US Threat Report: Washington facing ‘critical years’ in Great Power competition

By Mohamad Hasan Sweidan

The Cradle

Unlike in previous years, the 2023 annual US Threat Assessment Report  views West Asia through the prism of a Great Power competition that threatens to nudge the world into a post-US multipolar order. 

On 8 March, 2023, the US Director of National Intelligence released the Annual Threat Assessment Report, which evaluates worldwide threats to US national security, including cyber and technological threats, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, crime, environmental, and natural resources issues.

The report highlights the challenges Washington faces in the rapidly devolving US-led global order, with China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea identified as the most significant security challenges for western allies in the coming year.

“Strategic competition between the United States and its allies, China, and Russia over what kind of world will emerge makes the next few years critical to determining who and what will shape” the new world order.

China as the top threat

Unsurprisingly, the report identifies China as the top US threat due to its efforts to undermine US influence worldwide, create differences between Washington and its allies, and annex Taiwan. The recent success of China in facilitating a reconciliation agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia illustrates Beijing’s growing role in West Asia and the world, and signals a shift in the post-WW2 global balance of power.

US academic and Foreign Policy columnist Stephen M. Walt describes the detente between Riyadh and Tehran as a “wake-up call” for the US foreign-policy establishment. He notes how “China is attempting to present itself as a force for peace in the world, a mantle that the United States has largely abandoned in recent years.”

The threat report reflects US fears of China’s increasing influence, which is mirrored in its latest national security strategy and in countless speeches of US officials over the past decade.

However, what’s new and different is the time frame for decisive action: The US faces a “critical few years” in this Great Power conflict, warns the report. The space for Washington to define the rules of the emerging global multipolar order – on which rising powers, middle states, and the Global South are heavily betting – is rapidly shrinking.

The report also suggests that China will continue to work in 2023 to become the most prominent power in East Asia and a superpower on the international scene. This has led to a race among states to diversify their foreign relations in order to optimize their national interests, mostly to the detriment of a US-led unipolar order.

China’s growing presence in West Asia

West Asia’s geographical and economic importance makes it a primary battleground for conflict between Washington and its rivals, particularly China. For years, Beijing has pursued the soft power strategy of infiltrating the region through trade and investment deals that do not directly provoke the US, but have slowly loosened Washington’s historic clutches on West Asia.

In 2015, only two West Asian and North African countries had joined China’s ambitious multi-continent Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). By 2018, the number had risen to ten.

General Michael Kurilla, commander of the US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) – whose area of operation encompasses 21 countries from North Africa to West, Central, and South Asia – highlighted in a Senate hearing on 16 March, 2023, that “19 out of 21 CENTCOM countries have signed the Belt and Road Initiative with China,” and warned that “we are in a race to integrate with our partners before China can fully penetrate the region.”

Furthermore, the report claims that China is developing its military capabilities and expanding its presence worldwide, building military facilities abroad and entering into agreements with countries – activities that are viewed as a threat to US global interests.

A study by the US military-aligned Rand Corporation claims that 19 countries around the world may be potential future hosts for Chinese military bases, including seven in West Asia and North Africa (WANA) region: Bahrain, Yemen, Syria, Iran, Morocco, Oman, and Saudi Arabia.

As China strengthens its presence in these areas, promoting its global economic model of “peaceful modernization,” the number of regional “swing” states is increasing at Washington’s expense. It is natural for US allies in West Asia to seek diversification in their foreign relations and gain leverage from the US-Chinese conflict to advance their national interests, as the UAE, Turkiye, and, more recently, Saudi Arabia, have done.

The Russia-NATO confrontation

The US Threat Assessment Report confirms that Russia does not want the current conflict in Ukraine to escalate into a direct military conflict with the US and NATO. However, this does not rule out the possibility of confrontation. Intelligence suggests that Russia will continue to pursue its interests in competitive and sometimes confrontational and provocative ways, including the use of military force.

As a result, there is no guarantee that Russian-western competition will not lead to confrontation, despite both sides’ desire to avoid it. Moreover, direct confrontation may become necessary in the future if one party believes that the fight has become existential to its interests.

For example, in the unlikely event Russia is defeated in the Ukraine war, the expansion of the conflict may become a necessity, as President Vladimir Putin has observed: “The war in Ukraine is existential for us,” asking “What is the value of a world without Russia?”

Russia’s presence in West Asia

The report indicates that Moscow will continue its efforts to increase its influence in the WANA region, attempting to undermine Washington’s primacy and presenting itself as an indispensable mediator and security partner for these states.

More than a year since the onset of the Ukraine war, the west has discovered that a more independently-inclined Global South was a major reason for its policy failure to isolate Russia, and now preaches the need to re-craft western strategies with these states. Far from becoming mired in the Ukraine conflict, Russia has announced that it will increase its interactions – trade and political – with this global bloc of developing countries.

The report indicates that the growth of Russian-Iranian relations and the strategic relations between Moscow and Beijing – driven by a shared vision that the US threatens their interests – will lead to more economic, defense, and political cooperation against Washington’s hegemonic ambitions.

Iran’s regional role in countering US influence

The report predicts that in 2023, Iran will continue to work toward reducing US influence in West Asia – from the Persian Gulf to the Levant – and that, this time, it will not act alone. Instead, the perceived Iranian threat is part of the larger competition between China, Russia and Iran to challenge the current world order and decouple from the US-led system.

The intelligence assessment also highlights Iran’s missile program as a key threat, as the Islamic Republic not only boasts the region’s largest arsenal of ballistic missiles, but produces them domestically and at extremely low cost.

Tehran’s focus is on improving the accuracy, lethality, and reliability of its missiles, and it is likely to acquire new conventional weapon systems such as advanced fighter aircraft, trainer aircraft, helicopters, air defense systems, para-naval patrol ships, and main battle tanks. This is due to Tehran’s deepening military ties with Moscow, which may lead to Iran obtaining Russian SU-35 fighter jets. Three days after the US Threat Assessment Report was released, Iranian media announced that the purchase deal had been finalized with Moscow.

Furthermore, the ongoing conflict in Ukraine has made Russia more reliant on its allies and partners around the world, presenting an opportunity for Iran to advance its interests in the region and grow its strategic depth.

West Asia’s importance to the US

According to the report, if Iran does not receive relief from western sanctions, its officials are likely to consider further increasing uranium enrichment up to 90 percent, which Washington will try to prevent by potentially renewing the nuclear deal abandoned by US President Donald Trump in 2018.

The report emphasized that return to full compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) requires sanctions relief, Washington’s adherence to its obligations, and the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) closure of investigations related to safeguards in three undisclosed nuclear sites. This raises the possibility of a nuclear agreement between the US and Iran this year.

Last year, the 2022 US Threat Assessment Report analyzed the  West Asian region under five key headings: Russia, Iran, migration due to regional conflicts, global terrorism, and conflicts and instability. It devoted a paragraph to explaining how conflicts in the region pose a threat to US interests.

However, the 2023 report only briefly addresses the region under three headings: Russia, Iran, and global terrorism. The current assessment views the region almost entirely through the prism of US competition with China, Russia, and Iran – in stark contrast to the previous report, which attached importance to the region’s conditions and conflicts that directly impact US interests.

Great powers in a multipolar world

This difference in perspective does not indicate a decline in the region’s importance to Washington, but rather, that Great Power competition defines the US presence in the region today.

The current assessment places greater emphasis on competition with rising powers to define the shape and establish the rules of the new world order – and considers the next few years to be vital in preventing the emergence of a world order that does not secure US interests.

Undoubtedly, the competition among great powers is the key factor shaping Washington’s perception of global threats today. The challenge facing the US is that the pace of change is accelerating, and rising powers are increasingly cooperating with each other at all levels to counterbalance US clout.

Consequently, the 2023 assessment warns that Washington has entered a critical period that will necessitate a gradual escalation against any entity seeking to shape and impose these global shifts. It is clear that the US is aware of the pressing need to act fast and decisively to safeguard its interests and secure its place in the emerging multipolar landscape.

US Officials Really Want You To Know The US Is The World’s “Leader

By Caitlin Johnstone

Information Clearing House -- In response to questions he received during a press conference on Monday about Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin cementing a “new era” in strategic partnership between China and Russia, the White House National Security Council’s John Kirby made no fewer than seven assertions that the US is the “leader” of the world.

Here are excerpts from his comments:

• “The two countries have grown closer. But they are both countries that chafe and bristle at U.S. leadership around the world.”
• “And in China’s case in particular, they certainly would like to challenge U.S. leadership around the world.“
• “But these are not two countries that have, you know, decades-long experience working together and full trust and confidence. It’s a burgeoning of late based on America’s increasing leadership around the world and trying to check that.”
• “Peter, these are two countries that have long chafed, as I said to Jeff — long chafed at U.S. leadership around the world and the network of alliances and partnerships that we have.”
• “And we work on those relationships one at a time, because every country on the continent is different, has different needs and different expectations of American leadership.”
• “That’s the power of American convening leadership. And you don’t see that power out of either Russia or China.”
• “But one of the reasons why you’re seeing that tightening relationship is because they recognize that they don’t have that strong foundation of international support for what they’re trying to do, which is basically challenge American leadership around the world.”

The illusory truth effect is a cognitive bias which causes people to mistake something they have heard many times for an established fact, because the way the human brain receives and interprets information tends to draw little or no distinction between repetition and truth. Propagandists and empire managers often take advantage of this glitch in our wetware, which is what’s happening when you see them repeating key phrases over and over again that they want people to believe.

We saw another repetition of this line recently at an online conference hosted by the US Chamber of Commerce, in which the US ambassador to China asserted that Beijing must accept the US as the “leader” of the region China happens to occupy.

US empire managers are of course getting very assertive about the narrative that they are the world’s “leader” because that self-appointed “leadership” is being challenged by China, and the nations which support it with increasing openness like Russia. Most of the major international news stories of our day are either directly or indirectly related to this dynamic, wherein the US is struggling to secure unipolar planetary domination by thwarting China’s rise and undermining its partners.

The message they’re putting out is, “This is our world. We’re in charge. Anyone who claims otherwise is freakish and abnormal, and must be opposed.”

 

Why do they say the US is the “leader” of the world instead of its “ruler”, anyway? I’m unclear on the difference as practically applied. Is it meant to give us the impression that the US rules the world by democratic vote? That this is something the rest of the world consented to? Because I sure as hell don’t remember voting for it, and we’ve all seen what happens to governments which don’t comply with US “leadership”.

I’m not one of those who believe a multipolar world will be a wonderful thing, I just recognize that it beats the hell out of the alternative, that being increasingly reckless nuclear brinkmanship to maintain global control. The US has been in charge long enough to make it clear that the world order it dominates can only be maintained by nonstop violence and aggression, with more and more of that violence and aggression being directed toward major nuclear-armed powers. The facts are in and the case is closed: US unipolar hegemony is unsustainable.

The problem is that the US empire itself does not know this. This horrifying trajectory we’re on toward an Atomic Age world war is the result of the empire’s doctrine that it must maintain unipolar control at all costs crashing into the rise of a multipolar world order.

It doesn’t need to be this way. There’s no valid reason why the US needs to remain in charge of the world and can’t just let different people in different regions sort out their own affairs like they always did before. There’s no valid reason why governments need to be brandishing armageddon weapons at each other instead of collaborating peacefully in the interest of all humankind. We’re being pushed toward disaster to preserve “American leadership around the world,” and I for one do not consent to this.

Caitlin's articles are entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking her on Facebook, following her antics on Twitter, checking out her podcast, throwing some money into her hat on Patreon or Paypal, or buying her book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. New book! Lao Sue And Other Poems, available in paperback or PDF/ebook. 

Chris Hedges: The Donald Trump Problem

By Chris Hedges

"ScheerPost"--Donald Trump — facing four government-run investigations, three criminal and one civil, targeting himself and his business — is not being targeted because of his crimes. Nearly every serious crime he is accused of carrying out has been committed by his political rivals. He is being targeted because he is deemed dangerous for his willingness, at least rhetorically, to reject the Washington Consensus regarding neoliberal free-market and free-trade policies, as well as the idea that the U.S. should oversee a global empire. He has not only belittled the ruling ideology, but urged his supporters to attack the apparatus that maintains the duopoly by declaring the 2020 election illegitimate.

The Donald Trump problem is the same as the Richard Nixon problem. When Nixon was forced to resign under the threat of impeachment, it wasn’t for his involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity, nor was it for his illegal use of the CIA and other federal agencies to spy upon, intimidate, harass and destroy radicals, dissidents and activists. Nixon was brought down because he targeted other members of the ruling political and economic establishment. Once Nixon, like Trump, attacked the centers of power, the media was unleashed to expose abuses and illegalities it had previously minimized or ignored.

Members of Nixon’s re-election campaign illegally bugged the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate office building. They were caught after they broke back into the offices to fix the listening devices. Nixon was implicated in both the pre-election illegality, including spying on political opponents, as well as attempting to use federal agencies to cover up the crime. His administration maintained an “enemies list” that included well known academics, actors, union leaders, journalists, businessmen and politicians.

One 1971 internal White House memo entitled, “Dealing with our Political Enemies” — drafted by White House Counsel John Dean, whose job it was to advise the president on the law — described a project designed to “use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.”

Nixon’s conduct, and that of his closest aides, was clearly illegal and deserving of prosecution. There were 36 guilty verdicts or guilty pleas associated with the Watergate scandal two years after the break-in. But it was not the crimes Nixon committed abroad or against dissidents that secured his political execution but the crimes he carried out against the Democratic Party and its allies, including in the establishment press.

“The political center was subjected to an attack with techniques that are usually reserved for those who depart from the norms of acceptable political belief,” Noam Chomsky wrote in The New York Review of Books in 1973, a year before Nixon’s resignation.

As Edward Herman and Chomsky point out in their book, “Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media:” 

The answer is clear and concise: powerful groups are capable of defending themselves, not surprisingly; and by media standards, it is a scandal when their position and rights are threatened. By contrast, as long as illegalities and violations of democratic substance are confined to marginal groups or dissident victims of U.S. military attack, or result in a diffused cost imposed on the general population, media opposition is muted and absent altogether. This is why Nixon could go so far, lulled into a false sense of security precisely because the watchdog only barked when he began to threaten the privileged.”

What led to the unraveling of Nixon’s government, and what lies at the core of the attacks against Trump, is the fact that, like Nixon, Trump’s targets included “the rich and respectable, spokesmen for official ideology, men who are expected to share power, to design social policy, and to mold popular opinion,” as Chomsky noted about Nixon at the time. “Such people are not fair game for persecution at the hands of the state.”

This is not to minimize Trump’s crimes. Trump — nearly even in the polls with President Joe Biden in the 2024 presidential race — appears to have committed several misdemeanors and serious felonies.

In November 2022, the Department of Justice appointed a special prosecutor to investigate Trump’s retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida and any potential criminal liability resulting from that act, as well as any unlawful interference with the transfer of power after the 2020 presidential election.

Separately, a district attorney in Georgia is working with a special purpose grand jury in relation to Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election result. A key piece of evidence is the notorious phone call between Trump and Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, in which the president kept insisting he needed more votes to be found. Charges in this case could include conspiracy to commit election fraud, racketeering and pressuring and/or threatening public officials.

The Manhattan district attorney has been investigating the $130,000 Trump used to pay off the porn star Stormy Daniels, with whom Trump allegedly had a sexual relationship. This payment was misreported in the Trump Organization’s records as a legal retainer in violatation of campaign finance laws.

Finally, New York Attorney General Letitia James is bringing a civil lawsuit alleging the Trump Organization lied about its assets in order to secure bank loans. If the attorney general’s lawsuit is successful, Trump and other members of his family may be barred from doing business in New York, including buying property there for five years.

Trump’s alleged offenses should be investigated. Though, the cases involving Daniels and the retention of classified documents seem relatively minor and similar to those committed by Trump’s political opponents.

Last year, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and the DNC agreed to pay a fine of $8,000 and $105,000 respectively, for mislabelling a $175,000 expenditure on opposition research, namely the long-discredited “Steele Dossier,” as “legal expenses.” The improper retention of classified documents has typically resulted in a slap on the wrist when other powerful politicians have been investigated. Clinton, for example, used private email servers instead of a government email account when she was secretary of state. The FBI concluded that she sent and received materials classified as top secret on her private server. Ultimately, FBI director James Comey declined to prosecute her. Trump’s former vice president Mike Pence and Biden also had classified documents at their homes, though we are told this may have been “inadvertent.” The discovery of these classified documents, rather than triggering outrage in most of the media, initiated a conversation about “overclassification.” Former CIA director David Petraeus was given two years probation and a $100,000 fine after he admitted to providing highly classified “black books” that contained handwritten classified notes about official meetings, war strategy, intelligence capabilities and the names of covert officers to his lover, Paula Broadwell, who was also writing a fawning biography of Petraeus.

As was the case with Nixon, the most serious charges Trump may face involve his attack on the foundations of the two-party duopoly, especially undermining the peaceable transfer of power from one branch of the duopoly to the other. In Georgia, Trump could face very serious criminal charges with potentially lengthy sentences if convicted, likewise if the federal special prosecutor indicts Trump for unlawful interference in the 2020 election. We won’t know until any indictments are made public.

Yet, the most egregious of Trump’s actions while in office either received minimal media coverage, were downplayed or lauded as acts carried out in defense of democracy and the U.S.-led international order.

Why hasn’t Trump been criminally investigated for the act of war he committed against Iran and Iraq when he assassinated Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani and nine other people with a drone strike in Baghdad airport? Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi condemned the strike and told his parliament that Trump lied in order to get Soleimani exposed in Iraq as part of peace talks between Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Iraq’s parliament passed a resolution demanding that all foreign troops leave the country, which the U.S. government proceeded to reject.

Why not prosecute or impeach Trump for pressuring his secretary of state to lie and say that Iran wasn’t complying with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, known as the Iran nuclear deal? Trump ultimately fired him and resumed unilateral, devastating and illegal sanctions against Iran, in violation of international law and quite possibly domestic U.S. law.

Why wasn’t Trump impeached for his role in the ongoing attempts to engineer a coup and overthrow the democratically elected president of Venezuela? Trump declared a previously unknown right-wing politician — and would-be coup leader — Juan Guaido to be the true Venezuelan president and then illegally handed him control of the Latin American country’s U.S. bank accounts. The illegal U.S. sanctions that have facilitated this coup attempt have blocked food, medicine and other goods from entering the country and prevented the government from exploiting and exporting its own oil, devastating the economy. Over 40,000 people died between 2017 and 2019 due to the sanctions, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research. That figure is certainly higher now.

Nixon, like Trump, was not impeached for his worst crimes. He was never charged for directing the CIA to destroy the Chilean economy and back a far-right military coup that overthrew the democratically elected left-wing government of Salvador Allende. Nixon wasn’t brought to justice for his illegal, secret mass bombing campaigns in Cambodia and Laos that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, and his government’s role in the slaughter of Vietnamese people, resulting in at least 3.8 million killed according to a joint report from Harvard University and the University of Washington and even higher casualties according to investigative journalist Nick Turse. Nixon wasn’t held accountable for what then-President Lyndon Johnson privately blasted as “treason” when he discovered that the yet-to-be-elected Republican candidate for president, and his future National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, were deliberately and illegally sabotaging his peace negotiations in Vietnam, ultimately prolonging the war for another four years. 

Articles of impeachment against Nixon were passed by the House Judiciary Committee. Articles I and III focused on allegations related to Watergate and Nixon’s failure to deal properly with congressional investigations. Article II related to allegations of violations of citizens’ civil liberties and abuse of government power. But they became moot once Nixon resigned, and in the end the disgraced former president didn’t face charges related to Watergate. A month after Nixon left office, President Gerald Ford pardoned him for “all offenses against the United States” that he “committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974.” 

This pardon cemented into place the imperial presidency. It entrenched the modern notion of “elite immunity,” as the constitutional lawyer and journalist Glenn Greenwald notes. Neither Republicans nor Democrats want to set a precedent that might hamstring the unchecked and unaccountable power of a future president.

The most serious crimes are those that are normalized by the power elite, regardless of who initiated them. George W. Bush may have started the wars in the Middle East, but Barack Obama maintained and expanded them. Obama’s crowning achievement may have been the Iran nuclear deal, but Biden, his former vice president, hasn’t reversed Trump’s trashing of it, nor has he reversed the decision by Trump to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in violation of international law. 

Trump, like most of his opponents in the Republican and Democrat parties, serves the interests of the billionaire class. He, too, is hostile to the rights of workers. He, too, is an enemy of the press. He, too, backs the diversion of hundreds of billions of federal dollars to the war industry to maintain the empire. He, too, does not respect the rule of law. He, too, is personally and politically corrupt. But he is also impulsive, bigoted, inept and ignorant. His baseless conspiracy theories, vulgarity and absurd antics are an embarrassment to the established power elite in the two ruling parties. He is difficult, unlike Biden, to control. He has to go, not because he is a criminal, but because he is not trusted by the ruling crime syndicate to manage the firm.

Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist

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High Stakes as Uncle Sam’s Days of Impunity Are Finally Over

By Finian Cunningham

"SCF" - Russia and China are determined to hold the American perpetrators of the Nord Stream sabotage to account. Uncle Sam’s days – indeed decades – of wanton criminality are over. There’s going to be hell to pay as the imperialist tyranny in Washington hits a wall of reality.

Several weeks have gone by with the United States and its Western lackeys stonewalling at the United Nations Security Council, squirming and resisting calls from Moscow and Beijing for an international criminal investigation into the sabotage of the Baltic Sea pipelines that were blown up in September.

A swathe of independent observers, such as American economics professor Jeffrey Sachs and former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, have concurred with the investigative report published on February 8 by renowned journalist Seymour Hersh which claims that U.S. President Joe Biden and his senior White House staff ordered the Pentagon to take out the natural gas pipeline that runs along the Baltic Sea bed from Russia to Germany.

Russia and China are adamant about not letting this vital subject be ignored. They want a proper investigation, international accountability and criminal prosecution. Moscow and Beijing are right to insist on this. Washington and its Western allies’ presumption of impunity has gone on for too many decades. The buck stops here and both Russia and China are strong enough to ensure that the United States cannot threaten, blackmail, or arm-twist its way out of scrutiny.

The Nord Stream project is a major international civilian infrastructure, costing in excess of $20 billion to construct over more than a decade. At 1,200 kilometres in length under the Baltic Sea, it is an impressive feat of engineering, symbolizing the mutual benefits of good neighborliness and cooperative trading.

For the United States to blow this pipeline up in order to knock Russia out of the European energy market so that it could muscle in with its own more expensive gas supplies is a shocking act of state terrorism and criminality. It is also potentially an act of war against Russia and callous sabotage against supposed European allies whose citizens are now suffering economic misery from soaring energy bills. German workers have this week shut down the entire economy from industrial protests over collapsing businesses and unbearable cost of living.

Of course, the Nord Stream sabotage is an urgent matter of basic justice, accountability for an atrocious crime, as well as massive international financial reparations. It’s almost hilarious how the self-proclaimed American protagonist of “rules-based global order” is desperately procrastinating over a glaring incident of dereliction and chaos.

But more than the essential obligation of justice is the legacy of impunity. For the perpetrators of such a wanton terrorist act not to be held accountable sets a perilous precedent. Otherwise, what is stopping the state terrorists from repeating equally brazen acts of sabotage and warmongering? The very concept of international law and the United Nations Charter is demolished, not simply undermined.

The Nord Stream incident potentially opens an era of rampant lawlessness and state banditry – by a nuclear superpower, the United States, using its Western minions for cover. The Western news media, in their reluctance to investigate, are also exposed as nothing more than propaganda channels in the service of imperial masters.

The present is reminiscent of the 1930s during a time of fascist expansionism by Nazi Germany and other imperialist nations, including the United States, Britain, France, Italy, Spain and Japan, and others. Nazi Germany was not the unique culprit during that earlier time of barbarism, notwithstanding the official Western revisionism of history to absolve itself.

After the Second World War amid the ashes of international destruction and up to 85 million deaths, the United Nations and its Charter were founded to ostensibly enshrine the stricture that there would be no repetition of the 1930s-style lawlessness and state terrorism.

That lofty aspiration was always a pathetic illusion. The decades after WWII saw no halt to the imperialist warmongering and subterfuges carried out primarily by the United States and its Western allies, in particular Britain. What a mockery that the U.S. and Britain were afforded permanent member states of the UN Security Council given that these two rogue powers have been largely responsible for countless wars post-1945. The decades-long wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan are but the most notorious war crimes of the Anglo-American “special relationship”.

During the Cold War decades, the Soviet Union provided a limited check on the worst depredations by Western imperialists. The People’s Republic of China was not strong enough to act as a deterrent force.

For about two decades after the Cold War officially ended in 1991 following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the United States rulers perceived a license for “full-spectrum dominance”. Washington embarked on a frenzy of endless wars that up till recently have prevailed.

The first reality check on the unbridled violence of the U.S. imperialists and their NATO henchmen was Russia’s military intervention in Syria in late 2015 to put an end to the Western machinations for yet another regime-change operation. Washington and its accomplices failed in their nefarious goals in Syria, albeit the Americans persist in illegally occupying part of the Arab country and stealing its oil resources.

Ukraine is the full manifestation of the end to impunity for the United States.

Russia under Vladimir Putin has recovered the military strength that was lost with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In some ways, present-day Russia is even more formidable owing to the development of new forms of weapons, such as hypersonic missiles and S-500 air defenses. Also, Russia’s economy is on a sounder footing than the Soviet Union which relied excessively on militarism. Hence, Moscow has been able to withstand the economic assault that Washington and its allies have tried to mount over the Ukraine conflict.

Just as important, too, China has risen to economic and military superpower status. Together, Russia and China now present an invulnerable countervailing force to the United States and its Western allies.

For nearly eight decades after World War Two, the United States was relatively free to run amok, trashing international law and nations’ sovereignty, racking up death tolls by the millions, and terrorizing the planet with its “benign”, narcissistic tyranny.

The conflict in Ukraine, where Russia has said “enough is enough” to years of U.S.-led NATO aggression, is demonstrating that the days of impunity are finally over for the would-be American hegemon.

Washington has recklessly raised the stakes to an unsustainable height in Ukraine. It has bet the house – and farm – on subjugating Russia for its next insatiable imperial move against China. But Moscow and Beijing are calling Uncle Sam’s bluff. The buck stops here.

The edifice of American imperial power has never been challenged at its foundation. It is now.

Finian Cunningham has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. He is a Master’s graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. He is also a musician and songwriter. For nearly 20 years, he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organisations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent.

Exclusive: Chomsky says AI advancements have paved the way for high-tech plagiarism

 By Mohammad Mazhari

Chat GPT, an AI language chatbot developed by OpenAI, has recently sparked controversy as some people view it as a promising step towards artificial general intelligence while others criticize its potential to surpass human intelligence. This debate has raised questions about the impact of AI technology on human thought processes and society.

The ongoing debate about the capacity and power of artificial intelligence and language machines has become a topic of heated discussion in the academic community.

To discuss the relationship between language and artificial intelligence (AI) and the implications of recent advancements in the field, the Tehran Times interviewed Noam Chomsky, a well-known American linguist who challenges the idea that AI systems can ever replicate the complexity and nuance of human language and thought.

While there is ongoing debate about the capacity and power of artificial intelligence and language machines, Chomsky's skepticism about their ability to replicate human language and thought remains strong.

Chomsky argues that language is an innate capability of humans and that recent advancements in AI and machine learning have no bearing on matters concerning language, thought, learning, or cognition. While some may argue that programs can surpass human intelligence, Chomsky notes that the calculator in a laptop already does in some tasks, and that the fundamental distinction between language and the mind remains a topic of philosophical debate. Nonetheless, Chomsky acknowledges that the specific capability of language, which is beyond question, must have emerged at some point through genetic mutations. The confusion surrounding these issues highlights the need for continued research and discussion in the field of artificial intelligence and its impact on human society.

In response to a question about the origin of language, specifically whether it is an innate capability of humans or a result of the interaction between humans and their environment, Chomsky explained that the human language faculty is an "innate capability" and that there is overwhelming empirical evidence to support this claim.

“Infants reflexively acquire the ambient language, while other organisms presented with the same data take it to be just noise. The theory of genetic mutation is the only known way this innate capability could have emerged,” he noted.

Regarding the implications of recent advancements in AI and artificial language for linguistics, Chomsky argued that “there are no implications.”

While machines may become more adept at language processing, their design reveals that they are, in essence, high-tech plagiarism, the linguist said.

“They are incapable in principle of telling us anything about language, learning, cognition generally.  The basic reason is simple: they do just as well for impossible languages that humans cannot acquire (except perhaps laboriously, as puzzles, plainly irrelevant) as for humanly attainable languages,” the American linguist added. 

Chomsky stated that that they are like a "theory" of physics that cannot distinguish between things that happen and those that cannot happen, rendering them irrelevant in the study of actual language.

According to Chomsky, the fundamental irrelevance of these models is built into their design, and their improvement to deal with actual language only makes their irrelevance more evident, as they do better with impossible languages.

On whether there is a clear distinction between language and mind, Chomsky argued that the traditional view, dating back to classical Greece and classical India, is that language and thought are intimately related. This view holds that language generates thought, and thought is what is generated by language. While this conception was swept aside by behaviorist and structuralist currents in the early 20th century, it has been revived in the "generative enterprise," and if it is correct, the questions raised do not arise.

Regarding the question of whether AI and ChatGPT can surpass human intelligence in the future, Chomsky argued that these systems are not just "far" from true intelligence but they have no relation to the question at all. He pointed out that the calculator in one's laptop already surpasses human intelligence in some tasks, and ants in his backyard carry out computations for navigation that humans can approach only with sophisticated instruments. Chomsky acknowledged that there are issues related to ethics and emotions, but they reach far beyond current AI or the GPT systems and require a more significant philosophical discussion.

According to Chomsky, advancements in artificial and machine learning will not impact natural language or produce a new kind of language that replaces it. He believes that AI and machine learning have no bearing on matters concerning language, thought, learning, or cognition. Therefore, improvements in the same framework will not change this. In other words, AI and machine learning may be useful for some purposes, but they are not relevant to the study of language and its properties.

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Why has Turkey Stepped Up its Diplomatic Efforts with Egypt?

 Vladimir Platov

The discussion of many contentious issues in Turkish society has been considerably enhanced in light of the impending elections in this nation. As the political battle rages on, several candidates and parties are attempting to play both domestic and foreign policy cards to win over voters.

For instance, the leader of the Rodina party and Turkish presidential candidate Dogu Perincek recently made a statement at the opening of a conference on the integration of Azerbaijan into Eurasia about the recognition of Crimea and new regions as Russian regions if he wins the elections in May.

While reminding Russia of Turkey’s NATO membership, pro-Western opposition politicians in Turkey also rely on “Moscow’s kindness.” In this regard, supporters of the single leader of the main opposition Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu have suggested great promise to “continue cooperation with Russia” if he wins the elections. Ünal Çeviköz, chief foreign policy adviser to Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu,  has recently began to emphasize that Russia is indisputably an essential neighbor and partner for Turkey, and that relations with it, particularly the resolution of issues of mutual interest, cannot be overlooked.

In addition  to including the following topics regarding Turkey’s future relations with Russia, China, NATO, the USA, and the European Union in pre-election battles, the most important regional issues for this country, particularly the Kurdish issue, relations with Syria, the Libyan question, and the eastern Mediterranean, are actively addressed. In terms of the latter, the issue of Ankara’s relations with Egypt, which have deteriorated dramatically since July 2013, is being debated extensively. Subsequently, following the 2013 Egyptian coup d’eta Ankara-backed President Mohamed Morsi, an active member of the Muslim Brotherhood (outlawed in Russia), was deposed. President Erdogan reacted by labeling El-Sisi a dictator and refusing to acknowledge him as Egypt’s rightful leader.

It cannot be ruled out that one of the reasons for this reluctance was Erdoğan’s worry that such a “revolutionary situation” in Egypt may be transferred to the activities of the Turkish military elite, which already had enough of experience in carrying out coups. The events in Turkey in July 2016, when certain members of the Turkish army attempted to overthrow Erdoğan, confirmed the reality of these suspicions.

Another factor contributing to the significant deterioration in relations between the two countries was growing dispute on a number of regional development concerns. In particular, Turkey’s ambition to become a regional leader was hampered by Egypt’s actions, which began to actively play on the side of the US and even take part in the Yemen war on the side of Saudi Arabia, to counter Ankara in Libya.

In any case, Egypt and Turkey were and continue to be two highly important Eastern Mediterranean countries with big populations and militarily prominent positions in the region, which have a significant impact not just on regional affairs. The current political confrontation between both countries has had a significant influence on the economy and well-being of the two countries’ populations, therefore finding common ground and resolving years of tension in ties has become extremely important for them.

This issue has recently been extensively pursued by both official Ankara and representatives of the opposition forces in Turkish society, with the hope of benefiting from this agreement in the pre-election battle. In March 2021, a number of media sites reported on secret encounters between officials of the two countries’ intelligence services, during which the opposing side’s sentiments were examined. And it’s not at all impossible that these relationships had an impact in the 85% rise in trade between the two countries in 2022.

The mediation efforts of Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani did not go unnoticed by the international community either: in November, during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 in Doha, he hosted a private meeting between the presidents of Egypt and Turkey, which allowed the two politicians to find ways to ease the tensions in bilateral relations.

The call by Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi to Erdoğan to express his condolences following the February 6, 2023 earthquake that struck southern Turkey, as well as Cairo’s subsequent dispatch of rescue teams, ships carrying humanitarian aid, and the visit of Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry to Turkey, was undoubtedly a significant step in establishing contacts. The return visit to Cairo of Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu on March 18 also helped to restore bilateral relations.  Following its completion,  Çavuşoğlu stated that an agreement was reached to maximize diplomatic, trade, and economic relations, as well as Ankara’s investments in Egypt in many areas, including trade, energy, and transportation.

In the context of the two nations’ rapprochement, special attention is now being paid to tracking mutually sensitive positions and the respect of “red lines,” particularly in the Libyan agenda, and the development of the situation in the Eastern Mediterranean. Cairo is expecting Ankara to extradite members of the Muslim Brotherhood (organization banned in Russia) who are hiding in Turkey and wanted in Egypt for their involvement in terrorist attacks. As well as termination of the presence of Turkish military in Libya, withdrawal of all pro-Turkish fighters and settlements of disputes with Cyprus and Greece.

 Turkey, meanwhile, fervently hopes that Cairo will modify its stance in the Eastern Mediterranean and refrain from undermining Ankara’s foreign policy. Turkey is especially concerned about Egypt’s support for Ankara’s involvement in the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Pipeline project and delimitation of maritime boundaries.

The personnel of the two Embassies, whose opening can be anticipated after the month of Ramadan, will painstakingly address the fact that these delicate issues and “red lines” cannot be handled overnight.

Outside analysts and the public in these nations highlight the positive aspects of the rapprochement between Turkey and Egypt while highlighting the absence of the United States and the West as a whole from this process due to the latter’s significantly weakened position in the region. It is acknowledged that this has in turn driven Cairo and Ankara to separately look for methods to calm bilateral and regional tensions, creating the groundwork for a new multipolar world order, as opposed to the West’s aim to maintain its supremacy.

Vladimir Platov, expert on the Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”

Tags: Africa, Diplomacy, Egypt, Elections, International politics, Multipolar world, Turkey