US Blows Up INF... Another Move Towards Downfall
It is rather astounding the American double-think. It was the US side which unilaterally abolished the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty in 2002. And it is the US side which is now unilaterally threatening to walk away from a second landmark arms control treaty, the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) accord, which was first put in place in 1987.
Yet it is Washington that is accusing Russia of violating the global arms control architecture.
Washington has been relentlessly encroaching on Russia’s national security over the past two decades with expansion of NATO forces on Russia’s borders, including the deployment of missiles systems. And yet Washington has the bare face to accuse Moscow of breaching arms controls.
How would the US feel, if say, Russia were to deploy missile systems in Mexico? Yet, the US is doing similar on Russia’s borders and then turning around and accusing Moscow of aggression. The American double-think here betrays a disturbing, stupid arrogance.
This week, US and Russian officials met in Geneva to discuss the INF and problems surrounding the treaty on both sides. But the US side in typical high-handed fashion refused to enter into detailed negotiations about alleged grievances contended by both sides. Washington spurned detailed talks and simply repeated its threats to unilaterally abrogate the INF.
It now seems certain that the US will withdraw from the INF over the next two months. The abrogation of the treaty, in place since 1987 as negotiated by former President Ronald Reagan and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, could mean the return of US medium-range nuclear missiles to Europe targeting Russia.
It is a stupendous retrograde step. Moscow has already warned that if the US abandons the INF, then it will be compelled to respond by installing missiles that will target European allies of the US. This is a lamentable unwinding of arms control and undoing of global security.
But who is responsible? It is the US that is wholly responsible for this retrograde step. No doubt about it. The question has to be asked: which side has continually sought to undermine global security? Any objective observer can see that the US and its cancellation of the ABM in 2002 followed by relentless expansion of NATO offensive forces towards Russia is the malign motive force.
Western accusations against Russia of “aggression” towards Europe are preposterous propaganda and devious projection of its own malign activities, primarily in the support of a violent coup d’état in Ukraine by Neo-Nazis in early 2014. The relentless aggressive expansion of NATO, resembling the Nazi Operation Barbarossa in 1941, is the real context of developments, not the Western media travesty of “Russian aggression”.
What are US and NATO grievances concerning the INF? They claim Russia is in breach of the INF from its development of a land-launched cruise missile, the 9M729 or Novator missile. Russia denies that claim and has repeatedly asked the US for evidence or details of its grievance in order for a negotiated resolution of the matter to take place. Washington has steadfastly refused to provide details, as the cursory and failed negotiations in Geneva this week proved once again.
Meanwhile, it is a patent fact that Washington has deployed missile systems in Romania and Poland which are incontestably in violation of the INF, potentially breaching the treaty in a most brazen manner. Washington calls these missile systems “defensive” and “against rogue regimes like Iran”. Come off it. Nobody in their right mind could buy such a pretext. These missile system directly and promptly put Moscow at risk of an American nuclear attack.
A way to resolve these issues is to hold mutually respectful negotiations within the framework of the INF. But herein is the rub. The US side evidently does not want to negotiate. It is simply blustering ahead with its own speculative claims against Russia.
Washington’s intransigent attitude – which predates Trump – inevitably raises the suspicion that the US side is not in the slightest bit interested in negotiations with Russia on a mutual basis. The US is contriving grievances as an excuse for its own desire to rip up the INF as it did with the ABM.
By falsely claiming that Russia is “violating” the INF, the US is giving itself license to expand its forces and missile systems in Europe to threaten Russia.
This is a deplorable act of lawlessness by the US, but one which is part of a whole pattern of conduct whereby Washington sees itself as above any international law or norms of conduct in its pursuit of hegemonic ambitions.
Washington accuses Moscow? The American regime has been on a decades roll of criminal genocidal wars in the Middle East and beyond, sponsoring terrorism and regime change. And it has the brass neck to accuse Moscow of threatening global security. Its INF violation and desire to put Europe on a hair trigger for nuclear war is totally in keeping with American criminal imperialism. Trying to scapegoat Russia for its own criminal orgy of misconduct is the biggest, foulest joke imaginable.
Fortunately, Russia has the political intelligence and military capability to know how to deal with such American duplicity and, ultimately, imbecility. The American political class think they know it all. They don’t know anything. American stupid arrogance is their own downfall. Bring it on.
posted by Satish Sharma at
20:02
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