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         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.