Written by Federico Pieraccini; Originally appeared on strategic-culture.org
Diplomatic work continues in some of the areas with the highest geopolitical tensions in the world. In recent days there have been high-level meetings and contacts between Turkey, Iran and Russia over the situation in Syria; meetings between Modi and Xi Jinping to ease tensions between India and China; and finally, the historic meeting between Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un. The common component in all these meetings is the absence of the United States, which may explain the excellent progress that has been seen.
The last seven days have brought a note of optimism to international relations. The meeting between Modi and Xi Jinping in China offered a regional example, confirmed by the words of Wang Yi, member of the State Counsel of the People’s Republic of China:
“Our [India and China] common interests outweigh our differences. The summit will go a long way towards deepening the mutual trust between the two great neighbors. We will make sure that the informal summit will be a complete success and a new milestone in the history of China-India relations”.
Given the tensions in August 2017 in the Himalayan border area between the two countries, the progress achieved in the last nine months bodes well for a further increase in cooperation between the two nations. Bilateral trade stands at around $85 billion a year, with China as India’s largest trading partner. The meeting between Modi and Xi also serves to deepen the already existing framework between the two countries in international organizations like BRICS, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), in which they are integral participants. It is imaginable that negotiations on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) will be in full swing, with Beijing keen to involve New Delhi more in the project. Such a prospect is particularly helped by three very powerful investment vehicles put in place by Beijing, namely, the New Development Bank (formerly the BRICS Development Bank), the AIIB, and the Silk Road Fund.
Xi Jinping will be seeking to progressively entice India closer to the BRI project through attractive and mutually beneficial commercial arrangements. However, this objective remains complicated and difficult to implement. Beijing is aware of this and has already expressed its intention not to impose the BRI on the neighboring country. With much of the future global and regional architecture depending on these two countries, the good understanding shown between Xi Jinping and Modi bodes well, especially given the commonly aligned objectives represented by the multitude of international organizations and frameworks on which China and India sit side by side.
Another bit of important news for the Asian region has been the meeting between Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un, which was recently examined in an article published in Strategic Culture Foundation. As discussed in that article, the intention of the two leaders is to reunite the two Koreas, to denuclearize the peninsula, and to sign a peace treaty between the North and South, whose unprecedented implications entail such questions as whether there is a future role of for the United States on the peninsula. As stated before, the rapprochement between the two Koreas does not play into Washington’s favor, which relies on the South as a strategic foothold to contain China, justifying its presence on the purported need to confront North Korea. With an all-encompassing peace agreement, this justification would cease to exist. It seems that the goal for US policy-makers will be to find an opportunity to sabotage the North-South agreement and blame Kim Jong-un for its failure. Without engaging in a diplomatic tiff with its South Korean ally, the deep state in Washington does not intend to surrender one inch of its military presence on the peninsula, and would even look favorably on the negotiations failing to further damage Trump and his administration.
This is an internal deep-state war that has been going on for years. Obama wanted to abandon the Middle East in order to focus on containing China, altering the military’s structure accordingly to return to a more Cold War stance. This explains the agreement with Iran in order to free the US from its Middle East involvement so as to be able to focus mainly on Asia and to promote it as the most important region for the United States. This strategic intention has met with enormous opposition from two of the most influential lobbies in the American political system, the Israeli and Saudi Arabian. Without the United States, these two countries would be unable to stop Iran’s peaceful but impressive ascent in the region.
Listening to four-star generals like Robert Neller (Commandant of the Marine Corps) and others less distinguished, one comes to appreciate the extent to which the US military is in strategic chaos. The military has been the victim of epochal changes with each presidency. Pentagon planners would like to simultaneously confront countries like Russia, China and Iran, but in the process only decrease effectiveness due to imperial overstretch. Other politicians, especially from the neocon area, argue for the need to transform the US armed forces from a force suitable for fighting small countries (Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria), Middle Eastern insurgencies, or terrorist groups (a pretext originating from the 1990’s and the first Gulf War), to a military able to face its peer competitors with all weapons available. Such a realignment does not occur over a short period of time and requires an enormous amount of money to reorganize the armed forces.
In this struggle between components of the deep state, Trump lumbers into a policy that stems from his electoral campaign rather than a considered strategy. Trump showed himself in his campaign to be strongly pro-Israel and strongly pro-armed forces, which has had the practical result of increasing military spending. Tens of billions of dollars worth of agreements have been realized with the richest country in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, for arms purchases, and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is viewed negatively. Trump’s interventions in Syria confirm that he is under the strong influence of that part of the deep state that is adamant that the United States should always be present in the Middle East, should openly oppose Iran, and, above all, should prevent the Shiite arc from extending its influence to cover Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
The reasoning employed by Trump and his administration confirms this direction in Washington’s strategy, involving greater cooperation with Beijing to solve the Korean issue; less of an effort to decrease Moscow’s influence in Syria and in the Middle East in general; and greater belligerence towards Iran, with a general shift away from Asia and towards the Middle East, backtracking away from Obama’s pivot to Asia.
Trump seems to give the impression of wanting to face China from an unprecedented direction, with a trade war that would inevitably end up damaging all sides.
In this ad hoc strategy, the European allies play an important role in Washington’s intention to cancel or modify the Iranian nuclear agreement. Following the meetings in Washington between Trump and Macron, and then with Merkel, both European leaders seem more or less open to a modification of the JCPOA, provided that Trump backs away from placing tariffs on European countries, an appeal to which the English premier Theresa May adds her name. It seems a desperate tactic, given that one of the issues Trump is pinning his 2020 campaign on is being able to fix the trade imbalances between the US and the EU, without which he will be unable to claim to have kept his promises.
The United States has many cards to play, but none is decisive. In Korea, the peace process depends very little on Trump’s intentions and more on the willingness of the two key parties to reach a historic agreement to improve the lives of all citizens of the peninsula. I predict the deep state will try to blame the DPRK for a failure of the negotiations, thereby bringing to Asia the chaos in international relations that the US has successfully brought to other parts of the world. The People’s Republic of China will therefore try to replace the United States in negotiations in order to bring the two negotiating parties closer together.
In the same way, an attempt to sabotage the JCPOA will only drive Russia, China and Iran into a strategic triangle, about which I was writing more than a year ago. A unilateral exit from the nuclear agreement will help delegitimize Washington’s international role, together with the sabotage by the deep state of the peace agreement in Korea. It will be a pincer effect resulting from the chaos and the internal struggle of North American and European elites.
Success in the negotiations in Korea could pave the way for a protection umbrella for the DPRK guaranteed by China and Russia, in the same way the two could grant Iran all the diplomatic support necessary to resist the American and European pressure to cancel the JCPOA. Ultimately, the rapprochement between India and China, in view of important agreements on the BRI, could seal comity and cooperation between the two giants, leading the Eurasian area under the definitive influence of India, China, Russia and Iran, and guaranteeing a future of peaceful economic development to the most important area of the globe.
The United States finds itself divided by a war within the elite, where Trump’s presidency is continually attacked and de-legitimized, while the coordinated assault on the dollar continues apace through gold, the petroyuan, and blockchain technology. US military power is showing itself to be a paper tiger unable to change the course of events on the ground, as seen recently in Syria. The loss of diplomatic credibility resulting from the sabotage of the JCPOA, and Washington’s inability to sit down and sincerely negotiate with the DPRK, will deliver the final coup de grace to a country that is struggling to even remain friendship with her European allies (sanctions imposed on Russia, sanctions on European companies participating in the North Stream 2, and tariffs in a new trade war).
The US deep state remains on this path of self-destruction, perennially torn between opposing strategies, which only accelerates Washington’s unipolar decline and the emergence in its place of a multipolar world order, with New Delhi, Moscow, Beijing and Tehran as new poles over an immense area comprising the Middle east and all of Eurasia.
“The US deep state remains on this path of self-destruction, perennially torn between opposing strategies, which only accelerates Washington’s unipolar decline and the emergence in its place of a multipolar world order, with New Delhi, Moscow, Beijing and Tehran as new poles over an immense area comprising the Middle east and all of Eurasia.”
The anti American Jew led deep state is at war with America First and a population opposed to it’s criminally insane policies and subversion of what’s best for America and humanity. Judaism should be outlawed, our planet dejudified, Israel delisted from the UN and repalced with Palestine, and the IDF, Mossad, and Shin Bet disarmed and disbanded as part of dejudifying Palestine and our planet.
This all should be done in a lawful, non violent and peaceful manner to the extent possible. Given the Jew’s history of criminality, terrorism, war and violence. Masada nukes need to be deployed in forward positions along with sufficient forces for use on an as needed basis for disarming the IDF and dejudifying Palestine and our planet.
Preparations need to be made to make sure that this doesn’t happen again:
“According to a former senior U.S. diplomat, by Oct. 8, Israel’s northern front commander, Maj. Gen. Yitzak Hoffi, had informed Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan that he couldn’t hold out much longer against the 14,000 Syrian tanks rolling through Israeli defenses on the Golan Heights.
The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Dayan was “attacked by acute panic” and declared to advisers: “This is the end of the Third Temple.”
But if Israel was to perish, it would take Damascus and Cairo with it.
According to a former senior CIA official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, Dayan sought an urgent meeting with Prime Minister Golda Meir and secured her authorization to arm 13 intermediate-range Jericho missiles with nuclear warheads. Eight F-4 Phantom fighter aircraft were also to be given nuclear arms, former senior U.S. officials said.
The meeting took place close to “the Bor,” Israel’s huge underground war complex, these sources said.
The predominant opinion today is that Israeli’s first nuclear alert was a bluff, but “an extremely dangerous one,” a former senior U.S. State Department official said.
The Israelis demanded an emergency airlift of weapons and spare parts from the United States to support an all-out war effort. And they accused then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger of deliberately withholding the re-supply in order to allow the Arabs to gain ground.
According to a source close to former U.S. Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger, the Israelis were right. Kissinger’s strategy was to “let Israel come out ahead, but bleed,” the source said.
What followed then was just possibly more frightening than anything else that has happened since World War II, according to former U.S. officials. “Israel played a very, very dangerous game, and we came close to a nuclear war,” said a former very senior State Department official with detailed knowledge of the incident.
Over the next 3 days, the launchers were armed at Hirbat Zachariah while the F-4s, on 24-hour alert, based at Tel Nof near Rehovot, were also prepared, according to former senior Pentagon officials.
The initial targets — these officials said — included the Syrian and Eygptian military headquarters, which were situated near Damascus and Cairo, respectively. …
Somehow, an agent in place in Israel alerted the United States of the arming of the Jerichos and on Oct. 12, an SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft based at Beale Air Force Base in California took off, refueled off of Rota, Spain, and then flew over Syria, Jordan and Israel.
The plane, able to survey 100,000 square miles of land an hour, spotted the radiation from the missiles, according to a former Pentagon official and others familiar with the incident.
According to this Pentagon source, Israel ordered their F-4s to down the plane, but the Blackbird soared to 85,000 feet, beyond the range of the Israeli fighters.
A former employee of Rockwell International, Richard Freeman, told United Press International that the warhead of the Jericho was developed from the U.S. XW-58 warhead developed for the U.S. Army. It was about 24 inches long and 18 to 20 inches in diameter, weighing 200 pounds.
With an accuracy of 500 to 1,000 meters, the warhead “was designed for air bursts above population centers or massed armor formations,” he said. But a former CIA official added: “The thing had a lot of problems with its guidance system, and we weren’t sure if deployment was real or just saber-rattling.”
Saber-rattling or not, that same day, the United States began a huge airlift to Israel including ammunition, tanks and aircraft. Israel made dramatic battlefield gains on all fronts until an Oct. 14 U.N.-Security Council-approved ceasefire brought the fighting to a halt.
But then Israel’s current Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon — who was at the time a major general commanding a division — broke the ceasefire and began to encircle the Egyptian Third Army, opening the way to Cairo.
It was the Soviets’ turn to panic. According to half a dozen former State Department diplomats, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev told the United States he might be forced to send in crack troops to back up Egyptian forces defending Cairo.
There was plenty of intelligence that elite Soviet paratroop units were on alert and moving.
To halt Sharon, Kissinger raised the state of alert of all U.S. defense forces worldwide. Called DefCons, for defense condition, they work in descending order from DefCon V to DefCon I, which is war. Kissinger ordered a DefCon III.
According to a former senior State Department official, the decision to move to DefCon III “sent a clear message that Sharon’s violation of the ceasefire was dragging us into a conflict with the Soviets and that we had no desire to see the Egyptian Army destroyed.”
Israel, which had cancelled its nuclear alert, went on nuclear alert for a second time, until Meir quickly ended the crisis by ordering her army to stop all offensive action against the Egyptians.”
– Yom Kippur: Israel’s 1973 nuclear alert –
https://www.upi.com/Yom-Kippur-Israels-1973-nuclear-alert/64941032228992/
funny , israel today founded by fake european / caucasian jews , who got no resemblance of the original semitic jews that looks like middle eastern people. The arabs of palestine have the genetics to claim they are descendant from shemitic ancestors..
american jews ? they just as white / caucasian as the european fakes.
Most of the original Israeli were Jews kicked out of the Arab world.
you sure they are jewish ? tell me , how do one know if one is a genetic descendant of ancient israeli , or just one claiming by mouth ?
They did mitochondrial DNA studies on Jewish people in Europe. Their mother’s mother’s mother’s etc came from all over. But it’s mostly group self identification.
and it is proven scientifically that they are jewish ? or just descendant of their own family tree where they think they are jewish but in reality not ?
theres no such thing as jewish DNA pattern , they been scattered all around the world when they rebel against Rome , and the closest people that can be called semitic are those living on palestine and yet these people are kicked out because FAKE european jews want a nation..
a FAKE israel. a FAKE jewish people , who wait for a FAKE messiah , and the one that coming is not messiah but something that every christian who read the bible knew .. the antichrist
It will pretty much depend on your definition of what ‘jewish’ is.
just answer the question , is jewish genetic or anyone can say they are jewish based on whatever they believe in ?
Whoever wrote this has zero understanding of US internal affairs and foreign policies.
“US involvement is like an iceberg; most of it is under the surface” -Gamal Abdul Nasser.
The part that’s under the surface is the foreign oligarchs running the US.
It is easy to believe something if you desperately want it to be true.
What I want is irrelevant. I could reciprocate in saying that it’s easy to not believe something if you desperately don’t want it to be true. There again, what you don’t want is equally irrelevant.
That’s why there are facts.
You should acquaint yourself with Carroll Quigley’s “The Anglo-American Establishment” to learn how the men behind the British Empire shifted the capital west (US) to continue expanding their hegemony.
On a note outside the aforementioned reference, all American think-tank organizations are linked to the ones in London. The Chatham-house-linked CFR in New York is one example.
So what is under the surface of US internal affairs and foreign policies.
Actually it would be more appropriate to quote “It is hard to get a man to understand something if his salary depends on him not understanding”.
I agree with Omega. Denial of history by the “Ministry of Truth” through control of the “Ministry of Records” (propaganda) is the proper assignment of the word delusional not Omega’s thoughts.
Not often mentioned, Omega but it is the “Iron Law of Oligarchy” (1) and the melding of corporatism with government. Mussolini was not bashful about it. There is a plaque in Milan where the Italian citizens hung him when they caught him trying to escape from Italy.
“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power”. Benito Mussolini
“Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice it is a fallacy. You in America will see that some day”. Benito Mussolini
“War is to man what maternity is to a woman. From a philosophical and doctrinal viewpoint, I do not believe in perpetual peace”. Benito Mussolini
1. The iron law of oligarchy is a political theory, first developed by the German sociologist Robert Michels in his 1911 book, Political Parties. … Michels’ theory states that all complex organizations, regardless of how democratic they are when started, eventually develop into oligarchies.
For a more in depth description:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy
Most interesting George, thank you for sharing. In spite of reading quite extensively on oligarchy, its system and history, I haven’t heard of Michel, his sociological theory or book until now. I will obtain a copy of it.
On a note related to oligarchy, and if you haven’t already, I invite you to read Webster Tarpley’s “Against Oligarchy”. It depicts how the Venetian system was transplanted into Britain (https://goo.gl/5SdRWB). Lyndon Larouche’s “The Campaigner” series sheds enormous historical light on the oligarchical’s origin to Persia – and how it only moved geographically (Persia, Phoenicia, Rome, Byzantine, Venice and as of now, Britain).
Mussolini’s quotes are equally interesting. Especially when one considers his beginning (as an activist for peace and justice) and his end (on the British Empire’s payroll). A note on Fascism (with roots in the British instigated French Revolution): while it’s associated with Mussolini, the movement – like Communism, Marxism (to a great extent), Nazism, Modern Zionism, the “Youngs” (think Young Turks, Young Egypt, Young Etc), the Muslim Brotherhood, B’nai B’rith, etc were/are British machinations in line with Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations” where targeted nations/regions must be kept backward economically and culturally compared to Britain.
sure , JFK assasination ? most of it hidden under the surface… 9-11 ? remember dancing israelis who clap and dance and laugh as they filmed the burning twin towers ?
You’re willfully delusional.
Mute.
typical american answer , decades of drinking and believing govt kool aid propaganda and cannot take a step into objective thinking , because the truth will set his mind insane
He thinks he is a magus.
Whereas in reality Smaug is Mr Magoo.
https://tse1.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.NfjTeVbr7I6l6hqTai8MrgHaGB&pid=Api&P=0&w=216&h=177
This is the whole point. That U.S. clout runs out. That U.S. ‘sanctions’ don’t have much teeth. That the U.S. military is inferior to Russia’s and soon China’s. That the U.S. is running out of ways of punishing its adversaries. That the U.S. is in serious debt as is its commerical followers.
Russia has almost no state debt, China and Russia make everything. Between them. They don’t need the U.S. or Europe. They can service the rest of the world. Increaningly, the rest of the world doesn’t need the U.S. or Europe. What they need is Russia, China.
So, the rest of the world can do without the U.S.
The dying empire are acting like an old lion trying to be tough because he saw toung lions around him started to fear him less and unite against him.. Drunk with power for decades , it have severe problem relinguishing power..
predictably he started to barkand threaten his own allies , stomping on weak small animals to show other young lions that it still got power , but all those just strengthen their opinion that the old lion is on deathbed
The “deep state” has no allies, just ask Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi!
https://pre00.deviantart.net/4bb9/th/pre/f/2018/118/f/9/results_by_neetsfagging322297-dca209p.png
Now it is very important that a UNSC emergency meeting should be called in which a strong bullyman is needed with strong English accent to do emotional speech in English language with loud voice that there is no reason that without Syrian government approval anybody from US, UK, France, Israel etc. to cross Syrian political border and inside Syria either support any terrorist group with weapons or finance or to kill anybody inside Syria or to hold any part of Syrian land for himself to establish any sort of business or to establish military bases there or to hold it for some other groups to establish governments there.
Why I am telling this to the UNSC forum because US, UK, France, Israel etc. are committing these crimes in Syria, Palestine and Yemen. Till this time US, UK, France and Israel have martyred about 300,000 Syrian civilians, servicemen and their allies in which Russians, Iranians, Lebanese, Palestinians are included. US, UK, France, Israel etc should know that the parts of the Syrian land that you have held across Europheti river both sides in Deir Ezzor, Hsaka, Raqqa etc or Golan Heights are the parts of Syrian land where Syrian nation are living which you have held hostage there. This is completely unacceptable for Syrian government and for Syrian nation.
Syria is the land of Syrians. Syrians are not European Israeli migrants in Palestine that have illegally occupied Palestinian whole land and needed to be removed.
US, UK, France and Israeli migrants know very well that they are committing international crimes by repeated air strikes on Syrian nation. Syrian nation needs protection from US, UK, France and Israeli thugs.
All US, UK, France and Israeli thugs should immediately leave whole Syrian land. Syrian nation don’t wanna to become colony state of these thugs. Second if these foreign regimes have any concern with Syria then these bastards should straight talk with Syrian president Assad and they should not contact with Syrian terrorists that they have injected into Syria like ISIS, Al-Qaeda, White Helmets etc.
Thousands of Syrians have been born in UK and they can easily do this speech for Syria.
I was surprise that how these morons each year invade new Muslim countries without going to bankrupt on wars in Syria, Palestine, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya etc. In fact this is Saudis money that spend on these wars. So give thanks to Saudi idiots. Now I doubt that Saudis are either Christians or Jews that is why they play with Islam and with the lives of Muslims.
The US Empire along with its Israeli ‘advisers’ and NATO vassals are also at great and justified risk of being fully exposed in their use of maniacal world terrorist gangs for hire in the destruction of Iraq, Libya and Syria.
This is one factor in the US Empires reluctance to voluntarily withdraw from Syria.
Much of the world recognises the abject cowardice and venal barbarity of the US Coalition of Terror and as more people around the globe come to accept this fact, so will the influence of the US and vassals wane further.
When one looks at the US as it actually is and not through the lens of Hollywood and CNN , the image of the USA is a very ugly one indeed.
Tu capacidad para sintetizar información compleja en un análisis coherente y bien estructurado es lo que distingue tu comentario como un recurso clave para quienes buscan una comprensión profunda del tema. Este nivel de detalle y claridad es verdaderamente admirable.