1991 - Wes Clark and the Neocon Dream " We’re going to start with Iraq, and then we’re going to move to Syria...."

A 1991 Memo presented to Wes Clark -

"It says we’re going to attack and destroy the governments in 7 countries in five years – we’re going to start with Iraq, and then we’re going to move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.”

Saturday, Nov 26, 2011 07:45 AM EDT

Wes Clark and the Neocon Dream

In 2007, the retired General described a necon "policy coup" aimed at toppling the governments of 7 countries VIDEO

By Glenn Greenwald

[link to www.salon.com]

In October, 2007, Gen. Wesley Clark gave a speech to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco (seven-minute excerpt in the video below) in which he denounced what he called “a policy coup” engineered by neocons in the wake of 9/11. After recounting how a Pentagon source had told him weeks after 9/11 of the Pentagon’s plan to attack Iraq notwithstanding its non-involvement in 9/11, this is how Clark described the aspirations of the “coup” being plotted by Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and what he called “a half dozen other collaborators from the Project for the New American Century”:

Six weeks later, I saw the same officer, and asked: “Why haven’t we attacked Iraq? Are we still going to attack Iraq?”

He said: “Sir, it’s worse than that. He said – he pulled up a piece of paper off his desk – he said: “I just got this memo from the Secretary of Defense’s office. It says we’re going to attack and destroy the governments in 7 countries in five years – we’re going to start with Iraq, and then we’re going to move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.”

Clark said the aim of this plot was this:

“They wanted us to destabilize the Middle East, turn it upside down, make it under our control.”

He then recounted a conversation he had had ten years earlier with Paul Wolfowitz — back in 1991 — in which the then-number-3-Pentagon-official, after criticizing Bush 41 for not toppling Saddam, told Clark:

“But one thing we did learn [from the Persian Gulf War] is that we can use our military in the region – in the Middle East – and the Soviets won’t stop us. And we’ve got about 5 or 10 years to clean up those old Soviet regimes – Syria, Iran [sic], Iraq – before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us.”

Clark said he was shocked by Wolfowitz’s desires because, as Clark put it: “the purpose of the military is to start wars and change governments? It’s not to deter conflicts?”

The current turmoil in the Middle East is driven largely by popular revolts, not by neocon shenanigans.

Still, in the aftermath of military-caused regime change in Iraq and Libya (the latter leading to this and this), with concerted regime change efforts now underway aimed at Syria and Iran, with active and escalating proxy fighting in Somalia, with a modest military deployment to South Sudan, and the active use of drones in six — count ‘em: six — different Muslim countries, it is worth asking whether the neocon dream as laid out by Clark is dead or is being actively pursued and fulfilled, albeit with means more subtle and multilateral than full-on military invasions (it’s worth remembering that neocons specialized in dressing up their wars in humanitarian packaging: Saddam’s rape rooms! Gassed his own people! etc.).

As Jonathan Schwarz (or, as he would be called by establishment newspapers: “a person familiar with Jon Schwarz’s thinking on the subject who asked not to be identified”) put it about the supposedly contentious national security factions:

As far as I can tell, there’s barely any difference in goals within the foreign policy establishment.

They just disagree on the best methods to achieve the goals. My guess is that everyone agrees we have to continue defending the mideast from outside interference (I love that Hillary line), and the [Democrats] just think that best path is four overt wars and three covert actions, while the neocons want to jump straight to seven wars.

The difference between seven and four overt wars isn’t non-existent or unimportant, of course, but it’s a question of means.

The neocon end as Clark reported them — regime change in those seven countries — seems as vibrant as ever.

It’s just striking to listen to Clark describe those 7 countries in which the neocons plotted to have regime change back in 2001, and then compare that to what the U.S. Government did and continues to do since then with regard to those precise countries.



Wesley Clark ( US 4 Star General ) US will attack 7 countries in 5 years.(Posmedprod.com)

Uploaded on Jun 26, 2011

Wesley Clark , Oct 3 2007 at the commonwealth club of California. (San Francisco California ) [link to www.newamericancentury.org]

He openly says that there was a policy coup . ( Donald Rumsfeld , Paul Wolfowitz , Dick Cheney ) - Project for a New American Century .

He stated that they are going to destroy the governments of 7 countries in 5 years.

There actually has been more the 7 countries, when Military coups have failed then then there have been military intervention.

Here are the countries

1) Iraq- March 20, 2003-

2) Afghanistan- October 7, 2001

3) lebanon- July 12 2006-

4) libya- Mar 19 2011-

5) Syria-Mar 15 2011

6) Sudan-February 2003

7) Samolia-January 26, 1991

8) Pakistan -March 16, 2004

9) Egyptian revolution ( NED Military coup ) 25 January 2011

10) Tunisian revolution( NED Military coup ) December 18 2010

11) Yemeni revolution-( NED Military coup) 27 January 2011

12) Bahraini uprising( NED Military coup) 14 February 2011