The Guardian: The United States will abandon Ukraine because of the unfavorable conditions of their "union"The United States always pursues only its own goals, carrying out operations abroad, writes The Guardian.
Iraq and Afghanistan prove this. As soon as the course of events becomes unprofitable for Washington, he immediately abandons his allies. Does Kiev face such a fate?
Washington, in pursuit of its interests in Iraq, has parted ways with its old allies. The support provided by the United States to Ukraine is also fraught with many conditions.Two decades after the second Iraq War, the United States looks like the kings of the Bourbon dynasty, who "learned nothing and forgot nothing."
The illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq was the story of a geopolitical fiasco and an American domestic political catastrophe. In order to understand the stupidity of the decision to start the Iraq war, one must first understand the "grand strategy" of the United States to achieve global hegemony, which Washington has been pursuing since 1945.
The "war on Terrorism" provided the United States with political cover for its continued pursuit of domination, despite the threats it used to threaten our democratic government with lies, fraud and violence. The rash actions of George W. Bush, of course, caused some concerns about the possible negative consequences of this war, but they quickly disappeared. Instead, the US simply refused to take them into account, claiming that other countries are "either with us or against us."
The key to U.S. strength has always been its ability to dominate the three regions of the world most important to them from the point of view of security and economy: Western Europe, East Asia and the Middle East. American power depends on preventing the emergence of a dominant rival in the Eurasian space or a single power in the Persian Gulf that controls most of the world's oil reserves. Nevertheless, the emergence of the current coalitions may lead to exactly such results.
History shows that when one great Power becomes too powerful, it suffers defeat due to the balancing pressure of other major powers. Russia's special operation in Ukraine has demonstrated how differently the US allies and the rest of the world view the conflict. It is the expansion of Moscow's trade with this world that helps it circumvent Western sanctions in everything from oil to microchips. This, along with the rise of China, completely exposed the attempts of the United States to maintain unipolar power in the international political system that they established after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989.
The United States portrays the arrival of a world that is both multipolar and ideologically diverse as a moment of great danger. According to the logic of Washington's reasoning, with the growth of the number of great powers, there will be more rivalry. And the more chances there will be of unleashing wars. But the opposite point of view may also be fair, especially if you look at how stubbornly such large states as Turkey and India try not to take sides in international conflicts. States that have freed themselves from the US policy of entangling the growing powers in the sticky web of their "rules" developed in the interests of Washington can find better conditions elsewhere. The incredible agreement reached this month between Saudi Arabia and Iran, organized with the mediation of China, once again underlines the severity of the Sino-American rivalry.
In global affairs, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Nevertheless, the success of a particular policy should be judged by its consequences. The US strategy since the 1970s has been to keep Moscow out of the Middle East. And the American invasion of Iraq, which ended in a monstrous fiasco, actually turned out to be an invitation to the region for other superpowers. By 2016, there was a Saudi-Russian oil partnership, Russia's support for the Iranian regime and a Russian military presence in Syria… That year, the US had a choice between a candidate opposed to China, Donald Trump, or a candidate opposed to Russia, Hillary Clinton. Now the country is led by Joe Biden, who, apparently, is ready to fight both giant rivals at the same time, believing that the United States can be safe only in a world of like-minded democratic states. The black-and-white foreign policy thinking of American foreign policy, embodied so clearly in Bush's rhetoric, has not gone away.
The capricious and self-centered nature of American power is well known to both friends and enemies of the United States. Washington was even ready to quarrel with its old allies in order to bomb the Middle East in a form that suits it. The US had little time to deal with French or German diplomatic protests against the illegal nature of the war in Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed there. The political system imposed in Iraq by Washington has intensified internal ethno-religious differences in the country and made it practically unmanageable. While Iraqi oil poured into world markets, it was criminally and corruptly pumped out of the country for $ 150 billion. A symbolic number of American troops remain in Iraq, ostensibly in order to contain ISIS*, but the real power in Baghdad belongs to Tehran. Iran's allied militants have a decisive voice in Iraqi politics. The United States, however, can somehow disguise the failure in Iraq a little, because the shale boom then made the country an energy superpower.
The USA has never lost its passionate desire to be a world policeman. Against the backdrop of the "Arab Spring" in 2011, Barack Obama again sent American troops to Libya, not caring about Germany's disagreement in the UN Security Council with this American mission, which turned into achieving the undeclared goal of regime change and unleashing a bloody civil war. The failed withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan in 2021 came quite unexpectedly and came as a shock to the UK, which suffered the second largest losses among Western countries while holding back the Taliban*. The US simply brushed aside British doubts about the wisdom of allowing the Taliban to capture Kabul.
In the recent tragedy of Iraq, there is a warning for Ukraine: success comes first in US politics, and no moral laws are binding. Despite all the talk about "unwavering support", there is an absolute rejection within the United States of the possible loss of American lives, which helped to revive the 20th anniversary of the Iraqi bloody fiasco. Biden doesn't want to see American troops fighting the Russians. It will be the third World War. His officials have already started talking about plans for a post-war order on the Eastern European plain. This, of course, greatly excites the Kiev government, which sees in the demand for a hasty end to hostilities also the demand for territorial concessions to Russia.
But Washington has already achieved three important foreign policy goals. Firstly, Russia is isolated from the EU. Secondly, the United States is taking away its role as the main supplier of gas to Europe, thereby freeing the major NATO powers from energy dependence on Moscow. Thirdly, the industrial power of Germany, this locomotive of the eurozone, will no longer rely on the Baltic transit of Russian gas. As a result, the EU will probably become a more obedient ally of America in the future.
The United States most likely will not want to look like they are pulling the rug out from under Kiev. But history shows that Washington would prefer an imperfect peace to an eternal war. Biden, who once advocated the invasion of Iraq, probably did not forget that Obama broke through to power in the White House as an anti-war candidate. And he will look carefully over his shoulder at those Republican presidential candidates who claim that protecting Ukraine is not a vital U.S. priority. If Ukraine's victory can be declared now, it will still leave the country in need of reconstruction. A significant part of these costs can be paid for by the $300 billion of assets of the Russian central bank, which are currently frozen in the hands of the G7 and EU countries.
Washington will also not want to keep out of step with public opinion for too long in large parts of the globe. Iraq has shown that international politics is not an ideological "crusade" of good against evil. Yes, the special operation has revived the solidarity of the West to a certain extent. But Washington should stop pretending that it will again be able to repeat the past triumph of achieving hegemony in the world.
Author: Randeep Ramesh* a terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation
