The White House's Contempt for China, Russia, Now Includes Iran

Direct attacks on Iran by Israel and the US could potentially draw Russia and China into a “world-historical confrontation with the West,” Dimitri Lascaris recently suggested. Meanwhile, Hungary’s top diplomat on Tuesday warned that if Ukraine received a NATO membership it would spark World War III.

“...it’s a very dangerous moment. There's no doubt about it. We have wars spreading in two zones, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. In Eastern Europe, Ukraine's losing. The US and its allies are debating supplying the Ukraine with missiles capable of striking deep within Russia and to which Russia has said that if America does that, it will regard the use of those missiles as an American attack, not merely a Ukrainian attack,” said Daniel Lazare, an independent investigative journalist and author who joined Sputnik’s The Critical Hour on Friday.

“So, that would mark a… dramatic escalation in the war. And, in the Middle East, everyone is waiting for the next shoe to drop with regard to Israel's response to the Iranian missile barrage a few days ago. And, no one knows what form that counterattack will take, but everyone is bracing themselves for the worst.”

Thus far, Israel has been unresponsive to Iran’s retaliatory missile strikes against its military bases which occurred last week, Sputnik reported on Friday. The Israeli cabinet has not given Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor the defense minister, Yoav Gallant, authority to decide on the response; however, it is possible that the pair will give their authorization over the phone, the report added. And despite the steady stream of weapons the US supplies to Israel, Gallant will reportedly postpone his plans to travel to the US to meet US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

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“I think the great irony here is that the Cold War was in a really weird way a stabilizing force. The world was divided between two powers, essentially. And those two powers, while locked in combat, sort of also were rational enough to work out rules that impose a certain kind of stability on international relations,” Lazare explained.

“...the US reacted to the Soviet collapse by expanding NATO to the East relentlessly, right up to Russia's borders. And, finally, it encountered pushback in February 2022 and that has led to a major war, which is still raging, and could very well spread throughout the region. And in Israel, you have an intractable problem,” he continued.

“...in 1991 the US emerged as the unchallenged hegemon of the world, the unchallenged king of the world and America decided that was right and proper and natural. And that's the way it would always be,” he added. “But, then things started happening. Russia became more assertive, China became more assertive, Iran, things turned rocky with Iran. So, suddenly, the US encountered pushback on two or three fronts and found itself overextended and found itself, therefore, pushing harder and harder in order to reinforce its hegemony,” Lazare explained.

This month, Vice President Kamala Harris said during an interview that Iran is one of America’s “greatest adversaries.” She then said that the US needs to ensure that “Iran never achieves the ability to be a nuclear power, that is one of my highest priorities.”

Harris’ response is odd considering the fact that the US has spent roughly $175 billion in aid to Ukraine in a proxy war against Russia, an article from Antiwar.com highlights. And as early as 2018, the US National Defense Strategy ranked China as the “primary concern in US national strategy,” the article adds. And in 2021, both Russia and China were flagged as “rising revisionist powers” by the National Intelligence Council.

“[Harris] said that Iran was America's chief enemy. That’s… very, very important. And, as I've been saying all along, the US regards the Persian Gulf as the key to world control. It is increasingly angry at Iran for disrupting American control to any degree whatsoever. And it is determined to have regime change. And the longer the situation goes on, the more determined the US becomes,” the analyst explained.

The article also notes that while Harris made the claim that Iran is pursuing nuclear power, CIA Director Williams Burns told a security conference that their organization did “not see evidence today that the supreme leader has reversed the decision that he took at the end of 2003 to suspend the weaponization program.”

“…I think that statement reflects the thinking of the foreign policy establishment at this moment. They want to solve the Iranian problem, [...] the press has full reports [...] about how angry Joe Biden is with Benjamin Netanyahu - he doesn't return his phone calls, doesn't talk to him, doesn't tell him what he has planned for Iran, etc, etc.”

“And, point of fact, I think the situation is the opposite,” Lazare added. “The US is actually quite pleased with what Iran is doing - with what Netanyahu is doing - and is looking forward to his attack on Iran, because America hopes it will be a knockout blow that will accomplish what Kamala Harris is calling for… it'll wipe out America's number one enemy.”

The White House's Contempt for China, Russia, Now Includes Iran - Analysis