Shifting sands in the international balance of power

Shifting sands in the international balance of power
Meeting with Thierry Meyssan

1 MAY 2009

From his refuge in Lebanon, Thierry Meyssan gave Égalité et Réconciliation a long interview in which he presented a blow-by-blow analysis of the new U.S. Administration. According to him, following the Bush-Cheney interlude of the Iraq war, Washington has reverted to the post-9/11 consensus and to the contradictions prevailing during the 2001-02 period. However, the military debilitation in Iraq plus the Wall Street crisis are compelling the Empire to reconsider its strategies and timetable for attaining its global geopolitical goals.

What’s your analysis of the evolution of the US policy?

Today, there is a relative consensus about the admission of failure of the Bush policy, the overuse of military force, and the nefarious consequences of unilateralism on the relationships with allied countries and the loss of leadership. Since 2006, James Baker and Lee Hamilton, who headed a Congressional committee to assess the strategy in Iraq, have been pushing for a wiser approach. They proposed a withdrawal from Iraq and a reestablishment of cordial relations with the nearby nations (Syria, Iran) which is necessary for the GI’s departure not to turn into a rout like in Vietnam. They have dismissed Donald Rumsfeld, and selected a member of their committee to succeed him. But even if they froze the "Great Middle East reshaping policy", they didn’t manage to convince George Bush and Dick Cheney to give it up. That is why the Barack Obama break-up was put in place.

Actually, Obama was propelled into the Federal Senate and the Presidency race as soon as 2004. He entered the scene during the Democratic convention for John Kerry’s nomination. At this time he was an unknown member of the Illinois Senate, but he was already controlled and coached by Abner Mikva and his men (Jews for Obama), and he had the support of the Anglo-Saxon financial sphere (Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Excelon). The multinational companies worried by the prospect of losing market shares along with the increase in anti-imperialism (Business for Diplomatic Action), the supporters of the Baker-Hamilton committee, the Generals revolting against the erratic adventures of the neocons, and others progressively joined him.

French people often believe that the US President is indirectly elected by great electors. That’s untrue. He’s elected by an electoral college whose members are nominated by prominent citizens. In 2000, the Supreme Court reminded us that the citizens’ vote was only advisory and that the Governor of Florida could nominate the delegates of his electoral college before the counting of the general vote.

In such an oligarchic system, there is one single party with two streams: the Republicans and the Democrats. Legally speaking, they are not separate entities. Thus, it is the States and not the so-called Parties that organize the primary elections. Therefore, it is not surprising that Joe Biden and Barack Obama are both old friends of John McCain. Thus, McCain is the head of the international Republican Institute, an organization controlled by the Department of State that is in charge of corrupting the right wing parties all over the world, while Obama works for the National Democrat Institute, headed by Madeleine Albright, who is in charge of corrupting the left wing parties. Obama and Albright both took part in the destabilization of Kenya, during a CIA operation in order to impose one of Obama’s cousins as Prime Minister.

All these data show that Obama doesn’t come from nowhere. He’s an expert in secret operations and subversion. He’s been recruited for a very specific task.

If the general objectives of the heteroelite coalition that supports him are the same, the details differ between its various components. This explains the incredible battle around Obama’s team nomination and his always ambiguous speeches.

Four factions are fighting:

The Defense faction, led by Brent Scowcroft, Generals opposing Rumsfeld and, of course, Robert Gates who is now the real boss in Washington. They advocate ending the armies’ privatization, and pulling-out "honorably" from Iraq but pursuing the US effort in Afghanistan to avoid giving the impression of a rout, and finally reaching an agreement with Iran and Syria. According to them, Russia and China are still considered rivals that must be singled out and neutralized. They consider the financial crisis as a war where they are going to lose military programs and scale down the size of the armies but they must preserve a relative superiority. Losing power doesn’t matter if they remain the strongest.

The Treasury and the Department of Commerce are led by Geithner and Paul Volcker, the Rockefeller protégés. They come from the Pilgrim’s Society and have the support of the Group of Thirty, the Peterson Institute and the Trilateral Committee. They’re backed by Queen Elizabeth II and want to save both Wall Street and the City. For them, the crisis is a heavy blow since the finance oligarchy revenues are in free fall, but above all it’s a unique opportunity to concentrate capital and to trample the resistance to globalization underfoot. They must spend less for a while in order to avoid social revolutions, but they can grow richer by buying back industrial jewels for next to nothing. In the long term they plan to establish - not a worldwide tax on the right to breathe, it would be obvious - but a worldwide tax on CO2 and a spot market in CO2 emission rights - which is roughly the same while hiding behind an ecological gloss. Unlike the Pentagon, they push for an alliance with China, in particular because it owns 40% of the US Treasury bonds, but also to prevent the rise of a Far East economic block centered on China and draining raw materials from Africa.

The Department of State faction is led by Hillary Clinton, a fundamentalist Christian, and a member of a very secret cult called the Fellowship Foundation (a.k.a "The" Family). This is the Zionist refuge, the ultimate preserve for the endangered neo-con species. They push for unconditional support to Israël, with a touch of realism because they know the situation has changed. It won’t be possible to bomb Lebanon like in 2006, because the Hezbollah now owns efficient anti-aircraft weapons. Invading Gaza as in 2008 won’t be possible anymore because the Hamas has purchased Kornet anti-tank missiles. And if the United States has difficulties funding Tel-Aviv, it’s unlikely that Saudis will make it up for long. Therefore, they must gain time, by making some concessions if required, and find a strategic purpose to Israël.

Ms. Clinton’s main mission is to improve the image of the United States, no longer through public relations (i.e., in justifying Washington policies) but rather through advertising (i.e., in promoting the real or imaginary qualities of the US model). In this context, the Zionists will likely push for the Korbel-Albright-Rice project aiming at transforming the UN into a large impotent forum and creating a competing organization: the Community of Democracies backed by NATO, its armed wing. So far, they are busy sabotaging the Durban II conference which, instead of celebrating the "only democracy in the Middle East", denounces the apartheid regime of Tel-Aviv. Like James Steinberg, the Vice Secretary of State, they consider the financial crisis as a blitzkrieg. There’s going to be a lot of breakage, but it’s the right time to destroy rivals and grab some control levers. Their aim is not to get richer through mergers and acquisitions but to impose their men in the Ministries of Finance and at the head of the banking institutions all around the world.

Finally, the National Security Council is under the influence of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Obama’s teacher at Columbia. It should drop its usual coordination role to become a real center of command. It’s led by General Jones who has been a NATO Supreme Commander and who nurtured the Africa Command. For them, the financial crisis is a crisis of the imperial strategy. It’s the astronomical debt required to fund the Iraq war that triggered the economic collapse of the United States. Unlike 1929, war won’t be the solution, war is the problem. Three aims must be pursued simultaneously: force the money back into the US by destroying the competing foreign tax havens and destabilizing the economies of the developed countries (as tested in Greece); maintain the illusion of the US military power in pursuing the occupation of Afghanistan; and obliterate the emerging alliances between Syria, Iran and China and especially between Russia and China (Shanghai Cooperation Organization). The Council will favor all forms of clandestine actions to give the Pentagon enough time for its reorganization.

Obama is trying to satisfy everybody which explains the surrounding confusion.

In your opinion how is the Middle East situation going to evolve considering this new administration?

There is a consensus on one point: Washington must help reduce the tension in this area, without abandoning Israel though. There are two possible options, but whichever is implemented, it will require the signature of the most radical movement. That’s the reason why Washington pushed for a Netanyahu-Lieberman government in Israel and will let the Hamas and the Hezbollah win the next election in the occupied territories and in Lebanon.

The first scenario, conceived by Zbignew Brzezinski plans to simultaneously recognize a Palestinian State and to naturalize the Palestinian refugees in their host countries. All the while they plan to fund the States hosting refugees as compensation; and the development of Gaza and the West Bank. In addition a NATO intervention force, mandated by the UN, would insure peace maintenance.

The second approach is harsher for the two protagonists. It advocates constraining the Israelis to drop their wildest claims, while forcing the Palestinians to consider the Left Bank as their natural homeland. This solution would be cheaper for Washington and more viable in the long run, even if it would be difficult to accept for both parties, and it would imply the end of the Hashemite monarchy. This approach is promoted in particular by Ambassador Charles Freeman, who was forced to resign from the presidency of the National Intelligence Agency by the Zionist lobby, but who has some strong support within the State apparatus.

In your opinion which approach will be implemented?

None, because the economic crisis will be so serious that, in my opinion, it will lead to a dislocation of the United States and the end of the State of Israel.

Washington will have to downscale its ambitions once again. It will probably fold from trying to maintain the status quo. It will focus solely on preventing new players from taking its position.

What do you personally propose?

The five million Jews, the nine million Palestinians, and other populations from Palestine must meet within a single State on the "one man, one vote" principle. By the way, this is in my opinion the only solution that prevents the expulsion of the Jews. We must remember the South African Apartheid; some people claimed that its end would trigger the expulsion or the wiping out of the white populations. We know the rest. Arafat’s death is not an obstacle because there are other Mandelas in Palestine. The only problem is to find one De Clerck on the Israeli side. The Hamas would certainly support such a solution, because it would rally the people’s ascent. Delayed decisions complicate a peaceful solution. By the way, the CIA is studying a doomsday scenario involving a bloody uprising that would drive away two million Jews towards the United States.

What about Syria and Iran? Do you think the war can happen?

I don’t think that the secret deals between the US military, Syria and Iran will be challenged: the United States has neither the means nor the will.

First of all, they know that the Iranian nuclear threat is a hoax they have themselves fabricated the same way they had fabricated Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, Imam Khomeiny had condemned the production and the use of the atomic bomb as immoral, and we don’t see which group in Iran would be able to disregard such a commandment.

Secondly, Bush’s policy pushed Teheran and Damascus into the arms of Moscow which is, by the way, preparing a large international conference about the peace in the Middle East. Now, breaking up this emerging alliance and trying to bring back Iran and Syria in its sphere of influence is a priority for Washington. They are likely to raise the bidding and will avoid choosing one side.

Lastly, the United States is aware of the current emergency. Their economy is collapsing and they might not be able to keep paying the high price required for the defense of Israel. All the more since Tsahal is not what it used to be. The IDF is not invincible any more. It has accumulated failures in Lebanon, Gaza, and also, let’s not forget it, in Georgia.

As previously mentioned you are living in Lebanon, how is the situation over there?

The National Alliance formed around Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement and Hassan Nasrallah’s Hezbollah will win the next elections, there’s no doubt about it, if this election can be fair and free. The Hariri family will only survive as long as the PTB will rely on it to collect taxes and make the people pay for Lebanon’s foreign debt, whereas more than half of this debt comes from the Hariri family’s illegal wealth. War criminal Walid Joumblatt - Vice-President of the Socialist International no less - or neo-fascists like pathological killer Samir Geagea are going to be dropped by their sponsors. Those henchmen have lost their efficiency and are not presentable any longer.

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon in charge of the prosecution of criminal acts relating to the assassination of Hariri and other politicians will either fade away or lead to a dramatic turn of events. It was designed to accuse Syria, to outlaw it from the international community and to make it a military target. I know that the Tribunal has received some new data over the last weeks. Those documents exonerate Syria and put Saudi Arabia in the hot seat. King Abdallah’s takeover of Saudi Arabia and the dismissal of the Ministers who funded the fight against Hezbollah and Hamas must be assessed from this perspective.

Back to the Lebanese general election in June, the question is to know whether the resistance will win by a 55% or a 70% margin. It will mostly depend on the emergence, or not, of a new dividing and diverting Christian movement around President Sleimane. Finally, the collaborators of the United States and Israel might negotiate a compromise while they are still able to do it. So we would move towards the nomination of a billionaire as Prime Minister (Saad Hariri or someone else) heading a government fully controlled by the national resistance. It would be a very Eastern style solution: honors and spotlights for the losers, while the real power would stay in the dark. The advantage of such an approach would be to prevent any military action against Lebanon.

Now you are very famous in Russia where you gathered approximately 30 million viewers during a show about 9/11. How do you perceive the situation in Russia?

Paradoxically, despite the military and diplomatic victory in Georgia, Russia is going through rough times. After the Caucasus war, Anglo Saxon banks pushed the oligarchs to punish Moscow by moving their money to the West. Then, the Anglo Saxons pushed the Ukrainian leaders to betray the national interest and cut off the gas pipe during the price negotiations. The Kremlin, which was believed to have ruled the game and taken the initiative of the cut-offs, got trapped. The loss of two months of revenue has eroded the monetary reserves. The whole affair triggered a terrifying fall of the Ruble, while the global crisis brings down the price for raw materials and therefore the Russian revenues.

Medvedev and Putin have cold-bloodedly assessed this weakness. They know their assets, particularly the technological superiority of their arms industry over the US. They are convinced that the United States won’t survive the crisis, but will dislocate in the middle course like the Warsaw Pact and the USSR between 1989 and 1991. Therefore, they hope to switch roles. Despite the lean times, they’re providing their armies new equipment and they’re waiting without flinching for the fall of the Western world. Publicly or secretly, depending upon the case, they supply all the US enemies with the latest weapons from the Near East, that I mentioned previously, including Venezuela. Economically, they chose to build trade relations with China as much as with Western Europe, observing regretfully its stubborn submission to the Anglo-Saxons.

Such a situation can bear some major consequences within the country, where the old and the new generations are struggling. Old people feel a strong attraction towards the United States while the young ones display a uninhibited patriotism. Paradoxically, Saint Petersburg elites historically favor alliances with Europe, contrary to Muscovites who lean more towards a Eurasiatic vision. Yet Putin and Medvedev, who both are from Saint Petersburg, share this Eurasiatic vision. They dream of Russia as the protector of Islam, their country joined the Organization of the Islamic Conference as an observer. All the while valuing the Orthodox Patriarchate, they nominated Muslims in numerous high ranking positions - the contrast with France is striking. Even if the traumas of the Yugoslavian dismantling and the two Chechen wars remain strong, and that the ensuing wave of racism is not yet under control, Russia has made the choice of civilization and walks the path of the convergence between Europe and Asia.

If Russia manages to go through the coming years of serious international turmoil without being too damaged, it will become the judge of a multipolar world.

Let’s go on with this interesting geopolitical tour and the case of China.

I’m wondering about their strategy. Why do they purchase such quantities of US Treasury bonds? Beijing took the initiative of a rapprochement with Moscow through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Many contentious issues have been solved. In exchange, Russia has accepted to sell energy to China at discounted price and asked for a tighter control of Chinese migration in Siberia. It would have been logical that those two major countries strengthen each other by refusing the international exchange currency status of the dollar. But Beijing is sitting on the fence and doesn’t want to offend Washington. China’s soft strategy amounts to reinforcing its wide ranging alliances. It seems to me a little bit strange. In their foreseeable fall the United States could bring China down.

In passing, allow me to express my irritation about the stupid denunciation of Human Rights breaches in China. Without any possible doubt they are far more respected in Beijing than in Washington - it’s not an excuse to not improve the situation, but it puts those accusations into perspective. And let’s stop pretending that China invaded Tibet in 1956, when the Chinese communists took it back from Tchang Kaï-Chek.

One word about Latin America before going back to France?

Behind the trend to unification, strategies emerged in the face of imperialism. But the weakening of the United States, though the worse is yet to come, creates a new context and might incite some countries to reshuffle their cards. The protection of the national economies is becoming a priority once again. Paradoxically, the States which are under international sanctions are in a better position to withstand the crisis - that’s particularly the case for Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia or Ecuador - like Syria and Iran in the Middle East. Let’s bet that new national institutions will emerge, along the Southern Bank. That’s the revenge of History.

Finally France, or more exactly the France of Sarkozy.

France is an old nation that you can’t maneuver in all directions. It holds a glorious past and it’s identifying itself with an ideal. It often drifts away but it always goes back to it. France is currently going through hard times because it’s governed by the "alien party". Its leaders make the wrong decisions during the worst period of time. They’ve decided to put the French armies under NATO command, namely under the leadership of General Banz Craddock, the criminal who created Guantanamo torture camps. And they opted for this betrayal when the United States was sinking in the crisis. They chose France to be tagged to a sinking boat that might bring it down.

Their submission not only pushes them to subjugate the armies but also to attempt to deeply transform the French society and make it a clone of the US "model". It’s true in the economic field with the challenging of the public services, but also in fields of education, justice or positive discrimination to mention a few. Sarkozy is not a right-wing or a left-wing politician; he’s just imitating the Yankees.

As extensively exposed in an article published in Russia news magazine Profile, he serves three forces: the Anglo-Saxons, the mob and the Rothschild Bank. For years those people have been aware that the United States is running out of steam and they think they will harness the power of the global finance oligarchy by rebalancing the Empire: it would stand on two pillars, a US one and an European one, while the United Kingdom would be the hinge. Nicolas Sarkozy has been striving towards this goal since his election. That’s the reason why he ended the French-German partnership and moved closer to the United Kingdom. That’s also the reason why he proposed various ways to reorganize the European Union, in particular the creation of an economic government. It will make us far more vulnerable to the US convulsions.

Yet France still attracts attention, and not only in the French-speaking world. We are this atypical country which proclaimed the people’s sovereignty. In France, we totally underestimate how ridiculous Nicolas Sarkozy and his clique look in the eyes of the rest of the world. Sarkozy appears like a restless braggart, unstable and full of tics, playing the role of the backseat driver in all possible international conflicts, and bearing the brunt for being the pilot fish of Washington mood swings.

Alas, rebuilding an alternative will take time, but it’s not a reason for giving up.

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