{"id":190576,"date":"2015-10-12T01:24:12","date_gmt":"2015-10-12T01:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=190576"},"modified":"2016-11-30T01:50:56","modified_gmt":"2016-11-30T00:50:56","slug":"russia-supplants-u-s-in-global-war-against-jihadists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/russia-supplants-u-s-in-global-war-against-jihadists\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia Supplants U.S. in Global War Against Jihadists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Eric Zuesse<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">A meeting between Russia\u2019s Vladimir Putin and Saudi Arabia\u2019s Defence Minister Prince Mohammed bin Salman (son of King Salman) ended on early Monday, October 12th. Agence France-Presse headlined <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ndtv.com\/world-news\/vladimir-putin-meets-saudi-prince-on-political-solution-in-syria-1230952\"><span class=\"s2\">\u201cVladimir Putin Meets Saudi Prince on &#8216;Political Solution&#8217; in Syria,\u201d<\/span><\/a> and reported that, whereas the son of the Sunni fundamentalist Saudi King says that his father still insists on removing the Shiite secularist leader Bashar al-Assad from power in Syria and on ending Syria\u2019s alliance with Shiite Iran, Prince Salman said that the Saudi King is \u201cin favour of a political solution in Syria.\u201d Russia\u2019s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was more forward in his statement about the meeting. He said: \u201cThe two parties confirmed that Saudi Arabia and Russia have similar objectives when it comes to Syria. Above all, it is to not let a terrorist caliphate take over the country.\u201d Nothing was quoted from the Saudi side about any such opposition to \u2018a terrorist caliphate,\u2019 however; <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/al-qaedas-bookkeeper-spills-beans\/\"><span class=\"s2\">the Sauds have been the chief financial backers of Islamic jihad<\/span><\/a>. (And <a href=\"http:\/\/off-guardian.org\/2015\/10\/12\/syria-moderate-rebels-in-idlib-call-for-strict-religious-modesty-in-dress-for-women\/\"><span class=\"s2\">here is what their followers in Syria are actually like<\/span><\/a>.) However, the fact that the Saudi King sent his son to Russia to negotiate with Putin about Syria is yet another indication that the key player in settling the Syrian civil war is now Putin, not at all U.S. President Barack Obama.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The highly reliable German news-source, <i>Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten<\/i> (DWN), headlined on October 11th (translated here as) <a href=\"http:\/\/deutsche-wirtschafts-nachrichten.de\/2015\/10\/11\/ohne-die-usa-russland-und-iran-uebernehmen-fuehrungsrolle-im-irak\/\"><span class=\"s2\">\u201cRussia and Iran Assume Leadership Role in Iraq, without the U.S.,\u201d<\/span><\/a> and reported that Russia has, upon the request of the Iraqi government, already gone beyond its anti-jihadist operation in Syria, and has \u201cextended the fight against terrorism into Iraq, with the express permission of the Iraqi government.\u201d DWN goes on to say, \u201cIn early October, the Iraqi government gave a free hand to Russia to extend the attacks against ISIS into Iraqi territory. One of the conditions for this was prior coordination of the air strikes with Iraq\u2019s government.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">That is the same arrangement Russia has had, since the end of September, with the Syrian government. And, so, a Joint Intelligence Coordination Center (JICC) was established by Russia in Baghdad. This was announced on September 29th, when <a href=\"http:\/\/mobile.reuters.com\/article\/worldNews\/idUSKCN0RT14T20150929\"><span class=\"s2\">Reuters reported<\/span><\/a> that, \u201cKremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said \u2026 an information center was being established in Baghdad to share information between Russia, Iran, Iraq and Syria. Russia has also agreed a separate such mechanism with Israel.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Israel too is therefore also recognizing the handwriting on the wall, the switch from the U.S. to Russia, and is doing what it must to defeat ISIS; it\u2019s joining behind Russia\u2019s leadership in the effort. However, because of Israel\u2019s hostile relationships with the other non-Russian members of the JICC, Russia has agreed to wall-off, or separate entirely, Israel\u2019s Russian alliance, from the other nations\u2019 Russian alliance. Russia is in a position to do this, because Russia, with its space-satellites and its other global intelligence-gathering assets, is at the hub-position on this entire intelligence gathering wheel about Syria. All of the other nations that are participating trust Vladimir Putin\u2019s intelligence operation, to keep each participant\u2019s shared interests in defeating jihadists, separated from all other issues within the Russian alliance. The alliance with Russia will thus not affect their respective unrelated security-interests. This is in Russia\u2019s interests, because it maximally empowers Russia to crush the Saudis\u2019 international jihadist operation, an operation that started when the U.S. and its long-time ally the Saud family, were joined together by Zbigniew Brzezinski of the U.S. Jimmy Carter Administration, to crush the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, by funding, training, and arming, \u201cmujahideen\u201d or fundamentalist Wahhabist Sunni (that is, Saudi) fighters to go there to kill <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Babrak_Karmal\"><span class=\"s2\">supporters of the pro-Soviet government and other secular or non-Sunni influences there<\/span><\/a>. The Sauds\u2019 main competitor in the international oil-markets has been the leading former Soviet country, Russia. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The U.S.-Saudi alliance began in earnest in 1945, when the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Cold War was just starting; and it has continued after the U.S.S.R.\u2019s breakup, because Western oil companies and Sunni Arabic aristocrats (led by the Sauds, who had granted the Rockefellers\u2019 oil companies the exploration-rights there) wanted the Cold War to continue even after Soviet Communism and the Soviet Union ended. This conflict is also a Western war against Shiite-majority nations, because the Sauds\u2019 imperial ambitions are specifically jihad for a restoration of the Sunni Caliphpate but on a global level; and this is specifically the Saudi Wahhabist Salafist, the most aggressively fundamentalist, form of Sunni Islam. For examples: Al Qaeda, ISIS, and the Taliban, are all Wahhabist Salafist Muslims, and all have been <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/al-qaedas-bookkeeper-spills-beans\/\"><span class=\"s2\">funded mainly by Saudi royals<\/span><\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The U.S. had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=d4lf0RT72iw\"><span class=\"s2\">started, in 1979, late in Jimmy Carter\u2019s Administration, to arm the Saudi \u2018mujahideen\u2019 fighters who then were coming into Afghanistan to overthrow the pro-Soviet government there<\/span><\/a>, so as to lure the Soviets into invading Afghanistan. \u201cI wrote to President Carter, essentially: \u2018We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war\u2019,\u201d Carter\u2019s National Security Adviser, David Rockefeller\u2019s prot\u00c3\u00a9g\u00c3\u00a9e (and co-Founder along with Rockefeller, of the Trilateral Commission) Brzezinski, said in <a href=\"http:\/\/dgibbs.faculty.arizona.edu\/brzezinski_interview\"><span class=\"s2\">a 1998 interview<\/span><\/a>. After Brzezinski had succeeded at that, and the Soviet Union and its communism ended, Brzezinski has continued to advise American Presidents on what he sees as constituting the need now, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonsblog.com\/2015\/03\/democrat-brzezinski-says-russias-putin-wants-invade-nato.html\"><span class=\"s2\">to defeat Russia<\/span><\/a> \u2013 a \u2018need\u2019 that U.S. President Barack Obama has strongly endorsed, such as by officially designating Russia as being <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/obamas-new-national-security-strategy-rabidly-anti-russian\/\"><span class=\"s2\">by far the most \u201caggressive\u201d nation of all<\/span><\/a>. (Lots more \u2018aggressive,\u2019 for example, than the U.S.)<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">DWN continues: \u201cSources close to the Iraqi armed forces leadership give the current mood in the Iraqi security forces: The Russian air strikes against ISIS produced in the first week alone, more success than those of the US-led alliance in the entire last year. The establishment of a joint [Iraqi-Syrian-Iranian-Russian] intelligence-gathering center in Baghdad [the Joint Intelligence Coordination Center, or \u2018JICC\u2019] is therefore an expression of disappointed Iraqi expectations regarding the United States. \u2026 So, the US has announced that it will restrict the exchange of information with Iraq\u2019s security forces.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">In other words: Iraq is, in a sense, switching from the U.S. side to the Russian side, in America\u2019s resumption of its Cold War against the Soviet Union (but this time being waged by America against Russia alone).<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s3\">On October 10th, Iran\u2019s PressTV bannered, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.presstv.com\/Detail\/2015\/10\/10\/432800\/US-warship-Persian-Gulf\"><span class=\"s4\">\u201cUS pulls aircraft carrier out of Persian Gulf as Russian ships enter,\u201d<\/span><\/a> and reported:<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>The United States has pulled the USS Theodore Roosevelt \u2014 a massive, nuclear-powered aircraft carrier \u2014 out of the Persian Gulf as Russian warships have entered the area. <span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>For the first time since 2007, the US Navy has now no aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf, according to NBC News.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>The warship was withdrawn from the Persian Gulf on Thursday, a day after Russia fired 26 long-range cruise missiles from its Caspian Flotilla against terrorists in Syria, Pentagon officials said. <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>US military officials claimed that the aircraft carrier, which houses about 5,000 sailors and 65 fighter jets, was withdrawn because it needed to undergo maintenance.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">On October 3rd, I had headlined <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/the-western-alliance-is-crumbling\/\"><span class=\"s2\">\u201cThe Western Alliance Is Crumbling,\u201d<\/span><\/a> and explained how the Obama Administration\u2019s bombing campaigns in 2011 in pro-Russian Libya, and in 2013 in pro-Russian Syria, had created so many refugees now pouring into Europe, that it has ended up precipitating the end of the American Century, and the start of the end of the American empire, which had been rationalized until the breakup of the Soviet Union and the end of communism there, as having been instead an ideological conflict, but now is clearly exposed as having been and as still being actually an attempt to extend the American Empire (the \u201cWestern Alliance,\u201d The Atlantic Council, NATO, CENTCOM), not only up to Russia\u2019s borders, but into Russia itself, the juiciest natural-resources prize of all. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Obama therefore won\u2019t likely now be able to deliver, to his financial backers, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonsblog.com\/2014\/06\/ukraines-civil-war-global-historical-importance.html\"><span class=\"s2\">Russia and its resources<\/span><\/a>, such as he had been hoping to achieve in his second term \u2013 to start privatizing Russia\u2019s oil and other natural resources to America\u2019s aristocrats. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Perhaps his <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Barack_Obama_Presidential_Center\"><span class=\"s2\">Barack Obama Presidential Center<\/span><\/a> won\u2019t be quite as palatial as he has been hoping. Perhaps far fewer people will have to die now in order to get it up and running. Perhaps the U.S. and Saudi aristocracies won\u2019t go to nuclear war against Russia, after all. Perhaps NATO, which should have ended when the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact did, in 1991, will now soon end.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\"><span class=\"s6\">Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Theyre-Not-Even-Close-Democratic\/dp\/1880026090\/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1339027537&amp;sr=8-9\"><span class=\"s5\"><i>They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/span><\/a><i>,<\/i> and of <i>\u00a0<\/i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B007Q1H4EG\"><span class=\"s5\"><i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eric Zuesse A meeting between Russia\u2019s Vladimir Putin and Saudi Arabia\u2019s Defence Minister Prince Mohammed bin Salman (son of King Salman) ended on early Monday, October 12th. Agence France-Presse headlined \u201cVladimir Putin Meets Saudi Prince on &#8216;Political Solution&#8217; in Syria,\u201d and reported that, whereas the son of the Sunni fundamentalist Saudi King says that his [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":143627,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,461],"tags":[115,30,1036,96,535,38,59,1023,543,524,754,49,76,40,1024],"class_list":{"0":"post-190576","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-editorials","9":"tag-barack-obama","10":"tag-big-brother","11":"tag-breaking-news","12":"tag-cover-up","13":"tag-global-news","14":"tag-iraq","15":"tag-military","16":"tag-nuclear","17":"tag-putin","18":"tag-russia","19":"tag-syria","20":"tag-usa-news","21":"tag-warfare","22":"tag-white-house","23":"tag-ww3"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}