Historic Year… Ukraine War Exposes U.S. Imperialism as Foremost Global Threat

February 24, 2023

Source

Most people realize that the United States and its capitalist impoverishing-war-system must be defeated if the world is to ever live in peace.

The war in Ukraine is now entering its second year, having reached its first anniversary this week. On February 24 last year, Russian forces entered Ukrainian territory. The conflict has taken many twists and turns over the past 12 months. But there seems to be one inescapable, paramount development. The contours of hostility have emerged to identify the primary global threat – the United States and its zero-sum obsession with imperialist hegemony.

Strictly speaking, the war in Ukraine is entering its tenth year because the origins of the conflict are traced to the coup d’état in Kiev in February 2014 sponsored by the American CIA and other NATO agents. The NeoNazi regime that was installed then and which continues in power (headed up by a Jewish president nonetheless) was weaponized and covertly supported by the United States and its NATO partners to aggress the Russian-speaking people of formerly southeastern Ukraine. The bigger objective for the regime was to draw the Russian Federation into an existential confrontation that is now underway.

The Western governments and their media propaganda outlets assert the nonsense narrative that Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an unprovoked aggression against Ukraine. The Western propaganda system – whose names include household brands like the New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, Financial Times, BBC, CNN, DW, and France 24, and so on – completely whitewashes the preceding eight years to the war erupting.

Putin reiterated the claim this week in an annual state-of-the-union type speech when he said “the West started the war”. The Russian leader was predictably vilified in the West for saying such. But the facts of history are on Putin’s side.

American scholar Professor John Mearsheimer is one of several eminent voices who confirm that the war in Ukraine was presaged by NATO and NATO’s relentless expansion toward Russia over many years. Ukraine was but the tip of the spear pointed at Russia.

Other sources on the ground in the Donbass region – formerly of Ukraine – also confirm that the NATO-backed Kiev regime was escalating its aggression during February last year before Russia’s military intervention. This would account for why American President Joe Biden was confidently predicting at the beginning of last year that Russian forces would “invade” Ukraine. The American paymasters of the Kiev regime knew that Russia would be compelled to intervene in order to forestall an incipient deadly assault on the Russian-speaking population inside the then-Ukrainian border.

The Donbass region has since seceded from Ukraine in referenda held last year and joined the Russian Federation following the footsteps of the Crimean Peninsula. Western media/propaganda outlets talk about Russia “annexing” the Donbass and Crimea, ignoring the referenda verified by international observers. But then the same Western media refuse to report on how the U.S. in an act of international terrorism blew up the Nord Stream pipelines five months ago. Thus, say no more about their craven credulity.

Lamentably, the hostilities in Ukraine have been exacerbated and unnecessarily prolonged because of the massive flow of American and NATO weapons into that country. At least $100 billion of armaments has been pumped into the regime whose foot soldiers model themselves on Ukrainian fascists who collaborated with the Nazi Third Reich in World War II. This is while Western populations suffer record levels of poverty and austerity imposed by callous elitist rulers.

Just this week, the Biden administration pledged another $2 billion in military aid to the Kiev regime, including the resupply of HIMARS long-range rockets. The sophisticated U.S.-supplied artillery is being used to target and kill civilians in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions which are now part of the Russian Federation. Reliable information shows that the HIMARS artillery units are being operated by NATO mercenaries, not Ukrainian troops.

The grave implication is that the United States and NATO are at war against Russia. This is no longer a proxy war of indirect support. The visit to Kiev this week by President Biden and the ludicrous talk about “defending world democracy” against “Russian aggression” clearly demonstrates that Washington is commanding the conflict and its dangerous charade of hoodwinking the world.

Russia’s stated aims of “denazifying” and “demilitarizing” the Kiev regime are far from met – yet. The aforementioned would-be offensive by the NATO-backed regime against the Donbass region in February last year was thwarted by Russia’s intervention and countless lives were no doubt spared. Nevertheless, the truth is that the people in the newly constituted parts of Russia are continuing to live under deadly conditions imposed by the NATO axis. Just this week, several civilians in Petrovsky near Donetsk City, including ambulance workers, were killed by NATO-backed shelling.

The war in Ukraine has escalated into an existential one that Russia cannot afford to lose. Likewise, the investment of political and financial capital by Washington and its imperialist allies is such that they also face an existential challenge whereby they cannot back down without losing fatal prestige.

There is barely any diplomatic or political effort to find a peaceful solution. China this week unveiled a 12-point peace plan to resolve the conflict in Ukraine, but the plan was quickly dismissed or undermined by the U.S. and European leaders. The ultimate problem is Washington and its imperialist minions are seeking a zero-sum hegemonic result, one where Russia is defeated, which will, in turn, pave the way for bigger ambitions of confronting China. Already, the American imperialists are well on their way to reinforcing the military encirclement of China.

The war in Ukraine is really a manifestation of underlying historical forces. The supposed end of the Cold War in 1991 following the collapse of the Soviet Union led to subsequent decades of unbridled American military lawlessness and wars of impunity. Arguably, one can go further back and contend that the United States and its imperialist gang of powers are the inheritors of the Third Reich’s task to conquer Russia’s vast landmass. Western capitalist powers backed the rise of the Third Reich, and only for a brief period expediently switched sides to defeat Nazi Germany in 1945 because Hitler had gone rogue, only for the Western powers to quickly resume the historic objective of vanquishing Russia under the guise of the Cold War. The truth is the Cold War never ended. Because the American-led capitalist warmongering order never ended. (And there will never be peace under this order.)

Russia’s envoy to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, in an address to the Security Council this week cited figures that showed that the U.S. engaged in illegal foreign military interventions on over 250 occasions since the ostensible end of the Cold War some three decades ago.

For its part, China this week denounced the United States as the major instigator of world conflicts, claiming that 80 percent of foreign wars and hostilities were attributable to covert and overt American actions.

No nation has overseen the number of coups, regime-change operations, mass killings, and assassinations compared with the United States. Its ruling regime even assassinated one of its own presidents – John F Kennedy in 1963 – because he stood in the way of imperialist objectives.

In the make-believe fairytale world of Western governments and media (a deluded global minority, it must be noted), the war in Ukraine is laughably portrayed as being about “defending democracy and freedom”. The reality is Ukraine has become a money-splurging war racket in which Western war and banking industries are drooling at the profits facilitated by a corrupt cabal in Kiev propped up by NeoNazi paramilitaries and NATO mercenaries who are killing Russian civilians. A gruesome video emerged this week showing NATO-backed murderers in uniforms hanging a man and his pregnant wife in the Lugansk region, an atrocity confirmed by the state prosecutor for the region.

It is estimated that up to 200,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed over the past year, while the United Nations estimates that about 7,200 civilians have died. Russia claims to be trying to minimize civilian casualties.

The United States and its NATO accomplices are fighting an imperialist war “to the last Ukrainian” and bequeathing another failed state as they have done elsewhere in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen among others. This time, however, the American Empire is pushing a war against nuclear power, Russia, which is not going to back down. Two existential forces are incrementally going head-to-head. And most people realize that the United States and its capitalist impoverishing-war-system must be defeated if the world is to ever live in peace.

المعادلة الجديدة لسيد المقاومة لإحباط مخطط الفوضى الأميركي

السبت 18 شباط 2023

‬ حسن حردان

جاء خطاب أمين عام حزب الله سماحة السيد حسن نصر الله في ذكرى القادة الشهداء، والذي ردّ فيه على مخطط الفوضى الأميركي، بتهديد واشنطن بفوضى في كلّ المنطقة وإيلام طفلها المدلل «إسرائيل»، جاء هذا الخطاب في توقيت يشهد فيه لبنان تدهوراً مقصوداً في قيمة الليرة اللبنانية تجاه الدولار واستطراداً انهياراً غير مسبوق في القدرة الشرائية للمواطنين… والذي أعقب مباشرة إقدام المصارف على تنفيذ إضراب مفتوح، فيما كان لافتاً انّ الدولار يقفز مرتفعاً في اليوم عشرة آلاف ليرة، وبات الحديث عن اقترابه من رقم مئة ألف ليرة للدولار الواحد، بعد أن تجاوز عتبة الثمانين ليرة، من دون أن يكون لهذا الانهيار في قيمة العملة ما يبرّره اقتصادياً، الأمر الذي يزيد من القناعة بأنّ هناك جهات محلية وخارجية تقف وراء ذلك بقصد إيجاد المناخات المواتية التي تدفع البلاد إلى الفوضى، وهو ما ظهرت مؤشراته من خلال قطع الطرقات وحرق المصارف، بما يذكر بقرار فرض الضريبة على الواتس أب عشية اشتعال احتجاجات 17 تشرين الأول عام 2019، والتي شكلت بداية إدخال لبنان في نفق الانهيار الاقتصادي والمالي الممنهج المترافق مع قرار أميركي بتشديد الحصار على لبنان مما أسهم في تفاقم الأزمات وانفجارها وبداية مسلسل تراجع قيمة العملة اللبنانية، وحجز أموال المودعين…

وكان واضحاً أنّ كلّ ذلك إنما يندرج في سياق مخطط واشنطن لإخضاع لبنان بالكامل للهيمنة الأميركية، من خلال محاولة حصار حزب الله المقاوم وتأليب اللبنانيين ضدّ المقاومة وسلاحها، عبر تحميل الحزب مسؤولية الأزمات، وصولاً إلى توفير المناخ المؤاتي لنزع سلاح المقاومة لا سيما الصواريخ الدقيقة التي تقلق كيان العدو الصهيوني وتشلّ قدرته على شنّ الحرب ضدّ لبنان وتلجم اعتداءاته وأطماعه…

رب قائل بأنّ ما نقوله مجرد تحليل ورأي سياسي، لا يمتّ للحقيقة والواقع بصلة… لكن الدليل على ما نقوله، ليس العودة إلى التذكير بمواقف وتصريحات المسؤولين الأميركيين، من جيفري فيلتمان وخطته التي عرضها أمام لجنة الخارجية في الكونغرس لإضعاف حزب الله وإقصائه مع حلفائه عن السلطة، وتشكيل حكومة موالية بالكامل للسياسة الأميركية كي تنفذ إملاءات واشنطن، إلى تصريحات ديفيد شينكر واعترافاته بفشل من راهنت عليهم بلاده في تحقيق ما تريده، رغم الأموال الطائلة التي دفعتها لهم الإدارة الأميركية، بل نذكر فقط بآخر التصريحات الأميركية التي جاءت على لسان مساعدة وزيرة الخارجية لشؤون الشرق الأدنى باربرا ليف، في تشرين الثاني من العام الماضي، حيث قالت، «إنه سيتعيّن على اللبنانيين تحمل المزيد من الألم قبل أن يروا في بلادهم حكومة جديدة».
وأوضحت باربرا، ما تعنيه كلمة ألم بالقول «إن الانهيار والتفكك أمران لا مفرّ منهما قبل أن يصل اللبنانيون إلى ظروف أفضل»، مؤكدة أنه يجب ربط لبنان الاقتصادي بقروض صندوق النقد الدولي…

والسؤال لكلّ الذين حاولوا ولا زالوا يحاولون رمي كرة الأزمة في مرمى حزب الله واتهامه بالمسؤولية عنها والتغطية على دور الولايات المتحدة… ما هو رأيهم بما قالته باربرا ليف قبل أشهر قليلة، أليس واضحاً بأن ما يجري هذه الأيام إنما يندرج في سياق ما بشرت به اللبنانيين بمزيد من دفع لبنان إلى مستنقع «الانهيار والتفكك»، حتى تتحقق أهداف واشنطن في فرض الانقلاب على المعادلة السياسية في لبنان من خلال، طبعاً:

أولاً، فرض انتخاب رئيس للجمهورية، بالمواصفات الأميركية.

ثانياً تشكيل حكومة جديدة، وفق أمل باربرا ليف، يكون لونها وهواها أميركي، قادرة على تنفيذ دفتر الشروط الذي تضعه واشنطن.

من هنا يمكن القول إنّ ما يجري من انهيار كبير في قيمة العملة، انما يندرج في سياق الخطة التي كشفت عنها ليف… ولهذا فإنّ كلام السيد بالأمس، بالردّ على خطة دفع لبنان إلى الفوضى، بإعلان معادلة جديدة، «الحرب مقابل الفوضى»، أيّ إعلان استعداد المقاومة لشنّ الحرب ضدّ كيان الاحتلال، والقوات الأميركية وأدواتها في المنطقة ولبنان إذا ما امتنعت واشنطن في دفع لبنان الى الفوضى، انّ هذا الكلام يذكرنا بكلام السيد اثر اندلاع احتجاجات 17 تشرين الأول، بالقول للأميركي، «من سيضعنا بين خيار القتل بالسلاح أو الجوع، سيبقى سلاحنا في أيدينا ونحن سنقتله».

انّ هذه المعادلة التي أعلنها سماحة السيد انتصرت عبر:

أ ـ كسر الحصار الأميركي من خلال إدخال المحروقات الايرانية
ب ـ وفرض اتفاق ترسيم الحدود البحرية وفق الشروط اللبنانية.
ج ـ وكسر الحصار الأميركي على سورية، وسقوط جدران القطيعة معها، في اعقاب كارثة الزلزال
د ـ تماسك بيئة المقاومة وفشل محاولات تأليبها ضد سلاحها

إذا كانت معادلة المقاومة، في تحقيق كل ما تقدّم، كانت الأساس في إحباط أهداف واشنطن من تشديد الحصار على لبنان، والذي شمل كل مناحي المال والاقتصاد والخدمات، طبعاً بمساعدة أطراف سياسية لبنانية تابعة لواشنطن، فإن المعادلة الجديدة التي أعلنها السيد، للردّ على الفوضى الأميركية، إنما تعني أخذ الأميركي والإسرائيلي إلى الحرب، بحيث يألم الجميع وليس فقط اللبنانيين… وهذه الحرب ضدّ الوجود الأميركي وأدواته وضدّ كيان الاحتلال الصهيوني، تعني تدفيع أميركا و»إسرائيل» ثمن إدخال لبنان في الفوضى… وهذا ما تحاذر الذهاب إليه، حتى الآن، كلّ من واشنطن وتل أبيب، ولذلك رضختا لشروط لبنان في ترسيم الحدود البحرية، عندما أدركت الإدارتان الأميركية و»الاسرائيلية» جاهزية وجدية المقاومة بالذهاب الى الحرب إذا لم يتمّ الاستجابة لمطالب لبنان في الترسيم.

فهل تتراجع الإدارة الأميركية عن الإيغال في مواصلة خطتها بدفع لبنان إلى أتون الفوضى، لتجنّب الانزلاق إلى خطر اندلاع حرب في هذا التوقيت الذي يتركز فيه جلّ اهتمامها وجهودها على مواجهة روسيا على الأرض الأوكرانية، والحدّ من اتساع نفوذ الصين؟ أم تمعن بالاستمرار في خطتها المذكورة آنفاً؟

هذا ما سيجيب عليه السلوك الأميركي في الأيام المقبلة

فيديوات ذات صلة

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• التفاعل الإسرائيلي مع تهديد نصرالله أميركياً
• المعادلة الجديدة لسيد المقاومة لإحباط مخطط الفوضى الأميركي
• داعش يقتل 53 مواطناً سورية يجمعون الكمأة في البادية… بديلاً عن الحصار والعقوبات الإسرائيليون يدعون الأميركيين لتجنيبهم تداعيات الاشتباك مع حزب الله بعد تهديدات نصرالله لقاء تضامني مع سورية بدعوة من «القومي»… والقائم بالأعمال السوري: نفخر بتفاعل اللبنانيين
• «إسرائيل» ولعنة الفلسطينيين: سقوط الوهم وبداية الأفول!
• ما فُرض بالقوة لا يُواجَه بغير القوة!
• مأزق واشنطن مع سلاح الحصار والعقوبات
• موسكو تحذّر واشنطن:استهداف القرم يعادل استهداف موسكو
• نافذة ضوء

Al-Houthi to coalition of aggression: Our patience will run out

17 Feb 2023

Source: Al Mayadeen Net

By Al Mayadeen English 

The leader of Ansar Allah affirms that the movement will not squander the achievements of the Yemeni people in terms of freedom and independence.

The leader of Ansar Allah movement, Sayyed Abdul-Malik Al-Houthi

The leader of Ansar Allah movement, Sayyed Abdul-Malik Al-Houthi, said, “The stage we are in, in Yemen, is a stage of war, and what has calmed down is none but military escalation,” pointing out that “we are today in the position of confronting targeting and threats, as the stage of just following up on the news of the attacks on our nation [without acting] has come to an end.”

Al-Houthi warned and advised the coalition of aggression that patience will run out, “as we cannot accept depriving our people of their national wealth.”

He added, on the occasion of the martyrdom anniversary of Hussein Badr Al-Din Al-Houthi, today, Friday, “We are currently going through a de-escalation phase under Omani mediation and intensive efforts to stop the aggression on Yemen.” He also thanked the Omanis for their efforts and stressed the necessity of addressing the humanitarian and livelihood file, which “we cannot barter or remain silent about.”

The Yemeni leader affirmed that “we will not squander the achievements of our people in terms of freedom, independence, and maintaining dignity,” stressing that in any dialogue to be held, “the [main point should be that] enemies must end their aggression against our country.” He warned that “time may run out and we may return to pressure options to obtain our people’s right to their wealth.”

“If peace is what they want, its path is clear; its key is [solving] the humanitarian file and its ultimate goal is to end the aggression, siege, and occupation.”

Read more: ‘Final warning’: UN accused of blockading Yemeni people – Official

Enemies provide all kinds of weapons, including nuclear weapons

The leader of Ansar Allah movement said the Americans and Western countries occupy countries and appoint puppet governments therein to suppress anyone who opposes their hegemony.

Al-Houthi added that the Americans and their affiliates violate the sovereignty of states and their ambassadors meddle in everything, both issuing directives as if they are the rulers of the countries in question.

“The Americans are the ones that launch military attacks and aggressions, such as their invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, their aggression against Yemen, and their occupation of Palestine,” the Yemeni leader said, adding that they “do their best to destabilize the security of our nation, through the founding of Takfiri groups and exerting pressure on the [countries’] regimes to facilitate their operations.”

عمل الأعداء على زعزعة أمن أمتنا عبر إنشاء الجماعات التكفيرية والضغط على الأنظمة لتسهيل عملياتها.

قائد حركة أنصار الله السيد عبد الملك بدرالدين #الحوثي بمناسبة الذكرى السنوية للشهيد حسين بدر الدين الحوثي. pic.twitter.com/wovOFxHjh7

— قناة الميادين (@AlMayadeenNews) February 17, 2023

In this context, he reaffirmed that “the Takfiri groups are made by the West and America with the aim of distorting the image of Islam.”

The Yemeni leader indicated that “the enemies provide all kinds of weapons, including nuclear weapons, to hostile countries, whereas the countries that come under attack are denied any such weapons.”

Al-Houthi affirmed, “They want us to be a nation deprived of any ability to defend itself, and that is why they are working to ban the supply of weapons to any country they want to target.”

He further added that “the enemies impose agents and ignorant individuals on peoples and in important positions in state institutions with the aim of inflicting as much damage on them as possible and controlling them, thus forcing peoples to yield.”

Read more: London High Court examines legality of UK resuming Saudi arms sales

Absenting the Palestinian cause to wipe out the people’s memory

The Ansar Allah leader pointed out that “the enemies exerted strained efforts to keep the Palestinian cause out of the school curricula and were keen to exclude anything that could advance the nation’s level of awareness.”

He considered that “all forms of injustice and criminal activities are imposed on the Palestinian people on a daily basis.”

عملوا على تغييب #القضية_الفلسطينية من المناهج الدراسية وحرصوا على تغييب كل ما يمكن أن ينهض بمستوى وعي الأمة.

قائد حركة أنصار الله السيد عبد الملك بدرالدين #الحوثي بمناسبة الذكرى السنوية للشهيد حسين بدر الدين الحوثي. pic.twitter.com/CSGOhhCGKY

— قناة الميادين (@AlMayadeenNews) February 17, 2023

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Sayyed Nasrallah to the US: If You Seek Chaos in Lebanon, You and ‘Israel’ Will Suffer the Pain

 February 16, 2023 

Translated By Staff

Hezbollah Secretary General His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah delivered on Thursday a speech on the Islamic Resistance Martyred Leaders Day.

As Sayyed Nasrallah condoled with the families of the martyr leaders, he recalled their sacrifices.

His Eminence further congratulated Iran, its people and the Leader of the Islamic Revolution His Eminence Imam Sayyed Ali Khamenei on the 44^th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.

 “The international and Arab media neglected the millions who poured into the streets to celebrate 44 years of the Islamic Revolution while they used to focus on gatherings or riots that had a few people,” he added, pointing out that “All who betted on toppling the Iranian revolution, especially the Zionists, made a mistake, and I advise them not build their calculations on such mirage.”

On the Lebanese side,  Sayyed Nasrallah hoped that the agreement with the Free Patriotic Movement continues. “The Mar Mikhail Agreement is in a critical situation and we hope it will be preserved for the sake of the national interest,” he mentioned.

Moreover, His Eminence condoled with the Lebanese and the lovers and advocates of late PM Rafik Hariri on the anniversary of his martyrdom.

Meanwhile, the Resistance Leader hailed the sacrifices of “the oppressed Bahraini people, who won’t abandon their national cause, nor that of Palestine and occupied Al-Quds.”

Regarding the celebrated anniversary, he underlined that “Our martyr leaders clung to the option of resistance despite all the difficulties, betrayal and stabs in the back of the resistance.”

“Our achievements were scored thanks to the blood of our martyrs, leaders and all martyrs in the resistance movements, the Lebanese army, the Palestinian factions and the Syrian army,” Sayyed Nasrallah added, cautioning that “Since 2019, Lebanon has entered into a new scheme to return the country into the era of US hegemony.”

In addition, His Eminence underscored that “The liberation of Lebanon, its water and oil, and the revival of hope through the Palestinian intifada in 2000 are among the main achievements against the enemy.”

“Former US President Barack Obama admitted that toppling regimes needs only to alter the public opinion with ‘spam’,” he said, noting that “Obama himself explained the US tools to overthrow regimes by making people lose confidence in their leadership, and this thought is adopted by Biden administration.”

According to Hezbollah Secretary General, “We’re facing the challenge of confronting the US media, political and economic tools, on top of which is the game of dollar price.”

“What helps the Americans in their scheme is the presence of corruption and errors in the administrations of the targeted countries,” Sayyed Nasrallah explained, noting that “We must take the initiative, plan and cooperate in order to overthrow the scheme of chaos, domination and tampering with our people’s minds to control them.”

Recalling that “In October 2019, the slogan was ‘All means all’, because what was required is that the Lebanese lose their confidence in all officials,” he confirmed that “The US embassy, along with some NGOs, were manufacturing leaders. However, this project failed.”

On the regional level, Sayyed Nasrallah renewed Hezbollah’s condolences with the Turkish and Syrian governments over the devastating earthquake. “We’re facing a great human tragedy, and what happened is a test to the humanity of every person, party, association and country,” he said, noting that “Syria’s earthquake revealed the US administration’s failure in the test of humanity in and its brutal criminal face.”

The Resistance leader went on to say “In the 1^st days of the earthquake, the American administration left the people die in Syria through its severe sanctions.”

His Eminence also slammed “The international community’s discrimination and double standards that were clear at various levels in dealing with the repercussions of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria.”

“The West’s double standards in dealing with the devastating earthquake in Syria and Turkey is a resounding human failure,” he said, urging “all sides to help Syria and Turkey to return to normal life, and this is the most difficult challenge.”

Sayyed Nasrallah cautioned that “According to experts’ expectations, Lebanon is facing a new challenge, which is the possibility of an earthquake.”

“The Lebanese government – even if it is a caretaker one – must initiate contingency plans in anticipation of a possible earthquake,” he stated, noting that “Despite its modest capabilities, Lebanon can set contingency and comprehensive plans to face the possibility of an earthquake.”

In parallel, Hezbollah Secretary General underlined that “Among the first steps the Lebanese state must consider is fixing the cracked buildings.”

“Directly after the earthquake, the buildings in the northern Lebanese city, Tripoli, were the first to come to my mind, and I confirmed our readiness to help,” he uncovered.

Sayyed Nasrallah praised the Lebanese government’s steps in sending the official delegation to Syria, and offering all kinds of assistance. “Lebanon would benefit the most from breaking the siege on Syria,” he stated.

Moving to the “Israeli” front, Hezbollah Secretary General explained that “The internal ‘Israeli’ situation is unprecedented, especially in light of the entity’s officials fear from a ‘civil’ war.”

“The ‘Israeli’ occupying entity’s President acknowledged his fears of an imminent internal explosion and the collapse of the entity,” he mentioned, praising the “Palestinian people’s new uprising, particularly the heroic operations of the Palestinian youth in Occupied Al-Quds, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.”

According to His Eminence, “The foolish Zionist government may push for escalation in the entire region, not just in Palestine, and this is a possibility, especially in case of attacking the Al-Aqsa Holy Mosque.”

On the internal Lebanese front, Sayyed Nasrallah unveiled that “There is nothing new in the presidential file and we all saw what happened in Paris. It is true that the Lebanese are responsible.”

“Efforts must continue to search for agreement and understanding in order to resolve the issue of Lebanese presidency,” he said, noting that “No one can impose a president on Lebanon and the effort should be domestic.”

His Eminence went on to say that “The uncontrolled rise in the dollar in face of the Lebanese Lira must be dealt with, and the demands of the public sector are very justified.”

“What is happening in Lebanon is mainly caused by American pressure and the policy of withdrawing funds and deposits in a planned manner,” he stressed, adding that “The Americans sent a lot of messages to Iran in order to conduct direct negotiations, but Tehran refused that. We must seek to achieve a strong economy in our country and search for other markets, such as China and Russia.”

Moreover, Sayyed Nasrallah urged the Lebanese “not to accept any procrastination by the companies in the oil and gas file.”

To the Americans, the Resistance Leader sent a sounding message: “The resistance’s environment that you are seeking to target with chaos, suffering and pain will not give up its principles.”

He warned against any procrastination in extracting oil from water, and the Americans must be told to stay away from such move

To the Americans, the Resistance Leader said: “If you’re to sow chaos in Lebanon, you will lose everything. If you push Lebanon into chaos, you must wait for chaos in the entire region, particularly ‘Israel’. Those pushing Lebanon into chaos and collapse must anticipate everything and things that can’t be imagined.”

“Just as we were ready for war in defense of our oil, we’re ready to hit your protégé, ‘Israel’,” he vowed, noting that “Tomorrow is close.”

In Response to Opportunistic Critics: Where I Actually Stand on the Russia-Ukraine War

February 11, 2023

South Africa’s former Minister for Intelligence Services Ronnie Kasrils. (Photo: via Kasrils FB profile)

– Ronnie Kasrils, veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle, and South Africa’s former Minister for Intelligence Services, activist and author. He contributed this piece to The Palestine Chronicle

By Ronnie Kasrils

The recent hatchet job by Greg Mills and Ray Hartley in the Daily Maverick shows they believe it is their hallowed duty to strike down any voice daring to question the Western crusade against the evil Russian Empire.

Debate should always be encouraged, but the search for historic truth and a credible understanding of the facts is ill-served by a descent into a childlike morality tale of good versus evil.

In fact, Mills and Hartley, along with the rest of the increasingly shrill and at times hysterical pro-Western lobby in our media, should learn something from the much more sophisticated contributions that have been developed in the West in response to the USA-NATO belligerence, the crossing of bright red lines regarding Russia and China’s security, and the possibility of dire consequences. Learned American academics such as John Mearsheimer, Edward Curtin, John Bellamy Foster, and military intelligence specialists such as Scott Ritter and Jacques Baud, to name just a few prominent Western thinkers, have produced excellent analyses.

Contrary to what Mills and Hartley infer by twisting my words, I am by no means an uncritical fan of Putin or capitalist Russia. Of course, it is true that a strong legacy exists concerning the support the ANC and other fraternal liberation movements received from the former Soviet Union, but it is far more than that which inclines much of the Global South, to understand Russia’s security needs, and sustains its anathema for USA-NATO imperialist domination.

Indeed, the South African position on the conflict is hardly an outlier in the Global South. Brazil’s Luis Inazio Lula da Silva, for instance, has taken a similar position.

My article in News24 focused on the historical connection between the liberation struggle in South Africa and the Soviet Union because the publication specifically asked me to comment from my perspective as an Umkhonto weSizwe cadre who underwent military training there in 1964 – and in Odessa no less. I learned about Russia and the Soviet Union’s immense sacrifice during World War 2, and the people’s opposition to fascism in all its forms, including the Ukrainian Nazi collaborators, and the Soviet people’s deeply-rooted commitment to world peace.

I also referred to the bellicose emergence of neo-Nazis in present Ukraine. Mills and Hartley have the temerity to cynically spin this factual observation and declare themselves “sickened” by my alleged inference that present-day Ukraine is “somehow a Nazi state”. I said no such thing. I wrote: “Little wonder that President Putin has stated that part of Russia’s objective is the de-Nazification of the Ukraine.”

The emergence of neo-Nazi forces in Ukraine became globally visible during the Maidan Square protests in Kyiv, which turned into a violent rampage in 2014. At the time, mainstream Western media highlighted the role of those Nazi gangs.

Since then, the notorious neo-Nazi Azov Battalion and their ilk have become embedded within the Ukrainian armed forces, adorned with Nazi symbolism, and involved in atrocities. Now the Western media has turned a blind eye.

It is a moral duty to point to the rising peril of neo-Nazism in the streets of Europe, the USA and elsewhere, and the broader populist appeal to white supremacism. I will not be quietened in pointing out how emboldened the neo-Nazis have become in Ukraine.

It is important for readers to be aware that the Brenthurst Foundation is hardly a neutral institution when it comes to an ideological worldview. It is funded by white mining capital and, as a casual look at its board and associates shows, deeply enmeshed in the Western military
establishment – apart from a handful of Africans.

There is so much that is factually incorrect, dangerous and superficial in the Mills and Hartley piece. Particularly revealing is what they studiously avoid, because it does not suit their case.

I turn only to some of their more obvious howlers and deliberate omissions.

The Kyiv regime, which they laud as an example of freedom and democracy, has banned the communist and socialist parties, several left-wing organizations, and the For Life parliamentary opposition platform.

The “democrat” Zelensky, has closed down all opposition television and media outlets and instituted crippling legislation against Ukraine’s trade union movement and civil liberties. No word of this from the Brenthurst duo.

They claim that Crimea voted in a referendum to leave the Russian Federation and join Ukraine. But they don’t specify which referendum and when. There was a referendum among Crimea’s people in 2014, which voted for inclusion in the Russian Federation. What other referendums have occurred other than at the dissolution of the Soviet Union? Those related to the independence of the former constituent republics.

At that time, in December 1991, the three Slavic republics – Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine – proclaimed the establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). That was
not a referendum specifically concerning Crimea.

As to the sanctity of referenda or elections, there is no sound from the Brenthurst pair concerning the Maidan coup of 2014 which overthrew the democratically elected government of President Yanukovych, and the “color revolution” investment of the USA, Germany, Poland and others.

They state that in Africa a very limited number of countries were against supporting Ukraine. There were seventeen, including South Africa, that abstained from the UN General Assembly vote. As for African countries voting against Russia, President Ramaphosa has referred to South Africa being blackmailed and threatened to toe the US-NATO line.

I am accused of ranting about the “morality of US foreign policy, CIA-sponsored coups, punitive sanctions and blockades, military aggression and intervention globally”. Russia, they state appears exempt from my criticism “when it does the same — and far worse — in Africa under the brutal rule of Wagner military interventions that secure mineral wealth for oligarchs.”

The facts are that whatever the sins of Wagner, the most active and destructive mercenary groups that have plundered Africa and the Middle East are American, British and French. Their boots on the ground are numbered in the tens of thousands.

Wagner personnel are 6,000.

By Wikipedia’s broadest definition of military intervention, the US has engaged in nearly 200
since 1950 with over 25% occurring since 1991.

That explains why so many countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America refuse to kowtow to the US-NATO-EU axis. When they do it is either because of fear of the consequences or they are infamous dictators installed by the CIA such as Mobuto Sese Seko, Pinochet, Bolsonaro or Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, loyal to their master’s orders.

As for elephants in the room which Mills and Hartley are silent about, any university undergraduates serious about historical events can point to:

• NATO expansion east to Russia’s doorstep since the collapse of the Soviet Union when it should have been wound up along with the Warsaw Pact;
• Numerous countries added to NATO’s eastern expansion despite promises to Russia to the contrary;
• 15,000 mostly Russian-speaking people in the Donbas killed by Ukrainian forces between 2014 and February 2022;
• 42 massacred at the Odessa trade union building in July 2014;
• Atrocities committed by the Ukrainian forces and Neo-Nazis;
• US rejecting calls from Russia to respect its borders;
• US surrounding Russia with military bases;
• George W. Bush withdrawing the US from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty;
• Trump withdrawing the US from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty;
• The US asserting its right to a nuclear first strike;
• The US waging an economic war on Russia via sanctions for years.

Mills and Hartley venture into the realm of wild conspiracy theories and cheap insults in hallucinating state capture of our democracy by China and Russia “in politics, unions and business” and, following a now debunked US conspiracy theory, warn of Russia “disrupting elections” as a natural next step.

Whilst our government affirms the need for peaceful negotiations, the pro-NATO position of the Brenthurst duo follows the most dangerous hawks in the West by advocating escalation of the war and more lethal weapons for Ukraine at the risk of a nuclear conflagration.

It seems that Greg Mills has forgotten about Afghanistan. In his years in Kabul serving as ‘special advisor’ to a NATO commander, did he ever conceive of an ignominious reversal?

(This article was originally published in the Daily Maverick)

– Ronnie Kasrils, veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle, and South Africa’s former Minister for Intelligence Services, activist and author. He contributed this piece to The Palestine Chronicle

فلسطين تفرض إيقاعها على ملفات المنطقة

الإثنين 30 كانون الثاني 2023

لم تكن عملية الشهيد البطل خيري علقم مجرد عملية بطولية تضاف إلى سجل عمليات المقاومة الفلسطينية، بقدر ما هي إعلان مرحلة جديدة يقول فيها الفلسطينيون إنهم قادرون على التعامل منفردين مع نتائج وصول اليمين المتطرف إلى الحكم في كيان الاحتلال، وإن التطبيع الذي قامت به حكومات عربية مع الكيان لم يقدم ولم يؤخر في موازين المواجهة مع الكيان، وإن سقوط خيار التفاوض والتسويات لم يدفع الفلسطينيين الى اليأس بل الى المقاومة، وإن المقاومين الأفراد الذين لا ينتمون إلى أي تنظيم فلسطيني يشكلون عماد العمل المقاوم، وهم لا يحتاجون مالاً ولا سلاحاً ولا شكلاً تنظيمياً ولا قيادة.

المسار الفلسطيني الجديد يمتلك أدوات استمراره وتطوّره في ذاته، وهو قادر على النمو والتصاعد في ظل الحصار والاحتلال، بل إن الحصار والتصعيد والقتل أسباب نموه وتصاعده، وبالتوازي لا يبدو أن الكيان قادر على الاستدارة او على التوقف او التراجع، ولذلك تبدو المواجهة الى تصاعد قد يبلغ في مدى أسابيع مرحلة الغليان، خصوصاً مع قدوم شهر رمضان وتقاطعه مع أعياد يحييها المتطرفون الدينيون في الكيان في المسجد الأقصى، الذي ترتفع رمزيته المقدسة مع ليالي رمضان، ما يجعل المواجهات الدموية نتيجة حتمية مقبلة.

ملفات المنطقة الساخنة تقع بين شعوبها وحكوماتها من جهة والإدارة الأميركية من جهة مقابلة، سواء التفاوض على الملف النووي الإيراني أو الصراع في سورية ومعها وعليها، او الاستحقاق الرئاسي في لبنان، أو مستقبل الاحتلال الأميركي في العراق وسورية، او مستقبل الحرب في اليمن، وواشنطن سوف تقيس مواقفها من كل هذه الملفات وفقاً لمقاربة قوامها، أي الخيارات يعرّض أمن كيان الاحتلال لمزيد من الخطر، وأي الخيارات يوفر للكيان حماية أفضل، لذلك قد ترد الحروب الكبرى والتسويات الكبرى من هذا الباب بعدما كانت مستبعدة حتى الأمس القريب.

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Nasrallah: No settlement in the region, West returned to proxy war

January 19, 2023 

Source: Al Mayadeen Net

“My opinion is that there is no settlement”… Nasrallah decides!

By Al Mayadeen English 

Sayyed Nasrallah says the third version of the US project in the region is based on tightening the blockade and economic sanctions.

Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah

Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah pointed out on Thursday that the West has returned to the police of proxy wars, as is the case in Ukraine while focusing at the same time on exerting economic pressures and imposing sanctions.

On the 30th anniversary of the launch of the Consultative Center for Studies and Documentation, Sayyed Nasrallah said, “The third version of the American project in the region is based on tightening the blockade and economic sanctions,” stressing that “an economic vision must not be built on wrong political calculations, including an assumption that there will be a settlement in the region.”

Sayyed Nasrallah indicated that “there will be no settlement in the region, and the economic vision must be based on the fact that there is no stability in light of the ongoing struggle with the Israeli enemy.”

Regarding the resources within the Mediterranean Sea, the Lebanese leader said there is no doubt that the Mediterranean has enormous resources that the world sees as a top priority. “Inevitably and definitely, there is oil on the land according to studies,” and what stopped all previous attempts to extract them is politics.

Sayyed Nasrallah highlighted that Lebanese expatriates are exposed to danger and US aggression by placing businessmen and senior merchants on “terrorist lists on unjust charges,” stressing that “we need a political authority and a courageous state capable of taking stances, is defiant, and takes courageous decisions.”

Read more: Sayyed Nasrallah: Hezbollah eradicated curse of US from Lebanon

The Hezbollah Secretary-General considered that “the overwhelming concern battering Lebanon is economic, financial, and monetary,” calling on everyone to assume responsibility and save the economic and financial situation.

The Resistance leader said there is no doubt that the economic situation is difficult in Lebanon, stressing that this is the case across the globe as many countries around the world suffer from stifling economic crises.

The Secretary-General considered that “it is not permissible to remain in a floundering state,” stressing the importance of developing a vision for the economic situation on the basis of which plans and programs will be drawn up.

Sayyed Nasrallah explained that the reasons for the current poor economic situation in Lebanon are “political quotas in projects, sanctions, pressures, blockade, and the consequences of internal wars and reconstruction, as well as wars and Israeli aggressions and regional events, especially the file of the refugees and displaced, which greatly burdens Lebanon.”

Sayyed Nasrallah clarified that “the blockade means preventing aid and donations to Lebanon, preventing loans, and preventing the state from accepting donations, as happened with the Russian and Iranian donations or accepting the opening of investments” as offered by China and Russia.

Read more: Amir-Abdollahian in Beirut: Ready to provide Lebanon with fuel

“The United States does not want a strong state in the region, but rather, it wants its people to keep running after a loaf of bread,” he pointed out, continuing, “I invite you to examine the economic situation in Egypt, the first country to sign a peace agreement with “Israel”, is Lebanon more important to America than it?”

Sayyed Nasrallah further stressed that “the next 6 years are crucial, and if we continue in the same way, the country is going to collapse” if it already hasn’t.

Lebanon “wants a brave president who is willing to sacrifice and does not care about American threats if they do so,” and there are candidates who embody these characteristics, the Resistance leader noted, adding that “we are looking for a brave president of the republic, and we are looking for a government and officials of this kind.”

Sayyed Nasrallah concluded that “the forces that call themselves sovereign know the extent of the American meddling, yet they remain silent because sovereignty is an empty slogan to them.”

Read more: US preventing execution of Iran energy projects in Lebanon: Nasrallah

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• Sayyed Nasrallah: Hezbollah eradicated curse of US from Lebanon

أمير عبد اللهيان من دمشق: تدخلنا للحيلولة دون عملية عسكرية تركية في سوريا

السبت 14 كانون الثاني 2023

وزيرا خارجيتي إيران وسوريا يؤكدان أهمية تجديد وثيقة التعاون الاستراتيجي، ويشددان على أهمية التحالف بين دمشق وطهران على مستوى البلدين والمنطقة.

وزيرا خارجية إيران حسين أمير عبد اللهيان وسوريا فيصل المقداد خلال مؤتمر صحافي في دمشق

أكّد وزيرا خارجيتي سوريا وإيران، فيصل المقداد وحسين أمير عبد اللهيان، أهمية العلاقات الثنائية واستمرار التعاون المشترك في قضايا متعدّدة، أبرزها المشاكل الحدودية والخدمات والشؤون الإقليمية.

وجاء تصريحا الوزيرين خلال مؤتمر صحافي مشترك، اليوم السبت، في العاصمة السورية دمشق.

من جهته، أعلن أمير عبد اللهيان أنّ الرئيس السوري، بشار الأسد، وجّه دعوة إلى نظيره الإيراني إبراهيم رئيسي من أجل زيارة دمشق.

وأكد أنّ طهران “ستبذل كل الجهود لإجراء هذه الزيارة”.

وأوضح وزير الخارجية الإيراني أنّ “العلاقات بين دمشق وطهران في أفضل أحوالها”، وأنّ “الرئيس الأسد أكّد أنّ قيادتي البلدين عازمتان على تعزيز العلاقات الثنائية”.

وأضاف أنه توصّل “مع الوزير المقداد إلى الاتفاق على تجديد وثيقة التعاون الاستراتيجي بين البلدين”.

وشدد على أن هناك “عدداً من الاتفاقيات التي وُقِّعت بين البلدين، ويتمّ تنفيذها حالياً”.

وتطرّق الوزير الإيراني إلى التوتر الحدودي بين تركيا وسوريا، على خلفية التهديدات التركية بعمليات عسكرية في الأراضي السورية، واستمرار الاعتداءات على مناطق حدودية بين البلدين، وقال إنّه “عندما علمنا باحتمال شنّ القوات العسكرية التركية هجوماً في شمالي سوريا، تدخلنا للحيلولة دون ذلك”.

وأعرب أمير عبد اللهيان عن “سعادة إيران بنجاح اتصالاتها بسوريا وتركيا في ترجيح الحوار بين البلدين”.

وتحدّث الوزير الإيراني عن التعاون بين إبران وسوريا في المجال الخدماتي، وأكّد أنّ “التعاون بين طهران ودمشق مستمر في كل المجالات، ولا سيما في مجال الطاقة”.

وكشف أمير عبد اللهيان أنه أجرى “مباحثات بشأن إنشاء محطات للكهرباء في سوريا”.

وضع سكة جديدة للعلاقات

بدوره، أكد وزير الخارجية السوري، فيصل المقداد، أهمية التحالف بين إيران وسوريا، متسائلاً  أمام الصحافيين “تصوروا لو لم يكن لسوريا بلد حليف كالجمهورية الإسلامية. ماذا كان سيحدث؟”.

وقال إنّ اللقاء الذي جمعه بنظيره الإيراني يهدف إلى “وضع سكّة جديدة للعلاقة بين إيران وسوريا”.

وتطرّق الوزير السوري إلى الأزمات الخدماتية التي يعانيها أبناء المناطق السورية في الشمال، قرب الحدود التركية والعراقية، من جرّاء ممارسات المجموعات المسلحة التي ترعاها قوات الاحتلال الأميركي.

وتوجّه المقداد بالتحية إلى “أهلنا في الجزيرة السورية على ما يتحمّلونه من قطع للمياه”.

وأكّد أن “سياسة الذين يقطعون المياه عن أهلنا ستصل إلى نهايتها قريباً”.

التحرّك التركي في اتجاه إعادة العلاقات بسوريا

وفيما يتعلق بالتحرك التركي في اتجاه استعادة العلاقات بدمشق، والذي بدأ منذ أشهر برعاية روسيا وتأييد إيراني، أكّد المقداد أنّ سوريا “في كلّ تحركاتها منذ عام 2011 حتى هذه اللحظة، تسعى لإنهاء الإرهاب الذي عكر علاقاتنا بتركيا”.

وأكّد المقداد أنّ “اللقاء بين الرئيس الأسد والقيادة التركية يعتمد على إزالة أسباب الخلاف”.

وشدد على أنه “يجب خلق البيئة الملائمة من أجل عقد لقاءات على مستويات أعلى مع القيادة التركية”.

وأوضح الوزير السوري أنه “لا يمكن الحديث عن إعادة العلاقات الطبيعية بتركيا من دون إزالة الاحتلال”.

وأضاف أنّ “التنسيق مع طهران في مختلف الإطارات الإقليمية والدولية يؤكد التزام إيران وحدة أراضي سوريا وسيادتها”.

ولفت المقداد إلى أنّ الشأن الفلسطيني كان حاضراً في اجتماع الوزيرين، مشيراً إلى أنّ “الرئيس الأسد كرّر موقف سوريا بشأن الجرائم التي يرتكبها الاحتلال بحق الفلسطينيين” خلال اللقاء مع نظيره الإيراني.

التنسيق مع طهران يكتسب أهمية قصوى

وكان الرئيس السوري بشار الأسد استقبل، في وقت سابق اليوم السبت، وزير الخارجية الإيراني والوفد المرافق له. وأكّد الجانبان، خلال المحادثات، “العلاقات الوثيقة والتاريخية بين البلدين، والتعاون الثنائي القائم في مختلف المجالات”.

وأكّد الأسد، خلال اللقاء، أنّ دمشق “حريصة على التواصل المستمر وتنسيق المواقف مع إيران بصورة دائمة، ولا سيما أنّ إيران كانت من أوائل الدول التي وقفت إلى جانب الشعب السوري في حربه ضدّ الإرهاب”.

وشدد على أنّ “هذا التنسيق يكتسب أهمية قصوى في هذا التوقيت بالذات، الذي يشهد تطورات إقليمية ودولية متسارعة من أجل تحقيق المصالح المشتركة للبلدين”.

وأوضح الرئيس السوري أنّ “الدولة السورية تنطلق دائماً في كل مواقفها من حرصها على مصالح الشعب السوري”.

وبيّن أنّ دمشق “لن تسير إلى الأمام في الحوارات (مع تركيا) إلا إذا كان هدفها إنهاء الاحتلال ووقف دعم التنظيمات الإرهابية”. 

بدوره، أكّد الوزير عبد اللهيان أنّ “سوريا بلد مهم ومؤثر، ولذلك فإن قوة وتنمية سوريا يعني قوة وتنمية المنطقة عموماً وإيران خصوصاً”.

وأكد أنّ “البلدين يقفان في خندق واحد ويتبادلان الدعم القوي لبعضهما الآخر”.

كما شدد عبد اللهيان، بعد لقائه الأسد، على أنّ بلاده “لديها ثقة كاملة بالمواقف والقرارات السورية، وهي ترى أنّ أيّ حوار جاد بين دمشق وأنقرة هو خطوة إيجابية لمصلحة البلدين والمنطقة”.

وتطرق الحديث أيضاً، خلال اللقاء، إلى المحادثات التي أجراها وزير الخارجية الإيراني مع مختلف الأطراف في مؤتمر “بغداد 2″، والذي انعقد في عمّان أواخر الشهر الماضي، والمناقشات الجارية من أجل استئناف المحادثات المتعلقة بالملف النووي الإيراني.

ونقل الوزير الإيراني إلى الرئيس الأسد تحيات المرشد الإيراني،ـ السيد علي خامنئي، والرئيس الإيراني إبراهيم رئيسي.

وكان أمير عبد اللهيان وصل، مساء الخميس، إلى بيروت، في زيارة رسمية للبنان استمرت ثلاثة أيام، التقى خلالها نظيره عبد الله بو حبيب ورئيس مجلس النواب نبيه بري ورئيس حكومة تصريف الأعمال نجيب ميقاتي، بالإضافة إلى عددٍ من الشخصيات السياسية وممثلي الأحزاب اللبنانية والفلسطينية. 

كذلك التقى الوزير الإيراني الأمين العام لحزب الله، السيد حسن نصر الله، بحيث تم عرض آخر التطورات والأوضاع السياسية في لبنان وفلسطين ‏والمنطقة.

ومن المقرر أن يتوجّه أمير عبد اللهيان بعد زيارته بيروت ودمشق إلى موسكو، الأسبوع المقبل، ليلتقي نظيره الروسي سيرغي لافروف، من أجل استئناف خطة العمل الشاملة المشتركة بشأن الاتفاق النووي الإيراني، والاتفاق على منطقة تجارة حرّة بين إيران وروسيا.

اقرأ أيضاً: أمير عبد اللهيان من بيروت: مستعدون لتزويد لبنان بالفيول وتأهيله بمعامل للكهرباء

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• عبد اللهيان من دمشق: العلاقات بين البلدين في أفضل أحوالها
• العلاقات الإيرانية السعودية ولبنان

Iran Defense Minister Tells Turkish Counterpart: Independent Countries Have Challenged US Hegemony

July 21, 2022

By Staff, Agencies 

Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Ashtiani says the United States is seeking to create a unipolar and hierarchical world order, but independent countries and new poles of power in the world have challenged Washington’s hegemony.

During a meeting with his visiting Turkish counterpart Hulusi Akar in Tehran on Tuesday, Ashtiani stated that the world and the West Asia region, due to geopolitical and geostrategic rivalry of global powers, are experiencing a period of transition and are undergoing fundamental changes as a new order is being created.

“The United States is seeking to create a unipolar and hierarchical world order. Naturally, independent countries and new poles of power in the world have challenged the US hegemony, and are standing against the process,” the Iranian defense chief pointed out.

He added that West Asia is enjoying relative peace following a turbulent and chaotic period as a result of threats caused by terrorism, extremism, separatism and proxy wars.

“However, threats still loom in the region, and important regional countries are still required to use their capacities in order to ensure security,” Ashtiani said.

The Iranian defense minister went on to describe combat against extremism, terrorism and separatism as a common concern for both Iran and Turkey, stressing the significance of cooperation and coordination between the two neighboring countries in this regard.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran’s approach to regional issues is founded on participation of regional countries to resolve issues through dialogue, respect for the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of countries, and opposition to any border and territorial changes,” Ashtiani stated.

He also touched on attempts by some regional Arab attempts to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, saying, “The occupying regime of al-Quds is the bitter and implacable enemy of Muslim countries.” 

Ashtiani stated that Iran views Turkey as an effective country in the Muslim world, which has numerous capacities in political, economic and international dimensions.

“Naturally, coordination and cooperation between the two countries is needed to strengthen mutual relations, and to protect the benefits of the region and Muslim world,” he said.

Ashtiani further stated that Iran and Turkey have significant capacities in military and defense sectors, stating that there are enormous opportunities for cooperation between the two countries, and Tehran is ready to dispatch high-profile defense, military and technical delegations to Ankara.

‘Enemies are trying to use terrorism to start proxy wars in region’

Akar, for his part, pointed to the wide range of commonalities between Iran and Turkey, and said cooperation between the two countries is important to maintain bilateral and regional stability and security.
“Nowadays, terrorism is a tool of imperialism. Enemies are trying to foment insecurity in the region through such a tool and launch a proxy war,” the Turkish defense minister said.

He highlighted that Turkey’s positions regarding the landmark 2015 Iran have always been clear, and emphasized the need for the continuation of negotiations aimed at the revival of the accord, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA].

The High Cost of American Friendship

June 19, 2022

Source

By Eamon Mckinney

Democracy is easily defined by most, but to America it means any country that subverts its own national interests to those of the U.S.

Henry Kissinger once famously said, “To be an enemy to America can be dangerous, but to be a friend can be lethal.” The aged but far from venerable Kissinger’s words have never been truer than they are today. America has a habit of redefining words to suit its own purposes. What the word “friend” means to America is interpreted differently by other nations. Of course friend is not the only word that means something different to America than it does to everyone else. Democracy is easily defined by most, but to America it means any country that subverts its own national interests to those of the U.S. The recent Summit of the Americas held in Los Angeles hosted a number of notable Latin America statesmen. There were however many notable absentees, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, the latter two are undeniably democracies but by virtue of their independent government policies they were not welcome at the American-hosted summit. According to America’s twisted version of democracy, only right-wing, neo-liberal, America-friendly countries can qualify as legitimate democratic governments, and by extension “friends.”

The days when America can dictate and bully Latin American nations are over. Though not as intended by the hosts, there was much unity and friendship in evidence at the Summit. The head of Mexico’s socialist Government Manuel Lopez Obrador refused to attend in protest at the exclusion of the three absent nations, a lower-level official was sent in his stead. The heads of state of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador also declined the invitation citing the same reason. This principled and courageous stance came with the understanding that they would be positioning themselves as American enemies, but they did it anyway. After two hundred years under the imperialist Monroe doctrine they will no longer tolerate being considered America’s backyard. The message from Latin America was clear, “we don’t need your version of friendship, and we will take our chances as your enemy.”

Although unstated, one of the main U.S. objectives at the Summit was to dissuade further Latin American engagement with China. The problem for America is that “south of the border” they prefer the Chinese version of friendship. That entails actually listening to the needs of their “friends”, something America is lamentably bad at. All the Latin countries are struggling with burdensome IMF debt and many are seriously close to default. They need investment in their economies and their infrastructure. China offers both without the internal interference in the nations’ domestic affairs. Respect for sovereignty and self-determination is what Latin Americans having been fighting for since the Spanish conquest more than 400 years ago. For the first time in centuries countries can see how that can now be achieved, and China is a big part of that scenario. America only offers co-operation on security, Latin America has security concerns but most of that concern is directed at America. The tone deaf empire needs to understand that Latin America has a new, much better friend.

The message the U.S. got from the Summit was a clear continent-wide rejection of American policies and its attempts to create an anti-China block. We can assume that American officials are getting used to such rejection by now. Attempts to create an anti-China alliance in Asia have also failed miserably, for many of the same reasons. No Asian country sees China as a threat, they see it as a regional leader whose economic miracle has concurrently raised the economies of its neighbours. The U.S. attempts to create security concerns where they don’t exist has gained zero traction among Southeast Asian nations. With the exception of the occupied nations of South Korea and Japan, China’s relationships with its Asian neighbours are excellent. “Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Jaakob said that “When Americans come to Asia they only want to talk about security, we have no pressing security concerns, when Asian nations get together we talk about trade, any problems can be resolved through negotiation and diplomacy”. The main security concern among Asian nations is the talk of the need for an Asian NATO. The recent U.S. attempts to place missiles aimed at China in six Asian countries unsurprisingly found no takers. If America was listening (doubtful), they would have heard that it is neither needed nor wanted in a region that just wants to do business. American friendship in Asia means making any enemy of China, and none consider that worth the price.

Another of America’s enemies, Russia has defied all attempts to destroy its economy and has rebounded to have the world’s strongest currency. The transparent motivations behind the Ukraine conflict have many nations quietly cheering Russia on in their fight against the common enemy, the Empire. The sanctions designed to destroy Russia found little support outside the usual suspects in the NATO clique. With the world facing catastrophic shortages of food, energy and capital it is increasingly Russia and China that countries are turning to for help.

While America’s enemies continue to enjoy much goodwill, how are America’s friends doing? Not so good. By joining in the absurd Anti-China Covid rhetoric spurred by Trump, Australia, Canada and Britain have committed economic suicide by alienating a valuable trade partner, just to please America. American friends in Europe will suffer through horrific food and energy shortages together with rapidly increasing inflation, all largely a result of the Ukraine provocation. Not forgetting the instigation of an unnecessary and dangerous war in their neighbourhood, a war that no one but America (NATO) wanted. And of course the Ukraine itself, goaded into a disastrous war against a much stronger foe, now finds itself facing defeat and destruction. All attempts by the hapless Zelensky at a negotiated peace are blocked by the West. Not while there are some Ukrainians still alive apparently. Despite the encouraging words of his American masters, the disposable Zelensky finds himself very much alone. The once prosperous post-Soviet Ukraine has turned into a bankrupt, burned-out shell of its former self. Zelensky may well retreat to his $45mil in Miami when it is all over, but the unfortunate Ukrainian people will suffer the consequences of American friendship for generations to come.

If America has its way, its “friends” in Taiwan will soon suffer the same fate as the Ukraine. Despite all attempts to provoke China into an action that would draw International outrage, and presumably sanctions, China has demonstrated considerable restraint. It understands the game being played and absent a foolish Declaration of Independence from Taiwan, it is unlikely to be drawn in. South Korea and Japan have been occupied nations since 1944. The American presence is overwhelmingly objected to by the citizens, yet they owe fealty to America. In the event of a China conflict, their U.S. bases would likely be the first targets in any China response. Yet both nations declined American requests to host China facing missiles in their countries.

The loss of American influence has accelerated tremendously in recent months, and it came at a bad time. America needs friends more than ever now and it is finding them increasingly hard to come by. Even long time “friends” and supplicants like Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are shunning America’s call to produce more oil. Biden couldn’t even get MBS to take his phone call. Shamelessly they also turned to Venezuela to ask for oil, unsurprisingly they found no friends or solutions there either.

Returning to Henry Kissinger, by his definition, being a friend or enemy of America can be equally dangerous. “America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests”

Those that consider themselves American “friends” should heed his words.

But credit where it is due, the U.S. is indeed inspiring a new spirit of friendship and co-operation among the nations of the world. Economic and security blocs of like-minded countries are expanding in Central Asia, Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America. All of these blocs are anti-imperialist in nature, and by definition anti-American. More than a century of American imperialism is coming to a rapid end.

إسرائيل تستكين وتهدد: تفاهمنا مع لبنان عبر أميركا

  الإثنين 6 حزيران 2022

المصدر:الاخبار

يحيى دبوق

تلتزم إسرائيل الرسمية بصمت لافت إزاء وصول حفّارة التنقيب عن النفط والغاز إلى حقل «كاريش»، فيما تترك لإعلامها ومراسليه إدارة معركة التصريحات والمواقف و«اختبار الإرادات والنيات»، عبر تقارير محدودة وموجّهة.
لم ترد من تل أبيب، حتى الآن، مواقف وتعليقات رسمية ذات شأن، فيما تترك إدارة المسألة البحرية مع لبنان، بما يشمل نية الحفر في «كاريش»، لتقارير مراسلي الشؤون العسكرية والأمنية والاقتصادية، ولكن تحت إدارة وإشراف واضحين من الرقابة العسكرية وبتوجيه من المؤسسة العسكرية. ووفقاً لما صدر في اليومين الأخيرين، يمكن ملاحظة الآتي:

أولاً، تُدار خطة الحفر في كاريش بتأنٍّ وحذر وعدم الانجرار إلى التعليق الرسمي، عسكرياً وسياسياً، بما يحقّق الأهداف، ويحول دون استفزاز الطرف الآخر أو كشف النيات الحقيقية له. وهذا يستدعي، في المقابل، تأنّياً وحذراً في إطلاق المواقف وتقدير أفعال العدو. فالمواقف والتعليقات الواردة من لبنان، بما فيها إشارات الفعل واللافعل والتأييد واللاتأييد للمقاومة والتشبّث بالحق الغازي والنفطي، كلها ستكون جزءاً لا يتجزّأ من أي قرار تتخذه إسرائيل إزاء الاعتداء على الحق اللبناني.

ثانياً، من الواضح تماماً قرار المستويين السياسي والعسكري بترك الأضواء للإعلام العبري هذه الفترة لينشر ويعلق ويقدّر المواقف والمآلات. وهذه سياسة مدروسة جداً ويرجح بقوة أنها مقرّرة بما يلزم كل المستويات الإسرائيلية. فأي موقف رسمي، سياسي أو عسكري، يصدر مباشرة عن أي مسؤول في تل أبيب، وتحديداً من الصف الأول، سيكون مُحرِجاً جداً للكيان العبري. كما تفتح هذه السياسة نافذة التراجع في حال قدّرت القيادات المعنية وجود أضرار يحاول العدو تجنّبها.

ثالثاً، تتحدث التقارير الإسرائيلية، على قلّتها حتى الآن، عن أن عمليات الحفر ومن ثم استخراج الغاز من «كاريش»، هي عمل طبيعي ولا يرتبط بأي نزاع قانوني أو غير قانوني مع لبنان. بل تشير التقارير العبرية، بنوع من الاستغراب، إلى أن «هناك في لبنان» من يتحدث عن مكان متنازع عليه رغم أن «هذا المقطع الشمالي خارج أي تنازع». وكان لافتاً ما ورد في تقرير مراسل الشؤون العسكرية في القناة 12 بأن «الجزء الشمالي لحقل كاريش يلامس الحدود البحرية للبنان»، وهي ملامسة وليست خرقاً. والأهم في التقرير هو التأكيد على وجود اتفاق مسبق مع لبنان يخرج «كاريش» من دائرة التنازع، إذ جاء في التقرير أن «هناك توافقاً حول الموضوع جرى التوصل إليه عبر اللجنة المشتركة التي يرأسها المبعوث (الأميركي) الخاص للطاقة في الشرق الأوسط عاموس هوكشتين».
في موازاة ذلك، تحرص التقارير العبرية على إظهار «اضطرار» إسرائيل لاستخراج الغاز من حقل «كاريش» تحديداً، بوصفه حاجة استراتيجية لا يمكن لتل أبيب أن تتجاوزها. وفق التعبير العبري فإن «منصة كاريش تشكل مرفقاً اقتصادياً أساسياً ومن المتوقع أن يزود الاقتصاد الإسرائيلي بالغاز الطبيعي الذي يُستهلك في إسرائيل نفسها لسد حاجاتها الخاصة» وليس مخصصاً للتجارة، وصولاً إلى الإشارة إلى ضرر قد يصيب قطاعات استراتيجية أخرى، «وقد يؤدي الضرر الذي يلحق بالمنصة إلى صعوبات حقيقية في أداء الاقتصاد الإسرائيلي، إلى حد الإضرار بإمدادات الكهرباء المنتظمة للإسرائيليين».

رابعاً، إلى جانب «البراءة والوداعة والحاجة الاقتصادية والحرص على التفاهم المسبق»، تلمح التقارير الإسرائيلية إلى وجود إجراءات وتدابير عسكرية تخدم أمن حقل «كاريش» وما فيه من معدات ومنشآت، يتولاها سلاح البحر في جيش العدو. ووفقاً للتقارير العبرية، «بدأ سلاح البحرية عملية أمنية واسعة حول منصة الحفر والإنتاج التي وصلت صباح اليوم (أمس) إلى وجهتها على بعد تسعين كيلومتراً قبالة الساحل الإسرائيلي، عند النقطة الأقرب إلى شواطئ لبنان»، مشيرة إلى أن البحرية الإسرائيلية ستنهي في الأسابيع المقبلة ترتيباتها وإجراءاتها، لتبدأ عمليات الحفر، ومن ثم استخراج الغاز». مع الإشارة إلى أن «لغة تهديد» تضمّنها الحديث عن نشاط البحرية الإسرائيلية مثل التذكير، بعد أكثر من عام على اعتدائها الأخير على قطاع غزة (معركة سيف القدس)، بأن الدفاعات الجوية أسقطت طائرة مسيّرة لحركة حماس أُطلقت من غزة كانت موجّهة لاستهداف حقول غاز في المتوسط».

تعمل إسرائيل وفق استراتيجية مدروسة لتكون قادرة على فرملة نفسها وفقاً لردّ الفعل المقابل

تقرير القناة 12 العبرية كان عنوانه سؤال: «منصة الغاز التي قد تشعل مواجهة مع حزب الله؟». هنا يجب إعادة صياغة السؤال حول مآل «المواجهة التي تسبّبت بها إسرائيل، انطلاقاً من حقل كاريش؟» وقد يكون السؤال الثاني، أكثر دقّة وموضوعية.

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Blinken Plays With Fire With Morocco and Algeria. Can Trump Stop This Crazy Arms Race and Prelude to War Though?

May 17, 2022

By Martin Jay

Source

The more the West pours money into the Ukraine, the more the UN and its member states have to bang on this drum which is really the worst setback Morocco could imagine over the incendiary subject of Western Sahara.

Lavrov’s visit to Algiers to shore up support for Ukraine war has shown how ineffective and dangerous Blinken’s moves are in the region. Some might argue he is making an already dangerous situation between Morocco and Algeria worse.

Is the Biden administration looking to start a war between Algeria and Morocco? At first glance, this may seem a little far-fetched as a scenario but it’s a valid enough question when you study the movements and statements of its diplo supremo Anthony Blinken. Just recently, the secretary of state jetted into Morocco for a few hours to pay his respects to the kingdom’s dapper foreign minister, before swiftly leaving to visit Algeria, Morocco’s arch enemy based on the latter’s support for the Polisario movement in the disputed Western Sahara. Leading up to the final days of Trump’s period in the White House, the former president signed a decree officially acknowledging (by America) Morocco’s claim that the disputed territory is a legitimate sovereign part of the kingdom. Until that point, relations between Algeria and Morocco were icy, but cooperative.

Biden has always opposed this move by Trump but is limited in what he can do to turn it around. On the one hand, Morocco has always traditionally had good relations with Washington and he doesn’t want to be the first president to jeopardise that; on the other though, his own political views are at odds with the idea of a country colonising another one regardless of the circumstances and is aligned to what many in the United Nations would prefer: some sort of democratic diligence to decide the outcome, probably a referendum.

In the summer of 2021, eight months after Biden took office, the Algerians decided that the situation needed a radical rethink, confident that a dithering Biden wasn’t going to overturn the Trump decision, neither on paper nor in gesture. The Algerians cut off one of its two gas pipelines which crossed Morocco territory before it reaches Spain causing mayhem as this pipeline effectively allowed Madrid to sell on to Morocco natural gas.

Six months later, the worst possible thing for Rabat, which was hoping to exploit the Trump decision, happened. The Ukraine war began, which for Morocco, was not good news as, quite apart from wheat imports being affected, it shifted backwards a more modern idea beginning to emerge that the Rabat elite had about occupied countries around the world. The Moroccan upper classes were beginning to think that the world was getting used to them – East Timor, Taiwan, West Bank and Gaza, Kashmir, Transnistria, Northern Cyprus – and that with the help of the U.S., the Western Sahara would slowly but surely metamorphosise into Moroccan Sahara. Perhaps it would take a generation. But it was a wait worth waiting for, the mindset in Rabat believed. Occupations hadn’t become cool as such; more that people are becoming dumber, media sloppier and the UN sensationally ineffective – an organisation most associate with sex scandals and corruption rather than being an international arbiter of disputes which it once was during the reign of Morocco’s Hassan II (who made the decision to incorporate Western Sahara into Morocco proper in 1975 when it was abandoned by its former colonial power Spain).

But the Ukraine invasion by Russia has sparked a new impetus in the UN, breathing new life into the once somnolent ‘no colonisation’ mantra. And the more the West pours money into the Ukraine in a blatant attempt to topple Putin, the more the UN and its member states have to bang on this drum which is really the worst setback Morocco could imagine over the incendiary subject of Western Sahara, or Moroccan Sahara if you like.

Biden can’t save the situation, that’s clear. But to some, it may seem that he is actually making matters worse. He wants to keep good relations with Rabat (he may even think that the king can fund his next presidential bid in 2024) but he desperately needs to find both a solution to the Trump problem and to get Algerians on board with the delusional idea that America can crack the hegemony whip and Algeria will stand to attention and show some respect. The visit at the end of March to Algiers was a clear example of how deluded the Biden administration is in this part of world and how its own meddling threatens to take the crisis between Algeria and Morocco to a new level. The visit was hilariously mistimed and misjudged in that Blinken actually believed that with an endearing speech he could actually just win over the Algerians, who would presumably just throw their relationship with Russia in the bin, give Europe more natural gas and basically stop backing the Polisario militants in Western Sahara.

If none of this were to happen but just merely a silence would follow, perhaps Biden could have salvaged some political gravitas out of it. But in the event, it had the opposite effect. The Algerians merely cranked up their relations with Russia to the next level and within merely 48 hours, there were even reports circulating on social media that Moscow would help Algeria’s support for the Polisario. The preposterous suggestion by Blinken triggered a response by the Algerians who immediately contacted Moscow and – presumably – invited Sergei Lavrov to come to Algiers on 10^th May, calling for more investment from Russian companies and talking up the 3bn dollars of trade between the two countries. They also reduced their gas sent to Spain in their second pipeline by 25% as an act of solidarity with Russia, presumably.

This reaction by Moscow and Algiers puts Morocco in a very difficult position as it realises that Biden’s people do not have the diplomatic skills to find a compromise which puts the Western Sahara dossier in a place where Rabat is happy, finds a solution to cooling tensions and getting a sensible energy deal from Algeria for both Europe and Morocco. None of the above, Anthony but thanks for trying. Whether Morocco’s foreign minister Nasser Bourita likes to admit it or not, he, like most of Rabat and the Palace are all standing in line with the Gulf Arab states, waiting for 2024 when Trump comes back for the great reset. Everything that the blithering Blinken touches seems to turn toxic blinding everyone near to him. He is arguably the most dangerous man in U.S. politics who belongs to a different period in time when the U.S. really was the sole superpower and could wield such power around the world. Pity the Moroccans who are charmed by his diplomatic endearments and refinements. They will soon learn that strong words often don’t come from a strong stomach.

President Assad Visits Iran, Meets Iranian Leaders Khamenei and Raisi

MAY 9, 2022

ARABI SOURI

Syrian President Bashar Assad paid a working visit to the Iranian Capital Tehran, during his visit, President Assad and his hosts emphasized the strong relations between Syria and Iran, its historic roots, continuous developments, and its future growth.

During this visit, the Syrian and Iranian leaders paved the way to increase the cooperation and coordination between their two countries to the highest levels and in all fields including combating terrorism and economic aspects.

The following report by the Syrian Ikhbariya news channel details the visit and its outcome:

The video is also available on BitChute, and Rumble.

Transcript

President Bashar al-Assad made a working visit to the Iranian capital, Tehran, during which he met Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei, Leader of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and Ibrahim Raisi, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The meetings dealt with the historical relations that unite Syria and Iran, which are based on a long path of bilateral cooperation and mutual understanding on the issues and problems of the region, and the challenges they face, in addition to topics and issues of common interest and the latest developments on the regional and international arenas.

During his meeting with Mr. Khamenei, President al-Assad affirmed that the course of events proved once again the correctness of the visions and the approach that Syria and Iran have followed for years, especially in confronting terrorism, this confirms the importance of continuing to cooperate in order not to allow America to rebuild the international terrorist system that it used to harm the countries of the world, especially the countries of the region over the past decades, noting that the United States today is weaker than ever.

His Excellency stressed that the Palestinian cause today is re-imposing its presence and importance more and more in the conscience of the Arab and Islamic world thanks to the sacrifices of the heroes of the resistance.

For his part, Khamenei reiterated Iran’s continued support for Syria to complete its victory over terrorism and liberate the rest of the Syrian lands, considering that Syria is achieving historic victories thanks to the steadfastness and courage of its president and the strength and steadfastness of its people and army.

Addressing President al-Assad, Khamenei added: We have no doubt that you will be able to liberate the rest of the Syrian lands and under your leadership, Syria will remain united, and we have to maintain the strong relationship that unites our two countries and peoples, this is beneficial not only for our two countries but also necessary for the region.

In turn, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Ibrahim Raisi affirmed that his country has the serious will to expand relations between the two countries, especially the economic and trade relations, both public and private, and that it will continue to provide all forms of support to Syria and its people, especially in light of the difficult economic conditions the world is witnessing and will remain by Syria’s side to help it overcome difficulties, considering that any suffering for Syria is suffering for Iran.

From the meetings President Bashar Assad held with Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Ebrahim Raisi

President al-Assad described Iran as the leadership and people of the brotherly, friend, and loyal partner, considering that the approach taken by the Islamic Republic of Iran in dealing with regional and international issues does not serve the interests of Iran and Syria only, but all the countries and peoples of the region.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Amir Abdollahian tweeted that President Assad’s visit and the high-level meetings with the Leader of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the Iranian President have opened a new chapter in the strategic relations between the two countries; He added: We are determined to raise the relations between the two countries to the appropriate level.

The Iranian foreign minister concluded that “the defeat of the terrorist plot in Syria is due to the cooperation between the two countries.”

End of the transcript.

Despite the very strong decades-long unshaken relations and high level of agreement on most topics of importance between Syria and Iran and in the face of unprecedented challenges, the two countries are yet to achieve the needed levels of bilateral economic cooperation aspired to by the people in the two brotherly countries.

The Syrian – Iranian relations have withstood and overcome the US hegemony and US-led wars direct invasion, terrorism, attrition, blockade, sanctions, assassinations, destabilization, and direct piracy and theft. Their joint cooperation not only foiled the US’s evil plots for the region, but they also managed to weaken the US’s ability to impose its will on the rest of the world by breaking its military might after the illegal invasion of Iraq, and by breaking up the US proxies in the region, mainly Al Qaeda and ISIS.

The Pentagon Threatening to Revive ISIS

The hefty price paid by the Syrian people has also saved the people of the world by absorbing the major terrorism and direct aggression shock and awe by the USA, Israel, NATO forces spearheaded by Turkey, and their proxy terrorists of Al Qaeda, and ISIS. The steadfastness of the Syrian leadership, army, and people has awakened Russia, China, and Iran to the dangers of the Western plots and allowed them to build their capabilities to come out of the cold and solidify a front against the imperial Zionist Nazi evil camp of NATO and its stooges.

Syrians are waiting to see a payback visit by the Iranian president to Damascus, it’s been over a decade since an Iranian president visited Syria, long before the US-led war of terror on the Levantine country despite several visits paid by the Iranian presidents around the world including to countries in the region that have been in the enemy camp against Syria, like Turkey, and like Egypt during the rule of the anti-Islamic Muslim Brotherhood president Morsy.

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CHRIS HEDGES: THE LIE OF AMERICAN INNOCENCE

MARCH 22ND, 2022

Source

By Chris Hedges

PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY (Scheerpost) — The branding of Vladimir Putin as a war criminal by Joe Biden, who lobbied for the Iraq war and staunchly supported the 20 years of carnage in the Middle East, is one more example of the hypocritical moral posturing sweeping across the United States. It is unclear how anyone would try Putin for war crimes since Russia, like the United States, does not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court in The Hague. But justice is not the point. Politicians like Biden, who do not accept responsibility for our well-documented war crimes, bolster their moral credentials by demonizing their adversaries. They know the chance of Putin facing justice is zero. And they know their chance of facing justice is the same.

We know who our most recent war criminals are, among others: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, General Ricardo Sanchez, former CIA Director George Tenet, former Asst. Atty. Gen. Jay Bybee, former Dep. Asst. Atty. Gen. John Yoo, who set up the legal framework to authorize torture; the helicopter pilots who gunned down civilians, including two Reuters journalists, in the “Collateral Murder” video released by WikiLeaks. We have evidence of the crimes they committed.

But, like Putin’s Russia, those who expose these crimes are silenced and persecuted. Julian Assange, even though he is not a US citizen and his WikiLeaks site is not a US-based publication, is charged under the US Espionage Act for making public numerous US war crimes. Assange, currently housed in a high security prison in London, is fighting a losing battle in the British courts to block his extradition to the United States, where he faces 175 years in prison. One set of rules for Russia, another set of rules for the United States. Weeping crocodile tears for the Russian media, which is being heavily censored by Putin, while ignoring the plight of the most important publisher of our generation speaks volumes about how much the ruling class cares about press freedom and truth.

If we demand justice for Ukrainians, as we should, we must also demand justice for the one million people killed — 400,000 of whom were noncombatants — by our invasions, occupations and aerial assaults in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan. We must demand justice for those who were wounded, became sick or died because we destroyed hospitals and infrastructure. We must demand justice for the thousands of soldiers and marines who were killed, and many more who were wounded and are living with lifelong disabilities, in wars launched and sustained on lies. We must demand justice for the 38 million people who have been displaced or become refugees in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, the Philippines, Libya, and Syria, a number that exceeds the total of all those displaced in all wars since 1900, apart from World War II, according to the Watson Institute for International & Public Affairs at Brown University. Tens of millions of people, who had no connection with the attacks of 9/11, were killed, wounded, lost their homes, and saw their lives and their families destroyed because of our war crimes. Who will cry out for them?

Every effort to hold our war criminals accountable has been rebuffed by Congress, by the courts, by the media and by the two ruling political parties. The Center for Constitutional Rights, blocked from bringing cases in US courts against the architects of these preemptive wars, which are defined by post-Nuremberg laws as “criminal wars of aggression,” filed motions in German courts to hold US leaders to account for gross violations of the Geneva Convention, including the sanctioning of torture in black sites such as Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib.

Those who have the power to enforce the rule of law, to hold our war criminals to account, to atone for our war crimes, direct their moral outrage exclusively at Putin’s Russia. “Intentionally targeting civilians is a war crime,” Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said, condemning Russia for attacking civilian sites, including a hospital, three schools and a boarding school for visually impaired children in the Luhansk region of Ukraine. “These incidents join a long list of attacks on civilian, not military locations, across Ukraine,” he said. Beth Van Schaack, an ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice, will direct the effort at the State Department, Blinken said, to “help international efforts to investigate war crimes and hold those responsible accountable.”

This collective hypocrisy, based on the lies we tell ourselves about ourselves, is accompanied by massive arms shipments to Ukraine. Fueling proxy wars was a specialty of the Cold War. We have returned to the script. If Ukrainians are heroic resistance fighters, what about Iraqis and Afghans, who fought as valiantly and as doggedly against a foreign power that was every bit as savage as Russia? Why weren’t they lionized? Why weren’t sanctions imposed on the United States? Why weren’t those who defended their countries from foreign invasion in the Middle East, including Palestinians under Israeli occupation, also provided with thousands of anti-tank weapons, anti-armor weapons, anti-aircraft weapons, helicopters, Switchblade or “Kamikaze” drones, hundreds of Stinger anti-aircraft systems, Javelin anti-tank missiles, machine guns and millions of rounds of ammunition? Why didn’t Congress rush through a $13.6 billion package to provide military and humanitarian assistance, on top of the $1.2 billion already provided to the Ukrainian military, for them?

Well, we know why. Our war crimes don’t count, and neither do the victims of our war crimes. And this hypocrisy makes a rules-based world, one that abides by international law, impossible.

This hypocrisy is not new. There is no moral difference between the saturation bombing the US carried out on civilian populations since World War II, including in Vietnam and Iraq, and the targeting of urban centers by Russia in Ukraine or the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Mass death and fireballs on a city skyline are the calling cards we have left across the globe for decades. Our adversaries do the same.

The deliberate targeting of civilians, whether in Baghdad, Kyiv, Gaza, or New York City, are all war crimes. The killing of at least 112 Ukrainian children, as of March 19, is an atrocity, but so is the killing of 551 Palestinian children during Israel’s 2014 military assault on Gaza. So is the killing of 230,000 people over the past seven years in Yemen from Saudi bombing campaigns and blockades that have resulted in mass starvation and cholera epidemics. Where were the calls for a no-fly zone over Gaza and Yemen? Imagine how many lives could have been saved.

War crimes demand the same moral judgment and accountability. But they don’t get them. And they don’t get them because we have one set of standards for white Europeans, and another for non-white people around the globe. The western media has turned European and American volunteers flocking to fight in Ukraine into heroes, while Muslims in the west who join resistance groups battling foreign occupiers in the Middle East are criminalized as terrorists. Putin has been ruthless with the press. But so has our ally the de facto Saudi ruler Mohammed bin Salman, who ordered the murder and dismemberment of my friend and colleague Jamal Khashoggi, and who this month oversaw a mass execution of 81 people convicted of criminal offenses. The coverage of Ukraine, especially after spending seven years reporting on Israel’s murderous assaults against the Palestinians, is another example of the racist divide that defines most of the western media.

World War II began with an understanding, at least by the allies, that employing industrial weapons against civilian populations was a war crime. But within 18 months of the start of the war, the Germans, Americans and British were relentlessly bombing cities. By the end of the war, one-fifth of German homes had been destroyed. One million German civilians were killed or wounded in bombing raids. Seven-and-a-half million Germans were made homeless. The tactic of saturation bombing, or area bombing, which included the firebombing of Dresden, Hamburg and Tokyo, which killed more than 90,000 Japanese civilians in Tokyo and left a million people homeless, and the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which took the lives of between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, had the sole purpose of breaking the morale of the population through mass death and terror. Cities such as Leningrad, Stalingrad, Warsaw, Coventry, Royan, Nanjing and Rotterdam were obliterated.

It turned the architects of modern war, all of them, into war criminals.

Civilians in every war since have been considered legitimate targets. In the summer of 1965, then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara called the bombing raids north of Saigon that left hundreds of thousands of dead an effective means of communication with the government in Hanoi. McNamara, six years before he died, unlike most war criminals, had the capacity for self-reflection. Interviewed in the documentary, “The Fog of War,” he was repentant, not only about targeting Vietnamese civilians but about the aerial targeting of civilians in Japan in World War II, overseen by Air Force General Curtis LeMay.

“LeMay said if we’d lost the war, we’d all have been prosecuted as war criminals,” McNamara said in the film. “And I think he’s right…LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose, and not immoral if you win?”

LeMay, later head of the Strategic Air Command during the Korean War, would go on to drop tons of napalm and firebombs on civilian targets in Korea which, by his own estimate, killed 20 percent of the population over a three-year period.

Industrial killing defines modern warfare. It is impersonal mass slaughter. It is administered by vast bureaucratic structures that perpetuate the killing over months and years. It is sustained by heavy industry that produces a steady flow of weapons, munitions, tanks, planes, helicopters, battleships, submarines, missiles, and mass-produced supplies, along with mechanized transports that ferry troops and armaments by rail, ship, cargo planes and trucks to the battlefield. It mobilizes industrial, governmental and organization structures for total war. It centralizes systems of information and internal control. It is rationalized for the public by specialists and experts, drawn from the military establishment, along with pliant academics and the media.

Industrial war destroys existing value systems that protect and nurture life, replacing them with fear, hatred, and a dehumanization of those who we are made to believe deserve to be exterminated. It is driven by emotions, not truth or fact. It obliterates nuance, replacing it with an infantile binary universe of us and them. It drives competing narratives, ideas and values underground and vilifies all who do not speak in the national cant that replaces civil discourse and debate. It is touted as an example of the inevitable march of human progress, when in fact it brings us closer and closer to mass obliteration in a nuclear holocaust. It mocks the concept of individual heroism, despite the feverish efforts of the military and the mass media to sell this myth to naïve young recruits and a gullible public. It is the Frankenstein of industrialized societies. War, as Alfred Kazin warned, is “the ultimate purpose of technological society.” Our real enemy is within.

Historically, those who are prosecuted for war crimes, whether the Nazi hierarchy at Nuremberg or the leaders of Liberia, Chad, Serbia, and Bosnia, are prosecuted because they lost the war and because they are adversaries of the United States.

There will be no prosecution of Saudi Arabian rulers for the war crimes committed in Yemen or for the US military and political leadership for the war crimes they carried out in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, or a generation earlier in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The atrocities we commit, such as My Lai, where 500 unarmed Vietnamese civilians were gunned down by US soldiers, which are made public, are dealt with by finding a scapegoat, usually a low-ranking officer who is given a symbolic sentence. Lt. William Calley served three years under house arrest for the killings at My Lai. Eleven US soldiers, none of whom were officers, were convicted of torture at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. But the architects and overlords of our industrial slaughter, including Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Gen. Curtis LeMay, Harry S. Truman, Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, Lyndon Johnson, Gen. William Westmoreland, George W. Bush, Gen. David Petraeus, Barack Obama and Joe Biden are never held to account. They leave power to become venerated elder statesmen.

The mass slaughter of industrial warfare, the failure to hold ourselves to account, to see our own face in the war criminals we condemn, will have ominous consequences. Author and Holocaust survivor Primo Levi understood that the annihilation of the humanity of others is prerequisite for their physical annihilation. We have become captives to our machines of industrial death. Politicians and generals wield their destructive fury as if they were toys. Those who decry the madness, who demand the rule of law, are attacked and condemned. These industrial weapons systems are our modern idols. We worship their deadly prowess. But all idols, the Bible tells us, begin by demanding the sacrifice of others and end in apocalyptic self-sacrifice.

The American Empire self-destructs. But nobody thought that it would happen this fast

MARCH 08, 2022

Source

by Michael Hudson

Empires often follow the course of a Greek tragedy, bringing about precisely the fate that they sought to avoid. That certainly is the case with the American Empire as it dismantles itself in not-so-slow motion.

The basic assumption of economic and diplomatic forecasting is that every country will act in its own self-interest. Such reasoning is of no help in today’s world. Observers across the political spectrum are using phrases like “shooting themselves in their own foot” to describe U.S. diplomatic confrontation with Russia and allies alike. But nobody thought that The American Empire would self-destruct this fast.

For more than a generation the most prominent U.S. diplomats have warned about what they thought would represent the ultimate external threat: an alliance of Russia and China dominating Eurasia. America’s economic sanctions and military confrontation have driven these two countries together, and are driving other countries into their emerging Eurasian orbit.

American economic and financial power was expected to avert this fate. During the half-century since the United States went off gold in 1971, the world’s central banks have operated on the Dollar Standard, holding their international monetary reserves in the form of U.S. Treasury securities, U.S. bank deposits and U.S. stocks and bonds. The resulting Treasury-bill Standard has enabled America to finance its foreign military spending and investment takeover of other countries simply by creating dollar IOUs. U.S. balance-of-payments deficits end up in the central banks of payments-surplus countries as their reserves, while Global South debtors need dollars to pay their bondholders and conduct their foreign trade.

This monetary privilege – dollar seignorage – has enabled U.S. diplomacy to impose neoliberal policies on the rest of the world, without having to use much military force of its own except to grab Near Eastern oil.

The recent escalation of U.S. sanctions blocking Europe, Asia and other countries from trade and investment with Russia, Iran and China has imposed enormous opportunity costs – the cost of lost opportunities – on U.S. allies. And the recent confiscation of the gold and foreign reserves of Venezuela, Afghanistan and now Russia,^[1] along with the targeted grabbing of bank accounts of wealthy foreigners (hoping to win their hearts and minds, enticed by the hope for the return of their sequestered accounts), has ended the idea that dollar holdings – or now also assets in sterling and euro NATO satellites of the dollar – are a safe investment haven when world economic conditions become shaky.

So I am somewhat chagrined as I watch the speed at which this U.S.-centered financialized system has de-dollarized over the span of just a year or two. The basic theme of my Super Imperialism has been how, for the past fifty years, the U.S. Treasury-bill standard has channeled foreign savings to U.S. financial markets and banks, giving Dollar Diplomacy a free ride. I thought that de-dollarization would be led by China and Russia moving to take control of their economies to avoid the kind of financial polarization that is imposing austerity on the United States.^[2] But U.S. officials are forcing Russia, China and other nations not locked into the U.S. orbit to see the writing on the wall and overcome whatever hesitancy they had to de-dollarize.

I had expected that the end of the dollarized imperial economy would come about by other countries breaking away. But that is not what has happened. U.S. diplomats themselves have chosen to end international dollarization, while helping Russia build up its own means of self-reliant agricultural and industrial production. This global fracture process actually has been going on for some years, starting with the sanctions blocking America’s NATO allies and other economic satellites from trading with Russia. For Russia, these sanctions had the same effect that protective tariffs would have had.

Russia had remained too enthralled by free-market neoliberal ideology to take steps to protect its own agriculture and industry. The United States provided the help that was needed by imposing domestic self-reliance on Russia. When the Baltic states obeyed American sanctions and lost the Russian market for their cheese and other farm products, Russia quickly created its own cheese and dairy sector – while becoming the world’s leading grain exporter.

Russia is discovering (or is on the verge of discovering) that it does not need U.S. dollars as backing for the ruble’s exchange rate. Its central bank can create the rubles needed to pay domestic wages and finance capital formation. The U.S. confiscations of its dollar and euro reserves may finally lead Russia to end its adherence to neoliberal monetary philosophy, as Sergei Glaziev has long been advocating, in favor of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT).

The same dynamic of undercutting ostensible U.S aims has occurred with U.S. sanctions against the leading Russian billionaires. The neoliberal shock therapy and privatizations of the 1990s left Russian kleptocrats with only one way to cash out on the assets they had grabbed from the public domain. That was to incorporate their takings and sell their shares in London and New York. Domestic savings had been wiped out, and U.S. advisors persuaded Russia’s central bank not to create its own ruble money.

The result was that Russia’s national oil, gas and mineral patrimony was not used to finance a rationalization of Russian industry and housing. Instead of the revenue from privatization being invested to create new Russian means of protection, it was burned up on nouveau-riche acquisitions of luxury British real estate, yachts and other global flight-capital assets. But the effect of sanctions making the dollar, sterling and euro holdings of Russian billionaires hostage has been to make the City of London too risky a venue in which to hold their assets – and for the wealthy of any other nation potentially subject to U.S. sanctions. By imposing sanctions on the richest Russians closest to Putin, U.S. officials hoped to induce them to oppose his breakaway from the West, and thus to serve effectively as NATO agents-of-influence. But for Russian billionaires, their own country is starting to look safest.

For many decades now, the U.S. Federal Reserve and Treasury have fought against gold recovering its role in international reserves. But how will India and Saudi Arabia view their dollar holdings as Biden and Blinken try to strong-arm them into following the U.S. “rules-based order” instead of their own national self-interest? The recent U.S. dictates have left little alternative but to start protecting their own political autonomy by converting dollar and euro holdings into gold as an asset free from political liability of being held hostage to the increasingly costly and disruptive U.S. demands.

U.S. diplomacy has rubbed Europe’s nose in its abject subservience by telling its governments to have their companies dump their Russian assets for pennies on the dollar after Russia’s foreign reserves were blocked and the ruble’s exchange rate plunged. Blackstone, Goldman Sachs and other U.S. investors moved quickly to buy up what Shell Oil and other foreign companies were unloading.

Nobody thought that the postwar 1945-2020 world order would give way this fast. A truly new international economic order is emerging, although it is not yet clear just what form it will take. But the confrontations resulting from “prodding the Bear” with the U.S./NATO aggression against Russia has passed critical-mass level. It no longer is just about Ukraine. That is merely the trigger, a catalyst for driving much of the world away from the US/NATO orbit.

The next showdown may come within Europe itself as nationalist politicians seek to lead a break-away from the over-reaching U.S. power-grab over its European and other allies to keep them dependent on U.S.-based trade and investment. The price of their continuing obedience is to impose cost-inflation on their industry while subordinating their democratic electoral politics to America’s NATO proconsuls.

These consequences cannot really be deemed “unintended.” Too many observers have pointed out exactly what would happen – headed by President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov explaining just what their response would be if NATO insisted on backing them into a corner while attacking Eastern Ukrainian Russian-speakers and moving heavy weaponry to Russia’s Western border. The consequences were anticipated. The neocons in control of U.S. foreign policy simply didn’t care. Recognizing Russian concerns was deemed to make one a Putinversteher.

European officials did not feel uncomfortable in telling the world about their worries that Donald Trump was crazy and upsetting the apple cart of international diplomacy. But they seem to have been blindsided by the Biden Administration’s resurgence of visceral Russia-hatred via Secretary of State Blinken and Victoria Nuland-Kagan. Trump’s mode of expression and mannerisms may have been uncouth, but America’s neocon gang have much more globally threatening confrontation obsessions. For them, it was a question of whose reality would emerge victorious: the “reality” that they believed they could make, or economic reality outside of U.S. control.

What foreign countries have not done for themselves to replace the IMF, World Bank and other strongarms of U.S. diplomacy, American politicians are forcing them to do. Instead of European, Near Eastern and Global South countries breaking away as they calculate their own long-term economic interests, America is driving them away, as it has done with Russia and China. More politicians are seeking voter support by asking whether their countries would be better served by new monetary arrangements to replace dollarized trade, investment and even foreign debt service.

The energy and food price squeeze is hitting Global South countries especially hard, coinciding with their own Covid-19 problems and the looming dollarized debt service coming due. Something must give. How long will these countries impose austerity to pay foreign bondholders?

How will the U.S. and European economies cope in the face of their sanctions against imports of Russian gas and oil, cobalt, aluminum, palladium and other basic materials. American diplomats have made a list of raw materials that their economy desperately needs and which therefore are exempt from the trade sanctions being imposed. This provides Mr. Putin a handy list of U.S. pressure points to use in reshaping world diplomacy and helping European and other countries break away from the Iron Curtain that America has imposed to lock its satellites into dependence on high-priced U.S. supplies?

The Biden Inflation

But the final breakaway from NATO’s adventurism must come from within the United States itself. As this year’s midterm elections approach, politicians will find a fertile ground in showing U.S. voters that the price inflation led by gasoline and energy is a policy byproduct of the Biden Administration’s blocking of Russian oil and gas exports. (Bad news for owners of big SUV gas guzzlers!) Gas is needed not only for heating and energy production, but to make fertilizer, of which there already is a world shortage. This situation is exacerbated by blocking Russian and Ukrainian grain exports to the United States and Europe, causing food prices already to soar.

There already is a striking disconnect between the financial sector’s view of reality and that promoted in the mainstream NATO media. Europe’s stock markets plunged at their opening on Monday, March 7, while Brent oil soared to $130 a barrel. The BBC’s morning “Today” news broadcast featured Conservative MP Alan Duncan, an oil trader, warning that the near doubling of prices in natural gas futures threatened to bankrupt companies committed to supplying gas to Europe at the old rates. But returning to the military “Two Minutes of Hate” news, the BBC kept applauding the brave Ukrainian fighters and NATO politicians urging more military support. In New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 650 points, and gold soared to over $2,000 an ounce – reflecting the financial sector’s view of how the U.S. game is likely to play out. Nickel prices rose by even more – 40 percent.

Trying to force Russia to respond militarily and thereby look bad to the rest of the world is turning out to be a stunt aimed simply at ensuring Europe contribute more to NATO, buy more U.S. military hardware and lock itself deeper into trade and monetary dependence on the United States. The instability that this has caused is turning out to have the effect of making the United States look as threatening as Russia is claimed to be by the NATO West.

1. Libya’s gold also disappeared after NATO’s overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. ↑
2. See most recently Radhika Desai and Michael Hudson (2021), “Beyond Dollar Creditocracy: A Geopolitical Economy,” Valdai Club Paper No. 116. Moscow: Valdai Club, 7 July, repr. in Real World Economic Review (97), https://rwer.wordpress.com/2021/09/23. ↑

About 3,000 US ‘volunteers’ arriving in Ukraine to fight Russia

March 6, 2022

Source: Agencies + Al Mayadeen Net

By Al Mayadeen Net 

US volunteers are set to arrive in Ukraine to fight Russia, including army veterans who fought in Iraq and other regions around the world.

3,000 US volunteers are ready to arrive in Ukraine.

Ukrainian news agency Ukrinform reported that 3,000 US volunteers are ready to arrive in Ukraine, amid Russia’s ongoing military operation in the country.

The agency quoted the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ press service via Telegram as saying that “the volunteers are ready to repel Russia as part of an international battalion.”

Among the US volunteers are army veterans “with combat experience gained in Iraq and other hotspots around the world.”

Ukrinform reiterated that more than 16,000 foreign fighters are heading to Ukraine to fight Russia.

It claimed that “Ukraine is creating an International Legion of Territorial Defense consisting of foreigners who are willing to join Ukraine’s resistance and protect global security.”

US to give more than $1B in assistance to Ukraine

It is noteworthy that during US President Joe Biden’s first state of the union address delivered on Tuesday, he reaffirmed plans to continue supporting Ukraine against Russia while providing multiple forms of assistance worth $1 billion.

Although Ukraine will be receiving hefty assistance, Biden ruled out any present or future military participation in the conflict. 

“Let me be clear, our forces are not engaged and will not engage in conflict with Russian forces in Ukraine,” Biden claimed.

Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar announced Saturday that more than 100,000 volunteers have already registered to join the force.

Last Wednesday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba announced that mercenaries from 16 countries are on their way to the country, and announced that Kiev had obtained weapons from 19 countries.

On February 24, Moscow launched a special military operation in Ukraine, responding to calls from the people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk for help in countering the aggression of Ukrainian forces, which has been ongoing since 2014.

The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed that the special operation is targeting Ukrainian military infrastructure only and the civilian population is not in danger.

أزمة أوكرانيا تثبت: حياد لبنان أمر غير قابل للتطبيق

الجمعة 4 آذار 2022

العميد د. أمين محمد حطيط

منذ فترة من الزمن يروّج في لبنان مع اندلاع العدوان على سورية بحرب كونية قادتها الولايات المتحدة، ابتدع لبنان شعار النأي بالنفس حتى يتنصّل من موجباته التي يفرضها العديد من المعاهدات المعقودة بينه وبين الدولة السورية ويؤمّن لأميركا ما تبتغيه من حصار.

 شعار رفعته آنذاك الحكومة التي كان يرأسها نجيب ميقاتي رئيس الحكومة الحالي الذي يجاهر اليوم بانّ «السعودية هي قبلته السياسية كما هي قبلته الدينية»، رغم انه يُصرّ أو يتظاهر بأنه ملتزم بسياسة النأي بالنفس وهو كلام تنفيه الوقائع.

بيد أنّ الشعار المرفوع الذي يوحي بأنّ لبنان لن يكون مع طرف دون آخر في الحرب على سورية، هذا الشعار لم يطبّق في الميدان من قبل أحد فلا الحكومة عملت به ولا مكونات السياسة اللبنانية احترمته، حيث انّ الحكومة انصاعت لأوامر الغرب بالقيادة الأميركية في أكثر من ملف يعني سورية، بخاصة في مسألة النازحين السوريين كما وفي مسائل مالية وسياسية أخرى ولم يسجل من النأي بالنفس سوى بعض المواقف اليتيمة التي اتخذها مندوب لبنان في الجامعة العربية وما عدا ذلك فقد كان انحياز لبنان الرسمي الى خصوم الحكومة السورية واضحاً من غير التباس.

أما اللبنانيون فقد كان انقسامهم واضحاً أيضاً حيال المسألة، ففي حين ذهب فريق منهم للقتال الى جانب الدولة السورية قتالاً رأى فيه انه من طبيعة العمل الاستباقي للدفاع المشروع عن النفس، فقد التزم أطراف آخرون يعملون بأوامر وإملاءات أميركية موقع العداء للحكومة السورية ونصرة من يقاتلها من مجموعات داخلية مسلحة او إرهابية استقدمت من الخارج او حتى تشكيلات عسكرية احتلت أرضاً سورية، كما هو حال القوات الأميركية والتركية. مواقف متناقضة أظهرت انّ الانقسام عمودي حادّ بين اللبنانيين دون أن يكون هناك بين الطرفين مساحة مشتركة للتفاهم.

في ظلّ هذا الوضع الخلافي أطلق البطريرك الماروني الدعوة الى حياد لبنان وأيّده في دعوته معظم الأطراف الذين جاهروا بالعداء للدولة السورية والعداء للمقاومة التي وقفت الى جانب سورية في حربها الدفاعية ضدّ الإرهاب والاحتلال الأجنبي لأراضيها، وكان بديهياً أن تنظر المقاومة الى الدعوة هذه بعين الريبة والحذر خاصة أنها ترى في سلوك من أطلقها ومن أيّده كامل الانحياز الى الغرب بقيادة أميركية وكامل الانصياع للإملاءات الأميركية وكامل الانبطاح أمام دول الخليج المنصاعة أصلاً لأميركا والتي تنفذ عدواناً تدميرياً على اليمن.

في ظلّ هذا المشهد انفجر الوضع في أوكرانيا وبدأت روسيا بتنفيذ عملية عسكرية خاصة عبر حدودها، عملية حددت أهدافها بأنها ذات طبيعة دفاعيّة من أجل ضمان حياد أوكرانيا وعدم تحوّلها الى منصة للحلف الأطلسي الذي يجاهر بالعداء لروسيا وبأنها لا تنوي احتلالاً للدولة تلك بل جلّ ما تريده ضمان أمنها القومي الذي ينتهك بالخطط الأطلسية بقيادة أميركية. أما الغرب فقد نظر الى العملية العسكرية الروسية بأنها عدوان موصوف، وأنه سيواجهه بشتى الوسائل السياسية والإعلامية والاقتصادية وتقديم المساعدات العسكرية لحكومة كييف من غير التورّط بإرسال تشكيلات من جيوش الغرب خشية الانزلاق الى حرب عالمية أطرافها دول نووية.

لقد ظهر الصراع في أوكرانيا وحولها انه صراع بين روسيا التي تبرّر أعمالها العسكرية بحق الدفاع عن النفس بأسلوب استباقي وبين الغرب بقيادة أميركا التي جهدت لاستدراج روسيا الى هذا الموقع من أجل الإجهاز عليها وتفكيكها بتكرار ما قامت به ضدّ الاتحاد السوفياتي بعد احتلال أفغانستان. ورغم هذا الوضوح في طبيعة الصراع فإنّ لبنان سارع وفي الساعات الأولى لبدء العملية العسكرية الروسية، لإدانة روسيا والمطالبة بوقف عمليتها ثم صوّت في الجمعية العامة للأمم المتحدة لصالح مشروع قرار أميركي أوروبي اعتمد ضدّ روسيا، مؤكداً في مواقفه بأنه ليس على الحياد ولا يتقيّد بما ورد في البيان الوزاري للحكومة من شعار النأي بالنفس، فهل أصاب لبنان أم أخطأ في مواقفه؟ وهل الحياد ممكن والنأي بالنفس مستطاع؟

من البديهي أن يكون لبنان وهو من الدول المؤسسة للأمم المتحدة صاحب سياسة تدعو الى الأمن والسلام وحلّ النزاعات بالطرق السلميّة بعيداً عن الاحتكام الى القوة والسلاح مع ما يستتبعه من قتل وتدمير وتشريد وهو الدولة التي عانت ولا تزال تعاني من العدوان والاحتلال «الإسرائيلي» وعلى أرضها وحقوقها وسيادتها. ولكن على لبنان قبل ان يتخذ موقفاً من صراع دولي أن يتحقق ويمحّص انعكاسات موقفه وتداعياته عليه وعلى سياسة الحياد التي يدّعيها. ولكن هل يستطيع لبنان أن يصمد أمام الضغوط الأجنبية عامة والأميركية ـ الأوروبية ـ الخليجية خاصة؟

لقد أثبتت التجربة في لبنان أنّ القول شيء والفعل والممارسة شيء آخر، والأمر رهن بمن يتولى زمام الأمور في البلاد، فإذا تذكرنا أيام تلت طرد «إسرائيل» من جنوب لبنان في العام ٢٠٠٠ وكم صمد لبنان أمام الضغط الأميركي الرامي لحمله على التنازل امام «إسرائيل» عن حقوقه في أرضه، لوصلنا الي نتيجة مفادها انّ لبنان المتمسك بحقه وبجيشه وبمقاومته قادر على مواجهة الضغوط الأميركية، فقد حاولت مادلين أولبريت وزيرة الخارجية الأميركية وعبر مكالمات هاتفية لمدة أربع ساعات ان تثني لبنان عن مواقفه ولم تستطع وانتزع لبنان حقه في أرضه كما رآه.

بيد انّ نتائج الضغط الأميركي على لبنان في المسألة الأوكرانية جاءت بنتيجة معاكسة، حيث إنّ هاتف او زيارة من سفيرة أميركا الى المسؤولين أنتجت بيان إدانة لروسيا بسرعة قياسية سبق لبنان فيها كلّ الدول العربية ومعظم الدول الأوروبية، ثم كانت زيارة أخرى حملت لبنان على دعم الموقف الأميركيّ في مجلس الأمن ضدّ روسيا.

وهنا قد يروق للبنانيين الذين اتخذوا هذه المواقف من غير العودة الى مجلس الوزراء الذي هو حسب الدستور السلطة التنفيذية التي ترسم وتنفذ سياسات الدولة، قد يروق لهم القول بأنّ موقف لبنان منسجم مع مبادئه الرافضة للعدوان والاحتكام للقوة في حلّ النزاعات. ولكن أيضاً من مبادئ لبنان دعم الحق المشروع بالدفاع عن النفس، وهنا يجب ان نأخذ بالاعتبار الهواجس المشروعة لكلّ من الطرفين، الامر الذي لم يعمل به لبنان بنتيجة الضغط الأميركي.

هذه الوقائع تفضي بنا الى نتيجة واحدة وهي انّ الحياد المطلوب هو أمر غير مضمون في بلد كلبنان في ظلّ ضعف الدولة ووهنها ووجود ساسة لديهم مصالح يخشون عليها، فالحياد موقف لا يمكن ان يتخذه إلا قوي لا يخشى تهديداً ولا يستجيب لإملاء، أما الضعيف الخائف على مصلحة مالية او سواها، فإنه ينظر الي مصلحته ويتخذ الموقف الذي يحفظها دون التوقف عند تأثير ذلك على الدولة والوطن الذي يتولى مسؤولية فيه، وأخيراً نذكر بشروط الحياد التي هي الى جانب القوة الذاتية، هناك القبول الخارجيّ فهل يقبل الخارج بحياد لبنان ويدعه وشأنه أم يريد لبنان منصة ومسرحاً وقاعدة لعملياته وسياسته؟ الواقع يثبت انّ من يطلب حياد لبنان هو كمن يبحث عن النجوم في رابعة النهار. فتحوّلوا الى امتلاك القوة والبحث عمن يتولى الشأن العام ويقدّمه على أموره الخاصة.

*أستاذ جامعيّ ـ باحث استراتيجيّ

• جاء الوقت لنقول لكم: النأي بالنفس
• ترسيم الحدود البحريّة: لبنان قويّ.. لا تضعفوا
• عرض مكتوب من هوكشتين: البلوك 8 لإسرائيل… وقطر للحقول المشتركة
• العدو «يشفط» يهود أوكرانيا
• واشنطن: إسرائيل حشدت الدعم للقرار الأمميّ بشأن أوكرانيا
• الدفاع الروسية: لن نعامل «المرتزقة الأجانب» بصفة «أسرى الحروب»
• الأسبوع الأوّل: انشطار العالم
• زيلينسكي يهلِّل لانضمام مقاتلين أجانب إلى قوّاته | موسكو للغرب: الحرب
• أكبر محطة للطاقة النووية في أوروبا.. القوات الروسية تقترب من زابوريجيا
• موسكو تلقّت معلومات بأن “الناتو” كان يخطّط نشر فِرَقٍ عسكرية في أوكرانيا
• قبل تحركها نحو أوكرانيا.. كيف واجهت موسكو تطويق واشنطن والناتو لحدودها؟
• كندا تعلن إرسال “أسلحة فتاكة” إلى أوكرانيا
• قديروف: القوات الشيشانية سيطرت على أكبر قاعدة عسكرية في أوكرانيا

A matter of self-defence

MARCH 03, 2022

Source

by Ghassan Kadi

I am not here to write about historic, strategic and military details pertaining to the issues surrounding the Ukraine crisis. Apart from those fabricating Hollywood material, there are many excellent analysts covering these areas competently.

But as a Syrian/Lebanese, within my limited capacity, I have a duty to show support and reciprocate Russia’s support to Syria where it is due and, in this case, it is as it is one that is based on truths and moral issues that cannot be overlooked, even if Russia did not support Syria at all.

What I want to discuss is the justification and morality of self-defence.

War is a heavily-loaded word, a word that implies man killing man, humanity fighting humanity, armies pillaging nations, creating orphans and widows, refugees, sex slaves, destroying civilizations, economies, beautiful ancient architectural icons and a whole hoard of other atrocities that often are never repaired or resolved.

But there are wars and there are wars.

One cannot place the actions of the USA’s invasion of Iraq in the same basket as that of resistance against Nazi occupation.

People, and nations, have the right of self-defence. Self-defence is not an act of aggression. It is an act to prevent further aggression.

Not surprisingly, when the rules of the jungle prevail, just like in La Fontaine’s fables, aggressors on one hand conjure up for themselves the justification to kill, and on the other hand, they vilify the victims of their aggression when they try to exercise their right of self-defence.

The USA has been engaged in wars ever since WWII ended. Beginning with the Korean War, the West moved the theatre to Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Iraq I and Iraq II, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria; not to mention other smaller wars. In reality, there was never ever any justification for any of them and the national security of the United States of America was never under threat by any of those much pooper and much less equipped nations.

What is ironic is the fact that even though the odds were always in favour of America, and this is an understatement, America never won any of those wars. Some cynics argue that America’s objectives were not about winning wars but about leaving mess and destruction behind. Whilst I partially agree with this sentiment, I cannot accept that America has intentionally invaded Iraq to hand it on a silver platter to Iran any more that it invaded Taliban’s Afghanistan to hand it back to the Taliban. Those who believe that America has always been successful in achieving its target of havoc seem to give it more kudos than it deserves. I genuinely believe that America has been a total failure and that its performance as the world’s self-appointed custodian of the post WWII era had been abysmal to put it mildly.

Perhaps America could be excused for it actions during the hot Cold-War era. It was a period of uncertainty, fear, and what was behind the ‘dreaded’ ‘Iron Curtain’ left little surprises to be desired.

But, using American administration rhetoric, with the dismantling of the USSR this hot-cold War era was also supposed to cease.

Contrary to the commonly-held belief in the West, America did not win the Cold War. The Cold War ended when Gorbachev negotiated with Raegan the terms of disengagement. https://sputniknews.com/20190402/gorbachev-nato-expansion-reasons-1073764558.html

The rest is history. The manner in which America broke all of its promises to never encroach into Eastern Europe, how it coaxed former Warsaw Pact nations to join NATO, how it positioned missiles close to Russian borders, how it pillaged Serbia, how it tried to create a puppet regime in Georgia in 2008, how it sponsored a coup d’etat in Ukraine in 2014 putting Neo-Nazis in charge, how it bombarded the Eastern provinces for eight long years, how it reneged on the Minsk Agreements, how it refused to reach a deal on Ukraine in Jan 2022, a deal that took into consideration Russia’s legitimate security concerns, are all acts of provocation that can only lead to war; a Russian war of self-defence.

Western arrogance remains high despite the fact that Russia has clearly demonstrated red lines in Georgia and Syria. But Kiev is not Damascus. Kiev was the capital of the Russian Empire long before Texas was a state of the Union.

Furthermore, Russia is not Afghanistan or Somalia. Russia is not only a nuclear superpower, but also one with weaponry that is far more advanced than the West’s.

The Western bully has been picking on the wrong would-be adversary, and for a very long time.

What is most unbelievable about the current situation is the Western European compliance with America’s stance. Americans may well be distanced from the history and internal politics of Europe, but Germany, France, Italy and Spain must surely know better, but they are behaving in a manner as if they are either totally ignorant or extremely callous.

Puppet states of Eastern Europe should look over their shoulders and see what real support Ukraine is receiving from America after America promised Ukraine the world and then hung it out to dry.

This brings us back to the issue of drawing the line between instigating war for no reason other than imperial gain and fighting legitimately for self-defence.

The West and its media are taking the line of presenting Russia as the aggressor, portraying Putin as a crazed Tzar who wants to rebuild the USSR; not only ignoring the events of 2014 onwards, but also ignoring past and present atrocities of the West that had no justification at all.

Have we forgotten Iraq’s WMD blunder?

Russia did all it could to avert a military confrontation in Ukraine.

For eight long years, Russia refused to acknowledge the independence of the eastern provinces.

Russia continued to keep all bridges of communication with the West open in the hope of reaching an agreement to end the impasse.

Russia made it clear to America time after time, that it has red lines that cannot be crossed, including not accepting Ukraine to join NATO.

But all that America did was to ignore and continue to intimidate. When the talk about the impending Russian invasion of Ukraine was flagged on Western media, it was because America had the full intention to make sure that the January 2022 Switzerland talks with Russia must fail leaving the military option alone on the table.

The actions of Russia to neutralize and de-Nazify Ukraine are acts of self-defence. Any fair and proper court of justice would attest to this, but not in the West, where media is the echo chamber of the Western globalists and the only key to the hearts and minds of people in the West who unquestionably believe what their media dishes out.

But why are some of Russians so surprised and dismayed now by the new wave of anti-Russian propaganda? Lucky enough to visit Russia a few years ago, I found myself in an alternative paradigm; not a ‘Truman Show’ little bubble, but a huge world that did what it believed was right and didn’t give a pig’s butt (excuse the French) about what the West and Western media thought and decreed.

I was able to see the so-called ‘iron curtain’, way after the USSR was no longer, but not from a Western xenophobic vantagepoint, but from a Russian one that did not seem to care much at all about the views and the attitude of the West.

It was disappointing to see Western franchises like Starbucks and McDonald’s, but Russia looked like a proud stand-alone nation that is big enough, strong enough and rich enough to dictate its own directive and destiny.

If anything, a few years later, Russia is now in a much stronger position to dictate what it wants to the old ailing West and the stronger sanctions today are not going to be any more effective than previous milder ones.

President Biden now represents the West in many more ways than one. Not only he is meant to be the leader of the so-called ‘Free World’, but at his old age, a mental state that borders dementia, he represents the global hemisphere that has lost its technical edge and rationality; not to mention economic clout.

It is very sad that the once developed West that paved the rest of the world in technology and innovation has put its leadership under the hands of short-sighted impotent leaders like Biden, Merkel (formerly), Johnson and Macron. Those weak and shortsighted leaders are pushing the West into the corner of cultural suicide.

They represent the political legacy that led to the exodus of Western manufacturing base.

They are the legacy that destroyed family values, cultural values as well as moral values.

They are the ones forcing Russia to create an alternative global power with China; the West’s main and primary competitor.

But the problem with Western political leaders is that they are not serving their own people; they are serving their sponsors and their own profit and loss statements.

Nations are not corporations, and the corporate aspect of Western political leadership is bursting its own bubble. It is not ready to confront the challenges of either Russia or China, let alone both of them combined. The West continues to live in the euphoria of a bygone era in which it had the upper hand by way of being a leader in technological advances and manufacturing which are the basic foundations for strong economies. It has lost its technical edge, placing itself in a conflict it can neither win, let alone be able to fight.

The West needs to learn to accept humility as a desired value. For the sake of humanity as a whole, it needs to learn this lesson before its obstinance and arrogance leads the world into further and deeper wars and disasters.

Everyone Loses in the Conflict Over Ukraine

March 02, 2022

By Ralph Nader

Global Research,

OpEdNews.com 1 March 2022

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

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Today, the dangers of military escalation are beyond description.

What is now happening in Ukraine has serious geopolitical implications. It could lead us into a World War III scenario.

It is important that a peace process be initiated with a view to preventing escalation. 

Global Research condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A Bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

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When two scorpions are in a bottle, they both lose. This is the preventable danger that is growing daily with no end game in sight between the two nuclear superpowers led by dictator Vladimir Putin and de facto sole decider Joe Biden.

Putin’s first argument is Washington invented the model of aggressive, illegal invasions, and destruction of distant countries, that never threatened U.S. security.

Millions have died, been injured, and sickened in defenseless countries attacked by U.S. armed forces. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney killed over a million innocent Iraqis and devastated the country in so many ways that scholars called it a “sociocide.”

Putin’s second argument is that Russia is being threatened on its sensitive western border which had been invaded twice by Germany and caused the loss of 50 million Russian lives.

Soon after the Soviet Union collapsed the West’s military alliance against Russia began moving east. Under Bill Clinton, NATO (The North Atlantic Treaty Organization) signed up Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic in 1999, leading to major arms sales by the U.S. giant munitions corporations.

More recently, Putin sees U.S. soldiers in these countries, ever closer U.S. missile launchers, U.S.-led joint naval exercises in the Baltic Sea, and intimations that Ukraine and Georgia could soon join NATO. Imagine if the Russians were to have such a military presence around the U.S. borders.

Even often hawkish New York Times columnists – Thomas Friedman and Bret Stephens – made this point this week about the brazen U.S. history of military hypocrisy while tearing into Putin. Stephens brought up the Monroe Doctrine over the entire Western Hemisphere in raising repeatedly the question, “Who are We?”

The chess game between Russia and the West has become more deadly with Putin’s military moves followed by immediate Western sanctions against some Russian banks and oligarchs close to Putin.

Travel bans and freezing the completion of the second major natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany are in place with promises of much more severe economic retaliation by Biden.

These sanctions can become a two-way street. Western Europe needs Russian oil and gas, Russian wheat, and essential Russian minerals such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel.

Sanctions against Russia will soon boomerang in terms of higher oil and gas prices for Europeans and Americans, more inflation, worsening supply chains, and the dreaded “economic uncertainty” afflicting stock markets and consumer spending.

The corporate global economy gave us interdependence on other nations instead of domestic self-reliance under the framework of corporate-managed free trade agreements.

Repeating 1970s Strategy of Grand Chess-Master Brzezinski: Biden Appears to Have Induced Russian Invasion of Ukraine to Bankrupt Russia’s Economy and Advance Regime Change

So how many billions of dollars in costs and a weakened economy will Joe Biden tolerate as the price of anti-Putin sanctions that will blowback on the American people?

How much suffering will he tolerate being inflicted on the long-suffering Russian people? What will be the impact on the civilian population of more severe sanctions? And who is he to talk as if he doesn’t have to be authorized by Congress to go further into this state of belligerence, short of sending soldiers, which he said he would not do?

Is Congress to be left as a cheerleader, washing its hands of its constitutional oversight and foreign policy duties?

Also, watch Republicans and Democrats in Congress unify to whoop through more money for the bloated military budget as pointed out by military analyst, Michael Klare.

What energy will be left for Biden’s pending “Build Back Better” infrastructure, social safety net, and climate crisis legislation?

In recent weeks, the State Department said it recognizes Russia’s legitimate security concerns but not its expansionism. Well, what is wrong with a ceasefire followed by support for a treaty “guaranteeing neutrality for Ukraine similar to the enforced neutrality for Austria since the Cold War’s early years,” as Nation publisher and Russia specialist Katrina Vanden Heuvel urged. (See: Katrina vanden Heuvel’s Washington Post article and her recent Nation piece).

Putin, unable to get over the breakup of the Soviet Union probably has imperial ambitions to dominate in Russia’s backyard. Biden has inherited and accepted the U.S. Empire’s ambitions in many other nation’s backyards.

Events have polarized this conflict over Ukraine which is not a security interest for the U.S., into two dominant egos – Putin and Biden – neither of whom want to appear weak or to back down.

This is a dangerous recipe for an out-of-control escalation, much as it was in the lead-up to World War I. Neither the people nor the parliaments mattered then as seems to be the case today.

Putin isn’t likely to make a cost-benefit assessment of each day’s militarism. But Biden better do so. Otherwise, he will be managed by Putin’s daily moves, instead of insisting on serious negotiations.

The Minsk II Peace Accords of February 2015 brokered by Germany, France, and the United Nations, that Russia and Ukraine agreed to before falling apart due to disagreements over who should take the first steps still makes for a useful framework.

It is too late to revisit the accords to stop the invasion but it should be proposed to introduce a climate for waging peace.

Already, New York Governor Kathy Hochul has spoken about an increase in cyberattacks and ransomware demands in her state in recent weeks.

Has Biden put that rising certainty in his self-described decades-long foreign policy expertise?

Watch out for what you can’t stop, Joe.

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America Defeats Germany for the Third Time in a Century: The MIC, OGAM and FIRE Sectors Conquer NATO

February 28, 2022

Source

By Michael Hudson

My old boss Herman Kahn, with whom I worked at the Hudson Institute in the 1970s, had a set speech that he would give at public meetings. He said that back in high school in Los Angeles, his teachers would say what most liberals were saying in the 1940s and 50s: “Wars never solved anything.” It was as if they never changed anything – and therefore shouldn’t be fought.

Herman disagreed, and made lists of all sorts of things that wars had solved in world history, or at least changed. He was right, and of course that is the aim of both sides in today’s New Cold War confrontation in Ukraine.

The question to ask is what today’s New Cold War is trying to change or “solve.” To answer this question, it helps to ask who initiates the war. There always are two sides – the attacker and the attacked. The attacker intends certain consequences, and the attacked looks for unintended consequences of which they can take advantage. In this case, both sides have their dueling sets of intended consequences and special interests.

The active military force and aggression since 1991 has been the United States. Rejecting mutual disarmament of the Warsaw Pact countries and NATO, there was no “peace dividend.” Instead, the U.S. policy executed by the Clinton and subsequent administrations to wage a new military expansion via NATO has paid a 30-year dividend in the form of shifting the foreign policy of Western Europe and other American allies out of their domestic political sphere into their own U.S.-oriented “national security” blob (the word for special interests that must not be named). NATO has become Europe’s foreign-policy-making body, even to the point of dominating domestic economic interests.

The recent prodding of Russia by expanding Ukrainian anti-Russian ethnic violence by Ukraine’s neo-Nazi post-2014 Maiden regime was aimed at (and has succeeded in forcing a showdown in response the fear by U.S. interests that they are losing their economic and political hold on their NATO allies and other Dollar Area satellites as these countries have seen their major opportunities for gain to lie in increasing trade and investment with China and Russia.

To understand just what U.S. aims and interests are threatened, it is necessary to understand U.S. politics and “the blob,” that is, the government central planning that cannot be explained by looking at ostensibly democratic politics. This is not the politics of U.S. senators and representatives representing their congressional voting districts or states.

America’s three oligarchies in control of U.S. foreign policy

It is more realistic to view U.S. economic and foreign policy in terms of the military-industrial complex, the oil and gas (and mining) complex, and the banking and real estate complex than in terms of the political policy of Republicans and Democrats. The key senators and congressional representatives do not represent their states and districts as much as the economic and financial interests of their major political campaign contributors. A Venn diagram would show that in today’s post-Citizens United world, U.S. politicians represent their campaign contributors, not voters. And these contributors fall basically into three main blocs.

Three main oligarchic groups that have bought control of the Senate and Congress to put their own policy makers in the State Department and Defense Department. First is the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC) – arms manufacturers such as Raytheon, Boeing and Lockheed-Martin, have broadly diversified their factories and employment in nearly every state, and especially in the Congressional districts where key Congressional committee heads are elected. Their economic base is monopoly rent, obtained above all from their arms sales to NATO, to Near Eastern oil exporters and to other countries with a balance-of-payments surplus. Stocks for these companies soared immediately upon news of the Russian attack, leading a two-day stock-market surge as investors recognized that war in a world of cost-plus “Pentagon capitalism” (as Seymour Melman described it) will provide a guaranteed national-security umbrella for monopoly profits for war industries. Senators and Congressional representatives from California and Washington traditionally have represented the MIC, along with the solid pro-military South. The past week’s military escalation promises soaring arms sales to NATO and other U.S. allies, enriching the actual constituents of these politicians. Germany quickly agreed to raise is arms spending to over 2% of GDP.

The second major oligarchic bloc is the rent-extracting oil and gas sector, joined by mining (OGAM), riding America’s special tax favoritism granted to companies emptying natural resources out of the ground and putting them mostly into the atmosphere, oceans and water supply. Like the banking and real estate sector seeking to maximize economic rent and maximizing capital gains for housing and other assets,, the aim of this OGAM sector is to maximize the price of its energy and raw materials so as to maximize its natural-resource rent. Monopolizing the Dollar Area’s oil market and isolating it from Russian oil and gas has been a major U.S. priority for over a year now, as the Nord Stream 2 pipeline threatened to link the Western European and Russian economies more tightly together.

If oil, gas and mining operations are not situated in every U.S. voting district, at least their investors are. Senators from Texas and other Western oil-producing and mining states are the leading OGAM lobbyists, and the State Department has a heavy oil-sector influence providing a national-security umbrella for the sector’s special tax breaks. The ancillary political aim is to ignore and reject environmental drives to replace oil, gas and coal with alternative sources of energy. The Biden administration accordingly has backed the expansion of offshore drilling, supported the Canadian pipeline to the world’s dirtiest petroleum source in the Athabasca tar sands, and celebrated the revival of U.S. fracking.

The foreign-policy extension is to prevent foreign countries not leaving control of their oil, gas and mining to U.S. OGAM companies from competing in world markets with U.S. suppliers. Isolating Russia (and Iran) from Western markets will reduce the supply of oil and gas, pushing up prices and corporate profits accordingly.

The third major oligarchic group is the symbiotic Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sector, which is the modern finance-capitalist successor to Europe’s old post-feudal landed aristocracy living by land rents. With most housing in today’s world having become owner-occupied (although with sharply rising rates of absentee landlordship since the post-2008 wave of Obama Evictions), land rent is paid largely to the banking sector in the form of mortgage interest and debt amortization (on rising debt/equity ratios as bank lending inflates housing prices). About 80 percent of U.S. and British bank loans are to the real estate sector, inflating land prices to create capital gains – which are effectively tax-exempt for absentee owners.

This Wall Street-centered banking and real estate bloc is even more broadly based on a district-by-district basis than the MIC. Its New York senator from Wall Street, Chuck Schumer, heads the Senate, long supported by Delaware’s former Senator from the credit-card industry Joe Biden, and Connecticut’s senators from the insurance sector centered in that state. Domestically, the aim of this sector is to maximize land rent and the “capital’ gains resulting from rising land rent. Internationally, the FIRE sector’s aim is to privatize foreign economies (above all to secure the privilege of credit creation in U.S. hands), so as to turn government infrastructure and public utilities into rent-seeking monopolies to provide basic services (such as health care, education, transportation, communications and information technology) at maximum prices instead of at subsidized prices to reduce the cost of living and doing business. And Wall Street always has been closely merged with the oil and gas industry (viz. the Rockefeller-dominated Citigroup and Chase Manhattan banking conglomerates).

The FIRE, MIC and OGAM sectors are the three rentier sectors that dominate today’s post-industrial finance capitalism. Their mutual fortunes have soared as MIC and OGAM stocks have increased. And moves to exclude Russia from the Western financial system (and partially now from SWIFT), coupled with the adverse effects of isolating European economies from Russian energy, promise to spur an inflow into dollarized financial securities

As mentioned at the outset, it is more helpful to view U.S. economic and foreign policy in terms of the complexes based on these three rentier sectors than in terms of the political policy of Republicans and Democrats. The key senators and congressional representatives are not representing their states and districts as much as the economic and financial interests of their major donors. That is why neither manufacturing nor agriculture play the dominant role in U.S. foreign policy today. The convergence of the policy aims of America’s three dominant rentier groups overwhelms the interests of labor and even of industrial capital beyond the MIC. That convergence is the defining characteristic of today’s post-industrial finance capitalism. It is basically a reversion to economic rent-seeking, which is independent of the politics of labor and industrial capital.

The dynamic that needs to be traced today is why this oligarchic blob has found its interest in prodding Russia into what Russia evidently viewed as a do-or-die stance to resist the increasingly violent attacks on Ukraine’s eastern Russian-speaking provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk, along with the broader Western threats against Russia.

The rentier “blob’s” expected consequences of the New Cold War

As President Biden explained, the current U.S.-orchestrated military escalation (“Prodding the Bear”) is not really about Ukraine. Biden promised at the outset that no U.S. troops would be involved. But he has been demanding for over a year that Germany prevent the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from supplying its industry and housing with low-priced gas and turn to the much higher-priced U.S. suppliers.

U.S. officials first tried to stop construction of the pipeline from being completed. Firms aiding in its construction were sanctioned, but finally Russia itself completed the pipeline. U.S. pressure then turned on the traditionally pliant German politicians, claiming that Germany and the rest of Europe faced a National Security threat from Russia turning off the gas, presumably to extract some political or economic concessions. No specific Russian demands could be thought up, and so their nature was left obscure and blob-like. Germany refused to authorize Nord Stream 2 from officially going into operation.

A major aim of today’s New Cold War is to monopolize the market for U.S. shipments of liquified natural gas (LNG). Already under Donald Trump’s administration, Angela Merkel was bullied into promising to spend $1 billion building new port facilities for U.S. tanker ships to unload natural gas for German use. The Democratic election victory in November 2020, followed by Ms. Merkel’s retirement from Germany’s political scene, led to cancellation of this port investment, leaving Germany really without much alternative to importing Russian gas to heat its homes, power its electric utilities, and to provide raw material for its fertilizer industry and hence the maintenance of its farm productivity.

So the most pressing U.S. strategic aim of NATO confrontation with Russia is soaring oil and gas prices, above all to the detriment of Germany. In addition to creating profits and stock-market gains for U.S. oil companies, higher energy prices will take much of the steam out of the German economy. That looms as the third time in a century that the United States has defeated Germany – each time increasing its control over a German economy increasingly dependent on the United States for imports and policy leadership, with NATO being the effective check against any domestic nationalist resistance.

Higher gasoline, heating and other energy prices also will hurt U.S. consumers and those of other nations (especially Global South energy-deficit economies) and leave less of the U.S. family budget for spending on domestic goods and services. This could squeeze marginalized homeowners and investors, leading to further concentration of absentee ownership of housing and commercial property in the United States, along with buyouts of distressed real estate owners in other countries faced with soaring heating and energy costs. But that is deemed collateral damage by the post-industrial blob.

Food prices also will rise, headed by wheat. (Russia and Ukraine account for 25 percent of world wheat exports.) This will squeeze many Near Eastern and Global South food-deficit countries, worsening their balance of payments and threatening foreign debt defaults.

Russian raw-materials exports may be blocked by Russia in response to the currency and SWIFT sanctions. This threatens to cause breaks in supply chains for key materials, including cobalt, palladium, nickel and aluminum (the production of which consumes much electricity as its major cost – which will make that metal more expensive). If China decides to see itself as the next nation being threatened and joins Russia in a common protest against the U.S. trade and financial warfare, the Western economies are in for a serious shock.

The long-term dream of U.S. New Cold Warriors is to break up Russia, or at least to restore its Yeltsin/Harvard Boys managerial kleptocracy, with oligarchs seeking to cash in their privatizations in Western stock markets. OGAM still dreams of buying majority control of Yukos and Gazprom. Wall Street would love to recreate a Russian stock market boom. And MIC investors are happily anticipating the prospect of selling more weapons to help bring all this about.

Russia’s intentions to benefit from America’s unintended consequences

What does Russia want? Most immediately, to remove the neo-Nazi anti-Russian core that the Maidan massacre and coup put in place in 2014. Ukraine is to be neutralized, which to Russia means basically pro-Russian, dominated by Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea. The aim is to prevent Ukraine from becoming a staging ground of U.S.-orchestrated anti-Russian moves a la Chechnya and Georgia.

Russia’s longer-term aim is to pry Europe away from NATO and U.S. dominance – and in the process, create with China a new multipolar world order centered on an economically integrated Eurasia. The aim is to dissolve NATO altogether, and then to promote the broad disarmament and denuclearization policies that Russia has been pushing for. Not only will this cut back foreign purchases of U.S. arms, but it may end up leading to sanctions against future U.S. military adventurism. That would leave America with less ability to fund its military operations as de-dollarization accelerates.

Now that it should be obvious to any informed observer that (1) NATO’s purpose is aggression, not defense, and (2) there is no further territory for it to conquer from the remains of the old Soviet Union, what does Europe get out of continued membership? It is obvious that Russia never again will invade Europe. It has nothing to gain – and had nothing to gain by fighting Ukraine, except to roll back NATO’s proxy expansion into that country and the NATO-backed attacks on Novorossiya.

Will European nationalist leaders (the left is largely pro-US) ask why their countries should pay for U.S. arms that only put them in danger, pay higher prices for U.S. LNG and energy, pay more for grain and Russian-produced raw materials, all while losing the option of making export sales and profits on peaceful investment in Russia – and perhaps losing China as well?

The U.S. confiscation of Russian monetary reserves, following the recent theft of Afghanistan’s reserves (and England’s seizure of Venezuela’s gold stocks held there) threatens every country’s adherence to the Dollar Standard, and hence the dollar’s role as the vehicle for foreign-exchange savings by the world’s central banks. This will accelerate the international de-dollarization process already started by Russia and China relying on mutual holdings of each other’s currencies.

Over the longer term, Russia is likely to join China in forming an alternative to the U.S.-dominated IMF and World Bank. Russia’s announcement that it wants to arrest the Ukrainian Nazis and hold a war crimes trial seems to imply an alternative to the Hague court will be established following Russia’s military victory in Ukraine. Only a new international court could try war criminals extending from Ukraine’s neo-Nazi leadership all the way up to U.S. officials responsible for crimes against humanity as defined by the Nuremberg laws.

Did the American blob actually think through the consequences of NATO’s war?

It is almost black humor to look at U.S. attempts to convince China that it should join the United States in denouncing Russia’s moves into Ukraine. The most enormous unintended consequence of U.S. foreign policy has been to drive Russia and China together, along with Iran, Central Asia and other countries along the Belt and Road initiative.

Russia dreamed of creating a new world order, but it was U.S. adventurism that has driven the world into an entirely new order – one that looks to be dominated by China as the default winner now that the European economy is essentially torn apart and America is left with what it has grabbed from Russia and Afghanistan, but without the ability to gain future support.

And everything that I have written above may already be obsolete as Russia and the U.S. have gone on atomic alert. My only hope is that Putin and Biden can agree that if Russia hydrogen bombs Britain and Brussels, that there will be a devil’s (not gentleman’s) agreement not to bomb each other.

With such talk I’m brought back to my discussions with Herman Kahn 50 years ago. He became quite unpopular for writing Thinking about the Unthinkable, meaning atomic war. As he was parodied in Dr. Strangelove, he did indeed say that there would indeed be survivors. But he added that for himself, he hoped to be right under the atom bomb, because it was not a world in which he wanted to survive.