On the morning of November 10, it was announced that US President Donald Trump would not be holding an exclusive meeting with his Russian counterpart President Vladimir Putin during the APEC summit in Vietnam after all. This announcement came as a big surprise for Moscow, since previously both Putin's aide Yuri Ushakov and Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced that the meeting would take place. However, on Friday morning White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanderssaid noted that there would not be a special meeting between Putin and Trump due to "different schedules" during the summit. At the same time, Trump himself has repeatedly stated before the launch of his big Asian tour that he was eager to meet with the Russian leader since they had some matters to be discussed. The media has even received an agenda of the meeting that was devoted to Syria, North Korea and Ukraine. At first, one would have a hard time proposing an explanation for such an abrupt change of heart.

Still, there's been a certain chain of events unfolding that help explain this mystery, events in a region where Russia and the US are currently at great odds with one another - the Middle East.

It seems that Saudi Arabia is determined at this point to restore its influence over Lebanon, forcing pro-Western Prime Minister Saad Hariri to abandon his post during his stay in Riyadh. This decision was preceded by a leaked secret Israeli cable about a planned military conflict aimed at Lebanon seeking to provoke a clash between Hezbollah and the Sunni coalition that supports the now former Prime Minister of Lebanon. Then, on November 9, Riyadh and a number of the GCC countries alerted their citizens to leave Lebanon without a moment's delay on the pretext that pro-Iranian forces have seized all power in the country.

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser men so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell

In a time of such intense manipulation and social programming, it is almost irresponsible to allow one's hope to dictate their belief. As is the case with anyone still wholeheartedly buying into one side or the other in this two-party deception - not realizing that both, witting or unwitting, are simply the puppets of a larger driving force - they desire so very badly to see that which they want to be the case, to come to pass. So much so, that they are willing to ignore blatant contradictions in logic, or absurdly obvious shortcomings, in what they refuse to see as anything other than success.

So instead of seeing these as signs that something is not quite what it seems, they instead seemingly make themselves see it as some deceptive trick of the "other side" or explain it away as some "grand manipulation of the deep state," with nothing more than blind hope in many cases.

Defense ministers of the US-led NATO alliance this week endorsed proposals to set up two new military commands - and it is clear Russia is the target of what are, in effect, war plans.

The setting up of an Atlantic command and a logistical hub in Europe to facilitate the transfer of troops and weapons was openly discussed by NATO officials as being aimed at Russia during their two-day summit in Brussels this week.

The two new commands being proposed are the first expansion of NATO's command structure since the end of the Cold War more than 25 years ago. It's a retrograde move that is not only an unnecessary, dangerous provocation to Russia, risking self-fulfilling war threats. Moreover, NATO's renewed organizational cranking is openly calling for the integration of European societies and economies into its madcap military escalation.

European citizens, whether they like it or not, are effectively being dragooned into a state of war, with attendant social burdens to pay for that state of war, let alone being made to live with the risk of ultimate catastrophe, from all-out hostilities erupting.

According to a new report by Middle East Eye, Prince Bandar bin Sultan - Saudi Arabia's most famous arms dealer, longtime former ambassador to the US, and recent head of Saudi intelligence - was among those detained as part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's (MBS) so-called "corruption purge" that started with the initial arrests of up to a dozen princes and other top officials last weekend.

If confirmed, the arrest and detention of Bandar would constitute the most significant and high profile figure caught up in the purge - even above that of high profile billionaire investor Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal - given Bandar's closeness to multiple US administrations and involvement in events ranging from Reagan's Nicaraguan Contra program (including direct involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal), to making the case for the Iraq War as a trusted friend of Bush and Cheney, to directing US-Saudi covert operations overseeing the arming of jihadists in Syria.

RT columnist Bryan MacDonald, a Moscow professor, and the mysterious "Bumfrey McDoogle from the School of Hard Knox" are just some of the people that appeared on an anti-Kremlin petition by the increasingly gaffe-prone European Values think tank.


The distinctly named 'Prague Declaration' proposes "seven urgent steps the democratic West must take to now to stop Russian aggression" declaring that its document - intended for "Western leaders such as EU High Representative Federica Mogherini" - has been endorsed by "more than 100 European and American security experts and parliamentarians from 22 countries."

However, a closer look at the signatories reveal some odd exceptions among Moscow's traditional adversaries, such as exiled businessman Bill Browder and former NSA analyst John Schindler.

One such name is MacDonald, who is described incorrectly as a "former RT correspondent" and earnestly as a "foot soldier in the fight against Putin."

"I am offended," MacDonald told RT with a smile. "I mean I certainly don't wanna be in the same company with the likes of Bill Browder, or Yevhen Fedchenko, who recently said that all Russian journalists were embedded with the security apparatus. I definitely don't want to be associated with James Kirchick, a neocon who wants perpetual war. I absolutely don't want to be associated with Molly McKew, who used to lobby for Mikhail Saakashvili. And definitely I don't want any connection with John Schindler, who is a former NSA spook, who I think frankly is quite mad in his coverage of Russia."

As well as MacDonald and McDoogle, the list featured Moscow State University lecturer and regular RT analyst Mark Sleboda, who is listed as working for the non-existent Center for Conservative Studies.

A new geo-political Middle East is emerging which pits northern states and southern states against one another based on divergent economic and security interests. Saudi is top dog in the south which means that Israel is losing its ability to act unilaterally.

With the wars in Syria and Iraq drawing to a close and with the governments of both states standing victorious over both Takfiri terrorism as well as (broadly speaking) Kurdish ethno-nationalism, a new reality in the Middle East has emerged where the region is broadly divided between a geo-political north and south.

In the north there is the Syria-Iraq alliance made possible by common enemies and a common history, in spite of the Ba'athist schism of 1966-2003. Both states, for slightly different reasons are also allied with Iran and for oddly similar reasons, are partners with Russia. In the case of Syria, Damascus is an historic Soviet ally and in the case of post-Ba'ahist Iraq, the government looks to attain defence independence by working with a Russian state which unlike the US, is willing to sell arms to any reasonable nation without political preconditions.

Iran, Iraq and Syria in turn are allied with Hezbollah, which in effect means a large portion of Lebanon and in terms of geo-strategic defence considerations, it means the most important part of Lebanon. Turkey is now a partner of Iran, Iraq (to a surprisingly important degree) and Russia. While Syria will be very unlikely to forgive Turkey for its previous support of Takfiri driven regime change, in reality, Syria and Turkey have a common post-Takfiri enemy: the continued rumblings Kurdish ethno-nationalism. This means that it is becoming increasingly likely that Syria and Turkey may end up cooperating in the future, even if it means doing so at a covert level because of heightened sensitivities to such a thing among the general public in both Turkey and Syria.

Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah gave Mohammed Bin Salman the dishonorable distinction of supposedly being able to control Iran's hated Zionist foe, which is the clearest signal yet that Tehran considers the "Red Prince" to be an unprecedented threat to the Islamic Republic.

It's no secret that Iran and Saudi Arabia hate one another for reasons that are too numerous to describe in the course of this analysis, though which have been exploited by both the US and Israel to their collective divide-and-rule ends, so in and of itself there's nothing strange about Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah trash-talking Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, though this time the polemics were unprecedented because of the stunning role reversal that they represent.

Instead of Saudi Arabia being under the control of Israel, Nasrallah implied that it's actually Israel which is under the control of the Kingdom's "Red Prince" when he spoke about how Riyadh is trying to incite Tel Aviv to attack Lebanon by bribing it with billions of dollars, some of which it could be assumed might come from the upwards of $800 billion in assets that Mohammed Bin Salman might seize from his country's oligarchs.

In order to increase the global dominance and "lethality" of the US military, the Air Force is moving to modernize its space capabilities and to secure the "freedom to attack and maneuver" in their new "warfighting domain," top officials have stated.

"We are moving forward with modernization in space, so we're increasing our lethality in all of our areas of endeavor," Air Force Secretary Heather A. Wilson told reporters Thursday. "And we are shifting to space as a warfighting domain."

In 1967, the United States and the Soviet Union signed the Outer Space Treaty which prohibits signatories from placing nuclear weapons or any other weapons of mass destruction in outer space. The accord, however, stopped short of limiting the deployment of conventional weapons.

Wilson said Congress has proposed to increase the funding of space-related military programs even beyond the levels sought by the Air Force. Section 1605 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2018 also classifies space as a potential "combat domain."

"It is the policy of the United States to develop, produce, field, and maintain an integrated system of assets in response to the increasingly contested nature of the space operating domain to [among other things] deter or deny an attack on capabilities at every level of orbit in space," as well as to "defend the territory of the United States, its allies, and its deployed forces across all operating domains," Section 1605 reads.

"Everyone agrees that space needs to be integrated, normalized as a part of a joint warfighting effort. This year's budget... The FY18 budget proposal increases what the Air Force is proposing to spend on space by 20 percent," Wilson added.

It seems that scandalous news related to US-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, who is accused of organizing a coup attempt which rocked Turkey in July 2016, shows no sign of abating. Former US National Security Adviser Michael Flynn can neither give a sigh of relief after leaving office.

Robert Kelner, lawyer of the former US National Security Adviser, has vehemently rejected media allegations about Flynn's plan to extradite Gulen to the Turkish government in exchange for a hefty bounty.

"...Today's news cycle has brought allegations about General Flynn, ranging from kidnapping to bribery, that are so outrageous and prejudicial that we are making an exception to our usual rule: they are false," Kelner was quoted by Reuters as saying in a statement.

French President Emmanuel Macron has proposed to amend the nuclear deal with Iran to cover ballistic missile development to avoid a "North Korean" scenario in the Middle East.

In 2015, Iran and six major world powers reached agreement on the Iranian nuclear question, bringing an end to the 12-year dispute over Tehran's nuclear program and related economic sanctions. Under the terms of the deal, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Tehran agreed to cap its uranium enrichment below the level needed for bomb-grade material.

It also pledged to reduce its enriched uranium stockpile from around 10,000kg to 300kg over 15 years and agreed to international inspections. In response, Western countries promised to lift sanctions against Tehran.