At the onset of this article this writer wishes to urge its readers to view the interview by
Democracy Now of illustrious and dedicated Flynt Leverett whose link is provided at the end of this article, as this brilliant and principled scholar and former CIA Analyst and former member of the National Security Council perspective is extraordinarily relevant to the current events.

The current geopolitical scenario when taken into account with the genesis of socio-political-historical reality, both of which are a part of a highly dynamic evolution, makes it an imperative for the United States to engage in a major overhaul of its relationships with the major players of the Middle East, not just the major state entity players, but as well with the major human mass movement players which currently are in a state of flux due to extreme lethal violence which is eroding the very essence of survivability hope as medical, educational, cultural, judicial, law enforcement, infrastructure repair and maintenance,  institutions and NGO’s supporting them are dramatically deteriorating.

With this preamble, this writer posits that it is an imperative for not only the best interests of the United States, as well as us, its people, if we still are to believe in the ideals of representative democracy, that a major reassessment is immediately undertaken as regards to our strategies, tactics, and to our choice of “allies” and/or “adversaries” in that maelstrom of self-destructive violence which has engulfed the whole Middle East region.

First and foremost, we must cease to allow internal and external toxic special interests to continue to push us to further resort to military means for conquest or for conflict resolution.

These internal special interest groups go back to President Eisenhower’s days and he wisely told the American people in his farewell address “…beware of the industrial military complex and of foreign entanglements abroad…”.

These internal special interests which are corroding our democracy at an increasing rate are also the “super political action” groups on steroids now as a result of the bizarre and egregious Supreme Court decision of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission which must be repealed for the sake of the survival of our democracy.

These democracy corroding special interest groups are the right-wing extremist neocon (not to be confused with genuine “conservative”)  and neoliberal (not to be confused with genuine “liberal”) corrupted politicians in our Congress who jointly are literally hell-bent on sabotaging any and all constructive initiatives of the White House, most particularly when it comes to the perpetuation of their sociopathic agenda and mindset which begrudges President Obama’s successes in such fields as  health care reforms and the use of real politick concepts in the pursuit of our successful diplomatic engagement with Cuba and Iran.

The external agents which have become a dangerous and intoxicating influence on our foreign policy formulating approaches are primarily the dictatorial states of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, and the Apartheid regime of Israel.

Ironically, besides Turkey, the state of Iran, are the two most stable and rational states in the Middle East region and it is with those states that we must constructively engage.

Turkey is a modern, resourceful, moderate Sunni state, and Iran is a modern, resourceful, moderate Shiite state.     Both must be encouraged to engage constructively and creatively to cast aside any vestiges of Sunni-Shiite sectarianism and to engage diplomatically and politically with ALL warring factions in the Middle East to end ALL violence.  No exceptions.

The US must join fully the United Nations, work to reform and democratize its Permanent Security Council,  coordinate with the  European Union and work with Turkey and Iran to immediately bring to an end international law violations of Israel in illegally occupied Palestine by the imposition of the strictest boycott, divest, and sanction (BDS) policies on Israel and to bring an end of the international law violations of Saudi Arabia as it first invaded Bahrain on behalf of its dictatorship to oppress and defeat democracy activist there, and as it now has invaded, and is carrying out literal massacres on the population of Yemen, again to oppress democracy activist Houthis who happened to be Shiite.

Violence generates violence, and the more the U.S. uses air bombardments by piloted or non-piloted aircrafts the more Daesh violence it incites.  The same applies to Israel and Saudi Arabia, and of course to that other most egregious and degenerate dictatorship of General al-Sissi in Egypt where thousands of innocent members of the Moslem Brotherhood were murdered, where tenths of thousands of them have been imprisoned, after the overthrow of the only democratically elected government of President Morzi who has now been sentenced to death by a fake trial of the kind used to regularly condemn hundreds to death at a time, all the while when the U.S. is shamelessly further continues to send military aid to Egypt, Israel, and is involved in Saudi Arabian support – and while it still incongruously uses talk of freedom and democracy.

This writer can go on and on, but for the sake of brevity and to sum up, at this point this article introduces its readers to a former CIA Analyst, former National Security Council member, present Penn State professor whose name is Flynt Leverett.

Flynt Leverett is a highly principled, brilliant scholar, devoted – along with his wife – public servant who expresses what this writer is expressing, but only in much more concise and focused mode and professional background mode.

Flynt Leverett has written the book “Going to Iran” wherein he highlights the need for the U.S. to do more than succeed as it has in the P5+1 negotiations with Iran on the nuclear agreement.

He further underlines that the United States’ relationships with Israel and Saudi Arabia is now totally dysfunctional, so much so that it actually breeds violence in the region, particularly because it is clearly seen as the enabling agent of the open-ended invasions and occupations of Palestine by the revisionist Zionist regimes of Israel, just as the United States relationship with the autocratic regime of Saudi Arabia, which like Daesh, uses decapitation as a form of punishment for political so-called “crimes”, and which simultaneously has a private sector which funds extremist criminals.

Flynt Leverett also correctly points out that Iran has not carried out any military incursion into any country in the region for 250 years, has signed on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which Israel has not, does not posses nuclear weapons which Israel does as a result of the secret 1969 agreement between President Nixon and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meyer, not to mention Israel’s secret proliferation of the weaponization of nuclear energy to the white supremacist Apartheid regime of South Africa during the decade of the 80’s.

Also, Leverett contextualizes what slanderously is called the “spread of terrorism” by Iran but in reality is the support for Shiite communities in Lebanon to defend themselves against the Israeli invasions which have killed some 17 thousand while Israel was bombing Palestinian refugee camps there.  Hezbollah is part and parcel of Lebanese society and is a political movement and not a “terrorist organization”.  In fact the same can be said about Hamas which was democratically elected to power.

In conclusion, this writer must admit having been emotionally touched and extremely happy and having celebrating internally and with himself the victory of rationalism and
diplomacy and humanity in the negotiations between P5+1 and Iran.

Kudos to President Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry, Iranian President Rouhani, and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif.

The revisionist Zionists & the Republican neocons and sprinkling of so-called Democratic neoliberals, most notably Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey  who has been indicted on corruption charges, these are the real “axis of evil” members and they have now been exposed for the toxic fraud they have peddled in their feeble-minded efforts to undermine White House diplomacy and negotiations using tactics which are bizarre and border on the treasonous.

So, this writer ends this article by providing its readers with an interview of Flynt Leverett by the legendary Amy Goodman of the prestigious Democracy Now program.