{"id":264450,"date":"2023-01-31T08:09:08","date_gmt":"2023-01-31T08:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=264450"},"modified":"2023-02-02T06:26:18","modified_gmt":"2023-02-02T06:26:18","slug":"a-panicked-empire-tries-to-make-russia-an-offer-it-cant-refuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=264450","title":{"rendered":"A Panicked Empire Tries to Make Russia an ‘offer It Can\u2019t Refuse’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pepe Escobar \u2013 The Unz Review Jan 30, 2023<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Those behind the Throne are never more dangerous than when they have their backs against the wall.<\/p>\n

Their power is slipping away, fast: Militarily, via NATO\u2019s progressive humiliation in Ukraine; Financially, sooner rather than later, most of the Global South will want nothing to do with the currency of a bankrupt rogue giant; Politically, the global majority is taking decisive steps to stop obeying a rapacious, discredited, de facto minority.<\/p>\n

So now those behind the Throne are plotting to at least try to stall the incoming disaster on the military front.<\/p>\n

As confirmed by a high-level US establishment source, a new directive on NATO vs. Russia in Ukraine was relayed to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Blinken, in terms of actual power, is nothing but a messenger boy for the Straussian neocons and neoliberals who actually run US foreign policy.<\/p>\n

The secretary of state was instructed to relay the new directive \u2013 a sort of message to the Kremlin \u2013 via mainstream print media, which was promptly published by the Washington Post<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In the elite US mainstream media division of labor, the New York Times<\/em> is very close to the State Department. and the Washington Post<\/em> to the CIA. In this case though the directive was too important, and needed to be relayed by the paper of record in the imperial capital. It was published as an Op-Ed<\/a> (behind paywall).<\/p>\n

The novelty here is that for the first time since the start of Russia\u2019s February 2022 Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine, the Americans are actually proposing a variation of the \u201coffer you can\u2019t refuse\u201d classic, including some concessions which may satisfy Russia\u2019s security imperatives.<\/p>\n

Crucially, the US offer totally bypasses Kiev, once again certifying that this is a war against Russia conducted by Empire and its NATO minions \u2013 with the Ukrainians as mere expandable proxies.<\/p>\n

\u2018Please don\u2019t go on the offensive\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The Washington Post\u2019s<\/em> old school Moscow-based correspondent John Helmer has provided an important service, offering the full text of Blinken\u2019s offer<\/a>, of course extensively edited to include fantasist notions such as \u201cUS weapons help pulverize Putin\u2019s invasion force\u201d and a cringe-worthy explanation: \u201cIn other words, Russia should not be ready to rest, regroup and attack.\u201d<\/p>\n

The message from Washington may, at first glance, give the impression that the US would admit Russian control over Crimea, Donbass, Zaporozhye, and Kherson \u2013 \u201cthe land bridge that connects Crimea and Russia\u201d \u2013 as a fait accompli.<\/p>\n

Ukraine would have a demilitarized status, and the deployment of HIMARS missiles and Leopard and Abrams tanks would be confined to western Ukraine, kept as a \u201cdeterrent against further Russian attacks.\u201d<\/p>\n

What may have been offered, in quite hazy terms, is in fact a partition of Ukraine, demilitarized zone included, in exchange for the Russian General Staff cancelling its yet-unknown 2023 offensive, which may be as devastating as cutting off Kiev\u2019s access to the Black Sea and\/or cutting off the supply of NATO weapons across the Polish border.<\/p>\n

The US offer defines itself as the path towards a \u201cjust and durable peace that upholds Ukraine\u2019s territorial integrity.\u201d Well, not really. It just won\u2019t be a rump Ukraine, and Kiev might even retain those western lands that Poland is dying to gobble up.<\/p>\n

The possibility of a direct Washington-Moscow deal on \u201can eventual postwar military balance\u201d is also evoked, including no Ukraine membership of NATO. As for Ukraine itself, the Americans seem to believe it will be a \u201cstrong, non-corrupt economy with membership in the European Union.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whatever remains of value in Ukraine has already been swallowed not only by its monumentally corrupt oligarchy, but most of all, investors and speculators of the BlackRock variety. Assorted corporate vultures simply cannot afford to lose Ukraine\u2019s grain export ports, as well as the trade deal terms agreed with the EU before the war. And they\u2019re terrified that the Russian offensive may capture Odessa, the major seaport and transportation hub on the Black Sea \u2013 which would leave Ukraine landlocked.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no evidence whatsoever that Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the entire Russian Security Council \u2013 including its Secretary Nikolai Patrushev and Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev \u2013 have reason to believe anything coming from the US establishment, especially via mere minions such as Blinken and the Washington Post<\/em>. After all the stavka<\/em> \u2013 a moniker for the high command of the Russian armed forces \u2013 regard the Americans as \u201cnon-agreement capable,\u201d even when an offer is in writing.<\/p>\n

This walks and talks like a desperate US gambit to stall and present some carrots to Moscow in the hope of delaying or even cancelling the planned offensive of the next few months.<\/p>\n

Even old school, dissident Washington operatives \u2013 not beholden to the Straussian neocon galaxy \u2013 bet that the gambit will be a nothing burger: in classic \u201cstrategic ambiguity\u201d mode, the Russians will continue on their stated drive of demilitarization, denazification and de-electrification, and will \u201cstop\u201d anytime and anywhere they see fit east of the Dnieper. Or beyond.<\/p>\n

What the Deep State really wants<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Washington\u2019s ambitions in this essentially NATO vs. Russia war go well beyond Ukraine. And we\u2019re not even talking about preventing a Russia-China-Germany Eurasian union or a peer competitor nightmare; let\u2019s stick with prosaic issues on the Ukrainian battleground.<\/p>\n

The key \u201crecommendations\u201d \u2013 military, economic, political, diplomatic \u2013 were detailed in an Atlantic Council strategy paper<\/a> late last year.<\/p>\n

And in another one<\/a>, under \u201cWar scenario 1: The war continues in its current tempo,\u201d we find the Straussian neocon policy fully spelled out.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all here: from \u201cmarshaling support and military-assistance transfers to Kyiv sufficient to enable it to win\u201d to \u201cincrease the lethality of military assistance transferred to include fighter aircraft that would enable Ukraine to control its airspace and attack Russian forces therein; and missile technology with range sufficient to reach into Russian territory.\u201d<\/p>\n

From training the Ukrainian military \u201cto use Western weapons, electronic warfare, and offensive and defensive cyber capabilities, and to seamlessly integrate new recruits in the service\u201d to buttressing \u201cdefenses on the front lines, near the Donbass region,\u201d including \u201ccombat training focusing on irregular warfare.\u201d<\/p>\n

Added to \u201cimposing secondary sanctions on all entities doing business with the Kremlin,\u201d we reach of course the Mother of All Plunders: \u201cConfiscate the $300 billion that the Russian state holds in overseas accounts in the United States and EU and use seized monies to fund reconstruction.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reorganization of the SMO, with Putin, Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, and General Armageddon in their new, enhanced roles is derailing all these elaborate plans.<\/p>\n

The Straussians are now in deep panic. Even Blinken\u2019s number two, Russophobic warmonger Victoria \u201cF**k the EU\u201d Nuland, has admitted to the US Senate there will be no Abrams tanks on the battlefield before Spring (realistically, only in 2024). She also promised to \u201cease sanctions\u201d if Moscow \u201creturns to negotiations.\u201d Those negotiations were scotched by the Americans themselves in Istanbul in the Spring of 2022.<\/p>\n

Nuland also called the Russians to \u201cwithdraw their troops.\u201d Well, that at least offers some comic relief compared with the panic oozing from Blinken\u2019s \u201coffer you can\u2019t refuse.\u201d Stay tuned for Russia\u2019s non-response response.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Crucially, the US offer totally bypasses Kiev, once again certifying that this is a war against Russia conducted by Empire and its NATO minions \u2013 with the Ukrainians as mere expandable proxies. Pepe Escobar explains<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":264452,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-264450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Current_Affairs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=264450"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":264451,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264450\/revisions\/264451"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/264452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=264450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=264450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=264450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}