The
First Putin-Trump Meeting Yields.. ..Something
Very Close To Nothing
By The
Saker
July
08, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- First, we have the manner in which the
Americans have been preparing the G20 summit.
As we all know, in diplomacy actions count as
much, or even more, than words. Here are just a
few of the actions recently taken by the
Americans in preparation for the G20 summit and
Trump’s first meeting with Putin (in no
particular order):
Going
down this list, you got to admire the American
sense of timing and diplomacy…
But,
seriously now,
It does
not really matter of these actions are just the
result from imperial hubris and delusion, a
complete lack of diplomatic education, the
consequences of simple and straightforward human
stupidity or all part of some diabolical plan to
set the US on a collision course with the entire
planet. What matters is the mind-blowing
arrogance of it all, as if the USA was a white
knight in shining armor worthy only of praise
and adulation and as if the rest of the planet
was composed or rowdy schoolchildren who needed
to heed the words of their principal and better
start behaving or else get a good spanking from
Uncle Sam.
If that
is how Trump hopes to make “America Great Again”
he might want to consider other options as that
kind of attitude makes “America” (he means the
USA, of course) look not “great” but arrogant,
out of touch and supremely irritating. Let’s
talk on the world, everybody at the same time
seems to be the grand plan of this
administration.
The
result of all these “diplomatic” efforts were
predicable: nothing.
Well,
almost nothing. Here is what “nothing” looks in
diplomatic language:
According to Foreign Minister
Lavrov
Presidents Trump and Putin,
were
“motivated by their national interests” (who
would have thought?!) and they agree on a number
of concrete measures:
- an
acceleration of the procedure to appoint new
ambassadors – RU-US and US-RU
-
they discussed the Russian diplomatic
facilities seized by Obama
-
they create a work group to discuss a number
of issues including terrorism, organized
crime, hacking and cybersecurity.
-
they discussed Syria and the Ukraine and
talked for 2 hours and 15 minutes.
According to RT,
Russia and the US agreed on a ceasefire in the
Daraa, Quneitra and As-Suwayda provinces of
Syria. That is very good, of course, but this
is in the one corner of Syria (southwest) were
very little action is taking place (right now
all the important stuff is taking place between
Raqqa and Deir-Az-Sor). Oh, and there are
de-escalation zones already in place in the
southwest:
=====
So unless Trump and Putin are keeping something
really important secret, it seems that this
summit has yielded
exactly what I feared it would:
nothing, or something very very close to
nothing. If we find out later that in spite of
everything, the two sides did discuss something
of importance and agreed on something important,
I will post and update here. And, believe me,
nobody will be happier than me if that happens.
But,
alas, it appears that many months of a sustained
Neocon campaign to make darn sure that Russia
and the US could never seriously collaborate
have been very successful.
So
where does this all leave us, the million of
people who had at least *some* hopes about Trump
being an outsider who could try to make some
real changes happen and maybe liberate the
United States from the Neocon regime in power
here since at least Bill Clinton (if not
earlier)?
On
February 14th of this year, following the
anti-Flynn coup and Trump’s betrayal of his
friend, I wrote that “it’s over folks” and
“Trump betrayed us all”. I took a lot of flak
for writing this, especially since I had come
strongly on Trump’s side against Hillary during
the campaign. Sadly, I believe that my
conclusions in February are now proven correct.
I
understand while some will want to present this
meeting as, if not a success, then at least
“good start” or a “semi-success”. For one
thing, being the bearer of bad news never made
anybody popular. Second, those who support
Trump or Putin (or both) will want to show that
the leader they support achieved something.
Finally, if both sides report that the meeting
has been a success, who are we to say otherwise?
I don’t
know about anybody else, but I always have and
always will call it as I see it. And what I see
is simply nothing or something very close to
nothing. Sorry folks, I wish I could say
something else.
As for
apportioning blame for this non-event, I place
100% of the guilt on the US side which did
everything wrong with an almost manic
determination and which will now find itself in
the rather unenviable position of fighting
pretty much the entire planet all on its own.
Oh, sorry, I forgot. Poland unconditionally
supports the USA and Trump!
Well,
good for them. They richly deserve each other.
The
Saker
The
views expressed in this article are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
opinions of Information Clearing House.