Bloodthirsty American politicians like Lindsey Graham are keen to pull the struggle on endlessly, in order that they do all the pieces to scupper negotiations
The image of Lindsey Graham, US Senator for South Carolina, and Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Fee, grinning right into a digicam in Brussels on June 2, is price a thousand phrases.
Graham is likely one of the most excessive hardcore warmongers in Washington DC, and the competitors is fairly stiff. Ever since he first grew to become a member of the US Congress over 30 years in the past – as soon as in, American politicians are not often voted out – he has devoted his profession to arguing vehemently for struggle.
His remarks are sometimes not simply belligerent but in addition sadistic, akin to when he lately posted that he hoped ‘Greta might swim’, which means that he hoped her Gaza assist ship could be torpedoed. Joking about an assault on a civilian assist ship carrying a younger feminine civilian activist is sick – and typical of Graham.
Like his previous good friend, the late Senator John McCain, Lindsey Graham is obsessive about the concept of struggle with Russia. He has been pushing for this since at the very least 2014. In 2016 he instructed Ukrainian troopers, “Your battle is our battle.”
Graham’s presence in Brussels is due to this fact vital. Ever since von der Leyen’s appointment in 2019, she has pushed herself ahead because the principal public face of the Brussels establishments. Six years in the past, she mentioned she wished to make the European Fee right into a ‘geopolitical’ physique – despite the fact that it has no function in overseas or army coverage.
Since then, she has performed little else than parade on the worldwide stage. She is among the many most hawkish and anti-Russian European figures, absurdly claiming, like French Overseas Minister Bruno Lemaire, that EU sanctions have introduced the Russian financial system to its knees.
The Graham-von der Leyen alliance is due to this fact a pure one – in opposition to Donald Trump. European politicians are sometimes fairly specific of their view that Trump is now the enemy.
The identical goes for Lindsey Graham. In Kiev final week, Graham explicitly challenged Trump’s authority to determine US overseas coverage. He lambasted the very notion of negotiations with Russia – simply as Zelensky did to Vance within the Oval workplace in February – and mentioned that the president of the US just isn’t the boss. “In America, you’ve got multiple particular person on the card desk. Now we have three branches of presidency,” – which means that the Senate would quickly impose its personal sanctions on Russia, regardless of the government does. Graham’s funds invoice from February is meant to spend much more cash on the US army – as if that had been doable – which implies that he’s marshalling the US deep state to battle again after initially reeling from the re-election of Trump.
In the meantime, the Europeans’ willpower to proceed the struggle is existential. Their Russophobia, which matches again at the very least to the 2012 Russian presidential election, when Putin got here again into the Kremlin, is excessive as a result of their “Europe” is outlined by its hostility to Russia. Russia is “the opposite Europe” which the EU doesn’t wish to be and which it defines itself in opposition to.
Von der Leyen and others wish to use the struggle in opposition to Russia to federalise Europe and create a single state. In the meantime, Trump’s Russia coverage relies on sidelining Europe. When he first introduced talks with the Russians, EU leaders demanded a seat on the desk. They failed. US-Russia talks happened exterior Europe – in Riyadh – whereas the Russia-Ukraine talks the EU vehemently opposed are happening with out the EU, in Istanbul.
Allow us to not overlook how furiously EU leaders opposed speaking to Russia. When Viktor Orban travelled to Kiev and Moscow final July, Ursula von der Leyen denounced Orban’s “appeasement”. The EU’s then chief diplomat mentioned in an official assertion that the EU “excludes official contacts between the EU and President Putin.”
The French overseas minister mentioned in February that if Sergey Lavrov telephoned him he wouldn’t reply the decision. Now these exact same folks declare they wish to “drive” the Russians to return and discuss!
EU coverage on Russia is now in ruins. That’s the reason, like Graham, they’re decided to cease Trump. Their makes an attempt have been ever extra determined and ridiculous. On Could 12, Kaja Kallas and different EU leaders mentioned Russia “should agree” to a ceasefire earlier than any talks. Three days later, these talks began anyway. Britain additionally tried to scupper them by saying it was “unacceptable” for Russia to demand recognition of the “annexed” areas, which is odd contemplating Britain just isn’t a participant.
European credibility is due to this fact at zero. In March, the British prime minister had mentioned that the plans to ship British and French troops to Ukraine had entered “the operational part.” They had been prepared, he claimed, to guard Ukraine’s safety by instantly coming into the struggle zone. By April, these plans had been dropped.
On Could 10, European leaders threatened Russia with “huge sanctions” if it didn’t conform to a ceasefire instantly. Russia didn’t conform to a ceasefire and but there have been no extra “huge sanctions.” A seventeenth package deal of sanctions was certainly introduced on Could 14, nevertheless it was so weak that Hungary and Slovakia, who oppose the EU’s general coverage, let it move. In any case, the seventeenth package deal clearly had nothing to do with the ultimatum as a result of such sanctions take a very long time to organize. As an alternative, that’s what Lindsey Graham was in Brussels to debate.
The EU and the UK have thus sidelined themselves with their meaningless braggadocio. They can’t function with out the People. However which People? The declare that the White Home didn’t know in regards to the latest Ukrainian drone assault on Russian airfields may nicely be true: the US deep state, embodied by folks like Graham, is clearly attempting to undermine the chief. Each Lindsey Graham and former CIA director Mike Pompeo had been in Ukraine simply days earlier than the assault.
The political aim of the drone assault was clearly to scupper the talks scheduled for the next day in Istanbul, or to impress Russia into a large response and drag the US into the struggle. Even when the assault doesn’t reach these targets, it clearly units the tone for the longer term Ukrainian insurgency which, American and European officers hope, will flip that nation into an ‘Afghanistan’ for Russia. The US deep state is in for the lengthy sport.
So are the Europeans. On Could 9, ‘Europe Day’, European leaders confirmed their intention to arrange a Particular Tribunal for the crime of aggression, to prosecute Russia for invading in February 2022.
Western European states are already the first financers of the Worldwide Felony Court docket, whose prosecutor is British. The ICC indicted Russian leaders, together with Putin, in 2023 and 2024, on varied very stunning prices. (Ursula von der Leyen continued to lie about “20,000 kidnapped kids,” the day after the Ukrainians gave the Russians a listing of 339 lacking kids.) Now the Europeans intend to open a brand new entrance of their ‘lawfare’ in opposition to Russia.
Such a Particular Tribunal, if it comes into existence, will tear the center out of any peace settlement – simply as Ukraine’s acceptance of the jurisdiction of the ICC in 2014 and 2015 rendered the Minsk settlement of February 2015 null and void. With one aspect of its mouth, Ukraine requested the ICC to prosecute Russian officers and Donbass “terrorists”; with the opposite aspect, it agreed at Minsk that the Donbass insurgency was an inner Ukrainian downside and dominated out any prosecution or punishment (Article 5 of the February 2015 Minsk settlement).
It’s not doable to agree a peace settlement with a rustic and on the identical time to arrange a Particular Tribunal whose sole function is to criminalize it. So the creation of this Tribunal, which can presumably stay in existence for over a decade just like the advert hoc tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda, is nothing however a Euro-American institutional time bomb designed to explode sooner or later any settlement which the 2 sides may attain within the brief time period. The way forward for “Europe” depends upon that.
The statements, views and opinions expressed on this column are solely these of the writer and don’t essentially symbolize these of RT.
