For those who decried Rex Tillerson’s 14-month tenure as secretary of state, who wanted a more aggressive advocate in foreign affairs and more of the empty slots at Foggy Bottom filled, be careful what you wish for. Because you now have Mike Pompeo.

Tillerson will not, as some claim, be remembered as the worst secretary of state in history. He made no significant blunders or gaffes, gave away nothing to the detriment of the United States. He just didn’t do much at all.

Understanding Tillerson’s place in history requires understanding that the State Department is an agency without primary agency. Under Cold War administrations it focused on arms control. During the Bush and early Obama years, it was sent off to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan. Hillary Clinton switched the organization over to “soft power” programs. John Kerry started on Syria as a signature aim but ended up focused singularly on the Iran nuclear deal. Tillerson never articulated any goals at all beyond some verbiage about structural reform that will never again see daylight. He’ll more accurately be remembered not as the worst of secretaries, but as the most pointless.

Tillerson never understood that the traditional way of engaging State’s bureaucracy is for a new secretary to fill key positions with political appointees, who will task the rank and file below them. He left too many slots vacant too long, and found himself without allies inside Foggy Bottom as his relationship with Trump failed to gel. Left on their own, his diplomats found ways to make trouble for him, including leaking dissent memos on the administration’s approach to child soldiers and Trump’s executive orders banning travelers from some Muslim countries. Meanwhile, the media offered Tillerson no rest, proclaiming in near-apocalyptic terms the end of diplomacy and announcing with dulled regularity the loss of U.S. standing in the world.

It’s kind of amazing in a way that Tillerson lasted as long as he did, though the end was the kind of inglorious mess all too common now in Washington. Tillerson was caught flat-footed with the announcement of an impending summit with North Korea, and his clumsy attempt to sound relevant only handed the media another chance to claim chaos in the administration. He made his remarks in the midst of a humiliating apology tour of Africa, where he was tasked with being the punching bag for leaders on the periphery of U.S. foreign policy angry over the president calling their nations “shitholes.”

Tillerson—his Africa trip cut short, which denied him even the chance to lay a wreath at the memorial to victims of the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam—took a final shot at Trump on his way out the door. He did so by getting ahead of the more neutral White House statement by saying that the nerve agent used to poison a Russian spy and his daughter in the UK “clearly came from Russia” and that the episode “certainly will trigger a response.” Good times.

But as the old saying warns, be careful what you wish for. Because Mike Pompeo as secretary of state will be no Rex Tillerson.

Pompeo is a West point grad, a Tea Party pro-war conservative, a three-time congressman from Kansas elected in 2010 with the support of Charles and David Koch. He is remembered mostly for grilling Hillary Clinton over Benghazi. As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, he supported the NSA’s bulk metadata collection program and opposed shutting down Guantanamo. He defended the CIA in the wake of the Senate torture report, declaring “These men and women are not torturers, they are patriots.”

Among Pompeo’s most significant foreign policy stances is his long-standing opposition to the 2015 agreement between the U.S., Iran, and European and Asian powers, that lifted economic sanctions in exchange for Tehran accepting curbs on its nuclear program. “I look forward to rolling back this disastrous deal with the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism,” Pompeo said during his CIA confirmation process. As head of the Department of State, which sees as one of its few Obama-era legacy successes that nuclear agreement, Pompeo will find that diplomats who were displeased with the bland Tillerson will be repulsed by him. Anybody expecting the rehabilitation of the State Department is in for a long wait. A toxic relationship with the rank and file? You ain’t seen nothing yet.

But what his diplomats think of him may not matter to Pompeo. Unlike Tillerson, who as a stranger to Washington failed to understand the need to seed the bureaucracy with allies, Pompeo is likely to move quickly to insert people who mirror his ideological stances into the State Department. His ties to conservative organizations suggest he’ll have a pool of the like-minded to draw from, and his close relationship with Trump means he won’t run into the resistance that Tillerson often did in getting his choices blessed.

While decisions over the Iran nuclear agreement hover in the near distance, Pompeo will find the impending summit among Trump, Kim Jong-un, and South Korean president Moon Jae-in as item number one on his to-do list. Absent a bit of obligatory institutional defense of the CIA’s work on Russia, Pompeo has made a point of locking his public statements in line with Trump’s. His most recent comments on North Korea emphasize this: “We’ve gotten more than any previous administration—an agreement to not continue testing nuclear weapons and their missile program, the things that would put them capable of getting across the threshold…at the same time [Kim] has agreed to have a conversation about denuclearization.”

Pompeo will, however, need to walk back his earlier remarks hinting at regime change in North Korea. Security is Kim Jong-un’s primary goal for negotiations with the U.S., and a guarantee of his own position will be non-negotiable. Trump can expect no progress on denuclearization without deflecting Pompeo’s July 2017 statement that the North Korean people “would love to see” Kim removed from power and that he remained hopeful the U.S. would figure out a way to make that happen.

But those are details. We already know what kind of secretary of state Pompeo will be. Given his firm stances on issues such as the Iranian nuclear deal, informed by a staunch political philosophy formed out of his Tea Party days, and backed up by his Washington experience and closeness to Trump, it is very unlikely he’ll be an inconsequential secretary in the Tillerson mold.

The new worry is that someone in a position that often served previous presidents by presenting dissenting opinions is being filled by a man who will amplify and support Trump’s own views. Don’t forget: it was Pompeo who made the Sunday show rounds to defend the president’s response to the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville last August, even as other administration officials stayed silent. Critics who focus on a perceived lack of consistency in foreign policy hurting America’s global credibility will now need to prepare for a Donald Trump echo chamber.

theamericanconservative.com

The naming of Pompeo as the replacement was also predicted by many who noted that he had become a confidant of the president, much more than any previous CIA Director (DCI). The turnover replaces a decent but somewhat bumbling businessman with a hard-line ideologue. Pompeo tends to see complex issues in fairly simplistic ways, a view that has resonated with the president and that has been solidified through his briefing Trump nearly daily on the state of the world. Pompeo was, for example, one of the leading advocates of the terrible decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

In a speech made five months ago, Pompeo criticized the CIA, observing that it had both forgotten how to spy, which is almost certainly true, while adding that it will have to become “more vicious” and “more aggressive” to accomplish its mission of making the United States “safe.” In a speech made in January on the eve of a government shutdown he elaborated “We're gonna continue crushing our adversaries, whether the government's open or closed.” Pompeo would like to turn the United States into an unleashed wrecking ball directed against the enemies of the American Way and he appears intent on starting that process in the Middle East, focusing particularly on Syria and Iran. He has labeled Iran "a thuggish police state" and "despotic theocracy" and has called for both regime change and the repeal of the “disastrous” nuclear deal with “the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism.”

Perhaps more disturbing is Trump’s designation of Agency Deputy Director Gina Haspel as the new Director of the CIA to replace Pompeo. Haspel, a thirty-year veteran of the Agency, was one of the architects of the infamous rendition and torture policies that prevailed in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. She was a protégé of Jose Rodriguez, the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center (CTC) director between 2002 and 2004 who later became Deputy Director of Operations (DDO), in charge of the Agency’s spies. Haspel was the head of the secret prison in Thailand where Abu Zubaydah and other suspected terrorists were water boarded and otherwise tortured. She also ordered the destruction of video tapes showing many of the torture sessions, on orders from Rodriguez, in order to avoid possible criminal charges even though the White House Counsel had ordered that they be preserved. Neither she nor Rodriguez was ever punished either for obstruction of justice or destruction of evidence, both of which, as former senior Agency officer John Kiriakou notes, are felonies.

Haspel has been praised by Pompeo, who defended her and others at CIA after the Senate torture report, declaring “These men and women are not torturers, they are patriots,” as possessing an “uncanny ability to get things done” and as a leader who “inspires those around her.” But Kiriakou has a different take, recalling that she was referred to as “Bloody Gina.” Most officers chose to avoid her company.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Haspel faced some difficult questions from Congressmen when she was up for approval for the Deputy position in February 2017. "Her background makes her unsuitable for the position," Senators Ron Wyden and Martin Heinrich wrote in a letter to President Trump when Haspel was nominated.

As in the case of many other recent poor senior level appointments at CIA, former Barack Obama Agency Director John Brennan was involved with furthering Haspel’s career. He promoted her to become Director of the National Clandestine Service in 2013, but she was never confirmed due to concerns about her torture record and served only as “acting.” Brennan predictably commented on her selection as DCI on Tuesday by praising her “wealth of experience.” He chose to ignore her torture record, possibly because he himself is indelibly stained by the Obama Administration drone assassination program and the White House kill list of Americans that he promoted and ran.

A coincidence or not, but the firing took place right after the former secretary publicly slammed Russia as an “irresponsible force of instability in the world”, suggesting that Moscow was behind the poisoning of an ex-spy in the UK. The statement had been made before the White House could come up with a statement of its own. Its spokeswoman Sarah Sanders did not point the finger at Moscow as many had expected her to do. Mr. Tillerson made his remark on board an airplane flying from Nigeria. Naturally, he couldn’t go into details to study the issue thoroughly but it did not prevent him from saying that the poisoning turned out to be the work of Russia’s government and “this is a pretty serious action,” as he put it. The former secretary did not reject a dialogue with Moscow but he didn’t do much to promote it. Tillerson paid little attention to the problem of arms control – the burning issue to be addressed urgently and in a very serious way.

From the very beginning, Tillerson has been under fire for his stewardship of Foggy Bottom. He did not run it as an efficient manager and failed to hit it up with career staff. Seasoned diplomats were quitting with morale hitting rock-bottom. Many key positions are still not filled. His legacy is for his chosen successor.

Mr. Tillerson was often overshadowed by other people influencing the president’s decisions. When it came to crucial issues, he was quite often eclipsed by Nikki Hailey, US Ambassador to the UN. For instance, last April he made quite a splash by saying Washington could do with Syrian President Assad remaining in power. The UN ambassador said something very much different and then the military delivered a missile strike against Syria’s government forces. Last June, he wanted the Persian Gulf states to make peace with Qatar. After his appeasing remarks, President Trump openly came out in support of Riyadh’s tough stance on Doha.

Tillerson and Trump did not see eye to eye on N. Korea. The president wants a new foreign policy team in place before he starts talks with Pyongyang. Donald Trump and his top diplomat disagreed on Iran. Unlike the president, Rex Tillerson advocated for maintaining the 2015 nuclear deal in force and seeking ways to find a diplomatic solution.

Will US foreign policy go through major changes with Mike Pompeo at the helm? The replacement presages a dramatic change. A former congressman from the Tea Party, the current head of CIA would likely sit well with many Republicans he worked in Congress with. Pompeo spends much time in the White House. Politico reported that he even set up a temporary office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building across the street. Rampant anti-Russia, anti-Iran, and anti-North Korea hawk, Mike Pompeo is expected to be tough on key foreign policy issues. With him holding reins in State Department, the Iran nuclear deal has a slim chance to survive in its current form.

The presidential nominee is sure that Russia meddled into US 2016 presidential election. But that is the only issue related to Russia he differs with the president on. Actively opposing Iran and Russia at the same time could be too much.

It’s very important to note here that nobody else but Pompeo, known as a hard-line pugnacious Republican hawk, met the three Russian intelligence chiefs, including Sergey Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), who came to Washington in a surprise visit in late January. Nothing like this had ever happened in the history of bilateral relationship. Mike Pompeo got the president’s blessing to organize the event and was the one Donald Trump trusted to represent the US side during the long talks behind the scenes. No doubt, Pompeo played the key part in the attempt to repair the US-Russia relationship – something President Trump has called many times for.

It’s noteworthy that the decision to replace the state secretary coincided with the news that the Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee reached a conclusion that there is no evidence to support the claim that Russia backed President Trump during the 2016 election. The year-long investigation is closed. Good news for President Trump, giving him more wiggle room on his Russia policy. As Pompeo is expected to pass easily the Senate confirmation procedure, it won’t take long to see him in action.

While the Texan oil tycoon-turned diplomat growled out the usual State Department platitudes about “partnership” and “sharing a bright future”, Tillerson gave the game away with an unseemly harangue about China. He began his five-day trip to five African states with a pointed verbal slur on China’s role in the continent as its paramount trading and investment giant.

The top American diplomat affected to “warn” his African hosts that China’s motives were allegedly malign. He deprecated Chinese financial arrangements as being “opaque”, “corrupt” and “predatory” – aimed, he said, at undermining African sovereignty. It was an extraordinary way for Washington to pitch itself as the supposed “partner of choice” for Africa, not least because of the derogatory caricature leveled at China.

It was notable too that Tillerson’s visit to Ethiopia, followed by Djibouti, Kenya, Chad and Nigeria, preceded – or perhaps “pre-empted” – a tour of the continent by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Separately, Lavrov arrived in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa only hours after Tillerson. The two diplomats did not meet despite a reported invitation from the Russian side for an impromptu gathering. Such a meeting could have signaled a welcome boost for diplomacy and multilateralism. But multilateralism doesn’t seem to be what Washington is after.

The Russian diplomat reportedly said one of the main purposes of his visit was to set up a nuclear energy research center in Ethiopia, under the auspices of Russian expertise in that field. Moscow also noted that the visit this year marked 120 years of official diplomatic relations between Russia and Ethiopia.

Lavrov continued his continental itinerary through Angola and Namibia – the latter embarrassingly mispronounced last year by US President Trump as “Nambia”.

Tillerson’s trip to Africa launched with bad-mouthing China will hardly have impressed African leaders. For a start, China is now well established as the biggest single international investor on the continent, far out-stripping that of the United States or former colonial European nations.

China’s multi-billion-dollar investments are propelling African development and economic growth, from infrastructure projects in health, education, transport and communications that are helping to integrate the 54-nation continent.

To be sure, China is not motivated merely by altruism. Its partnerships are commercial, for example, involving soft capital loans that Africans must repay. Nevertheless, the arrangement is spurring real development – unlike a century of underdevelopment bequeathed by Western capital.

This year, for instance, saw the opening of the Ethiopia-Djioubti rail link – a first for the continent – in which the two Horn of Africa states are now joined by a 750-km electrified railway, transporting freight and passengers. It was built with Chinese engineering firms and state finance at a cost of $4 billion. Just one of many such infrastructure projects that are transforming the continent.

Another is the new African Union headquarters which opened in Addis Ababa in 2012, built by China at a cost of $200 million – donated by Beijing as a “gift” to the people of Africa. Hardly, “exploitative” behavior, as Washington would claim.

For Tillerson to disparage Chinese involvement in Africa as “predatory” is a gross misrepresentation, which could actually more accurately describe how the Europeans and the US-dominated World Bank and International Monetary Fund have previously operated across Africa with disastrous humanitarian consequences.

Another oddity about Tillerson’s Africa tour last week is the timing. As noted, Russia’s Lavrov was scheduled to visit well in advance. Tillerson’s arrival, however, seemed to be more of a hasty afterthought.

Two months ago, President Donald Trump provoked international outrage when he referred to African countries as “shit-hole places” during a White House meeting aimed at curbing immigration into the US. The trip last week by Tillerson can therefore be viewed as something of a “damage limitation” exercise, in a bid to smoothen US-Africa relations.

But as a Bloomberg News editorial remarked on the State Department’s cosy words about “partnership”, Tillerson was given the unenviable task of bridging a widening “credibility gap”.

It is well over a year since Trump became president and yet it is only now – 14 months later – that he deigned to send his Secretary of State to the world’s second-largest continent. As Bloomberg also pointed out, the Trump administration has sent out other negative signals over the past year. Senior administration positions regarding Africa remain vacant, and the Trump administration has earmarked big cutbacks on a range of humanitarian aid programs.

American trade and investment with African has been declining steadily over the past decade. The only sector that seems to be growing is its military operations which are believed to be active in nearly half of the continent’s nations – a process of militarization that began in earnest under GW Bush and which was accelerated by Obama – the latter, ironically, exalted as America’s first African-American president.

Recent strategic documents published by the Trump administration and the Pentagon have invoked the concept of “great power competition” as being a new defining feature of American foreign policy planning. Specifically, Washington has zeroed in on Russia and China as being what it deems to be the rival “great powers”.

The phrase has an anachronistic echo with former colonial powers, when European imperialist states scrambled for the Earth’s natural resources, inciting wars in their stampede for perceived advantage. Wars in which tens of millions of people became collateral damage to gratify elite power and profit.

Last week, Rex Tillerson’s tour of Africa gave practical expression to what this “great power competition” looks like in the modern era. The top US diplomat seemed more interested engaging in schadenfreude and shadowing with regard to China and Russia, rather than in supposed “partnership” with African states.

In a sad commentary on the parlous state of the U.S. media, a letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson from four United States Senators dated March 8 calling for opening arms control talks with the Kremlin ASAP is nowhere to be found in mainstream newspapers a day after its release on the Senate home page of one of the authors, Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.). Nothing in the New York Times.  Nothing in the Washington Post.  And so, it is left to alternative media to bring to the attention of its readership a major development in domestic politics, a significant change in what its own senior politicians are saying should be done about Russia that was brought to our attention by …..the Russian mainstream media including the agency RIA Novosti, RBK, Tass within hours of initial posting.

What we have is, first, a genuine man bites dog story.  Two of the senators who penned the letter, Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), have in recent months been among the most vociferous promoters of the unproven allegations of Trump collusion with the Russians. Now they are putting aside for the moment their attacks on Trump and members of his entourage who dared shake hands or share a joke with a Russian ambassador. They are openly calling upon the Secretary of State to send U.S. personnel to negotiate with Putin’s minions over our survival on this planet.

The authors were in a tough spot explaining their new marching orders for State. And they have done their best to impose consistency on what is patently a new policy direction holding great promise for sanity to be restored in U.S.-Russian relations.

First, they cover their backsides by the lengthy recitation of Russia’s bad deeds, including alleged election meddling in the 2016 presidential election, violation of international law in Ukraine and the like.

Secondly, they make the proposed arms talks look like a walk down the Rose Garden, with the Russians being told what to do from a position of strength. The objective is focused on inserting two of Russia’s latest weapons systems described by Vladimir Putin in his March 1 speech into the framework of the START treaty as it comes up for renewal. That and to resolve issues over alleged Russian violation of the Intermediate Range Missiles convention.

However, buried in this mumbo jumbo is that reference to Putin’s speech and the new weapons systems he described, which actually numbered six among them several never heard about before inside the Beltway and looking pretty ominous.  So, one may conclude that Putin’s intended “shock and awe” speech did have some effect in DC, even if so far no one is saying so, and even if so far, our leading newspapers have called time out till they can decide how to deal with the unwelcome news.

Wittingly or not, the Gang of Four has just opened a breach in the wall of contempt and loathing for Putin and Russia that has been building in Washington for months if not years now. The immediate task is for word of this development to go out to the broad public and for the relics of our once formidable arms negotiations teams to be brought out of mothballs to face Russian counterparts who have been waiting keenly for this moment.

Democratic Fissures

The unusual way in which the letter was made public — and the evident uncertainty on the part of the mainstream media as to how to play it — reflects widening fissures among Democrats.

Even among the most rabid fans of Hillary Clinton (and haters of President Trump) there is a growing sense that, for example, Congressman Adam “trust-me-the-Russians-hacked-our election” Schiff (D-Calif.) may not be able to deliver anything beyond the “trust me.”  And many are beginning to question whether the sainted Special Counsel, Robert Mueller may not be able to come up with much more than click-bait farms in St. Petersburg and dirt to put dubious characters like Paul Manafort in jail on charges unrelated to Russiagate.  (After all, Mueller has already been at it a very long time.)

And what would that mean for the re-election prospects of candidates like the superannuated Democratic-machine product Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), whose prospects are already waning?

Not to be ruled out is the possibility that the four senators may also be motivated by a new appreciation of the dangers of blaming everything on Russia, with the possible result of U.S.-Russia relations falling into a state of complete disrepair. The key question is whether President Putin can be de-demonized. That will depend on the mainstream media, which, alas, is not accustomed to reassessing and silencing the bellicose drums — even in the face of new realities like the petering out of Russiagate and Putin’s entirely credible declaration of strategic parity.

Gang of Four Letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson

As posted on the website of Senator Merkley 

March 8, 2018

The Honorable Rex W. Tillerson
Secretary of State
U.S. Department of State
Washington, DC

Dear Secretary Tillerson:

We write to urge the State Department to convene the next U.S.-Russia Strategic Dialogue as soon as possible.

A U.S.-Russia Strategic Dialogue is more urgent following President Putin’s public address on March 1st when he referred to several new nuclear weapons Russia is reportedly developing including a cruise missile and a nuclear underwater drone, which are not currently limited by the New START treaty, and would be destabilizing if deployed.   There is no doubt we have significant disagreements with Russia, including Russia’s brazen interference in the 2016 U.S. elections; continued violation of the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF); invasion of Ukraine and illegal annexation of Crimea; and destabilizing actions in Syria. However, it is due to these policy rifts, not in spite of them, that the United States should urgently engage with Russia to avoid miscalculation and reduce the likelihood of conflict.

First, we encourage the administration to propose alternative solutions to address Russia’s violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF).  Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov admitted to the existence of this ground launched cruise missile (GLCM), but contended that the system was INF Treaty compliant.

Senior officials from the United States and Russia have said that the INF Treaty plays an “important role in the existing system of international security.” As such, we urge the State Department to resolve Russia’s violation through existing INF Treaty provisions or new mutually acceptable means.

Second, we urge the United States to extend the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START).  The Trump administration’s own 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) references Russia’s robust nuclear modernization program as a main justification behind the U.S. need to recapitalize its three legs of the nuclear triad.  An extension of New START would verifiably lock-in the Treaty’s Central Limits – and with it – the reductions in strategic forces Russia has made.

The New START Treaty, which entered into force in 2011, provides transparency and predictability into the size and location of Russia’s strategic nuclear delivery systems, warheads, and facilities. New START’s robust verification architecture involves thousands of data exchanges and regular on-site inspections.The United States confirmed in February that Russia met New START’s Central Treaty Limits and it stated that “implementation of the New START Treaty enhances the safety and security of the United States.” These same Central Treaty Limits could also govern two of the new types of nuclear weapons referenced by President Putin on March 1st – a case the United States can argue through the Treaty’s Biannual Consultative Commission (BCC).

Lastly, as the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review notes, Russia maintains a numerical advantage to the United States in the number of non-strategic nuclear weapons. The Senate, in its Resolution of Ratification on New START in 2010, took stock of this imbalance and called upon the United States to commence negotiations that would “secure and reduce tactical nuclear weapons in a verifiable manner.” Attempts by the Obama administration to negotiate an agreement on this class of weapons met resistance from Russia.  However, even absent the political space for a formal agreement or binding treaty with Russia, we urge the State Department to discuss ways to enhance transparency on non-strategic nuclear weapons.

Extending New START, resolving Russia’s INF violation, and enhancing transparency measures relating to non-strategic nuclear weapons will also help quiet growing calls from many countries that the United States is not upholding its Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) obligations.  The Treaty’s three mutually reinforcing pillars: non-proliferation, peaceful uses of the atom, and disarmament can only be advanced through U.S. leadership on all three.

There is no guarantee that we can make progress with Russia on these issues.  However, even at the height of Cold War tensions, the United States and the Soviet Union were able to engage on matters of strategic stability.  Leaders from both countries believed, as we should today, that the incredible destructive force of nuclear weapons is reason enough to make any and all efforts to lessen the chance that they can never be used again.

Sincerely,

Senators Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont)

consortiumnews.com

In case it is not clear, the Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, is a neocon. Strong evidence of this unfortunate fact is his speech on January 17, 2018 at Stanford’s Hoover Institute. After warmly acknowledging his debt to Dr. Condoleezza Rice and George Shultz, Tillerson goes into his “Remarks on the Way Forward for the United States Regarding Syria”.

What do we hear? “…it is crucial to our national defense to maintain a military and diplomatic presence in Syria, to help bring an end to that conflict, and assist the Syrian people as they chart a course to achieve a new political future.” He wants the U.S. to stay in Syria indefinitely, its purposes being to defend the American nation, to cause the war to end, and to create a new government/state in Syria.

We’ve heard the same neocon language in the past 17 years regarding Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia and other countries. None of these countries are “crucial” to American security. Entry by U.S. forces into each and every one of them has increased American insecurity, generating ever more Muslim terrorist forces. None of these places posed state-led threats to Americans and none posed non-state forces that could not have been addressed by means other than the failed methods that the U.S. government adopted, symbolized by the entirely unnecessary and counter-productive War on Terror.

In his speech, Tillerson presents new elaborations, new rationales, and new flowerings of neocon thought, but the root of it all remains unchanged. It’s the same old rot we’ve heard for the past 17 years and longer. The War on Terror remains fixed firmly in his mind. This he makes clear, saying “The fight against ISIS is not over.” And he says “Similarly, we must persist in Syria to thwart al-Qaida…” The secondary excuse for the uninvited U.S. presence inside Syria is to get rid of the Assad government and create a new state. “Additionally, a total withdrawal of American personnel at this time would restore Assad and continue his brutal treatment against his own people. A murderer of his own people cannot generate the trust required for long-term stability.”

Baloney. Tillerson’s language echoes the language used against Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi. The U.S. always resorts to holier-than-thou language like this when it wants to justify the empire’s presence in some place that has nothing to do with American security.

Tillerson knows enough not to name “nation-building” in Syria as U.S. policy. Instead he uses a euphemism: “STABILIZATION”.

The world is not a pretty place everywhere, not even in parts of the Americas that I’ll refrain from naming; but some are close to the White House. This doesn’t justify a costly U.S. presence that, in any event, is very likely not only to fail but also to produce a worse situation.

It’s not the role of the U.S. government to dry out an alcoholic world, or to get it off drugs, pretty it up, wash it clean, apply new makeup, get it a paying job, find it a mate, turn it into a responsible citizen, and have it raise its children as good parents. Why not? Because it cannot! It doesn’t know enough to do it and it cannot know enough to do it, so that when it tries the results are no better and often worse than doing nothing at all, not to mention the costs.

People in power who use lofty language as in this speech present to us a scenario, which is that they have surveyed the turf, discovered the issues, and formulated a plan. They make out that they actually understand human problems and can do something about them using the powers of their office. We should believe none of this. The processes that they think are predictable and governable are neither. Non-ergodicity rules much of human life.

NON-ERGODIC: “Attribute of a behavior that is in certain crucial respects incomprehensible through observation either for lack of repetition, e.g., by involving only transient states which are unique, or for lack of stabilities, e.g., when transition probabilities (see probabilities) are so variable that there are not enough observations available to ascertain them. Evolution and social processes involving structural changes are inherently non-ergodic. To understand non-ergodic behavior requires either reference to the underlying organization of the system exhibiting it or the study of a large sample of systems of the same kind (see ergodic). (Krippendorff)”

lewrockwell.com

Last week, US secretary of state Rex Tillerson issued a shrill accusation against Russia, claiming that it bears responsibility for chemical weapons attacks in Syria.

Moscow sternly rejected Tillerson’s claims, saying that the Americans were leveling outrageous accusations without having the slightest proof. Even Tillerson himself admitted his information was not definitive, yet that didn’t stop from making categorical accusations against Russia. (This is typical of how Washington increasingly operates on so much else.)

The Syrian government of President Assad also slammed Washington’s allegations, calling them a “load of lies”.

Through the toxic plume of allegations, however, a clear agenda can be discerned. That is, to undermine Russian-backed peace talks for Syria; and, secondly, to disenfranchise Russia’s veto power at the UN Security Council.

As noted, the issue of timing is the giveaway.

The latest war of words erupted after an alleged incident last Monday, January 22, in the suburb of East Ghouta near the Syrian capital Damascus. It was widely reported by Western news media that Syrian state forces had used a chemical weapon against the “rebel-held” district, injuring some 20 people, including children.

The next day Tillerson and his French counterpart, foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, availed of amenable Western media outlets to castigate Russia for backing the “Syrian regime” and its alleged criminal use of chemical weapons. It is no coincidence that the claims came only days before the next round of Russian-facilitated peace talks on Syria are due to open in the Black Sea city of Sochi. It is also no coincidence that the Western-backed peace talks resumed last week in Vienna.

As well as attempting to discredit the Russian-backed talks through the tendentious claims about chemical weapons, another objective appears to be discrediting Russia’s veto power at the UN Security Council. Not only did Tillerson make the wild allegation of Russian bearing responsibility for chemical weapons use in Syria; he also disparaged Russia’s position on the Security Council, claiming that Moscow was using its veto “to shield” the Syrian government from prosecution.

Right away, the chemical weapons claims aired by Western media raise suspicions.

For a start, the enclave of East Ghouta is controlled by Al Qaeda-linked terrorists, going by the name of Jaish al-Islam or Liwa al-Islam, who are not innocent-sounding “rebels” as the Western media dubs them. The video footage purporting to show the aftermath of the alleged attack last week bore the insignia of the “White Helmets”, which the France24 news channel, among other outlets, unquestioningly referred to by citing the group’s other pseudonym, the “Syrian Civilian Defense”.

In other words, the scenario looked very much like another staged propaganda stunt which the Western-backed jihadists have become adept at, and which the Western news media have become adept at propagating over the past seven years of war in Syria.

East Ghouta takes on acute significance because this is the place where the infamous chemical weapons incident occurred in August 2013.

Back then, Western media reports “shocked” the world with footage purporting to show hundreds of children dying from exposure to Sarin nerve agent. Recall that then US secretary of state John Kerry pilloried the Syrian army for “heinous crimes”. The US was about to launch a full-scale military intervention in Syria. That was averted by Russia’s proposal for the Syrian state to decommission any stockpiles it may have had of chemical weapons. The Syrian government agreed to do that, even though Damascus maintained that its forces were not involved in the supposed chemical weapon incident in East Ghouta. The UN-approved destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons was completed in 2016, and verified by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

It later turned out, despite the Western media onslaught accusing the Syrian state forces, that the perpetrators of the August 2013 incident in East Ghouta were the Jaish al-Islam brigade that occupies the district. Several investigative reporters uncovered that, including American veteran journalist Seymour Hersh. It was a false-flag propaganda stunt aimed at incriminating the Syrian government and giving the US a pretext for military intervention to boost its proxy war for regime change.

Nearly five years on, the same “rebel-held” enclave is being used again to stage a propaganda false flag.

By the way, the same ploy was used last April in the northern city of Khan Sheikhoun, in Idlib province. The same formula of unverified video footage from an insurgent-controlled area was broadcast by Western media making strident claims that the “Syrian regime” carried out “another chemical weapon atrocity”. The Khan Sheikhoun incident resulted in US President Trump two days later ordering cruise missile strikes on Syria.

The Syrian government has repeatedly said it doesn’t have chemical weapons since its stockpile of munitions were handed over to the UN for destruction in 2014. Damascus also has categorically stated that it has never used such weapons against any opposition-held areas.

Nevertheless, the claims against the Syrian government keep being made in the Western media using footage supplied by jihadist propaganda groups like the White Helmets. The latter has been exposed by investigative journalist Venessa Beeley as being funded by Western governments and orchestrated by Western military intelligence organizations like the CIA and MI6.

The claims are also amplified by Western-aligned human rights groups like New York-based Human Rights Watch. Relying on “witness” accounts from insurgent-held areas, these groups shore up the narrative blaming the Syrian government and its Russian ally.

Last week, following the latest alleged incident in East Ghouta, HRW director Kenneth Roth was interviewed by France24, bizarrely while he was attending the rarefied World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Roth, who was chummily addressed as “Ken” by the France24 anchor, went on to assert without any evidence or substantiation that the chemical weapons incidents in East Ghouta and Khan Sheikhoun were carried out by the Assad government forces.

Yet, as we have noted above, critical investigative evidence shows that the attacks were not carried out by Assad’s forces, and were most likely perpetrated by Western-sponsored jihadist proxies for the purpose of mounting a propaganda false flag.

Timing is the key to uncovering the latest twist in the toxic geopolitical agenda. The Western-backed so-called peace talks over Syria opened again in Vienna – three days after the alleged chemical weapon atrocity in East Ghouta.

This week, parallel peace talks are due to reconvene in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

The difference between the two processes is that Washington and its NATO allies have control over the Vienna (also referred to as the Geneva) talks, whereas the Sochi (or Astana) talks are backed by Russia, Turkey and Iran. The Western-sponsored talks evidently push the extraneous agenda of Assad relinquishing power and regime change, while the Russian-facilitated dialogue seems to be genuinely aimed at fostering a national reconciliation for Syria in which President Assad’s government is the acknowledged sovereign authority, as per UN resolutions.

US claims about chemical weapons in Syria and laying the responsibility on Russia would seem to be motivated by the objective of discrediting the Russian-backed peace process, and elevating the Western-backed regime-change agenda in Vienna.

The other objective is to disenfranchise Russia’s veto power at the UN.

Since the infamous chemical weapon incident in East Ghouta back in August 2013, Russia has several times used its veto to prevent the US, Britain and France abusing the Security Council as a mechanism to frame up the Syrian government. Russia, with good reason, has claimed that Western powers are fabricating “chemical weapons investigations” that are prejudiced towards inculpating the Syrian government, again to serve an illicit agenda of regime change.

Russia’s counter-proposals for fully independent investigations into several chemical weapons attacks have been serially blocked by the Western powers. Yet, they claim that it is Russia which is “shielding the Syrian government”.

Without doubt, the Western powers are bitterly frustrated that their machinations have been stifled by Russia’s refusal to kowtow to their capricious use of standards and law.

Last week in Paris saw a summit of 28 NATO-aligned nations attend the so-called International Partnership Against Impunity for the Use of Chemical Weapons. A French government initiative. It was from here that Tillerson and French minster Le Drian made their provocative accusations against the Syrian government and Russia’s alleged responsibility.

As US government-owned news outlet Radio Free Europe reported with noticeable Washington spin: “Western governments have long accused Moscow of using its clout as a veto-wielding UN Security Council member to protect Assad.”

RFE then quoted Tillerson saying that Russia “must stop vetoing and at least abstain” in votes on future UN Security Council resolutions on holding the users of chemical weapons accountable.

In a tellingly defensive tone, the French government said of the summit that it is “in no way intended to replace existing international mechanisms, nor does it plan to conduct its own investigations”.

But that would seem to be precisely the overarching purpose of the Paris summit last week.

As Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said in rebuke to the Paris gathering, it is “a direct encroachment on the prerogatives of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and a blow to the UN platform.” In other words, to find Syria and Russia guilty as charged with no chance of challenging.

Washington and its allies may think their political agenda over chemical weapons is smart subterfuge to smear Russia. It’s not. It’s just downright stupid, transparent and toxically self-incriminating of Washington.

Most media covering the speech that US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, gave at the Hoover Institution on January 17, 2018 merely points out that he said that the United States would stay in Syria – open-ended – in the future and until President Bashar al-Assad has left the scene. Read the full speech here.

Reuters even twists it all to mean that the US is now more patient about Assad’s removal.

Before I continue it is a significant sign of the Western crisis, including moral and legal decay, that it raises few eyebrows – and none in NATO circles – that a top official of the leader of the Western world:

a) expresses no regrets about anything done so far in this conflict or in the larger Middle East,

b) states clearly that it will continue what must in legal terms be characterized as foreign military aggression and presence on the territory of a legal state member of the UN,

c) that it will work for regime change (there too) and

d) will make various kinds of aid dependent on Assad’s demise. Remember it is one of the largest post-1945 humanitarian crises – in the category of, say, Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq and Yemen – all of which have, by no coincidence, US and allied warfare as their main feature.

* * *

Irrespective of what we may think of Syria, this is little but a full-scale assault on international law and the normative system embedded in the UN Charter that has taken decades of hard work to build, a fundamental cornerstone of the management and civilizational development of the world order system.

Seen in comparison with the other attempts at undermining the UN – which began in the 1990s in Bosnia-Herzegovina – this should be a cause of deep concern among people in the truly civilizational corners of our world.

And it can’t be sold to the world under the headline of a Responsibility to Protect. But it does provoke the question: Shouldn’t there be a Responsibility to Protest – even among those allies that Tillerson seems to take for granted are all lining up behind the US (and perhaps they are)?

If there are anyone who can talk the US to some sense these days, it must be allies and friends predominantly in NATO and the EU. But will they?

* * *

Although held at Stanford University – and therefore supposed to contain some kind of decent academic-intellectual analysis – Tillerson’s presentation is from such perspectives incredibly poor.

Although he says that he will give “a broad historical and political context”, there is neither broadness, nor history nor context. Indeed, just a few words later he starts out in this manner which offers the framework for the rest of what he says:

“For nearly 50 years, the Syrian people have suffered under the dictatorship of Hafez al-Assad and his son Bashar al-Assad. The nature of the Assad regime, like that of its sponsor Iran, is malignant. It has promoted state terror. It has empowered groups that kill American soldiers, such as al-Qaida. It has backed Hizballah and Hamas. And it has violently suppressed political opposition…” and on an on it goes.

If this is the best history, context and analysis of what the underlying conflicts and the reasons for all the violence in Syria are that the United States of America’s top foreign policy official can muster you may ask at least two questions: What is so terribly deficient, narrow-minded and self-serving about US academia in this field? Or is that academic world actually excellent but not listened to at all in decision-making circles and why did he make that speech at a university?

I don’t know what the answer is, perhaps it is a combination of the two? But as a professor in peace and conflict studies I would ask an undergraduate student making writing such a piece of history and conflict analysis to read a couple of books more and come back to me with a revised paper. I would not let that student pass the exam.

Interestingly, the transcript of the speech reveals that the audience had no chance to ask questions or otherwise debate with the speaker. After Tillerson’s speech there is only a conversation between him and former foreign secretary, Condoleezza Rice. That’s unusual at a university where free debate should reign.

* * *

Secondly, there is nothing that indicates that Tillerson has a grasp on how his “strategy” for Syria relates to a more comprehensive policy for the Middle East region as a whole.

He doesn’t mention – for understandable reasons, you may say – that the US also has some other policies and goals for its future presence in Syria such as building permanent bases – in a kind of base race with Russia – and supporting Kurdish forces in the Syrian side of the border to Turkey – the second largest military power in NATO that is of course furious and calls it a terrorist army that it is ready to fight.

It will only push Turkey closer to Russia and eventually and predictably Turkey will turn its back completely on Europe and leave NATO.

We’ve of course seen it all before. It’s about bases (like, say, Kosovo), about control of resources (like, say, Iraq), about regime change (like, say Saddam Hussein and Moamar Khadafi) and it’s about the exceptionalist belief that God’s own country has God’s mandate to create US Imperial peace everywhere – no matter how many times it has already gone madly wrong and no matter how many innocent people are killed and wounded in the process.

He also does not mention that the US under the Trump administration has chosen to promote and support the new fundamentalist Islamist-Zionist team, Saudi-Arabia and Israel, supported by the Gulf States, to gang up against the Iran that is seen as a huge threat to the US, the world and the region. But which – unfortunately for that view – isn’t.

It is conspicuous in that this otherwise totally split and in-fighting administration/Deep State is united in basically in one thing: hating Iran. Iran is also about the only issue where President Trump holds the same views while he was in the campaign as he does now he is in the White House.

Furthermore, the Trump administration is doing nothing but undermining the welfare of the Iranian people (and supporting the hardliners and corrupt sectors) by means of the sanctions that are still in function through financial mechanisms. And coming up repeatedly with nonsensical perceptions of the country and permanent threat à la all options are on the table.

That is going to go madly wrong too, sooner or later.

* * *

Much can be said about Tillerson’s speech. If it wasn’t coming out of the world’s strongest military power – but now losing on all other power scales – nobody would bother to read it. But you should! (Or see it below on video which also reveals how ritualistic the whole event is from the intro by the Hoover president and onwards).

Heartbreakingly, it spells prolonged hell for fellow human beings in Syria and – open-ended – troubles for Iran and its people.

It’s peace-and-military stability philosophy is a fake as fake can be. Peace means war, open-ended war.

Can anything good be said about it?

Probably only that this type of policy will eventually become the famous nail in the US Empire’s coffin. Thereafter, both the US Republic and the world will be a much better place.

But wouldn’t it be so much better for all of us if that piece of history could unfold in a peaceful, intellectually honest and moral manner instead of open-ended warfare to the end?

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Further, the reckless, gratuitous provocations beg the conclusion that the United States is indeed trying to start a war.

Meanwhile, unprecedented accusations this week by US President Donald Trump that Russia is supporting North Korea to evade United Nations sanctions also point to the danger that any conflict could spiral out of control to engulf world nuclear powers.

Moscow rejected the unsubstantiated claims leveled by Trump, saying that Russia is abiding by UN trade restrictions over North Korea, and that the American president’s allegations were “entirely unfounded”.

Trump’s verbal broadside suggests that Washington is trying to undermine the nascent talks between the two Koreas, talks which Russia and China have both applauded as a long-overdue diplomatic effort to resolve the Korean conflict.

Separately, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov deplored a summit held in Vancouver, Canada, earlier this week in which the US and 19 other nations – most of them NATO members – called for sharper sanctions on North Korea that go beyond the remit of the United Nations. The conference, co-hosted by Canada’s Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, issued a stridently bellicose statement, calling in effect for North Korea to surrender its nuclear weapons or face US-led military action.

Significantly, and pointedly, China and Russia were not invited to the Canadian summit.

Most of the attending states were part of the original US-led military force which fought against North Korea during the 1950-53 war. A war which killed as many as two million North Koreans.

Russia admonished that the conference was “harmful” to current peace talks between North and South Korea. China rebuked the Canadian event as being stuck in “Cold War thinking”.

The anachronism of countries like Britain, Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Netherlands and Norway attending a conference on the Korean crisis while Asia-Pacific powers Russia and China being excluded was noted by Russia’s Sergei Lavrov. The anachronism is not only absurd, he said, it reprises a provocative “war summit” message.

Disturbingly, what the Vancouver gathering demonstrated was the willingness by the US and its allies to circumvent the United Nations Security Council and the previously established regional Six-Party forum involving the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the US.

At the Vancouver event, Tillerson laid out a belligerent agenda that was endorsed by the other attendees. The agenda included the precondition of North Korea giving up its nuclear program unilaterally; and it also flatly rejected the proposal made by Russia and China for a “freeze” in all military activities on the Korean Peninsula as a step to get comprehensive settlement talks going.

Tillerson made the following sinister ultimatum: “We have to recognize that that threat [of North Korea’s nuclear weapons] is growing. And if North Korea does not choose the path of engagement, discussion, negotiation, [that is, surrender] then they themselves will trigger an option [US military action].”

The US diplomat also warned that the American public must be “sober” about the possibility of war breaking out. Tillerson said the risk of such a war on the Korean Peninsula “continues to grow”. This was echoed by President Trump a day later in an interview with the Reuters news agency in which he also warned of possible war. It was the same interview in which Trump blamed Russia for aiding and abetting North Korea.

This sounds like US leaders are intensifying the conditioning of the American public to accept use of the military option, which they have been threatening for the past year in a pre-emptive attack on North Korea.

The Vancouver summit also called for proactive interdiction of international ships suspected of breaching UN sanctions on North Korea. That raises the danger of the US and its allies interfering with Russian and Chinese vessels – which would further escalate tensions.

These reprehensible developments are a reflection of the increasingly Orwellian worldview held by Washington and its partners, whereby “war is presented as peace” and “peace is perceived as war”.

Just this week, North and South Korea held a third round of peace negotiations in as many weeks. Even Western news media hailed “Olympic breakthrough” after the two adversaries agreed to participate in the opening ceremony of the forthcoming winter games next month as a unified nation under a neutral flag.

After two years of no inter-Korean talks and mounting war tensions on the peninsula, surely the quickening pace of peace overtures this month should be welcomed and encouraged. Russia, China and the UN have indeed endorsed the bilateral Korean exchange. Even President Trump said he welcomed it.

Nevertheless, as the Vancouver summit this week shows, the US and its NATO allies appear to be doing everything to torpedo the inter-Korean dialogue. Issuing ultimatums and warning of “military options” seems intended to blow up the delicate dynamic towards confidence and trust.

Two reports this week in the New York Times conveyed the contorted Orwellian mindset gripping Washington and its allies.

First, there was the report: “Military quietly prepares for a last resort: War with North Korea”. The NY Times actually reported extensive Pentagon plans for a preemptive air assault on North Korea involving a “deep attack” manned by 82nd Airborne paratroopers and special forces. The paper spun the provocative war plans as a “last resort”. In other words, war is sold here as peace.

Which raises the question of who is trying to wreck the Olympic Games being held in South Korea in February. For months, Western media have been warning that North Korea was intending to carry out some kind of sabotage. Now, it looks like the sabotage is actually coming from the US, albeit sanitized by the NY Times.

The second report in the NY Times had the telling headline: “Olympic détente upends US strategy on North Korea”.

So, let’s get our head around that display of dubious logic. A peaceful development of détente between two adversaries is somehow presented as a pernicious “upending of US strategy on North Korea”. In other words, peace is sold here as war.

Take for example this choice editorial comment from the NY Times in the second report: “This latest gesture of unity, the most dramatic in a decade, could add to fears in Washington that Pyongyang is making progress on a more far-reaching agenda.”

And what, one wonders, would that “far-reaching agenda” entail?

Again the NY Times elaborates: “White House officials warn that the ultimate goal of [North Korean leader] Mr Kim is to evict American troops from the Korean Peninsula and to reunify the two Koreas under a single flag… For the United States, the fear has been that North Korea’s gestures will drive a wedge between it and its ally, South Korea.”

Only in a perverse Orwellian worldview would an initiative to calm tensions and build peaceful relations be construed as something to “fear” and be opposed to.

Only in a perverse Orwellian worldview would peaceful dialogue provoke plans for pre-emptive war.

But that is precisely the kind of dystopian world that Washington and its lackeys inhabit.

According to the Washington Post, Pompeo “had been informally preparing to take over in Foggy Bottom, reaching out to potential candidates for positions and collecting ideas.” Rex Tillerson has been under fire for his stewardship of the State Department. His critics say the US diplomacy is in free fall with diplomats pushed out, and morale hitting rock-bottom. The reports about Tillerson’s departure appear in mass media amid the mounting from lawmakers and diplomats. It’s worth noting that White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders did little to scotch the rumors. "There are no personnel announcements at this time," was the only remark she made, not denying that there was a transition plan in mind.

Replacing Tillerson with Pompeo could presage a dramatic change. The nomination of Mike Pompeo, a former congressman from the Tea Party, for State Secretary would likely sit well with many Republicans who served with him in Congress. He is known as a rampant anti-Russia, anti-Iran, and anti-North Korea hawk. Pompeo is also expected to be more hawkish on other key issues.

Will the US use force against Pyongyang? Pompeo supports a military option while Tillerson stands for a negotiated solution to the problem. Infamously, Trump once tweeted that Tillerson was "wasting his time" trying to negotiate with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Will the US tear up the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or Iran deal? Pompeo is known to be a stern critic of Iran and opposed the nuclear deal that was brokered with the country during the Obama administration. Tillerson says the JCPOA should remain in force, while Pompeo is an ardent advocate of getting the United States onto a collision course with Iran.

There will be internal resistance in the State Department if Pompeo decides to withdraw from the JCPOA. Many diplomats contributed to its achievement in 2015 and back the deal. A conflict appears to be inevitable as Pompeo’s assignment presupposes changing the approach to the agreement.

How will the new assignment affect the relationship with Russia, which is at its lowest ebb ever? It couldn’t be worse, actually. Pompeo believes in the conspiracy theory that Russia meddled in the US election. On the one hand, a breakup with Iran and more tensions with Moscow at the same time may be too much. On the other hand, Iran and Russia are SCO partners. The two closely cooperate in Syria and develop bilateral relations. The formation of Middle East NATO to counter Iran will hardly facilitate improvement of Russia-US relations. The policy hostile to Iran may lead to beefing up the American military presence in Syria, with the US and Russia being in different, if not opposing, camps.

The views of Mike Pompeo, the CIA Director, have put him in good stead with Donald Trump, while Tillerson openly espouses views at odds with those of the president. The alleged Russia’s interference into US elections appears to be the only issue President Trump and Mike Pompeo don’t see eye to eye on. The CIA director says Moscow meddled into the 2016 presidential elections, while the president expresses doubts over the credibility of “Russia did it” reports.

Senator Tom Cotton, an Army veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is a student of Leo Strauss, the grandfather of the neocons. He is known to be a neoconservative and a hawk in favor of foreign interventions. The senator has always advocated aggressive, belligerent foreign policy, including the withdrawal from the Iran deal. He has urged US actions to bring about regime change in Iran through covert activity, and he believes that the use of force is an option.

Cotton believes that Trump is tougher on Russia than Obama was. “President Trump has appointed members to his Cabinet, and they’ve made deliberate statements that have been tougher on Russia than anything President Obama ever did,” he said in March on Fox News. According to him, Obama’s policy aimed at curtailing growth in defense spending, his nuclear deal with Iran, and his administration’s regulation of oil and gas development amounted to a “pro-Russia” policy, unlike the policy of President Trump.

At age 40, he is the youngest US senator with little experience in intelligence. The old guard at the CIA may not be willing to follow his edicts. CIA Deputy Director Gina Haspel, a 32-year veteran agent, may have a greater role to play. Like in the case of Pompeo, his views on Russia do not coincide with what the president says. Cotton believes Russia is an adversary.

The expected nominations of Mike Pompeo and Tom Cotton could be seen as the return of neocons who greatly influenced the decision making-process in the days of George Bush Jr. Tillerson stands out as a much more moderate, sober-minded and reasonable person. It’s logical to expect further deterioration of the Russia-US relations, with neocons being  in control of the State Department and the CIA.  

The prospect for abovementioned nominations makes remember the events of 2003, when the State Department and the CIA played key roles in drumming up the case for war on Iraq. In late 2017, the drums of another big war in the Middle East are beating loud again.