Counter-Revolution Crumbles (4)

US Counter-Revolution

The main current targets of Washington’s counter-revolutionary strategy to head off the emergent new but natural world order of multi-polarity are, of course, Ukraine (together with “pro-democracy” meddling efforts in countries such as Georgia and Armenia), the Middle East (where the Empire colludes with Israel in the destruction of Gaza, and, with Israel, prepares for war with Iran, Lebanon, Syria and possibly Iraq, while containing growing resistance in Egypt and Saudi Arabia), and China (where the main points of conflict are, first and foremost, Taiwan, South China Sea and Pacific islands, with “pro-democacy” meddling in countries such as Thailand and Myanmar).

The place of Africa in this counter-revolutionary struggle is becoming more important by the day, as countries of the Sahel region increasingly reject French and US imperial influence, while an attempted coup this week in the Congo may suggest a potential new US front. Security forces killed the coup's leader, U.S.-based Congolese politician Christian Malanga, and three others. Around 40 others were arrested. At some point we must integrate the seriously declining situation in Sudan into this narrative.

The main brake to Washington’s counter-revolutionary effort is the hardening alliance or partnership between Russia and China. With the exception of a brief period of disaffection in the 1960s, Chinese relations with Russia have always been fairly good, despite a very long shared border of 4,200 kilometers. The ties today have become very strong, as it is now accepted in Beijing that the collective West is set upon a trajectory of control from which it offers no off-ramp. Trump’s indication in 2016 of interest in improving relations with Russia were sabotaged by the Clinton campaign’s manufacture of the phoney “Russiagate” hoax, which made it impossible for Trump to do anything other than to escalate tensions with Russia, China and, for good measure, Iran. This pairing condemns to failure the aspiration of the collective West to contain China by means of potential naval blockade. Not only does China today have a much stronger fleet, one that compares well, numerically, with that of the USA, while China has much greater ship production capability, but it can move whatever goods it needs for import and export over land borders with Russia.

The case of Iran is particularly fraught at the moment because, of course, of the deaths of the President and Foreign Minister in a helicopter crash two days ago. These deaths must be added to what is already a very dangerous confluence of forces, but the deaths in themselves may not matter that much. Iranians are at pains to say that the helicopter crash was not the result of sabotage. This could be because it would be embarrassing for them to admit to such vulnerability, but factors pointing towards a genuine accident include the fact that the helicopter itself was very old. Nonetheless it was clearly a strategic blunder on the part of the Iranians to have two such prestigious positions together in one helicopter, to have put them on an old machine (they were flying back from a cooperation meeting in Azerbaijan), one that had been originally purchased from the USA, and to have flown in difficult weather conditions over dangerous terrain. A new foreign minister will be appointed; the replacement of Raisi requires elections and it is not impossible that elections will have a polarizing force dividing conservatives and potentially pro-western liberals, perhaps creating new opportunities for Western meddling to instigate or reinforce separatist, religious and gender agitations. But the key leadership role and focus for continuity in Iran continues to be that of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei.

The possibility that senior judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) will accept the recommendations of its chief prosecutor Karim Khan for the issue of arrest warrants against Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu and defense minister Yoav Gallant, along with warrants for Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader in Gaza, Mohammed Deif, the commander of the Qassam Brigades, its military wing, and Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas political bureau (one of these is chief negotiator), is a clear signal that Western hegemony and the preferred human rights dramas that it exploits, is crumbling.

The warrants have already been denounced by US and Israeli governments and some other governments of the US vassal network, exposing for the entire world the deep complicity of both parties in a program of genocide that will also very likely be condemned by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). In the latest explosion of infantile and freakish behavior on the past of US elites, House Republican speaker Mike Johnson (who has already betrayed his party once in recent weeks), is reportedly eyeing legislation to sanction International Criminal Court (ICC) officials after the entity requested arrest warrants.

In the short term ICC arrest warrants may provoke even more egregious Israeli depravity but in the long term fissures have been opened that run back to the ruinous decisions of 1948 that gave nationstate status to one group living on the territory of Palestine but not to the far more numerous group of Palestinians also living on that territory. Given the impracticalities of the “two state solution” supposedly advocated by the US despite the fact that as currently articulated it would leave Palestinians in a highly disadvantageous and vulnerable position vis-a-vis Israel, a real solution must require a root-and-branch historical revision. The fissures already run deep through the United Nations and may crack open even further, putting more pressure on the Global Majority to urge upon the UN a fundamental reform process. The decision of the ICC to serve warrants on both Israeli and Hamas leaders as though both were equally culpable enrages Israel which wants to believe that its killings of Palestinians is fit retribution for its narrative of the events of October 7th, and yet smothers the reality of a seventy year occupation against which the oppressed should be justified for rebelling (even though the tactic of taking civilian hostages may well be considered a war crime).

The ICC has taken the action it has, so far as this goes, because otherwise it will lose all credibility before world opinion. It may as well just pack up. If it prostrates itself before Washington then it is signing its own death warrant. It wants to avoid that. Former CIA analyst Larry Johnson calls the ICC a “corrupt” institution. Its warrant last year against President Putin was far too precipitate and based on poor understanding of the necessity of protecting children in war zones, and based on faulty evidence (160 children supposedly evacuated to Russia have just been “discovered” in Germany; all children, according to my information, have been reunited with their parents where parents have taken the trouble to look for them). Of course up until now the ICC has been a highly politicized institution. On NATO’s war for the breakup of Yugoslavia it lied about Slobodan Milošević and then kept him in jail until he died, before his case was settled. Washington has instructed the ICC not to investigate charges against the US or its soldiers. It gets excited, if at all, by the misdeeds of Washington’s opponents. Washington does not accept its jurisdiction. But Israel’s real-life and egregious atrocities have left the ICC no choice but to take some action.

The key question of course, assuming that the ICC proceeds with the warrants, is when it will also prosecute Biden, Sunak and Scholz who have knowingly enabled the genocide by continuing to supply weapons and other support to the genocide fanatics.

I shall not be holding my breath on that one. But on Assange, yes.

In a token of good news both France and Belgium have said they support the issuing of warrants. Some other European governments may follow suit. On the same day as news of the ICC warrants story comes permission from the United Kingdom’s High Court for Julian Assange to appeal against extradition to the United States. The British judges were contemptuous of the assurances given by US officials regarding the protection of Assange’s rights during a potential trial. Assange is still in prison and a date for appeal will likely be set in a matter of several months, nor is it at all certain that he will win the appeal. But once again the ruinous hypocrisy of the US establishment has been exposed and the world has been reminded of US war crimes in Iraq even as Biden sides with Israel over genocide.

The Battlefields

The single most important item of news today, important for obvious reasons, is that Russia has initiated its exercises for the use of non-strategic (i.e. tactical) nuclear-equipped Kaliber, Iskander or Kinzhal and other missiles. These are taking place in the Southern Military Command, headquartered in Rostov-on-Don and reaching into the newly acquired Russisan territories in the Donbass. Tactical nuclear weapons are low yield, relatively short-range weapons of 1-5 kilotons designed primarily for battlefield use. When activity of this kind reaches this level of intensity the chances of intentional or non-intentional (accidental) war are greatly multiplied, perhaps exponentially. The use of tactial nuclear weapons can more easily incite an opposing side to resort to strategic nuclear weapons, perhaps to target cities of countries that have ordered or initiated the use of tactical weapons, and from there the distance to Armageddon rapidly shrinks.

The US and Europe are converging in agreement to use interest on frozen Russian assets (mainly in Europe), which could yield a further few billion dollars a year for the purchase of weapons for Ukraine.

At the beginning of May, Zelenskiy called for a further 90-day extension of martial law. Since he was still the so-called “legitimate” leader of the country (in as far as the product of a coup can be legitimate) at the beginning of May it can be argued that the 90 days extension of martial law, with Zelenskiy himself being the authority for that extension, buys Zelenskiy a little more time. But when this period of martial law ends in August, Zelenskiy will no longer be legitimate, nor will his call for a further extension in August. So far as Russia is concerned, Zelenskiy is now a legitimate target for state violence and Russia is expected to launch a major nationwide drone and missile attack on Ukraine.

The Economist has recently published an article that reports that Zelenskiy considers he is not being told the full truth about the situation in Kharkiv and is taking to screaming at his generals, a possible portent of collapse. Russian foreign minister Lavrov has said that at the end of April Zelenskiy almost hysterically demanded support for his peace “initiative” that is supposedly being discussed in Switzerland next month. Zelenskiy has rejected Macron’s suggestion of a truce during the Olympics (not that the Russians would have wanted such a truce given its exclusion from the games by Europe’s cancel Russia fanatics).

The Swiss proposal for a conference in June (to which Russia would not be invited as a participant, only to be summoned to receive the conclusions of the conference) is losing support and international confidence, especially among the BRICS states (China, Brazil and South Africa have said they will give it a miss), although there is some question about India’s attendance.

A big Russian strike is expected in the Sumy region between Kharkiv and Kiev, possibly this night of May 21 to May 22. 12 Tu-95s, 13 Tu-22M3 bombers have been identified at the Olenya base. Russia has hit a major concentration of Ukrainian forces south of the border at Cherniv. It has also hit a major drone operation center in the Kharkiv border town of Ivashky. There is fierce fighting sround Lyptsi. Russia has taken the villages of Zelene and Neskuchne. In Vovchansk, there are reports that Russia now controls 30% of the settlement and 60-70% or more of the section north of the Volcha river. Russia has captured Starytsia to the west.

So far as Lyptsi is concerned, fighting remained intense as of midday on May 21. But it looks as though Russian forces are bypassing Lyptsi to move further south. In Vovchansk, Russia is in full control of the northern section of the settlement above the Volcha river. Russian forces have successfully crossed the Volcha river in at least two directions. To the east of Vovchansk, Russian forces are advancing in the direction of the Russian mainland, extending the front by an additional twelve kilometers, with a view to taking the line of villages that separates Vovchansk and the border with Russia to the east - Karaichne, Volokhovka, Chaikovka, Okhrimovka, Makya Volchya. Progress may be interrupted by a Ukrainian bombing of the bridge at Volokhivka. Ukraine is busily construcing a new defense line from southeast of Starytsia, down to Hryhorivka, - well back, in other words, from the border, in effect ceding a large swathe of territory to Russia, given Russian superiority in the air and air defense.

In the Kupyansk area, Russia is advancing on both Stelmakhiivka and Miasozharivka and is advancing on Makiivka. Near Lyman, Russisa is moving west of Dibrova.

Russia has reportedly seized control of Bilohoriivka, giving it an opportunity to march on Siversk, perhaps by way of Hryhorivka, and its forces have also reportedly entered the settlement of Spirne. These developments will ease the way for Russisn advances on Verkhnokamianske, Novoselivka, Vuhledar, Rolzdolivka, Fedorivke and Pereizne.

In the Chasiv Yar area there are many conflicting reports but the most likely reality is that Russia has entered the microdistrict and that fierce clashes are occurring there, while Russia advances on Kaklynivka to the north with a view to attacking Chasiv Yar from that location (but also inciting Ukrainian counterattacks here) and from the German Forest to the south. Russian forces also now control 60% of the settlement of Klishchiivka, and are fighting for the hill south of the settlement, while also diminishing the gap between Klishchiivka and Ivanivske. (As of midday of May 21st it is reported that Russia has established full control of Klishchiivka).

Around Avdiivka Russia is advancing northeast of Keramik towards Oleksandropil, and might advance on Valentynivko and Niu-York. Russia is moving west from Berdychi, perhaps for Bila Hora. It has taken Netailove and Umansk but still needs to advance on Yasnobodiivka. Further south Russia has almost finished taking over Paraskoliivka and is moving on Kostyantynivka. Over a very large area north of Kostyantynivka, Ukraine has lost a very large number of artillery positions. Russia has penetrated the south of Starymaiorske and the southern farmlands of Urozhaine (where Russia has planted its flag in the southern section of the settlement). In Robotyne Russian forces continue their clearing operation between Staromaiorske and Verbove, while in Krynky, Russian forces have cleared the Ukrainian foothold at Krynky.

Palestine

The governments of Ireland, Norway and Spain have said that they recognize Palestine as an independent State. Malta sand Slovenia may be the next European nations to declare in favor of Palestine. This is the first step towards a “two state solution.” Irish recognition is couched within the umbrella of Ireland’s own struggle for emancipation. While this development is to be welcomed, I have long argued that the “two state solution” without a thorough review and reformulation of the 1948 declaration of Israel as an independent nation, is impractical as it will give birth to a Balkanized territory in which only Israel can prevail. Meantime, Israel’s destruction of Gaza has taken a total of 36,500 lives. In conditions of famine, the Pentagon has admitted that none of the aid shipped to the newly constructed US pier off the coast of Gaza has yet been distributed. All that the US currently seems to worry about is to punish and harass the ICC for issuing arrest warrants against Israeli senior government as well as Hamas leaders, and about violent suppression of student and faculty protests against the US/Israeli genocide on campuses across the nation, even when, as is generally the case, these are entirely peaceful. In Israel there are more reports of suppression of free speech as in the banning of Al Jazeera and the prohibition yesterday of an AP news feed from Gaza.