Iran Joins EAEU - 45 Years Of US Foreign Policy Down The Drain

Authored by Tom Luongo,

Iran is joining the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). By early next year, February by this account, Iran will join the five founding members of the Union and open the door for Turkey to do so later in 2018.

Between this and the end of the war in Syria, it’s not hard to declare the Brzezinski Doctrine of U.S.-led Central Asian chaos as gasping its last breaths.

Iran finally joining the EAEU is a response to a number of factors, the most important of which is the continued belligerence by the U.S. Expanded economic sanctions on Iran and the EAEU’s leader Russia has created the need for greater coordination of economic and foreign policy objectives between them.

And it is creating the new realities in the region that will reshape the word for the next hundred years.

The Nuclear Gambit

In the dying days of the Obama administration it looked like the goal was to placate Iran to stop its pivot towards Russia and China. I believe that was the driving force behind Obama’s negotiating the controversial nuclear deal.

In effect, Obama tried to trade unfreezing Iran’s hundreds of billions in assets held in Western banks for Iran to ignore our atomization of Syria and the creation of a complete mess there.

When you stop to think about it like that how venal are we? After putting Iran under economic lockdown, having frozen its accounts, barring them from interbank communication with customers (SWIFT removal), inducing hyperinflation to sow regime change they would agree to allowing its ally, Syria, to be handed over to Wahabist animals.

In exchange they would repudiate Russisa and be thankful for the opportunity to get their money back by signing a deal which forbade them from obtaining nuclear weapons?

Such is the ‘logic’ of the mental midgets running our foreign policy under Obama.

So, now, having assisted Russia and the Syrian army in defeating ISIS Iran is making the smart move by further integrating its economy in need of diversification and investment by joining an economic union which should align all of Central Asia’s interests along a similar path.

Chaos no longer. Zbigniew Brzezinski isn’t just dead, his strategy is as well.

Left to the likes of Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain and the dimbulbs of the Bush the Lesser administration before them, these buffoons were outplayed at every turn by Vladimir Putin, Chinese Premier Xi Jinping and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

And the world will soon be a better place for it.

The Status Whoa!

Everything about the status quo of the last thirty years is changing. Syria has made it clear to everyone that the U.S. is no longer infallible. In fact, it is close to incompetent in both military and diplomatic efficacy.

The Russian intervention exposed the real roots of the conflict as well as the lengths to which our leadership would lie, cheat and steal to achieve its chaotic regional goals. President Trump is changing the direction of this ship of state, but it is a slow process being fought at every level by those embedded in departments up and down the bureaucracy.

That said, Iran’s entry into the EAEU as a full member will break open the floodgates of new members into it. Russia has been courting everyone around the region as the EAEU members work on the rules and build the organization.

Adding Iran should see the union grow quickly and help facilitate China’s Belt and Road Initiative projects get completed.

Taking that one-step further, the bigger picture comes into focus with the establishment of the New Development Bank to challenge the U.S.-led Asian Development Bank, to fund infrastructure projects.

With the flurry of big projects announced recently, including the new version of the IPI – Iran/Pakistan/India – gas pipeline this announcement isn’t so much a diplomatic coup for Putin and Russia but rather a fait accompli.

It was always a matter of when not if Iran would join the EAEU. And with it on board, countries like India, Pakistan and Turkey can join and know that they have a level playing field on which to trade which will dampen down animosities and lingering disputes.

Peak U.S.

As Federico Pieraccini points out this morning at Strategic Culture Foundation, even the tensions between India and China have calmed down as it becomes obvious to all and sundry that the U.S. is simply neither willing under Trump nor able to maintain its dominance over central Asia anymore.

In this sense, the lack of interest from the Trump administration in certain areas of the globe is emblematic. While the chemistry between Trump and Modi appears to be good, the tensions between India and China, heightened by border disputes, seems to have nevertheless dissolved. Following on from the failure of the neocons to divide Russia and China, even the border tensions between India and China seem to be now dissipating. In addition, in Ukraine, even the decision to send lethal weapons to Kiev has been downplayed, and the country now faces a counter-coup led by Saakashvili (yes, him again). Ukraine is a country in a mess, experiencing first-hand the consequences of an evil Atlanticist posture with its vicious anti-Russia policies.

Pieraccini’s argument is the Trump is a mix of ineptitude and pragmatism when it comes to foreign policy. And that mix has led to the current state of affairs, where the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia are flailing about trying to remain relevant.

I won’t go nearly that far, as those countries all still have a powerful hand of cards to play, if only to stabilize most of what they currently have. And they will play those cards to the hilt in the creation of something approaching peace.

But, Iran is charting a new path, turning away from the open wounds in the West and towards the opportunities that lie all about them in every other direction. As I’ve been saying recently, the framework for a Grand Bargain in the Middle East is possible. And Iran joining the EAEU is a strong indicator that it wants to join the larger world economy as a trustworthy actor.

Putin has become the de facto negotiator for those allied against Israel and Trump is stepping up to do so for Israel. Once that deal is in place and Trump agrees to remove U.S. military presence in most of the region, then we’ll begin to see what the world can look like without manufactured conflict.

The New Great Game Moves From Asia-Pacific To Indo-Pacific

Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times,

Is the world"s center of gravity shifting to the heart of the Indo-Pacific – a new pivot to Asia?

In the context of the New Great Game in Eurasia, the New Silk Roads, known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), integrates all of China’s instruments of national power – political, economic, diplomatic, financial, intellectual and cultural – to shape the 21^st century geopolitical/geoeconomic order. BRI is the organizing concept of China’s foreign policy for the foreseeable future; the heart of what was conceptualized, even before President Xi Jinping, as China’s “peaceful rise.”

The Trump administration’s reaction to the breath and scope of BRI has been somewhat minimalistic. For the moment, it amounts to a terminological switch from what was previously known as Asia-Pacific to “Indo-Pacific.” The Obama administration, up to the former president’s last visit to Asia in September 2016, always referred to Asia-Pacific.

Indo-Pacific includes South Asia and the Indian Ocean. So, from an American point of view, that does imply elevating India to the status of a rising global superpower able to “contain” China.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson could not have stated it more bluntly: “The world’s center of gravity is shifting to the heart of the Indo-Pacific. The United States and India – with our shared goals of peace, security, freedom of navigation, and a free and open architecture – must serve as the eastern and western beacons of the Indo-Pacific. As the port and starboard lights between which the region can reach its greatest and best potential.”

Attempts to portray it as a “holistic approach” may mask a clear geopolitical swerve where Indo-Pacific sounds like a remix of the Obama era “pivot to Asia” extended to India.

Indo-Pacific directly refers to the Indian Ocean stretch of the Maritime Silk Road, which as one of China’s top connectivity routes, features prominently in “globalization with Chinese characteristics.” As much as Washington, Beijing is all for free markets and open access to commons. But that must not necessarily imply, from a Chinese point of view, a single, vast institutional web overseen by the US.

‘Eurasifrica’?

As far as New Delhi is concerned, embracing the Indo-Pacific concept entailed quite a tightrope act.

Last year, both India and Pakistan became formal members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which is a key element of the Russia-China strategic partnership.

India, China and Russia are BRICS members; the president of the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB), headquartered in Shanghai, is Indian. India is a member of the China-led Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). And until recently India was also participating in BRI.

But then things started to unravel last May, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi refused to attend the BRI summit in Beijing because of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a key BRI node that happens to traverse Gilgit-Baltistan and the sensitive region Pakistan defines as Azad Kashmir and India as Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

And right on cue, at an African Development Bank meeting in Gujarat, New Delhi unveiled what might be construed as a rival BRI project: the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor (AAGC) – in partnership with Japan. AAGC could not be more “Indo-Pacific,” actually delineating an Indo-Pacific Freedom Corridor, funded by Japan and using India’s know-how of Africa, capable of rivaling – what else – BRI.

For the moment, this is no more than an avowed “vision document” shared by Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe to do some very BRI-like things, such as developing quality infrastructure and digital connectivity.

And adding to AAGC comes the Quadrilateral, which the Japanese Foreign Ministry spins as projecting “a free and open international order based on the rule of law in the Indo-Pacific.” That once again pits the “stability of Indo-Pacific region” against Tokyo’s perception of “China’s aggressive foreign policy” and “belligerence in the South China Sea” which imperils what the US Navy always describes as “freedom of navigation”.

As much as Xi and Abe may have recently lauded a new start of Sino-Japanese relations, reality says otherwise. Japan, invoking the DPRK threat but actually fearing China’s fast military modernization, will buy more US weapons. At the same time, New Delhi and Canberra are also quite worried about China’s economic/military onslaught.

Essentially, AAGC and the Quadrilateral link India’s Act East Policy with Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy. Reading these documents in tandem, it’s not far-fetched to qualify the Indo-Japanese strategy as aiming for a “Eurasifrica.”

In practice, apart from the expansion in Africa, Tokyo is also driven to expand infrastructure projects across Southeast Asia in cooperation with India – some in competition or overlapping with BRI. The Asian Development Bank (ADB), meanwhile, is mulling alternative financing models for infrastructure projects away from BRI.

As it stands, the Quadrilateral is still a work in progress, with its “stability of Indo-Pacific region” pitted against Beijing’s avowed desire to create a “community with a shared future” in the Asia-Pacific. There are reasons to worry that this new configuration might actually evolve into a stark economic/military polarization of Asia.

A split at the heart of BRICS

Asia needs a whopping $1.7 trillion in infrastructure projects a year, according to the ADB. In theory, Asia as a whole would benefit from an array of BRI projects coupled with some others that are ADB-financed and AAGC-linked.

Considering the extremely ambitious breath and scope of the whole strategy, BRI enjoys a substantial head start. Beijing’s vast reserves are already geared towards investing in Asia-wide infrastructure in tandem with exporting excess construction capacity and improving connectivity all around.

In contrast, New Delhi barely has enough industrial capacity for India’s own needs. In fact India badly needs infrastructure investment; according to an extensive report, India’s needs amount to at least $1.5 trillion over the next decade. And on top of it India holds a persistent trade deficit with China.

A tangible would-be success is the Indian investment in Chabahar port in Iran as part of an Afghan trade strategy (see part two of this report). But that’s about it.

Apart from energy/connectivity projects such as the national digital ID Aadhaar system (1.18 billion users) and investing in an array of solar power plants, India has a long way to go. According to the recently published Global Hunger Index (GHI), India ranks at 100 out of 119 countries surveyed on child hunger, based on four components: undernourishment, child mortality, child wasting, and child stunting. That’s an extremely worrying seven notches below the DPRK. And only seven notches above Afghanistan, at the bottom of the list.

New Delhi would hardly lose if there were a conscious bet on building up on India-China cooperation under the BRICS framework. And that includes accepting that BRI investment is useful and even essential for India’s infrastructure development. The doors remain open. All eyes are on December 10-11, when India will host a trilateral Russia-India-China – all BRICS members – at the ministerial level.

Next: China and India slug it out, from the Gulf of Oman to the Arabian Sea