Posted by seumasach on February 16, 2015
Thierry Meyssan
16th February, 2015
After long hesitating, the Obama administration has adopted its new defense doctrine. For the Levant, it is no longer a question of “reshaping the broader Middle East”, nor of overthrowing President Bashar Assad, but only of “reducing” the Islamic Emirate. The White House hopes to put its military machine in order and running. To do this, President Obama is trying to get the support of Congress.
Posted in Syria | Tagged: End of empire, Obama's realist turn, retreat from empire | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 26, 2015
Gelb, president emeritus and board senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), recommends “a strategy that includes Assad and Iran as the key players in countering the jihadis.” All in all, this article provides great insight into the conflicts within the US administration, specifically between the Pentagon and the State Department.
Leslie H.Gelb
22nd January, 2015
If the administration does not come up with a clear plan to defeat the jihadis and end the Syrian war, Congress should not sign on to it.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: coalition against IS, Obama agenda, Obama's realist turn, retreat from empire | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 7, 2015
By characterising the divisions within the US elite as between “one favourable to the imperialist division of the world with China and possibly Russia (President Obama’s position) and, on the other hand, the expansionist imperialists (gathered around Hillary Clinton and General David Petraeus)” Meyssan reveals the utter confusion on the left concerning imperialism. On the one hand, the imperial project requires the destruction of Russia and China and on the other there are no anti-expansionist imperialists: empire is all or nothing. The confusion arises from Lenin’s “economic” interpretation of imperialism as a stage in the development of “capitalism”(See my article Globalisation: Multipolar World or New World Order? Although the left cannot concede it, Obama is, in fact, embracing the multipolar world order, as shall soon become quite evident to all. This article is, however, of the highest interest in pinpointing the foci of opposition to him inside the US elite and confirms his prescience in sidelining Petraeus and Clinton.
Thierry Meyssan
6th January, 2015
The Syrian crisis, which had already been solved by the first conference in Geneva in June 2012, continues despite all the agreements negotiated with the United States. Clearly, the Obama administration does not obey its leader, but is divided between two political lines: one favourable to the imperialist division of the world with China and possibly Russia (President Obama’s position) and, on the other hand, the expansionist imperialists (gathered around Hillary Clinton and General David Petraeus).
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Center for a New American Security, Obama's realist turn, retreat from empire | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 4, 2015
“America’s never been in the business of colonizing other countries and grabbing their resources; we’ve never been in the business of bullying folks into doing things that we can’t do for ourselves. Where we have done that, by the way, it’s never worked out all that well. That’s not our best tradition.”
29th December, 2014
NPR’s wide-ranging interview with President Obama covers recent executive actions on Cuba and immigration, race relations in the U.S., health care, the midterm elections and extending democracy in the Middle East.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Obama agenda, Obama's realist turn, retreat from empire | Leave a Comment »
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 »
Posted by seumasach on December 19, 2014
The retreat from empire, led by Obama and trumpeted for some time now in these columns, is now undeniable. The right and the left may decry it or deny it but the pattern is coming more and more into focus. The ending of the stand-off with Cuba is a moment of historic importance, all the more so for its symbolic power. Obama with his “Somos todos americanos” has with one phrase repositioned the USA geopolitically: it is his pivot to the Americas, north and south. The Senate report on CIA torture, though hardly revelatory, is similarly symbolic, signifying the imminent demise of the “deep state” and consequent re-emergence of constitutional, democratic politics, in the USA, Europe and elsewhere. It is a matter of regret that the various social. grass-roots movements have been unable to contribute more to drive for change which is already happening and is therefore believable. They seem instead to be unable to relate to anything not in conformity with their template of change from below. But we can still make it change from below! We should really be out on the streets now pushing for a deal with Iran, for a settlement of the Palestinian question, for an end to sanctions against Russia. We can help bring about a global peace process, deepening existing trends towards reconciliation, making them irreversible and finally finding the holy grail, the peace dividend. Let’s hope 2015 is the year when this can start to happen.
BRUSSELS – Pressure is mounting on those member states accused of hosting CIA rendition and torture camps to be held accountable for their role.
MEPs and the European Commission in Strasbourg on Wednesday (17 December) roundly condemned the torture of Al-Qaeda suspects carried out by CIA operatives on EU soil in the wake of 9-11, praised the US for exposing the abuse, and called upon Washington to shut down Guantanamo Bay.
Read more
Posted in Global peace process | Tagged: Obama's realist turn, retreat from empire | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on December 16, 2014
M.K.Bhadrakumar
13th December, 2014
The US-Iranian negotiations for a nuclear deal are slated to resume on Monday amidst growing optimism that this could be the end of the year-long endgame under way, and an accord is in sight, finally. The US secretary of state John Kerry recently said that the effort will be to reach an accord even before the extended deadline of end-June.
Posted in Global peace process, Iran | Tagged: Obama's realist turn, retreat from empire | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on December 2, 2014
2nd December, 2014
The State Department has cut its funding to the Syria Justice and Accountability Center (SJAC) that it set up in the Hague in 2013 with a view to prosecuting Syrian President Bashar Assad for crimes against humanity.
Posted in Syria | Tagged: Obama's realist turn, retreat from empire | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on November 11, 2014
“Chinese leaders have put forward a new model of “major-country relationship” between China and the United States, an intellectual framework for resolving one of the greatest puzzles in international history — how to avoid falling into the so-called Thucydides trap, the often-cited cycle of struggle between rising and established powers.”
11th November, 2014
President Obama arrived in Beijing on Monday for a meeting of the AsiaPacific Economic Cooperation forum. He will meet with China’s president, Xi Jinping, at length on Wednesday. The occasion is a vital opportunity for the two presidents to reset the relationship between the nations.
Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: Asian pivot, “major-country relationship” between China and the United States, End of empire, Obama agenda, Obama's realist turn, retreat from empire, strategic partnership between US and China, U.S.-China Business Council | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on October 27, 2014
Now that Britain is a strategic partner of China they have gone rather quiet on the Dalai Lama and so-called democracy protests. Now they are going a step further: the BBC report referred to below is as deadly as it is understated. Linking the Hong Kong protests as well as Pussy Riot and so much else to the Oslo Freedom Forum leaves little doubt as to who is really behind such movements: a brief google search into the family tree of that body suffices.
M.K.Bhadrakumar
27th October, 2014
The sensational report by the BBC that the protests in Hong Kong known as Occupy Central were in reality not spontaneous or indigenous, but were choreographed carefully two years ago and executed by foreign forces and that around 1000 Chinese activists could be “trained demonstrators” would corroborate the reports from Moscow to this effect a few weeks ago — expect that the Russian reports unwaveringly pointed finger at the US as mentoring the entire enterprise.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: China-UK comprehensive strategic partnership, hong kong protests, oslo freedom forum, retreat from empire | Leave a Comment »
In These New Times 