Does the Washington Establishment Seek War with Russia?

by Eric Zuesse, originally posted at strategic-culture.org

Which does the Washington’s Establishment prefer: a U.S. President who wants to reach new agreements with Russia, or a U.S. President who wants to replace all of Russia’s allies?
What we’ve been having recently is solely Presidents who want to replace all of Russia’s allies — and they’ve been succeeding at that, so far:
They replaced Saddam Hussein.
They replaced Muammar Gaddafi.
They replaced Viktor Yanukovych.
They’re still trying to replace Bashar al-Assad, and also Iran’s leadership.
There still is question, however, as to whether U.S. President Donald Trump will continue this string; and many in America’s ‘news’media consider him to be too favorable toward Russia. The aristocracy own the few ‘news’media that have substantial audiences in the U.S., and their advertisers are also overwhelmingly owned by them; and the politicians’ campaigns tend also to be receiving most of their money from them; so, generally, it’s considered political suicide to buck what the few billionaires are rather united on in America, and what they seem quite united on right now is that Mr. Trump isn’t sufficiently anti-Russian. For a government official in this country to view Russia as even potentially an ally instead of an enemy, is increasingly viewed as treasonous in America, and any contacts that Mr.
Trump might have been trying to nurture so as to establish an alliance with Russia on anything — even merely an alliance against international jihadists — is being treated in America’s press as treasonous — as if Russia were still the entire U.S.S.R.; and communism were still a threat, and there still existed the Soviet Union’s military alliance, the Warsaw Pact, as being a counter-weight to America’s NATO alliance. But those assumptions about Russia are obviously false. So: do America’s billionaires still simply want to conquer Russia, instead of to be allied with it, even in that limited way, as a global alliance to crush jihadists?
The newsmedia pick up from the Democrats and the other neoconservatives, and therefore Trump is being pressed hard on his being ‘Putin’s stooge’ or even ‘Putin’s Manchurian candidate,’ though the presumption in those statements is that Russia is doomed to be America’s enemy unless America outright conquers it — and this is a war-mongering and arrogant presumption for the U.S. government to be making about Russia, and it’s also very far from being a realistic assumption about Russia. Will Russia tolerate having all of its allies overthrown by the U.S. (a project that the U.S. has already come close to completing)?
How many more U.S. nuclear missiles will Russia accept being placed near and on its borders in formerly allied countries that now are in NATO — that are in the anti-Russia military club, but were formerly in the U.S.S.R., or else in its Warsaw Pact? If you were a Russian, would you now be scared?
Trump made clear during his campaign, that he wants to be allied with Putin’s consistent war against “radical Islamic terrorism” — no one can challenge that Putin has always, and consistently, been uncompromisingly determined to oppose that — never to arm nor train jihadists like the U.S. and its Saudi ‘ally’ the Saud family, do (in order to overthrow Russia’s allies).
So: which of the two is scary — the Hillary Clinton and John McCain crowd, the neocons, who dominate both Parties and want to crush Russia; or the few people in Washington who (at least until Trump became elected) were that crowd’s enemies? It’s looking like Trump has joined the neocons, after an election in which he was opposed by them.
As soon as Trump became elected, his fear of being dubbed ‘Putin’s stooge’ or ‘Putin’s Manchurian candidate’ caused him to appoint a national-security team who were hell-bent on replacing Russia’s remaining allies, Iran and Syria. But even this hasn’t been enough to satisfy the neocons who run both Parties, and the newsmedia. Trump has been trying to accommodate the people who are doing all they can to bring him down, but it doesn’t seem to be appeasing them.
The Washington Establishment has terrified him away from his campaign promise of creating an alliance with Russia to cooperate together in wiping out jihadism — and jihadism is something that didn’t even exist in modern times until the U.S. and its Saud allies introduced it into Afghanistan in 1979 to overthrow the secular, Soviet-allied leader of that country, Nur Muhammed Taraki. This joint effort with the Sauds created jihadism in the modern age. Zbigniew Brzezinski said of his and the CIA’s and the Sauds’ achievement, in a 1998 interview, “Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it?” It became the model for what they’re now doing to Syria (which is causing all those refugees into Europe).

Trump had said that his top national-security priority would be against jihadism, not against Russia and its allies. But, so far, his foreign policy in this regard seems more like what had been widely anticipated in the event of a Hillary Clinton win. (Even Trump’s focus against “radical Islamic terrorism” is directed now almost exclusively against seven mainly Shiite nations that America’s Saudi allies — who are fundamentalist Sunnis and hate Shia muslims — despise. So: it’s no different from Hillary Clinton’s. And two of those Shiite-run nations, Iran and Syria, are backed by Russia; so, Trump might just be continuing his predecessor’s pro-Saud policy there.)
Yet nonetheless, the neoconservatives press on with investigations of whether Trump is a secret Russian agent. The leading headline in the Wall Street Journal on March 30th was “Trump’s Rapid Rapprochement Plans With Russia Fade” and the report noted that Trump’s appointees are advising him against any relaxation of the previous President’s anti-Russia policies, but failed to indicate that (with the exception of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson), all of them are long-committed neoconservatives and NATO enthusiasts. Either candidate Trump’s ameliorative statements regarding Russia were intended merely in order to win votes, away from the super-hawk Hillary Clinton, from some independents and Bernie Sanders supporters, or else Trump is very easy for the Cold War Establishment (the “neoconservatives,” today’s Washington Establishment in both Parties) to manipulate.
What does the Washington Establishment really want? What is their real demand? Putin’s head on a stake? Or. do they really want Trump’s head on a stake, for some entirely different reason? The motivations that they are stating for wanting to replace Trump by his Vice President, Mike Pence — a rabid neoconservative — don’t make sense; and, the ‘evidence’ they’re basing this campaign on, is, as of yet, after months of trying, still more smears than authentic evidence. And it’s based on false allegations regarding America’s and Russia’s respective involvements in Ukraine and in Syria. Clearly, there are ulterior motives behind this coordinated bipartisan lying campaign. And they seem to be winning — whatever their real motivations are.
Is this a palace coup? And, if so, what’s the real motivation for it? Why do they want Mike Pence to be the U.S. President? What’s their real goal in this bipartisan campaign to replace Trump with Pence?

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

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