Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy

The World Might Be Heading toward a Bloody November and an Even Bloodier Era

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One of the (predictably) neglected aspects of Trumpist foreign policy is the fact that Trump has farmed out the Syrian War to Erdogan. This is has been done for multiple reasons. First, it is a means of escalating the war against the Iranian-led Axis of Resistance as part of the wider Zionist/Sunni alliance the Trump administration has constructed (the rapprochement between the Saudia axis and Israel). Additionally, the Trumpists have sought to play Russia and Turkey against each other. Contrary to popular opinion, the Trump regime has been extraordinarily hawkish on Russia even to the point of unilaterally abrogating the INF treaty from 1987. Early in the Trump administration, there were figures associated with the Center for Strategic and International Studies like Rex Tillerson, insurgent realists like Steve Bannon, and (in the shadows) Machiavellians like Henry Kissinger who favored a more Kennanesque realist approach to Russia. The objective was to ween Russia away from its alliance with China and to disrupt the BRICS axis. But the neocons and their liberal internationalist allies were able to gain the upper hand and cultivate Turkey as an anti-Russian ally in Western/Central Asia. The neocons have been able to infiltrate and co-opt Trumpism to the point that Norman Podhoretz’s son-in-law Elliott Abrams is now running Trump’s Iran policy.

Early on in Trump’s administration, it seemed like he was bypassing the party establishment while gaining the backing of realists and trade deficit hawks within the wider national security milieu, like the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who seem to recognize the neocon/liberal internationalist foreign policy paradigm is unsustainable. That’s the direction Trump was headed early on, which is why you see him with Kissinger in some early presidential videos, and why Tillerson was his initial Sec of State. Both of them are affiliated with CSIS. But he’s jettisoned many of those people now that he feels he no longer needs them and is trying to appeal to the conventional Republican Party to a greater degree.

Below is a link to an article by Pepe Escobar, a Marxist journalist, in the Chinese press that came out when Trump first took office, and which explains some of this. What Escobar describes is the national security faction that seemed to be behind Trump at the time, although he has obviously become more accommodating to the neocons and neoliberal Republicans as his administration progresses. The view of this national security sector appears to be that the US has become too dependent on China for military manufacturing (that’s been an issue in the Trump administration) and debt financing, and thinks the trade deficit and the impact of globalization are destabilizing the US (which it is). They also want to prevent an alliance between the BRICS and the Global South against “Atlanticism” (the Duginist geopolitical framework) from forming and curb Chinese economic expansionism into Central Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the South Pacific. https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2064005/trump-will-try-smash-china-russia-iran-triangle-heres-why-he-will?fbclid=IwAR1KhlF4NrsQ0sgWVKJRo7k1LbvN9OUp-JjU-0YX19dEN7bKiT8MvO9Pa2c
 
 
CSIS still seems to be among the leading proponents of the China hawk position, and the anti-China aspect of this realist paradigm has partially held, probably due to the influence of some in the general national security sector. However, the neoliberal and neocon factions of the US “power elite” either regard China merely as an economic colony that provides cheap labor and loans or considers Russia to be a greater enemy. I guess the neocons still want revenge for Trotsky’s murder and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

By ,TELOS

As the world becomes increasingly more focused on the second coronavirus wave and the American elections, Erdoğan’s mercenaries and army will most likely invade Northern Syria again in the coming days and weeks.

Erdoğan knows that no regional or global power will seriously challenge him if he occupies the rest of Northern Syria, also known as Rojava. During the last four years, he has seized every opportunity to execute his neo-Ottoman enterprise. He has openly recruited jihadis and occupied three strategic areas in Rojava. As the Syrian Kurds remain the most stubborn obstacle to his regional expansion southward, he has made his intentions to eliminate the semiautonomous administration in Northern Syria abundantly clear.

The Trump administration has little concern for the situation in Syria. Dismissing the Pentagon officials’ strong advice, Trump has given in to Erdoğan’s demands in Northern Syria more than once. Erdoğan secured Trump’s implicit approval to attack the Syrian Kurds about a year ago, during a dubious phone call between the two leaders. Given that things might change under a Biden administration, it is safe to assume that the opportunistic Erdoğan has already planned a devastating strike to knock out this secular, semiautonomous, multiethnic entity in Rojava.

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Categories: Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy

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