ACADEMY OF MARXISM CHINESE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
ACADEMY OF MARXISM CHINESE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
ACADEMY OF MARXISM CHINESE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
Relations between Washington and Moscow have entered “their worst period since the end of the Cold War,” the Russian Foreign Ministry warned Tuesday in a statement released in connection with the arrival of US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
The threat of a direct clash between the two nuclear-armed powers has been posed in the starkest terms in over half a century following the airstrike last week in which US destroyers fired 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles into a Syrian air base where a Russian unit is stationed.
The Foreign Ministry statement condemned the airstrike, carried out on the pretext of an alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria’s Idlib province on April 4, as “an act of aggression against a sovereign state committed in violation of international law.”
The statement pointedly referred to the string of disastrous US interventions in the Middle East, affirming that Moscow hoped to “learn what the United States will do in Libya, which has been split by NATO’s military intervention, just as Iraq. What plans do our American colleagues have for Yemen, where US weapons are used to bomb cities, killing civilians and aggravating the humanitarian catastrophe?”
The bitter tone of the statement reflected the disillusionment of the government of President Vladimir Putin, which had pinned its hopes on the election of President Donald Trump paving the way for improved relations with Washington and improved conditions on the world stage for the ruling capitalist oligarchy that the Kremlin represents.
Instead, relentless pressure by predominant factions within the US military and intelligence apparatus, amplified by an hysterical anti-Russian campaign conducted by the Democratic Party and the leading elements of the corporate media, has brought about a sharp reversal of the positions put forward earlier by Trump on Russia and Syria, culminating in the attack on the Syrian air base.
In a sign that the Russian government still holds out hopes for a shift in the US line, the statement blamed “the irresponsible policies of the Obama administration” for escalating tensions by “trying to restrain the growth of Russia’s influence in international affairs and undermine its economic development through sanctions.”
Washington, however, continued to spell out a hard line in relation to Moscow even as Tillerson was making his way to Russia. Before leaving a meeting of foreign ministers of the Group of Seven (G7), representing the major capitalist powers, Tillerson, the former ExxonMobil CEO, asserted that “it is clear to all” that the Russian-backed government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “is coming to an end.” He went on to warn that Russia could either maintain its alliance with “the Assad regime, the Iranians, and Hizballah” or “realign with the United States, with other Western countries and Middle East countries who are seeking to resolve the Syrian crisis;” i.e., accept the Western drive for regime change in Syria and the assertion of unchallenged US hegemony over the Middle East.
Tillerson also accused Moscow of having failed to assume its responsibilities as a guarantor of a 2013 agreement brokered by Russia in which the Obama administration backed down from earlier threats of military strikes against Syria in return for Syria’s chemical disarmament. He alleged that Russia either “failed to take this obligation seriously” or “has been incompetent.”
In reality, Syria’s chemical disarmament was overseen by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, with the US military participating directly in the destruction of Syrian chemical weapons materials.
Meanwhile, the White House ratcheted up the attacks on Russia over the alleged
Editor: Zhong Yao