Xi Jinping ends landmark KSA visit by calling on Arab states to embrace multipolar world
The Cradle | December 10, 2022
Chinese President Xi Jinping left Saudi Arabia early on 10 December following a three-day visit that saw him attend three different summits with leaders from across West Asia and Africa.
On Friday night, Xi headed the first China-Arab States Summit, which saw a large majority of Arab League heads of state attend in a bid to strengthen bilateral ties with the Asian giant.
“As strategic partners, China and Arab states should … foster a closer China-Arab community with a shared future, so as to deliver greater benefits to their peoples and advance the cause of human progress,” the Chinese president said during his keynote speech.
Xi also called on Arab states to remain “independent and defend their common interests,” adding that China “supports Arab states in independently exploring development paths suited to their national conditions and holding their future firmly in their own hands.”
“China is ready to deepen strategic mutual trust with Arab states, and firmly support each other in safeguarding sovereignty, territorial integrity and national dignity,” Xi said, noting that the two sides should “jointly uphold the principle of non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs, practice true multilateralism, and defend the legitimate rights and interests of developing countries.”
The Chinese leader also urged leaders from West Asia and Africa to embrace “synergy between their development strategies, and promote high-quality [cooperation in the Belt and Road Initiative].”
Launched nine years ago, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is considered the crown jewel of Xi’s long-term foreign policy agenda. The stated aim of the mega-infrastructure project is to bring capital and infrastructure to Global South countries while dramatically strengthening connectivity for commerce, finance, and culture.
The BRI also aims to secure markets for Chinese companies, stable supplies of inputs for Chinese factories, and productive outlets for China’s large foreign exchange holdings. Close to 150 nations across the globe have signed on to participate in the BRI.
For the first half of 2022, Saudi Arabia was the biggest recipient of China’s finance and investment spending in the BRI.
Ahead of the China-Arab Summit on Friday, the Chinese president met with leaders from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). During this summit, he urged the oil and gas giants to conduct energy sales in the Chinese yuan, potentially divorcing the US dollar from bilateral transactions.
He also vowed to import more oil and natural gas from Gulf Arab states while not interfering in their affairs, a departure from Washington’s long-standing policy of interference and domination.
Xi later took the opportunity to express China’s support for the end of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and voiced frustration over the “historical injustice” suffered by Palestinians.
“It is not possible to continue the historical injustice suffered by the Palestinians,” the Chinese president said on Friday.
He went on to call on the international community to grant Palestine “full membership in the United Nations” and said Beijing “supports the two-state solution and the establishment of a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.”
Beijing’s emergence as a major superpower since the turn of the century has proven to be critically important for Arab states, prompting them to diversify their strategic objectives and balance themselves away from a decades-long Western dependency.
Iran against the West’s hybrid warfare
By Viktor Mikhin – New Eastern Outlook – 10.12.2022
Western countries, above all the United States, are seeking to replicate Afghanistan and Iraq scenario in Iran, creating chaos to destroy the country and loot its resources, Scott Bennett, a former US Army Special Operations Officer, said honestly and truthfully. “The West is fully committed to an absolute chaotic breakdown of Iranian government, religious, and military sectors in Iran, as they did in Afghanistan and then Iraq, in order for chaos to be created and Iran be divided up into regions for national resources theft,” Scott Bennett told the Tehran Times. He also stressed that Israel is the main instigator of Western hostility and maneuvers against Iran, using these tensions to carry out its attacks in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.
It is becoming increasingly clear that a campaign of domestic terrorism is being unleashed against Iran under the guise of fake protests allegedly in defense of “human rights,” as has been done in Syria by the United States, Israel and NATO. The same powers are using similar methods and the same mercenaries to participate in the attempted color revolution, the operation to change the Iranian regime. Most likely, these terrorists are a combination of Wahhabi fanatics, Israeli Mossad, Likud party supporters, supported by the US CIA, British MI6 intelligence and some elements in Iraq, terrorists from al-Qaeda, al-Nusra, not destroyed ISIS (that is, the three banned in the Russian Federation), other mercenaries and thugs hired and paid for by the West.
The plan is for foreign terrorists to infiltrate Iran and cause internal strife, tribal and sectarian enmity, conflict between Shia, Sunnis, Alawites, Christians, Jews and Kurds living in Iran. The main areas targeted for fomenting unrest, conflict and violence are precisely in those parts of Iran where there is a mixed population. Mobile phones, social media and Western media are heavily used in the process. The beginning was the emergence of a women’s protest movement over a false allegation that a woman had allegedly died under police torture, when in fact she had died of medical complications caused by a previous serious illness.
The specifics of hybrid warfare, as Scott Bennett argues, are a combination of small-scale operations that take the form of diplomatic, information, military and economic action against Iran to create leverage that can then be used to destabilize the government and create chaos in Iran. On the diplomatic front, hostile statements in the United Nations, various NATO and European Union structures will increasingly be used to spread propaganda and disinformation to other countries about Iran, about alleged abuses of “human rights,” about nuclear programs aimed at undermining Western hegemony and security.
Numerous analysts acknowledge that NATO and the EU are strengthening their defense capabilities not only in Europe, but also abroad, including in the Gulf region. President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen recently outlined elements of a new European security doctrine, the EU and NATO approach to security in the Persian Gulf. Her remarks at the Manama Dialogue in Bahrain on November 18 reflect what is widely seen as a new and aggressive approach aimed at further escalating tensions in the region, taking advantage of the extremely hostile attitude of many countries there towards Iran.
One can also see how Israel under the Netanyahu regime is stepping up aggressive air attacks against Syria and continuing to invade Iraqi and Persian Gulf airspace as probing maneuvers against Iran. The Israeli and US air forces will conduct their biggest joint air exercise in years, simulating strikes against Iran. Fighter aircraft from both countries will simulate long-range flights and strikes against distant targets, enhancing readiness for combat scenarios with Iran. In recent years, the Israel Defense Forces and US Central Command have already conducted several joint exercises, practicing strikes against Iran.
In July this year, President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Yair Lapid signed a joint declaration on the US-Israeli strategic partnership, also known as the Jerusalem Declaration. It emphasizes the US commitment “never to allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon, and that it is prepared to use all elements of its national power to ensure that.” Subsequent joint exercises were the subject of meetings in Washington between IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Aviv Kochavi and US officials, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley and CENTCOM Commander General Michael Kurilla.
Some NIS 3.5 billion ($1 billion) has been allocated from the IDF’s NIS 58 billion ($17 billion) defense budget for military activities next year related to alleged strikes on Iran. Outgoing Minister of Defense Benny Gantz had earlier warned newly appointed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “consider issue very carefully” before launching a strike on Iran. “Israel has the ability to act in Iran. We have the readiness, development capabilities, and long-term plans we are managing. We need to prepare for this possibility, and we will also need to consider this issue very carefully before carrying it out,” he said.
All of the above quite clearly supports the argument that it is Israel that is the main source of Western hostility and maneuvering against Iran and is using these tensions to carry out attacks in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq.
Color revolutions are usually the target of aggressive campaigns by the West, and hybrid wars are smoke and fire to create cover and distractions to create conditions, chaos and tensions to launch these color revolutions. Hybrid wars include the conflict the US has created in Iraq between various tribes and religious sects, and in Libya and Syria, where foreign mercenaries from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Israel and Turkey were hired, funded and trained by the CIA and Pentagon under General Lloyd Austin, now Secretary of Defense. The aim of these operations was to create tension, chaos, conflict and enmity between peoples in the regions so that natural wealth could be stolen. Suffice it to look at the history of these operations over the past 20 years: Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen. And now Ukraine and Iran of course represent the next target of this Western program of color revolutions, and therefore an international coalition is needed to counter such hostile actions.
Washington obstructs peace in Yemen as it profits from war: Ansarallah
The Cradle | December 8, 2022
The leader of Yemen’s Ansarallah resistance movement, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, accused the US of obstructing the path for a comprehensive peace process in Yemen, calling the western nation “the root of the problem.”
“[Ceasefire talks] are stalled because of the US, who are the root of the problem, as it benefits from the war and only wants a peace deal that benefits their interests, this type of peace means surrender to us,” Al-Houthi said during a televised speech on 7 December.
“The Americans, the Israelis, the British, and their regional puppets want Yemen to be occupied and submissive to them … The enemies want to set up their bases anywhere in Yemen, control its infrastructure and make the political field subject to their interests, to the extent that they choose who can be president or prime minister,” the resistance leader went on to add.
In April of this year, Riyadh strong-armed ousted Yemeni president Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi to give up his powers to an unelected, Saudi-appointed presidential council, led by Rashad al-Alimi, who Ansarallah leaders christened “the man of America.”
During Wednesday’s speech, Al-Houthi also accused the US-backed coalition – headed by Saudi Arabia and the UAE – of plundering Yemen’s oil and gas resources in order to keep Yemenis living in misery, while “hundreds of billions go to US and European companies.”
Last year, Yemen’s Oil and Minerals Ministry estimated that the country’s oil and gas sector has lost around $45.5 billion in revenue since the start of the Saudi-led war. According to officials in Sanaa, the kingdom deprives Yemen of at least 75 percent of the state budget revenues.
Over the past year, a large number of Saudi and Emirati oil tankers have made their way to Yemeni ports in the provinces of Shabwa and Hadhramaut in order to seize millions of dollars worth of the country’s oil.
The Saudi-led coalition not only plunders Yemen’s oil and gas from the occupied regions – in coordination with US and French troops – but also often seizes UN-approved fuel shipments headed for the Ansarallah-controlled port of Hodeidah.
Moreover, thanks to the normalization agreement signed between Israel and the UAE, Tel Aviv has been deploying troops to the Arab world’s poorest nation.
“They do not want an army that protects the independence and sovereignty of Yemen, they only want groups of fighters under the command of Emirati and Saudi officers, who themselves are under the command of American, British, and Israeli officers,” Al-Houthi said about the increased presence of hegemonic powers in Yemen.
“We cannot accept for Yemen to be occupied, or for the Americans, British, Emiratis, and Saudis to come and set up bases wherever they want,” the resistance leader stressed, before adding that Yemen’s enemies want the country to join the group of Arab nations who have normalized ties with Israel at the expense of the Palestinian people and of several of Yemen’s allies in West Asia.
“Iran did not attack us. Rather, it declared solidarity with our people, a position distinct from all other countries … [The enemies] want us to be hostile to Hezbollah, which took a most honorable position with us. They want us to be hostile to the free people of Iraq who have done nothing against us,” Al-Houthi declared.
He went on to highlight that Sanaa will not be hostile to any Islamic country “for the sake of America and Israel … We are not like the Saudis, Emiratis, and Al-Khalifa in Bahrain, we do not receive directives from America.”
Al-Houthi finished his speech by hinting at the military response of Ansarallah and the Yemeni Armed Forces against any escalation, saying that “any next round of fighting will be greater than all previous ones.”
Xi’s visit and the future of the Middle East
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | December 7, 2022
The problem with most Western media’s political analyses is that they generally tend to be short-sighted and focused mostly on variables that are of direct interest to Western governments.
These types of analyses are now being applied to understanding official Arab attitudes towards Russia, China, global politics and conflicts.
As Chinese President Xi Jinping prepares to lead a large delegation to meet with Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia on 9 December, Western media conveys a sense of dread.
The Chinese leader’s visit “comes against the backdrop” of the Biden Administration’s “strained ties with both Beijing and Riyadh” over differences, supposedly concerning “human rights and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” Reuters reported.
The same line of reasoning was parroted, with little questioning, by many other major Western media sources, falsely suggesting that ‘human rights’, along with other righteous reasons, are the main priority of the US and Western foreign policy agenda.
And, since these analyses are often shaped by Western interests, they tend to be selective in reading the larger context. If one is to rely exclusively or heavily on the Western understanding of the massive geopolitical changes around the world, one is sure to be misled. Western media wants us to believe that the strong political stances taken by Arab countries – neutrality in the case of war, growing closeness to China and Russia, lowering oil output, etc – are done solely to ‘send a message‘ to Washington, or to punish the West for intervening in Arab affairs.
Seen through a wider lens, however, these assumptions are either half-truths or entirely fabricated. For example, the OPEC+ decision to lower oil output on 5 October was the only reasonable strategy to apply when the global market’s demand for energy is low. Additionally, Arab neutrality is an equally reasonable approach considering that Washington and its Western allies are not the only global forces that matter to the Arabs. It is equally untrue that the Middle East’s growing affinity with Asia is borne out of recent dramatic events, but a process that began nearly two decades ago, specifically a year following the US invasion of Iraq.
In 2004, China and the Arab League established the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum.
CASCF officially represented the Chinese government and all 22 members of the Arab League, eventually serving as the main coordination platform between China and the Arabs. This has given China the advantage of investing in a collective strategy to develop trade, economic and political ties with the entirety of the Arab world. On the other hand, Arabs, too, had the leverage of negotiating major economic deals with China that could potentially benefit multiple Arab states simultaneously.
An extremely important caveat is that CASCF was predicated in what is known as the “Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence.” Based on the Westphalian norms of state sovereignty, the five principles seem to be founded on an entirely different paradigm of foreign relations, compared to the West’s approach to the Middle East and the Global South, in general, extending from the colonial periods to the neo-colonialism of post-World War II: mutual respect for “territorial integrity and sovereignty”, “non-aggression”, “non-interference”, and so on.
Chinese-Arab relations continue to follow this model to this day, with very little deviation. This validates the claim that collective Arab political attitudes towards China and Xi’s visit to the Middle East are hardly an outcome of any sudden shift of policies resulting from the Russia-Ukraine war of recent months.
This is not to suggest that Arab and Chinese relations with the US and the West had no impact on the nature of the speed of Chinese-Arab ties. Indeed, the Chinese model of ‘peaceful coexistence’ seems to challenge the henceforth modus operandi at work in the Middle East.
In 2021, China announced projects to build a thousand schools in Iraq, a piece of news that occupied substantial space in Arab media coverage. The same can be said about China’s growing economic – not just trade – influence in Arab countries.
China’s lucrative Belt and Road Initiative, announced in 2013, fits seamlessly into the political infrastructure of Arab-Chinese ties, which were built in previous years. According to the Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, Riyadh was the largest recipient of Chinese investments within the BRI during the first half of 2022.
Starting in March, Saudi Arabia agreed in principle to sell its oil to China using the Chinese Yuan instead of the US dollar. When implemented, this decision will have irreversible repercussions on the global market but also on the future status of the dollar.
Assuming that such mammoth changes in global geopolitics were an outcome of the immediate need for the Arabs to ‘send a message’ will continue to impair the West’s ability to truly appreciate that the changes underway, not only in the Middle East but worldwide, are part of permanent shifts to the world’s political map. The sooner the West achieves this realisation, the better.
Considering all of this, it would be unfair – in fact, misguided – to suggest that large political entities like China and Arab countries combined are shaping their foreign policy agendas, thus staking their futures, on knee-jerk political reactions to the attitude of a single American President or administration.
Russia, China slam Israel’s ‘disproportionate use of force’ against Palestinians
Press TV – November 29, 2022
Russia and China have strongly denounced Israeli regime’s excessive use of force against Palestinians amid heightened tensions in the occupied territories.
Speaking at a UN Security Council briefing on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian issue, Russia’s deputy UN ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy slammed Israel’i regime’s “disproportionate use of force” in the occupied Palestinian territories.
He also warned that the regime’s “unilateral steps”, including expansion of settlements, seizure of Palestinian property, demolition of Palestinian-owned housings, arbitrary arrests, violation of the status quo of al-Quds’ holy sites continue to create “irreversible facts on the ground”.
Polyanskiy further noted that Israeli regime’s “arbitrary illegitimate actions reach beyond the limits of West Bank and Gaza and affect the neighboring Arab states, whose sovereignty was violated on numerous occasions”, referring to Israeli strikes against Syria and Lebanon.
The envoy also slammed Washington, Tel Aviv’s staunch ally, for repeatedly blocking UN Security Council resolutions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“The Palestinian problem is … being driven out of the international agenda by the United States, who blocked the efforts of the Quartet of international intermediaries for the Middle East and precluded adoption of any meaningful decisions by the Security Council,” he asserted.
Speaking at the same meeting, China’s Ambassador to the UN envoy, Zhang Jun, also expressed his country “deep concern” about the deteriorating security situation in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Referring to 2022 being the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since 2005, Zhang said Beijing condemns “all indiscriminate attacks on civilians, deplores the grave violations against children, opposes the excessive use of force by security forces”, and called for holding the perpetrators accountable.
The ambassador also referred to dire humanitarian and economic situation in the Gaza Strip, urging Israel to lift its 15-year blockade on the coastal enclave.
“We call on Israel to ease restrictions on the movement of people and humanitarian, reconstruction materials into and out of the Gaza Strip, to lift the blockade on Gaza as soon as possible, and to effectively create conditions for the development of Palestinian communities in the West Bank,” said Zhang.
He also called for an end to Israeli settlement activities that he said is a roadblock in so-called two-state solution to the conflict.
“The continued expansion of settlement activities that encroach on the Palestinian land, swallow up Palestinian resources and violate Palestine’s right to self-determination have made a contiguous, independent and sovereign state of Palestine even more elusive,” he said.
“China urges Israel to cease all settlement activities and return to the right track of the two-state solution.”
Zhang urged the UNSC to “support the Palestinian people in restoring and exercising their inalienable rights”, saying “On issues concerning the future and fate of the Palestinian people, no one has the right to veto.”
Israeli forces have recently been conducting overnight raids and killings in the northern occupied West Bank, mainly in the cities of Jenin and Nablus, where new groups of Palestinian resistance fighters have been formed.
US-Turkiye brinkmanship won’t reach a point of no return
Conflict between Ankara and Washington over Syria will likely see the two drift apart, with Turkiye aligning more closely with Eurasian powers.
By MK Bhadrakumar | The Cradle | November 28, 2022
The series of airstrikes against Kurdish militants in northern Syria by Turkish jets in the past week come amid heightened concerns over Ankara’s threat to launch a ground operation. Such actions are not without precedent, yet have thus far achieved little in terms of eradicating the security challenges posed by US-backed Kurdish fighters.
Turkiye is today addressing an existential challenge to its national security and sovereignty, stemming from the United States’ quasi-alliance with Kurdish groups in Syria over the past decade – with whom Ankara has been battling for far longer.
However, this issue is playing out within a much broader regional backdrop today. Russia now has a permanent presence in Syria and is itself locked in an existential struggle with the US in Ukraine and the Black Sea. Iran-US tensions are also acute and President Joe Biden has openly called for the overthrow of the Iranian government.
Opposing the US occupation of Syria
Suffice to say, the Syrian government, which has demanded the removal of illegal US troops from one-third of its territory for years, enjoys a congruence of interests with Turkiye like never before, particularly in opposing the American military presence in Syria.
For the US, on the other hand, continued occupation of Syria is crucial in geopolitical terms, given that country’s geography on the northern tier of the West Asian region which borders Iran and the Caucasus to the north and east, Turkiye and the Black Sea to the north, Israel to the south, and the Eastern Mediterranean to the west.
All of that would have a great bearing on the outcome of the epochal struggle for the control of the Eurasian landmass – the Heartland and the Geographical Pivot of history as Sir Halford J. Mackinder once described it in evocative terms – by Washington and NATO to counter Russia’s resurgence and China’s rise.
China’s involvement in the Astana process
A curious detail at this point assumes larger-than-life significance in the period ahead: Beijing is messaging its interest in joining the Astana process on Syria. Moscow’s presidential envoy for Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev, stated recently that Russia is convinced that China’s involvement as an observer in the Astana format would be valuable.
Interestingly, Lavrentiev was speaking after the 19th international meeting on Syria in the Astana format with his counterparts from Turkiye and Iran on November 15.
“We believe that China’s participation in the Astana format would be very useful. Of course, we proposed this option. The Iranians agreed with this, while the Turkish side is considering it and has taken a pause before making a decision,” he explained.
Lavrentiev noted that Beijing could provide “some assistance as part of the Syrian settlement, improve the lives of Syrian citizens, and in reconstruction.”
The Chinese Foreign Ministry promptly responded to the Russian invitation, confirming that Beijing “attaches great importance to this format and is ready to work with all its participants to restore peace and stability in Syria.”
Lavrentiev didn’t miss the opportunity to taunt Washington, saying: “Of course, I believe that if the Americans returned to the Astana format, that would also be very useful. If two countries like the United States and China were present as observers in the Astana format, that would be a very good step, a good signal for the international community, and in general in the direction of the Syrian settlement.”
However, there is no question of the Biden Administration working with Russia, Turkiye, Iran, and China on a Syrian settlement at the present time. Reports keep appearing that the US has been transferring ISIS fighters from Syria to Ukraine to fight Russian forces, and to Afghanistan to stir up the pot in Central Asia.
The Astana troika are in unison, demanding the departure of US occupation forces from Syria. Moscow knows fully well too that the US hopes to work toward shuttering Russian bases in Syria.
Turkiye’s pursuit of the US’s Kurdish allies
In fact, the aerial operations in Syria that Ankara ordered last Sunday followed a terrorist strike in Istanbul a week ago by Kurdish separatists, killing at least six people and injuring more than 80 others. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said the air strikes were “just the beginning” and that his Armed Forces “will topple the terrorists by land at the most convenient time.”
Turkish security agencies have nabbed the bomber – a Syrian woman named Ahlam Albashir who was allegedly trained by the US military. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre hurriedly issued a statement to calm that storm: “The United States strongly condemns the act of violence that took place today in Istanbul, Turkiye.”
But Turkiye’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu reacted caustically to the American missive, saying that Washington’s condolence message was like “a killer being the first to show up at a crime scene.”
Conceivably, with Erdogan facing a crucial election in the coming months, the Biden Administration is pulling out all the stops to prevent the ruling AKP party from winning another mandate to rule Turkiye.
The Turkish “swing state” is crucial for US plans
The US feels exasperated with Erdogan for pushing ahead with independent foreign policies that could see Turkiye joining the BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and deepening his strategic ties with Russia and China – and most important, steadily mark distance from Washington and NATO’s containment strategies against Russia and China.
Turkiye has become a critically important “swing state” at this stage in the post-cold war era. Erdogan’s effort to bolster the country’s strategic autonomy lethally undermines the western strategy to impose its global hegemony.
While Erdogan keep’s Washington guessing about his next move, his airstrikes in northern Syria hit targets very close to US bases there. The Pentagon has warned that the strikes threaten the safety of American military personnel. The Pentagon statement represents the strongest condemnation by the US of its NATO ally in recent times.
Russian diplomacy forestalls Syria ground incursion
Unsurprisingly, Russia is acting as a moderating influence on Turkiye. Lavrentyev said last Wednesday that Moscow has tried to convince Ankara to “refrain from conducting full-scale ground operations” inside Syria. The Russian interest lies in encouraging Erdogan to engage with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and pool their efforts to curb the activities of Kurdish terrorists.
Indeed, the probability is low that Erdogan will order ground incursions into Syria. This also seems to be the assessment of local Kurdish groups.
US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) Commander Mazloum Kobane Abdi, who is the Pentagon’s key interlocutor in northern Syria, has been quoted as saying that while he has received intelligence that Turkiye has alerted its local proxies to prepare for a ground offensive, the Biden administration could still convince Erdogan to back off.
That said, Erdogan can make things difficult for the US and eventually even force the evacuation of its estimated 900 military troops, shutting down the Pentagon’s lucrative oil smuggling operation in Syria and abandoning its training camps for ex-ISIS fighters in northern and eastern Syria.
But the US is unlikely to take matters to a point of no return. A retrenchment in Syria at the present juncture will weaken the US regional strategies, not only in West Asia, but also in the adjoining Black Sea region and the Caucasus, in the southern periphery of the Eurasian landmass.
From Erdogan’s perspective too, it is not in his interest to burn bridges with the west. A bridge in disrepair remains a bridge nonetheless, which would have its selective uses for Erdogan in the times of multipolarity that lie ahead.
Israel to expand regional activities with US army
The Cradle | November 25, 2022
On 24 November, the Israeli Chief of Staff, General Aviv Kochavi, announced a significant expansion of joint activities with the US army in the region, indicating that Israel would work at a faster pace against the “positioning” of the Iranian government in the Middle East, according to Al-Arabiya news.
“To enhance our capabilities in the face of the challenges in the region, joint activity with CENTCOM will be significantly expanded in the near future. At the same time, the IDF will continue to act at an accelerated pace against the Iranian regime’s entrenchment in the region,” he said.
Kochavi returned from the United States on 24 November and met with US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley, with whom he discussed strengthening cooperation between the two military forces, according to Al-Arabiya.
The White House announced that US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met with Aviv Kochavi in Washington and discussed several issues during the meeting.
National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said in a statement on 21 November that Sullivan “affirmed the US administration’s firm support for Israel’s security, and the two sides exchanged views on a broad range of regional security issues of mutual interest.”
“Sullivan affirmed US President Joe Biden’s commitment to ensuring that Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon,” she added.
Meanwhile, The Times of Israel reported that Kochavi told US military officials that the two countries should accelerate what he described as “offensive operations plans” against Iran.
On 19 November, US Forces Central Command (CENTCOM) chief Michael Erik Kurilla announced in Bahrain that a US task force will deploy more than 100 unmanned vessels by 2023 to “help ensure maritime security” in the Gulf region’s strategic waters, according to Mehr News Agency.
“By this time next year, Task Force 59 will bring together a fleet of over 100 unmanned surface and subsurface vessels operating together, communicating together, and providing maritime domain awareness,” Kurilla announced during the annual Manama dialogue conference.
The Pentagon has also been collaborating with Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other nations in West Asia over the past eight months to create a network of unmanned drones to counter Iran in the Persian Gulf.
A Very Different Global State of Affairs Takes Hold
By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | November 21, 2022
How the world appears all depends on whether your gaze is firmly focussed on the hub of the wheel, or alternatively, were you to watch the wheel’s rotation around the hub – and the bearing it follows – you would see the world differently.
Looked at from a DC-centric perspective, all is still: Nothing (as it were), is moving geo-politically. Was there an election in the U.S.? Well, certainly there is no longer an ‘Election Day’ event as the new mechanics of ballots vs in-person voting, commencing up to 50 days earlier, and ploughing on, weeks after, has become far removed from the old notion of having ‘an election’, and an aggregate macro outcome.
From this ‘centric’ viewpoint, the Midterms change nothing – stasis.
So many of Biden’s policies were already in stone anyway – and beyond the ability of any Congress to change in the short run.
New legislation, if there were any, could be vetoed. And should the election ‘month’ end with the House controlled by Republicans and the Senate controlled by Democrats, there might not be any legislation at all, because of partisanship and an inability to compromise.
More to the point, Biden anyway can rule for the next 2 years through Executive Order and bureaucratic inertia – and not need the Congress at all. In other words, the composition of Congress may not matter that much.
But now, turn your gaze to the rotation around the ‘hub’, and what do you see? The rim spinning wildly. It seizes more and more traction on the ground and has clear directionality.
The biggest pivot around the hub? Well probably, President Xi of China travelling to Riyadh to meet Mohammad bin Salman (MbS). The wheel rim here digs deep for a firm grip on bedrock, as Saudi Arabia makes its pivot toward the BRICS. Xi likely is going to Riyadh to seal the details of Saudi’s accession to the BRICS and the terms of China’s future ‘Oil Accord’ with Saudi Arabia. And that may be the beginning to the end to the petrodollar system – as whatever is agreed in terms of the Chinese mode of payment for oil will mesh with Russo-Chinese plans eventually to move Eurasia onto a new trading currency (far away from the dollar).
Saudi Arabia gravitating BRICS-wards means other Gulf and Mid East – states such as Egypt – leaning BRICS-wards also.
Another pivot: The Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said after this week’s explosion in Istanbul: “We do not accept the condolence message of the U.S. Embassy. We understand the message that was given to us, we received the message that was given to us”. Soylu then dismissed the U.S. condolence as akin to “a killer being first to show up at a crime scene”.
Let’s be clear: The minister just told the U.S. to go sc**w itself. This unleashing of raw anger comes just as Turkey has agreed to join with Russia to establish a new gas hub in Turkey and is participating with Russia in a massive oil and gas investment and co-operation deal with Iran. Turkey too, is veering BRICS-wards.
And, as Turkey veers away from one ‘hub’, much of the Turkic sphere will take Turkey’s lead.
These two events – from Xi’s meeting with MbS’ thumbing his nose at the U.S., to Turkey’s fury at the terrorism in Istanbul – clearly dovetail together to mark a strategic Middle East pivot – both in terms of energy and monetary frameworks, towards the unfolding Eurasian free trade sphere.
Then comes the news from last Thursday: Iran says that it has developed a high-precision hypersonic missile. General Hajizadeh said the Iranian hypersonic ballistic missile can reach more than five times the speed of sound and, as such, it will be able to breach all present systems of anti-missile defence.
Simply put: Iran essentially already is a nuclear threshold state (but not a nuclear weapons state). The remarkable technical achievement of producing a hypersonic high-precision missile (which still eludes the U.S.), is a paradigm-changer.
Strategic nukes make no sense in a highly mix-populated, small Middle East – and now, there is no need for Iran to move towards becoming a weapons state. So, what would be the point to a complicated containment strategy (i.e. the JCPOA), oriented towards hindering an outcome that has become overtaken by new technology? A hypersonic ballistic missile capacity makes tactical nukes redundant. And hypersonic missiles are more effective; more easily deployed.
The problem for the U.S. and Israel is that Iran has done it – it has leaped beyond the JCPOA containment cage.
On top of that, a few days earlier, Iran also announced that it had launched a ballistic missile, carrying a satellite into space. If so, Iran now has ballistic missiles capable of reaching, not only Israel, but Europe too. Furthermore, Iran is reported to soon receive 60 SU-35 aircraft, as just one part to its rapidly evolving relationship with Russia, sealed last week with Nikolai Patrushev (Russia’s Security Council Secretary) in Tehran.
Again, to be clear, Russia has just acquired a highly potent kinetic force multiplier; access to Iran’s sanctions-busting rolodex of contacts and strategies, and a full partner to Moscow’s big play of Eurasia becoming a commodities super-oligopoly.
Simply put, as Iran enlists as a force multiplier to the Russia-China axis, so too will Iraq, Syria, Hizbullah and the Houthis slip along a somewhat similar trajectory.
Whilst the European ‘security architecture’ remains still frozen in a tight NATO, anti-Russian grip, West Asia’s security architecture is dissolving away from the old U.S. and Israeli-led hard polarisation of a Sunni sphere vs Shi’i Iran (i.e. the so-called Abraham Accords), and is re-forming around a new security architecture being shaped by Russia and China.
This makes sense. Turkey prizes its Turkic civilisational heritage. Iran clearly is a civilisational state, and MbS plainly wants his kingdom to be widely accepted as one, too (and not as just a U.S. dependency). The point of the SCO format is that it is ‘pro-autonomy’ and is opposed to any singularity of ideology. In fact, by being civilisational in concept, it becomes anti-ideological and opposed to tight binary (with us, or against us) alliances. Membership does not require endorsement of each other partner’s particular policies, provided they do not impinge on others’ sovereignty.
In effect, the whole of West Asia – to one degree or another – is being lifted up into this evolving Eurasian economic and security paradigm.
And, simply said, since Africa is already enlisted into the China camp, the African component to MENA is trending strongly Eurasia-wards, as well. The Global South’s affiliation too, largely can be taken for granted.
Where does this leave the old ‘hub’? It has Europe fully in its control. For now, yes…
However research published by France’s École de Guerre Economique suggests that whilst Europe has, since WW2, “lived in a state of the unspoken” in respect to its full-spectrum dependency on Washington, as Russia sanctions take their catastrophic effect on Europe, “a very different state of affairs takes hold”. Consequently, politicians, and the public alike, struggle to identify “who truly is their enemy”.
Well, the collective view, based on interviews with French intelligence experts (i.e. the French Deep State) is very clear: 97% percent consider the U.S. to be the foreign power that “most threatens” the “economic interests” of France. And they see it as a problem that must be resolved.
Of course, the U.S. will not easily let Europe go. Nonetheless, if parts of the Establishment can speak thus, then something is moving and afoot, beneath the surface. The report underlines naturally that the EU might have a trade surplus of 150 billion euros with the U.S., but the latter would never willingly allow this to translate into ‘strategic autonomy’. And any gain in autonomy is achieved against the constant backdrop of – and more than offset by – “strong geopolitical and military pressure” from the U.S. at all times.
Could the Nord Stream sabotage have been the straw that broke the camel’s back? In part, it was a trigger, but Europe hides its diverse old hatreds and long-nursed vindictiveness under ‘a Brussels lid of easy money’. But this pertains only so long as the EU remains a glorified ATM – states insert their debit-cards and withdraw cash. The concealed animosities are repressed, and monetarily lubricated into quiescence.
The ATM however, is in trouble (economic contraction, de-industrialisation and austerity cometh!); and as the ATM withdrawals’ window winnows down, so too the lid holding down the old animosities and tribal feelings will not hold for long. Indeed, the demons are rising – and are readily visible even now.
And finally, will the Washington ‘hub’ hold? Does it retain the resources to manage so many stress-test events – financial, systemic and political – all arriving synchronistically? We must wait to see.
In retrospect, the ‘Hub’ is not ‘on the move’. It has moved already. It is just that so many are stuck seeing an ‘empty space’ that once was occupied by something past, but which somehow still somehow lingers on, in visual memory, as a ‘shade’ of its earlier solidity.
Interview with US Ambassador Peter Ford
Free West Media | November 18, 2022
Steven Sahiounie of MidEastDiscourse interviewed Ambassador Peter Ford to hear his expert analysis of important issues developing in the region.
Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Turkey are neighbors in an increasingly unstable Middle East, in which Saudi Arabia plays a key role.
The US has meddled in the Middle East for decades and is responsible for the destruction of several countries who have not recovered from failed American policies.
Peter Ford served as the British ambassador to Bahrain from 1999 to 2003 and Syria from 2003 to 2006, and is currently the London-based Co-Chairman of the British Syrian Society. He is an Arabist with long established expertise in the Middle East.
Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies recently came back to power in “Israel”. In your opinion what does this mean for the Palestinians?
It makes no difference. Those who believe that one Israeli government is different from another are fools. Every Israeli government supports the occupation and practices repression. Any differences are purely optical.
That said, the participation of overt racists in Netanyahu’s government increases the chances that the US will distance itself from Israel in matters of secondary importance.
Lebanon is in the midst of a financial and social collapse. In your opinion, will the Israeli regime take advantage of the crisis and attack Lebanon?
Israel is already viciously attacking Lebanon – economically. The Israeli/US strategy is to avoid war, which they would lose, but instead to create enough suffering in Lebanon to make the Lebanese people turn against Hezbollah. In particular, they are trying to block oil reaching Lebanon from Iran. This is similar to their strategy towards Syria.
The UN Special Rapporteur has called for the end of sanctions on Syria because of the continuing suffering. Do you think there is any hope in removing the sanctions which are crippling the daily life of Syrians?
Sadly I see no prospect of sanctions on Syria being lifted or eased in the foreseeable future. It costs the US nothing to apply them and the US against all evidence persists in believing that sanctions weaken popular support for the Syrian government, or pretending to believe they weaken the government simply because it would be embarrassing to lift them. Lifting sanctions would look like an admission of failure and a concession to Russia and Iran.
Sanctions on Syria cannot be analyzed without taking the geopolitical situation into account. To some degree Syria is paying part of the price for US mishandling of its relations with Russia and Iran.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has not bowed down to pressure by US President Joe Biden. In your opinion, what will be the cost that Saudi Arabia has to pay?
The cost will be zero. On the contrary, Saudi defiance of the US over oil prices shows that the balance of power between the two has shifted and that the US is a paper tiger where Saudi Arabia is concerned. Let us not forget that the US arms industry has become highly dependent on sales to the Gulf, and the US has invested heavily in keeping Saudi Arabia away from rapprochement with Iran. Its leverage is minimal. It was different when MBS was an international pariah over Khashoggi, but time has done its work of prompting amnesia if not forgiveness. I expect to see more Saudi defiance of the US.
For the past few months, we have been hearing reports from the Turkish side of overtures at repairing the relationship between Turkey and Syria. In your opinion, will this have an effect on ending terrorist control in Idlib?
I am more optimistic about Idlib today than I have been for ages. Time is also doing its work here – demonstrating to the Turks that their Syria policy has been a total failure. That policy has failed to remove the Syrian government, failed to establish stability on Turkey’s border and failed to create conditions for the return of Syrian refugees. The burden of those refugees is felt especially acutely with the approach of presidential elections in Turkey. Whether Erdogan is serious about rapprochement with Syria remains however to be seen.
Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist
Israel produces weapons of mass destruction under West’s protection: Syria
Press TV – November 15, 2022
Permanent Representative of Syria to the United Nations, Bassam Sabbagh, says Israel must join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and eliminate its stockpile of nuclear weapons in order for a nuclear-weapon-free zone to be established in the Middle East.
Speaking at the Third Session of the Conference on the Establishment of a Middle East Zone Free of Nuclear Weapons and other Weapons of Mass Destruction in New York, Sabbagh lambasted Western countries, particularly the United States, for their generous support of the Israeli regime.
He argued that the approach has emboldened the regime to possess and develop more such munitions and to refuse to subject its nuclear facilities to international supervision, which have posed serious threats to regional peace and security.
He also complained that the tenth Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons failed to introduce practical steps that would guarantee the effective implementation of the 1995 Middle East Resolution, which serves as a fundamental pillar in supporting the non-proliferation regime on the regional level.
The senior Syrian diplomat said Damascus supported the UN General Assembly resolution as a path parallel to the implementation of the Middle East Resolution, and not an alternative to it.
“Ever since the adoption of the resolution, Syria has cooperated with regional states participating in the conference to achieve their common goals. The progress made by the conference indicates the sincere and serious efforts made by participating countries, and reveals, on the other hand, the disregard of Israel and the United States for the international will. This practice goes hand in hand with their obstructionism to create a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction,” Sabbagh noted.
“Syria considers establishment of a Middle East free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction as an important measure on the path of disarmament, empowerment of the non-proliferation regime, and a serious contribution to the protection of regional and international peace and security,” he said.
“Syria is a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and tabled a draft resolution in 2002 and 2003 aimed at establishment of a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction. The United States, however, aborted that initiative to protect Israel,” the Syrian diplomat said.
Israel, which pursues a policy of deliberate ambiguity about its nuclear weapons, is estimated to possess 200 to 400 nuclear warheads in its arsenal, making it the sole possessor of non-conventional arms in West Asia.
The illegitimate entity has, however, refused to either allow inspections of its military nuclear facilities or sign the NPT.
What has emboldened Tel Aviv to accelerate its nuclear activities, according to observers, is the support from the United States and Europe, the two parties most critical of Iran’s peaceful nuclear program.
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Book Review
The Zeolite Book — First Edition, 2026, Paperback
The volcanic mineral medicine will not patent — for the toxic burden medicine will not name
Lies are Unbekoming – October 30, 2026
Zeolite is old. It is in Roman concrete that has held for two thousand years. It’s in the water filters of ancient cisterns. It’s in the stomachs of Pacific livestock whose keepers knew, somehow, that this grey crumbling rock made the animals healthier. It’s in Soviet clinical protocols from the 1960s. It’s in the standard emergency response to the Chernobyl explosion.
In 1986, after the Chernobyl reactor failure, the Soviet Union manufactured and distributed natural zeolite at industrial scale — for soil remediation, for livestock feed, for human consumption, for the cleanup itself. Karl Hecht, who had been director of the Institute for Experimental and Clinical Pathophysiology at the Charité of Humboldt University Berlin, spent the six decades after that building the clinical research base — on silicon’s role in human health, on zeolite’s clinical safety, on its applications in ageing. In 2018, Pavelić and colleagues published a comprehensive clinical safety review of natural clinoptilolite in Frontiers in Pharmacology. In 2019, Mastinu analysed its binding affinities. In the Western medical literature, these works sit largely uncited.
What has not been treated at book length, until now, is how a volcanic mineral with six decades of Soviet clinical work behind it, two major peer-reviewed Western reviews, and ongoing clinical use across the former Eastern Bloc, remains almost entirely absent from Western medical practice — and what the toxic burden it’s meant to address actually is.
The Zeolite Book gathers the Soviet clinical record, the Western peer-reviewed studies, three contemporary practitioner voices, and three serious counterviews into one honest treatment. That’s why the book runs to seven appendices. 288 pages, four parts, three practitioner voices, three counterviews, seven appendices. The honest treatment is the argument.
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Wrong, AP and NPR: Europe’s 50,000 Heat Deaths Are a Computer-Model Estimate, Not a Real Body Count
- Questioning Your Doctor Is Now Considered A Psychological Problem (Seriously)
- London tourism expo promotes Israeli agency linked to theft of Palestinian land
- Dockworkers launch global strike against Israeli and US military shipments
- Europe facing gas price shock – Gazprom chief
- Ukraine continues recruiting people with disabilities
- Weaponized Journalism: 2021 Sayer Ji Interview with NPR
- Beyond Netanyahu: what Israel’s election means for Palestinians
- Lithuania plans universal conscription
- Lies, Damn Lies, and Ukraine News
- If Americans Knew
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- No Tricks Zone
- Germany’s Green Energy Transition Becoming Increasingly Expensive…Another 6 Trillion Euros!
- Sudden Stratospheric Warming, Powerful El Niño Combination May Lead To Extreme Europe Cold, Energy Crisis!
- Two New Studies Find Thwaites Glacier Melt Cannot Be Driven By Human Activity Or A Warming Ocean
- E-Cars Reduce CO2 Emissions By Only 41% Compared To Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles
- Predictions Made By Renowned Climate Professor Over Past Decades Have Been Proven To Be Poor
- New Study Suggests Large Regions Of The Pacific Ocean Have Been Cooling For The Last 80 Years
- Germany’s Green Energy Debacle: High Energy Costs Force Kahla Porzellan to Close After 182 Years!
- New Study: 50 Years Of The Most Aggressive ‘Net Zero’ Policies Can Only Affect The Global Climate By 0.03°C
- US September “Heat” Was No Record…Many Records Set Decades Ago
- Latest European Green Energy Debacle; Portugal’s Largest Flagship Solar Park Insolvent!
