Lavrov: Not Russia alone, Europe too is US target.
The spectacle of
the US fleeing Afghanistan in August 2021 became the inflection point for a
changing world order. This was followed
by Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin signing a historic document in Beijing on
February 4, announcing a “friendship with no limits”, .further confirming the
trend.
The earth was
spinning on its axis like a potter’s wheel. A new order was taking shape. The
west had to take action, provoking what would be advertised as Russia’s “unprovoked”
invasion of Ukraine.
The change in
world order entailed gains and losses in global stature. The west, led by the
US would, sooner or later lose its hegemony. The instruments it had developed
to advance its control of the world order would now be employed to arrest its
decline – accelerating expansion of
NATO, eastward.
NATO’s first
Secretary General, Lord Hastings Ismay had outlined the purposes of the
Military Alliance most succinctly : to keep the Soviet Union out of Europe, the
Americans in and the Germans down. In a most lucid opening statement before the
media on European security issues, Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov made
good use of the Ismay quote to explain his understanding of the Ukraine
conflict.
“What is
happening now is nothing short of returning to the Alliance’s conceptual
priorities from 73 years ago”. He repeated for emphasis: “Nothing has changed”.
Infact, NATO is determined to keep the Russians ‘out; while the American dream
of keeping not only the Germans but the whole of Europe “down”. Lavrov was
particularly severe : the US has infact already enslaved the entire European
Union”.
Since Germany
was on the opposite side of the Allies during the two world wars, a degree of anti
German prejudice was passed on everywhere
even to our schools in the former colonies. India was the principal one among these.
A great deal of the prejudice was drawn from war movies, of great escapes,
clever spies, in each one of which the Germans were the butt of malicious humour.
During the cold
war, Germany receded as an issue but surfaced again once the Soviet Union
collapsed in 1991-92. What was the need for NATO now? During a visit to
Finland, Mrs Thatcher was pointedly asked : “The Soviet Union no longer exists,
what then is the need for NATO and for Britain’s nuclear arsenal”?
“We still have a
problem in the Middle East”, she snapped back. Informed circles in London and Washington
had begun to touch on the German question in a new context. The collapse of the
Soviet Union was cause for celebrations in the west, ofcourse, but the fall of
the Berlin wall had caused the west to take note alarmingly of a reunified
Germany.
A reunified
Germany may be tempted to seek a greater role in the post Soviet World order.
This idea must not be allowed to germinates. It was to nip it in the bud that Operation
Desert storm was conceived and launched in 1991. It was ostensibly to free
Kuwait which Saddam Husain had occupied. Had he misread a signal from April Gilespie,
the US Ambassador in Baghdad?
A key event (or
non event ) cited as one of the causes of Operation Desert Storm is to this day
shrouded in mystery. In a routine conversation with Gilespie, Saddam Husain
complained of Kuwait encroaching on Iraqi oil bearing land. Wikileaks has made
public the memo ambassador Gilespie sent to the state department based on her
conversation with Saddam Husain. “The US government takes no position on Iraq’s
border dispute with Kuwait”. This much is on record. Was Saddam guilty of
having moved into Kuwait assuming that the “US took no position” on the
dispute?
It turns out
that it was not a story relevant to West Asia alone, Mrs Thatcher and President
George Bush Senior drummed up an International Coalition of the Willing to oust
Saddam out of Kuwait. With Soviets out of the way,it was said then, wars would now
not be between the West and East.They would be between North and South. Is
Ukraine an exception?
President Mitterand
of France who probably understood the real game, initially refused to be part
of the “coalition” which was being dilegently put together by the two Anglo-Saxon
cousins separated by the Atlantic Ocean.
In Baghdad I
realized how Mitterand had gauged the “coalition’s” intentions right. During military action there
were two separate briefings – one for American journalists and another for
British.The rest of the world press twiddled its thumb on the margins of action.
The other key
instrument the west was to use to control the post Soviet World order was inaugurated in Baghdad. It was the global media, exactly the one that
has been brazenly used since the beginning of the Ukraine war.
Peter Arnett of
the CNN beamed from the terrace of the Al Rashied Hotel a war in real time. This
was the first time that a war was brought live into the world’s drawing rooms. This
was to become a great resource for
mobilizing public opinion across the globe.
Let me end with
Lavrov’s perspective on the origins of the conflict.
“ In 1990, at
the closing stage of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe Summit
in Paris, US Secretary of State James Baker warned the US President that the CSCE
might pose a threat to NATO. It revealed the US mind set, says Lavrov.
By persisting
with NATO expansion from 16 to 32 states James Baker’s intellectual descendents
are averse to anything resembling the CSCE becoming a genuine bridge between
East and West. The pursuit is for war to avert the end of western hegemony.
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