Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next.
It was always a paradox: John Stuart Mill, in his seminal (1859), On Liberty, never doubted that a universal civilisation, grounded in liberal values, was the eventual destination of all of humankind. He looked forward to an ‘Exact Science of Human Nature’, which would formulate laws of psychology and society as precise and universal as those of the physical sciences. Yet, not only did that science never emerge, in today’s world, such social ‘laws’ are taken as strictly (western) cultural constructs, rather than as laws or science.
So, not only was the claim to universal civilisation not supported by evidence, but the very idea of humans sharing a common destination (‘End of Times’) is nothing more than an apocalyptic remnant of Latin Christianity, and of one minor current in Judaism. Mill’s was always a matter of secularized religion – faith – rather than empiricism. A shared human ‘destination’ does not exist in Orthodox Christianity, Taoism or Buddhism. It could never therefore qualify as universal.
Liberal core tenets of individual autonomy, freedom, industry, free trade and commerce essentially reflected the triumph of the Protestant worldview in Europe’s 30-years’ civil war. It was not fully even a Christian view, but more a Protestant one.
This narrow, sectarian pillar was able to be projected into a universal project – only so long as it was underpinned by power. In Mill’s day, the civilisational claim served Europe’s need for colonial validation. Mill tacitly acknowledges this when he validates the clearing of the indigenous American populations for not having tamed the wilderness, nor made the land productive.
However, with America’s Cold War triumph – that had by then become a cynical framework for U.S. ‘soft power’ – acquired a new potency. The merits of America’s culture, and way of life, seemed to acquire practical validation through the implosion of the USSR.
But today, with America’s soft power collapsed – not even the illusionof universalism can be sustained. Other states are coming forward, offering themselves as separate, equally compelling ‘civilisational’ states. It is clear that even were the classic liberal Establishment to win in the November U.S. elections, America no longer has claim to path-find a New World Order.
Yet, should this secularised Protestant current be over – beware! Because its subterranean, unconscious religiosity is the ‘ghost at the table’ today. It is returning in a new guise.
The ‘old illusion’ cannot continue, because its core values are being radicalised, stood on their head, and turned into the swords with which to impale classic American and European liberals (and U.S. Christian Conservatives). It is now the younger generation of American woke liberals who are asserting vociferously not merely that the old liberal paradigm is illusory, but that it was never more than ‘a cover’ hiding oppression – whether domestic, or colonial, racist or imperial; a moral stain that only redemption can cleanse.
It is an attack – which coming from within – forecloses on any U.S. moral, soft power, global leadership aspirations. For with the illusion exploded, and nothing in its place, a New World Order cannot coherently be formulated.
Not content with exposing the illusion, the woke generation are also tearing down, and shredding, the flags at the masthead: Freedom and prosperity achieved via the liberal market.
‘Freedom’ is being torn down from within. Dissidents from the woke ideology, are being ‘called out’, made to repent on the knee, or face reputational or economic ruin. It is ‘soft totalitarianism’. It recalls one of Dostoevsky’s characters – at a time when Russian progressives were discrediting traditional institutions – who, in a celebrated line, says: “I got entangled in my data … Starting from unlimited freedom, I conclude with unlimited despotism”.
Even ‘science’ has become a ‘God that failed’; instead of being the path to liberty, it has become a dark soulless path toward unfreedom. From algorithms that ‘cost’ the value of human lives, versus the ‘costing’ of lockdown; from secret ‘Black Box’ algos that limit distribution of news and thinking, to Bill Gates’ vaccination ID project, science now portends despotic social control, rather than a fluttering standard, hoist as the symbol of freedom.
But the most prominent of these flags, torn down, cannot be blamed on the woke generation. There has been no ‘prosperity for all’ – only distortions and warped structures. There are not even free markets. The Fed and the U.S. Treasury simply print new money, and hand it out to select recipients. There is no means now to attribute ‘worth’ to financial assets. Their value simply is that which Central Government is willing to pay for bonds, or grant in bail-outs.
Wow. ‘The God who failed’ (André Gide’s book title) – a crash of idols. One wonders now, what is the point to that huge financial eco-system known as Wall Street. Why not winnow it down to a couple of entities, say, Blackrock and KKR (hedge funds), and leave it to them to distribute the Fed’s freshly-printed ‘boodle’ amongst friends? Liberal markets no more – and many fewer jobs.
“Today, America’s tumbrils are clattering about, carrying toppled statues, ruined careers, unwoke brands. Over their sides peer those deemed racist by left-wing identitarians and sentenced to cancelation, even as the evidentiary standard for that crime falls through the floor … But who are these cultural revolutionaries? The conventional wisdom goes that this is the inner-cities erupting, economically disadvantaged victims of racism enraged over the murder of George Floyd. The reality is something more … bourgeoisie. As Kevin Williamson observed last week, “These are the idiot children of the American ruling class, toy radicals and Champagne Bolsheviks, playing Jacobin for a while, until they go back to graduate school”.
Is that so? I well recall listening in the Middle East to other angry young men who, too, wanted to ‘topple the statues’; to burn down everything. ‘You really believed that Washington would allow you … in’, they taunted and tortured their leaders: “No, we must burn it all down. Start from scratch”.
Did they have a blueprint for the future? No. They simply believed that Islam would organically inflate, and expand to fill the void. It would happen by itself – of its own accord: Faith.
Professor John Gray has noted “that in The God that failed, Gide says: ‘My faith in communism is like my faith in religion. It is a promise of salvation for mankind’’. “Here Gide acknowledged”, Gray continues, “that communism was an atheist version of monotheism. But so is liberalism, and when Gide and others gave up faith in communism to become liberals, they were not renouncing the concepts and values that both ideologies had inherited from western religion. They continued to believe that history was a directional process in which humankind was advancing towards universal freedom”.
So too with the wokes. The emphasis is on Redemption; on a Truth catharsis; on their own Virtue as sufficient agency to stand-in for the lack of plan for the future. All are clear signals: A secularised ‘illusion’ is metamorphosing back into ‘religion’. Not as Islam, of course, but as angry Man, burning at the deep and dark moral stain of the past. And acting now as purifying ‘fire’ to bring about the uplifting and shining future ahead.
Tucker Carlson, a leading American conservative commentator known for plain speaking, frames the movement a little differently: “This is not a momentary civil disturbance. This is a serious, and highly organized political movement … It is deep and profound and has vast political ambitions. It is insidious, it will grow. Its goal is to end liberal democracy and challenge western civilization itself … We’re too literal and good-hearted to understand what’s happening … We have no idea what we are up against … These are not protests. This is a totalitarian political movement”.
Again, nothing needs to be done by this new generation to bring into being a new world, apart from destroying the old one. This vision is a relic – albeit secularised – of western Christianity. Apocalypse and redemption, these wokes believe, have their own path; their own internal logic.
Mill’s ‘ghost’ is arrived at the table. And with its return, America’s exceptionalism has its re-birth. Redemption for humankind’s dark stains. A narrative in which the history of mankind is reduced to the history of racial struggle. Yet Americans, young or old, now lack the power to project it as a universal vision.
‘Virtue’, however deeply felt, on its own, is insufficient. Might President Trump try nevertheless to sustain the old illusion by hard power? The U.S. is deeply fractured and dysfunctional – but if desperate, this is possible.
The “toy radicals, and Champagne Bolsheviks” – in these terms of dripping disdain from Williamson – are very similar to those who rushed into the streets in 1917. But before dismissing them so peremptorily and lightly, recall what occurred.
Into that combustible mass of youth – so acultured by their progressive parents to see a Russian past that was imperfect and darkly stained – a Trotsky and Lenin were inserted. And Stalin ensued. No ‘toy radicals’. Soft became hard totalitarianism.
The Israeli election process, like a bad soap opera, has been going on for many months now with no end in sight, and precisely like a poorly made soap opera, the squabbling, blaming, threatening, scare tactics and mudslinging have lead to nothing.
The Boss
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, assumed to be the “Boss” of Israeli politics, seems to have lost his touch. In two consecutive elections, he was unable to win a majority or form a coalition government.
The rise of a united opposition to run against him led by former IDF generals – who by the way at one point or another served him – is part of the reason for his failure. Additionally, although he pandered to them and made them promises, he was unable to convince the constituency of settler gangs to support him exclusively, rather than to vote for their own parties, and this cost him valuable votes. These ultra-right-wing parties that can only be described as a combination of religious fanaticism and neo-fascism include people like Transportation Minister Bezalel Smutrich, Education Minister Rabbi Rafi Peretz and the newly appointed Minister of Defense, Naftali Bennet.
Repeat Elections
The most repeated mantra in Israeli politics today is, “no one wants elections.” In a press conference at the President’s residence, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein repeated this. In an emergency gathering of the “Right Block,” Netanyahu declared: “elections are bad!” Yet, still, as hard as they may try, none of these politicians sound convincing. Ignoring the famous Albert Einstein quote, or perhaps proving it right, that repeating the same actions and expecting different results is a sign of madness, it is clear that the main characters in this soap opera, namely, Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz, are hoping for another election cycle.
Their hope, delusional as it may be, is that the next round of elections will get them enough votes to become the next prime minister. While the cost of elections is enormous, the money does not come out of their pockets. Consistent with characters of bad soap operas, having large egos and a self-centered outlook, they believe they can make it if they just tweak their campaign. Maybe if they make another promise, get yet another statement by Donald Trump, or use a different slogan, they might make the cut. This, despite the fact that these tricks clearly failed them in the previous two elections.
The Israeli Electorate
The political division that is demonstrated by the result of the last two elections represents two main parts within Israeli society. The division has to do less with the issues than it does cosmetics. The first is who will sit at the head of the table, the cabinet table. While the two main parties, and most of the small ones, are quite happy to sit together in a coalition government, they want their guy to be at the head of the table.
The second touches somewhat on the issues but is in essence also cosmetic: Likud politicians and voters are proud of who they are and the ideology they espouse: violent, racist, and a settler-colonial ideology that flaunts its power and racism. It can be summed up as f*&% the Arabs, this is our land and that’s that.
The other part of the Israeli electorate, those who vote for Blue and White and parties that are considered “Liberal Zionist,” or “Zionist Left,” espouse the same ideology, but prefer to do it in the closet. It was the Zionist left that initiated the ethnic cleansing and destruction of Palestine in 1948. It was the same Zionist left that completed the conquest of Palestine in 1967 and built in the newly conquered lands for Jews only, and it is the Zionist left that brought about the disaster of the Oslo Agreements and contracted the Palestinian Authority to do its dirty work. However, it is all done under an enormous fig leaf called “Peace.” All they really ever wanted was peace.
So about half of the Israeli electorate is brutal and brutally honest and the other is brutal but shy about it.
The “Arabs”
In an emergency gathering of the “right,” Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that the “Arab” political parties in the Knesset are supporters of terrorism. He said that a government that has to rely on their support will be an “existential threat” to the state of Israel. He called it a “Pigu’a Leumi” a terror attack of national proportions.
Responses were quick to appear from figures across the political spectrum, including President Rivlin. Netanyahu was reprimanded for labeling all of the “Arabs” of Israel as terrorists, even though he made it clear he was not referring to all of the “Arabs” because, according to him, “there are loyal, Zionist Arabs” out there too.
Another response came from the mayor of the Palestinian-Druze town of Daliyat El-Karmel, Rafik Halabi. It is a town within the 1948 boundaries so its residents are considered citizens of the state of Israel. Halabi himself was, for many years, a correspondent on Israeli television covering “Arab Issues.” In response to Netanyahu’s remarks, he tweeted:
Does the PM know how many Muslim Arabs serve in the IDF. Does he know how many Israeli Arabs serve in the Mossad, the Shabak (Israel’s secret police, MP), and other arms of the security forces…”
He ended the tweet with: “We are all Israelis.”
If Halabi’s tweet was an indication of anything, it is that collaborating with an oppressor does not pay off. His entire statement is an indictment of those among the Palestinian communities of 1948 who chose, for one reason or another, to work for the “security” regime of their occupier and colonizer, Israel.
The members of this community that decide to engage in this work get no great benefit for working against their own people. In fact, they are treated with the same contempt as are all other Palestinians, and if any evidence is needed for that, one only needs to look at the newest addition to Israel’s Basic Laws, The Nation State Law. More recently, the comments made by Netanyahu regarding their elected representatives is another good indication. Furthermore, the stain of being a collaborator will surely remain on their families for a long time to come.
This community, which today numbers close to two million people, was able to remain within the newly established state of Israel after the ethnic cleansing of 1948. The dubious title of “Israeli Arab” was imposed along with quasi, second class citizenship in an apartheid state that was forced upon them. A serious debate is, and always has, taken place by Palestinian citizens of Israel as to how to deal with the state, whether or not to participate in elections, and so forth. In the Knesset today, the Palestinian bloc, what is known as the Joint Arab List, makes up the third-largest bloc in the chamber, yet not a single party is willing to sit with them or even rely on their support in creating a coalition government.
Indictment
As these words are being typed, Prime Minister Netanyahu is being indicted on charges of corruption and breach of trust. There is still a very wide loophole, wide enough that he can jump through it and which will save him for at least another year. The Knesset committee that deals with members’ immunity is not in session right now and so cannot deal with the issue of his immunity.
It would be hard to imagine that an indictment will go forward without giving the prime minister, who is also a sitting member of Knesset, the opportunity to be heard on an issue of such vital importance. It is likely that Netanyahu will clear this loophole delaying the process until after a future election, which is likely to take place in the spring of 2020. This will ensure that the soap opera will continue for at least one more season.
Just in time to shine a light on what’s behind the latest sanctions from Washington, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in a speech at the annual Astana Club meeting in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan delivered a searing account of Iran-US relations to a select audience of high-ranking diplomats, former Presidents and analysts.
Zarif was the main speaker in a panel titled “The New Concept of Nuclear Disarmament.” Keeping to a frantic schedule, he rushed in and out of the round table to squeeze in a private conversation with Kazakh First President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
During the panel, moderator Jonathan Granoff, President of the Global Security Institute, managed to keep a Pentagon analyst’s questioning of Zafir from turning into a shouting match.
Previously, I had extensively discussed with Syed Rasoul Mousavi, minister for West Asia at the Iran Foreign Ministry, myriad details on Iran’s stance everywhere from the Persian Gulf to Afghanistan. I was at the James Bond-ish round table of the Astana Club, as I moderated two other panels, one on multipolar Eurasia and the post-INF environment and another on Central Asia (the subject of further columns).
Zarif’s intervention was extremely forceful. He stressed how Iran “complied with every agreement and it got nothing;” how “our people believe we have not gained from being part of” the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action; how inflation is out of control; how the value of the rial dropped 70% “because of ‘coercive measures’ – not sanctions because they are illegal.”
He spoke without notes, exhibiting absolute mastery of the inextricable swamp that is US-Iran relations. It turned out, in the end, to be a bombshell. Here are highlights.
Zarif’s story began back during 1968 negotiations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, with the stance of the “Non-Aligned Movement to accept its provisions only if at a later date” – which happened to be 2020 – “there would be nuclear disarmament.” Out of 180 non-aligned countries, “90 countries co-sponsored the indefinite extension of the NPT.”
Moving to the state of play now, he mentioned how the United States and France are “relying on nuclear weapons as a means of deterrence, which is disastrous for the entire world.” Iran on the other hand “is a country that believes nuclear weapons should never be owned by any country,” due to “strategic calculations based on our religious beliefs.”
Zarif stressed how “from 2003 to 2012 Iran was under the most severe UN sanctions that have ever be imposed on any country that did not have nuclear weapons. The sanctions that were imposed on Iran from 2009 to 2012 were greater than the sanctions that were imposed on North Korea, which had nuclear weapons.”
Discussing the negotiations for the JCPOA that started in 2012, Zarif noted that Iran had started from the premise that “we should be able to develop as much nuclear energy as we wanted” while the US had started under the premise that Iran should never have any centrifuges.” That was the “zero-enrichment” option.
Zarif, in public, always comes back to the point that “in every zero-sum game everybody loses.” He admits the JCPOA is “a difficult agreement. It’s not a perfect agreement. It has elements I don’t like and it has elements the United Stares does not like.” In the end, “we reached the semblance of a balance.”
Zarif offered a quite enlightening parallel between the NPT and the JCPOA:
“The NPT was based on three pillars: non-proliferation, disarmament and access to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. Basically the disarmament part of NPT is all but dead, non-proliferation is barely surviving and peaceful use of nuclear energy is under serious threat,” he observed.
Meanwhile,
“JCPOA was based on two pillars: economic normalization of Iran, which is reflected in Security Council resolution 2231, and – at the same time – Iran observing certain limits on nuclear development.”
Crucially, Zarif stressed there is nothing “sunset” about these limits, as Washington argues: “We will be committed to not producing nuclear weapons forever.”
“When President Trump decided to withdraw from the JCPOA, we triggered the dispute resolution mechanism.”
Referring to a common narrative that describes him and John Kerry as obsessed with sacrificing everything to get a deal, Zarif said:
“We negotiated this deal based on distrust. That’s why you have a mechanism for disputes.”
Still, “the commitments of the EU and the commitments of the United States are independent. Unfortunately the EU believed they could procrastinate. Now we are at a situation where Iran is receiving no benefit, nobody is implementing their part of the bargain, only Russia and China are fulfilling partially their commitments, because the United States even prevents them from fully fulfilling their commitments. France proposed last year to provide $15 billion to Iran for the oil we could sell from August to December. The United States prevented the European Union even from addressing this.”
The bottom line, then, is that “other members of the JCPOA are in fact not implementing their commitments.” The solution “is very easy. Go back to the non-zero sum. Go back to implementing your commitments. Iran agreed that it would negotiate from Day One.”
Zarif made the prediction that
“if the Europeans still believe that they can take us to the Security Council and snap back resolutions they’re dead wrong. Because that is a remedy if there was a violation of the JCPOA. There was no violation of the JCPOA. We took these actions in response to European and American non-compliance. This is one of the few diplomatic achievements of the last many decades. We simply need to make sure that the two pillars exist: that there is a semblance of balance.”
This led him to a possible ray of light among so much doom and gloom:
“If what was promised to Iran in terms of economic normalization is delivered, even partially, we are prepared to show good faith and come back to the implementation of the JCPOA. If it’s not, then unfortunately we will continue this path, which is a path of zero-sum, a path leading to a loss for everybody, but a path that we have no other choice but to follow.”
Time for HOPE
Zarif identifies three major problems in our current geopolitical madness: a “zero-sum mentality on international relations that doesn’t work anymore;” winning by excluding others (“We need to establish dialogue, we need to establish cooperation”); and “the belief that the more arms we purchase, the more security we can bring to our people.”
He was adamant that there’s a possibility of implementing “a new paradigm of cooperation in our region,” referring to Nazarbayev’s efforts: a real Eurasian model of security. But that, Zarif explained, “requires a neighborhood policy. We need to look at our neighbors as our friends, as our partners, as people without whom we cannot have security. We cannot have security in Iran if Afghanistan is in turmoil. We cannot have security in Iran if Iraq is in turmoil. We cannot have security in Iran if Syria is in turmoil. You cannot have security in Kazakhstan if the Persian Gulf region is in turmoil.”
He noted that, based on just such thinking, “resident Rouhani this year, in the UN General Assembly, offered a new approach to security in the Persian Gulf region, called HOPE, which is the acronym for Hormuz Peace Initiative – or Hormuz Peace Endeavor so we can have the HOPE abbreviation.”
HOPE, explained Zarif, “is based on international law, respect of territorial integrity; based on accepting a series of principles and a series of confidence building measures; and we can build on it as you [addressing Nazarbayev] built on it in Eurasia and Central Asia. We are proud to be a part of the Eurasia Economic Union, we are neighbors in the Caspian, we have concluded last year, with your leadership, the legal convention of the Caspian Sea, these are important development that happened on the northern part of Iran. We need to repeat them in the southern part of Iran, with the same mentality that we can’t exclude our neighbors. We are either doomed or privileged to live together for the rest of our lives. We are bound by geography. We are bound by tradition, culture, religion and history.” To succeed, “we need to change our mindset.”
Age of hegemony gone
It all comes down to the main reason US foreign policy just can’t get enough of Iran demonization. Zarif has no doubts:
“There is still an arms embargo against Iran on the way. But we are capable of shooting down a US drone spying in our territory. We are trying simply to be independent. We never said we will annihilate Israel. Somebody said Israel will be annihilated. We never said we will do it.”
It was, Zarif said, Benjamin Netanyahu who took ownership of that threat, saying,
“I was the only one against the JCPOA.” Netanyahu “managed to destroy the JCPOA. What is the problem? The problem is we decided not to fold. That is our only crime. We had a revolution against a government that was supported by the United States, imposed on our country by the United States, [that] tortured our people with the help of the United States, and never received a single human rights condemnation, and now people are worried why they say ‘Death to America’? We say death to these policies, because they have brought nothing but this farce. What did they bring to us? If somebody came to the United States, removed your president, imposed a dictator who killed your people, wouldn’t you say death to that country?”
Zarif inevitably had to evoke Mike Pompeo:
“Today the Secretary of State of the United States says publicly: ‘If Iran wants to eat, it has to obey the United States.’ This is a war crime. Starvation is a crime against humanity. It’s a newspeak headline. If Iran wants its people to eat, it has to follow what he said. He says, ‘Death to the entire Iranian people.’”
By then the atmosphere across the huge round table was electric. One could hear a pin drop – or, rather, the mini sonic booms coming from high up in the shallow dome via the system devised by star architect Norman Foster, heating the high-performance glass to melt the snow.
Zarif went all in:
“What did we do the United States? What did we do to Israel? Did we make their people starve? Who is making our people starve? Just tell me. Who is violating the nuclear agreement? Because they did not like Obama? Is that a reason to destroy the world, just because you don’t like a president?”
Iran’s only crime, he said, “is that we decided to be our own boss. And that crime – we are proud of it. And we will continue to be. Because we have seven millennia of civilization. We had an empire that ruled the world, and the life of that empire was probably seven times the entire life of the United States. So – with all due respect to the United States empire; I owe my education to the United States – we don’t believe that the United States is an empire that will last. The age of empires is long gone. The age of hegemony is long gone. We now have to live in a world without hegemony. – regional hegemony or global hegemony.”
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This article was originally published on Asia Times.
Pepe Escobar is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, at the annual Astana Club meeting in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan last week. Photo: Asia Times / Pepe Escobar
The original source of this article is Global Research
Hezbollah Secretary General His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah stressed on Tuesday the axis of Resistance’s support to its leader and its heart, His Eminence Imam Sayyed Ali Khamenei – Leader of Islamic Revolution.
Addressing hundreds of thousands of mourners commemorating Ashura on the 10th of Muharram, Sayyed Nasrallah renewed his party’s eternal pledge to the top cause of our nation, the Palestinian cause.
“We renew with the Palestinian people and Resistance our pledge that there is no choice away from resisting the “Israeli” occupation,” His Eminence said, reaffirming Hezbollah’“ eternal commitment to the Palestinian cause and to confront what is being planned in the ‘deal of the century’ .”
Moreover, he stated that “this stance costs us a lot but it is our commitment.”
He further deplored “Israeli” Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu’s desecration to the Holy Ibrahimi Mosque. “The Palestinian stance is the main pillar in the confrontation against the US-‘Israeli’ scheme. These people will protect their cause and holy sites.”
“We – in Hezbollah – reaffirm our commitment to the rights of the Palestinian people in Lebanon as honorable refugees, who must return to their homeland,” The Resistance Leader added.
Moving to the Yemeni arena, Sayyed Nasrallah lamented the fact that “the people of Yemen are the title of oppression and siege as [Imam] Hussein was in Karbala.”
“The war on the Yemeni people has turned into a futile war in light of the international community’s silence and the US-British partnership,” he underscored, pointing out that “the recent developments in southern Yemen form an evidence on the Saudi-Emirati aggression’s false allegations regarding protecting Yemen’s legitimacy.”
His Eminence once again renewed the call to an immediate end to the war on Yemen.
In parallel, Sayyed Nasrallah denounced he Bahraini regime’s actions, describing it a “a traitor that went far in normalizing with the “Israeli” enemy as well as in supporting the “Israeli” aggressions against the people of Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and Syria.”
Addressing the peaceful Bahraini revolutionary people, His Eminence said: “You, in your peaceful revolution, are waging a jihad for the sake of Allah.”
On another level, he confirmed that “the unjust sanctions on the axis of resistance forms an aggression practiced by the US administration after the failure of the Zionist wars on the resistance.”
“If our people were oppressed by the sanctions, we must act differently and the state must act as well,” Sayyed Nasrallah emphasized, urging the Lebanese sides to open the file of sanctions because it has put the Lebanese economy under attack.”
In this context, he highlighted that “the government must defend the Lebanese and state institutions must not rush to execute the American desires in terms of sanctions.”
“The Lebanese resistance has been on the sanctions lists for years and this is not new. But
when this aggression expands to target others in Lebanon – banks that have nothing to do with Hezbollah – this needs a different approach. We must reevaluate and study our choices well,” His Eminence went on to say.
Regarding the recent “Israeli” attacks on Lebanon, Hezbollah Secretary General viewed that “the recent aggression against Dahyia [the southern suburbs of Beirut] through the bombed drones was a great one.
In addition, Sayyed Nasrallah hailed the united Lebanese official and popular stances in face of the dangerous “Israeli” aggression. “Today we are setting the equations and strengthening the deterrence that protects our country.”
According to His Eminence, “The invincible “Israeli” army turned to act in Hollywood movies. For the first time, the “Israeli” enemy is building a security zone inside occupied Palestine with a depth of 5 km.”
To the apartheid “Israeli” entity, Sayyed Nasrallah sent a sounding message: “If Lebanon is attacked, Hezbollah will respond to the aggression appropriately to defend Lebanon. Lebanon respects 1701 and Hezbollah is part of the government that respects this resolution but if “Israel” attacks, there will be no red lines at all.”
“Lebanon has imposed itself on world powers and everyone contacted it after the latest “Israeli” attack, prior to the resistance’s response and during the Hezbollah response,” Sayyed Nasrallah added, noting that “Lebanon must know that it is strong through the army-people-resistance equation and all countries in the world contacted our government to thwart us from retaliating to the “Israeli” aggression.”
On the Lebanese economic situation, he assured that “the situation is not hopeless and there is a possibility to address it if there is the necessary seriousness. The same as we discussed the previous state budget we will discuss the 2020 budget.”
“The principles that govern our stance will be the same. We refuse any new taxes on low-income citizens in any economic solutions in Lebanon. Instead of going to the pockets of the poor, let us search for the looted funds, and this should be the leading choice to address the economic situation,” His Eminence said.
On the regional scene, Sayyed Nasrallah rejected any war scheme against the Islamic Republic of Iran because it will ignite the region.
“We will not be neutral in the battle between the truth and falsehood and who thinks that the supposed war will be the end of the axis of resistance I tell them that it will result in the end of both “Israel” and the US domination in our region,” he clarified.
According to His Eminence, “Today, our Hussein is Imam Sayyed Ali Khamenei and the Islamic Republic of Iran is the heart of the resistance’s axis.”
To Imam Khamenei, Sayyed Nasrallah said: “ We tell you as the companions of Imam Hussein said on the 10th night of Muharram, ‘We won’t leave you, O son of Hussein’.”
الهيمنة الأميركية على العالم تقترب من نهاياتها، لكن الرئيس الروسي فلاديمير بوتين والفرنسي ايمانويل ماكرون يجزمان بأن عصر تعدّد الأقطاب على المستوى الدولي بدأ بقوة كبيرة على أنقاض الأحادية الأميركية التي انتهت برأيهما الى غير رجعة.
فما هي مؤشرات هذا التحول؟
استناداً الى ماكرون، فقال مذكراً على هامش مؤتمر السبعة الكبار إن الغرب هيمن على العالم في القرن 18 بواسطة فرنسا وفي 19 ببريطانيا مسيطراً على القرن العشرين بالصعود الأميركي ، معتبراً ان روسيا والصين والهند بما ابتكروه من سلاح واقتصاد وسلع وسياسات انتشرت على مستوى الأرض، ازالوا الهيمنة الغربية لمصلحة نظام متعدد القطب بدأ يعمل بنشاط كبير.
بدوره جزم بوتين بأهمية الصين والهند في العالم الجديد المتعدّد القطب الذي اسقط باعتقاده الاحادية الأميركية التي تسببت منذ سقوط منافسيها الاتحاد السوفياتي في 1989 بمئات الحروب وملايين القتلى والدمار والتراجع الاقتصادي العالمي وتوفير المناخات المناسبة لحرب نووية فعلية.
لقد سيطر الأميركيون قبل ثلاثة عقود على الاقتصاد الدولي المهيمن على العالم، ممسكين بكامل الأزمات والعلاقات السياسية الكونية. وهذه عناصر تتكئ على جيش قوي جداً له سبع مئة قاعدة منتشرة في كل الزوايا الأكثر استراتيجية على سطح الارض.
اما منافسته روسيا وريثة السوفياتي فخسرت السياسة والاقتصاد وادوارها في الازمات، وتراجعت حتى من محيطها في أوروبا الشرقية حتى لم يبق لها إلا قاعدة صغيرة في سورية مطلة على البحر المتوسط. وهذا ادى في حينه الى ولادة الاحادية الأميركية المتغطرسة.
لكن الوضع الحاضر لم يعُد كما كان قبل ثلاثين عاماً، فألمانيا والصين والهند واليابان هي قوى اقتصادية وازنة التهمت من الانتفاخ الاقتصادي الأميركي.
والغاز طاقة القرن المقبل تسيطر على القسم الاكبر من مخزونه روسيا وايران وسورية، بالاضافة الى روسيا وفنزويلا وايران يحتكرون قسماً اساسياً من النفط، اما الأزمات فلروسيا دور اساس في معظمها من أميركا الجنوبية الى الشرق الاقصى والشرق الاوسط وتسعى لاختراق الأميركيين في اكثر من مكان حتى انها عقدت اتفاقية لإنهاء النزاع الموروث من الحرب العالمية الثانية مع اليابان.
لجهة العلاقات السياسية تكفي الاشارة الى ما قاله ماكرون حول الضرورة الاوروبية للاعتراف بالدور الروسي العالمي كاشفاً ان الاستعداء الغربي لروسيا كان عاملاً دفع بموسكو الى التخوّف ورد التحدي ببناء اكبر منظومة سلاح تتفوّق على نظيرتها الأميركية، فتحولت جاذباً تتسابق الدول على شرائها وامتلاكها.
كما ادى سقوط الجانب الايديولوجي الالحادي بسقوط السوفيات الى تمكن الروس من تأسيس علاقات مبدئية مع دول الخليج وأفريقيا واوروبا.
للاشارة ايضاً فإن اوراق روسيا في الحرب على سورية والعراق أقوى من الدور الأميركي على الرغم من ان الأميركي يحتل اقساماً من البلدين بأكثر من 15 الف جندي، كما انها تحظى بدور مميز بين اطراف التوتر في الخليج من خلال تحالفها مع ايران وعلاقاتها بالسعودية ودول الخليج وانفتاحها على اليمن والعراق، فيما تتردد معلومات عن نية موسكو تزويد الحشد الشعبي العراقي بمنظومة للدفاع الجوي إذا اقترن هذا الطلب بموافقة الدولة العراقية.
لذلك فإن مكانة روسيا في قلب الثروات الاقتصادية للعالم في الشرق الأوسط أقوى من منافسيها وها هي تركيا العضو التاريخي في الناتو والحليفة الأساسية للأميركيين تقترب من التساوي الاقتصادي مع الأميركيين الى حدود التفوق عليه بعد عقد تقريباً مع تقدم هندي يربض على الكتلة البشرية الثانية في العالم، تتواكب مع تقدم علمي وصناعي لافت الى جانب السلاح المتقدم والنووي.
هناك الى جانب ما تقدم تذمّر أوروبي من السياسة الأميركية التي لا تريد شريكاً، وتعامل أوروبا كدول من الدرجة الثانية يجب عليها ان تؤيد أميركا على نظام السمع والطاعة السعودي ولا تعترض او تحاول مجاراتها.
للاشارة فإن معظم الاوروبيين منزعجون من سياسات الرئيس السابق جورج بوش الإبن التي تؤرخ للعصر الأميركي لاحتلال الدول والتدمير ومستاؤون أكثر من مرحلة الرئيس الحالي ترامب الذي يحاول إنعاش الاحادية الأميركية بابتزاز الدول الصديقة لبلاده بشكل لا يُفرق فيه بين السعودية واليابان والإمارات والمانيا وكوريا الجنوبية والكويت، يبدو سمساراً يأكل من الجميع مفتعلاً الازمات على حساب العلاقات الاستراتيجية لبلاده مع العالم. وهذا دليل اضافي على احساس الادارة الأميركية باقتراب نهاية احاديتها غير القابلة للترميم الا بحروب لا تبدو نتائجها مضمونة، وقد تتطوّر نووياً فلا تبقي على الحضارة الإنسانية بكاملها.
ترامب اذاً هو بالنسبة للأوروبيين من علامات قيامة التعددية القطبية على انقاض انهيار الاحادية الأميركية.
فهل هذا صحيح؟
يعتقد مجمل الباحثين ان ما يخفي هذه المعادلة الجديدة هي حرب الخليج التي يشكل استمرارها ارجاء فقط لسقوط نظام الهيمنة الأميركية، هذه الهيمنة التي تحاول تجديد شبابها بتشكيل أمن ملاحة يسيطر عليه الأميركيون في بحار الخليج وعدن والاحمر والمتوسط، لكن الروس فهموا اللعبة معلنين انهم قادرون على حماية ناقلاتهم في هذه البحار بقوتهم العسكرية، وكذلك فعلت الهند التي جزمت بدورها انها مستعدة لحماية ناقلاتها امنياً.
فهل انتهت الاحادية الأميركية؟
يتجه الأميركيون الى التعامل مع روسيا على هذه القاعدة، إنما بعد استئثارهم بأموال اضافية من بعض انحاء العالم، والدليل ان ترامب دعا الدول السبع الكبار الى إعادة روسيا الى ناديها، وهذه مسألة لن يطول أمرها، تماماً كمسألة النظام القطبي المتعدد الذي ظهر واضحاً في مؤتمر فلاديفوستوك الروسي العالمي الأبعاد.
There is nothing new about empires taking hostages and using them to put pressure on whatever rebel group needs to reminded “who is boss”. The recent arrest in Italy of Alexander Korshunov, the director for business development at Russia’s United Engine Corporation (UEC), is really nothing new but just the latest in a long string of kidnappings. And, as I already mentioned in distant 2017, that kind of thuggery is not a sign of strength but, in fact, a sign of weakness. Remember Michael Ledeen’s immortal words about how “”Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business“? Well, you could say that this latest spat of kidnappings is indicative of the same mindset and goal, just on a much smaller, individual, scale. And, finally, it ain’t just Russia, we all know about the kidnapping of Huawei’s CFO Meng Wanzhou by the Canadian authorities.
By the way, you might wonder how can I speak of “kidnapping” when, in reality, these were legal arrests made by the legitimate authorities of the countries in which these arrests were made? Simple! As I mentioned last week, words matter and to speak of an “arrest” in this case wrongly suggest that 1) some crime was committed (when in reality there is ZERO evidence of that, hence the talk of “conspiracy” to do something illegal) 2) that this crime was investigated and that the authorities have gathered enough evidence to justify an arrest and 3) that the accused will have a fair trial. None of that applies to the cases of Viktor Bout, Konstantin Iaroshenko, Marina Butina or, for that matter, Meng Wanzhou or Wang Weijing. The truth is that these so-called “arrests” are simple kidnappings, the goal is hostage taking with the goal to either 1) try to force Russia (and China) to yield to US demands or 2) try to “get back” at Russia (and China) following some humiliating climb down by the US Administration (this was also the real reason behind the uncivilized seizure of Russian diplomatic buildings in the USA).
This is not unlike what the Gestapo and the SS liked to do during WWII and their kidnapping of hostages was also called “arrest” by the then state propaganda machine. By the way, the Bolsheviks also did a lot of that during the civil war, but on a much larger scale. In reality, both in the case of the Nazi authorities and in the case of the imperial USA, as soon as a person is arrested he/she is subjected to solitary confinement and other forms of psychological torture (Manning or Assange anybody?!) in order to either make them break or to at least show Russia and China that the US, being the World Hegemon gets to seize anybody worldwide, be it by a CIA kidnapping team or by using local colonial law enforcement authorities (aka local police forces).
US politicians love to “send messages” and this metaphor is used on a daily basis by US officials in all sorts of circumstances. Here the message is simple: we can do whatever the hell we want, and there ain’t nothing you can do about it!
But is that last statement really true?
Well, in order to reply to this we should look at the basic options available to Russia (this also applies to China, but here I want to focus on the Russian side of the issue). I guess the basic list of options is pretty straightforward:
Use official and confidential diplomatic channels to protest and demand a release
Frankly, in the case of the USA, options one and two are useless: the AngloZionist leaders have long given up any hope of not being hated and despised by 99% of mankind and they have long dropped any pretense of legality, nevermind morality: they don’t give a damn what anybody thinks. Their main concern is to conceal their immense weakness, but they fail to do so time and time again. Truly, when wannabe “empires” can’t even bring an extremely weakened country such as Venezuela to heel, there ain’t much they can do to boot their credibility. If anything, this thuggery is nothing more than the evidence of a mind-blowing weakness of the Empire.
But that weakness in no way implies that Russia and China have good options. Sadly, they don’t.
Russia can engage in various types of sanctions, ranging from the petty bureaucratic harassment of US representations, diplomats, businessmen and the like to economic and political retaliations. But let’s not kid ourselves, there is very little Russia can do to seriously hurt the USA with such retaliations. Many would advocate retaliation in kind, but that poses a double problem for the Kremlin:
Once a country has gone down the road of illegal brute force, there is no way back. The examples of the US, Israel or, for that matter, the Ukraine show that once primitive thuggery becomes part of your political arsenal you will forever remain a thug and everybody will see this (whether everybody will have the courage to openly state this is a different issue altogether).
The reality is that double and triple standards have long become the essential key feature of all western ideological systems, from the Papacy to modern capitalism. The Kremlin fully understands that in the AngloZionist Empire “some are more equal than others” and that that which is “allowed” to the World Hegemon is categorically forbidden to everybody else. Thus if Russia retaliates in kind, there will be an explosion of hysterical protests not only by the western legacy corporate and state ziomedia, but also from the 5th columnist in the Russian “liberal” press.
And yes, unlike the USA, Russia does have a vibrant, diverse and pluralistic media and each time when Putin agrees to a press conference (especially one several hours long) he knows that he will be asked the tough, unpleasant, questions. But since he, unlike most western leaders, can intelligently answer them he does not fear them. As for Dmitrii Peskov and Maria Zakharova, they have heard it all a gazillion during the past years, including often the most ridiculously biased, mis-informed and outright ridiculous “questions” (accusations, really) from the western presstitute corps in Russia.
So yes, Russia could, in theory, retaliate by arresting US citizens in Russia (or by staging Cold War type provocations) or by kidnapping them abroad (Russia does have special forces trained for this kind of operation). But this is most unlikely to yield any meaningful results and it would create a PR nightmare for the Kremlin.
The truth is that in most of these cases we always come down to the fundamental dichotomy: on one hand we have a rogue state gone bonkers with imperial hubris, arrogance and crass ignorance (say, the USA and/or Israel) while on the other we have states which try to uphold a civilized international order (Russia, China, Iran, etc.). This is by logical necessity a lop-sided struggle in which the thugs will almost always have the advantage.
[Sidebar: here I want to address a logical fallacy which I regularly hear in the West: when one political system proves stronger, or more capable of survival, than another one, this supposedly proves that the stronger state is also somehow “superior”. This is the argument used by those who claim that the Soviet Union “lost the Cold War” and that “Capitalism has proven much more sustainable/efficient than Communism”. This is utter nonsense for at least two reasons: first, the USSR did not “lose” the Cold War – the CPSU and the Soviet ruling Nomenklatura decided to break-up the USSR (against the will of the people!) and, second, the fact is that the Soviet Union was squandering its wealth all over the planet while the USA was robbing the entire planet blind. How can we compare the two? Finally, allow me this metaphor to make my point: if we would lock up a human being and a hyena in a small empty cell to see who will survive we can be pretty darn sure that the hyena will immediately and very “effectively” kill the human and eat him. Does that “victory” somehow prove the hyena’s “superiority”? Of course not! For one thing, capitalism implies infinite growth in a finite environment, which is exactly what a malignant tumor does for a living and which is self-evidently non-sustainable. So are we going to compare one political system – Communism – which does not rely on growth and which is therefore sustainable, and which spread its wealth all over the planet with one based on (international) “highway robbery” (don’t take my word for it, take it from Paul Craig Roberts himself who unambiguously stated recently that “American Capitalism is Based on Plunder”). Yes, the Soviet system was fundamentally rotten, profoundly dysfunctional and ineffective (only imbeciles or ignoramuses would deny that!), but it was not in any way “defeated” by the West nor is Capitalism any “better” or “superior” (whatever you want that to mean) than Communism (more on this here if you are interested).]
For all these reasons, there is really nothing much Russia (or China) can do about this situation besides publishing an official warning to the Russian people saying that if they travel abroad they should realize that “US intelligence agencies continue their current hunt for Russians around the world”. They also made public the list of countries which have extradition treaties with the USA: Australia, Austria, Albania, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Belgium, Bulgaria, Bolivia, Brazil, United Kingdom, Hungary, Canada, Colombia, Congo, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Dominica, Greece, Guyana, Haiti, Guatemala, Germany, Honduras, Greece, Israel, India, Jordan, Iraq, Ireland, Iceland, Italy, Kenya, Latvia, Lesotho, Liberia, Lithuania, Venezuela, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malawi, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Marshall Islands, Mexico, Micronesia, Monaco, Myanmar, Nauru, Nigeria, Netherlands, Nicaragua, new Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Palau, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, El Salvador, San Marino, Swaziland, Seychelles, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, Suriname, Sierra Leone, Thailand, Tanzania, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, Turkey, Uruguay, Philippines, Finland, France, Czech Republic, Chile, Switzerland, Sweden, Sri Lanka, Ecuador, Estonia, South Africa, South Korea, Jamaica and Japan.
The MoFA concluded by warning that “The Russian foreign Ministry strongly urges all Russian citizens planning trips abroad to carefully weigh all the risks, especially if there is reason to assume the possibility of claims against them by American law enforcement agencies”.
Some caveat emptor before buying your airline ticket, right?!
Conclusion: it will get a lot worse before it gets better
First, we need to always remember that kidnappings are just the latest manifestation of an overall pattern of thuggery by the USA. The attitude is pervasive, and US citizens are not free of this climate of thuggery. Another good example are the outright bribes offered to the ships captains of Iran, to sail their crude carriers to somewhere were the US can literally pirate the carrier. Remember the amazing confession by Pompeo himself:
“We lied, we cheated, we stole…. it reminds you of the glory of the American experiment”?
You don’t?
Then here is a quick refresher:
It can almost be rewritten and expanded like this:
We lie, we cheat, we steal, we kidnap, we bribe, we extort, we pirate, then we threaten, and then we tell everyone how exceptionally morally superior we are.
Yet a certain limit has been crossed. It is as if their own belief in their own moral superiority has inverted to the extent that their own moral superiority is so big, and so certain, that any small actions of thuggery is allowed to them. This will not change any time soon and even the most innocent traveler must have awareness of this. This is why the Chinese are now openly wondering if sending Chinese students to the USA is such a good idea after all.
So the first thing we have to accept is that this pattern of thuggery will not stop, if anything – it will expand.
Second, we have to also realize that there are no good options for the Russians or the Chinese. In fact, this is normal: civilized actors often find themselves “out-gunned”, so to speak, by thugs, sociopaths and criminals. Over time, however, thuggery is always self-defeating because it is inevitably linked to a delusion of impunity. As for civilized states, while it is true that they are at a fundamental disadvantage when faced by uncivilized thugs but, again, over time they eventually prevail if only because everybody always ends up fed up and disgusted with the thugs. Finally, while thuggery can seem attractive to people with sociopathic inclinations, most human beings need a higher ideal than just unbridled consumption to inspire them. Communism had (and I would argue, still has) this ability. Capitalism does not.
For the foreseeable future, however, we can only expect more of the same. Thanks to the ceaseless efforts of Obama and Trump the Empire is collapsing even faster than it normally would and we can expect that the current sequence of humiliating defeats for the USA (and, of course, Israel which has its own humiliating wounds to lick!) will continue and that the USA (and, of course, Israel!) will have to find more small targets (be it kidnapped Russian nationals or empty buildings in Syria) to kidnap or destroy and feel powerful again.
This will be revolting, disgusting and simply plain stupid.
But there is nothing Russia (or China) can do to stop it, at least not for the foreseeable future.
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