https://www.democracynow.org/2017/9/5/headlines?utm_source=Democracy+Now%21&utm_campaign=a7f4e4cab0-Daily_Digest&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fa2346a853-a7f4e4cab0-191485825

Less than 2 weeks after firing an intermediate range ballistic missile over Japan, for which the UN Security Council condemned it, North Korea has now tested what is purportedly a hydrogen bomb (unconfirmed) in its latest show of force in the game of posturing and bluster between Washington and North Korea.   This comes just days after the U.S. and South Korea concluded their annual war games near the North Korean border.   Democracy Now! reported the following:

On Monday, the U.N. Security Council met to address the test. U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley accused North Korea of “begging for war.” President Trump tweeted, “The United States is considering, in addition to other options, stopping all trade with any country doing business with North Korea.” Experts say this proposal is next to impossible, since ceasing trade with China, Brazil, Germany, Mexico and other countries would be an economic catastrophe for the U.S.

Trump also blasted South Korea for being open to initiating peace talks with the North, tweeting, “South Korea is finding, as I have told them, that their talk of appeasement with North Korea will not work, they only understand one thing!” Trump is also preparing to withdraw from a trade agreement between the U.S. and South Korea.

Russian president Putin and the newly elected president of South Korea, Moon Jae-in, both publicly condemned the latest North Korean action after a telephone conversation on Monday; both also reiterated that only diplomatic means can bring about a resolution to the problem.  Putin also had some interesting comments on the tension in the Korean peninsula that he delivered this past Friday during his press conference at the end of the BRICS meeting in China (more on that meeting further down in this post).  An excerpt of the comments were provided by RT:

“It is necessary to push the issue to a dialogue between all interested parties. All participants in this process, including North Korea, should not have any of these considerations that are associated with the threat of destruction, but, on the contrary, all parties to the conflict should get on the path of cooperation”.

“As I told my colleagues yesterday, they (North Koreans) will eat grass but will not stop their program as long as they do not feel safe. What can restore their security? The restoration of international law“.

In response to Trump’s threat of more sanctions, including on any nation that does any kind of business with North Korea, Putin said:

“Of course, it is ridiculous to put us on one sanctions list with North Korea and then to ask to help them with sanctions exercises against North Korea”.

Continuing his remarks about the dangers of further escalation of the tensions and refusing to turn toward a serious negotiated settlement of the crisis on the Korean peninsula:

“It is necessary to take steps to be engaged in a dialogue with all the concerned parties. It is necessary that all the participants of the process, including North Korea would not have any fears related to the threat of the devastation, but instead all the parties to the conflict should take the path of cooperation.

Warmongering would not bring any positive result in such conditions. It could result in a global catastrophe and to a huge number of casualties“.

With respect to Washington’s heavy-handed treatment of the Russian consulate and its staff in Washington D.C., New York, and particularly, the San Francisco consulate, which was ordered to be evacuated within 2 days and possession taken by the Americans earlier this month, Putin said the Russian government was planning on bringing legal action:

“First of all, I will instruct the Foreign Ministry to go to court, we’ll see how effectively the vaunted American judicial system works”.

The portion of the Vienna Conventions that have been violated by Washington are summarized by Canadian Russia expert Patrick Armstrong:

DIPLOMATIC PROPERTY. A complete violation of the Vienna Convention: “Article 22. The premises of a diplomatic mission… are inviolable… The host country must never search the premises…”. Washington has set a precedent that will come back to bite it: what’s to stop any country that thinks it’s on Washington’s target list from doing the same? Incredible. Who’s in charge?

But Putin saved his scrappiest comments for the overall political culture in Washington and how increasingly frustrating it is to deal with the level of ignorance and hubris there:

“It is difficult to have a dialogue with people who confuse Austria with Australia. You can do nothing about it. That seems to be the level of political culture of a certain part of the American establishment.

….the American nation, the American people, America is really a great country, a great nation… of such people with such a low level of political culture”.

Sounds like Putin is getting about as frustrated with Washington as he was in 2007 at the Munich Security Conference where the Russian president had the audacity to tell a room full of western power brokers to their faces that the emperor had no clothes.   Read the transcript of this oldie-but-goodie speech by Putin here or, better yet, if you have time, watch the video with subtitles here .   Most of his points are still valid today and this speech is a contributing factor in why the political class in Washington hates Putin.

Despite the depressing mood regarding the North Korea issue, a delegation from North Korea has arrived in Vladivostok, Russia for the Eastern Economic Forum (consisting of Russia, China, Japan, Vietnam, Mongolia and the Koreas).  The South Korean president will also be arriving.   Adam Garrie at The Duran provided the following details:

The Forum is an event designed to enhance economic partnerships and cooperation between multiple Asian nations including Russia, China, Japan, Vietnam and the Korean states.

This year’s summit occurs days after North Korea tested what is thought to be a hydrogen-weapon. Russia and China have both condemned the move and support UN sanctions against Pyongyang, but are equally opposed to further crippling unilateral sanctions from Washington.

With many suspecting that North Korea would boycott the event, Russian officials have confirmed otherwise, stating that the North Korean delegation is already in Vladivostok.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in is to arrive shortly along with the South Korean delegation. While the Korean crisis is set to dominate discussions that would otherwise have been reserved for discussing trade and economic matters, it is not yet clear if the North and South Korean delegations will interact at any level.

Many suspect that Russian President Vladimir Putin who hosts the event will attempt to conduct dialogue with the representatives of both Korean states in order to try and de-escalate regional tensions.

Can Putin pull another rabbit out of his diplomatic hat like he did with Syria a few years ago?  Hard to say, but hope springs eternal.

To round out suggested reading on the North Korea issue this week, are two articles:

2)  Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell and foreign affairs analyst, discusses how our relations with North Korea devolved from a negotiated plan in the early 1990’s for North Korea to give up its nascent nuclear program to today’s conditions of no negotiation and increasing nuclear threats by both sides.   Read Wilkerson’s North Korea Crisis Paved by Clinton-Era Pols, GOP Naysayers. 

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At the BRICS summit in China last week, it was announced that China would contribute 500 million yuan for a technology and cooperation plan for the group of “developing” countries.  According to Euronews:

China will give 500 million yuan (64 million euros) for a BRICS economic and technology cooperation plan.

Chinese President Xi Jinping says there will also be the equivalent of a further 3.3 million euros for projects at the BRICS countries’ New Development Bank.

With BRICS members discussing the feasibility of using investment capital from the BRICS Development Bank to jointly finance Russian High Speed Rail, it becomes ever more clear that the BRICS bloc functions best when cooperating with other regional endeavours including One Belt–One Road, the Eurasian Economic Union which was founded by Russia as well as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation which aims to create enhanced security cooperation between member states.

The CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, Kirill Dmitriev has stated,

“We discussed the Eurasia high-speed railway project with partners within the framework of the (BRICS) summit. We are now looking at it more actively, and see that RZhD (Russian Railways) already has significant progress on the model which shows more interesting yield now. We see investors’ growing interest to this project”.

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Veteran journalist of Russian economic affairs, Ben Aris is reporting over at BNE’s Intellinews that the Russian government is reducing its military spending and allocating more of its budget to domestic needs.  This, combined with the country coming out of its recession, is designed to restore confidence and optimism in time for the presidential elections next year.

With the presidential election now only a year away, which Russian President Vladimir Putin, virtually unopposed, is expected to easily win, the Russian government has changed its budgetary focus and boosted social spending to soften up the electorate.

Budget spending increased by over 6% year on year (y/y) in the first six months, which meant real growth was rather moderate. Russian GDP adjusted for seasonal and calendar factors rose 2% y/y and declined 0.6% month on the month in July, state development bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) said in a research note on August 24.

Social spending, however, increased by about 10%, even when omitting the one-time payout to pensioners at the start of the year. Budget spending in the housing sector as well as in different sectors of the economy turned to notable growth after some years of decline. Even with a slightly less severe restraint, the spending track on education remained weak, while spending on healthcare declined. The zero-growth line on administration spending seen last year remained in place, outlines the Bank of Finland Institute for Economies in Transition (Bofit).

And the increase in social payment comes not a moment too soon. While the economy has been starting to show visible signs of growth, this has yet to trickle down to the man in the street. Real incomes have started to rise, but the more important real disposable incomes (the extra money Russians have to spend on themselves) only turned positive in June – and even then its growth remains anaemic.

In addition to direct social spending, Putin has also approved $2.5 billion to be allocated for upgrading the Trans-Siberian rail system. According to Asia Times:

Russian has approved US$2.5 billion to expand and modernize the Trans-Siberian and Baikal-Amur railways as part of a larger rail project to boost economic growth and exports from the country’s Far East region that borders the Pacific Ocean.

President Vladimir Putin has given the green light for the government to allocate money from the National Welfare Fund for this stage of the railway expansion project, which could eventually cost $9.5 billion.

Russian Railways (RZD) will cover $5.1 billion of the total cost of the project, which was first approved by the government’s transport commission back in 2014. The state will foot the rest of the bill.

About $1.7 billion will be allocated in 2017 and the rest next year to commission 580 kilometers of additional main lines and upgrade signaling on 680 km of railway and 43 crossings. It will include renovation of 90 railway stations.

“It is expected that the Russian budget over 30 years will receive $8.2 billion” from the added infrastructure, the rail operator said in a statement on its website.

“The project will allow additional cargo volume of up to 66 million tons a year, which will contribute to the development of industrial enterprises in the region, create new jobs, and the necessary economic conditions for effective and sustainable development of Siberia and the Far East.”

Modernization of the railways will increase Russia’s export opportunities, Mikhail Blinkin, director of the Transport Economics and Transport Policy Institute at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, said in an interview.

North Korean soldiers chat as they stand guard behind national flags of China, front, and North Korea on a boat anchored along the banks of Yalu River, near the North Korean town of Sinuiju, opposite the Chinese border city of Dandong, on June 10, 2013.JACKY CHEN/REUTERS; http://www.newsweek.com/china-north-korea-preemptive-strike-649802

According to a poll released last Friday, 80% of Americans are worried at the escalating militaristic rhetoric with North Korea.  CommonDreams reports on the Axios poll:

Commissioned by Vote Vets, a left-leaning political action group which advocates on behalf of U.S. veterans, the poll shows that Americans are both paying attention to—and increasingly worried about—the tensions stirred by President Donald Trump’s bluster and threats towards North Korea and fears that Pyongyang may itself try to launch a nuclear attack.

The new poll arrives after Trump on Thursday said maybe his recent threats to bring down “fire and fury” against North Korea were not “tough” enough and ahead of upcoming (and large-scale) U.S.-South Korean war games which foreign policy analysts warn will only exacerbate tensions.

For its part, China has announced its position in terms of intervening in any conflict:  if North Korea acts first, it will be on its own; however, if Washington attacks North Korea, China will step in on behalf of the isolated country.   According to Newsweek:

China will remain neutral if North Korea fires missiles at United States territory first, but should the U.S. launch a pre-emptive strike, as it has suggested it might, North Korea’s chief ally would come to the North’s aide. While not direct government policy, that verdict of how the country should react amid the unfolding nuclear threats from the U.S. and North Korea is contained in an editorial in the influential Communist Party–run Global Times newspaper Friday.

“China should also make clear that if North Korea launches missiles that threaten U.S. soil first and the U.S. retaliates, China will stay neutral,” read the editorial. “If the U.S. and South Korea carry out strikes and try to overthrow the North Korean regime and change the political pattern of the Korean Peninsula, China will prevent them from doing so.”

As reported by ZeroHedge, China and Russia have come up with a plan to resolve tensions in the Korean peninsula as the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced recently:

In a glimmer of hope that a military conclusion to the North Korean crisis may yet be averted, Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said that “Russia does not accept a North Korea that possesses nuclear weapons”, cautioned that there is an “overwhelming amount of over-the-top belligerent rhetoric on North Korea’s nuclear and rocket programs from Washington and Pyongyang”, but most importantly said that there is a joint Russian-Chinese plan to defuse the North Korean crisis, according to which North Korea would freeze its missile tests, while the US and South Korea would stop large scale exercises.

“Russia together with China developed a plan which proposes ‘double freezing’: Kim Jong-un should freeze nuclear tests and stop launching any types of ballistic missiles, while US and South Korea should freeze large-scale drills which are used as a pretext for the North’s tests.”

It was not clear if Russia or China, had floated this plan with the US or S. Korea prior; the most likely answer is no.

Hoping that “common sense will ultimately prevail“, Lavrov said that North Korea had once signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) but then withdrew from it. The result is a nuclear-armed N.Korea which Russia refuses to accept: “Now North Korea claims that it has legal rights to make nuclear weapons and has already done so,” he said. “But you know our position: we don’t accept the fact that North Korea could possess nuclear weapons.”

 He added that both Russia and China have a “range of proposals” aimed at preventing what could become “one of the deepest conflicts” and a “crisis with a big number of casualties.” (emphasis in original)

Of course, reasonable plans for compromise that North Korea would be willing to accept have been offered to Washington before and rejected.   An interview with Noam Chomsky a few months ago discusses this history.  So, the chances of such a compromise being accepted by Washington now does not look optimistic, even though South Korea has announced its intentions to go all out to prevent any war with North Korea as it knows the damage it would suffer from any military attack unleashed by the North.   The new president of South Korea, who campaigned as a peace candidate, made the following public remarks earlier this week, according to the Economic Times of India.

“There must be no more war on the Korean Peninsula. Whatever ups and downs we face, the North Korean nuclear sitaution must be resolved peacefully,” said Moon in opening remarks at a regular meeting with senior aides and advisers. The remarks were provided by the presidential Blue House.

The following day, Moon made comments in a televised speech, intimating that Washington and South Korea had an understanding that no military action was desired and none would be taken without South Korea’s permission.

Moon, in a televised speech Tuesday on the anniversary of World War II’s end and the Korean Peninsula’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule, said Seoul and Washington agree that the nuclear standoff should “absolutely be solved peacefully.” He said no U.S. military action on the Korean Peninsula could be taken without Seoul’s consent.

Moon said the North could spur talks by stopping nuclear and missile tests.

“Our government will put everything on the line to prevent another war on the Korean Peninsula,” Moon said. “Regardless of whatever twist and turns we could experience, the North Korean nuclear program should absolutely be solved peacefully, and the (South Korean) government and the U.S. government don’t have a different position on this.”

Reportedly, General Joseph Dunford met on Monday with top South Korean security officials and subsequently made comments that don’t seem to totally line up with Moon’s understanding, which seems to be based more on wishful thinking.

For some depressing context as to why North Korea feels the need to defend itself against any possible aggression from Washington, watch the following video where Jimmy Dore discusses how the U.S. military utterly flattened the entire country and killed millions of civilians during the Korean war.  The devastation was so massive that General MacArthur said it made him “vomit.”  An accomplishment that the DOD still brags about on its twitter account.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Crf7dubJ3k

And just to add an ironic twist to this whole story, the New York Times has reported that the source of the advanced missiles that have enabled North Korea to make sudden gains in its weapons system is none other than our democracy-loving good buddies in Ukraine.   ZeroHedge  wrote of the expose:

According to the report, analysts who studied photographs of Kim Jong-un, inspecting the new rocket motors concluded that they derive from designs that once powered the Soviet Union’s missile fleet. “The engines were so powerful that a single missile could hurl 10 thermonuclear warheads between continents.”

Since the alleged engines have been linked to only a few former Soviet sites, government investigators and experts have focused their inquiries on a missile factory in Dnipro, Ukraine, on the edge of the territory where Russia is fighting a low-level war to break off part of Ukraine. During the Cold War, the factory made the deadliest missiles in the Soviet arsenal, including the giant SS-18. It remained one of Russia’s primary producers of missiles even after Ukraine gained independence.

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With North Korea taking up so much attention – attention that was once obsessively focused on Russia – it’s easy to forget about the third country that was the target of the recent sanctions legislation passed by Congress and reluctantly signed by Trump.  Iran is none too happy about having new sanctions levied on it – in addition to still having some of the original sanctions that were supposed to be lifted as a result of the agreement with the P5+1 still in place – after holding up its end of the bargain as recently certified by the Trump administration.

Iran’s first announced response, via legislation passed by its parliament (the Majlis), was to put more funding into its ballistic missile systems and its Revolutionary Guards.   Alexander Mercouris provides some interesting insight into the nature of these particular sanctions on Iran and how they have huge potential to backfire:

It should be said that the latest US sanctions on Iran – which basically target certain individuals and companies in Iran, and which attempt to block arms to and by Iran – are pinpricks.

The arms blockade on Iran the US is now trying to impose is especially absurd since the only countries which have shown any interest in selling sophisticated arms to Iran are Russia and North Korea, whose arms companies the US is already sanctioning, and which has no reason therefore not to sell arms to Iran.

 

Unsurprisingly the Russians have reacted to the sanctions – both those imposed on Iran and those imposed on themselves – by offering to step up their arms sales to Iran.  Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin – the Russian official who supervises Russia’s arms industries – recently visited Iran, where he supposedly offered the Iranians SU-27 and MiG-35 fighters (the Iranians supposedly said no because they want SU-35s and SU-30s instead).

Needless to say if North Korea were ever to offer to sell its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons technology to Iran – as it now has every incentive to do – the development of Iran’s ballistic missiles and – conceivably at some point – nuclear weapons would also accelerate rapidly.

Seriously, who writes this stuff?

An additional response has come from reform president Rouhani, who has staked his political reputation on the negotiated agreement with Washington against domestic hardliners who don’t trust Washington as far as they can sling a piano.   In a speech before the Majlis, Rouhani stated that Iran could restart its nuclear program and exit the agreement if any further sanctions were implemented.

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With all of these antics, would it be a surprise if citizens of the world still believed that the U.S. was the most dangerous nation in the world as was reflected in a WIN/Gallup poll several years back? Well, according to a new survey, not only does the world still think this, even more think it than before.   Russia analyst Patrick Armstrong summed up the latest survey findings:

THE THREAT. Pew has an international survey out asking about leading security threats. The following NATO members name US power as a greater threat than Russian or Chinese: Canada, Germany, Greece, Spain and Turkey. USA is named first by 19 countries, China by 9, Russia by 7. This is a competition that the US has won every time out of the gate. And rising. Interesting, eh? And after all that propaganda, too. NATO StratCom needs more money!

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In a bit of good news, the UN announced that hundreds of thousands of Syrians have returned home to Homs and Aleppo after the cities were liberated from jihadist terrorists earlier this year.   Al-Masdar News reported :

BEIRUT, LEBANON (4:40 A.M.) – According to a study by the International Organization for Migration (a United Nations body), some 602,759 displaced Syrians have been returned to their homes of which about two-thirds of that number specifically resettled in Aleppo Governorate.

The period of time the study accounts for is from January to June 2017.

So if 97% of these people have been able to return to their original homes already, then either the destruction wrought by the Syrian and Russian governments in the battle of Aleppo was greatly exaggerated or there has been a very intense rebuilding program.

Either way, I’m happy for the Syrian people who are going home and will hopefully be able to pick up the pieces of their lives.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/09/politics/north-korea-donald-trump/index.html

Since there has been so much escalating rhetoric with the North Korea situation, I’ve decided to devote this post to that topic.  On Monday, North Korea’s spokesperson at the ASEAN conference criticized the latest sanctions that were unanimously passed by the U.N. Security Council:

Bang Kwang Hyuk: “Is our nuclear possession a threat to the world, or is it just a threat to the United States? We want to make it clear that the worsening situation on the Korean Peninsula, as well as the nuclear issues, were caused by the United States.”

It has been reported that the sanctions will decrease North Korea’s income from exports by approximately 1/3 (or ~$1 billion).   However, Lawrence Wilkerson provided some context of the impact of the sanctions during a recent interview at the Real News Network:

LARRY WILKERSON:  …but let’s face it, North Korea, as you’ve just described it is a place where these sorts of sanctions that the United States thinks it can use against very sophisticated, basically industrial or post-industrial economies, simply don’t have any impact, particularly when the two staples, the real things that North Korea needs to survive and regime survival is all they’re really interested in, are the heavy fuel that China provides them and the hard currency that they earn from the relationships they have with everyone from proper Chinese authorities to the Triads in China, the criminal gangs with whom they deal.

Wilkerson goes on to describe how negotiations might be pursued between Washington and North Korea:

The real message here has come somewhat sotto voce but nonetheless it has come from Tillerson and his comments recently and also from the president of South Korea. Those comments indicate that both men, Tillerson and the president are interested in talking with North Korea. The statements they’ve made reflect knowingly and smartly and wisely the program that former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry suggested in an interview with Senator Sanders on the latter’s radio show recently. That is that we have to negotiate. We have to talk. We have to have something we can give them, and they have to have something they can give us.

A suggestion would be that the exercises in August we plan with the South Koreans for example, we would forgo those, we would not have them, in exchange for North Korea’s not doing any more nuclear tests or perhaps even any more ballistic missile tests in addition to that. That would be a good beginning. Then we could start talking about what North Korea is really concerned about and that is the fact they think the United States is going to attack them. They think these exercises on the peninsula are very provocative in that sense, and I would too, if I were in Pyongyang. I’m not excusing the criminality of this regime in Pyongyang. I’m just stating what is reality.

In an interview with Amy Goodman, investigative journalist Allan Nairn reiterated the same points about the rationale for North Korea’s position:

ALLAN NAIRN:  ….In many ways, Kim Jong-un is—comports himself like a crazy person, as does Trump, but there is an underlying rational incentive for the North Korean regime to get nuclear weapons, as [Director of National Intelligence Dan] Coats just acknowledged. You know, they always say there are no good options regarding North Korea. Well, there are no good military options. But as part of their goal of regime survival, one thing that the North Korean regime has always said is that they have two principal goals. One is to stop the U.S.-South Korean military exercises, which are provocative. And, two, end the Korean War. There’s an armistice now, but the Korean War is not formally over. That’s the kind of thing that, if the U.S. were serious, it could sit down on the table and—at the table and negotiate.

Nairn goes on to comment on President Trump’s statement this week that appeared to threaten North Korea with a nuclear attack. Subsequently, North Korea threatened the island of Guam.

Trump’s statement was:

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. He has been very threatening, beyond a normal statement. And as I said, they will be met with fire, fury and, frankly, power, the likes of which this world has never seen before. Thank you.

Nairn’s comment:

In more rational times, what Trump said yesterday would be an article of impeachment. There’s been a lot of talk of impeachment from some people up to now, for things like Trump’s crimes, like racism, injustice, stupidity, regarding the threat of climate change, all sorts of things. But, in a sense, all of those things fit within the normal parameters of the U.S. presidency. Lots of U.S. presidents, at one time or another, have engaged in talk and activities like that, although none so intensively as Trump. But with what he’s doing now, provoking North Korea, risking actual destruction of part of the U.S., he is violating the system’s rules on its own terms. He’s committing an actual threat against U.S. national security. And you would think that in just pragmatic political terms in Washington, that is the kind of thing that could be grounds for impeachment. But as long as he sits in that chair, it’s true, the commanders are obligated to obey his order.

To add to the tensions, the Washington Post has reported that anonymous intelligence sources say there is an intelligence report stating that North Korea has the capability of weaponizing a miniature nuclear bomb with ICBM’s that could reach the western coast of the United States.   However, journalist Tim Shorrock, who has written extensively over decades about North Korea and just returned from a 2-month stint in South Korea, has expressed skepticism of the WaPo report in an interview with Aaron Mate at the Real News Network:

TIM SHORROCK: First of all, let’s go back to the report you mentioned at the top of the hour, which was this defense intelligence report that was leaked to the Washington Post today and reported on by three of their better reporters. I’m a little surprised by this report, because for one thing it’s clearly not the collective conclusion of the entire intelligence community. It’s someone in the DIA and there’s no real analysis of what they say. They just say it has this miniature warhead that they can now put on a ICBM. Well, they’ve said that before in years past. It hasn’t proven to be true and I’m wondering why this is coming out right now. That seems very dangerous on the face of it. Someone is trying to push, someone within the administration, within the intelligence community is pushing for a military response by leaking this kind of report.

It doesn’t have the full discussion that you usually see in intelligence reports, so I’m very skeptical of it for that reason. Going back to the sanctions, I mean, it was pretty surprising to see China and Russia vote for these very severe sanctions, which as Nikki Haley described on Sunday, over the weekend these sanctions will cut North Korea’s exports by at least 1/3 and cut very deeply into their one earnings. They could be very damaging sanctions, but what the US media never seems to pick up is what the Chinese and both the Chinese and the Russians say to the United States, which is, “Okay. We’re going to vote for these sanctions and help enforce these sanctions, but you, the United States, must proceed on a path of dialogue and negotiations to resolve this. This will not be resolved by sanctions and tough words alone.”

Sounds like Russia and China are still hoping against hope that the decisionmakers in Washington have some kind of reason that can be appealed to if they just say the right words and throw them a bone.   I’m wondering if that hope is misplaced.

Rex Tillerson appeared to be attempting to soothe international nerves after Trump’s aggressive comments on North Korea, only to have Defense Secretary Mattis undermine them with more aggressive rhetoric.  ABC News had the following details :

Speaking earlier Wednesday on his way home from Asia, he [Tillerson] credited Trump with sending a strong message to the North Korean leader on the “unquestionable” U.S. ability to defend itself, so as to prevent “any miscalculation.” Tillerson insisted the U.S. isn’t signaling a move toward military action, while it pursues a policy of sanctions and isolation of North Korea.

“Americans should sleep well at night,” Tillerson told reporters. He added, “Nothing that I have seen and nothing that I know of would indicate that the situation has dramatically changed in the last 24 hours.”

No sooner had Tillerson ratcheted down the rhetoric than Defense Secretary Jim Mattis ratcheted it back up.

Echoing Trump’s martial tone, Mattis said North Korea should stand down its nuclear weapons program and “cease any consideration of actions that would lead to the end of its regime and the destruction of its people.” As seldom as it is for a president to speak of using nuclear missiles, the reference to the “destruction” of a foreign people is equally rare.

So who to believe?   And how much clout does Tillerson have in the administration against the more aggressive members like Mattis, McMaster and Trump (at times) himself?  How much longer will Tillerson remain as Secretary of State?  Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if Tillerson is gone by the end of the year.

Palace Square, St. Petersburg, Russia; photo by Natylie Baldwin

On July 27th, a new round of sanctions against Russia were passed by both houses of Congress with only a handful of legislators opposing.  The new sanctions include penalties against foreign entities that do business with Russian fossil fuel companies.  The sanctions were enacted with “election interference” used as the primary justification.   Trump, who would be facing an override of any veto, is expected to sign it.   The first part of Russia’s response was swift – booting out hundreds of American diplomats from the country and allowing only the same number of diplomats as those currently allowed to serve in the United States from Russia. CommonDreams reported the following details:

Members of the U.S. diplomatic staff in Russia will be expelled in the coming weeks, following an order on Friday by the Russian Foreign Ministry. The move was made in response to a new economic sanctions bill that passed in both houses of the U.S. Congress.

Russia said it would also seize two properties used by the U.S. Embassy by next week. Reuters cited a report by Russia’s Interfax news agency saying “hundreds” of employees would be affected, by the exact number was not clear.

….The new sanctions would impact the Russian energy and financial sectors, and the European Union has expressed concerns that they could also affect European companies involved in the building of a new pipeline from Germany to Russia.

On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he “very much regrets” the strained relations between the U.S. and Russia, and accused the U.S. of displaying “boorish behavior” and “anti-Russia hysteria.”

The Russian foreign ministry called allegations that it meddled in the 2016 election “an absolutely invented pretext.”

Just prior to the passing of the legislation, it was condemned by the EU president, Jean-Claude Junker, the French Foreign Ministry and the German Foreign Office, citing the undermining of European energy security, economic interests and violation of international law.

Reuters reported on July 31st that the German economic minister had stated that the EU should consider counter-measures:

BERLIN (Reuters) – New sanctions against Russia proposed by U.S. lawmakers and which could harm European firms violate international law and the European Commission should consider counter-measures, the German economy minister was quoted on Monday as saying.

“We consider this as being against international law, plain and simple,” Brigitte Zypries told the Funke Mediengruppe newspaper chain. “Of course we don’t want a trade war. But it is important the European Commission now looks into countermeasures.”

The German government and business leaders have said the new sanctions passed this month by the U.S. House of Representatives could prevent German companies from working on pipeline projects [Nordstream 2] that they say are essential to Germany’s energy security.

Pepe Escobar provided his analysis of, not only the provocation of European allies that the legislation will be responsible for, but how some of its provisions will effectively cripple any attempts by Trump (or any future president) to normalize relations with Russia:

Trump will be required to justify to Congress, in writing, any initiative to ease sanctions on Russia. And Congress is entitled to launch an automatic review of any such initiative.

Translation; the death knell of any possibility for the White House to reset relations with Russia. Congress in fact is just ratifying the ongoing Russia demonization campaign orchestrated by the neocon and neoliberalcon deep state/War Party establishment.

Economic war has been declared against Russia for at least three years now. The difference is this latest package also declares economic war against Europe, especially Germany.

That centers on the energy front, by demonizing the implementation of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and forcing the EU to buy US natural gas.

Make no mistake; the EU leadership will counterpunch. Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission (EC), put it mildly when he said, “America first cannot mean that Europe’s interests come last.”

Escobar reported on further retaliation set to be implemented by Russia:

Kommersant has reported that Moscow, among other actions, will retaliate by banning all American IT companies and all US agricultural products from the Russian market, as well as exporting titanium to Boeing (30% of which comes from Russia).

As British Russia expert, Richard Sakwa pointed out in an interview with the Real News Network, Washington is making a feeble attempt to force Europe to abandon its current reliable, economical and geographically close source of natural gas from Russia and buy fracked gas from the U.S.:

In the short-term, this works to the advantage of the fracking gas lobby, because they were talking specifically about being able to fill the gap, perceived gap or possible gap, in European gas markets, by exporting, selling LNG, liquid of natural gas. That may be to their advantage of the gas fracking industry.

Sakwa goes on to explain how this may be a bridge too far with most of western Europe:

It’s the European companies who are hopping mad at the moment, to be absolutely honest, but just in this last few months, the German exports to Russia have gone up 20%, despite sanctions. What this is doing is going back to the 1980’s when the Reagan administration tried to stop the building of the [inaudible 00:10:30] and the West [inaudible 00:10:32] gas pipelines to Western Europe in the first place. Then, posed quite severe sanctions, but the Germans refused to accept it. Now, what’s happening, this is going to drive a wedge between Europeans and the United States.

He also goes on to say how, based on his recent visits to Russia, he is privvy to how much pressure Putin is under, from Russians across the political spectrum, to intensify his response to progressively more provocative actions by Washington that have accumulated over the past several years:

…these sanctions are a declaration that US law is universal across the world. It isn’t just affecting US companies, it’s affecting any company initially, even which had a slight involvement in an economic energy project in which a Russian company was involved. After discussion, it went up to where Russian companies got about 35% engagement. It’s quite draconian, so it’s why I say, yes it’s [incremental 00:07:35] in some ways, but it’s a huge jump at the same time. I don’t know what has [seized 00:07:41] Congress in imposing these draconian measures, and this is only the beginning of the response.

This is the first element. Putin himself is trying to keep these down, but he has been under enormous pressure. I was in Saint Petersburg a few weeks ago and even people with [inaudible 00:08:03] liberal views were saying, condemning Putin for not having reacted to Obama’s provocations at the end of December last year. He has done the minimum really to satisfy Russian public opinion who is, as you can imagine, over the last few months, just getting fed up with this, what they perceive to be craziness coming out from Washington.

Listen to or read the transcript of the full interview with Professor Sakwa here.

So the question is:  how angry is Europe, led by Germany, and how far are they now willing to go to oppose Washington’s folly and assert their own interests?  Escobar is talking about the possibility of a German-Russian entente:

And that bring us to the “nuclear” possibility in the horizon; a Germany-Russia alignment in a Reinsurance Treaty, as first established by Bismarck. CIA-related US Think Tankland is now actively discussing the possibility.

As anyone who has followed my previous writing, including my half of the Ukraine book, will know, since the time of the British empire, the thought of a German-Russian alliance has given Anglo-American imperialists the willies (see Alford Mackinder and the late Zbig).  If Washington insists on giving Germany the proverbial finger in terms of its economic interests, the Eurasian Century may get a quicker jumpstart.  More from Escobar:

The Russia-China strategic partnership is extremely attractive to German business, as it smoothes access via the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). According to the business/political source, “the US is at war with China and Russia (but not Trump, our President) and Germany is having second thoughts about being nuclear cannon fodder for the US. I have discussed this in Germany, and they are thinking of renewing the Reinsurance Treaty with Russia. No one trusts this US Congress; it is considered a lunatic asylum. Merkel may be asked to leave for the leadership of the UN, and then the treaty would be signed. It will shake the world and end any thought of the United States being a global power, which it isn’t anymore.”

Will Germany really stand up to Washington this time?

It’s not a foregone conclusion by any means.  Time will tell.

In the meantime, the deputy Foreign Minister of Russia, Sergei Ryabkov, told ABC News in an interview after the sanctions legislation had passed Congress that Russia may have to consequently consider alternatives to the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency.

Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, stated during a lengthy press conference on August 2nd, that he and President Trump are disappointed with the sanctions but feel that the overwhelming congressional support means that they are stuck with them.  However, Trump and Tillerson tend to try to work around them while continuing to pursue improved relations with Moscow:

I think the American people want the two most powerful nuclear nations in the world to have a better relationship. I don’t think the American people want us to have a bad relationship with a huge nuclear power. But I think they are frustrated, and I think a lot of this reflects the frustration that we’ve not seen the kind of improvement in the relationship with Russia that all of us would like to see.

….The action by the Congress to put these sanctions in place and the way they did, neither the President nor I are very happy about that. We were clear that we didn’t think it was going to be helpful to our efforts. But that’s the decision they made. They made it in a very overwhelming way. I think the President accepts that, and all indications are he will sign that, that bill. And then we’ll just work with it, and that’s kind of my view is we’ll work with it. We got it. We can’t let it take us off track of trying to restore the relationship.

Nikolas Gvosdev has written an interesting article over at the National Interest, speculating on how Trump could avoid enforcing the sanctions in the manner that Congress would like, citing the notorious “signing statement” as one of several options Trump could potentially use to downplay the effect of the sanctions, giving himself wriggle room to de-escalate:

Congressional legislation in the area of foreign policy is always tricky, because while Congress can mandate and fund, it is the president who chooses the manner, style, speed and pace of execution. After all, Congress could authorize and all-but-insist upon the shipment of “defensive weapons” to Ukraine, but it could not compel President Barack Obama to actually deliver arms.

Both Obama and President George W. Bush routinely used “signing statements” when presented with pieces of congressional legislation which had provisions that they opposed if they were not prepared to veto the entire bill. Bush and Obama have left President Donald Trump a bipartisan precedent of a chief executive using such statements to effectively reinterpret the intent of congressional legislation, particularly in designating congressional mandates as “advisory” when they believed that Congress was infringing on their Article II authority. This is not to suggest that Trump can simply negate sanctions on his own authority, but he can easily spell out in such a document how he understands the legislation and how he plans to carry out its provisions.

Read the full article here.

Meanwhile, Russia has just signed a $2.5 billion deal with another Washington-sanctioned nation to provide train cars for Iran’s extended and upgraded rail infrastructure, partly in anticipation of its role in China’s New Silk Road initiative.  According to Forbes:

Russia and Iran signed a $2.5 billion deal on Monday to start up a much-needed rail wagon production operation. The agreement was forged between the Industrial Development and Renovation Organization of Iran (IDRO) and Transmashholding, who is Russia’s largest rail equipment supplier. The two sides will set up a new joint venture, which will be 80% owned — although completely funded — by the Russian partner.

Iran is currently in the midsts of what could be called an infrastructure building bonanza. Emerging from decades of sanctions which left much of the country’s transportation infrastructure descending into proverbial ruins, Iran has embarked upon a near complete rebuild of its highway and rail networks. The country is expected to add on 15,000 kilometers of new rail lines in the next five years alone — a rapid expansion which is going to require 8,000-10,000 new wagons each year.

Reinvigorating the transport sector is a key part of Iran’s vision to leverage its geographic position to become a vibrant hub of trans-Eurasian trade, which plugs nicely into China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Russia’s continued economic activity in the post-Soviet neighborhood. Iran is also a core partner, along with Russia and India, in the emerging North-South Transport Corridor, which seeks to create a multimodal trade route that would cut the lead time between cities on the west coast of India and St. Petersburg in half, and has also worked out its territorial squabbles with Russia over the Caspian Sea.

Well, it sure doesn’t sound like Russia and Iran are wasting any time weeping over Washington’s scorn.  They’re moving on with mutually beneficial projects in their own neighborhood.

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Added on to the very short list of positive things Trump has done, the U.S. program supporting rebels (via the CIA) in Syria has been suspended.   There are some reports that Trump was motivated to do so after being made aware of the sickeningly notorious video of CIA-backed rebel group Nour al-Din al-Zenki beheading a Palestinian-Syrian boy.   ZeroHedge has a write-up about this that relies primarily on a report written by a man who works for a Neocon think tank in Washington.  It was originally published at the Weekly Standard, which is a Neocon publication. Therefore, this should be viewed with some degree of skepticism until it can be independently verified.   Quoted below is the gist of the article:

Trump wanted to know why the United States had backed Zenki if its members are extremists. The issue was discussed at length with senior intelligence officials, and no good answers were forthcoming, according to people familiar with the conversations. After learning more worrisome details about the CIA’s ghost war in Syria—including that U.S.-backed rebels had often fought alongside extremists, among them al Qaeda’s arm in the country—the president decided to end the program altogether.

Ben Norton, writing for Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), observed how the corporate media again showed its tendency to carry water for Washington’s warmongers, by lamenting Trump’s decision to end the program:

If one only read corporate media reporting, however, you would likely think that the termination of the CIA program was an abject tragedy. Spin doctors at major news outlets depicted the Trump administration’s decision as variously a spineless concession to the evil Russian puppet master and/or a wretched abandonment of a supposedly noble US commitment to “freedom and democracy.”

The Washington Post (7/19/17) took the lead with the article “Trump Ends Covert CIA Program to Arm Anti-Assad Rebels in Syria, a Move Sought by Moscow,” which framed the development almost entirely as a concession to the Kremlin. It cited Charles Lister, a hawkish analyst who has for years lobbied for US-led regime change in Syria. “We are falling into a Russian trap,” lamented Lister, who works for think tanks funded by the US, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE, and never fails to toe the line.

Western corporate media compliantly echoed the Post‘s talking points: TheGuardian (7/20/17) declared “Donald Trump Drops CIA Program in Syria ‘in Bid to Improve Russia Ties’”; USA Today (7/20/17) said, “Trump’s Cutoff of Aid to Syrian Rebels Marks Victory for Assad, Russia and Iran”; “Donald Trump Ends Covert CIA Aid to Syrian Rebels in ‘Win’ for Russia,” the Telegraph (7/20/17) added.

The Washington Post‘s resident unofficial CIA PR rep, David Ignatius (7/20/17), practically boasted that “CIA-backed fighters may have killed or wounded 100,000 Syrian soldiers and their allies over the past four years.”

A top US general later made it clear that the halt of the CIA operation was not about Russia. But this mattered little to the Fourth Estate; the “Kremlin plot” seed had already been planted.

The idea that it might actually be good to end a program that even establishment think tanks conceded empowered Al Qaeda and other jihadist militant groups in Syria, regardless of what Russia desires, was never entertained.

Now seems like a good time to review how Washington got involved in trying to foment regime change in Syria from 2011 on.  Two excellent articles discussing this background have recently been published.  The first is by the award-winning independent Middle East journalist, Gareth Porter, and appeared in the American Conservative – an outlet that is ideologically more in line with the Edmund Burke tradition of conservatism and supports a mostly non-interventionist foreign policy.

An excerpt:

One of the keys to understanding its origins is that the program was launched not because of a threat to U.S. security, but because of a perceived opportunity. That is always a danger sign, prompting powerful national-security bureaucrats to begin thinking about a “win” for the United States. (Think Vietnam and Iraq.)

The opportunity in this case was the rise of opposition protests against the Assad regime in spring 2011 and the belief among national security officials that Assad could not survive. The national-security team saw a shortcut to the goal. Former Obama administration official Derek Chollet recalled in his book The Long Game that Obama’s advisers were all talking about a “managed transition” and urging Obama to publicly demand that Assad step down, according to Chollet. What that meant to Obama’s advisers ws bringing pressure from outside, including providing arms to the opposition.

That was wishful thinking not only in regard to the willingness of an Alawite-dominated regime to hand over power to its sectarian foes, but in regard to the assumed Iranian willingness to go along with toppling the regime. Not one of Obama’s advisers had sufficient understanding of regional dynamics to warn the President that Iran would not allow of Syrian ally to be overthrown by an opposition supported by Sunni states and the United States.

But the decisive factor in pushing the administration toward action was the pressure from U.S. Sunni allies in the region—Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar—which began in autumn 2011 to press Obama to help build and equip an opposition army. Turkey was the leader in this regard, calling for Washington to agree to provide heavy weaponry—including anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles—to the rebel troops that didn’t even exist yet, and even offering to invade Syria to overthrow the regime if the U.S. would guarantee air cover.

In the ideology of the national security elite—especially its Democratic wing—regional alliances are essential building blocks of what is styled as the U.S.-sponsored global “rules-based order.” In practice, however, they have served as instruments for the advancement of the power and prestige of the national security bureaucracies themselves. The payoffs of U.S. alliances in the Middle East have centered on the military bases in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar that allow the Pentagon and the military brass to plan and execute military operations that guarantee extraordinary levels of military spending. But enormous Saudi arms purchases and the financing of any covert operations the CIA doesn’t wish to acknowledge to Congress have long been prime benefits for those powerful organizations and their senior officials.

(Emphasis mine).  Read the full article here

The second article is from former weapons inspector, Scott Ritter, also published at the American Conservative and goes into the details of how weapons were funneled to “rebel” groups in Syria starting in 2011, after Qaddafi was illegally overthrown and murdered in Libya:

The train and equip mission of the CIA in Syria can be traced back to the spring of 2011, when a revolution broke out in Libya against the dictatorial rule of Muammar Gadhafi. Backed by NATO airpower, anti-regime fighters were able to establish control over large areas inside Libya. The CIA began a program to train and equip these fighters, supplying weapons to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, who in turn shipped these weapons to Libya, where they were turned over to Libyan rebels. (This circuitous route was chosen to avoid the U.S. being in violation of a UN embargo against weapons deliveries to Libya.)

In August 2011, in the aftermath of the capture of the Libyan capital of Tripoli by rebel forces, Qatar began diverting arms originally intended for Libya to Turkey, where they were turned over to rebel forces that had, since June of 2011, been fighting against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. These rebels were grouped together under the umbrella of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), an ostensibly secular resistance group that  was in reality controlled by the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organization that had been crushed by Bashar al-Assad’s father back in the early 1980’, and was operating in exile in Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan. While the CIA was not directly involved in this activity, CIA personnel in Libya and Turkey monitored these shipments to make sure no sensitive weaponry, such as hand-help surface-to-air missiles, made their way into Syria. This effort, which involved billions of dollars of arms, including those provided by the United States for the express purpose of aiding Libyan rebels, continued through 2012 and into 2013. (The U.S. Ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, who was killed in an attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi in September 2012, was involved in coordinating these weapons transfers.)

As the fighting in Syria expanded in scope and scale, the number of anti-regime combatant organizations increased. The FSA took on an increasingly Islamist character, and many of its fighters defected to more extreme organizations, such as al-Nusra (an Al Qaeda affiliate). Many of the CIA-provided weapons being shipped by Qatar through Turkey made their way into these Islamist units, with the unintended result being that the U.S. was actively arming Al Qaeda and other extremist entities openly hostile to American interests. In an effort to control the flow of weaponry into Syria, President Obama authorized the CIA to formally take over the process of training and equipping Syrian rebels. This operation, known by its codename, Timber Sycamore, was run out of Turkey and Jordan with the full support of both governments.

Read the complete article here

Of course, designs on Syria by Washington did not start in 2011.  As Stephen Gowans (author of  Washington’s Long War on Syria) details in a presentation available below, it has been going on since the Cold War.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HOgPsZkCM8

Note:  Gowans’ presentation begins approximately at the 10 minute mark.

After months and months of being inundated with charges that Donald Trump and/or his campaign colluded with the Russian government to install him somehow as a Manchurian candidate in Washington – by hacking the election, facilitating the publication of true information that put candidate Hillary Clinton in a negative light, or clandestine meetings with various Russians (all of whom are assumed to have direct connections to the Kremlin/Putin because, after all, every Russian has connections to the Kremlin/Putin just like every American is personally connected to the White House/Obama/Clinton/Trump), there are some actual polls trying to ascertain what Americans really think of this media obsession and the charges proclaimed daily.

According to a June, 2017 Harvard-Harris poll, 62% of voters don’t think there is any hard evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia; 74% of Independents and 68% of Democrats believe the constant focus on this story is diverting attention away from other critical issues like the economy, healthcare and jobs; 64% of those polled said the constant flogging of this story by the media and politicians is hurting the country and 56% thought the media and Congress should move on.

Another Harvard-Harris poll from May found that 65% of Americans believe the mainstream media publishes a significant amount of  “fake news.” The partisan breakdown was:  80% of Republicans, 60% of Independents, and 53% of Democrats.   An annual Gallup poll conducted in the latter part of 2016 revealed that only 32% of Americans trust the media.

(Thanks to Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report for writing about both of these polls recently)

Speaking of the media, a Bloomberg graphic was recently brought to my attention revealing the top issues that Americans care about compared to the amount of corporate media coverage given to each.  The graphic is telling:

So why does the media insist on giving a disproportionate amount of coverage to an issue that has largely been unsubstantiated at the expense of issues that the American people care far more about. Rolling Stone journalist Matt Taibbi gave his perspective in a recent interview with Aaron Mate of the Real News Network:

From the media standpoint, I think what people have to understand is that a lot of this is about money. The Russia story sells incredibly well and cable networks that traditionally have not made a lot of money are making a lot of money with this story. So I understand that the relentless emphasis on the Russia story makes a lot of sense from the networks’ point of view because it creates among viewers this impression that the fate of the nation may be decided any minute. This is like they’re selling it as a kind of Watergate sequel, so you have to tune in every night. Not just on election night, you have to keep tuning in. I almost understand it more coming from the media.

​It’s the political class that I understand less because their sort of relentless emphasis on this Russia story is a huge bet that I don’t know whether it’s going to pay off. I think they’re doing this at the expense of making a cogent argument on policy grounds against Trump, and they’re also forcing the resistance to be synonymous with this Russia story. So in order for the resistance to have meaning, the conspiracy has to be true. It would make a lot more sense if there was a resistance that was based upon opposition to Trump’s healthcare policies or his environmental views, all of which are totally repugnant.​

We’ve seen poll numbers consistently throughout the last six or seven months that Democratic voters just aren’t as excited about this policy-wise as the Party is. The Party is much more obsessed with this than their voters are. From a media standpoint of view, again, I understand it because people will tune in, but I don’t think that politically it’s necessarily a smart move to do what they’re doing because Democrats, if there’s one thing that has been clear about the election and what happened last year is that they have to reinvent themselves. They have to find a new way to talk to America. The Russia story is just delaying that process in my mind.

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More analysis is coming out about the ceasefire agreement that resulted from the Putin-Trump meeting in Hamburg earlier this month.  Many details were not initially being made public and some that were supposedly dripping out were confusing.  Foreign policy journalist Ben Norton was interviewed recently at the Real News Network and offered the following commentary:

The exact details of the agreement are secret, and this was made by President Trump and President Putin without really the input even of the Pentagon, so many of the details are being leaked slowly, but what is very clear from the get-go is that this is an agreement about weakening Iran and containing its influence inside Syria. It looks like Russia has gone along with this so far. We will see what Russia’s response will be in the future, and there have also been questions about the fact of whether or not this is actually enforceable, but the general analysis that we’ve seen so far based on some internal leaks is that this agreement creates four so-called “de-confliction zones” inside Syria.

There actually are significant concerns that have been echoed by establishment pundits that this is paving the way for the partition of Syria. Right now, there is already a kind of de facto partition, but it looks like this ceasefire, if it holds, may lead to an actual political partition of the country, so according to the details we have so far, Iran and Iranian-backed groups including Hezbollah, which had been playing a lead role in the fight in Syria, especially against ISIS, are forbidden from the southwest of the country, and this was an agreement that was made between the U.S., Russia, Jordan, and Israel.

Jordan is officially part of the ceasefire agreement. Israel is not technically part of it, but internal sources told Foreign Policy Magazine that Israel is playing a role in the negotiating process, and Jordan and Israel, which see Iran as their mortal enemy, do not want Iran and its allies to have any influence inside Syria, especially in the areas near their borders. The Golan Heights, which have been illegally occupied by Israel since the 1967 war, are not going to be … They’re already Israeli-occupied territory where Islamist rebels have been fighting, including Al-Qaeda, but this is going to be an area near the border of Israel that is completely off-limits, and Russia says that it’s going to agree so far. Whether or not this is going to be able to be enforced is unclear.

Russia has fairly good relations with Iran, which is seen as an important part of the future One Belt, One Road (or New Silk Roads) Eurasian economic project.  Furthermore, Iran agreed to increase some food imports to Russia with respect to the sanctions in 2014 and Russia is encouraging Iran’s entry into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).   So it strikes me as strange that Russia would agree to anything that would seriously undermine Iran in Syria, especially given their large role in helping the Syrian government regain control of rebel-held areas.  I also don’t believe that a partition of Syria would be perceived by Russia to be in the interests of Russia or Syria.  However, if this only pertains to limiting Iran in this one part of Syria in order to placate Israel for the time being, I could maybe understand it.

But no less than Israeli PM Netanyahu himself is complaining publicly about the ceasefire deal.   Robert Parry at Consortium News reports that the Israeli leadership, along with their Neocon minions in Washington, are trying to sabotage the ceasefire deal and are clinging to their receding hopes for regime change in Syria and beyond:

….After meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Sunday, Netanyahu declared that Israel was totally opposed to the Trump-Putin cease-fire deal in southern Syria because it perpetuates Iranian presence in Syria in support of the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad.

Netanyahu’s position increases pressure on Trump to escalate U.S. military involvement in Syria and possibly move toward war against Iran and even Russia. The American neocons, who generally move in sync with Netanyahu’s wishes, already have as their list of current goals “regime changes” in Damascus, Tehran and Moscow – regardless of the dangers to the Middle East and indeed the world.

At the G-20 summit on July 7, Trump met for several hours with Putin coming away with an agreed-upon cease-fire for southwestern Syria, an accord that has proven more successful than previous efforts to reduce the violence that has torn the country apart since 2011.

But that limited peace could mean failure for the proxy war that Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and other regional players helped launch six years ago with the goal of removing Assad from power and shattering the so-called “Shiite crescent” from Tehran through Damascus to Beirut. Instead, that “crescent” appears more firmly in place, with Assad’s military bolstered by Shiite militia forces from Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

In other words, the “regime change” gambit against Assad’s government would have backfired, with Iranian and Hezbollah forces arrayed along Israel’s border with Syria. And instead of accepting that reversal and seeking some modus vivendi with Iran, Netanyahu and his Sunni-Arab allies (most notably the Saudi monarchy) have decided to go in the other direction (a wider war) and to bring President Trump along with them.

So, if Israel is going to remain dangerously recalcitrant in its position with respect to Syria, then what motive would Russia have for making concessions in regard to Iran’s position?  I understand that Russia wants to have friendly relations as much as possible with all countries in the Middle East, but Russia’s interests most often align more closely with Iran’s recently than with Israel’s.   Moreover, Iran has shown less inclination toward aggression (haven’t invaded another nation in hundreds of years) and less inclination toward back-stabbing than Israel.  And, finally, Syria has been an ally of Russia since the Soviet era.

Pepe Escobar, within his larger analysis of how China is providing humanitarian aid and is set to provide much of the rebuilding in post-war Syria in anticipation of the country being an important hub in the New Silk Road (which, again, would imply a unified Syria), had this to say about the recent ceasefire deal:

A possible scenario out of what Putin and Trump negotiated in Hamburg – that was not relayed by either Lavrov or Tillerson – is that the ceasefire in southwestern Syria, assuming it holds, could mean US peacekeeping forces in effect sanctioning the creation of a demilitarized zone (DMZ) between the Syrian Golan and the rest of the country.

Translation: the Golan de facto annexed by Israel. And the “carrot” for Moscow would be Washington accepting Crimea de facto re-incorporated into the Russian Federation.

That may sound less far-fetched than it seems. The next few months will tell if this is indeed a plausible scenario.

Interesting.  But I’m not holding my breath that that scenario would work.  The Golan Heights would be costly for Syria to give up, materially, symbolically and security-wise.  This would be a heavy concession made in the hopes that the Trump administration would be able to overcome the immense resistance in Washington to any acceptance of Crimea as Russian – that’s assuming that Trump could be trusted to be tenacious in trying to push it through in the first place.  This strains credulity for me.

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Earlier this month, it was reported – with the usual sensationalism reserved for anything remotely connected to Donald Trump, his campaign and Russia – that Donald Trump, Jr. held a meeting in June 2016 with a Russian attorney, Natalia Veselnitskaya, at the suggestion of eccentric music promoter, Rob Goldstone, with the impression given that Ms. Veselnitskaya had information about Hillary Clinton that would be useful to the Trump campaign.  Apparently, this was a come-on to get the meeting with someone close to one of two candidates who would be the next president in order to lobby against the Magnitsky Act.   No information was offered about Hillary Clinton and the meeting did not last long.  NBC News provided the following details:

Donald Trump Jr., the eldest son of the president, acknowledged Sunday that he met with a woman who turned out to be a Kremlin-connected lawyer during the 2016 presidential election — after being told she allegedly had information that could help his father’s presidential campaign.

Moscow said Monday, however, that it was unaware of who the lawyer is.

The New York Times first reported on Saturday that Donald Trump Jr. met with the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, prompting him to respond with a short statement confirming that the meeting occurred.

He said he attended “a short introductory meeting” with Veselnitskaya, where the topic of conversation was primarily about adoption. He added that the topic was not a campaign issue at the time and that there was no followup conversation.

Subsequently, Trump Jr. released all the emails relevant to the meeting to the public, reportedly after Julian Assange advised him to do so as a preemptive move, but with the suggestion to have them published by Wikileaks.

One thing that struck me in the emails was the reference to Veselnitskaya as the “crown prosecutor.”  No such position currently exists in Russia and would not have existed in the last 100 years since Russia ceased to be a monarchy in 1917.  I have not seen any evidence that Veselnitskaya works for the Kremlin.  I have heard that she has represented people connected to the political class in Russia, but so what?  There are many attorneys who have represented people associated with the political class in Washington but that doesn’t mean they are official representatives of the White House or Congress.   But this is the level of ignorance and misinformation pushed about how things work in Russia in order to keep resuscitating the Russiagate story every time it appears to be on life support.

Veselnitskaya  has recently claimed that William Browder is behind the sensationalizing of the meeting with Trump Jr. in order to keep the Magnitsky Act – which is predicated upon Browder’s version of the whole Magnitsky affair and his role as a victim in it, a version that has recently come into serious question by journalists and researchers – on the books:

Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya, who has become a poster child for the mainstream media’s claims of collusion between the Trump administration and the Kremlin, agreed to speak to RT on the streets of Moscow.

The attorney, who met with Donald Trump Jr. during his father’s campaign for the presidency, said she knows who was behind the “mass hysteria” related to the meeting. She accuses Magnitsky Act lobbyist William Browder of masterminding the disinformation campaign, aiming to harm her as revenge for a defeat he suffered in a U.S. court in 2013 at the hands of a team of lawyers that included Veselnitskaya.

“I have absolutely no doubt that this whole information [campaign] is being spun, encouraged and organized by that very man as revenge for the defeat he suffered in the court of the Southern State of New York in the ‘Prevezon’ company case,” she said.

In 2013, Veselnitskaya was one of the lawyers who represented Cyprus-based holding company Prevezon, owned by Russian businessman Denis Katsyv, in its defense against allegations of money laundering. The case was settled with no admission of guilt by Prevezon.

“He wasn’t able to convince the court with his lousy human tragedy that actually never happened, about the fate of a dead man – who he only learned about after his death,” Veselnitskaya said, referring to the 2009 death of Russian lawyer [sic] and auditor Sergey Magnitsky in a Moscow detention center.

In a recent interview with Democracy Now!, attorney and journalist Glenn Greenwald stated that nothing in the emails constitutes a smoking gun:

Now, what the Democrats are saying is that the Trump administration and their defenders in the media at Fox News and the like are, quote-unquote, “moving the goalposts” by saying, “Well, this only shows that Trump Jr. was willing to get information from the Russian government about Clinton, but it doesn’t show there was actual criminal collusion.” To me, it seems as though the people who are moving the goalposts are the Democrats. The claim all along, the reason why there’s talk of impeachment, the reason why there is a special prosecutor, the reason why people want to see Trump and his associates criminally prosecuted, is because of the claim that they committed crimes by colluding with the Russians with regard to the hacking. That’s what Harry Reid has always said. That’s what John Podesta has always said. That has always been the Democratic claim. This newest evidence doesn’t in any way suggest that. What it suggests instead is that Donald Trump Jr. was told that the Russian government had incriminating evidence about Hillary Clinton and wanted to give it to him. And he said, “Well, I’d love to get it. I’d love to have it.” Now, I guess there’s some sense that it’s wrong for a political campaign to take dirt on your adversary from a foreign government. I don’t think it’s illegal at all to do that, but there’s a claim that it’s somehow sort of immoral.

And here’s what I don’t understand. The Steele dossier that everybody got excited about, that claimed that the Russians had incriminating videos of Trump in a Moscow hotel and other dirt on Trump, that came from somebody who was getting first paid by Republicans and then by Democrats, going to Moscow and getting dirt about Donald Trump from Kremlin-affiliated agents in Moscow. In other words, he went to Russia, talked to people affiliated with the Russian government and said, “Give me dirt about Donald Trump,” and then, presumably, got it and put it in the memo. Similarly, there’s an amazing Politico article from January of this year that describes how allies of the Clinton campaign, including somebody being paid by the DNC, met with officials of the Ukrainian government, which was desperate to help Hillary Clinton win and Donald Trump lose, and get information incriminating about Trump from Ukrainian officials. In other words, Ukraine was meddling in our election by giving Democrats incriminating information about Trump.

….So, I want to hear the standard that we’re supposed to use to assess Trump Jr.’s actions. Is it that it’s wrong in all cases to get incriminating information about your opponent from a foreign government? In which case, why is it OK for the Democrats to do it with Ukrainian officials or for their investigator to go to Moscow and get dirt on Trump? Or is it some other standard that distinguishes what Trump Jr. did in this case versus what Democrats did with the Steele dossier and with Ukraine? And I just don’t see this distinction.

Read the full interview with Greenwald here.

The Politico article Greenwald referenced is here.

Readers will have to draw their own conclusions as to whether there is a real scandal here.

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A final item I’d like to address on this week’s post is a recent piece by investigative journalist Craig Unger called “Married to the Mob:  What Trump Owes the Russian Mafia.”  This came to my attention via an interview with Unger that Amy Goodman did on Democracy Now!.

Now, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if investigations into Trump turn up run-of-the-mill corruption about the president.  However, a few things raised red flags with Unger’s claims.  First of all, I noted in Unger’s background that he’s done many exposes and books digging up dirt on Republicans.  That’s fine, but he never seems to expose anything by the Democrats and that makes me wonder.  If he’s a non-partisan muckraker, are we supposed to think he suddenly takes long sabbaticals that coincide with when Democrats are in office? There’s never anything to report on what Democrats might be up to that would be less than honest?

Also, he talks about the Russian mafia as far back as the early 80’s when it was still the Soviet Union.  And I had to ask myself:  did Russia have what we would consider to be “the mafia” operating in the Soviet Union in the 1980’s?   And, of course, he recycles the discredited Karen Dawisha claims of Putin running a “mafia state.”  So, I asked my mentor on Russia, Sharon Tennison, who has been traveling all throughout Russia since 1983 when it was indeed still the Soviet Union, about these claims by Unger.   Here is what she had to say:

In the late 80S, Russians called anyone whom they distrusted “the mafia.”  It was a derogatory term loosely used. Then in 1990 as sharp young men in Moscow began grabbing Soviet enterprises and illegally privatizing them to themselves, they became  a mafia of sorts – again a loosely used term.  Simultaneously, a group of high risk young Russian guys began extracting money from Russians who had started microbusinesses. They demanded monthly payments for “protection” from these fledgling new businesses. If owners didn’t pay up, they torched their businesses. This was Russia’s real street mafia. This went on until the late 90s when many were getting killed by entrepreneurs so most of them decided to stop and go into business for themselves;  at the street level,  Russia’s  petty bureaucrats became known as “mafia” themselves because they extracted additional rubles beyond the normal fees for registering the entrepreneurs’ businesses or any official claim for which they could get extra money for themselves. This went on under the table up until 2005.

Back to 1996 – some of the most aggressive street mafia “went upstairs” to big businesses and continued their racket work. Many were killed.  Some of the murders of that time were later attributed to Putin. This was sheer fabrication.  Putin was busy doing registrations and joint ventures in St. Petersburg (he was deputy mayor)—and was known for being the only public official in the  Marienskii City Hall who didn’t  “Get rich on his seat” (Russian term for not making extra money off of one’s position.

There is no such thing today as a “Russian mafia state.”  Putin has put many lower level and higher level bureaucrats behind bars and is still bringing others to trial.  Slowly this is cleaning up Russia’s internal corruption, likely for the first time in centuries.