https://consortiumnews.com/2018/09/04/john-mccain-the-view-from-the-middle-east/
It is not unusual that Arabs and Americans look at the
same event from divergent lenses. Take, for instance, a scene from John
McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign when he told a woman in the audience
who had called Obama an Arab: “No, Ma`am. He is not an Arab. He’s a decent
family man.”
That brief exchange has been tweeted and retweeted
thousands of time in the last few days following McCain’s death. It has been
promoted by people in mainstream media (and think tanks and academia) as
evidence of the civility, “classiness”, and lack of prejudice of McCain.
Yet, Arabs saw something entirely different in that exchange. They saw
bigotry from McCain, who was denying that Obama was Arab in the same way one
denies that someone is a Nazi. He clearly implied that an Arab can’t be a
decent family man. In fact, Gen. Colin Powell was the only U.S.
politician who pointed this out at the time. But a new image of McCain is
being formulated before our eyes.
For Arabs in the Middle East and in the U.S., the view of
McCain does not conform to the hagiography of U.S. media. People in the
region remember well that McCain supported every U.S. and Israeli war,
invasion, or attack against any Arab target. They remember that he was a major
proponent of invading Iraq and argued for the expansion of U.S. wars into Iran,
Libya and Syria in the wake of Sep. 11.
The destruction of Mosul. (Wikimedia
Commons)
While the Washington director of Human Rights Watch was
writing tributes to McCain, Arabs were remembering him as a champion of Middle
East dictators (except those on bad terms with the U.S. and Israel.) It was not
a coincidence that both the official Saudi regime lobby in DC and AIPAC
promptly released emotional eulogies for McCain. The English-language, Arab
Times (a mouthpiece of Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman) dedicated a
special issue to him.
McCain never wavered in his conformity with AIPAC’s agenda.
He never had disagreements with the Israeli government except in outbidding
them in his hostility to Palestinian rights and the usefulness of negotiations
with Arabs.
Yet in the context of Washington politics, McCain was
not regarded as the anti-Arab/anti-Muslim that he was, perhaps because there
were Arabs and Muslims that he approved of. He championed, for instance, Iraqi
opposition figure Ahmad Chalabi (a key fabricator in the buildup to the U.S.
invasion of Iraq) and the Afghan Mujahideen. He was very close to Arab despots
and approved arms sales to their repressive armies and intelligence
apparatuses. He spoke of democracy but in the way that invading and colonizing
states glorify “freedom” to justify conquest.
McCain was a champion of Syrian rebels and pictures of him
with Jihadi extremists (in Libya and in Syria) were circulated by Arabs on
social media in the last week, while the Washington press corps and Human
Rights Watch were paying tribute him as “a defender of democracy.”
Schooled by Scoop
Self-propelled howitzers of the
Gaddafi forces, destroyed by French Rafale airplanes at the west-southern
outskirts of Benghazi, Libya, in March 2011 in another war backed by
McCain. (Wikimedia Commons)
McCain was mentored
on the Middle East, according to his biographies, by Henry “Scoop” Jackson, who
for years was the dean of ardent Zionists in the U.S. Congress. Those were in
the days when a few members—mostly Republicans—dared to challenge AIPAC.
McCain’s first trip to Israel was a member of a delegation led by Jackson when
McCain was the Navy’s liaison to the Senate. Typically, like all
U.S. politicians who visit Israel, McCain became convinced by the view
from Israeli military helicopters of the vulnerability of “little Israel” and
that Israel needed to continue to occupy, invade, attack and assassinate.
In Congress, McCain managed to become associated with
AIPAC’s agenda more than his colleagues. He always argued for more
support for Israel. And when Israel and the U.S. both accepted negotiations
with Yasser Arafat, he remained skeptical, raising doubts about the intentions
of the Palestinians.
After his election to Congress, McCain quickly set himself
up as an expert on defense and foreign policy. His first foreign policy posture
in Congress was in 1983, when he opposed U.S. intervention in Lebanon, but not
on humanitarian grounds. Instead he basically argued that far more force was
needed against Syria and its allies in Lebanon. This became a pattern for the
Vietnam veteran: that more force is always needed wherever U.S. troops are
deployed. Some attribute the “surge” to him, as if the surge really salvaged
American fortunes in Iraq.
In an article
written during his 2008 presidential campaign, The New York Times talked
about the McCain Doctrine and referred to his reaction to Sep. 11, when he
argued for war on Syria, Iran, and Afghanistan. For McCain, war was the
only recourse for dealing with foes of the U.S. and Israel. And war was not
effective for McCain without massive force and heavy troop deployments.
The Senator and the Ikhwan
Homs, Syria
McCain was a champion of the Muslim Brotherhood (Jam’iyat
al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin), even if that put him at odds with Gulf rulers
who he also supported. This position may seem uncharacteristic given his
longstanding fealty to AIPAC and its agenda, and his general unfriendliness to
Arabs and Muslims. But McCain may have undertaken this role at the behest of
AIPAC.
In the aftermath of the Arab uprisings, McCain negotiated
with leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, Tunisia, Libya, and
Egypt. It was after a series of visits from leaders of those movements to
Washington that they basically reversed their traditional position on
Israel. Leaders of An-Nahda rescinded their plan to criminalize
normalization with Israel, while leaders of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood
pledged commitment to the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. Similarly, the
stance of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood abandoned any hostility toward Israel
and even toward its occupation of the Golan heights. McCain’s confidence
in the ability of the Ikhwan to deliver the interests of Israel and
U.S., led him to oppose Sisi’s coup as he trusted that Mohammed Morsi would be
able to guard U.S. interests and the interests of the Egyptian-Israeli
military-intelligence alliance.
McCain became, in this manner, an unabashed champion of
what is called in the West (and in the Gulf regimes’ media) the “Syrian
revolution”. He also trusted the Islamists in the “revolution” and hoped
that Israeli interests would be served by a change of regime that would be
aligned with the U.S. and Israel. The risk of promoting Jihadi Islamist
rebels was, for McCain and the Israeli lobby, worth the effort. For that,
McCain’s death was mourned by leaders of the “liberal” exile opposition and by
Jihadis of the Syrian rebels, including Huthaifah `Azzam, the son of `Abdullah
`Azzam (the mentor of Usamah bin Laden). (Huthaifah `Azzam later deleted his
post after I drew attention to it).
The career of McCain intersected with the rise of AIPAC on
Capitol Hill. He also benefited from the Reagan and Bush Doctrines, both
of which relied on the use of massive force against the enemies of U.S. and
Israel.
The assessment of McCain can’t hope to achieve a measure
of balance given the adulation by mainstream media for a man whose political
sins were always instantly forgotten. His reference to Vietnamese by a
pejorative term was seen as an example of his frank talk—not of his prejudice.
His involvement with Charles Keating was seen as an example of a minor error
and not of the corruption of an influential senator. His
endorsement of war, the Israeli occupation, and his embrace of tyrants
(especially in the Gulf and North Africa) have not been perceived as
inconsistent with the media’s image of a champion of human rights.
In the end, John McCain was a major face of American
empire, just as were two people who attended his funeral–Obama and Bush –and
one who did not, Trump.
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