West Will Lose Power But Will Leave Mess Before Giving Up

West Will Lose Power But Will Leave Mess Before Giving Up

                                                                                Saeed Naqvi

President James Monroe must have turned in his grave at the Monroe doctrine, named after him being desecrated by rank outside powers, China and Russia. The two are standing four square behind Venezuela strongman Nicolas Maduro even as the US is embarked, for the umpteenth time, on an audacious regime change operation in Caracas. Monroe doctrine was designed to keep outside powers from what the US considers its backyard.

Prof. Jeffery Sachs of Columbia describes the developing tension around Venezuela as a “turning point in international affairs that will reverberate through Washington, Latin America and indeed across the global stage.”

“Caracas has opened its doors to Beijing, Moscow and New Delhi, finding in them not just as buyers of oil but also shields against economic warfare.” The mention of New Delhi in his appraisal is intriguing.

Four days ago, US sank two Venezuelan ships allegedly ferrying narcotics, a charge denied by Caracas. Prof. Richard Wolf of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, has joined the rising chorus in support of Venezuela.

The CIA, Britain’s MI6 and Israel’s Mossad have, over decades of practice, mastered regime change operation but they have hit a rock: they failed to dethrone Hugo Chavez and now his successor, Maduro.

In desperation, they innovated. Instead of going through a two-stroke operation i.e. first removing Maduro and then installing someone of their choice in Caracas, they experimented with a new formula: simply ignore Maduro and anoint 41 year Juan Guaido as President recognized by Washington. By this amazing sleight of hands an “authoritarian” leader will have been replaced by a “democratic” one.

For months and years poor Juan Guaido lived in save houses in Caracas and Columbia, waited in corridors of power in Washington. Not for the first time the world’s most powerful nation ignored the elementary lesson: there are limits to all power.

Limits to power or not, Juan Guaido, his eye on the main chance, has a CV more impressive than it might have been before his Presidential talents were noticed by Washington. Juan Guaido’s CV describes him as ex-President Venezuela (2019-2023). You will notice, he had bipartition support; he was the apple of Trump’s eye as well as Joe Biden’s.

 

Heaven knows where Guaido is hiding, but no sooner had the democracy enthusiasts in Washington developed amnesia about the Guaido initiative, the agencies were at it again.

 

Last year, Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp told Parliament that Venezuela opposition leader Edmundo Gonzales had sought refuge in the Dutch embassy in Caracas, another casualty of Presidential aspirations stoked by Washington.

 

Trump’s National Security Adviser in his first term, John Bolton while in that office salivated on Venezuela. He wanted a full fledged invasion. Trump’s Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson was another great votary of the Monroe doctrine. “Monroe doctrine is alive and kicking” he thundered when a reporter questioned its validity today.

 

Discussing the subject with officers in the state department, Trump’s shifting stand on issues came up for mention. “The President”, he thumped the table, “is a moron.”

 

How is Trump likely to respond to the double fisted punch China and Russia have landed on his chin.

 

On the face of it, his style remains the same. Americans vacated Afghanistan, including the Bagram air base. Trump suddenly has a revived interest in Bagram. He wants the Taleban government to give it back to him. Otherwise, “very bad things will happen.”

 

The new warmth in friendship with Pakistan may well have an Afghan dimension. Who knows, unexplored rare earth deposits in Balochistan may be in focus in addition to much else.

 

Alliances splintering, new business vistas opening are all symptoms of a settled order mutating into something else.

 

Among the incidents of note in the recent past was Field Marshal Asim Munir lunch at the White House even though Trump knew how this gesture would register with Narendra Modi. Soon Pakistan was in global high profile again having signed an agreement with Saudi Arabia. Riyadh possibly comes under Pakistan’s nuclear umbrella to meet the threat from Israel, an unlikely scenario though.

 

Tehran is unlikely to have sleepless nights on this score. Beijing has already arranged for Riyadh and Tehran to reduce hostile perceptions of each other.

 

Events in Africa have for a long time indicated a shift in global equations. Burkina Faso’s Ibrahim Traore has struck a unique deal with Pakistan: a fleet of jets, tanks, naval equipments based on Chinese technology will be built in Burkina Faso. At the outset of the Ukraine war Macron was the most vocal on Russia: Europe must talk to Putin. But as soon as Russian interests advanced in former French colonies, Macron lined up with the European consensus hostile to Putin.

 

Macron was among the first to grasp the implications of not just the outcome of Ukraine war but also of Israel-Palestinian mega eruption. Russian troops moved into Ukraine on February 24, 2022. In September of that year Macron assembled all his diplomats, the Armed Forces and senior bureaucracy and showed them the writing on the wall as he saw it then. “Over 400 years of western domination of world affairs was coming to an end.”

 

Prof. Grahame Allison’s study “the Thucydides trap” is being cited. Peloponnesian wars authored by the Greek historian concludes that Athens rise created such insecurities in Sparta that war became inevitable. Is it inevitable that China’s rise and the West’s decline must lead to war? The war between Sparta and Athens was a conventional military and naval engagement.

 

Allison, whose earlier work, Essence of Decision, a study of decision making during the Cuban missile crisis, is considered a classic. In his latest study he has taken 15 historical case studies since the 16^th century.

 

Examples like Germany’s rise to power: this challenged British dominance. The interplay was one of the reasons of World War I. The abundance of nuclear weapons makes the present situation unique to be assessed in the framework of the great Greek historian. Will the West commit suicide to remain on top?

 

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