Theatre of Hate in a Tragedy of Errors

From a TV studio in Washington Biden runs the Government of TV comedians and actors in Kiev

A US delegation has just returned from Venezuela or should that be, the American begging mission to Maduro for an oil deal has just returned from Venezuela? The US is starting to look a little desperate. And talking of desperation, they also need to get the JCPOA (Iran Deal) signed quickly, to release the hated Iranians from sanctions and start exporting/importing their oil to mitigate the ill-thought-out sanction strategy on Russia and its backfiring impact on US/Euro economies.

America’s predilection for sanctioning anyone and everyone who resists coercion by them to submit to the sacred cow of US hegemony has now resulted in them boxing themselves  into a rather unpleasant corner.

Who is the biggest player in the JCPOA negotiations? Well, unfortunately for the US, Russia is. Lavrov must be straining to hide a certain schadenfreude at the talks in Vienna. Iran will of course be giving Russia their listening ear and the US delegation might be squirming...just a little. 'Freedom oil', yah!

Venezuela running to sidle up to a cosy relationship with the US seems somewhat unlikely. Let's just say the talks for the Americans must have been a little awkward here too...given that after years of US sanctions and a US orchestrated coup attempt and a number of US organised failed assassinations on Maduro personally, the delegation had a tough ask. Needless to say, Juan Guido (The West’s ‘real’ President of Venezuela) was not invited (Maybe he’s hanging out with Moussa Koussa).

History may record Maduro, after the US delegation having left, getting straight on the blower to Putin: 'Hey Vlad, how's it going? Guess who just dropped by? You won't believe it...no, guess.'

Zelensky's theatrical cabinet is made up of amateur politicians (they are professionals in entertainment and TV, his old comedy chums; writers, directors etc.) Which may indicate why his understanding of geopolitics and NATO history doesn't seem to be his strong suit. He has certainly taken some poor advice by listening to another set of not-so-funny players in Washington: Biden, Blinken, Nuland and their understudies Von de Leyen, Stoltenberg and Scholz.

Did anyone in the White House/Pentagon actually think this through? Apparently not. Maybe I am missing something.

Russia: major suppliers of Nickel, metals, fertilizers, oil, gas (40% of Europe’s gas), Timber, Neon etc. etc....to us all  and 30% of US imported gas is Russian (Germans might want to take note of that fact when importing expensive US shale gas or whatever when and if Nord 1 is gone as the Russians are hinting at. Biden did promise he’d stop Nord 2 remember, and he did but I don’t think he was banking on Russia cutting Nord 1. It won’t hurt Russia as China can take everything they can pump.) So, if Iran won't play and Venezuela won't play, Biden is, politically speaking, toast along with probably every NATO country leader in Europe as their economies enter a very painful 'Winter of [their] discontent'.

Getting Russia bogged down in Ukraine for such meager gains was a dangerous gamble in what now appears an extremely misguided adventure. The Russian army today is not the one that took Grozny over two decades ago.  Did no one inform the US chiefs of staff of this fact?  

It is hard to imagine this kind of incompetence at such a high level but then we in the UK do have our own Liz Truss, a woman who appeared more invested in her Doctor Zhivago-hat look on a recent diplomatic mission to Russia (The Russians must have had a titter) than in bothering to find out the difference between her Baltic’s and her Black Seas never mind her Rostovs and her Voronezhs. She obviously shadowed Dominic Raab when he was in the job, another geographically challenged Foreign Secretary who famously confused the Irish Sea with the Red Sea during the disastrous Brexit negotiations. (Give Truss her due though, she does know a lot about cheese imports) Either Oxbridge have started giving out degrees with lucky bags or I have become very intelligent in the last couple of years. I suppose Biden confusing Ukrainians with the Iranians in his State of the Union Speech pretty much shows us where we are at in the mental competence stakes. The difference between Russian Statecraft and US ignorance with the US puppet masters playing to a confused script. The American electorate will quickly grow impatient when the price of gas at the pump skyrockets. They seem to have forgotten the cardinal political mantra: ‘It’s the economy stupid’.

Another worrying example of such high-ranking confusion in the US camp is Blinken’s euphemistic ‘Green light’ (Yes, the gods of Washington have the lights) to any NATO nation wanting to fly sorties over a Ukrainian sky that Russia now has complete air supremacy over, (Yes, you guessed it, he has no military background). Meanwhile Stoltenberg, NATO’s Secretary General (who was an anti-Vietnam war protester in his younger days and did national service in the Norwegian army) hurriedly flew out to Poland to make the over eager Poles ‘stand down’. Europe at war with Russia may not trouble the ill-informed and insular American administration but the usually quite bellicose Stoltenberg, being European, wisely intervened. The US have never had war brought to their mainland. Pearl Harbour being 3,758 miles off the US coast is the closest anyone got.

As for the Germans without Merkel at the helm, they have created their very own pit and pendulum to torture themselves with. Maybe they will be ruing the day they gave up nuclear power especially as their now sabre-rattling Greens, so enthusiastic to assume the moral high ground on environment and now spearheading the anti-Russian rhetoric have no back-up plan to keep their countrymen warm in winter. And as the Russians may understandably react with a little sanctioning of their own, snug in their amply heated Dachas, by pulling the plug on Germany’s last remaining gas supply, things are looking a bit chilly in Berlin. The Reichstag’s rush to NATO’s heat of war must now seem very cold comfort indeed.

Finally, and this is as yet unconfirmed: the Russian Military claim to have found WMD labs discovered near border of Russia in Ukraine with US/Ukie bio weapons.

So, using the same US/UK reasoning to attack Iraq, Russia may then have a very strong case to have invaded Ukraine, a country found guilty along with the US of breaking every chemical weapon treaty they signed and developing WMD. Caught red handed...and as guilty as Sadaam Hussein wasn’t. Nuland has already tried to explain away these ‘bio-labs’ as research facilities set up for Ukraine’s public health program. But these facilities have military written all over them according to the Russians. We shall have to wait and see.

Can you imagine Nebenzya (Russia’s permanent ambassador to the UN) holding up a little test tube in the UN chamber? But this time not filled with washing up liquid à la Colin Powell and the whole assembly squirming with embarrassment. The US ambassador may want to throw a sickie at that session.

Many will claim this as callous propaganda by Putin of course and as the OPCW has demonstrated of recent when under US pressure, its reports have lacked a certain veracity, it may remain conveniently unprovable. Which of course enables the US (the only country to have used nuclear weapons) to do whatever nefarious thing they want and get away with it. If you want to commit war crimes make sure you are white, Anglo Saxon and in the club.