Alistair Crooke (
@AWCrooke): The worldâs abiding conclusion is that the decline of the United States as a political entity is accelerating, and accelerating rapidly. The UN and the law are trashed to keep financial and political primacy. There is no diplomacy, only shakedown. Coercion is not a world order. A raid on election day is not democracy. Lavrov will talk without a ceasefire. Europe is talking itself into the strike it claims to fear.
âWe cannot continue with a world order that is like it is, where there are no values, where everything is trashed. The legal system is trashed. The UN has been trashed. The norms of civilized behaviorâall of this is trashed. All of this is pushed aside in the intent of the United States simply to preserve their hegemony, preserve their primacyâfinancial primacy, their political primacy. So all of that is gone.
It means that unless Russia can somehow bring the United States back to a sense of how to do business with other powersâChina, Russia, Iranâhow do you do diplomacy again, and away from purely coercive means: coercive financial means, coercive language, coercive military. If you stick only with that, then we are heading to something bigger.
That is why there is still a focus coming out of Moscow that the United Statesâdespite all of the auguries which say itâs not going to workâLavrov said we are still open and willing to talk to the United States, and we are grateful to the United States for trying to pursue this track. But they can see that there are other forces against it that are trying to destroy it.
The bigger picture is this: the whole global order canât work. We do not have diplomacy anywhere. Everywhere it is coercion of one sort or another. Shakedown of Gulf states to get them to give more money to America. Shakedown of European allies. Or it is the financial threats of a hegemon.
They want to try and see if this is possible. In some ways, that was what Xiâs visit to the US was. I donât know if it will succeed. It probably wonât. But I think he was trying to say to Trump: you actually have to try and deal with us, and deal with us in a diplomatic way, and that involves empathyâunderstanding who we are, understanding what makes us tickânot just simply threaten and threaten.
They are angrier with the Europeans because the Europeans go on promising longer-range, bigger-warhead missiles that they fire. The last ones were fired during the summer at beaches, at resort hotels. These ones are being fired at the election process. Isnât this what America stands forâelections, an election process? And yet that was the main aim: 2,000 missiles to disrupt the election completely. Did they think that would mean that Putin would go away, or that Russia would suddenly collapse? I canât believe they did. It was simply a further attempt to enable what they believe is the case: that Putin has no alternatives and heâs under pressure, and if they push harder and harder then he will give in and agree to a ceasefire.
He made it clear, and Lavrov said, there will not be any ceasefire in any format in the lead-up to negotiations. In other words, the negotiations will have to take place without any ceasefire. The Europeans will probably now increase the pressure, thinking that just a little bit further, push Putin a little further, and heâll have to give in and agree to the ceasefire. Actually, what it will probably do is result in Russia taking some sort of military action against European and NATO assetsâcarefully measured and calibrated, but nonetheless attacking NATO countries. And then we will see what happens.â