Exactly two years ago this Saturday, on February 24, 2022, Vladimir Putin announced the launching – and described the objectives – of a Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine. That was the inevitable follow-up to what happened three days before, on February 21 – exactly 8 years after Maidan 2014 in Kiev – when Putin officially recognized the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.
During this – pregnant with meaning – short space of only three days, everyone expected that the Russian Armed Forces would intervene, militarily, to end the massive bombing and shelling that had been going on for three weeks across the frontline – which even forced the Kremlin to evacuate populations at risk to Russia. Russian intel had conclusive proof that the NATO-backed Kiev forces were ready to execute an ethnic cleansing of Russophone Donbass.
February 24, 2022 was the day that changed 21st century geopolitics forever, in several complex ways. Above all, it marked the beginning of a vicious, all-out confrontation, “military-technical” as the Russians call it, between the Empire of Chaos, Lies and Plunder, its easily pliable NATOstan vassals, and Russia – with Ukraine as the battleground.
There is hardly any question Putin had calculated, before and during these three fateful days, that his decisions would unleash the unbounded fury of the collective West – complete with a tsunami of sanctions.
Ay, there’s the rub; it’s all about Sovereignty. And a true sovereign power simply cannot live under permanent threats. It’s even feasible that Putin had wanted (italics mine) Russia to get sanctioned to death. After all, Russia is so naturally wealthy that without a serious challenge from abroad, the temptation is enormous to live off its rents while importing what it could easily produce.
Exceptionalists always gloated that Russia is “a gas station with nuclear weapons”. That’s ridiculous. Oil and gas, in Russia, account for roughly 15% of GDP, 30% of the government budget, and 45% of exports. Oil and gas add power to the Russian economy – not a drag. Putin shaking Russia’s complacency generated a gas station producing everything it needs, complete with unrivalled nuclear and hypersonic weapons. Beat that.
Ukraine has “never been less than a nation”
Xavier Moreau is a French politico-strategic analyst based in Russia for 24 years now. Graduated from the prestigious Saint-Cyr military academy and with a Sorbonne diploma, he hosts two shows on RT France.
His latest book, Ukraine: Pourquoi La Russie a Gagné (“Ukraine: Why Russia has Won”), just out, is an essential manual for European audiences on the realities of the war, not those childish fantasies concocted across the NATOstan sphere by instant “experts” with less than zero combined arms military experience.
Moreau makes it very clear what every impartial, realist analyst was aware of from the beginning: the devastating Russian military superiority, which would condition the endgame. The problem, still, is how this endgame – “demilitarization” and “denazification” of Ukraine, as established by Moscow – will be achieved.
What is already clear is that “demilitarization”, of Ukraine and NATO, is a howling success that no new wunderwaffen – like F-16s – will be able to change.
Moreau perfectly understands how Ukraine, nearly 10 years after Maidan, is not a nation; “and has never been less than a nation”. It’s a territory where populations that everything separates are jumbled up. Moreover, it has been a – “grotesque” – failed state ever since its independence. Moreau spends several highly entertaining pages going through the corruption grotesquerie in Ukraine, under a regime that “gets its ideological references simultaneously via admirers of Stepan Bandera and Lady Gaga.”
None of the above, of course, is reported by oligarch-controlled European mainstream media.
Watch out for Deng Xiao Putin
The book offers an extremely helpful analysis of those deranged Polish elites who bear “a heavy responsibility in the strategic catastrophe that awaits Washington and Brussels in Ukraine”. The Poles actually believed that Russia would crumble from the inside, complete with a color revolution against Putin. That barely qualifies as Brzezinski on crack.
Moreau shows how 2022 was the year when NATOstan, especially the Anglo-Saxons – historically racist Russophobes – were self-convinced thar Russia would fold because it is a “poor power”. Obviously, none of these luminaries understood how Putin strengthened the Russian economy very much like Deng Xiaoping on the Chinese economy. This “self-intoxication”, as Moreau qualifies it, did wonders for the Kremlin.
By now it’s clear even for the deaf, dumb, and blind that the destruction of the European economy has been a massive tactic, historic victory for the Hegemon – as much as the blitzkrieg against the Russian economy has been an abysmal failure.
All of the above brings us to the meeting of G20 Foreign Ministers this week in Rio. That was not exactly a breakthrough. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made it very clear that the collective West at the G20 tried by all means to “Ukrainize” the agenda – with less than zero success. They were outnumbered and counterpunched by BRICS and Global South members.
At his press conference, Lavrov could not be more stark on the prospects of the war of the collective West against Russia. These are the highlights:
Western countries categorically do not want serious dialogue on Ukraine.
There were no serious proposals from the United States to begin contacts with the Russian Federation on strategic stability; trust cannot be restored now while Russia is declared an enemy.
There were no contacts on the sidelines of the G20 with either Blinken or the British Foreign Secretary.
The Russian Federation will respond to new Western sanctions with practical actions that relate to the self-sufficient development of the Russian economy.
If Europe tries to restore ties with the Russian Federation, making it dependent on their whims, then such contacts are not needed.
In a nutshell – diplomatically: you are irrelevant, and we don’t care.
That was complementing Lavrov’s intervention during the summit, which defined once again a clear, auspicious path towards multipolarity. Here are the highlights:
The forming of a fair multipolar world order without a definite center and periphery has become much more intensive in the past few years. Asian, African and Latin American countries are becoming important parts of the global economy. Not infrequently, they are setting the tone and the dynamics.
Many Western economies, especially in Europe, are actually stagnating against this background. These statistics are from Western-supervised institutions – the IMF, the World Bank and the OECD.
These institutions are becoming relics from the past. Western domination is already affecting their ability to meet the requirements of the times. Meanwhile, it is perfectly obvious today that the current problems of humanity can only be resolved through a concerted effort and with due consideration for the interests of the Global South and, generally, all global economic realities.
Institutions like the IMF, the World Bank, the EBRD, and the EIB are prioritizing Kiev’s military and other needs. The West allocated over $250 billion to tide over its underling thus creating funding shortages in other parts of the world. Ukraine is taking up the bulk of the funds, relegating Africa and other regions of the Global South to rationing.
Countries that have discredited themselves by using unlawful acts ranging from unilateral sanctions and the seizure of sovereign assets and private property to blockades, embargoes, and discrimination against economic operators based on nationality to settle scores with their geopolitical opponents cannot be considered guarantors of financial stability.
Without a doubt, new institutions that focus on consensus and mutual benefit are needed to democratize the global economic governance system. Today, we are seeing positive dynamics for strengthening various alliances, including BRICS, the SCO, ASEAN, the African Union, LAS, CELAC, and the EAEU.
This year, Russia chairs BRICS, which saw several new members join it. We will do our best to reinforce the potential of this association and its ties with the G20.
Considering that 6 out of 15 UN Security Council members represent the Western bloc, we will support the expansion of this body solely through the accession of countries from Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Call it the real state of things, geopolitically, two years after the start of the SMO.
After decades of setbacks, the upcoming integration of Iraq and Iran’s railways promises to boost bilateral trade, religious and cultural tourism, and economic prosperity – with significant regional and global implications.
The groundbreaking cross-border railway project connecting Shalamcheh in Iran to Basra in Iraq relaunched on 2 September.
The news came a belated 46 years after it was first announced in 1978 – a year before Iran’s Islamic Revolution took the world by storm.
In the aftermath of the revolution, and because of the outbreak of the subsequent Iran–Iraq War (1980-88), the railway initiative remained on hold for several decades. Although the project would have reaped significant benefits for both countries – spurring successive governments to pursue its completion – it is Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi and Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani who managed to strike the deal.
At the railway’s inauguration ceremony, Sudani helped lay the project’s foundation stone alongside Iranian First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber, who said the completion of the project would significantly boost trade exchanges between the two countries by connecting their respective railway systems and aligning these with international transport routes.
Map of Shalamcheh-Basra Railway
Tourism and trade relations
Upon its completion in two years, the Shalamcheh-Basra Railway will span 32 kilometers, include three stations, and a bridge connecting Iran with Iraq across the Shatt al-Arab – all constructed with Iran’s support.
Maytham al-Safi, information director at Iraq’s Ministry of Transport, tells The Cradle that “the railway line will eventually link to the Iraqi cities of Najaf and Karbala” in order to facilitate the transportation of pilgrims visiting shrine cities to and from Iraq.
Iraq and Iran share a border that stretches approximately 1600 kilometers, as well as numerous religious, cultural, and tourism similarities. Each year, around 3 million Iranians make pilgrimages to the Shia holy shrines in Iraq, while 2 to 3 million Iraqis visit Iran, home to the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad and the influential Qom seminary.
In 2018,about 24 percent of all tourists visiting Iran came from Iraq, the largest of any country. Iran also boasts a significant health tourism industry – ranking 46th globally – and Iraqis constitute the second-largest group of health tourists to Iran after Afghanistan.
Despite these significant cultural ties, the volume of trade between the two countries has remained dismal. Even in the most optimistic scenario, Tehran and Baghdad have achieved only 50 percent of their targeted $20 billion in trade.
Several factors have contributed to this: a decline in electricity trade; reductions in gasoline and diesel exports; competition from Iran’s commercial rivals like China, India, the US, Turkiye, and the UAE; excessive commercial bureaucracy between the two states; and a lack of efficient and rapid transit capabilities to Iraq.
Iran-Iraq trade decline
According to the latest statistics, non-oil trade between Iraq and Iran reached $8.9 billion in 2021, but over the past two years, Iran’s exports to Iraq have declined in 20 different categories. Farzad Pilten, head of the West Asia office of the Iran Trade Development Organization, noted a 60 percent decrease in gas exports and an 80 percent decrease in gasoline exports to Iraq.
Iran’s performance has lagged behind other exporters, slipping to fourth place in exports to Iraq after the UAE, Turkiye, and China.
The decrease in exports between Iran and Iraq can be attributed to various factors, notably the insufficient transportation infrastructure connecting the two countries. Much of this trade relies on a very inefficient transportation of goods by road. As Javad Hedayati, director general of Iran’s International Transit and Transport, explains, Iranian trucks transport goods to the shared border, where they are laboriously unloaded and handed over to Iraqi trucks:
“In this mode of interaction, trucks carrying cargo due to congestion sometimes have to wait for more than four days at the borders to receive their turn and unload their cargo, while the cost of stopping them at the border is more than $200 per day.”
The completion of the Shalamcheh-Basra Railway project promises to significantly boost trade by reducing transit costs by up to 20 percent, and help Iraq offset its staggering trade imbalance. In 2018, Iran exported approximately $9 billion worth of goods to Iraq, while Iraq’s exports to Iran amounted to a mere $58 million.
Iran’s transit hub ambition
Iran’s strategic goal of becoming a key regional transit hub is closely tied to its ideal geographical location at the crossroads of Asia and Europe. Recognizing this geopolitical opportunity, the Raisi administration – which has heavily prioritized the “Looking to the East” and “Neighborhood” policies – has embarked on ambitious plans to harness this potential.
Iran already has a domestic railway network that spans 14,300 kilometers, with plans to add an additional 10,000 kilometers via 36 ongoing rail projects. Impressively, the country has established seven cross-border connections to neighboring railway networks and achieved self-sufficiency in engineering services, railway construction, and rail production – even exporting domestically-produced railroad cars and train engines.
Iran is currently strategically positioned along two international railway routes: the East-West and International North-South Transport Corridors (INSTC). The east-west route connects ASEAN countries and China to European markets, while the INSTC transit route links Russia to India via Iran.
The Shalamcheh-Basra rail project particularly complements the East-West railway connection. Via Iraq, Iran will be able to connect to the Syrian port of Latakia and its transit capacities, which might be vital to Europe.
The Iran-Iran railway also opens up the possibility of connecting with other Persian Gulf states like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. There are reports that Saudi Arabia is exploring the idea of linking railroads to Iran through Kuwait and Basra, which would create a direct rail connection between Iran and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.
Iraq’s role in global transport
Iraq, on the other hand, stands to benefit from improved access to markets in Central Asian countries, Afghanistan, and Azerbaijan via its rail link to Iran. A southern Iraqi railway which already transports more than 6 million tons of cargo, could boost the exchange of goods to over 20 million tons upon completion of the Iran-Iraq rail connection.
Furthermore, Shia pilgrims from Azerbaijan would have easier access to the holy city of Karbala via this railway, generating transit and tourism income for Iraq. Hafez Sadatnejad, manager of the Shalamcheh-Basra railway project, adds that the rail link with allow for the transportation of 4 million pilgrims to the pilgrimage cities of Mashhad, Qom, and Karbala in both countries.
By integrating this railway with Iran’s considerable capacities in the Khorramshahr and Imam Khomeini ports, cargo from different countries can be efficiently transported to the country’s southern waters. Iran’s extensive port infrastructure plays a crucial role in its foreign trade, with a target of achieving a cargo handling capacity of 500 million tons within the next five years.
For Iraq, the railway link with Iran is part of a broader and more ambitious project that extends from China to Europe. As economist Maitham al-Amili explains to The Cradle:
“Despite what is said that the goal of the project is to facilitate the transportation of travelers between Iraq and Iran, it is part of a larger project that will contribute to diversifying Iraq’s financial resources by making it a transit corridor for millions of tons of goods if completed.”
On 20 August, the Iraqi Ministry of Transport announced an agreement with Turkiye to link Iraqi railways to Turkish railways via a 133-kilometre line, with the aim of linking the grand port of Al-Faw to Europe, all within what is known as the “Development Road.”
Amili believes that Iraq has a role in the new global transportation project that “extends from China through Iraq to Syria, by land and sea through the port of Al-Faw.”
A hard American veto
Iraq’s geostrategic location as a bridge between West Asia and Europe favors its position as “a major complement to the global transportation map linking Asian countries to the European Union,” says economist Nabil al-Marsoumi:
“Rail transport is the safest means of transport, in addition to being inexpensive, and it always brings economic prosperity to the countries that rely on it, as in China and other countries…the multiplicity of ports to Iraq will enhance the opportunities to encourage its industries and increase its exports, not only oil, but also in the agricultural, petrochemical, and other sectors.”
Mazen al-Ashaiqer, also an economist, warns that “Iraq needs to diversify its transport lines with neighboring countries, especially for passengers, with the increasing tourist traffic to and from the country, with added economic importance if a rail or sea connection with China is achieved, making it a corridor towards Europe.”
These ambitions come with notable challenges and geopolitical complexities. Political analyst Mahmoud al-Hashemi says that “there are major American obstacles that Iraq’s plans for sea and land connectivity with Iran and China will face.”
“The US is well aware of the positive impact of these projects on Iraq, but it wants this country to be part of its conflict with China, Iran, and Russia.”
A senior government source reveals to The Cradle that “there has been an international conflict going on for more than ten years to control international transport lines, at the center of which are Iraq and Syria, and its main poles are China, Russia, Iran, and the United States.”
He says that a transportation project is being sought by some countries to link China with Iraq and Iran, all the way to the port of Latakia on the Mediterranean Sea, to shorten the sea transport route via the Red Sea or the Atlantic Ocean to Europe, “But we cannot say that the Basra-Shalamcheh railway line is part of this project.”
The same source attributes the mobilization of US forces along the Iraqi-Syrian border and the arming of local tribes to “Washington’s attempts to block the railway project from Basra to the port of Latakia via the Syrian cities of Albukamal and Deir ez-Zor.”
This is in addition to the express land line that will connect Iran to Syria via Al-Qaim border crossing, as it will constitute a new victory in the soft economic war ongoing between China and Russia on the one hand and the US on the other hand.
Shalamcheh-Basra Railway and the region
The influence of US propaganda on shaping public opinion in Iraq regarding economic and security cooperation with Iran is a notable concern. Speaking to The Cradle, Iraqi journalist Hassan al-Shammari points out that both “local and international media are subject to an American media machine to direct public opinion in accordance with its policies.”
According to Shammari, “any observer of the Iraqi media will notice that they welcome, or at least turn a blind eye to, any projects between Iraq and Saudi Arabia, Jordan or Turkiye, for example, while an organized media attack is launched against any similar project with Iran.” He adds:
“This is what accompanied the announcement of the railway connection project with Iran, while there is no criticism of the railway connection with Turkiye within the development road project, or of the railway connection with Saudi Arabia.”
Opponents of the railway connection with Iran often express concerns about its potential impact on the grand port of Al-Faw. Former Basra governor Wael Abdul Latif and former Minister of Transport Amer Abdul-Jabbar have warned that the railway may divert shipping traffic to Iranian ports, leading to increased prices and a reduction in port efficiency.
However, as Iraqi government spokesman Bassem al-Awadi confirmed in a recent press conference:
“The government laid the foundation stone for the project after an economic feasibility study, ensuring Iraq’s economic and political security, and not compromising the country’s sovereignty and economy.”
As the Shalamcheh-Basra Railway project advances, it serves as a poignant symbol of progress toward enhanced shared prosperity for, and a new level of connectivity between, Iraq and Iran.
This often-overlooked region within West Asia is poised to leave an indelible mark on global trade and transportation in the years ahead, contributing to broader regional integration and ushering in a new era of economic and logistical cooperation.The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
Forget the pipelines. The growing détente between Eastern Mediterranean neighbors Israel, Cyprus, and Greece is being leveraged mainly to counter Turkish influence and expand Washington’s presence in the region.
On 4 September, Israel, Greece, and Cyprus met at their ninth tripartite summit to endorse the wave of Arab normalization with Tel Aviv. The trio also committed to determining the process and logistics for exporting stolen Palestinian gas to Europe within the next six months.
For years, Israel, Greece, and Cyprus have diligently deepened their geostrategic partnership across multiple domains, with a primary focus on energy and security collaboration in the Mediterranean Sea region. The group, formalized as the troika in 2015, convenes annually to bolster their cooperation in all areas.
The tripartite bloc’s origins can be traced back to 2013 when their respective energy ministers convened in the Cypriot capital Nicosia to affirm their intention to collaborate on the construction of the EuroAsia Interconnector. The ambitious project would connect the electricity grids of Cyprus, Israel, and Greece via a high-voltage undersea DC transmission system boasting a capacity of 2,000 MW (currently under construction).
In addition, the trio has initiated another joint project – the Eastern Mediterranean pipeline, known as EastMed – which is designed to transport gas from Cyprus and Israel to Greece and onward to Europe. This controversial route has elicited strong reactions from various states at various times and even skepticism over its feasibility.
Map of the Eastern Mediterranean pipeline (EastMed)
Greece’s geostrategic significance
On 20 March, 2019, an American delegation participated in the trio’s Foreign Ministers Meeting held in Jerusalem, where they inaugurated the 3+1 Forum, a construct devised to include the United States with the three bloc countries.
Washington’s involvement expanded the cooperative framework to encompass not only energy issues, but also security, defense, and shared objectives. During this meeting, the three parties reaffirmed their joint commitment to “increase regional cooperation; to support energy independence and security; and to defend against external malign influences in the Eastern Mediterranean and the broader Middle East (West Asia).”
This cooperation is part of a larger US strategy to recruit Athens as a key ally in the region. As relations with Turkiye soured over the past decade, Washington has found in Greece another NATO ally it can rely on to achieve its ambitions.
For the Americans, Greece is crucial in addressing the competitive dynamics among global and regional powers in both Southeast Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean.
Leveraging existing Greek concerns about Turkiye’s naval activities and increasingly belligerent rhetoric, the US has strategically bolstered its military presence in the country – with the potential of becoming a de facto US military hub, as suggested by the Turkish president.
Tensions between Ankara and Washington have also sparked debate about reducing dependence on US military bases in Turkiye.
Increasingly, it appears that Greece represents the linchpin in Washington’s strategic blueprint for the Eastern Mediterranean, serving as a pivotal launching pad for US forces and facilitating their reach into West Asia, North Africa, and Europe.
For the Americans, Greece yields an advanced vantage point for exerting control over the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas, a particularly vital position in light of China and Russia’s expanding influence in the region.
EU’s gas export dilemma
Greece’s active engagement in regional alliances alongside US allies like Israel also offers an opportunity to forge a wider security framework. This approach allows Washington to distribute its geopolitical burdens equitably among allies while the US grapples with its core challenges of Beijing and Moscow.
As tensions escalate over offshore gas rights in the Eastern Mediterranean, these countries have sought to further strengthen their alliance. With the endorsement of the Trump administration, the tripartite group inked a 2020 memorandum of understanding which finally greenlit the EastMed project.
As envisioned by its stakeholders, the EastMed pipeline will stretch over approximately 1,900 kilometers and plunge to depths of up to 3 kilometers, ranking it the world’s longest and deepest subsea pipeline. Those ambitious specs, in turn, present substantial challenges during both the construction and maintenance phases.
With an estimated construction cost of $6.2 billion, the project also becomes economically questionable, particularly when compared to the $1.5 billion price tag for a pipeline from Israel to Turkiye.
In addition, the pipeline project has become a considerable source of regional friction. Turkiye, for instance, remains staunchly opposed to any exploration activities in the Eastern Mediterranean, and any gas transport project to Europe that does not include its participation. These considerations led the US to announce its withdrawal of support for the project early last year.
With Europe actively seeking alternative natural gas sources to reduce dependence on Russian energy – coupled with large gas discoveries in occupied Palestine, Cyprus, and Egypt – deciding on an export route for Eastern Mediterranean gas has become a pressing concern for the EU. In 2022 alone, approximately 270 billion cubic meters of natural gas were discovered in the waters of Palestine, Cyprus, and Egypt.
A conduit for normalization
The Eastern Mediterranean gas export route was, therefore, one of the hot topics discussed in September’s tripartite summit. According to reports, a decision will be made on the route of exporting Cypriot gas and Palestinian gas within the next three to six months. To date, there are three proposed routes for exporting Palestinian gas:
The first of course is the EastMed pipeline, an extensive – and expensive – project connecting the Eastern Mediterranean gas fields, including those in Palestinian waters, to Europe through a high-capacity subsea pipeline.
The second route under consideration is a direct pipeline to Cyprus. Nicosia introduced the proposal in June for a 300-kilometer Qusayr pipeline that would link Palestinian gas fields in the Eastern Mediterranean to a gas liquefaction facility in Cyprus. Following liquefaction, the gas would be transported via ships to European destinations.
The third proposed route is a pipeline to Turkiye. This option entails an underwater pipeline connecting Turkiye to the natural gas fields in occupied Palestine. From Turkiye, the gas would be further transported to southern European countries.
The summit’s final communiqué underscored the bloc’s determination to expand its cooperation beyond its current boundaries, reaching out to countries in West Asia and on to India. Through the Arab-Israeli normalization agreements, the three parties believe they can connect and collaborate more easily with other regional players and groups.
Chief among these is the Negev Forum, which encompasses Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco, the UAE, the US, and Israel. Clearly, Tel Aviv aims to leverage its agreements with Greece and Cyprus to encourage economic cooperation with Arab states.
“The strengthening and widening of the circle of peace between Israel and the Arab world, unthinkable only a few years ago, holds the promise for a more secure and prosperous region, and we are committed to encourage and support this process.”
During the recent summit, the participants also raised the possibility of inviting India to attend the next trilateral bloc meeting. The move is arguably US-driven and part of Washington’s strategy to attract India’s involvement in the region as an Asian rival to China. Although the two are both core members of BRICS and the exclusive Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the US is now employing all its allies in its geopolitical and economic competition with China.
A Greek tragedy
Despite Greece being the last EU member to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel, which it officially recognized in 1990, its eagerness to establish a US partnership to counterbalance Turkiye’s regional influence, has brought it closer to Israel.
This aligns well with Washington’s goal of relying less on a Turkiye under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s leadership. Interestingly, the primary beneficiary of this convergence of interests is Israel, as its relations with Greece and Cyprus continue to strengthen through collaborative projects like the Eastern Mediterranean gas export initiative.
Recent developments, such as the US-backed India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) to transport cargo to Europe via Greece (excluding Turkiye) and Israel’s ongoing refusal to agree to gas exports through Turkiye, are bound to elicit a strong reaction from Ankara.
Washington is well aware of the provocative nature of these projects for Turkish authorities, and by championing them, is potentially signaling a shift in its relations with Turkiye.
The budding alliance between Athens, Nicosia, and Tel Aviv, meant to enhance their collective security and energy needs, has thus far mainly served to extend Washington’s reach into this crucial crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. But as recent US policies have demonstrated, the Eastern Mediterranean, West Asia – even Europe – do not matter nearly as much as Washington’s fixation on China and Russia.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
Old habits, linger … linger well past the time when old rituals (an Israeli PM visit to the Oval Office) had agency and the world hung on the outcome. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Arwa Makki)
Director of Conflicts Forum; Former Senior British Diplomat; Author.
An image of the White House lecturing, and facing off versus Netanyahu’s policies, might look ‘tough’ … but will any of this elaborate ‘dance’ — whether Biden and Netanyahu meet or not — make a jot of difference?
The Financial Times adopts a dour tone: The final statement of the G20 on Ukraine was “a blow to Western countries that have tried to convince developing countries to condemn Moscow – and support Ukraine over the past year,” adding gloomily that this latest declaration was drained of even the previous inclusion of ‘Russian aggression against Ukraine.’ “Now,” the FT laments, “there is no such wording.”
This may seem a symbolic omission, but it links directly to Ukraine’s failure to make any progress with its offensive against Russian defensive lines. Here is where symbolism speaks louder than words: The omission says that the collective Western élites are out-of-sync with the rest of the world. Washington will have to ‘cope’ with the consequences of their ‘project failure’ — and manage it from an unaccustomed position of weakness, rather than through collective pressure on Moscow.
It should have been obvious, coming so soon after the BRICS expansion and the Africa Summit in Saint Petersburg, that collective global sentiment had turned sour on the prevalent ‘Rules-Based Order’, and has entered a quite radical mode.
Yet, much of the ruling strata still do not ‘get it’ – that change is coming.
The habits of the ‘old order,’ however, are slow to evolve. So, we return to an old-style dance, and to a music that evokes another era: Will the Israeli PM meet directly with Biden, either on the margins of the September UN General Assembly, or in the Oval Office of the White House? These pirouettes and swirls have been continuing for nine months now, infused with breathless anticipation.
There are, of course, real issues at the centre of this performance: The US would like Netanyahu to join the tech boycott of China, and generally to help diminish China. Secondly, Team Biden would like the Israeli government to recant its project of Judicial Reform; and thirdly, to ‘throw the Palestinians a bone or two’ as part of persuading Saudi Arabia to normalise with Israel in a tripartite – US-Saudi-Israeli — deal.
The putative ‘deal’ would be shaped around a US-Saudi defence pact — including US security guarantees, a multibillion-dollar arms deal, and a nuclear reactor — in exchange for Saudi recognition of “Israel,” a cooling-off of relations with China, and tangible Israeli measures to ameliorate the lives of the Palestinians.
With this curt listing of the Biden wish-list, what stands out immediately is that none the US big ‘asks’ are in Netanyahu’s interest:
Severing with China on tech? No way; “Israel” has billed itself as the ‘Tech Start-Up Nation’.
On September 12, “Israel’s” Supreme Court will consider petitions seeking the disqualification of July’s Knesset law removing ‘unreasonableness’ as the criteria by which the Court can elect to strike down laws passed (validly) in Parliament.
However, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana has already said that the Supreme Court should recognize the limits of its power; that it cannot strike down a Basic Law; and that the Knesset shall not be trampled upon. Plainly put, the Minster is saying that the government will not comply, were the Court to strike down July’s Knesset vote. And Netanyahu has endorsed Ohana’s statement. So, ‘no’ — endangering his coalition is not in Netanyahu’s interest.
The reality is that Netanyahu is ‘hostage’ to his coalition — and not vice versa. And the reality is also that in recent months, entire Palestinian communities between Ramallah and Jericho have been chased out (i.e. cleansed) by settler violence, paving the way for a total Israeli takeover of thousands of acres of land.
Gideon Levy has warned that ‘an unbelievable population transfer’ is underway in the West Bank.
Yes, a photo-op with Biden is thought likely to lend credibility to Netanyahu’s electoral prospects at home. For Biden, an image of the White House lecturing, and facing-off versus Netanyahu’s policies, might look ‘tough’ … but will any of this elaborate ‘dance’ — whether Biden and Netanyahu meet or not — make a jot of difference?
When set against the tide of geo-politics sweeping the globe towards a new political, trading and economic disposition, it becomes hard to see why such attention is given to this issue.
Even though both Presidents Xi and Putin were absent from the G20, their ‘presence’ dominated the meeting. Will then “Israel’s” cutting back of relations with China halt the tide moving in China’s direction? Will US ‘security guarantees’ for Saudi Arabia, even if approved by Congress, make a significant difference, given the Kingdom’s strategic transposition to join the BRICS and the SCO? Would giving $1 billion to Mahmoud Abbas change the boiling Palestinian cauldron?
The point here is that the rancorous face-off in “Israel” by two irreconcilable blocs of Israeli society is ‘what it is.’ A word here or there from Washington will not change the powerful and volatile dynamics already in motion.
Old habits, however, linger … linger well past the time when old rituals (an Israeli PM visit to the Oval Office) had agency and the world hung on the outcome. As the G18 just demonstrated, however, it is how the Ukraine drama unfolds that will make its impress upon global geo-politics. The Middle East ‘steamer’ is coming to high pressure across Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and Iraq. Is the West again out-of-synch with uncomfortable realities?
The opinions mentioned in this article do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Al mayadeen, but rather express the opinion of its writer exclusively.
Like dominos, African states are one by one falling outside the shackles of neocolonialism. Chad, Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and now Gabon are saying ‘non’ to France’s longtime domination of African financial, political, economic, and security affairs.
By adding two new African member-states to its roster, last week’s summit in Johannesburg heralding the expanded BRICS 11 showed once again that Eurasian integration is inextricably linked to the integration of Afro-Eurasia.
Belarus is now proposing to hold a joint summit between BRICS 11, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU). President Aleksandr Lukashenko’s vision for the convergence of these multilateral organizations may, in due time, lead to the Mother of All Multipolarity Summits.
But Afro-Eurasia is a much more complicated proposition. Africa still lags far behind its Eurasian cousins on the road toward breaking the shackles of neocolonialism.
The continent today faces horrendous odds in its fight against the deeply entrenched financial and political institutions of colonization, especially when it comes to smashing French monetary hegemony in the form of the Franc CFA – or the Communauté Financière Africaine (African Financial Community).
Still, one domino is falling after another – Chad, Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and now Gabon. This process has already turned Burkina Faso’s President Captain Ibrahim Traoré, into a new hero of the multipolar world – as a dazed and confused collective west can’t even begin to comprehend the blowback represented by its 8 coups in West and Central Africa in less than 3 years.
Bye bye Bongo
Military officers decided to take power in Gabon after hyper pro-France President Ali Bongo won a dodgy election that “lacked credibility.” Institutions were dissolved. Borders with Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, and the Republic of Congo were closed. All security deals with France were annulled. No one knows what will happen with the French military base.
All that was as popular as it comes: soldiers took to the streets of the capital Libreville in joyful singing, cheered on by onlookers.
Bongo and his father, who preceded him, have ruled Gabon since 1967. He was educated at a French private school and graduated from the Sorbonne. Gabon is a small nation of 2.4 million with a small army of 5,000 personnel that could fit into Donald Trump’s penthouse. Over 30 percent of the population lives on less than $1 a day, and in over 60 percent of regions have zero access to healthcare and drinking water.
The military qualified Bongo’s 14-year rule as leading to a “deterioration in social cohesion” that was plunging the country “into chaos.”
On cue, French mining company Eramet suspended its operations after the coup. That’s a near monopoly. Gabon is all about lavish mineral wealth – in gold, diamonds, manganese, uranium, niobium, iron ore, not to mention oil, natural gas, and hydropower. In OPEC-member Gabon, virtually the whole economy revolves around mining.
The case of Niger is even more complex. France exploits uranium and high-purity petrol as well as other types of mineral wealth. And the Americans are on site, operating three bases in Niger with up to 4,000 military personnel. The key strategic node in their ‘Empire of Bases’ is the drone facility in Agadez, known as Niger Air Base 201, the second-largest in Africa after Djibouti.
French and American interests clash, though, when it comes to the saga over the Trans-Sahara gas pipeline. After Washington broke the umbilical steel cord between Russia and Europe by bombing the Nord Streams, the EU, and especially Germany, badly needed an alternative.
Algerian gas supply can barely cover southern Europe. American gas is horribly expensive. The ideal solution for Europeans would be Nigerian gas crossing the Sahara and then the deep Mediterranean.
Nigeria, with 5,7 trillion cubic meters, has even more gas than Algeria and possibly Venezuela. By comparison, Norway has 2 trillion cubic meters. But Nigeria’s problem is how to pump its gas to distant customers – so Niger becomes an essential transit country.
When it comes to Niger’s role, energy is actually a much bigger game than the oft-touted uranium – which in fact is not that strategic either for France or the EU because Niger is only the 5th largest world supplier, way behind Kazakhstan and Canada. Still, the ultimate French nightmare is losing the juicy uranium deals plus a Mali remix: Russia, post-Prighozin, arriving in Niger in full force with a simultaneous expulsion of the French military.
Adding Gabon only makes things dicier. Rising Russian influence could lead to boosting supply lines to rebels in Cameroon and Nigeria, and privileged access to the Central African Republic, where Russian presence is already strong.
It’s no wonder that Francophile Paul Biya, in power for 41 years in Cameroon, has opted for a purge of his Armed Forces after the coup in Gabon. Cameroon may be the next domino to fall.
ECOWAS meets AFRICOM The Americans, as it stands, are playing Sphynx. There’s no evidence so far that Niger’s military wants the Agadez base shut down. The Pentagon has invested a fortune in their bases to spy on a great deal of the Sahel and, most of all, Libya. About the only thing Paris and Washington agree on is that, under the cover of ECOWAS (the Economic Community of West African States), the hardest possible sanctions should be slapped on one of the world’s poorest nations (where only 21% of the population has access to electricity) – and they should be much worse than those imposed on the Ivory Coast in 2010.
Then there’s the threat of war. Imagine the absurdity of ECOWAS invading a country that is already fighting two wars on terror on two separate fronts: Against Boko Haram in the southeast and against ISIS in the Tri-Border region.
ECOWAS, one of 8 African political and economic unions, is a proverbial mess. It packs 15 member nations – Francophone, Anglophone and one Lusophone – in Central and West Africa, and it is rife with internal division.
The French and the Americans first wanted ECOWAS to invade Niger as their “peacekeeping” puppet. But that didn’t work because of popular pressure against it. So, they switched to some form of diplomacy. Still, troops remain on stand-by, and a mysterious “D-Day” has been set for the invasion.
The role of the African Union (AU) is even murkier. Initially, they stood against the coup and suspended Niger’s membership. Then they turned around and condemned the possible western-backed invasion. Neighbors have closed their borders with Niger.
ECOWAS will implode without US, France, and NATO backing. Already it’s essentially a toothless chihuahua – especially after Russia and China have demonstrated via the BRICS summit their soft power across Africa.
Western policy in the Sahel maelstrom seems to consist of salvaging anything they can from a possible unmitigated debacle – even as the stoic people in Niger are impervious to whatever narrative the west is trying to concoct.
It’s important to keep in mind that Niger’s main party, the “National Movement for the Defense of the Homeland” represented by General Abdourahamane Tchiani, has been supported by the Pentagon – complete with military training – from the beginning.
The Pentagon is deeply implanted in Africa and connected to 53 nations. The main US concept since the early 2000s was always to militarize Africa and turn it into War on Terror fodder. As the Dick Cheney regime spun it in 2002: “Africa is a strategic priority in fighting terrorism.”
That’s the basis for the US military command AFRICOM and countless “cooperative partnerships” set up in bilateral agreements. For all practical purposes, AFRICOM has been occupying large swathes of Africa since 2007.
How sweet is my colonial franc
It is absolutely impossible for anyone across the Global South, Global Majority, or “Global Globe” (copyright Lukashenko) to understand Africa’s current turmoil without understanding the nuts and bolts of French neocolonialism.
The key, of course, is the CFA franc, the “colonial franc” introduced in 1945 in French Africa, which still survives even after the CFA – with a nifty terminological twist – began to stand for “African Financial Community”.
The whole world remembers that after the 2008 global financial crisis, Libya’s Leader Muammar Gaddafi called for the establishment of a pan-African currency pegged to gold.
At the time, Libya had about 150 tons of gold, kept at home, and not in London, Paris, or New York banks. With a little more gold, that pan-African currency would have its own independent financial center in Tripoli – and everything based on a sovereign gold reserve.
For scores of African nations, that was the definitive Plan B to bypass the western financial system.
The whole world also remembers what happened in 2011. The first airstrike on Libya came from a French Mirage fighter jet. France’s bombing campaign started even before the end of emergency talks in Paris between western leaders.
In March 2011, France became the first country in the world to recognize the rebel National Transitional Council as the legitimate government of Libya. In 2015, the notoriously hacked emails of former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton revealed what France was up to in Libya: “The desire to achieve a greater share in Libyan oil production,” to increase French influence in North Africa, and to block Gaddafi’s plans to create a pan-African currency that would replace the CFA franc printed in France.
It is no wonder the collective west is terrified of Russia in Africa – and not just because of the changing of the guard in Chad, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and now Gabon: Moscow has never sought to rob or enslave Africa.
Russia treats Africans as sovereign people, does not engage in Forever Wars, and does not drain Africa of resources while paying a pittance for them. Meanwhile, French intel and CIA “foreign policy” translate into corrupting African leaders to the core and snuffing out those that are incorruptible.
You have the right to no monetary policy
The CFA racket makes the Mafia look like street punks. It means essentially that the monetary policy of several sovereign African nations is controlled by the French Treasury in Paris.
The Central Bank of each African nation was initially required to keep at least 65 percent of their annual foreign exchange reserves in an “operation account” held at the French Treasury, plus another 20 percent to cover financial “liabilities.”
Even after some mild “reforms” were enacted since September 2005, these nations were still required to transfer 50 percent of their foreign exchange to Paris, plus 20 percent V.A.T.
And it gets worse. The CFA Central Banks impose a cap on credit to each member country. The French Treasury invests these African foreign reserves in its own name on the Paris bourse and pulls in massive profits on Africa’s dime.
The hard fact is that more than 80 percent of foreign reserves of African nations have been in “operation accounts” controlled by the French Treasury since 1961. In a nutshell, none of these states has sovereignty over their monetary policy.
But the theft doesn’t stop there: the French Treasury uses African reserves as if they were French capital, as collateral in pledging assets to French payments to the EU and the ECB.
Across the “FranceAfrique” spectrum, France still, today, controls the currency, foreign reserves, the comprador elites, and trade business.
The examples are rife: French conglomerate Bolloré’s control of port and marine transport throughout West Africa; Bouygues/Vinci dominate construction and public works, water, and electricity distribution; Total has huge stakes in oil and gas. And then there’s France Telecom and big banking – Societe Generale, Credit Lyonnais, BNP-Paribas, AXA (insurance), and so forth.
France de facto controls the overwhelming majority of infrastructure in Francophone Africa. It is a virtual monopoly.
“FranceAfrique” is all about hardcore neocolonialism. Policies are issued by the President of the Republic of France and his “African cell.” They have nothing to do with parliament, or any democratic process, since the times of Charles De Gaulle.
The “African cell” is a sort of General Command. They use the French military apparatus to install “friendly” comprador leaders and get rid of those that threaten the system. There’s no diplomacy involved. Currently, the cell reports exclusively to Le Petit Roi, Emmanuel Macron.
Caravans of drugs, diamonds, and gold
Paris completely supervised the assassination of Burkina Faso’s anti-colonial leader Thomas Sankara, in 1987. Sankara had risen to power via a popular coup in 1983, only to be overthrown and assassinated four years later.
As for the real “war on terror” in the African Sahel, it has nothing to do with the infantile fictions sold in the West. There are no Arab “terrorists” in the Sahel, as I saw when backpacking across West Africa a few months before 9/11. They are locals who converted to Salafism online, intent on setting up an Islamic State to better control smuggling routes across the Sahel.
Those fabled ancient salt caravans plying the Sahel from Mali to southern Europe and West Asia are now caravans of drugs, diamonds, and gold. This is what funded Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), for instance, then supported by Wahhabi lunatics in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.
After Libya was destroyed by NATO in early 2011, there was no more “protection,” so the western-backed Salafi-jihadis who fought against Gaddafi offered the Sahel smugglers the same protection as before – plus a lot of weapons.
Assorted Mali tribes continue the merry smuggling of anything they fancy. AQIM still extracts illegal taxation. ISIS in Libya is deep into human and narcotics trafficking. And Boko Haram wallows in the cocaine and heroin market.
There is a degree of African cooperation to fight these outfits. There was something called the G5 Sahel, focused on security and development. But after Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali, and Chad went the military route, only Mauritania remains. The new West Africa Junta Belt, of course, wants to destroy terror groups, but most of all, they want to fight FranceAfrique, and the fact that their national interests are always decided in Paris.
France has for decades made sure there’s very little intra-Africa trade. Landlocked nations badly need neighbors for transit. They mostly produce raw materials for export. There are virtually no decent storage facilities, feeble energy supply, and terrible intra-African transportation infrastructure: that’s what Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects are bent on addressing in Africa.
In March 2018, 44 heads of state came up with the African Continental Free Trade Area (ACFTA) – the largest in the world in terms of population (1.3 billion people) and geography. In January 2022, they established the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) – focused on payments for companies in Africa in local currencies.
So inevitably, they will be going for a common currency further on down the road. Guess what’s in their way: the Paris-imposed CFA.
A few cosmetic measures still guarantee direct control by the French Treasury on any possible new African currency set up, preference for French companies in bidding processes, monopolies, and the stationing of French troops. The coup in Niger represents a sort of “we’re not gonna take it anymore.”
All of the above illustrates what the indispensable economist Michael Hudson has been detailing in all his works: the power of the extractivist model. Hudson has shown how the bottom line is control of the world’s resources; that’s what defines a global power, and in the case of France, a global mid-ranking power.
France has shown how easy it is to control resources via control of monetary policy and setting up monopolies in these resource-rich nations to extract and export, using virtual slave labor with zero environmental or health regulations.
It’s also essential for exploitative neocolonialism to keep those resource-rich nations from using their own resources to grow their own economies. But now the African dominoes are finally saying, “The game is over.” Is true decolonization finally on the horizon?
So long as Russia and China remain the region’s dominant political and economic powers, the Central Asian heartland will remain a US and EU target for threats, bribes, and color revolutions.
Samarkand, Uzbekistan – The historical Heartland – or Central Eurasia – already is, and will continue to be, the prime battlefield in the New Great Game, fought between the United States and the China-Russia strategic partnership.
The original Great Game pitted the British and Russian empires in the late 19th century, and in fact, never got away: it just metastasized into the US-UK entente versus the USSR, and, subsequently, the US-EU versus Russia.
According to the Mackinder-designed geopolitical game conceptualized by imperial Britain back in 1904, The Heartland is the proverbial “pivot of History,” and its re-energized 21st century historical role is as relevant as in centuries ago: a key driver of emerging multipolarity.
So it’s no wonder all major powers are at work in the Heartland/Central Eurasia: China, Russia, US, EU, India, Iran, Turkiye, and to a lesser extent, Japan. Four out of five Central Asian “stans” are full members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO): Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. And some, like Kazakhstan, may soon become members of BRICS+.
The key direct geopolitical clash for influence across the Heartland pits the US against Russia and China on myriad political, economic, and financial fronts.
The imperial modus operandi privileges – what else – threats and ultimatums. Only four months ago, US emissaries from the State Department, Treasury, and Office of Foreign Affairs Control (OFAC) toured the Heartland bearing a whole package of “gifts,” as in blatant or thinly disguised threats. The key message: if you “help” or even trade with Russia in any way, you will be slapped with secondary sanctions.
Informal conversations with businesses in Uzbekistan’s Samarkand and Bukhara and contacts in Kazakhstan reveal a pattern: Everyone seems to be aware that the Americans will go no holds barred to hold the Heartland/Central Asia at gunpoint.
Kings of the Ancient Silk Roads
There’s hardly a more relevant place across the Heartland to observe the current power play than Samarkand, the fabled “Rome of the East.” Here we are in the heart of ancient Sogdiana – the historical trade crossroads between China, India, Parthia, and Persia, an immensely important node of East-West cultural trends, Zoroastrianism, and pre/post-Islamic vectors.
From the 4th century to the 8th century, it was the Sogdians who monopolized the caravan trade between East Asia, Central Asia, and West Asia, transporting silk, cotton, gold, silver, copper, weaponry, aromas, furs, carpets, clothes, ceramics, glass, porcelain, ornaments, semi-precious stones, mirrors. Wily Sogdian merchants used protection from nomadic dynasties to solidify trade between China and Byzantium.
The meritocratic Chinese elite, which reasons in terms of very long historical cycles, is very much aware of all of the above: that’s a key driver behind the New Silk Roads concept, officially known as BRI (Belt and Road Initiative), as announced nearly 10 years ago by President Xi Jinping in Astana, Kazakhstan. Beijing plans to reconnect with its Western neighbors as the necessary pathway towards increased pan-Eurasian trade and connectivity.
Beijing and Moscow have complementary focuses when it comes to relations with the Heartland – always under the principle of strategic cooperation. Both have been engaged in regional security and economic cooperation with Central Asia since 1998. Established in 2001, the SCO is an actual product of the Russia-China common strategy as well as a platform for non-stop dialogue with the Heartland.
How different Central Asian “stans” react to it is a multi-level issue. Tajikistan, for instance, economically fragile and heavily dependent on the Russian market as a provider of cheap labor, officially keeps an “open door” policy to every sort of cooperation, including with the west.
Kazakhstan and the US have established a Strategic Partnership Council (their last meeting was late last year). Uzbekistan and the US have a “strategic partnership dialogue,” set up in late 2021. American business presence is very much visible in Tashkent, via an imposing trade center, not to mention Coke and Pepsi in every Uzbek village corner shop.
The EU tries to keep up, especially in Kazakhstan, where over 30 percent of foreign trade ($39 billion) and investments ($12.5 billion) come from Europe. Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev – extremely popular for opening up the country five years ago – nabbed $9 billion in trade deals when he visited Germany three months ago.
Since the inception of the Chinese BRI a decade ago, the EU, by comparison, invested around $120 billion across the Heartland: not too shabby (40 percent of total foreign investment), but still below Chinese commitments.
What is Turkiye really up to?
The imperial focus in the Heartland is predictably Kazakhstan, because of its vast oil and gas resources. US-Kazakh trade represents 86 percent of all American trade with Central Asia, which was an unimpressive $3.8 billion last year. Compare that figure with only 7 percent of US trade with Uzbekistan.
It’s fair to argue that most of these four Central Asian “stans” in the SCO practice “multifaceted diplomacy,” trying not to attract unwanted imperial ire. Kazakhstan, for its part, goes for “balanced diplomacy”: that’s part of its Concept of Foreign Policy 2014-2020.
In a sense, Astana’s new motto expresses some continuity with the previous one, “multi-vector diplomacy,” established during the nearly three-decade rein of former President Nursultan Nazarbayev. Kazakhstan, under President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, is a member of the SCO, the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), and BRI, but at the same time, must be on 24/7 alert to imperial machinations. After all, it was Moscow and prompt intervention by the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) that saved Tokayev from a color revolution attempt in early 2022.
The Chinese, for their part, invest in a collective approach, solidified, for instance, in high-profile meetings such as the China-Central Asia 5+1 Summit, held only 3 months ago.
Then there’s the extremely curious case of the Organization of Turkic States (OTS), formerly Turkic Council, which unites Turkiye, Azerbaijan, and three Central Asian “stans,” Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan.
This OTS’ overarching aim is to “promote comprehensive cooperation among Turkic-speaking states.” Not much in practice is visible across the Heartland, apart from the odd billboard promoting Turkish products. A visit to the secretariat in Istanbul in the spring of 2022 did not exactly yield solid answers, apart from vague references to “projects on economy, culture, education, transport,” and, more significantly, customs.
Last November, in Samarkand, the OTS signed an agreement “on the establishment of a simplified customs corridor.” It’s too early to tell whether this would be able to foment a sort of mini-Turkiye Silk Road across the Heartland.
Still, it’s enlightening to keep an eye on what they may come up with next. Their charter privileges “developing common positions on foreign policy issues,” “coordinating actions to combat international terrorism, separatism, extremism, and cross-border crimes,” and creating “favorable conditions for trade and investment.”
Turkmenistan – the idiosyncratic Central Asian “stan” which vehemently insists on its absolute geopolitical neutrality – happens to be an OTS observer state. Also as eye-catching is a Center of Nomadic Civilizations based in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek.
Solving the Russian-Heartland riddle
Western sanctions against Russia have ended up profiting quite a few Heartland players. Because Central Asia’s economies are closely linked to Russia, exports skyrocketed – as much, by the way, as imports from Europe.
Quite a few EU companies resettled in the Heartland after leaving Russia – with the corresponding process of selected Central Asian tycoons buying Russian assets. In parallel, because of the Russian troop mobilization drive, arguably tens of thousands of relatively wealthy Russians moved to the Heartland, while an extra lot of Central Asian workers found new jobs, especially in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Last year, for instance, remittances to Uzbekistan shot up to a hefty $16.9 billion: 85 percent of this (about $14.5 billion) came from workers in Russia. According to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, economies across the Heartland will grow by a healthy 5.2 percent in 2023 and 5.4 percent in 2024.
That economic boost is plainly visible in Samarkand: The city is a giant construction – and restoration – site today. Impeccably new, wide boulevards are springing up everywhere, complete with lush green landscaping, flowers, fountains, and wide sidewalks, all sparkling clean. No vagrants, no homeless, no crackheads. Visitors from decaying western metropolises are absolutely stunned.
In Tashkent, the Uzbek government is building a vast, stunning Center of Islamic Civilization, heavily focused on pan-Eurasia business.
There’s no question the key geopolitical vector all across the Heartland is the relationship with Russia. Russian remains the lingua franca in every sphere of life.
Let’s start with Kazakhstan, which shares an enormous 7,500 km-long border with Russia (yet there are no border disputes). Back in the USSR, the five Central Asian “stans” were, in fact, denominated “Central Asia and Kazakhstan,” because a large part of Kazakhstan lies in the south of West Siberia, and close to Europe. Kazakhstan sees itself as quintessentially Eurasian – it is no wonder that since the Nazarbayev years, Astana privileges Eurasia integration.
Last year, at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, Tokayev told Russian President Vladimir Putin, in person, that Astana would not recognize the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. Kazakh diplomats keep stressing they can’t afford to have the country as a gateway to bypass Western sanctions – although, in the shadows, that’s what happens in many cases.
Kyrgyzstan, for its part, canceled the CSTO “Strong Brotherhood-2022” joint military exercises scheduled for October last year – it is worth mentioning that the problem in this case was not Russia, but a border issue with Tajikistan.
Putin has proposed to establish a Russia-Kazakhstan-Uzbekistan gas union. As it stands, nothing has happened, and may not happen.
All these must be considered as minor setbacks. Last year, Putin visited all five Central Asian “stans” for the first time in quite a while. Mirroring China, they held a 5+1 summit also for the first time. Russian diplomats and businessmen ply Heartland roads full-time. And let’s not forget that the presidents of all five Central Asian “stans” were themselves present in the Red Square parade in Moscow on Victory Day last May.
Russian diplomacy knows everything there is to know about the major imperial obsession to extract the Central Asian “stans” from Russian influence.
That goes way beyond the official US Central Asia Strategy 2019-2025 – and it has reached hysteria status after the US humiliation in Afghanistan and the impending NATO humiliation in Ukraine.
On the crucial energy front, very few remember today that the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline, then reduced to TAP (India pulled out), was a priority of the American (italics mine) New Silk Road, concocted at the State Department and sold by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2011.
Nothing practical happened with that pie in the sky. What the Americans did manage to do, recently, was to scotch the development of a competitor, the Iran-Pakistan (IP) pipeline, by forcing Islamabad to cancel it, in the wake of the whole lawfare scandal designed to eliminate former Premier Imran Khan from Pakistan’s political life.
Still, the TAPI-IP Pipelineistan saga is far from over. With Afghanistan free from US occupation, Russia’s Gazprom, as well as Chinese firms, are very much interested in participating in the construction of TAPI: The pipeline would be a strategic BRI node, linked to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in the crossroads between Central and South Asia.
The ‘alien’ collective west
As much as Russia is – and will continue to be – a known currency all across the Heartland, the Chinese model is unsurpassed as a sustainable development example capable of inspiring an array of indigenous Central Asian solutions.
In contrast, what does the Empire have to offer? In a nutshell: Divide and Rule, via its localized terror minions such as ISIS-Khorasan, instrumentalized to foment political destabilization in the weakest Central Asian nodes, from the Ferghana valley to the Afghan-Tajik border, for instance.
The multiple challenges facing the Heartland have been discussed in detail in meetings such as the
Valdai Club expert Rustam Khaydarov may have coined the most concise appraisal of West-Heartland relations:
“The collective West is alien to us both in terms of culture and worldview. There is not a single phenomenon or event, or element of modern culture, which could serve as the basis for a relationship and rapprochement between the US and European Union on the one hand and Central Asia on the other. Americans and Europeans have no idea about the culture and mentality or traditions of the peoples of Central Asia, so they could not and will not be able to interact with us. Central Asia does not view economic prosperity in conjunction with the liberal democracy of the West, which is essentially an alien concept to the countries of the region.”
Considering this scenario, and in the context of a New Great Game that is becoming increasingly incandescent by the day, it’s no wonder that some Heartland diplomatic circles are very much interested in a closer integration of Central Asia into BRICS+. That’s something bound to be discussed at the BRICS summit in South Africa next week.
The strategic formula reads like Russia + Central Asia + South Asia + Africa + Latin America – yet another instance of “Global Globe” (to quote Lukashenko) integration. It may all start with Kazakhstan becoming the first Heartland nation accepted as a member of BRICS+.
After that, all the world is a stage for the re-energized Return of the Heartland in transportation, logistics, energy, trade, manufacturing, investment, infotech, culture, and – last but not least, in the spirit of the Silk Roads, old and new – “people to people’s exchanges”.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
While the five original BRICS states have their geopolitical differences, they are finding enormous common ground on the geoeconomic front as trade volumes surge and trade routes multiply.
As the BRICS approach the most important summit in their history on August 22-24 in Johannesburg, South Africa, some fundamentals need to be observed.
The top three BRICS cooperation platforms are politics and security, finance and the economy, and culture. So the notion that a new BRICS gold-backed reserve currency will be announced at the South Africa summit is spurious.
What is in progress, as confirmed by BRICS sherpas, is the R5: a new common payment system. The sherpas are only in the preliminary stages of discussing a new reserve currency which could be gold or commodities-based. The discussions within the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), led by Sergey Glazyev, by comparison, are way more advanced.
The order of priorities is to get R5 rolling. All current BRICS currencies start with an “R”: renminbi (yuan), ruble, real, rupee, and rand. R5 will allow current members to increase mutual trade by bypassing the US dollar and reducing their US dollar reserves. This is only the first of many practical steps in the long and winding road of de-dollarization. An expanded role for the New Development Bank (NDB) – the BRICS bank – is still being discussed. The NDB may, for instance, grant loans denominated in BRICS gold – making it a global unit of account in trade and financial transactions. BRICS exporters will then have to sell their goods against BRICS gold, instead of US dollars, as much as importers from the collective west would have to be willing to pay in BRICS gold.
That’s a long way away, to put it mildly.
Frequent discussions with sherpas from Russia and also independent financial operators in the EU and the Persian Gulf always touch on the key problem: imbalances and weak nodes inside the BRICS, which will tend to serially proliferate with the imminent BRICS+ expansion.
Within BRICS, there’s a wealth of serious unsolved dossiers between China-India, while Brazil is squeezed between a list of imperial dictates and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s natural drive to fortify the Global South. Argentina has been all but forced by the usual suspects to “postpone” its admission request to join BRICS+. And then there’s the weak link by definition: South Africa. Squeezed between a rock and a hard place, the organizer of the most important summit in BRICS history opted for a humiliating compromise not exactly worthy of an independent Global South middle-ranked power.
South Africa decided not to receive Russian President Vladimir Putin and opted instead for the presence of Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov – as Pretoria first suggested to Moscow. The other BRICS members validated the decision.
The compromise means that Russia will be physically represented by Lavrov while Putin will participate in the whole process – and subsequent decisions – via videoconference.
Translation: Putin tested Pretoria and exposed it to the whole Global South as a fragile node of the “jungle” – actually the Global Majority – easily threatened by the western “garden” gang and not a real independent foreign policy practitioner.
St. Petersburg-Shanghai via the Arctic
This South African decision by itself raises serious questions about whether BRICS-led geopolitics is just an illusion.
Geoeconomically though, the group has entered a whole different ball game, illustrated by the multiple BRICS interconnections with the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Chinese trade with BRI nations increased 9.8 percent in the first half of 2023 – compared to the same period last year. That contrasts sharply with the 4.7 percent overall contraction of trade between China and the collective west: Down with the EU by 4.9 percent, and down with the US by 14.5 percent.
Chinese trade with Russia, meanwhile, alongside exports to South Africa and Singapore, raised exponentially by 78 percent. As an example, late last week, a Chinese cargo set sail from St. Petersburg loaded with fertilizers, chemicals, and paper products. It will cross the Arctic and arrive in Shanghai in early August.
Zhou Liqun, chairman of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Russia, went straight to the point – this is just the start of the “routine operation of the Arctic freight shipping route between China and Russia.” It’s all about “the security of logistical channels” inbuilt in the Russia-China strategic partnership.
The Arctic Silk Road, from now on, will be increasingly strategic. The Chinese can keep it open at least from July to October every year. And as a bonus, a warming Arctic allows better access to oil/gas resources. A trademark “win-win” – no wonder since 2017 the development of the Arctic Silk Road is part of BRI.
All of the above shows a sharp shift in the Chinese commercial drive towards the Global South. Trade with China’s BRI partners now amounts to 34.3 percent of China’s total global trade in terms of value – and that number is rising.
From the UAP railway to the Greater Bay Area
On the Russian front, all eyes are on the 7,200 km-long, multimodal International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) – which alarms the collective west as a de facto replacement of the Suez Canal. The INSTC cuts shipping costs by about 50 percent and saves up to 20 days of travel compared to the Suez route.
INSTC trade – via ship, rail, and roads linking Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, India, and Central Asia – should triple over the next seven years, as Russian Transport Minister Vitaly Saveliev noted at the recent St. Petersburg forum. Russia will invest over $3 billion in the INSTC up to 2030.
Increasing trade between Russia, Iran, and India via the INSTC connects to something that until recently would be regarded as a UFO: the Trans-Afghan Railway.
The Trans-Afghan will emerge as a follow-up to something very important that happened last week, when Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan signed a joint protocol to connect the Uzbek and Pakistani networks via Mazar-i-Sharif and Logar in Afghanistan.
Welcome to the UAP railway – which could be hailed not only as a BRI but also as a Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) project – where Tashkent and Islamabad are full members, and Kabul is an observer. Call it a much-needed trade corridor doubling up as a classic Chinese “people-to-people exchange” platform.
The Uzbeks estimate that the 760 km-long railway will reduce travel time by five days and costs by at least 40 percent. The project could be finished by 2027.
The subsequent 573 km-long Trans-Afghan Railway has already got its road map: it’s bound to connect the intersection of Central and South Asia to ports on the Arabian Sea.
All of the above expands Chinese trade in several directions. Which brings us to a fascinating symbiosis in progress between south China and West Asia – symbolized by the Greater Bay Area.
As Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman turbo-charges his immensely ambitious Vision 2030 modernization project, the Greater Bay Area is being hailed by Saudis as no less than “the future of Asia.”
Every investor from Jeddah to Hong Kong knows that Beijing is aiming to turn the Greater Bay Area into a prime global tech center, centered in Shenzhen, with Hong Kong playing the role of privileged global finance hub and Macau as the cultural hub.
The Greater Bay Area, not by accident, is a key BRI plank. As a whole, the nine cities in Guangdong, plus Hong Kong and Macau (more than 80 million people, 10 percent of Chinese GDP), will be configured as an astonishing first-class economic powerhouse by 2035, largely overtaking Tokyo Bay, the New York Metro Area, and the San Francisco Bay Area.
With Saudi Arabia aiming to become a full member of both BRI and SCO, Beijing and Riyadh will turbo-charge their tech cooperation on top of energy and infrastructure.
All eyes on South Africa next month are on how BRICS will work to solve its internal issues while organizing the expansion to BRICS+. Who will get to join the club? Saudi Arabia? UAE? Iran? Kazakhstan? Algeria? The top two BRICS countries, China and Russia keep investing in a geoeconomic roll that has dozens of countries lining up to join.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
Discussions at the recent SCO Summit in New Delhi now point to the inevitable: The merging of new multipolar organizations and their collective reorganization of global finance.
The 23rd summit of the heads of state of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), held virtually in New Delhi, represented History in the making: three BRICS (Russia, India, China), plus Pakistan and four Central Asian “stans” (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan), finally and formally, welcomed the Islamic Republic of Iran as a permanent member.
And next year will be Belarus’ turn, as confirmed by India’s First Deputy Foreign Minister Vinay Kvatra. Belarus and Mongolia took part in the 2023 summit as observers, and fiercely independent Turkmenistan, as a guest.
After years of US “maximum pressure,” Tehran may now finally get rid of the sanctions dementia and solidify its leading role in the ongoing process of Eurasia integration.
Arguably, the star of the show in New Delhi was Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who has led his country since 1994.
Old Man Luka, unbeatable in the headline-stealing department, especially after his mediator role in the Prighozin saga, may have coined the definitive slogan of multipolarity. Forget the western-termed “golden billion” which in fact barely reaches 100 million; embrace now the “Global Globe” – with a firm focus on the Global South.
As the clincher, Lukashenko proposed total integration of the SCO and BRICS – which in their upcoming summit in South Africa will be heading the BRICS+ way. And it goes without saying, this integration also applies to the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU).
The next step for the “Global Globe” – what the collective west dismissively qualifies as “the rest” – is to work on the complex coordination of several development banks and then the process to issue bonds linked to a new trading currency.
The main ideas and the basic template already exist. The new bonds will be a real safe heaven compared to the US dollar and US Treasuries, and will imply accelerated de-dollarization. Capital used to purchase those bonds should be used to finance trade and sustainable development, in what will be a certified, Chinese-style “win-win.”
A converging geoeconomic focus
The SCO declaration made it clear that the expanding multilateral body is “not directed against other states and international organizations.” On the contrary, it is “open to broad cooperation with them in accordance with the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, the SCO Charter and international law, based on consideration of mutual interests.”
The heart of the matter is of course the drive towards a fair multipolar world order – the polar opposite of the Hegemon-imposed “rules-based international order.” And the three key nodes are mutual security; trade in local currencies, and eventually, de-dollarization.
It’s quite enlightening to outline the converging focus, expressed by most leaders, during the New Delhi summit.
India’s Prime Minister Modi stated in his keynote address that the SCO will be as important as the UN. Translation: a toothless UN controlled by the Hegemon may end up being sidelined by a real “Global Globe” organization.
In parallel to Modi praising the key role of Iran in the development of the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC), Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi firmly supported SCO trade in national currencies to decisively break the US dollar’s hegemony.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, for his part, was adamant: China is all in favor to sideline the US dollar, stand firm against all forms of color revolutions, and fight against unilateral economic sanctions.
Russian President Vladimir Putin once again stressed how “external forces have put Russia’s security at threat by unleashing hybrid war against Russia and Russians in Ukraine.”
Pragmatically, Putin expects trade within the SCO, using national currencies, to grow – 80 percent of Russia’s trade is now in rubles and yuan – plus a renewed cooperation drive in banking, digitalization, high-tech, and agriculture.
Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov also stressed mutual settlements in national currencies, plus a crucial move: the setting up of a SCO development bank and development fund, quite similar to the BRICS’s New Development Bank (NDB).
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev of Kazakhstan, which will exercise the SCO presidency in 2024, also supported a common investment fund, plus the configuration of a network of partners of major strategic ports connected to China’s BRI as well as the Astana-based Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, linking Southeast Asia, China, Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Europe.
Of course all SCO members agreed that no Eurasia integration is possible without stabilizing Afghanistan – in fact linking Kabul geoeconomically with both BRI and the INSTC. But that’s another long, twisting story entirely.
Strategic connectivity rules
Now compare all that action in New Delhi with what happened in Tianjin a few days before, in late June: the World Economic Forum (WEF) event known as the “summer Davos”, held for the first time after the Covid-19 pandemic.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang’s critique of the new US/EU “de-risking” slogan may have been predictably sharp. What was way more intriguing was a BRI panel discussion titled “The Future of the Belt and Road Initiative.”
In a nutshell, that was some sort of “green” apotheosis. Liang Linchong, from the National Development and Reform Commission’s (NDRC) Department of Regional Opening-Up, which is essential to promote BRI, detailed several clean energy projects, for instance, in key BRI nodes Kazakhstan and Pakistan.
Africa was also prominently featured. Sekai Nzenza, Zimbabwe’s Minister of Industry and Commerce, is very much in favor of BRI projects increasing trade “and bringing the latest technology” within Africa and globally.
Beijing will revive the Belt and Road Forum later this year. There are huge expectations across the “Global Globe.”
Liang Linchong did go for a breakdown of what lies ahead: “Hard connectivity” (that means infrastructure building), “soft connectivity” (emphasis on skills, technologies and standards), and “connection of hearts,” which translates into the notorious Chinese concept of “people to people exchanges.”
So what the “Global Globe” should expect, according to Liang, is a surge of “small is beautiful” projects, very pragmatic. That ties up with the new focus by both Chinese banks and companies: Very large infrastructure projects around the world may be problematic for the time being, as China concentrates on the internal market and regimenting every front to fight the Hegemon’s multiple Hybrid Wars.
Here is a prime example. Two crucial China industrial nodes – the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area, and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei cluster – launched their first China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan (CKU) international multimodal freight trains on the same day of the SCO summit in New Delhi.
This is classic BRI: Top connectivity, using the containerized “railway-road” multimodal system. The INSTC will be using the same system for trade between Russia, the Caspian, Iran and then by sea to India.
On the CKU, cargo reaches Xinjiang by railway, then goes on the road via the Irkeshtam border, passes through Kyrgyzstan and arrives in Uzbekistan. The whole journey saves nearly five days in transit time. The next step is to build the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway: construction starts in late 2023.
BRI is making proverbial inroads in Africa. For instance, last month the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) handed over a prototype satellite co-developed with Egypt to Cairo’s Space City. Egypt is now the first African nation capable of satellite assembling, integration, and testing. Cairo hails it as a prime example of sustainable development.
That’s also the first time Beijing assembles and tests a satellite overseas. Once again, classic BRI: “Consultation, Cooperation and Shared Benefits,” as defined by CASC.
And don’t forget the new Egyptian capital: An ultra-modern satellite of Cairo built literally from scratch in the desert for $50 billion, financed by bonds and – what else – Chinese capital.
The long and winding de-dollarization road
All this frantic activity correlates with the key dossier to be treated by BRICS+: De-dollarization.
India’s External Affairs Minister Jaishankar has confirmed there will be no new BRICS currency – for now. The emphasis is on increasing trade in national currencies.
When it comes to BRICS heavyweight Russia, the emphasis for now is to drive commodity prices higher for the benefit of the Russian ruble.
Diplomatic sources confirm that the unspoken agreement among BRICS sherpas – who this week are preparing the guidelines for BRICS+ to be discussed at the South Africa summit next month – is to hasten the fiat dollar’s meltdown: The Financing of US trade and budget deficits would become impossible at current interest rates.
The question is how to hasten it imperceptibly.
Putin’s trademark strategy is to always let the collective west embark in all sorts of strategic mistakes without direct Russian intervention. So what happens next in the battlefield in Donbass – NATO’s larger than life humiliation – will be a crucial factor in the de-dollarization front. The Chinese, for their part, worry about a collapsed dollar rebound on China’s manufacturing base.
The road map ahead suggests a new trade settlement currency first designed at the EAEU, supervised by the Eurasia Economic Commission’s head of macroeconomics Sergey Glazyev. That would lead to a wider BRICS and SCO deployment. But first the EAEU needs to get China on board. That was one of the key issues recently discussed by Glazyev, in person, in Beijing.
So the Holy Grail is a new supranational trade currency for BRICS, SCO, and EAEU. And it’s essential that its reserve status does not allow overriding power to one nation, as it happens with the US dollar.
The only practical means of tying the new trade currency to a basket of multiple commodities – not to mention a basket of national interests – would be through gold.
Imagine all that being discussed in depth by that interminable queue for BRICS membership. As it stands, at least 31 nations have entered formal applications or expressed interest in joining an upgraded BRICS+.
The interconnections are fascinating. Apart from Iran and Pakistan, the only full SCO members that are not BRICS members are four Central Asian “stans,” which already happen to be EAEU members. Iran is bound to become a member of BRICS+. No less than nine nations among SCO’s observers or dialogue partners are among BRICS applicants.
Lukashenko called it: The merging of BRICS and SCO seems virtually inevitable.
For the top twin drivers of both organizations – the Russia-China strategic partnership – this merger will represent the ultimate multilateral institution, based on real free and fair trade, capable of dwarfing both the US and the EU and extending well beyond Eurasia to the “Global Globe.”
German industry/business circles already seem to have seen the writing on the wall, as well as some of their French counterparts, which notably include France’s President Emmanuel Macron. The trend is towards an EU schism – and even more Eurasian power.
A BRICS-SCO trade bloc will make western sanctions absolutely meaningless. It will affirm total independence from the US dollar, offer an array of financial alternatives to SWIFT, and encourage close military and intel cooperation against serial black ops by the Five Eyes, part of the ongoing Hybrid Wars.
In terms of peaceful development, West Asia has shown the way. The minute Saudi Arabia sided with China and Russia – and is now a candidate to both BRICS and SCO membership – there was a new game in town.
Golden Ruble 3.0?
As it stands, there’s huge potential for a gold-backed ruble. If and when it hits the road, that will be a revival of the gold-backing in the USSR between 1944 and 1961.
Glazyev has crucially observed that Russia’s trade surplus with SCO members has allowed Russian companies to pay off external debts and replace them with borrowing in rubles.
In parallel, Russia is increasingly using the yuan for international settlements. Further on down the road, key “Global Globe” players – China, Iran, Turkey, UAE – will be interested in payment in non-sanctioned gold instead of local currencies. That will pave the way for a BRICS-SCO trade settlement currency tied to gold.
After all, nothing beats gold when it comes to fighting collective western sanctions, pricing oil, gas, food, fertilizers, metals, minerals. Glazyev already laid down the law: Russia’s got to go for Golden Ruble 3.0.
The time is fast approaching for Russia to create the perfect storm to deliver a massive blow to the US dollar. This is what’s being discussed behind the scenes at the SCO, EAEU, and some BRICS sessions, and this is what’s driving the Atlanticist elites livid.
The “imperceptible” way for Russia to make it happen is to let markets drive up the prices of nearly all Russian commodity exports. Neutrals all across the “Global Globe” will interpret it as a natural “market response” to the collective west’s cognitive dissonant geopolitical imperatives. Soaring energy and commodity prices will end up provoking a steep decline in the purchasing power of the US dollar.
So it’s no wonder that several leaders at the SCO summit were in favor to what amounts, in practice, to an expanded BRICS-SCO Central Bank. When the new BRICS-SCO-EAEU currency is finally adopted – of course it’s a long way away, perhaps in the early 2030s – it will be traded for physical gold by participating banks from SCO, BRICS, and EAU member-nations.
All of the above should be interpreted as the sketch of a possible, realistic path to real multipolarity. It has nothing to do with the yuan as reserve currency, reproducing the existing rent-extracting racket to the profit of a minuscule plutocracy – complete with a massive military apparatus specialized in bullying the “Global Globe.”
A BRICS-SCO-EAEU union will be focused on building – and expanding – the physical, non-speculative economy based on infrastructure development, industrial capability, and tech sharing. Another world-system, now more than ever, is possible.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
After NATO was formed and after deploying part of its nuclear arsenal in Europe, the US became the guarantor of the security of its NATO allies, and the “US nuclear umbrella” was born.
In 1945, Pax Americana emerged as the dominant global power, with Washington aiming to assert its authority on the world stage.
To showcase its strength and deter potential challengers, the United States made a bold statement by choosing Hiroshima, Japan, as a symbolic demonstration of its military might.
The devastating atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6 marked the beginning of an era where defying American would come with severe consequences. It was a defining moment that illustrated the immense power and resolve of the United States in shaping the post-war world order.
It was the day when the first and, thus far, the only nuclear bomb was deployed, causing unimaginable devastation and resulting in the loss of nearly 70,000 innocent Japanese lives.
On August 9, 1945, Nagasaki, Japan, became the second target of a devastating nuclear attack. The United States, seeking to assert its power and send a clear message to the world, unleashed another destructive force, resulting in widespread destruction and the loss of approximately 40,000 lives.
The massive mushroom cloud that enveloped Nagasaki served as a chilling symbol of the destructive capabilities of nuclear weapons and the immense human suffering they cause.
On May 19, 2023, 78 years later, Japan hosted a meeting for the G7 leaders and chose Hiroshima as the summit location. US President Joe Biden arrived at the meeting destination, becoming the first American to land his feet on the radiated city.
During the G7 summit in Hiroshima, the Japanese Prime Minister aimed to initiate discussions on nuclear arms and encourage leaders to commit to a framework regarding the use of nuclear weapons. However, the final statement issued by the group primarily focused on condemning China’s nuclear weapons, which was no surprise to observers.
The Western world applauded the resolute declaration, perceiving it as a deterrence against Beijing’s nuclear “threat to humanity,” despite the fact that China has not been involved in any military conflicts beyond its own borders, while the countries endorsing the statement have themselves waged numerous wars in the past decades.
From left, President of the European Council Charles Michel, Italy’s Premier Giorgia Meloni, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, France’s President Emmanuel Macron, Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, U.S. President Joe Biden, Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen visit the Itsukushima Shrine on Miyajima Island in Hatsukaichi, Hiroshima prefecture, western Japan, Friday, May 19, 2023 (Kenny Holston/Pool Photo via AP)
It indeed appears as a tragicomedy or a surreal theatrical production. The image of the American nuclear bomber alongside the Japanese victims, accompanied by former colonizers and the colonized, serves as a warning to the world about the perceived “global threats” posed by China and Russia’s military capabilities. The irony and contradictions within this scenario are hard to overlook.
The observation of this theatrical display paves the way to the realization that the statements made by the leaders hold some truth, despite the ironic and contradictory nature of the situation. While it may be unsettling, there are elements of reality within their assertions.
In the intricate web of global affairs, a world dominated by Washington and its proxy nations finds itself facing a profound threat.
The very foundations of this order, woven through institutions tainted by notions of genocide, such as the IMF and the World Bank, and bolstered by the military might of NATO and its war coalition, stand on shaky ground.
Emerging on the horizon are the pillars of multipolarity, heralding an alternative world order.
The collective uprising of the Global South and the rise of BRICS, the SCO, and the Eurasian Economic Forum (among others), as well as Beijing’s dissemination of a new economic and political paradigm, present a formidable challenge to the established norms.
The tides of change are shifting, and the winds of multipolarity are blowing, ushering in a new era where power is shared and a different vision of global governance takes shape.
Pax Americana: Sole owner of war and peace
Since the advent of the nuclear era in 1945, the nature of the conflict between the United States and its perceived adversaries has undergone significant transformations.
In the realm of Pax Americana, a grand tapestry of power, profits, and resources was woven through a blood-soaked ideology and unabashed hubris.
This hegemonic force, fueled by military might, gave birth to a multidimensional industry that reaped fortunes for the colossal corporations of the era. Within the fabric of this empire, social structures were shaped and molded, with the United States and its satellites standing as both beneficiaries and captives of this all-encompassing enterprise.
The prosperous post-World War II economy in the United States, fueled in part by the government’s sales of arms to the fighting parties, spurred the emergence of a new way of life in the country. This economic success became a driving force behind the nation’s quest for hegemonic expansion, aiming to secure vital resources and trade routes essential for any superpower seeking unipolar dominance.
Indeed, the belief during that time was that a wealthier society could attain military superiority over adversaries with lesser industrial wealth. This assumption, however, underwent a significant shift with the introduction of atomic weapons into the equation of warfare.
The destructive power and indiscriminate nature of nuclear weapons rendered the traditional metrics of military superiority based on economic wealth and industrial capabilities less relevant. The presence of atomic weapons introduced a new level of danger and mutually assured destruction, altering the dynamics of military strategy and emphasizing the importance of nuclear deterrence.
Globalization within this context was promoted by the United States – just like the notion of democracy – for decades as the highest form of the growing interconnections of world nations.
Of course, globalization is indeed a natural outcome of the progress and scientific breakthroughs that took place, with regard to communications, transportation means, and the advancement of industrialization systems.
However, while the United States pushed for adopting the concept on a global scale under the pretext of connecting countries economically and culturally, it aimed to establish market and trade integration only as a means to further extend its hegemony and economic control. (Take as an example Washington’sn real intentions from inviting China to join the WTO for long years.)
Indeed, following World War II, there were policymakers in Washington who advocated for the growth of the US nuclear arsenal. Figures like Henry Kissinger and Walt Rostow believed that a robust nuclear arsenal would be essential in maintaining American dominance and furthering its expansion in a world still reeling from the war’s aftermath.
The proponents of this approach argued that possessing large and advanced nuclear weapons would serve as a deterrent factor against potential adversaries and solidify American superiority. They believed that the possession of such weapons would not only ensure national security but also provide leverage in shaping global affairs according to US interests.
This perspective was rooted in the belief that nuclear weapons represented a significant shift in the balance of power, offering a unique form of military might that could secure dominance in international relations. As a result, the United States pursued the development and deployment of nuclear weapons as a key component of its defense strategy during this period.
A Polaris missile was fired from the nuclear submarine, USS George Washington, at Cape Canaveral, Fla. on July 20, 1960, in the first test firing of a missile from underwater (AP)
As such, the United States’ nuclear doctrine was born: it is not only about deterring potential rivals but also a means to establish and enforce total hegemony over global countries, economies, and markets. This transformation positioned the US as the sole decider of war and peace.
The nuclear race that ensued can be attributed mostly to the example set by the United States. As the first country to develop and use atomic weapons, the US demonstrated the immense destructive power and geopolitical leverage that these weapons could provide. Pax Americana here prompted other nations to acquire their own nuclear arsenals as a means of deterrence and self-defense.
The pursuit of nuclear weapons or hosting them from allied countries has then become a means for certain anti-hegemonic states to protect their sovereignty and territorial integrity against perceived threats from US-led Western campaigns.
The history of military interventions and regime changes carried out by Western powers, often in pursuit of strategic interests or access to resources, has created a sense of vulnerability and the need for self-defense among these states.
The development and proliferation of nuclear weapons created a new paradigm in warfare, where the destructive power of these weapons exceeded the capacity of any state to withstand their impact. This realization led to a mutually assured destruction (MAD) scenario, in which engaging in a full-scale nuclear war would result in catastrophic consequences for all parties involved, including Americans themselves.
Nuclear ‘madman’
The post-World War II era witnessed the emergence of a new paradigm in which the manufacturing of public anxiety and the creation of existential enemies played a significant role in shaping nuclear power dynamics. This approach was fueled by the desire to justify and perpetuate a massive war machine, primarily controlled by a few powerful military-industrial complexes.
By crafting and amplifying fear, political leaders and those with vested interests in the military-industrial complex sought to maintain public support for substantial defense expenditures and the expansion of military capabilities. Portraying external threats as existential enemies helped in justifying the continued development and deployment of advanced weaponry, including nuclear weapons.
During the Cold War, the United States government engaged in extensive psychological operations (psyops) aimed at influencing public opinion and shaping perceptions, both domestically and internationally. These psyops were part of a broader strategy to counter the influence of the Soviet Union and its allies.
A famous example of such psyops was the Committee on Present Danger. The committee, formed in the 1950s and comprising prominent figures from the government, military, and academia, was tasked with spreading terror among the masses of communism and Soviet expansionism.
The propaganda group employed various strategies, including media campaigns and public speeches, to generate fear and rally support for US policies and military spending.
By creating a horrified public, in which the government appears as the sole protector, the state was in full control.
But add nuclear weapons to the equation, the matters become more serious.
Throughout history, there have been instances where American decision-makers and policy planners employed psychological tactics to enhance nuclear intimidation.
One notable example is the concept of “nuclear brinkmanship”, which involves deliberately escalating tensions and pushing the limits of nuclear confrontation to gain leverage in negotiations or intimidate opponents. This approach was famously employed during the Cold War, particularly by presidents John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon.
In October 1969, during the Vietnam War, Washington devised a secret plan, dubbed Operation Duck Hook, during which the US would appear to threaten Hanoi with an imminent nuclear attack.
The cover page to the Navy’s Duck Hook plan for mining Haiphong Harbor, developed in July 1969 at the request of President Nixon and national security adviser Kissinger (US National Security Archive, The George Washington University)
According to Harry Robbins “Bob” Haldeman, White House Chief of Staff in Nixon’s administration, the basis of the tactic was to make the US leader appear “psychologically unstable,” unpredictable, and with no limits to the measures he would take.
Haldeman revealed, quoting Nixon as telling him, “They’ll believe any threat of force that Nixon makes because it’s Nixon. I call it the Madman Theory, Bob. I want the North Vietnamese to believe I’ve reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war.”
And while this was not the first time, nor the last time, that a country resorted to the “madman” approach to deter its opponents, the line separating genuine threats from bluffs remained very thin.
In 1959, the Strategic Air Command (SAC) introduced a war plan titled Atomic Weapons Requirements Study. The document was later updated in 1961 following the Berlin Crisis.
However, one significant aspect was that one of the potential targets was China, although it would not test its first nuclear weapon until 1964 nor it was in direct conflict with the US. According to the plan, 49 to 78 Chinese cities would be hit with US atomic bombs, with prospected fatalities of around 67 million and 107 million.
But plans and proposals to launch a “preventive” or “preemptive” nuclear strike against the USSR were rapidly toned down when the Soviets developed a serious retaliatory capability, including the most powerful atomic bomb produced and tested: “Tsar Bomba”.
Russia’s nuclear parity with the US made Nixon believe that the nuclear umbrella was no longer sustainable.
The concept of “massive retaliation” adopted by the United States to justify its nuclear buildup became afterward an outdated strategy and was replaced by the concept of “mutually assured destruction” (MAD); a necessary doctrine to protect countries from America’s war machines.
The intensification of hostilities between Russia and the United States set the stage for a high-stakes, zero-sum game in any potential armed conflict, compelling the United States to reevaluate its approach and adopt a more cautious stance. This pivotal shift in strategy ultimately laid the foundation for the Cold War.
Two-way annihilation
Following the fall of the Soviet Union, its nuclear infrastructure was dissolved, while its nuclear warheads were removed from the country and deployed in Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine.
One of the American nuclear scientists that participated in joint Soviet-US efforts to end Moscow’s nuclear power was Professor Siegfried Hecker, who then served as a director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
According to Hecker, when the USSR collapsed, the nature of the nuclear threat to the US changed: it was not one of mutual annihilation anymore.
The United States later made Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine sign the Lisbon Protocol to the START agreement, committing the newly independent states to transfer the former Soviet nuclear arsenals to Russia and to join the NPT as nonnuclear-weapons states.
Meanwhile, the US funded the denuclearization process in the three countries bordering Russia with billions of dollars and ended the nuclear programs, destroying over 6,800 nuclear warheads along the way.
But the American PR campaign to turn the world into a “safer place” was later exposed.
In the subsequent years, disregarding numerous warnings from influential global figures and Moscow, the US-led NATO persisted in its expansion toward the Russian borders, violating a previous agreement between the former Soviet Union and Washington that stipulated no further countries would join the military coalition.
Last March, just over a year following the start of the war in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Moscow will be deploying some of its tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.
Putin then explained that the measure will be similar to the United States’ deployment of some of its nuclear arsenal in Europe (and Asia), further noting that Russia’s action does not violate the nuclear nonproliferation agreements NPT.
The Russian leader thus revived the “mutually assured destruction” policy and placed it back on the table for the world to see.
His announcement triggered a fervent response in Western countries, issuing warnings about the potential escalation. Nonetheless, the strategic move has thus far achieved its intended objectives.
Since then, the inclusion of the possibility of a Russian tactical nuclear attack in the plans of European leaders and American officials when engaging with Moscow has become a prevalent factor.
Putin stressed that the deployment of atomic in Belarus is of a deterrent nature for those oblivious in the West who assume they can inflict on Russia a strategic defeat.
While NATO’s agenda remained centered around its eastern expansion, the changing circumstances led to a moderation of fervent rhetoric in the West after a year of advocating to “end Russia”.
From Europe’s perspective, the haunting memories of both world wars have made them acutely aware that the continent would inevitably become the epicenter of any conflict between Russia and the West. And even if it declared a neutral stance, Europe understands that it would likely become the battleground in any confrontation between Moscow and the United States.
Washington, in light of Russia’s advancements in nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles and long-range naval vessels capable of launching nuclear warheads, has become increasingly cautious when considering any direct escalation with Moscow. The realization that these technologies pose a significant challenge to interception systems has compelled Washington to exercise greater restraint in its approach toward Russia.
In this image taken from a video released by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on May 28, 2022, a new Zircon hypersonic cruise missile is launched by the frigate named “Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Gorshkov” of the Russian Navy from the Barents Sea (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)
“Nuclear weapons have been made to ensure our security in the broadest sense of the word and the existence of the Russian state, but we…have no such need [to use them],” Putin said.
“Just talking about this (the potential use of nuclear weapons) lowers the nuclear threshold. We have more than NATO countries and they want to reduce our numbers. Screw them,” he added said.
As did DPRK’s leader Kim Jong Un, the Russian President also was promising imperialist powers “mutual annihilation”.
The nuclear umbrella of illusion
The US, through its proxy war in Ukraine, sought to amplify the bloc mentality on a larger scale, utilizing its influence and resources to hinder a potential Eurasian uprising and redirect Europe’s foreign policy toward disengaging from China and Russia. This strategic maneuver aimed to consolidate American power and disrupt the growing connections between countries in Eurasia.
As part of Washington’s neo-bloc strategy, political integration is closely intertwined with hyper-militarization.
This approach not only entails the presence of direct, yet limited US forces but also compels allies to substantially increase their defense spending to unprecedented levels. The objective is to create a framework where political and military cooperation aligns, solidifying American influence and promoting a sense of collective security among allies.
Following the establishment of NATO and the deployment of a portion of its nuclear arsenal in Europe, the United States assumed the role of security guarantor for its transatlantic allies, giving rise to what is commonly referred to as the “US nuclear umbrella.”
The deployment of American nuclear weapons in Europe during the 1950s served multiple purposes, one of which was maintaining control over allied nations.
While the primary goal was to counter the perceived Soviet threat during the Cold War, the presence of nuclear arms also played a role in exerting influence and control over its transatlantic allies.
The concept of the US nuclear umbrella created a perception of safety and protection for its allies. By positioning itself as the guarantor of their security, Washington fostered a sense of dependence and reliance on its nuclear capabilities.
This allowed the United States to justify its own retention and modernization of nuclear weapons, citing the need to maintain a credible deterrent to protect its allies. In doing so, it effectively used the nuclear umbrella as a justification to evade or delay its disarmament commitments, arguing that the security of its allies depended on its nuclear arsenal.
This approach allowed Washington to maintain a significant nuclear presence and influence on the global stage, while also preserving its strategic interests and exerting control over the disarmament agenda.
The US-led NATO’s increasing control over Europe’s security, particularly in the aftermath of the Ukraine conflict, has resulted in an unprecedented level of influence and dominance. Through years of fearmongering and portraying Moscow as a threat, NATO has successfully consolidated its grip on the region.
The concept of “extended deterrence” has played a crucial role in this process, as the deployment of US nuclear weapons in allied countries acts as a symbolic and tangible demonstration of American power and commitment to their defense.
By positioning itself as the ultimate authority, Washington effectively solidifies its influence to the extent that its directives are regarded as virtually constitutional. This further reinforces the hegemonic control of the United States and its ability to shape the security policies and decision-making of its allies.
This blind faith in the postulations of Deterrence Theory has established what anti-nuclear advocate and international security expert, Professor Nick Ritchie, called the “regime of nuclear truth” and denominated “nuclear absolutism”.
In January 2023, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol raised the possibility of developing independent nuclear weapons as a response to the DPRK’s growing power. However, this proposal was met with disapproval from the White House, which expressed its opposition and implied potential consequences if South Korea were to pursue such a policy.
Despite publicly acknowledging the nuclear threat posed by DPRK to South Korea, the United States maintained its opposition to Seoul’s proposal of developing its own nuclear weapons.
Paradoxically, in April, the United States agreed to deploy nuclear-armed submarines to South Korea for the first time in decades and involve Seoul in its nuclear planning operations. This contradictory stance by Washington raised questions about its true intentions and strategic objectives in the region.
Mainly, this means that South Korea is officially under US “extended deterrence” program, and therefore, the Americans are forced as per the agreement to come to its aid in the event of an attack.
The deal between Washington and Seoul was met with skepticism by the South Korean public, as reflected in polls.
There were concerns about whether the United States would truly uphold its commitments, given its history of uncertainties and wavering policies in international relations.
This skepticism highlighted the importance of trust and transparency in such agreements, as the South Korean public sought reassurances regarding the reliability and consistency of the United States as a strategic partner.
Here, an age-long question reemerged: “Would Washington risk San Francisco for Seoul in the event of nuclear war?” Of course, the question here is completed by another one: “What are the odds of completely losing what’s left of the country’s sovereignty and marginal decision-making ability by hosting US nuclear arms, and eventually being sold out by Washington?”
But the fear of fully entrusting in the United States is not a new phenomenon and has been a recurring theme for decades.
In the 1960s, French General Charles de Gaulle was highly skeptical of America’s nuclear security guarantees, particularly after the Soviet Union developed ICBMs that can reach the US mainland.
De Gaulle’s skepticism led him to ask then-US President John F. Kennedy if he would be willing to risk New York for Paris.
Eventually, the lack of confidence in American assurances was the reason behind establishing the “French nuclear deterrent force,” which allowed Paris to ensure its own safety and avoid overdependence on NATO.
History says no
A South Korean demonstrator holds a placard at a rally against South Korea and US policy on DPRK in front of the Foreign Ministry in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, April 26, 2011 (AP/Ahn Young-joon)
The 2022 US Nuclear Posture Review notes that “extended nuclear deterrence contributes to U.S. nonproliferation goals by giving Allies and partners confidence that they can resist strategic threats and remain secure without acquiring nuclear weapons of their own.”
The debate among US allies about the level of trust they can place in their American partners reached a new level of intensity with the assumption of former US President Donald Trump’s “America First” policy.
This was further amplified when Trump openly questioned Washington’s commitments to its NATO obligations and even suggested the possibility of withdrawing US troops from Europe. The fears and concerns of European nations were heightened as they witnessed a more self-preserving and protectionist stance taken by Washington, raising doubts about the extent to which the United States would defend the continent despite its grand promises.
A recent CSIS study explored four potential future scenarios in which the United States would have to navigate a world where adversaries possess substantial nuclear arsenals. The study’s findings revealed a consistent credibility challenge for the US in assuring its allies about their protection and the safeguarding of their interests.
Commenting on the Nuclear Posture Review of 2022, the Washington-based think tank said fundamental trust in the United States’ ability to secure collective defense [bloc alliances] “is far from guaranteed.”
“A cohesive and confident alliance network backed by credible extended deterrence [nuclear umbrella] guarantees U.S. strategic interests,” the study added, stressing “that the United States will need to continue to rely on nuclear weapons for extended deterrence purposes.”
One of the core suggestions of the study is that the United States, while adopting a bloc-alliance policy, should seriously consider further nuclear deployment in allied countries, especially those in close proximity to states considered by Washington as “strategic national security threats”: China and Russia.
But American “extended deterrence” that extends over a set of allied countries also generates concerns regarding the rationality behind trusting a bloc’s security under Washington’s nuclear umbrella.
If US adversaries feel an existential threat, will decision-makers in said countries consider states hosting American nuclear weapons a factor of deterrence or military targets? Will the nuclear bloc mentality subject its members to collective punishment, regardless of the actual interests of each country separately?
This perspective sheds light on an important observation: while the United States presents itself as a guardian of allies and a promoter of global stability, its actions often involve consolidating the military capabilities of its partners and prioritizing American interests above all else.
This approach reflects one of the many forms of unipolarity, where Washington’s influence and dominance shape international dynamics to a large extent.
Within this framework, nuclear umbrellas can be perceived as sources of insecurity rather than genuine protection and deterrence for their host countries.
Within this framework, nuclear umbrellas can be realized as the foundations of insecurity for their hosts rather than protection and deterrence, and their costs outweigh their benefits under a unipolar world order governed by the White House and America’s industrial complex.
Historically, military alliances based on shared assistance and mutual defense have proven to be only circumstantial empty promises.
So, in short, history says that no, the United States will not risk San Francisco for Seoul, nor New York for Paris, and the US nuclear umbrella remains an illusion designed by unipolarity and employed for imperialistic drives that will be extremely marginalized in the rising multipolar world, but this is a discussion for another article.
If you’re counting on Asia’s many new power centers to compete and clash – don’t. The Greater Eurasia Partnership is set to integrate them all – from the SCO, EAEU, and BRICS, to emerging new currencies – in order to replace the ‘rules-based order.’
On July 4, at a New Delhi summit, Iran will finally become a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
That will be one of the key decisions of the summit, held via video-conference, along with the signing of a memorandum on the path by Belarus to also become a member state.
In parallel, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk has confirmed that Iran and the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) should sign a free trade agreement (FTA) by the end of 2023.
The FTA will expand an interim deal that already lowers customs duties on hundreds of categories of goods.
Russia and Iran – two key poles of Eurasia integration – have been getting closer and closer geoeconomically since the west’s sanctions tsunami that followed Russia’s February 2022 Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine.
The EAEU – as much as the SCO and BRICS – is on a roll: FTAs are expected to be clinched, from middle to long term, with Egypt, India, Indonesia, and the UAE.
Overchuck admits negotiations may be “very difficult” and “take years,” considering “the interests of all five EAEU member states, their businesses, and their consumers.” Yet despite the obvious complexities, this high-speed rail geoeconomic train has already left the station.
This way for a SWIFT exit
In a parallel track, the members of the Asian Clearing Union (ACU), during a recent summit in Iran, decided to launch a new cross-border financial messaging system this month as a rival to the western-centric SWIFT.
The ACU comprises the Central Banks of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Iran: a healthy mix of West Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia.
It was the Central Bank of Iran – still under harsh sanctions – that developed the new bank messaging system, so new it’s not yet known by its own acronym.
Crucially, the Governor of Russia’s Central Bank took part in the ACU summit as an observer, along with officials from Belarus, which applied for ACU membership two weeks ago.
Iranian Central Bank Governor Mohammad Reza Farzin confirmed not only the interest of potential members to join the ACU, but also the drive to set up a basket of currencies for payment of bilateral trade deals. Call it a de-dollarization fast track.
As Iran’s first Vice President, Mohammad Mokhber summed it up: “De-dollarization is not a voluntary choice by countries anymore; it is an inevitable response to the weaponization of the dollar.”
Iran is now at the heart of all things multipolar. The recent discovery of a massive lithium field holding roughly 10 percent of the world’s reserves, coupled with the quite possible admission of Iran into the expanded BRICS – or BRICS+ – as early as this year, has bolstered scenarios of an upcoming BRICS currency backed by commodities: gold, oil, gas and – inevitably – lithium.
All this frantic Global South-led activity stands in sharp contrast to the sputtering deceleration of the Empire of Sanctions.
The Global South has had enough of the US sanctioning and banning whoever, whatever, and whenever they like, in defense of a hazy, arbitrary “rules-based international order.”
Yet exceptions are always made when the US itself badly needs to buy, for instance, Chinese rare earth and EV batteries. And while China continues to be harassed and threatened non-stop, Washington quietly urges it to continue to buy American corn and low-end chips from Micron.
This is what’s called “free and fair” trade in the US today.
The BRICS have other ideas to escape this vicious circle. Much will rely on an enhanced role for its New Development Bank (NDB), which comprises the five BRICS members as well as Bangladesh, the UAE, and Egypt. Uruguay will be joining soon, and the membership requests of Argentina, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Zimbabwe have also been approved.
According to Brazil’s former head of state and current NDB President Dilma Rousseff, decisions on new members will officially be announced at the upcoming August BRICS summit in South Africa.
Meanwhile, in Astana, Kazakhstan, the 20th round of the interminable Syrian peace process took place, congregating the foreign vice-ministers of Russia, Syria, Turkey, and Iran.
That should be the defining step in a “normalization road map” proposed by Moscow last month to finally regulate the role of the Turkish Army operating inside Syrian territory. Russian Foreign Vice-Minister Mikhail Bogdanov once again confirmed that the US is going all out to prevent a normalization between Damascus and Ankara – by supporting oil-stealing Kurdish militias in northern Syria.
A “broad integrative configuration”
All interlinked developments concerning SCO, BRICS, EAEU, and other multilateral mechanisms – now happening at breakneck speed – are converging in practice into a concept formulated in Russia back in 2018: the Greater Eurasia Partnership.
And who better to define it than Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov: “Our flagship foreign political project is to [build] support for the concept of the Greater Eurasian Partnership. What we’re talking about is facilitating the objective process of forming a broad integrative configuration that is open for all countries and associations across our vast continent.”
As Lavrov routinely explains now in all of his important meetings, this includes “interlinking the complementary development plans” of the EAEU and China’s BRI; expanding interaction “within the framework of the SCO with the involvement of SCO observer states and dialogue partners;” “strengthening the strategic partnership” between Russia and ASEAN; and “establishing working contacts” among the executive bodies of the EAEU, SCO, and ASEAN.
Add to it the crucial interaction between the upcoming BRICS+ and all of the above; literally, everybody and their neighbor all across the Global South is queuing up to enter Club BRICS.
Lavrov envisions a “mutually beneficial, interlinking infrastructure” and a “continent-wide architecture of peace, development, and cooperation throughout Greater Eurasia.” And that ought to be expanded to the whole Global South.
It will help to have other brand new institutions jumping in. That’s the case of a new Russian think tank, the Geopolitical Observatory for Russia’s Key Issues (GORKI), to be led by Former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl, and set as a division of St. Petersburg State University focusing on West Asia studies and energy issues.
One of the key themes in that spectacularly successful Global South-oriented forum was, of course, the reindustrialization and reorientation of Russia’s export-import channels away from Europe and toward Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
The UAE had a strong presence in St. Petersburg, pointing to a West Asia emphasis, where Russia’s geoeconomic future is increasingly developing. The scope and breadth of Global South-led discussions only underlined how the self-marginalized collective west has alienated the Global Majority, perhaps irretrievably.
On Vladimir Solovyov’s immensely popular political talk show, Russian film director Karen Shakhnazarov may have found the best way to succinctly formulate such a complex process as the Greater Eurasia Partnership.
He said that Russia is now reassuming the role of global champion of a new world order that the Soviet Union held at the start of the 1920s. In such context, the rage and uncontrolled Russophobia by the collective west is just plain impotence: howling the frustration of having “lost” Russia, when it would have been a no-brainer to keep it on its side.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
It’s not that Erdogan has a scheme to head east at the west’s expense. It’s just that the world’s grandest infrastructure, development, and geopolitical projects are all in the east today.
The collective west was dying to bury him – yet another strategic mistake that did not take into account the mood of Turkish voters in deep Anatolia.
In the end, Recep Tayyip Erdogan did it – again. Against all his shortcomings, like an aging neo-Ottoman Sinatra, he did it “my way,” comfortably retaining Turkiye’s presidency after naysayers had all but buried him.
The first order of geopolitical priority is who will be named Minister of Foreign Affairs. The prime candidate is Ibrahim Kalin – the current all-powerful Erdogan press secretary cum top adviser.
Compared to incumbent Cavusoglu, Kalin, in theory, may be qualified as more pro-west. Yet it’s the Sultan who calls the shots. It will be fascinating to watch how Turkiye under Erdogan 2.0 will navigate the strengthening of ties with West Asia and the accelerating process of Eurasia integration.
The first immediate priority, from Erdogan’s point of view, is to get rid of the “terrorist corridor” in Syria. This means, in practice, reigning in the US-backed Kurdish YPG/PYD, who are effectively Syrian affiliates of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) – which is also the issue at the heart of a possible normalization of relations with Damascus.
Now that Syria has been enthusiastically welcomed back to the Arab League after a 12-year freeze, a Moscow-brokered entente between the Turkish and Syrian presidents, already in progress, may represent the ultimate win-win for Erdogan: allowing control of Kurds in north Syria while facilitating the repatriation of roughly 4 million refugees (tens of thousands will stay, as a source of cheap labor).
The Sultan is at his prime when it comes to hedging his bets between east and west. He knows well how to profit from Turkiye’s status as a key NATO member – complete with one of its largest armies, veto power, and control of the entry to the uber-strategic Black Sea.
And all that while exercising real foreign policy independence, from West Asia to the Eastern Mediterranean.
So expect Erdogan 2.0 to remain an inextinguishable source of irritation for the neocons and neoliberals in charge of US foreign policy, along with their EU vassals, who will never refrain from trying to subdue Ankara to fight the Russia-China-Iran Eurasia integration entente. The Sultan, though, knows how to play this game beautifully.
How to manage Russia and China
Whatever happens next, Erdogan will not hop on board the sanctions-against-Russia sinking ship. The Kremlin bought Turkish bonds tied to the development of the Russian-built Akkuyu nuclear power plant, Turkiye’s first nuclear reactor. Moscow allowed Ankara to postpone nearly $4 billion in energy payments until 2024. Best of all, Ankara pays for Russian gas in rubles.
So an array of deals related to the supply of Russian energy trump possible secondary sanctions that might target the steady rise in Turkiye’s exports. Still, it’s a given the US will revert to its one and only “diplomatic” policy – sanctions. The 2018 sanctions did push Turkiye into recession after all.
But Erdogan can easily count on popular support across the Turkish realm. Early this year, a Gezici poll revealed that 72.8 percent of Turkish citizens privilege good relations with Russia while nearly 90 percent rate the US as a “hostile” nation. That’s what allows Interior Minister Soylu to remark, bluntly, “we will wipe out whoever is causing trouble, including American troops.”
China-Turkiye strategic cooperation falls under what Erdogan defines as “turning to the East” – and is mostly about China’s multi-continent infrastructure behemoth, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The Turk Silk Road branch of the BRI focuses on what Beijing defines as the “Middle Corridor,” a prime cost-effective/secure trade route that connects Asia to Europe.
The driver is the China Railway Express, which turned the Middle Corridor arguably into BRI’s backbone. For instance, electronics parts and an array of household items routinely arriving via cargo planes from Osaka, Japan are loaded onto freight trains going to Duisburg and Hamburg in Germany, via the China Railway Express departing from Shenzhen, Wuhan, and Changsha – and crossing from Xinjiang to Kazakhstan and beyond via the Alataw Pass. Shipments from Chongqing to Germany take a maximum of 13 days.
It’s no wonder that nearly 10 years ago, when he first unveiled his ambitious, multi-trillion dollar BRI in Astana, Kazakhstan, Chinese President Xi Jinping placed the China Railway Express as a core BRI component.
Direct freight trains from Xian to Istanbul are plying the route since December 2020, using the Baku-Tblisi-Kars (BTK) railway with less than two weeks travel time – and plans afoot to increase their frequency. Beijing is well aware of Turkiye’s asset as a transportation hub and crossroads for markets in the Balkans, the Caucasus, Central Asia, West Asia, and North Africa, not to mention a customs union with the EU that allows direct access to European markets.
Moreover, Baku’s victory in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war came with a ceasefire deal bonus: the Zangezur corridor, which will eventually facilitate Turkiye’s direct access to neighbors from the Caucasus to Central Asia.
A pan-Turkic offensive?
And here we enter a fascinating territory: the possible incoming interpolations between the Organization of Turkic States (OTS), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the BRICS+ – and all that also linked to a boost in Saudi and Emirati investments in the Turkish economy.
Sultan 2.0 wants to become a full member of both the Chinese-led SCO and multipolar BRICS+. This means a much closer entente with the Russia-China strategic partnership as well as with the Arab powerhouses, which are also hopping on the BRICS+ high-speed train.
Erdogan 2.0 is already focusing on two key players in Central Asia and South Asia: Uzbekistan and Pakistan. Both happen to be SCO members.
Ankara and Islamabad are very much in sync. They express the same judgment on the extremely delicate Kashmir question, and both backed Azerbaijan against Armenia.
But the key developments may lie in Central Asia. Ankara and Tashkent have a strategic defense agreement – including intel sharing and logistics cooperation.
The Organization of Turkic States (OTS), with a HQ in Istanbul, is the prime energizer of pan-Turkism or pan-Turanism. Turkiye, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan are full members, with Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Hungary, and Ukraine cultivated as observers. The Turk-Azeri relationship is billed as “one nation, two states” in pan-Turkic terms.
The basic idea is a still hazy “cooperation platform” between Central Asia and the Southern Caucasus. Yet some serious proposals have already been floated. The OTS summit in Samarkand late last year advanced the idea of a TURANCEZ free trade bloc, comprising Turkiye, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and as observers, Hungary (representing the EU) and Northern Cyprus.
Meanwhile, hard business prevails. To fully profit from the status of the energy transit hub, Turkiye needs not only Russian gas but also gas from Turkmenistan feeding the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) as well as Kazakh oil coming via the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline.
The Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) is heavy on economic cooperation, active in a series of projects in transportation, construction, mining, and oil and gas. Ankara has already invested a whopping $85 billion across Central Asia, with nearly 4,000 companies scattered across all the “stans.”
Of course, when compared to Russia and China, Turkiye is not a major player in Central Asia. Moreover, the bridge to Central Asia goes via Iran. So far, rivalry between Ankara and Tehran seems to be the norm, but everything may change, lightning fast, with the simultaneous development of the Russia-Iran-India-led International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC), which will profit both – and the fact that the Iranians and Turks may soon become full BRICS+ members.
Sultan 2.0 is bound to boost investment in Central Asia as a new geoeconomic frontier. That in itself encapsulates the possibility of Turkiye soon joining the SCO.
We will then have a “turning to the East” in full effect, in parallel to closer ties with the Russia-China strategic partnership. Take note that Turkiye’s ties with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan are also strategic partnerships.
Not bad for a neo-Ottoman who, until a few days ago, was dismissed as a has-been.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
The President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi visits Syria in the first visit by an Iranian president to Damascus in 12 years.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi disembarking from a plane after arriving at Damascus airport, Syria, May 3, 2023. (Reuters)
The President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, has led a delegation and arrived in Damascus today, Wednesday, in response to an official invitation from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. This is the first visit by an Iranian president to Syria in 12 years.
— الوكالة العربية السورية للأنباء – سانا (@SanaAjel) May 3, 2023
Raisi: Syria steadfast in the face of attacks
Before leaving for Damascus, Raisi articulated that it has become clear to everyone that the Syrian government must have the right to sovereignty and territorial integrity over all Syrian territories. He expressed his hopes that this visit would aid in the development and expansion of Iranian-Syrian relations, and that it would be a useful and influential visit for relations between the two countries.
Raisi stressed that “the groups created by the Americans, such as ISIS and others, shed blood and created chaos in the region and committed many crimes.”
He added that “resistance factions, the Syrian people, President Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian government have proven that they are steadfast in the face of these attacks.”
“What the resistance, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and the Iranian advisors did, especially Martyr Qassem Soleimani, had an exceptional role in preserving the security of the region.”
Raisi to tour Syria
Al-Mayadeen‘s correspondent to Syria reported that Syria and Iran are set to sign agreements during the visit, noting that such agreements will be highlighted by economic ones.
Our correspondent added that the Iranian president will head immediately after his arrival at Damascus airport to the presidential palace to hold talks with President Assad, along with partaking in other meetings during his visit.
During his two-day visit to Syria, the Iranian president and his accompanying delegation will discuss ways to strengthen political relations and expand economic cooperation with senior Syrian officials. He will also attend a joint meeting between Iranian and Syrian businessmen, meet Iranian residents in Syria, and will also visit religious sites.
Syrian newspaper Al-Watan quoted “informed sources” as saying on April 28 that the visit “will witness the signing of a large number of cooperation agreements and memorandums of understanding covering various aspects of cooperation, especially in the fields of energy and electricity.”
For his part, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian described Raisi’s upcoming visit to Syria as a success for the government’s diplomacy in completing the process of regional integration.
Amir-Abdollahian, who will accompany Raisi on this visit, published a photo of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and martyr commander Qassem Soleimani, and wrote in a tweet: “I will soon leave for Syria with Dr. Raisi.”
بزودی همراه با دکتر رئیسی عازم #سوریه هستم.اهمیت این سفر علاوه بر ابعاد سیاسی، امنیتی و اقتصادی، بيانگر تجلی پیروزی ارادهی سیاسی مقاومت و موفقیت دیپلماسی دولت در تکمیل روند همگرایی منطقه است. یاد سردارسلیمانی عزیز و همه شهدا که امنیت را به ایران و منطقه هدیه کردند، گرامی باد. pic.twitter.com/oOoN6zksFe
— H.Amirabdollahian امیرعبداللهیان (@Amirabdolahian) May 2, 2023
He pointed out that the importance of this visit, in addition to the political, security and economic aspects, embodies the victory of the political will of the resistance and the success of government diplomacy in completing the process of regional integration.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi had spoken in an exclusive interview with Al-Mayadeen,broadcast on Tuesday about several political subjects, most notably the details of the Iranian-Saudi rapprochement, Iran’s accession to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and relations with Syria.
Raisi said that Tehran declared, from the outset, that its policy was to “go to neighboring countries,” and its decision was to establish good relations and good dealings with neighboring countries, and “to use the energies of the countries of the region to raise the level of relations” in all political, economic, cultural, and social fields.
It is noteworthy that Israeli media recently reported that this visit should be a cause of worry for “Israel.”
According to Channel 13, the worrying part for the occupation is that Iran wants to unify the axis of resistance in order to change geopolitics in the Middle East.
Europe must accept the fact that the world today is no longer the Western playground and that the growing anti-hegemonic sentiment among nations is irreversible.
It’s important to emphasize that Europe was not a victim in the current world order run by Washington, but rather a participant. Its contributions were destructive, filled with colonialism, theft, dismantling, and murder of nations that directly led to corruption, poverty, and injustice worldwide.
Europe’s bloody history
Despite Europe joining the global financial systems established by the US in the 20th century, such as the IMF and World Bank, the continent has used these tools to deepen its colonialism and expansion policies towards countries worldwide. It has even leveraged its position with bodies like the UN and UNSC to exploit weaker states and enforce its hegemonic agendas, including wealth looting and proxy wars against rivals politically and economically.
However, the rise of the Global South in recent years has allowed its nations to counter the hegemonic exploitation of international bodies by funneling their resources into their economies to advance in the new world order. By engaging with the Western coalition while shielding themselves from their malicious agendas, these nations can benefit in the long run.
Post-WW2 world order
After World War II, the United States emerged as an unrivaled superpower, untouched by the catastrophic destruction of the war and claiming a barely earned victory. Between 1944 and 1949, milestone events secured the unipolar order under the US and placed the EU under Washington’s direct influence for decades to come.
Bretton Woods in 1944 established the USD as the global reserve and trade currency, while the Marshall Plan in 1945 provided funding to Western European countries that agreed to follow America’s dictates to rehabilitate and rebuild their infrastructure and industrial capabilities (note that the plan’s funds were used to purchase American goods).
The establishment of the IMF and World Bank enforced the new world monetary and financial system crafted by Washington. The Truman Doctrine finally ensured that Western Europe became a follower of Washington’s foreign policies.
Establishing NATO, a war coalition under Washington’s direct control, was the highlight of that period. It served the interests of the United States and ensured that Europe did not attempt to create a sovereign military power but rather relied on the US for protection.
The final blows to Europe’s industrial complex in the 20th century were the Nixon Shock in 1971, where the bloc’s member states found themselves stuck with paper notes whose value was solely determined by Washington, and in 1974 when the United States and Saudi Arabia agreed to peg oil to the USD – establishing the petrodollar. This meant that Europe’s access to the world’s largest energy reserve was now controlled by Washington.
The petrodollar required Europe to maintain an abundance of USD reserves for oil purchases, resulting in increased investment in American treasury bonds and currency inflow to US markets. Despite partnering with the US in its bloody crusades over the past decades, the EU’s interests were not taken into consideration by Washington.
The US has used its European allies as tools in the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, the destruction of Libya and Syria, and relations with the Arab world (the world’s richest energy region). Although Europe faced similar political and public backlash, it was the US that acquired the real strategic interests.
Disregarding the changed world we live in, the EU continues to live under a WW2 mentality.
Despite warnings against militarily provoking Russia, the EU doubled down on the American-NATO illusion that being the strongest military coalition worldwide guarantees inevitable victory, and using force to impose the West’s worldview remains a viable option.
Self-destructive tendencies
After years of Russia sending signals and after many world vocal warnings, including from prominent Western figures like Kissinger, regarding NATO’s eastward expansion, European member states made the same mistake and adopted Washington’s doctrine on Moscow, leading to a conflict with Russia. Despite the historic failure of this approach, EU leaders repeatedly attempted to humiliate Russia and publicly claimed that the West aimed to bring Moscow to its knees since the beginning of the war in Ukraine until recently.
The conflict with Russia has deeper repercussions on the EU than just preventing mutually beneficial trade ties that would put both economies on a trajectory of development and growth. The United States aims to fight against the growing Global South, with China at the top, and to cut off any attempts by its European allies to further integrate with Asia’s rising powers.
Following the start of the war in Ukraine, Europe not only faced energy shortages, while US energy companies continued to extract oil from Iraq, Syria, and Libya but also realized how Washington was profiting from the very war they had incited. They were overcharged for LNG at three to four times the price sold within the domestic US market, which itself impacted their major industry’s capabilities to continue production.
On the other hand, the US led an international campaign to force its European allies mainly to adopt a price cap on Russian oil. But despite Washington’s push for this bill, Americans themselves were not affected nor were they directly part of the pressure campaign in Moscow, mainly since they did not rely on Russian oil, and with the petrodollar in place, it did not matter how much the EU paid for oil, as the currency used would go back to US banks.
Soon, Europe, left alone after countries such as Japan did not abide by the price cap, found that it still had to buy Russian Urals but with additional middlemen fees through countries such as India.
The EU witnessed firsthand the US tearing down their economies, which are under increased levels of deindustrialization, with industry giants moving to the US for lower energy prices and a more business-friendly environment crafted by Washington to lure companies mainly from its European allies.
As a result, Europe found itself seeking energy from African nations that it had previously colonized and destroyed. EU officials scrambled through countries like Algeria and Libya to secure gas and oil.
As the world order shifts towards a more multipolar one with a center of gravity shifting towards China, Europe has begun to become aware that the US-led model that has dominated the world order for decades has not brought the desired outcome for the bloc. Despite benefiting immorally from genocidal campaigns and being America’s partner in crime, Europe’s gains were short-lived.
With a history of self-destructive tendencies and after years of psycho-preparation and media propaganda, Europe was politically and economically prepared to repeat its historic mistakes in its approach to Russia and later to China.
The West quickly convinced its public that the rivalry with Russia was ideological and existential, that joining NATO and dropping neutrality (as with Finland and Sweden) was the only secure way to protect against the demons of the East, and that China is at the core of everything against the neoliberal values of the West.
Inevitable Multipolar world order
During a speech to the Council of Foreign Relations in New York on April 18, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde noted that the world is becoming more multipolar, with a fragmentation of the global economy into competing blocs.
Lagarde stated that this new “global map” would have “first-order implications,” with the possibility of two blocs emerging, led by China and the US.
On many levels, Lagarde’s statement hits the core of the current world state of affairs.
The US reintroduced the political bloc mentality on a wider scale through the proxy war in Ukraine, pulling all its strings and employing all its accumulated influence to focus its power on obstructing a Eurasian uprising and realigning Europe’s foreign policy towards dismantling connections with China and Russia.
The post-WW2 era, characterized by bloc politics pushed by the US, is no longer feasible in the current period of deep integration, interest overlaps, and political complexity established by globalization, advanced trading networks, financial intertwining, and complementary production needs.
The West’s expansion of NATO forces to Russia’s border, followed by Moscow’s campaign to protect its national security, has put the global change on a pedestal.
The fallout of the Western-Russian war in Ukraine and the historic barrage of sanctions against Moscow has led to the fracturing of the financial system, and exposed the fragility of the West’s proclaimed “rules-based international world order”.
During an event hosted at Renmin University’s Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies last January to discuss the current state of world powers, the editor-in-chief of the Beijing Cultural Review (BCR) said that the fallout of the Western-Russian war in Ukraine led to events that could have never been imagined earlier.
“These [events] include the fracturing of the financial system, the expropriation and seizure of Russian private assets, and the freezing of Russian foreign exchange reserves. These are all abominable and unimaginable forms of confrontation,” Yang Ping said in his speech.
“The world is moving inexorably in the direction of decoupling. The phenomenon of politics affecting the economy and the capitalist political order no longer upholding the capitalist economic order is extremely striking.”
If not for the war in Ukraine, Ping’s statement regarding the world taking shape would have been shunned by Western experts as an illusion or merely a forecast, but now, and thanks to the West’s undivided efforts, the world is moving inexorably towards decoupling, and the phenomenon of politics affecting the economy is becoming strikingly apparent; a world with limited Western hegemony is on track to becoming an irreversible reality.
Europe’s amputated foreign policy
In recent months, top EU leaders including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock have visited China amid rising global tensions.
Their visits aimed to balance relations between the US and China as Washington’s hostility towards Beijing escalated, its sanctions against the Asian giant increased, and its provocative actions in the South China Sea intensified.
Macron’s visit, in particular, was noteworthy, as it seemed to reassure China of Europe’s distinct position from Washington’s policies against Asian giants. Despite announcing that the main reason for his visit was to push Beijing against arming Russia and push Moscow to end the war, behind the scenes, Macron’s visit aimed to assert Europe’s position.
He stated that Europe should not be caught up in a disordering of the world and crises that aren’t ours and that the government must build a “third pole.”
“We must be clear where our views overlap with the US, but whether it’s about Ukraine, relations with China, or sanctions, we have a European strategy,” the French leader said then.
“We don’t want to get into a bloc versus bloc logic.”
At first, many European leaders publicly announced or hinted at their support for Macron’s move, considering it a positive approach to their largest trading partner.
But later, some European leaders expressed their rejection of his statements, the most blatant of which was the finance minister in Scholz’s government, Christian Lindner, who said that Macron’s “Idea of strategic autonomy of the European Union,” is “naïve.” Of course, the statement was not objected to by the German Chancellor, signaling that the minister has also voiced Scholz’s opinion.
Following Lindner’s remarks, and after von der Leyen reaffirmed the bloc’s neutral position on the Taiwan Strait issue provoked by the US during an EU parliamentary hearing on April 18, Manfred Weber, who helms the Parliament’s largest group, the center-right European People’s Party (EPP), accused Macron of “destroying” European unity with his trip to China, and that the French president “weakened the EU” and “made clear the great rift within the European Union in defining a common strategic plan against Beijing.”
To counter Macron’s position that the Taiwan issue is not a European concern, Weber also compared the matter to the war going on in Ukraine from Washington’s perspective.
“We shouldn’t be surprised if Washington starts asking whether Ukraine is a European issue,” Weber said. The question they may ask, he warned: “Why should American taxpayers do so much to defend Ukraine?”
His comments, of course, are nothing but shortsighted and delusional, given that the war in Ukraine was created and pushed forward by the US’ decades-long policies on NATO’s take against Russia.
From an outside observer, the contradicting statements – while also taking into account that the bloc members are dividing roles – can only be described as a political mess, a loss of strategic planning, and entails that the union is currently lacking the tools to form a united framework to establish a basis to approach the Global South as a whole, and especially China.
Is the EU’s policy being molded by an actual comprehensive overview of the world’s geopolitical shifts, or is it being dictated by a handful of US pawns that have served nothing but American hawks since they took office?
Blind Economic outlook as bloc
The disunity in Europe extends beyond just their political approach to China, as trade policies with their largest business partner also show division.
In 2020, China and the EU agreed on a trade framework, eliminating Chinese restrictions on European companies and investments in China. However, the deal was put on hold after the bloc sanctioned Beijing for alleged human rights abuses and China responded with sanctions of its own.
Just under two weeks after Macron’s and von der Leyen’s trip to China, the EU leaders said that they consider the deal with China as not applicable anymore, following the events since it was reached in 2020.
“We started negotiations around about 10 years ago and concluded the comprehensive agreement on investment two years ago. A lot has happened since then,” she said, adding that Europe’s “position is that we do have to reassess the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment,” she said earlier in April.
On his part, Macron considered that the agreement today is “less urgent,” and “just not practicable”.
On the other hand, Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz lately has been pushing for “reactivating” the agreement and considered it was time to reinstate the deal and put it back on track.
It is understandable that this dynamic is not unusual between world powers, especially at a time when the globe is witnessing historic geopolitical shifts, and it is definitely not unusual considering that the American influence across Europe and its leaders is still very significant, and Washington’s sanctions sword is constantly raised against its allies.
However, the lack of a united foreign policy within the bloc may negatively impact its position in the emerging multipolar world order and lead to the weakening or collapse of the union. Europe’s incomplete and fragile relations with growing global pillars, especially China and the emerging Global South, may also be observed from Beijing’s perspective.
Losing post-WW2 against Global South
Europe’s lack of clear foreign policy extends beyond its position on China, as it also pertains to the US’s declared soft war on the Asian giant.
For decades, Brussels relied on the assumption of a long-term realm by Washington as the unipolar power, which led the bloc to neglect sustainable and strong relations with the Global South.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the Global South has made unexpected, unprecedented moves, guided by the goal of forming sovereign policies that are far from Western hegemony led by Washington. They declared historic political shifts, leading to the formation of a new and influential world pillar in the multipolar era.
Protectionist economic policies, accompanied by subsidization, act for vital sectors like electric vehicles and batteries.
More systems (such as BRICS and SCO) and countries are growing monetary bodies and alternative trade frameworks to those dominated and influenced directly by the United States. It has become clear that political global organizations such as the UNSC and the UN, which were long exploited by Washington and its European allies to extend their hegemony and colonialism, are slowly losing more relevance and impact on the global arena.
On April 16, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, in an interview with CNN, said that the United States economic sanctions imposed on Russia and other nations have put the dollar’s hegemony at risk as targeted countries seek out an alternative.
“There is a risk when we use financial sanctions that are linked to the role of the dollar that over time it could undermine the hegemony of the dollar,” she said then.
Financial global institutions and systems such as the IMF, World Bank, and SWIFT, are gradually declining as de-dollarization proceeds and countries are finding alternatives to bypass the West’s complete influence, including mutual lending and local currency trade, sovereign projects, in addition to domestic SWIFT alternatives such as China’s CIPS, Russia’s SFPS, and Iran’s SEPAM, to name some.
The movement today is driven by Beijing along with other powers including Brazil, India, Russia, Iran, and South Africa, among others.
Despite all signs in previous years of the emergence of the new geopolitical reality, Europe failed to form appropriate policies and outline a vision to engage and adapt to these drastic global shifts, nor did it take advantage of some of the outcomes that fall into its interest, such as de-dollarization and the end of the petrodollar. Instead, Europe insisted on following Washington’s agenda, further sidelining its world influence.
Sidelined
On March 10, Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed to restore diplomatic relations and reopen missions after seven years of strained ties.
Talks were brokered in Beijing under the auspices of Chinese President Xi Jinping. The Western role, especially that of Washington, in inciting dispute and rift between the two nations was criminal, leading to tens of thousands of deaths, mass destruction, displacement of hundreds of thousands, and feelings of hate among the people of the region.
China managed in just a few months to achieve what the United Nations and other international political bodies failed to do, marking Beijing’s first public political approach to the Middle East. The Beijing-brokered rapprochement between Tehran and Riyadh reveals Europe’s falling influence in the region and the growing tendency of countries to sideline the West in bilateral issues. It also highlights China’s rise as a peace-bringing and key power in the region.
Oppressed nations rejoice
Europe’s centuries-long history of producing global superpowers makes it a hybrid bloc with a combined cultural, political, social, economic, and institutional maturity that can quickly adapt to world geopolitical shifts and overcome emerging challenges.
However, it can be argued that the current world challenges are unprecedented, especially with the concept of globalization and the world’s interconnectedness.
Europe today has limited options that require a new approach and view of the world, with a humble and realistic policy that acknowledges the end of its hegemony and the adoption of sovereignty and mutual respect in bilateral relations.
The EU must also accept that the world is no longer a Western playground and that anti-hegemonic sentiment among nations is irreversible in a multipolar world. Regardless of Europe’s decisions, oppressed nations are watching the declining global influence of the colonial bloc with joy.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi addresses during an exclusive interview with Al Mayadeen the numerous developments taking place in the region and in the international arena.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi during an exclusive interview for Al Mayadeen with the network’s Chairman of the Board of Directors, Ghassan Ben Jeddou, May 2, 2023
Private Dialogue | With Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi revealed new details regarding the rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran during an exclusive interview with Al Mayadeen that aired on Tuesday. Raisi also delved into various topics including Iran’s accession to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, ties to Syria, and Israeli threats.
During the interview, President Raisi underlined that Iran’s power and advancement have become a benchmark for other countries in the Global South that aim to fight global imperialist powers, in particular the United States, adding that despite the West’s decades-long inhumane sanctions and siege, the latest of which is the maximum pressure campaign imposed by the administration of former US President Donald Trump and continued by his successor President Joe Biden, the Islamic Republic continued its steady and remarkable growth and has deepened and developed its relations with international countries.
Raisi stressed that the Iranian nation has reached a conviction that they can manage their own affairs independently, and not rely on foreigners.
The Iranian President said that the wise leadership and strong guidance of the late Imam Khomeini, and now Iran’s leader Sayyed Khamenei, are the main element that established Iran’s power, security, and system.
To further emphasize the matter, Raisi stated that today the enemies are targeting the country’s foundations and its success, such as the faith of the Iranian people, their confidence to rely on themselves, and the guidance of the jurist – the pillar of the Islamic revolution.
The President emphasized that the Iranian people are the source of the country’s strength and that is the reason that enemies can’t commit any foolishness.
Raisi recalled the popular events commemorating the victory of the Islamic Revolution and International Al-Quds Day. The Iranian people covered the streets nationwide to take part in commemorating this event, he added.
Iran believes that the expertise accumulated by the Islamic Republic can be set as an example for other nations.
Iran-Saudi rapprochement behind the scenes
President Raisi announced that since he took office, his government’s policy is to prioritize establishing friendly ties with neighboring countries and developing bilateral relations in several areas, including the political, economic, cultural, and social fields.
Touching upon this matter, he stressed that religion, culture, and history are shared with the brotherly neighbors of Iran, including West Asia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, especially Islamic countries.
Raisi also revealed some details regarding the events that led to the rapprochement between Tehran and Riyadh.
There were preliminary security negotiations with Saudi Arabia in Baghdad that were initiated under the previous government, he said.
“During my visit to Beijing, the Chinese President [Xi Jinping] said that during his earlier visit to Saudi Arabia, he had reached a proposal,” and suggested that Iran and Saudi Arabia resume relations, Iran’s President stated.
Raisi said that he, at that time, expressed readiness to re-establish relations with Riyadh and that the initial steps toward Xi’s proposal were taken while he was in Beijing.
Xi in return told Raisi during the meeting that the Saudi leadership expressed their desire to restore relations with Iran and that he [Xi] will follow up on the mediation.
Remarking on Beijing’s mediating role, Raisi noted that some countries may not have wanted China to be the mediator, but Tehran regarded it in a positive manner.
“It was decided that a person be appointed by the Saudi government and that we send a representative and a delegation on our behalf for the bilateral dialogue between the two countries,” Raisi said.
“The King of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia sent their National Security Adviser, and we also decided to send the Secretary of the National Security Council, and it was decided that they discuss issues of concern to the two countries, and it was also decided that political relations between the two countries would resume ties,” and this process will continue and further communication will be established, he confirmed.
Raisi continued that Iran and Saudi Arabia are two major countries in West Asia, and the two countries have an important and influential political and social impact in the region.
The relations between the two countries can bear many benefits for the region, the President said.
“Therefore, we welcomed the restoration of these relations, and certainly the relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and the rest of the Islamic countries, would help to exchange expertise between countries of the region.”
According to Raisi, the main and most important point [of restoring ties with Saudis] is that the nations of the region and of the Islamic world felt relieved by these relations and welcomed them, while the enemies were frustrated, including the Zionist entity that revealed its rage caused by the event.
The Zionists seek division between Islamic countries, while Iran believes that strategic unity is essential, he noted, adding that “Israel’s” strategy is to divide and conquer and to sow division, while the strategy of the Islamic Republic is one of unity and harmony.
“In my first speech after taking office, I declared frankly that we can negotiate with Saudi Arabia, and we are ready to resume the work of diplomatic missions in the two countries,” and to sit down with Saudis to resolve issues, he noted.
Raisi stressed that Iran believes that countries must make their own decisions and decide their own fates, and they must prevent any outside power from imposing its will on their political policies.
“For example, Lebanon and the Lebanese must decide [on how to solve their own issues]. We believe that foreign intervention in Lebanon is what causes problems in the country,” he said, stressing that “if the Lebanese decide, as well as the Yemenis, if they decide their own fate, and were able to carry out internal dialogues, then they can solve their problems.”
Foreign interference in countries only leads to creating problems and does not solve any problem, Raisi added.
New world order favors Resistance
Commenting on the Israeli occupation’s recent threats against Iran, the Iranian President assured that “the Zionist entity cannot compete with the Palestinian youth, and it cannot conquer Gaza, and it cannot challenge the West Bank,” adding that Israelis are also unable to provide security to their internal front.
“The circumstances today have greatly changed,” he underscored.
It has become apparent today that no treaties or normalization agreements can protect this entity, and that the rules of confrontation cannot be determined through political forums. Instead, it is the Palestinian Resistance that creates the conditions and it is they that hold the power to decide.
“The Zionist entity, whether in the thirty-three days war [July war on Lebanon] or in the twenty-two days war and the eleven-day war, faced a catastrophic failure, so how does this entity want to confront and attack the center of power and pride in the region, which is the Islamic Republic of Iran, and confront a nation that is present on the battlefronts with this might?”
The entity knows very well that it and its threats are mere lip service, Riaisi added.
Addressing the Arab nations, he advised people to listen to a comprehensive analysis made by Iranian leader Sayyed Khamenei earlier during the holy month of Ramadan, which concluded that the world is pivoting in the opposite direction to unipolarity and toward a new order.
“Today, the circumstances are pivoting in favor of the Resistance and against the Zionist entity,” said Raisi.
“Day after day, the Zionist entity is heading toward its demise,” the political and social situation within “Israel” is unprecedented, he added.
The demise of the entity and its protectors can be witnessed today, and all the Resistance front day after day is heading towards more strength and power, said the Iranian President.
“Therefore, I want to say clearly that the current conditions in the new world order are in favor of the Resistance and against the Zionist entity.”
Raisi continued, “The threats made by the Zionist entity are sometimes empty, and they know it.”
“The evidence for that is that they cannot confront the Resistance youth in Palestine and the region,” he said. “So how does it make threats about attacking Iran? This is farcical talk that no one in the world believes or takes seriously.”
Asked about Iran’s response to any Israeli attack on the Islamic Republic, the Iranian President said that the first response to the aggression would be catastrophic for the entity and would lead to its demise. “Because Iran’s power today is within the country, and Iran’s power in the region is of an unmistakable magnitude,” he explained.
“The first blunder and step made by the Zionist entity will be its last, and there will no longer be this thing called the Zionist entity to even take another step,” he warned.
“We have said and announced this in various forums, and they know very well that we are serious about this view, this step, and this decision.”
Israelis know that the initial Iranian response will lead to the collapse of the Iron Dome, Raisi said.
Syria integral to Axis of Resistance
With regard to Syria, Raisi said “Syria has always been on the frontlines of the Axis of Resistance, whether during the time of President Bashar Al-Assad’s father, the late Hafez Al-Assad, or during the tenure of President Bashar Al-Assad.”
The US, through the creation and funding of ISIS and the takfiri factions, and through the sowing of sedition in Syria, and other militant groups, was seeking to divide Syria, he said.
The Americans also incited the Arab countries against Syria, and the Arab countries also sought to settle their scores with Syria, he added.
However, despite thinking that Syria will collapse and the Resistance frontlines will fall through the internal war that broke out at the hands of the takfiri factions and through the Zionist support for them as well as the support of the US, the Islamic Republic of Iran stood with the Arab state, and it is perhaps the only country that supported the Syrian government and stood up to all the takfiri factions and separatist movements, and even to some regional states, he said.
“Today, the circumstances have drastically changed in Syria, and the difference is that it is known that the Resistance has paid off,” and with all fairness, “President Bashar Al-Assad has stood firm, and he deserves appreciation,” the Iranian president stressed.
He continued: “The Syrian people have also been courageous. They have proven that they are a people of Resistance and that this era of Resistance is considered a golden era in the history of Syria.”
Raisi praised the Syrian nation that fought “the enemies, the separatists, and the takfiri faction” with courage and faced and endured a lot of hardship, including many economic and security difficulties, but they withstood and fought against this global war on their country.
According to Raisi, Lebanon, Hezbollah, the Syrian people, and Iran were on the battlefront to prevent the nation from being carved up and divided, and the resistance of the Syrian people is worthy of praise, as the actions of the Syrian people and government are very impressive and bring pride.
At present time, he said, “many countries all over the world have come to the realization that Syria is not one to fail and be dealt defeats, and they have come to reconsider their ties with it.”
He also explained that Iran welcomes Syria’s rapprochement with numerous countries all over the world, especially those in the region and the Islamic World.
“The ties between Iran and Syria are highly strategic and highly important, and we stress that these relations will continue and span several spheres, including security, economy, and culture. We are two Muslim peoples, and our ties go way back. There exist many bonds between the two Muslim and brotherly peoples, and we hope that, under the leadership of leader Sayyed Khamenei, who fully stressed the need for the resistance to have a united front, […] the ties between the two countries will continue to develop,” he added.
“His Eminence, the Leader, and the government have announced many times that we will never regret supporting the resistance. In accordance with this policy, we never hesitate to support the resistance, and we will not hesitate. Ever. And my visit to Syria comes within the framework of supporting the resistance,” the Iranian President underlined.
“We must stress several issues related to Syria,” he said. “Firstly, the sovereignty of the Syrian government all over Syrian lands. We affirm this, and we believe that the US must leave Syria as soon as possible. We believe that Syrian sovereignty should prevail over all Syrian lands.”
“We, during the tripartite summit in Tehran, with the participation of Turkey and Russia, must emphasize emboldening Syria’s sovereignty over all Syrian lands. This is for the benefit of Syria and the benefit of the region.”
The second issue, he underlined is regarding the return of the Syrian refugees to their homes and cities.
Thirdly, he went on to say, a certainly important issue is the reconstruction of Syria. “Regarding the reconstruction of Syria, we are ready to cooperate with the Syrian people and government, and we, in the Islamic Republic, have highly qualified technical teams and companies capable of playing an important role in the reconstruction of Syria.”
Iran’s growing presence in the international arena
Iran extends its arm in friendship and cooperation to any country that seeks cooperation with it. From this point of view, Tehran is ready to deal and cooperate with all countries, whether within or outside the region.
“We condemn US unilateralism. We think we should not be under anyone’s authority, and we must not exercise authority over others. We believe that the countries of the world are not limited to three or four countries that consider themselves the rulers of the world, such as the United States. The Islamic Republic of Iran relies on constructive relations with all countries on the basis of common interests,” Raisi explained.
Iran has good relations with China and with Russia as well, he highlighted, noting that the Republic’s accession to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization provided it with a platform for cooperation with major countries in Asia.
“We consider that these relations are good relations for us, and we are ready to join BRICS, and this provides the Islamic Republic of Iran with new possibilities to play an important role using its own capabilities and abundant energies,” he said.
The United States, according to the Iranian President, is trying to sow despair among the Iranian people regarding their capabilities. However, the Islamic Republic stresses the cultivation of trust and hope, and there is evidence of its initiative in the various spheres within which the country operates.
“The enemy wanted to isolate us, limit our relations and hinder our presence in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and regional and international organizations, but its attempts were met with failure, and our relations with the world are growing by the day.”
Martyr Qassem Soleimani
Raisi also touched on the commander of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps’ Quds Force commander, Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, saying he was a hero in the fight against terrorism, lauding his role in the resistance struggle in Syria and Iraq. “He confronted the offensives of ISIS and the Takfiri groups through help from the popular resistance groups in Iraq and Syria, and he was successful.”
“In cooperation with the Iraqi and Syrian people, and in cooperation with Lebanon’s Hezbollah, he was able to eradicate the stream of terrorists,” he stressed.
Commenting on his raising of Soleimani’s photo at the UNGA, Raisi said he did that to show those who claim to be fighting terrorism that they “are assassinating the hero of the fight against terrorism. Who assassinated him? The US President at the time [Donald Trump].”
The assassination of Hajj Qassem Soleimani is the assassination of not only a prominent military figure, but also a strategic figure, a strategic person, and a man who was always on the battlefield who managed to simultaneously be a capable diplomat. “Such a person was assassinated by the Americans.”
Raisi also cited a saying by Iranian Revolutionary Leader Sayyed Ali Khamenei when he said that “Martyr Hajj Qassem Soleimani is more dangerous than Hajj Qassem Soleimani himself,” pointing out that they thought that “by assassinating Hajj Qassem Soleimani, they would assassinate his thoughts, and they are today seeing the ramifications of this all over the region […] The people of the region and its youths are very proud of Soleimani, and he has become a school of thought for our people and the resistance’s youth all over the region.”
People of the region have faith in Nasrallah
Hezbollah, the Lebanese resistance movement, enjoys a special stature not only in Lebanon but in the region at large, whereby the party stands as a robust pillar of regional resistance.
On the day of the party’s inception – founded by martyr Sayyed Abbas Moussawi and persisted through the efforts of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and the revolutionary Lebanese youth – nobody would have expected that the Zionist entity would withdraw from south Lebanon.
“And later, when Hezbollah chivalrously withstood the large-scale Israeli aggression in the 2006 war, they proved, for the first time, that Israel is not invincible. Hezbollah inspired the Palestinian youth to stand up to the Zionist entity, which was evident through the First, Second, and Third Intifada,” he explained
“Today, we see the Palestinian youth admirably withstanding Israeli aggression and contending it. This is what they learned of Hezbollah in Lebanon. “
“Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah is a remarkable character. In addition to being a knowledgeable cleric, he is an excellent politician and revolutionary. He enjoys a remarkable flair for captivating the hearts of his audience, appealing to the different sects of the Lebanese constituency.”
Raisi emphasized that revolutionary youth all around the world look to Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah as a revolutionary icon of anti-imperialism.
“In Iran, specifically, we consider him a prominent individual, and we see his character as immortal in light of his struggle and resilience against the Zionist entity.”
Raisi also emphasized the special type of trust vested in Hezbollah by the Lebanese constituency and in Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah specifically, saying it was a special and deep relationship.
He also noted that he has heard that even from within the occupied territories, the Palestinians have a large degree of faith in Sayyed Nasrallah. He added that the relationship between Sayyed Nasrallah and all the Muslim nations, including Iran, is a deep relationship built on trust.
The Iranian people
The Iranian President underlined that the Iranian people have been convinced that they can stand up on their own two feet and independently manage their affairs, without reliance on foreign powers
“This confidence in their own capabilities has been engraved into the Iranian people’s minds, and this, in itself, is the key to the Iranian people’s success and victory.”
Raisi also lauded the role of the Iranian leadership and the directives of Iranian Leader Sayyed Ali Khamenei, saying it was fair to say that his eminence “is leading the people through everything, and despite all the turmoil, he led the country and gave it strength.”
“The Iranian people have come to realize that this system is a tent, and the pillar propping it up is the guardian of the jurors and the leader of the Islamic Republic, therefore they trust both of these jurisdictions.”
Iran has today achieved self-sufficiency, and it has been able to be a leading country in the defense and nuclear sectors, he concluded.
The question is inevitable: what’s the point of this phone call? Very simple: just business.
The Beijing leadership is fully aware the NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine is the un-dissociable double of an American direct war against the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Until recently, and since 2019, Beijing was the top trade partner for Kiev (14.4% of imports, 15.3% of exports). China essentially exported machinery, equipment, cars and chemical products, importing food products, metals and also some machinery.
Very few in the West know that Ukraine joined BRI way back in 2014, and a BRI trade and investment center was operating in Kiev since 2018. BRI projects include a 2017 drive to build the fourth line of the Kiev metro system as well as 4G installed by Huawei. Everything is stalled since 2022.
Noble Agri, a subsidiary of COFCO (China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corporation), invested in a sunflower seed processing complex in Mariupol and the recently built Mykolaiv grain port terminal. The next step will necessarily feature cooperation between Donbass authorities and the Chinese when it comes to rebuilding their assets that may have been damaged during the war.
Beijing also tried to become heavily involved in the Ukraine defense sector and even buy Motor Sich; that was blocked by Kiev.
Watch that neon
So what we have in Ukraine, from the Chinese point of view, is a trade/investment cocktail of BRI, railways, military supplies, 4G and construction jobs. And then, the key vector: neon.
Roughly half of neon used in the production of semiconductors was supplied, until recently, by two Ukrainian companies; Ingas in Mariupol, and Cryoin, in Odessa. There’s no business going on since the start of the Special Military Operation (SMO). That directly affects the Chinese production of semiconductors. Bets can be made that the Hegemon is not exactly losing sleep over this predicament.
Ukraine does represent value for China as a BRI crossroads. The war is interrupting not only business but, in the bigger picture, one of the trade and connectivity corridors linking Western China to Eastern Europe. BRI conditions all key decisions in Beijing – as it is the overarching concept of Chinese foreign policy way into mid-century.
And that explains Xi’s phone call, debunking any NATOstan nonsense on China finally paying attention to the warmongering actor.
As relevant as BRI is the overarching bilateral relationship dictating Beijing’s geopolitics: the Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership.
So let’s transition to the meeting of Defense Ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) earlier this week in Delhi.
The key meeting in India was between Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and his Chinese colleague Li Shangfu. Li was recently in Moscow, and was received by Putin in person for a special conversation. This time he invited Shoigu to visit Beijing, and that was promptly accepted.
Needless to add that every single player in the SCO and beyond, including nations that are for the moment just observers or dialogue partners as well as others itching to become full members, such as Saudi Arabia, paid very close attention to the Shoigu-Shangfu camaraderie.
When it comes to the profoundly strategic Central Asian “stans”, that represents the six feet under treatment for the Hegemon wishful thinking of using them in a Divide and Rule scheme pitting Russia against China.
Shoigu-Shangfu also sent a subtle message to SCO members India and Pakistan – stop bickering and in the case of Delhi, hedging your bets – and to full member (in 2023) Iran and near future member Saudi Arabia: here’s where’s it at, this the table that matters.
All of the above also points to the increasing interconnection between BRI and SCO, both under Russia-China leadership.
BRICS is essentially an economic club – complete with its own bank, the NDB – and focused on trade. It’s mostly about soft power. The SCO is focused on security. It’s about hard power. Together, these are the two key organizations that will be paving the multilateral way.
As for what will be left of Ukraine, it is already being bought by Western mega-players such as BlackRock, Cargill and Monsanto. Yet Beijing certainly does not count on being left high and dry. Stranger things have happened than a future rump Ukraine positioned as a functioning trade and connectivity BRI partner.
إنّ التاريخ يأخذ وقته في حياكة الأحداث إلى أن تكتمل شروط التحوّل الكبير، والذي سوف يشهده ويعاصره ويعيشه العالم لحقب، وربما لقرون.
في تناول الأحداث الصغيرة منها والكبيرة، وتحليل أسبابها واستشراف نتائجها، يُثبت الإنسان في كلّ مرّة أنّه “خُلِقَ عجولا”، وأنّه رغم هذا التاريخ الطويل نسبياً للبشرية، فهو ما زال قليل الصبر والحكمة في تفكّره واستقراءاته. وإذا بدأنا هنا من الحرب الإرهابية، التي شنّتها الدول الاستعمارية الغربية وأتباعها، على سوريا عام 2011، وقام أحدنا بالعمل المضني في استعراض تيّار الإعلام الغربي والعربي بخصوص هذه الحرب، نجد أنّ التحليلات والاستقراءات التي نُشرت بصددها، والتي ساهمت في تضليل الكثيرين تفتقر إلى الاستفادة من التاريخ، كما تفتقر إلى نعمتي الحكمة والصبر. وإذا تناولنا الحرب على اليمن بعُجالة، نجد أنّ معظم ما قيل ونُشر عن الحرب على اليمن لا علاقة له بتاريخ اليمن، ولا بصفات الشعب اليمني الأصيلة والمثبتة، ولا بالحقائق الوجودية اليوم التي يعيشها هذا الشعب، بل تنطلق بمعظمها من استهداف عزيمة وثقة هذا الشعب بنفسه، ومحاولة إلحاق الهزيمة النفسية به من خلال التهويل الإعلامي الذي هو في الحقيقة أداة من أدوات هذه الحرب على هذا الشعب الشجاع والصابر والمؤمن بالله والوطن.
بعد سنة فقط من بدء هذه العملية في أوكرانيا، يجتمع الرئيسان الروسي والصيني ليناقشا مجالات التعاون
ولكنّ المثال الأكبر، والذي أودّ أن أتوقّف عنده وأقلّبه من كلّ زواياه وجوانبه، وذلك للأثر الشديد له على مصيرنا جميعاً، ومصير البشرية للعقود القادمة، هو العملية العسكرية الروسية في أوكرانيا، والتي رغم انطلاقها من نقطة نزاع بين روسيا والغرب إلا أنّ ارتداداتها ونتائجها ذات أثر بالغ على مستقبل وشؤون الدول، وعلى مستقبل العلاقات الدولية، وعلى مستقبل الإنسان في كلّ مكان، ولن تستكمل هذه الارتدادات دورتها ونتائجها إلا بعد عقود من الآن، وسيعيش أبناؤنا وربما أحفادنا التغيرات التي أطلقتها شرارة هذه الحرب فقط لإطلاق مسار تشعّب بعد ذلك وتطوّر في الميادين المختلفة وتطوّرت أهدافه وأصبح مثل كرة الثلج لا يمكن إيقافه بمكان ولا تحديده بموضوع أو مجال معين.
بعد سنة فقط من بدء هذه العملية في أوكرانيا، يجتمع الرئيسان الروسي والصيني ليناقشا مجالات التعاون بين بلديهما في الطاقة والصناعة وتبادل السلع بالعملات المحلية، والاستثمار في مجالات لم تخطر لهم على بال قبل عام فقط، دون أن يركّزوا على العملية العسكرية الروسية في أوكرانيا، والتي ربما تشكّل اليوم هامشاً صغيراً في إطار هذه العلاقات. وبعد عام من هذه العملية توقّع الهند مع الاتحاد الروسي اتفاقاً هاماً لتصدير الطاقة من روسيا إلى الهند بأسعار تفضيلية، (الأمر ذاته تمّ توقيعه مع الصين وبالعملة المحلية؛ أي استبعاد متزايد للدولار)، الأمر الذي سينجم عنه نهوضاً ملحوظاً في السنوات القادمة للصناعة الهندية والصينية، وتعزيز قدرتهما على منافسة المنتجات الأوروبية والأميركية.
وبعد عام من هذه العملية قامت الصين وروسيا وإيران بإجراء مناورات عسكرية بحرية مشتركة لضمان سلامة وأمن الممرات المائية، الأمر الذي لم يكن يخطر لأحد على بال قبل بدء العملية العسكرية الروسية في أوكرانيا. وبعد عام من هذه العملية قامت الصين برعاية أهمّ اتفاق في هذا القرن، وبالتأكيد أهمّ اتفاق لمصير منطقة غرب أسيا والوطن العربي، وهو الاتفاق الإيراني السعودي، والذي كان مجرّد الحديث عنه قبل عامين يُعتبر ضرباً من الخيال. وبعد عام من العملية أصبحت إيران عضواً في منظمة شنغهاي، وقد قدّمت السعودية مؤخراً طلباً للانتساب إلى منظمة شنغهاي، مما يجعل هذه المنظمة أهمّ منظمة لمنتجي الطاقة: روسيا وإيران والسعودية، وسوف يكون لها رأي هام في أسعار وتوريد الطاقة عالمياً، وتتعامل دول هذه المنظمة بالعملات المحلية، مرسلةً دولار الهيمنة الأميركية إلى حتفه.
وبعد عام من هذه العملية بقي الاقتصاد الروسي منتعشاً، بل ازداد تصديره للنفط والغاز لأنه سارع إلى إيجاد أسواق بديلة عن السوق الأوروبية، وازداد الدخل الروسي من تصدير النفط والغاز عمّا كان عليه قبل العملية العسكرية في أوكرانيا، رغم كلّ العقوبات التي يُمنّي الغرب نفسه بالحديث عنها، وتضخيم آثارها المأمولة بالنسبة لهم، بينما هي فاقدة الأثر والأهمية، بل أكثر من ذلك، لقد دفعت هذه العقوبات الظالمة على الشعوب والدول تجمع دول آسيان لاتخاذ قرارات جريئة بتبادل السلع بعملاتهم المحلية كي لا يتمكّن الغرب من التلاعب بأقدارهم حين يحلو له وللأسباب التي يرتأيها. أي إنّ هذه العقوبات قد ارتدّت على الذين أصدروها بأنها أفقدت ثقة العالم بهم وبعملتهم وبنظام المدفوعات الـ “سويفت”، ودفعت الدول للتفكير ببدائل متحرّرة تماماً من التأثير الغربي. الأمر الذي ينعكس حكماً على مكانة الدولار الأسطورية، كعملة دولية، والتي كانت سبباً أساسياً لهيمنة الغرب الاستعماري على العالم وسطوته على موارده ونجاح عقوباته.
هذا في الشرق، أمّا في الغرب، فقد أرغمت الولايات المتحدة الدول الأوروبية على بتر علاقاتها مع روسيا، رغم أنّ هذه العلاقة كانت تصبّ في صالح الدول الأوروبية من خلال توفير الطاقة الرخيصة لاستخداماتها ولزراعتها ولصناعاتها. وماذا كان البديل؟ كان البديل هو أن تبيع الولايات المتحدة هذه الطاقة للدول الأوروبية بأربعة أضعاف السعر الذي كانت تكلفه هذه الطاقة من روسيا، الأمر الذي سينعكس إفقاراً لهذه الدول الأوروبية، وتخلّفاً في صناعتها وزراعتها، وعجزاً عن منافسة المنتجات الصينية والهندية والإندونيسية والبرازيلية في المستقبل القريب، الأمر الذي سيكفل خروج أوروبا من لائحة الدول المتقدّمة صناعياً، والمنافسة اقتصادياً لدول الشرق التي تمارس الحكمة والصبر في علاقاتها أولاً، وببناء عالم جديد من الإنتاج والعلاقات يزيح بحكم وجوده وقدرته على المنافسة العالم الغربي الذي تصرّف بصلف واستكبار، فوقع في شرّ ما قدّمت يداه.
هذا على الصعيد الاقتصادي والإنتاجي والمالي، أمّا على الصعيد الأخلاقي والإنساني، فقد سقط الغرب سقوطاً مدوّياً في براثن الليبرالية الحديثة سيئة الصيت، وأخذت الإنسانية تعمل على حماية نفسها من تأثيرات الغرب القميئة على مستقبل أجيالها. ولكلّ هذا أقول لمن ما زال يؤمن بقوّة الغرب وحكمته، وأنه لا يُقهر وأنه الأنموذج والمثل، إنّ التاريخ يتشكّل ليبرهن عكس ذلك تماماً، ولكنّ التاريخ ليس عجولاً، بل يأخذ وقته في حياكة الأحداث إلى أن تكتمل شروط التحوّل الكبير، والذي سوف يشهده ويعاصره ويعيشه العالم لحقب، وربما لقرون بعد الإيذان بهذا التحوّل من خلال شرارة أطلقت في مكان ما ثمّ أخذت الأحداث مسارها ومجالاتها وتوقيتها بغضّ النظر عن مصير تلك الشرارة، وبشكل أكبر وأهمّ وأدهى مما يتخيّله كثيرون.
إن الآراء المذكورة في هذه المقالة لا تعبّر بالضرورة عن رأي الميادين وإنما تعبّر عن رأي صاحبها حصراً
As global power dynamics continue to shift, Israel’s close western alignment could limit its ability to engage with emerging powers in the east. Arch-rival Iran, which has established ties with Russia and China, will be better positioned to gain from the shifting geopolitical landscape.
Great-power competition has the potential to significantly impact the future of Israel. As a key player in West Asia, Israel is likely to be affected by the actions and strategies of major powers such as the US, China, and Russia.
The US has historically been a strong ally of Israel, providing significant military and economic aid. However, Washington’s current strategy of thwarting growing Chinese and Russian political and economic influence around the world may lead to increased pressure on Israel, a western-creation, to align with US interests in the region.
At the same time, China and Russia are rapidly expanding their stakes in West Asia, which may set back Israel’s recent rapprochement progress with neighboring states. In the past few years, Tel Aviv has offered itself to Arab states as a strong regional replacement for waning US presence, and a buffer against Iran’s rise.
But Beijing’s key role in brokering an agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran is likely to impact Israel’s dealings with both of those countries – and other Arab states. Will they need that Israeli military buffer if global power China – or Russia – can troubleshoot conflict and usher in peace?
Furthermore, as great-power competition intensifies, Israel, like other small states, will come under pressure to align with one side. This could impact Israel’s ability to maintain its independence and pursue its own interests in the region.
Great Power competition: a heavy burden on Israel
In recent years, Israel has developed multifaceted relationships with both China and Russia, which have reaped both economic and political benefits for Tel Aviv. China has been one of the top global investors in West Asia and North Africa, with Israel ranking eighth on the list of beneficiary states since 2005 and receiving just over $12 billion in Chinese investments since 2010. In the past, Washington has given Israel some leeway in its foreign policy initiatives, but since the Ukraine conflict, US flexibility has been abruptly halted
Senior analyst on Israeli affairs at Al-Akhbar newspaper, Ali Haidar, told The Cradle that “Israel has a specific margin to preserve its interests. This is something that the United States understands and considers.”
“At the same time, there are red lines that Israel cannot cross, but it can, through its relations and contacts with the US administration and influential parties, contribute to adapting and circumventing them to some extent.”
As the competition between the US, on the one hand, and Moscow and Beijing on the other, intensifies, Israel’s ability to maneuver is becoming increasingly limited, and Washington’s pressure is mounting. This pressure demands that Tel Aviv take positions more aligned with US interests, which in turn constrain cooperation between Israel and Russia, and China.
“The increasing pressure on Israel to pivot in this context presents it with weighty dilemmas, and a policy change in the wake of that could significantly reduce its space for political-security maneuvering.”
This was exemplified by Israel’s attempts to mediate the conflict in Ukraine, which were quickly abandoned under coercion from Washington to take a clear position in support of the west and against Moscow.
This US pressure was also reflected in Israel’s military aggressions against Syria. In March 2022, the number of Israeli strikes targeting Syria decreased to only one strike from four the month before, suggesting that Tel Aviv was apprehensive of a Russian reaction. As a result, any imbalance in the relationship between Israel and Russia may have direct consequences for Israel’s interests – if Moscow decides to take action.
China’s presence in West Asia and North Africa
In the early 2010s, China began to expand its presence in the West Asia-North Africa (WANA) regions. One of the major milestones of China’s modern foreign policy was the announcement of its ambitious, multi-continent Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013. To date, at least 17 countries from the region have joined the initiative:
WANA states that have joined China’s BRI
China also signed bilateral partnership agreements with 13 countries in the region between 2014 and 2022. Notably, Israel has not entered into any association agreement with China and has not joined the BRI.
WANA states with bilateral strategic partnerships with China
By brokering the Iran-Saudi deal in the aftermath of high-profile visits to Tehran and Riyadh by Chinese President Xi Jinping, Beijing has now signaled that it intends to play a more active role in resolving conflicts and disputes in the region, much to Washington’s alarm. US reaction to this game-changing agreement has been hyper-focused on the geopolitical ramifications of China bringing the two parties to the table, rather than discussion about the agreement itself.
As China’s influence in the region continues to grow, Israel remains constrained by “American concerns,” preventing it from deepening its relations with China, while other regional states are lining up to strike deals with Beijing.
Analyst Haidar has noted that “the US’s obstruction of Israeli engagement with China will limit Tel Aviv’s ability to forge strong economic and political ties with Beijing,” adding, “This is a practical example of Israel’s commitment to what the United States regards as its vital interests, which Israel is prohibited from crossing.”
In 2019, in order to protect Washington’s interests, the Israeli government established a committee to evaluate the national security implications of foreign investments – with a specific focus on China.
Furthermore, the US and Israel have agreed to tighten control over the export of advanced technologies to China. That noose will further tighten as the economic competition between Washington and Beijing intensifies, and Israel – a major recipient of US technologies – may well be forced into this confrontation with China.
Iranian cooperation with Russia and China
One significant consequence of the intensifying competition between great powers is China and Russia’s efforts to strengthen their cooperation with key states, particularly those that oppose aggressive western hegemony.
Their alignment of interests has led to a palpable warming in relations between Iran, Russia, and China, and some concrete steps forward. The three states are more frequently engaging in joint military exercises, and military cooperation between Moscow and Tehran has thrived over the broader Eurasian-Atlanticist conflict in Ukraine.
Hostile US policies aimed at Russia and China have encouraged them to seek out and establish supportive multilateral institutions such as the BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Tehran has, in turn, applied for membership in both organizations, which led to Iran’s formal ascension to the SCO last year – making it the organization’s ninth member state and its first West Asian participant.
In this context, Haidar points out that “One of the most important concepts that resonate on the tongues of officials and experts in Israel is the seriousness of the repercussions of the intensification of the international conflict on the region and Israel.” This, he argued, is “centered on Iran’s openness to Asian powers and the implications of that.”
He also contends that “rapid international changes” could present new opportunities for Iran, which is currently facing an economic assault from the west. These changes, Haidar explains, may enable Iran to counter the sanctions pressures, which undermines Israel’s multi-pronged strategy for confronting Iran.
Today, Israel’s position in the western axis limits its ability to keep up with Iran’s geopolitical expansion eastward. As the Global Power conflict intensifies and the opposing poles become more defined, Israel’s maneuvering room will shrink, while the Islamic Republic – never reliant on the west – will have a wider range of options available to it.
Last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s former national security adviser, Meir Ben-Shabbat, argued that Iran occupies an important place in the process of reshaping the axis of countries hostile to the US and the west:
“The Iranian regime is positioning itself as an active player in the confrontation with the liberal democratic camp led by the US. It identifies the West’s weakness and is exploiting it as far as possible.”
Israel’s shrinking geopolitics
According to the latest annual intelligence estimate of the Israeli military’s Intelligence Directorate, global trends, the Iranian and Palestinian theaters form Tel Aviv’s 2023 threat triangle.
“At the center of this triangle will be the international tendencies that affect Israel and its security; the global instability that stems mainly from the conflict between the United States and China will continue and intensify.”
Today, Israel faces some momentous challenges to its future, not only from extreme domestic polarization but particularly from the intensification of global conflict and the decline of western hegemony. Iran’s growing international engagement, and the solidification of its relations with Asian powers, are unfolding as Tel Aviv’s options are shrinking.
There is also a correlation between the strength of US deterrence and influence in the region and Israel’s ability to exercise its own deterrence capabilities. As US power weakens, it is likely to have a negative impact on Israel’s ability to deter its enemies.
Moreover, the growing number of states “oscillating” between east and west, and maneuvering to take advantage of great-power competition, is another challenge for Israel. Even staunch US allies in the Persian Gulf – once scrambling to normalize relations with Israel – are looking for room to maneuver with the rising east, as seen with Riyadh’s readiness for Chinese mediation in negotiations with Iran.
While Israel may have some margin to distance itself from direct confrontation with China and Russia, the repercussions of the Great Power conflict are likely to buoy the fortunes of the region’s Axis of Resistance – in Iran, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, and Iraq – with any balance of power shift away from US and Israeli hegemony.
In short, Israel’s ability to leverage its western connections for geopolitical gain has shrunk considerably while its rivals race ahead to establish themselves comfortably in West Asia’s new multipolarity.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
In an exclusive interview with The Cradle, Russia’s top macroeconomics strategist criticizes Moscow’s slow pace of financial reform and warns there will be no new global currency without Beijing.
The headquarters of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) in Moscow, linked to the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) is arguably one of the most crucial nodes of the emerging multipolar world.
That’s where I was received by Minister of Integration and Macroeconomics Sergey Glazyev – who was previously interviewed in detail by The Cradle – for an exclusive, expanded discussion on the geoeconomics of multipolarity.
Glazyev was joined by his top economic advisor Dmitry Mityaev, who is also the secretary of the Eurasian Economic Commission’s (EEC) science and technology council. The EAEU and EEC are formed by Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia. The group is currently engaged in establishing a series of free trade agreements with nations from West Asia to Southeast Asia.
Our conversation was unscripted, free flowing and straight to the point. I had initially proposed some talking points revolving around discussions between the EAEU and China on designing a new gold/commodities-based currency bypassing the US dollar, and how it would be realistically possible to have the EAEU, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and BRICS+ to adopt the same currency design.
Glazyev and Mityaev were completely frank and also asked questions on the Global South. As much as extremely sensitive political issues should remain off the record, what they said about the road towards multipolarity was quite sobering – in fact realpolitik-based.
Glazyev stressed that the EEC cannot ask for member states to adopt specific economic policies. There are indeed serious proposals on the design of a new currency, but the ultimate decision rests on the leaders of the five permanent members. That implies political will – ultimately to be engineered by Russia, which is responsible for over 80 percent of EAEU trade.
It’s quite possible that a renewed impetus may come after the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Moscow on March 21, where he will hold in-depth strategic talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On the war in Ukraine, Glazyev stressed that as it stands, China is profiting handsomely, as its economy has not been sanctioned – at least not yet – by US/EU and Beijing is buying Russian oil and gas at heavily discounted prices. The funds Russians are losing in terms of selling energy to the EU will have to be compensated by the proposed Power of Siberia II pipeline that will run from Russia to China, via Mongolia – but that will take a few more years.
Glazyev sketched the possibility of a similar debate on a new currency taking place inside the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) – yet the obstacles could be even stronger. Once again, that will depend on political will, in this case by Russia-China: a joint decision by Xi and Putin, with crucial input by India – and as Iran becomes a full member, also energy-rich Tehran.
What is realistic so far is increasing bilateral trade in their own currencies, as in the Russia-China, Russia-India, Iran-India, Russia-Iran, and China-Iran cases.
Essentially, Glazyev does not see heavily sanctioned Russia taking a leadership role in setting up a new global financial system. That may fall to China’s Global Security Initiative. The division into two blocs seems inevitable: the dollarized zone – with its inbuilt eurozone – in contrast with the Global South majority with a new financial system and new trading currency for international trade. Domestically, individual nations will keep doing business in their own national currencies.
The road to ‘de-offshorization’
Glazyev has always been a fierce critic of the Russian Central Bank, and he did voice his misgivings – echoing his book The Last World War. He never ceases to stress that the American rationale is to damage the Russian economy on every front, while the motives of the Russian Central Bank usually raise “serious questions.”
He said that quite a few detailed proposals to reorient the Central Bank have been sent to Putin, but there has been no follow-up. He also evoked the extremely delicate theme of corruption involving key oligarchs who, for inscrutable reasons, have not been sidelined by the Kremlin.
Glazyev had warned for years that it was imperative for Moscow to sell out foreign exchange assets placed in the US, Britain, France, Germany, and others which later ended up unleashing sanctions against Russia.
These assets should have been replaced by investments in gold and other precious metals; stocks of highly liquid commodity values; in securities of the EAEU, SCO, and BRICS member states; and in the capital of international organizations with Russian participation, such as the Eurasian Development Bank, the CIS Interstate Bank, and the BRICS Development Bank.
It seems that the Kremlin at least is now fully aware of the importance of expanding infrastructure for supporting Russian exports. That includes creating international exchange trading marketplaces for trade in Russian primary goods within Russian jurisdiction, and in rubles; and creating international sales and service networks for Russian goods with high added value.
For Russia, says Glazyev, the key challenge ahead in monetary policy is to modernize credit. And to prevent negative impact by foreign financial sources, the key is domestic monetization – “including expansion of long and medium-term refinancing of commercial banks against obligations of manufacturing enterprises and authorized government bodies. It is also advisable to consistently replace foreign borrowings of state- controlled banks and corporations with domestic sources of credit.”
So the imperative way to Russia, now in effect, is “de-offshorization.” Which essentially means getting rid of a “super-critical dependence of its reproduction contours on Anglo-Saxon legal and financial institutions,” something that entails “systematic losses of the Russian financial system merely on the difference in profitability between the borrowed and the placed capital.”
What Glazyev repeatedly emphasized is that as long as there’s no reform of the Russian Central Bank, any serious discussion about a new Global South-adopted currency faces insurmountable odds. The Chinese, heavily interlinked with the global financial system, may start having new ideas now that Xi Jinping, on the record, and unprecedentedly, has defined the US-provoked Hybrid War against China for what it is, and has named names: it’s an American operation.
What seems to be crystal clear is that the path toward a new financial system designed essentially by Russia-China, and adopted by vast swathes of the Global South, will remain long, rocky, and extremely challenging. The discussions inside the EAEU and with the Chinese may extrapolate to the SCO and even towards BRICS+. But all will depend on political will and political capital jointly deployed by the Russia-China strategic partnership.
That’s why Xi’s visit to Moscow next week is so crucial. The leadership of both Moscow and Beijing, in sync, now seems to be fully aware of the two-front Hybrid War deployed by Washington.
This means their peer competitor strategic partnership – the ultimate anathema for the US-led Empire – can only prosper if they jointly deploy a complete set of measures: from instances of soft power to deepening trade and commerce in their own currencies, a basket of currencies, and a new reserve currency that is not hostage to the Bretton Woods system legitimizing western finance capitalism.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
Iraqi officials are in Washington to discuss “economic reforms” but are in fact being pressured to shun Iranian energy imports in the hope of having US sanctions and dollar rations lifted.
Photo Credit: The Cradle
By Zaher Mousa
On 8 February, 2023, an Iraqi delegation led by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Fuad Hussein arrived in Washington to discuss easing the recent US Treasury measures that have restricted the supply of dollars to Baghdad and imposed sanctions on the Central Bank of Iraq.
The high-level delegation, which includes several government officials, has indefinitely extended its stay in Washington for the “difficult” negotiations, indicating Iraq’s limited options in these talks. If the discussions fail and Washington does not ease its punishing measures, a major crisis could erupt in Iraq – resulting in the collapse of the dinar’s value because of high demand and limited supply.
A Washington Institute report suggests that the US is exerting “severe” pressure on Baghdad to redirect its energy sector away from Iran and to address allegations that its banking sector assists the Islamic Republic in evading western sanctions. These demands are likely to be challenging for Iraq to meet, given its vital ties to Iran and the importance of the energy sector to its economy.
New government, old challenges
The Iraqi visit takes place 100 days after the formation of the government of Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, which had to immediately grapple with the imposition of US sanctions on three Iraqi banks, and restrictions on dollar transfers from Iraq’s oil revenue account in New York to the Central Bank of Iraq.
These measures were put in place to ensure that Iraq did not violate US sanctions on Iran and Syria, which led to a significant decrease in the supply of dollars and a decline in the value of the dinar. This, in turn, stirred up discontent within a population already facing financial hardships.
Sudani’s new government responded by implementing quick measures: subsidizing some basic commodities, launching a campaign of arrests against dollar smugglers, and reducing the official exchange rate from 1,450 dinars to 1,300 dinars per dollar.
However, these steps were unable to control spiraling prices, and only resulted in a slight decrease in the dollar value in the parallel market. This situation has made negotiations with US officials even more critical for the Iraqi delegation, as failure to ease the US measures could have dire consequences for Iraq’s already fragile economy.
‘Forced to negotiate’
Sources in Iraq’s cabinet confirmed to The Cradle that the US did not want Prime Minister Sudani to lead the delegation to Washington, and requested a lower level of representation. As a result, Baghdad carefully selected the members of the visiting team, which is currently led by Fuad Hussein from the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), who is considered an “old friend” of the US.
The Iraqi delegation also includes Adnan al Zarfi, a member of the Parliamentary Finance Committee (PFC), who was previously nominated for the prime ministerial position. Zarfi maintains good relations with Washington officialdom, and has held US citizenship since 2003, making him a strategic choice for inclusion in the Iraqi mission.
Hussein Muanis, a PFC member and head of the Huqouq movement – which is close to Iran-supported Kataeb Hezbollah – tells The Cradle that Iraq was “forced to negotiate:”
“Negotiations should have been based on the strategic framework agreement [which the two countries signed in 2008]. What has been leaked from it so far indicates that the talks were not limited to the economic issues, and that the Iraqi delegation heard American diktats.”
However, Muanis denies that the US had placed a veto on the participation of any Iraqi political personages in the delegation. He emphasized that the PFC had unanimously selected Zarfi as a representative of the legislative authority: “we understand the position of a large part of the political parties regarding relations with Washington.”
Hard bargaining by the US
Thamer Dhiban, a member of the PFC for the Al-Fateh Alliance, which opposes the US presence in Iraq and includes Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq and the Badr Organization, confirmed that the “Coalition for State Administration,” the largest bloc in the Iraqi parliament, supports these negotiations. Dhiban added that “what we have heard so far is positive in principle.”
He tells The Cradle: “There was an agreement to send another delegation to delve into the details of the economic issues, and we were not informed that the negotiations discussed political or military matters,” adding:
“The conditions for financial compliance and connection with the SWIFT system are in the interest of Iraq in the first place, and we will not allow the repetition of the economic blockade that was imposed on Iraq previously.”
Other sources suggest that the meeting between Central Bank Governor Ali al-Alaq and the US Treasury Department only discussed the conditions of the US Federal Reserve regarding financial transfers in dollars and Baghdad’s plans to reform the economic and financial sector.
However, during Hussein’s meeting with his US counterpart Anthony Blinken, political issues were also on the table. According to a Kurdish source who insisted on confidentiality, these included:
“Iraq’s accession to the Abraham Accords, normalization with Israel (which is currently criminalized in Iraq), urging Baghdad to find alternatives to Iranian energy imports, implementing electrical interconnection with Persian Gulf states and Jordan, facilitating the extension of the oil pipeline from Basra to Aqaba, and accelerating the export of gas. The Americans also requested that the ISIS-fighting and pro-Iran Popular Mobilizations Units (PMUs or Hashd al-Shaabi) be repositioned far way from US military bases in Iraq.”
Sources close to Iraq’s pro-Iran political factions, however, believe that “the idea of dissolving the PMUs will be impossible to implement due to legal obstacles on the one hand, and an urgent need for its existence, in addition to the difficulty of integrating it into the regular army.”
Regarding normalization with Tel Aviv, the sources say that the law criminalizing any interaction with Israel – approved by Iraq’s parliament in 2022 – blocked this project.
The sources also say one possible solution toward brokering the US dollar-control issue in Iraq is to resolve Baghdad’s tensions with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Erbil, as the latter is a trusted US intermediary in Iraq. If Baghdad accepts to pay Erbil’s public salaries, for instance, this may smooth the way for the US to reduce pressures.
Ditching the dollar
Iraq is facing a multitude of crises, from political divisions to economic struggles. Due to its vast oil and gas resources, it has become an object of interest for both global and regional powers. Hours before the Iraqi delegation headed to Washington, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited Baghdad and held talks with Iraqi officials about the dollar crisis and ways to enhance energy cooperation.
One of the proposals discussed was for Iraq to join a system that uses the Chinese yuan to facilitate trade with Tehran and Moscow, which are both subject to US sanctions. This move could provide Iraq with an alternative to the US dollar and help to mitigate the effects of the sanctions.
According to Kuwaiti newspaper, Al-Jarida, some Iraqi experts described this particular Lavrov proposal as returning Baghdad to the era of “barter trade,” when the administration of Saddam Hussein entered into a food-for-oil exchange. For them, any payments outside the exalted dollar currency cannot build a proper economy.
But this is only one view from inside Iraq. According to official sources in Sudani’s media office, Baghdad does in fact “aspire to obtain membership in the Asian Development Bank and deposit the financial surplus in it instead of buying US bonds or increasing the financial reserves of the dollar.” The Asian Bank, the sources say, grants larger loan amounts with fewer conditions and lower interest rates than the World Bank.
Likewise, Iraq plans to submit membership requests to join the multipolar BRICS+ group of countries and the Chinese-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
As of this writing, the Iraqi delegation is still in Washington, but holding fewer official meetings and at a lower level.
Raisi’s visit to Beijing, the first for an Iranian president in 20 years, represents Tehran’s wholesale ‘Pivot to the East’ and China’s recognition of Iran’s centrality to its BRI plans.
The visit of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to Beijing and his face-to- face meeting with counterpart Xi Jinping is a groundbreaking affair in more ways than one.
Raisi, the first Iranian president to officially visit China in 20 years, led an ultra high-level political and economic delegation, which included the new Central Bank governor and the Ministers of Economy, Oil, Foreign Affairs, and Trade.
The fact that Raisi and Xi jointly supervised the signing of 20 bilateral cooperation agreements ranging from agriculture, trade, tourism and environmental protection to health, disaster relief, culture and sports, is not even the major take away.
This week’s ceremonial sealing of the Iran-China comprehensive strategic partnership marks a key evolution in the multipolarity sphere: two Sovereigns – both also linked by strategic partnerships with Russia – imprinting to their domestic audiences and also to the Global South their vision of a more equitable, fair and sustainable 21st century which completely bypasses western dictates.
Beijing and Tehran first established their comprehensive strategic partnership when Xi visited Iran in 2016 – only one year after the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or Iranian nuclear deal.
In 2021, Beijing and Tehran signed a 25-year cooperation deal which translated the comprehensive partnership into practical economic and cultural developments in several fields, especially energy, trade and infrastructure. By then, not only Iran (for decades) but also China were being targeted by unilateral US sanctions.
Here is a relatively independent analysis of the challenges and prospects of the 25-year deal. And here is an enlightening perspective from neighboring Pakistan, also a strategic partner of China.
Iran: gotta modernize everything
Beijing and Tehran are already actively cooperating in the construction of selected lines of Tehran’s subway, the Tehran-Isfahan high-speed railway, and of course joint energy projects. Chinese tech giant Huawei is set to help Tehran to build a framework for a 5G telecom network.
Raisi and Xi, predictably, stressed increased joint coordination at the UN and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), of which Iran is the newest member, as well as a new drive along the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
While there was no explicit mention of it, underlying all these initiatives is the de-dollarization of trade – in the framework of the SCO but also the multipolar BRICS group of states. Iran is set to become one of the new members of BRICS+, a giant step to be decided in their upcoming summit in South Africa next August.
There are estimates in Tehran that Iran-China annual trade may reach over $70 billion in the mid-term, which will amount to triple the current figures.
When it comes to infrastructure building, Iran is a key BRI partner. The geostrategy of course is hard to match: a 2,250 km coastline encompassing the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, Sea of Oman and the Caspian Sea – and huge land borders with Iraq, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Every think tank in China sees how Iran is irreplaceable, not only in terms of BRI land corridors, but also the Maritime Silk Road.
Chabahar Port may be a prime Iran-India affair, as part of the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) – thus directly linked to the Indian vision of a Silk Road, extending to Central Asia.
But Chinese port developers do have other ideas, focused on alternative ports along the Persian Gulf and in the Caspian Sea. That will boost shipping connections to Central Asia (Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan), Russia and the Caucasus (Azerbaijan).
And that makes perfect sense when one combines port terminal development with the modernization of Iran’s railways – all the way to high-speed rail.
An even more revolutionary development would be China coordinating the BRI connection of an Iranian corridor with the already in progress 3,200 km-long China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), from Kashgar in Xinjiang to Gwadar port in the Indian Ocean.
That seemed perfectly plausible when Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was still in power, before being ousted by a lawfare coup. The key of the whole enterprise is to build badly needed infrastructure in Balochistan, on both sides of the border. On the Pakistani side, that would go a long way to smash CIA-fed “insurgents” of the Balochistan Liberation Army kind, get rid of unemployment, and put trade in charge of economic development.
Afghanistan of course enters the equation – in the form of a China-Afghan-Iran corridor linked to CPEC. Since September 2021, Beijing has explained to the Taliban, in detail, how they may profit from an infrastructure corridor – complete with railway, highway and pipeline – from Xinjiang, across the Wakhan corridor in eastern Afghanistan, through the Hindu Kush, all the way to Iran.
The core of multipolarity
Iran is perfectly positioned for a Chinese-propelled boom in high-speed cargo rail, connecting Iran to most of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan).
That means, in practice, cool connectivity with a major logistics cluster: the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) of Khorgos, only 330 km from Almaty on the Kazakh-China border, and only four hours from Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital.
If China pulls that off, it would be a sort of BRI Holy Grail, interconnecting China and Iran via Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Nothing less than several corridors in one.
All that is about to happen as the Islamic Revolution in Iran celebrates its 44th year.
What is already happening now, geopolitically, and fully recognized by China, might be defined as the full rejection of an absurdity: the collective west treating Iran as a pariah or at best a subjugated neo-colony.
With the diverse strands of the Resistance embedded in the Islamic Revolution finally consolidated, it looks like history is finally propelling Iran as one of the key poles of the most complex process at work in the 21st century: Eurasia integration.
So 44 years after the Islamic Revolution, Iran enjoys strategic partnerships with the three top BRICS: China, Russia and India.
Likely to become one of the first new members of BRICS+, Iran is the first West Asian state to become a full member of the SCO, and is clinching a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).
Iran is a major strategic partner of both BRI, led by China, and the INSTC, alongside Russia and India.
With the JCPOA all but dead, and all western “promises” lying in the dust, Tehran is consolidating its pivot back to the East at breakneck speed.
What Raisi and Xi sealed in Beijing heralds Chinese pre-eminence all across West Asia – keenly perceived in Beijing as a natural consequence of recognizing and honoring Iran’s regional centrality.
Iran’s “Look East” strategy could not be more compatible with BRI – as an array of BRI projects will accelerate Iran’s economic development and consolidate its inescapable role when it comes to trade corridors and as an energy provider.
During the 1980s Tehran was ruled by a “Neither East nor West” strategy – faithful to the tenets of the Islamic Revolution. That has now evolved, pragmatically, into “Look East.” Tehran did try to “Look West” in good faith, but what the US government did with the JCPOA – from its murder to “maximum pressure” to its aborted resuscitation – was quite a historical lesson.
What Raisi and Xi have just demonstrated in Beijing is the Sovereign way forward. The three leaders of Eurasia integration – China, Russia and Iran – are fast on their way to consolidate the core of multipolarity.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 