Remember the Maine: To Hell With Spain. My Lai. Weapons of Mass Destruction. Saddam Hussein will kill us all. Evil Assad. Gadaffi’s viagra. We came, we saw, he died. Abu Ghraib. We tortured some folks.

The USA and her closest allies have committed the most unspeakable war crimes in every corner of the earth, their own included. Don’t even get me going on the Philippines where the USMC hunted their quarry down like mountain rabbits, made necklaces of their ears and sang about it over half a century later during their Vietnamese extermination campaign.

But what about Bucha and media outlets like SCF, which are on the sanctions’ naughty list. Let’s take Bucha first. Atrocities were committed in Bucha; that much is clear and agreed upon, as too as are the only suspects, the Russian army and the Ukrainian militias allied against them; that too is clear. Let’s take both suspects in turn.

Retreating or frustrated armies sometimes massacre at will; the British Army have done so in Kenya, India and Ireland and the Americans have done it in Texas, Wounded Knee, Vietnam and Iraq. Therefore, using the British and American armies as our metrics, it is possible the Russians, rogue Russians, to use the Anglo-Americans’ get out of jail card, are the culprits.

The Russians, in their defense, would argue that theirs was an orderly and tactical retreat, that there are major time and other discrepancies with NATO’s accounts and there is evidence that those who were executed were Russian sympathizers.

For me, the jury is still out. I simply do not know because NATO and their Irish lapdogs deny me the means to know. They even want to shut me up, as evidenced by their sanctioning of this very outlet.

Though I cannot be called for a witness over Bucha, I could help appropriate authorities with their inquiries into similar atrocities in Syria, which were timed to allow NATO, to coin NATO’s own arch war criminal Curtis LeMay, bomb Syria back into the Stone Age.

In a previous article, I cited Robert Stuart’s forensic work about one such atrocity. Though I could cite many more, suffice to say that the Tlass family, who are central players in Stuart’s expose and who are also high priests in the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist network, were discovering evidence of Assad’s weapons of mass destruction wherever they looked. They and their NATO sponsors wanted an excuse to bomb Syria back to LeMay’s Stone Age and Assad’s alleged use of biological weapons, despite the mountains of evidence to the contrary, was the contrived excuse.

Cui bono? Who gains by the atrocities NATO uncovers? Not Gadaffi’s Libya, which was destroyed and its wealth stolen. Not Saddam’s Iraq, which was destroyed, its museums and gold vaults ransacked and its wealth stolen. And not the heroes of the Syrian Arab Army, who, at incalculable cost, have been resisting American occupation and American proxies for over a decade.

So, who benefits from Bucha? The usual suspects, who oppose Russian sovereignty, and mutually beneficial trading relations between Russia, Ukraine and Germany. That much is clear. As regards who pulled the Bucha triggers, we can never know until there is a full, independent inquiry, a process NATO have opposed in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Latin America and a host of African countries just as they now oppose it in Ukraine.

When all the evidence in Libya, in Syria, in Abu Ghraib or in Bucha point to the usual NATO suspects, we should arrest and imprison their political and military top brass as the serial war criminals that they are. But, as NATO confesses to nothing, we cannot arrest them; they’ve even promised a LeMay on the Netherlands if their puppets ever dare think of indicting one of their butchers. They just deny and lie, deny and lie, deny, deny, deny. Remember the Maine!

As my own gut feeling is that Ukrainian militias committed the Bucha atrocities, I am already being called a Chechen apologist, just as NATO’a media have previously labelled me a dangerous extremist (The Sunday Times), a controversial academic who writes for a think-tank run by a Vladimir Putin ally (Mail on Sunday), an Assad apologist… on an Interpol watchlist (Mail on Sunday), an Assad and Putin apologist (James Bickerton, political editor of Backbencher), an alleged member of a Putin-linked policy group (Daily Mail), a dangerous Assad apologist (Sunday Express), an apologist for tyrant Bashar Assad (Marco Giannangeli, Sunday Express), a dangerous extremist (Sunday Express), a notorious Assad apologist (Order-Order, a notorious far-right Tory website) and on and on.

British MP (and former SAS death squad officer) Crispin Blunt believes “Hayes’ views on the merits of NATO and Western values, and the democratic freedoms that NATO seeks to protect, will not give any comfort to those whose duty it is to protect the UK,” and NATO chemical and biological weapons’ apologist Colonel Hamish de Bretton Gordon has opined that “The fact that the leader of the (British) opposition was getting advice from someone (Hayes) who is peddling the Russian story is worrying and distressing.”

Clearly then, despite my experience and qualifications and despite the fact not an iota of my testimony can be credibly refuted, I am not a good egg. As I even write for this publication, which is under sanctions, I best say some words on this further evidence I am Putin’s puppet before a Ukrainian hangman comes knocking at my heavily fortified door.

I have written what I want to here and, though I have penned some explanatory notes to the editors, there has been no editorial interference and nor has there been any suggestions of topics to opine on. I have been a free agent, working to my own open and very transparent agendas, which I even adumbrated in prior articles.

Rap Sheet

As my NATO critics would then retort I am a useful idiot, let’s look at the rap sheet against this outlet.

1. SCF “engaged in foreign interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election”.
2. SCF has “continued to make attempts to reach an audience.”
3. SCF posted content alleging that the United States was supporting Ukraine in order to “debilitate Russia.”
4. SCF media “spread many types of disinformation about international organizations, military conflicts, protests, and any divisive issues that they can exploit.”
5. One of the SCF’s main tactics is to publish Western fringe thinkers and conspiracy theorists, giving them wider reach, while trying to obscure the Russian origins of the journal. This tactic helps the site appear to be an organic voice within its target audience of Westerners.

Count 1 alleges that SCF tried to influence the U.S. Presidential elections where the CIA cancelled incumbent President Donald Trump from social media and banned the massive criminal activity in Ukraine of the challenger, Irish Joe Biden from being exposed. Given SCF’s very modest reach, these Russophobic charges are ridiculous and part of a wider NATO campaign of controlling and manipulating their war narratives. I would, however, welcome an informed, independent debate on this.

Counts 2 alleges that SCF tries to reach audiences. As that is what all sites try to do, the charge is laughably pathetic, all the more so if, like all media purportedly try to do, SCF is trying, as the rap sheet alleges, to hold NATO to account.

Count 3 alleges that SCF see the USA’s Ukrainian campaign as an attempt to debilitate Russia. Though NATO’s eastwards expansion and a host of articles, often from their own mouths, cataloguing the USA’s complicity in the Maidan coup and its efforts to stop Germany’s oil and gas co-operation with Russia show U.S. culpability at every turn, the USA continues its long record of denying and lying. Charge dismissed.

Count 4 charges SCF with spreading misinformation, perhaps the same types of misinformation that the USA employed to kickstart its direct and proxy wars with Spain, Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Libya, Syria and a host of Latin American countries. Although I would be happy to debate the USA anywhere on any of that, my own experience, as well as the evidence in front of all our eyes, is that the cancel culture of the USA and her proxies have closed down debate in all NATO’s media and university outlets. As the USA’s attacks on SCF and allied outlets follow that pattern, charge dismissed.

Though I earlier addressed count 5, a previous article of mine deliberately set out to destroy the oxymoronic conspiracy theory canard. Though there may be “fringe thinkers” writing for SCF, I am not aware of them, I am not one of them and it is not my role to identify, promote or defend them if they exist. My self-appointed role in all this is to put my own compasses in virtual print, my own small and almost insignificant contribution to building peace in our time and in times to come.

If I am involved in some perfidy here or elsewhere, then by all means debate me about it. If I have to be treated as a pariah, just as Jews objecting to joining Israel’s massively over-subscribed army are treated in Israel, that is ok as it would put me in good company.

The New Horizons group which, NATO’s Irish agents allege, got me to speak at one of their Tehran gatherings, might facilitate such a debate, even though, like so many others, they are under severe sanctions. Though I also allegedly conferred with some of Dugin’s Russian chums at that gathering, my main takeaway, which I relayed to the Iranian and Russian Ambassadors in Dublin, was of young Iranian women, who turned to me, imploring me to explain why everybody hates Iranians.

I certainly don’t hate Iranians because there is no mileage for me or interest in me in doing any such thing and, like many other visitors, I was struck by their friendliness (and good cooking). It is NATO, post Shah, that spreads that bile, the same hateful and bellicose bile it now spreads against Russia for the same sick reasons.

And then we have Putin and Asma Assad, today’s one dimensional James Bond villains. The caricature of Putin as an evil maniac who bathes in lambs’ blood and drinks all kinds of age-defying concoctions that would make Dracula wretch is funny, even though it is effective thanks to the West’s media, who feed unending streams of sport and porno to its docile men and whatever and whomsoever the British and American Royal Families are wearing or copulating with to their uncritical women.

And then we have the multicultural, multilingual cosmopolitan Asma Assad, Vogue Magazine’s Rose of the Desert before she went all Putin with baths in goats’ milk and new born babies’ blood. Give me a break.

Funny, ridiculous but very effective as these slurs are, outlets like SCF are needed to temper them and the deaths that emanate from them. That is my belief anyway. Here I stand. I cannot and will not do otherwise.

Not only do I share the controlled outrage of Russia’s former President Medvedev over how Russia’s Paralympians were treated but I would feel defiled if any of their tormentors came anywhere near me. However, I would relish the chance to debate them, preferably in Damascus, Moscow or Tehran.

But debate, which NATO’s censorship of SCF and hosts of other sites stifle, is not nearly enough. The graveyards of Damascus, Moscow and Tehran are full of those who were murdered as a result of the failure of NATO to choose war over dialogue and debate with those who represent their victims.

Because NATO’s shock and awe tactics, used so effectively to slaughter millions of Iraqis, has stalled in Ukraine, America is now tweaking its tactics for the same nefarious ends. Here in Ireland, as fully fledged Nazis continue to besiege their legation, four Russian diplomats are being expelled because Ireland’s secret service has recently determined they are spies.

Coincidentally, this is just when Germany, Lithuania and a host of America’s other European dependencies have discovered that vast numbers of Russian diplomats have also being spying on them and so they too are Moscow bound.

Dublin’s secret service should buy themselves a celebratory non-Russian vodka over that. This is the same secret service that was thoroughly infiltrated by the British Embassy as long ago in 1972 and that stands complicit in Dublin’s massive no-warning bombings, the biggest peace time bombings in either Britain or Ireland, that are still subject to government gagging orders, that occurred at that time and about which no debate is allowed, not even in the Irish Parliament, where Britain’s and now America’s secret service have long been represented.

This is the same Irish Parliament that the American funded Sinn Féin group want to make Russia’s Ambassador, before they ostentatiously expel him, listen to Ukraine’s president, a billionaire clown by profession, propound, for the umpteenth time, his scripted side of events.

Perhaps it is time to send in these NATO’s bankrolled clowns. After all, when George Galloway, a Scottish fox with a way with words, was let loose in Capitol Hill’s hen house, he had them all for breakfast when they tried to scapegoat him for their own war crimes in Iraq. Although Galloway indisputably won that round, NATO’s hucksters simply retreated and regrouped to fight anew in Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Syria and now Ukraine.

The simple truth of the matter is, whether Galloway says it, whether I say it, whether Southfront, New Horizons, SCF, the Queen of Sheba’s “Western fringe thinkers and conspiracy theorists” or one of Russia’s sanctioned cats say it, NATO cannot debate their crimes with anyone possessing Galloway’s linguistic proficiency and they cannot tolerate anyone from the Pope on his throne in Rome to the lowliest SCF scribe saying otherwise.

One only has to consider the plight of political prisoner Julian Assange to see the veracity of all that. Although Wikileaks still exists, whatever Chelsea Mannings are lurking in NATO’s long grass are all too aware of the Chinese kill the chicken maxim to pass on information to them. To spill the beans on NATO’s crimes is to join Assange in jail for an effective eternity.

As against that, Irish Catholic Bishop Donal Lamont, when faced with imprisonment by NATO’s Rhodesian regime, affirmed Dostoevksy’s Siberian experience that there is much to be said for the life of contemplation a prison cell offers; Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory express similar sentiments. NATO can ban, bully and block SCF but they cannot kill its message. The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice, the truth will out and the truth will set us free from NATO’s hellish forces.

The Ukraine war is setting new geopolitical precedents around the world, which is making it hard for analysts to draw up the usual ‘winners and losers’ listicle usually offered. China, without question is looking more like a winner when we consider not only the new deals it has struck both in Russia, buying up oil firms’ assets at bargain prices, but also setting a new paradigm for its relations with Washington which recently sent one of its top mandarins to threaten it, if it continued to assist Russia in its war in the Ukraine. It ignored Washington and has come out of the closet and backed Russia on many levels, firming up the triplet of eastern powers – Russia, China and India – and their positioning in the world’s economy even more.

And then there is Saudi Arabia, whose mercurial leader, the young crown prince called “MBS” has never really got over how Donald Trump abandoned him during a rather awkward baptism of opprobrium from the world’s press over the ghastly murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Fast forward to Joe Biden taking office and the Saudis didn’t lose anytime in opening up channels of diplomacy and cooperation brainstorming with Moscow, confident that when their own people’s uprising kicks off – and it will one day – that Russia might be there for them, as it was in Syria for Assad.

The Saudis are actually doing alright now with much higher oil prices and their relations with China improving every day. As a smack in the face from MBS to Biden, the former recently just ignored his calls to produce more oil as the midterms loom, which will be felt by the Democrats at the polls when votes are lost due to high energy prices blamed on Biden. It’s a similar story with Boris Johnson and MBS who recently sent the British leader away with a flea in his ear when he asked the Crown Prince for a better oil deal. So much for the special relationship with the very country that created the very family – Saud – which now owns what is now called Saudi Arabia. No prisoners, Boris.

With China, it’s a win-win. MBS gets revenge against the U.S. which still wants it to be a lap dog and accept the tenets of U.S. hegemony, while selling more oil to China, in Yuan which hits the U.S. even harder. China also gets to show the Americans that they really aren’t the superpower they think they are by dumping the dollar for oil sales and looking at the new ‘Eastern bloc’ model which is where really the whole Ukraine war is taking us.

A brutal and simple binary world, where everything is neatly divided into two groups, whose people and businesses are discouraged from crossing the line into one and other’s camp. Think new Cold War with Russia, China, India and most of Asia on one side with its own banking system which replaces Swift, its own internet and internet rules, own eBay, own Facebook, own currencies (including crypto) and a new world order which probably dumps U.S. weapons and banking altogether, as well as western energy markets.

But there will be casualties when the body bags are counted and an analysis done. Relations between Russia and Turkey are probably going to be very bad, certainly as long as Recep Erdogan remains in office as Putin is not going to forgive him for supplying deadly Turkish drones to the Ukrainian forces and closing the Bosporus – despite the charade of both countries foreign ministers’ meetings in Moscow. Other divisions will be notable within NATO and EU countries as it becomes clear that both these organisations have deeply rooted cultural and political problems both internally and across the board which simply don’t allow them to take on bold tasks when the moment is presented. The three eastern European countries presently visiting Ukraine will feel very let down by most other EU member states and NATO partners, when their fears are not adhered to. They will inevitably develop stronger ties with the Zelensky administration while becoming more acerbic towards Brussels and its authoritarian manner.

And the EU hardly come out well either. Some may ask, when peace finally comes and it will be the EU expected to bankroll at least 100 billion euros in reconstruction aid, could the EU have done something earlier to have prevented the escalation, given that it was Brussels as far back as 2004 which has been signalling to Ukraine to consider itself a candidate for membership. Let’s not forget also that part of the price of playing tough, the EU will have to accept that its own actions also have led to Moscow dumping euros as part of its cash reserves and using the Chinese clearing system for its banks more and more. We can certainly expect more division and in-fighting, as we saw earlier when EU member states couldn’t agree on the terms of Covid restructuring aid, when it is discussed how much money should go to Ukraine and Zelensky’s deeply corrupt business elite. Putin, in the meantime, has already won the war in Ukraine by Zelensky already conceding that he’s dumped the idea of NATO membership, which is a considerable blow to its credibility as an amalgamation of new countries join the Russia-China-India business/geopolitical bloc. Those who point to Putin and lamely accuse him of being a Soviet anachronism fail to see the irony of the West playing a big role in provoking him since the early nineties when the broken promises of NATOs expansion east begun. Or, for that matter, the Stalinist mentality behind the EU’s decision to cut off Russia’s media from the rest of the world which reminds me of Nazis burning books in the late 30s.

Four top foreign minster level diplomats from Qatar, Iran, Turkey and the UAE travelled to Moscow this week, in as many days, in an impressive display of strategic realignment by regional states against the backdrop of the US-Russia conflict unfolding over Ukraine.

The arrival in Moscow of the UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdullah bin Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan on Thursday is the most striking. This is happening within a fortnight of the country’s inclusion on 4 March in the Grey List of the global financial crime watchdog, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), due to alleged financial crimes. The FATF recommendations for the UAE include:

• Implementing a more robust system to collect case studies and statistics used in money laundering (ML) investigations;

• Demonstrating a sustained increase in effective investigations and prosecutions of different types of ML cases;

• Probing increase in the number and quality of suspicious transaction reports filed by financial institutions and other entities; and,

• Monitoring high-risk ML threats, such as proceeds of foreign predicate offences, trade-based ML, and third-party laundering.

The FATF is one of those tools of torture that the west has finessed in the international system to humiliate and punish developing countries whom it wants to teach a lesson or two. A cursory look at the countries figuring in the 22-member Grey List would reveal that the UAE shouldn’t really belong there — Albania, Burkina Faso, Haiti, South Sudan, Uganda, Yemen and so on.

But the west’s calculation is that the economy of a country gets affected in a negative manner when it figures on the Grey List — with international financial institutions starting to look at it as a risky nation for investment, which in UAE’s case also renders a lethal blow to its flourishing tourism industry.

Indeed, this happened under the watch of an American, Vincent Schmoll, who is holding interim charge as the acting FATF executive secretary since January. Schmoll used to be a functionary at the US Treasury. Conceivably, Washington’s writ runs large in this episode.

US-UAE relations have been experiencing some tumult during the past year. The trouble began soon after President Donald Trump’s departure from the White House. In January 2021, on Trump’s last full day in office, Abu Dhabi had signed a $23 billion agreement to buy 50 F-35 fighter jets, 18 Reaper drones, and other advanced munitions, but incoming President Joe Biden froze the deal as soon as he entered the Oval Office.

A number of factors might have influenced the Biden administration’s calculations, apart from the fact that the lucrative F-35 deal was a Trump legacy. As it transpired, in a delaying tactic, Washington began voicing serious concerns about the UAE-China relationship and the particularly strong economic ties developing between Abu Dhabi and Beijing. Notably, Washington wanted the UAE to put an end to a 5G contract with Chinese tech giant Huawei, which is the undisputed global leader in next-generation 5G technology.

Meanwhile, in addition to the Huawei issue, US intelligence agencies claimed to have discovered that Beijing was building what they thought to be a secret military facility at the Khalifa port in the UAE.

Emirati officials denied the allegation, but under pressure from Washington, were forced to halt the project, although the Persian Gulf states in general, and the UAE in particular, do not like being pushed to take sides between Washington and Beijing. They consider that their best interest lies in maintaining neutrality and balancing relations.

The end result, as everyone knows, was that much to the annoyance of Washington, Abu Dhabi finally hit back by opting for 80 Rafale combat aircraft from France in a deal worth over $20 billion last December.

Then came the bombshell in February with the sensational disclosure that the UAE has plans to order 12 L-15 light attack planes from China, with the option of purchasing 36 more. A UAE defence ministry statement said the purchase is part of the country’s efforts to diversify weapon suppliers. As an aside, the UAE air force operates mainly American-made F-16 and French-made Mirage fighters.

Only a week later, all hell broke loose when the UAE resisted American pressure and abstained (twice) on US-led Ukraine-related UN Security Council resolutions condemning Russia. Subsequent reports said that the Biden administration conveyed its displeasure to Abu Dhabi.

Soon after that, according to a Wall Street Journal report last week, Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan failed to take a call from Biden who apparently wanted to discuss the US expectation that the UAE would pump more oil into the market to bring down skyrocketing prices.

Yet another complicating factor is that the Biden administration blundered into the intra-Gulf rivalries by designating Qatar as a ‘Major Non-NATO Ally’ (MNNA). On 31 January, Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani became the first Persian Gulf leader to meet with Biden in the White House and media accounts of the visit highlighted a $20 billion deal for Boeing 777X freighter aircraft. Additionally, the emir met with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and discussed weapons sales.

Given this backdrop, Foreign Minister Abdullah Al-Nahyan’s arrival in Moscow couldn’t have been any less dramatic. The Russian side has divulged few details about the visit. The big question is whether any arms deal was been discussed.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made a statement that the talks covered “a wide range of issues related to our bilateral relations and international agenda. For obvious reasons, we paid a great deal of attention to the Ukrainian developments. We spoke in detail about the goals and objectives of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine to protect people from the Kiev regime, and to demilitarize and de-Nazify this country.”

The UAE foreign minister reportedly told Lavrov that his country aimed at further systematic development of relations with Russia and diversification of the areas of bilateral cooperation. In what was possibly an indirect swipe at the US sanctions aimed at isolating Russia from the world economy, Al-Nahyan said:

“It is always important for us to keep our finger on the pulse and make sure that relations between Russia and the UAE move forward. There is no doubt that we are aimed at the systematic development of these relations and the diversification of the areas of bilateral cooperation so that it meets the interests of both our citizens and state institutions and other structures.”

He stressed that the parties should strengthen cooperation on energy and food security. Clearly, the US cannot count on the support of the Persian Gulf region in its campaign to isolate Russia or to dismantle OPEC+ – an increasingly influential body consisting of the 13 OPEC members plus ten non-OPEC oil exporters, which is chaired by the largest producers Russia and Saudi Arabia. The Gulf countries are, one by one, seeking out Russia to signal their solidarity and register their own desire to shake off US hegemony.

Interestingly, last Tuesday, Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa had called Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss “topical issues of Russia‒Bahrain cooperation in politics, trade and the economy… (and) expressed the shared intention to further develop the friendly ties between Russia and Bahrain.” This, despite the fact that the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet and the US Naval Forces Central Command are based in Bahrain.

Such display of solidarity by the ‘non-western international community’ brings some vital nuance to the global geopolitical chessboard: for one, it makes a mockery of the western sanctions against Russia. The Gulf countries are avid ‘globalizers’ and trading nations — Dubai, in particular. As time passes, western companies are sure to find ingenious ways to trade with Russia via resourceful intermediaries in the Gulf region.

Abdullah Al-Nahyan’s trip to Moscow is a demonstrative act of defiance, both symbolically and strategically. It is a mark of the Persian Gulf region’s growing alienation from Washington. Reports suggest that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who travelled to both the UAE and Saudi Arabia this week to press for increased oil production to lower oil prices, also came back empty-handed.

Contrary to Washington’s hopes, there is every likelihood that the OPEC+ will continue to strengthen its strategic autonomy vis-a-vis the US. Previously, Russia used to be a voice of moderation within the group. This will have profound implications for the world oil market.

The high attention Russian diplomacy paid to the West Asian region in the recent decade is returning dividends, for sure. Russia offered its Persian Gulf interlocutors something they never experienced before with a great power – an equal partnership based on mutual respect.

thecradle.co

By As`ad ABUKHALIL

It is premature to determine the exact shape of the world in the wake of the Russian military intervention in the Ukraine. At the risk of repeating dreaded cliches, it is clear that the world order has been irrevocably altered. The post-cold war era is over, forever.

The U.S. established global supremacy after the collapse of the U.S.S.R. and ensured that NATO would form a security siege around Russia to keep it weak and vulnerable — and to maintain American hegemony throughout the continent. Never has America been challenged in such a direct and focused way as by Russia’s intervention in Ukraine.

The old rules that the U.S. imposed — by force — will be no more. While China has been cautious in expressing support for Russia in its official pronouncements, its media have been clear in refuting U.S. propaganda claims. The reverberations of the cataclysmic event will be felt for years to come and will affect regional and international conflicts.

The impact of the Russian-Ukrainian war will also be felt in the Middle East, which has a long history of involvement in the Soviet and Russian-U.S. rivalry.

Despite U.S. pressure, no Arab states are participating in the economic war on Russia by imposing sanctions, joining most of Latin America and Africa, as well as Iran, India, Pakistan and China. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have resisted U.S. pressure to pump more oil to make up for the U.S. ban on Russian oil imports.

Most significantly, Riyadh is in talks with China to trade some of its oil in yuan, which would deal a blow to the U.S. dollar that is used in 80 percent of world oil sales. Until now, the Saudis have exclusively used the dollar.

Moscow is trying to defeat the West’s ferocious economic assault on Russia by creating a separate economic and financial system with China. Arab nations could play an important part in it, effectively turning their backs on the U.S. (In a sign of the Gulf’s coolness to Washington, The Wall Street Journal, for instance, reported that Emirati and Saudi leaders have refused to take Biden’s phone calls.)

Background to Geopolitical Shift

U.N. Security Council approving no fly zone in Libya, March 2011. (C-Span screenshot)

The shape of international relations was shaken in 2011 with the passage of U.N. Security Council resolution 1973, which was limited to setting up a no-fly zone to protect civilians in Libya supposedly in danger of a massacre at the hands of Libyan leader Moamar Qadhafi. (A British parliamentary report later found there were no such threats and was based on inaccurate intelligence and “erroneous assumptions.”)

The resolution did not permit ground forces to enter Libya. The language was clear. It said the Security Council:

“Decides to establish a ban on all flights in the airspace of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya in order to help protect civilians. [and] AuthorizesMember States that have notified the Secretary-General, acting nationally or through regional organizations or arrangements, and acting in cooperation with the Secretary-General, to take all necessary measures … to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, including Benghazi, while excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory. ”

Despite these limitations, the U.S. and NATO took the resolution to mean a license for NATO to overthrow a government that the U.S. had long complained about. It didn’t matter that the Libyan dictatorial regime was cooperating with the U.S. in the years leading up to its overthrow. Then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had even met the chief of Libya’s secret police, who happened to to be the ruler’s son.

Russia, ruled at the time by President Dmitry Medvedev, abstained on the resolution, as had China. Both countries had evidently believed the mission would be restricted to the non-fly zone. Vladimir Putin, who was prime minister at the time, was reportedly furious with Medvedev over the abstention.

After it became clear NATO was violating the resolution by overthrowing Qadhafi, China and Russia, both veto holders, were determined to change the course of the Security Council to prevent the U.S. from again using it as cover for military interventions and regime change. The U.S. started to lose its undisputed global supremacy at that point.

Moscow and Beijing were both building up their military capabilities and were becoming more assertive on the international stage. Fearful of changes in the global configuration of power, the Biden administration incorporated strong language into its National Security Strategy (issued by successive administrations) to make clear U.S. rejection of any competition from Russia and China. (Biden’s strategy complained about Chinese assertiveness. (How dare any country but the U.S. be assertive in the world?) It is one thing for the U.S. to insist on global supremacy and another to guarantee it without a cost in blood and money.

Russia, in fact showed its assertiveness four years after the Libya resolution when Russia intervened to support the Syrian regime.  Putin at the General Assembly asked the U.S. to join Moscow in the fight, an offer the U.S. rejected.

Middle East Reverberations

Dubai: A safe haven for Russian billionaires? (Robert Bock/Wikimedia Commons)

In the Middle East, the effects of the new global conflict have already reverberated within U.S. client regimes, many of whom also have good relations with Russia. The United Arab Emirates is one of those U.S. clients. Washington supplies it with advanced military technology, (despite its abysmal human rights record). In return, the UAE works with the U.S., recently establishing a strong alliance with Israel. The U.S. rewarded the UAE with the sale of advanced fighter jets.

And yet the UAE abstained on a March 3 Security Council resolution condemning Russia’s actions in Ukraine that was vetoed by Russia, while it voted in favor of a General Assembly resolution saying the same thing. Now the UAE, and especially Dubai, is being seen as a refuge for Russian billionaires who have been heavily sanctioned by the West.

Gulf countries like the UAE are caught between their complete loyalty to the U.S. and their increasing closeness to the Russian government, especially as they lament what they regard as American retrenchment from the Middle East. Many Gulf despots are still unhappy that the U.S. let Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Zein Abidin Bin Ali on Tunisia fall during the 2011 Arab uprisings.

Only Qatar among the Gulf countries took a strong stance in support of Ukraine, but has not joined the economic war against Russia. Qatar’s emir was recently welcomed in the Oval Office and the country was awarded the status of “major non-NATO ally.” Furthermore, the U.S. wants Qatar to fill the gap of Europe’s gas needs in the wake of sanctions on Russian gas sales (it is curious that the White House worked with Qatar on that before the first Russian soldier moved towards Ukraine.)

US Consensus Fractured

Chinese and Russian presidents meeting in Beijing, 2019. (Chinese MFA)

The U.S. will no longer achieve a consensus in the world according to its own interests. While China is neither prepared, nor willing, to challenge U.S. foreign policy head-on for now, its cooperation and treaties with U.S. foes (Iran chiefly) is an indication that China is planning to operate in a world not subject to U.S. dictates.

Chinese government statements during the crisis have been cautious, but social media in China and Chinese diplomats’ pronouncements via social media have been squarely sympathetic to the Russian stance. China has increased economic ties with Russia to soften the blow of the sanctions, including allowing Russia to use its UnionPay system to replace Western credit cards.

Russia’s ejection from the SWIFT international banking system has seen Russia rely on it own System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS) and that may be linked to China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS). Russia has begun making payments to China in renminbi, weakening the dollar as the world’s premier currency. The blowback effects on the West of its economic war is leading to separate economic and financial systems that is fracturing U.S. global dominance.

Gulf regimes, and other developing countries, will adjust to a new world where the power configuration is changing. It is no longer the world the U.S. shaped after the Cold War.

Russia doesn’t have America’s power or influence. But Russia is an influential regional actor; its role in Syria in support of the Syrian regime showed its ability to shore up a weak regime and to operate free of U.S. plots to overthrow Bashar al-Assad. Gulf governments are already planning for a world in which the U.S. is less militarily assertive than before. Toward that end, the UAE established its strong alliance with Israel.

Impact on Arab-Israeli Conflict

Gulf regimes aren’t favored in Washington quite the same way Israel is. Israel followed the U.S., expressing support for Ukraine. It can’t afford to antagonize the Biden administration in the wake of the damage to its image during the Obama-Netanyahu era.

The Russian-Ukrainian crisis will undermine U.S. and E.U. rhetoric on the Arab-Israeli conflict. It won’t be easy to sell the so-called peace-process after the West adamantly refusing to support diplomacy between Russia and Ukraine, while the U.S. preaches strict pacifism for Arabs in the face of decades of Israeli occupation and aggression.

After the first two days of conflict, some 30 countries sent advanced missiles and arms to Ukraine and championed the right of resistance. Palestinians, on the other hand, are denied even the right to peaceful resistance. The U.S. and Europe have gone so far as to ban BDS (boycott, sanctions, and divestment in Israel) while wielding sanctions around the world. How can Palestinians ever take seriously Western insistence that their struggle against occupation should never resort to violent means?

The world we live in is changing, and the Russian intervention in Ukraine will not be confined to Ukraine, or even to Europe. The U.S. is learning that the world is slipping from its hands. It won’t tolerate it.

It will resort to force in its attempt to maintain its grip over humanity. Violent conflicts are very likely to now dominate our world.

consortiumnews.com

Boris Johnson’s words themselves may be prolific. He said at a conference on 19^th of February in Munich that a Ukraine invasion would “echo” around the world while asking for Europe to take a united stand against Russia. In fact, the Ukraine crisis, without even one Russian soldier entering Eastern Ukraine, is having quite an impact already simply due to the media bandwidth it has taken, depriving other big stories the oxygen they deserve – particularly affecting the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA).

These countries, certainly in the GCC region, are benefitting from the Ukraine standoff as the heat is taken off them. In particular the UAE and Saudi Arabia have been given a get-out-of-jail-free card by western media in the latter’s abandonment of Yemen, a bloody senseless war there which has wiped out generations and left the rest with starvation and whose gruesome images used to fill TV screens and mainstream media’s print and online portals. But no more.

In fact, sceptics might even go further and argue that in the case of Saudi Arabia, it would appear that its mercurial young crown prince has actually taken full advantage of the media blackout on Yemen by ploughing ahead with his reforms which include the banning of Mosque loudspeakers, significantly reducing hours spent on Islamic education and Arabic language in the national curriculum and even allowing bikini beaches in Jeddah. The hope presumably is that at some point western media will return to the region and notice such changes and start to feature them in their reporting.

But there might be a long wait.

Remarkably, Putin’s standoff with the West might go on for some time, even if there is no invasion as such. In the meantime, for many of the elite which make up countries in the region who are fearing another Arab Spring, the limited media attention given to Yemen is interesting. But it is Justin Trudeau’s extraordinary authoritarian behaviour in Canada against peaceful truckers who wish to protest which will have ramifications in the Arab world. Not only will Arab leaders note that also the press coverage is limited as is the opprobrium from the normal so-called experts in Washington and London, but that they now have the green light from the West to replicate anti-democratic measures all in the name of the sanctity of the state and woe betide Canada for criticising KSA’s human rights record as it did previously when it demanded the release of Saudi Blogger Raif Badawi in 2018.

Trudeau has truly shocked the world with his arbitrary move to criminalise the protests and has set a template for the Middle East and Africa to follow suit.

Indeed in Africa, tyrannical, brutal regimes will not doubt note how the Ukraine crisis and the media attention it has attracted has caused almost a media blackout on authoritarian power grabs in Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea, western satellites which, in the case of Mali at least, have fallen into the hands of Moscow simply by its association with Wagner mercenaries. The very real fear that African dictators have which impacts their ability to scrounge aid from the World Bank and the IMF is press coverage itself from the media giants. When that line of communication is closed down, there’s no telling how African countries’ elites will react. There may well be a domino effect which will take many with it as it sweeps across the region, while the EU remains a impotent spectator to the winds of change.

And in the EU itself, Poland is no longer alone in being seen as the rude boy in the class who might be expelled from the club, or rather leaves unceremoniously. Others, like Hungary, are now falling victim to EU laws which challenge their constitutions and place them on a collision course with the maniacs in Brussels who cannot see how they are digging their own graves with their bellicose language and ultimatums. A recent study by the EU revealed that MEPs themselves are asking for a special slush fund of billions of euros to head off the next anti-EU referendum which is sending some EU leaders into a panic as many believe that one more EU member to follow Britain might be the end of the project as we know it.

None of these stories are getting any real traction or attention by journalists who are either heading to Ukraine or have turned all their attention to the tensions in their copy and left these subjects aside. Is this what Boris Johnson meant when he warned leaders in Munich about the consequences echoing around the world?

By Yeghia TASHJIAN

By Philip GIRALDI

The drama currently unfolding in which the Biden Administration is doing everything it can to provoke a war with Russia over Ukraine is possibly the most frightening foreign policy misadventure since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and the 1967 Lyndon Johnson attempt to sink the USS Liberty and blame it on Egypt, either of which could have gone nuclear. I can well recall the Robert Heinlein sci-fi book The Puppet Masters, later made into a movie, which described how alien-slugs, arriving by way of a flying saucer landing in Iowa, invaded the earth and parasitically attached themselves to the central nervous systems of humans and became able to completely control their minds. What the humans know, they know. What the slugs want, no matter what, the human will do. And the tale gets really scary in geopolitical terms when some Secret Service Agents are “occupied” by the invaders and they are thereby poised to capture the President of the United States. I would point out that the movie came out when Bill Clinton was president, which should have provoked some concerns about whether it was fact or fiction.

Well, does anyone currently wonder why I think of The Puppet Masters when an incoherent Joe Biden in particular makes a speech? And also consider the befuddled look of Secretary of State Tony Blinken or the bewildered expressions of Vice President Kamala Harris or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, all of which might also suggest that the slugs now completely control the Administration. The Biden and Blinken possibly slug-controlled automatons are now stating their conviction, based on no evidence whatsoever, that Russia is about to invade Ukraine and they are threatening sanctions like Putin “has never seen before.” There will no doubt be more slug-derived pronouncements to reinforce that warning in the next few days after the latest round of talks breaks down. Evacuation of US Embassy staff families in Kiev is already underway, deliberately escalating rather than attempting to defuse the crisis which could lead to nuclear war, destroying the human race and replacing it with the alien slugs.

Consider for a moment the inconsistencies and sheer contradictions in US foreign policy, which might support the credibility of the alien slug theory. The State Department’s management of foreign relations is supposed to serve the interests of the American people, but has not actually done so for decades. Can anyone explain why Washington’s foreign policy during the decade 2010 to 2020 constantly hammered at Russia, which, if anything, should have been the one country with which the US would seek to have a respectful relationship. Where is the logic in condemnation of Russia’s non-violent annexation of the Crimea, which was carried out based on a long-term historic relationship and a popular referendum, while also enabling “allies” like Israel’s illegal occupation and annexation of both Palestinian and Syrian land which has relied on force majeure to drive hundreds of thousands of local inhabitants from their homes. And then there are the Saudis using American made weapons to terrorize and kill the people of Yemen. Slug Biden is now considering aiding the murderous Saudi onslaught by declaring Yemen’s Houthis to be terrorists, legitimizing their slaughter.

Even if one rejects the alien slug theory, at a minimum, there has been a great deal of hypocrisy in terms of how Washington deals with the rest of the world and that has been increasingly the case under both Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Targeting and killing civilian populations and permanently driving them from their homes are, by the way, unambiguously war crimes and the United States is signatory to the Geneva Conventions that define the Israeli and Saudi actions as such. Israel, which claims a form of perpetual victimhood thanks to the so-called holocaust narrative, is the only nuclear power in the Middle East, though its arsenal is regarded as so secret that US government officials are not allowed to mention it, possibly another indication of alien slug control. It uses that advantage to carry out undeclared open and covert warfare against its neighbors, most notably targeting Syria and Lebanon as presumed proxies for its number one designated enemy Iran. Saudi Arabia for its part does not seem to care at all regarding the devastation it is delivering on the largely defenseless Yemenis.

Israel goes far beyond the actions of any other belligerent nation in the world, and the US is the only nation that even comes close, as recent reports regarding a particularly reckless bombing in Syria suggest. Israel, often with American complicity, engages in covert sabotage and assassination operations inside Iran, which have been sometimes reported, though hardly condemned, in the mainstream Western media. Less well covered are the more-or-less routine bombing attacks conducted against Syria, frequently also violating Lebanese airspace when the Israeli jets stand off in the Mediterranean Sea to fire their missiles at the Syrian targets. It should be noted that attacking a nation with which one is not at war and which poses no direct threat is also a war crime, in this case a war crime that the Israeli and Saudi governments repeat on a regular basis without any objection coming from Washington, which itself has attacked Syria on at least four occasions while also illegally stationing troops inside the country to “protect” its oilfields.

A recent devastating attack by Israel on Syrian targets consisted of a missile strike launched by Israeli air force planes against the Mediterranean port of Latakia on December 28^th. Israel’s attack on Latakia has to a certain extent shifted the focus of the war on Syria being conducted by Israel and the United States and their Gulf allies including the UAE and Saudi Arabia. In the past, the port was protected by its proximity to the major Russian base at Tartus in Syria and the actual presence of some Russian personnel assisting in Latakia ship cargo unloading operations, which threatens to bring Moscow more directly into the conflict. And as Washington is Israel’s enabler that will no doubt lead to US involvement in the UN and other fora if any attempts are made to limit or even condemn the Israeli actions. The situation is nasty and threatens to explode if Israel stages a false flag attack intended to lead to demands for direct military action by the US, a concern that some outside the Biden Administration have expressed.

What is particularly disturbing is the fact that while Israel and the Saudis continue to do their best to engage the United States in their own quarrels in the Middle East, President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Tony Blinken do nothing but look the other way so as not to annoy the Israeli leaders and their powerful domestic lobby in the US. At the same time, they unnecessarily provoke a nuclear armed and capable Russia and an emerging superpower China, both of which are regularly demonized both in the media and by leading politicians from both parties. The actions taken together are so irrational as to suggest that Robert Heinlein knew what he was writing about.

And then there is what might be described as the “hidden hand.” It should be observed that many of those US politicians and government officials most keen on baiting Russia are strong and vocal supporters of Israel. Many are neocons, who have penetrated the foreign and national security teams of both political parties and are dominant in the media while also having close ties to the Israeli government. Most of them are Jewish, to include all four of the top officials in the Department of State, while prominent politicians in both political parties, to include the president, have self-described as Zionists. For various reasons, many in the Jewish diaspora have a visceral hatred of Russia, so Israel in an odd way is part of the war party machinations to provoke an armed conflict over Ukraine.

That America is Israel’s poodle and both Russia and China are considered fair game to score political points is really the crux of the matter and it makes Americans complicit in Israeli crimes as Washington provides both arms and money as well as political cover to Jerusalem. It also reduces major US national interests involving Moscow and Beijing to sideshows and in so doing turns American national security on its head, supporting the unspeakable to make political points and ignoring what is important. One might even suggest that never before in history has a great nation so enthusiastically pursued policies that could easily lead to its own destruction. It is not in our interest, or even our survival, to continue along this path and it is past time that the politicians and bureaucrats begin to recognize that fact. Or maybe I should instead be addressing my advice to that alien-slug mothership hidden somewhere in a corn field in Iowa.

unz.com

By Pepe ESCOBAR

The official visit to Russia by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, at the invitation of Vladimir Putin, generated one of the most stunning geopolitical pics of the 21st century: Raisi performing his afternoon prayers at the Kremlin.

Arguably, more than the hours of solid discussions on geopolitical, geoeconomic, energy, trade, agriculture, transportation and aerospace dossiers, this visual will be imprinted all across the Global South as a fitting symbol of the ongoing, inexorable process of Eurasian integration.

Raisi went to Sochi and Moscow ready to offer Putin essential synergy in confronting a decaying, unipolar Empire increasingly prone to irrationalism. He made it clear at the start of his three hours of discussions with Putin: our renewed relationship should not be “short-term or positional – it will be permanent and strategic.”

Putin must have relished the torrents of meaning inbuilt in one of Raisi’s statements of fact: “We have been resisting the Americans for more than 40 years.”

Yet, much more productive, was “a document on strategic cooperation” between Iran and Russia that Raisi and his team presented to Russian officials.

Raisi emphasized this road map “can determine the prospect for at least 20 years ahead,” or at least clarify “the long-term strategic interaction between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Russian Federation.”

Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian confirmed that both presidents tasked their top diplomats to work on the roadmap. This is, in fact, an update of a previous 20-year cooperation treaty signed in 2001, originally meant to last for 10 years, and then twice extended for five years.

A key item of the new 20-year strategic partnership between the two neighbors is bound to be a Eurasian-based clearing network designed to compete with SWIFT, the global messaging system between banks.

Starting with Russia, Iran and China (RIC), this mechanism has the potential to unite member-nations of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), ASEAN, BRICS and other regional trading/security organizations. The combined geoeconomic weight of all these actors will inevitably attract many others across the Global South and even Europe.

The basis already exists. China launched its Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) in 2015, using the yuan. Russia developed its System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS). To build an independent Russian-Chinese financial system by linking the two should not be a problem. The main question is to choose the standard currency – possibly the yuan.

Once the system is up and running, that’s perfect for Iran, which badly wants to increase trade with Russia but remains handicapped by US sanctions. Iran has already signed trade agreements and is involved in long-term strategic development with both Russia and China.

The new roadmap

When Amir-Abdollahian described Raisi’s visit to Russia as a “turning point in the policy of good neighborliness and looking to the East,” he was giving the short version of the roadmap followed by the new Iranian administration: “a neighbor-centered policy, an Asia-centered policy with a focus on looking to the East, and an economy-centered diplomacy.”

In contrast, the only ‘policy’ de facto deployed by the collective West against both Russia and Iran is sanctions. Nullifying these is therefore on top of the agenda for Moscow and Tehran. Iran and the EAEU already have a temporary agreement. What they need, sooner rather than later, is to become full partners in a free trade area.

While Amir-Abdollahian praised the resolution of disputes with neighbors, such as Iraq and Turkmenistan, and a reconfiguration of the diplomatic chessboard with Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE, and even Saudi Arabia, President Raisi – in addressing the Duma – chose to detail complex foreign plots to dispatch networks of Takfiri terrorists to “new missions from the Caucasus to Central Asia.”

As Raisi said, “experience has shown that only pure Islamic thought can prevent the formation of extremism and Takfiri terrorism.”

Raisi was unforgiving on the Empire: “The strategy of domination has now failed, the United States is in its weakest position, and the power of independent nations is experiencing historic growth.” And he certainly seduced the Duma with his analysis of NATO:

“NATO is engaged in penetration into the geographical spaces of various countries under the pretext of cover. Again, they threaten independent states. The spread of the Western model, opposition to independent democracies, opposition to the self-identification of peoples – this is precisely on the agenda of NATO. It is only a deception, we see the deception in their behavior, which will eventually lead to their disintegration.”

Raisi’s main theme is ‘resistance,’ and that was imprinted in all of his meetings. He duly emphasized the Afghan and Iraqi resistances: “In modern times, the concept of resistance plays a central role in deterrence equations.”

The Islamic Republic of Iran is all about that resistance: “In different historical periods of Iran’s development, whenever our nation has raised the banner of nationalism, independence, or scientific development, it has faced sanctions and pressures of the Iranian nation’s enemies,” Raisi emphasized.

On the JCPOA, with the new round of negotiations in Vienna for all practical purposes still bogged down, Raisi said, “the Islamic Republic of Iran is serious about reaching an agreement if the other parties are serious about lifting the sanctions effectively and operationally.”

University of Tehran Professor Mohammad Marandi, now in Vienna as a high-level advisor to the Iranian delegation, compares his experience with the original JCPOA negotiations in 2015, when he was an observer. Marandi notes that as far as the Americans are concerned, “it’s the same mentality. We’re the boss, we have special privileges.”

He stresses that “a deal is not imminent.” The Americans refuse to provide guarantees: “The main problem is the scope of the sanctions, they want to keep many of them in place. In fact, they don’t want the JCPOA. Basically, it’s the same attitude as during Trump.”

Marandi offers practical solutions. Remove all maximum pressure sanctions. Accept “a reasonable verification process if you have no intention of cheating Iranian people again.” Provide assurances so “Iranians know you won’t violate the deal again. Iran won’t accept threats or deadlines during negotiations.” It’s unlikely the Americans will ever accept any of the above.

The contrast between the Raisi and Rouhani administrations is stark: “In the hope of getting something from the West, the previous administration wasted serious opportunities with both China and Russia. Now it’s a completely different story,” says Marandi.

The Chinese angle is quite intriguing. Marandi notes how Amir-Abdolliahan has just returned from China; and how the only nation in West Asia that the Chinese can reliably depend on is Iran. That is inbuilt in their 20-year strategic deal, many positive facets of which should be adopted by the Russia-Iran mechanism.

The lineaments of a new world

The gist of Raisi’s exposé to the Duma is that Iran has been winning battles on two different fronts: against Salafi-jihadi terrorism and against the American campaign of maximum economic pressure.

And that places Iran in a very good position as a Russian partner, with its “extensive economic potential, especially in the fields of energy, trade, agriculture, industry and technology.”

On its geoeconomical position, Raisi noted how “the privileged geographical location of Iran, especially in the north-south corridor, can make trade from India to Russia and Europe less expensive and more prosperous.”

Way back in 2002, Russia, Iran and India signed an agreement to establish the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC), a 7,200 km multi-modal ship/rail/road cargo network linking India, Iran, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Russia and Central Asia all the way to Europe as an alternative transportation corridor to the Suez Canal. Now Putin and Raisi want maximum impetus for the INSTC.

Raisi’s visit happened just before a crucial joint drill, codenamed  ‘2022 Marine Security Belt,’ started in the Sea of Oman, actually the north of the Indian Ocean, with marine and airborne units of the Iranian, Chinese and Russian navies.

The Sea of Oman connects to the ultra-strategic Strait of Hormuz, which connects to the Persian Gulf. Pentagon denizens of the ‘Indo-Pacific’ strategy will be hardly amused.

All of the above spells out deeper interconnection. The Putin-Raisi meeting precedes by two weeks the Putin-Xi meeting at the start of the Winter Olympics in Beijing – when they are expected to take the Russia-China strategic partnership to the next level.

A new Eurasia-led order encompassing the vast majority of the world’s population is a work in fast progress. China using Eurasia as the larger stage to upgrade its global role, in parallel to the fast-evolving Sino-Russian-Iranian interaction, carries larger than life implications for the Western gatekeepers of the imperial ‘rules-based order.’

The de-Westernization of globalization, from a Chinese point of view, does involve a completely new terminology (‘community of shared destiny’). And there are hardly more glaring examples of ‘shared destiny’ than its deeper interconnection with both Russia and Iran.

One of the crucial geopolitical questions of our time is how an emergent, supposedly Chinese hegemony will articulate itself. If actions speak louder than words, then Sino-hegemony looks loose, malleable and inclusive, starkly different to the US variety. For one, it concerns the absolute majority of the Global South, which will be involved and vocal.

Iran is one of the leaders of the Global South. Russia, deeply implicated in de-Westernizing global governance, holds a unique position – diplomatically, militarily, as an energy provider – as the special conduit between East and West: the irreplaceable Eurasian bridge, and the guarantor of Global South stability.

All of that is at play now. It is no wonder that the leaders of the three main Eurasian powers are meeting and holding discussions in person, within just a matter of days.

As the Atlanticist axis drowns in hubris, arrogance, and incompetence, welcome to the lineaments of the Eurasian, post-Western world.

thecradle.co

By Giorgio CAFIERO

Marking a major boost to Sino-Syrian relations, on 12 January, Syria joined the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s ambitious infrastructure development strategy stretching from East Asia to Europe.

For analysts with an eye on Syria, the development was expected. In November 2021, President Bashar al-Assad discussed his country gaining membership in the BRI with his counterpart in Beijing, Xi Jinping, following high-level meetings between officials of both states in previous months.

The move will likely help Syria deepen its cooperative and economic ties to other countries in the BRI, and enable it to circumvent the effects of harsh US sanctions on the country.

China clearly seeks to bolster the government in Damascus. Over the past decade, and for various reasons enumerated here on The Cradle, conflict-ridden Syria has been a country of increasing interest to Beijing.

Economy and the long game

China’s BRI agenda has been one main point of mutual interest: As Beijing sees it, Syria represents a corridor to the Mediterranean Sea which bypasses the Suez Canal and revives ancient trade routes connecting China to the African and European continents.

The incorporation of coastal Tartus and the capital city of Damascus into the BRI could boost Beijing’s economic footing in the Levant and Mediterranean.

Although nearly 11 years of warfare in Syria have prevented the Chinese from leveraging the Arab state’s geostrategic location to advance Beijing’s BRI, China’s leadership has carefully focused on playing the long game.

Now, in the post-conflict era, with Syria in need of massive reconstruction and infrastructure projects, China’s BRI has been brought into play.

Ancient links and modern opportunities

As a BRI member, Syria will look to further integrate itself economically into West Asia. In desperate need of foreign investment for the process of redevelopment, the Syrian leadership views China as a key investor and partner to rebuild the war-ravaged nation.

Importantly, during this period, China’s good will has grown among Syrians, in large part because of Beijing’s bold initiatives to thwart direct western military intervention at the UN Security Council and other institutions.

It is safe to assume that China will, at least eventually, be able to leverage its popularity among Syrians to take advantage of new economic opportunities in the country’s post-conflict future.

At the ceremony of Syria’s admission into the BRI, held this month in Damascus, Fadi Khalil, who heads Syria’s Planning and International Cooperation Commission, hailed the initiative. He invoked the historic roles of Aleppo and Palmyra in the ancient Silk Road and spoke about the potential for future Sino-Syrian relations within the framework of greater bilateral and multilateral cooperation.

Khalil and Feng Biao, Beijing’s ambassador to Syria, signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Syria’s admission into this Chinese initiative, which other Middle Eastern countries, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, have previously joined at different levels of commitment.

Other recent developments underscore the extent to which Syria and China are deepening their ties. At the start of this year, Beijing aided Syria by sending over more than a million COVID-19 vaccine doses, according to Syrian state-owned media.

Despite the many ways in which Syria sees itself benefitting from membership in the BRI, the West Asian framework for this project will be no bed of roses.

A geographic wrench in the works

For Beijing, it is important that Iraq establish a long-term BRI corridor to both Syria and Jordan. While the BRI route between Iran and Syria – that traverses Iraq – has yet to be agreed upon with Baghdad, the Chinese must have many valid concerns about the security risks of doing business in Syria and Iraq.

China recognizes that “Iraq continues to top the list of high-risk investment destinations” in this grandiose project. Obviously, the same can be said about Syria where ISIS and other extremist militants continue to wage acts of terrorism, notably on the country’s borders with Iraq and Turkey.

With serious issues stemming from terrorism, social unrest, economic woes, and violent political instability, Iraq and Syria are two countries plagued by countless security uncertainties.

Although Chinese firms tend to accept higher levels of security risks than western companies, securing the BRI in Syria’s volatile neighborhood will prove no easy task for Beijing and its West Asian trade partners.

A far more stable and secure BRI economic corridor to Europe would be via northern Iran – a route already secured – then extending directly from Iran into Turkey. Yet the ice-cold state of Ankara-Damascus relations, China’s view of Turkey as an uneasy BRI partner, and NATO pressures on Ankara to avoid Beijing and Tehran, all contribute to practical challenges that will not be easy for the BRI’s financiers to quickly overcome.

But the Sino-Syrian deal this week shows that China is moving forward with its West Asian framework, despite these obstacles. One wonders whether Beijing has reason to believe Iraq’s acquiescence to the BRI is already in the bag. There is little point of developing the Syrian part of the project, without the Iraqi bridge necessary to secure Iran’s connectivity to Syria.

Washington’s reconstruction obstacle: The Caesar Act

On 17 July, 2020, the US began implementing the most sweeping sanctions which Washington has ever imposed on Syria.

Formally known as the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019 (or Caesar Act), the Biden administration continues to target Syria with Trump-era sanctions which pursue entities or individuals worldwide – including third-party actors – conducting business with government-dominated bodies of the Syrian economy, such as gas, oil, construction, engineering, and banking.

When China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Damascus in July 2021, he met with Assad and other high-ranking Syrian government figures.

That visit by Beijing’s top diplomat was an early indication of China’s seriousness about strengthening ties with Syria, despite Washington’s continued imposition of wide-ranging sanctions on the state.

During his visit to Syria, Wang emphasized his government’s staunch opposition to the foreign-backed ‘regime change’ agenda targeting the Assad government. Beijing frames its pro-Assad stance within the context of supporting Syria’s sovereignty as an independent nation-state.

Throughout the past 11 years of warfare in Syria, China has maintained four core beliefs on the conflict: First, that the Syrian people need to reach a political solution; second, that a political transition in Syria is necessary; third, that top priorities include nation-wide reconciliation and unity; and fourth, that the international community has an obligation to help Syria.

The BRI, while initiated and heavily financed by the Chinese, is ultimately a multinational project involving dozens of countries, many of them US-allied, and interconnected with Syria via history, religion, culture, and economy – past and present.

A project this global is unlikely to come to a grinding halt because of a domestic US government ruling on trade formulated thousands of miles away from the activity.

Fighting terrorism in Syria and China

Another issue that has driven the Beijing-Damascus joint agenda in recent years is China’s ‘securitization campaign’ or ‘pacification drive’ in Xinjiang.

Assad’s government has publically condemned western efforts to use the plight of Uighurs for the purpose of creating a wedge between China and Muslim-majority countries.

Syria, like most Arab-Islamic countries, has defended Beijing in the face of the US and other western governments which allege that Chinese authorities are guilty of waging ‘genocide’ in Xinjiang, where about 12 million Uighurs, mostly Muslim, reside.

Mindful of the fact that Uighur jihadists came from Xinjiang to Syria to fight the Syrian government in the ranks of Islamic State and other violent extremist groups, Damascus and Beijing see themselves as having common cause in a struggle against terrorism and extremism.

In 2017, Syria’s ambassador to Beijing said that roughly 5,000 terrorists from Xinjiang were transported, mostly via Turkey, to Syria during the conflict. Chinese authorities have voiced serious concerns about the now battle-hardened and indoctrinated extremists potentially returning to China to carry out acts of terrorism.

Likewise, Beijing rejects the view of western governments that Assad is guilty of serious crimes. China’s leadership believes that the Syrian government deserves praise for its fight against forces which sought to overthrow Assad and his government.

When Wang was in Syria last summer, he said that “the Syrian government’s leading role in fighting terrorism on its soil should be respected, schemes of provoking ethnic divisions under the pretense of countering terrorism should be opposed, and Syria’s sacrifice and contribution to the anti-terror fight should be acknowledged.”

The future of the Sino-Syrian relationship

Currently in the US there is strong support from both sides of Washington’s political aisle for stringent Trump-era US sanctions on Damascus. In fact, this year, Biden’s administration has come under bipartisan pressure to intensify the US government’s enforcement of the Caesar Act.

Given the existing polarization and hostility in West Asian geopolitics, it is difficult to imagine Washington lifting the Caesar Act in the foreseeable future. Ultimately, this means that the US will probably continue to target Syria’s economy with crippling sanctions.

Within this context, Damascus has all the reason in the world to pursue strategies that can help it minimize the harm caused by Washington’s financial warfare.

“China can play an important role in weakening the impact of the Caesar sanctions,” said Dr. Joshua Landis, head of the Middle East department at the University of Oklahoma, in an interview last year with The Cradle.

“In Iran, China has done this,” Landis explained. “Iran’s oil exports, which were devastated by sanctions, have begun to grow again, largely because China is purchasing Iranian oil again. China is the workshop of the world so it can supply most of the goods that Syria needs. China is also strong enough to thumb its nose at US sanctions. As the US increasingly forbids US companies from dealing with Chinese firms, China has greater incentive to punish the US by breaking sanctions on countries like Iran and Syria.”

Now that Syria has joined the BRI, it is safe to conclude that the Chinese will play an increasingly important role in terms of Syria’s strategies for withstanding sanctions imposed by the US.

The odds are good that, as time passes, China and Syria’s geopolitical and geo-economic value to each other will only expand.

thecradle.co

By Trita PARSI

One year into the Joe Biden administration and most of the world has accepted two realities. First, America is not back, and Biden’s slogans notwithstanding, there simply is no going back to the pre-Trump era. Secondly, whether America keeps troops in various parts of the world or brings them home, America’s will to fight is by and large no longer there. Its implications for the trans-Atlantic relationship will be profound. Europe would be wise to pro-actively adjust its defence policies accordingly.

American decision-makers have long warned allies and partners that the United States must reduce its security obligations, lighten its military footprints in certain regions and that greater burden-sharing is inescapable. But US allies have largely ignored these warnings and pleas. Perhaps because the United States itself has sent mixed messages: When Europe begins to talk about strategic autonomy, Washington has a meltdown. When Europe continues to rely on the US’s security umbrella, American leaders rebuke Europe for freeriding.

Until Donald Trump became president, there was an equilibrium between American complaints about insufficient European defence spending and European rhetoric about strategic autonomy. The Trump presidency upended the balance. Trump lambasted America’s wars in the Middle East, asserting that the deserts of Syria were not worth fighting – or dying for. ‘They’ve got a lot of sand over there,’ he said in 2019. ‘So there’s a lot of sand there that they can play with.’

When Saudi oil refineries were attacked by drones (most likely by Iran), Trump chose not to retaliate on behalf of the Saudi Kingdom. ‘I’m somebody that would like not to have war,’ Trump said, prompting many in the Washington establishment to accuse him of abandoning the Carter doctrine. Europe didn’t fare much better, with Trump openly questioning the utility of NATO and leaving its European allies uncertain as to whether he would honour America’s Article V obligations.

The American people want a new foreign policy

Understandably, many US allies wished that Trump simply was an aberration. A statistical freak nightmare that soon would be over. What many allies failed to grasp was that decades of unjustified, unsuccessful, and endless wars had turned the American electorate against the idea of the United States playing the role of world policeman. Trump neither started this trend, nor did he necessarily enhance it. He did, however, channel the electorate’s frustration with the direction of American foreign policy and the lack of accountability for those who had dragged the US into these wars.

Americans have become increasingly sceptical of the use of military force for matters beyond defending the American homeland.

Numerous polls show that the American public has significantly turned against America’s adventurist foreign policy and in favour of giving precedence to its many problems at home first. According to the Eurasia Foundation Group (EGF), which has polled the American public’s views on these matters annually since 2018, a plurality of Democrats and Republicans believe peace is best achieved and sustained by ‘keeping a focus on the domestic needs and the health of American democracy, while avoiding unnecessary intervention beyond the borders of the United States.’ Moreover, twice as many Americans want to decrease the defence budget than increase it. This view is particularly strong among younger Americans.

Tellingly, Americans have become increasingly sceptical of the use of military force for matters beyond defending the American homeland. In the 2020 EGF poll, only roughly 20 percent of the American public supported the US acting unilaterally and militarily to stop human rights abuses overseas. ‘A majority are sceptical of humanitarian intervention and opt instead for military restraint or a reliance on multilateral organisations, or not intervening at all,’ EGF writes.

Consequently, the Doha agreement between the United States and the Taliban enjoyed significant support among Americans of all political persuasions, with only 8.2 per cent opposing it in 2020. Between 2019 and 2020, the number of Americans who favoured staying in Afghanistan till all enemies were defeated almost halved, from 29.7 to 15.5 per cent. And though most Americans disapproved of how President Biden handled the Afghan withdrawal, a Washington Post-ABC News poll in September 2021 showed that a solid majority of 78 per cent supported the decision to withdraw despite – or perhaps because of – the ISIS terrorist attacks at Kabul airport during the withdrawal. Only 17 per cent of Americans opposed Biden’s decision.

The end of American exceptionalism

As much as Americans have turned against the generous use of military force, they have not turned inward or isolationist. On the contrary, support for international engagement – trade and diplomacy – is growing. It’s just that Americans increasingly do not measure international engagement in terms of war. According to the EGF, 56 per cent of Americans want to increase diplomatic engagement with the world, while only 23 per cent favour a decrease.

Over the next few years, we are likely to see a lively debate to redefine America’s vital interests globally.

But unlike before, Americans are increasingly in favour of talking directly to adversaries to try to avoid military confrontation (59.4 per cent), even if they are human rights abusers, dictators, or provide shelter to terrorist organisations. Indeed, when it comes to the international agreements Trump exited, a solid majority of Americans favour returning to them according to the EGF: 70.9 per cent support re-joining the Paris Agreement, 65.6 per cent want to return to the Iran nuclear deal and 71.1 per cent support the US restoring its membership in the World Health Organization (WHO).

All this points to a trend of Americans increasingly desiring to be a normal country: One that engages in trade and diplomacy, limits its use of force to protecting the homeland rather than policing the world, while seeking to inspire other nations not through force or coercion, but rather through the strength of its own example. The desire for normalcy is manifested in the dwindling belief that America is an exceptional country, particularly among its youth. The 2020 EGF poll shows that while three quarters of Americans older than 60 years still regard the United States as an exceptional nation, only 46.4 per cent of Americans aged 18-29 share that sentiment.

Where does Europe fit in?

There is little to suggest that these trends will reverse anytime soon. Rather, as the younger generation of Americans mature and reach positions of power and older Americans who still view their country as indispensable retire, America’s foreign policy is likely to further shift away from militarism and global hegemony.

Over the next few years, we are likely to see a lively debate to redefine America’s vital interests globally. America will continue to fight for what matters, but what matters is now up for debate. Inertia and other political factors may slow down the process of lightening America’s military footprint in regions of dwindling strategic importance – such as the Middle East – but the loss of will to fight will prompt regional powers to act as if the US already has left. This phenomenon is already visible in the Middle East today.

Whether and how much Europe matters to America going forward remains to be seen. But the fact that America’s active military backing no longer can be taken for granted – Trump or no Trump – should suffice for Europe to start taking the writing on the wall seriously.

ips-journal.eu