Bolton in Moscow
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)
Trump’s national security advisor John Bolton is militantly Russophobic, pro-war, and anti-peace and stability.
Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation director Alexandra Bell earlier said Pompeo and Bolton reflect “neocon foreign policy jacked up on steroids.”
Last February, shortly before his appointment as national security advisor, Bolton called for a “decidedly disproportionate,” anti-Russia cyber offensive. He urged Trump to let Putin “hear the rumble of artillery and NATO tank tracks, conducting more joint field exercises with Ukraine’s military” close to Russia’s border.
He called nonexistent Russian US election meddling “a casus belli, a true act of war, and one Washington will never tolerate,” adding:
“For Trump, it should be a highly salutary lesson about the character of Russia’s leadership to watch Putin lie to him.”
“And it should be a fire-bell-in-the-night warning about the value Moscow places on honesty, whether regarding election interference, nuclear proliferation, arms control or the Middle East: negotiate with today’s Russia at your peril.”
“I think in order to focus Putin’s thinking, we need to do things that cause him pain…”
He called for “abrogat(ing) New START between Washington and Moscow, a nuclear arms reduction treaty agreed to in 2009, signed in 2010.
He convinced Trump to abandon the JCPOA and INF Treaty. He advocates greater US toughness against all sovereign independent countries.
Before becoming Trump’s national security advisor, he urged terror-bombing Iran and North Korea, sanctions not enough, he said, diplomacy “a waste of time.”
He claimed “Iran will not negotiate its nuclear (weapons) program” that doesn’t exist. He urged “military action like Israel’s 1981 attack on Saddam Hussein’s Osirak reactor in Iraq…”
He said “(t)he way to end (North Korea’s nuclear program) is to end the North.”
RT said “(h)e nuked Russia-US relations.” In Moscow Monday and Tuesday discussing them, he first met with Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev yesterday, a Kremlin statement saying the following:
“In the context of US President Donald Trump’s recent announcement of US intention to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the Russian side has again voiced its principal position on the importance of maintaining the treaty in force, and has also voiced its readiness to work together on eliminating the mutual claims related to the implementation of this treaty.”
Patrushev said US INF withdrawal risks undermining international security and stability, adding:
“(T)ermination (of the treaty) would be a heavy blow for the entire international legal system of non-proliferation and arms control.”
Both officials also discussed extending New START by another five years after the agreement expires in 2021.
A Kremlin statement also said “Nikolai Patrushev and John Bolton touched upon issues of further development of the situation around the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on the Iranian nuclear program, discussed the situation in Syria, Afghanistan and Ukraine, as well as the nuclear issue of the Korean Peninsula.”
Sputnik News said both officials discussed “a number of initiatives whose implementation could contribute to promoting an atmosphere of trust and strengthening cooperation between Russia and the United States. They also agreed to continue the bilateral dialogue between the security councils of the two countries.”
Republicans and undemocratic Dems consider Russia Washington’s number one enemy, irreconcilable differences separating the agendas of both countries.
Mutual trust is nonexistent. There’s virtually no chance for strengthening bilateral cooperation, every chance that hostile relations will deteriorate further.
Expanding NATO provocatively near Russia’s borders, using Ukraine as an anti-Russia platform, falsely accusing the Kremlin of one thing after another, and abandoning the ABM, JCPOA, and INF treaties pushes things closer to belligerent US confrontation with Russia and Iran, possibly China.
Paul Craig Roberts said he was part of “a secret (Reagan administration) committee,” aiming “to bring the Cold War to an end,” along with what Reagan called “those God-awful nuclear weapons,” wanting them “dismantled.”
Policies today under Republicans and undemocratic Dems are polar opposite what Reagan hoped for – launching Cold War 2.0, far more potentially dangerous than earlier when Jack Kennedy, Reagan, other US presidents and Congress wanted nuclear war avoided.
In April 1951, Harry Truman fired General Douglas MacArthur during US war on North Korea, fearing escalation he wanted against China risked possible WW III.
Bipartisan anti-Russia, anti-China, anti-Iran neocon extremists infesting Washington risk nuclear war to advance their agenda, endangering humanity more than ever before.
INF was the only treaty reducing nuclear weapons. Other agreements only put a ceiling on their numbers.
Ending the landmark treaty at a time of overwhelming majority support in Washington for endless wars of aggression, all sovereign independent countries potential targets, risks global war with nuclear weapons – a possible armageddon scenario.
Deteriorated US/Russian relations risk the unthinkable. Bolton’s visit to Moscow did nothing to step back from the brink.
Belligerent confrontation between the world’s dominant nuclear powers is ominously possible – maybe likely if things continue deteriorating more than already.
Given implacable US bipartisan hostility toward Moscow, eventual conflict between both countries may be inevitable.
My newest book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
