Pepe Escobar is usually an interesting writer. And one who's far too unread in the US. Today, he's striking an eerily similar theme to my recent posts, but on a completely different topic- Iran and sanctions and yet more war.
Of course, at all times remember that this whole debate/crisis is about a nuclear weapons program that Iran supposedly has but about which no one can ever offer any real proof that they have.
Let's face it: Hillary Clinton is one hell of a dominatrix.
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She framed the drive towards sanctions as "an answer to the efforts undertaken in Tehran over the last few days". Wait a minute. Immediately after a genuine - and fruitful - mediation on a very sensitive dossier by two emerging powers - and honest brokers - in the multipolar world, Brazil and Turkey, Washington and its two European Union allies at the Security Council, France and Britain, torpedo it. Is this what passes for global "diplomacy"?
Yep, that's a pretty nice description of American diplomacy these days. A few years ago I went back and read William Shirer's "Rise and Fall of the 3rd Reich". Its an interesting read. Especially the chapters on how Hitler 'negotiated' during the crisis over the Rhineland, Austria and Czecoslovakia before WWII began. If you go read a description of those negotiations, don't be surprised if they sound eerily familiar.
And a second thought on this. Do you notice how Clinton as Obama's Secretary of State sounds absolutely identical to Rice as Bush's Secretary of State? Are you getting the change you voted for? Hint, if not, vote for a different party in November.
But back to the parts of Mr. Escobar's piece that caught my eye.
China and Russia pull a Sun Tzu
Ancient Chinese military general, strategist, philosopher and author of The Art of War, Sun Tzu said, "Allow your enemy to make his own mistakes, and don't correct them." China and Russia, both master strategists, are applying this maxim with panache regarding the US.
which, after a description of the details of the current situation with the Security Council, leads to this ...
So we have come to a situation whereby a real, Iran-approved nuclear fuel swap is on the table at the International Atomic Energy Agency while an offensive towards sanctions on Iran is ongoing at the UN. Who is the real "international community" going to trust? Erdogan could not have put it better; "This is the time to discuss whether we believe in the supremacy of law or the law of the supremes and superiors ..."
Most of all, what the developing world sees is the past - US, France, Britain, Germany - fighting against the advance of the future - China, India, Brazil, Turkey, Indonesia. The global security architecture - policed by a bunch of fearful, self-appointed Western guardians - is in a coma. The "Atlanticist" West is sinking Titanic-style.
Mr. Escobar sounds about as confident about the long-term future of American diplomacy as I sound about the short to medium term future in Afghanistan. Mainly that its time for anyone in danger to start thinking about grabbing an early spot in the lifeboats. Because you can dang well bet that the people in charge of these disasters haven't provided nearly enough lifeboats.
It gets worse, or better, depending on your point of view.
At a recent Council on Foreign Relations speech in Montreal, luminary Dr Zbigniew "let's conquer Eurasia" Brzezinski warned that a "global political awakening", along with infighting among the global elite, was something to be deeply feared. The former US national security adviser remarked that "for the first time in all of human history mankind is politically awakened - that's a total new reality - it has not been so for most of human history".
Who do these politically awakened upstarts such as Brazil and Turkey think they are - daring to disturb "our" rule of the world? And then uninformed Americans keep asking themselves "Why do they hate us?" Because, among other reasons, unilateral to the core, Washington does not hesitate to lift its middle finger even to its closest friends.
Who's all for a GLOBAL POLITICAL AWAKENING? Here, Here! Everyone, all together, three cheers for a GLOBAL POLITICAL AWAKENING! Whooo - HOOOO! Sounds better than what we got now. At least to a American worker bee who's been told by corporate America that he's no longer needed.
This is a fascinating little nugget buried at the bottom of this story. The first is that this very well-informed and plugged-in strategist of the militarists and corporate elite says that the political awakening HAS ALREADY OCCURRED!
Sitting at the bottom of the US propaganda bubble, its awfully hard some times to tell what's going on. One is constantly blasted with news of their supposed victories, denied any news of defeats unless they can't be hidden, and generally told that the rest of us have lost and that there is no alternative to the mighty power of wall street.
Yet, here's one of their leading strategists saying that the worldwide political awakening has already occurred. What an American leftist can only dream about occuring someday, we are being told that this is a world wide reality.
I suppose Prof. Brzenski thinks that I should view this as bad news. He certainly seems to be presenting it as bad news to his elite audience. But, to view it as bad news, I have to believe a long and complicated threat that says that what's bad for "America" is bad for me, and that what's bad for Exxon or Goldman Sachs or GE or the rest of the mega, originally American corporation, or even a British corporation like BP, is bad for "America".
Therefore, a global challenge of a politically awakened world to the rule by force of the Exxons and GEs and Goldman Sachs and the BPS of the world is supposed to be bad for me. Thus, I am supposed to be willing to hand over all of my money in taxes, and then either go die myself or send my children to go die to make sure that the rule of the world by Exxons and Goldman Sachs of the world can continue uninterrupted.
As a free citizen, I disagree. And I view a globe full of politically awakened people to be a very good thing. The predominant pattern of human history has been dominant leaders using an unawakened world population to fight and work for the enrichment of these elite, dominant leaders. One can only hope that an awakened world would someday stop doing that.
The fascinating thing is that the elites seem to be flailing hopelessly in dealing with all of these challenges. In fact, they seem committed to a course of certain stupidity.
After all, the empire is massing all of its available troops in Afghanistan. And, even then it finds itself so short of fighting strength that it can only manage a desperate hail mary type operation to turn the tide of a war that currently has insurgents attacking the perimeters of the empires major bases. When you can't control a poor country of 29,000,000, does it really seem to be wise to be expanding and escalating a war into a bigger and richer nation of Pakistan (178,000,000 people) and threaten to start a new war with Iran (68,000,000 people with the 17th richest economy in the world).
If you're a bully, perhaps you should take note of the fact that the scrawny, underfed poor kid is giving you a tougher fight than you expected, and not start fights with crowds of bigger kids who are in better shape?
Back to the quote from Sun Tsu. Let your enemies make their own mistakes, then don't correct them.
Every where you look, it starting to look like 'head for the lifeboats' time. And maybe to start thinking about what sort of world we can have after this Titanic finally sinks and the new world of a globally awakened populace takes charge.
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