It’s another week in Washington and another horror show. This
time it was Attorney General Jeff Sessions being grilled by Senators on
whether, when, and how he might have met with certain Russians, or any Russian,
or someone who might actually know a Russian. In addition to fishing for any
inconsistency that could be used to support an accusation of obstruction of
justice or perjury – the usual sleazy methodology of politically motivated
investigations here – the transparent aim was to further poison the well on any
possible initiative to improve ties with Moscow.
The
strategy appears to be working. The Russian Embassy in Washington confirms
that for the first time since the Russian Federation’s founding the
State Department did not send pro forma national day greetings.
Perhaps the bureaucrats were afraid they would be tainted and themselves become
targets of multiple investigations into «collusion» with the Kremlin.
(Luckily, this intrepid Washington analyst has
no qualms about such associations.)
Or more
likely, they themselves are part of the Russophobic mob undermining the White
House. It has been reported that soon after the inauguration Trump sought to
open dialogue with the Kremlin and set an early summit with President Vladimir
Putin. This produced a hysterical counteraction from the Deep State. As
reported by conservative columnist and former presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan:
«The State Department was tasked with working out the details.
«Instead, says Daniel Fried, the coordinator for sanctions
policy, he received ‘panicky’ calls of ‘Please, my God, can you stop this?’.
«Operatives at State, disloyal to the president and hostile to
the Russia policy on which he had been elected, collaborated with elements in
Congress to sabotage any detente. They succeeded.
«‘It would have been a win-win for Moscow,’ said Tom Malinowski
of State, who boasted last week of his role in blocking a rapprochement with
Russia. State employees sabotaged one of the principal policies for which
Americans had voted, and they substituted their own».
So much for constitutional government and the rule of law…
But now it gets even worse. This week Congress moved
legislation designed to codify in statute sanctions imposed
on Russia by Barack Obama over Ukraine and evidence-free
charges of Russian election interference. Provisions for a presidential waiver,
which are standard in any sanctions legislation, are unusually narrow.
Congressional proponents are clear that their aim is to take the matter out of
the president’s hands. Democrats, seemingly devoid of any other policy agenda
or ideas, vow to keep banging the Russia drum
through the 2018 Congressional elections.
When all
is said and done, there are lots of reasons the political class hates Trump.
His heresies on immigration and trade are near the top of the list. But make no
mistake: for the Deep State and its mainstream media arm, demonizing Russia and
Vladimir Putin personally is a dangerous obsession. (There is reason to suspect
«Russian collusion» figured in the thinking of a fanatical Leftist’s shooting attack
on Republican Congressmen: «The shooter also signed a petition
calling for an investigation into Trump-Russia ties, confirming he was
radicalized by the mainstream media’s obsession with conspiracy theories about
Russia interfering with the election».)
It remains
to be seen whether Oliver Stone’s extended interview with Putin on
the Showtime network will have any impact. So far the commentary
seems to be divided between descriptions of the substance of the discussion and
attacks on Stone for talking with such a bad, bad man: «Speaking
after the interview, Stone refuted allegations that he became an unwitting
messenger of pro-Putin propaganda or of dishonest information given by the
president».
With regard to substance, relatively little attention has been
accorded in American media to Putin’s flat accusation that U.S. «special
services» have supported terrorists, including in Chechnya. Of course anyone
paying attention would know that arming jihadists is a standard part of U.S.
policy, going back at least to Afghanistan in the 1980s and repeated in Bosnia,
Kosovo, Libya, and today in Syria. Indeed, as early as the 1950s the U.S. had
established a very close relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood and its
terrorist elements as a weapon against Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser and Baathists
in Syria and Iraq, who Washington thought were a little too cozy with the
Soviet Union and far too socialist and secular for the taste of our pals in
Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.
There is a real symbiosis between the anti-Russian imperative in
American foreign policy and support for radical Islamic elements. It did not
end when the Soviet Union and communism collapsed but rather was intensified.
This is why Moscow’s constant calls for a common front against terrorism are
always rebuffed. Such cooperation doesn’t make any sense for
anomenklatura whose number one goal is hostility to Moscow and for whom
jihadists are at worst «frienemies» – people who may be troublesome but useful.
We can only imagine how
completely different the world would be if the U.S. were to recognize that
Russia is a country that in many respects is not that different from the United
States or Europe and that we had common interests. But for the U.S. Deep State,
that would amount to switching sides in a global conflict, where we see
jihadists essentially as «freedom fighters» against a geopolitical adversary.
These same clueless «elites» are then puzzled when their carefully nurtured,
cuddly, «moderate» jihad terrorists attack us back here at home.
This
irrational pattern is at the root of the hostility of American policymakers
toward Russia and any prospect of normalizing bilateral ties. In large part,
it’s what underlies the «soft coup» being directed against Trump, of which the
Sessions pillorying was an episode. (A late report based on unreliable, unverified
sources suggests that Special Counsel on the Russia probe,
Robert Mueller, is expanding his investigation to include potential obstruction
of justice by President Donald Trump. Mueller, a close personal friend of
ousted FBI Director James Comey, has already packed his team with
partisan Democrats.)
Those
behind this attempted coup think we can continue to treat Russia as though it
were a minor power of the magnitude of Serbia, Iraq, Libya, or Syria, or even
Iran. They think if we just keep pushing, pushing, pushing, either the Russians
will collapse or back down. They will do everything possible to box Trump in
and prevent him from pursuing any path other than the disastrous course laid
out by Bill Clinton, George Bush, and Barack Obama. They can see no other
outcome than removing Putin and returning Russia to the condition of a
Yeltsin-era vassal state – a term Putin used in the Stone interview – or,
better yet, its territorial breakup along the lines suggested by the late Zbigniew
Brzezinski.
Will the Oliver Stone interview change any minds? It’s too soon
to tell. But if the soft coup against
Trump succeeds, it might not matter, since then America could not be considered
a self-governing constitutional republic even in a residual sense. We may have
already passed our own Rubicon and just don’t know it yet.
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2017 Strategic Culture Foundation | Republishing is welcomed with reference to
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