Joe Biden
© voltairenet.orgAs a United States senator, Joe Biden attempted to impose a plan to partition Iraq into three separate states. As vice president, he oversaw the Minsk Agreements in Ukraine. Now president, he is finishing the destruction of Iraq, which has become ungovernable, and Ukraine, which has been transformed into a battlefield.
Ukraine and the Greek-Cypriot experience
London, Washington, and Moscow guaranteed Ukraine's future in the Budapest Memorandum (1994). Berlin, Paris, and Moscow guaranteed civil peace in Ukraine in the Minsk Agreements (2015).

Today, Kiev accuses Russia of treason, a claim that the facts contradict. On the contrary, it was the United Kingdom and the United States who, reviving an old imperial habit, organized the current war in order to plunge not only Russia, but also Germany, into a destructive conflict.

Hassan Hamadé returns to the guarantees offered by imperial powers, supposedly in the interests of Lebanon, Iraq, and Cyprus, but in reality to destroy them.
"Beware of anyone who thinks he is rich by accumulating promises from people he considers his friends." This ancient Arabic proverb applies to the current situation in Ukraine and, before it, in Greece and Cyprus.

Intended by the United States since 2014 to provoke Russia into a war of attrition, the Zelinski government, supervised by the "neo-Nazis", has applied itself to fulfilling the mission assigned to it to the letter without even bothering to seriously consider the repercussions that this adventurous undertaking could have on the existence of Ukraine as well as on its survival. The United States and other NATO member states continue to demonstrate great generosity by providing military aid, quantitative and qualitative, to the government in Kyiv while completely neglecting the socio-economic aspect, which presents a landscape of great absurdity because the scale of the disaster that deeply affects all sectors of life preludes a future of great and painful social instability. The Zelinski government wants to do anything provided that its country reaches the NATO or European paradise and preferably both together. A project that is certainly too ambitious given the Greek-Cypriot experience, which should have served as an example and a lesson to all those who tend to take their desires for reality, while past and present experiences, as well as the complexities of international circumstances, should alert certain dreamy or fiery minds.
Erdogan
© voltairenet,orgAt an Air Force festival on September 3, 2022, President Erdoğan said: "Greece is trying to threaten us with S-300s. Greece, back in history. If you go too far, the price will be heavy. We have only one thing to say to Greece: Remember Izmir [the burning of Smyrna in 1922]." He was acting on NATO instructions to force Greece to allow a US military base on its territory.
And if Ukraine shows total indifference to the difficulties experienced by the Greek-Cypriot group, the government in Athens, in turn, seems to be suffering from a very curious amnesia, multilaterally developed in diplomacy and history, not to mention the annals of reciprocal wars of aggression with their neighbor and ally Turkey, not only in the recent past, but also in everyday life. While President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan justifies his condemnation of the Russian invasion of Ukrainian territory by respecting international law, the fact remains that on September 3, the Turkish head of state could not refrain from threatening his Greek neighbor with invasion when the time comes. Erdoğan did not mince his words, brandishing threats that could not be clearer: "Your occupation of the islands [in the Aegean Sea, close to Turkey] does not bind us in any way. When the time comes, we will do what is necessary. We can arrive suddenly at night." A strange NATO alliance and its "guarantees of stability".

Atlantic Alliance, partial or complete integration into this formidable war machine, partial or total integration into the European Union, promote in dreams and only in dreams, never in reality, a protection of the territorial integrity as well as the independence and sovereignty of the State holding this kind of aspiration. The example of Cyprus, this small, beautiful and peaceful island, located in the Eastern Mediterranean, depository of a remarkable cultural heritage, will perhaps remain for eternity the typical example capable of refuting the tall tales about the "guarantees" and "protection" offered by military alliances with imperial ambitions.

In the negotiations held between the two Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities, under the heavy and influential patronage of the United Kingdom as the mandatory power and the Greek and Turkish governments, fervent supporters of both communities, which took place in Zurich and London (1959-1960) and which resulted in the Lancaster House Agreement on the independence of the island of Cyprus, it was established that three powers foreign to the island would be the "guarantors" of a strict application of the directives of the Cypriot constitution and consequently guarantors of the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the nascent Republic of the aforementioned agreements. Who more than these three powers can provide real guarantees to the Cypriot dream and the emancipation of this island, cradle of the extraordinary symbiosis between the different Eastern Mediterranean civilizations, especially between Phoenicia and ancient Greece? ...The United Kingdom, Greece, and Turkey, three countries allied within the Atlantic Alliance and respectful of its orders. Cyprus could thus develop in complete security and consequently enjoy peace and tranquility in the truest sense of the word. What could be more reassuring?...
guys in tree
© voltairenet.orgIn 1974, when the dictatorship of Greek colonels staged a coup d'état in Cyprus against the regime of Bishop Makarios, the United States sent Turkey to invade the island. This was "Operation Attila." It was carried out in concert with London and Washington, who remained in the background. The aim was to break up both Cyprus and Greece, even though the dictatorship had been imposed there by NATO's stay-behind network.
But, alas, none of the commitments made by Greece's two partners in this Cypriot enterprise, namely the United Kingdom and Turkey, regarding the strict application of constitutional directives, were respected, and the country fell into a complete institutional impasse caused by the boycott of the work of the executive branch by the vice-president from the Turkish-Cypriot community, whose vice-presidential countersign was essential to the proper functioning of state affairs. So, just three years later, the country found itself in total institutional immobility.

The young Republic entered a fatal spiral that facilitated the invasion of the island by the Turkish army, the eastern spearhead of the Atlantic Alliance, in July 1974, causing the tragedy of the transfer of populations and all the misfortunes that ensued. The United Kingdom let its Turkish ally do this to the detriment of its Greek ally. The partition of the island in no way affected the interests and privileges of the United Kingdom, which is the custodian of two major sovereign air and naval military bases, Dhekelia and Akrotiri. The latter is the largest Royal Air Force base in the world located outside British territory.

What happened to these generous guarantees to which three NATO member states committed themselves?... The silence is total. What about NATO's credibility with its members, but also with its protégés?... The silence is total.

Hugh Mackintosh Foot
© voltairenet.orgHugh Mackintosh Foot, Baron Caradon, was a Puritan and admirer of Oliver Cromwell. A colonial diplomat, he represented the Crown in Palestine and Cyprus, as well as in Nigeria and Jamaica.
Sir Hugh Foot, the last British High Commissioner to the island of Cyprus and the highly authoritarian director of the work that led to the Lancaster House Agreement, received a flattering promotion from his superiors. Her Most Gracious Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, created him a Lord, bearing the name Lord Caradon, in recognition of his masterful work in the Cyprus crisis. This same Lord Caradon enjoyed another rendezvous with history. Having become the UK's permanent representative to the United Nations, this diplomat drafted and undermined the highly controversial Security Council Resolution 242 following the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. He played on linguistic subtleties between the English text of the resolution and its French translation concerning the partial withdrawal (according to the English text) and the total withdrawal (according to the French text) of Israeli troops occupying the Syrian regions of the Golan Heights, the Palestinian regions of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, as well as the Egyptian Sinai desert.

Sir Jeremy Greenstock
© voltairenet.orgSir Jeremy Greenstock had thought he could recount his exploits in a book, "Iraq: The Cost of War." It was banned from publication for eleven years and only finally appeared after heavy cuts. The Crown did not want him to reveal the "Iraqi weapons of mass destruction" plot hatched in 1998, nor how he drafted the Iraqi constitution to make the country ungovernable.
Another historical curiosity: during the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, Paul Bremer, the military governor, called upon the talents of the United Kingdom's permanent representative to the United Nations, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, to draft the Iraqi constitution in order to prevent the future emergence of a united, independent, and sovereign Iraq. This was done, and the Greenstock constitution transformed Iraq into a confederation, although the official name was the "Iraqi Federation." This confederal dimension is strongly felt in the prerogatives that the constitution grants to the autonomous region called "Iraqi Kurdistan." It must be recognized that this chief sorcerer's apprentice, Sir Jeremy, is one of the most brilliant students of Lord Caradon, adept at his manipulations.

Henry de Jouvenel
© Voltairenet.orgHenry de Jouvenel began his career on the left (he was the husband of the novelist Colette) and ended it with the Italian fascists. He briefly served as France's High Commissioner in Syria and Lebanon. To combat the nationalists, he attempted to divide the Arabs into religious minorities, and succeeded in doing so in Lebanon.
These connections between people and projects date back to the 1920s. Lord Caradon was a highly competent person, aware of the major political manipulations that accompanied the emergence of states following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. He was not unaware of the diabolical tactics adopted by the multiple European interferences in the Levant region following the agreements concluded between Suleiman the Magnificent and Francis I in 1536. This is the origin of the European work on what the French Consuls in Aleppo began to call "minorities" and then recently "components" etc. This same Lord Caradon was surely aware of the ins and outs of the mission of the father of the Lebanese Constitution, the first Civil High Commissioner, Henry de Jouvenel. His work, as evidenced by the Lebanese Constitution of 1926, inspired Lord Caradon's research. Something the Lebanese are still unaware of, alas. The Constitution of Cyprus was inspired by the Lebanese Constitution. This is the reality that tends to be overlooked.

This overview course gives an accurate idea of the reality of "guarantees" and "protections." The Ukrainian tragedy is only just beginning, and the world may need a heavenly miracle to stop this race toward the nuclear precipice. I cannot help but recall quite often Liz Truss's famous declaration during her sprint to enter 10 Downing Street: "I am ready, if necessary, to press the nuclear button." As for guarantees and protections, they are only binding on those who believe in them.