The BRICS weigh in on Palestine

JUN 15, 2024

Source

The gravity around the newly-enlarged BRICS constellation is drawing in Arab, Muslim, and Global South adherents to the influential group’s message on international law, Palestine, and halting forever wars.

Photo Credit: The Cradle

Pepe Escobar

MOSCOW – Something of extraordinary magnitude happened in Moscow on 23 May. Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa personally asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to help organize a peace conference on Palestine, at which Russia would be the first non-Arab nation invited.

Al-Khalifa and Putin had two rounds of discussions – one of them closed – during which the main focus was always Palestine. The Bahraini monarch noted that in a rare show of unity, the Arab world had finally come together in agreement to end the war in Gaza. It was implied that Russia was subsequently chosen as the most reliable mediator to end the brutal conflict. 

Bahrain – and the Arab League – recognize that the Russian position centers around what Putin had previously defined as the “UN formula”: an independent Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem. 

That happens to be the position of the BRICS-10 nations and virtually the whole Global Majority. Crucially, it is also the common position of China and the Arab world, reaffirmed in Beijing only one week after the Russia-Bahrain meeting. 

The problem is how to implement the “formula” when the US hegemon, Israel’s unconditional ally, has a virtual stranglehold on the United Nations. 

By 2020, as Tel Aviv was openly announcing the inevitable annexation of the West Bank, the Abraham Accords were smashing a major Arab taboo on openly supporting Israel, via the normalization agreements signed in Washington DC by Bahrain, the UAE, Morocco, and Sudan. 

Nine months ago, Palestine was virtually isolated, and destined to extinction via quiet Israeli policies to incrementally force expulsion. But never underestimate the power of a genocide committed in broad daylight, on video. Today, the Russia-China strategic partnership, BRICS, and the Global Majority have been mobilized to enshrine Palestine as a sovereign state – faithful to the recent super-majority UN General Assembly vote to accept Palestine as a UN member. 

It will be a long, winding, and thorny road that has the potential to split the world in two.

Lavrov lays it all out 

The St. Petersburg forum last week offered three crucial messages to the Global Majority, focused around BRICS. The crux of the sessions may have been geoeconomics, but a now-unavoidable message of support to Palestine crept into the sidelines. 

After a panel ostensibly debating the supply and demand of oil and gas, and which touched upon the principled role of Yemen in the Red Sea directed against the Gaza genocide, support for Palestine, amidst friendly smiles (but off the record), was emphatic from everyone – from OPEC secretary-general Haitham al-Ghais to the UAE’s Minister of Energy Suhail Mohamed al-Mazrouei. 

Same on a Russia-Oman  panel, coming from Minister of Commerce Qais bin Mohammed bin Moosa al-Yousef. 

Earlier this week, the Palestine tragedy was addressed in detail – on points 34 and 35 – in the joint statement of the BRICS 10 Ministers of Foreign Affairs, who sat at the same table for the first time in Nizhny Novgorod, preparing for the extremely important annual BRICS summit next October in Kazan, under the Russian presidency. Three very important points were made there: 

First, the Ministers “reaffirmed their rejection of any attempt aiming at forcefully displacing, expelling or transferring the Palestinian people from their land.” Second, they collectively “expressed serious concern at Israel’s continued blatant disregard of international law, the UN Charter, UN resolutions and Court orders.” And third, the ten foreign ministers: 

“Reaffirmed their support for Palestine’s full membership in the United Nations and reiterated their unwavering commitment to the vision of the two-state solution based on international law including relevant UNSC and UNGA resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative that includes the establishment of a sovereign, independent and viable State of Palestine in line with internationally recognized borders of June 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital living side by side in peace and security with Israel.”

This is BRICS speaking with one voice – including, crucially, representatives of major Muslim-majority states: Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE. and Egypt.   

Then Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, at an expanded BRICS session defined as BRICS+/BRICS Outreach, offered extra, important, context.

“We held an intra-Palestinian meeting in Moscow. We did this repeatedly. The last time it was held in late February and early March of this year, all Palestinian factions, including Hamas and Fatah, were present. For the first time, an event of this kind ended with the adoption of a joint statement in which everyone, including Hamas, expressed their readiness to unite the Palestinian ranks on the basis of the platform of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Previously, it was not possible to achieve this.”

Lavrov explained why, for Russia, it is essential to restore Palestinian unity: 

“Only a united Palestine can be a partner in negotiations aimed at achieving the maximum desired outcome. As long as the Palestinians are divided, this is unlikely to work. Now, without any Palestinians, they are beginning to think about what to do with the Gaza Strip next: either to establish some kind of protectorate of Arab countries, or to introduce some kind of peacekeeping force, or to artificially declare that these will be territories governed by the Palestinian National Authority. These are all initiatives that are imposed by external players.”

And that brings us to the kernel of the Russian position: “The most important component of our long-term policy in this area will be to support the movement for the creation of a Palestinian state in full compliance with UN resolutions.”

How to respond “symmetrically”

All of the above sums up the carefully calibrated, official Russian position. Moscow abhors Israel’s non-stop, irrational escalation while ceasefire proposals are on hand galore. At the same time, it won’t take sides – either with Hamas or with Yemen’s Ansarallah. It is a consensus diplomats and Russia analysts routinely express: Russia will not get into a war thousands of kilometers away when it is fighting a US/NATO existential threat right at its western border. 

After Putin’s answers in the Q&A following his address to the plenary session in St. Petersburg, debate raged on what sort of “symmetrical” responses Russia’s ministry of defense would come up with to counterpunch NATO’s green light for strikes with long-range missiles inside the Russian Federation.   

West Asia, predictably, features in the favorite scenario: advanced strike weapons deployed in Syria, described as “Syrian weapons” to mirror the west’s “Ukrainian weapons” subterfuge. These would supplement arms already deployed at Russia’s Khmeimim and Tartus bases – covering the Eastern Mediterranean, Lebanon, Israel, and US bases in Jordan, occupied Syria and occupied Iraq – and would be operated by Russian personnel, much as US/NATO personnel operate “Ukrainian” weapons.

A BRICS thorn 

Now we come to the thorn in the BRICS flower arrangement – Saudi Arabia.

A discombobulated White House and US Deep State seem to have found a formula to wean Riyadh away from its new role as strong BRICS player: a landmark defense treaty, dubbed the Strategic Alliance Agreement, in the wings awaiting Riyadh’s formalization of relations with Tel Aviv. 

The Strategic Alliance Agreement would need to get a two-thirds majority vote in the US Senate. Yet insistence on “normalization with Israel” may well kill the deal, as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) now has options to carefully consider, not only regarding the Gaza tragedy, but over his new BRICS alliances. 

Riyadh’s official position on Palestine is tied up with BRICS; end of the war/genocide in Gaza, and the establishment of a Palestinian state. And every grain of sand in the lands of Islam is fully aware that a Tel Aviv ruled by an ethnocentric mob of extremists won’t accept a two-state solution. 

Moreover, a Saudi-US military alliance is totally incompatible with Riyadh becoming an influential member of BRICS. Chessboard moves are instead pointing to sooner or later a possible Global Majority military alliance to counterpunch the escalating US/NATO war –  Hybrid and otherwise – against the dawning of a multinodal, polycentric, and in Putin’s terminology in St. Peterburg, “harmonic” multipolar world.   

Add to it the expiration earlier this week of the US-Saudi agreement signed 50 years ago to establish the petrodollar, essentially in exchange for US military protection. 

Already last year Riyadh made it clear the agreement would not be renewed when it clinched a deal with China based on energy trade using the petroyuan. 

So in theory we are advancing further on down the road towards the demise of the petrodollar, coupled with the expansion of the digital yuan. The Central Bank of Saudi Arabia is now a “full participant” of Project mBridge, which unites the BIS Innovation Hub, the Central Bank of Thailand, the Central Bank of the UAE, the People’s Bank of China, and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority.

Essentially, mBridge is a multi-Central Bank digital currency (CBDC) platform shared among Central Banks and commercial banks, and enabling instant cross-border payments and settlement. Thailand, for instance, is buying oil from the UAE using mBridge.

There are no less than 26 mBridge observers – quite a mixed bag, including the China-led Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the European Central Bank, the IMF, and the World Bank. 

As Saudi Arabia joins mBridge, Saudi Aramco – after opening itself to foreign investors with a huge IPO – has just ceded an extra 0.64 percent of its capital, with 60 percent of the buyers American. Aramco is a humongous fountain of dividends for shareholders: this year, that will amount to a whopping $141 billion. 

Guess who are the top new investors? The Big Three – Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street – now all wallowing in Saudi oil. 

Arabs, CENTCOM, and Israel: in bed together? 

And now for the ultimate complicating factor. 

On Monday, military officers from Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Jordan – which includes three BRICS members and Russia-friendly Bahrain – met with Herzi Halevi, the IDF’s Chief of General Staff to discuss…defense cooperation.

The meeting was facilitated by none other than the US CENTCOM. Although as low-profile as it gets, the meeting still leaked, given the juxtaposition of the Gaza genocide alongside a meeting of top Arab leaders sitting with the Arab world’s worst enemies.

A post-modern epigone of the cynics dwelling in the Agora in Ancient Greece would remark that with CENTCOM Arab “friends” like these – three of them BRICS members – Palestine does not need enemies.

Meanwhile, the tragedy persists on so many levels. As Chinese high school students all across the civilization-state show their support for Palestine after taking their university entrance exams, the US-Israel axis homogenizes terrorism, linked to the debacle of Project Ukraine, coupled with the non-stop killing of Palestinians.

Everything is being sucked into the black hole of terrorism – complete with NATO now openly re-arming the neonazi Azov Battalion, and Kiev targeting civilians in Belgorod with drones and scattering mines in parks where kids play.

All the components of the Hegemon-fed Terror Foreign Legion are coming together, in lockstep with Israel, which is essentially ISIS with nuclear weapons. But for all their lofty ideals and sacred belief in the UN, the BRICS still have not come up with a solid, practical strategy to fight the horror.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

De-Dollarization Bombshell

MAY 13, 2024

The Coming of BRICS+ Decentralized Monetary Ecosystem

PEPE ESCOBAR

Get ready for what may well be the geoeconomic bombshell of 2024: the coming of a decentralized monetary ecosystem.

Welcome to The Unit – a concept that has already been discussed by the financial services and investments working group set up by the BRICS+ Business Council and has a serious shot at becoming official BRICS+ policy as early as in 2025.

According to Alexey Subbotin, founder of Arkhangelsk Capital Management and one of the Unit’s conceptualizers, this is a new problem-solving system that addresses the key geoeconomic issue of these troubled times: a global crisis of trust.

He knows all about it first-hand: a seasoned financial professional with experience in investment banking, asset management and corporate matters, Subbotin leads the Unit project under the auspices of IRIAS, an international intergovernmental organization set up in 1976 in accordance with the UN statute.

The Global Majority has had enough of the centrally controlled monetary framework put in place 80 years ago in UN statute and its endemic flaws: chronic deficits fueling irresponsible military spending; speculative bubbles; politically motivated sanctions and secondary sanctions; abuse of settlement and payment infrastructure; protectionism; and the lack of fair arbitration.

In contrast, the Unit proposes a reliable, quick and economically efficient solution for cross-border payments. The – transactional – Unit is a game-changer as a new form of international currency that can be issued in a de-centralized way, and then recognized and regulated at national level.

The Unit offers a unique solution for bottlenecks in global financial infrastructure: it is eligible for traditional banking operations as well as for the newest forms of digital banking.

The Unit can also help to upend unfair pricing in commodity trading, by means of setting up a new – fair and efficient – Eurasian Mercantile Exchange where trading and settlement can be done in a new currency bridging trade flows and capital, thus paving the way to the development of new financial products for foreign direct investment (FDI).

The strength of the Unit, conceptually, is to remove direct dependency on the currency of other nations, and to offer especially to the Global Majority a new form of apolitical money – with huge potential for anchoring fair trade and investments.

It is indeed a new concept in terms of an international currency – anchored in gold (40%) and BRICS+ currencies (60%). It is neither crypto nor stablecoin – as it’s shown here.

The Beauty of Going Fractal

The Global Majority will instantly grasp the primary purpose of the Unit: to harmonize trade and financial flows by keeping them outside of political pressure or “rules” that can be twisted at will. The inevitable consequence translates as financial sovereignty. What matters in the whole process are independent monetary policies focused on economic growth.

That’s the key appeal for the Global Majority: a full ecosystem offering independent, complementary monetary infrastructure. And that surely can be extended to willing Unit partners in the collective West.

Now to the practical level: as Subbotin explains, the Unit ecosystem may be easily scalable because it comes from a fractal architecture supported by simple rules. New Unit nodes can be set up by either sovereign or private agents, following a detailed rule-book in custody of the UN-chartered IRIAS.

The Unit organizers employ a distributed ledger: a technology that ensures transparency, precluding capital controls or any exchange rate manipulation.

This means that connection is available to all open DEX and digital platforms operated by both commercial and Central Banks around the world.

The endgame is that everyone, essentially, may use the Unit for accounting, bookkeeping, pricing, settling, paying, saving and investing.

No wonder the institutional possibilities are quite enticing – as the Unit can be used for accounting and settlement for BRICS+; payment and pricing for the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU); or as a reserve currency for Sub-Saharan Africa.

And now comes the clincher: the Unit has already received backing by the BRICS Business Council and is on the agenda at the crucial ministerial meeting in Russia next month, which will work out the road map for the summit next October in Kazan.

That means the Unit has all it takes to be on the table as a serious subject discussed by BRICS+ and eventually be adopted as early as in 2025.

Will Musk and the NDB Be on Board?

As it stands, the priority for the Unit conceptualizers – whom I followed for over a year during several, detailed meetings in Moscow – is to inform the general public about the new system.

The Unit team is not interested at all in getting straight into political hot waters or to be cornered by ideologically-laden arguments. Direct references to inspiring but sometimes controversial concepts or authors like Zoltan Pozsar may bury the Unit concept into pigeon holes, thus limiting its potential impact.

What may lie ahead could be extraordinarily exciting, as the Unit appeal could extend all the way from Elon Musk to the BRICS’s New Development Bank (NDB), hopefully engaging an array of crucial actors. After a positive evaluation by Finance Minister Anton Siluanov – who remains on the post in the new Russian government – it’s not far-fetched to imagine Putin and Xi discussing it face to face this week in Beijing.

As it stands, the major takeaway is that the Unit should be seen as a feasible, technical solution for the theoretically Unsolvable: a globally-recognized payment/trade system, immune to political pressure. It’s the only game in town – there are no others.

Meanwhile, the Unit conceptualizers are open for constructive criticism and all manners of collaboration. Yet sooner or later the battle ranks will be lined up – and then it will be a matter of seriously upping the game.

“Academically Sound, Technologically Innovative”

Vasily Zhabykin, co-author of the Unit white paper and founder of CFA.Center, Unit’s technological partner at Skolkovo Innovation Hub in Moscow, crucially stresses: the Unit “represents apolitical money and can be the connector between the Global South and the West.”

He’s keen to point out that “the Unit can keep all the wheels turning unlike most of the other concepts that feature ‘dollar killers’, etc. We do not want to harm anybody. Our goal is to improve efficiency of currently broken capital and money flows. The Unit is rather the ‘cure for centralized cancer’’’.

Subbotin and the Unit team “are keen to meet new partners who share our approach and are ready to bring additional value to our project.” If that’s the case, they should “send us 3 bullet points on how can they help and improve the Unit.”

A bold follow-up step should be, for instance, a virtual conference on the Unit, featuring leading Russian economist Sergey Glazyev, Yannis Varoufakis, Jeffrey Sachs and Michael Hudson, among others.

By email, Glazyev, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Minister of Integration and Macroeconomics of the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) , summed up the Unit’s potential:

“I have been following the development of Unit for more than a year and can confirm that Unit offers a very timely, feasible solution. It is academically sound, technologically innovative and at the same time complementary to the existing banking infrastructure.

Launching it under the auspices of an UN institution gives Unit legitimacy, which the current Bretton Woods framework is clearly lacking. Recent actions by the US administration and loud silence from IMF clearly indicate the need for change.

A decentralized approach to emission of potential global trade currency, whose intrinsic value is anchored in physical gold and BRICS+ currencies, makes Unit the most promising of several approaches being considered. It balances political priorities of all participants, while helping each sovereign economy develop along its optimal path.

The New Development Bank (NDB) and BRICS+ shall embrace the concept of Unit and help it to become the pinnacle of the new emerging global financial infrastructure, free from malign political interferences while focused instead on fair trade and sustainable economic growth.”

A clear, practical example of possible Unit problem-solving concerns Russia-Iran trade relations. These are two top BRICS members. Russian trade with Iran is unprofitable due to sanctions – and both cannot make payments in US dollars or euros.

Russian companies suffer significant losses after switching to payments in national currencies. With each transfer, Russian businesses on average lose as much as 25% due to the discrepancy between the market rate in Iran and the state rate.

And here’s the key takeaway: BRICS+ as well as the Global Majority can only be strengthened by developing closer geoeconomics ties. The removal of Western speculative capital shall free up local commodity trading, and enable the pooling of investable capital for sustainable development. To unlock such a vast potential, the Unit may well be the key.

(Republished from Sputnik by permission of author or representative)

← We Should All be Stoics Now

The Axis of Asymmetry takes on the ‘rules-based order’

FEB 23, 2024

Photo Credit: The Cradle

World War III is here, playing out asymmetrically in military, financial, and institutional battlefields, and the fight is an existential one. The western Hegemon, in truth, is at war against international law, and only ‘kinetic military action’ can bring it to heel.

Pepe Escobar

The Axis of Asymmetry is in full swing. These are the state and non-state actors employing asymmetrical moves on the global chessboard to sideline the US-led western rules-based order. And its vanguard is the Yemeni resistance movement Ansarallah. 

Ansarallah is absolutely relentless. They have downeda $30 million MQ-9 Reaper drone with just a $10k indigenous missile.

They are the first in the Global South ever to use anti-ship ballistic missiles against Israel-bound and/or -protecting commercial and US Navy ships. 

For all practical purposes, Ansarallah is at war with no less than the US Navy.

Ansarallah has captured one of the US Navy’s ultra-sophisticated autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV), the $1.3 million Remus 600, a torpedo-shaped underwater drone able to carry a massive payload of sensors. 

Next stop: reverse engineering in Iran? The Global South eagerly awaits, ready to pay in currencies bypassing the US dollar. 

All of the above – a maritime 21st-century remix of the Ho Chi Minh trail during the Vietnam War – spells out that the Hegemon may not even qualify as a paper tiger, but rather as a paper leech.

Lula tells it as the Global South sees it 

Into the Big Picture – linked to the relentless ongoing genocide perpetrated by Israel in Gaza – steps a true leader of the Global South, Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. 

Lula spoke in the name of Brazil, Latin America, Africa, BRICS 10, and the overwhelming majority of the Global South when he cut to the chase and defined the Gaza tragedy for what it is: a genocide. No wonder the Zionist tentacles across the Global North – plus its Global South vassals – went bonkers. 

The genocidals in Tel Aviv declared Lula as persona non grata in Israel. Yet Lula did not assassinate 29,000+ Palestinians – the overwhelming majority of whom were women and children.

History will be unforgiving: it’s the genocidals that will eventually be judged as personae non grata to all of humanity.

What Lula said represented BRICS 10 in action: this was obviously cleared before with Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, and, of course, the African Union. Lula spoke in Addis Ababa, and Ethiopia is now a BRICS 10 member.

The Brazilian president was extremely smart in timing his Gaza fact-check to be on the table during the G20 meeting of Foreign Ministers in Rio. Way beyond BRICS 10, what’s happening in Gaza is a consensus among the non-Western G20 partners – who are actually a majority. No one, though, should expect any serious follow-up inside a divided G20. The heart of the matter remains in the facts on the ground. 

Yemen’s fight for “our people” in Gaza is a matter of humanistic, moral, and religious solidarity – these are foundational tenets of the rising eastern “civilizational” powers, both domestically and in international affairs. This convergence of principles has now created a direct link – extrapolating to the moral and spiritual spheres – between the Axis of Resistance in West Asia and the Slavic Axis of Resistance in Donbass. 

Extreme attention should be paid to the timescale. The Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) forces and Russia have spent two hard-fought years in Novorossiya just to arrive at the stage where it becomes clear – based on the battlefield and cumulative facts on the ground – that “negotiations” mean only the terms of Kiev’s surrender.

In contrast, the job of the Axis of Resistance in West Asia has not even started. It’s fair to argue that its strength and full sovereign involvement have not been deployed yet (think Hezbollah and Iran). 

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, with his proverbial subtlety, has hinted there’s, in fact, nothing to negotiate on Palestine. And if there would be a return to any borders, these would be the 1948 borders. The Axis of Resistance understands that the whole Zionist Project is unlawful and immoral. But the question remains how to throw it, in practice, into the dustbin of History?

Possible – avowedly optimistic – scenarios ahead would include Hezbollah taking possession of the Galilee as a step toward the eventual retaking of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Yet the fact remains that even a united Palestine does not have the military capability to reconquer stolen Palestinian lands. 

So the questions posed by the overwhelming majority of the Global South that stands with Lula may be: Who else, apart from Ansarallah, Hezbollah, Hashd al-Shaabi, will join the Axis of Asymmetry in the fight for Palestine? Who would be willing to come to the Holy Land and die? (After all, in Donbass, it’s only Russians and Russophones who are dying for historically Russian lands)

And that brings us to the way towards the endgame: only a West Asian Special Military Operation (SMO), to the bitter end, will settle the Palestinian tragedy. A translation of what happens across the Slavic Axis of Resistance: “Those who refuse to negotiate with Lavrov, deal with Shoigu.”

The menu, the table, and the guests

That out-of-his-depth closet neocon, Secretary of State Tony Blinken, let the cat out of the bag when he actually defined his much cherished “rules-based international order”: “If you’re not on the table, you are on the menu.”

Following his own hegemonic logic, it’s clear that Russia and the US/NATO are on the table while Ukraine is on the menu. What about the Red Sea? The Houthis defending Palestine against US–UK–Israel are clearly on the table, while Western vassals supporting Israel in a maritime way are clearly on the menu. 

And that’s the problem: the Hegemon – or, in Chinese scholarly terminology, “the crusaders” – have lost the power to place the name cards on the table. The main reason for this authority collapse is the build-up of serious international meetings sponsored by the Russia–China strategic partnership during the past two years since the start of the SMO. It’s all about sequential planning, with long-term targets clearly outlined. 

Only civilizational states can do that – not plutocratic neoliberal casinos.   

Negotiating with the Hegemon is impossible because the Hegemon itself prevents negotiations (see the serial blocking of ceasefire resolutions at the UN). Additionally, the Hegemon excels in instrumentalizing its client elites across the Global South via threats or kompromat: see the hysterical reaction of Brazilian mainstream media to Lula’s verdict on Gaza. 

What Russia is showing the Global South, two years after the start of the SMO, is that the only path to teach a lesson to the Hegemon has to be kinetic, or “military-technical.”

The problem is no nation-state can compare to nuclear/hypersonic/military superpower Russia, in which 7.5 percent of the government’s budget is dedicated to military production. Russia is and will remain on a permanent war footing until Hegemon’s elites come to their senses – and that may never happen.

Meanwhile, West Asia’s Axis of Resistance is watching and learning, day after day. It’s always crucial to keep in mind that for all the resistance movements across the Global South – and that also includes, for instance, West Africans against French neo-colonialism – the geopolitical fault lines could not be starker.

It’s a matter of the collective West versus Islam; the collective West versus Russia; and sooner rather than later, a substantial part of the West, even reluctantly, versus China.

The fact is we are already immersed in a World War that is both existential and civilizational. As we stand at the crossroads, there is a bifurcation: either escalation towards overt “kinetic military action,” or a multiplication of Hybrid Wars across several latitudes. 

So it’s up to the Axis of Asymmetry, cool, calm, and collected, to forge the underground corridors, passages, and trails capable of undermining and subverting the US-led, unipolar, rules-based international order. 

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

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Is the Almighty US Dollar About to Take a Fall?

 SEPTEMBER 5, 2023

Source

BRICS alliance is seeking a multipolar global financial system

Philip Giraldi

August 23^rd was a big news day all over the world. The western media’s focus on the events of that day was solidly on the unproven claims that Russian President Vladimir Putin was behind the sabotage or shooting down of an executive jet that killed his former associate Yevgeny Prigozhin. In reality, however, there was a far more important story that was coming out of South Africa. In fact, Putin had a far more important job to do on that day due to his desire to make progress in stripping the United States of its dollar hegemony. Putin was engaged by videolink in the discussions taking place in Johannesburg regarding expanding the so-called BRICS monetary union, in part to include measures that would diminish the dominance of the dollar in the world economy. That objective would have been damaged severely if Putin had been implicated in the spectacular public assassination of a rival on the same day as the BRICS meeting that would have been not only an embarrassment but also very damaging vis-a-vis his credibility as a statesman. If Putin had really wanted to kill Prigozhin, there were less politically damaging ways to do so and as of this writing the cause of the airplane crash remains unknow. By one theory, the death of Prigozhin was carried out by an airplane bomb planted by US or British intelligence working with Ukrainian agents inside Russia to discredit the Russian leader, knowing that even if he were innocent he would be blamed for the killing, which is precisely how the story has been developing in the US and Europe.

The name BRICS comes from an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill reportedly coined the term BRIC (without South Africa) in 2001 and the group was set up a few years later using the acronym. Recently, the drive to expand BRICS has gained momentum as a result of the completely avoidable Ukraine war. The venerable status quo for international finance was developed in the wake of the Second World War at Bretton-Woods, where the instruments of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) were created, to include endorsing the dollar as the de facto world reserve currency for many transactions. The entire structure is, by design, managed by a transatlantic capitalist cabal based in Washington.

There is currently only limited competition to the IMF and World Bank in the global marketplace for credit, loans, issuance of money and capital, the power to grow and develop economies, project finance, and to stay competitive with the influx of much needed capital to house, clothe, educate, or feed the people of the world. And the United States knows that and uses its control over the financial system to keep countries in line politically.

The BRICS banking model, based as it is on a multipolar world with multiple currencies and lending arrangements, has offered an alternative to this out-of-control monster of a global banking monopoly maintained by the IMF. This is why 132 nations, which had been calling on the UN for a new financial model, immediately saw hope in the BRICS alternative banking and financing initiatives which began to take shape in 2015. Within the first year, 57 countries formally joined the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), constituting the first total break from the Western Bretton Woods institutions, with initial capitalization of the BRICS New Development Bank stated to be $100 billion.

So BRICS has been around in its current form for about eight years, but interest in it exploded with events surrounding the start of the Ukraine War. A little over a year and a half ago, the US responded to the Russian intervention in Ukraine by using its control over the international banking system to slap sanctions on Moscow’s financial assets around the world, including freezing billions of dollars in banks in New York. By one estimate, $1 trillion in Russian assets were frozen and Russian banks were also denied access to the SWIFT global messaging service that connects financial institutions and facilitates rapid and secure payments. Washington subsequently announced that the frozen money would not be returned and would be instead used for Ukraine’s reconstruction. That set off warning lights all around the world, though there had already been similar behavior on the part of the US in relation to Iranian and Venezuelan assets. Many were asking the question “If they can do it to a great power like Russia they can also do it to me to punish me? What should I do?” Of course the simple answer is to get out of dollars as a reserve currency, though that was something difficult to do as most energy sales and purchases continue to be, by arrangement, denominated in dollars. Hence the transition to BRICS away from dollars, permitting financial transactions in a range of currencies.

The annual meeting of BRICS Partner Countries Business Forum, as they refer to themselves, took place in Johannesburg South Africa over August 21st-24th. Meeting host South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates will formally join the BRICS group of nations as their candidacies had been approved by leaders of the current member states. The six newcomers will become full-fledged BRICS club members starting in January 2024. The club, which is the inner circle of the banking system, currently consists of the founders Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa though there are many other non-members who enjoy limited banking privileges, including Britain, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand and Australia. The desirability of BRICS expansion topped the agenda of the summit in Johannesburg all week. Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose nation will take up the rotating BRICS presidency next year, spoke to the attendees via videolink and thanked the host of the summit for his hospitality and contribution to the successful outcome.

Chinese President Xi Jinping actually attended the summit meeting, as did the heads of state of Brazil, China and India to discuss a broad range of geopolitical, economic and trade issues. President Xi declared to the group that in the context of BRICS’s growth “China stands firmly on the right side of history, and believes that a just cause should be pursued for the common good.” He also denounced the United States indirectly, saying that “some country, obsessed with maintaining its hegemony, has gone out of its way to cripple the EMDCs (emerging markets and developing countries).” He argued that attempts to punish and contain developing countries would be “futile,” and that “the collective rise of EMDCs represented by BRICS is fundamentally changing the global landscape…[as] EMDCs have contributed up to 80% of global growth in the past 20 years.” He added that “I am glad to note that over 20 countries are knocking on the door of BRICS. China hopes to see more joining the BRICS cooperation mechanism.”

BRICS multipolar banking model embracing multiple currencies and the resources made available through its New Development Bank are clearly concepts whose time has arrived and its membership will likely surge over the next several years as the US continues to seek to rule the world through sanctions that destroy economies and impoverish whole nations, such as it currently does in Syria and Venezuela. In its closing document from the summit, the attendees indirectly attacked US use of sanctions, stating that there should be “concern about the use of unilateral coercive measures.” There is particular resentment throughout much of the developing world of US attempts to use primary and secondary sanctions to coerce countries that are disinclined to do so into supporting the NATO war effort in Ukraine.

BRICS enjoys certain advantages as it grows including the leadership of China, which might already be the world’s largest economy, as well as the commitment of developed fast growing large economies Russia, Brazil, India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Iran. The expanded BRICS includes 36% of the entire world’s GDP (larger than the G7) and 47% of the world’s population. BRICS member countries will soon control nearly half the world’s energy resources and if Venezuela, Algeria and Kazakhstan are included as new members as early as in 2024, it may control as much as 90% of all oil and gas traded globally. It is reported that as many as forty new countries have applied to join alliance. Even the Vatican has sought membership as an observer.

The rise of BRICS means that the US dollar will, at a minimum, lose its relative monopoly on oil and gas trades and sales. The dominance of dollar economics will thereby inevitably fade and the dollar will surely decline as the world’s top reserve currency, though it will undoubtedly continue to survive in that capacity in parts of the world where the US continues to have considerable political and economic leverage, like Latin America. What will the outcome for the United State economy and for American citizens be? It is hard to calculate, and some are predictably dismissive of possible negative outcomes, but the dollar will inevitably shrink in value, hurting consumers, and Americans will undoubtedly find many potential markets closed to US development and investment. That is in part why there is such a panic about China on Capitol Hill. China does not pose a military threat but it out competes the United States globally and, operating through BRICS and other mechanisms it is already the lead nation in a highly competitive and attractive economic alliance that decisively rejects the American and Western European model. Of course, the US could respond by lightening up on the coercive economic policies that it has for so long employed, but there is little to suggest that either Joe Biden or Donald Trump would choose to go down that path. It is the American consumer and tax payer who will suffer and have to pay the price for whatever missteps they make. And the ultimate possible horror scenario is “Will the US be ‘forced’ to go nuclear against BRICS to save the dollar?” Don’t put anything past the power-mad neocons and globalists dominating Washington. Stay tuned!

Iran’s entry into BRICS: The end of economic and political isolation?

AUG 31, 2023

Photo Credit: The Cradle

Tehran’s diplomatic persistence has yielded a second major breakthrough this year: Securing full BRICS membership to dismantle isolation, navigate sanctions, and bolster political and economic influence with Eurasian power centers.

Zafar Mehdi

In his address at the 15^th BRICS summit in Johannesburg on 24 August, Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi highlighted his country’s unwavering commitment to the ongoing de-dollarization drive and the establishment of a more balanced international order. 

Raisi underscored the “historic” advantages that Iran’s inclusion in the economic bloc brings, noting that it marks “a new step towards establishing justice, ethics, and sustainable peace in the world,” and called the 11-member BRICS a “symbol of change.” 

His address followed the bloc’s invitations to Iran and five other countries — Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Argentina, Ethiopia, and the UAE — to join as permanent members. The expansion of the group into BRICS+ has irked western hawks, as it threatens to counterbalance their global influence.

On the sidelines of the three-day summit, Raisi also held separate meetings with his counterparts from founding members China, Brazil, India, and South Africa. The leitmotif was common — a new world order.  

“The expansion of BRICS shows unilateralism is going downhill,” Raisi was quoted as saying in a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in which he vowed to strengthen Tehran’s comprehensive strategic partnership with Beijing and promote the latter’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

In his meeting with Brazilian President Luiz Lula da Silva, Raisi explained that the US’ “maximum pressure” policy — the brainchild of former President Donald Trump – has inadvertently propelled Iran’s progress. 

With Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Raisi focused on transit matters and urged expedited progress on the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) project, a transformative multi-modal transportation route linking India with the Caspian Sea, Russia, and northern Europe through Iran.

‘Strategic victory’ for Iran

Mohammad Jamshidi, the Iranian president’s deputy chief of staff for political affairs and a key aide, first announced Iran’s BRICS induction on Twitter. 

“In a historic move, Islamic Republic of Iran becomes permanent member of BRICS,” Jamshidi tweeted in both English and Persian, describing it as a “strategic victory for Iran’s foreign policy.”

On Friday, the Iranian delegation made a triumphant return to Tehran, having clinched the BRICS membership barely a month after full accession to the prestigious 9-member Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

Speaking to reporters and his cabinet colleagues at Mehrabad International Airport, Raisi said Iran’s inclusion in the BRICS alliance will enhance the country’s “political and economic power.”

Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian took to Instagram to celebrate the diplomatic feat, saying the BRICS expansion and Iran’s admission would “strengthen multilateralism” and help the Raisi government pursue its “look east” foreign policy goals.

Morteza Habibolahi, a Tehran-based economic affairs analyst, describes Iran’s full memberships in both the SCO and BRICS in a span of one year as nothing short of a “diplomatic masterstroke.” He tells The Cradle: 

“The SCO primarily focuses on political and security issues while BRICS is a bloc of emerging market economies with almost 30 percent share of global GDP. For Iran, battered by sanctions and economic isolation, it presents tremendous opportunities to open up again.”

Iran submitted its application for full membership in BRICS in June last year, days after Raisi virtually addressed the BRICS summit and expressed Tehran’s readiness to share its “vast capabilities and potentials” to help the bloc accomplish its goals.

A week later, at the end of the 23rd summit of the SCO Council of Heads of States, the New Delhi Declaration admitted Iran as the 9th full member state.

‘Turning east’ has been a winning strategy 

Former Iranian diplomat Mohsen Pakaeen explains to The Cradle that BRICS membership is the outcome of Iran’s assertive ‘look-east’ policy.

He contends that Iran can “reap many benefits” through its membership in the bloc that “aims to promote a new world order based on multilateralism and focuses on an alternative financial system.”

“Iran lies at the heart of BRICS as it is situated at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and Africa. It  owns vast oil and gas resources and numerous mines. It also has a robust defense system, seeks to protect regional security, and is against foreign interference in the region’s affairs. All of these can help the BRICS alliance thrive.”

According to Pakaeen, Iran’s membership in BRICS and the SCO will “eliminate the need for the country to wait for the [western] sanctions-removal talks to bear fruit,” referring to the stalled negotiations aimed at reviving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal.

While those negotiations in Vienna, mediated by the EU, have been at a standstill since last August due to disputes between Iran and the US, Iran’s involvement in influential Global South economic blocs has provided an alternative path to economic progress. 

The stalled negotiations are compounded by Iran’s conflicts with the UN nuclear watchdog, tensions in the Persian Gulf, and allegations that Iran is supplying drones to Russia for use in Ukraine.

Earlier this month, the two adversaries reached a prisoner swap deal, which also included unfreezing of Iranian assets blocked in Iraq and South Korea, but the deal has been de-linked from nuclear talks, which Tehran insists is contingent on Washington’s political will. 

An Iranian foreign ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, informs The Cradle:

“Raisi’s administration’s ‘look-east’ policy is essentially designed to tell the US and its allies that we can not only survive but also thrive by focusing on our strengths and relying on friends. This administration understands that trusting Americans never works but the door of meaningful and pragmatic diplomacy also remains open.”

Tensions in the Persian Gulf 

Ali Ahmadi, an executive fellow at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, believes that Iran joining BRICS right after joining the SCO shows that US efforts to isolate Iran have “significant limits.”

Ahmadi tells The Cradle that sanctions are “still harming the Iranian economy” and that de-dollarization is a “long-term project that isn’t going to break the impact of American financial sanctions in the immediate term.”

“This certainly shouldn’t be seen as any kind of replacement for nuclear diplomacy. I do not believe officials in Tehran see it that way. It’s much more about managing Iran’s position in a multipolar emerging global order.” 

Significantly, Iran’s entrance into BRICS comes against the backdrop of escalating tensions between Tehran and Washington due to recent incidents in the Persian Gulf and the deployment of US warships in the geostrategic waterway. 

Reports have emerged about the US Navy offloading a seized Iranian oil tanker off the coast of Texas, despite repeated warnings from Iranian officials. Following this incident, Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanaani boldly declared that the “era of hit and run is over,” echoing the stern warning issued in July by Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) Navy commander Alireza Tangsiri – and a clear message to Washington.

Iran’s economic potential in BRICS

Abolfazl Amoee, spokesperson for the Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign policy commission, believes Iran’s accession to the BRICS benefits all parties, boosting both Iran and the multilateral organization’s influence in the international arena. As he tells The Cradle:

“Before the latest expansion, BRICS economies accounted for around 26 percent of global GDP. With the inclusion of six new members, they will now account for 37 percent of the world’s GDP.” 

Amoee argues that Iran is a “largely untapped market” for global economic powers such as China, Russia, and India, which means there will be great room for closer trade between Iran and BRICS countries: 

“Iran is a big 85-million market with a massive educated human capital. Despite the illegal US sanctions, last year the volume of our non-oil trade reached $112 billion. We can be a good partner in the value chain for other BRICS members.” 

Non-oil trade between Iran and the five original BRICS members grew by 14 percent to $38.43 billion in 2022-23, as per data from the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Customs Administration.

China was Iran’s biggest trade partner with $30.32 billion, followed by India with $4.99 billion, Russia with $2.32 billion, Brazil with $466.55 million, and South Africa with $322.04 million.

As the second largest oil and gas producer in West Asia, a major emerging hub for transit transportation, and arguably the most experienced country in circumventing western sanctions, Iran can add tremendous value to the bloc and its members. 

Banking on BRICS 

At a conference attended by BRICS representatives in Tehran earlier in August, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian made that point clearly, by emphasizing his country’s potential as a “reliable and influential” partner of the bloc.

He highlighted Iran’s strategic location, oil and gas reserves, well-developed transportation and transit networks, and advancements in modern technology as key strengths that can benefit all BRICS members. 

The Islamic Republic also stands to gain from joining the nascent BRICS financial system. Mehdi Safari, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for economic affairs, last week announced that Dilma Rousseff, president of the New Development Bank (NDB), is slated to visit Tehran soon. 

Safari held talks with Rousseff on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Johannesburg, during which the two sides discussed Iran’s application to join the bank, widely lauded as a credible replacement for the Belgium-based SWIFT. 

Amoee tells The Cradle that the BRICS policy of pursuing non-dollar trade and its plan to create a joint investment bank creates opportunities for countries to engage in economic cooperation, independent of the US: 

“Iran is one of the countries that can greatly benefit from this policy, as the US spares no chance to curb Iran’s dollar-based trade.” 

Ahmadi, for his part, stresses that Iran is naturally more aligned with China and Russia, who share “negative views” on western policies: 

“BRICS is trying to build a diverse set of economies and seems to particularly like commodity-exporting nations that can facilitate a strong inter-BRICS trade network focused on de-dollarization.”

In short, Iran’s dual memberships in BRICS and the SCO have a ‘multiplier’ effect on Iran’s strategic goals of promoting de-dollarization, strengthening ties with like-minded rising powers, and advancing its longstanding national commitment to self-reliance and diversification. 

These partnerships not only challenge western attempts to isolate Iran and its economy, but also position Tehran as a key player in shaping emerging geopolitical and economic dynamics. The BRICS knows full well that Iran has unparalleled experience in forging new paradigms outside the west’s ecosystems, and those lessons and tactics will come in handy as they advance a multipolar world order. 

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

US Congresswoman: Rise of BRICS Devastating for US, Dollar to Be Weakened

Sep 1, 2023

By Staff, Agencies

Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene warned that “As BRICS gains momentum, the US economy becomes weaker because the members of the grouping can circumvent American sanctions and trade in their own currencies.”

Speaking to her constituents in Georgia, the Republican congresswoman lashed out at the administration of US President Joe Biden, which she said is turning a blind eye to the rise of BRICS – an economic group which consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa and accounts for more than a quarter of global GDP.

The Republican firebrand claimed that while Washington is “doing… nonsense” – including providing all kinds of support to Ukraine which is locked in a conflict with Russia – “there are other countries in the world, powerful countries, organizing together because they are tired of the United States.”

In this sense, the BRICS countries are making serious trade agreements “where they are saying: we’ll buy from you, you’ll buy from us, we don’t care about US sanctions and we’ll sell to one another, buy and sell in our own currency, not the US dollar,” she stated.

 “This is one of the most devastating things that can happen to all of us,” Greene claimed.

As BRICS becomes more powerful, the US dollar gets weaker, she said. “And you know what happens to all of us? We’re going to go broke,” the congresswoman predicted, adding that this dynamic will negatively affect the retirement plans and personal savings of ordinary Americans.

“What is going to happen to our children, when the US dollar means nothing anymore, because Russia, and China, and India with its huge population of billions of people have more buying power in their own currencies than we do? This is a very serious concern,” Greene said.

The congresswoman’s remarks come on the heels of a historic BRICS summit in South Africa, where the group agreed to an unprecedented expansion, admitting six new countries – Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates – which will become full-fledged members in 2024.

BRICS and the challenge of solidarity

Aug 30, 2023

Source: Al Mayadeen English

BRICS members, unlike the US and the G7, do not demand political compliance or for other countries to model themselves in their image. As far as they’re concerned, cooperation is paramount. (Illustrated by: Zeinab ElHajj, Al Mayadeen English)

By Karim Sharara

BRICS now holds the potential to be THE significant challenge to the West current world order, particularly with its new expansion. Yet this expansion will not be without difficulty.

“We know that Africa is neither French, nor British, nor American, nor Russian, that it is African. We know the objects of the West. Yesterday they divided us on the level of a tribe, clan and village…They want to create antagonistic blocs, satellites…”

~ Patrice Lumumba in a speech at the opening of the All-African Conference in Leopoldville, DR Congo, August 25,1960.

In that same speech, Lumumba, who would be assassinated less than five months later in a Belgian plot (backed by the US and the UK), would also say, “African unity and solidarity are no longer dreams. They must be expressed in decisions.” 

Lumumba’s body, following his arrest and execution, would be buried in a shallow grave, only to be later exhumed and melted down with acid. The remaining bones would be ground to a fine powder and scattered. All that was left of his remains was a gold tooth, which the Belgians kept to themselves and was only recently given to his children by Belgian authorities last year.

This article clearly doesn’t discuss Lumumba, or Africa for that matter, that much can be ascertained from the title, but it does, however, implicitly tackle the effect of unity and solidarity on challenging a global hegemonic system.

One main question that comes to mind regarding the change in the international scene that we’ve witnessed over the past two years has been that of multipolarity and the new world order, along with the West’s ability to deal with the issue.

Countless articles have been written so far on the subject, but one aspect that hasn’t been discussed as much is that of the interests of BRICS in the organization and the interests held by countries wishing to join it.

Laying the foundation

BRICS did not become an option overnight. It was founded fairly recently in 2009 as BRIC, later including South Africa in 2010, thus becoming BRICS, it allowed for economic cooperation between its members who had witnessed fairly high levels of growth in the late 90s and early 2000s and were poised to collectively dominate the global economy by 2050.

The countries would agree to pool together their resources, amassing $100 billion, in order to found the New Development Bank, which they would grant to each other during times of need. 

Naturally, all of these countries cooperate with global organizations such as the IMF and the World Bank, but to quote former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, “The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank can be said to represent ‘global’ interests, and their constituency may be construed as the world. In reality, however, they are heavily American dominated and their origins are traceable to American initiative, particularly the Bretton Woods Conference of 1944.”

It was only natural that these countries would come together to provide an alternative web for themselves instead of the one in the middle of which the US positioned itself as an indispensable cog.

On their own, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa also have a shared interest in enhancing their geopolitical profile. They all share the want for a stronger political presence in the world and cannot do so under a US-dominated system, but a loose congregation of countries that have a shared goal of fostering prosperity and mutual investments in each other’s economies would not only increase their profile, but also provide them with the economic heft they require in order to advance their positions. 

The icing on the cake was that the deal came without any of the IMF strings they had grown accustomed to (political reforms a la liberal democracy, crippling economic demands) and with little economic and political costs. BRICS members, unlike the US and the G7, do not demand political compliance or for other countries to model themselves in their image. As far as they’re concerned, cooperation is paramount.

The impact of the war in Ukraine

The war in Ukraine, precisely the West’s sanctions on Russia, provided great impetus to the Global South’s consideration of other avenues for economic cooperation. 

Between the New Development Bank, which provides loans through infrastructure projects, the Contingent Reserve Arrangement, which provides protection for members when their currency is facing financial pressures, the BRICS payment system, which is poised to replace the US-dominated SWIFT, and the BRICS common currency to replace the dollar, dozens of countries found great appeal in joining the organization amid the West’s “ride or die” approach against Russia.

This was only natural, as all countries saw clearly that they could be under US pressure at any given moment and could instantly be blocked from any and all SWIFT-dependent financial transactions. Iran’s experience was there for all to see, and here was Russia being embargoed. The difference in this case, in particular, was that the world was not dependent on trade with Iran, but it was dependent on Russia, both in commodities and in energy. 

The reasoning is quite clear-cut here, regardless of where you stand on the war in Ukraine: If the US can exert so much pressure to embargo Russia, then it could do the same to us.

If anything’s been clear over the past decades, it’s that contrary to the US, China does not view politics as a zero-sum game, making its approach with its partners markedly different.

Should BRICS accept them?

The push to provide an alternative for countries from US dominance, particularly countries of the Global South, would remain quite lacking if the Global South is excluded from it.

One of the BRICS’ main goals is to de-dollarize global trade, and it is doing so at the moment by lending in local currencies. An alternative system that would knock the dollar off its throne would need more members for it to succeed, and countries from the Global South would need to be part of the BRICS and its organizations to reap their full benefit while shielding themselves from the impact of any possible sanctions or pressure imposed upon them by the West.

This is a mutually beneficial relationship for both sides, particularly when taking into account the opportunities for investment this would open up, not to mention allowing for them all to remain sheltered from any fluctuations in the US dollar, as evident in the 2008 financial crisis.

As of January 1, 2024, Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE will become official new members of BRICS, and 16 new countries have applied to join. Argentina, which is racked with inflation, is looking for heavy foreign investment to calm local markets. The KSA and UAE are global oil producers whose infrastructure heavily depends on the West and are in need of diversifying their portfolio and investment in non-energy sectors. Iran is looking for export markets and investment in its infrastructure. Ethiopia is still recovering from its Civil War, while the Egyptian economy is still in crisis but offers much opportunity for investors.

Naturally, the process of expansion will not be without its drawbacks.

As the organization grows, so will its decision-making process be faced with additional issues, particularly when interests collide in an increasingly unstable world environment.

One test that BRICS members will come to face over the coming years will be that of solidarity. BRICS, and those willing to join it, will have to express ‘in decision’ their will to remain together, and these limits will be surely tested. For now, the US is attempting to create counter-blocs in Africa, Central Asia, the Asia-Pacific, and Latin America, all in order for them to act as counterweights to the BRICS.

It goes without saying that it will attempt to sow discord among BRICS members, particularly by appealing to their heavyweights, like India.

Not a panacea

Having said this, it’s important to keep in mind that BRICS isn’t an end-all solution for the new world order. It’s not meant or designed to be an alternative to the UN and other post-WW2 global institutions. It’s not meant to be the flag-bearer of multipolarity.

BRICS is one of the many tools that will need to be used in order to pull the rug from under the US, or at the very least render its weapons less effective. 

However, BRICS and the alternative it offers may provoke a change in US-led institutions by challenging them. Brazilian President Lula da Silva said it best in his speech during the BRICS summit a few days ago, “The war in Ukraine highlights the limitations of the Security Council. Many other conflicts and crises do not receive due attention, even though they cause vast suffering for their populations. Haitians, Yemenis, Syrians, Libyans, Sudanese, and Palestinians all deserve to live in peace.”

“The BRICS has established itself as a forum for discussing the main issues affecting world peace and security,” he continued. “We cannot shy away from addressing the main current conflict in Ukraine and its global effects. Brazil has a historic position of defending sovereignty, territorial integrity, and all the purposes of the principles of the United Nations.”

Since the war in Ukraine began, complimented with a sanctions war on Russia, it is noteworthy that the BRICS countries have managed to act as a political entity (though somewhat loose in its connections) and succeeded in unifying their stances vs-à-vis the war, despite the enormous amount of US pressure they faced. The future looks promising indeed.

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‘Welcome to the BRICS 11’

AUG 25, 2023

Photo Credit: The Cradle

‘No mountains can stop the surging flow of a mighty river.’ With the addition of six new members that add geostrategic clout and geographic depth to the once sputtering BRICS, the multilateral institution is now gathering the momentum needed to reset international relations.

Pepe Escobar

In the end, History was made. Surpassing even the greatest of expectations, the BRICS nations performed a giant step for multipolarity by expanding the group to BRICS 11.  

Starting on January 1, 2024, the five original BRICS members will be joined by Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). 

No, they won’t turn into an unpronounceable BRIICSSEEUA. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov confirmed the song remains the same, with the familiar BRICS acronym to the Global South or Global Majority or “Global Globe” multilateral organization that will shape the contours of a new system of international relations.  

Here is the Johannesburg II Declaration of the 15^th BRICS summit. BRICS 11 is just the start. There’s a long line eager to join; without referring to the dozens of nations (and counting) that have already “expressed their interest”, according to the South Africans, the official list, so far, includes Algeria, Bangladesh, Bahrain, Belarus, Bolivia, Venezuela, Vietnam, Guinea, Greece, Honduras, Indonesia, Cuba, Kuwait, Morocco, Mexico, Nigeria, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkiye and Syria. 

By next year, most of them will either become BRICS 11 partners or part of the second and third wave of fully-fledged members. The South Africans have stressed that BRICS “will not be limited to just one expansion phase.”

Russia-China leadership, in effect 

The road leading to BRICS 11, during the two days of discussions in Johannesburg, was hard and bumpy, as admitted by Russian President Vladimir Putin himself. The final result turned out to be a prodigy of trans-continental inclusion. West Asia was aggregated in full force. The Arab world has three full members, as much as Africa. And Brazil strategically lobbied to incorporate troubled Argentina. 

The global GDP-purchasing power parity (PPP) of BRICS 11, as it stands, is now 36 percent (already larger than the G7), and the institution now encompasses 47 percent of the world’s population.

BRICS+ Countries GDP, GDP (PPP) and Debt. (Photo Credit: The Cradle)

G7 Countries GDP, GDP (PPP) and Debt. (Photo Credit: The Cradle)

Even more than a geopolitical and geoeconomic breakthrough, BRICS 11 really breaks the bank on the energy front. By signing up Tehran, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, BRICS 11 instantly becomes an oil and gas powerhouse, controlling 39 percent of global oil exports, 45.9 percent of proven reserves and 47.6 percent of all oil produced globally, according to InfoTEK. 

A direct BRICS 11-OPEC+ symbiosis is inevitable (under Russia-Saudi Arabia leadership), not to mention OPEC itself. 

Translation: The collective west may soon lose its power to control global oil prices, and subsequently, the means to enforce its unilateral sanctions. 

A Saudi Arabia directly aligned with Russia-China-India-Iran offers a stunning counterpoint to the US-engineered oil crisis in the early 1970s, when Riyadh started wallowing in petrodollars. That represents the next stage of the Russian-initiated and Chinese-finalized rapprochement between Riyadh and Tehran, recently sealed in Beijing.

BRICS+ And G7 Proven Oil Reserves. (Photo Credit: The Cradle)

And that’s exactly what the Russia-China strategic leadership always had in mind. This particular diplomatic masterstroke is rife with meaningful details: BRICS 11 enters the fray on the exact same day, January 1, 2024, when Russia assumes the annual presidency of BRICS. 

Putin announced that the BRICS 11 summit next year will take place in Kazan, the capital city of Russia’s Tatarstan, which will be yet another blow to the west’s irrational, isolation-and-sanctions policies. Next January, expect further integration of the Global South/Global Majority/Global Globe, including even more radical decisions, conducted by the sanctioned-to-oblivion Russian economy – now, incidentally, the 5^th largest in the world by a PPP of over $5 trillion.         

G7 in a coma

The G7, for all practical purposes, has now entered an Intensive Care Unit. The G20 may be next. The new “Global Globe” G20 may be the BRICS 11 – and later on the BRICS 20 or even BRICS 40. By then, the petrodollar will also be on life support in the ICU.

The BRICS 11 climax could not have been accomplished without a stellar performance by the Men of the Match: Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, supported by their respective teams. The Russia-China strategic partnership dominated in Johannesburg and set the major guidelines. We need to be bold and expand; we need to press for reform of the current institutional framework – from the UN Security Council to the IMF and the WTO; and we need to get rid of those institutions that are subjugated by the artificial “rules-based international order.”     

No wonder Xi defined the moment, on the record, as “historic.” Putin went so far as to publicly call on all BRICS 11 to abandon the US dollar and expand trade settlements in national currencies – stressing that BRICS “oppose hegemonies of any kind” and “the exceptional status that some countries aspire to,” not to mention “a policy of continued neo-colonialism.” 

Importantly, as much as the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is celebrating its 10^th anniversary next month, Putin drove home the necessity to:

“…establish a permanent BRICS transport commission, which would deal not only with the North-South project [referring to the INTSC transportation corridor, whose key BRICS members are Russia, Iran and India], but also on a broader scale with the development of logistics and transport corridors, interregional and global.”

Pay attention. That’s Russia-China in synch on connectivity corridors, and they are preparing to further link their continental transportation projects. 

On the financial front, the Central Banks of the current BRICS have been instructed to seriously investigate and increase trading in local currencies.

Putin made a point of being very realistic on de-dollarization: “The issue of the single settlement currency is a complex issue, but we will move toward solving these problems one way or another.” That complemented Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva’s remarks on how the BRICS has started a working group to study the viability of a reference currency. 

In parallel, the BRICS’ New Development Bank (NDB) has welcomed three new members: Bangladesh, Egypt, and UAE. Yet their road to prominence from now will be even steeper.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa publicly praised NDB President Dilma Rousseff’s report on the nine-year-old institution; but Dilma herself stressed again that the bank aims to reach only 30 percent of total loans in currencies bypassing the US dollar. 

That’s hardly enough. Why? It’s up to Sergey Glazyev, the Minister of Macroeconomics at the Eurasia Economic Commission, working under the Russia-led EAEU, to answer the key question: 

“It is necessary to change the statutory documents of this bank. When it was created, I tried to explain to our financial authorities that the capital of the bank should be spread between the national currencies of founding countries. But American agents madly believed in the US dollar. As a result, this bank today is afraid of sanctions and is semi-paralyzed.”  

No mountains can stop a mighty river 

So yes, the challenges ahead are immense. But the drive to succeed is contagious, perhaps best epitomized by Xi’s remarkable speech at the closing ceremony of the BRICS Business Forum, read out by Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao. 

It’s as if Xi had invoked a Mandarin version of the 1967 American pop classic “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” He quoted a Chinese proverb: “No mountains can stop the surging flow of a mighty river.” And he reminded his audience that the fight was both noble – and necessary: 

“Whatever resistance there may be, BRICS, a positive and stable force for good, will continue to grow. We will forge stronger BRICS strategic partnership, expand the ‘BRICS Plus’ model, actively advance membership expansion, deepen solidarity and cooperation with other EMDCs [emerging market developing countries], promote global multipolarity and greater democracy in international relations, and help make the international order more just and equitable.”

Now add this profession of faith in humanity to the way the “Global Globe” perceives Russia. Even though the Russian economy’s purchasing power parity is by now ahead of the imperial European vassals that seek to crush it, the Global South’s perception of Moscow is as “one of our own.”  What happened in South Africa made this even more clear, and Russia’s ascendency to the BRICS presidency in four months will crystallize it.

It’s no wonder that the collective west, dazed and confused, now trembles as it feels the earth – 85 percent of it, at least – moving under its feet. 

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

Venezuela voices interest in de-dollarization, BRICS membership

24 Aug 2023

Source: Agencies

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, Bolivia’s President Luis Arce, and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva assemble for a group photo during the South American Summit at Itamaraty palace in Brasilia, Brazil, May 30, 2023. (

Maduro adds his country’s intent to establish a new financial architecture allowing transactions to occur via both physical and digital methods in multiple national currencies.

By Al Mayadeen English

During his speech at the BRICS summit in the South African capital of Johannesburg, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro reiterated his country’s interest in the BRICS membership, after applying for it earlier this month, and voiced his intent to contribute to Venezuela’s oil-rich economy while reaping benefits from its common goal with the bloc’s ambition to end the dependence on the dollar.

“Venezuela joins the requests of countries wishing to join BRICS as we have recently confirmed,” Maduro said, adding that Venezuela is home to the largest oil resources in the world and could contribute greatly to the “global integration model”. 

He further urged for establishing a new financial model that does not rely on the US dollar.

Read more: The BRICS, countering Western centuries-long hegemony

“The reality of recent years has demonstrated the necessity to move forward with the de-dollarization of the global economy amid the US currency being used as a mechanism of economic war against the free nations of the world. Recent studies have shown that at least 30 countries, accounting for 28% of the global population, are affected by imperialistic sanctions and other measures of economic war”. 

Road to El-‘De-dollarization’

Maduro added his country’s intent to establish a new financial architecture allowing transactions to occur via both physical and digital methods in multiple national currencies.

Speaking of the economy, Maduro underlined that this would amplify the restoration and growth of the Venezuelan economy – already forecast to grow by over 5%, the highest figure in the region.

This comes the same day after Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel expressed that the bloc’s New Development Bank (NDB) should serve as the alternative to modern financial institutions that aim “to obtain resources from the countries of the South.” 

“The New Development Bank created by BRICS can and should become an alternative to modern financial institutions that have been using outdated recipes for about a century to obtain resources from the countries of the South,” he said. 

BRICS is attracting countries that aim to steer away from a system controlled by the collective West and adopt a model of international relations based on mutual partnership, South Africa’s minister of public works and infrastructure told Sputnik on Wednesday.

“[The] majority of the countries in the world are yearning for a platform where they could cooperate at a mutual level without being dominated by the so-called superpowers. And that’s why many people are eager to join BRICS,” Minister Sihle Zikalala said.

Iran in the SCO: Gateway or gatekeeper to West Asia?

JUL 18, 2023

With Iran’s SCO veto, no other West Asian country can join the eastern security and economic alliance without Tehran’s say-so. This is a remarkable position of leverage for the Iranians, who have overnight gained access to a $6 trillion marketplace and military cooperation with Asia’s biggest powers.

Mohamad Hasan Sweidan

After a long-awaited 15-year process, Iran finally achieved a significant milestone on 4 July: full membership in the prestigious Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the east’s preeminent security alliance.

This landmark event not only marked Iran as the first West Asian nation to join this powerful Asian grouping dedicated to security, economic, and humanitarian cooperation, but it also solidified the SCO’s standing with a formidable line-up of members including China, India, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, and now Iran.

This accomplishment reflects a resounding failure of the US’s strategy to isolate its adversaries through the imposition of unilateral economic punishments, or “sanctions.” The SCO, in stark contrast to the west, no longer recognizes these unilateral measures as legitimate obstacles and chooses instead to only uphold the legally binding UN Security Council decisions. 

The futility of Atlanticist attempts to isolate Tehran becomes apparent when one considers the staggering number of 4,540 unilateral economic measures imposed by the west on Iran, all aimed at isolating the Islamic Republic.

Failure of US sanctions

These measures, which have been in effect since President Jimmy Carter’s Executive Order 12170 froze approximately $12 billion of Iranian assets on 14 November, 1979, have failed to achieve their intended goal of obstructing international cooperation with Iran.

In fact, it could be argued that the US inadvertently thwarted its own ambitions. By indiscriminately imposing sanctions on various countries, Washington has instead found itself increasingly isolated. This was even acknowledged by US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen who warned in April that:

“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… Of course, it does create a desire on the part of China, of Russia, of Iran to find an alternative.”

Presently, five SCO permanent members out of nine are currently subject to US sanctions or have experienced their impact in the past: Iran, Russia, China, India, and Pakistan.

The remaining three members have been indirectly affected by the west’s unilateral actions, making their collaboration essential in mitigating the damage caused by these punitive measures. The futile objective of isolating states that clash with Washington’s interests has clearly backfired, as the SCO continues to strengthen the bonds between these countries.

Iran: Shanghai’s gateway to West Asia

One of the primary objectives of the SCO is to enhance economic cooperation between member states, which holds immense potential for the once-isolated Iran. Joining this bloc provides the Iranians with a gateway to Central Asian markets, opening up opportunities worth billions of dollars. In September 2022, Mehdi Safari, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for economic diplomacy, aptly described this accession as a promising opportunity for flourishing business and trade.

The SCO’s influence on global trade has been increasing since its inception in 2001, with its share of world trade rising from 5.4 percent in 2001 to 17.5 percent in 2020, according to Chinese customs data. Even more dramatic, the value of global trade of SCO member countries grew from just $667 billion in 2001 to $6.06 trillion in 2020.

Undoubtedly, the escalating great-power competition between China, Russia, and the US has played a pivotal role in expediting Iran’s accession to the SCO.

Russia’s preoccupation with the war in Ukraine and China’s escalating competition have motivated these two countries to bolster their relations, including with states seeking to escape US political and financial hegemony, and are receptive to collaboration. Even US-friendly states today have valid economic reasons to resist western pressures that aim to restrict their cooperation with Beijing and Moscow.

The US, perceiving the SCO as a hostile bloc led by China and Russia that challenges its post-Cold War global dominance, underscores the significance of Iran becoming the first West Asian country to join an organization led by these two powers. 

This development is poised to inspire other regional countries to follow suit, whether to secure a position alongside rising powers or to ensure that West Asian representation in the organization remains diverse and inclusive.

Today, the geopolitical competition between China, the US, and Russia extends beyond a singular geographical arena, encompassing a battle for influence and the shaping of the new world order in all continents. As rising powers and their organizations seek to expand their spheres of influence, Iran’s presence in the SCO becomes a crucial incentive to foster increased cooperation with West Asia.

By attaining permanent membership in the organization, Iran now has reach to approximately 40 percent of the world’s population and 30 percent of global economic output – access which it can funnel to West Asia. 

Moreover, the SCO represents roughly 60 percent of Eurasia’s population. Considering the trajectory of economic relations among SCO member states since the organization’s establishment in 2001, Iran is poised to become a gateway for attracting billions of dollars’ worth of projects to West Asia, particularly those that contribute to East Asia’s growth.

SCO’s collective security 

Iran’s full membership in the SCO also impacts its regional and Eurasian security clout, especially given the organization’s three key security objectives: combating terrorism, separatist projects, and extremism, as outlined in Article 1, Section 3 of the SCO Charter.

Iran has demonstrated its capability and determination in countering terrorism within its borders, extending its security measures to neighboring countries, and directly confronting terrorist groups beyond its borders.

Tehran’s cooperation with the governments in Damascus and Baghdad to counter terrorism in those countries, and its success in defeating ISIS and other terrorist groups, are an indication of the effectiveness of Iran’s military and political forces in establishing security in the region. 

Iran’s accession to the SCO can therefore enhance the collective ability of member states to combat terrorist activities across the vast areas covered by the organization. During his address to the 23rd Council of Heads of State of the SCO, which coincided with Iran officially joining the bloc, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi emphasized Iran’s readiness to share its experience and capabilities within the SCO mechanisms, aiming for a region free from terrorism, extremism, and separatism.

Iran’s inclusion in the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure, formed under Article 10 of the SCO Charter, strengthens its security and military cooperation against terrorism, extremism, arms smuggling, and cyber threats. 

Iran’s SCO membership also allows participation in joint military exercises, such as the “Peace Mission Exercise,” fostering defense ties with Central Asia, Russia, and China. This could facilitate Iran’s expanded arms exports, particularly in the field of drones, to Central Asian nations.

Following Iran’s admission into the SCO, an article in the Jerusalem Post noted  that “a growing concern is spreading across the western world, primarily due to the multifaceted implications of Iran’s growing military ties with Russia and China.” 

As UNSC restrictions on Iranian ballistic missile transfers expire in October, Iran will gain even more freedom in arms trade with SCO members, a source of extreme apprehension for Atlanticists.

Tehran as gatekeeper to West Asia 

In accordance with Article 16 of the SCO charter, the accession of a new member to the bloc requires unanimous agreement among all permanent members, granting each of these members full veto power. In the past, Iran’s application for membership faced delay due to Tajikistan’s opposition, stemming from allegations that Iran sent fighters into the country’s civil war in the 1990s. Those issues have been fully resolved, hence Iran’s recent accession to full membership.

West Asian countries are increasingly aspiring to join organizations led by Beijing and Moscow, such as the BRICS and the SCO, each driven by different motivations. Their objectives include challenging Iran’s exclusive inclusion in these groups, fostering stronger economic cooperation with Asian powers, enhancing defense collaborations, or establishing a counterbalance to western organizations.

Currently, the SCO includes six West Asian countries as dialogue members: Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Turkiye, alongside Egypt from North Africa. Consequently, the transition to permanent membership for these countries requires Iran’s consent, potentially granting Iran leverage in its relations with its regional rivals. This powerful status is one that Moscow and Beijing would not have failed to calculate when designating Iran as the SCO’s first West Asian permanent member.

Iran’s induction as a permanent member of the SCO marks a significant triumph in the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy endeavors, enhancing prospects for defense, economic, and humanitarian cooperation between Iran and influential Asian powers. 

Iran’s geostrategic influence 

Iran’s presence within an organization led by China and Russia also helps these powers further fortify their presence in West Asia, thus bolstering their geostrategic equilibrium vis-à-vis the US in the region. 

Undoubtedly, the Israeli occupation state stands among the most apprehensive parties regarding Iran’s permanent membership, concerns that stem from the potential avenues it opens for Iranian defense and military collaboration. 

Additionally, Iran’s lasting inclusion in the SCO might serve as an incentive for its regional rivals to seek representation at the Shanghai table, fearing a new asymmetry in West Asia’s internal power balance. Consequently, Iran’s veto power within the SCO becomes a strategic card that can be utilized to assert its influence and impact the behaviors of other nations aiming to join Asia’s economic-security powerhouse.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

Destroying Eastern Ukraine to Save It

JUNE 30, 2023

Photograph Source: Mil.gov.ua – CC BY 4.0

BY MATTHEW HOH

I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men.

~PresidentJohn F. Kennedy, American University, June 10, 1963

Following an essay I published earlier this month and the letter the Eisenhower Media Network ran in The New York Times in May, I have heard forceful and passionate protests that Russia had no other option but to invade Ukraine in February 2022. Frankly, I find quite bewildering and concerning this intense insistence that the only option available to Russia was to launch a cross-border invasion, conduct a deliberate occupation of a sovereign country, and commit a clear violation of the Nuremberg Principles and international law.

So far, pre-emptive invasion and occupation have resulted in the deaths and wounding of hundreds of thousands; created over 10 million internal and external refugees, including roughly 3 million into Russia; initiated massive and lasting environmental destruction; and threatened a nuclear world war through dangerous escalation. The execution of this lone and, so by extension, necessary option, as described by its apologists, has achieved limited territorial gains while strengthening NATO. Without a negotiated political settlement, the February 2022 choice of invasion and prolonged war offers continued destabilizing and ruinous violence, accompanied by the ever-present risk of apocalyptic escalation and the emergence of Pandora’s Box opportunities, e.g., a mercenary army on the road to Moscow this past weekend.

While currently successfully achieving its deliberately limited territorial goals, Russia has set forth long-term strategic and political events that undermine its objectives. NATO cohesion and public support are at a point greater than at any time since 1991, NATO armies are modernizing and being funded at historic post-Cold War highs, and NATO membership has expanded along Russia’s 800-mile-long Finnish borders (Swedish and Finnish public support for NATO membership, as has overall Ukrainian public support for NATO membership, has increased markedly since February 2022). Importantly, the US missile bases in Poland and Romania, which Russia understandably sees as a legitimate threat, were never going to be affected by an invasion and occupation of Eastern Ukraine. Even if it were to end tomorrow, the invasion and occupation have now given those US missile bases, along with all of NATO, a raison d’etre that will last at least a generation.

This invasion and occupation have strengthened the position of the right-wing, the nationalists, and the hard-liners in the Ukrainian government and society, including Nazi elements. In the coming years, NATO will build out Ukraine to its standard to include long-range attack aircraft and missiles and eventually ships that can contest Russia in the Black Sea. This arming will occur whether or not Ukraine becomes a formal NATO member. As mentioned, it will give a reason for being to NATO, and it won’t just be any reason; instead, it will become a form of holy obligation. If this horrible war ends, and Russia maintains the territory it has seized, re-taking that territory will become an obsession of religious intensity, a purpose-affirming crusade for many in NATO.

Looking forward, I don’t believe a Russian victory over Ukraine, akin to a World War II-style subjugation, is possible. I don’t think that was ever their goal, and it was never possible. As stated by the Russians, their goals were control of eastern Ukraine, including establishing a corridor to Crimea, a demilitarization of Ukraine through the destruction of the Ukrainian military, and de-Nazification.

Regarding the first goal, the Russians may be able to defend what land they have taken, maintain a stalemate, and perhaps re-take and take incremental territory after this current Ukrainian offensive. However, the Russians, even with their reserve forces, the potential for conscription and further mobilization, and large military-industrial capacity (severely underestimated by the US and NATO before the war and still unrecognized or dismissed by many US and NATO pro-war fabulists) don’t have the ability to march on and conquer Kyiv, nor should they want to. An occupation of hostile central and western Ukraine would be a nightmare akin to the US occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.

The second goal, the destruction of the Ukrainian military, has not been met in any permanent sense because of the commitment of the US and NATO to build Ukraine into a de-facto NATO army. Yes, tens of thousands of dead and wounded Ukrainian soldiers and thousands of pieces of wrecked machinery and vehicles are the direct consequence of the violence of the Russian Armed Forces and their mercenaries. Ukraine has its mobilization and training troubles, and the stocks from which the West has provided Ukraine weapons, ammunition, and equipment are running low. The ability of the Ukrainian military to forcibly remove Russia back to its February 2022 borders is exceedingly doubtful. Only the introduction of a US and NATO army of hundreds of thousands would be able to accomplish such a task – thankfully there does not appear political will for such an expedition.

This current offensive by Ukraine could lead to a depletion of men, units, equipment, and ammunition that could cause a collapse the Russians could exploit; such over-extending, exhausting and calamitous offensives have led to defeat throughout warfare. But I don’t believe such an event is likely, because of both the real limitations of the Russian army and the Kremlin’s strategic and political desires. I also don’t believe the Ukrainian offensive will meet its objectives. There will be nothing other than stalemate, which will resemble the second half of the Korean War with its trench warfare and limited offensives. Based upon Russian performance in their 2023 winter offensive, the heavy use of minefields and the effective use of drones, the challenges of extending logistics and lines of communication deeper into Ukraine, and the ugly reality of occupying Central and Western Ukraine, the Russians will likely continue to consolidate and strengthen their position in Eastern Ukraine. Yes, both sides may launch over-hyped offensives in the months and years to come if there is no ceasefire and negotiated political settlement. Still, I don’t believe either side can ever achieve military victory, which, effectively, is what the goal of demilitarization is. The best the Russians can do is to declare a triumph over what they have already seized and destroyed.

The third goal, de-Nazification, has previously been addressed with the political forces in Ukraine that Russia describes, correctly to a degree, as Nazis, strengthened due to Russia’s invasion.

Of the three Russian goals of this invasion, the first, limited territorial conquest/liberation (depending on your partisanship), has been arguably successful. While the second goal, the demilitarization of Ukraine, has become a war of attrition with a sacred long-term US and NATO commitment to fully arm Ukraine. The third goal, de-Nazification, has failed at the strategic and political levels.

While defeat on the battlefield is not likely for Russia, neither is victory. It has already been mentioned, but it bears mentioning again foreign wars almost always have a domestic political cost. Russia’s economic, monetary, and financial success over the last year has been remarkable, and its increased ties to other nations, such as becoming the leading fossil fuel exporter to China and India, the first and third biggest economies in the world, is extremely significant. The rejection by dozens of nations of US demands to get in line with its Russia policy is equally important. However, in its essence, war is about being able to waste more than your enemy.

Russia can point to support from many nations, including China and India, yet that support is nowhere near as concrete, whole, and dependable as US and NATO support for Ukraine. With its dollar, the world’s reserve currency, the US can fund this war for as long as there is political will in the US. The dollar’s primacy may now be under assault, but that assault is nascent, and although replacing the post-World War II Bretton Woods monetary system is worthy and needed, such an international replacement for the dollar won’t come soon enough to assist Russia against Ukraine. The great waste of the war in Ukraine will eventually affect Russia politically, economically, materially and spiritually. I can’t finely predict how it will do so, other than knowing the longer the war goes on, the more the war will require greater waste. This war is not fundamentally any different from other wars and the consequences will likely be the same.

Such is how I view the accomplishments of Russia pursuing its supposed only option in February 2022.

To the question of other options, there were many options, economic and diplomatic, available to Russia in February 2022. An energy embargo on Western Europe would have been an obvious possibility. Closing the borders and limiting trade with Ukraine was another choice. If you desire something more historical and theatrical, a naval blockade of Ukraine was imaginable.* Efforts to subvert American economic and monetary hegemony and create alternate trading mechanisms through partnerships with other nations were options. As discussed, we are seeing those efforts play out now.

Meanwhile, diplomatic measures would have sustained the world’s attention and built international support for Moscow. International support for multi-polarization efforts and de-dollarization and the growth of organizations like BRICS and SCO is in large part built upon the bullying, predation, and mendacity of the US and its Collective West partners. Continuing to demonstrate US and NATO misdeeds and bad faith, such as failing to uphold the Minsk II Accords, while not launching an illegal pre-emptive war with its inevitable brutality and war crimes, would have continued that work while laying claim to moral authority.

There are readers now scoffing at such diplomatic options; however, such opportunities were available before the invasion. I say this based not on my assumptions and observations but on what Putin’s advisors said. On February 21, 2022, in a televised meeting, several senior members of Putin’s government, including Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the former President and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, the current Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, and the head of the foreign spy service Sergey Naryshkin advanced the idea of diplomatic efforts rather than war, particularly recognizing Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts as sovereign entities (similar to the US and NATO recognition of Kosovo). Among other comments offered during the meeting, Lavrov stated talks were progressing with the West, and Medvedev predicted tensions with the West would subside. Based on that televised meeting days before the invasion, it appears that senior members of the Russian government accepted that there were options other than invasion and occupation.

The reality is Russia had a whole range of alternatives, from doing nothing to initiating a full-scale nuclear war. In the aftermath of Russia’s invasion, David Swanson provided 30 such examples of what Russia could have done otherwise.

The pre-emptive invasion was not only their only option, it also wasn’t their best option. Success in Ukraine to Russia comes as ownership of a demolished, poisoned, and evacuated portion of Eastern Ukraine, an expensive occupation and war of attrition that history tells us will ultimately have a domestic political cost, and a strengthened and rejuvenated NATO. Such a foreign enemy may be politically beneficial to Putin just as Putin and Russia are politically beneficial as bogeymen to the US and NATO. However, the events this past weekend with the Wagner mercenary forces are problematic for Moscow, to put it modestly, and demonstrate quite well how Frankenstein monsters are common elements in modern war. All of these complications, consequences, and inconveniences of war metastasize over time, and while the war might seem manageable now, in 6, 12, or 24 months, today’s current state of the war may appear as halcyon memories of yesterday to Moscow.

I understand there is a difference between available, desired, and politically possible options. I once shared an interview on Al-Jazeera with a former Taliban minister who spoke quite eloquently and poignantly on his failure to make his fellow Taliban leaders understand that George W. Bush had very few political options following the 9/11 attacks. Even if such political limitations were the case, President Bush had other options in the weeks and months after the 9/11 attacks. The Bush White House again had other options in 2003 but chose invasion and occupation, just as the Obama White House in 2009 chose escalation in Afghanistan. In both cases, Presidents Bush and Obama claimed they had no other option than military aggression. They used the same arguments against Bashar Assad and Muammar Gaddafi.

This is what is troubling about the argument that Russia had no other options: it validates the Bush, Obama and Trump wars against Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. Likewise, it allows the Saudis to say there was no other option than to bomb and blockade Yemen and slaughter and starve 400,000, and it lets the Israelis say that they had no other choice than to send Apache gunships into Jenin this past week. I think it is fair to guarantee that if, or maybe when, the US and Israel attack Iran, a no other options argument will be provided.

We can have a peaceful future by standing with international law and against all cross-border wars of aggression. Violations of this basic framework of sovereignty and international affairs wreck any chance of advancement in relations and deeply damage the institutions and structures available to us and future generations. If we have any chance at mitigating climate change, advancing human rights, ending occupations, and dismantling our nuclear doomsday machines, it must come through solid international institutions, through trust, cooperation and diplomacy, and  through adherence to international law.

No matter how big the white hats we think we wear, regardless of which side we support, the reality is that war is a force outside of human control, one that will make our righteousness and morality an agent of its destruction. The war in Ukraine is not a simple war of good vs evil. The costs of this war will far outweigh any offered rationales, righteous Manichean arguments or apologies made by either side. We still are unaware of the coming consequences of this war, just as in 1915, the idea of war for another three years, the loss of empires, the Spanish Flu, or a second world war were unimaginable.

Whoever “wins” in eastern Ukraine will win a land depopulated and bastioned by destroyed infrastructure. This land will be polluted for generations by the military toxins of war and ridden with land mines and unexploded ordnance. Very likely, Ukrainian mothers will suffer the same as Iraqi, Afghan, and SE Asian mothers by giving birth for generations to dead, deformed, and sick children due to the undying toxic legacies of modern war. Children and their families, decades from now, will be punished for this madness in Ukraine, just as children and their families continue to be punished throughout “post-conflict” countries. Years from now, as they still die and suffer, will you tell them there was no other option?

The Russian people currently support the war, and this has shored up domestic political support for Putin; in fact, it seems as if the most substantial opposition to Putin comes from those who feel the war is not being waged hard enough – which should give everyone who is bellicose and buoyant on the war in the West pause. Do those present domestic political benefits to the Kremlin, along with Moscow’s middle finger to the US and NATO, outweigh the risks that come with forever conflict in Ukraine for Russia? Is the massive and catastrophic killing, suffering, and destruction, the forever obscene sorrow, horror, and guilt that will not end when the guns go silent, justifiable based on the acquisition of land destroyed, depopulated, and polluted?

The centenarian war criminal Henry Kissinger did get some things right. One of Kissinger’s most famous admonishments, lost on Democratic and Republican White Houses and American media over decades, is that you don’t judge a policy by how it starts but by how it ends. This supposed sole Russian option of pre-emptive invasion and occupation has put Russia into a position that might have met limited and immediate territorial objectives and solidified a storyline of defense against encroaching foreign powers, of which there is a good deal of truth. But with the death and the destruction, the consecration of NATO, and the future uncertainty and instability, how can it be argued that invasion was the best option, let alone the only option?

I understand others may say Russia had no other option, just as I can go and visit with many in DC who will continue to say Presidents Bush, Obama and Trump had no other options for their wars. Such a defense of Russia’s invasion comes to me as partisan and not principled, as seeking victory rather than peace and dismissing suffering for the sake of a narrative. It falls into the binary trap with which our political and media structures demand we accept. Either with us or against us, as George W. Bush would say.

However, there is always another option other than war. To allow ourselves to be banded into one of two camps is a betrayal of our intellectual and moral duties. “Neither King nor Kaiser!” the martyred Irish rebel James Connolly proclaimed. We can say No to NATO and Russia Out of Ukraine. We can oppose oligarchs in DC, London, Kyiv and Moscow. We can support the people of Ukraine and the people of Russia while condemning the war crimes of all governments. We can always find options other than war and we can always believe peace is possible.

*Blockades and other forms of coercive economic measures are war crimes, just as the US sanctions against are war crimes. More than 1 in 4 countries are under US, EU and UN sanctions.

Matthew Hoh is a member of the advisory boards of Expose Facts, Veterans For Peace and World Beyond War. In 2009 he resigned his position with the State Department in Afghanistan in protest of the escalation of the Afghan War by the Obama Administration. He previously had been in Iraq with a State Department team and with the U.S. Marines. He is a Senior Fellow with the Center for International Policy.

The Greater Eurasia project: Building bridges and breaking barriers

June 22 2023

Photo Credit: The Cradle

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.’

By Pepe Escobar

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 20^th 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.

All of these interpolations were discussed in detail during the St. Petersburg forum last week.

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.

Exclusive: Iraqi finance committee deputy calls for diversification away from US dollar

May 10 2023

The Cradle speaks to Iraqi parliamentarian Hussain Mouanes on the various economic, financial, and political challenges facing Sudani’s government.

Photo Credit: The Cradle

By Zaher Mousa

Parliamentarian Hussain Mouanes is a member of the Finance Committee in the publicly-elected Iraqi Council of Representatives. He has been politically active through many different stages of Iraq’s recent history, including the Baathist era, the US occupation, and the war against ISIS.

Before 2003, Mouanes was persecuted and imprisoned multiple times for his political activism by the government of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. He joined an Iraqi resistance movement after the illegal US invasion of Iraq and, after the rise of ISIS, initially joined the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) to organize against the terror group.

Despite his past political and military engagements, it is Mouanes’ recent experience as an elected politician, member of the Democratic Political Framework, and leader of the Rights Movement (Harakat Huquq), which has catapulted him into the national spotlight. His political cadres were previously members of Kataib Hezbollah, a faction known for its hostility toward the policies of the US, Israel, and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

These details are significant in the context of the new Iraqi government – led by Prime Minister Muhammad Shia al-Sudani – the first in two decades that is not packed to the rafters with Iraq’s old political elite.

Today, other figures are emerging in this theater, including Mouanes, who has overnight become a prominent political figure in contemporary Iraqi politics – not least because he filed a high-profile lawsuit against former PM Mustafa al-Kadhimi for his negligence leading up to the January 2020 assassinations of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi PMU Deputy Leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

Iraq’s parliament just passed its first federal budget under the six-month old Sudani administration, which for the first time covers a three-year period instead of the traditional one year of previous budgets. This is part of a slew of economic and political changes promised by the prime minister, who appears to be tackling all of Iraq’s chronic problems at the same time.

In his interview, from his unique vantage point as a deputy in the parliament’s finance committee, Mouanes addresses those challenges, denounces his country’s enforced dependence on the US dollar, and candidly weighs in on both the good and bad policy directions being undertaken in Iraq today:

The Cradle: Does the federal budget presented in the parliament today actually address the necessary measures to reform Iraq’s economic system?

Mouanes: The Iraqi economic system has been built incorrectly. It has moved away from banks and financial institutions toward the bankers managing it. Iraq has been and continues to be a slave to the US dollar, even though every country’s economic strength depends on the strength of its currency.

Reforming and strengthening the economy starts with the federal budget. However, we face far greater challenges, such as reforming existing financial legislation like the Securities Commission Law, laws for private banks, and the Central Bank.

These laws must be in line with the global economic situation. The Financial Management Law should govern the budget, but instead, it is governed by the budget. The Parliamentary Finance Committee is seeking to establish a real political and economic system built on legislation, not on constant and continuous exceptions. For example, according to the Financial Management Law, the country’s deficit ceiling should be 3 percent, but the current budget allows it to swell to 18 percent.

The Cradle: Introducing a federal budget law covering three years – instead of one year – of government spending is a major change in the way the state deals with the economy, isn’t it?

Mouanes: Yes, but only if it includes actual programs, not a recurring annual budget under the pretext of escaping from political blackmail in a political system built on quotas. As a parliamentary financial committee, it is not clear to us what is meant by the three-year budget because the tables that we received cover only one year, and there is no evidence that it is a three-year budget except for some items related to oil prices.

Prime Minister Muhammad Shia al-Sudani and Minister of Planning Muhammad Tamim justified this by saying that limiting the budget schedules to one year is to ensure that projects do not stop. In this case, I agree with them. But the committee’s point of view is that the budget figures should be updated annually, which means a re-vote on the budget in Parliament.

The Cradle: There is much debate about the government’s attempt to appease protesters by employing them in the public sector. This has led to an increase in the number of public sector employees by about one million people within the first six months of the current Iraqi administration. Is this a correct policy?

Mouanes: No, it was not the right policy, and it stems from the despair of state-building. These measures reflect incorrect state-building practices and must be addressed. The government’s birth was abnormal, forced by the failures of previous administrations and the country’s widespread demonstrations.

However, the public sector cannot employ everyone. We need to explore alternative options, and our committee is working to include legislation in the budget that encourages people to seek jobs in the private sector.

Dependence on employment in the public sector burdens the state: take the operational budget, for instance, where 90 percent of its revenues are spent on salaries. This is not right and must stop. While, in the past, large public sector employment was necessary, continuing to rely on it when our needs have changed is a problem. It is necessary to look at the long-term interest of citizens and diversify their opportunities in various private sector jobs, because today, the public sector is simply unable to absorb anymore.

The Cradle: It is assumed that the measures taken by the current government are the result of a political agreement between the government coalition and the Rights Movement (Harakat Huquq), which you lead. Is there such an agreement?

Mouanes: The Rights Movement is not part of Iraq’s governing coalition or the Coordination Framework, nor is it part of the ministerial composition. Let it be clear that we will continue to criticize government performance, because we believe that improving the political process requires an active opposition bloc that challenges poor policies. The Rights Movement is keen to be the basis for such opposition.

The Cradle: Regarding the national interest in political agreements, should the agreement between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) on oil sales be evaluated based on broader criteria than the decision of the current political forces?

Mouanes: The agreement has not yet been presented to parliament, and it is vague. We support a comprehensive solution to this issue in accordance with the Iraqi constitution. The Rights Movement will not allow the interests of the central, southern, and western governorates to be neglected for the sake of political favors, and I expect that the agreement will not last long if it does not comply with the constitution and existing laws.

The Cradle: Would you consider adopting a law to grant amnesty to those sentenced to prison and abolishing the Accountability and Justice Commission, which denies members of Saddam Hussein’s regime participation in political life and repatriates the displaced?

Mouanes: These demands must be discussed, and if an agreement is reached, we will deal with them in accordance with the constitution and laws. But the way in which the general amnesty is being promoted is incorrect.

Amnesty for those not involved in terrorism must be offered in a way that does not provoke Iraqis who are still suffering from the crimes that befell them. With regard to the Accountability and Justice Commission, it will be transformed into a judicial body after the termination of its work. But we believe that it is necessary to activate and expand the law banning the Baath Party to ensure that this party is not revived.

The Cradle: Is there any push to remove the current speaker of the Iraqi parliament, Mohammed al-Halbousi?

Mouanes: Halbousi’s dismissal requires political will. There is a popular demand within the Sunni political blocs for his dismissal. Among the Shia political blocs, too, there are those who believe that there are Sunni personalities who are excluded from the political arena and should be allowed to play their rightful roles. Let’s be frank, the discussion of Halbousi’s dismissal is related to competition between political blocs, not to public sentiment, and it is clear that there is no real political desire for that. So this is not an issue at this time.

The Cradle: What about the corruption allegations targeting Halbousi and his party in Anbar, such as the seizure of millions of meters of government land? You were involved in this operation, so what is your take on it?

Mouanes: This case is very important. It is more than the theft of money, rather, it represents the establishment of a political project. We are talking here about a crime greater than the “theft of the century” (a corruption scandal involving more than $3 billion).

There is another corruption file related to some areas of Fallujah that we will announce soon. This is not targeting a specific person as much as it is targeting corruption, and we will expose any corruption file, even if it is in our own areas. We are determined to prevent the waste of public money and honor our oath in parliament.

The Cradle: There seems to be a political dispute between PM Sudani and Speaker Halbousi. Do you think that there is a possibility that the latter could be dismissed?

Mouanes: Disagreement is normal, and there are efforts to end it, and it seems that things are going toward reconciliation. But let me make it clear that we are with Sudani in that the executive and legislative branches should not encroach on one another. We will stand in the face of any intrusion from any side.

The Cradle: We have heard about Iraq’s efforts to move away from the domination of the US dollar. How can this be achieved?

Mouanes: The current system of selling oil and transferring 100 percent of those revenues to the US Federal Bank – under the pretext of protecting Iraqi funds – is unsustainable. We need to develop real economic foundations to advance our country and break free from the dollar’s hegemony.

It is clear that Iraq is economically dominated by the US, and our government does not truly control or have access to its own money. This is evident in the new banking restrictions on Iraqi dollar bank accounts, any and all banking transactions in dollars, and America’s imposition of an electronic platform to register all Iraqi currency exchanges. 

Currently, most of Iraq’s foreign investment generation is limited to the lucrative energy sector, ignoring other vital sectors such as agriculture, industry, and tourism. It is time for Iraq to diversify its sources, basket, and storage of currency, especially given that the whole world is moving in this direction.

The Iraqi dinar must be strengthened and consolidated within Iraq as the primary currency used in transactions and ultimately be part of the basket of international currencies. As an oil-rich country that exports about four million barrels daily, we have a strong financial situation that can be leveraged to increase the value of the dinar in the market.

We believe that it is crucial to move away from the hegemony of the dollar, especially as it has become a tool to impose sanctions on countries. It is time for Iraq to rely on its local currency or at least diversify its sources of income.

The Cradle: Do you think Sudani’s efforts to replace ministers, governors, and hundreds of senior positions in the government will be successful?

Mouanes: One advantage of not being tied to any political agreement is that we have the freedom to make decisions without any alliance commitments. Sudani has set standards in his government program and identified shortcomings in the performance of some governors and ministers, and it is his responsibility to make changes.

It is normal for some political blocs to resist these changes as they try to maintain their entitlements. We have always advocated for ministers to be selected by the prime minister and not by their political blocs. Therefore, I believe that Sudani’s efforts to make changes are right, and we support him as long as we know the reasons behind the changes.

Sudani has assured us that he is not restricted by party or sectarian affiliations and that his changes will affect everyone who proves negligent. However, we reject any external international interference in Iraqi affairs or in the process of changing ministers. If such interference occurs, the prime minister should take a firm stance against it, as we entered the political process to lift tutelage and stop its imposition on the country.

The Cradle: Do you think the American delay in inviting Sudani to Washington indicates US suspicion toward him and his political program? Is this good or bad for Iraq?

Mouanes: The prime minister should assert his position in meetings as he represents the face of our country. We do not view the American people as enemies, but we are opposed to reckless US policies that impact Iraq’s interests adversely.

The government has the right to communicate with those it deems to be in the general interest of Iraq. However, the importance of Sudani’s visit to the US depends on its purpose. Is it just a ceremonial visit, or to discuss critical issues facing Iraq? And will Iraq benefit from the discussion of these issues with the Americans?

Given the ongoing US presence in Iraq, we do not see the importance of a Washington visit as much as a visit to Beijing, for example, as strengthening and diversifying relations with China would be more economically beneficial for us. Ultimately, the decision is up to the prime minister for the best interests of Iraq.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

Saudi security versus petrodollar

ِApril 12, 2023

Source: Janna Kadri

By Al Mayadeen English 

Breaking the link between the oil and the dollar is a project that has been in the making for quite some time.

Breaking the link between the oil and the dollar is a project that has been in the making for quite some time

On March 10, China brokered a peace agreement between rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia, a move which left the West baffled. Some suggested that the world had witnessed the slow and gradual collapse of the old world order. Although the deal may not necessarily achieve full normalization, still points of contact were restored. Such had vexed policymakers while at the same ushering in an era of Chinese diplomatic victory in the area most crucial to US global dominance. The implications of such an agreement are multiple, but the potential loss of Saudi to the US, and the gradual dissolution of their institutional ties, especially the long-standing agreement by which Saudi sells its oil for dollars, may yet prove to be a world significant event.  

This detente is a breakthrough in terms of heralding peace and development in the region. It comes at a time when relations between China and the US have reached all-time lows. After several months of provocations aimed at disrupting Beijing through provocations around Taipei, it appears that China had turned the tables on the US’ most sensitive point, which is its hegemony over the gulf. The ramifications are too broad, but here I address the implications of the petrodollar system.

The petrodollar system was born of an agreement between the US and Saudi Arabia to peg the sales of oil in exchange for security guarantees and Saudi assistance with US foreign policy missions. Aside from petrodollar recycling, the benefit of pricing oil in dollars has all to do with increasing US indebtedness in the dollar, which in turn increases its wealth, since the US prints the ‘paper dollars’ as the equivalent of world wealth. This also means that the US must lay control not only over current world assets, but must also own the future work and assets of humanity to underwrite its massive wealth. For this, The US must be in control of the world’s strategic resources, choke points, and foremost the ideological production that cripples anti-systemic thought. On a more concrete level, since OPEC entities get paid in none other than the dollar, the profits earned from oil revenues are re-invested in US treasuries and other instruments so as to avoid the loss of value in times of economic downturns. The constant flow of dollars channeled into bonds, allows the US to finance its deficits and to be in a position to trade debts against their future values.

The depth of the US financial market, and the ability of the dollar to be a world medium of savings in addition to world means of exchange, are tied to the global demand for dollars. If the dollarization of oil lessens, then demand for dollars lessens, and the dollar as a safe refuge from financial turmoil abroad also lessens. As can be seen, the US must reconstitute its powers in the military and ideological fields to reinstall the dollar and siphon world wealth through it. Incidentally, the China-sponsored deal represents an image or ideological blow to the US because it has shown China as a peace-maker and the US as war monger. The implications of slow de-dollarisation are that the US may no longer be able to build its wealth by borrowing against a world it controls. 

Read – De-dollarization, Slowly but surely

Pricing oil to the US dollar has proved efficient to underwrite the wealth of the US-allied financial class. The equation more control equals more wealth meant that the US’s engagement in imperialist politics has always been about power first, especially ideological power wrought by beating and sanctioning people abroad. The US hegemony is first a hegemony over the global mind of defeated people. As the Arab proverb goes, one makes a friend out of beating him first.

The Saudis were pivotal in the ascent of the US. In addition to the many examples, like aiding the contras to fight Abdel-Nasser in Yemen, and the list goes on, they essentially helped the US win the Cold War because the dollarization of oil permitted them to financially contain Eastern European countries as they overburdened them with dollar debts. Lending to cripple an economy is just as good a weapon as any.  Not to forget, the Saudis also allowed the price of oil to be listed on the commodity market by weakening OPEC at the behest of the US. Direct producers of oil lost control of oil prices. Saudi pumped oil earned fewer profits than it should have as a part of the power game with the Soviet Union then. This was owed to a meeting held in 1985 between King Fahd and William Casey, the former CIA director, in which both agreed to increase oil production from 2 billion bpd to 10 billion bpd, leading oil prices to fall from $30 to $10 and eventually resulting in the fallout of the Soviet economy.

In the region, the Saudis assisted US aspirations through the numerous wars against more autonomous states across the region. The proliferation of Salafism and the financing of disruptive militias instigated wars that were a win-win situation for the US. It weakened opposing regimes and made money off military spending. 

Yet with war waged on Yemen, tensions with Iran, and a balance of forces tilting in favor of the axis of resistance, it is only rational for the Saudis to forfeit the US and seek longer-term stability through negotiated dialogue. The deal that the US provides Saudi with security as Saudi prices its oil in the dollar seems to be no longer valid.  The US is retreating around the globe, and while it cannot afford Saudi security, the Saudis will rethink their pricing oil only in dollars. Add to that the personal vilification of MBS and the openly anti-Arab racism practiced daily in Western media and other channels. 

On a more detailed level, Saudi security demands are threefold: first, to grant a major non-NATO ally status; second, to receive additional sales of advanced US weapons; and third, to receive US support for a civilian nuclear energy program. With the first condition fulfilled and the second being contested, the third would evoke the possibility for Saudi authorities to develop their own fissile material, hence enabling the capacity of building a nuclear weapon. The US is less concerned with nuclear proliferation than the military autonomization of Saudi Arabia as this would jeopardize the agreement that safeguards the petrodollar system. US reluctance to respond to Saudi Arabia’s security needs was made obvious when Democrat lawmakers urged US President Joe Biden to discourage Saudis from enhancing their own ballistic missiles and drone capabilities in 2022. A letter was issued just a few days prior to Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia in June 2022, and highlighted concerns from the Pentagon that the Gulf state was planning to manufacture solid fuel missiles with assistance from China.

Another relevant factor to consider is threats issued by the US that it would pull away military support following the announcement of the OPEC cut in October 2022, as well as the introduction of the NOPEC bill which would enable lawsuits to be filed against Saudi Arabia and OPEC entities for controlling oil prices. If such a bill would come to pass, it would highlight the possibility of Saudi Arabia being slapped with sanctions. With the Iran-Saudi deal announced, it appears that China has rocked the foundations on which the petrodollar system rests. This was further evidenced by the introduction of a Privileged Resolution by Senators Murphy and Lee calling for a complete halt of US military assistance to Saudi Arabia, noting that “US weapons do not belong in the hands of human rights abusers.”

Breaking the link between the oil and the dollar is a project that has been in the making for quite some time. Both Russia and China have been buying immense amounts of gold to rid their foreign reserves in US dollars and back their own currencies on the gold standard. With their BRICS allies, they are contemplating a common currency that would shift away from transactions carried out in US dollars. Although many signs seem to be pointing out the gradual decline of the petrodollar system, it is unlikely that it may happen in the short run.

The petrodollar will remain the dominant currency as long as the dollar is recognized as the world reserve currency. As we speak, the global share of foreign reserves denominated in US dollars currently fell to slightly below 60%. States and companies across the world are still required to own dollars in order to purchase oil – the most strategic commodity on the global market. After all that is said and done, the decline of the dollar is tied to the decline of the US’s control of the planet, which until now was de-facto ownership of the planet.

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The first China-UAE gas deal in yuan: A new blow to dollar dominance

April 06 2023

Chinese allies control 40 percent of OPEC+ oil reserves, and the GCC controls another 40 percent. With this China-UAE gas trade settled in yuan, the petrodollar today is under serious threat.

Photo Credit: The Cradle

ByA Cradle Correspondent

On 28 March, the Shanghai Petroleum and Natural Gas Exchange (SHPGX) made history by announcing the first-ever deal on importing 65,000 tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the UAE, settled in the Chinese yuan currency. China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) and French TotalEnergies finalized the transaction, and TotalEnergies confirmed that the LNG imported was from the Persian Gulf state.

China’s Global Times in a report the following day, cited the chairman of the SHPGX, Guo Xu as saying that the deal is:

“A meaningful attempt to promote multi-currency pricing, settlement and cross-border payment in international LNG trading. It also provides a new channel for international players to participate in the Chinese market, helping to build a new pattern of dual circulation in China.”

Beijing pushes yuan for energy trade

The yuan settlement of international LNG trading is a “major event in China’s market-oriented oil and gas reform, which will help promote the docking of international and domestic markets,” the report quoted experts as saying.

The development comes after Chinese President Xi Jinping announced in December 2022, during a landmark visit to Riyadh, that his country should make “full use” of the SHPGX as a platform to carry out yuan settlement of oil and gas trade.

This deal represents a departure from the decades-long practice of conducting global oil sales exclusively in US dollars. A prominent economist, who spoke to The Cradle, speculated that “the French either resorted to the yuan due to the acute shortage of Russian gas supplies to the European continent, or they have reserves in the Chinese currency that they want to use.”

The deal came as a surprise, as French President Emmanuel Macron typically does not take such steps without the approval of the US. As for the UAE, the move is part of a larger trend of Persian Gulf countries opening up to China in the aftermath of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Biden administration’s shift in regional policies.

The yuan payment also follows the global polarization taking place over the Ukraine war and further demonstrates the reluctance of Persian Gulf states to align with western hostility toward Russia, China, and other US adversaries. According to the same economist, “The Emirati move cannot be separated from the changes taking place in the world. Abu Dhabi and Riyadh sense the global imbalance of power, and decided to expand the margins of their international relations.”

Yuan’s growing acceptance

Given the current global geopolitical shifts, the yuan is gaining increased acceptance as an international currency. Since President Xi Jinping assumed office, China has settled agreements with several countries in its local currency in an attempt to challenge the dominance of the US dollar in global trade.

As a result, the yuan has become the world’s fifth-largest payment currency, the third-largest currency in trade settlement, and the fifth-largest reserve currency. According to the Global Times, the yuan today accounts for 7 percent of all foreign exchange trades worldwide and has experienced the most significant expansion in currency market share over the past three years.

Experts have noted that “with the recovery of the momentum of China’s economic growth and the further opening of the financial market, the investment and hedging function of the yuan has gradually increased.”

In an article earlier this year for The Cradle, Pakistani analyst F. M. Shakil cited the Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves (COFER) report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which shows that:

“The percentage of US dollars in central bank reserves has decreased by 12 percent since 1999, while the percentage of other currencies, particularly the Chinese yuan, have shown an increasing trend with a 9 percent rise during this period.”

Shakil also noted that the “cumulative cross-border yuan settlement handled in Xinjiang (western China), the financial hub between China and Central Asia, exceeded 100 billion yuan ($14 billion) as early as 2013 and reached 260 billion yuan in 2018.”

He concluded that “dollar reserves are dwindling and the influence of the United States of America is receding in the global economy, which represents an opportunity for regional powers’ currencies and alternative payment systems.”

Rise of the petroyuan

Since 2009, Beijing has implemented a policy to reduce its reliance on the US dollar in commercial transactions. This policy includes settling the majority of its goods in foreign markets in its local currency, establishing mutual lines of credit with several central banks worldwide, and negotiating with West Asian and North African countries to conduct trade using the yuan. These efforts have started to show results recently, with a number of Asian governments partially adopting the Chinese currency.

Iraq is one of the countries that have partially adopted the yuan in trade. In February, the Iraqi Central Bank announced plans to allow direct settlement of trade from China in yuan to improve access to foreign currency and compensate for the dollar shortage in local markets, largely due to measures imposed by the Federal Reserve on money transfers leaving Iraq to prevent them from reaching Tehran and Damascus. Egypt also announced its intention to issue yuan bonds last August.

Russia has played a significant role in changing the course of the yuan by signing the Eastern Natural Gas Pipeline Agreement from Russia to China and converting the currencies of gas payments from the US dollar to the Chinese yuan and the Russian ruble.

According to the latest data from the Russian Central Bank, the yuan has become a major player in Russia’s foreign trade, with its share of import settlements increasing from just 4 percent in January 2022 to 23 percent by the end of the year. The yuan’s share of exports rose from 0.5 percent to 16 percent in the same period.

During his trip to Saudi Arabia, the Chinese president encouraged Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries to use the SHPGX for yuan-based energy deals. The visit also saw China and Saudi Arabia sign over $30 billion in trade deals, which some analysts believe marks the rise of the petroyuan.

According to US-based Credit Suisse analyst Zoltan Pozsar, Russia, Iran, and Venezuela – all allies of China – account for 40 percent of OPEC+’s proven oil reserves, with the GCC making up another 40 percent. If these three states alone settle their energy exports in yuan, the petroyuan is here to stay.

A response to US policy 

In a January interview with Bloomberg, during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed al-Jadaan said that “the kingdom is open to trading in currencies other than the US dollar in order to improve trade.”

Interestingly, despite being a stalwart US ally for decades, Riyadh is deepening its ties with key trading partners, including Beijing, as China imported over 500 million tons of crude oil and over 100 million tons of natural gas, including 63.44 million tons of LNG, in 2022.

Middle East Briefing suggests that this shift towards national currencies in global trade “is partly due to Washington’s sanctions policy against Russia.” Riyadh is now “following an increasing trend of hedging against US dollar use in trade” amid concerns that the US may use its currency as a weapon for trade and sanctions.

The trend towards using national currencies in global trade chains has continued to mature, with recent developments, including the announcement of two large-scale investment plans in China by Saudi oil giant Aramco.

The first plan involves building an integrated refining and chemicals plant in Liaoning Province, while the second plan involves Aramco’s acquisition of 10 percent of the shares of Rongsheng Petrochemical Company.

Meanwhile, the emirate of Dubai has opened its door to dealing in the Chinese currency in its global financial center, and Brazil and China have agreed to ditch the dollar and use their local currencies in their commercial dealings. In addition, Brazil and Argentina have announced the start of work on launching a common currency in their commercial dealings, dubbed “Sur.”

The petrodollar under threat

Petrodollars refer to US dollars used to purchase crude oil following a 1974 deal struck between Washington and Riyadh. The agreement not only ensured the military defense of the kingdom through US guarantees but also secured a steady stream of foreign purchases of US Treasury bonds and debt, which is a strategy of recycling the petrodollars back to Washington through Saudi Arabia’s reserves.

This transformed the ability of oil-rich Arab states to weaponize their vast energy resources against malign western policies – into a powerful economic weapon for the Americans, who, overnight, became the masters of the oil market. Today, however, with China’s rapid steps to challenge this entrenched system, there is a global spotlight on the rise of the Petroyuan versus the decline of the Petrodollar.

Asia Financial describes China’s deal with TotalEnergies as a “step forward in China’s long-term battle to reduce the power and reach of US dollar hegemony,” adding that “further such moves appear to be in the winds.” Importantly, according to Viktor Katona, lead crude analyst at Kpler:

“While the dollar will likely remain the dominant global currency in the near future, the rise of a so-called petroyuan will gain momentum as China leverages its status as the world’s largest oil importer.”

Saudi Arabia is reportedly considering accepting payment for its oil exports to China in yuan. However, any such shift is likely to be marginal, as most West Asian currencies are pegged to the US dollar, and accepting payments in other currencies increases foreign exchange risk.

Researcher P.S. Srinivas opined last year that oil deals with countries in West Asia “do not constitute a threat to the US dollar,” and the likelihood of the yuan replacing the US dollar as the benchmark currency for pricing is even more remote due to China’s capital controls and the yuan’s lack of convertibility.

While the possibility of the yuan gaining greater prominence in the global oil trade cannot be ruled out, it is unlikely to replace the US dollar as the primary currency for pricing in the oil and gas industry in the short term.

Most West Asian nations continue to maintain a vested interest in preserving the strength of the dollar, and any shift towards accepting payments in other currencies is likely to be minimal, at first. In the next few years, it will be important to keep an eye on China’s slow but steady ascent to global economic dominance and the growing usage of the yuan in international trade.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

Iran and Saudi Arabia: a Chinese win-win

April 07 2023

The single Iranian-Saudi handshake buried trillions of dollars of western divide-and-rule investments across West Asia, and has global leaders rushing to Beijing for global solutions.

Photo Credit: The Cradle

Pepe Escobar is a columnist at The Cradle, editor-at-large at Asia Times and an independent geopolitical analyst focused on Eurasia. Since the mid-1980s he has lived and worked as a foreign correspondent in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Singapore and Bangkok. He is the author of countless books; his latest one is Raging Twenties. 

By Pepe Escobar

The idea that History has an endpoint, as promoted by clueless neoconservatives in the unipolar 1990s, is flawed, as it is in an endless process of renewal. The recent official meeting between Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan al-Saud and Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in Beijing marks a territory that was previously deemed unthinkable and which has undoubtedly caused grief for the War Inc. machine.

This single handshake signifies the burial of trillions of dollars that were spent on dividing and ruling West Asia for over four decades. Additionally, the Global War on Terror (GWOT), the fabricated reality of the new millennium, featured as prime collateral damage in Beijing.

Beijing’s optics as the capital of peace have been imprinted throughout the Global South, as evidenced by a subsequent sideshow where a couple of European leaders, a president, and a Eurocrat, arrived as supplicants to Xi Jinping, asking him to join the NATO line on the war in Ukraine. They were politely dismissed.

Still, the optics were sealed: Beijing had presented a 12-point peace plan for Ukraine that was branded “irrational” by the Washington beltway neocons. The Europeans – hostages of a proxy war imposed by Washington – at least understood that anyone remotely interested in peace needs to go through the ritual of bowing to the new boss in Beijing.

The irrelevance of the JCPOA

Tehran-Riyadh relations, of course, will have a long, rocky way ahead – from activating previous cooperation deals signed in 1998 and 2001 to respecting, in practice, their mutual sovereignty and non-interference in each other’s internal affairs.

Everything is far from solved – from the Saudi-led war on Yemen to the frontal clash of Persian Gulf Arab monarchies with Hezbollah and other resistance movements in the Levant. Yet that handshake is the first step leading, for instance, to the Saudi foreign minister’s upcoming trip to Damascus to formally invite President Bashar al-Assad to the Arab League summit in Riyadh next month.

It’s crucial to stress that this Chinese diplomatic coup started way back with Moscow brokering negotiations in Baghdad and Oman; that was a natural development of Russia stepping in to help Iran save Syria from a crossover NATO-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) coalition of vultures.

Then the baton was passed to Beijing, in total diplomatic sync. The drive to permanently bury GWOT and the myriad, nasty ramifications of the US war of terror was an essential part of the calculation; but even more pressing was the necessity to demonstrate how the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or Iran nuclear deal, had become irrelevant.

Both Russia and China have experienced, inside and out, how the US always manages to torpedo a return to the JCPOA, as it was conceived and signed in 2015. Their task became to convince Riyadh and GCC states that Tehran has no interest in weaponizing nuclear power – and will remain a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Then it was up to Chinese diplomatic finesse to make it quite clear that the Persian Gulf monarchies’ fear of revolutionary Shi’ism is now as counter-productive as Tehran’s dread of being harassed and/or encircled by Salafi-jihadis. It’s as if Beijing had coined a motto: drop these hazy ideologies, and let’s do business.

And business it is, and will be: better yet, mediated by Beijing and implicitly guaranteed by both nuclear superpowers Russia and China.

Hop on the de-dollarization train

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) may exhibit some Soprano-like traits, but he’s no fool: he instantly saw how this Chinese offer morphed beautifully into his domestic modernization plans. A Gulf source in Moscow, familiar with MbS’ rise and consolidation of power, details the crown prince’s drive to appeal to the younger Saudi generation who idolize him. Let girls drive their SUVs, go dancing, let their hair down, work hard, and be part of the “new” Saudi Arabia of Vision 2030: a global tourism and services hub, a sort of Dubai on steroids.

And, crucially, this will also be a Eurasia-integrated Saudi Arabia; future, inevitable member of both the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and BRICS+ – just like Iran, which will also be sitting at the same communal tables.

From Beijing’s point of view, this is all about its ambitious, multi-trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). A key BRI connectivity corridor runs from Central Asia to Iran and then beyond, to the Caucasus and/or Turkey. Another one – in search of investment opportunities – runs through the Arabian Sea, the Sea of Oman, and the Persian Gulf, part of the Maritime Silk Road.

Beijing wants to develop BRI projects in both corridors: call it “peaceful modernization” applied to sustainable development. The Chinese always remember how the Ancient Silk Roads plied Persia and parts of Arabia: in this case, we have History Repeating Itself.

A geopolitical revolution

And then comes the Holy Grail: energy. Iran is a prime gas supplier to China, a matter of national security, inextricably linked to their $400 billion-plus strategic partnership deal. And Saudi Arabia is a prime oil supplier. Closer Sino-Saudi relations and interaction in key multipolar organizations such as the SCO and BRICS+ advance the fateful day when the petroyuan will be definitely enshrined.

China and the UAE have already clinched their first gas deal in yuan. The high-speed de-dollarization train has already left the station. ASEAN is already actively discussing how to bypass the dollar to privilege settlements in local currencies – something unthinkable even a few months ago. The US dollar has already been thrown into a death by a thousand cuts spiral.

And that will be the day when the game reaches a whole new unpredictable level.

The destructive agenda of the neocon leaders in charge of US foreign policy should never be underestimated. They exploited the 9/11 “new Pearl Harbor” pretext to launch a crusade against the lands of Islam in 2001, followed by a NATO proxy war against Russia in 2014. Their ultimate ambition is to wage war against China before 2025.

However, they are now facing a swift geopolitical and geoeconomic revolt of the World’s Heartland – from Russia and China to West Asia, and extrapolating to South Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa and selected latitudes in Latin America.

The turning point came on 26 February, 2022, when Washington’s neocons – in a glaring display of their shallow intellects – decided to freeze and/or steal the reserves of the only nation on the planet equipped with all the commodities that really matter, and with the necessary nous to unleash a momentous shift to a monetary system not anchored in fiat money.

That was the fateful day when the cabal, identified by journalist Seymour Hersh as responsible for blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines, actually blew the whistle for the high-speed de-dollarization train to leave the station, led by Russia, China, and now – welcome on board – Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

للتاريخ مساره وتوقيته

الاحد 2 نيسان 2022

بثينة شعبان 

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

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Douglas Macgregor: “Russia IS WIPING THEM OUT, THIS IS IT” in Exclusive Interview

Mar 29, 2023

Red Pilled TV

Premiered Mar 29, 2023 #douglasmacgregor#interview

“Russia IS WIPING THEM OUT, THIS IS IT” in Exclusive Interview Douglas Macgregor is back on the show to talk about the war in Ukraine. Macgregor gives his assessment of where things stand on the ground. They talk about the astounding casualty numbers and the horrifying nature of the battle over Bakhmut. Macgregor then gives some predictions for the next stages of the war. They talk about the rising tension with China. They agree there is no need to go to war with China but discuss what may explain the sudden attention shift towards Beijing. Lastly, they talk about the effects of cronyism in the weapons industry and the probability of a nuclear war.

Douglas Macgregor: “Ukraine IS LOSING, THIS IS IT” in Exclusive Interview

Douglas Macgregor: “Ukraine IS LOSING, THIS IS IT” in Exclusive Interview Douglas Macgregor is back on the show to talk about the war in Ukraine. Macgregor gives his assessment of where things stand on the ground. They talk about the astounding casualty numbers and the horrifying nature of the battle over Bakhmut. Macgregor then gives some predictions for the next stages of the war. They talk about the rising tension with China. They agree there is no need to go to war with China but discuss what may explain the sudden attention shift towards Beijing. Lastly, they talk about the effects of cronyism in the weapons industry and the probability of a nuclear war.

Premiered 13 hours ago

Discussed on the show: “This Time It’s Different” (The American Conservative) “Ukrainian soldiers in Bakhmut: ‘Our troops are not being protected’” (Kyiv Independent) Douglas Macgregor, Col. (ret.) is a senior fellow with The American Conservative, the former advisor to the Secretary of Defense in the Trump administration, a decorated combat veteran, and the author of five books.

Sergey Glazyev: ‘The road to financial multipolarity will be long and rocky’

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.

March 13 2023

Photo Credit: The Cradle

By Pepe Escobar

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.

Putin’s ‘civilizational’ speech frames conflict between east and west

February 22 2023

Photo credit: The Cradle

In his Federal Assembly address, President Putin emphasized that Russia is not only an independent nation-state but also a distinct civilization with its own identity, which is in conflict and actively opposes the values of ‘western civilization.’

By Pepe Escobar

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s much awaited address to the Russian Federal Assembly on Tuesday should be interpreted as a tour de force of sovereignty.

The address, significantly, marked the first anniversary of Russia’s official recognition of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, only a few hours before 22 February, 2022. In myriad ways, what happened a year ago also marked the birth of the real, 21^st century multipolar world

Then two days later, Moscow launched the Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine to defend said republics.

Cool, calm, collected, without a hint of aggression, Putin’s speech painted Russia as an ancient, independent, and quite distinct civilization – sometimes following a path in concert with other civilizations, sometimes in divergence.

Ukraine, part of Russian civilization, now happens to be occupied by western civilization, which Putin said “became hostile to us,” like in a few instances in the past. So the acute phase of what is essentially a war by proxy of the west against Russia takes place over the body of Russian civilization.

That explains Putin’s clarification that “Russia is an open country, but an independent civilization – we do not consider ourselves superior but we inherited our civilization from our ancestors and we must pass it on.”

A war dilacerating the body of Russian civilization is a serious existential business. Putin also made clear that “Ukraine is being used as a tool and testing ground by the west against Russia.” Thus the inevitable follow-up: “The more long-range weapons are sent to Ukraine, the longer we have to push the threat away from our borders.”

Translation: this war will be long – and painful. There will be no swift victory with minimal loss of blood. The next moves around the Dnieper may take years to solidify. Depending on whether US policy continues to cleave to neo-con and neoliberal objectives, the frontline may be displaced to Lviv. Then German politics may change. Normal trade with France and Germany may be recovered only by the end of the next decade.

Kremlin exasperation: START is finished

All that brings us to the games played by the Empire of Lies. Says Putin: “The promises…of western rulers turned into forgery and cruel lies. The west supplied weapons, trained nationalist battalions. Even before the start of the SMO, there were negotiations…on the supply of air defense systems… We remember Kyiv’s attempts to obtain nuclear weapons.”

Putin made it clear, once again, that the element of trust between Russia and the west, especially the US, is gone. So it’s a natural decision for Russia to “withdraw from the treaty on strategic offensive weapons, but we don’t do it officially. For now we are only halting our participation to the START treaty. No US inspections in our nuclear sites can be allowed.”

As an aside, of the three main US-Russian weapons treaties, Washington abandoned two of these: The Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty was dumped by the administration of former president George W. Bush in 2002, and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty was nixed by former president Donald Trump in 2019.

This shows the Kremlin’s degree of exasperation. Putin is even prepared to order the Ministry of Defense and Rosatom to get ready to test Russian nuclear weapons if the US goes first along the same road.

If that’s the case, Russia will be forced to completely break parity in the nuclear sphere, and abandon the moratorium on nuclear testing and cooperation with other nations when it comes to the production of nuclear weapons. So far, the US and NATO game consisted in opening a little window allowing them to inspect Russian nuclear sites.

With his judo move, Putin returns the pressure onto the White House.

The US and NATO will not be exactly thrilled when Russia starts testing its new strategic weapons, especially the post-doomsday Poseidon – the largest nuclear-powered torpedo ever deployed, capable of triggering terrifying radioactive ocean swells.

On the economic front: Bypassing the US dollar is the essential play towards multipolarity. During his speech, Putin made a point to extol the resilience of the Russian economy: “Russian GDP in 2022 decreased only by 2.1 percent, estimates of the opposing side did not become reality, they said 15, 20 percent.” That resilience gives Russia enough room to “work with partners to make the system of international settlements independent of the US dollar and other western currencies. The dollar will lose its universal role.”

On geoeconomics: Putin went all out in praise of economic corridors, from West Asia to South Asia: “New corridors, transport routes will be built towards the East, this is the region where we will focus our development, new highways to Kazakhstan and China, new North-South corridor to Pakistan, Iran.”

And those will connect to Russia developing “the ports of the Black and Azov Seas, it’s necessary to build logistics corridors within the country.” The result will be a progressive interconnection with the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) whose principals include Iran and India, and eventually China’s mega-trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

China’s plan for global security  

It’s inevitable that apart from sketching several state policies geared towards Russia’s internal development – one might even compare them to socialist policies – a great deal of Putin’s address had to focus on the NATO vs. Russia war till-the-last-Ukrainian.

Putin remarked on how “our relations with the west have degraded, and this is entirely the fault of the United States;” how NATO’s goal is to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia; and how the warmongering frenzy had forced him, a week ago, to sign a decree “putting new ground-based strategic complexes on combat duty.”

So it’s no accident that the US ambassador was immediately summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs right after Putin’s address.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Ambassador Lynne Tracey in no uncertain terms that Washington must take concrete measures: among them, to remove all US and NATO military forces and equipment away from Ukraine. In a stunning move, he demanded a detailed explanation of the destruction of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, as well as a halt to US interference in an independent inquiry to identify the responsible parties.

Keeping the momentum in Moscow, top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi met with secretary of Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev, before talking to Lavrov and Putin. Patrushev remarked, “the course towards developing a strategic partnership with China is an absolute priority for Russia’s foreign policy.” Wang Yi, not so cryptically, added, “Moscow and Beijing need to synchronize their watches.”

The Americans are doing everything to try and pre-empt the Chinese proposal for a de-escalation in Ukraine. China’s plan should be presented this Friday, and there’s a serious risk Beijing may fall into a trap set by the western plutocracy.

Too many Chinese “concessions” to Russia, and not as many to Ukraine, may be spun to drive a wedge between Moscow and Beijing (Divide and Rule, which is always the US Plan A. There’s no Plan B).

Sensing the waters, the Chinese themselves decided to take the offensive, presenting a Global Security Initiative Concept Paper.

The problem is Beijing still attributes too much clout to a toothless UN, when they refer to“formulating a New Agenda for Peace and other proposals put forth in Our Common Agenda by the UN Secretary-General.”

Same when Beijing upholds the consensus that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” Try to explain that to the Straussian neo-con psychos in the Beltway, who know nothing about war, much less nuclear ones.

The Chinese affirm the necessity to “comply with the joint statement on preventing nuclear war and avoiding arms races issued by leaders of the five nuclear-weapon states in January 2022.” And to “strengthen dialogue and cooperation among nuclear-weapon states to reduce the risk of nuclear war.”

Bets can be made that Patrushev explained in detail to Wang Yi how that is just wishful thinking. The “logic “of the current collective western “leadership” has been expressed, among others, by irredeemable mediocrity Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary-general: even nuclear war is preferable to a Russian victory in Ukraine.

Putin’s measured but firm address has made it clear that the stakes keep getting higher. And it all revolves on how deep Russia’s – and China’s – “strategic ambiguity” are able to petrify a paranoid west flirting with mushroom clouds.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.