The proxy war in Ukraine is an imperialist adventure that has been financially ruinous, has destroyed Ukraine, and is driving a dangerous all-out war with Russia and China that could turn into a nuclear armageddon.
It has become patently obvious to the world that the conflict in Ukraine is a dirty and desperate geopolitical confrontation, despite massive Western media efforts to portray it as something else more noble – the usual charade of chivalry and virtue to disguise naked Western imperialism.
The death and destruction in Ukraine is nothing but a proxy war by the United States and its NATO partners to defeat Russia in a strategic gambit. But the unspoken objective does not end with Russia. The U.S. and its Western imperialist lackeys are driven to push for confrontation with China too.
As if taking on Russia is not reckless enough! The Western powers want to double down on their warmongering with China. This is all because the underlying impetus is for Washington and its Western minions to promote U.S.-led dominance of the global order. Russia and China are the main obstacles to that path of would-be dominance, and hence we see this manic drive for aggression stemming from Washington, the executive power of the Western order.
It should be obvious that while the U.S.-led NATO axis has stoked the war in Ukraine to calamitous heights, this same axis is wantonly inciting tensions with China. This observation alone should be enough to condemn the criminality of Western powers.
This week saw the NATO powers deliver depleted uranium weapons to the Kiev regime, while the United States announced that it would be docking submarine nuclear warheads in South Korea, a move that infuriated China which pointed out that Washington was violating decades-old commitments to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. Of course, such perverse provocation is par for the course as far as Washington is concerned. It is done deliberately in a conscious effort to exacerbate tensions and escalate militarism. Peace and security are anathemas to the U.S. (and its minions) whose whole ideological raison d’être is to aggravate war to gratify corporate capitalist addiction – a system that is increasingly bankrupt and dysfunctional, and hence the insane desperation for craving “war-fixes”.
In a scathing speech to the United Nations Security Council this week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov asserted that the conflict in Ukraine cannot be properly resolved without an understanding of the geopolitical context. In other words, the war in the former Soviet republic which erupted last February has bigger causes than what the Western powers and their compliant news media would try to pretend otherwise.
Defense of Ukraine? Defense of democracy? Defense of international law? Defense of national sovereignty? These are some of the laughable claims made by Washington and its allies. One only has to consider the decades of total trashing of the UN Charter and democratic principles by the United States and its rogue partners in their pursuit of criminal wars to realize that their virtue-signaling over Ukraine is a vile joke.
Lavrov’s address to the Security Council was a stunning rebuke of the hypocrisy and criminality of the United States, Britain, France, Germany and other NATO powers, as well as the European Union. His speech was akin to the scene in the classic old movie The Wizard of Oz when the curtain was pulled back on the buffoonish villain for all to see. Any objective observer would agree with the Russian foreign minister’s excoriating survey of modern history and why the war in Ukraine has tragically manifested. Lamentably, if we fail to understand history and the real causes of conflicts, then we are condemned to repeat the horrors.
Ironically, Western leaders have at times revealed the bigger geopolitical agenda with their own misspoken arrogant words. U.S. President Joe Biden had previously blurted out a call for regime change in Moscow while his senior aides, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin, have succumbed to the intoxication of their narcissism and hubris by saying that the purpose of the war in Ukraine is the “defeat of Russia”.
Other NATO senior figures, such as the stupid, conceited Polish leaders and their Baltic buddies, have also come out and stated that the war’s ulterior agenda is to vanquish Russia. The fascist skeletons of their Nazi-collusion past have resurrected their deathly rattles, uncontrollably.
As Lavrov’s address to the Security Council intimates, the systematic violation of the UN Charter by the United States and its Western partners is a deplorable continuation of the Nazi fascism and imperialist barbarism that was supposed to have been defeated in World War Two. The culmination of the constant, unbridled Western imperialist criminality and its state terrorism is the current war in Ukraine and the growing aggression toward China over Taiwan as a pretext.
In all of this, woefully, the Western public has been flagrantly lied to by their governments and media as to the real nature of the war in Ukraine. American and European citizens have been bilked for hundreds of billions of dollars to prop up a Nazi regime in Kiev whose function is to act as a NATO spear-tip against Russia, and ultimately China when the NATO powers feel they are done with Ukraine. (The latter is a futile ambition, as is becoming increasingly evident.)
Journalists and antiwar activists in the West who highlight the malfeasance over Ukraine are either sacked, vilified, censored, or sanctioned into poverty, or even imprisoned.
Nevertheless, the Western public and the rest of the world are increasingly becoming aware of the odious charade. By definition, charades are inevitably untenable.
The Global South – the majority of the 193 nations at the UN – has had it with Western capitalist hegemony and its outrageous neocolonialist privileges. The incremental dumping of the U.S. dollar as an international reserve currency for trade is a testament to the historic shift towards a multipolar order in defiance of Western unipolar elitism. The nations of Africa, Latin America and Asia understand that the U.S.-led NATO war in Ukraine is a desperate last-ditch bid to preserve an imperialist global order which should have been eradicated after World War Two with the establishment of the United Nations, but which, regrettably, was not. Because the root cause of imperialism is the AngloAmerican-led Western capitalist order. The end of World War Two, as with World War One, was but a pause in the historical killing machine.
It is now increasingly evident in the light of leaked documents from the Pentagon that the war in Ukraine is a disaster. The Kiev regime is facing defeat at the hands of superior Russian forces even though that regime has been flooded with weapons by the United States and NATO. Great expectations of a Ukrainian victory that were widely predicted by Western leaders and media have been shown to be empty, contemptible lies.
The side-show of this war is a gargantuan racket. Western arms companies have raked in unprecedented profits, while the NATO-backed cabal in Kiev has skimmed off hundreds of millions of dollars. This is the same Kiev regime that is burning down Orthodox Christian churches, exterminating the Russian language, lionizing World War Two Nazi criminals, and locking up any critical opposition and media.
But the main takeaway is the lies that the United States and Western lackeys, including the entire media industry, have been telling about the proxy war in Ukraine. This war is an imperialist adventure that has been financially ruinous, has destroyed Ukraine, and is driving a dangerous all-out war with Russia and China that could turn into a nuclear armageddon.
We should not be surprised by such blatant lying and deception. President Joe Biden and his administration have been telling barefaced lies to conceal the corruption oozing out of Biden’s own family. Biden and his son Hunter have exploited Ukraine since the CIA-backed coup in Kiev in 2014 for personal enrichment. The president has even reportedly got his senior aides to do his bidding to censor intelligence agencies and media from revealing to the public the corruption at the heart of his family. (Risibly, the truth is smeared as Russian or Chinese disinformation!)
The lies that Biden and his administration tell about personal corruption are indelibly coupled with the lies told about the proxy war in Ukraine.
It is increasingly clear that the American public, the European public, and the rest of the world have been duped in multiple ways. The phony war in Ukraine is exposing the deep, stinking well of corruption in this White House. There will be hell to pay.
لن نستطيع استيعاب حجم الانعكاسات المتسارعة لنهاية الهيمنة الأميركية على منطقتنا، ولا تفسير أشكال التموضع المتسارع في صفوف اللاعبين الفاعلين في المنطقة، إذا بقينا عند حدود ترسمها ضفاف السياسة والمصالح المباشرة والحروب، وقد كانت جميعها انعكاساً لتحولات أعمق جعلت ظهور هذه الانعكاسات حتمياً؛ فموقع السعودية في قطاع الطاقة وما يمليه من مصالح حيوية مع كل من روسيا والصين، والفشل الأميركي في أفغانستان وصولاً للاعتراف بالفشل وقرار الانسحاب، وحروب المقاومة وصمود قواها وحكوماتها في سورية وإيران، والصعود الروسي والنهوض الصيني، كلها عناصر حقيقيّة وصحيحة لعبت دوراً في التظهير السياسي للتحوّلات الجارية منذ انهيار وتفكك الاتحاد السوفياتي وتقدّم أميركا كقوة عالميّة وحيدة مهيمنة، تخوض الحرب دون خصم يواجهها، وتفرض العقوبات دون قانون دولي يمنعها، حتى بدأ الخط البياني الأميركي من تراجع الى تراجع، ومن أزمة الى أزمة، فما هي التحوّلات العميقة التي نتحدّث عنها؟
خاضت واشنطن معركة السيطرة على العالم تحت عنوان تحويل العولمة، بما هي تعبير عن ثورة تكنولوجية أضعفت أهميّة المسافات الفاصلة في الجغرافيا إلى مصدر لإلغاء الجغرافيا، بما تختزنه من خصوصيّات ومقدرات تميز الشعوب والأمم والدول، وكانت العالمية هي النسخة السياسية للعولمة، بمعنى الحكومة العالمية، التي لا تعترف بالجغرافيا، والفرد المعولم الذي يجري إلغاء خصوصياته الثقافية والدينية والتاريخية والقومية ليصير فرداً من أتباع الحكومة العالمية يشترك في السباق على الرفاه، بدلاً من التمسك بالجذور، لكن العولمة بما هي ثورة تكنولوجية منحت المنصات والقدرات والفرص للسباق بين مفهومي الفرد المنتمي لخصوصية ثقافية وجذور دينية وقومية، والحكومة العالمية، فكانت العولمة التكنولوجية التي اختصرت مسافات الجغرافيا سبباً رئيسياً للتحول الذي رد الاعتبار للجغرافيا بصفتها الحامل للخصوصيات الثقافية الدينية والقومية، ولم ينتبه الأميركيون إلى أن التحوّل الذي ركبوا على موجته في تفكيك الاتحاد السوفياتي، هو التمسك بالخصوصية الثقافية والقومية والدينية، التي كانت مقموعة في زمن عولمة من نوع آخر مثلها الاتحاد السوفياتي، وتجاهل الأميركيون القاعدة البسيطة التي تقول إن الباب الذي تدخل منه لا يمكنك منع الآخرين من الدخول عبره. وها هو الغرب كله في حرب أوكرانيا يخوض الحرب بوجه روسيا تحت عناوين سبق أن أعلن موتها، عندما قال إن زمن السيادة والوطنية قد انتهى في ظل العولمة وما نتج عن العالمية.
بمثل ما أصبح الفرد هو الوحدة التي تقوم عليها عولمة التكنولوجيا، حيث الاتصال بالتكنولوجيا فردي ولا يعبر من بوابة دولة أو قومية أو دين، عادت للفرد أهميته في مواجهة الآلة، حيث صار هو العمود الفقري للحروب، فعادت الجغرافيا تقاتل نهاية التاريخ، فالتاريخ من صناعة الجغرافيا المتعددة المتعاونة والمتحاربة، وظهر من رحم الخصوصية الثقافية والدينية والقومية، الفرد المقاتل بالروح مقابل الفرد المعولم المنتمي لظلال الحكومة العالمية المستند الى تفوق الآلة، وسقطت نظرية حرب أكلاف صفر، ومثلها نظرية لا حروب في البر بعد الآن والحرب تحسم من الجو، التي تحدث عنها دونالد رامسفيلد في حرب العراق، وجاءت حرب تموز 2006 تعبيراً عن أول مواجهة مكتملة بين النموذجين، وكان انتصار المقاومة في هذه الحرب إعلاناً كاملاً لفشل جيوش الأفراد المعولمين في مواجهة جيوش أفراد الخصوصية الثقافية والدينية والقومية، وتكرّر الأمر في غزة وكانت أفغانستان المحطة الفاصلة.
تغير مع عودة الجغرافيا والخصوصيات الثقافية والدينية والقومية، وعودة الفرد وعودة الروح، ما أكمل المشهد الجديد، حيث ظهرت الدولة الوطنية قادرة على الصمود والمقاومة بوجه حروب أميركية شديدة الضراوة وكانت ذروتها في الحرب على سورية، حيث وقفت الدولة الوطنية السورية بخلفيتها القومية، والدولة الوطنية الإيرانية بخلفيتها الإسلامية، تعبران عن الخصوصيتين الكبيرتين في المنطقة، العروبة والإسلام، وكان حزب الله كتعبير مزدوج عن هاتين الخصوصيتين القيمة المضافة في حسم وجهة الحرب التي أعادت تثبيت مكانة الدولة الوطنية في وجه الحكومة العالمية، وتلاقت مع هذه المعادلة والدولة الوطنية الروسية بخلفيتها القيصرية والأرثوذكسية، ثم تواصل التغيير في حرب اليمن حيث ظهرت التكنولوجيا الحربية الجديدة التي استثمرت على العولمة بصفتها ثورة تكنولوجية، قادرة على إسقاط قانون الحرب القديم، وتمكّنت الطائرات المسيّرة والصواريخ المجنحة الصغيرة والدقيقة، من هزيمة حاملات الطائرات العملاقة، وهذه التكنولوجيا الجديدة قابلة للإخفاء والتمويه وبلوغ الأهداف بسرعة ودقة ولا يمكن وقفها، وها هي حرب أوكرانيا تقول الكلمة الفصل لجهة تفوق هذه التكنولوجيا وتموضعها مكان تكنولوجيا حروب الدبابات والطائرات التي حكمت الحربين العالميتين الأولى والثانية. ومن أبرز ما تغير أيضاً هو التغيير الذي أدخله الاقتصاد على مفهوم الدولة المهمة اقتصادياً، بعدما تمّ ربطه لعقود بحجم أرقام الناتج المحلي الذي لا يمكن منافسته لدى دول الاقتصاد الافتراضي، لتظهر العقوبات على روسيا أن الدول التي لا يمكن الاستغناء عنها ليست بالضرورة الدول التي تملك أعلى ناتج إجمالي، فمن يملك موقعاً لا يعوض في توفير موارد الطاقة لا يمكن الاستغناء عنه مهما كان حجم ناتجه الإجمالي، وهذا صحيح في حال روسيا وصحيح أيضاً في حال السعودية.
أظهرت الجغرافيا عودة التاريخ، ووضعت قوانين جديدة لمساره، وفي زمن العولمة بما هي ثورة تكنولوجية تم ردّ الاعتبار لقيمة عدد السكان، المستهلكين والمتصلين، وصار للدول مكانة اقتصادية وسياسية ترتبط بعناصر يقع عدد السكان في موقع هام منها، لا تمحوه العوامل الأخرى من القوة والغنى، وصار النفوذ السياسي والاقتصادي والعسكري للدول يرتبط طردياً بهذا العامل، وحيث على الدول التي تملك نفوذاً فائضاً أن تعيد التأقلم مع نفوذ يناسب حجمها السكاني ومحيطها الجغرافي، برزت فرص لنفوذ قابل للنمو للدول التي لا تملك ما يتناسب من نفوذ مع حجمها السكاني ومحيطها الجغرافي، عندما تمتلك قوة اقتصادية وعسكرية كافية لحماية هذا النفوذ. وهذا ما رسم نهاية حرب أفغانستان كنفوذ فائض يجب التخلي عنه، ويرسم مستقبل حرب أوكرانيا كنفوذ حيوي مشروع وممكن لروسيا، ويرسم مكانة الاتفاق السعودي الإيراني الصيني في معادلات النفوذ الإقليمي في المنطقة.
العلم يتغيّر بسرعة تحت تأثير قوانين غير قابلة للإلغاء والتطويع، حتى ينمو نفوذ الدول الصاعدة الى حدود الإشباع التي تحدّدها مصادر قوتها السكانية والاقتصادية والعسكرية، ويتراجع نفوذ الدول المهيمنة الى عتبة الإشباع التي تمّ تخطيها كثيراً، لأن العولمة متعددة والعالمية أحادية، وعلى العالمية أن تخضع لقوانين العولمة، بعد التمرّد الفاشل الذي أعلن نهاية التاريخ.
No one but the terminally naïve should be surprised that security services lie – and that they are all but certain to cover their tracks when they carry out operations that either violate domestic or international law or that would be near-universally rejected by their own populations.
Which is reason enough why anyone following the fallout from explosions last September that ripped holes in three of the four Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea supplying Russian gas to Europe should be wary of accepting anything Western agencies have to say on the matter.
In fact, the only thing that Western publics should trust is the consensus among “investigators” that the three simultaneous blasts deep underwater on the pipelines – a fourth charge apparently failed to detonate – were sabotage, not some freak coincidental accident.
Someone blew up the Nord Stream pipelines, creating an untold environmental catastrophe as the pipes leaked huge quantities of methane, a supremely active global-warming gas. It was an act of unrivaled industrial and environmental terrorism.
If Washington had been able to pin the explosions on Russia, as it initially hoped, it would have done so with full vigor. There is nothing Western states would like more than to intensify world fury against Moscow, especially in the context of NATO’s express efforts to “weaken” Russia through a proxy war waged in Ukraine.
But, after the claim made the rounds of front pages for a week or two, the story of Russia destroying its own pipelines was quietly shelved. That was partly because it seemed too difficult to maintain a narrative in which Moscow chose to destroy a critical part of its own energy infrastructure.
Not only did the explosions cause Russia great financial harm – the country’s gas and oil revenues regularly financed nearly half of its annual budget – but the blasts removed Moscow’s chief influence over Germany, which had been until then heavily dependent on Russian gas. The initial media story required the Western public to believe that President Vladimir Putin willingly shot himself in the foot, losing his only leverage over European resolve to impose economic sanctions on his country.
But even more than the complete lack of a Russian motive, Western states knew they would be unable to build a plausible forensic case against Moscow for the Nord Stream blasts.
Instead, with no chance to milk the explosions for propaganda value, official Western interest in explaining what had happened to the Nord Stream pipelines wilted, despite the enormity of the event. That was reflected for months in an almost complete absence of media coverage.
When the matter was raised, it was to argue that separate investigations by Sweden, Germany and Denmark were all drawing a blank. Sweden even refused to share any of its findings with Germany and Denmark, arguing that to do so would harm its “national security.”
No one, again including the Western media, raised an eyebrow or showed a flicker of interest in what might be really going on behind the scenes. Western states and their compliant corporate media seemed quite ready to settle for the conclusion that this was a mystery cocooned in an enigma.
ISOLATED AND FRIENDLESS
It might have stayed that way forever, except that in February, a journalist – one of the most acclaimed investigative reporters of the past half-century – produced an account that finally demystified the explosions. Drawing on at least one anonymous, highly placed informant, Seymour Hersh pointed the finger for the explosions directly at the US administration and President Joe Biden himself.
Hersh’s detailed retelling of the planning and execution of the Nord Stream blasts had the advantage – at least for those interested in getting to the truth of what took place – that his account fitted the known circumstantial evidence.
At a Senate hearing, top US diplomat Victoria Nuland celebrated the Nord Stream 2 pipeline bombing:
"Senator Cruz, like you, I am, and I think the administration is, very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now, as you like to say, a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea." pic.twitter.com/KS5OM4N165
Key Washington figures, from President Biden to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and his senior neoconservative official Victoria Nuland – a stalwart of the murky U.S., anti-Russia meddling in Ukraine over the past decade – had either called for the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines or celebrated the blasts shortly after they took place.
If anyone had a motive for blowing up the Russian pipelines – and a self-declared one at that – it was the Biden administration. They opposed the Nord Stream 1 and 2 projects from the outset – and for exactly the same reason that Moscow so richly prized them.
My latest: If, as seems likely, the US was behind the pipeline blasts, it shows it's ready to turn the whole of Europe into a battlefield – and bully, betray and potentially sacrifice the continent’s population as cruelly as it has treated the Global South https://t.co/cIN1INfiOQ
In particular, the second pair of pipelines, Nord Stream 2, which was completed in September 2021, would double the amount of cheap Russian gas available to Germany and Western Europe. The only obstacle in its path was the hesitancy of German regulators. They delayed approval in November 2021.
Nord Stream meant major European countries, most especially Germany, would be completely dependent for the bulk of their energy supplies on Russia. That deeply conflicted with U.S. interests. For two decades, Washington had been expanding NATO as an anti-Moscow military alliance embracing ever more of Europe, to the point of butting up aggressively against Russia’s borders.
The Ukrainian government’s covert efforts to become a NATO member – thereby destroying a long-standing mutual and fragile nuclear deterrence between Washington and Moscow – were among the stated reasons why Russia invaded its neighbor in February last year.
Nearly a year into the Ukraine war, the western narrative of an 'unprovoked attack' by Moscow has become impossible to sustain https://t.co/xTaHEibKax
Washington wanted Moscow isolated and friendless in Europe. The goal was to turn Russia into Enemy No. 2 – after China – not leave Europeans looking to Moscow for energy salvation.
The Nord Stream explosions achieved precisely that outcome. They severed the main reason European states had for cozying up to Moscow. Instead, the U.S. started shipping its expensive liquified natural gas across the Atlantic to Europe, both forcing Europeans to become more energy dependent on Washington and, at the same time, fleecing them for the privilege.
But even if Hersh’s story fitted the circumstantial evidence, could his account stand up to further scrutiny?
PECULIARLY INCURIOUS
This is where the real story begins. Because one might have assumed that Western states would be queuing up to investigate the facts Hersh laid bare, if only to see if they stacked up or to find a more plausible alternative account of what happened.
Dennis Kucinich, a former chair of a U.S. Congressional investigative subcommittee on government oversight, has noted that it is simply astonishing no one in Congress has been pushing to use its powers to subpoena senior American officials, such as the secretary of the Navy, to test Hersh’s version of events. As Kucinich observes, such subpoenas could be issued under Congress’s Article One, Section 8, Clause 18, providing “constitutional powers to gather information, including to inquire on the administrative conduct of office.”
Similarly, and even more extraordinarily, when a vote was called by Russia at the United Nations Security Council late last month to set up an independent international commission to investigate the blasts, the proposal was roundly rejected.
If adopted, the UN Secretary-General himself would have appointed expert investigators and aided their work with a large secretariat.
Three Security Council members, Russia, China and Brazil, voted in favor of the commission. The other 12 – the U.S. and its allies or small states it could easily pressure – abstained, the safest way to quietly foil the creation of such an investigative commission.
Excuses for rejecting an independent commission failed to pass the sniff test. The claim was that it would interfere with the existing investigations of Denmark, Sweden and Germany. And yet all three have demonstrated that they are in no hurry to reach a conclusion, arguing that they may need years to carry out their work. As previously noted, they have indicated great reluctance to cooperate. And last week, Sweden once again stated that it may never get to the bottom of the events in the Baltic Sea.
As one European diplomat reportedly observed of meetings between NATO policymakers, the motto is: “Don’t talk about Nord Stream.” The diplomat added: “It’s like a corpse at a family gathering. It’s better not to know.”
It may not be so surprising that Western states are devoted to ignorance about who carried out a major act of international terrorism in blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines, considering that the most likely culprit is the world’s only superpower and the one state that can make their lives a misery.
But what should be more peculiar is that Western media have shown precisely no interest in getting to the truth of the matter either. They have remained completely incurious to an event of enormous international significance and consequence.
It is not only that Hersh’s account has been ignored by the Western press as if it did not even exist. It is that none of the media appear to have made any effort to follow up with their own investigations to test his account for plausibility.
“ACT OF WAR”
Hersh’s investigation is filled with details that could be checked – and verified or rebutted – if anyone wished to do so.
He set out a lengthy planning stage that began in the second half of 2021. He names the unit responsible for the attack on the pipeline: the U.S. Navy’s Diving and Salvage Center, based in Panama City, Florida. And he explains why it was chosen for the task over the U.S. Special Operations Command: because any covert operation by the former would not need to be reported to Congress.
In December 2021, according to his highly placed informant, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan convened a task force of senior administration and Pentagon officials at the request of Biden himself. They agreed that the explosions must not be traceable back to Washington; otherwise, as the source noted: “It’s an act of war.”
The CIA brought in the Norwegians, stalwarts of NATO and strongly hostile to Russia, to carry out the logistics of where and how to attack the pipelines. Oslo had its own additional commercial interests in play, as the blasts would make Germany more dependent on Norwegian gas, as well as American supplies, to make up the shortfall from Nord Stream.
By March last year, shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the precise site for the attack had been selected: in the Baltic’s shallow waters off Denmark’s Bornholm Island, where the sea floor was only 260ft below the surface, the four pipelines were close together and there were no strong tidal currents.
A small number of Swedish and Danish officials were given a general briefing about unusual diving activities to avoid the danger that their navies might raise the alarm.
The Norwegians also helped develop a way to disguise the U..S explosive charges so that, after they were laid, they would not be detected by Russian surveillance in the area.
The story no one wanted told. Seymour Hersh reveals how the US blew up the Nordstream gas pipelines, one of the great environmental disasters of our time. I'm guessing Hersh published on Substack because no establishment media outlet dared touch his expose https://t.co/B2IxQj5kuh
Next, the U.S. found the ideal cover. For more than two decades, Washington has sponsored an annual NATO naval exercise in the Baltic every June. The U.S. arranged that the 2022 event, Baltops 22, would take place close to Bornholm Island, allowing the divers to plant the charges unnoticed.
The explosives would be detonated through the use of a sonar buoy dropped by plane at the time of President Biden’s choosing. Complex arrangements had to be taken to make sure the explosives would not be accidentally triggered by passing ships, underwater drilling, seismic events or sea creatures.
Three months later, on September 26, the sonar buoy was dropped by a Norwegian plane, and a few hours later three of the four pipelines were put out of commission.
DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN
The Western media’s response to Hersh’s account has perhaps been the most revealing aspect of the entire saga.
It is not just that the establishment media have been so uniformly and remarkably reticent to dig deeper into making sense of this momentous crime – beyond making predictable, unevidenced accusations against Russia. It is that they have so obviously sought to dismiss Hersh’s account before making even cursory efforts to confirm or deny its specifics.
The knee-jerk pretext has been that Hersh has only one anonymous source for his claims. Hersh himself has noted that, as with other of his famous investigations, he cannot always refer to additional sources he uses to confirm details because those sources impose a condition of invisibility for agreeing to speak to him.
That should hardly be surprising when informants are drawn from a small, select group of Washington insiders and are at great risk of being identified – at great personal cost to themselves, given the U.S. administration’s proven track record of persecuting whistleblowers.
But the fact that this was indeed just a pretext from the establishment media becomes much clearer when we consider that those same journalists dismissive of Hersh’s account happily gave prominence to an alternative, highly implausible, semi-official version of events.
In what looked suspiciously like a coordinated publication in early March, The New York Times and Germany’s Die Zeitnewspapers printed separate accounts promising to solve “one of the central mysteries of the war in Ukraine.” The Times headline asked a question it implied it was about to answer: “Who Blew Up the Nord Stream Pipelines?”
Instead, both papers offered an account of the Nord Stream attack that lacked detail, and any detail that was supplied was completely implausible. This new version of events was vaguely attributed to anonymous American and German intelligence sources – the very actors, in Hersh’s account, responsible both for carrying out and covering up the Nord Stream blasts.
In fact, the story had all the hallmarks of a disinformation campaign to distract from Hersh’s investigation. It threw the establishment media a bone: the chief purpose was to lift any pressure from journalists to pursue Hersh’s leads. Now they could scurry around, looking like they were doing their job as a “free press” by chasing a complete red herring supplied by U.S. intelligence agencies.
Which is why the story was widely reported, notably far more widely than Hersh’s much more credible account.
So what did the New York Times’ account claim? That a mysterious group of six people had hired a 50ft yacht and sailed off to Bornholm Island, where they had carried out a James Bond-style mission to blow up the pipelines. Those involved, it was suggested, were a group of “pro-Ukrainian saboteurs”– with no apparent ties to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy – who were keen to seek revenge on Russia for its invasion. They had used fake passports.
The Times further muddied the waters, reporting sources that claimed some 45 “ghost ships” had passed close to the site of the explosion when their transponders were not working.
The crucial point was that the story shifted attention away from the sole plausible possibility, the one underscored by Hersh’s source: that only a state actor could have carried out the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines. The highly sophisticated, extremely difficult operation needed to be concealed from other states, including Russia that were closely surveilling the area.
Now the establishment media was heading off on a completely different tangent. They were looking not at states – and most especially not the one with the biggest motive, the greatest capability and the proven opportunity.
Instead, they had an excuse to play at being reporters, visiting Danish yachting communities to ask if anyone remembered the implicated yacht, the Andromeda, or suspicious characters aboard it, and trying to track down the Polish company that hired the sailing boat. The media had the story they preferred: one that Hollywood would have created, of a crack team of Jason Bournes giving Moscow a good slapping and then disappearing into the night.
WELCOME MYSTERY
A month on, the media discussion is still exclusively about the mysterious yacht crew, though – after reaching a series of dead-ends in a story that was only ever meant to have dead-ends – establishment journalists are asking a few tentative questions. Though, let us note, most determinedly not questions about any possible U.S. involvement in the Nord Stream sabotage.
Britain’s Guardian newspaper ran a story last week in which a German “security expert” wondered whether a group of six sailors was really capable of carrying out a highly complex operation to blow up the Nord Stream pipelines. That is something that might have occurred to a less credulous newspaper a month earlier when the Guardian simply regurgitated the Times’ disinformation story.
But despite the security expert’s skepticism, the Guardian is still not eager to get to the bottom of the story. It conveniently concludes that the “investigation” conducted by the Swedish public prosecutor, Mats Ljungqvist, will be unlikely ever to “yield a conclusive answer”.
Or as Ljungqvist observes: “Our hope is to be able to confirm who has committed this crime, but it should be noted that it likely will be difficult given the circumstances.”
Hersh’s account continues to be ignored by the Guardian – beyond a dismissive reference to several “theories” and “speculation” other than the laughable yacht story. The Guardian does not name Hersh in its report or the fact that his highly placed source fingered the U.S. for the Nord Stream sabotage. Instead, it notes simply that one theory – Hersh’s – has been “zeroing on a Nato Baltops 22 wargame two months before” the attack.
It’s all still a mystery for the Guardian – and a very welcome one by the tenor of its reports.
The Washington Post has been performing a similar service for the Biden administration on the other side of the Atlantic. A month on, it is using the yacht story simply to widen the enigma rather than narrow it down.
The paper reports that unnamed “law enforcement officials” now believe the Andromeda yacht was not the only vessel involved, adding: “The boat may have been a decoy, put to sea to distract from the true perpetrators, who remain at large, according to officials with knowledge of an investigation led by Germany’s attorney general.”
The Washington Post’s uncritical reporting surely proves a boon to Western “investigators”. It continues to build an ever more elaborate mystery, or “international whodunnit,” as the paper gleefully describes it. Its report argues that unnamed officials “wonder if the explosive traces – collected months after the rented boat was returned to its owners – were meant to falsely lead investigators to the Andromeda as the vessel used in the attack.”
The paper then quotes someone with “knowledge of the investigation”: “The question is whether the story with the sailboat is something to distract or only part of the picture.”
How does the paper respond? By ignoring that very warning and dutifully distracting itself across much of its own report by puzzling whether Poland might have been involved too in the blasts. Remember, a mysterious Polish company hired that red-herring yacht.
Poland, notes the paper, had a motive because it had long warned that the Nord Stream pipelines would make Europe more energy dependent on Russia. Exactly the same motive, we might note – though, of course, the Washington Post refuses to do so – that the Biden administration demonstrably had.
The paper does inadvertently offer one clue as to where the mystery yacht story most likely originated. The Washington Post quotes a German security official saying that Berlin “first became interested in the [Andromeda] vessel after the country’s domestic intelligence agency received a ‘very concrete tip’ from a Western intelligence service that the boat may have been involved in the sabotage”.
The German official “declined to name the country that shared the information” – information that helpfully draws attention away from any US involvement in the pipeline blasts and redirects it to a group of untraceable, rogue Ukraine sympathizers.
The Washington Post concludes that Western leaders “would rather not have to deal with the possibility that Ukraine or allies were involved”. And, it seems the Western media – our supposed watchdogs on power – feel exactly the same way.
“PARODY” INTELLIGENCE
In a follow-up story last week, Hersh revealed that Holger Stark, the journalist behind Die Zeit’s piece on the mystery yacht and someone Hersh knew when they worked together in Washington, had imparted to him an interesting additional piece of information divulged by his country’s intelligence services.
Hersh reports: “Officials in Germany, Sweden, and Denmark had decided shortly after the pipeline bombings to send teams to the site to recover the one mine that has not gone off. [Holger] said they were too late; an American ship had sped to the site within a day or two and recovered the mine and other materials.”
Holger, Hersh says, was entirely uninterested in Washington’s haste and determination to have exclusive access to this critical piece of evidence: “He answered, with a wave of his hand, ‘You know what Americans are like. Always wanting to be first.’” Hersh points out: “There was another very obvious explanation.”
Hersh also spoke with an intelligence expert about the plausibility of the mystery yacht story being advanced by the New York Times and Die Zeit. He described it as a “parody” of intelligence that only fooled the media because it was exactly the kind of story they wanted to hear. He noted some of the most glaring flaws in the account:
Any serious student of the event would know that you cannot anchor a sailboat in waters that are 260 feet deep’ – the depth at which the four pipelines were destroyed – ‘but the story was not aimed at him but at the press who would not know a parody when presented with one.’”
Further:
You cannot just walk off the street with a fake passport and lease a boat. You either need to accept a captain who was supplied by the leasing agent or owner of the yacht, or have a captain who comes with a certificate of competency as mandated by maritime law. Anyone who’s ever chartered a yacht would know that.’ Similar proof of expertise and competence for deep sea diving involving the use of a specialized mix of gases would be required by the divers and the doctor.”
And:
How does a 49-foot sailboat find the pipelines in the Baltic Sea? The pipelines are not that big and they are not on the charts that come with the lease. Maybe the thought was to put the two divers into the water’– not very easy to do so from a small yacht – ‘and let the divers look for it. How long can a diver stay down in their suits? Maybe fifteen minutes. Which means it would take the diver four years to search one square mile.’”
The truth is that the Western press has zero interest in determining who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines because, just like Western diplomats and politicians, media corporations don’t want to know the truth if it cannot be weaponized against an official enemy state.
The Western media are not there to help the public monitor the centers of power, keep our governments honest and transparent, or bring to book those who commit state crimes. They are there to keep us ignorant and willing accomplices when such crimes are seen as advancing on the global stage the interests of Western elites – including the very transnational corporations that run our media.
Which is precisely why the Nord Stream blasts took place. The Biden administration knew not only that its allies would be too fearful to expose its unprecedented act of industrial and environmental terrorism but that the media would dutifully line up behind their national governments in turning a blind eye.
The very ease with which Washington has been able to carry out an atrocity – one that has caused a surge in the cost of living for Europeans, leaving them cold and out of pocket during the winter, and added considerably to existing pressures that have been gradually deindustrializing Europe’s economies – will embolden the U.S. to act in equally rogue ways in the future.
In the context of a Ukraine war in which there is the constant threat of a resort to nuclear weapons, where that could ultimately lead should be only too obvious.
Breaking the link between the oil and the dollar is a project that has been in the making for quite some time.
Breaking the link between the oil and the dollar is a project that has been in the making for quite some time
On March 10, China brokered a peace agreement between rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia, a move which left the West baffled. Some suggested that the world had witnessed the slow and gradual collapse of the old world order. Although the deal may not necessarily achieve full normalization, still points of contact were restored. Such had vexed policymakers while at the same ushering in an era of Chinese diplomatic victory in the area most crucial to US global dominance. The implications of such an agreement are multiple, but the potential loss of Saudi to the US, and the gradual dissolution of their institutional ties, especially the long-standing agreement by which Saudi sells its oil for dollars, may yet prove to be a world significant event.
This detente is a breakthrough in terms of heralding peace and development in the region. It comes at a time when relations between China and the US have reached all-time lows. After several months of provocations aimed at disrupting Beijing through provocations around Taipei, it appears that China had turned the tables on the US’ most sensitive point, which is its hegemony over the gulf. The ramifications are too broad, but here I address the implications of the petrodollar system.
The petrodollar system was born of an agreement between the US and Saudi Arabia to peg the sales of oil in exchange for security guarantees and Saudi assistance with US foreign policy missions. Aside from petrodollar recycling, the benefit of pricing oil in dollars has all to do with increasing US indebtedness in the dollar, which in turn increases its wealth, since the US prints the ‘paper dollars’ as the equivalent of world wealth. This also means that the US must lay control not only over current world assets, but must also own the future work and assets of humanity to underwrite its massive wealth. For this, The US must be in control of the world’s strategic resources, choke points, and foremost the ideological production that cripples anti-systemic thought. On a more concrete level, since OPEC entities get paid in none other than the dollar, the profits earned from oil revenues are re-invested in US treasuries and other instruments so as to avoid the loss of value in times of economic downturns. The constant flow of dollars channeled into bonds, allows the US to finance its deficits and to be in a position to trade debts against their future values.
The depth of the US financial market, and the ability of the dollar to be a world medium of savings in addition to world means of exchange, are tied to the global demand for dollars. If the dollarization of oil lessens, then demand for dollars lessens, and the dollar as a safe refuge from financial turmoil abroad also lessens. As can be seen, the US must reconstitute its powers in the military and ideological fields to reinstall the dollar and siphon world wealth through it. Incidentally, the China-sponsored deal represents an image or ideological blow to the US because it has shown China as a peace-maker and the US as war monger. The implications of slow de-dollarisation are that the US may no longer be able to build its wealth by borrowing against a world it controls.
Pricing oil to the US dollar has proved efficient to underwrite the wealth of the US-allied financial class. The equation more control equals more wealth meant that the US’s engagement in imperialist politics has always been about power first, especially ideological power wrought by beating and sanctioning people abroad. The US hegemony is first a hegemony over the global mind of defeated people. As the Arab proverb goes, one makes a friend out of beating him first.
The Saudis were pivotal in the ascent of the US. In addition to the many examples, like aiding the contras to fight Abdel-Nasser in Yemen, and the list goes on, they essentially helped the US win the Cold War because the dollarization of oil permitted them to financially contain Eastern European countries as they overburdened them with dollar debts. Lending to cripple an economy is just as good a weapon as any. Not to forget, the Saudis also allowed the price of oil to be listed on the commodity market by weakening OPEC at the behest of the US. Direct producers of oil lost control of oil prices. Saudi pumped oil earned fewer profits than it should have as a part of the power game with the Soviet Union then. This was owed to a meeting held in 1985 between King Fahd and William Casey, the former CIA director, in which both agreed to increase oil production from 2 billion bpd to 10 billion bpd, leading oil prices to fall from $30 to $10 and eventually resulting in the fallout of the Soviet economy.
In the region, the Saudis assisted US aspirations through the numerous wars against more autonomous states across the region. The proliferation of Salafism and the financing of disruptive militias instigated wars that were a win-win situation for the US. It weakened opposing regimes and made money off military spending.
Yet with war waged on Yemen, tensions with Iran, and a balance of forces tilting in favor of the axis of resistance, it is only rational for the Saudis to forfeit the US and seek longer-term stability through negotiated dialogue. The deal that the US provides Saudi with security as Saudi prices its oil in the dollar seems to be no longer valid. The US is retreating around the globe, and while it cannot afford Saudi security, the Saudis will rethink their pricing oil only in dollars. Add to that the personal vilification of MBS and the openly anti-Arab racism practiced daily in Western media and other channels.
On a more detailed level, Saudi security demands are threefold: first, to grant a major non-NATO ally status; second, to receive additional sales of advanced US weapons; and third, to receive US support for a civilian nuclear energy program. With the first condition fulfilled and the second being contested, the third would evoke the possibility for Saudi authorities to develop their own fissile material, hence enabling the capacity of building a nuclear weapon. The US is less concerned with nuclear proliferation than the military autonomization of Saudi Arabia as this would jeopardize the agreement that safeguards the petrodollar system. US reluctance to respond to Saudi Arabia’s security needs was made obvious when Democrat lawmakers urged US President Joe Biden to discourage Saudis from enhancing their own ballistic missiles and drone capabilities in 2022. A letter was issued just a few days prior to Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia in June 2022, and highlighted concerns from the Pentagon that the Gulf state was planning to manufacture solid fuel missiles with assistance from China.
Another relevant factor to consider is threats issued by the US that it would pull away military support following the announcement of the OPEC cut in October 2022, as well as the introduction of the NOPEC bill which would enable lawsuits to be filed against Saudi Arabia and OPEC entities for controlling oil prices. If such a bill would come to pass, it would highlight the possibility of Saudi Arabia being slapped with sanctions. With the Iran-Saudi deal announced, it appears that China has rocked the foundations on which the petrodollar system rests. This was further evidenced by the introduction of a Privileged Resolution by Senators Murphy and Lee calling for a complete halt of US military assistance to Saudi Arabia, noting that “US weapons do not belong in the hands of human rights abusers.”
Breaking the link between the oil and the dollar is a project that has been in the making for quite some time. Both Russia and China have been buying immense amounts of gold to rid their foreign reserves in US dollars and back their own currencies on the gold standard. With their BRICS allies, they are contemplating a common currency that would shift away from transactions carried out in US dollars. Although many signs seem to be pointing out the gradual decline of the petrodollar system, it is unlikely that it may happen in the short run.
The petrodollar will remain the dominant currency as long as the dollar is recognized as the world reserve currency. As we speak, the global share of foreign reserves denominated in US dollars currently fell to slightly below 60%. States and companies across the world are still required to own dollars in order to purchase oil – the most strategic commodity on the global market. After all that is said and done, the decline of the dollar is tied to the decline of the US’s control of the planet, which until now was de-facto ownership of the planet.
The new foreign strategy says Russia is responsible for defending cultural and spiritual values against “pseudo-humanistic” and other “neoliberal ideologies”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Russia in February 2022. (Reuters)
Russia adopted a new foreign policy doctrine on Friday that prioritizes reforming world politics away from the hegemony of the United States and its Western allies and supporting countries that choose to fight neocolonialists and foreign interference.
The new foreign strategy went into effect after being signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The Russian Federation intends to give priority to the elimination of vestiges of the dominance of the United States and other unfriendly countries in world politics,” the document said.
Russia would aim to “create the conditions for any state to reject neo-colonialist and hegemonic aims,” the 42-page policy read.
“Radical changes” in the world prompted the new policies, Putin said during a security council meeting, stressing that Russia’s engagement in the international arena must reflect its view on these changes.
Defender against neo-liberal ideologies
Russia views China and India as key allies in its new foreign doctrine and stresses the strategic importance of deepening relations and “coordination with friendly sovereign global centers of power and development located on the Eurasian continent.”
The war in Ukraine led to severe sanctions by the US and EU who lobbied countries around the world to join in on the unilateral sanctions, but many countries, including China and India, increased economic and bilateral relations with Moscow, reaching historic levels.
Chinese President Xi Jinping made a three-day official trip to Moscow earlier this month where he met with Putin and held what was described by the media as historic talks. The two presidents signed during Xi’s trip two joint strategic documents aiming to boost the two global powers’ economic and diplomatic partnership.
Russia, as per the document, is a “state civilization” and is responsible for protecting the “Russian world” – in reference to cultures that align with that of the country within Eurasia. Russia will be tasked with protecting “traditional spiritual and moral values” against “pseudo-humanistic and other neo-liberal ideological attitudes.”
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated that the new foreign policy doctrine identified “the existential nature of threats to the security and development of our country, driven by the actions of unfriendly states.”
“The United States of America is directly named as the main instigator and driver of anti-Russian sentiment,” he added.
“The West’s policy of trying to weaken Russia in every possible way is characterized as a hybrid war of a new type.”
March 2003 and March 2011 have a great deal in common, but that is not where the story begins, Steven Sahiounie writes.
The 20th anniversary of the U.S. attack on Iraq for regime change coincides with the 12th anniversary of the U.S. attack on Syria for regime change. March 2003 and March 2011 have a great deal in common, but that is not where the story begins.
The destruction of two nations, sitting side by side in the Middle East, began in 1996 with the strategy paper called “A Clean Break”, written by the man known as “The Architect of the Iraq War”.
“A Clean Break” was authored in part by Richard T. Perle, an American Jew from New York. Being born a Jew is not paramount to this story, but being an Israeli agent is. There should be a test when working on sensitive and top-secret plans for the U.S., that your allegiance is sworn to the U.S. and no other country on earth. Perle was an American, but his allegiance lay elsewhere.
Perle delivered the paper to Benjamin Netanyahu, who had just been elected as Prime Minister of Israel. The paper presents the reasons for the U.S. to attack and destroy Iraq and Syria. After President Bill Clinton took office, the paper was presented to him for action, but he declined. But, by the time of the 9/11 bombing of the WTC in NYC in 2001, the time was ripe to dust off the paper and Perle and his associates found President George W. Bush a willing partner.
Perle was the chairman of the Defense Policy Board, which was responsible for developing reasons for the U.S. to attack other countries. The Pentagon does not develop policy, they simply are asked to report if a planned attack can be carried out successfully, or not. There is an old saying, “A soldier’s job is not to question why, a soldier’s job is to do or die”. Wars and attacks by the U.S. cannot be blamed on the Pentagon, that blame must rest on the Oval Office, the State Department, the CIA, and the Defense Policy Board.
The 9/11 attack was carried out on the orders of Osama bin Laden, a Saudi national living in Afghanistan, and a leader of Al Qaeda, a terrorist group following the political ideology of Radical Islam, which is the same ideology as the Muslim Brotherhood, with hundreds of followers in the U.S.
The trick was how could the Bush administration connect Al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein, the leader of Iraq? The director of the CIA, George Tenet, repeatedly told Bush that there was no connection.
The second strategy of the Bush administration, was to build the case for invading Iraq based on Saddam Hussein having “Weapons of Mass Destruction” (WMD). The CIA was able to support that premise, not based on any facts, but based on the idea that Hussein might have WMD. When Tenet was asked about the WMD, he replied “We will find it when we get there.” That proved to be wishful thinking, as no WMDs were ever found by thousands of armed and highly skilled U.S. soldiers who combed every nook and cranny in Iraq, for years.
So how did the U.S. public and Congress come to believe the Bush administration’s lies? That was accomplished by the U.S. mainstream media. The Bush administration spoon-fed false information to key journalists in the most reputable media outlets. The journalists were unable to personally verify the information on WMD, and they refused to reveal their sources who were the highest-ranking officials in the U.S. government. Without the complicity of the media, the case for going to war in Iraq could never have been believed.
The events leading up to the first day of the bombing in Baghdad were unfolding so rapidly, that the ‘red flags’ of doubt were overlooked. Hans Blix was returning to his hotel in Baghdad when Bush announced to the world on TV that he would order the beginning of the bombing in 24 hours. Blix was blindsided when confronted by a microphone thrust in his face at the entrance of the hotel. At first, he didn’t believe the Bush order, and reiterated the results of his visits to numerous sites in Iraq, that Hussein had no WMD, they had been destroyed previously.
But, that never stopped the bombing from commencing on time. While the bombs were falling across Baghdad, Blix was back in NYC delivering his detailed report to Ban Ki-Moon, UN Secretary-General, which made the case that the Bush attack was based on a lie. All of this was covered in the media, but it was too late to stop the war machine.
The U.S. was not alone. The UK and many of the NATO allies signed up for the Bush war on Iraq. All of them bear responsibility for their participation in an unjustified war that cost millions of lives. The U.S. coalition partners blame their decision to participate on the fact they believed in U.S. intelligence, and they believed in the lies. Another factor in their decision to follow the U.S. lead was the fact that the U.S. had been the sole ‘Super Power’. Those days are over, as the international community recognizes the new multi-polar world.
When Perle penned “A Clean Break” in 1996 for the leader of Israel, the attack on Syria was included, sort of a ‘2 for 1’ idea. Take out both Iraq and Syria at the same time, and Israel will be a safer place. Once Donald Rumsfeld became involved in planning the 2003 attack on Iraq, he counseled against including Syria. His decision was based on knowing two countries’ destruction is too big of a goal to be accomplished. He decided to focus on destroying Iraq only.
Syria was not attacked, and the war next door did not spill over the border. Syria accepted 2 million Iraqi refugees, and Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt came to Damascus in 2009 and met President Assad because of his open-door Iraqi refugee policy.
The plans to destroy Syria began in the 1996 paper by Perle, and by March 2011 the President Obama administration had already started on their plans to create a ‘new Middle East’ and Obama utilized NATO to assist in the attack, invasion, and occupation of Libya. The U.S.-NATO attack on Libya was the precursor to the attack on Syria which used Syrian followers of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and later were replaced by international terrorists following Radical Islam, such as Al Qaeda and finally ISIS.
Today, Iraq lies destroyed. It has never been reconstructed. Large areas still have no water, electricity, or medical care. The infrastructure of Iraq is broken. The Iraqi constitution was drafted by the invaders and has set the parliament up as a sectarian and ethnic quota system. In the U.S., it would be unthinkable to base elected offices on religion or ethnicity, but it was the U.S. invaders who developed the Iraqi constitution which has locked the country into an unworkable system of corruption based on who your parents were, and where did they live. The U.S. also insisted the Iraqi form of government be a Parliamentary system, which has kept the country locked into chaos as there is no central leader who can get things done, unlike the U.S. Presidential system.
Syria resisted the U.S.-NATO attack and the people fought back. Now, after 12 years there exists a possibility that brighter days are ahead for the Syrian people and the hope of reconstruction. In Iraq, there is also hope that the suffering they endured at the hands of brutal invaders, who committed atrocities against civilians, can be relegated to the pages of history, and a new chapter in security and prosperity can begin.
The morally bankrupt Western media lied to start the Iraq War as they did dutifully about starting other wars for their imperial masters. Twenty years after, the Western media are at it again.
This week, March 20, saw the 20th anniversary of the U.S.-British war launched on Iraq. The war resulted in over one million deaths and a decade of brutal military occupation. It spawned sectarian civil war, millions of displaced and destitute, and terrorism that engulfed the entire Middle East, as well as large swathes of Africa and Asia. Iraq and several other ancient nations have been destroyed because of the Anglo-American war. And it was a war based on flagrant American and British lies over alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
The 20th anniversary of the U.S.-British war on Iraq, which was also supported by NATO partners, should be an occasion for proper accounting with Nuremberg-standard war crimes prosecutions of American and British political and military figures. Persons such as George W Bush, the former U.S. President, and Tony Blair, the ex-British premier, should be facing jail time for capital crimes. The current U.S. President Joe Biden should also be in the dock since his role as a senior Senator at the time was crucial in enabling the war. Also up for indictment are several Western media outlets such as the New York Times and Washington Post which promulgated the lies that made the case for war.
Despicably, the man who shed so much light on the crimes, publisher Julian Assange, is the one who languishes in a prison torture dungeon.
Twenty years on, there is an eerie sense of collective amnesia among Western politicians and media over the colossal war crimes associated with Iraq. It’s almost as if it did not happen. The Western protagonists and their propaganda outlets have gotten away with mass murder.
This week marked another odious anniversary, which shamefully, was met with the same Western silence and indifference. On March 24, 1999, the U.S.-led NATO military alliance unilaterally began bombing former Yugoslavia for 78 consecutive days. Thousands of civilians were killed in a military assault on that country – under the cynical pretext of “humanitarian protection” – which was not approved at the time by the United Nations. The bombing campaign was conducted, like the Iraq War only four years later, on the basis of unilateral action by Washington and its Western allies.
Lamentably, a glance at the calendar would throw up countless such vile anniversaries of unlawful American and Western military aggression. March 19, for example, marked the NATO bombing of Libya in 2011.
In a powerful essay by Ron Ridenour for Strategic Culture Foundation we are reminded of the extraordinary warmongering record of the United States and its imperialist partners. In terms of the number of countries invaded and the consequent death toll, including from the first use of atomic bombs, the U.S. is certainly “exceptional” for all the wrong reasons.
Yet what makes the record all the more horrendous is the impunity. The collective amnesia towards the Iraq War is perhaps the most damnable symptom of impunity in recent decades. It also exposes the rank hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy of the so-called “rules-based global order” that Washington and its Western minions continually spout about. The “rules-based global order” is an Orwellian blandishment for lawlessness and predation by rogue regimes that trample all over the United Nations Charter and international law.
The chronic impunity that the United States has come accustomed to in the murderous pursuit of its imperialist objectives means that it never stops its rogue state rapacity. It’s a repeat offender because it never has been held to account. There is an analogy here with the way Washington relentlessly abuses the privileges bestowed on the dollar as a global reserve currency. Washington parasites off the globe by printing dollars and levying undue rights for unearned services and goods. The racket never seems to stop because there is no accountability.
Likewise, the warmongering of the United States never ceases. The blood lust of its capitalist power and imperialist needs never ceases. The criminality is permitted because in large part the Western media serve to cover up the crimes with fabricated excuses and lies. The wars in Korea and Vietnam in the 1950s and 60s were whitewashed as “crusades against communism” instead of being reported as the genocidal imperialist rampages that they were. The impunity from those enormous crimes then led to more wars and crimes. The Iraq War fits into this rolling context.
But there is also the historical factor of the Soviet Union and the supposed victory of the Cold War by the United States. Without a checking counterforce, the U.S. rulers became consumed with the arrogance of presumed “unipolar” dominance. It is no coincidence that after 1991, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the United States embarked on an even more licentious pursuit of imperialist wars and the tyrannical notion of “rules-based global order”. There came in short order a state of permanent war on the planet by the U.S. and its Western allies. The wars and covert interventions led by the United States in Somalia, the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Georgia and Ukraine, among other places, were all commensurate with the self-ordained right of expansion by the NATO alliance toward Russia. The same U.S.-led military expansionism is underway toward China.
This is the proper context by which the current war in Ukraine should be understood and assessed. As well as the relentless militarist build-up against China in the Asia-Pacific.
The United States and its NATO allies are fueling a conflict in Ukraine by pouring endless amounts of weapons into that country. The latest step to further escalation is Britain announcing it is supplying depleted uranium artillery shells to Ukraine. These toxic weapons were used by the U.S., Britain and NATO forces in former Yugoslavia and Iraq which have resulted in unprecedented cancer deaths and birth defects among civilian populations. Again, the crime of impunity is followed by more crime.
The morally bankrupt Western media lied to start the Iraq War as they did dutifully about starting other wars for their imperial masters. Twenty years after aiding and abetting the crime of the 21st century, the Western media are at it again. These organs and their grinders are trying to tell the world that Russia is an aggressor in Ukraine and that Russia and China are posing “a threat to Western democracy”.
In a state visit to Moscow this week, China’s President Xi Jinping and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin declared the need for earnest diplomacy to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. The Western powers and their media lackeys reacted by disparaging any such diplomacy and instead sought to vilify Russia and China as being somehow villains against global security.
It’s quite easy to tell who the real villains and liars are. The Iraq War is one of many such touchstones.
يوم تحدّث فوكوياما، منذ ثلاثين سنة، نيابة عن العقل السياسي لدولة واشنطن العميقة، عن مفهوم «»، لم يكن يقصد مجرد نقاش عقلاني سلمي هادئ بين نهجين فكريين فلسفيين وحسب. ذلك أن الأحداث المتلاحقة على مستوى العالم لم تتأخّر في التأكيد بشكل يومي أن المقصود هو انتصار معسكر على آخر، وسيطرة كاملة لهذا المعسكر على العالم، جيوسياسياً واقتصادياً وعسكرياً وثقافياً وتكنولوجياً. وهو المشهد الذي وصفه سيد البيت الأبيض يومها بـ«النظام العالمي الجديد».
هذا النظام، كان، في الفكرة والواقع، نظاماً إمبراطورياً، إذ يكفي للدلالة على ذلك أن رؤية فوكوياما لم تكن إلّا استلهاماً لزمن نابليون بعد معركة إيينا. غير أن المشكلة بدأت عندما راح سيّد هذا العالم الجديد يتصرّف بشكل لا ينسجم مع المسؤولية العالمية الجديدة. وعلى مدى نحو ربع قرن تقريباً، سُجِّل عدم احترام لمبادئ الشرعية الدولية، لا بل خروج صريح عن أطر مؤسّساتها، وعدم احترام لمبدأ سياسة الدول ووحدة أراضيها، وصولاً إلى شنّ حروب من خارج الشرعية الدولية، استهدفت دولاً وسلامة أراضيها ووحدتها وشعوبها.
هذه السلوكيات السياسية والعسكرية، ترافقت مع سلوكيات مماثلة على الصعيد الاقتصادي والتنموي والتجاري على مستوى العالم، بما كرّس نهج الهيمنة وسياسات النفوذ العالمية، فضلاً عن محاولة تركيز ثروات الأرض في قبضة طرف واحد، ما فاقم الفجوة التنموية بين المناطق والبلدان والقارات، وأدّى إلى زيادة مشاعر الحرمان والغُبن لدى أكثرية شعوب الأرض.
بعد عشرين سنة من هذه السياسات، انطلقت في الشرق الأوسط، بمصادفة غريبة وبشكل متزامن، عاصفة ما سُمّي «الربيع العربي»، الذي ظهر فعلياً أنه كان محاولة لإسقاط كل النظام القائم وتبديل كل دولة بأنظمة جديدة قائمة على شرعية دينية ما. حتى أن الرئيس الأميركي السابق، باراك أوباما، كان صريحاً أكثر من اللزوم في كلامه عن شعوب الشرق الأوسط في خطابه الشهير في جامعة القاهرة عام 2009، وبعدها في «عقيدة أوباما»، وصولاً إلى الصدفة الأكثر غرابة في صدور الأمر الرئاسي عنه في آب 2010 والذي يتكلم صراحة عن تغيير مشهد الشرق الأوسط قبل أسابيع قليلة من اندلاع أولى عواصف الربيع العربي بدءاً من تونس في كانون الأول من العام 2010.
في الجهة المقابلة من الشرق الأوسط، بدأت السياسات الأميركية تركّز على عنوان واضح: نحن ذاهبون إلى إعادة تشكيل نظام سيطرتنا العالمي الجديد باحتواء الصين، وبالتالي على الدول الأخرى، من أوروبا كلها، وروسيا وتركيا، وصولاً إلى جنوب شرقي آسيا والدول المشاطئة لبحر الصين، أن تكون مجرّد أحجار قرميد في أيدينا لبناء السور الأميركي العظيم حول التنين الصيني لترويضه وإخضاعه… وكل الباقي تفاصيل.
أمام هذا الواقع، وبعدما تأكّدت روسيا من دوافع السياسات الأميركية ومساراتها، خصوصاً في ما يتعلق بما تمّ تحضيره ضدّها انطلاقاً من دولة أوكرانيا، بدأت روسيا العمل مع شركائها وحلفائها باتجاه تشكّل نظام عالمي جديد للخروج من الزعامة الأحادية والدفع باتجاه عالم متعدّد الأقطاب. وما التطورات العسكرية الجارية في أوكرانيا إلّا دليل واضح على عملية الانتقال إلى معادلة دولية مختلفة أدّت إلى خلط أوراق العلاقات التجارية والتحالفات الدولية وإلى قيام سياسات ومحاور اقتصادية ومالية جديدة من شأنها أن تخلص إلى توازن قوى إقليمي ودولي، والأخذ في الاعتبار المصالح المشروعة لكل اللاعبين على المسرح الدولي، وتخلق قواعد جديدة لحل الصراعات والنزاعات الدولية.
إنّ الأزمة الحالية مع أوكرانيا، ومع المعسكر الغربي بأكمله، هي فرصة نادرة وسانحة وفريدة لكي يتمكّن الرئيس الروسي فلاديمير بوتين، من إثبات حضوره على الساحة الدولية
إنّ الأزمة الحالية مع أوكرانيا، ومع المعسكر الغربي بأكمله، هي فرصة نادرة وسانحة وفريدة لكي يتمكّن الرئيس الروسي فلاديمير بوتين، من إثبات حضوره على الساحة الدولية وسط التصاعد المتنامي للقوة الصينية، وهيمنة أميركا على المشهد الحالي، مع إدراكه بأن هذا العالم الجديد لديه سمات وعلامات فارقة، أهمها:
-أولاً: تحوّل روسيا نحو الشرق. هذا التحوّل لم يأخذ أشكاله الواضحة إلا منذ عشر سنوات تقريباً، وأَخَذَ البُعدين الاقتصادي والجيوسياسي، بعد إعادة دمج شبه جزيرة القرم، ما وضع حداً، على الأقل في ذلك الوقت، لتوسيع التحالفات الغربية، مثل حلف شمال الأطلسي، في المناطق التي تعتبرها روسيا حيوية لأمنها القومي. وترافق تحوّل روسيا نحو الشرق، وتحوّل الصين غرباً نحو أوروبا من خلال «مبادرة الحزام وطريق الحرير»، مع تغيير أكثر أهمية في نظام العلاقات الدولية بأكمله، أي نهاية هيمنة الغرب التي امتدّت لفترة 500 عام بما في ذلك النظام الليبرالي المهيمن في السنوات السبعين الماضية.
-ثانياً: الكثير من المتغيّرات ستحدّد شكل العالم الجديد. قد نشهد نشوء أوراسيا الكبرى. وهذا المفهوم وُلد في روسيا وشمل منذ البداية أوروبا أو جزءاً منها جغرافياً. وقد تصبح أوراسيا مركز الاقتصاد والسياسة والثقافة، وليس أوروبا كما كانت الحال خلال الخمسة قرون الماضية.
-ثالثاً: إن استراتيجية «التوجّه شرقاً» التي اعتمدتها موسكو رداً على القيود الغربية غير المسبوقة ومحاولات عزلها، دفعت في اتجاه علاقات شراكة استراتيجية روسية-صينية، وليس نموذج «تحالف». وهذا يُسهم في استقرار العلاقات بينهما ويعطيهما مساحة كاملة من التعاون من دون أن يلزم أي جانب بإدخال تعديلات كبرى على سياسته.
-رابعاً: إنّ الحضور الروسي في الشرق الأوسط، وتحديداً منذ تواجدها في سوريا عام 2015، أفسح لها المجال في التقدّم على واجهة التأثير الدولي في المنطقة، وتطوير حضورها ودورها وعلاقاتها، ولا سيما مع دول الخليج التي أطلقت معها حواراً استراتيجياً ومبادرة لضمان الأمن في الخليج. فإلى جانب المجابهة الأميركية-الإيرانية، والسعودية-الإيرانية، هناك العداء الإيراني-الإسرائيلي، والصراع السني-الشيعي، والصراع العربي-الإسرائيلي، إذ إن روسيا تبقى اللاعب الوحيد القادر على مخاطبة الجميع والدفع في اتجاه حلّ للنزاعات الإقليمية.
وبالفعل، هناك توجّه روسي جديد في منطقة الشرق الأوسط يهدف إلى تأمين النموّ الاقتصادي المتسارع لها، وهي مدركة لفوائد إعادة تفعيل العلاقات التاريخية مع عدد من دول المنطقة وتطويرها، وأيضاً لضرورة توظيف كل قدراتها بهدف دعم تحركاتها وتحقيق أهدافها، ومن أهمها وأبرزها ديبلوماسية القمة والوساطة، مع اختلاف فاعليتها من قضية إلى أخرى.
-خامساً: الملف النووي الإيراني الذي كان واحداً من أبرز الضحايا السياسية للحرب في أوكرانيا. فقد بدا واضحاً أن فرصة إحياء الاتفاق النووي التي لاحت في عام 2021، تبدّدت في عام 2022 بسبب الحرب وتأثيرها على مسألتين؛ الأولى تتعلق بالتغيير الحاصل في موقف إيران التي لم تعد على عجلة من أمرها بعدما تغيرت المعطيات الجيوسياسية والاقتصادية بفعل حرب أوكرانيا. فإيران تبيع نفطها وبرنامجها النووي يتقدّم، في حين أن قدرة أميركا والدول الغربية على استخدام السلاح الاقتصادي تتراجع. والثانية، تتعلق بالأزمة المستجدة والمتفاقمة بين إيران والتحالف الأميركي-الأوروبي الذي يسعى لمعاقبة إيران بسبب دعمها لروسيا في الحرب وتزويدها بمسيّرات وصواريخ، بحسب زعمهم، وبسبب إسهامها في تعزيز المحور الشرقي وبناء النظام العالمي الجديد عبر المشاغبة على أميركا وسياساتها في المنطقة.
-سادساً: دور تركيا المتعاظم في المنطقة، إذ إن الرئيس التركي رجب طيب إردوغان كان أول وأكبر المستفيدين من الحرب التي أعطته دوراً محورياً هو دور الوسيط بين روسيا وأوكرانيا، وبين روسيا والولايات المتحدة بدرجة أقل، مثبتاً قدرة فائقة على السير بين توازناتٍ وتناقضاتٍ دقيقة، إضافة إلى «تصفير» مشكلاته مع دول المنطقة، وتهدئة الحرارة في العلاقات التركية مع دول الخليج وأيضاً مع إسرائيل.
-سابعاً: دور السعودية المتنامي في المنطقة، إذ أدرك ولي العهد السعودي محمد بن سلمان كيف يستغلّ الحرب والمتغيّرات الجيوسياسية والاقتصادية في العالم ليحوّلها إلى فرصة لإظهار أهمية السعودية ومكانتها وشخصيتها، ودفع الولايات المتحدة على الأخذ في الاعتبار مصالح السعودية السياسية والاقتصادية، بعدما اتّسمت السياسة الأميركية بالتخبّط والتردّد وعدم الوضوح.
ويرى ابن سلمان أن الحرب في أوكرانيا هي فرصة لتصحيح المسار ولا يجوز تفويتها. وبدافع التحوّط الاستراتيجي هو ينسج منذ فترة انزياحاً جدياً نحو تنويع الشراكات مع الصين وروسيا والهند، ويعتبر أن الاصطفاف الدولي المطلوب هو استحقاق كبير يجب تحويله إلى فرصة وجعل الثمن كبيراً. ومن غير الجائز، برأيه، التسرّع والهرولة المجانية في اتجاه الغرب، خصوصاً أن النفط لا يزال قيمة أساسية في المعادلات التجارية والسياسية. ثم إنّ الحرب نفسها خلقت مساراً مختلفاً عن المرسوم في عالم الطاقة، ورفعت الأسعار وعادت بالفائدة على الخزينة السعودية.
بعد مرور سنة على معارك أوكرانيا، تجد أوروبا صعوبة في متابعة مسارها، لأنها أصبحت تعاني من الانكماش الاقتصادي والتجاري والموجة التضخمية الناتجة من ارتفاع أسعار الطاقة والغذاء، وهي تقف عاجزة عن القيام بأي خطوة إيجابية تجاه روسيا، ما أدّى إلى هبوط سعر اليورو والجنيه الاسترليني وإلى إقفال شركات وهجرة الاستثمارات.
ويتعيّن على أوروبا أن تقرّر إذا كانت تريد القيام بدور نشط في بناء شراكة جديدة، أم أن هذه الشراكة ستُبنى من دونها، ثم ضدّها، ومن دون مراعاة مصالحها. واستطراداً، على أوروبا التوقّف عن الانزلاق أكثر في الأزمة الحضارية والتخلّي عن محاولات الاتّحاد ضدّ الأعداء الوهميين مثل روسيا أو الصين.
في عام 1991، انتهت حقبة الحرب الباردة التي بدأت بعد انتهاء الحرب العالمية الثانية، وثمّة بوادر واضحة تؤشّر إلى احتمال بدء مرحلة جديدة وبناء نظام عالمي جديد انطلاقاً مما يجري في أوكرانيا، لتصبح عام 2022 بداية حقبة جديدة وخطّاً زمنياً فاصلاً بين مرحلتين وعالمين.
إنّ كل أزمة تحمل في طياتها فرصة للحلّ. وهذه الأزمة الغربية الحالية في إدارة العالم التي نعيشها اليوم، وخصوصاً في الفوضى التي خلّفتها على مستوى أوروبا والشرق الأوسط، حملت فرصة واضحة؛ وهي التي تجسّدت في خروج كل القوى الأساسية على الهيمنة الأميركية وبروز اتجاه جديد لديها لإعادة تشكيل نظام منطقتها بشكل أكثر استقلالية وتوازناً. وهو ما نشهده اليوم في العلاقات التركية-الأميركية وحتى السعودية-الأميركية، وصولاً إلى الكباش الكبير بين واشنطن وطهران وموسكو. نظام جديد يجب أن يقوم على أسس واضحة، أهمها؛ أولاً، إعادة الأهمية لمفهوم الاستقرار في هذه المنطقة الحيوية للعالم. وثانياً، إعادة الأولوية لضرورة اعتماد سياسات تنموية صحيحة تستثمر ثروات هذه المنطقة لمصلحة مجتمعاتها وشعوبها. وهذا يقتضي قيام أُطر تعاون بين هذه الدول بعيدة كلياً عن مفاهيم الهيمنة والنفوذ والتدخّل في الدول. أخيراً، ومنذ عشرة أعوام، بدت واشنطن وكأنها تقول لعالمنا الممتدّ على ضفّتي المتوسط، وصولاً إلى أوروبا والشرق الأوسط الواسع: أنتم جسرٌ، وظيفته الوحيدة هي وصولنا إلى الصين… ولا وظيفة أو قيمة أخرى لكم. وفيما هذا العالم يحاول أن يقول لواشنطن: نحن قلب العالم، في مصادر طاقته وممرّات تجارته وحركة شعوبه وسكانه وهجراته ولا يمكن للأطراف أن تقتل القلب أو تقتطعه من جسدها، وتتوهّم أنها يمكن أن تظلّ على قيد الحياة.
هذا هو جوهر الصراع اليوم… وعلى نتيجته يتوقف مصير كل العالم لعقود كثيرة مقبلة.
* نائب سابق، ومستشار الرئيس ميشال عون للشؤون الروسية
إذا كانت روسيا تتمسك باستمرار بالنظرية الأوراسية تأكيداً على نصفها الأوروبي، ومثلها تفعل تركيا، بانتظار الظروف المناسبة لتظهير هذا النصف استراتيجياً وسياسياً واقتصادياً، فإن الصين ومن بعدها الهند، الواقعتين في الطرف الشرقي من آسيا تتراصفان كمعدة وكبد في الجسد الآسيوي تحتله الصين بامتياز، حيث تتمّ عمليات الإنتاج وامتصاص العائد الغذائي وإعادة تدويره في عمليات إنتاج جديدة، بينما ترتضي الهند مؤقتاً بدور الأمعاء حيث عملية التمثيل الغذائي الصعبة والمعقدة، تقع إيران في الوسط المحوري التناظري بين الجهات الأربع لآسيا، شمالها وجنوبها وشرقها وغربها، بحدود برية مع تركمانستان وأذربيجان وأرمينيا وأفغانستان وباكستان والعراق وتركيا، وحدود بحرية مع روسيا أذربيجان، تركمانستان وكازاخستان عبر بحر قزوين، ومع الكويت والعراق والإمارات والبحرين وقطر والسعودية وعمان عبر الخليج وبحر عمان، أي ما مجموعه ست عشرة دولة، تضعها على مسافة دولة واحدة من كل دول آسيا تقريباً، بما فيها الهند والصين وسورية والأردن.
إذا كانت فلسفة الجغرافيا السياسية لنهوض آسيا الذي تشكل روسيا الصاعدة عسكرياً وسياسياً والصين الناهضة اقتصادياً وسياسياً علامته الفارقة، هي الاستقلال، سواء بمفهوم الدولة الوطنية المستقلة الذي تباهي الصين وروسيا باعتباره نموذجها الجامع القابل لتقبل الآخر بخصوصيته على قاعدة التمسك بقبول الآخرين بالمثل بهذه الخصوصية، أو بمفهوم استقلال آسيا عن مشروع الهيمنة الغربية الذي شكلت حروب الإخضاع الأميركية أداة انتهاكها الفاضحة والواضحة، فإن إيران المنفتحة إيجاباً على الترحيب بعلامات الصعود الروسي والنهوض الصيني بصفتها علامات استقلال آسيا كمجموع واستقلال دولها الرئيسية بالمفرد، فإن إيران ولو لم تتباه بموقعها الريادي في صناعة هذا المفهوم للاستقلال وتحملها التبعات الأشدّ صعوبة للدفاع عن هذا المفهوم، تبقى الدولة التي تصدّرت بين دول آسيا المواجهة المفتوحة بأشدّ الشروط صعوبة وقسوة مع مشروع الهيمنة الغربية والحروب الأميركية، وهي منذ إعلان جمهوريتها الإسلامية على خط تماس هو الأصعب والأعقد مع الهيمنة وحروبها، وهي التي أخذت على عاتقها دعم ورعاية المواجهات التي خاضتها دول وشعوب آسيا في وجه الهيمنة وحروبها، من أفغانستان الى العراق الى سورية ولبنان وصولاً الى اليمن وفلسطين، وليس خافياً أنه لولا هذه المواجهات التي تشكلت خلالها ظروف تراجع المشروع الغربي بنسخته الأشد وحشية لبأس قادتها واشنطن، والتي شجعت روسيا والصين على التقدم الى صفوف المواجهة المباشرة، لكن قضية إيران بقيت خارج دائرة المعايرة الذاتية بأولوية موقعها، بل الاستثمار على كل تقدّم في موقف وموقع كل من روسيا والصين، للسير قدماً نحو آسيا مستقلة. وهذا هو مضمون موقف ايران التي ضحّت بالاتفاق النووي لتشجيع روسيا على الاستثمار في صناعة النصر في سورية.
بهذه العين تتعامل إيران مع الدور الصيني في رعاية التفاهم مع السعودية، وبمثله مع الانخراط السعودي في تفاهم ترعاه الصين، وفي كليهما سياق متقدّم لمفهوم آسيا المستقلة، لأن القضية التي حملها الاتفاق الثلاثي الصيني السعودي الإيراني الى الواجهة أبعد بكثير من اتفاق إيران والسعودية على إعادة العلاقات الدبلوماسية والتعاون في حل المشاكل الإقليمية، لأن القضية الأبرز في هذا الاتفاق هي استعداد الصين لتحمل تبعات الدخول في منافسة مباشرة مع الأميركي على رعاية الاستقرار الاستراتيجي في الخليج وضمان أمن ممرات ومنابع الطاقة، بما يعني تحمل تبعات موقع الدولة العظمى، وهو خطوة متقدّمة في سياق تغيير المعادلات الاستراتيجية الحاكمة للجغرافيا السياسية والاقتصادية في آسيا، وبالتوازي استعداد السعودية للتموضع تحت مظلة استراتيجية مستقلة عن الهيمنة الأميركية تفرضها حسابات المصلحة الوطنية، وهو ما يعني تقدّم مفهومي الدولة المستقلة وآسيا المستقلة معاً. وهذه الأهداف بالنسبة لإيران تستحق بذاتها ما يتجاوز التفاصيل البينية، فكيف إذا كانت هذه التفاصيل تحمل إيجابيات كافية للدفع بها إلى الأمام.
يبقى الأهم أن ما بنته إيران من مقدرات للمواجهة خلال أربعة عقود رسم قانون الحرب الحديثة، بصفتها حرب الصواريخ الدقيقة والطائرات المسيّرة، التي يقول الخبراء اليوم إنها حرب القرن الحادي والعشرين، وإنها الحرب التي تشكل إيران فيها دولة أولى في العالم. وهذا يمنح إيران فائض قوة في حساب الموازين المحدّدة لأي حرب، كما يبقى الأشد أهمية أن استقلال آسيا لا يستقيم مع بقاء كيان الاحتلال كقاعدة عسكرية متقدمة للغرب، وتبقى إيران أكثر دول آسيا وضوحاً وجذرية في خوض الصراع مع هذا الكيان. وهذا يمنح إيران قيمة مضافة لا يملكها سواها من دول العالم عموماً وآسيا خصوصاً، لجهة التموضع في خندق الاشتباك الأول مع الكيان.
إيران هي القلب الاستراتيجي لآسيا المستقلة.جمهورية وإنقاذ لبنان من الانهيار.
A powerful feeling rhythms your skin and drums up your soul as you’re immersed in a long walk under persistent snow flurries, pinpointed by selected stops and enlightening conversations, crystallizing disparate vectors one year after the start of the accelerated phase of the proxy war between U.S./NATO and Russia.
That’s how Moscow welcomes you: the undisputed capital of the 21st century multipolar world.
A long, walking meditation impregnates on us how President Putin’s address – rather, a civilizational speech – last week was a game-changer when it comes to the demarcation of the civilizational red lines we are all now facing. It acted like a powerful drill perforating the less than short, actually zero term memory of the Collective West. No wonder it exercised a somewhat sobering effect contrasting the non-stop Russophobia binge of the NATOstan space.
Alexey Dobrinin, Director of the Foreign Policy Planning Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Russia, has correctly described Putin’s address as “a methodological basis for understanding, describing and constructing multipolarity.”
For years some of us have been showing how the emerging multipolar world is defined – but goes way beyond – high speed interconnectivity, physical and geoeconomic. Now, as we reach the next stage, it’s as if Putin and Xi Jinping, each in their own way, are conceptualizing the two key civilizational vectors of multipolarity. That’s the deeper meaning of the Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership, invisible to the naked eye.
Metaphorically, it also speaks volumes that Russia’s pivot to the East, towards the rising sun, now irreversible, was the only logical path to follow as, to quote Dylan, darkness dawns at the break of noon across the West.
As it stands, with the wobblin’, ragin’ Hegemon lost in its own pre-fabricated daze, the real runners of the show feeding burning flesh to irredeemably mediocre political “elites”, China may have a little more latitude than Russia, as the Middle Kingdom is not – yet – under the same existential pressure Russia has been put under.
Whatever happens next geopolitically, Russia is at heart a – giant – obstacle on the warmongering path of the Hegemon: the ultimate target is top “threat” China.
Putin’s ability to size up our extremely delicate geopolitical moment – via a dose of highly concentrated, undiluted realism – is something to behold. And then Foreign Minister Lavrov provided the sweet cherry on top, calling the hapless U.S. ambassador for a hardcore dress down: oh yeah, this is war, hybrid and otherwise, and your NATO mercenaries as well as your junk hardware are legitimate targets.
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Security Council, now more than ever relishing his “unplugged” status, made it all very clear: “Russia risks being torn apart if it stops a special military operation (SMO) before victory is achieved.”
And the message is even more acute because it represents the – public – cue to the Chinese leadership at the Zhongnahhai to understand: whatever happens next, this is the Kremlin’s unmovable official position.
The Chinese restore the Mandate of Heaven
All these vectors are evolving as ramifications of the bombing of the Nord Streams, the only military attack – cum industrial terrorism – ever perpetrated against the EU, leave the Collective West paralyzed, dazed and confused.
Perfectly in tandem with Putin’s address, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs chose the geopolitical/existential moment to finally take the gloves off, with a flourish: enter the
U.S. Hegemony and its Perils essay cum report, which became an instant massive hit across Chinese media, examined with relish all across East Asia.
This blistering enumeration of all the Hegemon’s lethal follies, for decades, constitutes a point of no return for trademark Chinese diplomacy, so far characterized by passivity, ambivalence, actual restraint and extreme politeness. So such turnaround is yet another proud “achievement” of the outright Sinophobia and mendacious hostility exhibited by American neocons and neoliberal-cons.
Scholar Quan Le notes that this document may be regarded as the traditional form – but now filled with contemporary wording – the Chinese Sovereigns used in their millenary past before going to war.
It is in fact an axio-epistemo-political proclamation justifying a serious war, which in the Chinese universe means a war ordained by a Higher Power capable of restoring Justice & Harmony in a troubled Universe.
After the proclamation the warriors are equipped to strike mercilessly at the entity judged to be troubling the Harmony of the Universe: in our case, the psycho Straussian neo-cons and neoliberal-cons commanded as rabid dogs by the real American elites.
Of course in the Chinese universe there’s no place for “God” – much less a Christian version; “God” for the Chinese means the Beauty-Goodness-Truth trinity, Timeless Heavenly Universal Principles. The closest concept for a non-Chinese to understand is Dao: the Way. So the Way to the Beauty-Goodness-Truth trinity represents symbolically Beauty-Goodness-Truth.
So what Beijing did – and the Collective West is completely clueless about it – was to issue an axio-epistemo-political proclamation explaining the legitimacy of their quest to restore Timeless Heavenly Universal Principles. They will be fulfilling the Mandate of Heaven – nothing less. The West won’t know what it hit them until it’s too late.
It was predictable that sooner or later the heirs of Chinese civilization would have had enough – and formally identify, mirroring Putin’s analysis, the upstart Hegemon as the premier source of chaos, inequality and war across the planet. Empire of Chaos, Lies and Plunder, in a nutshell.
To put it bluntly, in streetwise language, the hell with this Americana crap of hegemony being justified by “manifest destiny”.
So here we are. You want Hybrid War? We will return the favor.
Back to the Wolfowitz Doctrine
A former CIA advisor has issued a quite sobering report on a pebble along the rocky way: a possible endgame in Ukraine, now that even some elite-run parrots are contemplating a “way out” with minimal loss of face.
It’s never idle to remember that way back in 2000, the year Vladimir Putin was first elected as President, in the pre-9/11 world, rabid neocon Paul Wolfowitz was side by side with Zbig “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski in a huge Ukraine-U.S. symposium in Washington, where he unabashedly raved about provoking Russia to go to war with Ukraine, and committed to finance the destruction of Russia.
Everyone remembers the Wolfowitz doctrine – which was essentially a tawdry, pedestrian rehash of Brzezinski: to keep permanent U.S. hegemony it was primordial to pre-empt the emergence of any potential competitor.
Now we have two nuclear-powered, tech savvy peer competitors united by a comprehensive strategic partnership.
As I finished my long walk paying due respect by the Kremlin to the heroes of 1941-1945, the feeling was inescapable that as much as Russia is a master of riddles and China is a master of paradox, their strategists are now working full time on how to return all strands of Hybrid War against the Hegemon. One thing is certain: unlike boastful Americans, they won’t outline any breakthroughs until they are already in effect.
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.
عندما يحتفل الغرب بمرور سنة على حرب أوكرانيا تحت عنوان أن أوكرانيا صمدت وأن روسيا تعاني العزلة، وأن السنة الثانية للحرب هي سنة التراجعات الروسية العسكرية والسياسية والاقتصادية، فهل علينا أن نصدّق؟
عندما بدأت روسيا ما وصفته العملية العسكرية الخاصة، وضعت حربها بين سقفين، الأول أن يقابل الأوروبيون الموقف الروسيّ بعقلانية، فلا ينضمّون إلى منطق العقوبات العدائية التي تنادي بها أميركا وتستدرجهم إلى ساحتها لتجعلهم رهائن للسياسات الأميركية في مجال الطاقة، وبالتالي تحولهم الى دول هشة ضعيفة عاجزة عن الاستقلال. وفي هذه الحالة تكتفي روسيا بالسقف الأوكراني للحرب، أي ترتيب مريح لذوي الأصول الروسية في أوكرانيا الجديدة، ضمن صيغة اتحادية لعدة دول مستقلة، يجمعها الحياد. وسقف آخر يرتبط باستجابة أوروبا لنداء العداء لروسيا الذي تقوده واشنطن. وفي هذه الحالة تتحوّل الحرب الى سقف عنوانه إعادة صياغة العلاقات الدولية على المسرح الأوروبيّ بصورة خاصة.
في الحالة الأولى كانت حلقة الهيمنة الأميركية ستضعف في أوروبا وتتحوّل أوروبا الى شريك أمني اقتصادي لروسيا في بناء نظام عالمي متعدّد الأقطاب تحفظ فيه أوروبا مقعدها المستقل، أما في الحالة الثانية فتسقط العناوين الأوكرانية المباشرة للحرب وتحلّ مكانها العناوين الدولية، وتتحول أوكرانيا الى ساحة منازلة مع حلف الناتو، كما هو الحال، وفي حرب استنزاف تتقن روسيا أصولها تزيد أهمية القدرة على تلبية الميدان بالقدرات البشرية والعتاد والسلاح والذخائر على أهمية الجغرافيا، وعندما سلكت الأمور هذا الاتجاه أظهرت روسيا براعة فائقة في تحمّل التخلي المؤقت عن الجغرافيا لتحقيق أهداف حرب الاستنزاف، وأوصلت الناتو إلى استنزاف مخزونات ذخائره، وأوكرانيا إلى استنزاف مقدراتها البشرية، واحتوت بنجاح العقوبات الغربية المالية ونجحت بحماية الروبل من الضغوط المفترضة بذكاء رغم مصادرة مئات مليارات الدولارات من أصولها.
الآن تدخل الحرب مرحلة جديدة لا ينفع فيها التغني الغربي بتصويت الأمم المتحدة على مبدأ الانسحاب الروسي من أوكرانيا، وهو مبدأ يبدو طبيعياً أن تؤيده غالبية دولية، هي ليست متوافرة للعقوبات المفروضة على روسيا وهي الأهم، حيث يتمرد أقرب حلفاء أميركا عليها في الاستجابة لنداء العقوبات، كحال تركيا التي تمسك بمداخل البحر الأسود، والسعودية التي تمسك بعصب سوق الطاقة. والواضح أن المرحلة الجديدة التي يدخلها العالم ليست مرحلة عزلة روسيا، بل مرحلة فقدان اميركا لسطوة قبضتها على أقرب الحلفاء.
في الميدان سيكشف الربيع ومن بعده الصيف حجم التحولات التي تتراكم لصالح روسيا في الجغرافيا، ومحدودية القدرة الغربية على مجاراة الروس في تأمين المزيد من السلاح الفعال وسلاسل توريد الذخائر، ويبدأ الاقتصاد الروسي بدورته الجديدة التي أسست لها إجراءات احتواء العقوبات، والتي يتوقع الخبراء أن تتيح نمواً في ظل الحرب يتجاوز الـ 5% سنوياً.
A quick search of the internet for the term “What Russia Got Wrong” yields a lot of entries. However, a quick search for the term “What America Got Wrong” yields a rather sparse list. This is understandable since the narrative in the West has been that Russia is losing in international relations. Also, the United States (US) think tanks and government studies are oriented toward analyzing Russia, as a competitor country, and not so much toward what the situation in the US is like. There are exceptions, but these are often couched in terms of the need for more money for various US military programs. It may be useful, therefore, to look at a few topics and see how the US fares.
WHAT AMERICA GOT WRONG: MILITARY
Going forward it seems past time to consider some significant deficiencies that have become evident in the American quest to remain a great or the greatest military power. Many of these elements have been brought forward recently in pubic discussions and are important considerations in terms of weapons and military force.
The US has continued to procure weapons that many critics perceive as not suited for the modern age, or that are simply obsolete. These weapons are generally very expensive and prevent funds from being shifted to better uses. The usual examples are aircraft carriers, stealth fighter planes, littoral combat ships, and so forth. Instead, the US should have switched funding and effort into hypersonic missiles, electronic warfare, air defense systems, and perhaps more advanced submarines. Thus, the US really does have a “missile gap” to contend with. The bad name that air defense got with the “Star Wars” episode under President Reagan delayed work in that area for many years. Now it appears that at least one foreign country, Russia, is considerably ahead of the US in air defense equipment.
In addition, long ago the US set up approximately 800 military bases around the world. These bases were useful in the days of gunboat diplomacy and when US hegemony required extensive preparation for military action anywhere around the globe. Then and now these bases require a lot of manpower and funding to operate, but it is not clear that they serve an essential purpose in this age. Other countries have taken up the chore of fighting pirates and bombing terrorist dens. The US effort could be greatly scaled back.
The US system for developing new weapons and producing weapons has suffered from not “getting the biggest bang for the buck.” It is often pointed out that the US spends on weapons many times what other countries do, but does not seem to get any more or better weapons as a result. Probably the entire system needs to be rethought. One option would be to go back to having the military run some of its own factories, as in the days of armories. Perhaps a bit of government ownership would provide some competition which is sorely lacking now. The politicians even require the military buy weapons it does not want—essentially giving rise to the theory that the purpose of the Defense Department is to spend a lot of money, and not necessarily to win wars.
The US is running on borrowed money and on borrowed time, as the petrodollar effect wears out. The military will need to be downsized when the crunch comes, but it does not appear that enough thought and planning is being done to prepare for that day.
There are other areas related to the military where things do not appear to be going well for the US. A number of these are elaborated upon in a book by a former acting Secretary of Defense, Christopher C. Miller. One relates to low recruitment numbers, where a controversial, but perhaps useful, fix would be to bring back universal military service. This could actually be a combination of many kinds of military and civilian public service, including a revised and expanded Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) idea.
This brings to mind another avenue to train young recruits in various skills, and also fix a gap in historical preservation: For example, the restoration of the last great steamship built in America, the SS UnitedStates. It was built as a passenger liner, but with the option of turning it into a troopship in case of war. As such, it was designed as very fire-proof and had a very fast speed. It could now be used as a training ship in all facets of operation and maintenance, with the graduates having a better resume for seeking jobs with the US Navy and Coast Guard, but also in the huge cruise ship armada sailing around the world. There are relatively few important passenger liners preserved today, this effort would save one of the high points of American engineering and manufacturing, in addition to developing a cadre of skilled workers who could also be able to take jobs related to the US infrastructure repair.
WHAT AMERICA GOT WRONG: FINANCE
This category contains a number of items that need to be reviewed. One such is the notion that each country needs to have a central bank. Overlooked is the fact that the US operated without a central bank for about 72 years. The Bank of the United States was ended in 1841 and the next central bank did not arrive until the Federal Reserve System in 1913. Now that the US has operated under a central bank system for a century, it seems part of the natural order and almost nobody questions it. The US public did question the notion vigorously back in the 19th Century. The point is that the US grew from a minor power to perhaps the largest economy in the world at the outbreak of WWI. During that period it fought the Civil War and the Spanish-American War without having a central bank. The financial panics prior to 1913 were offered as partial justification for setting up the Federal Reserve, but the Great Depression and numerous recessions have taken place since the central bank was restored. The US is currently in a “Great Bubble” situation, and the central bank does not appear to know what to do about it. The whole system is not working properly.
Another financial issue is that of fractional reserve banking. Most peoples’ eyes glaze over at the mention of this term and it is seldom discussed in economics textbooks. Essentially, fractional reserve banking is when banks loan out money that they do not have. When banks write a check to provide a loan, only a small part of the check is backed up by any sort of money on deposit in the bank. Banks can create money out of thin air, and the money is later destroyed when the loan is paid off. This arrangement was supposedly needed when agriculture was a major part of the economy and extra funds were needed at harvest time. The US has been past that situation for many years, but the fractional system contributes to rapid money growth during periods of exuberance when lots of companies want to expand or start up operations, and investors are borrowing money to play the stock market. This leads to bubbles such as the dotcom, the housing, and the “everything bubble” that we are now experiencing. The bubbles eventually burst. So the inception of central banking did not really eliminate the panics of the 19th century, if anything, it appears to have made them worse. Books have been written about the cause and cure of the problems of fractional reserve banking, but next to nothing has been done about it.
While not normally termed “finance,” the problem of monopolies is a constant irritant for most economies. The US solution was to pass various anti-trust laws, break up vast organizations, and restructure certain industries. For example, both Standard Oil and American Telephone and Telegraph were broken up into many smaller pieces. The railroads and the airlines were put under regulation. The banks were restructured into separate commercial banking and investment banking entities. Brokerage houses were also separate. However, some of this worked out, but some of it did not. The oil and phone breakup worked, but, in recent years, these industries began reorganizing into vast enterprises. The transport regulation did not work as the government could not set prices and service and still keep up with technological progress, so changes were made. The banks eventually overcame the anti-trust separation and merged commercial, investment, brokerage and credit card functions into other huge enterprises. The reforms of the 1930’s, instituted as a correction of the setup that led to the Great Depression, were done away with and the situation reverted to that of the 1920’s. Unsurprisingly, this, along with the banking defects, has led to the recent booms and excesses of the 1920’s all over again. Which will, perhaps, lead to Great Depression II.
It is also commonplace now to fault globalization for many of the ills facing the US. The loss of factories was allowed to proceed without a serious study of potential side effects. The notion that the steel workers could find new jobs immediately when the mill shut down was always fanciful. This was especially true in locations where the factory was the major employer and it was a long distance to any place with job openings. The lack of enormous factories and experienced workers can also play havoc with any military mobilization.
A final financial problem that the US has allowed to get out of hand is the national debt. Expert opinion suggests that the total national government debt should be kept below the Gross National Product (GNP). The US total is now above the GNP and getting farther ahead every year with the recurring budget deficits. This makes it more difficult each year to find a solution. Every proposed solution, in fact, is fought vigorously by one or more special interest groups and the outcome is a stalemate. No actual reform is enacted or carried out.
WHAT AMERICA GOT WRONG: TRANSPORTATION
The obvious mistakes here include letting the Interstate and Defense Highway System decay for lack of maintenance and failing to fill in the system’s missing links. The interstates were designed back in the era of President Eisenhower to match the distribution of population and economic activity at the time. That distribution has greatly changed since the 1950’s, but the highways have not kept up. For example, I-66 should have been completed from Washington, DC onward to Ohio instead of leaving large gaps of primitive roads between stretches of super-highways. There are missing links between Denver and Salt Lake City, between Denver and Dallas, and numerous other major cities.
In addition, the design of the interstates routed them into city centers instead of bypassing them. The result is that highways are overcrowded with commuters. This prevents a smooth flow of traffic between states, which was the original reason for the highways. Also, many of the routes into or through the cities were never completed. For instance, I-95 was built into Washington, DC, and then stopped, with a large gap before resuming on the other side of the city. This forces through-traffic to go around the city using the Capital Beltway, making more congestion and slower speeds, besides wasting fuel.
In this case, one potential solution could have been to build a separate super-highway located just to the west of I-95 designed to avoid both local and commuter traffic. It would have allowed free-flowing traffic between Maine and Florida, thus serving both a civilian and military purpose. Therefore this highway could have been called “Military Road Number One” (MR-1). The original interstate system under President Eisenhower was also designed to support any possible military use.
Another aspect of transportation where America missed out concerned railroads. There should have been an “Interstate Railroad System” designed and built along with the highways. Long distance trains suffer from the same problems as long distance trucking in having to go through the centers of towns. This creates slow movement of goods and increased danger when accidents happen. The news is full of stories about trains derailing inside towns and cities and consequently dumping hazardous materials into the water and air. There are also the continuous numbers of accidents at grade-crossings, which should have been eliminated on an interstate rail system.
The lack of large-scale transport manufacturing programs in the US can be seen in two cases where the US should have excelled: constructing cruise ships and building supersonic airliners. Cruise ship companies now have to order their large vessels from yards in Europe, especially from Norway, France, Germany, and Italy. These are not low-wage countries, so that is not an excuse for the lack of US shipbuilding. In addition, although the Europeans built a supersonic airliner many years ago, this was not followed up by the US. The excuse was the sonic boom problem and the apparent lack of commercial profitability. Now, with the large and increasing amount of traffic going across the oceans, it would seem desirable to have a faster means of travel. Perhaps a small amount of the money expended by the Pentagon could have been diverted to design a game-changing US plane built in the US and sold to the world’s airlines.
WHAT AMERICA GOT WRONG: CULTURE
An important factor that is seldom covered in the national security literature is that of the impact of national culture and its various aspects, especially religion and sexual rules and practices. There is relatively little discussion in public foreign policy articles as to whether religion, or lack thereof, or its form and type makes any difference in the overall extent of national power in international relations. Some of the questions relate to whether a country gains by having a religion to promote certain codes of behavior that support rules the government is simultaneously enforcing. Following that, what is the impact of having a “state religion” as a focal point to advance both church and state interests?
Both Russia and the US have at various times been “Christian” countries and both at different times have been “post-Christian” countries. Generally, and very roughly speaking, Russia, during the Soviet period was in the “post-Christian” camp, while the US was in the “Christian” camp. Then after the Soviet Union imploded, both countries switched sides. Does this make any difference? There may be two approaches to the answer: First, the Soviet Union eventually dissolved and the issue is whether culture policies may have had something to do with that ending; Second, decades ago a scholarly work on the subject of sex and culture was published by an English scholar at Oxford and Cambridge. Examining it may assist in considering the current issues related to culture. A summary of his findings is as follows, taken from the book cover:
“Originally published by Oxford Press in 1934, J. D. Unwin conducted this landmark study of 86 civilizations through 5000 years of history and found a positive correlation between the cultural achievement of a people and the sexual restraint they observe. The evidence is that human societies are free to choose either to display great energy or to enjoy sexual freedom; it appears they cannot do both for more than one generation. The whole of human history does not contain single instance of a group becoming civilized unless it has been absolutely monogamous, nor is there any example of a group retaining its culture after it has adopted less rigorous customs.”
This area of scholarly inquiry has received little attention in the major magazines dealing with international relations and national security. It would seem important to check out the Unwin study and the other aspects related to it. Are his findings still valid? To what extent did the “post-Christian” camp adherents “adopt less rigorous customs”? If they did, and the Unwin findings are still applicable, then the countries that have gone “post-Christian” will be at a disadvantage in international competition.
Culture is becoming a war, like psychological, economic, chemical, biological, legal, and other wars, between Russia and the US. This week the president of Russia gave a speech in which he excoriated the West for its attacks on Russian culture, the Russian Orthodox Church, and other churches. He specifically denounced the West’s treatment of family life and various sexual behaviors.
WHAT AMERICA GOT WRONG: HEGEMONY
The US government is currently trying to maintain, or hang onto, the extent of hegemonic control it has throughout the rest of the world. The preceding sections of this paper address many elements that are going wrong and how difficult it will be for the US to be successful. There are even more problems that are not discussed, such as healthcare and education. The government in Washington seems blind to the fact that the US is sliding into a form of isolationism. Other countries are increasingly going their own way and declining to take orders from Washington. The US is picking fights with Russia and China at the same time—oblivious to the fact that the US will lose the contest.
However, even parts of the US Establishment evidently begin to sense that all is not right, for the latest issue of Foreign Affairs published an article by Andrew J. Bacevich that contains some hard truths:
“A combination of grotesque inequality and feckless profligacy goes a long way toward explaining why such an immense and richly endowed country finds itself unable to contend with dysfunction at home and crises abroad. Military might cannot compensate for an absence of internal cohesion and governmental self-discipline. Unless the United States gets its house in order, it has little hope of exercising global leadership—much less prevailing in a mostly imaginary competition pitting democracy against autocracy.”
References:
Soldier Secretary, Christopher C. Miller, Center Street, 2023
The End of Alchemy:Money, Banking, and the Future of the Global Economy, Mervyn King, W. W. Norton, 2016
Sex and Culture, J. D. Unwin, Oxford University Press, 1934
State of the Nation (address to the Federal Assembly), Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, February 21, 2023
The Reckoning That Wasn’t: Why America Remains Trapped by False Dreams of Hegemony, Andrew J. Bacevich, Foreign Affairs, Volume 102, Number 2, March/April 2023
بالتأكيد ليس لدى الصين وهم بأن هناك فرصاً حقيقية لتسوية الصراع الدائر في أوكرانيا بين روسيا وحلف الناتو بالطرق السياسية، وأن الأمر يتوقف على مبادرة للحل السياسي ولو كان وراءها ثقل الصين، ولا أن ما مرّ من الحرب كان كافياً لإنضاج مواقف الطرفين لمنطقة وسط تتيح التوصل إلى تسوية، وبالتأكيد ليست الصين برومانسية التوهّم بأنها طرف محايد في جوهر النزاع الذي يدور من الجانب الروسي تحت شعار إسقاط القطبية الأحادية، وإنهاء مشروع الهيمنة الأميركية على العالم. فالصين تعلم تشخيص الناتو لها كمصدر خطر أول، وتصنيفه لروسيا تحدياً عسكرياً وأمنياً، وأن روسيا تخوض الحرب بالنيابة عن كل الدول المستقلة التي تسعى لتقليص مدى التسلّط الغربي على السياسة الدولية، والصين في طليعة هؤلاء، فماذا تريد الصين من مبادرتها والترويج الواسع تمهيداً لإطلاقها.
خلال الشهور الماضية ظهرت حقائق واضحة في مسار الحرب، أهمها أن التنافس العسكري بين روسيا وحلف الناتو يدور حول سلاحين رئيسيين حاسمين في الحرب، هما الطائرات المسيّرة، والصواريخ البالستية الدقيقة، وأن روسيا في هذين المجالين تملك تفوقاً حاسماً على ثلاثة مستويات، الأول هو امتلاك فائض من المخزون في هذين السلاحين، رغم كل الدعاية الغربية عن شح لدى روسيا دفعها للاستعانة بإيران والصين وكوريا الشمالية، والثاني هو امتلاك روسيا لخطوط إنتاج وتوريد وإمداد سلسة من المصانع إلى خطوط القتال مقابل اعتراف الغرب بمشاكل عديدة تعترض طريق قدرته على سد الفجوات التي تطرحها الفوارق بين قدرات الإنتاج وحاجات الميدان، ومشاكل النقل والإمداد على خطوط طويلة مهدّدة بالاستهداف، ما استدعى البحث عن بدائل من نوع الاستعاضة عن السلاحين الصاروخي والمدفعي بمدافع الدبابات، والثالث هو الارتياح الروسيّ لما لديه على مستوى الكادر البشريّ القادر على تشغيل المعدات التقنية الدقيقة التي ترتبط بها هذه الأسلحة وخصوصاً الصواريخ الدقيقة والطائرات المسيّرة، وقدرته على مزاوجة التدريب القريب من الجبهة والزجّ بالمقدرات الجديدة إلى خطوط العمل الميداني، بينما عمليات التدريب التي يجريها حلف الناتو لحساب أوكرانيا على الأسلحة الجديدة تستهلك وقتاً طويلاً وتجري بعيداً عن الجبهة وفي ظروف متفاوتة بين البلدان التي تستضيف هذه التدريبات.
تدرك الصين أنّها تتعرّض مع إيران لحملة مركزة من الغرب تحت عنوان اتهامهما بتقديم الدعم العسكري لروسيا، وذلك لجعل ملف دعم روسيا من ملفات التفاوض على قضايا خلافية أخرى مع كل من الصين وإيران، والملفات الخلافيّة واضحة وجدية وموضوعة على الطاولة، وعبر الترغيب والترهيب تريد واشنطن انتزاع توقيع بكين وطهران على وثيقة تنص على الامتناع عن تقديم أي دعم لروسيا في الحرب، يعني مجرد توقيعها من بكين وطهران إذلالاً لهما وتثبيتاً للهيمنة الأميركية، ولذلك رد الصينيون على الاتهامات الأميركية بالقول إن أميركا التي توجه الاتهامات للصين بدعم روسيا عسكرياً، وهي اتهامات باطلة، هي أميركا نفسها، أكبر مورد للسلاح إلى حرب اوكرانيا، وهي بالتالي فاقدة للأهلية الأخلاقية لتقييم شكل تعامل الصين مع الحرب، وتبنيها لموقف يدعو لوقف الحرب واعتماد الحل السياسي لقضايا النزاع.
طوّر الصينيون ردهم الى مستوى تحويل مضمونه الى مبادرة تؤكد موقفهم وموقعهم من الحرب، لجهة الدعوة لحل سياسي يقوم على إيجاد إطار دولي للبت بقضايا النزاع الحدودي بين أوكرانيا وروسيا من جهة، ويقدم الضمانات التي تطمئن روسيا في أمنها القومي والاستراتيجي من جهة موازية، لكنها مبادرة تبدأ بالدعوة لتخفيض مستوى النزاع، من خلال التزام الدول الدائمة العضوية في مجلس الأمن التي لا تشكل طرفاً مباشراً في الحرب الى الامتناع عن تقديم أي مبيعات سلاح أو هبات عسكرية إلى أي من طرفي النزاع الروسي والأوكراني. وهذا يعني وضع التزام الصين القائم فعلاً مقابل التزام مطلوب من كل من أميركا وبريطانيا وفرنسا، وهو ما تعلم الصين أنه لن يحصل، ما يعني انتقال زمام المبادرة السياسي في توجيه الاتهام بالتورّط في الحرب الى ضفة الصين بحق أميركا وفرنسا وبريطانيا، وامتلاك الصين الحق بفعل المثل طالما أن مبادرتها قد رفضت.
IV. Technological Hegemony—Monopoly and Suppression
V. Cultural Hegemony—Spreading False Narratives
Conclusion
Introduction
Since becoming the world’s most powerful country after the two world wars and the Cold War, the United States has acted more boldly to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, pursue, maintain and abuse hegemony, advance subversion and infiltration, and willfully wage wars, bringing harm to the international community.
The United States has developed a hegemonic playbook to stage “color revolutions,” instigate regional disputes, and even directly launch wars under the guise of promoting democracy, freedom and human rights. Clinging to the Cold War mentality, the United States has ramped up bloc politics and stoked conflict and confrontation. It has overstretched the concept of national security, abused export controls and forced unilateral sanctions upon others. It has taken a selective approach to international law and rules, utilizing or discarding them as it sees fit, and has sought to impose rules that serve its own interests in the name of upholding a “rules-based international order.”
This report, by presenting the relevant facts, seeks to expose the U.S. abuse of hegemony in the political, military, economic, financial, technological and cultural fields, and to draw greater international attention to the perils of the U.S. practices to world peace and stability and the well-being of all peoples.
I. Political Hegemony — Throwing Its Weight Around
The United States has long been attempting to mold other countries and the world order with its own values and political system in the name of promoting democracy and human rights.
◆ Instances of U.S. interference in other countries’ internal affairs abound. In the name of “promoting democracy,” the United States practiced a “Neo-Monroe Doctrine” in Latin America, instigated “color revolutions” in Eurasia, and orchestrated the “Arab Spring” in West Asia and North Africa, bringing chaos and disaster to many countries.
In 1823, the United States announced the Monroe Doctrine. While touting an “America for the Americans,” what it truly wanted was an “America for the United States.”
Since then, the policies of successive U.S. governments toward Latin America and the Caribbean Region have been riddled with political interference, military intervention and regime subversion. From its 61-year hostility toward and blockade of Cuba to its overthrow of the Allende government of Chile, U.S. policy on this region has been built on one maxim-those who submit will prosper; those who resist shall perish.
The year 2003 marked the beginning of a succession of “color revolutions” — the “Rose Revolution” in Georgia, the “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine and the “Tulip Revolution” in Kyrgyzstan. The U.S. Department of State openly admitted playing a “central role” in these “regime changes.” The United States also interfered in the internal affairs of the Philippines, ousting President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. in 1986 and President Joseph Estrada in 2001 through the so-called “People Power Revolutions.”
In January 2023, former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo released his new book Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love. He revealed in it that the United States had plotted to intervene in Venezuela. The plan was to force the Maduro government to reach an agreement with the opposition, deprive Venezuela of its ability to sell oil and gold for foreign exchange, exert high pressure on its economy, and influence the 2018 presidential election.
◆ The U.S. exercises double standards on international rules. Placing its self-interest first, the United States has walked away from international treaties and organizations, and put its domestic law above international law. In April 2017, the Trump administration announced that it would cut off all U.S. funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) with the excuse that the organization “supports, or participates in the management of a programme of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.” The United States quit UNESCO twice in 1984 and 2017. In 2017, it announced leaving the Paris Agreement on climate change. In 2018, it announced its exit from the UN Human Rights Council, citing the organization’s “bias” against Israel and failure to protect human rights effectively. In 2019, the United States announced its withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty to seek unfettered development of advanced weapons. In 2020, it announced pulling out of the Treaty on Open Skies.
The United States has also been a stumbling block to biological arms control by opposing negotiations on a verification protocol for the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and impeding international verification of countries’ activities relating to biological weapons. As the only country in possession of a chemical weapons stockpile, the United States has repeatedly delayed the destruction of chemical weapons and remained reluctant in fulfilling its obligations. It has become the biggest obstacle to realizing “a world free of chemical weapons.”
◆ The United States is piecing together small blocs through its alliance system. It has been forcing an “Indo-Pacific Strategy” onto the Asia-Pacific region, assembling exclusive clubs like the Five Eyes, the Quad and AUKUS, and forcing regional countries to take sides. Such practices are essentially meant to create division in the region, stoke confrontation and undermine peace.
◆ The U.S. arbitrarily passes judgment on democracy in other countries, and fabricates a false narrative of “democracy versus authoritarianism” to incite estrangement, division, rivalry and confrontation. In December 2021, the United States hosted the first “Summit for Democracy,” which drew criticism and opposition from many countries for making a mockery of the spirit of democracy and dividing the world. In March 2023, the United States will host another “Summit for Democracy,” which remains unwelcome and will again find no support.
II. Military Hegemony — Wanton Use of Force
The history of the United States is characterized by violence and expansion. Since it gained independence in 1776, the United States has constantly sought expansion by force: it slaughtered Indians, invaded Canada, waged a war against Mexico, instigated the American-Spanish War, and annexed Hawaii. After World War II, the wars either provoked or launched by the United States included the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Kosovo War, the War in Afghanistan, the Iraq War, the Libyan War and the Syrian War, abusing its military hegemony to pave the way for expansionist objectives. In recent years, the U.S. average annual military budget has exceeded 700 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 40 percent of the world’s total, more than the 15 countries behind it combined. The United States has about 800 overseas military bases, with 173,000 troops deployed in 159 countries.
According to the book America Invades: How We’ve Invaded or been Militarily Involved with almost Every Country on Earth, the United States has fought or been militarily involved with almost all the 190-odd countries recognized by the United Nations with only three exceptions. The three countries were “spared” because the United States did not find them on the map.
◆ As former U.S. President Jimmy Carter put it, the United States is undoubtedly the most warlike nation in the history of the world. According to a Tufts University report, “Introducing the Military Intervention Project: A new Dataset on U.S. Military Interventions, 1776-2019,” the United States undertook nearly 400 military interventions globally between those years, 34 percent of which were in Latin America and the Caribbean, 23 percent in East Asia and the Pacific, 14 percent in the Middle East and North Africa, and 13 percent in Europe. Currently, its military intervention in the Middle East and North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa is on the rise.
Alex Lo, a South China Morning Post columnist, pointed out that the United States has rarely distinguished between diplomacy and war since its founding. It overthrew democratically elected governments in many developing countries in the 20th century and immediately replaced them with pro-American puppet regimes. Today, in Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Pakistan and Yemen, the United States is repeating its old tactics of waging proxy, low-intensity, and drone wars.
◆ U.S. military hegemony has caused humanitarian tragedies. Since 2001, the wars and military operations launched by the United States in the name of fighting terrorism have claimed over 900,000 lives with some 335,000 of them civilians, injured millions and displaced tens of millions. The 2003 Iraq War resulted in some 200,000 to 250,000 civilian deaths, including over 16,000 directly killed by the U.S. military, and left more than a million homeless.
The United States has created 37 million refugees around the world. Since 2012, the number of Syrian refugees alone has increased tenfold. Between 2016 and 2019, 33,584 civilian deaths were documented in the Syrian fightings, including 3,833 killed by U.S.-led coalition bombings, half of them women and children. The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) reported on 9 November 2018 that the air strikes launched by U.S. forces on Raqqa alone killed 1,600 Syrian civilians.
The two-decades-long war in Afghanistan devastated the country. A total of 47,000 Afghan civilians and 66,000 to 69,000 Afghan soldiers and police officers unrelated to the September 11 attacks were killed in U.S. military operations, and more than 10 million people were displaced. The war in Afghanistan destroyed the foundation of economic development there and plunged the Afghan people into destitution. After the “Kabul debacle” in 2021, the United States announced that it would freeze some 9.5 billion dollars in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank, a move considered as “pure looting.”
In September 2022, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu commented at a rally that the United States has waged a proxy war in Syria, turned Afghanistan into an opium field and heroin factory, thrown Pakistan into turmoil, and left Libya in incessant civil unrest. The United States does whatever it takes to rob and enslave the people of any country with underground resources.
The United States has also adopted appalling methods in war. During the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Kosovo War, the War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War, the United States used massive quantities of chemical and biological weapons as well as cluster bombs, fuel-air bombs, graphite bombs and depleted uranium bombs, causing enormous damage on civilian facilities, countless civilian casualties and lasting environmental pollution.
III. Economic Hegemony — Looting and Exploitation
After World War II, the United States led efforts to set up the Bretton Woods System, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which, together with the Marshall Plan, formed the international monetary system centered around the U.S. dollar. In addition, the United States has also established institutional hegemony in the international economic and financial sector by manipulating the weighted voting systems, rules and arrangements of international organizations including “approval by 85 percent majority,” and its domestic trade laws and regulations. By taking advantage of the dollar’s status as the major international reserve currency, the United States is basically collecting “seigniorage” from around the world; and using its control over international organizations, it coerces other countries into serving America’s political and economic strategy.
◆ The United States exploits the world’s wealth with the help of “seigniorage.” It costs only about 17 cents to produce a 100 dollar bill, but other countries had to pony up 100 dollar of actual goods in order to obtain one. It was pointed out more than half a century ago, that the United States enjoyed exorbitant privilege and deficit without tears created by its dollar, and used the worthless paper note to plunder the resources and factories of other nations.
◆ The hegemony of U.S. dollar is the main source of instability and uncertainty in the world economy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States abused its global financial hegemony and injected trillions of dollars into the global market, leaving other countries, especially emerging economies, to pay the price. In 2022, the Fed ended its ultra-easy monetary policy and turned to aggressive interest rate hike, causing turmoil in the international financial market and substantial depreciation of other currencies such as the Euro, many of which dropped to a 20-year low. As a result, a large number of developing countries were challenged by high inflation, currency depreciation and capital outflows. This was exactly what Nixon’s secretary of the treasury John Connally once remarked, with self-satisfaction yet sharp precision, that “the dollar is our currency, but it is your problem.”
◆ With its control over international economic and financial organizations, the United States imposes additional conditions to their assistance to other countries. In order to reduce obstacles to U.S. capital inflow and speculation, the recipient countries are required to advance financial liberalization and open up financial markets so that their economic policies would fall in line with America’s strategy. According to the Review of International Political Economy, along with the 1,550 debt relief programs extended by the IMF to its 131 member countries from 1985 to 2014, as many as 55,465 additional political conditions had been attached.
◆ The United States willfully suppresses its opponents with economic coercion. In the 1980s, to eliminate the economic threat posed by Japan, and to control and use the latter in service of America’s strategic goal of confronting the Soviet Union and dominating the world, the United States leveraged its hegemonic financial power against Japan, and concluded the Plaza Accord. As a result, Yen was pushed up, and Japan was pressed to open up its financial market and reform its financial system. The Plaza Accord dealt a heavy blow to the growth momentum of the Japanese economy, leaving Japan to what was later called “three lost decades.”
◆ America’s economic and financial hegemony has become a geopolitical weapon. Doubling down on unilateral sanctions and “long-arm jurisdiction,” the United States has enacted such domestic laws as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, and the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, and introduced a series of executive orders to sanction specific countries, organizations or individuals. Statistics show that U.S. sanctions against foreign entities increased by 933 percent from 2000 to 2021. The Trump administration alone has imposed more than 3,900 sanctions, which means three sanctions per day. So far, the United States had or has imposed economic sanctions on nearly 40 countries across the world, including Cuba, China, Russia, the DPRK, Iran and Venezuela, affecting nearly half of the world’s population. “The United States of America” has turned itself into “the United States of Sanctions.” And “long-arm jurisdiction” has been reduced to nothing but a tool for the United States to use its means of state power to suppress economic competitors and interfere in normal international business. This is a serious departure from the principles of liberal market economy that the United States has long boasted.
IV. Technological Hegemony — Monopoly and Suppression
The United States seeks to deter other countries’ scientific, technological and economic development by wielding monopoly power, suppression measures and technology restrictions in high-tech fields.
◆ The United States monopolizes intellectual property in the name of protection. Taking advantage of the weak position of other countries, especially developing ones, on intellectual property rights and the institutional vacancy in relevant fields, the United States reaps excessive profits through monopoly. In 1994, the United States pushed forward the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), forcing the Americanized process and standards in intellectual property protection in an attempt to solidify its monopoly on technology.
In the 1980s, to contain the development of Japan’s semiconductor industry, the United States launched the “301” investigation, built bargaining power in bilateral negotiations through multilateral agreements, threatened to label Japan as conducting unfair trade, and imposed retaliatory tariffs, forcing Japan to sign the U.S.-Japan Semiconductor Agreement. As a result, Japanese semiconductor enterprises were almost completely driven out of global competition, and their market share dropped from 50 percent to 10 percent. Meanwhile, with the support of the U.S. government, a large number of U.S. semiconductor enterprises took the opportunity and grabbed larger market share.
◆ The United States politicizes, weaponizes technological issues and uses them as ideological tools. Overstretching the concept of national security, the United States mobilized state power to suppress and sanction Chinese company Huawei, restricted the entry of Huawei products into the U.S. market, cut off its supply of chips and operating systems, and coerced other countries to ban Huawei from undertaking local 5G network construction. It even talked Canada into unwarrantedly detaining Huawei’s CFO Meng Wanzhou for nearly three years.
The United States has fabricated a slew of excuses to clamp down on China’s high-tech enterprises with global competitiveness, and has put more than 1,000 Chinese enterprises on sanction lists. In addition, the United States has also imposed controls on biotechnology, artificial intelligence and other high-end technologies, reinforced export restrictions, tightened investment screening, suppressed Chinese social media apps such as TikTok and WeChat, and lobbied the Netherlands and Japan to restrict exports of chips and related equipment or technology to China.
The United States has also practiced double standards in its policy on China-related technological professionals. To sideline and suppress Chinese researchers, since June 2018, visa validity has been shortened for Chinese students majoring in certain high-tech-related disciplines, repeated cases have occurred where Chinese scholars and students going to the United States for exchange programs and study were unjustifiably denied and harassed, and large-scale investigation on Chinese scholars working in the United States was carried out.
◆ The United States solidifies its technological monopoly in the name of protecting democracy. By building small blocs on technology such as the “chips alliance” and “clean network,” the United States has put “democracy” and “human rights” labels on high-technology, and turned technological issues into political and ideological issues, so as to fabricate excuses for its technological blockade against other countries. In May 2019, the United States enlisted 32 countries to the Prague 5G Security Conference in the Czech Republic and issued the Prague Proposal in an attempt to exclude China’s 5G products. In April 2020, then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the “5G clean path,” a plan designed to build technological alliance in the 5G field with partners bonded by their shared ideology on democracy and the need to protect “cyber security.” The measures, in essence, are the U.S. attempts to maintain its technological hegemony through technological alliances.
◆ The United States abuses its technological hegemony by carrying out cyber attacks and eavesdropping. The United States has long been notorious as an “empire of hackers,” blamed for its rampant acts of cyber theft around the world. It has all kinds of means to enforce pervasive cyber attacks and surveillance, including using analog base station signals to access mobile phones for data theft, manipulating mobile apps, infiltrating cloud servers, and stealing through undersea cables. The list goes on.
U.S. surveillance is indiscriminate. All can be targets of its surveillance, be they rivals or allies, even leaders of allied countries such as former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and several French Presidents. Cyber surveillance and attacks launched by the United States such as “Prism,” “Dirtbox,” “Irritant Horn” and “Telescreen Operation” are all proof that the United States is closely monitoring its allies and partners. Such eavesdropping on allies and partners has already caused worldwide outrage. Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, a website that has exposed U.S. surveillance programs, said that “do not expect a global surveillance superpower to act with honor or respect. There is only one rule: there are no rules.”
V. Cultural Hegemony — Spreading False Narratives
The global expansion of American culture is an important part of its external strategy. The United States has often used cultural tools to strengthen and maintain its hegemony in the world.
◆ The United States embeds American values in its products such as movies. American values and lifestyle are a tied product to its movies and TV shows, publications, media content, and programs by the government-funded non-profit cultural institutions. It thus shapes a cultural and public opinion space in which American culture reigns and maintains cultural hegemony. In his article The Americanization of the World, John Yemma, an American scholar, exposed the real weapons in U.S. cultural expansion: the Hollywood, the image design factories on Madison Avenue and the production lines of Mattel Company and Coca-Cola.
There are various vehicles the United States uses to keep its cultural hegemony. American movies are the most used; they now occupy more than 70 percent of the world’s market share. The United States skilfully exploits its cultural diversity to appeal to various ethnicities. When Hollywood movies descend on the world, they scream the American values tied to them.
◆ American cultural hegemony not only shows itself in “direct intervention,” but also in “media infiltration” and as “a trumpet for the world.” U.S.-dominated Western media has a particularly important role in shaping global public opinion in favor of U.S. meddling in the internal affairs of other countries.
The U.S. government strictly censors all social media companies and demands their obedience. Twitter CEO Elon Musk admitted on 27 December 2022 that all social media platforms work with the U.S. government to censor content, reported Fox Business Network. Public opinion in the United States is subject to government intervention to restrict all unfavorable remarks. Google often makes pages disappear.
U.S. Department of Defense manipulates social media. In December 2022, The Intercept, an independent U.S. investigative website, revealed that in July 2017, U.S. Central Command official Nathaniel Kahler instructed Twitter’s public policy team to augment the presence of 52 Arabic-language accounts on a list he sent, six of which were to be given priority. One of the six was dedicated to justifying U.S. drone attacks in Yemen, such as by claiming that the attacks were precise and killed only terrorists, not civilians. Following Kahler’s directive, Twitter put those Arabic-language accounts on a “white list” to amplify certain messages.
◆The United States practices double standards on the freedom of the press. It brutally suppresses and silences media of other countries by various means. The United States and Europe bar mainstream Russian media such as Russia Today and the Sputnik from their countries. Platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube openly restrict official accounts of Russia. Netflix, Apple and Google have removed Russian channels and applications from their services and app stores. Unprecedented draconian censorship is imposed on Russia-related contents.
◆The United States abuses its cultural hegemony to instigate “peaceful evolution” in socialist countries. It sets up news media and cultural outfits targeting socialist countries. It pours staggering amounts of public funds into radio and TV networks to support their ideological infiltration, and these mouthpieces bombard socialist countries in dozens of languages with inflammatory propaganda day and night.
The United States uses misinformation as a spear to attack other countries, and has built an industrial chain around it: there are groups and individuals making up stories, and peddling them worldwide to mislead public opinion with the support of nearly limitless financial resources.
Conclusion
While a just cause wins its champion wide support, an unjust one condemns its pursuer to be an outcast. The hegemonic, domineering, and bullying practices of using strength to intimidate the weak, taking from others by force and subterfuge, and playing zero-sum games are exerting grave harm. The historical trends of peace, development, cooperation, and mutual benefit are unstoppable. The United States has been overriding truth with its power and trampling justice to serve self-interest. These unilateral, egoistic and regressive hegemonic practices have drawn growing, intense criticism and opposition from the international community.
Countries need to respect each other and treat each other as equals. Big countries should behave in a manner befitting their status and take the lead in pursuing a new model of state-to-state relations featuring dialogue and partnership, not confrontation or alliance. China opposes all forms of hegemonism and power politics, and rejects interference in other countries’ internal affairs. The United States must conduct serious soul-searching. It must critically examine what it has done, let go of its arrogance and prejudice, and quit its hegemonic, domineering and bullying practices.
من ينظر إلى الخارطة يرى لبنان كطفل صغير تحتضنه أمه سورية. ولبنان هذا كان وما زال الطفل المدلل عندها، بالرغم من عقوقه حيناً، ومن تطاوله عليها أحياناً، لا زالت تحتضنه برغم الجراح التي أصابتها من الأعداء في الخارج ومن بعض شقيقاتها العربيات اللواتي تآمرن عليها، ولولا اللطف الإلهي الذي حماها، ولولا صدّها للمؤامرة ببطولات جيشها وقيادتها الحكيمة التي عرفت كيف تصمد وتواجه، ولولا ان سخر لها الله بعض الخيّرين والأصدقاء في الإقليم وخارج الإقليم كالجمهورية الإسلامية في إيران وروسيا والمقاومة الاسلامية في لبنان والشرفاء من هذه الأمة لكانت سورية اليوم قد سقطت وراحت ضحية المؤامرة الكونية عليها.
لكن بعض أبنائها، من العاقين في لبنان، ورغم كلّ الصراخ الذي أطلقوه ويطلقونه في وجه هذه الأم الحنون، لم يستطيعوا أن يكسروا ظفر قدمها. ولبنان ليس كله عاق، لأنّ الغالبية من أبنائه شرفاء يكنون لها الحب والوفاء. ونحن لا نقبل من بعض الشركاء في الوطن هذا العقوق بحقها، وهي التي دافعت عنا في أحلك اللحظات، وتصدّت للعدوان الصهيوني علينا في العام 1982، وهي التي حقنت دماء اللبنانيين واستطاعت مع المخلصين من حقن دمائهم فأوقفت الحرب الأهلية التي امتدت على مدى خمس عشرة سنة، وهي التي أعادت بناء الجيش اللبناني وزوّدته بالأسلحة والمعدات، وهي التي تقاسمت معنا الرخاء وشظف العيش، وهي التي دعمت المقاومة في لبنان بكلّ أنواع الدعم حتى استطاعت تحرير ما احتلّ من أراض لبنانية، ونحن لا ننسى أنّ نعمة التحرير وعزة النصر هما نتيجة نضال شعبنا وبفضل دماء شهدائنا المقاومين ودعم سورية وإيران.
وسورية هي التي لم تبخل على شعب لبنان بكلّ أنواع المساعدة الاقتصادية أيام الشدة، وهي التي تقاسمت معنا الأوكسجين أيام جائحة كورونا عندما عزّ وجوده في لبنان وفرغت مخزوناته في المستشفيات، وهي التي استقبلت النازحين اللبنانيين أيام العدوان “الإسرائيلي” في تموز عام 1996 وأنزلتهم عندها ضيوفاً مكرمين معززين. سورية، قلب العروبة النابض، كما سماها الرئيس الخالد جمال عبد الناصر، كانت وما زالت تدعم القضية الفلسطينية وتدعم الشعب الفلسطيني ومقاومته الباسلة لتحرير فلسطين العربية وإعادتها حرة إلى شعبها الأصيل.
لقد قاومت سورية الحرب الإرهابية العالمية التي قادتها الولايات المتحدة الأميركية ضدها، لا لشيء سوى لكسر شوكتها وتحقيق المطلب الصهيوني بالاعتراف بكيانه الغاصب لفلسطين وتطبيع العلاقة معه والقبول بالتسليم له بضمّ الجولان إلى كيانه المحتلّ والتخلي عن فلسطين وشعبها وبيع قضيته في بازار التسويات. سورية هذه، تعيش اليوم كارثة الزلزال المدمّر الذي ضرب جزءاً من أرضها، وتسبّب بعشرات الآلاف من الموتى والجرحى ومئات الآلاف من المشرّدين الذي تصدّعت بيوتهم أو دمّرت… فما عسانا نفعل تجاه هذه الأمّ الحنون؟ هل يكفي إبداء مشاعر الحزن والمواساة؟ هل يكفي بعض المساعدات أو التقديمات الرمزية رفعاً للعتب؟ كلا وألف كلا… انّ سورية ليست فقط مجرد بلد شقيق بالنسبة للدول العربية، بل هي قلب الجسد العربي، إذا عاش هذا القلب واستعاد نبضه وصحته، عاشت الأمة كلها، وإذا توقف لا سمح الله هذا القلب عن النبض، تموت الأمة العربية من محيطها إلى خليجها. سورية كانت وما زالت أمّ الحضارات، ولها فضل على البشرية جمعاء… هي أرض المسيح والرسل والقديسين.
نحن نعلم أنّ بعض العرب وبعض دول الإقليم كان شريكاً لأميركا والغرب في الحرب الإرهابية عليها، ونعلم أنّ مئات المليارات قد تمّ صرفها على تدريب الإرهابيين وتسليحهم وإرسالهم إلى سورية، ونعلم أنّ هذه الحرب لم تترك شيئاً إلا ودمّرته، ولم توفر البشر والحجر حتى الأطفال والنساء، وأنّ مئات الآلاف من القتلى والجرحى قد تمّ حصدهم على امتداد أكثر من عشر سنوات بهدف إركاعها ونهب ثرواتها وتقديمها لقمة سائغة للعدو الصهيوني وحلفائه في الغرب، كلّ ذلك ليس خافياً على أحد، واعترافات بعض المسؤولين العرب معروفة وقد جرى بثها على الإعلام مباشرة. ولكن أن تستمرّ المؤامرة عليها برغم هذا الزلزال المدمّر والضحايا الجديدة التي سقطت، فهذا أمر لا يقرّه دين ولا شرع ولا عقل ولا يقبل به ضمير إنساني حي.
نحن نعلم أنّ اميركا بلا قلب ولا ضمير ولا أخلاق، لأن سياستها تقوم على فلسفة مادية تحسب المكاسب والأرباح في كلّ خطوة تخطوها ولو على حساب قتل الشعوب وهدر دمائهم. ومعروفة سياسة أميركا والحروب التي شنتها على دول وشعوب كثيرة والفتن التي أثارتها والفقر الذي سبّبته عقوباتها الجائرة والمجرمة، ومعروفة مؤامراتها على أنظمة لا تقرّ لها بالعبودية. ولكن إذا كان لنا من عتب، فهو على دولنا العربية التي لم تبادر منذ اللحظة الأولى لنجدة سورية بشكل كاف وفعّال لتضميد جراحها النازفة، وإرسال ما يلزم من مساعدات انسانية طبية وغذائية ومعدات لرفع الأنقاض، لأنّ الضحايا الذين سقطت على رؤوسهم المباني، لم يموتوا كلهم في اللحظة لتوّها، بل كان هناك أحياء يطلبون إغاثتهم ولكنه لم يُغاثوا لأنّ المعدات الثقيلة اللازمة غير متوفرة ولم يجر إنقاذهم من الموت، والوقت ضاغط ولا يسمح بالانتظار، لانّ كلّ لحظة تمر يمكن أن تنفذ طفلاً مصاباً أو تجعله يموت. وهذا للأسف الشديد لم يحصل. وكانت تركيا الجارة التي نتألم لما أصابها تماما كما تألمنا لما أصاب سورية. فالمشاعر الإنسانية واحدة أمام هول ما حدث، وهذا طبيعي ولا جدال فيه. كلّ المساعدات أو جلها كانت تذهب الى تركيا والنزر القليل يذهب إلى سورية. أيّ عدل وأيّ إنسانية وآية أخلاق نرى في هذه الظروف المأساوية؟ الكلّ خائف من أميركا! وخائف من عواقب قانون قيصر البغيض واللئيم. فليسقط قانون قيصر وكلّ تلك السياسات العدوانية العنصرية الغربية. وليعلم العرب وليعلم الجميع: أنّ أميركا ليست إلها يُعبد، وأنّ سياسييها ليسوا رسلاً وقديسين، أن من يحكم أميركا هم خدم عند الأوليغارشية المتحكمة بالسلطة وأصحاب النفوذ من مجموعة من اللصوص ومصاصي دماء الشعوب، وهؤلاء لا أخلاق عندهم ولا دين ولا إنسانية، فلماذا نجاربهم أو نخاف منهم؟ هل الكراسي والعروش أهمّ من رضا الله والضمير والإنسانية والأخلاق؟ وإذا سقطت الأخلاق فماذا ببقى من إنسانية لدى البشر؟
رحم الله شاعرنا الكبير أحمد شوقي الذي قال: إنما الأمم الأخلاق ما بقيت………… إن هم ذهبت أخلاقهم ذهبوا…
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
Al Mayadeen’s Enigma documentary on Cuba features a discussion of Cuban-US relations, Covid-19 vaccine production despite the blockade, Cubans’ reactions to the departure of Fidel Castro, and support for the Cuban revolution.
Enigma: The Cuban revolution
The fifth and final installment of the “Enigma” documentary series, aims to introduce Arab peoples to the Cuban Revolution, its origins, role, and the most important figures that led it.
The new episode discusses Cuba’s positive results in the final stages of Covid vaccine development, how the Cuban revolution was the torch for the unification of Latin America, the return of US-Cuban relations, and the truth behind the blockade on Cuba. It also discusses the Cuban people’s shock following the death of Fidel Castro, and the amount of popular support the revolution received.
The Cuban Revolution sparked the unification of Latin America
After Cuba’s difficult 1990s, the revolutionary leadership revitalized national life again through a process called the “Battle of Ideas”, which aimed to revitalize programs aimed at benefiting the people such as art teachers, trainers, and social activists. Teacher preparation programs were strengthened and additional branches of higher education colleges were established in all regions to facilitate the process of obtaining university degrees. The revolutionary process was in fact changing in order to achieve greater social justice in a nation that, until that decade, had accumulated more than 40 years of resistance against the United States empire.
The golden years for the leftists in Latin America were the first decade of the twenty-first century. In Havana, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez signed the document launching the “Bolivarian Choice for the Peoples of Our American Continent” (ALBA). Integration increasingly began to take shape from the Rio Bravo to Patagonia.
Complementary economic and solidarity programs, projects, and mechanisms, such as Petro-Caribe, were also launched. Missions were launched that restored sight to millions of poor people on the continent; others eradicated illiteracy in entire population sectors. All of these are projects supported by Cuba with thousands of its teachers and doctors.
In 2006, Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro’s sickness forced him to disappear from public eye a few months before he turned eighty. The Cuban leader gave up all his positions, and called himself a “soldier of ideas”; ideas that he never stopped sharing with his people through his constant reflections, which he used to publish in the national press, commenting on events and issues related to the public agenda and the challenges facing humanity.
In 2008, his brother, army chief Raul Castro, was elected president. Amendments were made to the immigration law, debts were negotiated with the Paris Forum, increased openness to foreign investment was approved, and new forms of managing the economy were approved through cooperatives and non-governmental workers, all of which improved life in Cuba in general.
US-Cuban relations… Was the blockade on Cuba lifted?
On December 17, 2014, Cuban President Raul Castro and his American counterpart Barack Obama, announced the restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries, after diplomatic ties had been severed for more than 60 years.
In parallel, with this process of restoring relations, an agreement was negotiated that allowed the return of three of the five Cuban prisoners who were still being held in US prisons, falsely accused of spying on the United States. Gerardo Hernández is one of those men unjustly sentenced to two life sentences, who, like his comrades, was imprisoned for 16 years for the “crime of combating [the] terrorism” that the US has been practicing against Cuba, unabated, for decades.
The five freedom fighters were arrested in 1998, while their real mission was to obtain information about the plans of the counter-revolutionary organizations based in Florida, which carried out documented terrorist acts against Cuba. Nevertheless, the five were subjected to an unfair kangaroo trial in the city of Miami, characterized by absolute hostility to Cuba.
Anti-Cuban sectors in Florida launched an intense disinformation campaign to pressure public opinion and the jury, which defense attorneys had repeatedly denounced. After the kangaroo trial, the judge rejected any mitigating excuse by the defense and adopted all the aggravating circumstances demanded by the Public Prosecution. As a result, harsh and unjust sentences were taken against them. Maximum sentences were applied in every case, even if the main charges were not proven. Thus, the five youth were sent to maximum security prisons in different states.
This news was widely covered in the media in Miami, but went largely unreported in the rest of the US.
As part of the process of restoring diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States, embassies were opened in both countries in 2015. That year, President Obama traveled to Cuba, becoming the first American president to visit the island in nearly 90 years. In his speech at the “Grand Theater of Havana,” Obama acknowledged that the policy of isolation practiced by the United States towards Cuba had not succeeded.
During the four years of Donald Trump’s administration, there was a significant decline in relations between Cuba and the US. The hostile policy of this administration toward Cuba recorded unprecedented measures and actions, as it included banning cruise ship trips, suspending educational and academic trips between the two, and canceling all flights to all parts of the country, except flights to the capital, Havana, whose frequency was also reduced.
Also, Washington’s embassy in Havana decreased its activity and the number of its employees to the minimum, and forced Cubans to travel to other countries to accomplish any consular paperwork. As for remittances, they were restricted to $1,000 every three months, and were banned from being sent through third countries by way of Western Union, which caused great hardship for Cubans.
The United States also took action against ships and shipping companies headed to Cuba. In 2019, 53 boats and 27 fuel-shipping companies were sanctioned. Designating Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism marked the climax of the Donald Trump administration’s efforts to prevent any improvement in bilateral relations.
Experts have counted more than 240 measures against Cuba taken by the Republican Trump administration, most of which were measures to tighten the blockade with the aim of strangling the country economically, undermining internal order, and creating a state of non-governance to overthrow the revolution.
Although Trump was followed by Democratic President Joe Biden, this did not lead to any change to the legacy left to him by his predecessor with regard to Cuba. Although he promised during his presidential campaign to adopt a different path in relations with the socialist country, the Cuban popular proverb stands: “The room is still the same.”
Goodbye Castro… after more than 630 failed assassination attempts
After extensive debate across the country, Cuba voted “yes” to its new amended constitution, which supports the continuation of the revolution and socialism in Cuba. After more than 150 years of struggle against the Spanish colonial empire in pursuit of freedom, independence, and sovereignty, they still struggle today against the neighboring empire: the United States. As Cuba’s national history has proven time and time again, its mystery lies in the unity of its people.
In 2018, Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermúdez was elected president of the country at the age of 57. Raul Castro remained Secretary General of the Communist Party of Cuba until 2021, when Diaz-Canel was elected as the new Secretary General of the party.
According to experts, during his lifetime, Fidel Castro saw more than 630 assassination attempts organized by the CIA, in collusion with the darkest forces among the counter-revolutionary forces, without any success.
Fidel lived 90 years, and in his last farewell in 2016, the vast majority of Cubans mourned him as the dearest and closest to their hearts.
Shocked by his death, Cubans all over the country gave their leader a last farewell look, and the caravan that transported his remains from Havana to Santiago de Cuba brought back memories of the caravan of freedom when Fidel, with his bearded men, crossed the same path, but in the opposite direction after they had conquered dictatorship. As the people bid him farewell, his words, which he said in January of 1959, came with force: “When I need strength, I will come to the East.”
Revolution will not be absent from the new generation of Cubans
In more than six decades, the Cubans built a socialist revolution at the gates of the most powerful empire that ever existed. Faced with this enormous challenge, the people decided with the revolutionary leadership to work on the continuity of social justice represented by the revolution.
On July 11, 2021, riots took place in many Cuban cities, and in several provinces. Subsequent trials have established that the calls and support for these riots were found to emanate from United States soil.
30 years ago, the riots of August 5, 1994, took place. Ever since then, nothing like them has happened. It is evident that the revolution’s opposition did not have any idea about the new generation of leaders’ ability to confront them, nor the extent of the support of the vast majority of the people for the revolution.
Anti-imperialist sentiments in Cuba are so closely linked to the struggles for sovereignty and national independence that the theories of the soft coup and fourth-generation wars cannot find the success they have in other contexts.
Cuba produces Covid vaccine despite the blockade
Almost three years ago, in 2020, a deadly pandemic put all of humanity at stake. As a result, the world today is divided into superpowers that are able to produce their own vaccines and sell them at very high prices, and poorer countries, some of which could wait for a long time without ever receiving them.
During the pandemic, the Caribbean country maintained, through its health system, an effective and equal response. The decisive act that changed the disastrous course of the disease in terms of its rapid spread was the early decision to develop special Cuban vaccines to protect the lives of the Cuban people.
Cuba was the first country in Latin America to produce its own vaccines in record time. This happened in the midst of a really difficult economic situation resulting from more than 60 years of blockade. The blockade was brutally tightened, especially in the midst of the pandemic, which indicates its criminal nature, making us wonder how a besieged country with very few resources could be able to contain the spread of the virus and create a vaccine.
At a time when the United States broke another world record for the number of people infected with Covid 19, as it recorded more than a million cases, the Cuban health authorities announced that the island will produce in April one million doses of vaccine (Soberana 01) and (Soberana 02). The country also planned to produce 100 million doses to meet the needs of its citizens as well as citizens of other countries.
With regard to vaccines, there is a very important geopolitical element. The world today consists of two parts: those who produce the vaccine and those who do not. Fortunately, Cuba is among the countries that produced them. Hence there is a second division between those who can buy it, even if they do not produce it, and those who are waiting to buy it.
Herein lies the major problem, that is, demand is much greater than supply, and the world’s need for anti-Covid vaccines far exceeds the production capacity of major international companies, which today devote themselves to producing vaccines.
As a result, Cuba had 5 vaccine candidates, 3 of which succeeded in reaching the production phase only months after the start of the epidemic. Until March 2022, two years after the detection of the first case of SARS-Cov-2 virus in Cuba, the islanders had been vaccinated with more than 35 million doses of the three Cuban vaccines (Soberana-2), (Soberana Plus) and (Abdala).
Through a complete vaccination schedule, more than 9 million people have been vaccinated, which equals 89.3% of the Cuban population. Cuba was then crowned as the first country to vaccinate most of its children, starting at the age of two, using its own domestically-produced Covid vaccines.
The leaders of China and Iran agreed to boost bilateral cooperation in the service of their mutual interests.
In this photo released by the official website of the office of the Iranian Presidency, President Ebrahim Raisi, left, shakes hands with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in an official welcoming ceremony in Beijing, Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2023 (Iranian Presidency Office via AP)
The Sino-Iranian meeting sought to discuss the implementation of a comprehensive strategic partnership between Tehran and Beijing. The bilateral cooperation agreements covered, according to Tasnim, fields namely economy, information technology, crisis management, tourism, fields, environment, international trade, intellectual property, agriculture, exports, health and medical sector, media activities, as well as sports and cultural heritage.
Tasnim also reported that according to the head of the Iran-China chamber of commerce in Tehran, Iran will establish a commercial office in China to promote economic dealings with Chinese businessmen.
Sovereignty, integrity, cooperation
Jinping and Raisi, in a joint statement, held that they stand against foreign interference in the domestic affairs of sovereign states. In that regard, the two leaders vowed mutual efforts to protect the territorial integrity of both countries, China and Iran.
Raisi, according to China Central Television, said “Both Iran and China are strongly against the policy of unilateral actions, hegemony, and bullying as well as foreign interference in domestic affairs.”
In turn, Xi explained that Beijing will boost cooperation with Tehran in the service of mutual interests.
“China supports Iran in its effort to protect state sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity, and national dignity. It supports Iran in confronting the policy of unilateral actions and intimidation. China is also against the interference of foreign powers in Iran’s domestic affairs,” Xi stated.
Raisi, during his visit, also thanked China for its support throughout the Covid-19 pandemic as well as acknowledged Chinese efforts in the international arena, specifically, on matters pertaining to the Vienna talks.
Nasser Kan’ani, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman, last month justifiably declared that the Western hybrid war, which has been continuously waged against Iran in military, economic, political and psychological campaigns, has suffered a complete failure. Precisely because of this, the USA is now rapidly preparing the military aggression of the unnatural coalition of Israel and regional Arab countries against Iran, which, along with Russia and China, is undoubtedly the biggest American enemy. The task of this military conglomerate would be to deal deadly blows to Iran that would lead to its disintegration and the establishment of a puppet regime on the remains of the country. There is no doubt that the USA could participate in the planned aggression. The recently held, largest in history, joint US-Israeli military exercises “Juniper Oak 23.2” clearly hint at such a possibility, although it is not impossible that the US’s European allies could also participate in this massive operation. Military analysts from the West estimate that a military intervention against Iran, a kind of repetition of what we have already seen in Iraq, Libya, and Syria, could begin this summer, but this publicly stated assessment is probably just an attempt at deliberate deception. There is evidence that the attack on Iran could happen much earlier.
The drone attacks on the Iranian city of Isfahan for which Israel is certainly responsible, either directly or through the use of Kurdish terrorists as its proxy military forces, was undoubtedly a deliberate provocation meant to force Iran into hasty and disproportionate retaliation. Such a reaction, no matter how justified it may be in fact, would be used by the US and Israel to portray Iran as an aggressor in front of the “international community”. The reporting of some Israeli media such as “The Times of Israel” in which they announced, or rather, wished for “Iranian retaliatory” attacks on Israeli civilian targets, clearly testifies to sinister intentions of Israel. Тhere is clearly an Israeli plan to provoke Iran as soon as possible. What we might soon expect are Israeli false flag operations that would be blamed on Iran. It is more likely that the territories of the Arab vassals of the US and Israel would be attacked, rather than Israel itself. In this way, Israel would also ensure the igniting of anti-Iranian hysteria among its Arab allies and at the same time ensure the earliest possible start of aggression against Iran, which is obviously very important to Israel. Namely, Iran should officially join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in April, which will bring it great international support. Israel is therefore in a hurry to start aggression before this happens because it mistakenly believes that in that case, it could avoid the wrath of Moscow and Beijing. Another reason for Israel’s haste is that in a little more than a month, Iran should receive at least 24 Su-35 multi-role fighters from Russia, for which it already has well-trained Iranian pilots. Finally, the US and Israel know that time will work against them if they allow the intensive military cooperation between Iran and Russia to continue and deepen, and the big question is how much concrete intelligence they have about its details. Therefore, the aggression against Iran could begin immediately before or exactly on the Iranian New Year in Farsi known as Nowruz, which this year is celebrated on March 20. This is also the date that was mentioned in connection with the delivery of Russian jet fighters.
Israel has been talking for a long time about the necessity for the US to provide it with full support because of the alleged threat that Iran represents to the region, but it will rather be that the US stands behind this entire project, because none of America’s vassals has the ability to conduct foreign policy independently. Admittedly, Israel is probably the most independent of all American allies, but it is still obliged to coordinate all its major decisions with Washington. As for threats to the region, Israel is a state that was created and is maintained on the basis of a policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide and is the only regional power from the Middle East region that has undisguised imperialist ambitions and territorial claims towards its neighbors. The UN Human Rights Commission condemned Israel for violating almost all 149 articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention and this is the best illustration of Israel’s aggressive policy. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as an exponent of such a policy, rushed to visit Paris recently, where he asked France for support for the planned aggression against Iran. After Netanyahu’s visit, Radio France reported that Israel really wants to attack Iran as soon as possible and has already identified around 3,000 possible targets. Nevertheless, Israel is afraid of an independent showdown with Iran and is trying to provide itself with as much concrete military support as possible. As for the American Arab satellites, in the planned attack on Iran, Israel will probably be able to count on the support of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Yemen, Sudan and Morocco. Azerbaijan is certainly being pressured to join the coalition, but the leadership in Baku probably sees how dangerous it could be if Russia were to get directly involved in the conflict on Iran’s side, which is more than possible.
Prior to Netanyahu’s visit to the Champs Elysées, the UK Government at the beginning of this year аlready called for the immediate creation of a Grand Military Coalition against Iran. The official pretext under which this shameless campaign against Iran is conducted is, first of all, its nuclear program. However, in these accusations against Iran, it is deliberately forgotten that two Iranian Ayatollahs, Khomeini and Khamenei, have publicly spoken out against the development of a nuclear arsenal in Iran. In September 2014, Mohsen Rafighdoost, minister of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps during the eight-year defensive war against Iraq, in an interview he gave to Gareth Porter, a journalist specializing in US national security policy, testified that he personally asked Khomeini to start developing nuclear and chemical weapons on two occasions, but was refused both times. The reason for Khomeini’s refusal was his claim that Islam forbids weapons of mass destruction. Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, issued a fatwa in the mid-1990s against the acquisition and development of nuclear weapons, which was officially disclosed only in August 2005 in Vienna, at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Israel, on the other hand, possesses nuclear and certainly, chemical and biological weapons and unlike Iran, represents a real threat. As for nuclear weapons, Israel has Jericho II (YA-3) missiles with a range of 1,7700 km and Jericho III (YA-4) with a range of up to 11,500 km. Israel can also use its F-15 and F-16 fighters for tactical and strategic nuclear strikes. Even the US Congress Office of Technology Assessment estimated that Israel possessed undeclared offensive chemical and biological weapons. With such an arsenal, Israel could be considered a global threat, and Russia and China are certainly very aware of that.
Unlike Netanyahu and Israel’s political elite, Israeli military intelligence experts publicly state that they do not consider Iran a real threat to Israel. These weeks, mass protests against Netanyahu’s regime have been taking place across Israel, and the Israeli opposition has openly called his ultra-right government a far greater threat to Israel than Iran. Finally, we must also mention the assessment of Israel’s prestigious Institute for National Security Studies, according to which the greatest security threat to Israel is the deterioration of relations with the USA. Are internal political pressures, the struggle for power, and Netanyahu’s desire to please his American allies, in that case, the main reasons why the prime minister of Israel recklessly rushes into a very risky military conflict with Iran? Namely, the aggression against Iran could easily merge with the conflict in Ukraine and turn into a total world war. As the Chairman of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, Vyacheslav Volodin, recently reminded, the entire foreign policy of the USA and its vassals is based solely on lies. Just as the pretext for the US-British invasion of Iraq was false accusations, the planned aggression against Iran has nothing to do with Iran’s nonexistent weapons of mass destruction.
There are other accusations against Iran, but they are equally meaningless and just an excuse for planned aggression. Iran does not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries in the region and is not a breeding ground and financier of terrorism. Admittedly, Iran as a country very often and with full rights condemns the persecution of Shias in the region, but no more than it condemns the persecution of Palestinians, for example, who are overwhelmingly Sunnis. Similarly, Iran condemned Azerbaijan’s aggressive policy towards Armenia, despite the fact that both Iran and Azerbaijan are predominantly Shia states while Armenia is an Oriental Orthodox Christian country. Iran simply leads a responsible and principled foreign policy. The frequent accusations of Iran’s alleged “sectarian” fanaticism are equally meaningless to genuine connoisseurs of the situation in the region. The USA, Israel, the UK, and other European former colonial powers, are the ones who are trying to spread hatred and fratricide among Muslims by financing and arming extremists in the region. Another strategy is to buy favors from existing regimes or, if that fails, to bring puppet regimes to power. It is a skill that Americans have brought to the level of art and perfection, and no other world power is more experienced and successful in this business than them. One of the strategies of the US and the collective West is to divide as much as possible the different schools and branches of Islam that they maliciously call “sects”, in order to then easily rule all the Muslim nations and their natural resources. Contrary to the attempts of the Western conglomerate to spread discord and hatred among Muslims, Ayatollah Khamenei in his speech on October 24, 2021 was very clear about Iran’s views on the necessity of unity, stating that “Islamic Unity is definitely a Koranic obligation”. Iran more than sincerely wants harmony among Muslims, which is not surprising at all, because it is one of its most vital security interests, as it is also the vital interest of all other Muslim nations in the region.
Iran has the second-largest natural gas reserves and the fourth-largest oil reserves in the world. Of course, as we all know very well, it is precisely in this fact that the real causes of the aggressive intentions of the USA, Israel, the UK, the EU and their Arab vassals, in relation to Iran, are hidden. However, on the other hand, for Iran, its natural wealth facilitates inclusion in the Eurasian economic space and leads to the intensification of all other Eurasian integrations. On the one hand, the export of Iranian energy products to Eurasian space really benefits China and not Russia, but on the other hand, Moscow and Tehran are rapidly developing an ever closer military and security cooperation. The frequent visits of Russian officials to Tehran, for example, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, are a good indicator of that process. There are many geopolitical moments that have brought Iran and Russia closer together. First of all, these are the two nations on which the West has imposed the most sanctions in the history of mankind. Second, and more importantly, both countries are in a deep and long-term political conflict with the US and its vassals. Finally, the Western conglomerate has been waging an intense hybrid and proxy war against both nations for a long time. The Russian-Iranian strategic alliance exists and has been developing for a long time, but it was only Russia’s military conflict with the de facto Nazi regime from Kiev that forced Moscow to recognize its reliable strategic ally in Iran. Admittedly, Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi once said that the trade and economic relations between the two countries are not satisfactory, but obviously, there is a desire of both countries to improve them and that is starting to happen. As for China, Iran signed a somewhat secretive 25-year deal with its powerful Eurasian partner on March 27, 2021, but its concrete results are still not visible. It is true that China has a strong economic interest in cooperating with the Arab states of the Middle East region, some of which have very bad relations with Iran. However, Western analysts make a big mistake by focusing on the economic aspect of the cooperation of Eurasian nations. It is American hegemony and imperialism that forces Iran, Russia, China and other Eurasian powers to put economic interests on the back burner and give priority to issues related to the development of strategic security alliances.
Iran has formidable military potential that should not be underestimated. No matter how zealous the US and Israeli intelligence services are, Iran is a regional power that could give Israel and its allies extremely unexpected and very unpleasant and painful blows in places where they are least expected. Iran would not passively suffer the blows but would seek the opportunity to immediately transfer the conflict to the aggressor’s territory and this is something Iranian generals can surely achieve. Another very important moment is that Russia and China simply must not allow an Israeli-American coalition attack on Iran to happen in the first place because the risks are too great to ignore, and it is likely that after certain intelligence, the two superpowers will strongly, timely and jointly react to protect their vital interests in the region. Iran’s downfall is simply out of the question for Russia and China because it would imply a deep penetration of the US into the belly of Eurasia, which would result in a dramatic weakening and possible disintegration of the two superpowers. The question remains: what specific steps will the two Eurasian giants take to protect their common ally from aggression? The freedom-loving Iran, a multiple world champion in the fight against American hegemony, simply must not fall!
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 