SATISH SHARMA - not just Rotigraphy.: June 2018

No Deal, Mr. Trump

GERSHON BASKIN | 28.06.2018 | WORLD / MIDDLE EAST

The Trump administration is preparing itself to present “the deal of the century” to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Trump emissaries Jared Kushner (Trump’s son-in-law) and Jason Greenblatt (one of Trump’s former business lawyers) recently visited the region and held high-level meetings in Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. The one place of significance not visited was of course Palestine. Since Trump announced and then implemented the moving of the US Embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the Palestinians have cut all official ties with the US Administration. The Trump Administration responded in kind by freezing all financial aid to Palestine and by continuing to develop the peace proposal deal without consultations with the Palestinian leadership. The Trump Administration has also publically announced that they will present their peace plan “above the heads” of the Palestinian leadership directly to the Palestinian people. Jared Kushner pushed that point when he gave an exclusive interview to the privately owned Palestinian newspaper coming out of Jerusalem “Al Quds”.

Trump’s emissaries have reportedly been told all around the region what Jordan King Abdallah II told directly to President Trump in his White House meeting this week, that a peace deal without a sovereign independent Palestinian state based on the June 4, 1967 borders; without East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine; and without some acceptable framework for dealing with Palestinian refugees; there would be no deal at all. Leaks about the content of the Trump proposal which include a Palestinian state on only a small part of the West Bank, a Palestinian capital in the Jerusalem suburb of Abu Deis, and not East Jerusalem, with no removal of any Israeli settlements, with Israeli security control over the Palestinian state and the Jordan valley and with nothing whatsoever for Palestinian refugees is dead on arrival. This is the opinion of not only the Palestinian people and their leadership. Trump’s proposal, which falls outside of international legitimacy and accepted principles for Israeli Palestinian peace, is acceptable to only one party in the world – that is the Government of Israel under Benjamin Netanyahu.

Some Palestinians have argued, even publically with op-ed pieces in some local newspapers that the Palestinians should accept whatever Trump is prepared to offer but not as a peace and end of conflict deal. They argue that with the increasing moves by Israeli politicians to advance Israeli annexation of large chunks of the West Bank and the failure of internal Palestinian reconciliation further entrenching the division between the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinians must increase their hold and control on whatever pieces of territory and authorities that Israel is prepared to withdraw from and transfer to the Palestinian Authority. Furthermore, there are calls from some of the Likud politicians who hold the most right-wing positions with Netanyahu’s party and apparently have a lot of influence over him to exploit the Palestinian rejection of the Trump proposal to shut down the Palestinian Authority and to remove it from power. These politicians suggest that Israel could more easily deal with local Palestinian leaders in some form of antiquated tribal rule. These plans are right out of the rules book of the 1970s when Israel tried to replace the legitimacy of the Palestinian Liberation Organization with local tribal leaders called “The Village Leagues”. That plan was a miserable failure then as it would be today as well.

Trump may believe that the deal for Israeli-Palestinian peace is like a real estate negotiation for the purchase of hotel complex in a high-risk neighborhood where he can put “take it or leave it” terms on the table. These seem to be the terms that Trump understands. It is doubtful that Netanyahu functions in the same strategically limited assessment and analysis. Netanyahu’s strategic assessment and analysis weakness is mainly informed by his belief that he can successfully steer Israel’s course through the stormy waters of the region while always blaming others for the failure of reaching agreements. But Netanyahu’s continued polices of entrenching Israeli control over the Palestinians, expanding Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, isolating Gaza to the brink of disaster and trying to focus all international attention on Iran will successfully remove the two states solution forever and leave Israel as a non-democratic binational state. Eventually the Israeli public will wake up and understand that they have been living in a false reality with a very false sense of security.

More Countries Start Exploring Alternatives to the US World Orde

FEDERICO PIERACCINI | 28.06.2018 | WORLD / ASIA PACIFIC, MIDDLE EAST

There are two countries that more than others show how the Western world order is undergoing a profound change. Japan and Turkey occupy two distinct and diverse geographical areas, yet they share many of the same strategic choices about their future. Their geopolitical trajectory is increasingly drifting away from Washington and moving closer to China, Russia, India and Iran.

Both Japan and Turkey are two important states in the US’s strategy for controlling the Middle East and Asia-Pacific. Both countries have economies that are competitive in comparison to their neighbors, and both often conveniently find themselves allied to countries within Washington’s orbit. Japan has a good relationship with South Korea, and Turkey (until a few years ago) had a privileged relationship with Saudi Arabia and Israel. Keeping in mind that the US aims to prolong and consolidate its regional dominance, Washington has always tried to have excellent relations with these two countries as a way of ensuring its constant presence in regional affairs.

Japan and Turkey have perfectly fulfilled America’s role for them in military, financial and economic terms. Ankara, for example, is a key part of NATO and offers military bases like the Incirlik Air Base, allowing for US military influence in the Middle East. Qatar, for example, is a satellite of Turkey, thanks to the shared religious bonds of the Muslim Brotherhood. Not by coincidence, one of the most important US air bases is located in Qatar, helping further lock in America’s regional presence. The goal, of course, is geopolitical, highlighting America’s ongoing confrontation with Iran, Russia and China. The United States tends to control certain geographical areas because of its military and economic power that is expressed directly or indirectly through compliant allies like Turkey and Japan.

Japan, for example, appears to be in a historically favorable position to be able counter the Sino-Russian influence in the Pacific. Japan, a key ally of the United States, has been subject to Washington’s military diktats ever since the conclusion of the Second World War, always being viewed as a chain of islands ideal for containing the military expansion of Russia and China.

Originally, in the minds of policy makers like Brzezinski, countries like Japan and Turkey held vital importance because of the dual role they played. They offered not only an obvious contrast to China and Iran respectively but also to Russia, given their privileged strategic position. In a different way, and with different degrees of success, Turkey and Japan have had some acute differences with Iran, Russia and China over the last few decades. Russia and Japan have never signed a peace treaty since the end of the Second World War. Japan and China have for years had very heated differences over the events of the Second World War as well as over their rivalry in the Pacific. In the Middle East, Russia and Turkey almost came to blows only a few years ago; and on the Crimean affair, Ankara took an anti-Moscow stance. Most importantly, Turkey is one of the advocates of the war against Syria, which is a great ally of Iran.

Trump’s victory, the decline of the unipolar world order, and a series of sensible strategic choices by Iran, Russia and China, have served to usher in a process of transformation in these two regions. The manner in which this transformation is occurring differs significantly. In the Middle East, the forces supporting Damascus are ending the conflict and moving Turkey away from the aggressor camp. Ankara has chosen to keep one foot in each camp, and even though Moscow is perfectly aware of this, it is still better than Turkey being one step away from declaring war with Russia. In the same way, the failed coup in Turkey, which Ankara attributes to Gulen and the CIA (mistakenly, in my view, about which I wrote at the time), has had as an immediate effect of moving Tehran and Ankara closer together, in spite of their differences over the situation in Syria and Iraq. Other factors that have served to bring Turkey closer to the Sino-Russo-Iranian axis concern the rift within the Gulf Cooperation Council, with the commercial and industrial blockade against Qatar, an ally of Turkey, conducted by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and enjoying Trump’s blessing.

To this extent we can also add the understanding between Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey on the Kurds and the territorial integrity of Syria. Contrary to what Erdogan would have expected, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are Washington's tool for illegally occupying Syria and influencing events in the country. And, lastly, another consideration to take into account is the increasingly strong tensions between European Union countries and Turkey, especially between Berlin and Ankara, with Erdogan and Merkel increasingly driven apart by humanitarian and strategic positions occasioned by the migrant crisis since 2014.

Even though Japan enjoys relatively good relations with Washington, trade tariffs have given Abe further incentive to pursue a much more independent policy than in the past. Trump’s abandonment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) confirmed the fears of Abe and the Japanese establishment. Tokyo seems to have fully embraced multi-stakeholder relations and is assigning strong economic priority to this end. The creation of an economic zone between ASEAN, Japan and South Korea has been suggested as a replacement of the TPP. There has even been an attempt by Japan to diversify important sources of energy (80% currently comes from the Middle East), with Russia being an easily accessible source.

The Kuril Islands dispute with Russia will first need to be resolved. Nevertheless, it is conceivable that economic and energy relations could be established while setting aside highly divisive matters for now. Another important aspect in Japan's strategic opening concerns participation in the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which would greatly enhance the synergies between the two countries.

What can clearly be seen in analyzing Turkey and Japan’s situation is that they find themselves in very different situations, but both have a wide range of options at their disposal. These two countries are in a transitional phase that cannot last forever. Both are currently enjoying the benefits of a fruitful dialogue with both contending groups, the US and Europe on the one hand, and Russia, China and Iran on the other. The strategy of Abe and Erdogan seems to be aimed at avoiding to have to choose in the future what side to be on. For Turkey, an important member of NATO, it is almost impossible to leave the NATO, given the country’s strategic importance. Having said that, Turkey’s pursuit of third-party weapon systems like the Russian S-400 already seems to be setting a course for a showdown with Washington.

Japan still seems more hesitant in diversifying its relations than Turkey, preferring to continue a fruitful dialogue with Washington and its main allies in the region. One element that could severely curb Abe's support for Trump concerns the negotiations with North Korea. Abe has no reason to cheer at the prospect of a union of the two Koreas. Japan would find itself with a strong competitor in the region that would inevitably end up integrating completely with China, strengthening the triad of China, Russia and Korea to the detriment of Japan, which would be left isolated from the continental block.

This change is already happening in the Middle East, with Turkey, Iran and Russia in Astana trying to pacify Syria without the involvement of the United States. It would represent a major loss of US influence in the region were Tokyo to begin an important trade cooperation with ASEAN, an energetic one with Russia, and participate in an infrastructure project like the BRI with Beijing.

These processes require significant changes that will not happen overnight. An economic indicator that suggests Japan and Turkey could be moving away from the US dollar system is the entering into bilateral agreements that are not denominated in the dollars. This is precisely what Turkey is doing with Iran, as reported by Press TV. A general moving away from a dependence on the US dollar as the world reserve currency is explained by the Strategic Culture Foundation: “The US Treasury Department report for April published on June 15 revealed that Russia sold $47.4 billion out of the $96.1 it had held in Treasury bonds (T-bonds). In March, Moscow cut its Treasury holdings by $1.6 billion. In February, Russia reduced its bond portfolio by $9.3 billion. Other holders did it too. Japan sold off about $12 billion, China liquidated roughly $7 billion. Ireland ditched over $17 billion.”

Moscow, Beijing and Teheran will have to offer to Japan and Turkey peace, development and mutual gain in order to accelerate the replacement of the United States as a central player in the international relations of these two countries. It will not be easy, given the nature of Abe and Erdogan, but Xi Jinping and Putin have shown themselves to be masters of cleverly combining the commercial, economic, military and diplomatic skills of China, Russia and Iran.

‘Right back at ya’: Iran’s Zarif trolls Pompeo by rewriting his statement to reflect US failings

Published time: 28 Jun, 2018 19:40

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‘Right back at ya’: Iran’s Zarif trolls Pompeo by rewriting his statement to reflect US failings

The Iranian foreign minister has turned a recent US statement, about a protest in Iran, back against his American counterpart – by exposing how the same comments can easily be applied to the situation in the US.

The original statement by Mike Pompeo, issued on Wednesday, had accused Tehran of “squandering its citizens’ resources… in adventurism in Syria, its support of Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis” and states that “it should be no surprise [to] no one that protests continue in Iran.”

“The people of Iran are tired of the corruption, injustice and incompetence from their leaders. The world hears their voice,”Pompeo said.

The version published by Javad Zarif on Thursday takes Pompeo’s words pretty much verbatim, but replaces Iran with the US. The US is “squandering its citizens’ resources… in adventurism in Iraq and Afghanistan, its blind support for Israel and other terrorism-sponsoring nations,” the Iranian statement said.

“Those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones,” Zarif remarked, as he posted his rebuttal on Twitter.

While relations between Iran and the US have been bad for decades, they took a downward turn under the Trump administration, which chose to withdraw from an international nuclear deal with Tehran and is twisting other nations’ arms to force them to cut trade with the Islamic Republic.

Aggressive US campaign to overthrow Iranian govt serves only to boost its support – experts

Published time: 28 Jun, 2018 17:03

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Aggressive US campaign to overthrow Iranian govt serves only to boost its support – experts

This week’s economic protests in Iran invigorated those who tout any trouble as a sign of the government’s imminent fall. What they fail to realise is that foreign hostilities merely boost its support, experts have told RT.

On Monday, there were public disturbances in the Iranian capital, mostly centered around its iconic Grand Bazaar. The protestors – the majority of them merchants – were angry about the weakness of the Iranian economy and particularly the devaluation of its national currency, the rial, over the past months.

The clashes appeared to be a far cry from what happened six months ago, when economic protests in Iranian provincial cities escalated into several nights of violence with dozens killed and ended only after a major security crackdown. But they gave the usual critics of Tehran an opportunity to blame it for being unresponsive to its people and a failure in terms of policy-making.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was among the more creative in this crowd. He used a football as a prop and tried to capitalize on Iranians’ pride for their national team – which received a royal welcome after returning from the FIFA World Cup with one win and one draw in the bag – to try pit the people of Iran against their government.

This one-dimensional view on the situation in Iran on the part of the US and its allies is “a travesty” considering Washington’s efforts to hurt the Iranian economy, journalist Finian Cunningham told RT.

“There are simply genuine popular grievances against economic austerity, soaring consumer inflation, unemployment and so on. One can attribute blame to a lack of government responsiveness to social needs,” he said. “But by far the bigger factor is the international context of how the US and the European states have not delivered on their mandated commitments to normalize economic relations with Iran after the landmark nuclear treaty was signed three years ago.”

The treaty negotiated under the Obama administration was sold to the Iranian side by, among other things, a promise of an economic boost from new business opportunities. Donald Trump chose to violate the agreement and is actively pressuring his allies to cut all ties with Iran, including in an oil trade that is a crucial source of foreign currency for the Iranian economy. The devaluation of the rial was to a great degree caused by a panic run on the national currency in favor of the hard foreign ones, as Iranians feared the repetition of their experience from the oil embargo by the US and its allies that preceded the nuclear deal.

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“The global campaign by the US to attack Iran’s economic lifeline oil industry is an outrage. It is a violation of international law, and is tantamount to an act of war by Washington. It also demonstrates the hyper-bullying behavior of Washington which is imposing its dubious national laws and prejudices on the rest of the world,” said Cunningham.

This is quite ironic that the countries, which want to see the government in Tehran fall and be changed with something more to their liking, are lending it credibility by such hostile policies, said journalist Dave Lindorff of the ThisCantBeHappening.net news website.

“The Iranian government can point to foreign efforts to harm Iran's economy, just as in the case of Cuba and more recently in Venezuela, it helps the government to win support from its people, even those who are protesting,” he told RT.

“It has long been argued that the Castro regime in Cuba was able to survive so long, even after the loss of Russian aid after the collapse of the Soviet Union, because it was able to blame the hardships of life in Cuba on the US blockade and embargo. Iran is making the same kind of claim, with good reason, and no doubt is winning much support and dampening support for street protests and anti-government activity because people don’t support foreign threats to their country.”

New York Times exposes its own hypocrisy with cartoon of Trump & Putin as gay lovers

Danielle Ryan is an Irish freelance journalist. Having lived and worked in the US, Germany and Russia, she is currently based in Budapest, Hungary. Her work has been featured by Salon, The Nation, Rethinking Russia, Russia Direct, teleSUR, The BRICS Post and others. Follow her on Twitter @DanielleRyanJ, check out her Facebook page, or visit her website: danielle-ryan.com

Published time: 28 Jun, 2018 16:49Edited time: 28 Jun, 2018 16:49

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New York Times exposes its own hypocrisy with cartoon of Trump & Putin as gay lovers

A recent cartoon produced by the New York Times depicts Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin as gay lovers. It was clearly intended to be hilariously funny while also making a salient political point. In reality, it does neither.

The cartoon is part two of a three-part series called ‘Trump Bites’ from critically-acclaimed animator Bill Plympton. Let me explain the contents of the minute-long video to save you from having to watch it yourself.

It begins with a cartoon Trump standing in front of a mirror altering his bow tie while a portrait of a topless Putin hangs on the wall behind him. Audio of the real Trump confirming that he does have “a relationship” with Putin begins to play and the doorbell of Trump’s cartoon house rings.

The visitor is none other than a muscly, topless (again) Putin. Trump’s cartoon heart begins to beat out of his chest and he hands it over to the macho Russian as a gift. Audio of the real Trump claiming Putin has done a “brilliant and amazing” job plays over the scene.