US Foreign Policy and Diplomacy under Joe Biden

Niger Military says they should keep their aid and give it to their millions of Homeless people in the United States of America. Charity begins at home

Hahaha... that is so funny... and so rare... because normally most people cannot refuse free money, but these guys obviously realise the cost of the free money is to remain poor and remain a colony of the west... that aid is not charity, it is chains around your foreign policy and your future.

(Should add that most US aide is more like gift vouchers that can expire at any time, but have to be used in their store on their products only and normally involve having to buy military weapons they want to sell to you... and the costs of maintenance and operational costs often dwarf the original sum of the aide. I remember a country getting hundreds of Huey helicopters but they were all worn out and it cost them a fortune to get them up to airworthy levels... money they had to spend with US companies who made a fortune. I seem to remember they only put a small fraction into service and used the rest for parts.)

They say don't look a gift horse in the mouth, well if it is going to cost you more than it is worth then you should.

The Western spin is that “most G20 countries” wanted to condemn Russia in Ukraine. Nonsense. Diplomatic sources hinted it might be in fact a 50/50 split. Condemnation comes from Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, UK, US and EU. Non-condemnation from Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkiye and, of course, Russia.

Graphically: Global South against Global North.

But the divide is not really north and south... Russia and China and Turkey are not south and Australia is not north... the reality is that it is the colonial west or fully colonised so Europe and Japan/SK/Canada/US/Australia vs the rest of the world.

The world doesn't benefit when you have a small minority super rich and everyone else scrambling in the dust for enough to survive... we do need to get rid of the consumer society and start making things to last and to make things more reusable, but we also need to work so that everyone can enjoy their lives and not just work themselves to death for the factory owner to have a comfortable life.

https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/video-after-biden-calls-xi-a-dictator-blinkens-reaction-4581880

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reacted with a flinch and a disapproving shake of the head when President Joe Biden went off the script to describe his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping as a "dictator".

A video of Blinken flinching on camera at the usage of the word has now gone viral on social media.

And you can tell is that he is thinking... "Biden, you fucking idiot... we are trying to suck up to them at the moment, why are you offending him to his face... you know we only do that behind his back and to all our friends..."

Western diplomacy is complex... and evil.

Biden's muscle flexing will destabilize the entire Middle East by Andrey Rezchikov for VZGLYAD. 02.03.2024.

US retaliation strike on Syria and Iraq threatens with unpredictable consequences.

The United States attacked dozens of targets in Iraq and Syria. This is how Washington responded to the drone attack on a US base in Jordan and the death of several soldiers. The retaliation operation has already led to a new attack on a US base in Syria. According to experts, the United States miscalculated its operation and is unleashing a large-scale conflict throughout the Middle East to its detriment. Each of their attacks will provoke a reaction from the Shiite military formations.

On Saturday night, the United States launched missile and bomb attacks on more than 85 targets in Iraq and Syria within half an hour . In total, seven targets were attacked - three of them are in Iraq, four in Syria. The infrastructure of the Quds Force of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and associated Shiite militia groups was being destroyed, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said.

In particular, the bombing was carried out in eastern Syria and in the area of ​​the village of Al-Qaim in western Iraq. Iraqi army spokesman Yahya Rasoul said areas along the border with Syria were also under fire. He stressed that the strikes "represent a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and undermine the efforts of the Iraqi government, creating a threat that will drag Iraq and the region toward undesirable consequences."

Among the targets hit, the Americans name command posts, intelligence centers, storage facilities for missiles, drones, weapons and other facilities for the logistics of ammunition for the IRGC and its allies. In addition, according to AFP, the headquarters of the command of the Shiite militia forces could have been hit.

The military used 125 precision-guided munitions and "numerous aircraft, including B-1 long-range bombers," took part in the operation. Aircraft from the Royal Jordanian Air Force also joined the raid. Thus, Amman “demonstrated solidarity with Washington.”

“Our response began today. It will continue when and where we choose. The United States does not seek conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world,” said US President Joe Biden, who ordered the retaliation operation.

Washington is seeking revenge for the January 28 attack by an unidentified drone on the US base Tower 22 in northern Jordan. The strike killed three American soldiers and injured more than 40 people. The attack was the first since the war between Israel and Hamas began last fall. The facility, which is located near the demilitarized zone on the border between Jordan and Syria, is home to about 350 U.S. troops. The border with Iraq is 10 kilometres away.

Iran denies any involvement in the attack. According to the White House, the drone was launched from Iraq by pro-Iranian militants and the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a broad coalition of Iran-backed Shiite militias, was responsible for the attack.

Biden made the decision to attack after consulting with his advisers on January 30. The priority was to choose a response option that would not lead to an escalation of the conflict. The strikes came just hours after Biden joined relatives of fallen service members in a memorial ceremony at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for the remains of three Army Reserve soldiers.

In turn, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin also assured that this is only “the beginning of our response” and the president has ordered additional actions.

Iranian-backed militia groups have carried out 166 attacks on US military targets since October 18 last year, including 67 in Iraq, 98 in Syria and one in Jordan, according to a US military official. The latest attack occurred on January 29 at the Ain al-Asad airbase in Iraq, without casualties or damage.

White House Strategic Communications Coordinator John Kirby said the United States considered the retaliatory strikes a success. They, the official explained, are trying to send a signal that attacks against the US military “must stop.” Kirby also noted that the targets "were carefully selected to avoid civilian casualties and were based on clear, compelling evidence that they were associated with attacks on U.S. personnel in the region."

The US strikes have caused serious concern to the European Union, which assesses the situation in the Middle East as critical and fears it will get out of control. “We always repeat that the Middle East is a cauldron that can explode at any moment,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Saturday morning. “We call on everyone to de-escalate, we are experiencing a critical situation.”

The day before, Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi confirmed Tehran's promises to potentially respond to any US strikes. We "will not start a war, but if some country, a brutal force, wants to intimidate us, the Islamic Republic of Iran will give a decisive response," he warned. On Saturday morning, it became known about a rocket attack on an American base at the Koniko gas field in the Syrian province of Deir ez-Zor.

According to CNN sources, the US will continue the bombing in several stages. At the same time, Washington still does not plan to attack targets in Iran in order to avoid a “huge escalation.”

One of the deciding factors in the timing of the operation was clear weather, as the US wanted to ensure it was hitting the “right targets” and avoiding civilian casualties. But after the strikes, reports of casualties began to emerge. According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 18 members of pro-Iranian groups have been killed in Syria.

The Syrian Defense Ministry reported damage to public and private property, as well as deaths and injuries among civilians and military personnel, without providing preliminary data on casualties. The command of the Shiite militia Al-Hashd al-Shaabi reported the death of 16 people and another 25 injured in the border areas of Iraq.

Experts are talking about an inevitable escalation of the conflict in the Middle East, despite the fact that neither side is interested in this.

“Both Iran and the United States are against the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East. Tehran was even ready to be the first to de-escalate. Hezbollah has already announced that it will stop attacks on American targets. But I think the attacks will continue,” says Kirill Semenov, an orientalist and expert at the Russian International Affairs Council.

The expert explained why the United States refused to bomb targets in Iran and decided to attack forces allied to Tehran in Iraq and Syria. “The American base Tower 22 was attacked not by Iranian forces, but by the so-called Islamic Resistance in Iraq, which is also based in Syria. Secondly, a strike on Iran would lead to a major escalation, because then Tehran would immediately retaliate against US bases in the Middle East. Iran has many goals for a possible response; objects in Israel could be attacked,” Semenov explained.

According to the expert’s forecast, there will be no increase in the intensity of the conflict, but if American bases in the region continue to be attacked, the United States will respond to them with missile and bomb airstrikes. “The Americans themselves oppose the escalation of the conflict. Biden warned in advance about the strikes, so the Iranians managed to withdraw their advisers from those bases that could become a likely target of attacks, and pro-Iranian formations also left from there,” Semenov noted.

“Iran had absolutely nothing to do with the attack on Tower 22 because the Shiite units, by and large, do not answer to Iran. They, of course, rely on the support of Tehran, but nothing more. Field commanders make decisions. The Americans understand this, so they had nothing against Iran except words,” said Viktor Nadein-Raevsky, senior researcher at IMEMO RAS.

“The US strikes will lead to the fact that each of the groups, each of the affected units of the Shiite organizations will begin to take revenge and launch retaliatory strikes. Pandora's box is open.

This is how it is accepted and has never been any other way,” the interlocutor continued. – When the Americans planned the strikes, apparently they did not fully calculate the response. That is, a big war has been unleashed against the Shiites throughout almost the entire Middle East.”

According to the expert’s forecast, the Yemeni Houthis will join the Shiite revenge, “the scale of revenge will depend on the weapons at their disposal.”

The Houthis, thanks to Iran, have modern long-range precision missiles, these are not Hamas rockets made from water pipes. And drones are produced locally by almost all militant Shiite organizations... That is, US attempts at pure force are counterproductive, they will provoke additional attacks on American bases, and there are plenty of them in the Middle East, primarily in the Persian Gulf countries,” the orientalist added.

According to the speaker, attacks on American bases can only be stopped after the Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip ends. “Everything can be resolved very simply - the cause itself must be eliminated. But the Americans are not yet going to eliminate it. There are rumors of an agreement on a long ceasefire with Hamas. This is perhaps the only possible way to stop the large-scale spread of the conflict throughout the entire Middle East,” the expert concluded.

https://vz.ru/world/2024/2/3/1251680.html

Sergey Strokan: Is this the real reason why Victoria Nuland quit?, by Sergey Strokan, Kommersant columnist. 03.08.2024.

Biden and Blinken chose a China hater over their chief Russophobe. This may have pushed her over the edge.

The forthcoming resignation of US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland has given rise to various theories as to the reason for her unexpected departure from the State Department. Moscow believes it’s due to the failure of the “anti-Russian course” and of the overall American “Ukrainian project.” As well as that, eyes in Washington are turning to the nomination of Kurt Campbell, currently responsible for Indo-Pacific policy, to the role of second-ranking official in the State Department. The media and analysts interpret this as evidence that Asia is becoming Washington’s top priority against the backdrop of declining US interest in Ukraine.

Nuland’s announcement came as a surprise to many. The veteran US diplomat, who played an active part in the 2014 Maidan events in Ukraine, is remembered not only for handing out cookies in Kiev, but also for her involvement in major international crises and conflicts in recent decades.

Her record of more than 35 years at the US State Department under various administrations looks more impressive than the CV of the current secretary of state, Mr Blinken. On Tuesday, Blinken himself rushed to pay tribute to Nuland’s achievements and solemnly escorted her out of the State Department and straight into the history and diplomacy books. Recalling that she had served under six presidents and ten secretaries of state, Blinken argued that in her last post in the Joe Biden administration she had embodied the desire to restore “America’s global leadership.”

The head of the State Department paid special attention to the role played by Nuland in the formation of the anti-Russia coalition after the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, calling her efforts indispensable, and saying they will be studied by future diplomats and students.

The main task that Nuland has been working on in recent years, he said, was the “strategic defeat” of Russia and helping Ukraine “to stand on its own feet democratically, economically and militarily.” But despite all her experience and influence, it seems Blinken didn’t try to dissuade her from resigning.

The news triggered an avalanche of reactions from leading Russian politicians, diplomats, experts and the media.

According to Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, Nuland was forced to resign because of the failure of Biden’s course on Russia.

“This is a failure of the policy associated with Nuland, because she was the central figure who pursued a Russophobic policy towards our country, the whole story was tied to Nuland,” Zakharova said. According to her, the outgoing US deputy secretary of state was “not just a high-ranking representative of the State Department, but a key figure in US interagency cooperation.”

“She was a coordinator of anti-Russian sentiment and anti-Russian policy by the United States, especially in the context of Ukraine. I can’t say that she was an ideologue. There are people out there who hate us more, but she really was a coordinator, she is associated with that policy. And that is how they said goodbye to her,” the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said.

Meanwhile, a theory has emerged in Washington that Nuland’s resignation was the result of a power struggle in which she lost the race for the post of first deputy foreign policy chief.

Some pundits see a battle of narratives, with behind-the-scenes jockeying of personalities. All part of a dispute over the long-term shape of US foreign policy and its priorities.

It should be recalled that after Wendy Sherman resigned last summer as US deputy secretary of state, her duties were carried out for six months by Nuland. At the end of last year, however, the White House made the unexpected decision to nominate Campbell, another veteran of American diplomacy, for the second post in the diplomatic service. Campbell, who does not have as big a name in the diplomatic world as Nuland, has made his career not in the Euro-Atlantic but in the Indo-Pacific region.

“Ms. Nuland was considered the natural candidate to replace Ms. Sherman on a permanent basis. But Mr Blinken nominated Kurt Campbell, the former National Security Council representative for Asia,” the New York Times commented on the reshuffle. James Carden, a former US State Department official, told RIA Novosti: “I was actually surprised that she lasted as long as she did. I realised her time was up when Kurt Campbell got the second-ranked job at the department.” In a Senate vote on 6 February, his nomination received broad bipartisan support: 92 senators voted in favour, with five voting against.

“President Biden’s choice of Kurt Campbell signals a desire to continue the efforts begun by his predecessors decades ago to shift the focus of US foreign policy to China as the major challenge facing America in the future,” AP commented on the reshuffle.

“Kurt Campbell played a key role in developing President Barack Obama’s ‘pivot to Asia’ into President Biden’s Indo-Pacific strategy,” Yuri Tavrovsky, chairman of the expert council of the Russian-Chinese Friendship, Peace and Development Committee, told Kommersant.

“In practical terms, he was particularly active in the creation of the anti-Chinese military bloc AUKUS (Australia, the UK and the US) and in strengthening the military component of the QUAD group (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue - Australia, India, the US and Japan,” Tavrovsky said. “The appointment of Campbell to the second-highest post in the State Department demonstrates the White House’s long-term course of containing China, despite words and gestures that look like a desire for reconciliation.”

Thus, according to Mr Tavrovsky, “the second place in the State Department went not to the greatest hater of Russia, but to the greatest hater of China.”

https://www.rt.com/news/593959-why-victoria-nuland-quit/

So they are shifting focus from one failing strategy to a different failing strategy... what they should have come up with was changing to be something more like BRICS, but BRICS was created in response to the G7 and the old boys club that is the west that the rest of the world can't get into.

The intelligence officer revealed unexpected details of Nuland's resignation, 03.09.2024.

Ritter: Nuland resigns due to disagreements with White House over Ukraine.

MOSCOW, March 9 – RIA Novosti. US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland is leaving her post due to fundamental disagreements with the White House's policy on Ukraine, former US military intelligence officer Scott Ritter said on the YouTube channel Ask The Inspector .
“She was called on the carpet and told to stop or, if she couldn’t do it, to resign. She resigned. Her vision of how we should act regarding Ukraine no longer corresponds to reality, even the Biden administration has begun to understand this”, he noted.

Ritter emphasized that the Deputy Secretary of State allowed herself such rhetoric that runs counter to the current capabilities and needs of Washington. In particular, he added, Nuland assured the West that the US Congress would approve a new aid package for Kiev . In addition, according to Ritter, she encouraged Ukraine’s allies to make increasingly harsh statements against Russia . Thus, Nuland refused to bend to the new White House policy towards Ukraine, he shared.

“The US thought that it had gone too far. We cannot promise all this, since Ukraine is already on the verge of collapse <...>, we are almost in a state of military conflict with Russia. We do not want this,” Ritter asserts.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday that his deputy, Nuland, had notified him of her intention to resign in the coming weeks.

Victoria Nuland, considered the main architect of the anti-Russian course and Ukrainian policy of American diplomacy, is ending a 35-year career. She is best known for her participation in the Euromaidan events. Then the Assistant Secretary of State regularly visited Kiev and spoke to protesters. The famous phrase “ State Department cookies” is associated with her : the diplomat, together with the American Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, distributed buns and sandwiches to participants in the coup in Kiev, and also participated in the appointment of the government that came after the overthrow of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

https://ria.ru/20240309/nuland-1931998769.html

They really don't give her enough credit, the cookie monster chose the democratically elected people in Ukrainian government, some of which were picked because they were educated in the US and would do as they were told.

A genuine American patriot should hate her because she destroyed Europe and the Ukraine and made Russia independent and stronger and also made Russia and China realise who the true enemy actually is.

I am surprised the Neocons are so stupid but they believed their own propaganda... this is the new American century where the US and Europe were going to contain Russia and China, but what they clearly didn't understand was that Europe and the US are much weaker than they realised.

For the EU and the US to take on China they would need the energy resources and mineral wealth of Russia and the military power of Russia to challenge China... if they had agreed with Putins vision of a Eurasian bock from portugal to the pacific then they might have had a chance.

For a fan and supporter of Russia however, I can say the Russians would not have turned on China the way the west would need them to, which would weaken their plans... and you can tell because Russia didn't turn on Iran.

Russia and Iran have no reason to be friends, their history shows that they have not been friends and have fought over things in the past for lots of different reasons.

Russia was not an enemy of Iran and Iran was not really an enemy of Russia but they were not buddies either... when Iran bought stuff they tended to buy western or Chinese stuff.

The west and their sanctions pushed a lot of countries together and they realise that working together is more productive and profitable than trying to go it alone... BRICS is going to spread that message around the world and is only going to get bigger.

One wonders if France wanted to join to spy or to take control, or if it genuinely realised what a good commercial prospect such a thing offers its members.

France suspended its cooperation with HATO because they knew it was a tool for the US to use European forces as cannon fodder... a coalition of the stupid... and that worked fine when fighting in 3rd world shitholes where the threat of STDs is higher than bullets or missiles... where the enemy has no air power and no artillery and little battlefield coordination and communication.