Harper — Neocons Still Promote Permanent Revolution

Backgrounder on neoconservatism and its marriage of convenience with liberal internationalism (Wilsonianism).

Does the permanent warfare of today's neocons differ in any real way from the Trotsky idea of permanent world revolution? Socialism has been replaced by democracy-promotion but that difference is small, particularly as the consequences continue to play out on the world stage.

This prompts the question as to why Donald Trump has appointed neoconservatives like John Bolton when he is a Jacksonian nationalist and populist?

One reason could be that the deep state is populated with foreign policy idealists rather than foreign policy realists, and these types and appointments are typically made from the bench of the deep state. A reason may be to placate it, since the deep state is in a position o be disruptive enough to diminish a president's political capital, with respect to its control of the narrative through leaks and anonymous sources that feed the media. 

The deep state can also deploy more direct means, as is evident now in the lead up to the impeachment, where one of the president's "crimes" according to the deep state is highjacking US foreign policy, even though the president is actually in charge of it.

Endless war as envisioned by the promoters of permanent revolution in the cause of "spreading freedom and democracy" (read neoliberal globalism) as the "Pax Americana" fits perfectly with the warfare state the military Keynesianism that funds government expenditure through the military-industrial-governmental complex.

 Jacksonians are just as insistent on carrying a big club as Wilsonians, although they are less wont to use it through wars of choice. The president prefers to use US economic power as the first-line tool of hybrid warfare rather than relying on military force. It's still "America First" in terms of geopolitics but the strategy is different from neoconservatives and liberal interventionists.

I must confess that I was taken in by the propaganda in the lead in to Vietnam but was radicalized when I discovered the truth while I was serving a US naval officer in the Western Pacific at the time and watched things go downhill from there. Yet the US keeps coming back for more and more of the same. Why? Is it stupidity or the money and power — after all, world domination is on the table. That is hard to walk away from if one strongly believes that one pick it up with relative impunity.

Sic Semper Tyrannis

HARPER: NEOCONS STILL PROMOTE PERMANENT REVOLUTION

John Perry — The True Nature of US Interventions

‘Make America Great Again’: Trump’s slogan seems both to yearn for a time when the United States had more influence, and to call for its pre-eminence to be restored. In its own way, it asserts that the US is – or should be – different. In fact it was only Trump’s predecessor, Obama, who was the first president to talk regularly about American exceptionalism, yet to Trump it is something that is long lost and it is his job to recover it. Yet belief in the US’s exceptional nature has been a constant feature of the country’s history, whoever has been president, and continues right up to the present day.

Its starting point in the early nineteenth century was the ‘Monroe doctrine’, the assertion of the US’s pre-eminent power in the western hemisphere, replacing the old colonial powers such as Spain and Portugal. Its domestic counterpart was the US’s God-given ‘manifest destiny’, which justified settlement of the whole North American continent, regardless of the presence of the people to whom much of the land already belonged. Whereas the Monroe doctrine at first reflected a degree of respect for the then newly emerging Latin American nations, by the end of the century it only thinly disguised a new kind of imperialism which justified US intervention anywhere in the hemisphere.

Soon after the end of the second world war, the former ‘great powers’ began to give up those colonies that had not already been returned to their rightful owners. But, fuelled by the cold war, the US began a new phase of imperialism. Dan Kovalik, in his new book The Plot to Control the World, quotes a report, which he says is almost certainly an underestimate, that the US interfered in 81 foreign elections between 1946 and 2000. And even that number omits more serious interventions such as US-provoked coups, assassinations and invasions. Yet, as Kovalik says, ‘American exceptionalism’ requires a belief that the US is a unique force for democracy and freedom in the world. This enables the New York Times to justify US interference in the affairs of other countries because the US is unique in using its power to challenge dictators or otherwise promote democracy, whereas Russia (say) more often intervenes to disrupt democracy or promote authoritarian rule... 

Counterpunch
The True Nature of US Interventions
John Perry

Martin Sieff — Woodrow Wilson Goes to Europe: One Hundred Years of Delusional American Madness

We are now in the dubious position of “celebrating” – if that is the word – the 100th anniversary of US President Woodrow Wilson’s departure on December 4, 1918 on the liner SS George Washington for the Versailles Peace Conference where he was confident he would dictate his brilliant solutions that would end war in the world for all time.

Historians and psychiatrists – including Dr. Sigmund Freud himself who co-authored a book on Wilson – have endlessly debated whether Wilson was sane and just deluded or raving mad. Freud clearly inclined to the latter view. And he had ample evidence to support him. What is most alarming is that, as Henry Kissinger – significantly not born an American at all – points out, all US presidents either share Wilson’s ridiculous messianic fantasies or feel they must pretend to....

Wilson is the father of liberal internationalism in international relations, and it's progeny, liberal interventionism and US global hegemony because American exceptionalism. I am not sure that delusion madness is the only factor, although it is a chief factor. The other chief factor is tying this madness to neo-imperialism and neocolonialism as concomitants of capitalism American-style.

Liberal internationalism is also called liberal idealism in foreign policy, and both liberal internationalism and liberal idealism are called Wilsonianism.

Wilsonianism is opposed by foreign policy realism, which sometimes equated with Realpolitik, although foreign policy realism is a broader category than Realpolitik. Realism focuses on national interest as the criterion in foreign policy and international relations. It is conservative in the political tradition of Thomas Hobbes and Niccolò Machiavelli. Its chief proponent recently is Henry Kissinger. Of course, in speaking of "national interest" the question arises over exactly whose interests, since nationals are not homogenous.

Martin Sieff offers an appraisal of the insanity of some US Wilsonian presidents.

Strategic Culture Foundation
Woodrow Wilson Goes to Europe: One Hundred Years of Delusional American Madness

Martin Sieff, senior fellow of the American University in Moscow, former chief foreign correspondent of The Washington Times, and former managing editor, international affairs, for United Press International

Christopher R. Hill — Reclaiming American Internationalism

US President Donald Trump has managed to attract support for his "America First" isolationism not by dint of his own arguments, but because the US foreign-policy establishment abandoned its own values. After decades of thoughtless military interventionism, it is little wonder that Americans would seek an alternative.…

A grownup speaks on semi-official channel. The voices of the grownups have been suppressed in the corporate media and only found expression in alternative media.

One can be for liberal internationalism but against liberal interventionism as both against international law unless mandated by the UNSC, and also as not only unproductive but also damaging, without being "unpatriotic" by opposing US foreign and military policy.

Liberal interventionism, neoconservatism, and war hawkishness have all but destroyed American soft power through reliance on hard power.

What US leaders don't seem to understand is that they are killing the goose that lays the golden egg out of lust for power and greed for global hegemony.

Actually, if America created "empire" by pursuit of liberalism through soft power, it would be win-win for all, since it would facilitate commerce and raise the level of global prosperity while also increasing the level of collective consciousness.

Empires have advantages but those advantages are lost when they get in their own way by decreasing the common good instead of increasing it through greater efficiency and lower transaction costs, while spreading positive values culturally through exchange.

Instead, the US has adopted a policy of "My way or the highway," and "If you are not with us, you are against us." The result is the winding down of the unipolar world order operative since WWII and the rise of a multipolarism that is tending toward a resumption of great power politics.

Dumb and short-sighted. It will end badly.

Project Syndicate
Reclaiming American Internationalism

Christopher R. Hill |  formerly US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia, US Ambassador to Iraq, South Korea, Macedonia, and Poland, a US special envoy for Kosovo, a negotiator of the Dayton Peace Accords, and the chief US negotiator with North Korea from 2005-2009; nos Chief Advisor to the Chancellor for Global Engagement, Professor of the Practice in Diplomacy at the University of Denver, and the author of Outpost.

Also at PS

Mark Leonard makes some good points but puts the US blame on President Trump when the issues began with JFK's invasion of Cuba and Vietnam, LBJ's escalation of the war, Richard Nixon' s expansion of the war to all of Indochina, Jimmy Carter's unwise embrace of Zbigniew Brzezinski and his grand chess board policy, Ronald Reagan's jingoistic foreign adventures, G. W. H. Bush's invasion of Kuwait, Bill Clinton's invasion of Yugoslavia and advance of NATO, G. W. Bush invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, and Barack Obama's invasion of Libya and Syria. Donald Trump's appointment of John Bolton and Nikki Haley are continuation's of that failed approach. So Leonard's recommendation to return to it is nonsense.

Present at the DestructionMark Leonard | Director of the European Council on Foreign Relations

Caleb Maupin — Keeping The World Poor: The Monopolistic Agenda Behind “Regime Change” Chaos

The justification for these destructive “regime change” campaigns is “democracy” and “human rights.” However, it’s no secret that plenty of human rights violating, oppressive regimes are on very good terms with Wall Street and London....

The not-so-hidden agenda.

NEO
Keeping The World Poor: The Monopolistic Agenda Behind “Regime Change” Chaos

Caleb Maupin

Links — 12 September 2018

The Vineyard of the Saker
The US State Department Openly Outlined Its Plans to Guarantee America’s Global Primacy

Sergey Latyshev
Translated by Ollie Richardson and Angelina Siard

Russia Observer
Obama Marries The Liberals To The Neocons

Patrick Armstrong

Sic Semper Tyrannis
Harper: Neocons Keep Marching Through the Institutions

Global Inequality
On the Threshold of the Third Globalization: why Liberal Capitalism might Fail?

The Americas, armed trade and cheap energy: review of Kenneth Pomeranz's “The Great Divergence”
Branko Milanovic | Visiting Presidential Professor at City University of New York Graduate Center and senior scholar at the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), and formerly lead economist in the World Bank's research department and senior associate at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

economicintesect.com
Extremism in America
Frank Li | Chinese ex-pat, Founder and President of W.E.I. (West-East International), a Chicago-based import & export company, B.E. from Zhejiang University (China) in 1982, M.E. from the University of Tokyo in 1985, and Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University in 1988, all in Electrical Engineering

The Unz Review - 9 July 2017
The Russo-Chinese "Alliance" Explained
Andrei Martyanov

Patrick Armstrong — Obama Marries the Liberals to the Neocons

The co-optation of the so-called US left, which is really the center in comparison to "the left" in the rest of the world.

In the Obama years the marriage of the neocons and the humanitarian interventionists was effected. The neocons, with their doctrine of American Exceptionalism are always ready for an intervention and their justification is always the same: "American moral leadership":

Our world needs a policeman. And whether most Americans like it or not, only their indispensable nation is fit for the job.

So there was never any difficulty getting neocons and their ilk to support another bombing campaign to do a bit of "morally exceptional police work". The Obama change is that liberals, whose historic tendency is to oppose another war, are now in the War Party. And so there was hardly anyone was left to go out on protest....

I would not lay this all on Obama. Bill Clinton had a hand in it, and a big reason that Hillary lost is for supporting it. Patrick Armstrong acknowledges the Clinton connection, and points out that Barack Obama provided a rationale for it. Now the Democratic Party is saddled with it until it is repudiated. That will cost more votes than it attracts. But it is great for campaign contributions from the defense sector, a recognition that in the US, military Keynesianism rules.

Strategic Culture Foundation

Obama Marries the Liberals to the Neocons

Patrick Armstrong

Regime Change Is Bipartisan

The US has a similar play book for Iran.

Who knew that DJT would turn out to be HRC?

Well, it turns out that regime change has been US standard operating procedure at least from the G. W. Bush administration, and "color revolution" preceded that.

Venezuelanalysis

US Set on Regime Change in Venezuela
Shannon Ebrahim

See also

Politico (5 May 2018)
Giuliani: Trump is 'committed to' regime change in Iran
Brent D. Griffiths

This would have been under Bush/Cheney and carried forward by Obama. so much for Obama not being Bush.

Activist Post
Secret 2006 US Gov't Document Reveals Plan To Destabilize Syria Using Extremists, Muslim Brotherhood, Elections
Brandon Turbeville

Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland engineered Ukraine’s “regime change” in early 2014 without weighing the likely chaos and consequences. Now, as neo-Nazis turn their guns on the government, it’s hard to see how anyone can clean up the mess that Nuland made, writes Robert Parry.…

Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs “Toria” Nuland was the “mastermind” behind the Feb. 22, 2014 “regime change” in Ukraine, plotting the overthrow of the democratically elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych while convincing the ever-gullible U.S. mainstream media that the coup wasn’t really a coup but a victory for “democracy.”...

Victoria Nuland, who is married to arch-neoconservative Robert Kagan, was Dick Cheney's deputy national security advisor and later UN ambassador under G. W. Bush. When Hillary Clinton because US Secretary of State under Barack Obama, Nuland was named State Department’s spokeswoman for President Barack Obama and later appointed assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs from September 2013. She is now CEO of the Center for a New American Security.

Consortium News (13 July 2015)
The Mess that Nuland Made

Robert Parry

See also

Moon of Alabama
German Parliament Report: U.S. Presence in Syria Is Illegal

b

Also

The National Interest (21 June 2018)
How Trump is Reshaping US Foreign Policy

Paul Pillar, retired after 28 years at the Central Intelligence Agency

Update

While Tehran acknowledged the people’s right to demonstrate, it urged them to do so in a civil and a peaceful manner. Violent riots, however, were inspired from abroad and fueled by the CIA, in cooperation with Mossad and Saudi intelligence, Iranian authorities have claimed.

Tehran certainly made its point, as the unrest had received a vast support from a number of states, which openly cheered the riots. US President Donald Trump himself took to Twitter, encouraging the protest and expressing solidarity with the “freedom-hungry” Iranian people....

The people of Saudi Arabia under Wahhabism and the Palestinians that effective forced to live in concentration camp? Forget about it.

RT
External enemies are to blame for igniting domestic protests in Iran – Defense Minister

Eric Zuesse — Vladimir Putin’s Basic Disagreement with The West

In summary, Putin advocates national sovereignty and opposes liberal internationalism and liberal interventionism based on as another form of imperialism. The West, the reverse.

More broadly, Russia is traditional while the West is liberal.

This basis of the broader conflict between the East and West, Global North and Global South. 

This conflict is dialectical.

The economic basis is capitalism versus socialism.

Both capitalism and socialism are internationalist.

This indicates that the historical dialectic at this point is about the determining the type of globalization in terms of ideological framework and political control.

Will the future be dominated by global capital or something else more along traditional lines.

The present from of capitalism is neoliberalism, which implies neo-imperialism and neocolonialism.

If this is not to become the dominant framework, what is?

I don't see Putin or anyone else very being clear on this. As a Russian Orthodox traditionalist and Westphalian nationalist, he seems to be looking backward rather than forward. 

The Chinese leadership has the most articulated and nuance alternative that combines elements of traditionalism, nationalism, globalism, socialism, and capitalism.

We probably won't know much about this until the fog of war clears and the dust begins to settle.

The Vineyard of the Saker
Vladimir Putin’s Basic Disagreement with The West
Eric Zuesse

See also

As US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin prepare to meet in Helsinki, all eyes are on what generally are regarded as the “usual” political issues that divide the world’s two foremost military powers: Ukraine, Syria, sanctions, claims of election interference, and so forth. This reflects the near-universal but erroneous view that this current, second Cold War is not ideological, as opposed to the first Cold War that pitted atheistic Soviet communism against America’s “in God we trust” capitalism. (Leave aside whether “capitalism,” an anarcho-socialist term popularized by Marxists, is the proper description of contemporary neoliberal corporatism.)…

Such a view totally dismisses the fact that following the demise of communism as a global power bloc there has been an eerie spiritual role reversal between East and West. While it’s true that during original Cold War the nonreligious ruling cliques in Washington and Moscow held basically compatible progressive values, ordinary Christian Americans (mainly Protestants, with a large number of Roman Catholics) perceived communism as a murderous, godless machine of oppression (think of the Knights of Columbus’ campaign to insert “under God” into the Pledge of Allegiance). Conversely, today it is western elites who rely upon an ideological imperative of “democracy” and “human rights” promotion to justify a materialist global empire and endless wars, much like the old Soviet nomenklatura depended on Marxism-Leninism both as a working methodology and as a justification for their prerogatives and privileges,. In that regard, promotion of nihilist, post-Christian morality – especially in sexual matters – has become a major item in the West’s toolkit.…

This has a special importance with regard to Russia, where under Putin the Orthodox Church has largely resumed its pre-1917 role as the moral anchor of society. This elicits not only political opposition but a genuine and heartfelt hatred from the postmodern elites of an increasingly post-Christian West, not only for Putin personally and Russia generally but against the Russian Orthodox Church – and by extension against Orthodox Christianity itself....

 The article is longish and somewhat detailed, but it relates to the Zuesse article posted above. Many Americans would likely regard it as somewhat arcane and irrelevant in today's world as they experience it. Well, wait for what's coming in the political tussle over the Donald Trump's nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court.

These issues are already hot-buttons in the US. In the argument over what "religious freedom" means in the text, context and historical intent of the US Constitution, The liberal side argues it means freedom from religion and the traditionalist (conservative) side argues it means freedom to practice one's religion without government interference. Stay tuned.

Strategic Culture Foundation
The two-pronged attack on Orthodoxy and Russia

James George Jatras | Analyst, former U.S. diplomat and foreign policy adviser to the Senate GOP leadership

See also

More traditionalism vs. liberalism.

The fact that the Catholic Church is strong in Poland makes a difference, because it gives us a mental and spiritual access to ideas and sensibilities that have evaporated in the secular West.…

Is liberalism on a collision course with Christianity as well as Islam?

Zero Hedge
Polish Politician Warns Of Europe's "Degenerate Liberalism"
Tunku Varadarajan, originally published op-ed at The Wall Street Journal

See also

Zero Hedge
The End Is Near? Pope Decries Governments Turning Earth Into Vast Pile Of "Rubble, Deserts, & Refuse"

Tyler Durden

Charles Pierson — The Day the US Became an Empire

One could argue that the US has always been an empire. Thomas Jefferson called the US an empire, but an “empire of liberty” dedicated to spreading freedom around the globe. Tell that to the Native Americans killed and dispossessed by White Settlers. Tell that to the Mexicans. The US seized a third of their country through war. Still, it wasn’t until 1898 that the US acquired its first overseas colony.

Hawaii had been an independent nation. In 1887, American planters in the islands had forced a change to the Hawaiian constitution which largely disenfranchised ethnic Hawaiians to the benefit of wealthy Whites. By 1893, with US support, American and European businessmen on the islands had staged a coup d’êtat, overthrowing the monarchy,[1] and establishing a Republic of Hawai’i; from there, they maneuvered for Hawaii’s annexation in 1898. That same year, Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam would be gathered into the fledgling American Empire, fruits of the US victory in the Spanish-American War....

"Thomas Jefferson called the US an empire, but an 'empire of liberty' dedicated to spreading freedom around the globe." This is the basis of liberal internationalism, liberal interventionism, and neoliberal globalization under American "leadership."

Counterpunch
The Day the US Became an Empire

Charles Pierson

Zero Hedge — Clapper: The U.S. Meddled In Foreign Elections And Conducted Regime Change In The "Best Interests Of The People"

James Clapper admits the obvious and explains it based on liberal ideology that justifies interventionism counter to international law on "moral" grounds.

This is a recipe for making things up. The institutional rule of law exists to obviate the arbitrary rule of men.

But American exceptionalism puts the US above the law.

Zero Hedge
Clapper: The U.S. Meddled In Foreign Elections And Conducted Regime Change In The "Best Interests Of The People"

See also at ZH

Goldman: If Trump Wants To Win A Trade War, The Market Has To Crash

also

As Good As Gold: Turkey Uses Bullion To Try To Stabilize Its Economy

also

This is quite interesting. Gold buggy but still interesting.

The Quiet Revolution: Gold's Monetary Rehabilitation Is Building

Richard Sakwa — Clinton and Russia: Who Is Ms Hillary?

In the normal run of affairs, scholars working on Russia and Europe, or even on international affairs in general, would not comment of domestic US politics. But it is clear that the whole ‘Russiagate’ affair, alleging collusive behaviour between the eventual winner of the presidential election, Donald J. Trump, accompanied by charges of a systematic Russian attempt to help him through ‘hacking’ and media propaganda, is far from normal.

As far as many international observers are concerned, Trump basically had one good idea, that it made sense to ‘get along’ with Russia, but the Russiagate scandal was designed to prevent him achieving this goal, and in general to constrain his international behaviour and possibly to lead to his impeachment and expulsion from office.

If that was the goal of those advancing the thesis of Russian ‘hacking’ of the election, then it has succeeded admirably. US foreign policy has to a degree been ‘normalised’, with the commitment to NATO restored, foreign activism and militarism lauded by liberals and neo-conservatives alike, and military figures installed in many of the key offices of state.

There are many reasons to criticise Trump, but the use of Russia as the cudgel with which to beat him is both dangerous and counter-productive. It is the outcome of the effective convergence of Clintonite liberal internationalists and neo-con global interventionists...

Valdai 2017
Clinton and Russia: Who Is Ms Hillary?

Richard Sakwa | Professor of Russian and European politics at the University of Kent

telesur — US Vice President Meets Venezuelan Opposition and Promises More Sanctions

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence has been in Florida to meet Venezuelan opposition leaders, capping off his tour of Latin America last week where he sought support against the government of President Nicolas Maduro....

Pence, for his part, continued to repeat the White House position that the democratically-elected government in Caracas resembled a “dictatorship,” and that there was “more to come” in terms of sanctions.

Soon after visiting the house of worship, Pence also made his presence felt at the headquarters of the U.S. Southern Command, which is located in Doral as well.

The US interpretation of non-interference in other countries' internal affairs.

telesur
US Vice President Meets Venezuelan Opposition and Promises More Sanctions

Graham E. Fuller — Global Disorder- What Are the Options?

Global disorder is on the rise. What can the US do about it? There are two fundamentally different approaches one can take—it all depends on your philosophy of how the world works.

The first school thinks primarily in terms of law, order and authority: it accepts the need for a global policeman. The second school is more willing to let regional nations take the initiative to eventually work things out among themselves. Both schools possess advantages and disadvantages. Something called Balance of Power politics lies halfway between the two....

Graham E. Fuller
Global Disorder- What Are the Options?
Graham E. Fuller | adjunct professor of history at Simon Fraser University, formerly vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA, and a former senior political scientist at RAND

Also

With words unprecedented for a US president, Trump called out Pakistan for harboring and supporting terrorist groups that target and kill US citizens and said there would be a radical change in policy toward the South Asian nation. Trump indicated the US would work to increase ties with India, Pakistan's neighbor and greatest enemy, a move sure to both enrage as well as frighten Pakistani elites.…

Trump said the US will work to increase ties with India, Pakistan’s neighbor and greatest enemy, as part of the “change in approach in how to deal with Pakistan.”

Pushing Pakistan into China's arms.

In what must have sent shockwaves all the way to Islamabad and Rawalpindi – the home of Pakistan’s military and intelligence service – Trump followed up his harsh words for Pakistan with a call for greater American cooperation with India.

Trump said the US will seek to “develop its strategic partnership with India” and described the country as “a key security and economic harbor of the United States.” He called for India to play a greater role in Afghanistan “especially in the area of economic assistance and development.”….

FDD's Long War Journal

Trump takes hard line on Pakistan for supporting terrorist groups
Bill Roggio | Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal

Also

RussiaFeed
Russian expert says Trump’s new Afghanistan policy aimed at China`

UPDATE

The Duran
China tells Trump not to allow India to interfere in regional interests
Adam Garrie

Robert W. Merry — Stop poking the Russian bear

New sanctions are coming, whether he wants them or not. NATO expansion and the West’s Ukraine meddling will continue. Encirclement is firmly in place.

It’s difficult to envision where this could lead, short of actual hostilities. Russia’s fundamental national interests, the ones Trump was prepared to accept, will almost certainly render such hostilities inevitable.

The National Interest
Stop poking the Russian bear
Robert W. Merry | Editor of the American Conservative

Robert Parry — Neocons Leverage Trump-Hate for More Wars

The enactment of new sanctions against Russia and Iran – with the support of nearly all Democrats and Republicans in Congress – shows how the warmongering neocons again have come out on top, reports.

It's really amazing how a relatively small number of people can capture US policy and use propaganda to convince the American public that it is in their interest even though the public is largely fed up with foreign adventurism.

Slouching toward war, or rushing?

Consortium News
Neocons Leverage Trump-Hate for More Wars

Robert Parry

Gareth Porter — How CIA and Allies Trapped Obama in the Syrian Arms Debacle

The title is a bit misleading. The buck stops at the Oval Office, and then President was too weak to be able to resist pressure and act in the best interests of the United States, not to mention in accordance with international law. The devil made me do it excuse don't pass the smell test. The blame rests on the president, and he should be tarred with it.

However, this backgrounder does illustrate the power of the US deep state in running US foreign and military policy, regardless of the president's lead. This reads like court intrigue in the age of monarchies.

The American Conservative
How CIA and Allies Trapped Obama in the Syrian Arms Debacle

And why it ultimately benefitted terrorists like Al Qaeda

Gareth Porter

Pepe Escobar — Imperial Folly Brings Russia and Germany Together

Add China to that toxic mix for US hegemony and global "leadership."

This is strategic folly beyond estimation.

Trump will be required to justify to Congress, in writing, any initiative to ease sanctions on Russia. And Congress is entitled to launch an automatic review of any such initiative.

Translation; the death knell of any possibility for the White House to reset relations with Russia. Congress in fact is just ratifying the ongoing Russia demonization campaign orchestrated by the neocon and neoliberalcon deep state/War Party establishment.

Economic war has been declared against Russia for at least three years now. The difference is this latest package also declares economic war against Europe, especially Germany.…

Make no mistake; the EU leadership will counterpunch. Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission (EC), put it mildly when he said, "America first cannot mean that Europe's interests come last."

Pepe Escobar spells out the hidden agenda. As always, follow the money.

Escobar is always a good read. This one is exceptional. Zbig must rolling over in his grave as his worst nightmares begin to unfold.

Best line among many good ones:

According to the business/political source, "… No one trusts this US Congress; it is considered a lunatic asylum." … 

The source adds, half in zest, "we think that Brzezinski died under the pressure of the realization that this was coming and that all his hatred of Russia and his life work to destroy them was becoming utterly undone."

Sputnik International
Imperial Folly Brings Russia and Germany Together

Pepe Escobar

Wayne Madsen — The End of the ‘New American Century’ Pronounced by the Pentagon

Is the US military quietly signaling a historical turn of events comparable to Britain's decision to abandon empire? One item doesn't tell the whole story but it is indicative that it is being discussed at high levels.

Strategic Culture Foundation
The End of the ‘New American Century’ Pronounced by the Pentagon

Wayne Madsen

Steve MacMillan — Brzezinski Wanted NATO to Become the “Hub of a Globe-Spanning Web” of Security Pacts

Another one for the Brzezinski file.

NEO
Brzezinski Wanted NATO to Become the “Hub of a Globe-Spanning Web” of Security Pacts

Steve MacMillan