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Multipolarity was triggered by the 2003 US invasion of Iraq

By Karin Kneissl | The Cradle | March 20, 2023

On the night of 19-20 March, 2003, the US air force began bombing the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. The EU and NATO were deeply divided on whether to join the aggression: While newer NATO members from Central and Eastern Europe were in favor of the war, European heavyweights Paris and Berlin opposed it.

The Iraq war also marked the onset of diplomatic coordination between Moscow and Beijing at the UN Security Council (UNSC). The two countries began in 2003 to apply similar voting patterns in the Council, first on Iraq, then on Libya in 2011, and over Syria in several key votes. That early Russia-China UN coordination has, 20 years later, transformed into a determined joint policy toward “guarding a new world order based on international law.”

Looking back at March 2003 from the vantage point of March 2023, the invasion of Iraq unleashed geopolitical consequences far beyond the obvious ones, like the proliferation of terrorism, a decline of US power, and regional chaos. In 2003, a foundational, global shift in the balance of power was surely the last possible consequence envisioned by the war’s planners in Washington and London.

Disconnecting the dots

The destruction of Iraq, the disbanding of the Iraqi Army by the first “US Consul” Paul Bremer in May 2023, the outflow of refugees to neighboring states such as Syria and Jordan, and the exponential growth of extremism and terror attacks are among the consequences of this misguided war.

The flimsy reasons for the war, such as non-existent weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and Baghdad’s alleged support of terror groups like Al Qaeda, were debunked extensively in the following years. By the spring of 2004, evidence was already rife – whether from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) or from the CIA’s Iraq Survey Group (ISG) – that Iraq had no WMD program at all.

Rarely before had disinformation campaigns – what is now commonly referred to as “fake news” – been so meticulously executed. The “with us or against us” narrative had firmly taken hold: Western think tanks were out in full force promoting regime change and “democracy” (not a stated goal of the US-led invasion) in Iraq, while those who opposed it were labeled anti-Israel or anti-America.

Despite unprecedented, massive public protests across western capitals in opposition to the Iraq war, the US and its allies had already set in motion their considerable war machine, led by figures such as British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Spanish Prime Minister José Maria Aznar.

A false narrative linking Baghdad and the September 11 attacks had already been well-seeded, despite there being no connection whatsoever between the government of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the bombers. It should be noted that there were no Iraqi or Afghan citizens among the terrorists who piloted the 9-11 planes, who were predominantly Saudi nationals.

Unfinished Business

In the autumn of 2001, war scenarios for an invasion of Iraq and regime change were already being laid out in Washington. Johns Hopkins University dean Paul Wolfowitz – an avid supporter of regime-change and US military expansion into Iraq – was named deputy secretary of defense in February 2001, a full seven months before the 9-11 attacks. Wolfowitz’s working hypothesis was that Iraq, with the liberalization of its oil industry, would be able to finance a post-war reconstruction from its own petroleum exports.

The group around Vice President Dick Cheney, which included Wolfowitz and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, was influential in shaping President George W. Bush’s position on Iraq. Unlike his father, George H. Bush, who was an experienced CIA director and analyst, the younger Bush lacked a distinct personal worldview on foreign policy, which he outsourced to his hawkish coterie.

Nevertheless, he was determined to finish what he saw as his father’s “unfinished business” from the 1991 ‘Gulf War’ aimed at expelling Iraqi forces from Kuwait. That conflict was executed under a UN Security Council resolution, authorizing legal measures against Iraq as a state, but which did not constitute a war under international law.

In 1991, only Jordan‘s King Hussein took a position supporting Saddam Hussein, with all other nations backing the coalition assault against Baghdad. The US government adhered to the UN resolution, which aimed to restore Kuwait‘s territorial integrity – but not to overthrow the Iraqi government.

Instead, the US supported Iraqi Kurds in the north of the country and encouraged them to revolt against Baghdad. The Iraqi army crushed that rebellion, as it did an uprising in the Shia-dominated south. Perhaps the rebels had hoped for more concrete military aid from the US, but regardless, Hussein remained firmly in power despite military defeat elsewhere.

From Washington’s perspective, the US had failed to unseat Hussein, and within the Bush family, there was a desire to settle a score. For George W. Bush, the invasion of Iraq provided an opportunity to step out of his powerful father’s shadow by executing the elusive regime-change goal. The September 11 attacks provided a justification for this obsession – what remained was to connect Iraq to the US terror attacks and galvanize public and political support for a war, both domestically and internationally.

The UN Security Council in turmoil

In the run-up to the Iraq invasion, there was a great deal of division among UN Security Council (UNSC) members. US Secretary of State Colin Powell presented questionable evidence of Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction, while the foreign ministers of Germany and France publicly opposed the aggression, for which they occasionally received applause in the Council.

China and Russia, who vehemently opposed the war, began coordinating their decisions and responses, in part because of their respective oil interests in Iraq. This cooperation between Moscow and Beijing set the stage for a coordinated multilateral approach between the two nations. Both governments understood that a war would open Pandora’s box, leading to the collapse of Iraqi institutions and resulting in widespread regional disharmony.

Unfortunately, this is precisely what happened. The subsequent years saw weekly attacks, an expansion of Salafi terror groups like Al Qaeda, the rise of ISIS in 2014, and perpetual internal Iraqi conflict. Anyone familiar with the country‘s conditions was aware of the looming catastrophe when the illegal invasion of Iraq began on 20 March, 2003.

China and Russia and the multipolar order  

Twenty years to the day, Chinese President Xi Jinping will embark on a three-day state visit to Moscow, and the focus will extend beyond bilateral energy relations, which have been a consistent priority since 2004.

As previously stated in their joint declaration in Beijing in February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart aim to coordinate their foreign policy and advance it together. Their discussions may also touch on the Ukraine dossier, although media expectations in the west may be overestimated.

It may be pure coincidence that the meeting coincides with the 20th anniversary of the Iraq invasion. Yet it also highlights how extensively Russian and Chinese strategies have intertwined over the past two decades.

Today, increasingly, “orientation comes from Orient.” Cooperative geostrategic leadership and sound alternative propositions to resolve global conflicts are being shaped in Beijing and Moscow – because the old centers of power can offer nothing new.

Twenty years after the US invasion of Iraq, a failed ‘war on terror,’ the proliferation of extremism, millions of dead and displaced in West Asia, and never-ending conflict, China and Russia have finally teamed up to systematically advance their view of the world, this time with more resolve and global clout.

As catastrophic as it was, the Iraq war ended the practice of direct US military invasions, ushering in a war-weary era that desperately sought other solutions. That global division of opinion that began in 2003 over Iraq is, 20 years later, being institutionalized by emerging multipolar powers that seek to counter forever wars.

March 20, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

USA criticized globally over MQ-9 drone incident

By Vladimir Danilov – New Eastern Outlook – 20.03.2023 

The crash of an American MQ-9 drone heading for the Russian border in the Black Sea near the Crimean Peninsula on March 14 in the morning is likely one of the most discussed topics in the global media in recent days.

According to an official communication from the Russian Defense Ministry, the US UAV’s flight was in violation of the temporary airspace use regime established in accordance with international norms for the area’s boundaries due to the special military operation, and its transponders were turned off.  Fighter jets from Russian Aerospace Forces were deployed in the air to identify the intruder. The MQ-9 made a quick maneuver that caused it to lose control of its flight and crash into the water. The Russian fighter jets did not engage the unmanned aerial vehicle during the incident and did not fire any of their on-board weaponry.

The MQ-9 Reaper is a modular reconnaissance and strike US UAV that can carry a variety of combinations of weapons and electronic equipment depending on the mission, including carrying an arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons. As a result, there is no doubt about Russia’s eligibility for protective measures against the United States’ hostile use of the said UAV against Russia. Especially in light of recent open calls by various US representatives for the armed destruction of the Russian Federation. In particular, former US National Security Adviser John Bolton’s call to define the objectives of the US-Russia war.

In contrast to US military officials’ attempts to portray the incident as a “wrongful act by Russia,” particularly Gen. James Hecker, Commander of US Air Forces in Europe and Air Forces Africa, ordinary Americans are discussing the blatantly “insane” US version of the incident that caused the MQ-9 UAV to crash into the Black Sea. Thus, US armed forces veteran Noctis Draven emphasized that Washington’s anti-Russian propaganda narrative is “easily disproved,” and that if Russia had hostile intentions, the MQ-9 would have been shot down without endangering the pilot or the aircraft.

The MQ-9 incident has been widely discussed in the US media, noting that it is in fact the first direct military confrontation between Russia and the US since Moscow launched its special operation in Ukraine.

For example, Joe Rogan in his podcast PowerfulJRE pointed out that the current White House administration is actively pushing the US to an outright war with Russia, bringing about the feeling of chaos in the country.

According to Fox News host Tucker Carlson, an administration like this could lead to a hot war with Russia and China whether you want it or not.

According to a CNN report, the MQ-9 incident in the Black Sea may contribute to growing support in the United States for the view that aid to Ukraine is not a national security issue for Washington.

The international public has also reacted strongly to the incident, in a way that is clearly unfavorable to the United States and US propaganda.

According to the Chinese Global Times tabloid, such incidents have become more common in recent years around the world. It is emphasized that the United States is surprisingly involved most of the time. The publication stresses that this has become a habitual tactic of provoking enemies, and that a couple more such cases will cause the world to explode.

Guancha readers openly mocked Washington for the botched spying mission in the Black Sea, pointing to the US’s incompetence, whose drone crashed into the water. They praised Russia for “teaching a lesson” to America, self-assured in its permissiveness, without even opening fire, causing the MQ-9 to fall into the water in fear of the Russian Su-27.

As the Global Times correctly points out, the White House clearly requires such incidents in order to complicate the global situation and fight “against the unwanted.” How else can the provocative flight of the American MQ-9 Reaper drone near the Russian state border and the incident in the Black Sea be explained? Since the Cold War’s end, Washington has routinely staged such incidents, frequently targeting countries that the US publicly refers to as enemies.

The Austrian media, which is aghast at the prospect of the United States starting World War III, also points out that America recently staged a provocation with a B-52 bomber, and now the MQ-9 Reaper drone incident. The Austrian journalists wonder what Washington hopes to accomplish by conducting such dangerous “tests” of Russia’s defense capabilities. After all, today, it is clear to everyone that provocations like the ones on March 14 in the Black Sea and the day before with the B-52 bomber near St. Petersburg could be used as a pretext for war.

The opinions of the readers of the French Le Figaro are also quite revealing. Some of them believe that the USA was very “unprofessional” trying to spy on Russia and got what it deserved, while others admit that it was a “flawless operation” by Moscow. The video of the MQ-9 downing in the Black Sea, released by the US, caused no distress among French media readers. They called it “just another batch of oil the Americans poured on the fire.”

Readers of the German magazine Der Spiegel support Russia and are perplexed as to why the West is outraged by its actions. They suggest we look at the map to see for ourselves that American drones have no business over the Black Sea.

Australia’s The Sydney Morning Herald does not rule out that the US drone incident in the Black Sea could trigger a new round of tensions, becoming the first very dangerous incident of its kind since the Cold War. The majority of the publication’s readers blame Washington, specifically asking: what was that drone doing there?

According to some political analysts, the March 14 MQ-9 incident is unlikely to cause any serious consequences in relations between Russia and the US or result in a military clash between the two countries. After all, Washington’s remaining “cool heads” only need to take the necessary steps.

Following the MQ-9 Reaper drone incident over the Black Sea, the US has already begun analyzing the costs and benefits of such missions, weighing the potential value of intelligence obtained in this manner against the risk of escalation in relations with Russia, according to recent information. The US military is specifically instructed to “carefully study” UAV routes and assess ways to reduce the risk of conflict with Moscow, especially considering Russian aviation operations in the Crimea.

However, similar risks exist not only in the Black Sea region, but also in the Baltic Sea, as evidenced by an incident 200 kilometers away from St. Petersburg the day before the MQ-9 events. Then, as you may know, B-52 Stratofortress US strategic bomber capable of carrying nuclear weapons and accompanied by Polish fighters, flew over Lithuanian airspace, approached the Russian border at the greatest possible distance, and went into position, simulating bombing readiness. Similar incidents may occur in the Arctic, near Russia’s borders in the Asia-Pacific region, if Washington makes new anti-Russian or anti-Chinese provocations there.

In any case, the US must temper its aggressive cowboy zeal, lest its provocative actions push the world dangerously close to the outbreak of World War III. Especially since there is still no clarity in identifying those responsible for the terrorist attack on the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea.

March 20, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

US continues to use terrorists in Syria – Russia

RT | March 20, 2023

The US is still working with Islamic State terrorists and other Islamist groups to carry out attacks against Bashar Assad’s government forces in Syria, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) chief, Sergey Naryshkin, has claimed.

According to an SVR report released on Monday, the US military’s Al-Tanf base in southern Syria is coordinating subversive activities, with the actions of terrorist groups being planned by representatives of the Central Command of the US Armed Forces as well as US intelligence officers.

The SVR stated that a special role has been assigned to the so-called Free Syrian Army, which consists of Kurdish and Arab detachments operating in the central and northeast parts of Syria. “Through them, the Americans and their British allies are working with the underground formations of Islamic State [IS, formerly ISIS] that still remain in remote areas of the country,” it was alleged.

“ISIS was instructed to incite hostilities in the Syrian south-west (the provinces of Suwayda and Deraa), in the central part of the country (Homs) and east of the Euphrates River (Raqqa, Deir ez-Zor). For this, it is planned to form several detachments of radicals with a total number of about 300 people. After special training, they will be involved in attacks on military facilities in Syria and Iran,” the statement added.

The SVR claims that the US also intends to use terrorists in the region around the capital, Damascus, to conduct tasks such as kidnapping Russian and Iranian servicemen.

In addition to coordinating the actions of Islamist groups, Washington is providing terrorists with weapons, according to the SVR. Several dozen four-wheel-drive pickup trucks with heavy machine guns, as well as a number of rocket systems such as NLAW ATGMs, TOWs, and Igla MANPADS are set to be handed over to fighters in the near future, the report alleged.

Washington’s actions put it “on the same level” as Islamic terrorists and IS militants, and is a manifestation of state terrorism, the SVR argued.

In February, the SVR reported that the US was using Islamist extremists to plan terrorist attacks in Russia and former Soviet republics. Washington has been training as many as 60 terrorists at the Al-Tanf base to make improvised explosive devices and use them to target diplomats, public officials, law enforcement officers, and military personnel, the intelligence service claimed.

March 20, 2023 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Setting the record straight on the teeming media swamp that supported Iraq war

By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos | Responsible Statecraft | March 20, 2023

In his doubling down of support for the war in Iraq, David “Axis of Evil” Frum all but exonerates the architects and promoters of the war (which would include himself, being a speechwriter for President Bush until 2002, then a media cheerleader) as such:

To my mind, the most important lessons regard government decision making, offering a warning against groupthink and self-deception. Crucial decision makers started with an assumption that regime change in Iraq would be cheap, easy, and lightly contested. They then isolated themselves from all contrary information—until it was too late.

Frum, like his contemporary Eli Lake, is an interesting case because each has in the last few weeks attempted to both acknowledge the conventional wisdom after 20 years that the war was a failure, while still arguing best intentions and look, “Iraq really is better off without Saddam Hussein.” On the latter, I will let my colleague Connor Echols’ heartbreaking interviews with actual Iraqis answer that. What I’m keen to explore is Frum’s assertion that: “I don’t believe any leaders of the time intended to be dishonest. They were shocked and dazed by 9/11. They deluded themselves.”

It is highly doubtful that Frum vulcan mind-melded with each of the architects, or saw into their souls a la Bush and Vladimir Putin. We know from highly documented accounts that, contra Frum’s simplistic summation, the Bush administration was influenced by a vanguard of well-placed neoconservatives who had set regime change into motion back in the Clinton administration. This was no 9/11 hangover. As Jim Lobe pointed out in these pages in 2021, the 2001 attacks enabled leaders and operators like Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Scooter Libby, Robert Kagan, and Bill Kristol to have the war they wanted long before those planes flew into the Twin Towers.

Frum’s flimsy rationalization conveniently ignores that the mainstream media was totally and willingly co-opted into this “delusion” too, and without it, the invasion and aftermath, which included eight years of occupation and then another two years of military assistance to help the Iraqis roust ISIS (which the U.S. invasion created) wouldn’t have carried on in the manner that it did.

I say that because as the polling showed the American people losing faith in the war by January 2005, the mainstream media backgrounded all of the bad news (like military massacres, civilian deaths, torture, sectarian violence, PTSD) while foregrounding Pentagon talking points that said new counterinsurgency methods and tactical wins meant victory was “right around the corner.” They lied about reconstruction progress, too, as Peter Van Buren points out right here.

An entire ecosystem of information management ensured that the major networks, newspapers and radio, owned by only a handful of conglomerates, were singing the same tune, all of the time.

Frum, Lake, and columnists like Max Boot, who now, conveniently, says he regrets it, were what Spock would call top “lifeforms” in that ecosystem.

We must talk about this because these men and their compradores in the Washington swamp want to dismiss any comparison to how we view Ukraine and how the media is covering U.S. policy in that war. They have not learned any lessons about meddling and the limits of American power writ large, just in failed wars of the past.

March 20, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Former Egyptian FM: ‘Everyone knew there were no WMDs in Iraq’, invasion was in place before Bush came to power

Sputnik – 20.03.2023

Former Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmi was Egypt’s Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the United States at the time of the US invasion of Iraq. He shared his memories in an interview with Sputnik.

In his interview, Nabil Fahmi said that the American invasion of Iraq was already in place when George W Bush came to power, and he was simply looking for a suitable opportunity to carry out the plan.

Sputnik : As an Egyptian diplomat at the time, how did you feel about the US decision to invade Iraq in 2003?

Nabil Fahmi: At the time, in 2003, I was Egypt’s Ambassador to the United States. Of course, the entire Arab diplomatic corps was discussing the invasion in one way or another. Even with the election of Bush Jr as President of the United States, I noticed a really unhealthy interest the neocons took in Iraq. US vice-president Richard (“Dick”) Cheney was particularly prominent in this regard. On his first visit to Arab countries, he told me personally that he wanted to focus on Iraq.

Sputnik : Why Iraq in particular?

Nabil Fahmi: I asked him why Iraq and not, for example, the Palestinian issue. But he said that Iraq had caught his attention. I told the leadership in Cairo about the strange interest of the new American administration: but at that time, no one imagined that it would come to an open invasion in 2003.

Sputnik : Could you please tell us about Egypt’s position on the US invasion of Iraq?

Nabil Fahmi: I conveyed a message from President Hosni Mubarak to the Chief of Staff of the US Army and to one of the military commanders in the region that an invasion of Iraq was not advisable, and that there was a big difference between the liberation of Kuwait from occupation – in which the Egyptians had also been involved – and the direct occupation of an Arab country. This message was also conveyed to various American officials in Washington, including Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell and others.

The Egyptian delegation arrived in Washington about four weeks before the invasion in a last-ditch effort to acquaint the US side with Cairo’s position. The delegation visited US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. They were warned that an invasion of an Arab country would be disastrous for the region.

Sputnik : And how did the Americans respond?

Nabil Fahmi: The US administration questioned us point by point, ranging from the invasion and how to take control of certain places. Each time we responded, we emphasized that we did not support the US invasion. At one point, Rice specifically asked why this point was being repeated in every response. Our delegation explained that Egypt continued to oppose the invasion in any case: the Iraqi state must be preserved.

Sputnik : What did Washington think of Cairo’s response to the invasion?

Nabil Fahmi: Our position put me, as Egypt’s ambassador to Washington, in a difficult position before the US Congress. I explicitly said that Cairo did not support the war in Iraq, even though we were friends of America.

Sputnik : And how did you assess the international position on the invasion?

Nabil Fahmi: The US administration was determined to invade Iraq from the first day it came to power, and this was evident in the speeches of Cheney and Wolfowitz. The course of action had started taking shape after 9/11. The Bush administration had to justify this military operation to convince the American public that there was a real threat. To this end, they played the card of Iraq’s possession of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Although in fact everyone knew that there were no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq.

Sputnik : What then were the real reasons for the US invasion of Iraq?

Nabil Fahmi: The US decision to invade Iraq was made regardless of the actions of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the suffering of the Iraqi people, and there was no real evidence that Iraq possessed WMD. Either it was because they wanted to realize their ambitions after the liberation of Kuwait – because at that time the controversy about the need to end the war of liberation was raging – or maybe it was because the US was already developing the concept of a “New Middle East” and the easiest place to start implementing it was with a sanctions-weakened Iraq.

Sputnik : In your opinion, what has been the most significant consequence of the US invasion of Iraq?

Nabil Fahmi: I opposed Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and saw that it was unacceptable and a big mistake on the part of Saddam Hussein. I do not believe that any country has the right to invade another country without respecting international law. That is why I did not support the invasion of Iraq. However, this war caused a lot of trouble in the Levant and the Gulf Region, and later the emergence of Daesh terrorists in the region. To this day, the Middle East is still dealing with the consequences of the US invasion of Iraq 20 years ago.

Sputnik : Has there been a change in American policy toward Arab countries in the years since the invasion of Iraq?

Nabil Fahmi: Nothing has changed. What has changed is the American reality and the Arab reaction. In the early 2000s, the US wanted to show the Middle East that after the collapse of the Soviet Union it could do whatever it wanted with Moscow’s former allies – that was its interest.

Circumstances are different now. Washington is no longer willing to give guarantees or sacrifice its wealth or forces to protect anyone in the region as a whole. For their part, the Arab countries began to realize – after the American invasion of Iraq – that the US could not be given preferential treatment. Thus, the Arab countries began to balance their foreign policies, giving the US the role of an important partner, but by no means the only one. The Arabs now realize that they must take the lead in solving most of the region’s problems and not rely on others to do so.

March 20, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

China’s success in reconciling Saudi Arabia and Iran is a huge blow to US hegemony

By Ahmed Adel | March 20, 2023

After agreeing with Saudi Arabia in December to buy its oil for Chinese yuan instead of just US dollars, while at the same time Russia is successfully cooperating with Saudi Arabia and Iran in the oil sector, Beijing is helping a historic reconciliation between the two major Muslim countries. Chinese efforts are all the more impressive when considering the persistent efforts of the US to cause conflict between the two countries instead of reconciliation.

It is hoped that reconciliation will lead to a huge blow to the hegemony of the US dollar. In Beijing on March 17, following negotiations in Iraq and Oman during the previous two years, China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia announced an agreement which includes the restoration of diplomatic relations, a confirmation of respect for the sovereignty of states and non-interference in their internal affairs, and agreements on security, economy, trade, investment, science and culture.

In short, with the mediation of China, the two regional powers, often framed as having a Sunni-Shi’a rivalry, made it official that they are embarking on a new path of improving relations instead of further spoiling them for the sake of serving Western interests that are contrary to the interests of the Islamic World.

Therefore, it is quite clear who the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs had in mind when it announced that overcoming differences between Iran and Saudi Arabia will have a “beneficial effect on freeing the countries of the region from external interference” – evidently this is in reference to the US. As Beijing highlighted, these two countries have now “taken their own destiny into their own hands,” adding that their agreement “corresponds to epochal development trends.”

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who was recently in Moscow and confirmed that Russia-China relations are reaching new frontiers in building a multipolar world, emphasised that the agreement between Riyadh and Tehran represents “a victory for dialogue and peace.”

In a China Global Television Network (CGTN) article published on March 13 and titled: “Why Iran and Saudi Arabia trust China?”, the author highlights that “dialogue between Tehran and Riyadh has unfolded as negotiations took place in Iraq, where the two countries reached an important consensus. Meanwhile, the main regional allies of Iran and Saudi Arabia, such as the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, have restored diplomatic relations in 2022. Hence, the resumption of diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia also is only a matter of time.”

The author’s belief in the resumption of diplomatic relations proved to be true only days after the article’s publication. The resumption signifies that a new era has dawned in the Middle East, and even more broadly when we consider the effects this could have on the hegemony of the US dollar.

The US has been the dominant force in the Middle East since the end of British and French colonialism in the 1940’s. The region has been in a constant state of war since then, with the US now maintaining 30 military bases in the Middle East – five of them in Saudi Arabia.

For the US that relies on its global network of military bases to maintain hegemony, Beijing is showing non-Western countries how a multipolar world can function with great power diplomacy based on agreements and reconciliation, and not rooted in the idea that “might is right,” like Washington adopts.

It is noted that the day before the reconciliation in Beijing, the head of Saudi diplomacy, Prince Faisal bin Farhan al Saud, visited Moscow unannounced. And a week earlier, on March 6, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone with his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi, who visited Beijing in mid-February. After that, Wang Yi was in Moscow. This suggests that although China was the main broker of peace between Saudi Arabia and Iran, Russia certainly played a role in reconciliation efforts.

Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are three leading oil and gas producers and are accelerating their search for payment mechanisms to bypass the US dollar. China, for their part, is already discussing such arrangements with Saudi Arabia and Iran.

The decline of the US dollar as a world currency will weaken the American economy and military power. This in turn will cripple the US’ ability to wage perpetual wars abroad and impose its global hegemony.

Just as importantly, reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran can be seen as a precursor to eventually joining BRICS in the near future. It is recalled that BRICS plans to decide this year whether to admit new members and under what conditions.

Although BRICS collectively accounts for 42% of the world’s population and 24% of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP), they collectively hold less than 15% of voting rights in both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which are Western dominated. By admitting Saudi Arabia and Iran, BRICS’s global status will be elevated even higher as a symbol of not only peace and reconciliation, but also a path to prosperity independent of Western domination.

Ahmed Adel is an Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

March 20, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

PM Orbán: ‘Europe suffers from war psychosis’

Remix News | March 17, 2023

The main issue facing Europe today is war, which puts Hungary in a difficult situation, as the effects of war are severe and immediate, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said at a meeting of the Organization of Turkic States summit in Ankara.

The prime minister stressed that, unfortunately, Europe was suffering from a “war psychosis,” with the continent drifting further into war day by day. Orbán thanked the leaders of the Turkish states for strengthening the voice of peace. Hungary — on account of its population’s Asian origins — is an honorary member of the Organization of Turkic States.

Orbán thanked Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who, he said, had so far been able to mediate successfully between the warring parties, and called on him to continue his efforts in the future.

“Only in this way can we have a chance for peace,” Orbán said. He also thanked the Turkish president for the fact that Hungary and Turkey could coordinate their work within NATO.

Hungary’s geographical proximity to the war has placed the issue of pursuing peace at the top of the agenda for Hungary, according to Orbán.

“Ukraine is a neighboring state, and the effects of the war are therefore severe and direct, with inflation skyrocketing and energy prices at an all-time high,” he said, adding that “many Hungarians have now died in the war because men from the Hungarian community in western Ukraine are also being conscripted into the army.”

“For Hungary, the most important thing is to save human lives, and that is why we are advocating a ceasefire as soon as possible and peace negotiations.”

At the same time, the prime minister expressed the view that what is happening in Europe is more than just war, because in fact, “the whole of Europe is being reshuffled in terms of power relations,” and this will also have repercussions for Turkey. He added that Hungary is also seeing another threat: “There are processes going on in the world economy that could lead to a new global balance.”

He said that the segmentation of the world economy is against Hungary’s interests, and Hungary sees its future not in segmentation, but in acting in the collective interest and improving interconnectivity.

“The Turk states can play a key role in this, because here we are European, Caucasian and Central Asian countries connected to each other on the basis of mutual respect, setting a good example for the whole world,” the prime minister said in his speech.

March 20, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

President Xi’s Trip To Moscow Solidifies The Sino-Russo Entente

By Andrew Korybko | March 20, 2023

The impending trifurcation of International Relations will result in the formation of three de facto New Cold War blocs: The US-led West’s Golden Billion, the Sino-Russo Entente, and the informally Indian–led Global South. Intrepid readers can review the preceding hyperlinked analysis to learn more about the grand strategic dynamics behind this latest phase of the global systemic transition, while the present one will elaborate on those connected to the Russian-Chinese Strategic Partnership in particular.

These two Eurasian Great Powers had already closely aligned their foreign and economic policies far before Russia was forced to commence its special operation in Ukraine last year after NATO clandestinely crossed its red lines there and refused to diplomatically resolve their security dilemma. This was due to their shared multipolar vision, which in turn resulted in Moscow synchronizing its Greater Eurasian Partnership (GEP) with Beijing’s Belt & Road Initiative (BRI).

The purpose behind doing so was to supercharge multipolar processes across the supercontinent with a view towards making International Relations more democratic, equal, just, and predictable a lot sooner than even the most optimistic observers could have expected. None of this was driven by anti-Western animosity either since both of them envisaged the EU and US playing pragmatic roles in this emerging world order, which is proven by their proactive engagement of each over the years.

Russia expected that it could diplomatically resolve its security dilemma with the US over NATO’s expansion simultaneously with encouraging it and the EU to get Kiev to implement the Minsk Accords, thus ending the then-Ukrainian Civil War and optimizing trans-Eurasian trade. Meanwhile, many EU countries joined BRI and China even clinched an investment pact with the bloc, all while seeking to diplomatically resolve its own security dilemma with the US and work out a new trade deal with it.

Had the US formulated its grand strategy with mutually beneficial economically driven outcomes in mind instead of remaining under the influence of Brzezinski’s zero-sum divide-and-rule teachings, then everything could have been much different. That declining unipolar hegemon could have responsibly carved out a comfortable niche in the new era of globalization that Russia and China were jointly seeking to pioneer, thus ensuring that the global systemic transition smoothly moved towards multipolarity.

Regrettably, liberal–globalist members of the US’ military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) continued to believe that Brzezinski’s geostrategic schemes could successfully reverse the aforesaid transition and thus indefinitely retain their country’s dominant position in International Relations. This explains why they subsequently sought to “contain” Russia and China at the same time by worsening regional disputes instead of reciprocating those two’s efforts to peacefully resolve them.

The decision was eventually made to prioritize Russia’s “containment” over China’s with the expectation that the first would either strategically capitulate to NATO’s blackmail campaign or quickly collapse due to sanctions if it resorted to military force for defending its red lines in Ukraine, thus making China’s successful “containment” a fait accompli in that scenario and therefore preserving the US’ hegemony. Where everything went wrong was that the West never prepared for a protracted conflict in Ukraine.

Russia proved much more resilient in all respects than the Golden Billion expected, ergo why they’re panicking that the over $100 billion that they’ve already given to their proxies in Kiev isn’t anywhere near enough for defeating that Eurasian Great Power. The New York Times admitted last month that the sanctions failed just like their “isolation” campaign did, while the NATO chief recently declared a “race of logistics” and the Washington Post finally told the truth about just how poorly Kiev’s forces are faring.

Amidst the past year of international proxy hostilities that the West itself provoked, the globalized system upon which China’s grand strategy depended was unprecedentedly destabilized by their unilateral sanctions regime that’s responsible for the food and fuel crises across the Global South. This influenced President Xi to seriously consider a “New Détente” with the US, which he initiated during last November’s G20 Summit in Bali after he met with Biden and a bunch of other Western leaders.

To be absolutely clear, this well-intended effort wasn’t meant to reverse any of the multipolar progress that China was responsible for over the past decade but purely to pursue a series of mutual compromises aimed at establishing a “new normal” in their ties so as to restore stability to globalization. In other words, it was about buying time for the world’s top two economies to recalibrate their grand strategies, ideally in the direction of working more closely together for everyone’s sake.

Their talks unexpectedly ended in early February, however, after the black swan event that’s known as the balloon incident. This saw anti-Chinese hardliners in the US suddenly ascend to policymaking prominence, thus dooming the “New Détente”, which resulted in China recalibrating its approach to the NATO-Russian proxy war to the point where President Xi, Foreign Minister Qin, and Ambassador to the EU Fu all concluded that it’s part of the US’ anti-Chinese “containment” strategy.

Under these newfound circumstances, the US consolidated its successfully reasserted hegemony over the EU by getting Germany to go along with Washington’s very strongly implied threats that the Golden Billion will sanction China if it decides to arm Russia should Moscow require such aid as a last resort. In response, China felt compelled to consolidate its strategic partnership with Russia to the point of turning it into an entente, hence the purpose of President Xi’s trip to work out the finer details of this.

Just like these two Great Powers earlier synchronized Russia’s GEP and China’s BRI, so too are they now poised to synchronize the first’s Global Revolutionary Manifesto with the second’s global initiatives on development, security, and civilization. This prediction is predicated on the articles that Presidents Putin and Xi published in one another’s national media on the eve of the latter’s trip to Moscow, which confirms that they intend to cooperate more closely than ever before.

Observers can therefore expect the Sino-Russo Entente to solidify into one of the world’s three premier poles of influence as a result of the Chinese leader’s visit, thus making it a milestone in the New Cold War over the direction of the global systemic transition. The worldwide struggle between this pole and the Golden Billion will intensify, especially in the Global South, which will reinforce India’s importance in helping fellow developing states balance between both and thus bring about true tripolarity.

March 20, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

US decides whether or not Kiev should negotiate peace

By Lucas Leiroz | March 20, 2023

The announcement of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow to meet Vladimir Putin is shaking Western war plans. After presenting a peace project, the Chinese government now demonstrates that it is considering Russian interests in the conflict as relevant, which is why the country’s president decided to go to Moscow. As well known, peace and Russian interests are inadmissible points for the Collective West, which is why an important American official has already publicly declared that any Chinese peace proposal must be automatically rejected by Ukraine. The case shows quite clearly that the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev is just a proxy for NATO, not having the capacity to decide sovereignly whether or not to negotiate an agreement.

According to John Kirby, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, any Chinese ceasefire proposal must be considered unacceptable after Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow. Kirby believes that the Chinese gesture and conversations with Putin in person before Zelensky demonstrate that Beijing is writing a peace proposal that takes into account only Russian interests, possibly seeking to ensure the preservation of Russian territorial gains so far. That, for Kirby, would make any dialogue unfeasible.

More than that, the spokesperson sees the growing Russian-Chinese cooperation as an attempt to end the “rules-based order” and reverse the legacy of post-WWII international society. According to him, Russia and China “don’t like” the order built by the “US and its allies” and want to rewrite the world according to new guidelines with the current partnership being a part of this process.

“If, coming out of this meeting, there’s some sort of call for a ceasefire, well that’s just gonna be unacceptable, because all that’s gonna do is ratify Russia’s conquests to date. All that’s gonna do is give Mr. Putin more time to refit, retrain, remain and try to plan for renewed offensives at a time of his choosing (…) We hope, and we’ve said this before – that President Xi will call and talk to President Zelensky, because we believe the Chinese need to get the Ukrainian perspective here (…) There’s no question [that Russia and China] are chafing against this international rules-based order that the United States and so many of our allies and partners have built up since the end of World War II. They don’t like that. They’d like to rewrite the rules of the game globally and they have been increasing their cooperation and their relationship, certainly of late”, Kirby said.

It is curious to analyze how Kirby tries to transform simple things into something absurd, illogical and condemnable. Indeed, Russia and China plan to change the current world order – not because they are averse to the idea of a world guided by diplomacy and international law, but because the order that has prevailed in recent decades is essentially unipolar. There are no real “rules” in the prevailing order – there is only the unilateral will of the US being imposed on all nations. This is obviously something the Russians and Chinese want to change, as they plan for their countries to have absolute sovereignty over their territories and preserve a regional zone of influence, without interference from foreign powers.

It is not about “not liking” what the “US and its allies” built in the post-WWII, but critically understanding that since the end of the Cold War the US has acted as a hegemonic power at the global level, with carte blanche to commit crimes, coups d’état, invasions and wars, while all other states have their freedom restricted by what is called “rules” – which are not applicable to Washington. This is something that needs to be changed and indeed Russian-Chinese cooperation works in this direction.

On the other hand, it is interesting to see how the US decides whether or not Kiev should negotiate peace. If Ukraine is indeed a sovereign state, as the West hypocritically claims when it condemns Russia’s reintegration referendums in the east, then it is the Zelensky government that must decide whether or not to accept a ceasefire, regardless of the circumstances and imposed conditions. However, once again it is clear that the Kiev regime is only a proxy in NATO’s war with Russia, having no authority to decide whether or not to continue fighting.

Indeed, it is absolutely rational for the Chinese to pay more attention to Russian interests and talk to Putin before Zelensky. Moscow is winning the war and the winning side naturally needs to have its interests heard first during a peace negotiation. This is a basic principle of diplomacy, but the West insists on ignoring it both because it needs to publicly maintain the “Ukrainian victory” narrative and because it wants the conflict to prolong indefinitely.

Lucas Leiroz, journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.

You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.

March 20, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

RASH OF NEW BILLS SIGNAL PARENTAL RIGHTS WAR

The Highwire with Del Bigtree | March 16, 2023

American families have been in a battle to protect their children from an overreaching public health apparatus for years. Now, backlash is growing against bills targeting parental rights, in the form of multiple bills written to protect and affirm parental choice.

#ParentalConsent #Choice #MedicalFreedom

March 20, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Video | , , | Leave a comment

Heavily Criticised Pro-lockdown Paper Cited Far More Than Anti-lockdown Papers

BY NOAH CARL | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | MARCH 13, 2023

Formal scientific institutions took a battering during the pandemic, and deservedly so. From the wildly inaccurate predictions of SAGE modellers to the denial of natural immunity by signatories of the John Snow Memorandum, ‘Science’ (uppercase ‘s’) has not had a good three years.

A particularly striking illustration of this is citation patterns in the scientific literature. If things were working well, the best studies would get cited the most. Unfortunately, that appears not to be the case: citations have flowed disproportionately to studies that uphold The Narrative.

In June, 2020, researchers from Imperial College London (including our old friend Neil Ferguson) published a paper in the prestigious journal Nature titled ‘Estimating the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 in Europe’.

They concluded – on the basis of a complex model-fitting exercise – that lockdowns had saved the lives of 3.1 million people across 11 European countries. That’s right, 3.1 million lives saved, and during the first three months of the pandemic alone.

Doesn’t sound very plausible, does it? After all, Sweden didn’t lock down, and they saw about as many deaths – or even fewer – than the countries that did lockdown. So how did the researchers get to the figure of 3.1 million lives saved?

As Philippe Lemoine notes, they just assumed that death numbers would have been far greater in the absence of lockdowns, and then took the difference between those numbers and the ones that were actually observed, and concluded the difference was due to lockdowns. Okay, but what about Sweden?

Well, the researchers fit a model in which the effect of different interventions could vary from country to country. And while Sweden didn’t have a lockdown, they did have a ban on public gatherings (of more than 500 people). So in the researchers’ model, Sweden’s ban on public gatherings ended up having the same impact as lockdown in all the other countries.

They were effectively claiming that, in France, Italy, the UK etc., lockdowns succeeded in preventing hundreds of thousands of deaths, but in Sweden, the same effect was achieved by simply banning public gatherings. Like I said, not very plausible. In fact, it’s preposterous.

The paper has been heavily criticised. However, that hasn’t stopped it being cited 2779 times! Most researchers don’t get that many citations in their entire career, let alone on a single paper.

Now let’s look at the number of citations accrued by papers finding that lockdowns didn’t have much effect.

Simon Wood’s paper ‘Did COVID-19 infections decline before UK lockdown?’ concluded that “infections were in decline before full UK lockdown”. It has been cited a total of 40 times (across two different versions).

Christian Bjørnskov’s paper ‘Did Lockdown Work? An Economist’s Cross-Country Comparison’ found “no clear association between lockdown policies and mortality development”. It has been cited a total of 57 times.

Eran Bendavid and colleagues’ paper ‘Assessing mandatory stay-at-home and business closure effects on the spread of COVID-19’ did “not find significant benefits on case growth of more restrictive NPIs”. It has been cited a total of 205 times.

Christopher Berry and colleagues’ paper ‘Evaluating the effects of shelter-in-place policies during the COVID-19 pandemic’ did “not find detectable effects of these policies on disease spread or deaths”. It has been cited a total of 68 times.

While none of these papers is perfect, they’re all vastly more rigorous than the Imperial College study published in Nature. Despite this, none of them has garnered even 1/10th as many citations as that study.

Something has gone seriously wrong when a flawed study gets almost three thousand citations, while more rigorous studies only pick up a few dozen. As to what explains this disparity, I can only speculate that most scientists haven’t come to terms with the fact that the ‘experts’ dropped the ball.

March 19, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Courage of the teacher who refused to make his pupils wear masks

By Harry Hopkins | TCW Defending Freedom | March 14, 2023

Right from the outset of the ‘plandemic’ there have been those who recognised the evil in what was going on and who, in their own ways, have been making every effort to resist. Across the world many people have lost their jobs and their businesses, but perhaps giving up one’s livelihood on principle is the supreme act that a person with moral courage can do to oppose the enemy that confronts us.

There have been many such brave souls and Mark (not his real name) is such a person. A teacher at a large secondary school in Yorkshire, he realised that he would have difficulty doing his job when testing and then masking of his pupils was mandated. These instructions came from the local authority and were expected to be introduced without question. There were other teachers, too, who had grave misgivings, but they were in the minority and were openly mocked.

All teachers were given instructions about the distribution of testing kits and to organise pupil seating plans which had to be adhered to. All staff were expected to wear a face covering; there was no consultation about this. In the spring term of 2021 a box of testing kits arrived in Mark’s classroom, which he left untouched as the holiday was just about to start. On return from holiday he decided to write to the head teacher about his concerns, and you can read his email here.

Not only did the head not reply to this letter, but he didn’t speak to Mark again. Instead, he sent a teaching assistant, who was full on-narrative and was wearing two masks plus a visor, to admonish him for not complying. In Mark’s own words:

‘She commenced by bellowing instructions to maskless pupils to cover their faces. She glanced at me, clearly expecting a reaction. How could I possibly allow these potential vectors of death to be in school without covering their faces? I had never, and still have never instructed a child to obstruct their airways. It is a line I simply cannot cross. I suspect my response was neither wanted nor expected, since it appeared to make her address the children with yet more venom. I turned and smiled at the children instead who smiled back me. These confused souls seemed to prefer my smile to this clown’s anger, despite not being able to see her face.

‘I’m not seeking praise or recognition or anything at all here, I simply cannot in good conscience do it. As the school year progressed, things didn’t improve. Every few weeks she would arrive to carry out the task, a task that she clearly felt I should be doing and one I had no grounds to refuse. After she left the room, the masks would come down and an ever-increasing number of testing kits were discarded by the kids into the bin each time. My attitude was clearly causing an issue for some members of staff; many would blank me as we crossed in the corridor, and entering the staffroom sometimes felt like the scene from the movie An American Werewolf in London when the tourists walk into the Slaughtered Lamb pub and everyone suddenly stops talking to stare.’

When you read these words, describing the experience of a dedicated teacher who was untouched by the brainwashing that resulted in utter cruelty being inflicted on children across the country, it makes you shudder in disbelief. For Mark to maintain his moral stance in the face of such disgraceful behaviour from his colleagues surely speaks volumes for his strength of character. How on earth he managed to carry on, day after day, in the face of such hostility is a credit to his courage and steadfastness, not to mention his dedication to his pupils.

In July the headmaster was off work because he had tested positive for Covid. In his absence his deputies, clearly relishing the authority, upped the ante from passive-aggression to a decidedly more unpleasant tack. Mark’s pupil-centred teaching technique was deemed unsafe because he was not wearing a mask, did not sport PPE and was doing his best to help the kids in his charge by behaving in a ‘normal’ manner. He was told to go home, take a test or, if he preferred not to get tested, then allow other teachers to cover his classes for two weeks.

Confronted with such stupidity and total lack of any humanity regarding the care of pupils, Mark was pushed over the edge when another masked deputy began haranguing him about following ‘the science’. An argument ensued. It was the final straw and he collected his belongings and left for good.

It’s interesting to note that the decision to impose masks on schoolchildren in England was not ‘following the science’ at all but rather was purely for political expediency: ‘Face masks introduced in English secondary schools to avoid “argument” with Sturgeon’.

Mark gave up a career that he enjoyed tremendously because he would not subject his pupils to the Covid madness. The welfare of the children in his charge was always at the centre of his actions and he could not, in all conscience, inflict the insanity of masks, tests and distancing on his young charges.

As a conclusion, it is heartening to say that Mark now works as a supply teacher and devotes much time to opposing the narrative with practical actions. The wonderful thing from his point of view is that he stood by his conscience and has the satisfaction of going forward knowing that he kept his soul intact. One wonders how his headmaster, his deputies and other teachers who inflicted these despicable practices on young, impressionable youngsters justify their behaviour now that the truth about the Covid crimes is breaking by the day. Did they keep their souls intact? I think not.

March 19, 2023 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

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