William Pfaff has written another insightful column about American foreign policy from his redoubt in Paris. Pfaff has had a long and distinguished career as a foreign policy commentator, coming out of Radio Free Europe in the 1950s and the Hudson Institute in the 1960s. He has written nine books about contemporary history. He always has something interesting to say.

I used to read his articles all the time in the International Herald Tribune, along with the amazing art columns by Dr. Souren Melikian. This was when the IHT was an independent Paris newspaper and you could find Pfaff and Melikian only there. Melikian started at the IHT in 1969. Pfaff in 1978. Melikian has moved on to the New York Times, which bought out the IHT. But Pfaff has not. Pfaff would be unappreciated at the Times, where boilerplate intellectuals such as Thomas Friedman, David Brooks and Bill Keller are considered to be brilliant and not just pedestrian.

William Pfaff's May 29th, 2012 article is entitled "America's Wars: Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan--and Islam". Like many honest observers, Pfaff seems to have soured on Mr. Barack "peace prize" Obama. There was a lot of hope, some of it born out of sheer desperation, that Senator Obama in 2008 could provide a positive transition away from the terrible foreign policy record of the Cheney Regency, otherwise known as the G.W. Bush Administration. 

The hype continues to this day among the dwindling Obama diehards, but their hope has been misplaced. Barack has blown it to smithereens. First and foremost, Barack is a waste of time. Secondly, he is a carbon copy of his meretricious predecessors: G.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and H.W. Bush. Obama has presided over the same outlandish, bully-boy foreign policy, while updating the spin and mayhem. The torch will be passed to Mitt Romney.

Pfaff reviews the current sorry status of "America's wars", highlighting the strategic thinking of the Saban Center face-card, Mr. Bruce Riedel, who served in both the Cheney Regency and in the fraudulent Clinton Administration. The outlook of Riedel and other luminaries in the bipartisan Washington foreign policy establishment is, essentially, war all the time from now on. Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, whatever. I can understand the mindset and the propaganda, but I reject the premise that these are "America's Wars" fought to protect the legitimate interests of the United States. 

To the contrary, these are not "America's Wars" at all. The average American has only a vague idea where Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan are located--nor does he care. Why should he? These are wars of choice which Washington is fighting at the behest of Israel and its American lobby. Otherwise, the conflicts make no sense whatever, because the overall policy on which they are premised is irrational, bankrupting and self-destructive, in addition to being just plain crazy and amoral. Such activity cannot be in America's best interests. 

Pfaff notes in "America's Wars" that, according to the Pentagon, it all has something to do with "U.S. control of essential world resources" in conjunction with "a war against Islamic terrorism." This is partly a cover story, partly true, and partly the hysteria of self-important people on a roll.

If it were about oil, why would Washington execute a determined campaign to destroy/destabilize two huge petroleum-exporting countries, Iraq and Iran, resulting in choking off supply and restricting exploration in those countries, ultimately driving up energy prices for the world economy? Why, indeed? Big Oil did not push for these wars. 

The targeting of "Islamic terrorism" would seem to make more sense, at first blush, but it must be apparent that Washington created Islamic terrorism to begin with, as the consequence of its own misguided policies, going all the way back to President Truman's decision in 1948 to back Zionism in Palestine at the expense of the Palestinians. We are seeing the terrible fruition of that domestic political decision. 9/11 is the most obvious and dramatic blowback from it. 9/11 catapulted us into the quagmire of Afghanistan and Iraq, thanks to the Neocons. 

In point of fact, the American people or "America" have little, if anything, to do with these unnecessary, extracurricular wars that are being ceaselessly promoted by a web of Zionist front organizations. These numerous fronts rival, and perhaps even surpass in scope and effectiveness, those working for Moscow during the 1930s and1940s. 

The current wars are taking place primarily because they benefit the careers of corrupt and stupid Washington politicians who have allowed themselves to be suborned. These officials have been seduced by the largesse and wide-ranging influence of a foreign lobby that operates unimpeded inside the halls of the White House and Capitol Hill.

Under such circumstances, it could be difficult to write a foreign policy column on a routine basis, because the content would be in danger of becoming repetitious, if not monotonous. That is too bad. A possible alternative is avoidance and finding creative stratagems to work around the obvious. To his credit, Pfaff has somehow managed to tell the truth without becoming tedious.

Alas, this is not a perfect world, as I was led to believe by the Catholic nuns who taught me the meaning of life at an earlier hour.