Posted by seumasach on March 24, 2015
24th March, 2015
Former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker harshly criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the J Street conference in Washington on Monday, echoing White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough’scomments earlier in the day.
Posted in Global peace process, Palestine | Tagged: Palestine | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on March 19, 2015
18th March, 2015
An annual security report submitted recently to the US Senate by James Clapper, director of National Intelligence, removed both Iran and Hezbollah from the list of terrorism threats to the United States for the first time in years.
Posted in Global peace process, Iran | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on March 11, 2015
11th March, 2015
A great deal of drama has been recently evident in the global media portraying a “personal” rift between the US president and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
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Posted by seumasach on February 9, 2015
9th February, 2015
BRUSSELS, (Sputnik) – Russia, Germany, France, and Ukraine have agreed that the time has come to reach a solution on the Ukrainian crisis, European Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn said Monday.
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Posted by seumasach on January 6, 2015
What Mr. Putin wants is that Ukraine not become a member of NATO. The idea of Mr. Putin is to not have an army at Russia’s borders.”
French Leader Urges End to Sanctions Against Russia Over Ukraine
6th January, 2015
MOSCOW — Western nations should stop threatening Russia with new sanctions and instead offer to ease off on existing restrictions in exchange for progress in the peace process in Ukraine, PresidentFrançois Hollande of France said in an interview on Monday.
Posted in Global peace process | Tagged: End Russia sanctions! | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 4, 2015
“Clearly, President Barack Obama has set his mind on a grand strategy to involve Russia to commence a keen search for conflict resolution in Ukraine and Syria and to put the necessary underpinnings in place for an agreement with Iran.”
M.K.Bhadrakumar
3rd January, 2015
The New Year has got off to a flying start with four diplomatic tracks leading the way – four seemingly different, yet interconnected, tracks. They relate to the Iran nuclear issue, Ukraine, Syria and the overarching crisis in Russia’s relations with the West.
Posted in Global peace process | Tagged: Obama agenda, Obama's realist turn, Russian diplomacy | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 4, 2015
When dealing with Western intelligence sources it is necessary to separate the wheat of a grudging realism from the chaff of hubris, self-righteousness, unconscious irony and sheer stupidity. The latter render this article amusing, even hilarious, but it does have a serious core. A little translation is required to arrive at that core.
Thus the paragraph beginning “Russia would fully comply with the September Minsk agreement on Eastern Ukraine” can be translated as follows:
While continuing to pretend that Russia is behind the Ukraine crisis rather than ourselves we must reward Russia by calling her to do what she has been trying to do all along: stabilize the situation through the Minsk agreement. Kiev on the other hand must stop destabilizing the situation.
The paragraph beginning “NATO would continue to strengthen its deterrent posture in Eastern Europe to hedge against increased risk to its members.” translates as:
In order to placate our imperial outposts in Eastern Europe and prevent the collapse of NATO we must make some token deployments there.
The paragraph beginning “As part of a broader deal, Ukraine would have to recognize publicly that it is not currently prepared for NATO membership.” translates:
Ukraine will never be part of NATO!
The paragraph beginning “Russia would have to accept a closer Ukrainian relationship with the European Union—as well as deepen its own.” translates:
We need a trilateral EU-Russia-Ukraine agreement- the same agreement we torpedoed, along with our European stooges, when we launched this crisis.
The paragraph beginning “The West would have to make a firmer commitment to supporting internal reforms in Ukraine.” translates:
We must get the Europeans to bailout Ukraine
“Reviving the Group of 8, NATO-Russia Council, and other channels as part of a comprehensive deal would help. So would high level E.U.-Eurasian Union meetings.”
This is an astonishing statement which requires no translation!
December, 2014
The ruble’s dramatic decline threatens to plunge Russia into a full-scale economic crisis. President Vladimir Putin has attempted to minimize the difficulties and deflect blame toward the West, but the problem is serious and no one is to blame but Mr. Putin himself. His efforts to destabilize Ukraine have brought painful sanctions upon Russia, reinforced its dependence on oil, and isolated its economy.
Posted in Global peace process, Ukraine War | Tagged: Obama agenda, Obama's realist turn | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 4, 2015
Josh Rogin
31st December, 2015
President Barack Obama’s administration has been working behind the scenes for months to forge a new working relationship with Russia, despite the fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin has shown little interest in repairing relations with Washington or halting his aggression in neighboring Ukraine.
Read more
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Posted by seumasach on January 4, 2015
Saudi Arabia Will Reopen Embassy In Iraq After 25 Years
3rd January, 2015
Saudi Arabia will reopen its embassy in Iraq for the first time in 25 years. Saudi officials will travel to the Iraqi capital of Baghdad this week to begin preparations so they can start building “at the earliest opportunity,” the Saudi Press Agency said Saturday. The move marks a major improvement in the once-rocky relations between the Arab neighbors, Reuters reported.
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Posted by seumasach on January 4, 2015
M.K.Bhadrakumar
2nd January, 2015
A grudging admission that Saudi Arabia has lost out to Iran in the regional rivalry is apparent in the opinion piece by a senior editor in the establishment daily Asharq Al-Awsat. The hubris that money can buy anything or anyone in Washington, the triumphalism that the Islamic State spells the doom for the Iranians, the over-confidence that Sunni-Shi’ite schism transcends regional politics – all these Saudi assumptions have gone horribly wrong. In retrospect, 2014 stands out as the year the Saudis lost the plot.
Posted in Global peace process, Iran | Tagged: Obama agenda, Obama's realist turn, retreat from empire | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on December 19, 2014
Cailean Bochanan
19th December, 2014
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
T.S.Elliot
Those who have been following the analysis put forward in these columns may be stunned but will not be surprised by Obama’s announcement ending the US standoff with Cuba. As I wrote almost two years ago:
“You don’t have to regard Barack Obama as the the embodiment of ultimate virtue to support the recent shift towards a certain realism in Washington. He has declared an end to “war without end”. It doesn’t matter that this is only an accommodation to new realities and not the reflection of some inherent goodness in the US leader. What matters is that he is aware of reality and is accommodating to it: this is what leadership is about. He has recognised that the policy options chosen by his administration have not worked. They could have worked perhaps but they didn’t . The government of Bashar-al Assad has not collapsed in the face of Western sponsored Islamist movements and is not going to. The eurozone is not going to collapse to accommodate the US dollar. America is not going to dictate the course of world events over the coming years. The New World Order, at least not the one envisaged by Washington, London and Tel Aviv, will not come into being.Let us then applaud Barack Obama for providing us with change we might even believe in: a shift in Washington towards an acceptance of the facts, of a return to planet earth.”
Posted in Global peace process, Multipolar world, New Cold War | Tagged: Obama's realist turn, retreat from empire | Leave a Comment »
In These New Times 