Bolton Losing Ground on Venezuela, Iran – But Far From Down and Out

Martin SIEFF

The wave of wishful thinking articles, including some by friends of mine whose judgment I usually respect was entirely wrong. President Donald Trump has not fired John Bolton for the failed fiasco of his latest inept attempt to topple the legitimate democratically-elected government of Venezuela: At least not yet.

Bolton remains National Security Advisor of the United States with his fingerprints all over the latest “incident” of limpet mine attacks on the two oil tankers in the Persian Gulf.

That is not to see that daylight has perceptibly opened up between Trump and Bolton, first on Venezuela and now on Iran. It most clearly has.

Had Trump still been fully in Bolton’s pocket, he would by now have ordered the ferocious air strikes against Iran that Bolton desperately craved. It is greatly to the president’s credit that he did not.

The failure of Bolton – eagerly supported by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Special Envoy Elliott Abrams and Vice President Mike Pence – to secure the toppling of President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela a month ago clearly cost him badly. Trump is a lifelong businessman. He would have gone for what he regarded as a good deal – the toppling of Maduro in a US–orchestrated coup but Bolton and his gang made an utter hash of it.

Bolton was therefore eager to turn the president’s attention – and that of political Washington – to Iran as soon as possible. The compliant, spineless jellyfish of the US Mainstream Media (MSM) accommodated him as always. Not a whisper of doubt about Bolton’s evident incompetence in the Venezuela Escapade has been allowed to appear in the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Instead, the MSM has settled for fluff gossip stories about how much Trump still loves or does not love his national security adviser.

Bolton retains the strategic support of his wealthy, enormously influential political sponsors: The neocon clans that ran US foreign and national security policy so catastrophically under President George W. Bush and whom President Barack Obama shamefully and complacently allowed to stay in power and perpetrate the destabilizations of Ukraine and Syria and the toppling of the government of Libya.

Bolton also continues to enjoy the total support of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. If Netanyahu fails to secure a governing coalition in the September elections in Israel, it is extremely possible that Bolton will lose the crucial Israeli allies he has taken for granted for so long.

Since the days of Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli military has profoundly distrusted the war hungry wild delusional schemes of the neocon chicken-hawks in Washington as much as their opposite numbers in the Pentagon. Netanyahu’s most likely successor, Bluer and White coalition leader General Benny Gantz, a former Israel Defense Forces chief of staff can be a counted in their number.

Indeed, the key takeaway from the events that did – and more importantly did NOT – happen between the United States, Iran and Venezuela over the past three months is that the senior generals in the Pentagon, especially in the US Army – resisted the neocon super-hawks led by Bolton and his allies.

Senior US generals in my observations are not caricature, irresponsible militarists at all but sober professionals who recognize clearly the real rising challenges they face and the need to try and prevent having to fight several full scale wars on multiple fronts at the same time.

That is why the departure of General James Mattis as Secretary of Defense and of General John Kelly left such a worrisome gap at the apex of US strategic policymaking.

Yet the past three months have shown that the departures of Kelly and Mattis did not give Bolton and his fellow warmongers a free hand: The warmongers thought it did, but they blew it. Bolton is not gone yet by a long shot. But the myth of his supposed “genius” (which I have addressed elsewhere in these columns) has been badly damaged. Trump himself is beginning to see through it.

A man as fanatical and relentlessly energetic as Bolton – the mark of the dangerous fool in the estimation of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery – should never be dismissed from consideration until he is finally gone. As long as he still has the chance to whisper in the ear of the President of the United States – and the president lets him – he remains a danger to world peace and the survival of humanity.

The good news is that Venezuela has been granted a brief stay of execution. Iran, which Bolton has obsessed with destroying for 40 years, still remains his primary target. Yet Trump, Bolton’s own president, refused to play by Bolton’s appointed Gulf of Tonkin script on the latest manufactured Gulf crisis.

Bolton and his allies are obvious, brutal, predictable and straightforward: But they are also energetic, never-resting and relentless. They clearly have not given up in their efforts to manipulate Trump into launching a full-scale war with Iran and more provocations can be expected to follow relentlessly each piled upon another.

Bolton is down. But not out. After a strong start, he has suffered several stinging reversals. But his will power is not dented. Nor is his determination to drag his country headlong into multiple needless and avoidable conflicts whose only end can be utter destruction.

Martin SIEFF

During his 24 years as a senior foreign correspondent for The Washington Times and United Press International, Martin Sieff reported from more than 70 nations and covered 12 wars. He has specialized in US and global economic issues.

Brainwashing in Action: Pence Hails Virtue of ‘Certain War’

Finian CUNNINGHAM

In an address to West Point military graduates, US Vice President Mike Pence told them they will one day fight for America. “It’s a virtual certainty,” said Pence who was swelling with pride as he spoke, rather than lamenting.

Well, at least, he is being candid. The United States is a warmongering nation, there is no doubt about it. As several historical studies attest, out of the 243 years since its formation as a modern state, the US has been at war during every decade, sometimes in multiple simultaneous wars.

Or put another way, over nearly 95 per cent of its historical existence the US has been involved in waging wars, sometimes covertly or by proxy. Since the Second World War alone, the US has been involved in up to 60 wars or covert conflicts, inflicting a civilian death toll estimated at 20 million. Arguably, there is not another nation, past or present, with such a record of belligerence.

So, yes, Pence is correct when he told graduates from the US’ elite military academy: “It is a virtual certainty that you will be on a battlefield for America.”

Ironically, the vice president, like President Trump and the hawkish national security adviser John Bolton, has never served in the military. Yet Pence held forth like a four-star (armchair) general about the need for young American troops to do battle in a “dangerous world”.

“I know when that day comes you will move to the sound of guns,” exhorted Pence, whose only experience of gunfire no doubt comes from watching replays of old Hollywood war movies.

The whole world is a potential battlefield in Pence’s reckoning. (Not just Pence, but nearly all American politicians.) He specifically mentioned US troops going into future conflict with China or North Korea. He also said they may be deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq where US forces have been embroiled for nearly two decades.

Ominously, Pence warned the new cohort of West Point Second Lieutenants that they may one day be despatched to a war in “this hemisphere”. Given the Trump administration’s backing for a coup in Venezuela and its threats of military intervention, was Pence alluding to a possible war in the works with that South American country, which, by the way, happens to possess the biggest-known oil reserves on the planet?

The exulting in future wars by Pence comes at a time of escalating military threats from the US towards Iran. The Trump administration has sent an aircraft carrier strike group to the Persian Gulf as well as new missile batteries, nuclear-capable B-52 bombers and more squadrons of F-16 fighter jets. Trump also last week commanded 1,500 more troops to the region to join an already 70,000 stationed there, all in a bid to ostensibly “counter Iranian aggression”.

The global context of American military deployment, as Pence sanguinely acknowledges, belies the claims made by Washington of it allegedly facing “Iranian aggression”. What’s going on in the Persian Gulf is just one sequence in a whole global series of relentless US militarism. It is estimated that the US has 800 military bases around the planet with its forces deployed in at least 70 countries. The idea that this imperialist configuration is because the US is “the leader of the free world” is a risible propaganda rationale.

American military power is used to project and protect US capitalist interests. US troops are just hired guns and cannon fodder for corporate profit-making, as former Marine general Smedley Butler scathingly confessed during the 1930s in his classic book ‘War is a Racket’.

When Pence said: “It is a virtual certainty that you will be on a battlefield for America.” What he really meant to say was… “for American capitalism”.

US soldiers are sent to wars not to defend American national security or to “promote democracy”, as the myth goes. They are sent to foreign lands to kill, die or be maimed for the sole, sordid purpose of making money for elite bankers, corporate executives or rich shareholders who send their non-serving scions to fancy private colleges like Pence and Trump went to.

The American ruling class perpetuates itself by sending working-class schmucks into wars-for-capitalist-profit, over and over again.

The unremitting warmongering that underpins American capitalism is testified by Pence’s address to the West Point graduates. Stripped from the pious rhetoric, Pence was telling like it is: the American way is war, war, and more war. The American way is Total War on the planet to get whatever US corporations need in order to make the oligarchic class even richer.

Even when the US is purportedly engaged in “diplomacy” it is always ready to exercise the “all options” of militarism in order to get its infernal way.

Pence referred to US troops one day going to the Korean Peninsula because, he asserted, North Korea is “a threat to peace”. A country where the American military killed three million people during the 1950-53 Korean War. He warned there could be another war against North Korea or China. Partly because China, he said, was “challenging American power”. That’s acceptable cause for war?

It is quite astounding that the American vice president is envisioning a war with two countries that his administration is supposedly engaging with in ongoing diplomatic negotiations. The Trump administration is trying to convince North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons, while also pursuing major economic concessions from China in trade relations.

Evidently, however, the White House views the ultimate decider to be military force in its relations with these two countries.

Pence’s reprehensible disclosure of militarist designs towards North Korea and China is bound to undermine diplomacy, if not torpedo it altogether. How are Pyongyang or Beijing expected to engage with a US administration that ultimately views war as an option in order to get its way if negotiations fall short of US demands?

Why would Iran, for example, take up Trump’s latest offer this week of talks, when evidently the American way is to always hold a gun under the table?

What are the chances of Russia negotiating sustainable future arms control treaties with the US, when history has shown Washington to have ripped up previous treaties? The two Cold War nuclear control pillars, the ABM and INF treaties, were trashed in 2002 and last year unilaterally by the US so as to give itself a license to point nuclear missiles in Moscow’s face – all to gratify its obsession with global “full-spectrum dominance”?

Let’s finish with this thought experiment. Would normal law-abiding, moral people have tolerated a speech by Josef Goebbels to Wehrmacht graduates, telling them it was “certain” that one day they would go to war for the good of Nazi Germany? To be sure, Goebbels would have made the conduct of aggression and war crimes sound like a virtuous, noble cause for some higher principle. But surely people would have seen through the charade and propaganda, and disdained the Nazi ideologue as a cynical criminal.

How is it then possible for US Vice President Mike Pence to get away with making warmongering all over the planet sound like a virtue? Why are those supposed American virtues somehow perceived as genuine and believable? And, all the while, the Western corporate news media are obediently silent, bereft of any critical questioning. What does that say about the extent of brainwashing in today’s world?

Finian CUNNINGHAM

Former editor and writer for major news media organizations. He has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages

Trump – From China to Iran to Venezuela – Threats and Sanctions Everywhere – A Chronicle of Disorganized Chaos Foretold

by Peter Koenig

As of May 10, Mr. Trump has arbitrarily increased tariffs on Chinese goods imported into the US, worth about 200 billion dollars, from 10 % to 25%. It is an action without any foundation. An action that makes no sense at all, as China can and will retaliate – and retaliate much stronger than what the impact of the US’s new “sanctions” may bear – because these arbitrary tariffs are nothing else but sanctions. Illegality of such foreign interference aside, there is hardly any serious economist in this world, who would favor tariffs in international trade among “adults” anywhere and for any reason, and, of course, least as a punishment for a nation. All that such sanctions do is pushing a partner away. In this case it’s not just any partner; China is a key trading partner of the United States.

The new tariffs will hardly harm the American consumer. There are huge profit margins by US middlemen and importers of Chinese goods. They are competing with each other within the US – and the consumer may not even notice a thing. However, the US economy will likely suffer, especially from Chinese retaliatory actions.

A spoiled child, what Trump is, doesn’t get his way – and goes into a tantrum, not quite knowing what he is doing, and knowing even less what he may expect in return. Mr. Trump himself, has not only reached a level of incompetence and ignorance which is scary – but he has also surrounded himself with inept, preposterous people, like, Pence, Bolton, Pompeo – who, it appears, have no other means left than running around the world amok, dishing out threats left and right – and spending billions on moving aircraft carriers around the globe to make sure people are afraid of the great-great United States of America.

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Back to trading with China. China has a million ways (almost) to retaliate. China can devalue her currency vis-à-vis the dollar, or China can dump some of their almost 3 trillion dollars-worth of reserves on the money market – just take a wild guess about what that would do to the hegemony of the dollar which is already in dire straits – with ever more countries departing from the use of dollars for international trade.

And just hypothetically, China could stop altogether exporting all that Walmart junk that American consumers love so much – just for a while. Or China could stop making iPhones for the US market. Guess what kind of an uproar that would trigger in the US? – Or China could of course, levy herself high tariffs on US imports, or stop US imports altogether. China being part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) – actually the co-founder of it – has many alternatives to cover her demand. No need to depend on the west.

Let’s not forget, the SCO which also counts as its members, Russia, India, Pakistan, most of Central Asia, and Iran poised to become a full-fledged member – covers about half of the world population and a third of the world’s economic output, or GDP. No need to look to the west for ‘survival’ – those times are long gone.

But more importantly, what all this looks like to me – is the desperate thrashing around of a dying beast, or in this case a dying empire.

We have the US and Venezuela – threats after threats after threats – Maduro must go, or more sanctions. Indeed, according to a study by the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), these horrifying, totally illegal sanctions or blockages of imports, most of them already paid for by Venezuela, have killed some 40,000 people in Venezuela. Of course, Washington doesn’t care about legality and killing, also typical for a fading mighty power – no respect for law and order, no respect for human rights and human lives. One only has to see what type of psychopaths are occupying the tasks of “Foreign Minister” and of “National Security Advisor” or of Vice President, for that matter – they are all sick, but very sick and dangerous people.

Well, in Venezuela “regime change” didn’t work out – so far. Pompeo has been clearly told off by Mr. Lavrov during their recent get-together in Helsinki – and China is in the same line of supporting the government of Nicolas Maduro.

Next – Iran. Attacking Iran has been a dream of Bolton’s ever since the US 2003 “Shock and Awe” invasion of Iraq. Bolton and Pompeo are of the same revolting kind: They want wars, conflicts, or if they don’t get wars, they want to sow fear, they enjoy seeing people scared. They want suffering. Now they didn’t succeed – at least so far – with Venezuela, let’s try Iran. Pompeo – “Iran has done irregular things” – not saying what in particular he means – so Iran has to be punished, with yet more sanctions. And any argument is good.

The entire world knows, including the Vienna-base UN Economic Energy Commission, and has acknowledged umpteen times that Iran has fully adhered to the conditions of the Nuclear Deal from which the US exited a year ago. Of course, no secret here either, this at the demand of Trump’s Big Friend Bibi Netanyahu. The European Union vassals may actually turn for their own business interests, not for political ethics, but pure and simple self-interest – towards respecting the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or Nuclear Deal. China and Russia are already holding on to the Deal, and they are not impressed by Washington’s threats. So, there is very little Trump and his minions can do, other than saber rattling.

Therefore, the nefarious Pence-Pompeo-Bolton trio must invent another warning: Iran or any proxy of Iran shall attack an ally of the US, and Iran will be devastated. In fact, they consider the Houthis in Yemen who fight for their sheer survival against the US-UK-France – and NATO supported Saudis, as a proxy for Iran. So, the US could start bombing Iran already today. Why don’t they?

Maybe they are afraid – afraid Iran could lock down the Strait of Hormuz, where 60% of US oil imports have to sail through. What a disaster that would be, not just for the US but also for the rest of the world. Oil prices could skyrocket. Would Washington want to risk a war over their irrationality? – Maybe, Mr. Halfwit Trump might, but I doubt that his deep-dark state handlers would. They know what’s at stake for them and the world. But they let Trump play his games a bit longer.

Moving the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, loaded with war planes, close to Iranian waters costs hundreds of millions or billions. Just to enhance a threat. A show-off. Bolton and Pompeo will entertain their sadism, enjoying seeing scared people. But the cost of war doesn’t matter – it’s just more debt, and as we know, the US never, but never pays back its debt.

Next – or simultaneously is China. The trade war with China that started last year, then had a respite to the point of the recent joint negotiations – and suddenly the Trumpians are veering off again. They must smash China, wanting to appear superior. But why? The world knows that the US are no longer superior – by a long shot, and haven’t been for the last couple of years, when China surpassed the US in economic strength, measured by PPP = Purchasing Power Parity – which is the only parity or exchange rate that has any real meaning.

Guess what! – All these three cases have one common denominator: The dollar as a chief instrument for world hegemony. Venezuela and Iran have stopped using the dollar for their hydrocarbon and other international trading, already some years ago. And so did China and Russia. China’s strong currency, the Yuan, is rapidly taking over the US-dollar’s reserve position in the world. Sanctioning China with insane tariffs is supposed to weaken the Yuan; but it won’t.

All of these three countries, China, Iran and Venezuela are threatening the US dollar’s world hegemony – and without that the US economy is dead, literally. The dollar is based on thin air, and on fraud – the dollar system used around the globe is nothing but a huge, a very big and monstrous Ponzi-scheme, that one day must be coming crashing down.

That’s what’s at stake. New FED Board member, Herman Cain, for example, is pledging for a new gold standard. But none of these last resort US measure will work, not a new gold standard, not a trade and tariff war, and not threats of wars and destruction and “regime change”. The nations around the world know what’s going on, they know the US is in her last breath; though they don’t quite dare saying so – but they know it, and are waiting for the downfall to continue. The world is waiting for the grand fiesta, dancing in the streets, when the empire disappears – or becomes utterly irrelevant.

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21st Century; TeleSUR; The Saker Blog, the New Eastern Outlook (NEO); and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.
Peter Koenig is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

Warsaw meeting: Roots of the crises in the Middle East

By M.A. Saki

TEHRAN - The U.S. is co-hosting a conference on the Middle East with Poland in Warsaw. It has claimed the aim of the conference is to address crises in the region.

It is not difficult to really understand the chief causes of conflicts and instability in this volatile part of the world.

First and foremost, Israel and Washington’s blind support for Tel Aviv have been and will remain to be the main culprits behind the conflicts in the Middle East. 

The continuous stealing of the Palestinian lands is not only a violation of international law and the basic rights of an entire nation, it has also radicalized the youth in the regional countries, especially those in the Arab world.

Add to this the transfer of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem al-Quds in violation of international law. This has just added salt to the wound.

Now Israel may boast that it is gradually normalizing ties with certain Arab countries but its continued policy will not help change the minds of the Arabs and other Muslims about the Tel Aviv regime.

The other main reasons behind the problems in the region is Washington’s support for dictators in the Arab world. Donald Trump’s sword dance with Saudi officials who ordered the brutal chopping of Jamal Khashoggi is a concrete example.

While the U.S. claims support for human rights, it is shamefully arming and supporting Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners in their relentless war on fellow Arab nation of Yemen.

Washington is also oblivious to the Shias’ struggle for equal rights in Bahrain and has closed its eyes to the Medieval Age verdicts against political opponents in the country.

There are many other examples to cite.

The other reason for the headaches in the region dates back to the United States’ support for Muslim youth fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s. In those days U.S. politicians viewed religious fanaticism as the main bulwark against the Soviets who were viewed as pagans. In fact, officials in Washington fueled religious fanaticism to prevent the influence of the Soviets in the Cold War era.

Later these Muslim youth, chief among them al-Qaeda members who were mostly from Arab countries, turned against their masters and started terrorist activities in the Middle East and other parts of the world.

Add to this the U.S.-British invasion of Iraq in 2003 in violation of international law and repeated warnings by international figures of the time such as Kofi Annan, Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schröder, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Nelson Mandela and many other dignitaries.

It is clear to the entire world that the U.S. invasion of Iraq, under the false claim that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction, not only led to unspeakable suffering for the Iraqi people it also led to spread of terrorism and violence in the region.

Some of those notorious terrorists in Iraq had become battle-hardened in Afghanistan and through their bigoted ideology triggered civil war in Iraq.

When the Arab spring started people who were angry of the rulers and their corrupt systems rose up for a change but, without the exception of Tunisia, the uprisings in the Arab world were misled and struggle for democracy and justice changed their place with terrorism and violence.

Rich Arab nations in the Persian Gulf region were instrumental in misleading pro-democracy movements in order to prevent the spread of uprisings to their countries. Analysts say they transferred money and arms to terrorists in order to convey this message to the people that if they rise against their ruling system they will become another Syria.

Some of those youth who had been trained and fought in Afghanistan and years later committed many terror acts inside Iraq poured into Syria.

Certain Arab countries’ support for radicals to topple the Syrian government, which does not see eye to eye with Washington and its regional allies, was so great that it led to the birth of more terrorist groups such as ISIS who were crueler than al-Qaeda.

If the U.S. did not fan the flames of religious bigotry in Afghanistan in the 1980s and did not invade Iraq, and also if certain Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia did not support radicals in Iraq and Syria today there were not such names as al-Qaeda, ISIS, al-Nusra and some other terrorist groups.

So it is clear that Washington, especially its current administration, does not really seek a peaceful and stable Middle East. If it is really seeking ways to stabilize the region it must rectify its mistakes; stop support for countries such as Saudi Arabia which is the birthplace of the ideology of religious terrorism; pressure Saudi Arabia and the UAE to end their war on Yemen; and more importantly stop supporting Israel which has been acting for decades against all internationally accepted norms and international law.

Though Washington, under European pressure, has been forced to retitle the agenda of the Warsaw conference from demonizing Iran to a focus on peace and security in the Middle East, there is no doubt that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Advisor John Bolton, Vice President Mike Pence, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will use the opportunity to vent their personal anger at Iran and say that Iran is the root of the problem.

However, demonization of Iran will not solve any problem so long as this policy continues. The Warsaw conference is in fact a disinformation campaign against Iran. To the surprise of Pompeo and his friends in Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the disinformation campaign in Warsaw faced a dead end before it started on Wednesday.