“Go Home, Feltman!”

Diplomatic pressure, threats, sabotage, war: Washington’s expert in coup-creation tours the Middle East and is anything but welcomed.

During a recent trip through the Middle East, Jeffrey D. Feltman, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, is reported to have told his political discussion partners at a meeting in Beirut that they would be well advised to distance themselves from Syrian President Basher al-Assad because time was not on their side. Feltman is well known in Beirut. The former U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon has been exerting pressure on Prime Minister Najib Mikati in an effort to prevent his forming a new government. Lebanese newspapers report that Mikati has not only been warned that he risks sanctions against his country and his own personal wealth in the event that he forms a government critical of U.S. policies in the region, he might also call into question the U.N. special tribunal investigating the murder of Rafik Hariri. Then came a further warning: Feltman said that Lebanon would be isolated like Syria in the event that it supported President Assad, adding that Syria had the potential of being branded the North Korea of the Middle East.

Feltman also pressured western diplomats to put pressure on the United Arab Emirates to isolate Syria. The United States has an entire arsenal of weapons it can empower its diplomats and intelligence agents to use depending on any given situation. From political or economic blackmail to support of anti-government factions, sanctions, U.N. Security Council resolutions and on to covert sabotage and wars of aggression. Washington has no scruples when it comes to its role as the world’s policeman.

Jeffrey D. Feltman (born in 1959) has had a stellar career. He assumed the post of assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs in 2008. Prior to that, he served as Ambassador to Lebanon for four years. And prior to that, he lead the Coalition Provisional Authority office in Irbil, Iraq from 2003 to April 2004. The CPA bestowed massive corruption on Iraq in the wake of Saddam Hussein’s downfall and resulting religious discord. From 2001 to 2003, Feltman worked in the U.S. Embassy in Israel where he proved to be an unwavering supporter of the Zionist leadership elite ever since his first posting there from 1995 to 1998. He gained further experience in Haiti as vice-consul from 1986 to 1988. He has also served in Tunisia and Eastern Europe. The “rainbow revolutions” there, financed and advised by American non-governmental organizations and PR firms, are still touted today by Feltman to Arab countries as an example of a successful democratization strategy.

The former Saudi ambassador to the United States, Bandar bin Sultan, is a close friend of Feltman’s. WikiLeaks published U.S. diplomatic dispatches in which Feltman and Bandar hatched plots where rebels in Arab countries would either be bought off or toppled from power. The goal is a “New Greater Middle East” in which ethnic and religious groups would be supported against nationalist Arab policies. The plan originated in various U.S. and Saudi Arabian think tanks and was subsequently publicized by then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in 2006. Rice described the Israeli attack on Lebanon as the unavoidable “birth pangs of a new Middle East” and the situation in Iraq as “creative chaos.”

When Feltman flew into Tunis on Jan. 25, 2011, just a few days after dictator Ben Ali’s downfall, enraged demonstrators shouted slogans like “Go home, Feltman!” “USA, leave freedom to us!” and “Stay out of Tunisia Jeffrey D. Feltman!” Facebook posts raged against Feltman’s involvement in the Tunisian revolution saying things like, “We don’t want your creative chaos, we’re not Iraq!” and “We don’t have any oil, damn it, what do you want here?” On another thread someone wrote that they had done everything without America’s help, they wanted their own democracy, not America’s, adding that they had seen what America’s democracy looked like in Iraq and they didn’t want it in Tunisia.

Feltman has been crisscrossing the region for months, exploring possibilities for reestablishing lost contacts and finding reliable new allies. He has met with media representatives, politicians, diplomats and activists, trying to build trust and offering support in the creation and expansion of “social media networks,” assistance from American NGOs in organizing new elections, education and training for potential decision makers. Military, police, judges, attorneys: Everyone must attend the western school of democracy, and the European Union is going along with it.