Transcript of ‘Dialogue Works’ edition of 17 December

Transcript submitted by a reader

Nima R. Alkhorshid: 0:05
Hi everybody, today is Tuesday, December 17th and our friend, Dr. Gilbert Doctorow is back with us. Welcome back, Gilbert.

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
Good to be with you.

Alkhorshid:
Let’s get started, Gilbert, with what’s going on in the Middle East. In your opinion, what’s right now, what would be the Russian policy in the Middle East after this crisis, the toppling of Assad regime in the Middle East in Syria?

Doctorow:
So all the Western media have been celebrating for the last week or more the demise of Assad, his government, and which is seen as a great loss for the Russians, a black eye for Putin and so forth. That’s understandable. That’s in line with the overall propaganda. Anything that could be presented as being bad for Russia has to get first page attention of newspapers, because it takes your mind off of the disaster that’s going on day by day in Ukraine, which I assume we’ll talk about soon.

1:12
But this is dead wrong. And what has happened and the analyses that I’ve heard from some of the guests on your show and other leading interview programs have caused me to reflect a little bit about what I was saying on the Russian activities in 2015, 2017, when they, as we all know, saved the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Was that what they were doing? And have the Russians lost Syria?

Well, first of all, you can’t lose something that you don’t own. And that has to be taken as a first point. Syria was not a Russian possession to lose. If the Russians didn’t take control of Syria in some important way, then what were they doing there 2015 to 17? And couldn’t you say that the Russians’ failure to respond to Israeli air raids over Syria or to any other complications like the Americans’ continued presence in the southeast of Syria, their support for the Kurds. Russians didn’t do anything about this. What does that tell you?

2:34
It causes you to go back to first principles. What were the Russians doing there altogether? And I’d say, in light of these developments, my rereading of the Russian activity in the Syrian civil war was they were there to fight the Islamic government, the Islamic caliphate. And they were doing it not for the benefit of Bashar al-Assad. They were doing it for themselves, because let’s recollect, this movement, ISIS, was deeply ideological and had great ambitions for controlling not just the Middle East, but influence on the Russian Caucasus. So Russia was there to destroy ISIS, to protect itself from a contagious and very dangerous ideology and movement, dangerous to its control of its southern borders.

3:38
And they succeeded. America said it was doing the same thing, it was fighting ISIS, which was rubbish. The Americans were there, twiddling their thumbs much of the time, until they were challenged by the Russians to do something also. Then when the Russians smashed ISIS by their very heavy air bombardment and by coordinated action with Syrian proxies on the ground, then the Americans claimed victory over ISIS.

That was all false. The Russian presence was there, as I said, on very limited basis. And they had no formal obligations to prop up the Assad government. De facto, they offered their assistance in 2018, I understand, and Assad rejected it. He was keeping his options open.

4:33
This is something, these issues are overlooked, intentionally overlooked by those who want to simplify into black and white. The Russians have been very cautious dealing with Middle Eastern countries because of– I mean as far as North as Turkey and as far East as Iran– because these countries all have been duplicitous. They all have potentially, if given the opportunity, stabbed their allies in the back for the sake of opportunism and a quick gain.

Opportunism in the whole area has spelled one thing: the United States offering to relieve the sanctions or otherwise make life easier for one or another country that it has been bullying for decades. Iran, after the death – the murder of their president Raisi, has been a rather slippery object with the appeal, the outreach to the West, to the United States. That was one of the first activities of the incoming new head of the Iranian government. And the Russians saw that. It failed.

6:00
That is to say, they got the back-of-the-hand treatment from the States. There was the attack on Hezbollah’s chief within his visit for the inauguration. And they understood in Tehran that the West was not their friend. It had no intention of becoming their friend, and so they backed away. And again, they were very hotly pursuing Moscow for conclusion of this comprehensive cooperation agreement, which includes a big mutual defense [component].

Alkhorshid: 6:37
You mean Hamas chief?

Doctorow:

Yes, the Hamas chief, exactly. So the Russians have been cautious with Iran, and the Russians certainly were cautious with Assad. And reasonably, as I have learned from some of these latest interviews by people who know profoundly more than I did about the Syrian-Russian relations, Syrian-US relations, that the Russians even entertained replacing Assad in 2011.

This was something I wasn’t aware of, but it adds to the general background. These sides have been like two scorpions engaging one another. There was no real certainty that their interests were more than for a period of useful time and no more. So the Russians, as I said, had nothing to lose in Syria because they didn’t own it.

Now as for the bases, of course a lot of tension is there, but the Russians have reportedly removed a lot of staff they had in Damascus, military staff and others. They have concentrated their presence in Syria in these two bases, an air base and a naval base, Tartus and Khamenei.

8:02
But will they stay there? Only if it’s clear that they are welcome and secure. What is the position of the Damascus government-in-formation with respect to Russia? It’s not at all clear. The only thing that’s perfectly clear is that the EU visitors and those who are speaking for Brussels have made it clear by  megaphone diplomacy that they will not deal with Damascus until and unless Damascus pushes the Russians out of Syria. So the presence of Russians in Syria is possible, but not necessarily going to be realized.

8:54
And the Russians have other options, which they must be very actively pursuing right now. Simple  options, which I’ve mentioned a week ago, whether it be Iran or Algeria or Egypt. So the Russians will not be removed from the Mediterranean, that’s for sure. And there’s very little, almost no discussion on Russian state television of what is happening in Syria. Surely, it is a source of embarrassment, only because the West is doing everything possible in its mainstream propaganda to make it appear to be a Russian loss.

9:37
And of course, there are those Russians who ask reasonably, is it true, can it be that our government has been outmaneuvered and outdone by US and Israeli diplomacy and military action in Syria? And of course, Turkish. So we are waiting. Thursday, Mr. Putin makes his annual direct-call program. That is, the whole nation has the possibility of submitting questions to him either by email or by telephone messages, whatever. One million people are said to have left with the call center their questions for their president. And people are asking, “Will he allow questions about Syria to be directed to him?” and “Will he answer them?” Well, the first already tells you about the second.

10:42
He has every possibility to ensure that such embarrassing questions are not posed, but perhaps he will take it. In his very important speech yesterday, which got a lot of attention in mainstream media, the speech before the Ministry of Defense was the year-end gathering of maybe 300 senior military officers and a goodly number of important other government officials, civilian government officials, including the representatives of all the Duma parties, Communists and the Just Russia and of course the United Russia. They were all present as he gave his summary of what they’ve achieved and what lies ahead. But Syria did not have any role whatsoever in that speech.

Alkhorshid: 11:44
When you look at the bigger picture of what’s going on in Syria and how important Syria is for them or the project Belt and Road Initiative of China. And do you think that the Russians are now concerned about the North-South Corridor? Because they can do something to Russia as well. Or the relationship between Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran is that good, that they’re not concerned about it?

12:17
They all have very strong economic interests in success in that quadrant. If you’re looking at Azerbaijan as the weak link, I wouldn’t, because they are very closely aligned with Russia. Their interests do not always coincide, of course, Azerbaijan is a competitor on world markets with Russian hydrocarbons, but that does not take away from the reality of their close personal associations.

Aliyev, after all, I think he graduated from the elite foreign policy school in Moscow. In any case, he’s a fluent Russian speaker. And he may be very polite and inviting to Western visitors, but there’s no way that they could prise him away from his economic and geopolitical relationship with Russia. As for Iran, this is very important to them. It gives them serious economic importance in the region, and it facilitates better relations with India, of course, because India is the main beneficiary at the end of the pipeline, at the end of the North-South Corridor for the traffic.

13:44
So traffic that goes not just to Russia, but traffic that goes into Central Asia also. This is a multipurpose north-south route with many beneficiaries. Just like the question of relations with Erdogan, it’s inconceivable that any misunderstanding or mutual dislike that comes out of what Erdogan has done in Syria will interfere with the very deep economic shared interests that Turkey has with Russia. These are bigger than individuals.

Alkhorshid: 14:22
And we’ve learned from the president of Iran that since they took power in Iran, they were working closely with Russians in various groups in order to– this new agreement that they’re going to sign in, if I’m not mistaken, by January 25th in Russia.

And do you feel that right now, the new government in Iran, you mentioned that with the case of Ismail Hanee in Iran, the assassination, do you think, how do you find the behavior of the government in Iran? Do you think, are they getting to the point that they have to be closer to Russia, China and the East?

Doctorow:
Well, a lot– you’ll notice that this is scheduled for five days after the inauguration of Trump, and he is a central figure in the calculations that Iran must be making today. Do they want to genuinely throw their lot in with Russia and with China, of course? Or are they going to seek greater economic benefit and geopolitical benefit by an outreach and accommodation to the Americans? As things look now, there would be no reason for Tehran to expect an accommodation with Mr. Trump.

Now, that could be a misreading. because he may, as I have said elsewhere and other writings of mine, it may be that Mr. Trump has concentrated the most loudmouth and ill-mannered America-First people who are keen on wars with China and with uncoupling the axis of Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran. It could be that he is genuinely sympathetic to these ideas and therefore has appointed them. Or it could be, as I think more likely, that he has gathered them all in one place so they’re under his tight control and all beholden to him, so they cannot double-cross him in public space.

16:47
And that his intention is, after a decent four or six months, to make an outreach to Iran. That cannot be dismissed. But if you are in a situation as Iran is today, you’ll be playing, taking a very risky route if you were to decline a close economic, military, and other more general cooperation with Russia, which is just before you, and to have nothing in your hands while waiting for a clarification on what Mr. Trump is actually going to do. It would be taking a very big risk that you’re caught, particularly caught at this very moment, when the protection you had from air defenses in Syria have now been completely obliterated, when there was a free flight zone over Syria for attacking US and Israeli aircraft intent on doing the kind of destruction in your country as they have done elsewhere in the Middle East in the last year.

Therefore, I don’t think that they have a big anguish over this decision. I think they will go ahead and sign up with Russia and make the best of it.

Alkhorshid: 18:18
We know how the Biden administration is obsessed with the conflict in Ukraine. In my opinion, one of the main reasons for what’s going on in Syria was the war in Ukraine, because they wanted, before leaving Washington, they wanted to inflict some sort of suffering for to Russia. And do you think that, the way that the Biden administration is continuing in their support for Ukraine, do you think that what is going on in their mind right now? Because we know that Trump even recently in his talk with the press, he said that he wants to put an end, he wants a deal in Ukraine. But after all, what’s happening right now in the mind of the Biden administration?

Doctorow: 19:11
Well, we’ve understood for some time that Biden, these last two months, now it’s down to one month, wants to ensure his legacy. And one way to do that, the legacy has not just an international affairs dimension, but I think more importantly for him personally, it’s domestic affairs. His Biden economics is a belief that he has created a much more prosperous America, even though Americans voters didn’t understand that, it didn’t resonate with them.

Nonetheless, he believes that the country is economically much stronger because of the various legislative actions that he got through Congress, the vast amount of money, debt money that he has distributed for the sake of new and coming technologies and by his pursuit of the containment on China.

20:12
Nonetheless, he is in these last weeks doing as much as possible on the international front to create, to embroil the incoming administration in foreign-affairs problems that will distract them, which will absorb their attention, and keep them away, keep Mr. Trump away during the honeymoon period of any new government, any new administration from the vast domestic reforms, changes, reversal of everything Biden did that Trump has otherwise declared in his pre-electoral messages.

So there are at least two dimensions here, two sides to what Biden is doing. One is on the face of it, yes, to so provoke the Russians that he hopes they will do something that makes it impossible for Trump to pursue a peace agreement, because the whole American society will be too riled by what the Russians have just done. And what could they do is attack a NATO asset or US asset in Europe or the Middle East as retaliation for these various missile strikes on their territory.

21:42
So he’s hoping for that, finally to break the restraint of Mr. Putin and compel him to do something irresponsible that ruins the peace initiative of Trump. And to keep Trump away from his domestic policies, because he will be busy full-time gathering support in Congress to deal with a new Russian threat.

Alkhorshid: 22:13
I think when it comes to any sort of deal, we have to consider what’s the reality of the battleground right now, and how they can negotiate on these terms that maybe, the terms that Russia would put on the table. Because Donald Trump, I don’t see he has … he’s going to get along with Zelensky’s plan, because that’s not a viable choice. What is the reality on the ground right now?

Doctorow: 22:42
Well, just to come back to your last remark before I discuss the situation on the ground The issue that appears in the last few days is that Trump perhaps has gotten the message that Ukraine, the Ukraine war is bigger than Ukraine. And the real issue that has to be addressed for the Russians to sit down at the table and negotiate is with the Americans directly over a new architecture of security in Europe. I think that message is sinking in, in the Trump camp. And if so, then definitely the Russians will be very pleased to enter negotiations. Even if the starting point, the compromises on the terms of settlement with Kiev, are not acceptable to them. But they will sit down if they are satisfied that the big issue of overall security in Europe is being recognized as worthy of discussion with Washington directly.

23:47
Now, the situation on the ground. It gets more dire every day for the Ukrainians. And the more I see Russian television reporting, and the more we listen to what Putin said yesterday, he gave numbers. He said that the Ukrainians have lost to dead and wounded 500,000 men this year. And that adds to the 500,000 they lost last year.

So when Mr. Trump is speaking about a million men dead or wounded, wounded in the sense of seriously disabled, that’s just Ukraine alone. And that’s quite dramatic. Now as to what’s going on day by day, the latest came out on Russian news yesterday is that the average, I think this was actually incorporated in Putin’s speech, that the average daily gain now is 30 square kilometers, the gain of the Russians on the front.

24:48
They also mentioned during the course of yesterday’s briefing with the Ministry of Defense that the Ukrainians’ forces on the front line, the individual units, are only 45 percent manned. That’s to say, they have experienced such losses they cannot fill their military units, not to mention the units that exist only on paper, because they’ve been totally destroyed. For that reason, the Russian advances are so significant. And if you look at the map that they put up, you see how they are closing in and creating cauldrons, as they call them, pockets, where they have entrapped significant numbers of Ukrainian forces, and how they’re advancing on Pokrovsk, which may be taken in the near future. I think it’s called Krasnoarmeisk in Russian.

25:50
And so if you look at maps, you won’t find Pokrovsk any more. It’s because the Russians are satisfied it’s under their command, and they have restored its pre-Maidan name of Krasnoarmeisk. That is important in ways that weren’t even discussed before. Not only is this a logistics hub essential to supplying Ukrainian forces with Western equipment and ammunition that’s coming in from the Lvov area.

But it also was an important center for Ukrainian metallurgy, since it was the largest, almost unique source of coking coal for smelters. So this town, which was 60,000 in number before the onset of the hostilities, is now partly occupied. They’re entering from nearby, from two, three kilometers away. They’re entering, Russian forces are entering the city. And in a matter of weeks, how much time it takes depends on how much destruction they have to do of high-rise buildings where snipers are hiding out and so forth. But they will take it. It’s clear as day. And when they do that, then the road is open.

27:18
As Mr. Trump was saying yesterday, how flat the land is there. Yes, it is flat, except for some elevations. And once they have Pokrovsk, then they will be rolling westward towards these significant towns, significant from 2014 when they were the points of resistance of the Russian-speaking Ukrainians in Donbas to the Ukrainian military forces that were attacking them at the outbreak of the civil war. And this is Slavyansk and Kramatorsk. Once they reach that, there are more than about 60 percent across what is the Donetsk region, or as it’s called, Republic.

28:11
The two main regions of Donbass are Lugansk and Donetsk. Lugansk is 98 percent held by the Russians. But Donetsk has been the tough case. It was tough in every respect. The biggest fortifications of the Ukrainians were in Donetsk. The closest they came to population centers were in Donetsk, until six, eight months ago.

They were in easy artillery range and shelling daily Donetsk city, which is the capital of the region, with loss of life and large destruction of residential neighborhoods as the evident damage. Till they were pushed back a few months ago, beyond artillery range, and now, as I say, the westward movement of the Russian forces is bringing them to the middle point– that’s east-west middle, divide in the Donetsk region– and then it’s a clean sweep from there to the Dnieper River. That is all within reach. Now, you would think, ah, of course they could do this tomorrow. Well, they can’t do this tomorrow because there are residual forces. I didn’t say they were 90 percent depleted, I said they were 45 percent.

29:34
And they do have drones, they do have mines, they have ways of making it essential that Russians do a lot of cleanup work before they bring troops in on the ground, lest they be devastated by these means of attack that the Ukrainians still have. But it’s clear which way the war is going. And the Russians are very confident, in high spirits. We also note, again, turning to the question of manpower, everybody is talking now, Washington made a great point on how the Ukrainians have to recruit, reduce the mobilization age to 18 from 25 and bring up their numbers because we’ve given them so many supplies, but they don’t have the soldiers.

30:27
Well, the Russians, again came out in yesterday’s briefing that Putin and Belousov, the Minister of Defense, delivered to the assembled generals and political leaders in Moscow, that the Russians recruited, kontraktniki as they call them, these are their signup volunteer soldiers who are paid, they’re paid rather handsomely upon signing a contract for six months service on the front lines.

They’re paid between 8,000 and 10,000 euros. They sign up, and then they receive a rather handsome monthly salary for the time that they’re actually at the front. Last year it was 300,000. Now as we’re in mid-December, it will be 400,000 this year. 400,000 people have signed up.

31:24
They were not mobilized. They weren’t in a war with the draft administrators as goes on in Ukraine, they came in voluntarily either as patriots and also some people, let’s be honest about it, were motivated by the very handsome compensation this offered for those who sign up as kontraktniki. For them, personally, for their families, the benefits of being a volunteer soldier in the Russian Army fighting in the special military operation on Ukrainian territory includes a lot of benefits for the family, for the children. The children are assured scholarships to the best universities or higher educational institutions in the country. The families are given highly subsidized mortgage loans for housing.

32:28
There are a lot of benefits that come with this, as well as a lot of pride, because the Putin government is promising that those who fight, those who show their valor in the field of battle, will become the elite of the new Russia. They will be held, he is holding out to them positions of importance in the local administrations across the country, and of course in the military if they choose to pursue a military career.

And if, as one of these heroes of Russia told Putin in their direct one-to-one conversation when the awards were given out, that “I don’t feel prepared for this type of honor, because I really wasn’t properly educated.” And Putin told him, “Well, we’ll educate you. We’ll ensure that you have what it takes, and we will give you experience in local administration, so that you can be given and properly deserve a position of authority for the whole future, for your future career.”

33:41
So this encouragement, this intention to restore to the Russian military the social position that they had in the 19th century, when every provincial noble family, whether poor or otherwise, the mothers all were hoping that their daughters would marry an officer, that type of status of patriotic young men will be rewarded with elite status in the new Russia, the post-Putin Russia.

Alkhorshid: 34:23
If you were to mention the main terms for any sort of negotiations right now for Russians, what would that be? And because in my opinion, right now, what’s going on right now in Russia with the terrorist attack, with the recent terrorist attack in which General Kerillov with his aide were killed. Is terrorism a concern for Russia coming from Ukraine?

Doctorow: 34:53
Well, it has been for a long time. Remember this Crocus Entertainment Center, which was very important to public consciousness because it was carried out by central Asian hirelings of Ukraine and turned a lot of attention of Russian society to
“What are all these central Asians doing in our midst? Are they really trustworthy?” So the notion of the connection between– and of course there are a series of other high visibility assassinations. The Daria Dugina, the daughter of this philosopher, politician, political thinker in Moscow who was a journalist and who was blown up. These are in public mind. Ukraine is closely linked, associated in Russian consciousness with terrorism.

35:54
The incursion into Kursk region was initially described as an act of terror. Its tactical or even strategic dimension was not seen at once by the Russians. And by the Russians, I mean by the Kremlin, And it was described as a terror act. So this falls in line, what we just learned about today falls in line with this side. Perhaps it’s the only successful, in quotation marks, activity of the Zelensky grouping, gang. Certainly they are not succeeding well on the battlefield.

36:45
But these things go hand in hand. Generally speaking, terrorism is an act of the losers, an act of those who do not have the wherewithal to conduct a proper military campaign.

Alkhorshid:
How do you see, do you think that what has happened in Georgia would make Russians happy, the Russian government happy or there’s still a lot of work to be done in Georgia? They’re still having some sort of concerns in Georgia.

Doctorow:
Well, the Georgian case is interesting, because it shows that Maidan is not something that can be transplanted easily, even if all the elements are there down to the tiny details like distributing cookies in the street, to those who were striking against the government.

The outstanding feature of what’s happened, or what is happening in Georgia, is the resolute-ness, the competence, the clear-mindedness of the Georgia Dream government, prime minister. This was not to be expected. And let us remember that the whole affair is an internal Georgian matter in which Russians are an interested party, but not an active party. The question is, will Georgia have any semblance of sovereignty, or does it just become another proxy warrior against Russia, following instructions from Brussels and Brussels following instructions from Washington? That is the issue.

38:30
The notion that the Georgia Dream Party wants to be a Russian ally, a Russian subject, is total nonsense. This disposition of the party is to become part of the EU community. Lord knows why they want to join the losing side, but that’s their business. The point is that their public position is to join the EU. But they will not join the EU under the terms of the present EU diktat, which is that they undo their law on foreign agents, which– some European countries have similar. Of course, It all started in the States in the 1920s.

39:17
And those laws are still on the books in the States. The issue of foreign agents is well, very clear. It’s the means by which George Soros and the pro-Democracy agencies, NGOs are able to subvert governments. And the Georgian government, the Georgia Dream Party was insisting that it will not allow subversion, that it will expose all channels of funding for sedition, and that they will not withdraw the law for the sake of furthering their admission to the EU. So the EU is acting with a fist and destroying its chances of influence over a government that is at heart sympathetic to the EU, but not sympathetic to being treated like slaves.

Alkhorshid: 40:21
In my opinion, the day that the European Union decides to change its policy toward Ukraine, what they’ve been doing to Russia for more than three, for almost three years, it’s going to fire back at them because– the problems that they’re making in Ukraine is going to backfire, if they stop sending more aid and weapons to Ukraine. And right now when you look at the situation in the European Union, we have two leaders, Fico and the Hungarian president Orban, they’re willing to go after peace, go after some sort of negotiations with Russia. But in your opinion, are other European countries getting prepared for what’s coming from the Trump administration and their policies?

Doctorow: 41:21
No, I think that it’s insane. They don’t know how to deal with this. Of course, you have to give them a little bit of forgiveness, because Trump has put these awful neocon people into his administration. And I don’t think this was an accident. I know we gave one reason. He’s getting to his gang, putting them all together in a room, and then he locks the door. There’s more to it, though.

He is giving himself a second life insurance policy, besides having J.D. Vance as his vice president, that’s his first life insurance policy. And this is the second one, because people really have a hard time reading: What is his intent? Has he really been deceiving us the whole time?

Us being the people who appear on your show and on similar programs in the alternative media, we have all assumed that Trump is our friend. And have we been taken for fools? That, just as we wonder about that, I think people in the EU wonder about that. Have they been fearing for no reason that Trump is going to be their enemy? He is being very American because he is creating muddy water in which everybody’s fishing.

42:57
We don’t know where he stands. We’ll find out in the next month or two. And therefore, I think the Europeans are on the wait and see. Don’t be terrified because it may not be as bad as it looks. But when they find out that it is as bad as it looks, then your question would be very appropriate. What are they going to do about it?

Alkhorshid: 43:18
Yeah. How about Romania, Gilbert? What’s your understanding on what has happened and what’s going on in Romania? And is that of importance for Russia?

Doctorow:
It’s of great importance, because it is a weather vane for the EU’s policies in general with respect to democracy within the EU and with respect to allowing the people to determine the policies of their separate governments. Is there any degree whatsoever of sovereignty in the 27 member states? That is the issue that’s of great interest to the Russians, because they would like to believe that some of these leaders in countries are open to common sense and self-interest.

44:09
And that is the case in the candidate who unexpectedly came to the fore with the single largest body of votes, even if he didn’t have a majority, and they were going to go into a runoff, the second round. Nonetheless, his ability to win out over the EU-paid and -sponsored defamation program against himself was of interest, of course, to Moscow. And then you have this judicial decision negating that first vote over alleged and unsubstantiated charges that Russian agents had corrupted the vote, has influenced the vote against the preferred candidates of Brussels.

45:07
So of course the Russians are following this closely to see what chances there are of finding some accommodation within the EU after the war ends.

Alkhorshid:
Before wrapping up, Gilbert, we had a statement from Erdogan, which we were talking about, laughing about it. He said something different. He said that there are two main, real leaders in the world, me and Putin. What I understand from this type of vision that he’s looking toward the east, he’s not looking toward the west. This comes to my mind when he’s talking this way. Do you think that after all with all that difficulties that we’re having in Syria and in the Middle East, the overall movement of Turkiye would be toward the East?

Doctorow: 46:15
Well, it’s too early to say, As I mentioned a week ago, the Russians are not going to turn their back on him. They have very big projects that interest both Turkey and Russia equally. Therefore, it would be quite foolish to forego these very difficult to negotiate agreements over the gas hub, over the atomic power plant that the Russians are building and so forth.

So they will not turn their back on him. And they are interested in what he’s going to do in Syria, what his next moves are, because it’s not at all clear what kind of relationship he will have in practice in days ahead with Israel, how happy or unhappy he is with what they have been doing to devastate any semblance of armed forces in Syria and to create the way for total chaos in the country. It is not clear how Erdogan’s conflict of interests with the United States in the Kurdish zone will be regulated now that Assad is out of the picture and the two sides are in direct confrontation over the fate of the Kurds in Syria. So the Russians will certainly be watching very closely. They don’t close any doors.

47:48
Just as I say, they’re not closing any doors on retaining or leaving their military bases in Latakia and in Tartus provinces. These are long, long games. And the parties have been present for decades and will be present for decades to come. The goal will depend on matching up interests and ambitions. Therefore, well, obviously he was saying what he was saying to ingratiate himself with Putin, although I don’t think Putin is as keen on flattery as Mr. Erdogan is.

Alkhorshid:
Thank you so much, Gilbert, for being with us today. Great pleasure, as always.

Doctorow: 48:42
Thank you, Nima. I enjoyed it.

Today’s chat with host Nima Alkhorshid centered on expectations with respect to Donald Trump.  His appointment of loud-mouthed Neocons to key military and foreign policy positions leaves most everyone confused.

Is his purpose to bring these hawks together in one room where he can control them and bring them to heel?  Or has he truly abandoned the peace mission that was part of his pre-electoral messaging? 

These questions are foremost within the alternative media. They will be decisive for the leadership in Teheran as they decide to proceed or not on their comprehensive cooperation treaty with Moscow at the end of January, including mutual defense provisions, as opposed to waiting for the Trump administration to make an outreach to them perhaps six months from now with a view to a mutually acceptable set of terms including relaxation of sanctions.

I was given the opportunity to explain why the overthrow of the Assad regime in Syria was not a loss for the Russians because you cannot lose what you never owned. As I remark, recent events have compelled me to reconsider what the Russians were doing in Syria from 2015-17 when they played a decisive role in saving the Assad government by their destruction of ISIS groupings around Syria and performance of pacification negotiations in localities throughout the country.  My revised conclusion is that their action had nothing to do with saving Assad and everything to do with destroying ISIS because they saw it as a contagious ideology and movement threatening Russia’s hold on the Caucasus and its southern borders.

See  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8PnSv_jlDc

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024

Transcript submitted by a reader

PressTV: 0:00
Gilbert Doctor is an independent international affairs analyst who joins us from Brussels. Welcome. So the fact that this has not happened in quite some time, this delivery of this type of equipment, the Abraham tanks, what do you think it means in terms of the timing?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
Well, this is in keeping with what the United States is doing in Ukraine in the final days of the Biden administration. The Biden administration is preparing complications in relations with China, which will pass then to Trump, and perhaps in the hope that they will keep him so busy in international affairs, turning back the mess that they’re leaving with him, that they won’t have a chance to implement his domestic policies, which are very much against what Biden has been doing for the last four years.

0:54
This delivery of the tanks is a complication on the already-simmering hostilities between China and the United States over the visit to the US by the Taiwanese president, that just took place and which provoked China to implement the biggest military exercises around Taiwan and in the South China and East China Seas that we have seen in decades. Therefore, we can expect there will be a strong and robust Chinese response to this latest complication, this latest provocation.

PressTV: 1:38
Are we going to see a more ramped-up effort by the US when Trump comes in, in terms of what conflict is brewing, so to speak, between the US and China over that issue on Taiwan?

Doctorow:
There is a lot of conflicting interpretation, both in major media and in alternative media in the States and in Western Europe, over how Mr. Trump will conduct himself. If you listen to his words, his words are tough and indicative of a policy of prioritizing conflict with China over all other international disputes or problems the United States is involved in around the world.

2:20
However, the other side of the story is that he may have gathered under his tent all of those very aggressive anti-Chinese and anti-Russian politicians who have prominence in the States. He’s gathered them into one room, all of them reporting to him, with the intent to beat them up and to remove from the public space these very loud-mouthed critics.

PressTV: 2:51
Okay, it looks like we have lost Gilbert Doctorow. That was Gilbert Doctorow speaking to us, independent affairs analyst there.

Link to the interview:   http://www.urmedium.net/c/presstv/131992

Today’s breaking news in and around China was the U.S. delivery to Taiwan of a batch of advanced Abrams tanks. According to the Taiwanese defense ministry, the 38 tanks just received are from among the 109 tanks which they requested from the U.S. in 2019. These are the first new tanks to be delivered to Taiwan in 30 years.

The delivery, you note, is in Biden’s final weeks in office and it is a big provocation coming, as it does, after the major scandal in state-to-state relations caused by the visit of the Taiwanese president to the United States in the past week. The Chinese response to that outrage, which contradicts the One China policy concluded between Richard Nixon and Mao Tse-tung in the 1970s, was the largest ever deployment of its air and naval forces in the South China and East China seas for maneuvers demonstrating its power to control waterways out to the first island chain in defiance of American Pacific dominance.

Meanwhile, on the Ukrainian front, Washington is rushing to ship out vast new consignments of weapons and artillery shells to Kiev. This war materiel may have some limited impact on the ability of Ukrainian forces to resist the grinding daily advance of Russian troops westward in the Donbas. Or it may be destroyed by Russian missile attacks soon after crossing the border into Ukraine. However, its greater impact is psychological: to build Ukrainian confidence and willingness to fight to the bitter end and to provoke the Russians into escalatory retaliation that will make it impossible for Trump to proceed with plans to take the U.S. out of this war.

The common denominator of Biden’s final moves in office is to embroil the incoming Trump administration in foreign policy crises that will distract him from his stated ambition of bringing in an era of peace and will distract him from carrying out his pre-election promises of reversing U.S. domestic policy of the Biden years from top to bottom early in his tenure, when he has full control of Congress and the period of grace that each new president enjoys.

It is not a matter of concern to the outgoing Biden that what he is doing is totally irresponsible and may bring about a hot war which spins out of control. It is not a matter of concern to him that these very measures further consolidate the Russian-Chinese alliance which presents Washington with a two-front war that it cannot win. Moreover, both with respect to Russia and with respect to China, the Biden administration is precipitating a military conflict several years in advance of its own schedule for raising military preparedness to the point where it has some chance of prevailing. In both cases, the target period Washington has designated for war with one or another of these adversaries is two or three years in the future. Stupid, very stupid, as Donald would say.

In closing, I point out that the issue of the Abrams shipment to Taiwan was the subject of a brief interview I had this morning with Press TV, Iran. See http://www.urmedium.net/c/presstv/131992

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Joe Bidens giftige „Geschenke“ für die kommende Trump-Regierung

Die heutige Eilmeldung in und um China war die Lieferung einer Charge fortschrittlicher Abrams-Panzer aus den USA an Taiwan. Nach Angaben des taiwanesischen Verteidigungsministeriums gehören die 38 Panzer, die gerade eingetroffen sind, zu den 109 Panzern, die Taiwan 2019 bei den USA angefordert hatte. Dies sind die ersten neuen Panzer, die seit 30 Jahren an Taiwan geliefert werden.

Die Lieferung erfolgt, wie Sie wissen, in Bidens letzten Amtswochen und ist eine große Provokation, da sie nach dem großen Skandal in den Beziehungen zwischen den Staaten erfolgt, der durch den Besuch des taiwanesischen Präsidenten in den Vereinigten Staaten in der vergangenen Woche verursacht wurde. Die chinesische Reaktion auf diesen Skandal, der der in den 1970er Jahren zwischen Richard Nixon und Mao Tse-tung vereinbarten Ein-China-Politik widerspricht, war die größte jemals durchgeführte Entsendung von Luft- und Seestreitkräften in das Südchinesische und Ostchinesische Meer zu Manövern, die die Macht demonstrieren sollten, die Wasserstraßen bis zur ersten Inselkette zu kontrollieren, und damit die amerikanische Vorherrschaft im Pazifik herauszufordern.

Währenddessen beeilt sich Washington an der ukrainischen Front, riesige neue Lieferungen von Waffen und Artilleriegeschossen nach Kiew zu verschiffen. Dieses Kriegsmaterial könnte einen begrenzten Einfluss auf die Fähigkeit der ukrainischen Streitkräfte haben, dem zermürbenden täglichen Vormarsch der russischen Truppen nach Westen im Donbass zu widerstehen. Oder es könnte durch russische Raketenangriffe kurz nach dem Überqueren der Grenze zur Ukraine zerstört werden. Die größere Wirkung ist jedoch psychologischer Natur: Sie soll das ukrainische Selbstvertrauen und die Bereitschaft stärken, bis zum bitteren Ende zu kämpfen, und die Russen zu einer Eskalation der Vergeltungsmaßnahmen provozieren, die es Trump unmöglich machen würde, seine Pläne, die USA aus diesem Krieg herauszuhalten, umzusetzen.

Der gemeinsame Nenner von Bidens letzten Amtshandlungen besteht darin, die kommende Trump-Regierung in außenpolitische Krisen zu verwickeln, die ihn von seinem erklärten Ziel ablenken werden, eine Ära des Friedens einzuleiten, und ihn davon abhalten werden, seine Wahlversprechen einzulösen, die US-Innenpolitik der Biden-Jahre zu Beginn seiner Amtszeit von Grund auf umzukehren, wenn er die volle Kontrolle über den Kongress und die Schonfrist hat, die jeder neue Präsident genießt.

Es ist dem scheidenden Biden egal, dass das, was er tut, völlig unverantwortlich ist und einen heißen Krieg auslösen könnte, der außer Kontrolle gerät. Es ist ihm egal, dass genau diese Maßnahmen die russisch-chinesische Allianz weiter festigen, was Washington vor einen Zweifrontenkrieg stellt, den es nicht gewinnen kann. Darüber hinaus beschleunigt die Biden-Regierung sowohl in Bezug auf Russland als auch in Bezug auf China einen militärischen Konflikt um mehrere Jahre vor ihrem eigenen Zeitplan, um die militärische Bereitschaft so weit zu erhöhen, dass sie eine gewisse Chance hat, sich durchzusetzen. In beiden Fällen liegt der von Washington festgelegte Zielzeitraum für einen Krieg mit dem einen oder anderen dieser Gegner zwei oder drei Jahre in der Zukunft. Dumm, sehr dumm, wie Donald sagen würde.

Abschließend möchte ich darauf hinweisen, dass die Frage der Lieferung von Abrams-Panzern an Taiwan Gegenstand eines kurzen Interviews war, das ich heute Morgen mit Press TV, Iran, geführt habe. Wenn das im Internet veröffentlicht wird, werde ich den Link hier hinzufügen.

We have all seen video images of Viktor Orban’s visit with Donald Trump on Monday, 9 December, which featured the two leaders smiling broadly and showing thumbs up to photo journalists. We know that during the same visit, Orban met with Elon Musk: and major media showed them in a friendly conversation during which Musk was carrying one of his children on his shoulders. These were all heart-warming images to Trump supporters, awful signs for dyed-in-the-wool Democrats of the prospective collaboration between what they believe to be hard right authoritarian leaders during the Trump years to come. Some reporting also carried mention of Trump’s designated national security adviser Mike Waltz as having been present for the talks.

On Wednesday, 11 December, Reuters and other U.S. media reported briefly that Orban had a one-hour telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin during which he evidently recounted what he learned in Mar-al-Lago and sought Putin’s agreement for a Christmas Day cease-fire and large-scale exchange of prisoners to be arranged with Kiev.  We may assume that Putin gave his consent, but subsequently Vladimir Zelensky rejected Orban’s initiatives on both matters and roundly attacked the Hungarian Prime Minister for speaking to Putin at all. Some of our media did quote Orban as saying that this week was the most critical in the entire Ukraine war, meaning that the fate of the world was hanging in the balance.

On this same Wednesday, we learned that Kiev had used six ATACMS missiles in a strike against the military airfield in Taganrog, a Russian port city on the Sea of Azov.

The week closed with Russia’s massive missile and drone attack Friday, 13 December, on Ukraine’s already shattered electricity generating infrastructure, which even compelled Kiev to shut down the nuclear plants which till now had been the mainstay of residual electricity supply to the country. One half of Ukraine was now said to be totally without electricity.  Nearly 100 Russian hypersonic short range ballistic missiles and cruise missiles together with a still greater number of killer drones were deployed in what Moscow called a successful mission in retaliation for Kiev’s ATACMS strike on Taganrog.

All of these reports in major Western media leave us with a great many loose ends. The interrelationship of these various developments and in particular, the impact of Viktor Orban’s peace mission to the United States, is left unanswered.

With the help of insights that I have just gathered from the remarks of panelists on the Russian talk show Vremya pokazhet (Time will Tell), I will try to tie up the loose ends and will argue that we all owe a great ‘thank you’ to Orban for his brave defiance of colleagues in the European Union, for using these closing weeks of his six-month presidency of the European Council to save us all from escalation towards nuclear catastrophe, at the upper end of ambition, and to save the lives of Russian and Ukrainian servicemen on the second holiest day in the Christian calendar, at the lower end of ambition.

                                                                    *****

Readers of these pages are aware that I have been drawing most of my material on what the Kremlin is thinking from the two leading news and analysis shows on Russian state television for their home audience, Evening with Vladimir Solovyov and The Great Game hosted by Vyacheslav Nikonov. Occasionally I have also made reference to Sixty Minutes, led by Yevgeny Popov and his wife Olga Skabeyeva. The presenters of these programs may be described as highly authoritative, and I have a personal reading on them all going back to my meetings with them on air back in 2016-2017 when I had a year-long ‘day in the sun’ on Russian domestic television as a guest panelist.

At that time, they had a special interest in hearing from Russia-neutral or Russia-friendly Americans who were fluent in Russian, as opposed to their traditional fare of Russia-hating Americans fluent in Russian, of whom the most celebrated example was a certain Michael Bohm. The reason for this was clear: the Russian news editors were in a state of confusion over what the Trump presidency meant for bilateral relations and there was a hope that an improvement was coming. Of course, those hopes were dashed during 2017 and by mid-way through that year Russian talk shows reverted to inviting devil-incarnate Americans panelists whom they could beat into the ground during their shows for the amusement of their audiences. In the past two years of the Special Military Operation, relations have deteriorated so far that no foreigners of any stripe are invited onto the talk shows other than an occasional Belarus diplomat or Opposition personality from Ukraine.

What I have not been using to inform my journalism in recent months is one other important talk show on which I appeared back in 2016, the aforementioned Vremya pokazhet. It also has high ratings, though is a notch below the Solovyov, Nikonov and Popov programs. Back in 2016, it distinguished itself by scheduling shows in the mid-afternoon when the audience would consist heavily of housewives and pensioners, as opposed to prime time with its primarily working male audience. I am unsure how they position themselves in this regard today, but watching the first segment of their 12 December show, I see that they are using some of the same expert panelists as the other talk shows but are bringing a distinctive focus to the discussions that helped me to reconsider the week’s news in the way I do below.

For the Russian speakers among you, here is the link: https://rutube.ru/video/0244c2bc77020e60adde6af875ca6d22/

What I piece together from the material presented on this show is the certainty that Orban’s mission to Mar-al-Lago and his subsequent debriefing for Putin had a strong influence on the way that the Kremlin chose to retaliate for the attack on Taganrog.  Clearly, as I have said in my interviews this past week, there were options on the table that were sharply escalatory, foremost among them the possibility of an attack using the Oreshnik hypersonic missile against the US missile base in Poland that was the source of great concern and loud complaints by Moscow going back seven years or more when its construction was first announced. Now, from the words of one panelist on this show, it becomes evident that another possibility which the Kremlin was considering was an Oreshnik strike on a decision-making center in Kiev, but one which no one appears to have considered from among my peers in the alternative media: namely a strike on the U.K. embassy in Kiev, which the Russians properly consider to be directing the war that Ukraine is waging. And the Russians have in hand Western precedents, starting with the U.S. ‘accidental’ bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in May, 1999 during the NATO offensive to bring down the Milosevic government.

It is clear to me that Orban was able to provide Putin with persuasive evidence from his talks with Trump, Musk and Waltz that it would be far better to show restraint, not to take the bait from the Biden administration to escalate and thereby not upset Trump’s likely plans to stop funding the war upon taking office. Accordingly, the Russians only ravaged what remains of Ukraine’s power supply and did not touch NATO assets inside or outside Ukraine.

For this, as I say, we all owe a great debt of gratitude to the Hungarian prime minister.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Hat Viktor Orban bei seiner Mission in Mar-al-Lago in der vergangenen Woche etwas erreicht?

Wir alle haben die Videoaufnahmen von Viktor Orbans Besuch bei Donald Trump am Montag, dem 9. Dezember, gesehen, auf denen die beiden Staatsoberhäupter breit lächeln und den Fotojournalisten den Daumen nach oben zeigen. Wir wissen, dass Orban sich während desselben Besuchs mit Elon Musk getroffen hat: und die großen Medien zeigten sie bei einem freundlichen Gespräch, bei dem Musk eines seiner Kinder auf den Schultern trug. Für Trump-Anhänger waren dies alles herzerwärmende Bilder, für eingefleischte Demokraten waren es schreckliche Anzeichen für die mögliche Zusammenarbeit zwischen den ihrer Meinung nach rechtsextremen autoritären Führern in den kommenden Trump-Jahren. In einigen Berichten wurde auch erwähnt, dass Trumps designierter nationaler Sicherheitsberater Mike Waltz bei den Gesprächen anwesend war.

Am Mittwoch, dem 11. Dezember, berichteten Reuters und andere US-Medien kurz, dass Orban ein einstündiges Telefongespräch mit dem russischen Präsidenten Wladimir Putin geführt habe, in dem er offenbar berichtete, was er in Mar-al-Lago erfahren hatte, und Putins Zustimmung für einen Waffenstillstand am Weihnachtstag und einen groß angelegten Gefangenenaustausch mit Kiew einholte. Wir können davon ausgehen, dass Putin seine Zustimmung gegeben hat, aber anschließend lehnte Wladimir Selensky Orbans Initiativen in beiden Angelegenheiten ab und griff den ungarischen Ministerpräsidenten scharf an, weil er überhaupt mit Putin gesprochen hatte. Einige unserer Medien zitierten Orban mit den Worten, dass diese Woche die kritischste im gesamten Ukraine-Krieg sei, was bedeutet, dass das Schicksal der Welt auf dem Spiel stehe.

Am selben Mittwoch erfuhren wir, dass Kiew sechs ATACMS-Raketen in einem Angriff auf den Militärflugplatz in Taganrog, einer russischen Hafenstadt am Asowschen Meer, eingesetzt hatte.

Die Woche endete mit einem massiven Raketen- und Drohnenangriff Russlands am Freitag, dem 13. Dezember, auf die bereits stark beschädigte Stromerzeugungsinfrastruktur der Ukraine, der Kiew sogar dazu zwang, die Kernkraftwerke abzuschalten, die bisher die Hauptstütze der verbleibenden Stromversorgung des Landes gewesen waren. Die eine Hälfte der Ukraine soll nun völlig ohne Strom sein. Fast 100 russische ballistische Hyperschall-Kurzstreckenraketen und Marschflugkörper sowie eine noch größere Anzahl von Killerdrohnen wurden in einer von Moskau als erfolgreich bezeichneten Mission als Vergeltung für den ATACMS-Angriff Kiews auf Taganrog eingesetzt.

All diese Berichte in den großen westlichen Medien lassen viele Fragen offen. Die Zusammenhänge zwischen diesen verschiedenen Entwicklungen und insbesondere die Auswirkungen von Viktor Orbans Friedensmission in den Vereinigten Staaten bleiben unbeantwortet.

Mit Hilfe der Erkenntnisse, die ich gerade aus den Äußerungen der Diskussionsteilnehmer in der russischen Talkshow „Vremya pokazhet“ (Die Zeit wird es zeigen) gewonnen habe, werde ich versuchen, die losen Enden zusammenzubinden, und ich möchte argumentieren, dass wir alle Orbán ein großes „Dankeschön“ dafür schulden, dass er sich mutig gegen seine Kollegen in der Europäischen Union gestellt hat, dafür, dass er die letzten Wochen seiner sechsmonatigen Präsidentschaft des Europäischen Rates genutzt hat, um uns alle am oberen Ende der Ambitionen vor einer Eskalation in Richtung einer nuklearen Katastrophe zu bewahren, und am unteren Ende der Ambitionen, um das Leben russischer und ukrainischer Soldaten am heiligsten Tag im christlichen Kalender zu retten.

                                                                    *****

Die Leser dieser Seiten wissen, dass ich den Großteil meines Materials über die Denkweise des Kremls aus den beiden führenden Nachrichten- und Analysesendungen des russischen Staatsfernsehens für ihr Heimpublikum, Abend mit Vladimir Solovyov und Das große Spiel, moderiert von Vyacheslav Nikonov, beziehe. Gelegentlich habe ich auch auf Sechzig Minuten verwiesen, das von Jewgeni Popow und seiner Frau Olga Skabeyewa geleitet wird. Die Moderatoren dieser Sendungen können als äußerst kompetent bezeichnet werden, und ich habe eine persönliche Meinung zu ihnen allen, die auf meine Treffen mit ihnen während der Sendung in den Jahren 2016-2017 zurückgeht, als ich ein Jahr lang als Gastredner im russischen Inlandfernsehen einen „Tag in der Sonne“ hatte.

Damals waren sie besonders daran interessiert, von russlandneutralen oder russlandfreundlichen Amerikanern zu hören, die fließend Russisch sprachen, im Gegensatz zu ihrem traditionellen Angebot an russlandhassenden Amerikanern, die fließend Russisch sprachen, von denen das berühmteste Beispiel ein gewisser Michael Bohm war. Der Grund dafür war klar: Die russischen Nachrichtenredakteure waren sich nicht sicher, was die Trump-Präsidentschaft für die bilateralen Beziehungen bedeutete, und es bestand die Hoffnung, dass eine Verbesserung bevorstand. Diese Hoffnungen wurden 2017 natürlich zunichte gemacht, und Mitte des Jahres kehrten die russischen Talkshows zu ihrer alten Gewohnheit zurück und luden Amerikaner ein, die den Teufel in Person verkörpern und die sie während der Shows zur Belustigung ihres Publikums in Grund und Boden stampfen konnten. In den letzten zwei Jahren der militärischen Sonderoperation haben sich die Beziehungen so weit verschlechtert, dass keine Ausländer mehr in die Talkshows eingeladen werden, außer gelegentlich belarussische Diplomaten oder Oppositionelle aus der Ukraine.

Was ich in den letzten Monaten nicht genutzt habe, um mich für meine journalistische Arbeit zu informieren, ist eine weitere wichtige Talkshow, in der ich 2016 aufgetreten bin, die bereits erwähnte „Vremya pokazhet“. Sie hat ebenfalls hohe Einschaltquoten, liegt aber eine Stufe unter den Programmen von Solowjow, Nikonow und Popow. Im Jahr 2016 zeichnete sie sich dadurch aus, dass sie ihre Sendungen am Nachmittag ausstrahlte, als das Publikum hauptsächlich aus Hausfrauen und Rentnern bestand, im Gegensatz zur Hauptsendezeit, in der hauptsächlich berufstätige Männer das Publikum ausmachten. Ich bin mir nicht sicher, wie sie sich heute in dieser Hinsicht positionieren, aber wenn ich mir den ersten Teil ihrer Sendung vom 12. Dezember ansehe, sehe ich, dass sie einige der gleichen Experten wie in den anderen Talkshows einsetzen, aber einen besonderen Schwerpunkt auf die Diskussionen legen, der mir geholfen hat, die Nachrichten der Woche auf die unten beschriebene Weise zu überdenken.

Für die russischsprachigen unter Ihnen hier der Link: https://rutube.ru/video/0244c2bc77020e60adde6af875ca6d22/

Aus dem in dieser Sendung präsentierten Material schließe ich, dass Orbans Mission in Mar-al-Lago und seine anschließende Nachbesprechung mit Putin einen starken Einfluss darauf hatten, wie der Kreml auf den Angriff auf Taganrog reagiert hat. Wie ich in meinen Interviews in der vergangenen Woche bereits sagte, lagen Optionen auf dem Tisch, die stark eskalierend waren, allen voran die Möglichkeit eines Angriffs mit der Oreschkin-Hyperschallrakete auf die US-Raketenbasis in Polen, die seit sieben Jahren oder länger, als ihr Bau erstmals angekündigt wurde, Anlass zu großer Sorge und lauten Beschwerden Moskaus gab. Nun wird aus den Worten eines Diskussionsteilnehmers in dieser Sendung deutlich, dass eine weitere Möglichkeit, die der Kreml in Betracht zog, ein Oreschkin-Angriff auf ein Entscheidungszentrum in Kiew war, aber eine, die niemand aus meinen Kollegen in den alternativen Medien in Betracht zu ziehen scheint: nämlich ein Angriff auf die britische Botschaft in Kiew, die die Russen zu Recht als ein Zentrum für die Führung des Krieges betrachten, den die Ukraine führt. Und die Russen haben Präzedenzfälle aus dem Westen in der Hand, angefangen mit der „versehentlichen“ Bombardierung der chinesischen Botschaft in Belgrad durch die USA im Mai 1999 während der NATO-Offensive zur Absetzung der Regierung Milosevic.

Mir ist klar, dass Orban Putin in seinen Gesprächen mit Trump, Musk und Waltz überzeugende Beweise dafür liefern konnte, dass es weitaus besser wäre, Zurückhaltung zu üben und nicht auf den Köder der Biden-Regierung zu beißen, zu eskalieren und damit Trumps wahrscheinliche Pläne, die Finanzierung des Krieges nach seinem Amtsantritt einzustellen, nicht zu durchkreuzen. Dementsprechend haben die Russen nur die Überreste der ukrainischen Stromversorgung verwüstet und die NATO-Einrichtungen innerhalb und außerhalb der Ukraine nicht angerührt.

Dafür sind wir, wie gesagt, dem ungarischen Ministerpräsidenten zu großem Dank verpflichtet.

As I have said several times in the past, I always appreciate the gentle prompting from the Iran broadcaster to put on my thinking cap and offer analysis of events that I otherwise would observe only as a consumer of information.  So, it was this morning.

The product of this process was  http://www.urmedium.net/c/presstv/131967

We are discussing the latest massive air attacks on all of Syria’s military ground, air and sea installations and equipment. This is shown extensively in Western media in a matter-of-fact way, as something that requires no comment. Accordingly, the BBC, for example, is entirely complicit in validation of Israel’s war of aggression in Syria.

There is no reason for us to wait and ‘let history judge.’

Transcript below submitted by a reader

Press TV: 0:00
For more on this, let us now go to Brussels and talk to Gilbert Doctorow, independent international affairs analyst. Very good to have you on the program. What do you think of these latest ratified resolutions by the Arab League?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
The Arab League has been a factor in the considerations of the Assad government in the days leading up to its demise. The assumption was that the Arab League’s support for Syria has given the Assad government a chance to succeed in its conflict with the insurgents.

0:43
However, as we know very well today, nothing of the sort happened. And the comfort that Assad took from the support he was receiving from the League turned out to have been a great mistake, because he denied assistance from Iran and from Russia in what could have been a last stand. It didn’t take place; his government fell.

Press TV: 1:07
At the same time, Gilbert, we are witnessing that Syria’s interim government also making a reaction finally and asking the UNSC to get involved and compel Israel to get out of Syrian territory. But do you think that will succeed? Will the UNSC be able to do it this time?

Doctorow:
No, it won’t. The position of the United States is decisive here. We’re speaking about Israel’s attacks, but those attacks are taking place only because all of the munitions, the aircraft and the logistical support is provided to this aggressive war by the United States for its own reasons and its own purposes, which are largely directed against Iran. The destruction of all military equipment and capabilities of the Syrian army serves that single purpose. As far as the United States is concerned, it prepares the way for a free flight over Syria territory in any planned attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Press TV: 2:12
And now with Israel unopposed in Syria, with Syria remaining with no national defense force. how do you think this is going to end? Because we’ve had Netanyahu saying that the army should prepare to stay at least over the winter in the regions beyond Golan Heights.

Doctorow: 2:30
Here in Western Europe and the States, there’s all kinds of outlandish speculation on how the situation will evolve. There is the assumption that perhaps the Israelis and the new Syrian government, once it’s formed, will find an accommodation. There’s the talk that the Alawites have demanded Israeli protection to join the state of Israel. This sort of talk is a distraction from the very ugly destructive activities of Israel that you are reporting as in the last few minutes shown on screen. The Israeli position is a pure act of aggression and it’s not, it is described– we see the same pictures on the BBC as you have shown– but it’s just described simply as some matter-of-fact “this is what you expect in a state of war”. They are not identifying Israel as violating all international law yet again in its interest of Netanyahu to stay in power by creating the greater Israel that has been designed as the object, going back to the creation of the state. He wants to see Jordan incorporated into Israel. He wants to see half of Syria becoming territory that is colonized by Israel. These are the realities that are not being discussed in Western media.

Press TV: 4:02
Thank you, Gilbert, for your insight about this matter/ That was Gilbert Doctorow, independent international affairs analyst from Brussels, talking about the Israeli aggression on Syria.

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Press TV, Iran: „Israelische Aggression“ [in Syrien]

Wie ich bereits mehrfach in der Vergangenheit gesagt habe, schätze ich die sanfte Aufforderung des iranischen Senders, meine Denkkappe aufzusetzen und eine Analyse der Ereignisse anzubieten, die ich sonst nur als Informationskonsument beobachten würde. So war es auch heute Morgen.

Das Ergebnis dieses Prozesses war  http://www.urmedium.net/c/presstv/131967

Wir diskutieren die jüngsten massiven Luftangriffe auf alle militärischen Boden-, Luft- und Seeeinrichtungen und -ausrüstungen Syriens. Dies wird in den westlichen Medien ausführlich und nüchtern als etwas dargestellt, das keines Kommentars bedarf. Dementsprechend macht sich beispielsweise die BBC mitschuldig, indem sie den Angriffskrieg Israels in Syrien bestätigt.

Es gibt keinen Grund für uns, abzuwarten und „die Geschichte urteilen zu lassen“.

Nachstehend das von einem Leser eingereichte Transkript

Press TV: 0:00
Um mehr darüber zu erfahren, lassen Sie uns nun nach Brüssel gehen und mit Gilbert Doctorow, einem unabhängigen Analysten für internationale Angelegenheiten, sprechen. Schön, dass Sie bei uns sind. Was halten Sie von den jüngsten ratifizierten Resolutionen der Arabischen Liga?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
Die Arabische Liga war ein Faktor in den Überlegungen der Assad-Regierung in den Tagen vor ihrem Untergang. Man ging davon aus, dass die Unterstützung der Arabischen Liga für Syrien der Assad-Regierung eine Chance gegeben hat, in ihrem Konflikt mit den Aufständischen erfolgreich zu sein.

0:43
Wie wir heute jedoch sehr gut wissen, ist nichts dergleichen geschehen. Und der Trost, den Assad aus der Unterstützung der Liga schöpfte, erwies sich als großer Fehler, denn er lehnte die Hilfe des Iran und Russlands in einem möglichen letzten Gefecht ab. Es kam nicht dazu und seine Regierung stürzte.

Press TV: 1:07
Gleichzeitig, Gilbert, beobachten wir, dass auch die syrische Übergangsregierung endlich reagiert und den UN-Sicherheitsrat auffordert, sich einzuschalten und Israel zum Rückzug aus syrischem Gebiet zu zwingen. Aber glauben Sie, dass das gelingen wird? Wird der UN-Sicherheitsrat diesmal dazu in der Lage sein?

Doctorow:
Nein, das wird nicht gelingen. Die Position der Vereinigten Staaten ist hier entscheidend. Wir sprechen über die Angriffe Israels, aber diese Angriffe finden nur statt, weil die gesamte Munition, die Flugzeuge und die logistische Unterstützung für diesen Angriffskrieg von den Vereinigten Staaten aus eigenen Gründen und für eigene Zwecke bereitgestellt werden, die sich größtenteils gegen den Iran richten. Die Zerstörung der gesamten militärischen Ausrüstung und der Fähigkeiten der syrischen Armee dient diesem einzigen Zweck. Was die Vereinigten Staaten betrifft, so ebnen sie den Weg für einen freien Flug über syrisches Gebiet bei jedem geplanten Angriff auf die Nuklearanlagen des Iran.

Press TV: 2:12
Und jetzt, da Israel in Syrien auf keine Gegenwehr stößt und Syrien zukünftig keine nationalen Verteidigungskräfte mehr hat, wie wird das Ihrer Meinung nach enden? Denn Netanjahu hat gesagt, dass sich die Armee darauf vorbereiten sollte, mindestens über den Winter in den Regionen jenseits der Golanhöhen zu bleiben.

Doctorow: 2:30
Hier in Westeuropa und den USA gibt es alle möglichen abwegigen Spekulationen darüber, wie sich die Situation entwickeln wird. Es wird angenommen, dass sich die Israelis und die neue syrische Regierung, sobald sie gebildet ist, vielleicht einigen werden. Es wird darüber gesprochen, dass die Alawiten israelischen Schutz gefordert haben, um sich dem Staat Israel anzuschließen. Diese Art von Gerede lenkt von den sehr hässlichen, zerstörerischen Aktivitäten Israels ab, über die Sie berichten, wie in den letzten Minuten auf dem Bildschirm gezeigt. Die israelische Position ist ein reiner Akt der Aggression und wird nicht als solcher beschrieben – wir sehen die gleichen Bilder auf BBC, die Sie gezeigt haben –, aber einfach als eine nüchterne Feststellung: „Das ist es, was man in einem Kriegszustand erwartet“. Sie stellen nicht fest, dass Israel erneut gegen das Völkerrecht verstößt, und zwar im Interesse Netanyahus, an der Macht zu bleiben, indem er das Groß-Israel schafft, das als Objekt konzipiert wurde, was bis zur Gründung des Staates zurückreicht. Er möchte, dass Jordanien in Israel eingegliedert wird. Er möchte, dass die Hälfte Syriens zu einem von Israel kolonisierten Gebiet wird. Das sind die Realitäten, die in den westlichen Medien nicht diskutiert werden.

Press TV: 4:02
Vielen Dank, Gilbert, für Ihre Einblicke in diese Angelegenheit. Das war Gilbert Doctorow, unabhängiger Analyst für internationale Angelegenheiten aus Brüssel, der über die israelische Aggression gegen Syrien sprach.

Michael Farris

Gilbert, I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me. Lots of things happening. And just right before I got on, I’m seeing Russia launch a massive– Zero-hedge– they launched a massive attack on Ukrainian critical fuel and energy infrastructure. So I don’t know, I know you haven’t had a chance to look at it, but a little bit that I’ve just described to you, what are your thoughts?

Gilbert Doctorow

I think it’s premature to say what this is. I think the Russians have a number of things going on in their minds right now. It depends on how you understand what they’re responding to, retaliating over. We’re talking about the attempt, about the strike of six ATACMS missiles launched by Ukraine a couple of days ago against Taganrog. Taganrog is a city on the Sea of Azov, in the south of Russia. We are told that the Ukrainians were attacking a military air base. That’s one story. Another story is that they were attacking a factory that is adjacent to the military air base and the factory that produces specialized aircraft, planes that are the Russian equivalent to the American AWACS. That’s to say they are early warning radar stations in the air that are controlling all air traffic in, well, it could be for several hundred kilometers.

Now the question you have to ask is why would the Ukrainians attack that? I read it as follows, that this falls in line with the Ukraine attack using drones about six months ago on a couple of early warning radar stations in the south of Russia. The question that was asked then is what sense did this make for the Ukrainians? Because those early warning stations have nothing to do with the Ukraine war. They have a lot to do with the United States’ interest in destroying Russia’s ability to detect incoming missiles from the south, for example, from American submarines based in the Persian Gulf or Eastern Med.

These were part of Russia’s early warning system against missile attack. would say quite possibly the AWACS planes were also part of such a system and that the attack had nothing whatever do with Ukrainian interests, which Zelensky has alleged and which all of our tame Western media have repeated to the general public: that he needed these missiles from the States in order to disarm Russian attack potential on his country. These AWACS probably had nothing to do with his country and a lot to do with general defense of Russia against US missile attacks. If I am correct, I’m not a military expert, and I could be wrong about the actual purposes of the AWACS planes, but if I am correct, then for Russia to respond to that attack, the issue here is not whether it failed or succeeded, but what was the intent of those who launched those missiles? The Russian response to this attack in Taganrog would be far more serious than limited to Ukraine and to its energy infrastructure.

They’ve been busy destroying that for most of the past year, and they’ve taken down about 80 percent of Ukraine’s electricity generation from normal power plants. There is a residual energy production within Ukraine from its nuclear plants and from renewables. So Russia cannot take 100 percent of Ukraine’s energy out, but it can take out all of those conventional power generating plants and distribution facilities. Still, as I say, this in no way would be a proper retaliation if the United States were using these ATACMS coming from Ukraine to prepare the way for a decapitation strike against Russia with missiles based on its ships and submarines in the Middle East. What I would look for instead is a Russian attack on U.S. military assets, either in Romania or Poland. I had put this at a low on probability because of the risks it has for escalation. But that was before this incident in Taganrog. And as a sign that this is a possible ultimate response was the remarkable appearance a day ago by Mr. Lavrov’s spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, who went on television warning Russians that during this holiday season the government advises against their traveling in Western Europe or North America because of the worsening relations.

Well, that’s pretty tough stuff that Russians should not travel to Europe or America. And the explanation was the risk of their being arrested and shipped to America to face various assorted charges of criminal activity by the US government. That explanation does not sound convincing to me. I believe that that statement was made because Russia is planning, considering making a strike on NATO.

Farris:

You know, with what’s occurred in Syria, and I still haven’t gotten confirmation. Are they still occupying, Are Russians still occupying their military bases there?

Doctorow:

Yes, they are, with a certain qualification. The bases are in Russian hands. Nobody’s challenging that. But as regards the naval base of Tartus, the Russians immediately after the demise of the Assad government, it’s clear, they sent their ships out to sea beyond range of artillery, meaning more than eight kilometers out to sea. So, they were taking no chances against the… Who would attack them from Syrian soil? Difficult to say, but they were taking up chances just as Israel supposedly is taking no chances and preparing for every contingency by capturing the buffer zone and moving its tanks within close striking range of Damascus. If the Israelis can do that without explaining exactly whom they thought would attack them, then the Russians could do the same with their naval assets on the Syrian coast.

 But as for long range prospects of the Russian bases, both the air force base, and the naval base, both on the coast of Syria in the territory that was the basic core constituency of Bashar al-Assad, that is, the Alawite region of northwest Syria. This seems to be stable. We don’t know what will happen next, but the Russians are prepared for every eventuality, and those in the West who were saying that this is a black eye to Putin who is going to lose his invaluable assets if he doesn’t see it yet. They are just disseminating propaganda written by Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken.

The Russians have many options. It was very convenient, and certainly they’d like to keep their 70-year lease on these bases. But if they feel that they have to leave, if they cannot reach agreement with the new administration in Damascus, they have options. One of the most obvious ones is to move their assets to Iran. Iran now being under considerable pressure, pressure and threats from the United States and Israel, I think would warmly welcome Russian bases as an additional safeguard for their own security. Of course, it’s possible that Iran will now shift to try to strike an accommodation with the Trump administration. And so that possibility may be illusory, but the Russians also have possibilities of moving their bases to Egypt or to Algeria, to give two examples of North African states which are now hopping mad over what the United States and Israel are doing in the Middle East and would warmly welcome Russian military presence.

Farris:

There’s just so much going on right now, Gilbert? There’s a lot going on.

Doctorow:

I don’t think it’s the end of the world scenario in front of us. I think that the Russians have the upper hand and our fate, your fate, in the middle of the State, and my fate here in Brussels just 20 kilometers from the NATO headquarters, is very much in the hands of one man. That one man is not Joe Biden, and it’s not Donald Trump. It’s Vladimir Putin.

Unlike Mr. Biden, who is senile, who is being managed by his nominal subordinates, unlike Donald Trump, who has yet to demonstrate that he is capable of genuinely fighting the Deep State when he appoints a whole slew of security and military advisors who are so combative.

Mr. Putin is rock solid and he is not emotional. He is highly rational and keeps his cool, his sangue froid, and he is probably our best safeguard against the present situation deteriorating into a nuclear war.

Farris:

Do you anticipate though with the, continuing needling, Ukraine firing those ATACMS on Wednesday that at some point Putin is just going to say enough is enough?

Doctorow:

It’s possible, but what will the end result be? Although I hold out the possibility of retaliation against US assets in Romania or Poland, it is also entirely possible that the next step, next Russian retaliatory step, would be a decapitation strike on the Zelensky regime. This was already warned by Putin ten days ago that the new Oreshnik missile could be used to strike against the decision-making centers and the command and control centers of Ukraine. To translate that into simple English, it means they’re going to kill Zelensky and everybody around him.

Farris:

With that, you know, I had Paul Craig Roberts on a couple of days ago, and I heard your interview on Dialogue Works, you discussing some of the things that Paul was saying the day before and it was just different, something that I had not heard before in terms of the neo cons continuing to push Putin to the brink to where it’s either push the red button or lose. What are your thoughts when you hear that type of scenario?

Doctorow:

Paul Craig Roberts is a man who is widely respected for his service, public service, in the United States government, who had some of the most responsible positions in the US government and as an economist is widely regarded in a very positive way. But having said that, let’s discuss the issue at hand, in which he is no expert whatsoever.

And I believe that he is drawing his information largely from John Helmer, who may or may not still be in Moscow. I don’t know. Some people say that he’s actually in Australia. Now, I don’t know. But he spent 30 years as the longest-serving, and may still be the long-serving, foreign journalist in Moscow.

Helmer is very extravagant in his criticism, I’d say open attacks on Putin for being too soft. And Helmer speaks on behalf of unidentified, high military sources within the General Staff, as he says, who believe that Putin has been making terrible mistakes and has the wrong people in charge of the military, that Gerasimov should go. These are seditious statements if you are in Russia. I’m surprised Helmet has not been expelled from the country or arrested for sedition. This is the man, I believe, whom Paul Craig Roberts is listening to, because Roberts himself is not a specialist in Russia and has, to my knowledge, no personal points of information.

And Roberts has been spreading, unfortunately, this notion that we face the crisis we are in today with Russia because Putin wasn’t tough back in 2014, missed the opportunity to solve the problem with Ukraine back in 2014, and has been letting the Americans cross all of his red lines and turning the other cheek, which is interpreted as weakness and inability to act by the hubristic and very aggressive American political and military leadership. I don’t agree at all with that. I don’t agree that the Russians could have taken Ukraine out in 2014. That is, I think, dead wrong. I think Putin did the right thing back then, by stepping back and contenting himself with the annexation of Crimea, and didn’t dare to overrun the Ukrainian army, which he could have done in 2014, because Russia was utterly unprepared for economic warfare with the United States.

The United States, if it imposed anything like the sanctions it has imposed on Russia today, would have indeed put Russia on its knees. They didn’t have any work-around for expulsion from SWIFT. They had no reserves, financial reserves. They had no support within the country for direct confrontation with the West as they finally have today. And the most important factor in the decision was they had no confidence that in a free and fair vote, the majority of people in the Donbass would vote for joining Russia.

The fact is that Crimea was 98% not just Russian speaking, but ethnic Russian. The Donbass was a majority Russian speaking, but not ethnic Russian or sympathetic to Russia. It was really arguable that it could be a disaster to have a referendum in the Donbass in 2014. And the Russians did not risk it, very wisely. Paul Craig Roberts knows nothing about this and therefore the statements that he was making coming from Helmer are invalid.

Now everyone speaks about Putin as a chump. He was taken in by Merkel and Sarkozy, sorry, by Merkel and Hollande in the Minsk agreements. That these were used cynically by France, France and Germany and Washington to gain time, to arm Ukraine and to prepare it for a victorious war against Russia. I disagree.

I believe that the Russians were not hoodwinked. They knew very well what was going on. They had very good intelligence. And they did not act because they weren’t ready to act. They didn’t have the preponderance in latest strategic weapons that they gained only in 2018 and afterwards, when Mr. Putin rolled out his new weapons, including hypersonic missiles that we hear so much about today. Russia was not ready. It needed this time to prepare itself financially, to have workarounds to any economic sanctions that the United States would impose, and it needed to strengthen its army, which it did. So, Russia used the time to prepare itself for war the same way that Ukraine did. And this is a fact that, or a reality that is not reflected in Russian public statements, but that doesn’t make it any less a reality. When people

 criticize Putin for being weak, for being too good a Christian, they are simply missing these points. And so I don’t accept their verdict on Putin’s guilt or innocence in bringing us to this confrontation that we’re up to today.

Farris:

Well, the other thing is I, as I’ve reflected on my conversation with Paul in regards to if Russia would have marched right through Ukraine the second time around, what kind of panic would that have set in with the media, with the Western media? Because they would have said, “Oh, he’s going to march into Poland, Oh, he’s going to continue on, he wants to conquer Europe.” I mean, you would have heard a lot of, I feel like you would have heard a lot of that type of misinformation.

Doctorow:

Well, what differences does it make? I’m sorry. This information is good for brainwashing the Americans and the Europeans, but I don’t see it as having much relevance to politics. As I said, I have no intention of being a detractor for the well-earned reputation that Craig Roberts has. But, horses for courses, as they say. There’s some expertise that one should have when talking about these things, and he doesn’t have it.

Farris:

So as we sit here, as the Trump administration gets set to take office here in, what do we have, about four weeks now, roughly, Is Putin, what do you see as the initial conversations? Do you think those are taking place now with Trump and Putin?

Doctorow:

Possibly, but I doubt it. I think that Trump has been very careful to avoid crossing the lines, constitutionally defined lines, of what a private person in the States can do in the realm of foreign policy. That was something that was a point that he missed after his election in 2016 and cost some of the people around him dearly when they were charged with violating this policy. The United States only has one government at a time.

Nor would it make much difference. I think that Trump has admitted in the last few days that he cannot solve the problem in 24 hours, that this will take some effort. And therefore, the notion that he can fix it all up before he gets elected, and on day two, announce that there’s a ceasefire. I think that notion has evaporated in the Trump camp.

What will the conversation be like when they eventually have it?

Mr. Putin is very polite. Mr. Lavrov, his foreign minister, is even more polite and diplomatic in everything he does, where possible. And they will sit with General Kellogg and/or whomever else Trump sends to Moscow to discuss the ceasefire and the eventual peace agreement. They will hear him out.

But there will be no agreement whatsoever, because the American side is pretending that Russia is a losing party, when in fact it’s the winning party. And you cannot impose on the winning party terms that you can impose on the loser. The whole approach to this issue is upside down.

Mr. Putin has made it clear from the very beginning that there were a number of issues that brought Russia to war.

For public consumption, for the Russian public, the issues were all defending Russian speakers and their brethren in Donbas from ethnic cleansing and physical destruction by a Ukrainian army formation that was prepared to pounce on them in early 2022. That resonates well with the broad public. The broad public everywhere – in the United States, in Western Europe- the broad public does not want to hear about Realpolitik and national interests. You don’t send your husband, your son, your father off to war to fight for national interests.

You send them to fight for your brethren, your land, as is the case now where Russian land was occupied by Ukraine in Kursk. For others, the reason for the war is at a different level completely. It’s precisely national interest, national security. And in that regard, the Russians set their terms in December 2021, when the terms were written by Mr Sergei Ryabkov, the deputy minister, the deputy to Lavrov, who is very hard-line, not as flexible and weak, if you want to call it that, as Mr Lavrov is in his public statements. And Ryabkov demanded a rollback of NATO.

And they started the rollback in Ukraine. They will not tolerate Ukraine becoming part of NATO or of NATO countries having military missions, having bases and supplying Ukraine’s army to be used against them. Russia will not tolerate that. “And if you do not agree to negotiate this with us, we will push you back by force,” which they did a few weeks later when they launched the special military operation.

 Mr. Putin has not forgotten that. Mr. Putin on June 13th stated these terms as the basis for ending the war. That is, to reiterate, he said that “we will in a moment stop our hostilities once Ukraine withdraws its armed forces from the four regions, from Donetsk, Lugansk and the two New Russia regions. And then we will agree to peace talks. The peace talks will follow the document that we and the Ukrainians initialed in March, April of 2022, essentially limiting the size of the Ukrainian armed forces of every kind, prohibiting foreign troops, foreign experts, foreign bases on Ukrainian territory, and providing for even-handed treatment Russian speaking citizens within what remains of the Ukrainian state.” Less than 10 days ago, Mr. Putin’s press secretary, Peskov, reiterated those terms. And Mr. Trump’s advisors had better read them carefully before they open their mouths again.

Farris:

You’re talking about Sebastian Gorka when he went on media and was saying, the support we’ll give to Ukraine. I couldn’t believe he said that.

Doctorow:

Well, it’s hideous. It is very objectionable. I was like others, I was surprised and disappointed that Trump could ever appoint such an obnoxious character to such an influential position in this incoming administration.

Farris:

What’s more, what’s the greater likelihood, escalation or a ceasefire as we sit here today?

Doctorow:

Neither. It depends on how the Russians actually respond to the Taganrog attack. If my hunches are right and they see this as a direct United States effort to destroy the early-warning systems in preparing the way for a preemptive nuclear strike on Russia, then the Russian response will be far greater and will be indeed escalatory, as I said, attacking one or another American asset in NATO countries.

But if my hunch is wrong, or if, yes, they do not believe that there was such an ambition in this attack, and they can be satisfied that their retaliation is appropriate to the threat that they perceive to themselves, then we will neither see escalation nor we will see a ceasefire. We will see the continuation of the Russian offensive in the Donbas until they reach the Dnieper River, at least. In the expectation that the Ukrainian army will crack and the Ukrainian general staff will sue for peace on the basis of capitulation.

Farris:

Why would Anthony Blinken and the Biden administration push this now, knowing that they’re leaving in a month?

Doctorow:

Because they are completely immoral people. They have no respect for the American people. They have no respect for the 53% of American voters who voted for Donald over Kamala. And they should be doing prison time for their violation of the trust of American people and in the case of the Blinken for his complicity in Israeli war crimes.

So that is why I think of these gentlemen. I do not have a high opinion of them. I think they are war criminals in the case of Blinken. He could be, before a court of justice, found guilty of war crimes. He also has no judgment. But the broader issue is not these two gentlemen. The broader issue is that American foreign policy is flying blind.

The number of people, or the people in high places who have some actual knowledge of the adversary, or what you can call the enemy, are negligible. American studies, professional studies of Russia have gone to hell. American intelligence assets since 2003, with respect to Russia, have gone to hell. Why do I say that? In 2003, Dick Cheney, he really had control. Bush was just a frontman. And Cheney gutted American intelligence. All of the people who were Eastern Europe and Russia experts, they were thrown into the street because America needed guidance for the War on Terror. And so two things happened. The professionals within the American intelligence services who knew something about Russia were either forced out, retired, or they left because of their disgust with the manipulation of intelligence that led us into the Iraq War.

These people left, they were only partly replaced by experts on the Middle East, and much of American intelligence work was in the spirit of Dick Cheney, the way we conducted the military operations in Iraq, were farmed out commercially. That is, intelligence was outsourced the same way as the procurement of transportation, the vehicles, the tanks and everything else for the American war effort was outsourced. It was no longer in the hands of the Deep State, surprisingly to say this. It was not in professional career servants of the state. It was outsourced to commercial organizations who were, as you might expect, saying what the pay master wanted to hear.

Therefore, there was a tremendous corruption of American intelligence, which has not changed. American intelligence, I think that Mr. Trump’s people, when they go into this, when Tulsi Gabbard gets into the nitty-gritty, will discover that there are vast empty spaces in America’s knowledge and capability of dealing with his number one and number two adversaries, whether it’s China, but particularly with respect to Russia.

Farris:

Last question. What do you think of President Trump and the new administration, both for the United States and globally as they set to take office here in a month?

Doctorow:

Well, as regards what the Russians call the power ministers, everything concerned with military defense, his choices were terrible. I don’t know why. Whether he wanted to gather them all in one place so he could beat them up every day. I don’t know. I assume there’s some kind of logic to it, because it runs in the face of what he was saying about his selection of his deputies and his administration in his first presidency.

I don’t understand the need to bring on board the obnoxious people that I’ve just described. Nor do I understand what he’s doing and saying now. What is the value of having Tulsi Gabbard as his side to provide him with genuine reality-based intelligence when he’s going shooting his mouth off about the Russian economy being in tough shape and so forth. This is rubbish. I’ll give him the credit that there may be some ulterior motive.

As I said just a moment ago, maybe he’s gathering the scoundrels in one place so he can beat them all up at once. I don’t know. When you have people like Rubio that he’s brought in, who’s a hawk on China, for example. What is the sense of Trump’s appointing this man? One factor is that Rubio is not independently wealthy, that Rubio gave up a government post for which he would be re-elected and re-elected till he dies.

And he’s taken on a position of complete dependency on the goodwill of one Donald Trump who is known as a chap who likes to fire people. So in taking on Rubio, is he becoming subject to Rubio’s thinking where it conflicts directly with his own planned peace-like foreign policy? Or is he taking control of Rubio to take control of Rubio? We will see. It is too early to say.

I will give Trump the benefit of the doubt that he’s not a fool. The only thing I can say about his personality is he is an extremely brave man. I look at some of his appointees, particularly Patel for the FBI. Some of these choices indicate an intention to strike directly against the Deep State, an intention that has been life threatening in the past. It cost John Kennedy his life and that almost cost him his life during the electoral campaign in two assassination attempts.

So he’s an enormously brave person and I’d like to find something admirable otherwise in his personality.

Farris:

Gilbert, where can people find you?

Well, I prefer if they find me on my substack.com web platform. People can subscribe to that for free. It’s not difficult.

Nobody’s obliged to make contributions. I’d be very happy to see these numbers grow in the free subscriptions as well as paid. And they can find me pretty soon, once this war takes a definitive direction and ends, I will be publishing, republishing articles that I’ve written since before the war began in two volumes. And I hope people will find that a useful guide, not a history of the war, but of impressions coming from a person in the alternative media as I am, and recording my impressions of the way this war has twisted this way and that way as the United States and NATO have upped the ante and gone into ever more risky confrontation with Russia that we never anticipated.

Farris:

And what is your substack for people that are going to look for it?

Well, it’s my first and last name glued together, gilbertdoctorow.substock.com and the name of it, – every one of these sub stacks has a name, – It’s the “Armageddon Newsletter”. I hope it’s not prophetic. News from hell.

Farris:

Gilbert, Thank you so much for making time to speak with me. Have a great rest of your year. I’d love to have you back on as more conversations ahead and look forward to continuing to follow your work.

Doctorow:

Well, thanks for the invitation. I enjoyed this and I hope your viewers also enjoyed it.

“Five will get you ten!”  That old folk wisdom of gambling folk sometimes also works in reverse. Appearing on one or another of the leading alternative video platforms like ‘Judging Freedom’ which has just passed the line of 500k subscribers means that you may well get invitations also from start-ups, as I now do from time to time.

I am very pleased that I agreed to chat with and be recorded today by Michael Farris for his “Coffee and a Mike” platform on Rumble which now has a little over 7k followers. Michael has in the past several days interviewed Larry Johnson and Paul Craig Roberts. I think he is off to a good start and deserves to do well.

See

Our chat began with his asking whether the latest massive Russian strike on Ukrainian power generation and fuel infrastructure should be considered to be their retaliation for the Ukrainian missile strike two days ago on Russia’s military air field in Taganrog using 6 ATACMS missiles.  I said that was unlikely if my hunch was correct and the real objective of Kiev was to destroy a factory near the air field producing the Russian equivalent of American AWACS. Such planes are a key part of their early warning radar network that would alert Moscow to incoming missiles fired by US submarines in the Persian Gulf or Mediterranean should the US decide on a preemptive nuclear strike.

Now that I have listened to the latest news on Russian state television about what Moscow achieved by its new missile barrage, I am obliged to agree that this was indeed the awaited retaliation even if it did not entail use of the Oreshnik hypersonic missile. Instead the Russians used most other missiles including air, ground and sea-launched weapons in their arsenal to achieve truly devastating results. 

Apparently half of Ukraine is now without any electricity and the important nuclear stations which were providing Ukraine with 20% of generating capacity prior to this latest attack now also were shut down because the current from outside that they need to operate was no longer available. We also now know that Ukraine is begging Europe to send power their way insofar as their grid is linked to Europe. Moreover, apart from the actual damage to infrastructure, this Russian attack engaged approximately 100 of their missiles plus drones, demonstrating that their stocks are still very impressive and overturning suggestions emanating from Washington that Russia is running low.

My thanks to Andreas Mylaeus for the following translations.

„Judging Freedom“-Ausgabe vom 12. Dezember: Russland, Syrien und Georgien

Es war mir eine besondere Freude, heute bei „Judging Freedom“ aufzutreten, als Gastgeber Andrew Napolitano das Erreichen von 500.000 Abonnenten feierte. Die einleitenden Kommentare zu diesem Video drücken überschwängliches Lob für diese wohlverdiente Leistung im Dienst für die Öffentlichkeit aus.

In unserem Gespräch über Syrien ging es vor allem um die Frage, ob dies wirklich ein großer Rückschlag für Wladimir Putin ist, wie uns der Mainstream im Westen glauben machen will, oder ob sie diese Geschichte nur nutzen, um von der Katastrophe abzulenken, die sich Tag für Tag auf dem Schlachtfeld für die ukrainischen Streitkräfte und ihre Unterstützer aus den USA und der NATO abspielt.

Wie bereits erwähnt, ist die Lage der russischen Stützpunkte in Syrien derzeit stabil und es besteht durchaus die Möglichkeit, dass die neue Regierung in Damaskus eine autonome Provinz schafft, um die alawitische Bevölkerung dieser Ortschaft an der Küste, in der die Russen leben, vor Vergeltungsmaßnahmen für ihre Unterstützungsrolle für die Assad-Familie zu schützen. Die Zeit wird es zeigen. Unsere Medien ignorieren jedoch die anderen Optionen, die Russland durchaus offenstehen, sollte es gezwungen sein, seinen 70-jährigen Pachtvertrag für die Stützpunkte in Syrien aufzugeben. Zu diesen Optionen gehört der Iran mit seinen Seehäfen an Gewässern, die direkt in den Indischen Ozean münden. In seiner derzeitigen Lage, nachdem er unter seinen Stellvertretern der Achse des Widerstands erhebliche Verluste erlitten hat, könnte der Iran durchaus motiviert sein, der russischen Marine und Luftwaffe Stützpunkte anzubieten.

Die Russen begehren seit Jahrhunderten die warmen Gewässer des Indischen Ozeans und eine Verbindung zum Mittelmeer wäre über den Suezkanal gewährleistet. Alternativ könnten die Russen sehr wahrscheinlich ein Abkommen mit Ägypten oder Algerien schließen, um sich im westlichen Mittelmeer niederzulassen und so ihren Bedarf an Nachschub und Umrüstung von Marineschiffen ihrer Schwarzmeerflotte, die im Mittelmeer operiert, mit oder ohne Durchfahrt durch die Dardanellen, die der türkischen Kontrolle unterliegen, zu decken.

Wir haben auch ausführlich darüber diskutiert, wie die Russen auf den jüngsten Einsatz von 6 ATACMS-Raketen durch die Ukraine gegen russische Militäreinrichtungen in der Stadt Taganrog an der Küste des Asowschen Meeres reagieren könnten. Die Ukrainer sollen einen Militärflugplatz angegriffen haben, es könnte sich jedoch auch um eine Fabrik in der Nähe des Flugplatzes gehandelt haben, die das russische Äquivalent des amerikanischen AWACS herstellt, d.h. Flugzeuge mit Spezialradar, die zur Informationsbeschaffung und Frühwarnung vor anfliegenden Raketen oder Flugzeugen eingesetzt werden. Die ukrainischen ATACMS wurden entweder von den russischen Pantsyr-Luftabwehrraketen abgeschossen (2) oder von der elektronischen Kriegsausrüstung Russlands umgeleitet (4). Dementsprechend war der tatsächliche Schaden durch diesen Raketenangriff minimal. Die Bedrohung für wichtige russische Sicherheitsanlagen war jedoch real und die russische Reaktion wird entsprechend angepasst werden müssen.

Washington hat am letzten Tag erklärt, dass es von den Russen einen weiteren Angriff auf die Ukraine mit ihrer neuen Hyperschall-Oreschnik-Rakete erwartet. Es gibt jedoch Grund zu der Annahme, dass der Kreml seine Strategie überdenkt und stattdessen ein Ziel im NATO-Gebiet angreifen wird. Die neu eröffnete US-Raketenbasis in Polen scheint für diesen Zweck sehr gut geeignet zu sein. Und das würde die ansonsten unerklärliche Anweisung an russische Bürger erklären, die von Maria Sacharowa im Namen des Außenministeriums herausgegeben wurde und in der sie aufgefordert werden, nicht in die Europäische Union oder nach Nordamerika zu reisen.

Transkript der Ausgabe von „Judging Freedom“ vom 12. Dezember

Als einleitenden Kommentar zum Transkript des heutigen Chats mit Judge Andrew Napolitano muss ich meinen Standpunkt erläutern, dass eine Fabrik, die das russische Äquivalent der amerikanischen AWACS-Flugzeuge herstellt, das eigentliche Ziel des ukrainischen Angriffs auf Taganrog mit ATACMS-Raketen gewesen sein könnte. Wie bei den ukrainischen Drohnenangriffen auf russische Frühwarnradare im Süden des Landes Anfang dieses Jahres hat die Fabrik, in der russische AWACS hergestellt werden, keinerlei Wert für die ukrainischen Streitkräfte, und daher sollte man sich fragen, warum sie sie angreifen sollten. Die einfache Antwort ist, dass ein solcher Angriff nur den amerikanischen Interessen dient, die russische Verteidigung gegen einen möglichen präventiven US-Atomschlag von US-U-Booten im Mittelmeer oder im Persischen Golf zu zerstören. Aus genau diesem Grund überdenkt der Kreml derzeit möglicherweise, was er in seinem Vergeltungsschlag ins Visier nehmen sollte. Logischerweise sollte das Ziel nun ein wertvolles militärisches Objekt der USA sein, wie beispielsweise der neu eröffnete Stützpunkt in Polen.

Transkript eines Lesers

Napolitano: 0:32
Hallo zusammen. Hier ist Judge Andrew Napolitano für „Judging Freedom“. Heute ist Donnerstag, der 12. Dezember 2024. Professor Gilbert Doctorow wird gleich hier sein und mit uns über Russland, die Ukraine, Syrien und Georgien sprechen. Oh, aber zuerst das hier.

0:51
[Video: Danke, 500,000 Abonnenten]

Napolitano: 1:43
Nun, vielen Dank an alle, die uns geholfen haben, diesen Meilenstein zu erreichen. Professor Doctorow, vielen Dank auch für Ihre Beiträge zur Show, und wir hoffen, dass Sie diese fortsetzen können und willkommen bei uns. Es ist immer eine Freude, Sie um Rat fragen zu können. Ich habe viel mit Ihnen zu besprechen.

2:00
Der designierte Präsident Trump twitterte am Sonntagabend, dass Syrien gefallen sei, weil sein Wohltäter es im Stich gelassen habe, und er identifizierte den Wohltäter als Wladimir Putin. Ist an dieser Aussage etwas Wahres dran?

Gilbert Doctorow, PhD:
Nicht wirklich. Ja, die Russen haben sich nicht sonderlich bemüht, Syrien zu retten, als klar war, dass dies eine unmögliche Mission war. Sie haben der Ukraine Priorität eingeräumt. Sie werden die Ukraine dorthin bringen, wo sie sie haben wollen, und sie werden sich von nichts ablenken lassen. Wenn sie sich nicht ernsthaft von der Invasion ihrer eigenen Provinz Kursk ablenken ließen, warum sollten sie sich dann von etwas so Entferntem ablenken lassen, das nicht zu retten war? Weil ihre eigenen Geheimdienste sie darüber informiert haben, dass das Assad-Regime von innen zusammengebrochen ist.

Napolitano: 3:00
Erwartet Russland, dass es die Truppen und das Marinepersonal sowie die Schiffe in Syrien weiterhin unterhalten kann?

Doctorow:
Nun, lassen Sie mich einfach mit dem letzten Punkt fortfahren.

Napolitano
Sicher.

Doctorow:
Ob Russland Syrien im Stich gelassen hat? In westlichen Medien, insbesondere der „New York Times“ in der heutigen Ausgabe, wird das Argument gebracht, dass Putin so enttäuscht gewesen sei und in Syrien einen so schweren Schlag erlitten habe und deshalb in der Ukraine größere Anstrengungen unternehme. Dies sind Fragen, die nichts mit dem russischen Streben nach seiner Hauptaufgabe zu tun haben. Die westliche Presse hier in Belgien, französische Zeitungen, haben seit gestern dasselbe gesagt, dass die Russen einen schweren Schlag erlitten hätten. Sie waren sehr froh, etwas zu haben, von dem sie glaubten, dass es die katastrophale Situation, die sich Tag für Tag in der Ukraine für die Vereinigten Staaten, die NATO und vor allem für Herrn Selenskyj und seine Bande, die in Kiew das Sagen haben, entwickelt, aus den Nachrichten verdrängen würde.

4:11
Lassen wir uns also nicht von der Absicht ablenken oder irreführen, die hinter all diesem Material steckt, das in die westlichen Medien gelangt. Es dient propagandistischen Zwecken und es ist – nun, um Ihre Frage direkt zu beantworten, was die Russen sagen, was sie vorhaben. Die Optionen der Russen sind ziemlich umfangreich, was zu tun ist. Zunächst einmal halten sie sich bedeckt. Sie warten ab, wie diese neue, von Rebellen geführte Regierung das Gebiet behandeln wird, in dem sie stationiert sind, nämlich das Küstengebiet der Alawiten, die Unterstützergruppe in der Heimat, der Heimatwahlkreis von Baschar al-Assad. Derzeit ist es dort sicher, obwohl die Russen vorsichtshalber ihre Schiffe mehr als acht Kilometer aufs offene Meer hinaus verlegt haben, außerhalb der Reichweite der Artillerie. Das war eine Vorsichtsmaßnahme. Und das war sehr klug.

Napolitano: 5:16
Welche Artillerie haben die Russen gefürchtet? Ich meine, wer würde es wagen, Russland dort anzugreifen? Die USA? Die IDF? Die Türken?

Doctorow:
Der Nebel des Krieges hätte es verdeckt. Es war sehr gut verschleiert, wer diese Anti-Artillerie-Raketen abgefeuert hat. Nur als Eventualität. Nun, die Israelis waren einmarschiert und hatten die Pufferzone eingenommen, Panzer in die Nähe von Damaskus gebracht, angeblich, um sich vor jeder Eventualität zu schützen.

Warum also sollten sie sich nicht vor einer Art Eventualität schützen, wenn sie doch den Wert von Assads Militär kannten?

Napolitano: 5:58
Wie nimmt eine Person eine schnippische Aussage des designierten Präsidenten wahr, wie die, die ich gerade für Sie umschrieben habe, dass Assad verloren hat, weil sein Gönner ihn im Stich gelassen hat und dieser Gönner Wladimir Putin ist? Es ist kein Zitat, aber eine angemessene Umschreibung.

Doctorow:
Nein, sie nehmen nichts von dem, was Trump sagt, ernst. Sie nehmen nichts von dem ernst, was der Kandidat der [deutschen] Christdemokraten im Wahlprozess sagt. Und er macht sehr dramatische Aussagen darüber, wie die Taurus-Raketen sofort nach Kiew geliefert werden sollten.

Die Russen konzentrieren sich auf ihr tägliches Vorgehen im Krieg und darauf, wie sie jetzt Vergeltung für den jüngsten provokativen Angriff der Vereinigten Staaten und Kiews gegen Taganrog üben können, worüber wir vermutlich noch sprechen werden. Aber lassen Sie mich einen Schritt zurücktreten, denn Sie haben mich gefragt, welche anderen Optionen es gibt. Larry Wilkerson erwähnte neulich etwas, das meine Aufmerksamkeit wirklich erregt hat. Oh ja, die Russen könnten, wenn sie vertrieben werden, wenn sie das Gefühl haben, dass sie ihren Marinestützpunkt in Tartus an der syrischen Küste aufgeben müssen, jetzt versuchen, ein Abkommen mit den Iranern zu schließen und ihren Marinestützpunkt in der Region in den Iran zu verlegen. Das ist ein sehr amüsanter Vorschlag und ich bin froh, dass er ihn gemacht hat, denn er hat den Wunsch der Russen nach einem Marinestützpunkt, nach einem Fuß in den warmen Gewässern des Indischen Ozeans, richtig erkannt.

Das reicht mehrere hundert Jahre zurück und ist ein Bestreben, das in der jüngeren, sehr jungen Geschichte vom russischen nationalistischen Politiker Schirinowski geäußert wurde. Er sprach genau davon, dass Russland eine Marinepräsenz, einen Marinestützpunkt im Indischen Ozean haben möchte. Aber das ist ein anderes Thema.

7:57
Die anderen Optionen sind – und das hat Wilkerson nicht erwähnt – Algerien und Ägypten. Die Russen haben viele Optionen. Die Amerikaner haben diese Länder in Nordafrika verärgert und vor den Kopf gestoßen. Die Ägypter sind stinksauer über das, was heute in Syrien vor sich geht. Es ist also denkbar, dass die Russen, wenn sie aus irgendeinem Grund das Gefühl haben, ihre Präsenz in Syrien aufgeben zu müssen, sich in Algerien engagieren würden. Warum nicht? Es dient demselben Zweck.

Napolitano: 8:31

Was ist dieser Zweck, außer eine Basis für Marinepersonal zu haben? Ich meine, was werden sie dort damit machen?

Doctorow:
Sehen Sie, diese Schiffe im Mittelmeer haben ihren Heimathafen in Sewastopol. In einer Krisensituation hätten die Türken jedoch das Recht, ihnen die Rückkehr durch die Dardanellen zurück ins Schwarze Meer zu verwehren. Aus Sicherheitsgründen und um diese Schiffe im Mittelmeer unter allen Bedingungen versorgen zu können, brauchen die Russen also einen Stützpunkt im Mittelmeer.

Napolitano:
Verstanden. Wie ist die russische, genauer gesagt, wie ist die Sicht des Kremls auf Präsident Erdogan jetzt? Ich meine, drängt er immer noch auf einen Beitritt zu den BRICS? Ist es wahrscheinlich, dass dies auf die Vollmitgliedschaft in den BRICS ausgeweitet wird, oder missfällt dem Kreml sein Verhalten in Bezug auf Syrien?

Doctorow: 9:41
Oh, das missfällt dem Kreml sehr. Es besteht kein Zweifel, dass sie sich hintergangen fühlen. Sie – Menschen auf den höheren Ebenen der russischen Regierung und in politischen Kreisen – hielten Erdogan nicht für eine verlässliche Person. Sie wussten, dass er mal so und mal so handelt. Sie wussten mit Sicherheit, dass er große Geldangebote aus den Vereinigten Staaten erhielt, die er braucht, weil es seiner Wirtschaft sehr schlecht geht.

Und so haben sie nicht damit gerechnet… Ich bin mir sicher, dass er sich damit selbst aus der weiteren Betrachtung innerhalb der BRICS-Staaten ausgeschlossen hat. Das heißt aber nicht, dass die Russen emotional sind und auf eine Weise reagieren, die nicht ihren eigenen Interessen dient. Sie werden Herrn Erdogan nicht fallen lassen. Nicht, weil sie ihn mögen, sondern weil er ein Nachbar ist, mit dem sie sich arrangieren müssen, und weil sie sehr wichtige Projekte haben, sowohl für die Türkei als auch für Russland. Er hat sein Land als Gasdrehscheibe für russische Lieferungen an diejenigen Mitgliedstaaten der Europäischen Union positioniert, die diese noch wollen und nicht erhalten können. Und er schuldet ihnen noch Geld für die Fertigstellung eines der größten Kernkraftprojekte, die Russland außerhalb seines eigenen Landes hat.

Das sind also Dinge, die er braucht. Er braucht die Fertigstellung dieses Energieprojekts. Es ist wichtig für seine Wirtschaftspläne, und die Russen brauchen es. Ich würde sagen, um es in einer Sprache auszudrücken, die Amerikaner heute besonders zu schätzen wissen, ist die Beziehung zwischen Moskau und Istanbul transaktional.

Napolitano: 11:33
Schönes Wort. Haben die Russen nicht tatsächlich – um über Transaktionen zu sprechen – Luftverteidigungssysteme an die Türken verkauft?

Doctorow:
Ja, das haben sie. Sie haben ihnen die S-400 verkauft, und Erdogan hat sich, das muss man ihm lassen, trotz des starken Drucks der Vereinigten Staaten an diesen Deal gehalten, weil er darauf bestand, dass die Verteidigung seines Landes nicht völlig der Gnade der neuesten Regierung in Washington und deren Einstellung zu ihm und seinem Land ausgeliefert sei, sondern dass es eine gewisse Autonomie haben würde. Und die russischen S-400 waren für diesen Zweck sehr wichtig, nicht nur, weil sie ein hervorragendes Preis-Leistungs-Verhältnis bieten und sehr zuverlässige Luftverteidigungssysteme sind, sondern auch, weil es ein Zeichen an die Vereinigten Staaten war, dass er nicht in ihrer Tasche steckt.

Napolitano;
Erdogan ist ein sehr, sehr … Präsident Erdogan ist eine sehr interessante Persönlichkeit. Mich würde Ihre, Sie wissen schon, Zwei-Minuten-Version darüber interessieren, wie Sie ihn auf der internationalen Bühne wahrnehmen. Ich meine, vor drei Monaten bezeichnete er den israelischen Premierminister Netanjahu als Kriegsverbrecher, und letztes Wochenende feierte er mit ihm, natürlich nicht physisch im selben Raum, den Sturz von Präsident Assad. Wie sehen der Kreml, wie sehen andere Akteure im Nahen Osten, wie sieht Ägypten Präsident Erdogan?

Doctorow: 13:10
Keiner von ihnen mag ihn. Aber andererseits – ich weiß, dass in der hohen Diplomatie und in internationalen Beziehungen eine Art persönliche Sympathie oder die Fähigkeit, miteinander auszukommen, ein wichtiger positiver Faktor ist. Herr Erdogan lässt dies nicht zu, indem er sich doppelzüngig verhält und gegen die Interessen der heutigen Partner handelt. Sein Verhalten ist also nichts Neues. Das macht er schon lange. Die Menschen wissen, dass sie sich nicht zu sehr auf ihn verlassen sollten. Aber sie wissen auch, dass sein Land sehr wichtig ist. Was die Bevölkerung und die Lage betrifft, ist es so, wie es in den letzten 2000 Jahren immer war. Es ist eine Brücke zwischen Asien und Europa. Und das wissen wir aus der Migrationskrise. Er ist unvermeidlich. Und so macht man Geschäfte mit ihm, aber nicht aus besonderer Sympathie für seine Persönlichkeit.

Napolitano: 14:10
Richtig. Vor ein paar Minuten haben Sie uns daran erinnert, dass die Vereinigten Staaten und Großbritannien weiterhin Angriffe in Russland mit ATACMS und Storm Shadows, amerikanischem und britischem technischem Know-how und physischer Beteiligung sowie ukrainischer Beteiligung ermöglichen. Die Sprecherin des Pentagons, eine Frau namens Sabrina Singh, die ich nicht kenne und die sich vermutlich am Ende ihrer Karriere befindet, hat einige Kommentare darüber abgegeben, dass die US-Geheimdienste davon ausgehen, dass es bald zu einem weiteren Oruschnik-Angriff kommen könnte. Hier sind ihre Kommentare. Ich würde mich freuen, Ihre Meinung zu hören, Professor Doctorow. Chris, Schnitt Nummer eins.

Singh: 14:57
Putin hat öffentlich gesagt, dass Russland beabsichtigt, eine weitere experimentelle Oreshnik-Rakete zu starten, wie Sie erwähnt haben. Es ist möglich, dass Russland dies in den kommenden Tagen tun wird. Ich habe kein genaues Datum für Sie. Ich denke, es ist wichtig zu wissen, dass, sollte Russland sich für den Start dieser Art von Rakete entscheiden, dies keine entscheidende Wende auf dem Schlachtfeld bedeuten wird. Es ist nur ein weiterer Versuch, der Ukraine Schaden zuzufügen und Opfer zu fordern. Das haben wir schon einmal erlebt. Sie versuchen, jede Waffe in ihrem Arsenal einzusetzen, um die Ukraine einzuschüchtern. Aber natürlich hat die Ukraine, zusammen mit den Vereinigten Staaten und anderen Partnern auf der ganzen Welt, weiterhin unsere Unterstützung, während sie, wie Sie wissen, jeden Tag auf dem Schlachtfeld kämpft.

Napolitano: 15:41
Plant der Kreml, die Oreshnik regelmäßig einzusetzen? Befürchtet man dort, dass die von der Oreshnik beabsichtigte Botschaft von den USA und dem Westen ignoriert oder sogar verspottet oder mit Gleichgültigkeit behandelt wird?

Doctorow:
Nun, das ist eine komplizierte Frage, weil es hier mehrere Blickwinkel gibt. Zunächst einmal geht es darum, was Washington glaubt, dass die Russen tun werden. Da gibt es nichts zu überlegen. Das russische Verteidigungsministerium hat vom 10. bis 13. dieses Monats eine Flugverbotszone über dem Gebiet in Astrachan ausgerufen, von dem aus die Oreschnik, der erste Oreschnik-Abschuss, stattfand und von dem aus offensichtlich weitere Oreschnik-Abschüsse gegen Ziele, die der Kreml identifiziert, stattfinden werden. Es gibt also keine Geheimdienstinformationen preis, die Amerika herausgefunden hat. Die sind öffentlich zugänglich.

16:43
Was Frau Singh fehlt und was die westlichen Medien absichtlich auslassen, ist die Frage, worauf die Russen feuern werden. Und dazu muss ich leider eine Neuigkeit bringen, die sie nicht erwähnt hat.

Napolitano:
Was ist das?

Doctorow:
Das russische Außenministerium hat heute den russischen Bürgern geraten, nicht nach Westeuropa oder in die Vereinigten Staaten zu reisen, weil es dort zu ernsthaften Problemen kommen könnte. Das bedeutet aber auch, dass Russland derzeit erwägt, die Oreschnik gegen ein NATO-Ziel einzusetzen. Das ist mit ziemlicher Sicherheit die Absicht dieser Botschaft.

Ihre Aussage, dass diese Oreschnik-Rakete keine Bedeutung für das Schlachtfeld hat, ist also völlig falsch. Sie ist von größter Bedeutung für die NATO und ihre Fähigkeit, diesen Krieg fortzusetzen.

Napolitano:
Hier ist Maria Sacharowa, die Sprecherin des russischen Außenministeriums, die gestern, Professor Doctorow, genau das gesagt hat, was Sie gerade erwähnt haben. Schnitt Nummer 14.

Zakharova: 17:55 [englische Synchronstimme]
Angesichts der Konfrontation in den russisch-amerikanischen Beziehungen aufgrund der offiziellen Haltung Washingtons stehen sie kurz davor, die Reisen abzubrechen. Privat- und Geschäftsreisen in die USA sind mit ernsthaften Risiken behaftet. Es gibt eine regelrechte Jagd der amerikanischen Strafverfolgungs- und Geheimdienstbehörden nach unseren Bürgern. Und es gibt einen ausgeklügelten Plan, um russische Staatsbürger ins Ausland zu locken.

Wie geschieht das? Sie versenden Einladungen mit einigen vorteilhaften kommerziellen oder touristischen Angeboten. Danach werden die Zielpersonen festgenommen und dann gemäß den Auslieferungsabkommen an die amerikanische Gerichtsbarkeit ausgeliefert. Es gibt eine vollständige Liste der Länder, die mit den USA in Bezug auf die Auslieferung zusammenarbeiten. Sie wird auf unserer Website zu finden sein. Deshalb fordern wir während der Feierlichkeiten und in Zukunft dazu auf, von Reisen in die USA oder in verbündete Satellitenstaaten, vor allem nach Kanada, und in Länder der EU mit einigen Ausnahmen abzusehen. Es handelt sich natürlich nicht um einen Notfall.

Napolitano: 19:23
Ich meine, wenn das ernst ist, dann ist das ziemlich heftiges Zeug, Professor Doctorow.

Doctorow:
Dies war eine sehr deutliche Warnung für eine sehr geringe Bedrohung. Ich glaube also, dass dies eine indirekte Botschaft an Washington über die Möglichkeit eines Angriffs auf ein NATO-Objekt war. Dies ging schon seit 20 Jahren so, dass russische Staatsbürger in Drittländern, Thailand und wer weiß wo noch, an die Vereinigten Staaten ausgeliefert wurden, um dort wegen verschiedener mutmaßlicher Verbrechen vor Gericht zu stehen. Das ist nichts Neues.

Warum spricht sie jetzt genau über NATO-Länder, also Westeuropa, die Vereinigten Staaten und Kanada? Ich weiß es nicht. Aber ich denke, dass im Kreml derzeit viel darüber nachgedacht wird, wie sie Oreschnik als Nächstes einsetzen wollen und ob – ich bin davon ausgegangen, und das habe ich letzte Woche gesagt, dass sie beschlossen haben, dass dies das größte Druckmittel gegen Kiew sei und dass sie Herrn Selenskyj mit den nächsten möglichen Angriffen, nämlich Enthauptungsschlägen, in Angst und Schrecken versetzen würden. Wenn sie sagen, dass sie Entscheidungszentren ins Visier nehmen wollen, dann ist er ein Entscheidungszentrum. Das war also meine Annahme.

20:53
Aber jetzt muss ich das überdenken, und ich denke, sie überlegen, ob sie Polen angreifen wollen oder nicht. Das wäre am logischsten und würde die kürzeste Vorwarnzeit erfordern, denn die polnische Basis, die Amerika hat, ist eine Militärbasis, und die Anwesenheit von Zivilisten ist in einiger Entfernung davon und vernachlässigbar. Daher würde ich heute die Möglichkeit eines russischen Angriffs, eines Gegenangriffs oder eines Vergeltungsschlags für das, was in Taganmog passiert ist, nicht ausschließen.

21:23
Was ist nun in Taganmog passiert? Ich habe verschiedene Erklärungen dafür gesehen, was das Ziel war. Die gängigste Erklärung, die man in unserem Mainstream findet, ist, dass es sich um einen Militärflugplatz handelte. Die interessantere Erklärung ist, dass sich neben diesem Militärstützpunkt eine Fabrik befindet, die Flugzeuge herstellt, das russische Äquivalent zu den amerikanischen Spionageflugzeugen, den Frühwarnflugzeugen. Und das wäre, wenn es so wäre, ein sehr bedrohlicher Schaden gewesen, wenn es gelungen wäre. Es würde zu den früheren Vorfällen passen, die sechs Monate oder länger zurückliegen, als es Angriffe auf die russischen Frühwarnradare gab. Die Flugzeuge, über die wir sprechen, sind das luftgestützte Äquivalent dieser Frühwarnradare.

22:24
Und sie wurden abgeschossen. Es waren sechs ATACMS, sagen die Russen. Zwei davon wurden abgeschossen, wobei Trümmer über das Gebiet fielen und Verletzungen und einige Schäden an Autos und anderer nicht-strategischer, nicht-wichtiger Ausrüstung verursachten. Aber sie sagen, dass das Gebäude angegriffen wurde und nichts, das Gebäude, das heißt die Fabrik, von der ich spreche, nicht beschädigt wurde. Dennoch, wenn das gelungen wäre, wäre es ein schwerer Verlust für Russland gewesen.

23:03
Und so denke ich, dass dieser Angriff mit äußerster Besorgnis aufgenommen werden sollte, zwei wurden abgeschossen und vier wurden von Russlands hochmoderner elektronischer Kriegsausrüstung umgeleitet. Dennoch war es eine ernsthafte Bedrohung, und ich denke, die Russen überdenken gerade, wie sie Washington das Fürchten lehren können.

Napolitano: 23:23

Uns bleiben nur noch ein oder zwei Minuten, Professor Doctorow. Was passiert aus der Sicht des Kremls in Tiflis, Georgien?

Doctorow:
Aus Sicht des Kremls ist die Beteiligung oder der Einfluss Russlands auf die Handlungen der Regierungspartei Georgischer Traum völlig falsch. Bei der ganzen Angelegenheit geht es um den Versuch Washingtons, Georgien wie die Ukraine zu benutzen, um eine neue Front gegen Russland zu eröffnen und die Aufmerksamkeit Moskaus vom Schlachtfeld im Donbass abzulenken. Die Schwarzmeer-Russen haben nichts mit dem Konflikt zwischen Präsident Zorav Peshvili und der … Partei Georgischer Traum zu tun, die das Parlament kontrolliert.

Die betroffene Dame, die Präsidentin des Landes, ist eine Doppelstaatsbürgerin, sie hat einen französischen Pass, und die Russen sagen, dass sie eng mit dem französischen Geheimdienst zusammenarbeitet, dass sie eine Agentin des französischen und des CIA-Geheimdienstes ist. Es handelt sich also um einen rein innenpolitischen Streit innerhalb Georgiens darüber, ob das Land von den Vereinigten Staaten als Stellvertreter für einen Angriff auf Russland benutzt werden soll.

Napolitano: 24:57
Wow. Das würde mich nicht überraschen. Professor Doctorow. Vielen Dank. Nochmals vielen Dank, dass Sie uns dabei geholfen haben, unser Ziel von einer halben Million Abonnenten zu erreichen. Sie waren ein wichtiger Teil der Sendung, und ich hoffe, dass es so weitergeht. Und wir freuen uns darauf, Sie nächste Woche wiederzusehen.

Doctorow:
Danke, und ich freue mich auch darauf.

Napolitano:
Vielen Dank. Später heute Morgen um 11:15 Uhr ist Max Blumenthal dran; um 14:00 Uhr heute Nachmittag ist ein neuer ehemaliger britischer Diplomat hier; und um 15:00 Uhr heute Nachmittag ist Matt Hoh dran.

25:31

Judge Napolitano für „Judging Freedom“.

Today I will deal with an issue that receives no attention whatsoever on Russian talk shows. On the contrary, they have become accessories to the problem.  Both of my favorite television programs of this genre, The Great Game and Evening with Vladimir Solovyov now open with 15 minutes or more of the day’s speech to the nation by Vladimir Putin. I say ‘now’ because it wasn’t this bad even six months ago.

The daily Putin speeches reflect a special feature of Russia’s official calendar.  Nearly every calendar day celebrates one or another of the multitude of Russia’s civilian professions or dedicated divisions of the military. So, there is a day of airmen, a day of the marines, a day of artillerymen; or a day of IT workers, a day of medical nurses, a day of public-spirited volunteers, etc., etc.  Putin delivers his praise and encouragement to each of them for the whole nation to hear.

Any days which are not highlighting a given career line are used to commemorate some important battle from World War II or from the many ground and sea battles of Imperial Russia going back to the 18^th century if not earlier. And for good measure, there is the day of the Order of St George and a day for the St Andrew’s flag (yesterday), which Peter the Great approved in 1703 to fly on ships of the Russian navy.

President Putin’s administration provides the speeches for each of these events that, we may assume, do not especially resonate with the broad population. And by the order of someone in the news department of Russian state television, most likely Dmitry Kiselyov, they now fill the opening segments of those talk shows and are repeated on each and every news bulletin during the day.

As if this daily tedium were not enough, Russian television is presently heavily promoting Putin’s annual Direct Line program, when the whole nation is invited to send in by email, telephone call or other designated channels the questions they would like Vladimir Vladimirovich to answer live on air. D-day is 19 December at 12.00 noon Moscow time. Today’s news already is showing the gals at work in the Moscow call center taking down questions and working at lists of the categories of issues that trouble callers the most. All major television channels will carry Direct Line live for as many hours as it runs and then will offer excerpts on their news shows.

Traditionally many of the questions are not actually questions but requests for presidential intervention to solve one or another problem in some given locality from across the land or some personal problem. The President will direct his staff or regional government leaders to deal immediately with the problem and then there may well be follow-up reporting in the next day or two showing that no request goes unresolved.

In its own way, Dieect Line is one of the parallel structures to the State Duma and offices of regional governors that have grown up in the Putin era to ensure that The Boss is properly informed of what is on people’s minds and to take action to redress injustice or failures at the local level. That is the positive side of it. On the negative side, it is one more glaring example of how the presidency hogs the airwaves.

I think it would be unfair to call this a cult of personality. But it is an intrusion on people’s free time and desire to be left alone when they close their door on the world each evening. As it is, the daily reporting on the war in Ukraine from the front lines takes an inordinate amount of news time without giving the public a proper sense of how close or far away is victory.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024

Translation into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

Die ermüdenden täglichen Fernsehansprachen von Wladimir Putin

Heute möchte ich mich mit einem Thema befassen, das in russischen Talkshows keinerlei Beachtung findet. Im Gegenteil, sie sind zu Komplizen des Problems geworden. Meine beiden Lieblingsfernsehsendungen dieses Genres, Das große Spiel und Abend mit Vladimir Solovyov, beginnen jetzt mit 15 Minuten oder mehr der täglichen Rede Wladimir Putins an die Nation. Ich sage „jetzt“, weil es vor sechs Monaten noch nicht so schlimm war.

Die täglichen Putin-Reden spiegeln eine Besonderheit des offiziellen russischen Kalenders wider. An fast jedem Kalendertag wird einer der zahlreichen zivilen Berufe oder speziellen Abteilungen des Militärs Russlands gefeiert. So gibt es einen Tag der Flieger, einen Tag der Marines, einen Tag der Artilleristen; oder einen Tag der IT-Mitarbeiter, einen Tag der Krankenschwestern, einen Tag der gemeinnützigen Freiwilligen usw. usw. Putin richtet seine Lobesworte und Ermutigungen an jeden von ihnen, damit die ganze Nation sie hören kann.

An Tagen, an denen keine bestimmte Berufsgruppe im Mittelpunkt steht, wird einer wichtigen Schlacht aus dem Zweiten Weltkrieg oder einer der vielen Land- und Seeschlachten des kaiserlichen Russlands gedacht, die bis ins 18. Jahrhundert zurückreichen, wenn nicht sogar noch weiter. Und als Zugabe gibt es den Tag des St.-Georgs-Ordens und einen Tag für die St.-Andreas-Flagge (gestern), die Peter der Große 1703 für die Schiffe der russischen Marine genehmigt hat.

Die Regierung von Präsident Putin stellt die Reden für jede dieser Veranstaltungen zur Verfügung, die, wie wir annehmen können, bei der breiten Bevölkerung nicht besonders gut ankommen. Und auf Anordnung von jemandem aus der Nachrichtenabteilung des russischen Staatsfernsehens, höchstwahrscheinlich Dmitry Kiselyov, füllen sie nun die Eröffnungsteile dieser Talkshows und werden in jeder einzelnen Nachrichtensendung im Laufe des Tages wiederholt.

Als ob diese tägliche Langeweile nicht schon genug wäre, bewirbt das russische Fernsehen derzeit massiv Putins jährliche Sendung „Direkter Draht“, bei der die ganze Nation eingeladen ist, per E-Mail, Telefonanruf oder über andere Kanäle Fragen einzusenden, die Wladimir Wladimirowitsch live in der Sendung beantworten soll. Der Tag X ist der 19. Dezember um 12:00 Uhr Moskauer Zeit. Die heutigen Nachrichten zeigen bereits, wie die Mädels im Moskauer Callcenter die Fragen notieren und an Listen mit den Kategorien der Probleme arbeiten, die die Anrufer am meisten beunruhigen. Alle großen Fernsehsender werden „Direct Line“ live übertragen, solange die Sendung läuft, und dann Auszüge in ihren Nachrichtensendungen zeigen.

Traditionell sind viele der Fragen eigentlich keine Fragen, sondern Bitten um ein Eingreifen des Präsidenten, um das eine oder andere Problem an einem bestimmten Ort im ganzen Land oder ein persönliches Problem zu lösen. Der Präsident wird seine Mitarbeiter oder die regionalen Regierungschefs anweisen, sich sofort mit dem Problem zu befassen, und dann wird es in den nächsten ein oder zwei Tagen möglicherweise eine Folgeberichterstattung geben, die zeigt, dass keine Anfrage ungelöst bleibt.

Auf seine eigene Art ist Direct Line eine der Parallelstrukturen zur Staatsduma und zu den Büros der Regionalgouverneure, die in der Ära Putin entstanden sind, um sicherzustellen, dass der Boss angemessen darüber informiert wird, was die Menschen beschäftigt, und um Maßnahmen zu ergreifen, um Ungerechtigkeiten oder Missstände auf lokaler Ebene zu beheben. Das ist die positive Seite davon. Die negative Seite ist, dass es ein weiteres eklatantes Beispiel dafür ist, wie die Präsidentschaft die Sendezeit für sich beansprucht.

Ich denke, es wäre unfair, dies als Personenkult zu bezeichnen. Aber es ist ein Eingriff in die Freizeit der Menschen und in ihren Wunsch, in Ruhe gelassen zu werden, wenn sie jeden Abend die Tür zur Welt schließen. So wie es aussieht, nimmt die tägliche Berichterstattung über den Krieg in der Ukraine von der Front einen übermäßigen Teil der Nachrichtenzeit in Anspruch, ohne der Öffentlichkeit ein angemessenes Gefühl dafür zu vermitteln, wie nah oder fern der Sieg ist.