Eldin Latich
Oriental Review

Trump has literally turned the playing board upside down! Allied relations do not guarantee economic cooperation

Trump is a businessman. Based on this evidence, we should expect that his words (of which there are actually too many, and if you read his Twitter (X), it is unlikely that you will be able to keep track of everything) may turn out to be reality to some extent. And if the promise to “resolve the Ukrainian conflict in 24 hours” was initially perceived as loud bravado, then the sworn promises to arrange a “new golden age” for the United States and “return production” to the country from the very beginning looked like a logical and logical continuation of Trump’s protectionism of the last term. The world has not forgotten the US trade war with China. It is unlikely that anyone would be surprised by the new duties of the current American administration on Chinese products. But experts and politicians hardly expected that Mr. Trump’s talk about tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports would turn out to be true – especially so quickly.

Trump has literally turned the playing board upside down! Allied relations do not guarantee economic cooperation, and at the same time, WTO membership can no longer promise it. The “most favored nation” regime should now be understood as “equal duties for all,” because American protectionism is gaining momentum!

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Orban’s Fiercely Pro-Israeli Policies Put Many Alt-Media Folks In A Dilemma. They experience cognitive dissonance due to him being both a Zionist and pragmatic towards Russia.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban announced that his country will withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC) in protest of the arrest warrant that it issued for his Israeli counterpart Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu on war crimes charges. This coincided with Orban hosting Bibi in Budapest. Both were bold moves considering how highly his European peers regard the ICC and how lowly many of them now regard Bibi. Non-Western attitudes towards Bibi are similar but more mixed when it comes to the ICC.

Orban was already Europe’s black sheep due to his consistent advocacy for peace in Ukraine and criticism of the EU’s warmongering against Russia, the overall stance of which was responsible for many across the non-West having positive views about him. They might begin souring on him, however, since the non-Western public also very strongly supports Palestine and thus has very negative views about Bibi. Some Alt-Media influencers and outlets might even flip the script to condemn Orban as a “Zionist”.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

What ties these five trends together is Trump’s historic return to the presidency, his successful purge of the “deep state” that enabled him to pursue his long-sought “New Détente” with Russia, and Putin’s receptiveness to his American counterpart’s grand strategic plan of a comprehensive partnership.

I’m a Moscow-based American political analyst with a PhD. in Political Science from MGIMO, and this is my third yearly review of the New Cold War after I published my first and second on each anniversary of the special operation here and here. I’ve been analyzing this subject every day since 24 February 2022, beginning at now-defunct OneWorld till mid-2022 and continuing at my Substack to the present. Here’s what I learned from doing this daily for my third year straight:

■ Trump’s Election Changed The Course Of History

Trump’s historic election victory was a game-changer in the New Cold War since everything would have been altogether different had Kamala won instead. Unlike her and Biden, he envisages responsibly managing the US’ geopolitical rivalry with Russia by brokering peace in Ukraine as the first step, after which he plans to initiate similarly motivated talks with Iran and China to that same end. Diplomacy and deal-making now take precedence over risking World War III through reckless provocations.

Leonid Savin
Oriental Review

Afghanistan, Central Asia, Eurasian Union, Iran, Pakistan, [and] Russia

Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan represent important and interconnected links of chain in the region

If to use the method of combining political geography and geopolitics, it is easy to reveal that the group of countries located north of the Arabian Sea has several common features. Part of modern Iran and Afghanistan represent historical Greater Khorasan, and the Pashtun belt stretches from Afghanistan to Pakistan. Pakistan and Iran are united by Balochistan (in both countries there are separatist Balochi (Baluchi) movements actively sponsored from the outside). All three countries are Islamic states – the first to gain independence from Britain was the Islamic Republic of Pakistan in 1947, after the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, this state also moved from the monarchical system to the Islamic Republic (with a specific institution Wilayat al-Faqih), and Afghanistan, in 2021, re–became an Islamic Emirate (previously it was under the Taliban from 1996 to 2001). And in ancient times they were all part of the Sasanian Empire.

Each country has many more interesting cultural, ethnic, and religious features. Although Afghanistan has no access to the sea, it is organically adjacent to the southern part of the Eurasian Rimland (coastal zone), which for a long time was controlled by the Anglo–Saxons – directly or indirectly.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

The future of their strategic partnership is bright, but in order to fully appreciate its prospects, observers must acknowledge its non-military nature instead of continuing to fantasize about a joint war against Israel and/or the US like some are doing.

The Russian and Iranian presidents met in Moscow last Friday to sign an updated strategic partnership pact that can be read in full here and was reviewed here.

The run-up to this development was marked by predictable hype about it being a game-changer, which hasn’t subsided in the days since, but this is an inaccurate description of what they agreed to. The only way in which this might ring true is with regards to gas, not geopolitics, for the reasons that’ll now be explained.

To begin with, Russia and Iran already had close military-technical cooperation before they updated their strategic partnership last week as proven by the rumors of Russia relying on Iranian drones in Ukraine. They also agreed to revive the previously stillborn North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC) shortly after the special operation began and the West imposed unprecedented sanctions against Moscow. Therefore, these parts of their updated strategic partnership aren’t anything new, they just aim to strengthen them.

About that, this agreement is fundamentally different from last summer’s Russian-North Korean one in that there aren’t any mutual defense obligations as clarified in Article 3. They only committed to not aid any aggression against the other, including assistance to the aggressor, and to help settle the subsequent conflict at the UN. That was already the case in their relations so explicitly clarifying it is redundant. Under no circumstances will Russia go to war against Israel and/or the US in support of Iran.

After all, “Russia Dodged A Bullet By Wisely Choosing Not To Ally With The Now-Defeated Resistance Axis” over the past 15 months as Israel single-handedly destroyed that Iranian-led regional network, so it naturally follows that it won’t risk World War III in defense of an even weaker Iran.

Serge Marchand, Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network

World peace hangs on the finger of the United States, blackmailed by Ukrainian “integral nationalists” and Israeli “revisionist Zionists”.

Atomic war is possible. World peace hangs on the finger of the United States, blackmailed by Ukrainian “integral nationalists” and Israeli “revisionist Zionists”. If Washington doesn’t deliver weapons to massacre the Russians and Gazans, they won’t hesitate to launch Armageddon.

The wars in Ukraine and Gaza have led several leading politicians to compare the current period with the 1930s and to raise the possibility of a World War. Are these fears justified, or are they just fear-mongering?

To answer this question, we will summarize events that are unknown to everyone, though well known to specialists. We shall do so dispassionately, at the risk of appearing indifferent to these horrors.

First, let’s distinguish between the conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. They have only two things in common:

They represent no significant stakes in themselves, but a defeat for the West, which, after its defeat in Syria, would mark the end of its hegemony over the world.

They are fueled by a fascist ideology, that of Dmytro Dontsov’s Ukrainian “integral nationalists” and that of Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s Israeli “revisionist Zionists”; two groups that have been allies since 1917, but went underground during the Cold War and are unknown to the general public today.

Leonid Savin
Oriental Review

The collective West stands on the side of Israel and does not worry at all about gross violations of international law.

It is obvious to everyone that the Zionist regime violates numerous conventions and treaties of international law.

If the International Criminal Court has already ruled on the ethnic cleansing that Israel carried out in the Gaza Strip, then the aggression in Lebanon has become another dimension that increases the list of war crimes of the Benjamin Netanyahu regime. The most obvious cases are the use of technical means of communication as a weapon, targeted killings, as well as the disproportionate use of military force.

Quite indicatively, the same cases apply to the United States, since it had previously applied similar actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani with a drone strike on January 3, 2020. For Israel, these cases are a kind of argument to justify their own crimes, since they can be interpreted as case-law.

However, from the standpoint of internationally recognized laws, they have committed and are committing crimes that have yet to be not only condemned, but also to push developing a reliable mechanism for the execution of decisions of international agencies, since Israel has not fulfilled the earlier decision of the International Criminal Court and is unlikely to comply.

Imran Salim
Oriental Review

The results of the jubilee summit of the Euro-Atlantic Alliance, which ended in Washington on July 11, 2024 and the adoption of political decisions and the final declaration, predictably demonstrated that NATO wants only victory for Ukraine and defeat for Russia. An unbiased analysis of the situation around the Russian–Ukrainian armed conflict over the past two and a half years of confrontation shows that this is an unattainable result neither now nor in the foreseeable future. If the collective West does not come to terms with this reality, then the most likely outcome for Kiev will be an imminent military defeat, which will entail the loss of territories of the entire left-bank Ukraine, including Kharkiv, Poltava, Dnipro and Chernihiv, as well as the loss of access to the Black Sea with the loss of Odessa and Nikolaev, rather than it was set in the mandatory conditions put forward by the Russian President in June this year, regarding possible negotiations on the Ukrainian crisis, including on the neutral, non-aligned and nuclear-free status of Ukraine.

Then Zelensky regarded these conditions as an ultimatum of capitulation. According to Western experts, without serious changes in the military objectives of the West and Ukraine, Putin‘s ultimatum has a high degree of implementation. Kiev‘s most realistic hope is to try to hold on to all the territories it currently has and try not to surrender any more land and negotiate a cessation of hostilities. But experts have to admit that it may be too late to achieve even such a limited result.

Eric Zuesse
Oriental Review

■ I opposed the invasion of Iraq by Bush in 2003 — which destroyed that country — even before it was perpetrated. George Clooney, Peter Welch, the New York Times, and other liars or fools of liars, did not.

■ I opposed the bombing of Libya by Obama in 2011 — which destroyed that country — even before it was perpetrated. George Clooney, Peter Welch, the New York Times, annals of liars, did not.

■ I opposed the U.S. arming of Al Qaeda in Syria to overthrow Assad in 2012 by Obama — which destroyed that country — even before it was perpetrated. George Clooney, Peter Welch, the New York Times, and other liars or fools of liars, did not.

■ I opposed the U.S. coup that was perpetrated in 2014 by Obama, Clinton, and Biden, against Ukraine in order to place U.S. missiles there to blitz-nuke The Kremlin — which destroyed Ukraine — even before it was perpetrated. George Clooney, Peter Welch, the New York Times, and other liars or fools of liars, did not.

The Democratic Party is as flamingly neoconservative, pro-MIC, hawkish, and pro-U.S.-imperialism, as is the Republican Party; and, so, only a Second American Revolution that recognizes all Americans’ enemy as being right here at home — the super-rich who control all of the major ‘news’-media and the Government (both of its Parties) — and which Revolution removes them from the power they have to deceive the majority of the public and destroy nation after nation while the MIC-owners grow ever fatter feasting upon the blood and misery of others in other lands and upon the despair of the poor in our own, can be constructive in the present era when the U.S. behemoth is craving feverishly to control the entire world and to increase the annual aggression (‘defense’)-budget so high it will leave nothing left to spend for the public.

Leonid Savin
Oriental Review

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was visiting
Moscow on July 8-9 to co-chair the 22nd Russia-
India Annual Summit with President Vladimir Putin.

The 22nd annual Russia–India Summit took place in Moscow.

Arriving in Moscow on July 8, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called Russia India‘s “all-weather friend” and praised President Vladimir Putin‘s leading role in strengthening bilateral relations over the past two decades. The Prime minister also said that for a long time, the world had witnessed an “influence-oriented global order” “But, what the world needs right now is confluence not influence and no one can deliver this message better than India which has a strong tradition of worshipping confluences,” Modi said.

How can these words be interpreted? At first glance, the Indian Prime Minister calls for a kind of convergence. However, the East is a delicate matter, and this phrase can be interpreted both as a fusion of several streams and as a mutual influence.

At a meeting with the Indian diaspora in Moscow on July 9, Modi stressed that “Indians in Russia are strengthening bilateral ties by contributing to the development of Russian society... As soon as they hear the word ‘Russia’, every Indian thinks that it is a trustable friend; a friend in joy and sorrow…“