The Kerry-Lavrov chess match - By Pepe Escobar

The Kerry-Lavrov chess match By Pepe Escobar It's hardly a match between equals - as one is playing Monopoly while the other plays chess. It's as if Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has been postponing his checkmate, while US Secretary of State John Kerry increasingly realizes he's facing the inevitable. Lavrov has explained over and over again, a loose federation is the only possible solution for Ukraine, as part of a "deep constitutional reform". That would imply ethnic - and even sentimentally - Russian eastern and southern Ukraine would be largely autonomous. Kerry gave signs of agreeing around two weeks ago that Ukrainian regions need more decision power; but then the White House recharged its moral blitzkrieg - coinciding with President Barack Obama's trip to The Hague and Brussels. Still, even after an inconclusive four-hour Kerry-Lavrov chess match in Paris, there will be a checkmate. The Russian solution is the same plan proposed by Moscow already a few weeks ago, and again discussed on the phone by Obama and President Vladimir Putin on Friday - which prompted Kerry to redirect his flight to Paris. Each Ukrainian region, according to Lavrov, would be able to control its economy, taxes, culture, language, education and "external economic and cultural connections with neighboring countries or regions". That's such a sound plan that even former - or perennial, depending on spin - cold warriors such as Henry Kissinger and Zbig Brzezinski reasonably agree. The key problem is that Washington immovably considers the present Kiev set up - also known as the Khaganate of Nulands, as in State Department Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nulands - as legitimate. Moscow sees them as a bunch of putschists and fascists. And Washington still refuses to press Kiev to accept a federal system - thus allowing, among other things, Russian as an official second language. The latest American stunt is a massive propaganda drive of "The Reds are coming" kind, about Russian troops massing at the border(pliant corporate media spins numbers over 100,000). Kerry, for the moment, is at least refraining from hysteria; he admits Washington and Moscow agree a diplomatic solution is a must, just to revert to the new meme - the artificial, Pentagon/NATO-spun "prelude to an invasion". Washington's official position remains that Moscow must disarm its forces in Crimea (it won't happen); admit international observers (it might happen); and pull troops back from the eastern border (Moscow argues these are exercises, with the same number as usual - fewer than 20,000). Lavrov having to stress over and over again there are no Russian plans to invade eastern Ukraine sound almost like a punch line in stand-up comedy. Beware The Empire of Chaos  Then there are the upcoming presidential elections. Rivers of vodka may be bet that that will be an extremely dodgy operation. The Svoboda and Right Sector goons currently in positions of power will do everything to tamper with the results (as they are not exactly popular). After German Chancellor Angela Merkel's horse - former boxer "Klitsch" - decided to abandon the race, the leader is - what else - an oligarch: billionaire chocolate tycoon Petro Poroshenko. He already dismissed the federal solution, as in "somebody in the Russian government trying to tell us what type of governmental system we should have". And there's nothing about "democracy" to start with, as the regime changers, as reported by Kommersant, are in full speed already rewriting the Ukrainian constitution, with Prime Minister "Yats" Arseniy Yatseniuk urging them to come up with the final redaction within the next two weeks. The unspoken Siberian tiger in this room is a Russian unconditional. Kiev must officially pledge that Ukraine will not join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. And we all know, since the Khaganate of Nulands was installed, this was always about the Pentagon-led expansion of NATO. Putin's "carrot" to Obama is something that he also told him on the phone: the future of Transnistria in Moldova, on Ukraine's south-west border, should be solved by talks in a 5+2 format; Moldova, Transnistria, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Russia and Ukraine, with the European Union and US as observers. Once again, no "invasion" involved. Glaring in all this is an already immovable fact - Crimea joining the Russian Federation. And there's no turning back, whatever the US, the EU and Kiev may spin. But that poses an ulterior problem. Putin's rationale to move on Crimea - after Russian intelligence uncovered a plot to replicate in Simferopol the coup in Kiev - was that Crimea's autonomy was not enough to protect it from the regime changers. The same could be argued later about ethnic Russians and Russian speakers in eastern and southern Ukraine. So the autonomy conditions - and the constitutional reform - would have to be ironclad. They probably won't. Still, the stark fact is that no one gives a damn about "the Ukrainian people", be it the US, the EU or the International Monetary Fund (Russia at least cares for Russians in Ukraine). Another even more sensitive ulterior problem, assuming Washington and Moscow reach a deal, is how far can you trust the "word" of the United States government. Russia has first-hand experience on the matter, as in Bush father promising Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not expand across eastern Europe. It did - like a blob in a cheap horror flick. We should never forget the Big Picture; as with the NSA Orwellian-panopticon complex, this is most of all about the application of the Pentagon's Full Spectrum Dominance doctrine, which implies encirclement of Russia (via NATO), coupled with the pivot-style encirclement of China. And the overarching logic remains the same; this is The Empire of Chaos in action. Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

THE ROVING EYE The new Great (Threat) Game in Eurasia By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE The new Great (Threat) Game in Eurasia By Pepe Escobar In Ukraine, the West supported an unconstitutional putsch against an elected government perpetrated, among others, by fascist/neo-nazi storm troopers (Svoboda, Right Sector) instrumentalized by US intelligence. After a Russian counterpunch, US President Barack Obama proclaimed that any referendum in Crimea would "violate the Ukrainian constitution and violate international law." This is just the latest instance in the serial rape of "international law". The rap sheet is humongous, including; NATO bombing Serbia for 78 days in 1999 to allow Kosovo to secede; the 2003 US invasion and subsequent trillion-dollar occupation and civil war creation in Iraq; NATO/AFRICOM bombing Libya in 2011 invoking R2P ("responsibility to protect") as a cover to provoking regime change; US investment in the secession of oil-wealthy South Sudan, so China has to deal with an extra geopolitical headache; and US investment in perennial civil war in Syria. Yet Moscow still (foolishly?) believes international law should be respected - presenting to the UN Security Council classified information on all Western intel/psy-ops moves leading to the coup in Kiev, including "training" provided by Poland and Lithuania, not to mention Turkish intelligence involvement in setting up a second coup in Crimea. Russian diplomats called for an unbiased international investigation. That will never happen; Washington's narrative would be completely debunked. Thus a US veto at the UN. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also called for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe to objectively investigate those snipers shooting everyone on sight in Kiev, as revealed by Estonia's foreign minister to EU foreign policy supremo Catherine "I love Yats" Ashton. According to Russia's ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin, "a completely different picture would be drawn compared to what is being depicted by American media and, unfortunately, by some American and European politicians." Needless to say, there will be no investigation. Hi, I'm your good neo-nazi Everyone remembers the "good Taliban", with which the US could negotiate in Afghanistan. Then came the "good al-Qaeda", jihadis the US could support in Syria. Now come the "good neo-nazis", with which the West can do business in Kiev. Soon there will be "the good jihadis supporting neo-nazis", who may be deployed to advance US/NATO and anti-Russian designs in Crimea and beyond. After all, Obama mentor Dr Zbigniew "The Grand Chessboard" Brzezinski is the godfather of good jihadis, fully weaponized to fight the former Soviet Union in Afghanistan. As facts on the ground go, neo-nazis are definitely back as good guys. For the first time since the end of World War II, fascists and neo-nazis are at the helm of a European nation (although Ukraine most of all should be characterized as the key swing nation in Eurasia). Few in the West seem to have noticed it. The cast of characters include Ukrainian interim defense minister and former student at the Pentagon Ihor Tenyukh; deputy prime minister for economic affairs and Svoboda ideologue Oleksandr Sych; agro-oligarch minister of agriculture Ihor Svaika (Monsanto, after all, needs a chief enforcer); National Security Council chief and Maidan commander of Right Sector neo-nazis Andry Parubiy; and deputy National Security Council chief Dmytro Yarosh, the founder Right Sector. Not to mention Svoboda leader Oleh Tyanhybok, a close pal of John McCain and Victoria "F**k the EU" Nuland, and active proponent of an Ukraine free from the "Muscovite-Jewish mafia." As the Kremlin refuses to deal with this bunch and the upcoming March 16 referendum in Crimea is practically a done deal, Team "Yats" is fully legitimized, with honors, by Team Obama, leader included, in Washington. To quote Lenin, what is to be done? A close reading of President Putin's moves would suggest an answer: nothing. As in just waiting, while outsourcing the immediate future of a spectacularly bankrupt Ukraine to the EU. The EU is impotent to rescue even the Club Med countries. Inevitably, sooner or later, threat of sanctions or not, it will come crawling back to Moscow seeking "concessions", so Russia may also foot the bill. Meanwhile, in Pipelineistan … Meanwhile, the New Great (Threat) Game in Eurasia advances unabated. Moscow would willingly compromise on a neutral Ukraine - even with neo-nazis in power in Kiev. But an Ukraine attached to NATO is an absolute red line. By the way, NATO is "monitoring" Ukraine with AWACS deployed in Polish and Romanian airspace. So as the much lauded "reset" between the Kremlin and the Obama administration is for all practical purposes six feet under (with no Hollywood-style second coming in the cards), what's left is the dangerous threat game. Deployed not only by the Empire, but also by the minions. That monster collection of Magritte-style faceless bureaucrats at the European Commission (EU), following on the non-stop threat of EU sanctions, has decided to delay a decision on whether Gazprom may sell more gas through the OPAL pipeline in Germany, and also delay negotiations on the legal status of South Stream, the pipeline under the Black Sea which should become operational in 2015. As if the EU had any feasible Plan B to escape its dependency on Russian gas (not to mention eschew the very profitable financial game played between key European capitals and Moscow). What are they do, import gas on Qatar Airways flights? Buy LNG from the US - something that will not be feasible in years to come? The fact is the minute a gas war is on, if it ever comes down to it, the EU will be under immense pressure by a host of member-nations to keep (and even extend) its Russian gas fix - with or without "our (neo-nazi) bastards" in power in Kiev. Brussels knows it. And most of all, Vlad the Hammer knows it. Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

THE ROVING EYE Spring fails in Ukrainian plunderland By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE 
Spring fails in Ukrainian plunderland
By Pepe Escobar 

Here's the US's exceptionalist promotion of "democracy" in action; Washington has recognized a coup d'etat in Ukraine that regime-changed a - for all its glaring faults - democratically elected government. 

And here is Russian President Vladimir Putin, already last year,talking about how Russia and China decided to trade in roubles and yuan, and stressing how Russia needs to quit the "excessive monopoly" of the US dollar. He had to be aware the Empire would strike back. 

Now there's more; Russian presidential adviser Sergey Glazyev told RIA Novosti, "Russia will abandon the US dollar as a reserve currency if the United States initiates sanctions against the Russian Federation." 

So the Empire struck back by giving "a little help" to regime change in the Ukraine. And Moscow counter-punched by taking control of Crimea in less than a day without firing a shot - with or without crack Spetsnaz brigades (UK-based think tanks say they are; Putin says they are not). 

Putin's assessment of what happened in Ukraine is factually correct; "an anti-constitutional takeover and armed seizure of power". It's open to endless, mostly nasty debate whether the Kremlin overreacted or not. Considering the record of outright demonization of both Russia and Putin going on for years - and now reaching fever pitch - the Kremlin's swift reaction was quite measured. 

Putin applied Sun Tzu to the letter, and now plays the US against the EU. He has made it clear Moscow does not need to "invade" Ukraine. The 1997 Ukraine-Russia partition treaty specifically allows Russian troops in Crimea. And Russia after all is an active proponent of state sovereignty; it's under this principle that Moscow refuses a Western "intervention" in Syria. 

What he left the door open for is - oh cosmic irony of ironies - an American invention/intervention (and that, predictably, was undetectable by Western corporate media); the UN's R2P - "responsibility to protect" - in case the Western-aligned fascists and neo-nazis in Ukraine threaten Russians or Russian-speaking civilians with armed conflict. Samantha Power should be proud of herself. 

Don't mess with Russian intelligence
The "West" once again has learned you don't mess with Russian intelligence, which in a nutshell preempted in Crimea a replica of the coup in Kiev, largely precipitated by UNA-UNSO - a shady, ultra-rightwing, crack paramilitary NATO-linked force using Ukraine as base, as exposed by William Engdahl. 

And Crimea was an even murkier operation, because those neo-nazis from Western Ukraine were in tandem with Tatar jihadis (the House of Saud will be heavily tempted to finance them from now on). 

The Kremlin is factually correct when pointing out that the coup was essentially conducted by fascists and ultra-right "nationalists" - Western code for neo-nazis. Svoboda ("Freedom") party political council member Yury Noyevy even admitted openly that using EU integration as a pretext "is a means to break our ties with Russia." 

Western corporate media always conveniently forgets that Svoboda - as well as the Right Sector fascists - follow in the steps of Galician fascist/terrorist Stepan Bandera, a notorious asset of a basket of "Western" intel agencies. Now Svoboda has managed to insert no less than six bigwigs as part of the new regime in Kiev. 

Then there are the new regional governors appointed to the mostly Russophone east and south of Ukraine. They are - who else - oligarchs, such as billionaires Sergei Taruta posted to Donetsk and Ihor Kolomoysky posted in Dnipropetrovsk. People in Maidan in Kiev were protesting mostly against - who else - kleptocrat oligarchs. Once again, Western corporate media - which tirelessly plugged a "popular" uprising against kleptocracy - hasn't noticed it. 

Once again, follow the money
Ukraine's foreign currency reserves, only in the past four weeks, plunged from US$17.8 billion to $15 billion. Wanna buy some hryvnia? Well, not really; the national currency, is on a cosmic dive against the US dollar. This is jolly good news only for disaster capitalism vultures. 

And right on cue, the International Monetary Fund is sending a "fact-finding mission" to Ukraine this week. Ukrainians of all persuasions may run but they won't hide from "structural adjustment". They could always try to scrape enough for a ticket with their worthless hryvnia (being eligible for visa on arrival in Thailand certainly helps). 

European banks - who according to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) hold more than $23 billion in outstanding loans - could lose big in Ukraine. Italian banks, for instance, have loaned nearly $6 billion. 

On the Pipelineistan front, Ukraine heavily depends on Russia; 58% of its gas supply. It cannot exactly diversify and start buying from Qatar tomorrow - with delivery via what, Qatar Airways? 

And even as 66% of Russian gas exported to the EU transits through Ukraine, the country is fast losing its importance as a transit hub. Both the Nord Stream and South Stream pipelines - Russia not on-the-ground but under-seas - bypass Ukraine. The Nord Stream, finished in 2011, links Russia with Germany beneath the Baltic Sea. South Stream, beneath the Black Sea, will be ready before the end of 2015. 

Geoeconomically, the Empire needs Ukraine to be out of the Eurasian economic union promoted by the Kremlin - which also includes Kazakhstan and Belarus. And geopolitically, when NATO Secretary General, the vain puppet Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said that an IMF-EU package for the Ukraine would be "a major boost for Euro-Atlantic security", this is what clinched it; the only thing that matters in this whole game is NATO "annexing" Ukraine, as I examined earlier. 

It has always been about the Empire of Bases - just like the encirclement of Iran; just like the "pivot" to Asia translating into encirclement of China; just like encircling Russia with bases and "missile defense". Over the Kremlin's collective dead body, of course. 

Let's plunder that wasteland
US Secretary of State John Kerry accusing Russia of "invading Ukraine", in "violation of international law", and "back to the 19th century", is so spectacularly pathetic in its hypocrisy - once again, look at the US's record - it does not warrant comment from any informed observer. Incidentally, this is as pathetic as his offer of a paltry $1 billion in "loan guarantees" - which would barely pay Ukraine's bills for two weeks. 

The Obama administration - especially the neo-cons of the "F**k the EU" kind - has lost is power play. And for Moscow, it has no interlocutor in Kiev because it considers the regime-changers illegal. Moscow also regards "Europe" as a bunch of pampered whining losers - with no common foreign policy to boot. 

So any mediation now hinges on Germany. Berlin has no time for "sanctions" - the sacrosanct American exceptionalist mantra; Russia is a plush market for German industry. And for all the vociferations at the Economist and the Financial Times, the City of London also does not want sanctions; the financial center feeds on lavish Russian politico/oligarch funds. As for the West's "punishment" for Russia by threatening to expel it from the Group of Eight, that is a joke. The G-8, which excludes China, does not decide anything relevant anymore; the G-20 does. 

If a wide-ranging poll were to be conducted today, it would reveal that the majority of Ukrainians don't want to be part of the EU - as much as the majority of Europeans don't want the Ukraine in the EU. What's left for millions of Ukrainians is the bloodsucking IMF, to be duly welcomed by "Yats" (as Prime Minister Yatsenyuk is treated by Vic "F**k the EU" Nuland). 

Ukraine is slouching towards federalization. The Kiev regime-changers will have no say on autonomous Crimea - which most certainly will remain part of Ukraine (and Russia by the way will save $90 million in annual rent for the Sevastopol base, which until now was payable to Kiev.) 

The endgame is all but written; Moscow controls an autonomous Crimea for free, and the US/EU "control", or try to plunder, disaster capitalism-style, a back of beyond western Ukraine wasteland "managed" by a bunch of Western puppets and oligarchs, with a smatter of neo-nazis. 

So what is the Obama/Kerry strategic master duo to do? Start a nuclear war? 

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com. 

America's Jewish ambassador to Ukraine lauds neo-Nazi Ukrainian party

America's Jewish ambassador to Ukraine lauds neo-Nazi Ukrainian party

Not since the massacre at a summer camp of social democratic Norwegian youth by the Israel-loving Norwegian neo-Nazi Anders Breivik has there been clearer evidence of the collusion between Zionists and neo-Nazis as the statement by the pro-Zionist U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt that the neo-Nazi Ukrainian political party Svoboda "played an extremely constructive role during these three months of demonstrations."

Pyatt's comments came in a February 24 interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer. Blitzer's question to Pyatt was: ". . . some of the supporters of the ousted regime have been calling the protesters Nazis, referring to some neo-Nazi elements out there. How prevalent are they, these ultra nationalists, in Ukraine right now?"

Pyatt replied that "[Svoboda leader Oleh] Mr. Tyahnybok, who we expect to play role in new government, was one of those who helped diffuse several of the Kiev crisis points over the past several months."

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who is married to arch-neoconservative Robert Kagan and is Jewish, told Pyatt in a leaked phone conversation now infamous for her words "Fuck the EU," told Pyatt that she wanted opposition leader Arseniy  to consult with Tyahnybok "four times a week."Tyahnybok had his photograph taken during the Maidan Square demonstrations with a smiling Nuland. Tyahnybok was also photographed with Senator John McCain.

Tyahnybok, although an ardent Nazi sympathizer, says he supports Israel. He stated at a Svoboda reception in honor of the Israeli ambassador to Ukraine that “I respect the position of Israel, which defends the interests of its citizens.” It is clear that Tyahnybok respects Israel's policy of racism toward Arabs, a view he shares with respect to foreigners, including Arabs, in Ukraine. Tyahnybok says he has an affinity toward the more nationalist parties in the Israeli Knesset, which would include the racist parties representing Israel's illegal settlers in the West Bank of Palestine.

Among other "accomplishment's" of Pyatt and Nuland are the toppling of statues throughout Ukraine honoring Vladimir Lenin; Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov, the Russian  commander who defeated Napoleon's forces at Brody in western Ukraine; and a symbolic Ukrainian soldier who died fighting the Nazis.

Svoboda members and their allies have draped Nazi SS and Confederate American flags and banners inside Kyiv's City Hall. Neo-Nazis have declared their own zones of control throughout Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities.

The World Jewish Congress, a elading voice for Zionism, has called on Ukraine to ban Svoboda but as seen with Nuland's and Pyatt's policies, international Zionism is not speaking with one voice on the issue.

  

The neo-Nazi Oleh Tyahnybok and the American Zionist Victoria Nuland, wide of Robert Kagan, diplomat are all smiles. Not since the days of the Haavara (Transfer) Agreement of August 25, 1933 between the Zionist Federation of Germany and Chancellor Adolf Hitler [celebrated by the striking of a celebratory coin by the Berlin Mint -- above right], which helped pave the way for the creation of the State of Israel with the agreement to allow German Jews the right of exodus to the British mandate of Palestine, have the links between Nazism and Zionism been more evident.

Tyahnybok favors reanming various Ukrainian sites after Stepan Bandera, the Ukrainian nationalist leader during World War II who fought on the side of the German Nazis against the Soviet Union. Svoboda has called for the banning of the Communist Party in Ukraine, hardly a sign of democratic principles in a post-coup Ukraine.

Although the neo-conservatives are self-congratulating themselves on what they believe is a defeat for Russia and a spur to action for similarly-minded fascists now waging warfare on the streets of Venezuela and Thailand, the fall of Kyiv to the fragmented Ukrainian opposition has a silver lining. The cooperation between Nazis and Zionists has, once again, re-emerged for all the world to see.