REGIME
CHANGERS 0
By Pepe Escobar
March 17, 2014
Let’s cut to
the chase ~ short and sweet.
1. The Obama administration’s “strategic” gambit to subcontract the State Department’s “Khaganate of Nulands” to extricate Ukraine from the Russian sphere of influence ~ and ultimately annex it to NATO ~ by instrumentalizing a coalition of willing neo-Nazis and fascists with a central bank veneer (prime minister “Yats”), is in utter shambles.
.2. Moscow’s counter-punch was to prevent in Crimea ~ as intercepted by Russian intelligence ~ a planned replay of the putsch in Kiev. The referendum in Crimea ~ 85% of turnout, roughly 93% voting for re-joining Russia, according to exit polls ~ is a done deal, as much as the oh-so-democratic European Union (EU) keeps threatening to punish people in Crimea for exercising their basic democratic rights. (By the way, when the US got Kosovo to secede from Serbia, Serbians were offered no referendum).
.3. The main rationale for the whole US “strategic” advance ~ to have their proxies, the regime changers in Kiev, cancel the agreement for the Russian naval base in Sevastopol ~ is up in smoke. Moscow remains present in the Black Sea and with full access to the Eastern Mediterranean.
And the rest
is blah blah blah.
.
.
ALL ABOARD THE FINLAND STATION
The US State
Department has practically agreed to a federal and in fact Finlandized Ukraine [1] which, by the way, is the solution being proposed
by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov right from the start, as this
Russian white
paper attests. US Secretary of State John Kerry ~ as
when Moscow saved the “red line” Obama administration from bombing Syria ~ will
go on overdrive to steal all the credit from the Russians. US corporate media
will duly buy it, but not independents such as Moon of Alabama. [2]
.
.
This ~
sensible ~ road map implies, among other crucial points; strong autonomous
regions; Russian reinstated as an official language, alongside Ukrainian; and
most of all political/military neutrality, that is, Finlandization. To get
there will be the mission of a support group ~ once again, proposed by Moscow
from the start ~ with the US, EU and Russia as members.
.
.
All that
finally sanctified by a UN Security Council resolution (true, it could go
spectacularly wrong, and most of all sabotaged by the “West”.) And all that, as
well, without Moscow having to officially recognize the regime changers in
Kiev.
In a nutshell; Moscow called Washington’s bluff ~ and won.
So after all
that barrage of ominous threats including everyone from Obama, Kerry and
assorted neo-con bomb-firsters down to minions such as Cameron, Hague and
Fabius, the meat of the matter is that the Obama administration concluded it
would not risk a nuclear war with Russia for the Khaganate of Nulands ~ especially
after Moscow made it known, discreetly, it would create the conditions for
eastern and southern Ukraine to also secede.
.
.
Sweden, for
instance, proposed an arms embargo on sales to Moscow. Paris took a quick
glance at its industrial-military complex interests and immediately said no. Only the brain dead entertain the notion
Paris and Berlin are willing to jeopardize their trade relations with Russia.
As well as the notion that Beijing would ever join sanctions against fellow
Group of 20, BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organization member Russia just
because what they perceive as an increasingly irrational ~ and dangerous ~
Washington said so.
.
.
And yet,
Western hysteria of course will persist unabated. In the US, where it matters,
the meme of the subsequent days will be, inevitably, who lost Syria and who
lost Ukraine.
.
.
Here’s the
record. Dubya launched two wars. He (miserably) lost both.
.
.
Obama
attempted to launch two wars (Syria and Ukraine). He ~ lucky for him ~ lost
both even at the “attempt” stage. Assorted neo-cons and the whole
exceptionalist brigade are predictably livid. Expect the editorial page of the
Wall Street Journal to go ballistic. And expect US ambassador to the UN
Samantha “R2P” Power to wish she were Sinead O’Connor singing Nothing Compares to You.
.
.
IT’S A GAS, GAS, GAS, NOT!
The Kiev
regime-changers are already announcing their intentions, as in Right Sector
capo and confirmed neo-nazi Dmytro Yarosh saying,
“… Russia makes money sending its oil through our pipelines to the West. We will destroy these pipelines and deprive our enemy of its source of income.”
That’s a
brilliant strategy straight from the Khaganate of Nulands playbook. So homes
and the whole industrial base in Ukraine should be out of (cheap, discounted)
gas, not to mention great swathes of Germany, so the neo-Nazis can claim
“victory”. With friends like these …
.
.
Gazprom’s
executives are not exactly raising an eyebrow. Russia is already shipping
roughly half of its gas to Europe bypassing Ukraine; after South Stream is completed
in 2015, that percentage will increase (EU “sanctions” against South Stream are
just empty rhetoric.)
.
.
The regime
changers will be trying to wreak havoc in other fronts as well. The new
Ukrainian parliament has voted to assemble a 60,000-strong National Guard
crammed with “activists”.
Guess who
will be in charge; the new security chief, Andriy Parubiy, one of the founders
of the neo-Nazi Social-National Party. And his deputy happens to be none other
than Yarosh, the leader of the paramilitary Right Sector.
.
.
Feel free to
add your own custom-made Hitlerian metaphors ~ even as the risk persists of
Ukraine breaking apart. Which is not necessarily a bad deal. Let the
“democratic” EU pay Ukraine’s gas bills.
.
.
Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into
Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge.
His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books,
2009). He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.
.
NOTES:
NOTES:
1. Lavrov, Kerry agree to work on constitutional reform in
Ukraine: Russian ministry, Reuters,
March 16, 2014.
.
.
This column originally appeared on Asia Times.
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