In mid-September CNN reported that Russia had proposed a full restoration of diplomatic ties and a path toward normalization of relations with Washington in the early days of the Trump administration:

Russia offered a plan to the United States for a full and immediate move toward normalization — or a restoration of diplomatic ties — in the opening weeks of President Donald Trump’s administration, the Kremlin confirmed Wednesday.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday that “of course” Russia floated proposals such as this one to the US.

“Moscow systematically advocated for a resumption of the dialogue, for an exchange of opinion and for attempts at finding joint solutions,” Peskov said. “But, unfortunately, it saw no reciprocity.”

As we all know, these proposals went nowhere as Putin’s spokesman said.  So much for Trump being in Putin’s pocket.   The article went on to state that the proposals were submitted through various diplomatic channels at various points.

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Sputnik News has reported that, according to the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (OSCE SMM),  68 civilians have been killed and over 300 injured since the beginning of this year in the Donbas region.

Recently, Russia proposed to the UN Security Council a plan for UN Peacekeepers to accompany and protect the OSCE SMM, a proposal that was supported by Germany, Austria, and the Donetsk People’s Republic.    According to The Duran:

Russia has formally submitted a draft resolution to the United Nations which calls for the deployment of UN peacekeepers to Donbass in order to shield officials from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) from violence.

Austria which currently chairs the OSCE welcomed the Russian proposals, according to an official cited by TASS.

Germany’s Foreign Minister also welcomed the move saying that if implemented, it could lead to a detente between Europe and Russia, paving the way for the eventually lifting of anti-Russian sanctions which the EU has enforced since 2014.

The move which calls for UN peacekeepers to engage in direct dialogue between the leaders of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics as well as the Ukrainian regime in Kiev was met with a generally positive attitude by the leaders of the Donbass Republics who have pledged to carefully review the final proposals in a spirit of cooperation.

Russian President Vladimir Putin who first discussed the proposals at the 9th annual BRICS summit in Xiamen, described Russia’s aims in the following way,

“I consider the presence of peacekeepers, or rather people who would provide security for the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) mission, absolutely appropriate, and see nothing wrong with it”.

Unsurprisingly, the proposal is facing opposition from Kiev.  As international law expert, Alexander Mercouris, explains:

However for the same reasons that Putin made the proposal Ukraine opposes it.  Just as the Russians want to secure a ceasefire in the Donbass, so Ukraine adamantly opposes a ceasefire since that might increase pressure on Ukraine to fulfil the political provisions of the February 2015 Minsk Agreement, which are totally unacceptable to Ukraine.

Beyond this there are two points about Putin’s proposal which the Ukrainians must find especially infuriating.

The first is the demand in Putin’s proposal that the remit of the UN peacekeepers be agreed through direct negotiations between the Ukrainian government and the authorities of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.

Direct talks between the Ukrainian government and the authorities of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics were in fact envisaged by the February 2015 Minsk Agreement, which Ukraine has signed.  Such direct talks have however never happened.  The Ukrainian government adamantly opposes them since it correctly sees such talks as conferring legal recognition on the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics as parties to the conflict, thereby admitting that it is an internal Ukrainian conflict (as the Russians say) and not a case of aggression against Ukraine by Russia (as the Ukrainians say).

It is, therefore, unlikely that this plan will be implemented unless enough pressure can be placed by the rest of Europe on Kiev.  I’m uncertain of what kinds of pressure that Europe will realistically impose on the Ukrainian government.  It depends on how truly tired of the Ukrainian mess and the attendant sanctions that Germany and other major players are.  I don’t see them having reached their breaking point yet, however, so this situation will probably continue to limp along as it is – unfortunately for the people of the Donbas who will continue to suffer.

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According to Russian media, Putin has ordered legislation to mandate Russian seaports to stop accepting the U.S. dollar as payment for goods, instead requiring that the ruble be the main currency of trade.   RT reports:

The proposal to switch port tariffs to rubles was first proposed by the president a year and a half ago. The idea was not embraced by large transport companies, which would like to keep revenues in dollars and other foreign currencies because of fluctuations in the ruble.

Artemyev said the decision will force foreigners to buy Russian currency, which is good for the ruble. 

Zerohedge had the following comment on the announcement:

While Russia’s stated motive for the unexpected redenomination of trade at some of its largest trading hubs has to do with domestic economic policies, there is speculation that the timing of this decision has been influenced by the recent diplomatic fallout between the US and Russia, the result of which would be an heightened demand for the ruble, especially since it is rather complicated to find alternative sources for Russia’s largest export by a wide margin: crude.

Meanwhile, the Venezuelan government has announced that it has dropped the petrodollar and will now trade its oil in yuan:

In response to sanctions from Washington, Venezuela has started reporting its oil prices in Chinese yuan, going against the international trend of listing prices in US dollars.

China, for its part, is making time with a lot of countries who are tired of Washington’s shenanigans.  Beijing has recently bought out Qatar’s stake in the Russian state-owned oil company, Rosneft. Qatar purchased the share just last year and now, due to its rivalry with Saudi Arabia, which is trying to economically squeeze Qatar, the country is looking for a quick cash infusion.  Enter China which has its own reasons for the purchase (or bailout, depending on one’s perspective) as explained by financial blogger, Tom Luongo:

Fast forward to today, and Qatar is suffering under heavy pressure from the Saudis blockading their business, the U.S. put stringent sanctions on European banks doing business with the Russian oil and gas sector, and China is being targeted by the Trump administration on multiple fronts. So, while the economics of this deal vis-à-vis Rosneft’s current share price do not make much sense, as Mr. Pirro pointed out, there is a lot more at stake for all involved then simply a few hundred million in share arbitrage that could change in a few days.

China is stepping in here to save not only Intesa, the Italian bank that floated most of the financing for the deal, but also Qatar which gets a major cash infusion in much-needed dollars. Russia further integrates into China’s oil trading system in Shanghai, including the much-discussed futures contract convertible to gold. This disentangles the deal with respect to the new round of US sanctions. In fact, this is a perfect pivot away from those sanctions. Remember, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin made a not-so-veiled threat the other day towards China’s banks and expulsion from the SWIFT system.

Noted geopolitical and financial writer, F. William Engdahl, writes over at New Eastern Outlook, that Russia and China – with their steady purchases of gold – appear to be slowly putting in place the foundation of an alternative international trade currency based in Eurasia:

For several years it’s been known in gold markets that the largest buyers of physical gold were the central banks of China and of Russia. What was not so clear was how deep a strategy they had beyond simply creating trust in the currencies amid increasing economic sanctions and bellicose words of trade war out of Washington.

Now it’s clear why.

China and Russia, joined most likely by their major trading partner countries in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), as well as by their Eurasian partner countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) are about to complete the working architecture of a new monetary alternative to a dollar world.

Read the full article here

Journalist Pepe Escobar’s report from the BRICS conference supports this theory.   Escobar writes for the Asia Times that it was Putin’s speech that evidenced that Russia and China are getting serious on providing an alternative to the petrodollar:

And then, Putin delivers the clincher; “Russia shares the BRICS countries’ concerns over the unfairness of the global financial and economic architecture, which does not give due regard to the growing weight of the emerging economies. We are ready to work together with our partners to promote international financial regulation reforms and to overcome the excessive domination of the limited number of reserve currencies.”

“To overcome the excessive domination of the limited number of reserve currencies” is the politest way of stating what the BRICS have been discussing for years now; how to bypass the US dollar, as well as the petrodollar.

Beijing is ready to step up the game. Soon China will launch a crude oil futures contract priced in yuan and convertible into gold.

This means that Russia – as well as Iran, the other key node of Eurasia integration – may bypass US sanctions by trading energy in their own currencies, or in yuan. Inbuilt in the move is a true Chinese win-win; the yuan will be fully convertible into gold on both the Shanghai and Hong Kong exchanges.

The new triad of oil, yuan and gold is actually a win-win-win. No problem at all if energy providers prefer to be paid in physical gold instead of yuan. The key message is the US dollar being bypassed.

Read his full report here

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Washington now plans to “massively” expand the Green Zone in Kabul, Afghanistan, another sign, along with the planned deployment of thousands more soldiers there, that the U.S. intends to stay in the country indefinitely.

Not only does Washington plan to further extend what’s already the longest-running American war in history in Afghanistan, but a new investigative report shows that it’s not giving up on continuing to destabilize Syria with sneaky schemes to transfer weapons to the east of the country.  As Zerohedge reports:

A new bombshell joint report issued by two international weapons monitoring groups Tuesday confirms that the Pentagon continues to ship record breaking amounts of weaponry into Syria and that the Department of Defense is scrubbing its own paper trail. On Tuesday the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) produced conclusive evidence that not only is the Pentagon currently involved in shipping up to $2.2 billion worth of weapons from a shady network of private dealers to allied partners in Syria – mostly old Soviet weaponry – but is actually manipulating paperwork such as end-user certificates, presumably in order to hide US involvement.

The OCCRP and BIRN published internal US defense procurement files after an extensive investigation which found that the Pentagon is running a massive weapons trafficking pipeline which originates in the Balkans and Caucuses, and ends in Syria and Iraq. The program is ostensibly part of the US train, equip, and assist campaign for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF, a coalition of YPG/J and Arab FSA groups operating primarily in Syria’s east). The arms transfers are massive and the program looks to continue for years.

Iran’s Press TV has reported that, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) is now in control of 85% of the country and operations are underway to liberate the remaining 15% from jihadist terrorists.  With respect to the ongoing battle to free the eastern city of Dayr al-Zawr (aka Deir ez-Zor), the Russian Ministry of Defense spokesman, Lieutenant General Aleksandr Lapin stated:

“Currently the operation to free the city is ongoing. The Syrian military will soon finish off” Daesh terrorists, who “used to occupy the city’s neighborhoods,” he added.

Lapin stated that Kalibr cruise missiles, launched from the Black Sea escort vessel, Admiral Essen, had destroyed Daesh’s command posts and communication networks; an effective move that disrupted control of the terror group’s units in Dayr al-Zawr province.

“Over 450 terrorists, five tanks and 42 pickups, with heavy machine guns, were liquidated during the operation,” he said.

The province in which Deir ez-Zor is located happens to be oil-rich and RT reports that there is a race between the SAA and US-backed forces of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to liberate the area:

Last Tuesday, the Syrian military backed by the Russian air force finally broke the IS (Islamic State, formerly ISIS/ISIL) siege of Deir ez-Zor from the west following a cruise missile strike on terrorist positions.

The advance to clear the remaining terrorists progressed at a steady pace, and by Saturday, Syrian government forces smashed the IS blockade of the military airport which for three years had served as the only lifeline to the city.

Following Damascus’ strategic victory, and while its forces continue to squash pockets of IS resistance in the west of the city, the US backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) swiftly announced on Saturday a separate offensive east of Deir ez-Zor. SDF forces raced to Deir ez-Zor which lies only 140 km south-east of Raqqa, where the US-led coalition is conducting its main offensive against ISIS.

Elaborating on the competitive nature of the two groups in capturing the city near the Iraqi border, the RT report continues:

According to Almasdar, both forces are apparently aiming to block each other’s path to the city of Albukamal on the Euphrates river which lies near the border with Iraq.

“As we get closer to Deir ez-Zor and you have these forces converge upon one another, the importance of [communication] between the Russians and the coalition, SDF and the regime becomes more important,” [Army Colonel Ryan] Dillon was quoted as saying by Foreign Policy magazine.

….The SDF has meanwhile promised not to attack Syrian government forces.

“We have clear instructions that after Daesh is eliminated, we should not act against the forces of the [Bashar Assad] regime or against the Russian, Iranian forces or the Hezbollah movement, which are allied with it,” SDF spokesman Talal Silo told Sputnik Monday.

As the SDF military offensive to expel IS and secure parts oil rich province continues, tribal figures aligned with SDF have already proposed measures to form their own form of government. Tribal figures on Monday called for “establishing a preparatory committee that will discuss the basis and starting points for a Civil Council for Deir ez-Zor.”

This sounds like it could serve as a staging ground for a future attempt at a partition of the country, which would be the next best thing for Washington in light of the fact that its attempt at regime change has failed.  As discussed further down in this post, control of the oil fields would provide a carved out autonomous region (most likely a Kurdish one) with economic viability.

However, much of the armed opposition seems to begrudgingly acknowledge that they have lost the war as they have agreed to participate in the next round of peace talks in Astana, Kazakhstan sponsored by Russia, Turkey and Iran.

A recent article in Asia Times explains how Washington has also been forced to yield to Russia on the issue of southern Syria, which is sensitive for Jordan and Israel:

Southern Syria is a sensitive topic for all players in the Syrian conflict, in part because it impacts directly on Israeli national security. This explains why none of them has been willing to grasp it at either the Astana or Geneva talks, leaving Trump and Putin do the high politics.

At the G20, they agreed on the principle of the new zone, and that it would encompass the border city of Daraa, along with al-Quneitra, the principle town in the occupied Golan Heights, and extend all the way up to al-Suwaida in the Druze Mountains, 100 kilometers south of Damascus.

The zone’s objective is multi-faceted. First and foremost, it would free the Syrian-Jordanian border from all “non-state players” – in other words Hezbollah troops and southern Syria branch of ISIS, known as the Khalid Ibn Al Waleed Army.

Secondly, it would provide ample space to relocate millions of Syrian refugees who have been living in Jordan since 2011. And thirdly, it would satisfy the demands of President Trump, who has insisted on a safe zone to protect civilians, even if it is not named as such.

The de-conflict zone would also be off-limits to the Syrian Army. No tanks, warplanes, or soldiers will be allowed to enter.

The zone’s sovereignty would still be in the hands of the Syrian state, but it would be under the supervision of a civilian authority, rather than a military one. Members of the armed opposition would, in theory, be pardoned, and allowed to keep their light arms for use against ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda branch in Syria.

Damascus would, meanwhile, be entitled to hoist its official flag, and to re-open state-run schools and police stations. It would also get full control of Syria’s borders with Jordan, which will be vital for bilateral trade.

Read the full article here.

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If one were to have tried to predict the future of Russia-Turkey relations a year ago, one would have been hard-pressed to come up with the present state of affairs between the two nations.   Diplomatic and economic cooperation are going in a positive direction as both nations, along with Iran, are acting as guarantors of the peace being hammered out in Astana (one of several channels of talks but the most publicly prominent one).  As retired diplomat MK Bhadrakumar has written on his website, Indian Punchline:

The geopolitics of the Middle East is witnessing a tectonic shift with the emergence of a Turkish-Iranian axis that would have seemed unbelievable until recently. The 3-day visit by Iran’s chief of general staff General Mohammad Hossein Bagheri to Turkey last week was the first such event in Iran-Turkey relations since the Iranian Revolution in 1979. During Bagheri’s visit, the two countries signed a military agreement on August 17. Turkish President Recep Erdogan disclosed on Monday that he held discussions with Bagheri on possible joint Turkish-Iranian military actions against Kurdish militants.

“Joint action against terrorist groups that have become a threat is always on the agenda. This issue has been discussed between the two military chiefs, and I discussed (with Bagheri) more broadly how this should be carried out,” Erdogan said. Turkey and Iran have strong convergence in preventing the emergence of an independent Kurdish entity in the region in Iraq or Syria. Both countries are battling Kurdish separatist groups within their own borders.

What lends urgency for the two countries to cooperate is their shared suspicion that the US and Israel are possibly stepping up their longstanding project to establish an independent Kurdistan in the region, with an ulterior agenda to create for the long-term an exclusive preserve for pushing their interests on the regional map. The US has refused to pay heed to Turkey’s concerns and has armed and equipped the Kurdish militants in northern Syria. The US Special Forces and Kurdish militia are jointly conducting the on-going offensive on Raqqa, which used to be the capital of the ISIS. Washington spurned a Turkish offer to undertake the operations on Raqqa, an Arab Sunni region, and instead preferred the non-Arab Kurdish militia as its ally.

The US objective seems to be to seize control of the oil fields in the region adjacent to Raqqa, which would ensure the economic viability of a Kurdistan entity in northern Syria. Turkey fears that the next step by the US would be to launch operations in northern Syria along Turkey’s borders with a view to carve out a contiguous Kurdistan, which would have access to the Eastern Mediterranean. Turkey rightly apprehends that a Kurdistan as next-door neighbour would put intolerable strain on its integrity and stability.

….However, the emergent Turkish-Iranian axis has a much bigger backdrop. For a start, implicit in it is a hint by Turkey that it is conclusively ending its support for the Syrian rebel groups. Turkey and Iran have been working together on the Russian initiative to create de-escalation zones in Syria. Again, Russia has been steadily strengthening its bilateral cooperation with Turkey and Iran respectively in the recent years. Thus, the Turkish-Iranian military cooperation is crystallising under an overarching Russian umbrella, so to speak, that aims at the stabilization of the Syrian situation. In effect, therefore, one could say that a Russian-Turkish-Iranian triangle is in the making to end the Syrian conflict and bring about a Syrian settlement.

This has far-reaching implications because the Russian-Turkish-Iranian triangle is also showing signs of spreading its wings beyond the Syrian problem to encompass a broad-based regional cooperation that has potential to impact the power dynamic in the Middle East as a whole. Thus, a week ago, Russian, Turkish and Iranian companies signed a $7 billion deal to drill for oil in Iran. Similarly, after much delay, Iran and Russia are moving toward the implementation of their swap arrangement whereby Iran is expected to supply from next month 100000 barrels of oil per day to Russia and in return Russia will be exporting to Iran goods worth $45 billion annually. On the other hand, Russian-Turkish economic cooperation is expanding rapidly. Indeed, the finalization of the $2 billion deal last month for acquiring the S-400 Triumf anti-ballistic missile system from Russia signifies a strategic shift in Turkish foreign policy, Turkey being a NATO power and an ally of the US.

Bhadrakumar goes on to discuss the unpredictable and often thorny history of relations among the three countries.  Continue reading here.

In late August Sputnik published two articles on the progress of negotiations on the Turkstream natural gas pipeline project.  Russia is discussing overland passage with Bulgaria, Greece and Italy to connect the pipeline from Russia to Turkey.  Additionally, Russia’s state-owned gas giant, Gazprom, is in negotiations with the Turkish government to finalize plans for the Turkish portion of the pipeline.

And last but not least, Russia and Turkey seem close to finalizing a deal for Turkey to purchase the S-400 anti-missile system.   As Nikolai Pakhomov writes over at the Lobelog:

If any single arms deal can capture the shifting nature of Russian cooperation in the post-Cold War era, it is the pending sale of S-400 air defense systems to Turkey that now looks increasingly likely to happen.

The S-400 is an advanced integrated system capable of simultaneously tracking 300 targets and striking them from up to 250 miles away. The fact that Russia would consider shipping them to Turkey—a longtime member of NATO, and once considered to be the alliance’s southeastern bulwark against the Soviet Union—would have been unthinkable even two decades ago.

Yet today the two countries are on the verge of completing a $2.5 billion deal that would pass two Russian-made S-400 systems to Turkey, along with Moscow’s promise to help Ankara build two more at home using Russian technology. On August 25, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told the Turkish Hurriyet Daily News that the last hurdle to finalizing the deal was approval by the executive committee of Turkey’s defense industry.

If indeed finalized, the sale would signal new realities for Russia, Turkey, and Europe in several crucial ways. For one, it would confirm Turkey’s drift away from the West, which Russia has deftly used for its benefit. More broadly, it would underscore just how much the essence of Russian strategic partnerships has evolved from the Cold War period, changing the very nature of its confrontation with the West.

Full article here.

I’m pretty sure it’s safe to assume that Russia will be providing a modified version that cannot be reverse-engineered or otherwise endanger their own security interests with the S-400 system.

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Readers are probably all too familiar with the claims repeatedly made that Putin is an aspiring Stalin or, at the very least, is rehabilitating the image of Stalin in Russia.  I myself saw no indication of this on either of my visits to Russia, which included Moscow, St. Petersburg, Krasnodar, and three cities in Crimea.  In that time, I saw one hand-painted plate with Stalin’s image in the gift shop of the lobby of the Cosmos hotel.  And one lone Stalin impersonator on a street corner in Krasnodar.  No one was flocking to him.

During my recent trip to Russia, as part of my research on the centennial of the Russian Revolution, I asked a cross-section of Russians I encountered what their views of Stalin were.  A few condemned him unequivocally, a couple thought his contribution to the Soviet Union was largely positive, but most gave him kudos for leading the country to victory over the Nazis in WWII (known in Russia as The Great Patriotic War) while acknowledging and disliking his excessive political repression.   I also have written about how Putin played a major role in getting the Monument to the Victims of Repression approved, which will be unveiled later this year in Moscow.

On a recent trip to Moscow, British Russia expert, Paul Robinson, discussed his conclusions about this myth of Putin rehabilitating Stalin:

Last week, a few colleagues and I had the opportunity to assess how true this may be. On Sunday morning we visited the Sretenskii Monastery in downtown Moscow. Like many other institutions of the Orthodox Church, it was destroyed during the Soviet era. In November 2013, a decision was made to rebuild it, and just a little over three years later, in May 2017, the new church in the centre of the monastery was consecrated.

When we tried to go into the main church building, we found that only the basement chapel was open; the bulk of the church was closed as they were still working on the marble and one of the staircases. Fortunately, one of my colleagues was able to persuade somebody to let us in anyway and give us a guided tour. What we heard was quite remarkable.

The land on which the Sretenskii monastery stands used to belong to the Soviet secret services (known successively as the Cheka, OGPU, NKVD, MGB, and KGB), whose headquarters, the Lubyanka, is not far away. During the Great Terror, executions took place on the monastery grounds, our guide told us. Even today, all the buildings around the monastery remain in the possession of the post-Soviet security service, the FSB. The monastery is, therefore, surrounded by the organization which in a previous guise once tried to destroy Christianity in Russia.

The resurrected Sretenskii monastery is devoted to the New Martyrs – those thousands of Christians murdered by communists following the 1917 revolution. The new church’s decoration reflects this. Around the dome, for instance, are depictions of key saints of the Russian Orthodox Church, among whom are Emperor Nicholas II and his family, symbols of suffering at the hands of Bolshevism.

….In May of this year, Vladimir Putin attended the service at which the church was consecrated. Our guide spoke of Putin as the former head of the FSB, the successor organization to the Soviet secret services who executed the New Martyrs. Our guide implied that by coming to the service, Putin in effect repented on behalf of those secret services and asked for forgiveness. There is little doubt in my mind that Putin understood perfectly what his presence symbolized and what message he was sending.

Read the full post and see the beautiful accompanying photos of the monastery here.

Russia expert Gordon Hahn further discusses the conflict between the positions (often taken by the same pundits who decry both Stalin and the influence of the conservative Russian Orthodox Church) that Putin wants to revive Stalinism and is also a supporter of the Church:

The Russian Orthodox Church, which the same sources who charge the Putin administration with supporting and privileging in relation to other of Russia’s religions, carries out a permanent campaign against Stalin.

….The above demonstrates that a political battle between various forces is ongoing in Russia, as in other countries, over the country’s past and present. This is not just a battle that the soft authoritarian Putin allows to rage, it is a reflection of political pluralism and free, limited albeit, speech. Just as the Putin administration lets communists rehabilitate Stalin, so too he allows both the Church as well as liberals to criticize the dictator and engage in the country’s politics within limits that protect his own rule. At the same time, the Putin regime has undertaken a campaign of de-Stalinization itself, while avoiding the extremes of historical revisionism and political whitewashing. Part of the policy is informed by foreign states, including Western states, use of Stalinism to demean Russia and Russians.

Full article here.

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.