Trump Using Pompeo, Bolton to Appease Israeli Lobby: US Scholar
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – A senior American political analyst and scholar said US President Donald Trump knows well that Zionists dominate America and has appointed Mike Pompeo and John Bolton as US Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, respectively, to appease the powerful Israeli lobby.
“Like John Bolton, Mike Pompeo is in essence not just an Israeli asset, but an asset of the extremist Likud Party and an advocate of ever-wider Middle East war in service to Zionist expansionism…,” Dr. Kevin Barret told Tasnim.
He added, “So why did a non-interventionist president appoint such extreme warmongering Zionists as Bolton and Pompeo? First, Trump knows that the Zionists dominate America, so he is trying to appease them.”
Dr. Kevin Barrett, a Ph.D. Arabist-Islamologist, is one of America's best-known critics of the War on Terror. Dr. Barrett has appeared many times on Fox, CNN, PBS and other broadcast outlets, and has inspired feature stories and op-eds in the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the Chicago Tribune, and other leading publications. Dr. Barrett has taught at colleges and universities in San Francisco, Paris, and Wisconsin, where he ran for Congress in 2008. He is the co-founder of the Muslim-Christian-Jewish Alliance, and author of the books Truth Jihad: My Epic Struggle Against the 9/11 Big Lie (2007) and Questioning the War on Terror: A Primer for Obama Voters (2009). His website is www.truthjihad.com.
Following is the full text of the interview.
Tasnim: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in a recent meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said that Washington will continue to work closely with Tel Aviv over Syria and Iran, despite President Donald Trump’s announcement of withdrawing American troops from Syria. What is your take on this?
Barrett: Like John Bolton, Mike Pompeo is in essence not just an Israeli asset, but an asset of the extremist Likud Party and an advocate of ever-wider Middle East war in service to Zionist expansionism. Donald Trump, for his part, is ill-informed and unqualified for office; but his instincts are with the paleoconservative non-interventionist camp that has been stigmatized since World War II as “America first” or “isolationist.”
So why did a non-interventionist president appoint such extreme warmongering Zionists as Bolton and Pompeo? First, Trump knows that the Zionists dominate America, so he is trying to appease them. Second and more importantly, he imagines that he can use Bolton and Pompeo to leverage what he ignorantly imagines will be “a better deal” with Iran and Palestine.
It is always possible that Trump is being duped and led by the nose into a situation in which the Zionist warmongers think he will have to join them in a war against the Axis of Resistance. Reports from someone close to the Israeli government suggest that Netanyahu actually wanted Trump to pull out of Syria in order to give Israel freerein.
Tasnim: Following the meeting, the US State Department said in a statement, “Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today in Brasilia, Brazil. They discussed the unacceptable threat that regional aggression and provocation by Iran and its agents pose to Israeli and regional security. The Secretary reiterated the United States’ commitment to Israel’s security and unconditional right to self-defense”. What does the department mean by “Israel’s unconditional right to self-defense” as the regime has always attacked first and threatened to attack?
Barrett: Israel is the worst aggressor nation in modern history. But it always lies and claims its aggression is self-defense. So what Pompeo really meant is that he supports Israel’s unconditional right to wage wars of aggression in service to genocide.
The only way to achieve “regional security” would be for the Zionists to withdraw from Occupied Palestine. But US leaders cannot admit that, because they are subservient to Zionist power. (The Zionists dominate American media and provide roughly half of political campaign money to national candidates for office. Opposing them is political suicide.)
Tasnim: Do you believe that Trump’s withdrawal from Syria is bad news for Israel and good news for Iran?
Barrett: Yes. The US-Zionist regime change plot against Syria has failed, and Trump’s announcement is the clearest possible admission of that failure. The Zionists will not be able to use a compliant Syria as a gateway to their longed-for war on Iran. But the Zionists always have plenty of contingency plans. It would be premature to celebrate a new era of peace. Though the 9/11-triggered series of US wars on Middle Eastern nations has hit a major roadblock—the attacks on Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya succeeded as regime-change operations, whereas Syria has decisively defeated the regime-changers—the long-term Israeli plan to reshape the region in its interests, and ultimately finish the ethnic cleansing of Palestine under the fog of war, is not going to go away.
