Tag: Russia

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Who Will Stop Iran?

Since President Donald Trump’s famous Iran policy speech, Iran has been on the move, in a sense testing how serious the USA was in stopping their forward march.  They have used the Iraqi military, the USA has financed and trained to occupy Kirkuk and as of this morning crossed over into territory enshrined as Iraqi Kurdistan by even the most ardent Iraqi constitutionalists.

With all of the Kurdish infighting aside, the Kurds are still both America’s and Israel’s most reliable partner in the Middle East and they are the last force capable of blocking an Iranian advance.  The Iraqi military and the Iranian backed PMU have been unlawfully using American weapons against the Kurds. Of course, this has caught the ire of the US Congress who has become vocal in its urging of the White House to come to the aid of the Kurds before it is too late.

The failure to stop Iran now will not only hand the region over to the Iranian Mullahs, it will spell the end of American dominance at a global level. Afterall, if Israel and the Kurds, as well as the Saudis sense that the USA can no longer be counted on to ensure stability in the region, there are others that may be able to.

This is why Israel, Saudi Arabia, and parts of the Kurdish leadership are now in deep discussions with Putin and his military leadership. While this may be a ploy to force the USA to act, it appears to be a recognition of the new reality on the ground.  The only question to the three countries listed above, what will they have to pay to the Russian Bear to ensure it tightens the leash on Iran?

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Iran, UNESCO, and President Trump’s Big Move

President Donald Trump is vigorously going after pillars of global “stability” at a lightning fast pace.  The State Department first rocked the international community this week when it would announce that the US would be quitting UNESCO by 2019 due to its inherent anti-Israel bias.

Second,the President himself gave a frank speech in which he announced is decision not to recertify the Iran nuke deal, punting the final decision to Congress.

These two decisions are the first shot across the bow of a rapidly changing Middle East that was allowed to plunge into chaos under the Obama Administration.  The Trump team understands that the Islamic decision to rewrite history using UNESCO in order to disconnect the Jewish nation from its own homeland is not just absurd but dangerous to America’s own sense of purpose. A world not governed by truth is one that is essentially filled with chaos.

This chaos has been used to allow Iran and Russia to essentially steer the future of the Middle East.  Trump’s removal of the US from UNESCO, which gave Israel the confidence to do the same is built around the message that globalism is not superior to moral clarity.   With all of the USA’s faults, it has still been viewed upon as a beacon freedom.  Trump is sending a message that those countries that stand with the US get first priority and in the Middle East, Trump is learning that Israel may be the most reliable.

President Trump’s decision not to recertify the Iran nuclear accord known as the JCPOA sends a serious message that Iran and its backers are scrambling to find a way to retaliate against.  Trump has now designated the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist entity which places them within the bounds of the US military’s sights.

Trump said the following in part of his televised speech:

“The Iranian regime has committed multiple violations of the agreement, for example on two speared occasions they have exceeded the limit of 130 metric tons of heavy water, until recently, the Iranian regime has also failed to meet our expectation in its operation of advanced centrifuges. The Iranian regime has also intimidated international inspectors into not using the full inspection authorities that the agreement calls for. Iranian officials and military leaders have repeatedly claimed they will not allow inspectors onto military sites, even though the international community suspects some of those sites were part of Iran’s clandestine nuclear weapons program; there are also many people who believe that Iran is dealing with North Korea. I am going to instruct our intelligence agencies to do thorough analyses and report back their findings beyond what they have already reviewed. By its own terms the Iran deal was supposed to contribute to regional and international peace and security. And yet, while the U.S adheres to our commitment under the deal the Iranian regime continues to fuel conflict, terror and turmoil throughout the Middle East and beyond.”

Watch the full speech below:

Deputy commander of the Qods Force Ismail Ghaani told the Tanzim news agency:

“We are not a country that likes war, but any military threatening us will regret it. Trump is hurting America- we’ve buried many like him and we know how to fight the United States.”

Does this mean there will be war tomorrow?  Not necessarily, but Iran and Russia will not allow this to go quietly.  As for the Trump administration they understand that it is better to push back now than when Iran, backed by Russia and in partnership with Turkey finalizes its take over of the Middle East.  That would leave Israel surrounded and the USA locked out of a strategic region.

The globalists were hoping that President Trump would back off and toe the line, but it is clear that his foreign policy is built around America First, for better or worse. This makes for a rocky couple of next weeks that may see both the Middle East explode and the North Korean standoff break out into a full-blown war.

Yet, this multi-sphere conflict was set in motion the moment Obama decided to lower America and its allies stature within the world’s geopolitical arena.  Trump may seem like he is shaking the world, but he is heading off the ascendance of regimes that are totalitarian from do far more damage down the line.

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Does Saudi Shift to Russia Leave Israel Cornered?

Saudi Arabia opened its historic four day visit to Moscow with a clear indication that it is ready shift towards the Russian orbit.  With the Kingdom penning a $3 billion arms deal with Putin and agreeing to buy Russia’s S-400 anti-aircraft system, the seismic shift is clearly well underway.

Up until now the prevailing assumption was that Israel had growing covert relations with the Sunni leader due to the ascendancy of Iran, but a Saudi shift to Russia puts this theory on ice.

With a US on freefall and a Russia in firm control of the Middle Eastern future, Saudi Arabia has no choice but to switch allegiences in the hope that Russia would be able to hold back Iran from attacking.

Israel has always prided itself on  having a neutral foreign policy which has allowed it in recent years to expand relations to countries previously off its radar such as China, India, and much of East Africa.  Yet, the presence of Russia and the shifting positions of its Sunni allies in the face of a US in the midst of a regional pullback, changes its calculus in relating to the growing strength of Iran on its border.

Israel can no longer pretend to remain neutral while Russia allows Israel’s Persian nemesis to gain the upperhand.  Jerusalem must decide to either stick it out by itself while its long time ally America pulls back or finally decide like the Saudis that it is better to cut a deal with Putin in hopes he holds back Iran rather than face them alone.

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Civil War in the House of Saud?

Reports are flying from Riyadh that as King Salman nears abdication, there is a potential coup set to go in effect in order to deprive his son Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman from taking over.

In response to the Crown Prince’s fears Saudi Arabia arrested between 16-30 people in a broad crackdown across the Kingdom. The arrestees though were all members of the regime, yet loyalists of the ousted former Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef.

Why would the monarchy, which prides itself on collective unity in the face of ensuring its own survival feel the need to go after one another.

 Andrew Korybko of the Oriental Review gives the following intriguing possibility:

Iran and Qatar are close with Russia and China, and the latter two Great Powers are actually enjoying a renaissance of relations with Saudi Arabia right now. While one might expect this to make Tehran and Doha jealous, the opposite is true – Moscow and Beijing’s developing high-level strategic partnerships with Riyadh are designed to bring balance to the Mideast by weaning the Kingdom away from Washington and slowly but surely integrating it into the emerging Multipolar World Order, which will never be perfect or without friction, but is still a step in the right direction. In order to appreciate what’s happening, one needs to be reminded of a few things that have happened this past year when it comes to Saudi Arabia’s relations with Russia and China.

Concerning Moscow, Riyadh agreed to an historic OPEC output deal with Russia last year and renewed it a few months ago after it expired. The Saudis are also cooperating with the Russians in encouraging Syria’s so-called “opposition” to merge into a unified entity for facilitating peace talks with Damascus. Foreign Minister Lavrov was just in the Kingdom last week, and King Salman is expected to visit Moscow sometime next month. As for China, Beijing signed a total of over $110 billion of deals with Saudi Arabia in the past six months alone in an effort to assist the Crown Prince’s ambitious Vision 2030 program of economic modernization. It’s that initiative more so than anything else which holds the danger of inadvertently destabilizing the country’s internal affairs because of the opposition that it’s come under from some of Saudi Arabia’s many radical clerics who are against the social consequences of its reforms.

Bearing all of this in mind, it’s worthwhile to revisit the question of who has an interest in destabilizing Saudi Arabia right at the moment that it’s turning away from the US and towards Russia and China, timing their subversive efforts to coincide with a prolonged leadership change and an economic transition. By all indicators, those aren’t the hallmarks of an Iranian or Qatari operation, but the red flag for an American one.

US, Russian, and Chinese Neo-Colonialism in the Middle East

The fast changing word is in a great transition between a post Cold War uni-polarism to a 21st Century multi-polar chaos of various competing interests circling around energy control and market influence. Both the Russians and Chinese are thriving off of a Middle East in chaos and have learned like the US did that the Arab rulers have no loyalty to their countries.

These rulers, when given protection and money have the loyalty to the world powers providing them the money and arms to control their local “peasants.” The Russians and Chinese have figured out that the key to US dominance in the Middle East and therefore oil profits is the defense pacts Washington has used with the Saudis and Gulf States to ensure the dollar is constantly inflated due to its use as the sole oil currency.  This is now changing. Even more so, the Russians and Chinese as pointed out in the Oriental Review have gone out of their way to lure the Saudis away from America.

By creating balance between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the Russians and Chinese are in the process of playing both sides to ensure continued control of the region.  The American security establishment used the same policy in both encouraging Iran to push ahead across the Middle East, while using that threat to encourage the Saudis to stay within the American orbit.

The Saudis are trying to figure out how to work with both, but unlike Israel, the House of Saud has no real value to it other than a colonial apparatus to rented out to the highest bidder.

Where Does this Leave Israel?

With the Saudi family in the midst of an internal implosion, Israel has little room to maneuver.  The prevailing assumption has been that the blocs would remain the same and actually consolidate in opposition to the Iranian threat.  The insertion of Russia and China as the new power brokers has scrambled this assumption.

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Are Russia and China Purposely Setting Up a War Between the US and North Korea?

Russian President who is in China for the BRICS summit came out strongly today against increased sanctions and at the same time warned against revving up war rhetoric.




Putin who along with China seem to be supportive of doing something about North Korea’s regime, actually have proposed nothing concrete in dealing with the rogue nation.

“Ramping up military hysteria in such conditions is senseless; it’s a dead end,” Putin said at the BRICS summit. “It could lead to a global, planetary catastrophe and a huge loss of human life. There is no other way to solve the North Korean nuclear issue, save that of peaceful dialogue.”

The question remains that if Russia and China are truly interested in stopping North Korea, why are they not committed to shutting down Kim Jong Un’s oil supply. Doing so, would leave him about two weeks until his country would cease to function.

Goading America to Attack

The only explanation to the behavior of Russia and China is that they are purposely provoking a USA attack in order to create as much chaos as possible. For Russia, an America embroiled in an al out war with North Korea and probably China is an America less focued on Putin’s advancement across Eastern Europe or even his consolidation of forces in Syria.

For China, its economic and military strength has grown to the point of igniting a push back by the US Security State. Any sort of chaos allows China to continue to move into the Middle East while at the same time sucking even more money out of the over taxed USA.

The challenge for both of these countries is containing the chaos once it starts.  As the USA learned through its creation of ISIS, chaos might be useful for shortwhile, but uncontrolled it can bite its own creator. With Russia and China now leaving little room for a diplomatic solution, America and its allies can ill afford to allow Kim Jong Un to shoot off an ICBM loaded with an H-Bomb Eastward.  Furthermore, if his threats of setting of an EMP are credible, Trump has little time to waste maneuvering with Russia and China.

Worse than the above, North Korea can now sell nuclear weapons direct to Iran or Syria whose militaries sit on Israel’s Northern border under Russian protection.

The argument to hold off striking North Korea because many people will die has now been proven untenable, since everyday Trump waits increases the amount of potential casualties.  With South Korea and Japan pining to remilitarize, a teetering American republic cannot waste time playing chicken with China and Russia, but rather should arm its allies in the region with the means to strike hard at their adversary in the North.