The replacement of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson with CIA Director Mike Pompeo signals a hawkish shift in the administration’s foreign policy that is clearly intended to prepare the country for a confrontation with Russia.
Pompeo was not chosen for his diplomatic skills or his nuanced grasp of foreign relations but for his hardline approach to issues like North Korea, the Iran nuclear agreement, and the so-called “Russian threat”.
With the nomination of Pompeo, Trump has abandoned his campaign promise to end the foreign interventions and regime change operations, and has instead aligned himself with a small group of arch-neocons who are fully committed to US global domination through the application of hard power.
Not surprisingly, the right-wing Weekly Standard is already celebrating Pompeo’s nomination although his appointment is far from certain. Here’s a short excerpt from an article that TWS published on Wednesday titled “Iran-Deal Critics Praise Pompeo Nomination”:
“The Senate’s top Iran hawks heaped praise on the president’s nomination of CIA director Mike Pompeo to replace Secretary of State Rex Tillerson Tuesday, and critics of the deal on and off Capitol Hill expressed confidence that Pompeo’s presence would place renewed pressure on negotiations to fix the Iran nuclear deal—or nix it…
In recent days, US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley has delivered a number of threats directed at Russia that would lead any reasonable person to conclude that Washington is laying the groundwork for a direct confrontation with Russia in the very near future. Here’s an excerpt from one of Haley’s recent hysterical performances at the UN:
“When the international community consistently fails to act, there are times when states are compelled to take their own action…..We warn any nation determined to impose its will through chemical attacks and inhuman suffering, but most especially the outlaw Syrian regime, the United States remains prepared to act if we must. It is not a path we prefer. But it is a path we have demonstrated we will take, and we are prepared to take again.”
Top Russian officials, including Army General Valery Gerasimov, are taking Haley’s threats seriously and are prepared to retaliate if the lives of their military personnel are endangered in any US-led attack.
“In the event of a threat to our military servicemen’s lives, Russia’s armed forces will take retaliatory measures to target both the missiles and their delivery vehicles,” Gerasimov said, according to the state-run Tass Russian News Agency.
Gerasimov also said that Russia has hard facts about preparations for a false flag chemical weapons attack that will be followed by a US missile attack on Syrian Army positions in East Ghouta where US-backed jihadists have suffered heavy casualties lately in a major battle where their forces have been splintered into three small cauldrons that are surrounded by Syrian elite Tiger Forces that are rapidly tightening the noose.
The jihadist defeat is imminent which is why Washington’s false flag operation should be seen for what it is: A last-ditch effort to assist its proxy-army of Sunni militants in their failed attempt to topple the government of Bashar al Assad. The US is desperate to reverse the course of a conflict that is clearly moving in Russia’s favor.
The situation in Syria is further complicated by British Prime Minister Theresa May’s spurious accusations that Russia was involved in the poisoning of double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia. Not only has May failed to produce a scintilla of hard evidence to verify her claims, she has also refused to provide Russia with samples of the proscribed substance which is required under the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Russia needs these samples to acquit itself of the serious charges which May has leveled at them and to challenge her expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats who were declared persona non grata without due process and without any communication with the Russian Foreign Office. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that May is merely following Washington’s diktats as did Tony “The Poodle” Blair in the lead up to the war in Iraq.
In response to May’s claims, the Russian Foreign Ministry has made an official statement which it posted on its website on March 14, 2018. It reads:
“The March 14 statement made by British Prime Minister Theresa May in Parliament on measures to “punish” Russia, under the false pretext of its alleged involvement in the poisoning of Sergey Skripal and his daughter, constitutes an unprecedented, flagrant provocation that undermines the foundations of normal dialogue between our countries.
We believe it is absolutely unacceptable and unworthy of the British Government to seek to further seriously aggravate relations in pursuit of its unseemly political ends, having announced a whole series of hostile measures, including the expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats from the country.
Instead of completing its own investigation and using established international formats and instruments, including within the framework of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons – in which we were prepared to cooperate – the British Government opted for confrontation with Russia. Obviously, by investigating this incident in a unilateral, non-transparent way, the British Government is again seeking to launch a groundless anti-Russian campaign.
Needless to say, our response measures will not be long in coming.” (The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation)
Needless to say, our response measures will not be long in coming.” (The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation)
The nomination of war-hawk Pompeo, the expulsion of Russian diplomats from the UK, and the tense situation developing in East Ghouta strongly suggests that the Trump administration is preparing to test Putin’s resolve and see if he will defend his Syrian allies (by retaliating against the United States) or whether it’s all just a bluff.
In any event, the US is now closer to a shooting war with Russia than any time since the Cuban missile crisis only, this time, we don’t expect cooler heads to prevail. Colonel Patrick Lang, Retired senior officer of U.S. Military Intelligence and U.S. Army Special Forces (The Green Berets) who was the “Defense Intelligence Officer for the Middle East, South Asia and Terrorism”– summed it up best in a recent post at his excellent website Sic Semper Tyrannis when he said:
“Pompeo’s nomination and his eventual confirmation brings the world closer to a US-Russia war. If that happens it will be difficult if not impossible to keep the war from escalating toward the use of nuclear weapons. Israel wants war, a wrecking war with Iran. Israel wants the US to win that war for Israel. In My Opinion, Israel would be wrecked in such a war whatever the outcome. This is an August, 1914 moment.”
God help us.
No comments:
Post a Comment