The results of Washington’s foreign policy in recent years demonstrate that the United States is openly adhering to the principle of the “Wild West”, consolidating the rights of the strong at the expense of international law and UN principles. This is exactly what explains Washington’s escalation of crisis situations – and not only in the countries in the Middle East, but also in many other regions, with the United States then trying to “solve” them through military interventions.
Those who disagree with this policy are labeled by the US as either “America’s enemies” or “strategic adversaries”. And the number of those is constantly growing, as is the number of countries declaring that they openly reject these kinds of policies from Washington. Nowadays, Washington considers not only Russia to be a “strategic adversary”, but also China, Iran, Venezuela, and North Korea, and it is trying to introduce a similar perception of these “opponents” into the mentality of its allies, and unite them by creating various “blocs” and “coalitions” to share in the responsibility of partitioning the world in a way that is beneficial to Washington.
This kind of “bloc” or “coalition” policy has been pursued by the United States for more than a decade.
Back in the late 1940s, Japan, whose aggression and policies inflicted damage on many, including the non-communist countries in the region, was viewed as an important link for the United States. However, even in regard to Japan, along with working on the idea of a partnership with Tokyo, the United States was preparing to sign agreements with Australia and New Zealand targeted against Japan: On September 1st, 1951 in San Francisco one of the principal treaties was signed called the Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty, or ANZUS (this treaty is also called the Pacific Security Treaty).
Soon after ANZUS was drafted, in 1954 preparation work began on a similar one, Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), which included the same participating countries Australia, New Zealand, and the US, along with England, France, the Philippines, Thailand, and Pakistan. The bloc’s main role was supplemented by making preparations to engaging in aggression against the socialist countries in Southeast Asia, suppressing national liberation movements in various countries in Southeast Asia and the weakening their influence, consolidating the Philippines’ state of dependence, subordinating Pakistan and Thailand to the United States, and engaging in aggressive activities against those peace-loving states that refused to participate in SEATO.
After that, Washington had the idea of creating, similarly to SEATO, another bloc called CENTO, a kind of Middle East alliance that would consist of the single nation of Iraq. However, because of the war that took place, everything changed, since conflicts arose between the US and the Arab world. Nonetheless, the groundwork for CENTO was laid in Baghdad in 1955, when a military pact was concluded between Turkey and Iraq, which England later joined, with Pakistan even later and then finally Iran itself.
Unlike NATO, neither CENTO nor SEATO made any progress down the path of military integration, although those plans did exist.
And so, in a similar fashion to, and following the implementation of, the “bloc policy” the United States recently began attempts to create a new military bloc: the so-called “Arab NATO”, which has been provisionally dubbed the Middle East Strategic Alliance (MESA). “MESA will serve as a bulwark against Iranian aggression, terrorism, extremism, and will bring stability to the Middle East,” a spokesperson for the White House’s National Security Council said. However, Washington has clearly forgotten that for many years almost all the Persian Gulf states have financed terrorist activities, and the terrorists who carried out the 9/11 attacks were mainly from Saudi Arabia, which over the past few decades has spent about 100 billion USD propagating Wahhabism, while Riyadh and Abu Dhabi themselves have actively participated in destabilizing Yemen, Libya, Syria, and Lebanon. In addition, contrary to the position taken by Washington, Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar maintain relations with Tehran, and ultimately a war could begin within the framework of MESA with everyone fighting everyone else.
In addition to MESA, a year ago the United States began forming a “coalition” whose forces will patrol the waters of the Strait of Hormuz and, according to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, this “coalition” is supposed to be overtly geared against Iran.
On September 18th, with the US “bloc policy” developing, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates were effectively forced to sign a trilateral agreement in Washington with Tel Aviv on the “normalizing relations with Israel”, which is already called the “Abraham Accords”.
Rai al-Youm, a British publication, points out that “the UAE-Israel deal is ostensibly about peace but actually about war…”. And the publication further explains that the true objectives for this agreement were explicitly stated by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in an interview with Fox News: “The UAE and Israel have agreed to form a military alliance against Iran to protect American interests and the Middle East that is known as the ‘Abraham Accords’.”
But its failures with “bloc policy” have not altered Washington’s attitude, and now the United States has already begun to form a new bloc against another “enemy”, China. As Secretary of State Mike Pompeo admitted in an interview on the political talk show Life, Liberty & Levin on September 28th, the United States has started to build a new international alliance against Beijing. “We have now started to build a global coalition to force China to retreat. This will take years,” announced Pompeo, noting that the US has already attained success in getting countries in Africa, South Asia, and South America to recognize the threat posed by China.
As far as another “strategic adversary” for the United States, Russia, is concerned, Washington has not stopped setting up various “coalitions” to work against it. One example is how, a few days ago during an interview with the German publication Bild, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that American authorities intend to create a coalition to prevent construction work on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from being completed.
The United States no longer even tries to find any legal grounds in international law for its policy of “blocs” and “coalitions”, imposing its jurisdiction on other countries, squeezing foreign markets out of those designated as “adversaries” by Washington, financing and organizing “orange revolutions”, and concocting international scandals to create a negative public image of countries that do not agree with US policies. So what kind of respect for the UN, or international law, on the part of Washington is it possible for us to refer to here?
Vladimir Odintsov, political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook“.
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