By John Helmer
@bears_with
In his 48-minute speech in Riyadh, President Donald Trump was applauded many times for rewriting the past of US wars in the Middle East, and also the future of US wars in the region, and elsewhere. From the Arab point of view, the outcome of these wars has been the destruction of Arab national ideology by Jewish national ideology, and independently, the success of Arab oil money.
All that remains of the former is the Yemen resistance of Ansar Allah and the Houthis. “We had 52 days of thunder and lightning like they’ve never seen before,” Trump claimed. “This was a swift, ferocious, decisive and extremely successful use of military force…” And Iran: “The biggest and most destructive of these forces is the regime in Iran, which has caused unthinkable suffering in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, Yemen and beyond. There could be no sharper contrast with the path you have pursued on the Arabian Peninsula, than the disaster unfolding right across in the Gulf of Iran.” “if Iran’s leadership rejects this olive branch and continues to attack their neighbors,” Trump proposed “o inflict massive maximum pressure, drive Iranian oil exports to zero, like I did before.”
For the past of the war against Russia, Trump repeated the falsehood that “[US withdrawal from Kabul, August 30, 2021] is probably why Putin decided to go into Ukraine, something he never would have done if I were president.”
For the future, Trump said he was sending his men to Istanbul – Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Keith Kellogg, Steven Witkoff. “Talks are being held in Turkey later this week, probably on Thursday and they could produce some pretty good results. Our people are going to be going there, Marco’s going to be going there. Others are going to be going, and we’ll see if we can get it done.” Trump’s earlier hint that he might go himself has been removed.
Enroute to Qatar, about noon on Wednesday, Moscow time, Trump was asked if he would meet President Vladimir Putin in Turkey; he replied that he might and that he might not. “[Putin] would like me to be there and that’s a possibility if we could end the war I’d be thinking about it. So we have a very full situation now, that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t do it to save a lot of lives and come back. But, uh, yeah, I think they’re thinking about something. I don’t know that he would be there if I’m not there.”
Trump has arranged for Zelensky to meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and wait in Ankara for Trump to appear. Zelensky has already said he has agreed with Erdogan, Trump and the European allies on the formula – “full and unconditional ceasefire” first, negotiations to follow. Zelensky’s ultimatum is that he will go to Istanbul with Trump if Putin comes — “Putin is the one who determines everything in Russia, so he is the one who has to resolve the war. This is his war. Therefore, the negotiations should be with him.”
Responding to Zelensky’s challenge, Peskov said: ““We respond only to Putin’s statements.” Russian officials do not refer to Zelensky by a title because his current rule by martial law is not recognized, and because new elections to replace him are a Russian condition for denazification of the Ukraine. New elections are also on the Russian term sheet sent to Trump for tabling in Istanbul.
“We remember the 2019 summit in Paris,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova has posted, referring to the last and only meeting Putin has had with Zelensky, “for Vladimir Zelensky’s provocative negotiating tactic when he suddenly refused to approve the outcome document despite the fact that it was already drafted and coordinated by the parties involved, including Kiev. He asked to remove the provision on the separation of forces along the entire line of contact and insisted on replacing it with a provision which provided for the separation of forces in three sections only. However, he failed to deliver even on these commitments which he had articulated himself… Today, these same countries are pushing [Zelensky] for a 30-day truce to give Kiev a respite and enable it to restore its military capabilities to be able to continue confronting Russia.”
Until hours ago, the Russian lineup in Istanbul appeared to be the same as with Rubio, Witkoff, and the now sacked Michael Waltz in Riyadh in February – Sergei Lavrov, Yury Ushakov, Kirill Dmitriev. Lavrov may have conveyed this in a telephone call with his Turkish counterpart on Tuesday night. On Wednesday afternoon, however, Lavrov was reported by Kommersant as not participating in Istanbul.
Since then Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov cautioned: “The Americans are well aware of our position. We remain in contact. However, this is not the word [coordination] to use in this particular case,” After meeting with the Turkish ambassador in Moscow on Monday, Ryabkov told Tass: “The topics are the same that we have talked about repeatedly, which has been on the agenda lately.: how can we ensure a reliable, sustainable settlement of the situation, first of all addressing the primary sources of this conflict, resolving issues related to the denazification of the Kiev regime, ensuring recognition of the realities that have recently developed on earth, including the entry of new territories into the Russian Federation.”
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President’s speech in Riyadh on May 13: video, transcript. “Ever since President Franklin Roosevelt met with King Salman’s father, King Abdul Aziz, aboard the USS Quincy in 1945, the US-Saudi relationship has been a bedrock of security and prosperity. Today, we reaffirm this important bond and we take the next steps to make our relationship closer, stronger and more powerful than ever before.”
Left: King Abdulaziz meets President Roosevelt on February 14, 1945, at the Great Bitter Lake entrance to the Suez Canal. Roosevelt had met in Yalta with Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill from February 4 to 11. Roosevelt was seriously ill; he died on April 12, 1945. Film footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpXdO_KfqqE
The present Saudi king was Abdulaziz’s 25th son; he was 9 years old when the Roosvelt meeting took place and is not visible in the Saudi delegation which included two of his older brothers.
Right: for the story of the plotting behind the scenes, read the book, Ch.3.
For background on the current ceasefire between India and Pakistan, and the damage which the combination of Indian and Russian military capabilities have done to China’s future positioning in the war with the US, view this discussion by a group of Indian generals.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVjMA2QMiF4
Listen carefully – if the ceasefire dynamics which have been achieved, and India has emerged with escalation control, what is the lesson to be learned in Moscow and in Washington for the war in the Ukraine?
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