Will European countries like Germany instead forge closer trade and security relations with Russia? Does Trump, and those among the US elites who support his doubling-down against Iran and for Israel/Saudi Arabia, realize the implications of this 'break-up' for US dollar hegemony? Is this the 'return to US isolationism' US coastal elites dread so much?
For all the criticism Trump's foreign policy receives - from the Left and from Globalists, for being a 'bull in a China shop'; from the Right and those who voted for him, for 'caving to the Deep State' - the US president appears to be broadly sticking to his election mandate of 'America First', a strategic outlook that may indicate the beginning of the dismantling the US Empire.
This week on Behind the Headlines, Joe Quinn and Niall Bradley (re)assess Trump's actions in the context of a global shift towards 'multipolarity'.
Running Time: 01:21:33
Download: MP3
Reader Comments
You focused on the reactions of European vassal states and their companies to the Trump threats of sanctions. You did not consider a bigger picture, which is this:
Turkey fought thirteen wars with Imperial Russia from 1568 to 1877, and considers Russia an ancient enemy. Nevertheless, the incompetence of the CIA which attempted to overthrow Erdogan and replace him with their man Fetullah Gulen, and Putin's skillful handling of his foreknowledge of the coup by warning Erdogan, has driven a wedge between Turkey and the US/NATO and driven Turkey into the arms of Russia. Turkey has a large population and the second most powerful military in NATO after the US, so this was a major triumph for Putin.
Similarly, Iran has fought five wars with Russia, from 1651 through 1826, and considers Russia an ancient enemy. Putin must be laughing like a Cheshire cat, waiting for Trump to drive Iran into the arms of Russia. Iran also has a powerful military and a large and robust population.
Moreover, the significance of both nations lie in their geography. Turkey commands the exit from the Black Sea, and Iran commands the exit from the Persian Gulf. From the Strait of Hormuz exits 40% of the world's oil. Imagine Putin's delight if the US and/or Israel attack Iran, and all this oil stops flowing. The Russian economy will boom, as oil goes to $300 - $500 a barrel. Russia has an excess of oil, more than it needs, and can sell its surplus to the highest bidder. The economy of the US will collapse, as will the economies of Europe, and guess who will get the blame?
If the US/Israel are so stupid as to attack Iran, which is quite possible, in one stroke Putin will have destroyed the USA economically, and also will drive a final wedge between it and Europe, which will be desperate for Russian oil and gas. The military power of the USA is based on its economic power. Destroy the latter, and you destroy the former.
Nothing will have pleased Putin more than Trump's announcement. When the Strait of Hormuz closes, Iran will naturally sell its oil to the north - to Russia and via Russian pipelines, to China. Even if there is no war and closure of the Straits, Iran will still do this. If Russia and Russian businesses trade with and build infrastructure in Iran, what will Trump do - sanction Russia? Oh sorry, too late - he did that already! Russia has nothing to lose by trading with Iran. Now do you see the idiocy of Trump's move? Far from subduing Iran, he will have driven it out of the newly developing Western orbit into an Eastern alliance with China and Russia. Moreover, Imagine a high-speed railway from Moscow to the port of Chabhar in Iran - Russia's first naval port on the Indian Ocean. Think about the strategic triumph that wold represent. Only in 5 years or so from now, will the terrible blunder of Trump's negation of the JCPOA be fully understood. By then, however, Trump will either be dead, or committed to some home for the mentally deficient, and the US Empire will be dead. Just as Churchill, in his attempt to preserve the British Empire by fighting two wars with Germany thereby destroyed it, in the same way Trump, by attempting to save the American Empire with threats and sanctions, will destroy it also.
Another point: Both of you in your chat spoke as if Trump is trying to Make America Great Again, and is doing what he thinks best for the country. You are sadly, terribly naive. Trump got enormous money for his election campaign from American Zionists, and he wants more money from them in 2020. Moreover, he is homosexually enamored of his handsome son-in-law Jared, another rabid Zionist, and between all these Zionist influences, Trump's agenda is to do what is best for Trump, by doing as the Zionists want him to do. He does not really care about the welfare of America, but only that of Israel, to please his friends. Hence his shifting of the Embassy, and his withdrawal from the JCPOA, in spite of all the pleading, advice and condemnation from the entire world except the Zionists. Including all the European allies. They do not matter to him one bit. All that matters to Trump is to keep the Zionist money coming, and to please his beloved Jared.
What that means though, isn't so clear. France, one of those 'European allies', is arguably Europe's most Israel-friendly country. Macron is 'Monsieur Rothschild', n'est-ce pas?
So why isn't his govt fully on board with Trump's JCPOA withdrawal and embassy relocation?
See how difficult it is to account for ALL the data...
And to answer for Macron, yes, you are quite correct, France is very pro-Israel, as is the UK - it was the FUKUS after all which supposedly bombed Syria this last time, or so they claimed. However, France's and the UK's oil companies, who call the shots about political moves, don't want to rock the boat with the Arabs, and THEY are the ones prompting the opposition the to Embassy move. There is a line in the sands of insult and oppression that the Arabs will not tolerate crossing, and the Embassy move was it. Even the criminal MBS in Saudi Arabia opposed the move, as unnecessarily provocative, not that he gives a shit about Islam. But Trump, who is all about self-gratification, did it anyway. Does all that make sense?
So when you ask, why does Macron/Merkel/May/Trump do what they do, you will find the answer by asking what do their major corporations and oil companies - Siemens, Total, BP, ICI, Shell, ABB - want them to do? Keep that in your mind, and much becomes clear, including the future direction of national policy.
Remember, too, that the BIS in Basel represents the central banks and behind them the banking systems of the world, and remember that business cannot function without conjured-out-of-thin-air capital lent by the banks, and that the Jews invented banking as long ago as the heyday of Venice (Go read Mr. Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice again,) and that the politicians need a place to stash their bribe money, which is in banks, and you begin to see why it is that Israel gets away with genocide and war crimes.
And finally, remember that the US is the world's greatest consumer of oil, and that Russia has the world's greatest supplies of oil and gas, and that Europe is 450 million people living on 4 million square kilometers, and Russia is 150 million people living on 17 million square kilometers, and remember that greed is never satisfied, and again, much becomes clear. It is easy to lose sight of these fundamentals, and get lost in the events of the hour, but behind the current events, these bedrock truths continue to hold.
The world consists of 190 countries, each of which has their own interests uppermost, and each of those countries is run by people competing for political power, each with their own interests uppermost, and within those countries are factions of competing power, each contending for power with its own interests uppermost. Small countries are not that influential, for the most part, with a few exceptions. But large countries like the US have competing interests within them, vying for influence, wealth and power.
For example, the MIC corporations never saw a war they did not like and couldn't make huge profits out of (viz. Smedley Butler's War Is A Racket ,) and love the wars in Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, and potentially Iran and DPRK. On the other hand, the automotive and electronic corporations - too many to list - are making trillions out of their factories in the Far East, and view the possibility of a war (probably nuclear to some limited extent,) in that neck of the woods, with horror. We are talking Chinese-American, Japanese and South Korean electronic and automotive corporations, who as described above, run their respective countries, and the politicians who do their bidding.
It is entirely possible Trump got a call in the middle of the night from his counterparts in Japan, China and ROK, and perhaps the other countries too such as the Philippines, Australia, Vietnam, Indonesia, et. al., saying, what the f**k are you thinking of, torpedoing the peace talks at the behest of your MIC corporations? Do you understand what a war in this part of the world would do to our profits? And so, the puppet Trump, whose strings were pulled yesterday on the Punch & Judy stage to make him dance to the left, today is having other strings pulled by someone else to make him dance to the right.
And so it goes and will continue to do so. I could give you dozens of examples of apparently stupid moves on the world stage, which were in fact prompted by competing powers within countries themselves, jockeying for power and influence, but I have spent too much time already on this exposition. Thanks for your comments.
Let's say Trump is 'closet queer'. So what? Explain to us how that factors into his worldview/decision-making. What does his sexuality have to do with running (or trying to run) USA, Inc? No.
French/UK oil companies don't 'call the shots' - Total just pulled out of Iran because of US sanctions. And Israel and SA are closer than ever.
The Jews didn't 'invent' banking, btw. China had a complex banking (and international clearing) system long before medieval Italy's 'bancas'.
How you can deny the power of the corporatocracy and the bankers amazes me. You never heard of the Citizens United decision? You never heard of the Rockefeller empire, the Koch empire, the Rothschild empire?
And yes, Total pulled out of Iran, and so will many other European companies in due course, because they do not want to lose access to the US market, which is the world 's largest buyer (on credit) of other people's goods. But corporations which make the goods and bankers who create the credit still call the shots. If you do not believe that, then there is no point discussing it further. In your own way, you are a True Believer as Eric Hoffer defined one, and reason and truth do nothing but make you dig in your heels further.
Thank you. I spent a lot of time, apparently wasted, trying to explain reality to these people, but they hear what they want to hear, and shut their ears to anything that does not fit their agenda. I have visited and/or lived in over 40 countries, I have friends in the CIA and elsewhere who know what is going on and what is going to happen, and I spend a vast amount of time reading the Internet and putting all of this together to form a picture of the world. But these two sit in their little office in Belfast and contemplate their navels, and are quite certain they know better than anyone what is going on. Certainly, they are better informed than most of the public, they are probably in the top 20% as far as knowledge goes, but they cannot admit that they do not know everything . Rather sad, as they have a lot of readers who ought to be better served. Thanks again for your comments.
To quote Niall. Where in this does Niall give the impression of, " but they cannot admit that they do not know everything .", for example?
We've given you a long leash as we watched you post comment after comment about that trope. It was quaint, as long as you seemed sincere in your search for answers.
Now I'm not so sure. You give 'anti-semitism' literal meaning. Between this and your juvenile behavior on diet-related threads, I'm thinking you might want to cut your losses and seek other platforms for your 'quaint' views.