Dear Readers, one last thought before the rah-rah America celebration begins.
Pusillanimity Brings War, Not Peace
Paul Craig Roberts
The naive and gullible men in the Kremlin were deceived by the Alaska agreement just as they were by the Minsk agreement. If they had read Trump’s Art of the Deal they would have learned how Trump was going to manipulate them.
It was totally clear to me in 2014 when Putin sat stupidly on his butt and permitted Washington to overthrow the Ukrainian government and install an anti-Russian Washington puppet that Russian inaction was leading to war. When Putin was forced into conflict with Ukraine by Washington and Europe eight years later, it was totally obvious that Putin’s slow-moving, restricted Special Military Operation would provide Washington and NATO ample time to get more and more involved and that the conflict that Putin thought could be limited to Donbas would widen and widen. And that is precisely what has happened.
Putin and Lavrov have said that Washington/NATO intend to turn Ukraine’s conflict with Russia into a war on Russia by the West. Despite finally acknowledging the reality that has been completely clear for 12 years, Putin still refuses to use the decisive force necessary to bring the conflict to a victorious end and stop the widening of the conflict. Putin is focused on gaining another kilometer in Donbas while Ukrainian drone attacks deep inside Russia increasingly disrupt Russian life and energy production and result in civilian casualties.
Having by his own inaction permitted the Ukraine conflict to widen out of control, Putin told military cadets in June that Russia’s nuclear forces will be strengthened and the fighting ability of the military improved in expectation of a war with Europe.
This is a war that Putin’s pusillanimity has brought to Russia.
Apparently, Iran has learned nothing from Russia’s experience with Washington. Like Russia, Iran was maneuvered into peace talks that Washington had no intention of allowing to go anywhere. The function of peace talks is to trap Russia and now Iran in a process that prevents the decisive use of military force. Putin wanted negotiations more than he wanted a military victory. Iran was stopped from a decisive, conclusive victory by accepting a ceasefire.
It is inexplicable that any Iranian can possibly think there can be peace in the Middle East as long as the Zionist agenda of Greater Israel continues to be the foreign policy of Israel. It is extraordinary that during the 79 years that this agenda has been pursued no Muslim country has demanded that Israel be confronted with its aggressive agenda. Even today the Iranians have not demanded that the Greater Israel agenda be included in the peace negotiations.
It seems clear that both Russia and Iran are more capable of avoiding reality than dealing with it. My conclusion is that two big wars remain on the agenda.
Among the legends that comprise World War II history is the explanation that Chamberlain’s pusillanimity at Munich caused the war. Putin has repeated what historians regard as Chamberlain’s fatal mistake. I myself do not accept the “peace in our time” explanation. World War II resulted from the British guarantee to Poland and from the British and French Declaration of War on Germany. But the Munich explanation has been the official explanation. Putin himself believes the Munich explanation of the war. Why did Putin repeat Chamberlain’s alleged mistake?