Israel strikes Iran military targets amid fears of a wider war
The Age, October 26, 2024
Israel said it struck military sites in Iran early on Saturday in retaliation for Tehran’s attacks on Israel earlier this month, the latest step in the escalating conflict between the heavily armed rivals.
Iranian media reported multiple explosions over several hours in the capital and at nearby military bases, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.
Before dawn, Israel’s public broadcaster said three waves of strikes had been completed and that the operation was over.
The Middle East has been on edge awaiting Israel’s retaliation for a ballistic-missile barrage carried out by Iran on October 1, in which around 200 missiles were fired at Israel and one person was killed in the West Bank.
Tensions between arch-rivals Israel and Iran have escalated since Hamas, the Iran-backed Palestinian militant group based in Gaza, attacked Israel on October 7 last year. Hamas has been supported by Lebanon-based Hezbollah militants, also backed by Iran.
Fears that Iran and the United States would be drawn into a regional war have risen with Israel’s intensifying assault on Hezbollah since last month, including airstrikes on the Lebanese capital Beirut and a ground operation, as well as its year-old conflict in the Gaza Strip………………………………………………………….
US President Joe Biden had warned that Washington, Israel’s main backer and supplier of arms, would not support a strike on Tehran’s nuclear sites and has said Israel should consider alternatives to attacking Iran’s oil fields.
Iranian authorities have repeatedly warned Israel against any attack.
“Iran reserves the right to respond to any aggression, and there is no doubt that Israel will face a proportional reaction for any action it takes,” the semi-official Tasnim news agency said on Saturday, quoting sources…………………………………………..
Videos carried by Iranian media showed air defences continuously firing at apparently incoming projectiles in central Tehran, without saying which sites were coming under attack.
The semi-official Iranian Fars news agency said several military bases in the west and southwest of Tehran had also been targeted…………………………………………………………………….
US informed ahead of strikes
……………………………..The US was notified by Israel ahead of its strikes on targets in Iran but was not involved in the operation, another US official told Reuters.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in the Middle East for another attempt to broker a peace deal, said on Wednesday that Israel’s retaliation should not lead to greater escalation.
Even as it sought to convince Israel to calibrate its strikes, the US moved to reassure its closest ally in the Middle East that it would aid in its defence should Tehran decide to stage a counter-attack.
This included Biden’s decision to move the US military’s THAAD anti-missile defences to Israel, along with about 100 US soldiers to operate them. …………………………….. more https://www.theage.com.au/world/middle-east/israel-raids-gaza-hospital-strike-on-a-home-kills-13-children-20241026-p5kli5.html
When The Holocaust Returned It Came Denouncing Anti-Semitism And Wearing A Star Of David
People assume what’s happening in Gaza can’t be an actual genocide, because the news media keep assuring everyone that’s not what we’re looking at, and so do the politicians in both parties.
“This can’t possibly be what it looks like,” people say. “If it was, we would have heard about it in the news.”
Caitlin Johnstone, Oct 23, 2024
It was never going to look how we were expecting. It wasn’t going to show up in its old familiar costume with the bent cross and the tiny mustache, blaming all the problems on the Jews.
It had to look different. If it didn’t look different, we never would have let it in the door.
And that’s still what’s throwing a lot of people off: it looks different. It doesn’t look like what all all the World War II movies and Holocaust novels conditioned us to watch out for. In fact, it looks so different that the victims in the last story have the same religion as the antagonists in the new one.
That old aphorism “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes” is true because people don’t tend to make the exact same mistake in the same way twice, but the conditioning which led them to make the first mistake will often lead them to make a second similar one.
We’ve all been made far too familiar with the Nazi extermination program to ever consent to Jews being rounded up and loaded onto trains again, but we also didn’t purge from our civilization all the murderousness, hatred and tyranny which made it possible. That’s why this new Holocaust has been allowed to happen.
We’ve all been conditioned to watch out for the next Hitler, but there’s never going to be another Hitler. We’ve been so focused on looking out for the Hitler who never comes that many of us missed when we started singing verses that rhyme with the ones we were hearing in Germany eight decades ago.
People assume what’s happening in Gaza can’t be an actual genocide, because the news media keep assuring everyone that’s not what we’re looking at, and so do the politicians in both parties.
“This can’t possibly be what it looks like,” people say. “If it was, we would have heard about it in the news.”
The villains in this new story don’t look like the villains in the old story, and, if you are a properly indoctrinated westerner, they might not look like villains at all. They might just look like Jews defending themselves from terrorists and western governments rightly defending their dear ally — which is exactly what they should do if they want to prevent another Holocaust!
But it’s that very misperception which is making today’s Holocaust possible. This mass atrocity is being tolerated by huge parts of the population exactly because we see it as intolerable for large numbers of Jews to be killed by those who hate them, not understanding that the people who were killed on October 7 were killed not because of their religion, but because they were part of a settler-colonialist project which is premised on the perpetual abuse of a preexisting indigenous population.
People defend Israel’s actions on the grounds that Israel has reasons for doing things the way it’s doing them. They have to bomb Gaza — they suffered an unprovoked attack from a bunch of evil terrorists. They have to bomb all the hospitals and schools and mosques — that’s where Hamas are hiding. They have to bomb areas that are packed full of children — Hamas are using those children as human shields.
But those who commit mass atrocities always justify their actions. They always have reasons for doing them. They always frame it as a necessary act of self-preservation.
That was always what the next Holocaust was going to look like. It was never going to feature new bad guys who cackle and twist their mustaches saying “Haha, we are evil! Let’s kill a bunch of people because we are evil!” They were always going to frame themselves as the heroes and victims, and the other side as the villains and victimizers. They were always going to offer a bunch of reasons why what they’re doing is actually good and righteous, even though it looks evil on its face.
If we are to prevent genocidal atrocities, we need to be able to recognize what’s happening in real time, and we can’t do that if we’re expecting them to show up in familiar and instantly recognizable packaging. We need to be able to see through the manipulations and justifications in the here and now so we can stop it in its tracks instead of waiting for history to judge it in our rearview mirror after it’s already happened.
This is important to recognize when it comes to saving Gaza, and it’s important to recognize when it comes to preventing the Holocausts of the future as well. They will never look identical to the Holocausts of the past. Their form will be unprecedented, and they will have different justifications for their orchestration. But they will rhyme. And we need to be able to pick up on that as it happens.
Iran complains to UN nuclear watchdog about Israeli threats against its nuclear sites
Iran has written to the UN nuclear watchdog to complain about Israel’s threats against its nuclear sites, foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday at a weekly news conference.
Israel has vowed to attack Iran in retaliation for a volley of Iranian missiles launched on Oct. 1, leading to widespread speculation that Iran’s nuclear sites could be among Israel’s targets.
“Threats to attack nuclear sites are against UN resolutions…. and are condemned… we have sent a letter about it to… the UN nuclear watchdog,” Baghaei said in the televised news conference.
Separately, Baghaei said Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi would travel to Bahrain and Kuwait on Monday as part of Iran’s efforts to curb regional tensions.
Iran launched its Oct. 1 missile attack to retaliate against Israeli strikes targeting its allies Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. It was the second Iranian attack on Israel this year; Israel responded to the first missile volley in April with an air strike on an air defense site in central Iran.
The Gazafication of Lebanon: Israel Blows up Nabatieh City Hall, kills Mayor and Aid Workers
Juan Cole, 10/17/2024
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Israeli military has begun giving southern Lebanon the Gaza treatment. Some 25% of Lebanese are under “evacuation orders,” which is to say that Israel is expelling them from their homes in preparation for further military operations against the Hezbollah Party-Militia.
The U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Lebanon, Imran Riza, said Wednesday, “Health care facilities, mosques, historical markets, residential complexes, and now government buildings are being reduced to rubble. Displaced families continue to feel at risk, even after fleeing to safe areas.”
Lebanon is a small country of perhaps 4 million citizens and nearly 2 million refugees. The UN says that some 1.2 million people have been displaced, with 275,000 people leaving for Syria. This latter number includes both Lebanese leaving their own country and Syrian refugees in Lebanon returning to the Baathist dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad. The equivalent of such a vast displacement of residents in the United States would be 51 million internal refugees. It is unimaginable.
We saw this movie in Gaza. It is total war.
Even the humanitarian aid workers attempting to help people get through the violence and displacement are being targeted by the Israeli military. Humanitarian Coordinator Riza added, “This morning a devastating attack claimed the lives of yet more civilians and local authorities working to provide relief, with the strike occurring just as a crisis meeting was convening at the municipality of Nabatieh in South Lebanon. I deplore and mourn the deaths of Ahmad, Sadeq, Mohammed, Qassem – members of a relief team with whom the UN and humanitarian partners have been working for more than a year – and all other victims of this conflict that must stop, urgently.”
The attack referenced by the UN official was an Israeli airstrike on the City Hall of the Lebanese city of Nabatieh, which is a civilian object, not a military one. The Israelis killed the mayor, Ahmed Kaheel, council member Sadeq Ismail, photographer Mohammad Baytar, and employees Qasem Hijazi and Mohammad Zohri. Sadeq Ismail and Qasem Hijazi, along with Mayor Kaheel, were the humanitarian relief team to which the UN official referred to above. The Lebanese Ministry of Health (and no, it isn’t “Hezbollah controlled”) said that the strike killed 16 persons in total and wounded 52.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Miqati condemned the bombing, noting that the city council had been meeting about humanitarian aid issues before they were blasted to smithereens……………………………….
Nabatieh is majority Shiite Muslim, and Israel’s targeting of its municipal building may be a manifestation of the increasing hatred of Shiites visible in Israeli social media, which sometimes sound like Sunni extremists such as ISIL. The city, however, also has substantial Maronite Christian and Eastern Orthodox Christian communities and many churches and mosques………………….https://www.juancole.com/2024/10/gazafication-lebanon-nabatieh.html
SCOTT RITTER: Iran’s Bomb is Real — and It’s Here
20 Oct 24, By Scott Ritter, Consortium News, https://consortiumnews.com/2024/10/20/scott-ritter-irans-bomb-is-real-and-its-here/
For months now, the world has focused on the danger of nuclear war between the United States and Russia. But Iran and Israel could beat them to it.
The outbreak of conflict between Iran and Israel appears to have changed Iran’s stance against possessing a nuclear weapon as Israel is poised to strike after Teheran’s retaliation with two major attacks of drones and ballistic and cruise missiles.
Iran has issued at least three statements through official channels since April that has opened the door to the possibility of religious edicts against Iran acquiring nuclear weapons being rescinded.
The circumstances which Iran has said must exist to justify this reversal appear to have now been met.
No mere threats, these statements issued by Teheran should be viewed as declaratory policy indicating Iran has already made the decision to obtain a nuclear weapon; that the means to do so are already in place and that this decision can be implemented in a matter of days once the final political order is given.
The religious fatwa against possessing nuclear weapons was issued in October 2003 by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It reads:
“We believe that adding to nuclear weapons and other types of weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical weapons and biological weapons, are a serious threat to humanity…[w]e consider the use of these weapons to be haram (forbidden), and the effort to protect mankind from this great disaster is everyone’s duty.”
However, the Shia faith holds that fatwas are not inherently permanent, and Islamic jurists can reinterpret the scripture in accord with the needs of time.
Shortly after Iran launched Operation True Promise against Israel in April, Ahmad Haghtalab, an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander responsible for the security for Iran’s nuclear sites, declared:
“If [Israel] wants to exploit the threat of attacking our country’s nuclear centers as a tool to put pressure on Iran, it is possible and conceivable to revise the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear doctrine and policies to deviate from previously declared considerations.”
In May, Kamal Kharrazi, a former foreign minister who advises the Supreme Leader, declared: “We [Iran] have no decision to build a nuclear bomb, but should Iran’s existence be threatened, there will be no choice but to change our military doctrine.”
And earlier this month Iranian lawmakers called for a review of Iran’s defense doctrine to consider adopting nuclear weapons as the risk of escalation with Israel continues to grow. The legislators noted that the Supreme Leader can reconsider the fatwa against nuclear weapons on the grounds that the circumstances have changed.
These statements, seen together, constitute a form of declaratory policy which, given the sources involved, imply that a political decision has already been made to build a nuclear bomb once the national security criterion has been met.
Has the Capability
Iran has for some time now possessed the ability to manufacture and weaponize nuclear explosive devices. Using highly enriched uranium, Iran could construct in a matter of days a simple gun-type weapon that could be used in a ballistic missile warhead.
In June Iran informed the IAEA that it was installing some 1,400 advanced centrifuges at its Fordow facility. Based upon calculations derived from Iran’s on-hand stockpile of 60 percent enriched uranium hexaflouride (the feedstock used in centrifuge-based enrichment), Iran could produce enough highly enriched uranium (i.e., above 90 percent) to manufacture 3-5 uranium-baed weapons in days.
All that is needed is the political will to do so. It appears that Iran has crossed this threshold, meaning that the calculus behind any Israeli and/or U.S. attack on Iran has been forever changed.
Iran has made no bones about this new reality. In February, the former chief of the Atomic Energy Organization, Ali-Akbar Salehi, stated that Iran has crossed “all the scientific and technological nuclear thresholds” to build a nuclear bomb, noting that Iran had accumulated all the necessary components for a nuclear weapon, minus the highly enriched uranium.
Two weeks later, Javad Karimi Ghodousi, a member of the Iranian parliament’s National Security Commission, declared that if the supreme leader “issues permission, we would be a week away from testing the first [nuclear bomb]“, later adding that Iran “needs half a day or maximum a week to build a nuclear warhead.”
A simple gun-type nuclear weapon would not need to be tested — the “Little Boy“ device dropped on Hiroshima by the U.S. on Aug. 6, 1945 was a gun-type device that was deemed so reliable that it could be used operationally without any prior testing.
Iran would need between 75 and 120 pounds of highly enriched uranium per gun-type device (the more sophisticated the design, the less material would be needed). Regardless, the payload of the Fatah-1 solid-fueled hypersonic missile, which was used in the Oct. 1 attack on Israel, is some 900 pounds—more than enough capacity to carry a gun-type uranium weapon.
Given the fact that the ballistic missile shield covering Israel was unable to intercept the Fatah-1 missile, if Iran were to build, deploy, and employ a nuclear-armed Fatah-1 missile against Israel, there is a near 100 percent certainty that it would hit its target.
Iran would need 3-5 nuclear weapons of this type to completely destroy Israel’s ability to function as a modern industrial nation.,
Consequences of Pulling Out of Iran Nuclear Deal
This situation came about after President Donald Trump in 2017 withdrew the U.S. from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — the JCPOA, better known as the Iran nuclear deal. The driving factor behind the negotiation of the JCPOA, which took place under President Barack Obama, was to shut down Iran’s pathway to a nuclear weapon. As Obama said,
“Put simply, under this deal, there is a permanent prohibition on Iran ever having a nuclear weapons program and a permanent inspections regime that goes beyond any previous inspection regime in Iran. This deal provides the IAEA the means to make sure Iran isn’t doing so, both through JCPOA-specific verification tools, some of which last up to 25 years, and through the Additional Protocol that lasts indefinitely. In addition, Iran made commitments in this deal that include prohibitions on key research and development activities that it would need to design and construct a nuclear weapon. Those commitments have no end date.”
Early on in his administration, in June 2021, after Trump had already pulled the U.S. out of the deal, President Joe Biden declared that Iran would “never get a nuclear weapon on my watch.”
The director of U.S. National Intelligence said in a statement released Oct. 11 that, “We assess that the Supreme Leader has not made a decision to resume the nuclear weapons program that Iran suspended in 2003.”
In the aftermath of Trump’s precipitous decision to withdraw from the JCPOA, Iran took actions which underscored that it no longer felt constrained by any JCPOA limits.
Iran has expanded its nuclear program by installing advanced centrifuge cascades used to enrich uranium and scaled back International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) monitoring of its nuclear program. In short, Iran has positioned itself to produce a nuclear weapon on short order.
While the ODNI currently believes that the Supreme Leader has not made the political decision to do so, an assessment published in July contains a telling omission from past assessments of Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
The February 2024 ODNI assessment noted that, “Iran is not currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons-development activities necessary to produce a testable nuclear device.”
However, this statement went missing from the July 2024 assessment, a clear indication that the U.S. intelligence community, due in large part to the reduction in IAEA inspection activity, lacks the insight into critical technical aspects of Iran’s nuclear-related industries.
Senator Lindsey Graham, after reading the classified version of the July 2024 ODNI report on Iran, said he was “very worried” that “Iran will in the coming weeks or months possess a nuclear weapon.”
What Confronts the US & Israel
This is the situation confronting Israel and the United States as they decide on an Israeli retaliation against Iran for the Oct. 1 missile attack.
Iran has indicated that any attack against its nuclear or oil and gas production capabilities would be viewed as existential in nature. That could trigger the reversal of the fatwa and the deployment of nuclear weapons within days of such a decision being made.
President Joe Biden told reporters on Friday that he knows when and where Israel will strike but refused to say. Leaked U.S. intelligence documents in recent days showed the limits of U.S. knowledge of exactly what Israel plans to do.
The United States and nuclear-power Israel have long said that a nuclear-armed Iran was a red line which could not be crossed without severe consequences, namely massive military intervention designed to destroy Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.
That line has been crossed — Iran is a de facto nuclear power, even if it hasn’t taken the final steps to complete the construction of a nuclear bomb.
The consequences of attacking Iran could prove fatal to the attackers and possibly the whole region.
Leaked US Intelligence Documents Outline Israeli Preparations to Strike Iran
Reportedly, the leak comes courtesy of a US intelligence source
by Connor Freeman October 19, 2024 https://news.antiwar.com/2024/10/19/leaked-us-intelligence-documents-outline-israeli-preparations-to-strike-iran/#gsc.tab=0
Leaked top secret documents from the Pentagon and the National Security Agency (NSA) outline Israeli preparations for a major attack against Iran, CNN reported on Saturday. The documents were published Friday on a Telegram channel, said to be affiliated with Iran, named “Middle East Spectator” that claims it received the information from a source within a US intelligence agency.
Besides the US, these documents, dated October 15 and 16, were only meant to be viewed by officials in Canada, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, Washington’s “Five Eyes” allies. CNN cites “three people familiar with the matter,” including one that confirmed the documents’ authenticity. The documents can be viewed here and here.
The documents, including a visual intelligence report from the Pentagon’s National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, details ongoing activities being carried out in anticipation of the attack in Iran at Israeli Air Force (IAF) bases.
The US has observed, “IAF exercises using air-launched ballistic missiles (ALBMs), air-to-surface ballistic missiles, fighter jets, UAVs, and refueling tankers previously used during Israeli strikes on Houthi sites in Yemen… The IAF has handled at least 16 Golden Horizon ALBMs and 40 IS02 (Rocks) ALBMs since October 8,” reports Times of Israel.
According to CNN, one of the documents reveals that Israel maintains a nuclear weapons arsenal which, for decades, has been an open secret. This is highly controversial, as amendments made to US foreign assistance laws by US Senators Stuart Symington and John Glenn in 1976 make Washington’s huge military aid to Israel illegal because Tel Aviv is not a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. But successive US presidents since Richard Nixon, including Joe Biden most recently, have agreed with their Israeli counterparts to never acknowledge Israel’s approximately 90–300 nukes.
US officials are telling the media that the leak is “extremely serious.” At the same time, officials emphasize that it will probably not affect Israel’s plans. Without commenting further, the Pentagon as well as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence have not disputed the documents’ authenticity. The US has apologized to Tel Aviv for the leak, an Israeli source told Haaretz.
Washington is expected to be involved with the Iran assault either by providing intelligence support to Israel, or less likely by pursuing direct military action. Earlier this week, the US bombed Houthi targets in Yemen using B-2 long-range stealth bombers, which haven’t seen combat since 2017, in a message to the Islamic Republic.
Israel’s attack is being framed as retaliation against Tehran for Iran’s October 1 barrage of roughly 200 ballistic missiles which targeted Israeli military sites. That missile attack came in response to a litany of Israeli provocations, amidst its genocidal war against the Palestinians, including the assassination of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh while he was visiting the Iranian capital this summer.
Earlier on Saturday, reports surfaced of a drone attack on a home belonging to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. According to Israel’s Channel 12, an official said this will imply “greater legitimacy for a wider range of targets” concerning the upcoming Iran strike. Netanyahu has fingered Hezbollah for the drone attack, although the group has not claimed responsibility.
Zelensky aide reveals secret clauses of ‘victory plan’
RT, Wed, 16 Oct 2024, https://www.rt.com/russia/605823-ukrainian-plan-secret-clauses/
The classified component details attack plans on Russia and a weaponry wish list, according to Mikhail Podoliak.
The secret component of the “victory plan” unveiled by Vladimir Zelensky on Wednesday includes Kiev’s targets for long-range attacks on Russian soil, Mikhail Podoliak, a top aide to the Ukrainian leader, has revealed.
The parts of the plan that were not disclosed to the public consist of a list of targets, a plan of action, and a detailing of the weapons needed to carry out such attacks against Russia, Podoliak told RBC Ukraine in an interview on Wednesday.
“There, in the appendices, it is precisely said what kind of weapons should be used to destroy logistics very far from the front line… what targets will be hit and how many weapons are needed for this.”
Zelensky revealed the so-called “victory plan” earlier in the day in an address to the country’s parliament. The Ukrainian leader toured Western capitals in recent weeks to show the plan to his backers in private and try to generate support for it.
The public part of the plan largely consists of a number of demands made of Ukraine’s Western supporters. Kiev requested an immediate invitation to join NATO, a lifting of restrictions on the use of Western-supplied long-range weapons for strikes on Russia, as well as the deployment of “a comprehensive non-nuclear strategic deterrence package” on Ukrainian soil.
The plan, particularly its cornerstone NATO accession demand, appears to have elicited a mixed reaction in the West. Washington’s envoy to NATO, Julianne Smith, for instance, said that while the bloc remains committed to Kiev’s “irreversible path of membership,” actual accession was not a “short-term” matter.
Moscow dismissed the plan as a set of “incoherent slogans,” with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova condemning it as “bloody foam on the lips of a neo-Nazi killer.”
She also dismissed the NATO aspirations long-touted by Kiev, suggesting the only place the West actually deems fit for Ukraine in its “security architecture” is “in a coffin and Ukrainian citizens in graves.”
China not part of nuclear arms race, says envoy
US, with largest arsenal, called on to stop misrepresenting nation’s policy
By MINLU ZHANG at United Nations and SHAO XINYING in Beijing | CHINA DAILY 2024-10-21 https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202410/21/WS671596c9a310f1265a1c88ef.html
A Chinese arms control official called on the United States on Friday to “stop misrepresenting China’s nuclear policy” and said that China “has not, and will not, engage in a nuclear arms race”.
A representative of the US told the First Committee of the United Nations General Assembly on Friday that Russia is violating the New START Treaty and employing “irresponsible nuclear rhetoric” amid the Ukraine crisis. The representative also claimed that China has not fully disclosed the extent of its nuclear weapons modernization.
Shen Jian, China’s ambassador for disarmament affairs, told the committee that China’s no-first-use policy “requires maintaining a certain level of ambiguity regarding its nuclear arsenal to ensure the survivability of its limited nuclear forces”.
“As long as no country uses nuclear weapons against China, it will not face a nuclear threat from China. This is the most meaningful form of transparency,” Shen said.
He said the US possesses the largest and most advanced nuclear arsenal, adding that it adheres to “the policy of preemptive nuclear strikes, and even tailors nuclear deterrence strategies for other countries”.
“The transparency of the US display of nuclear power is nothing more than a ‘muscle show’ that will not make other countries feel safe,” he said.
“China has consistently maintained its nuclear forces at the minimum level required for national security and has not, and will not, engage in a nuclear arms race,” the Chinese envoy said.
He said China must “appropriately” modernize its nuclear forces to “ensure the safety, reliability and survivability of its minimum nuclear deterrent”, as “China’s external security environment continues to deteriorate”, noting that certain countries are developing global missile defense systems and other weapons that “impact strategic stability”.
He urged the US to “stop misrepresenting China’s nuclear policy”. For 60 years, China has adhered to a no-first-use policy with a high degree of stability, consistency and predictability, he said. Recently, China again formally proposed that nuclear-armed states negotiate a “No First Use Treaty” or issue a joint political statement on the matter as soon as possible.
China has engaged in arms control and nonproliferation dialogues with many countries around the world, including the US, Shen said. As the current coordinator of the P5 mechanism, China is also actively promoting dialogue and cooperation among the five nuclear-weapon states.
The P5 mechanism is a dialogue process among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the US.
Shen said that the US should stop projecting its logic that “power inevitably seeks dominance “onto China.
China not part of nuclear arms race, says envoy
US, with largest arsenal, called on to stop misrepresenting nation’s policy
By MINLU ZHANG at United Nations and SHAO XINYING in Beijing | CHINA DAILY | Updated: 2024-10-21 07:48
A Chinese arms control official called on the United States on Friday to “stop misrepresenting China’s nuclear policy” and said that China “has not, and will not, engage in a nuclear arms race”.
A representative of the US told the First Committee of the United Nations General Assembly on Friday that Russia is violating the New START Treaty and employing “irresponsible nuclear rhetoric” amid the Ukraine crisis. The representative also claimed that China has not fully disclosed the extent of its nuclear weapons modernization.
Shen Jian, China’s ambassador for disarmament affairs, told the committee that China’s no-first-use policy “requires maintaining a certain level of ambiguity regarding its nuclear arsenal to ensure the survivability of its limited nuclear forces”.
“As long as no country uses nuclear weapons against China, it will not face a nuclear threat from China. This is the most meaningful form of transparency,” Shen said.
He said the US possesses the largest and most advanced nuclear arsenal, adding that it adheres to “the policy of preemptive nuclear strikes, and even tailors nuclear deterrence strategies for other countries”.
“The transparency of the US display of nuclear power is nothing more than a ‘muscle show’ that will not make other countries feel safe,” he said.
“China has consistently maintained its nuclear forces at the minimum level required for national security and has not, and will not, engage in a nuclear arms race,” the Chinese envoy said.
He said China must “appropriately” modernize its nuclear forces to “ensure the safety, reliability and survivability of its minimum nuclear deterrent”, as “China’s external security environment continues to deteriorate”, noting that certain countries are developing global missile defense systems and other weapons that “impact strategic stability”.
He urged the US to “stop misrepresenting China’s nuclear policy”. For 60 years, China has adhered to a no-first-use policy with a high degree of stability, consistency and predictability, he said. Recently, China again formally proposed that nuclear-armed states negotiate a “No First Use Treaty” or issue a joint political statement on the matter as soon as possible.
China has engaged in arms control and nonproliferation dialogues with many countries around the world, including the US, Shen said. As the current coordinator of the P5 mechanism, China is also actively promoting dialogue and cooperation among the five nuclear-weapon states.
The P5 mechanism is a dialogue process among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the US.
Shen said that the US should stop projecting its logic that “power inevitably seeks dominance “onto China.
Shen said that over the past 20 years, the US has withdrawn from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the Iran nuclear deal, and these moves undermine the international arms control regime.
According to The New York Times, amid ongoing global conflicts, the US plans to allocate an estimated $1.7 trillion over the next 30 years to modernize its arsenal.
Shen noted that while some countries have criticized China and Russia with regard to their nuclear arsenals, they made “no mention of other nuclear-weapon states upgrading their arsenals”. He called this a “double standard “and emphasized that such actions, which “draw lines based on ideology and stir up bloc confrontation”, will not advance nuclear disarmament.
Wang Zhen, a researcher of international politics at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of International Relations, told China Daily that “the US’ misrepresenting of China’s nuclear development serves mainly to justify its upgrading of its nuclear arsenal, and the so-called ‘China nuclear threat’ is used as an excuse to adjust its nuclear strategy”.
He said that the US, despite its huge nuclear arsenal, clings to a first-use nuclear deterrence policy, which “underscores its pursuit of nuclear hegemony”.
Gabor Mate: ‘It’s like we’re watching Auschwitz on TikTok’
October 20, 2024 https://scheerpost.com/2024/10/20/gabor-mate-its-like-were-watching-auschwitz-on-tiktok/
Had there been YouTube and Instagram and TikTok around Auschwitz, this is what we would have seen, people burning alive. And it’s beyond horrendous, it’s beyond comprehension.”
In an online meeting with French activist and film producer Frank Barat on Monday, Canadian physician Gabor Mate explored the psychological complexities of witnessing atrocities in Gaza and Palestine, saying: “It’s like we’re watching Auschwitz on TikTok.”
They delve into the emotional and historical roots of violence and oppression, highlighting the trauma, guilt, and helplessness experienced by observers. Mate stresses the need to acknowledge these emotions and examines the normalisation of violence, while contemplating the future implications for Gaza and global society.
Ukraine must have nukes or NATO – Zelensky
https://www.rt.com/russia/605856-zelensky-nuclear-nato-trump/ 16 Oct 24
The leader has described his conversation with former US President Donald Trump as he promotes his ‘victory plan’ to Western backers.
Ukraine can protect itself either by becoming a nuclear state or a member of NATO, Vladimir Zelensky said on Thursday, claiming that he had offered the same line of reasoning to former US President Donald Trump.
Speaking at a press conference after promoting his ‘victory plan’ for the conflict with Russia to European officials, Zelensky suggested that Ukraine would need nuclear weapons, should it not be granted NATO membership.
“Which of the big nations, the nuclear nations, suffered? Everyone? No, just Ukraine,” he stated, referring to the signatories of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. The document involved the US, UK, and Russia extending security assurances to Kiev in return for the removal of Soviet nuclear weapons from Ukraine.
“Speaking to Donald Trump, I told him: ‘What is the way out for us?’ Either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons, and they will serve as protection, or we need to be in some kind of an alliance. We don’t know any effective alliances except NATO,” Zelensky added.
Ukraine’s choice is to become a NATO member, Zelensky said, claiming that Trump had found his reasoning justified.
Ukraine has never controlled nuclear weapons, but claims it was formerly among the major atomic powers before agreeing to relinquish them. In February 2022, weeks before the escalation of the Ukraine conflict, Zelensky expressed regret at the decision in a speech at the International Security Conference in Munich, suggesting that his country had “every right” to reverse it.
Zelensky confirmed this week that an immediate invitation for Ukraine to join NATO was on his list of requests to Western donors. The secretary general of the US-led bloc, Mark Rutte, said on Thursday that Ukraine may not even be the next nation to become a member.
Widening the War: The US Sends Troops to Israel
October 20, 2024, Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.com/widening-the-war-the-us-sends-troops-to-israel/
The dangers should be plastered on every wall in every office occupied by a military and political advisor. Israel’s attempt to reshape the Middle East, far from giving it enduring security, will merely serve to make it more vulnerable and unstable than ever. In that mix and mess will be its greatest sponsor and guardian, the United States, a giant of almost blind antiquity in all matters concerning the Jewish state.
In a measure that should have garnered bold headlines, the Biden administration has announced the deployment of some 100 US soldiers to Israel who will be responsible for operating the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system. They are being sent to a conflict that resembles a train travelling at high speed, with no risk of stopping. As Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant promised in the aftermath of Iran’s October 1 missile assault on his country, “Our strike will be powerful, precise, and above all – surprising.” It would be of such a nature that “They will not understand what happened and how it happened.”
In an October 16 meeting between the Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and Gallant, the deployment of a mobile THAAD battery was seen “as an operational example of the United States’ ironclad support to the defense of Israel.” Largely meaningless bits of advice were offered to Gallant: that Israel “continue taking steps to address the dire humanitarian situation” and take “all necessary measures to ensure the safety and security” of UN peacekeepers operating in Lebanon’s south.
The charade continued the next day in a conversation between Austin and Gallant discussing the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. THAAD was again mentioned as essential for Israel’s “right to defence itself” while representing the “United States’ unwavering, enduring, and ironclad commitment to Israel’s security.” (“Ironclad” would seem to be the word of the moment, neatly accompanying Israel’s own Iron Dome defence system.)
A statement from the Pentagon press secretary, Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, was a fatuous effort in minimising the dangers of the deployment. The battery would merely “augment Israel’s integrated air defense system,” affirm the ongoing commitment to Israel’s defence and “defend Americans in Israel, from any further ballistic missile attacks from Iran.”
The very public presence of US troops, working alongside their Israeli counterparts in anticipation of broadening conflict, does not merely suggest Washington’s failure to contain their ally. It entails a promise of ceaseless supply, bolstering and emboldening. Furthermore, it will involve placing US troops in harm’s way, a quixotic invitation if ever there was one.
As things stand, the US is already imperilling its troops by deploying them in a series of bases in Jordan, Syria and Iraq. Iran’s armed affiliates have been making their presence felt, harrying the stationed troops with increasing regularity since the Israel-Hamas war broke out on October 7 last year. A gradual, attritive toll is registering, featuring such attacks as those on the Tower 22 base in northern Jordan in January that left three US soldiers dead.
Writing in August for The Guardian, former US army major Harrison Mann eventually realised an awful truth about the mounting assaults on these sandy outposts of the US imperium: “there was no real plan to protect US troops beyond leaving them in their small, isolated bases while local militants, emboldened and agitated by US support for Israel’s brutal war in Gaza, used them for target practice.” To send more aircraft and warships to the Middle East also served to encourage “reckless escalation towards a wider war,” providing insurance to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he could be protected “from the consequences of his actions.”
Daniel Davis, a military expert at Defense Priorities, is firmly logical on the point of enlisting US personnel in the Israeli cause. “Naturally, if Americans are killed in the execution of their duties, there will be howls from the pro-war hawks in the West ‘demanding’ the president ‘protect our troops’ by firing back on Iran.” It was “exactly the sort of thing that gets nations sucked into war they have no interest in fighting.”
Polling, insofar as that measure counts, suggests that enthusiasm for enrolling US troops in Israel’s defence is far from warm. In results from a survey published by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations in August, some four in ten polled would favour sending US troops to defend Israel if it was attacked by Iran. Of the sample, 53% of Republicans would favour defending Israel in that context, along with four in 10 independents (42%), and a third of Democrats (34%).
There have also been some mutterings from the Pentagon itself about Israel’s burgeoning military effort, in particular against the Lebanese Iran-backed militia, Hezbollah. In a report from The New York Times, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., is said to be worried about the widening US presence in the region, a fact that would hamper overall “readiness” of the US in other conflicts. Being worried is just the start of it.
US wants Ukraine to send teenagers into the chopper mill of lost proxy war against Russia.
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL, 18 Oct 24
After 32 months of failure, one might conclude the US is ready to toss in the towel in its proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.
Over $150 billion in war material has done nothing to achieve stalemate, much less victory. Russia is advancing steadily to cut off Ukraine’s ability to remain in the fight both provoked and extended for over 2 years by the Biden administration.
Ukraine’s young men ore fleeing conscription in droves. To keep the conveyor belt of cannon fodder flowing, President Zelensky lowered the draft age from 27 to 25 last April. He was responding to criticism from supreme US war promoter Sen. Lindsay Graham, who visited Zelensky to offer “I would hope that those eligible to serve in the Ukrainian military would join. I can’t believe it’s at 27. You’re in a fight for your life, so you should be serving — not at 25 or 27. We need more people in the line.” At the beginning of this lost war Graham gloated that “Ukraine should fight to the last person”…as long as billions in US weapons keep flowing.
The Biden administration is now suggesting Ukraine should toss teenagers into the war by lowering the draft age to 18 to fill the ranks of near empty brigades. If asked again about Ukraine’s dire situation, Graham would likely amend his earlier comment to state that ‘Ukraine should fight to the last teenager.’
Nuclear Fever: War Mongering on Iran
In Foreign Policy, Matthew Kroenig, generously self-described as a national security strategist, blusters for war. “Indeed, now is an ideal opportunity to destroy Iran’s nuclear program,” he asserts with childish longing.
In a report authored by both Democrats and Republicans for the Council, a warning of chilling absurdity is offered: “The United States needs to maintain a declaratory policy, explicitly enunciated by the president, that it will not tolerate Iran getting a nuclear weapon and will use military force to prevent this development if all other measures fail.”
Iran can never have nuclear weapons, because the United States and Israel say so
October 18, 2024, by: Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.com/nuclear-fever-war-mongering-on-iran/
The recent string of exaggerated military successes – or at least as they are understood to be – places Israel in a situation it has been previously used to: prowess in war. Such prowess promises much: redrawing boundaries; overthrowing governments; destroying the capabilities of adversaries and enemies. Nothing, in this equation, contemplates peace, let alone diplomatic resolution. It’s playground pugilism that rarely gets out of the sandpit.
In Washington, a fever has struck regarding Israel’s advances. The outbreak has stirred much enthusiasm in a doctrine that has been shown, time and again, to be wretchedly uncertain and grossly dangerous. With no concrete evidence of imminent harm to US interests, it featured in the highest policy planning circles that oiled an invasion of Iraq in 2003. While the stated objective was the disarming of Saddam Hussein’s regime for having Weapons of Mass Destruction it turned out not to have, the logic was one of pre-emptive strike: we attack the madman in Baghdad before he goes nuclear and loses it.
The establishment wonk on empire and espionage at The Washington Post, David Ignatius, offers a fairly meaningless assessment in terms of claimed Israeli dominance over Iran and its proxies. After a year of conflict, Israel had “gained what military strategists call ‘escalation dominance’.” The implication: a decisive attack on Iran is imminent.
The point here (at this juncture, the mind lost seeks sanctuary in a mental asylum of lunatic reassurances), is that attacking Iran in toto will not result in much by way of retaliatory detriment. Some bruising, surely, but hardly lingering flesh wounds. Israel has, it would seem, been working some magic, spreading its own view that Iran has a gruesome plan in its military vault: eliminating Israel by 2040.
In Foreign Policy, Matthew Kroenig, generously self-described as a national security strategist, blusters for war. “Indeed, now is an ideal opportunity to destroy Iran’s nuclear program,” he asserts with childish longing. The reason for such an attack lies in a presumption. Yet again, the doctrine of pre-emption, one hostile to international law and the UN Charter, plays out its feeble rationale. Evidence, in such cases, is almost always scanty. Kroenig, however, is certain. Iran will secure one bomb’s worth of weapon-grade material within a matter of weeks. The rest is obvious. No evidence is offered, nor does it even matter, given Kroenig’s longstanding zeal in wishing to rid Iran of its nuclear facilities.
The Atlantic Council has also suggested a policy that what is good for the goose of Christian-Jewish freedom is not good for the gander of Persian Shia ambition. It is exactly this full-fledged hypocrisy that the despots of the secular tyranny in North Korea realised in dealing with Washington. Beware the nostrums against nuclear armament.
In a report authored by both Democrats and Republicans for the Council, a warning of chilling absurdity is offered: “The United States needs to maintain a declaratory policy, explicitly enunciated by the president, that it will not tolerate Iran getting a nuclear weapon and will use military force to prevent this development if all other measures fail.”
Instead of resisting belligerent chatter, the authors suggest that the US threaten Iran through announcing “yearly joint exercises with Israel, such as Juniper Oak and seek additional funding in the next budget cycle to speed research and development of next-generation military hardware capable of destroying Iran’s nuclear program
Kroenig shows his usual stuffing. Iran can never have nuclear weapons, because the United States and Israel say so. (The Sunni powers, for their own reasons, agree.) This form of perennial idiocy could apply to all the powers that have nuclear weapons, including Israel itself. At one point, no state should have had that relic of sadism’s folly. Then they came in succession after the United States: the Soviet bomb, the Britannic bomb, the Gallic bomb. Throw in China, India, Pakistan, Israel. Plucky, deranged North Korea, was wise to note the trend, showing lunacy to be eternally divisible.
It is precisely that sort of logic that has drawn such comments as this from the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a May interview: “Iran’s level of deterrence will be different if the existence of Iran is threatened. We have no decision to produce a nuclear bomb, but we will have to change our nuclear doctrine if such threats occur.” This month, almost 40 legislators penned a letter to the Supreme National Security Council calling for a reconsideration of current nuclear doctrine. The greater the fanatic’s desire to remove a perceived threat, the more likely an opponent will give basis to that threat.
For all the faux restraint being officially aired in Washington regarding Israel’s next round of military assaults, there is enormous sympathy, even affection, for the view that wrongs shall be righted, and the mullahs punished. Bedding for a more hostile response to Iran also features in the inane airings of the presidential election. Vice President Kamala Harris, in an interview with 60 minutes, remarked that, “Iran has American blood on its hands, okay?” In making that claim, she suggested that Tehran was somehow Washington’s greatest adversary.
In response to this fatuous remark, Justin Logan of the Cato Institute offers an ice-cold bath of reason: “This is not the Wehrmacht in 1940.” The path to dominating the Middle East hardly involves such tools as propaganda, proxy operations and psychological warfare “much less becoming the greatest threat to the United States.”
The nuclear option is now available to governments that should never have had them. But acquiring the dangerously untenable followed. To assume that brutal, amputation loving theocrats in Tehran should not have them defies the trajectory of a certain moronic consistency. The Persian bomb is probably imminent, and it is incumbent on the murderous fantasists in Israel and the United States to chew over that fact. Unfortunately for the rest of us, the fetish against acquisition risks expanding a conventional conflict through testing the will and means of a power that, while wounded, hardly counts as defeated.
First ex-Royal Navy nuclear submarine to be disposed of enters final dismantling phase.
Navy Lookout 15th Oct 2024 https://www.navylookout.com/first-ex-royal-navy-nuclear-submarine-to-be-disposed-of-enters-final-dismantling-phase/
Work has started on the third and final phase of the project to dismantle ex-HMS Swiftsure. As the demonstrator project for the dismantling programme, she will be the first former RN SSN to be fully disposed of.
The glacial project to safely scrap the growing fleet of decommissioned boats has finally begun to make some progress at Rosyth in the last few years. Each submarine will undergo a three-step process which involves Low Level Radioactive Waste (LLW) being removed first. The second and most demanding stage involves the removal of the Reactor Pressure Vessel that holds the reactor core and is classed as Intermediate Level Radioactive Waste (ILW).
Work has started on the third and final phase of the project to dismantle ex-HMS Swiftsure. As the demonstrator project for the dismantling programme, she will be the first former RN SSN to be fully disposed of.
The glacial project to safely scrap the growing fleet of decommissioned boats has finally begun to make some progress at Rosyth in the last few years. Each submarine will undergo a three-step process which involves Low Level Radioactive Waste (LLW) being removed first. The second and most demanding stage involves the removal of the Reactor Pressure Vessel that holds the reactor core and is classed as Intermediate Level Radioactive Waste (ILW).
Swiftsure’s disposal is a notable achievement as the first Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR) anywhere in the world to be dismantled. Other nations use a much simpler process and cut the entire reactor compartment out of the submarine and transport it structurally complete for burial in land storage facilities. The US has successfully disposed of over 130 nuclear ships and submarines since the 1980s. The Russians have disposed of over 190 Soviet-era boats (with some international assistance) since the 1990s while France has already disposed of 3 boats from their much smaller numbers.
Besides the progress with Swifsure, LLW has been safely removed from ex-HMS Resolution, Revenge and Repulse. As experience has been gained working on successive boats techniques have been refined and more waste has been managed to final disposal at reduced cost. The optimisation of the process allowed 50% greater tonnage of waste to be removed in 75% of the time it took for Swiftsure. So far the work has been completed safely on budget and on time. Work has yet to begin on ex-HMS Dreadnought, Churchill and Renown still afloat in the basin at Rosyth.
While there is positive progress at Rosyth, 14 Dock at Devonport is still not ready to accept the first boat to begin defuelling and dismantling. There are now 15 decommissioned submarines filling up the basins in Plymouth (soon to be 16 when HMS Triumph goes in 2025). Work to get rid of this legacy cannot start soon enough. At least the lessons learned in Rosyth should give the teams at Devonport an advantage although the majority of these boats still have their nuclear fuel on board and will have to undergo a 4-stage process.
Volodomyr’s World: A Delusional ‘Victory Plan’
RUSSIAN and UERASIAN POLITICS, by Gordonhahn, October 17, 2024,
Ukraine’s Volodomyr Zelenskiy lives in a world of productions, PR, simulacra and, therefore, delusion. Hence, the bizarre content of his so-called Victory Plan as presented to Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, on October 16th. It contained five points, each out of touch with the real world in its own way……
The first point is Ukraine’s immediate admittance to NATO. This is none other than an extension to the level of the absurdity of his policy of trying to bring the alliance into the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War as an open and direct combatant party. Despite repeated escalations, the reluctance or hesitation to grant Ukraine the right to use Western-supplied long-range missiles against targets deep inside Russia demonstrates the limits of Western commitment.
So does the reduction of Western weapons and financial assistance to Ukraine, and repeated claims by Western leaders that their countries weapons reserves are depleted, and the lack of a war time production plan demonstrate that the West will not fight Russia directly any time soon, no less immediately, as granting Ukraine NATO membership would soon lead to.
Moreover, Western leaders have repeatedly rejected this idea. Saying that Ukraine’s membership in NATO was only “in the future” and that even another country might be admitted prior to Ukraine, new NATO Gen Sec Rutte Mark Rutte poured cold water on any “immediate” NATO membership for Ukraine the day after Zelenskiy outlined his Victory Plan to the Rada…..
The second point includes many of the faults of the first in that it calls for the West to build up Ukraine’s defensive and, crucially, offensive military capacity as a deterrent to Russian aggression and, more importantly, to allow Kiev to turn the war back onto Russian territory. This point includes Western approval so that Kiev can use long-range missiles provided by the West to attack targets deep inside Russia…. To this point is attached a secret protocol, the contents of which are known to the leaders of the US, UK, and Italy
Thus, Zelenskiy is proposing that NATO engage in attacks on Russia directly as an alliance or by one of its members, Ukraine. In short he is proposing that NATO with Ukraine as a member wage war against Russia.
To be sure, building up Ukraine’s defense to such a level that it could spearhead a NATO attack on Russia with any hope of success would take at least several years, by which time Ukraine is unlikely to exist. Pushing the war onto Russian territory has just been tried in Kursk to disastrous effect, with Ukrainian troops on the verge of encirclement and destruction.
Assuming an existing Ukraine, such a plan would require the West virtually to transition to a war economy if to have any prospect of success, with all the catastrophic effects for the parties which adopted such a decision and likely for domestic stability that would have as well.
Most dangerous is Zelenskiy’s reiteration of his plea to be allowed to hit deep inside Russia with long-range missiles, which can only be undertaken by using Western targeting and other technical means data and Western military officer-operators. Putin has said this would establish the countries in the armed forces of which these operators serve as combatants in the war and legal targets for Russian retaliation.
The third point is the ‘containment’ of Russia by way of the deployment of non-nuclear, long-range ballistic missiles in Ukraine. This point has the look of a post-war military strategic initiative and also has a secret protocol attached. The prospect of such a move by the West was one of the causes of Putin’s decision to begin the present ‘special military operation.’ Thus, as with the first three points the ‘Victory Plan’ is a road map to escalation and a direct NATO-Russian war; again, a long-standing goal of Zelenskiy since February 2022.
The fourth point is for the West to help rebuild Ukraine’s military-industrial base, as another means of protecting Ukraine and containing Russia. This point also has a secret protocol and likely pertains more to any post-war period, since Russia will have no trouble destroying any new military-industrial plants during the war.
The fifth point is also post-war oriented, stipulating that the forces of what should become Europe’s leading military power – Ukraine – as a surrogate for American power on the continent. It is proposed that Ukrainian forces would replace American forces across Europe. Thus, NATO would become Ukrainian-oriented and Ukraine a veritable European superpower. This point has the scent of many ultranationalist and neofascist visions of a Great Ukraine, master of an eastern European “Intermarium” stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. This smacks of a certain megalomania in Zelenskiy’s thinking that supplements his Victory Plan’s delusions. This may be fine for a sitcom or even a film manuscript — a geopolitical feel-good’ story — but not the real world of cut throat self-interest and lessons learned and hardened by the crooked, cruel path of human history.
The absurdities and extravagant demands and expectations in Zelenskiy’s Victory Plan may explain in part – along with the domestic political needs of the impending U.S. presidential election — the delaying tactics being used by Washington to put off strategic decisions such as whether or not to pressure Zelenskiy to negotiate with Russia, to negotiate behind Ukraine’s back, or to change the political configuration (remove Zelenskiy) in Kiev.
The U.S. Biden administration has been doing everything in order to delay until after the elections any decisions or announcements of decisions already made in relation to the future of its support for the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War and the Zelenskiy Maidan regime’s strategies.
First, in September the administration began postponing and still is any decision on whether or not to grant permission to Kiev to use Western-supplied long-range missiles in order to target deep inside Russia…………………………………………………………………………………….
The administration can now put off any strategic decisions, including rejection of Zelenskiy’s absurd ‚Victory Plan‘ until next month—that is until November at the earliest. One can be sure they will not be announced before the results of the U.S. presidential election are known and perhaps significantly later. …………………………………………………………………………………….
In the meantime, Ramstein will approve a new package of assistance, military and financial, to Ukraine to ensure there is no full collapse of the front and/or regime until after Biden’s departure from office.
Nevetheless, difficult strategic decisions await decisionmakers in the West in order to soften the appearance of defeat at Russia’s hands. Otherwise, they confront a perhaps decade-long war supporting a Ukrainian underground, terrorist attacks, and a disappearing indigenous Ukrainian economy and society reduced to a shrinking western Ukraine as Russian forces cross the Dneiper River and grind through the land to Ukraine’s western, southwestern and northwestern borders, to Odessa in the south, Lvov and Uzhgorod in the west, and Lutsk and Kovel in the north.
And all along the threat of direct war with Russia and nuclear escalation will hang over their heads and those of their electorates. To a significant degree, Zelenskiy and his delusions stand in the way of the West’s only reasonable exit path: de-escalation and peace, sans defeat and loss of face for NATO. Indeed, difficult decisions and bad options are the path ahead. https://gordonhahn.com/2024/10/17/volodomyrs-world-a-delusional-victory-plan/—
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