M.K.Bhadrakumar
13th August, 2018
The Israeli press is awash with reports that US President Donald Trump is faithfully executing a containment strategy against Iran that was scripted in Tel Aviv by none other than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Archive for the ‘Drive to Global War’ Category
Facing total economic meltdown at home US/UK, spear-heading NATO, have chosen the path of confrontation with the rest of the world, a path which will lead us to the brink of war with Russia and China
Trump scores an own-goal in the game against Iran
Posted by seumasach on August 14, 2018
Posted in Iran, Multipolar world, Uncategorized | Tagged: Iranian diplomacy, trump agenda | Leave a Comment »
Iran to launch state-backed crypto to sidestep US sanctions
Posted by seumasach on July 28, 2018
27th July, 2018
As US sanctions loom, Iran is reportedly planning to launch its own crypto-currency, according to a 25 July story from the nation’s official news channel Press TV. The report claims Tehran is preparing to develop its own digital currency to circumnavigate impending sanctions from American President Donald Trump’s administration that, says the Islamic Republic, aim to cripple the country.
Posted in Iran | Tagged: cryptocurrencies | Leave a Comment »
Summitgate and the Campaign vs. ‘Peace’
Posted by seumasach on July 14, 2018
Stephen F. Cohen
11th July, 2018
Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at NYU and Princeton, and John Batchelor continue their (usually) weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (You can find previous installments, now in their fifth year, at TheNation.com.)
Posted in New Cold War | Tagged: Trump-Putin summit | Leave a Comment »
Washington forces its allies to accept a bipolar world
Posted by seumasach on April 17, 2018
It’s almost as if Trump is following the Leninist dictum of showing the people in practice the outcome is certain policies. As well, as a giving demonstration of the military impotence of the West, it must be added that he has put May, in particular, in a very precarious situation: her political survival now hangs by the most threadbare of lies. Strange that she should have placed her destiny in the hands of the erratic Trump, given the attempts of British intelligence services and media magnates to overthrow him!
Thierry Meyssan
17th April, 2018
By firing missiles on Syria with its French and British allies, the strange President Donald Trump has managed to force the Western powers to accept the end of their unilateral domination of the world. The insignificant result of this demonstration of force drags NATO back to reality. Without having made use of its weapons, Russia now succeeds the Soviet Union in the balance of world power.
Posted in Syria | Tagged: bipolar world | Leave a Comment »
Deconstructing the sacking of Rex Tillerson
Posted by seumasach on April 2, 2018
“We will never know whether Trump actually intended the denouement we have seen, but he has broken the axis between the state department and the Pentagon by introducing Mike Pompey into the equation as his new secretary of state. Pompey is a political associate of the Tea Party movement who can be trusted to ensure that Trump retains the final word on the US foreign policies, especially on Russia.”
Sure enough, Trump does seem to have created some foreign-policy space for himself – he has just announced the withdrawal of US troops from Syria to the horror of the US media.
M.K.Bhadrakumar
15th March, 2018
The surprising part of US President Donald Trump’s move to sack Rex Tillerson as secretary of state is that it took place a full six months after the latter called him a “f***ing moron” at a Pentagon meeting. Tillerson should have thrown in the towel and walked away then. That’s probably what Trump would have preferred.
Posted in Syria | Tagged: End of empire, retreat from empire, trump agenda | Leave a Comment »
Expulsion of Russian diplomats portends troubled times
Posted by seumasach on March 27, 2018
I don’t think the West is uniting: both Trump’s and the EU’s response has been less than fulsome. Trump’s expulsions, along with the appointment of John Bolton of the neocon stable, are surprising given that the Russia collusion narrative has run out of steam and he would then appear to have a free hand to pursue detente with Russia. Is Trump now seesawing between a realist approach and a neocon approach or has some deal been reached between the White House and the neocon opposition? Since we still don’t know for sure what is behind the “Get Trump” campaign, assuming it’s not that he put a hand up a lady’s skirt, then it is equally difficult to surmise as to what such a deal might involve. His sacking of Tillerson just as Boris Johnson was reveling in the latter’s support for Britain after Salisbury strikes me as not being coincidental. Tillerson was allegedly pushing for action against Assad in tandem with the Brits following Nicki Haley’s ominous warning at the UN and Lavrov’s robust counter warning about direct action by Western forces in Syria and attempts to pin more chemical weapons outrages on Assad. Yet nothing has happened. Has the war party just shot it’s bolt and it has turned out to be a damp squib. Have we just missed WW3? Is Trump sitting pretty, graciously appeasing the neocons after seeing off the Brits and their Clintonite allies or has he succumbed to the inevitable and begun preparing a war cabinet as some have claimed. My bet is that in defiance of all appearances the world has just become a safer place and the Western empire has just had it’s Romulus Augustulus moment.
M.K.Bhadrakumar
27th March, 2018
The mass expulsion of Russian diplomats by some countries of the European Union and North America on Monday is an unprecedented and intriguing development. First, the US alone accounts for some two-thirds of the expulsion – 60 diplomats. Curiously, even Britain, which is apparently the aggrieved party in the Skripal affair, expelled less than half that number – 23. Broadly, however, this is an Anglo-American move with which a number of EU countries and Canada display solidarity.
Posted in Syria | Tagged: End of empire, Stripal affair | Leave a Comment »
Japan will pour $200 billion into global infrastructure
Posted by seumasach on February 28, 2018
Whereas the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue(QUAD) aims to counter Chinese influence under the auspices of the USA, the result may not be all that Washington hopes. Note that Japan in mimicking China’s global infrastructure projects by investing in, amongst other places , Russia. The Quad may turn out to be a vehicle for Japanese strategic autonomy in a world where an economically and politically the USA is no longer capable of leadership.
9th June, 2016
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged to invest $200 billion in the coming five years to build roads, power plants and ports around the world.
Posted in Containing China | Tagged: Japan-US relations, Quadrilateral Security Dialogue(QUAD) | Leave a Comment »
‘Quad’ version of Belt and Road feels like a South China Sea Watch
Posted by seumasach on February 28, 2018
Pepe Escobar
24th February, 2018
The Quad – comprising the United States, Japan, India and Australia – was set up a decade ago, ostensibly as an Asia-centered security cooperation mechanism. Funnily enough, Beijing always suspected it actually represented a containment strategy.
Posted in Containing China, Multipolar world | Tagged: Belt and Road Initiative(BRI), China Australian cooperation, Chinese soft power, End of empire, Quadrilateral Security Dialogue(QUAD) | Leave a Comment »
Australia sees opportunity in China’s rise
Posted by seumasach on February 28, 2018
The Belt and Road Initiative now appears as an unstoppable reality shaping 21st Century politics. The Anglosphere may try to isolate itself from it at great cost to itself but with the failure of Western intervention in the Middle East it cannot stop it. The resurrection of the , allying Australia, Japan, India and the USA, as a counterweight to the BRI looks unconvincing. As US hegemonic aspirations fade the dream lives on in the vacuous rhetoric of a New Cold War and a union of democracies none of which relate to the reality of economic sclerosis, unplayable debt and political division.
M.K.Bhadrakumar
27th February, 2018
From an Indian perspective, the visit to the United States by the Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his meeting with President Donald Trump on February 23 turns out to be a reality check on the power dynamic in the Asia-Pacific. Australia is torn between two vital partners – the US in the security sphere and China in the economic sphere. The dilemma is acute insofar as Turnbull has voiced opinions on threat perceptions regarding China, which are contrary to the Trump administration’s assessment and, yet, the US and Australia are key allies.
Posted in Multipolar world, New Cold War | Tagged: Belt and Road Initiative(BRI), China Australian cooperation, Chinese soft power, End of empire, Quadrilateral Security Dialogue(QUAD) | Leave a Comment »
Australia is implementing its own “foreign agents” legislation modelled off of the US’.
Posted by seumasach on December 20, 2017
“Per the first pair, any diminishment of China’s powerful economic influence in Australia – particularly in terms of commodity purchases, investments, real estate deals, and wealthy foreign students – could theoretically be replaced by the US or its allies, though not on the same qualitative level and not without self-inflicted damage to the island nation.”
This is an understatement: Australia is geared to exporting raw materials to the world’s foremost productive economy. The USA cannot replicate China’s role in this respect and, as for US allies, well, who are they? Merely assuming, as the latest national security doctrine does that India and Japan are US allies doesn’t mean that they are US allies. After all, is the UK, the country Trump refuses to visit, a US ally? Clearly, the Australian “security state” is biting back but can it trump Australia’s fundamental interests? Australia’s own little Brexit will likely be as ephemeral as Brexit itself.
Andrew Korybko
Australia is implementing its own “foreign agents” legislation modelled off of the US’.
Posted in Containing China, Multipolar world | Tagged: Australia-China relations, China-led globalization, Chinese soft power | Leave a Comment »
Syrian Arab Army and Iraqi units liberate final ISIS held town in Syria
Posted by seumasach on November 9, 2017
8th November, 2017
ISIS is now officially destroyed as fighting force in both Syria and Iraq. While small pockets of ISIS terrorists and lone-wolf attackers are still roving in both countries, as a battle capable force, ISIS is now effectively dead and along with it, the notion of its always illegitimate so-called “Islamic State”.
Posted in Syria | Tagged: defeat of western imperialism in Syria and Iraq, End of empire | Leave a Comment »
