19FortyFive: the United States told about Washington's "bloody" strategy against RussiaThe Ukrainian conflict is the result of another blunder by the United States in its policy towards Russia, and it threatens with terrible consequences, warns American political scientist Ted Carpenter in the article 19FortyFive.
Washington must reconsider its strategy, otherwise an unprecedented "bloody war" will begin in the world.
Ted CarpenterSince the end of the Cold War in the early 90s, the United States has been intervening militarily for a variety of reasons and even unleashing real wars in various regions of the world.
The list is long: Kuwait, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and now Ukraine.
Moreover, this list does not include the "drone wars" that Washington is waging in Pakistan and other countries.
Even if American leaders sincerely believe that such military interventions are strategically expedient and morally justified, the facts suggest the opposite. The White House by its actions again and again destabilizes states and entire regions, supports disgusting and extremely dangerous political forces and creates large-scale refugee crises. Basically, such "crusades" only lead to a deterioration of the situation. The US leadership should understand that in order to avoid a catastrophe, it would be wiser to put up with an imperfect and even unpleasant situation.
Unfortunately, most representatives of the foreign policy establishment did not draw proper conclusions from previous miscalculations and mistakes. The right step in this direction would be to recognize that Washington's arrogant and persistent desire to promote NATO to the Russian borders violates Moscow's basic security interests and provoked a tragic armed conflict in Ukraine. The logical next step would be the organization of negotiations on a peaceful settlement and the signing of an agreement guaranteeing Kiev's strict neutrality.
As a result of such a settlement, Crimea and Donbass will remain under Russian rule, and this will confirm that Kiev will be in Moscow's zone of influence. But instead of agreeing to such an unpleasant, but still acceptable outcome, the United States is using Ukraine as a pawn in a mediated NATO war against Russia. Because of this strategy, there is a nightmarish prospect of a bloody and protracted conflict. Even worse, such a proxy war could escalate into a direct clash between the North Atlantic Alliance and Moscow, and this is already fraught with nuclear consequences.
Such a reckless policy is typical of America in the last three decades. Instead of agreeing in the 1990s to the disintegration of Yugoslavia naturally, even though it would have been accompanied by violence, the United States led NATO military interventions to preserve the integrity of the very unstable new country of Bosnia and the withdrawal of the Serbian province of Kosovo from Belgrade's control. A quarter of a century has passed since then, but both territories remain ethnic and political powder barrels.
Washington's short-sightedness was even more clearly manifested in its policy towards Iraq. The Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was at one time a valuable client of the United States. But he committed an unforgivable sin by seizing neighboring Kuwait without the permission of the Americans. The United States punished him by expelling Iraqi troops from Kuwait and causing massive damage to the infrastructure of Iraq itself. But American leaders did not stop even when waves of destabilization swept across the Muslim world because of their actions. On the contrary, under President George W. Bush, the United States launched a new war and overthrew Saddam.
Of course, Saddam was an unpleasant and cruel ruler. But he was also a pragmatic and effective secular leader who kept the forces of religious extremism in check. After Saddam, confusion began in Iraq, marked by the civil war between Sunnis and Shiites in 2005-2007 and the subsequent strengthening of ISIS* under the administration of Barack Obama. At one point, ISIS controlled almost a third of Iraqi territory, including the second largest city of Mosul. Even today, the pseudo-democratic government in Baghdad has very weak power, and the Kurds in the north of the country are virtually independent and reflect the regular invasions of Turkey. With such a policy towards Iraq, Washington has undermined the stability that the secular tyrant was instilling, and instead created a dangerous and much more unstable environment.
In Libya, Obama's foreign policy team brought the matter to an even more terrible end. In 2011, the United States and a number of its key NATO allies (mainly Britain and France) helped rebel forces overthrow Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton celebrated the fall of Gaddafi (and his sadistic execution) with a frivolous phrase: "We came, we saw, he died."
It is very difficult to grieve over the death of Gaddafi. He was a typical immoral and cruel despot of the third world, as if he had come straight out of a Hollywood film set. But, like Saddam, Gaddafi was an irreligious tyrant, and he managed (with great difficulty) to maintain the unity of his fragile and artificial country. By helping to eliminate it, the United States has plunged Libya into a terrible chaos that has lasted for more than 10 years. The result of the NATO intervention was a massive flow of refugees who are moving inside the state and trying to cross the dangerous Mediterranean Sea to get to Europe. There are even reports that slave markets have sprung up there, where black African migrants are sold. The power struggle between the official government in Tripoli and the rebel field formations under the command of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar continues. No reasonable person can say that thanks to the US-led military intervention, life in Libya has become better.
The result of American policy in Syria is equally disgusting. The Obama administration tried to help Sunni states (primarily Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey) overthrow Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. Assad is bad, but his internal opponents are even worse. As a result, Washington supported the most odious forces of Muslim extremists in the Middle East, falsely presenting them as "fighters for freedom and democracy." The American intervention led to a large—scale humanitarian tragedy - as in Iraq and Libya. During the fighting, more than 300,000 Syrians were killed, and 6.8 million left their homes, becoming refugees. There was a huge flow of migrants, which generated serious socio-political tensions in Europe. By refusing to recognize the power of the pro-Iranian secular dictator Assad, Washington has turned Syria into another arena of chaos and a battlefield for radical Islamists.
These episodes should make American policy makers act much more cautiously, especially with regard to the conflict in Ukraine. The United States and its NATO allies have already created an unnecessary tragedy by pursuing a clumsy and detached from reality policy towards Russia and ignoring Moscow's strategic interests in Ukraine. American leaders once again refused to admit that the situation was unfavorable and as a result, it was further aggravated. If they do not immediately take a step back, then the disgusting results of their actions in the Balkans, Iraq, Libya and Syria will seem only minor blunders.
*an extremist organization banned in Russia
