A US-Taliban Peace Deal Would Redefine the Regional Balance of Power

By Andrew Korybko

Global Research, September 06, 2019

The tentative peace deal that the US is negotiating with the Taliban would redefine the regional balance of power if it’s officially promulgated, thus continuing the ongoing trend of Great Power realignment in Eurasia.

It’s been widely reported that the tentative peace deal that the US is negotiating with the Taliban will see the removal of 5,000 American troops from Afghanistan and the closure of five military bases (at least in the first phase) in exchange for the armed group (formally recognized as terrorists by Russia and many other countries) promising not to allow their territory to be used by international terrorists such as Daesh. Should this pact be officially promulgated, then it would redefine the regional balance of power and continue the ongoing trend of Great Power realignment in Eurasia. Before analyzing the implications of this possible move, it must first be pointed out that there’s supposedly significant opposition to the agreement within the American government itself, with Time reporting that Pompeo refused to sign it because of concerns that he has that it would legitimize the Taliban as a US-recognized political force in the country despite the organization declining to bestow the same recognition on the Kabul government that they’ve sworn to overthrow.

It’s unclear whether Pompeo’s concerns are sincere or if they’re just self-interested political positioning ahead of his possible candidacy in the 2024 elections in the event that the full US military withdrawal that it’ll likely eventually lead to is as destabilizing for Afghanistan as Obama’s one from Iraq was and he wants to distance himself from it in advance. Another detail that deserves mentioning is that former Secretary of Defense Mattis recently revealed in his memoirs that he regards Pakistan as the “most dangerous country” in the world, even though the global pivot state greatly facilitated the progress that’s been made thus far on brokering peace in Afghanistan and its leader was warmly received by Trump over the summer. The US’ “deep state” divisions had previously been between its diplomatic and military wings yet now it appears as though they’re on the same page in opposition to the President’s peace push, but Trump’s “going rogue” to get it done anyhow, likely emboldened per his style to think that he must be doing something right if he’s received this much pushback.

If Trump signs the deal and it expectedly receives important endorsements from regional powers like Russia, China, Pakistan, and Iran (all of which and others the Taliban expect to serve as “international witnesses” to the accord), then he can have the “face-saving” pretext necessary to withdraw his troops even further and pass his decision off as a necessary one in the interests of peace, which he hopes will help him extricate his country from this ultra-expensive but ultimately failed campaign and therefore possible win re-election next year. He’s also on record as saying that more immediate stakeholders such as India, Pakistan, Russia, Afghanistan (meant in this context to be the Kabul government), Iran, Iraq, and Turkey will probably have to intervene in the US’ wake in order to ensure that Daesh doesn’t take advantage of the situation, which can be interpreted either as a pragmatic admission of America’s defeat in this seemingly never-ending war or a Machiavellian maneuver to embroil his rivals in this quagmire.

Whatever his true intentions may be, going forward with the tentative Taliban peace deal would radically change the regional balance of power. The armed group would likely take over Kabul sooner than leader and officially return to power, thus reducing the effectiveness of India’s exploitation of the country as a springboard for carrying out its Hybrid War on CPEC and therefore enabling Pakistan to concentrate more of its military-strategic focus on defending its eastern border. Nevertheless, Indian influence might not be totally removed from Afghanistan in the scenario of a Taliban takeover because Russia has some sway over the group after hosting it for peace talks several times and its Foreign Minister recently said that Moscow is closely coordinating with its new global partners in New Delhi on this matter, so its possible that they might join forces to dangle the carrot of sustainable economic development through an eastern branch of their jointly pioneered North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC) in order to retain some Indian influence in the country.

India brazenly defied the US’ CAATSA sanctions threats this week by agreeing to jointly producemilitary equipment with Russia on top of proceeding apace with its deal to purchase the S-400s, and the Vladivostok-Chennai Maritime Corridor that they’re creating will have serious security implications for China if it’s accompanied by a forthcoming logistics pact that sees the Indian navy regularly patrolling this future trade route that traverses through the South China Sea and up China’s eastern coast. While Russia and India maintain that their bilateral relations aren’t aimed against any third parties, it might have been the case that their game-changing moves were predicated on the belief that it’s necessary to preemptively “balance” the predictable expansion of Chinese-Pakistani influence in Afghanistan following the eventual American withdrawal that would thus secure CPEC and correspondingly place India at a major strategic disadvantage given its refusal to accept the Belt & Road Initiative‘s (BRI) flagship project due to its maximalist approach towards the Kashmir Conflict.

As the cliched saying goes, “every action has an equal and opposite reaction”, and Russia’s “proactive balancing” with India against China and Pakistan is no different, likely resulting in the counter-response of China doubling down on its commitment to CPEC and Pakistan opening the doors for its partner to “counter-balance” India in Afghanistan as well. In addition, the US might interestingly gravitate closer to Pakistan too out of desire to “balance” the de-facto Russian-Indian alliance after New Delhi defied Washington’s CAATSA sanctions threats, which could curiously put the US and China on the same page regarding the need to support the global pivot state. The world’s superpowers might thus be in tacit agreement over this geostrategic necessity even if they remain at odds over their so-called “trade war“, but should their economic disagreements eventually be overcome, then it can’t be discounted that they might even coordinate their efforts in this respect. As such, it’s clear that the regional balance of power will definitely be redefined if the US-Taliban peace deal succeeds.

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This article was originally published on OneWorld.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from OneWorld

Did Russia and China Get the US to Accelerate Its Diplomatic Drawdown in Afghanistan?

The original source of this article is Global Research

Copyright © Andrew Korybko, Global Research, 2019

https://www.globalresearch.ca/taliban-peace-deal-would-redefine-regional-balance-power/5688277


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Did Trump Tacitly Threaten to Use Biological Weapons to Exterminate 10 Million?

By Terje Maloy

Global Research, September 03, 2019

“We could win that war so fast if I wanted to kill 10 million people … which I don’t. I’m not looking to kill a big portion of that country [Afghanistan],”

“I have plans on Afghanistan that, if I wanted to win that war, Afghanistan would be wiped off the face of the Earth. It would be gone,” 

“It would be over in — literally, in 10 days. And I don’t want to do — I don’t want to go that route.” (ABC July 24.2019) (emphasis added)

“As I’ve said, and I’ll say it any number of times – and this is not using nuclear – we could win that war in a week if we wanted to fight it, but I’m not looking to kill 10 million people,” (quoted by Press TV, Aug 21.2019) (emphasis added)

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Should these cynical statements be taken seriously?

Since president Trump now has come out and openly admitted that plans for a genocide are contemplated, it is  reasonable to look at what practical means the US military machine has for implementing this criminal undertaking, which is tantamount to genocide.

Ten million is a lot of people to kill without using nuclear weapons. Even a decade of war in Indochina, with massive aerial bombing, only managed to kill an estimated 4 million people, so an air campaign in Afghanistan would be insufficient to achieve something on this scale. Other governments who tried similar projects, found out that it takes time and effort; using death squads, murder on such a scale would take several years; use of chemical means would require an impractical concentration of the targeted populations. Starvation is a tried and tested method, but would obviously require more than 10 days.

Basically, it could not be done quickly with conventional means, and since Trump claimed there are no nuclear weapons involved, it leaves the US military with few options. Disregarding futuristic weapons programs, the only known things that can achieve something similar are – biological weapons.

In 2010 the US Air Force published a counterproliferation paper,”Biotechnology: Genetically Engineered Pathogens“, where it discussed several biological weapons threats, carefully framing the problem as a defense against these. The traditional way of dispersal, perfected since the early trials in the Korean war, is mentioned: “using a single bomber and with the right weather conditions on an unprotected population, a 10 ton biological agent dispersed in the environment could affect an area equal to 100,000 km2″, (p6) (the size of Indiana)

Collecting Russian DNA? Confronting the Threat of Ethnic-Specific Bioweapons

But there is obviously a flaw to releasing a ‘normal’ super-virus able to kill 10 million people in a short period of time – namely how would they stop it from spreading to the rest of the world?

Even if they could hermetically seal Afghanistan, there are international aid workers, mercenaries, local collaborators and others there that the US would not want harmed. The Air Force paper tells us:

In 1997, a study was conducted to identify future threats and uses of advanced biological warfare agents. The JASON group, composed of academic scientists, served as technical advisers to the U. S. government. Their study generated six broad classes of genetically engineered pathogens that could pose serious threats to society. These include but are not limited to binary biological weapons, designer genes, gene therapy as a weapon, stealth viruses, host-swapping diseases, and designer diseases.

So we get possibilities like:

Stealth Viruses: The basic concept of this potential bioweapon is to “produce a tightly regulated, cryptic viral infection that can enter and spread in human cells using vectors” (similar to the gene therapy) and then stay dormant for a period of time until triggered by an internal or external signal. The signal then could stimulate the virus to cause severe damage to the system. Stealth viruses could also be tailored to secretly infect a targeted population for an extended period using the threat of activation to blackmail the target [p15] (emphasis added)

The Air Force paper discusses the possibility of a «disease that could wipe out the whole population or a certain ethnic group.» The paper states that unlike nuclear weapons, “a biological warfare program has no unambiguous signatures to differentiate its legitimacy for conducting biotechnology research vis-à-vis research for offensive military biological weapons.”

Given that the United States is going for bust in its quest for Full Spectrum Dominance, there is a high likelihood that if such weapons can be produced, the US will have them – and if we interpret president Trump this way, they already have been deployed.

And would someone ever stoop so low as to use humanitarian programs as a cover for warfare activities? It is worth recalling sham hepatitis B vaccine program used by the CIA to collect DNA in the neighborhood where bin Laden was hiding, creating massive mistrust in the local population against all vaccine programs.

One thing I found particularly shocking when researching this article, was the substantial support Trump’s genocidal words found in the reader comments in corporate Western media. Perhaps one can’t expect anything else when Afghans consistently have been depicted in popular culture as murderous, frothing fanatics, from a “shithole country”, all deserving to die for rather tenuous links to a crime (the events Sept 11. 2001) that happened before most Afghans were born.

Being so demonized, the Afghan population would be especially easy testing ground for biological warfare. Foreign armies and intelligence services have had free hand to prepare anything they might want for 18 years now.

That biological research targeting specific ethnic groups is an area of research that is ongoing and not limited to only some parts of the world, was highlighted again in 2017, when the US Air Force got exposed seeking to obtain genetic and tissue samples that are “collected from Russia and must be Caucasian” and would “not consider tissue samples from Ukraine.”

The head of Russia’s Security Council, Nikolay Patrushev, warned in 2015 of “the production of military oriented biological weapons and the very large funding allocated to this,“ where he especially mentioned biolabs in former Soviet republics. “This is tens of billions of dollars. Additionally, the number of laboratories under US jurisdiction or control has increased 20 times.” (emphasis added)

Trump’s threats, possibly meant as a blunt bargaining tool in peace talks with the Taliban, may have revealed more than he intended. If the international community ever should be strong enough to impose a Nuremberg-like trial, this is prime evidence.

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This article was originally published on Midt i fleisen.

Terje Maloy is a Norwegian/Australian blogger and translator. This article is Creative Commons 4.0 for non-commercial purposes.

The original source of this article is Global Research

Copyright © Terje Maloy, Global Research, 2019

https://www.globalresearch.ca/did-trump-tacitly-threaten-use-biological-weapons/5687936

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Video: The Malaysian Airlines MH17 Tragedy. What is Real, What is Fake? “Highly Likely” Can Mean Anything

Interview of independent Journalist Max Van Der Werff About the MH17 Crash

By Max Van Der Werff

Global Research, September 01, 2019

Donbass Insider 28 September 2018

For all the people who follow the MH17 case, Max van der Werff is an outstanding analyst. After spending thousands of hours of investigation on the crash of the Malaysian airline, Max has become an expert on this case.

His blog, ironically called ‘Kremlin troll‘, is really a gold mine, containing a lot of useful information about what happened to the MH17, the available information, and what are the problems with the official investigation.

Recently, he gave an interview for the Philippine television about the status of the investigation, how he works on this case, what pushed him to investigate on the MH17, his doubts about the conclusion of the JIT, and how he hopes this case will end.

Watch the full interview in English (you can skip the three minutes which are in Filipino):

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Video: “The Truth About 5G”

The original source of this article is Donbass Insider

Copyright © Max Van Der Werff, Donbass Insider, 2019

https://www.globalresearch.ca/video-max-van-der-werff-mh17-crash/5687689

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Who Is Behind Blowing Up Ammunition Warehouses in Iraq? Iran Is the Target

By Elijah J. Magnier

Global Research, August 26, 2019

Elijah J. Magnier 24 August 2019

An explosion occurred Tuesday at an ammunition storage warehouse used by Iraqi security forces operating under the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) close to the US air and military base in Balad, Salahuddin province, 64 km north of Baghdad. Over a week before, a warehouse at Camp-Sakr used by the Federal Police and PMF in Baghdad city blew up, causing casualties.

The vice commander of the PMF Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes accused Israel of being behind the explosions, claiming “four Israeli drones were stationed at the US military base in Iraq, responsible for both explosions”. Israel Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu hinted at the responsibility of Israel for the attacks saying “Iran has no immunity anywhere… In Iran itself, in Lebanon, in Syria, in Iraq, in Yemen.” Why is Iran the target and what could be the consequences?

There is no doubt that the war between the “Axis of the Resistance” (i.e. Iraqi PMF, Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen and Palestinians in Gaza) and the “US-Israel Axis” and their Middle Eastern allies (Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain) is at a new peak- since 2006 and the “large and serious failure” of Israel’s third war on Lebanon. Moreover, in 2003, when the US declared itself an occupation force in Iraq, Secretary of State Colin Powell visited Syria and delivered President Bashar al-Assad a warning to stop supporting Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas, paving the road for a “New Middle East”. Assad had the choice to join the “Axis of Resistance” or join the “US new World Order”. When Assad’s decision was made, the war started in Syria in earnest in 2011, to cut off the link with the “Axis of Resistance” and stop the flow of weapons to Lebanon (one of many reasons for the war in Syria). But again, the war failed to achieve its objectives and Damascus cemented its partnership with the “Axis of Resistance”.

Iraq was next on the list of wars: the US watched ISIS, the “Islamic State” terror group, transferring its jihadists from Iraq into Syria and observed – without interfering for two months – how ISIS was occupying a third of Iraq in 2014. It was judged suitable for the US-Israel Axis and their Middle Eastern allies to watch idly the partition of Iraq, obviously in the hope it might disrupt the “Axis of Resistance”. A sectarian war would have lasted decades in the Middle East, keeping all the countries concerned “very busy”.

In Palestine, resistance groups imposed a new rule of engagement on Israel following their acquisition of new missiles capable of reaching Tel Aviv and hunting down Israeli vehicles with laser-guided technology. Iran supplied the Palestinians with military technology and military expertise. Gaza has become very difficult for Israel to “chew and squash”.

In the Yemen, four years of war against the poorest country in the Middle East managed to increase the poverty of the Yemenites, but failed to break their will. Indeed, the Iranian supply of weapons imposed a new rule of engagement in turn on Saudi Arabia, allowing the Yemenites to down US drones, hit far-flung airports and target energy resources.

From 2006 to 2019: After Failures in Syria, Iraq, Palestine and Yemen, War Is No Longer an Option for Israel

Following these failures on all fronts (Iraqi, Syrian, Palestinian, Yemenite and Lebanese) the US-Israeli Axis seems to be changing its objectives. Instead of hitting Iran’s allies, the target-objective is focused on Iran itself. The US administration, influenced by Prime Minister Netanyahu, revoked the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” (JCPOA), known as the “nuclear deal”, and imposed what it calls “maximum pressure” on Iran.

President Hassan Rouhani said

“one of the EU leaders I met in New York last year told me that Trump advised him to stop dealing with Iran because there will be no more Islamic Republic in three months”.

But Iran proves to be holding its ground firmly, ready for war if imposed, or if prevented from exporting its oil. It has downed a US drone and was close to an all-out war situation, hitting tankers and confiscating a British-flagged tanker when one of its supertankers was captured. However, despite these measured responses by Iran to provocation, particularly its wish to avoid downing a US spy plane with 38 crew onboard, tensions between the US and Iran are far from decreasing.

What we are observing in Iraq today is a change in the US-Israeli Axis’s policy, hitting the “Axis of the Resistance,” its capabilities and friends wherever possible. A decision-maker within this “Axis” said:

“(US Secretary of State Mike) Pompeo and his ministry’s effort seems to be to chase and surround the Axis of the Resistance, and in particular the Lebanese Hezbollah. In Africa, Latin America, Europe, anywhere in the world, the US is focused on hitting Hezbollah’s sympathisers and the societies that support it and to dry up its resources. This is because Israel failed to defeat it face-to-face on the battlefield- and because Hezbollah is one of the most dangerous and effective allies of Iran.”

It is indeed true that Israel hit hundreds of targets in Syria in the first years of the war without claiming responsibility. Only in the last two years did Israel announce its responsibility overtly. Most of Israel’s hits – according to well-informed sources – were selective targets based on intelligence information. Israel hit strategic weapons in Syria or on their way to Lebanon but always before they reached the Lebanese-Syrian borders, in Syrian territory.

“There is a consensus between the US and Israel to hit Iran and its allies. Nevertheless, the confrontational style differs between the two. In Iraq, objectives were hit and personalities assassinated but not revealed to public. What is happening today in Iraq (warehouses blown-up) is similar to the Israeli style of hitting targets in Syria”, said the source.

In Baghdad, sources within the decision-making authority said “Israel targeted the PMF in June 2018 and killed a few dozen PMF. Last month, the PMF revealed the CIA connections of Iraqi Brigadier General Mahmoud al-Fallahi, commander of Anbar, who was caught delivering to a CIA agent in Iraq all coordinates of the location of PMF and their ammunition warehouses. The audio release stated that Israel was planning to hit PMF positions. Therefore, Israeli involvement is not excluded because the destruction of the capability of Iran’s allies is the objective”.

“If PMF warehouses holding strategic missiles that can hit Israel and destroy any US bases in Iraq with precision have been destroyed, it means that the principal US-Israeli objective has been reached. The PMF is the continuation of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Palestinian groups in Gaza and Yemen. They are ready to stand by Iran and take part in any war against the Islamic Republic. Both the US and Israel know that very well”, said the source.

In Iraq, it is not that difficult to have access to sensitive information. The news of the storage of precision missiles in PMF warehouses is in every mouth. During my presence in Iraq for over a decade (and I continue to travel to Iraq regularly), I realised that many Iraqis cannot keep secrets or sensitive information. For example, in 2004 I was informed the same day when the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Brigade Haj Qassem Soleimani arrived in Baghdad. He used to travel regularly to Lebanon for more than 20 years and no one within Hezbollah middle level of command knew about his presence. Yet every time Soleimani visited Iraq, the entire country knew about it the same day, including whom he visited.

Revealing the location of precision missiles and PMF warehouses is a normal exchange of information among Iraqis. It is therefore inevitable that the US and Israel were alerted and reacted by destroying these missiles, knowing that Iran would like to keep Iraq outside its battlefield with the US for many reasons. The US has agreed to allow Iraq to do commerce and buy electricity from Iran, giving waivers for another three months. This is resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in Iranian pockets, in cash!

The Israelis, who are excellent at reading opportunities and probabilities in warfare and military strategy, understand when to hit their enemies- and also when to refrain when a harsh response might be triggered. They have attacked Syria hundreds of times, while keeping away from Lebanon for 13 years. Israel knows very well that Assad, for now, is not willing – despite the encouragement of its allies – to hit back and trigger a new front with Israel in retaliation for Netanyahu’s continuous aggression against the Syrian state. In the meantime, Israel is most likely aware that Hezbollah is just looking for an opportunity to hit Tel Aviv hard if attacked, and if any of its men are killed by Israeli raids or air attacks.

Iraq, in Israel’s view, is not ready to attack Tel Aviv because it has not yet constructed its full strength. Therefore, it is a soft target for Israel and a potential objective for destroying Iranian missiles stocked in PMF warehouses, for example. But to confirm or not the use of “four Israeli drones working as part of the US fleet in Iraq to target PMF” would still be a very early, premature conclusion.

Brigadier Hassan Salame, the commander of the IRGC, stated correctly in Mash’had that “Iran is fighting invisible wars on many fronts”. Indeed, Iraq is one of the multiple fronts on which Iran is engaging the US-Israel Axis. Actually, the Iran-US “war” has never ever really stopped since 1979, the declaration of the “Islamic Revolution”.

Despite the Iranian desire to keep Iraq away from its military theatre with the US, Washington itself would be taking a great risk by allowing Israel to hit the Iraqi security forces if these warehouses were hit by Israeli jets. Indeed, no possible Israeli attack on the Iraqi forces can take place without US approval and knowledge. The US has many military airports and bases in the country, and enjoys the use of several airports in the occupied north-east of Syria (al-Hasaka and Deir-ezzour provinces).

The explosion and destruction of PMF warehouses are in fact only tactical attacks: they do not actually affect Iran and its allies. As in Syria, hundreds of targets were destroyed, but Iran was capable of replacing the destroyed missiles because its factories continue producing them! Israel acknowledges that Hezbollah, despite hundreds of attacks on Syria, managed to accumulate more than 150,000 missiles and rockets. The Palestinian groups still receive the latest warfare technology and so does the Yemen (the Houthis), despite the apparent blockade.

In Iraq, the US risks coming out as the biggest loser. Not only Israeli strikes undermine the relations with Iraq but also because Iran has managed to build a second Hezbollah in Mesopotamia. Hashd al-Shaabi needed a robust ideology to stand by and defeat ISIS. This ideology is durable: it will not dissolve, and it will persevere in opposition to US Middle East hegemony.

It is true that Iraq has US weapons and needs US intelligence support to stand on its own feet. But it should be kept in mind that Iraq 2019 is no longer Iraq 2003 (the US occupation), nor Iraq 2014 (occupation by ISIS). New allies and partners are ready to take over, like Russia (already offering intelligence through the common military operation room in Baghdad), China and Iran: they are indeed no longer at Iraq’s gates, but inside its walls.

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The original source of this article is Elijah J. Magnier

Copyright © Elijah J. Magnier, Elijah J. Magnier, 2019

https://www.globalresearch.ca/who-behind-blowing-up-ammunition-warehouses-iraq-iran-target/5687229

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