The US Aristocracy"s Smear-Russia Campaign: Big Brother At Work

Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Billionaires, both liberal and conservative ones, own, and their corporations advertise in and their ‘charities’ donate to, America’s mainstream (and also many ‘alternative news’) media.

They do this not so as to profit directly from the national ‘news’media (a money-losing business, in itself), but so as to control the ’news’ that the voting public (right and left) are exposed to and thus will accept as being “mainstream” and will reject all else as being “fringe” or even ‘fake news’, even if what’s actually fake is, in fact, the billionaires" own mainstream ’news’, such as their ’news"media had most famously ‘reported’ about ’Saddam’s WMD’ (but the’news’media never changed after that scandal — even after having pumped uncritically that blatant lie to the public). 

Have America’s numerous foreign coups and outright military invasions (including Iraq 2003) been the result of fake-news that was published by the mainstream ’news"media, or only by some of the ‘alternative news’ sites that mirror what the mainstream ones have been ‘reporting’ (passing along the Government’s lies just like the mainstream ones do)? Obviously, the catastrophic fake news — the fake news that ‘justified’ America’s invading and destroying Iraq, Libya, and many other countries — was all published in the mainstream ’news’media. That’s where to go for the really dangerous lies: it’s the mainstream ’news’media. If those media, and their Government (whose lies they stenographically report to the public) will now censor the Internet, such as is increasingly happening not only in the US but in its allies including the European Union, then the only ‘information’ that the public will have access to, at all, will be the billionaires’ lies. Have we already almost reached 1984, finally, in 2017?

Two typical examples of this coordinated mass-deception-operation happened to be showing at the top of the magazine-pile at an office recently and struck my attention there, because of the ordinariness of the propaganda that was being pumped.

One of them was the cover of TIME magazine, dated “July 24, 2017” and with the cover headlined “RED HANDED: The Russia Scandal Hits Home”, overprinting onto the face of Donald Trump Jr., as their menacing-looking cover-image. That cover-story, as published inside, was titled “How Donald Trump Jr."s Emails Have Cranked Up the Heat on His Family”, and it used such phrases as “potentially treasonous” and “Russia is the one country that could physically destroy America” (as if it weren’t also the case that US is the one country that could physically destroy Russia, and very much the case also that possession of the weaponry isn’t any indication of being evil, such as this particular propagandist was implicitly assuming). Hillary Clinton’s V.P. running-mate was reported to be “saying that these fresh revelations move the Russia investigation into the realms of "perjury, false statements and even, potentially, treason."” 

These mere speculations, with slimy inferences of evil, with no real facts that back them up, were the front-cover ‘news’, in TIME. The facts were thin, but the speculations were thick, and the only thing really clear from it was that almost all of America’s billionaires and centi-millionaires want Trump ousted, and want Vice President Mike Pence to become America’s President as soon as possible — before Trump’s term is up. Democratic ones certainly do, and many of the Republican ones apparently do as well. Perhaps Trump isn’t hostile enough toward Russia to suit their fancy. At least Pence would be predictable — predictably horrible, in precisely the way that the controllers of the ‘news’media overwhelmingly desire.

The other example was the cover of The New Republic magazine, dated “December 2017” and it simply headlined in its center, “HOW TO ATTACK A DEMOCRACY”, and the opening page of the article inside was bannered “WEAKEN FROM WITHIN” and below that in the printed edition (the December physical issue of the magazine) was:

“Russian manipulation of American social media in the 2016 presidential election took the United States by surprise. But Moscow has been honing an information-age art of war — through fake news, disinformation, leaks, and trolling — for more than a decade. How can these societies protect themselves?”

The online version of that article (which was dated 2 November 2017) opened almost the same: “Moscow has been honing an information age art of war — through fake news, disinformation, leaks, and trolling — for more than a decade. How can free societies protect themselves?”

The unspoken assumption in this article is that the US CIA hasn’t been doing the same thing — and doing it even worse than the old (and thankfully expired) KGB ever did. (And the CIA, even after the end of communism as its supposed enemy until 1991, still does far worse to other countries than Russia’s FSB does or ever did.)

Underlying both the TIME article and the TNR article are unstated speculations about the American situation, which are based upon thin facts such as that "at least $100,000 in ads purchased through 470 phony Facebook pages and accounts” were "using Facebook to incite anti-black hatred and anti-Muslim prejudice and fear while provoking extremism”, and that supposedly somehow (they never say how) such puny expenses threw the multi-billion-dollar 2017 US Presidential election to Trump. How is a case such as that, to be viewed by an intelligent reader as constituting anything but propaganda for the weapons-making firms such as Lockheed Martin, who benefit from such international anti-Russia hate-spewing to NATO countries, which are those firms’ major markets (other than Saudi Arabia, and the other fundamentalist-Sunni kingdoms that together constitute the Gulf Cooperation Council or “GCC” nations, which hate Shiite Iran as much as the US regime hates Russia)?

Also among the underlying and unstated speculations in the background here is the older mass-media allegation about Russia’s allegedly having spied and swayed the US election by ‘hacking’ it, which is likewise being pumped by Democrats and other opponents of Mr. Trump, alleging that ‘Russia hacked the election’.

And, so, for an example of the flimsiness of those allegations, one of the two main ‘authorities’ who are the source of that, the Bush and Obama Administration’s James Clapper, was headlined at Politico on 7 July 2017, "Clapper: No evidence others besides Russia hacked US election”. Mr. Clapper happens to be a military-industrial-complex revolving-door ‘intelligence’ ‘professional’ whom, on 10 February 2011, even Politico was reporting to be “backing away from comments he made Thursday calling Egypt"s branch of the Muslim Brotherhood movement "largely secular’,” and who had also covered-up George W. Bush’s lies about ‘WMD in Iraq’ so as to protect the liars. On 29 October 2003, the New York Times stenographically passed along his deception about the non-existent WMD by headlining, "WEAPONS SEARCH; Iraqis Removed Arms Material, US Aide Says” and reported, "The official, James R. Clapper Jr., a retired lieutenant general, said satellite imagery showing a heavy flow of traffic from Iraq into Syria, just before the American invasion in March, led him to believe that illicit weapons material "unquestionably" had been moved out of Iraq.” No evidence ever existed that Saddam Hussein still had any WMD after the U.N. monitors (UNSCOM) destroyed the last of them in 1998; but Clapper ‘unquestionably’ ‘knew’ to the contrary — though no evidence was ever made available to the contrary of UNSCOM’s reports, and lots of evidence existed that Bush simply lied about the entire matter.

 

The other main source for the allegation that ‘Russia hacked the election’ is the Obama Administration’s John Brennan, whom Glenn Greenwald exposed as a fraud back on 7 January 2013, headlining “John Brennan"s extremism and dishonesty rewarded with CIA Director nomination”. 

Both of the official ‘experts’ who are promoting the Russiagate charges, are longtime, and repeatedly, exposed liars - but that’s the best they can do, always assuming that the public don’t know that these people are propagandists for the military-industrial complex, not real ‘public servants’ at all.

This isn’t to say that Trump isn’t also a liar — just that the ‘news’ in America is full of conflicting lies — and that they constantly are coming from the fake ‘news’media that are the mainstream ones who are now trying to censor out, and ultimately to obliterate, the few small news-operations (some of which, unlike any of the mainstream ones, actually are good, and authentic journalistic operations, no mere PR hackery) that are constantly exposing the fraudulence of the mainstream ones, which want to impose their dictatorship — the mainstream lies — even more rigorously than they already do. After all, the mainstream Western media still haven’t yet reported US President Obama’s bloody racist-fascist coup that in February 2014 replaced the democratically elected President of Ukraine (and his supporters in the legislature) by a racist-fascist or ideologically nazi regime that’s rabidly hostile toward its neighboring nation of Russia. Even now — nearly four years after the event. It’s already solidly documented history, but the mainstream US-and-allied press still hasn’t reported it.

The fake-news masters are certainly the mainstream ‘news’media themselves - and they, and the billionaires and centi-millionaires who own and control them, are the real megaphones by which the US dictatorship constantly fools the American people (and the publics in its allied nations), to keep in line, for the aristocracy.

Who"s Next? Venezuela"s Collapse Puts These Nations At Risk

"It"s a wake-up call for a lot of people who will say ‘Look, the stuff I own is actually very risky"..." warns Ray Jian, who oversees about $6 billion at Pioneer Investment Management Ltd. in London. "People have been ignoring risks in places like Lebanon for a long time," and the official default of Venezuela this week has emerging-market money managers are looking to identify countries that might run into trouble down the road.

While Bloomberg reports that while none are nearly as badly off as Venezuela - where a combination of low oil prices, economic mismanagement and U.S. sanctions did the country in -  traders are scouting for credit risk, from Lebanon, where Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s sudden resignation has once again thrust the nation into a Saudi-Iran proxy war, to Ecuador, where recently elected President Lenin Moreno continues to expand the debt load in a country with a history as a serial defaulter.

1. Lebanon:

One of the world’s most indebted countries, Lebanon may hit a debt-to-gross domestic product ratio of 152 percent this year, according to International Monetary Fund forecasts. That’s coming at a time when political tension is rising. Hariri’s abrupt resignation, announced from Riyadh on Nov. 4, triggered about $800 million of withdrawals from the country as investors speculated that the nation would be in the crosshairs of a regional feud between the Saudis and Iranians. While the central bank says the worst may be over, credit-default swaps have hit a nine-year high.

2. Ecuador:

After a borrowing spree, the Andean nation’s external debt obligations over the next 12 months ballooned to a nine-year high relative to the size of its GDP. Ecuador probably has the highest default risk after Venezuela, according to Robert Koenigsberger, the chief investment officer of Gramercy Funds Management. The country will be vulnerable “when the liquidity environment changes and they can no longer go to the market to get $2.5 billion to plug the hole," he said. Finance Minister Carlos de la Torre told Bloomberg in an email on Thursday that there is "no default risk" for any of Ecuador’s debt commitments and the nation’s indebtedness is nowhere near "critical" levels.

3. Ukraine:

While the Eastern European nation’s credit-default swaps have declined from their 2015 highs, persistent economic struggles are giving traders reason for caution. GDP expansion has slowed for three consecutive quarters and the World Bank warns that the economy is at risk of falling into a low-growth trap. Ukraine’s parliament approved next year’s budget on Tuesday as it eyes a $17.5 billion international bailout.

4. Egypt:

Egypt’s credit-default swaps are hovering near the highest since September. The cost for protection surged in June as regional tensions heated up amid a push by the Saudis to isolate Qatar. While Egypt has been able to boost foreign-currency reserves and is on course to repay $14 billion in principal and interest in 2018, its foreign debt has climbed to $79 billion from $55.8 billion a year earlier.

5. Pakistan:

Pakistan’s credit-default swaps surged in late October and linger near their highest level since June. South Asia’s second-largest economy faces challenges as it struggles with dwindling foreign reserves, rising debt payments and a ballooning current account deficit. Pakistan is mulling a potential $2 billion debt sale later this year. Speaking at the Bloomberg Pakistan Economic Forum last week, central bank Deputy Governor Jameel Ahmad played down concerns over the country’s widening twin deficits.

6. Bahrain:

Bahrain’s spread rose dramatically in late October to the highest since January after it was said to ask Gulf allies for aid. The nation is seeking to replenish international reserves and avert a currency devaluation as oil prices batter the six Gulf Cooperation Council oil producers. Although its neighbors are likely to help, Bahrain could still be left with the highest budget deficit in the region, according to the IMF.

7. Turkey:

Despite high yields, investors are still reluctant to buy Turkish bonds. The nation has been caught up in a blur of political crises, driving spreads on credit-default swaps to their highest level since May. Turkey was the only holdover on S&P Global Ratings’s latest “Fragile Five” list of countries most vulnerable to normalization in global monetary conditions.

Second Saudi Prince Confirmed Killed During Crackdown

Following the death of Prince Mansour bin-Muqrin in a helicopter crash near the Yemen border yesterday, the Saudi Royal Court has confirmed the death of Prince Abdul Aziz bin Fahd - killed during a firefight as authorities attempted to arrest him.

The death has been confirmed by the Saudi royal court.

The Duran and Al-Masdar News both report that the prince died when his security contingent got into a firefight with regime gunmen attempting to make an arrest.

Prince Aziz (44) who was the youngest son of King Fahad.

The Duran"s Adam Garrie points out that Prince Abdul Aziz was deeply involved in Saudi Oger Ltd, a company which until it ceased operations in the summer of this year, was owned by the Hariri family. Former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri was in charge of the company until it ceased operations.

Prince Abdul Aziz’s strange and sudden death which is said to have occurred during an attempted arrest, sheds light on the theory that the clearly forced resignation of former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri had more to do with internal Saudi affairs than the Saudi attempt to bring instability to Lebanon.

The Saudi Royal family has now lost two princes in 24 hours.

As Al Jazeera notes, in this Saudi version of "Game of Thrones", the 32-year-old Bin Salman shows that he is willing to throw the entire region into jeopardy to wear the royal gown.

His actions have already all but destroyed the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC); Yemen can no longer be referred to as a functioning state; Egypt is a ticking time bomb; and now Lebanon may erupt.

There"s a lot to worry about.

Another Gulf Crisis: Dinar Devaluation Looms As Bahrain Begs Neighbors For Bailout

Despite the recent rise in oil prices, all is not well among the allies in the Gulf. The "pegged-to-the-dollar" Bharaini Dinar has tumbled in the last few days as Bloomberg reports the nation has asked Gulf Arab allies for financial assistance as it seeks to replenish its foreign-exchange reserves and avert a currency devaluation - which could spread contagiously through MidEast markets.

Bloomber notes that the slump in oil prices has battered the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council, at times raising questions over whether a dollar peg seen as a bedrock for economic stability for more than three decades was sustainable. And while bets against the region’s currencies have subsided this year, a devaluation of a GCC member would risk shifting the attention to others. Gulf central banks, including Bahrain’s, have repeatedly brushed aside talk of abandoning their exchange-rate regimes.

But Bahrain has seen its central bank"s foreign reserves collapse over 75% from 2014 highs as they have defended the currency peg.

And so, as Bloomberg reports, according to people with knowledge of the talks, Bahrain has asked for a bailout.

The request was made to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, two of the people said.

 

A third person said Kuwait was also asked.

 

The countries responded by requesting the island kingdom do more to bring its finances under control in return for the money, the people said on condition of anonymity because the discussions were private.

 

The talks are at an early stage, one person said.

It appears the FX markets are not convinced as the Dinar tumbled...

The IMF estimates that Bahrain needs oil prices at $99 a barrel to balance its budget this year, compared with $73.1 a barrel for Saudi Arabia, which is overhauling its economy.

While Brent crude is trading at the highest level in more than two years, it’s still almost $40 below Bahrain’s breakeven price.

But, Bloomberg points out that economists say that a Saudi-led bailout of Bahrain will be less costly than cleaning up the mess of a devaluation.

“Most people are fully expecting the other Gulf countries to come to Bahrain’s aid,” said Jason Tuvey, a London-based economist at Capital Economics.

 

“If Bahrain was forced to devalue its currency it would probably start to raise questions about other currency pegs.”

Will this be the next ripple to spook markets? Or just another dip to buy?

The Petrodollar"s Biggest Challengers

Authored by Michael Kern via CryptoInsider,

Established in the early 1970s, the petrodollar has secured the United States’ influence over the oil trade for over 40 years, but recently, it is clear that this monopoly is slowly beginning to fall apart – in some part due to the influence of Bitcoin and other emerging cryptocurrencies.

Background

Due to the plummeting value of the dollar, the debt from the Vietnam War, and excessive domestic spending, President Nixon abruptly pulled out of the Bretton Woods Accord, which pegged the dollar to the price of gold and based the value of other currencies on that of the dollar. Labeled the “Nixon Shock,” these actions left the country bursting with debt and low on cash, with many of its key allies such as Britain, France, and Germany questioning whether the U.S. was justified in its position as the leader of the global economy.

While the U.S. economy entered a nose dive, another geopolitical event was unfolding which exacerbated the economic free fall.

In 1973, Syria and Egypt, backed by several other Arab Nations, launched an attack on Israel which marked the beginning of the Yom Kippur War (or Ramadan War). The war placed increased pressure on oil prices, and when the United States provided Israel with financial aid and arms, the Arab Nations responded.

In 1960, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was formed. At the core of this organization were Kuwait, Iran, Libya, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates – countries which were strongly opposed to U.S. interference in the 20-day war.

Following U.S. provisions to Israel, resource rich OPEC placed an oil embargo on all those thought to have aided Israel, including the United States, Britain, Canada, Japan, the Netherlands and later South Africa and Portugal. By 1974, the price of oil quadrupled.

With the success of the embargo, and cartel’s new role as an oil price influencer, Saudi Arabia became the de facto leader of OPEC.

In 1974, desperate to return value to the U.S. dollar, President Nixon and Secretary of State Kissinger entered negotiations with the Saudi Royal Family. In the agreement, the United States would provide Saudi Arabia with arms and assist with the protection of oil fields. In exchange, Saudi Arabia was to price all oil sales in U.S. dollars and invest surplus oil proceeds in U.S. debt securities. And by 1975, all oil-producing members of OPEC followed suit. This began the reign of the petrodollar.

The petrodollar has since elevated the United States economically and politically throughout the world, but after years of unprovoked wars and geopolitical belligerence, U.S. influence is beginning to fade.

Through the years, there have been a number of attempts to move away from the petrodollar system, especially within OPEC, in which many of its members are not particularly friendly with the United States. Another strong advocate of change is Russia, which suggested to China and Japan to purchase oil in yen or yuan.

Bitcoin, the Russian Miner Coin and the Cryptoruble

A Kuwaiti finance firm, however, took this debate a step further, suggesting in 2014 that the Gulf Cooperation Council could benefit from trading oil for bitcoin. The suggestion was based on the idea that the GCC could save time and money with faster, cheaper, and more efficient transactions.

This idea has been debated back and forth for some time, with some even suggesting that the “anonymity” factor could usher in a new era of world peace. The idea is that, using a neutral “petro-bitcoin,” countries would be immune to currency manipulation from governments, which has clear global impacts. In an unbiased-blockchain could act as a great medium for doing business on a global scale.

While this is all well and good, neither the U.S. or China are looking to ease up on their power push.

China, indeed, has taken the lead in the fight against the petrodollar. In 2012, Iran began trading oil in yuan,  and earlier this year, in response to U.S. sanctions, OPEC member Venezuela began pricing its oil sales in Chinese yuan, as well. China’s biggest move, however, was its push for Saudi Arabia to do the same. One of the most notable efforts from China to tackle the petrodollar was the country’s yuan-priced crude oil benchmark, which it recently unveiled.

While China pushes for the petro-yuan, Russia is also making moves which could have serious implications for the U.S. dollar.

In addition to the Russian Miner Coin, the Kremlin announced that it will be creating a new state-endorsed cryptocurrency backed by gold. The goal of this coin is to allow free exchange between the cryptoruble and the ruble, and to reduce dependence on foreign currency while stimulating the domestic online economy.

While few details of the cryporuble are known, the technology does seem to be blockchain-based, as Putin has met with Ethereum and WAVES advisors to build the platform.

With these major moves from China and Russia, there is no doubt that the dollar will see downward pressure in the near future. As the world’s major economies vie for geopolitical power, it is worth following the growing role of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in this story.

In Shocking, Viral Interview, Qatar Confesses Secrets Behind Syrian War

A television interview of a top Qatari official confessing the truth behind the origins of the war in Syria is going viral across Arabic social media during the same week a leaked top secret NSA document was published which confirms that the armed opposition in Syria was under the direct command of foreign governments from the early years of the conflict.

And according to a well-known Syria analyst and economic adviser with close contacts in the Syrian government, the explosive interview constitutes a high level "public admission to collusion and coordination between four countries to destabilize an independent state, [including] possible support for Nusra/al-Qaeda." Importantly, "this admission will help build case for what Damascus sees as an attack on its security & sovereignty. It will form basis for compensation claims."

A 2013 London press conference: Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr Al Thani with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. A 2014 Hillary Clinton email confirmed Qatar as a state-sponsor of ISIS during that same time period. 

As the war in Syria continues slowly winding down, it seems new source material comes out on an almost a weekly basis in the form of testimonials of top officials involved in destabilizing Syria, and even occasional leaked emails and documents which further detail covert regime change operations against the Assad government. Though much of this content serves to confirm what has already long been known by those who have never accepted the simplistic propaganda which has dominated mainstream media, details continue to fall in place, providing future historians with a clearer picture of the true nature of the war.

This process of clarity has been aided - as predicted - by the continued infighting among Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) former allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar, with each side accusing the other of funding Islamic State and al-Qaeda terrorists (ironically, both true). Increasingly, the world watches as more dirty laundry is aired and the GCC implodes after years of nearly all the gulf monarchies funding jihadist movements in places like Syria, Iraq, and Libya.

Since 2013 The Intercept (+WaPo?) hid NSA docs showing Saudi ordering "rebel" attacks on Damascus. Now released. https://t.co/0PZrBKpJCw

— Julian Assange ???? (@JulianAssange) October 24, 2017

The top Qatari official is no less than former Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani, who oversaw Syria operations on behalf of Qatar until 2013 (also as foreign minister), and is seen below with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in this Jan. 2010 photo (as a reminder, Qatar"s 2022 World Cup Committee donated $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation in 2014).

In an interview with Qatari TV Wednesday, bin Jaber al-Thani revealed that his country, alongside Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United States, began shipping weapons to jihadists from the very moment events "first started" (in 2011).

Al-Thani even likened the covert operation to "hunting prey" - the prey being President Assad and his supporters - "prey" which he admits got away (as Assad is still in power; he used a Gulf Arabic dialect word, "al-sayda", which implies hunting animals or prey for sport). Though Thani denied credible allegations of support for ISIS, the former prime minister"s words implied direct Gulf and US support for al-Qaeda in Syria (al-Nusra Front) from the earliest years of the war, and even said Qatar has "full documents" and records proving that the war was planned to effect regime change.

"We argued over the prey and that prey run away".Ladies and Gentleman: To these people #Syria #Assad was nothing but a f....ing hunting game https://t.co/w4oKO5TTK6

— EHSANI2 (@EHSANI22) October 27, 2017

According to Zero Hedge"s translation, al-Thani said while acknowledging Gulf nations were arming jihadists in Syria with the approval and support of US and Turkey: "I don"t want to go into details but we have full documents about us taking charge [in Syria]." He claimed that both Saudi Arabia"s King Abdullah (who reigned until his death in 2015) and the United States placed Qatar in a lead role concerning covert operations to execute the proxy war.

The former prime minister"s comments, while very revealing, were intended as a defense and excuse of Qatar"s support for terrorism, and as a critique of the US and Saudi Arabia for essentially leaving Qatar "holding the bag" in terms of the war against Assad. Al-Thani explained that Qatar continued its financing of armed insurgents in Syria while other countries eventually wound down large-scale support, which is why he lashed out at the US and the Saudis, who initially "were with us in the same trench."

In a previous US television interview which was vastly underreported, al-Thani told Charlie Rose when asked about allegations of Qatar"s support for terrorism that, "in Syria, everybody did mistakes, including your country." And said that when the war began in Syria, "all of use worked through two operation rooms: one in Jordan and one in Turkey."

Below is the key section of Wednesday"s interview, translated and subtitled by @Walid970721. Zero Hedge has reviewed and confirmed the translation, however, as the original rush translator has acknowledged, al-Thani doesn"t say "lady" but "prey" ["al-sayda"]- as in both Assad and Syrians were being hunted by the outside countries.

#Qatar"s ex PM says that Qatari support for jihadists including Nusra in #Syria was in coordination w/ KSA, Turkey & the US via @BBassem7 pic.twitter.com/tu8IMRI7IP

— Walid (@walid970721) October 27, 2017

The partial English transcript is as follows:

"When the events first started in Syria I went to Saudi Arabia and met with King Abdullah. I did that on the instructions of his highness the prince, my father. He [Abdullah] said we are behind you. You go ahead with this plan and we will coordinate but you should be in charge. I won’t get into details but we have full documents and anything that was sent [to Syria] would go to Turkey and was in coordination with the US forces and everything was distributed via the Turks and the US forces. And us and everyone else was involved, the military people. There may have been mistakes and support was given to the wrong faction... Maybe there was a relationship with Nusra, its possible but I myself don’t know about this… we were fighting over the prey ["al-sayda"] and now the prey is gone and we are still fighting... and now Bashar is still there. You [US and Saudi Arabia] were with us in the same trench... I have no objection to one changing if he finds that he was wrong, but at least inform your partner… for example leave Bashar [al-Assad] or do this or that, but the situation that has been created now will never allow any progress in the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council], or any progress on anything if we continue to openly fight."

As is now well-known, the CIA was directly involved in leading regime change efforts in Syria with allied gulf partners, as leaked and declassified US intelligence memos confirm. The US government understood in real time that Gulf and West-supplied advanced weaponry was going to al-Qaeda and ISIS, despite official claims of arming so-called "moderate" rebels. For example, a leaked 2014 intelligence memo sent to Hillary Clinton acknowledged Qatari and Saudi support for ISIS.

The email stated in direct and unambiguous language that: 

"the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region."

Furthermore, one day before Prime Minister Thani"s interview, The Intercept released a new top-secret NSA document unearthed from leaked intelligence files provided by Edward Snowden which show in stunning clarity that the armed opposition in Syria was under the direct command of foreign governments from the early years of the war which has now claimed half a million lives.

The newly released NSA document confirms that a 2013 insurgent attack with advanced surface-to-surface rockets upon civilian areas of Damascus, including Damascus International Airport, was directly supplied and commanded by Saudi Arabia with full prior awareness of US intelligence. As the former Qatari prime minister now also confirms, both the Saudis and US government staffed "operations rooms" overseeing such heinous attacks during the time period of the 2013 Damascus airport attack. 

No doubt there remains a massive trove of damning documentary evidence which will continue to trickle out in the coming months and years. At the very least, the continuing Qatari-Saudi diplomatic war will bear more fruit as each side builds a case against the other with charges of supporting terrorism. And as we can see from this latest Qatari TV interview, the United States itself will not be spared in this new open season of airing dirty laundry as old allies turn on each other.

A Failing Empire, Part 3: China & Russia Are Transforming Enemies Into Friends

Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

In the previous articles, the military and economic means by which the United States initially aimed for global hegemony were addressed, detailing how the US became the (declining) superpower it is today. In both analyses I highlighted how the threat of US military power is no longer credible, and how sanctions and the strong-arming behavior of corporate giants and international bodies (IMF, World Bank, BIS, etc) have ceased their effectiveness. This has made the United States increasingly irrelevant, leaving in the process a vacuum to be filled by emerging powers like China and Russia, which effectively ushers in a new world order based on multipolarity. In this third and final part of the series, I will dive into the specific events that show how the military, economic and diplomatic combination of Iran, Russia and China have forged, by known as well as less-known means, an alternative world order to the unipolar American one.

Russia, China and Iran have in recent years drawn enormous benefit from the declining military and economic power of the United States, further propelled by a general mistrust of Washington"s diplomatic and political abilities, both with Obama and now with Trump. The two previous articles showed that Moscow, Beijing and Tehran, even as they addressed different situations, shared similar interests and came to coordinate their military, economic and diplomatic strategy.

The success of the Euro-Asian triptych is based on the essential principle of transforming enemies into neutral players, neutral players into allies, and further improving relations with allied nations. In order for this project to be realized, economic, military and diplomatic efforts are variously employed, depending on the country and the general regional context. The flexibility shown by Moscow and Beijing in negotiations has delivered historic deals, not only in the energy sector but also in the military sphere and also in education and poverty reduction, as seen in Africa.

Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Syria are three countries that, when analysed individually, reveal this precise strategy of Russia, China and Iran. Particular attention is focused on the Middle East for several reasons. It is the region where America’s declining military power, unable to achieve its geopolitical objectives in Syria, meets with the progressive loss of Washington"s economic influence, highlighted by the increasingly precarious position of the petrodollar that is about to be challenged by petroyuan deals between Saudi Arabia and China.

From Enemies to Neutrals

The military defeat of Syria"s enemies was mainly due to the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) together with Iran (plus Hezbollah) and Russia"s military cooperation, together with Beijing’s diplomatic and economic support. Thanks to the strategy adopted by Putin in Syria, Russia was able to stop the advanced project of the United States, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, France, the United Kingdom, Jordan and Israel to dismantle Syria. The Russian Federation gradually entered into the Syrian conflict, and the military results immediately favored the axis of resistance, the US military unable to intervene directly to change the course of events.

The consequences of this choice have led historic allies in the region to doubt Washington’s real commitment to the region and America’s military ability to intervene in a conflict in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and change its course in favour of Riyadh, Doha, Ankara or Tel Aviv. The new Trump administration has showed itself not to live up to the expectations of Saudi regional hegemonic plans, even though the Kingdom agreed to buy up to $110 billion worth of US weapons and commit to further investments in the US.

Riyadh is in an even tighter position than one would ordinarily think. It has to individually support the weight of the petrodollar, which is increasingly shaky thanks to the Chinese desire to eliminate forms of payment in US dollars by switching to the petroyuan. Moreover, Riyadh sees little tangible benefits to the US militarily backing its aggressive anti-Iran policies, even though Trump has shown to different ideas than Obama on the Iran deal. Saudi Arabia shares a common interest with Israel in the region with regard to their shared anger concerning Washington’s diminishing effectiveness in the region.

From the Saudi point of view, everything went downhill within a relatively short period. The defeat in Syria that coincided with the agreement on the nuclear deal (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action - JCPOA) between Iran and the 5+1 countries. In both these scenarios, Riyadh feels the profound betrayal of its old North American ally. The Chinese economic pressure on Riyadh to accept yuan payments for oil, coupled with the growing ability of Moscow to effectively intervene in the region, and the renewed diplomatic and political role of Iran thanks to the JCPOA agreement, has left Riyadh on a certain path to destruction. The only solution is a strategic change that could affect the region in a significant manner.

The visit of Saudi King Salman to Moscow to sign trade agreements (an investment fund of over 1 billion dollars has been created) was of symbolic importance. The King’s actions, conducted in person, reflected recognition of Russia’s new dominant role in the Middle East as a result of American intentions to withdraw influence in the region. The need for the Saudi king to appear in person in Moscow also directly concerns the succession to the throne, with Mohammed bin Salman to inherit the keys to the kingdom, in spite of the disasters in Yemen and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) crisis caused by the clash with Qatar. In a situation of extreme weakness, especially with oil prices so low, the Saudi monarchy is left with few cards to play and has to initiate a dialogue with Moscow and possibly start some kind of cooperation in various fields related to energy and investment. Initially, the main excuse for the Moscow meeting between Putin and the Saudi king was to coordinate the production and sale of petroleum and gas, a necessity for both countries given falling oil prices over the last 24 months.

The first goal achieved by Putin and the Saudi king appears to be a spike in oil prices to acceptable levels, following Washington and Riyadh’s failed strategy to bankrupt Moscow by plunging oil prices.

Secondly, the meeting focused on the acceptance of Riyadh’s defeat in Syria, recognizing Assad as the only legitimate leader of the Syrian Arab Republic.

A lot is developing behind the scenes, and this is evident with Riyadh now recognizing a political solution as the only way to end the conflict, something never mentioned by Saudi state representatives. It will be very difficult for Riyadh to give up the regime-change project, even if the political, diplomatic, military and economic pressure from China and Russia increases. A common faith accompanies Riyadh and Tel Aviv, as shown with both repeatedly trying to persuade Putin to abandon his friendship with Iran and Assad, but without success. The loyalty demonstrated by Moscow to Tehran and Damascus has also had a positive effect on the Saudis, who must recognize that while Putin may have different views on certain issues, he is a man of his word; unlike the United States, where new administrations may sometimes throw friends under the bus, Putin maintains his promises, even under extreme pressure. In this sense, Trump"s decision to decertify the Iran deal is a demonstration of good will to Israel and Saudi Arabia by the new administration.

Saudi Arabia finds itself with very low monetary reserves as a result of the lowered price of oil and involvement in several wars. To add to this is a military defeat in Syria and an even bigger debacle in Yemen. To cap it all off, the United States, its most valuable ally, is increasingly disinterested in the fate of the Saudi monarchy and the kingdom, thanks to increasing energy independence as a result of fracking. Adding to this, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has split as a result of the economic warfare against Qatar, representing another example of Washington not supporting Riyadh to the full extent the monarchy in Saudi Arabia would have been expecting. The reasoning for Riyadh is as simple as it gets. If Washington is not able to support Saudi Arabia militarily, but Riyadh has to bear the burden economically, then the Kingdom is in enormous trouble and needs alternatives like Russia and China. It is unthinkable for Saudi Arabia to continue supporting petrodollar hegemony while Iran becomes a regional leader in the Middle East.

The best way is by negotiating with the main players, and Russia looks like the perfect mediator, as recently announced. China is just waiting for all these disputes to settle down to bring to bear its  economic power to definitively relegate to the past the last forty years of chaos in the region stemming from Saudi-Iranian rivalry.

For Riyadh, even if the attempt to separate Russia and Iran were to fail, it would nevertheless bring about relations that send a clear signal to the West. The purchase of S-400s is a clear demonstration of expanding Russian influence in the Middle East, and Riyadh perhaps has an understandable fear of American retaliation in the event that it starts to change course regarding the sale of oil in currencies other than the dollar.

Moscow has achieved a diplomatic miracle with Saudi Arabia, thanks to the military efforts in Syria, Chinese economic pressure through the issuing of petroyuan, and Iranian diplomatic success, stemming especially from the nuclear energy agreement, which has served to rehabilitate Tehran on the international political scene.

The purchase of advanced Russian weapons systems sends a clear signal and indicates that the Saudi kingdom is ready to assume a more neutral position and has started to knock on the door of the multipolar world, an acknowledgement of Chinese economic power and the military-technological predominance of the Russian Federation.

From Neutral to Friends

In transforming itself into a more neutral country, Riyadh may be attempting to balance American economic and military influence with Russian and Chinese support. The importance for Russia and China in having a neutral country with great spending capacity in the region should also be noted. In the case of Turkey, Russian intervention in Syria, coupled with Turkish aspirations to become a Euro-Asian energy centre, progressively pushed Moscow and Ankara together. As a result of effective diplomatic work following Turkey’s downing of a Russian jet, relations have gradually improved, occurring in parallel to the operational success achieved by the Syrian army and Russian Air Force against Turkish-backed terrorists. The military defeat of Turkey was already clear twelve months ago. In the last three to four months, Erdogan seems to have changed priorities, focusing on the Kurdish issue and on growing relations with Qatar (the political movement of the Muslim Brotherhood is key in both countries and essential to their relationship). In the meantime, Turkey is distancing herself from her NATO allies, gravitating more and more towards the orbit of the “axis of resistance” that consists of Iran, Iraq and Syria.

The Syria peace talks held in Astana laid the foundation for diplomatic efforts by Tehran and Moscow to persuade Ankara to abandon the military option (even though this was already clear once Russia decided to intervene). Instead, Ankara would be encouraged to open up important energy deals between Ankara and Moscow. It seems that Ankara has now decided to become an energy hub, carrying Turkish Stream gas from Russia to Europe as well as gas from Qatar and Iran. It even seems that China has every intention of connecting with the Turkish facilities for the supply of gas and oil, thus increasing Ankara’s role as a central energy-transit hub for the region.

The other aspect that has firmly convinced Erdogan to yield on Syria concerns the Kurdish issue. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), consisting mainly of Kurdish fighters, operate in Syria under the command and on behalf of the US-led international coalition. Ankara has nominated the Kurds of the SDF as an armed extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), considered a terrorist group in Turkey. This divergence between Washington and Ankara has continued to grow, even during the Trump administration, contrary to forecasts during the US election period.

With the progressive use of the SDF in Syria by the international coalition headed by the US, Trump and Erdogan’s strategies have ended up clashing. Trump needs to give his domestic audience the impression that the US is devoted to fighting ISIS, even if this means relying on Kurdish soldiers that entails severing relations with Turkey. Erdogan sees this as a matter of national security. The situation has escalated to a point where a few days ago, a diplomatic dispute led to the suspension of the issuing of visas from the respective embassies in Ankara and Washington. Erdogan considers American aid to the Kurds as a betrayal of the worst kind from a NATO ally. A natural reaction to these actions by the US, therefore, was the the agreement between Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey to preserve territorial integrity vis-a-vis the Kurdish issue.

The blessing of the Chinese and Russians is evident in this situation. In order to pacify the region, rebuild it and incorporate it into the One Belt One Road project, the Maritime Silk Road, and the North-South Transport Corridor, wars have to stop and diplomacy must prevail. For Ankara, it is a unique opportunity to exit the war in Syria without appearing as one of the defeated factions (hence the Turkish participation in the Astana talks with Russia and Iran). At the same time, Turkey emphasizes the importance of its geographical position as a centre for energy distribution on the Eurasian supercontinent. This is all at the expense of the US, with Turkey breaking free from Washington’s pressure.

Moscow has already removed all sanctions against Turkey, and vice versa, greatly increasing trade with considerable prospects for growth in the coming years. As for weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, Russian influence is expanding, thanks to the S-400 systems in the process of being sold to Ankara over the vehement protests of many NATO countries. The S-400 system is a further effort to deter US aggression, but is also the first indication of Ankara’s will to diversify, this time militarily, constituting a pillar of the new multipolar world order.

Ankara, after numerous diplomatic and military failures, has rebuilt its role in the region alongside Iran and Qatar, in a context where its partnership with Moscow and Beijing will guarantee Erdogan a margin of maneuver to progressively disengage from the NATO system that has brought so many problems to the country. A future entry into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) could seal Ankara’s passage into the multipolar world, becoming in the process a fully fledged ally of Moscow and Beijing. In the meantime, it is already possible to say that Moscow and its allies have succeeded in the unlikely task of turning a nation that was on the brink of a direct involvement in Syria in the effort to remove Assad into one of the most important guarantors of Syria’s territorial integrity. Erdogan has agreed to Assad staying in power into the near future, and has even agreed to help fight terrorists in Syria, as evidenced with the recent Turkish military operations in Idlib.

How deep these new friendships between Moscow, Riyadh and Ankara are yet to be tested. Erdogan and the Saudi monarchs have been known not to keep their word. At it stands, this appears to be an economic, political and military masterpiece of the Iranian, Russian and Chinese triad. The war in Syria has almost been won; the terrorist groups supported by the Saudis and Turks have been neutralized; and the conditions for a full Eurasian economic and military integration of Riyadh and Ankara have been set.

Supporting Friends in need.

Ultimately, it is worth pointing out the contribution of Russia, China and Iran to the Syrian government and people. Over the six years of aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic, Iran has never failed to contribute in terms of manpower, equipment and logistical support in the battle against terrorism. Moscow, in the early stages of the conflict, even before intervening directly, took steps to settle the Syrian foreign debt to Russia, and in fact lent money by providing armaments, energy and logistics as a way of actively contributing to the defeat of terrorists in Syria.

The People"s Republic of China has already paved the way for the future of Syria in economic terms, declaring the country an important transit route and a final destination of a part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Chinese economic power will allow Damascus to rebuild a nation devastated by six years of terrorism and foreign aggression. With Russian military capabilities, Damascus will have all the necessary means to end the conflict and stabilize the country, laying the foundation to prevent any future Western aggression. From a political and diplomatic point of view, the joint actions of Tehran, Beijing and Moscow, together with Damascus, are an integral part of the axis that stretches from Iran to Iraq and Syria and arrives at the Mediterranean, or could even go to Turkey. With the combination of economic, military and political elements, Syria has survived almost unprecedented aggression, emerging as the winner, thus ensuring its ability to determine its future autonomously without external impositions.

*  *  *

Series Conclusions

The path traced by Moscow, Beijing and Tehran is expected to stabilize the Middle East, thanks to the resolution of the Syrian conflict. Some key elements of this global change we are witnessing are: Chinese economic pressure on the Saudis to accept payment for oil in yuan; the eradication of terrorism in Iraq and neighbouring countries, thereby circumventing sanctions imposed on Iran by the US and its allies; and transforming Turkey into a regional energy-distribution centre.

The RPC intervenes economically in a number of regions, particularly in the Middle East, to support Russian military power through money, diplomacy, economic investment (OBOR) and by providing liquidity to allies, as seen with Moscow when it was hit with Western sanctions. For Beijing, the decline in terrorism is a key factor in fostering China"s development of the Silk Road 2.0 infrastructure, allowing Beijing to enter into areas destroyed in the Middle East to offer easy reconstruction plans. At the moment, Syria, Egypt, Libya and Pakistan seem to hold great importance for China"s future strategies.

Russia and China lead organizations such as the BRICS, the UEE, the SCO, and the AIIB. The grand strategy is to support the creation of an alternative to the US dollar-based neoliberal world order and to contain the effects of declining US empire. Nations will increasingly have to choose between two systems: whether the multipolar world order, based on friendship and win-win cooperation, or the unipolar one, based on the America’s declining military and economic power.

Strong Chinese economic support, together with Russian military might as well as Iran’s importance in the Middle Eastern region, are successfully shielding countries like Syria from American military interventions, driving a wedge between old US allies and paving the way for Washington’s planned economic and military isolation in the region. Thus, countries similarly facing US pressure, such as South Korea, Mexico and Venezuela, will increasingly gravitate toward the multipolar world led by Russia and China, accelerating the decline and influence of the United States beyond the Middle East.

The multipolar world order is here to stay. The US is no longer the lone superpower but rather one among two other nuclear-armed powers. The sooner the US realizes this, the better it will be for humanity and for peace around the world.

A Failing Empire, Part 1: Russia & China's Military Strategy To Contain The US

Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Looking at the global political landscape over the last month, two trends are becoming more apparent.

1. The infamous military and economic power at America’s disposal is declining,


2. whereas in the multipolar field, an acceleration has occurred in the creation of a series of infrastructures, mechanisms and procedures to contain and limit the negative effects of America’s declining unipolar moment.

This series of three articles will focus firstly on the military aspect of these ongoing changes, then the economics at play, and finally, how and why smaller countries are transitioning from the unipolar camp to the multipolar field.

One of the most tangible consequences of the decline of US military power can be observed in the Syrian conflict. Over the past few weeks, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies have completed the historic and strategic liberation of Deir ez-Zor, a city besieged for more than five years by Islamists belonging to Al Qaeda and Daesh. The focus has now shifted to the oilfields south of the liberated city, with a frantic rush by both the US-supported Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the SAA to free territories still held by Daesh. The final goal is to claim Syria"s resources and strengthen a weak US position (the US is not even part of the Astana peace talks) in future negotiations concerning the country"s future. To understand how much the US dream of partitioning Syria is failing, one only need note repeated US failures as seen in the liberation of Aleppo and then Deir Ez-Zor, and now the crossing of the Euphrates river. In spite of American intimidation, threats, and sometimes even direct aggression, the Syrian army continued to work against Daesh in the province of Deir Ez-Zor, advancing on oil rich sites. Thanks to the protection given by the Russian Federation Air Force during the conflict, Damascus has obtained a protective umbrella necessary to withstand attempts by the US of balkanize the country.

Further confirmation of Washington’s failed strategy to divide the country a la Yugoslavia appears evident from the strategic realignment of the most loyal allies of Washington in the region and beyond. In the course of the last few weeks, several meetings have taken place in Astana and Moscow between the likes of Putin and Lavrov with their Turkish, Saudi, and Israeli counterparts. These meetings outlined the guidelines for Syria’s future thanks to Moscow’s red lines, especially regarding Israel’s desire to pursue regime change in Syria and an aggressive attitude towards Iran. Even the most loyal allies of the United States are beginning to plan a future in Syria with Assad as president. US allies have started showing a pragmatic shift towards a reconciliation with the factions that are clearly winning the war and are going to call the shots in the future. The long-held dreams and desires of sheikhs (Saudi-Qatar) and sultans (Erdogan) to reshape Syria and the Middle East in their image are over, and they know it. Washington"s allies have been let down, with the US incapable of keeping its promises of fulfilling a regime change in Damascus. The consequences for the US have just begun. Without a military posture capable of bending adversaries and friends to her will, the US will have to start dealing with a new reality that involves compromise and negotiation, something the US is not accustomed to.

An example of what can happen if Washington decides to go against a former friend can be seen with the Gulf Crisis involving Qatar. Since the beginning of the aggression against Syria, the small emirate has been at the center of plots and schemes aimed at arming and financing jihadists in the Middle East and Syria. Five years later, after billions of dollars spent and nothing to hold onto in Syria, the Gulf Cooperation Council, as expected, has plunged into a fratricidal struggle between Qatar and other countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE and Egypt. The latter accuse Doha of funding terrorism, an undeniable truth. But they omit to acknowledge their own ties to the jihadists (Egypt in this framework is excluded, fighting continually with terrorists inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood in the Sinai), showing a hypocrisy that only the mainstream media can rival.

The consequences of Riyad’s actions against Doha, backed up by a large part of the American establishment, seems, almost six months later, to have finally pushed Qatar and Iran together, reopening diplomatic ties. These are two countries that have for years been on opposite sides of many conflicts in the Middle East, reflecting contrasts and divisions dictated by the respective positions of Tehran and Riyadh. This seems to be no more, with Doha and Tehran coming closer and circumnavigating sanctions and blockades, overcoming common difficulties. This shift can only be described as a strategic failure by Riyadh.

Looking back six years, one of the reasons for the eruption of the conflict in Syria has everything to do with the famous pipeline that Iran intended to build connecting Iraq and Syria. Incredibly, the end of the conflict will see a new transport line emerging between countries that for years have had opposing and diverging strategic goals. Iran and Qatar are currently engaging in trade agreements, and rumors have it that a joint effort to build a new pipeline that should cross Iraq and Syria, to end in the Mediterranean, is in the making. The idea is to jointly exploit the world"s largest gas field, and in so doing become a new supplier for a Europe that is looking to diversify its energy imports. Riyadh and Washington will have to take full responsibility for this failure of epic proportions.

A clear sign of how fast things are changing in the region and beyond comes from Israel. Even the Jewish State has had to abandon any dream of territorial expansion into Syria, despite several attempts by Netanyahu to persuade Putin of the existential danger that Israel faces with Iran’s presence in Syria. A smart and pragmatic Putin is able to let Israel know that any request to impose conditions on Russian or its allies in Syria will be firmly refused. But at the same time, Moscow and Tel Aviv will continue to pursue good relations with each other. Russian political figures are far to smart to play double games with their long-standing allies in Syria or to underestimate the capacity that Israel has to disrupt the region and plunge it into chaos. Furthermore, Assad has invited Russia into Syria as well as Iran and Hezbollah. Even if Putin were willing to help Netanyahu, which is doubtful, international law prohibits this. If anything is clear, it is that Moscow respects international law as few nations do. All other foreign nations operating in Syria, or flying over Syrian skies, have no right to be there in the first place, let alone to impose decisions over a sovereign territory.

If Tel Aviv’s goal was to expand the illegal border in the Golan Heights and proceed with regime change, the situation has ended up totally different six years later. Iran has expanded its influence in Syria thanks to aid provided to Damascus in combating terrorism. Hezbollah has increased its battle experience and arsenal, as well as expanded its network of contacts and sympathizers throughout the Middle East. Hezbollah and Iran are seen as Middle Eastern peacemakers, playing positive roles in fighting the plague of jihadist terrorism as well as against Israel and Saudi Arabia, states that have tried in every way to assist terrorist organizations with weapons and money. Washington, Riyadh and Tel Aviv six years later find themselves in a totally different environment, with hostile neighbours, less collaborative friends, and in general, a Middle East increasingly orbiting around the Iranian and Russian spheres of influence.

Another indicator of American decline in military terms can be clearly seen on the Korean peninsula. The DPRK has obtained a full nuclear capability through a development program that has paid scant attention to American, South Korean and Japanese threats. The imperative for Pyongyang was to create a nuclear deterrent capable of dissuading the desire of many US policymakers enact regime change in North Korea. The strategic importance of a regime change in the DPRK follows the strategy of containment and encirclement of the People"s Republic of China, a failed doctrine well known as the Asian pivot.

Beside its nuclear deterrent, the US is unable to attack the DPRK because of the conventional deterrent that Pyongyang has patiently put in place. Trump and his generals continue the rhetoric of fire and flames, dragging Seoul and Tokyo into a dangerous game of chicken between two nuclear powers. Not surprisingly, Trump’s words worry everyone in the region, especially the Republic of South Korea, which would pay the heaviest price were war ever to break out. In light of this assessment, it is worth pointing out that the military option is simply unthinkable, with Seoul and perhaps even Tokyo ready to break with its American ally in case of disastrous unilateral action against Pyongyang.

Kim Jong-un, as well as Assad and other world leaders facing pressure from Washington, have fully understood and taken advantage of America’s declining military power. Trump and his close circle of generals are full of empty threats, unable to change the course of events in different regions around the world, from the Middle East to the Korean peninsula. Whether it is through direct action or through proxies, little changes and the results remain the same, showing a continuous failure of goals and intents.

The underlying rule guiding US policy makers is that if a country cannot be controlled, such as with a Saudi-style regime serving only American interests through something like the petrodollar, than that country is useless and ought to be destroyed in order to stop other peer competitors from expanding their ties with that country. The Libyan example is still fresh in everyone"s minds. Luckily for the world, Russia has stepped in militarily, and on more than one occasion has, together with her allies, sabotaged or deterred the US military from taking reckless actions (Ukraine, Syria and DPRK).

In this sense, Hillary Clinton"s defeat, more than Trump"s victory, seems to have instilled some sense into this declining empire, if one ignores the persisting strong rhetoric. One can only shudder on imagining a Clinton presidency in the current environment, with her predictably careening at full speed towards a conflict with Russia in Ukraine and Syria or a nuclear standoff with the DPRK in Asia.

Trump and his generals are slowly adapting to a new reality where it is not only impossible to control countries, but where it is increasingly difficult to destroy them. The old doctrine of wreaking chaos on the world, with a view to emerging once the dust settles down as the world"s hegemonic power, now seems like a distant memory. Just looking at the Middle East, even Syria, in spite of the unprecedented destruction, is on the road to reconstruction and pacification.

Russian military power and Chinese economic might have thus played an invaluable role in restricting the US war machine. The DPRK even took a further step by attaining a formidable nuclear and conventional deterrent, effectively blocking the United States from influencing domestic events by bringing about destruction and chaos.

While this reality is difficult for Washington to take, it must come to accept it. After almost seventy years of imperialistic chaos and destruction wrought all over the globe, America’s friends and enemies are starting to react to this situation. Washington is left with a president full of sound and fury, but a credible militarily posture is now but a thing of the past.

The financial mechanisms that have allowed for this indiscriminate military spending are based on an intrinsic bond between dollar, oil, and the role of American money as the world reserve currency. The transition of the world order from a unipolar reality to a multipolar one is deeply tied to the economic and diplomatic strategies of Russia and China.

The next article will explore the role of gold, investment, diplomacy and the petroyuan, which are all decisive factors that have accelerated the transformation and division of power on a global scale.

How The US Deep State Accidentally Forged A Multipolar World Order

Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

In every nation there are power conglomerates that determine and influence the domestic and foreign policy choices their nations. In the United States, it is important to highlight the concept known as American exceptionalism that accompanies these power centers, often called the deep state. According to this principle, the United States alone has been chosen by God to lead mankind.

After the World War II, a notion very similar to that of Nazi Aryan racial supremacy was born - that of the chosen people. In this case, however, the chosen people were Americans, who emerged victorious at the end of the Second World War II, ready to face the «existential danger» of the USSR, a society and culture that was different from that of the US. With such mental imprinting, the trend over the following decades was predictable. What followed was war after war, the capitalist economic system sustained by the US war machine widening its sphere all over the globe, reaching Southeast Asia, but then being forced back by the failure of the Vietnam War, signaling the first sign of the end of American omnipotence.

As the Berlin Wall fell and eliminated the Soviet «threat», American expansion had almost reached its existential limit. What has been a constant element during all of these US presidencies, during various wars and economic growth thanks to a rising capitalism, has been the presence of the deep state, a set of neural centers that make up real US power. In order to understand the failure of the deep state to achieve its goals to exercise full-spectrum control over the globe, it is crucial to trace the connections between past and the present presidencies from the fall of the Berlin Wall.

When thinking of the deep state, it is easy to identify the major players - the mainstream media, think-tanks, central and private banks, foreign-state lobbyists, politicians, intelligence agencies, large industrial groups, and the military-industrial complex (MIC). These are the inner circles that hold the true levers of power in the United States. Often, by analyzing past events over a long period of time, it becomes easier to identify motivations and goals behind specific actions, and the manner in which the various members of the deep state have often accompanied, influenced and sometimes sabotaged various administrations - such as is currently the case with the current Trump administration - for the sole purpose of advancing their economic interests.

During the Clinton and Bush administrations, the deep state was able to maintain a united and compact front, counting on the economic and military power of what was still a rising global power. The mainstream media, the intelligence agencies, the military and the financial and political centers supported both presidents in their ambitious plans to expand American hegemony. From intervention in Yugoslavia to the bombing to Afghanistan through to the war in Iraq, the refrain has been conflict and devastation in exchange for financial impositions that were focused on maintaining the dollar as the reserve or exchange currency for such assets as oil. In Yugoslavia, the strategy also aimed at dismantling the last block linked to the former Soviet Union, the last act of the end of the Cold War. Even the control of opium trading routes from Afghanistan has been of great importance, becoming a key element in US expansion and control plans, other than maintaining a foothold in central Asia for further destabilization attempts.

The war in Iraq, engineered by three fundamental elements of the deep state (false intelligence services, journalists with a specific agenda, and the military straining at the leash to bomb a hostile nation), has produced a number of consequences, primarily the disintegration of the country, leaving the door open to Iranian influence. Over the course of 15 years, Tehran"s influence has grown to such an extent that it engages Iraq in a Shiite arch that starts from Iran, passes through Iraq, and ends in Syria, reaching the Mediterranean. In terms of the effect intended and the result actually obtained, the Iraq war may be considered the largest strategic failure of the US deep state since Vietnam.

In addition to a loss of American influence with the petro-monarchies, Iraq has highlighted the American inability to conquer and hold a territory when the population is hostile. Facing local and Shiite militias, the United States paid a heavy human toll, shocking the American population during the ten-year war with planes returning home to deliver flag-draped coffins. This is not to mention the creation of the Afghan and Iraq wars of hundreds of billions of dollars of debt, all placed on the shoulders of the American taxpayer.

In a sense, Obama owes much of his victory in 2008 to the financial crisis and the American defeat in Iraq. Even today, the debate about the role of the deep state in Obama"s election is open. The most plausible explanation is based on Obama"s telegenic appeal over Senator McCain, likely a decisive factor for Americans. As many Americans did not admit, Obama"s election, after eight years of Bush, was a break with the past, a clear message to the elite, especially after Obama"s victory over Clinton during the Democratic primaries.

Obama"s victory was immediately accompanied by a strategic recalculation by the deep state, which sensed the new opportunity linked to Obama"s nature as well as ongoing changes. There were to be no more explicit wars of the type that involve tank divisions. After the disaster in Iraq, even the deep state understood how American military power was unable to prevail over a hostile local population. For this reason, the neoconservatives have been progressively displaced by the liberal, human-rights brigade. Their new approach has turned the Middle East upside down through the Arab Spring, creating a new balance in the region and causing the situation to degenerate in Egypt, destabilizing neighboring countries, ending up human-rights dystopias in places like Libya and Syria, both victims of direct or indirect military aggression on the grounds of protecting human rights.

In this scenario, the most important components of the deep state are the media that, by disseminating false intelligence information through manipulation and disinformation for the purposes of justifying military aggression, conditions the populations of Europe and the US to attack sovereign countries like Libya. During the Obama administration, the deep state rarely faced a hostile presidency, demonstrated by the bank bailout during the 2008 crisis. A few months after the election, it became apparent how empty Obama’s election promises had been, representing the triumph of marketing over substance. By printing money at zero interest, Obama allowed the Fed to donate almost $800 billion to the banks, saving them from a collapse and postponing the consequences of the next financial crisis, which will likely be irreparable. Obama preferred to follow the dictates of the Fed, a key component of the deep state, instead of reforming the banking sector.

The underlying mistakes of the last months of the Obama administration continue to affect Trump"s new presidency. Obama"s attempt to placate the deep state by arming terrorists in the Middle East, putting neo-Nazis in Ukraine, bombing Libya, and bailing out the banks has only increased the appetite of the deep state, which has progressed to more explicit demands like an attack on Iran and direct intervention in Syria. From this moment on, after having granted virtually all the wishes of the deep state, Obama pulled the handbrake and activated a couple of countermeasures to rebalance the legacy of his presidency. He opposed a direct intervention in Syria following the false-flag chemical attacks, signing and implementing the nuclear agreement with Iran and he restoring relations with Cuba.

It was at this very moment that the deep state declared war on Obama, relying on the indispensable support of intelligence agencies, the mainstream media, and the most conservative wing of the American establishment. Attacks on Obama"s presumed weaknesses as president, his inability to defend American interests, and his lack of courage characterized the last two years of his presidency.

It was this perennial state of siege during Obama"s presidency that created the conditions for Trump"s electoral ascent. The deep state has for years insisted on the need for a strong and determined leader representative of the spirit of American exceptionalism. Initially, the deep state focused on Hillary Clinton, but Trump had the intuition to emphasize the military and industrial aspects of the country, appealing to the yearning of the population for a rebuilding of domestic industry, and opening new opportunities for the deep state. This served to drive a split within the intelligence agencies, the mainstream media, and a good deal of the domestic political class, leaving them in open warfare. Russia"s affairs and Trump’s alleged connections to Putin are false news, created to sabotage Trump"s presidency.

In the 2016 Republican primaries, Americans voted for a leader who promised to improve their livelihoods by boosting the domestic economy and placing the interests of their country first. This promise almost immediately captured the working component of the population and large industrial conglomerates. Trump later gained the support of another fundamental component of the deep state, the military wing, thanks to the proclamation that the United States will be returned to the role they deserve in the world, salvaging the perverse idea of American exceptionalism.

Trump"s decision to embrace the MIC is particularly controversial and represents the beginning of a deep-state faction built upon Trump"s presidency. The daily din surrounding his presidency, with constant attacks from the opposing faction of the deep state, became intense with fake news alleging Trump’s links with Russia. With the appointment of generals who subscribe to the idea of American exceptionalism, it can be debated whether Trump intentionally wanted to give a leadership role to his own generals or whether he had no choice, having to associate with some of these deep-state members in order to defend himself against the assaults of opposing deep-state factions.

Recent Trump-related events are all based on these factors, namely a deep state driven by the neoliberal faction that has never stopped attacking Trump, and a neoconservative deep-state faction that has been tightening the noose around Trump.

The immediate results have been a level of chaos that has been unprecedented in a US administration, with continuous appointments and layoffs, the latest one Steve Bannon, not to mention the impossibility of abolishing Obamacare with all the forces arrayed against Trump’s legislative agenda. Trump has progressively had to concede more power and authority to his generals, acceding to bombing Syria and passing sanctions that worsen relations between Moscow and Washington. A self-destructive spiral began with the granting of a primary role to those nominated to key positions.

The final effect of this ongoing sabotage ever since the Obama presidency is a bankrupt US foreign policy and a continuing fratricidal struggle within the deep state. America’s European allies are in revolt over anti-Russia sanctions, which is their main source of energy. Countries like Russia, China and Iran are beginning to undergo an economic revolution as they progressively abandon the dollar; and as these countries take over a Middle East devastated by years of American wars, Moscow gains significant influence in the region. The crisis engulfing the Gulf Cooperation Council, increasingly beset with fickle fractures between Riyadh and Doha.

One of the consequences of two decades of the US deep state’s brazen foreign policy has been the birth of a multipolar world order, with US superpower status being challenged by competing powers like China and Russia. Indeed, Washington’s historic allies in the Middle East, Israel and Saudi Arabia, have borne the consequences of the disastrous policies of the US, with Iran rising to be one of the power centers of the region destined to dominate the Middle East militarily and even economically.

The incredible paradox of the failure of deep state is represented by the emergence of two alternative poles to the American one, increasingly allied with each other to counter the chaotic retreat of a unipolar world order. In this scenario, Washington and all its power centers are in an unprecedented situation, where their desire does not match their abilities. A sense of frustration is increasingly evident, from the incredible statements of many American political representatives on Russian influence in US elections, to the threats of aggression against North Korea, or the game of chicken with the nuclear powers of Russia and China.

If the deep state continues to hamstring the presidency, and the military wing succeeds in pressuring Trump, there are likely to be a number of indirectly linked effects. There will be an exponential increase in synergies between nations not aligned with American interests. In economic terms, there are alternative systems to that centered on the dollar; in terms of energy, there are a host of new agreements with European, Turkish or Russian partners; and in political terms, there is a more or less explicit alliance between Russia and China, with a strong contribution from Iran, as will soon become more evident with Tehran"s entry into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

By the end of the 1980s, the United States was the only world power destined for a future of unchallenged global hegemony. The deep state’s greed, as well as the utopian desire to control every decision in every corner of the world, has ended up consuming the ability of the US to influence events, serving only to draw Russia and China closer together with the shared interest of halting America’s heedless advance. It is thanks to the firmly ensconced American deep state that Moscow and Beijing are now coordinating together in order to put to an end the United States’ unipolar moment as soon as possible.

It is not entirely wrong to say that the American unipolar moment is coming to an end, with the deep state’s attacks on the Trump presidency preventing any rapprochement with Moscow.

The stronger the pressure of the deep state on the multipolar powers, the greater the speed with which the advance of the multipolar world will replace the unipolar one. Early effects will appear in the economic sphere, particularly in relation to movement towards de-dollarisation, which may mark the beginning of a long-awaited change.