Beneath the FloorBoards

March 8—You might not think of President Donald Trump as a chess master, but the President and his foreign policy team, with his Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff leading, has pulled off a series of deft policy gambits on a par with the great chess masters, such as the American Bobby Fisher and his nemesis the Russian Boris Spassky, that have checkmated the Gaza war drive of the Butcher of Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin, “Bibi” Netanyahu, as well as his efforts to seek a wider regional war against Iran.

Gaza

Bibi has promised his racist lunatic coalition partner, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, that he plans to “open the gates of hell” on Hamas, fully re-engaging in that bloody war, with a likely enormous new death toll of innocent Palestinians. Blaming the lack of progress in securing a new round of hostage releases from Hamas, after Phase I of the ceasefire/hostage deal expired last weekend, Bibi has sabotaged all efforts to discuss Phase II. Trump responded by first prevailing on the Israelis to delay any military action for at least a week or more, to allow time to discuss a plan crafted by Witkoff to secure a new round of hostage releases and prisoner exchanges, while discussions on Phase II could be geared up. As Trump expected, Bibi immediately endorsed the Witkoff plan because he knew it was too vague for Hamas to accept.

Then, the President put out a couple of posts, seemingly backing Bibi’s new war, “opening the gates of hell,” were Hamas not to agree to release all the hostages immediately.

But what Bibi was not told was that Witkoff, working overtime for Trump, crafting a peace plan to end the war in Ukraine, had come up with a new plan, that would release 10 hostages immediately, extending the ceasefire in Gaza for two months, and restarting the humanitarian aid that Bibi had halted when Hamas rejected Witkoff’s initial plan, and then release the rest after Hamas and Israel worked out the full terms of Phase II of the American brokered peace deal that Witkoff and Trump had forced Bibi to sign off on last December. More importantly, Bibi was not told that Trump had authorized direct negotiations on this with Hamas officials—an unprecedented move in the last 40 years, as it has been the stated U.S. policy never to negotiate with terrorists.

The meetings, which took place in Doha with the support of Qatar, who has been as mediator in the negotiating process, are close to producing an agreement, as Trump reported yesterday, and has been confirmed by other sources. Trump has put Bibi in an incredibly tough position, as Bibi has said he would back Witkoff’s efforts to secure an agreement and endorsed Trump’s statements made this week to former hostages and their families who met with him in Washington, that his top immediate priority is to secure the return all of the hostages who were still alive. Trump also continues to say that the only way to return the hostages alive is through negotiation.

Writing in Haaretz March 6, analyst Amir Tibot says:"If the talks with Hamas are serious, and have gone beyond the release of the U.S. hostages toward the possibility of a larger deal, then Trump's late-night threat against Hamas, delivered with the usual bravado, should be seen as part of the negotiations. Trump is telling Hamas to think hard about the ramifications of not reaching a deal under the terms currently being discussed. He is swinging a heavy stick at the terror group, but by his very engagement with Hamas also holding out a carrot."

Bibi mouthed such words in support of Trump, but his actual policy is more war, which he wants to start again next week, leading ultimately to complete extermination of all Palestinians in Gaza. Sources say that by this weekend or early the coming week, American negotiators will have the outline of an agreement from Hamas on the new Witkoff plan and will be ready to force the Israelis to the negotiating table. So, Bibi and his war have been checkmated, at least for the immediate future.

Witkoff plans to return to Southwest Asia soon, heading for Cairo, where he is to lead the negotiations with Ukrainians to hammer out a deal to end NATO’s war against Russia. His task is also to force Bibi to agree to the two-month ceasefire extension, the return of at least ten living hostages, and the start of serious negotiations for Phase II. To get these concessions from Hamas, he will demand that Bibi order the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to leave the Philadelphi Corridor, on Gaza's southern border with Egypt, as they had agreed to under the terms of the deal they already signed. Netanyahu will be furious, but he knows that Witkoff has the full backing of Bibi's patron, Trump.

Iran

As the negotiations with Hamas were moving toward conclusion, Trump suddenly announced a gambit against another of Bibi’s war drives, this on a wider war against Iran, that he has sought approval for, but has been denied by Trump. The President declared his intention to negotiate a workable deal with Iran to end its nuclear weapons ambitions. He revealed a letter that he had sent to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in which he told the Iranian leader that he loves the people of Iran and wants them to have a great and peaceful future. Iran is a “great nation,” but it cannot have nuclear weapons. In the letter, Trump offered to sit down and work a deal that will make it worthwhile for Iran to give up its nuclear weapons ambitions.

As is typical with Trump, the offer to negotiate was couched in a threat: there are two ways to deal with this problem, either a "beautiful" ngeotiaited settlement, or militarily. My way, negotiations, is much easier. Trump said. The Iranians, also as is typical, said that they were not going to be bullied into talks, but did not fully reject the idea. Sources report that there is great support in the Iranian leadership for a new deal, especially if Trump guarantee its implementation.

Late last year, the Ayatollah had issued a fatwa (a legal ruling on a point of Islamic law given by an Islamic religious leader) saying that Iran cannot develop nuclear weapons or any weapons of mass destruction as they were against the teachings of the Quran. A source said that while the "wise guys" of Anglo-American intelligence circles had dismissed the fatwa statement as a cover for Iran’s real intent to become a nuclear power, Trump had taken it very seriously.

Told by Israeli sources that Bibi might plan to “go rogue,” and launch an attack on Iran without any White House approval, and then get the praise after he was successful, Trump decided to take the plunge and make an announcement now. “This was all prearranged,” said a source with White House connections. “The word has been sent to the Iranians through back channels that Trump wanted to bring Iran back in from the cold—a place they had resided in since the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover in Tehran, and subsequent 444-day hostage crisis. Trump also famously took the U.S. out of the 2015 Obama nuclear deal with Iran because he thought it would ultimately not work.

Trump’s idea is to end Iran’s position as a pariah state and bring it into his concept for a transformed region, where Arabs, Jews, and Persians work together and prosper. The bell cat for this idea will be what is done with post-war Gaza. Forget about “Trump Gaza," a source reported. "He likes the concept of removing the Palestinians from Gaza in order to more efficiently rebuild from the vast destruction and rubble. He put out that idea to shake things up, to get people to think big and not to rebuild the slum that existed there before Oct. 7, 2023. Wouldn’t it be great if the Iranians could contribute to that? That’s what Trump wants.

"But to get there, Trump has to secure the peace in Gaza, and to secure the peace, Hamas has to disappear as an organization. Here is where Iran could be quite helpful, since Hamas does not exist without Iranian funding. As part of the discussions on the nuclear deal, Trump wants to discuss the idea of Iran dismantling the "ring of fire" that it has built around Israel, to cause Israel to think twice about attacking Iran. That ring includes two nasty organizations, Hamas and Hezbollah, that Trump sees as obstacles to a stable peace in the region. They help create and sustain, on the Israeli side, killers like Netanyahu. So, Iran needs security guarantees and peace with Israel, which means it will not need Hamas and Hezbollah.”

This and other sources say that Trump has already talked to Russian President Vladimir Putin about Iran, and also, throiugh his emmissaries, to the Hamas leadership. Putin, they say, does not want Iran to become a nuclear weapons power, either, and also prefers that Iran get out of the business of sponsoring terrorism. The Russian leader may already be offering Trump some assistance on these matters. He recently summoned Hamas political leaders to Moscow, where they were reportedly told to accept the deal that Trump is working out.

“Strategically blind people say Trump is a meddler and provocateur who has no vision,” said the source. “But they underestimate him, just as they overestimate their ability to manipulate people and outcomes. Yes, he is a deal maker, but he is learning that there is a difference between business deals and deals that involve parties with longstanding prejudices and ideologies. He is learning, and this time he has some good people around to help him. Witkoff is gaining a lot of respect. He is tough, and takes no prisoners, but also listens to the other side. Most importantly, Witkoff has no interest in making a name for himself and is completely loyal to Trump.

The two of them have completely confounded Bibi, who finds himself checkmated, by people he considers his inferior. But it would be wrong to count the stymied and checkmated Bibi out, just yet. He has in the past, blocked the momentum towards peace, and he continues to escalate military intervention into the West Bank, with the full support of Smotrich and similar nutcases, Trump, said the source, knows that you need to give your adversary some space to work through opposition in their ranks to what must be the terms of a peace deal. Bibi offers no such Qatar. He is obsessed with his mission, which he perceives, comes directly fromGod, to elimiate the Palestinian threat to the Jewish state, by exterminating the Palestinians. In the end, Trump's real adversary in the peace process, is not Hamas, but Bibi. There cannot be any true peace, as long as he is in power in Israel."

March 8—Either someone has told him, or he has figured it out himself, or perhaps a little of both, but Ukraine’s dictator Volodymyr Zelenskyy has figured out that he can get a better deal working with President Donald Trump than he will ever get from the British and their NATO whores, and wat one observer called a ‘sissified’ Europe, which his losing its American protector.

Thus, less than one week after NATO and its American collaborators steered him intro a confrontation with Trump that had him literally thrown out of the White House, Zelenskyy confirmed reports March 6 that he was dispatching a team to Saudi Arabia to meet with an American team, led by Trump’s Special Envoy to the Middle East and every other trouble spot, Steve Witkoff, to hash out the outline of a deal to end the NATO war against Russia using Ukrainian bodies—a war that has cost more than a million lives on both sides.

"The idea is to get down a framework for a peace agreement and an initial ceasefire as well," Witkoff told reporters March 6, outside the White House. But sources say that there have already been preliminary discussions on the agenda for the meeting, in which Russian objections to the various "proposals" by the Ukraine and the Europeans have been laid out. The Russians, sources report, will accept some kind of peace keeping force, but not from NATO nations such as France or the United Kingdom; Russian President Vladimir Putin will say which nations they will accept. The reports of such information sharing indicate that Trump is looking for rapid progress to be made on the outline for a deal.

Zelenskyy had fled the United States last week, into the warm embrace of French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who had assembled European and NATO leaders to shower their little sock-puppet with praise for his show of toughness against the hated Trump and urge him to fight on for a peace on his terms. They pledged to step up military aid to Ukraine and assured him that there would be little real consequence from his dustup with Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance in the Oval Office, which was blasted live on broadcast and other media around the world. The foolish Labour Lord Starmer assured his Parliament that he had this, that he was in control, and that Trump would talk tough and do nothing.

But no sooner had Starmer uttered those reassuring words, than Trump ordered all military aid to Ukraine halted, and then followed that up by cutting off all sharing of American intelligence with Ukraine, which despite bluster from Ukraine’s military to the contrary, renders an already difficult war near impossible to fight. Then, to further kick Starmer in his delusional “Special Relationship,” Trump ordered that no American intel relevant to Ukraine shared with the British be provided to Ukraine. Sources report that the same message was delivered to NATO.

These sources report that Zelenskyy was told that the aid cutoff would remain in effect until he took seriously Trump’s peace efforts being made on his behalf and agreed to start negotiations. “Witkoff communicated to Kyiv that the President wanted talks to begin next week, or he was prepared to take further embarrassing steps to show America’s lack of support for the continuation of the war,” a source reported. The communication from Trump to Zelenskyy was stark: “I don’t care who started the war. I only care who is going to stop it. Putin has agreed to stop it and find a durable peace. And you say no. You have to be kidding me.”

The source reported on another message delivered by Witkoff to the Ukrainians, about what Europe could actually do for Ukraine, despite what they might say. “Who can protect you, if America does not stand behind them? The British? Who the f ... fears them? They have a deployable army of 60,000. A joke. The French? An even bigger joke. The last time they fought anybody they were led by Charles de Gaulle. Trump will get you your best deal and then guarantee it. Putin will not break this deal.”

This and other sources say that Zelenskyy will allow next week’s talks delegation to be led by the head of the Presidential Office Andrey Yermak (who reportedly runs the corruption machine that distributes U.S. aid monies). Zelenskyy will authorize Yermak to agree to a full cease fire and define an agenda for the next round of discussion. Trump wants that following discussion to include a meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin, tasked with working on the final terms of the agreement. Sources report that Zelenskyy plans to travel with the delegation to Saudi Arabia, for a meeting with Saudi leader Prince Mohammed bin Salman. 

“Trump is keeping his peace train running on time,” said the source. “He got a little behind with the dustup last week. Now he wants to make up time with negotiations [to take place either March 11 or March 12]. He wants a ceasefire to be in effect by Easter Sunday (April 20) and he wants the full deal worked out by May 9, the day the world and Europe celebrate the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, by an alliance that included most prominently Russia and the United States.”

The key play for Trump in these talks is Witkoff, who is also working on the Gaza peace plan. “Witkoff won’t listen to any bullshit bluster from the Ukrainians,” said the source. “He is no nonsense and will call out bullshit. That may take some getting used to by the Ukrainians, since they are always talking bullshit about their victories, etc. That, and how Putin is a liar. None of that matters to Witkoff. “Make the deal. My boss will make sure everyone lives up to the terms.”

Yesterday, Trump issued a threat of new tough sanctions on Russia if it does not move quickly towards peace, saying that its forces were pounding Ukranian infrastructure. "The tough talk is for Zelenskyy's benefit," said a source close to the White House. "he is playing to the peanut gallery that says he is an agent for Putin's interest. But he knows that he does not need to drive Putin to the negotiating table. Putin is already openly talking where tri-partite negotiations with Ukraine, Russia and the United States should take place. He has suggested in Minsk, the site of previous peace negotiations, that were exposed a fake, as an effort to allow for NATO to arm and train the Ukrainians to fight the Russians. Putin is a master of irony."

March 7—The Trump Administration has formally rejected the redevelopment plan for Gaza proposed by Egypt, and supported by the Arab League, stating that it does not adequately address the realities on the ground where nearly two million people are trying to live in a rubble heap, with tens of thousands of unexploded munitions, and no functioning basic infrastructure. Not stated by Washington but known to them and to the rest of the world, is that these inhuman conditions are the intended result of Israel’s genocidal war, not on Hamas terrorists, but on the Palestinian people.

National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said that the U.S. continues to support President Donald Trump’s “vision” for Gaza, that would begin with removing the Palestinians, and under U.S. control, build something that would become a world class resort, “the Riviera of the Mediterranean”—a plan which has been denounced and rejected by everyone except the Butcher of Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu.

But informed sources say that Trump and his team are actually happy with what Egypt has proposed in that it shows an intention for Arabs to take responsibility for the reconstruction. Forcing that was the intention of the so-called Trump Plan, these sources say. That said, there are some serious questions and reservations about Egypt's plan and how it would be implemented, as the final Third Stage of the ceasefire/ hostage release deal, that has yet to: reach its second stage:

• Many experts believe that the Egyptian plan seriously underestimates the problems in the removal and disposal of the unexploded ordnance and the more than 50 million tons of rubble. Accomplishing these two preliminary tasks will add time to the project, perhaps several years. It will also drive up the cost.

• The cost estimate for housing construction is too low. A better figure would be perhaps double the plan’s proposed $53 billion or even adding another $50 billion. By the number of units projected (460,000), that would require a density of around 6 people per each unit, which is thought by experts to be much too high, which would mean that too few units are proposed.

• Who is going to do the work? Certainly not the physically depleted Gazans. What are the costs for these additional workers? Where will they come from? How will they be housed, fed, and otherwise taken care of? Those costs are not in the proposal, nor are the pay rates for the construction workers.

• In some initial discussions of the Egyptian plan, there was a concept to build the factories needed to create the construction supplies for the project—the cement, the steel, the pipe, the lumber and drywall, etc. Creating these things on site in Gaza or across the border in Egypt, would create jobs for Palestinians and cheapen the costs, overall. Is this what the plan calls for?

• Massive amounts of fresh water and power will be needed to first build the plan and then to sustain what is built. Where will these resources come from? Here is where the Oasis Plan of Lyndon LaRouche can provide answers. The Oasis Plan is designed specifically to create power and fresh water from nuclear powered desalination plants, built offshore, and was envisioned not merely for a project such as this, but for the whole of Southwest Asia. If your country has a coastline, you should have this technology. Installing the reactors, power and communications distribution systems, rail and canals would bring in global development powers such as the U.S. and China, and also, most importantly, Israel.

Both the Trump Plan and this new Egyptian proposal envision that funding would come from a combination of government (sovereign) funds, development banks and private investment. But as the actual costs are more accurately computed, the existing institutions may not have that kind of capital available.. In proposing his Oasis Plan in the 1970s, the American statesman and physical economist LaRouche had linked it and other great projects elsewhere to the creation of a new global credit system, centered around an International Development Bank (IDB) that could handle such large projects. The time has come for the IDB, which could also be used to fund the redevelopment of Ukraine.

Egyptian Plan Details

The Egyptian-sponsored Gaza reconstruction plan, dubbed “Turning Gaza into a Smart City,” envisions transforming a region of mass destruction into a modern high-tech urban and rural landscape. The design is based on ideas and principles that Egypt has used in its ongoing construction of 12 new “smart cities,” with another 12 more cities in the planning stage. Egypt is building these cities to house up to five million residents each. Some, such as the Egyptian New Administrative Capital, were built in cooperation with China. 

The Gaza plan estimates construction to take five years, concluding by 2030, at a total cost of $53 billion. It targets accommodating a population of 3 million Palestinians, with a density of approximately 35 people per feddan (0.0042 sq km). It will create a total of 500,000 jobs in several sectors, including: housing, 80,000; industry, 70,000; tourism, 60,000; services, 90,000; agriculture, 120,000; and fishing, 80,000.

The plan envisions funding from the United Nations, international financial institutions, donor countries, development banks, as well as foreign direct investment and private sector partnerships. An internationally supervised trust fund is intended to distribute the funds. Egypt intends to host a high-level ministerial conference in Cairo, in collaboration with the Palestinian Authority and the UN, to garner financial support.

The plan divides Gaza into five main functional sectors: Sector 1, Rafah for the Logistics Center; Sector 2, Khan Younis for the Science and Knowledge Center; Sector 3, Deir Al-Balah for the Al-Salam Center; Sector 4, Gaza for its Government Headquarters; Sector 5, North Gaza as a Cultural Center.

The plan envisions a total of six basic zones, including residential zones for high, medium, and low-density housing. There will also be commercial and mixed-use zones, combining residential and commercial spaces. Service and development corridors will be created to include government and administrative headquarters and educational facilities, hospitals, and cultural centers as well as recreational and tourism zones, etc. A central “green” axis will be created that will incorporate gardens, green spaces, and walking and cycling paths, while agricultural and industrial zones on the outskirts of the city will include small villages to support agricultural industries, such as food processing, and light manufacturing.

The plan has a detailed schedule of implementation. The first six months, designated as Early Recovery, will cost $3 billion, for clearing rubble; preparing for the construction of 200,000 temporary housing units for 1.2 million people; restoring 60,000 partially damaged homes for 360,000 people; and implementing a social protection program.

This is followed by two Reconstruction phases: Phase 1 is expected to last 2 years. At a cost of $20 billion, it envisions establishing utilities and networks; building 200,000 housing units to house 1.6 million people; and reclaiming 20,000 feddans of land. Phase 2 will last 2.5 years, at a cost of $30 billion, and will include continuing utility expansion; building 200,000 housing units for 1.2 million people; and bringing total housing to 460,000 units for 2.75 million people. This phase includes creating an industrial zone; fishing and commercial ports; and building roads and a Gaza Airport.

More Concerns—and Hope

Sources close to Trump also worry that plan to turn Gaza over to the Palestinian Authority makes the proposal a “non-starter” for the current Israeli government, who will correctly see this as creating the conditions for a viable Palestinian state. Under the plan, the Palestinian Authority would establish a Gaza Administration Committee, to manage affairs in Gaza, during a six-month transitional period. The Committee will be composed of technocrats and nonpartisan, independent figures, and operate under the aegis of the Palestinian government. Its primary objective is to enable the complete return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza, and to facilitate governance during the transition.

In aiding this effort, Egypt and Jordan are actively training Palestinian police in preparation for their deployment to secure law and order, and to ensure the security necessary for reconstruction and governance. The plan calls for securing broad political and financial support from international and regional partners, as well as a UN Security Council resolution to establish an international presence in Palestinian territories to enhance security and aid state-building.

The plan raises the need for a regional peace plan that must include peace agreements with Syria and Lebanon, based on the June 1967 borders, and a regional development plan (as defined in the LaRouche Oasis plan) to reconstruct war-torn Syria, Lebanon, and also Iraq. A broader peace, involving Iran, Türkiye and the Gulf States is also required. Southwest Asia must be able to fulfill its destiny as the land-bridge between Eurasia and Africa, as already envisioned in the Belt and Road Initiative.

“The President stirred the pot and shook things up,” said a source close to the White House. “ Now we have a serious Arab plan and there will be modifications and discussions.” The source said that Trump wants to call together a conference of planners and developers, “people with ideas to discuss these things through and come up with something really beautiful. These people [the Palestinians] have suffered long enough. But first we have to stop the present war and prevent a new one.”

March 6—The following interview with this top Indian diplomat was rleased today. We rerpint it to further understanding and dialogue during these interesting times, which will determine the survival of our species.

Mike Billington: Greetings. This is Mike Billington with Executive Intelligence Review and the Schiller Institute. I’m very pleased today to be with Mr. M.K. Bhadrakumar, who had a 30-year diplomatic career for India. He was the ambassador to the U.S.S.R. and also held leading positions within the Foreign Ministry. He had positions in Pakistan, in Iran, in Afghanistan. He is a prolific writer on world affairs. His blog is called India Punchline, which I encourage people to go to. Doctor Bhadrakumar, welcome, and thank you very much for agreeing to this discussion.

Dr. M.K. Bhadrakumar: Mike, good evening. It is my privilege, entirely my privilege. I have known and I have read a lot about you in your distinguished career as an activist and a promoter of world peace. But I never had an opportunity to sit face to face with you, so it’s a privilege. I have a small correction. I was not ambassador to the Soviet Union. At that time in the diplomatic service, I served twice in Moscow, at the time of Brezhnev and at the time of Gorbachev. When I finished my second term, I was just becoming a minister counselor. I retired from Turkey as Ambassador.

Billington: Let me begin by noting that your most recent essay on the India Punchline website was on the extraordinary re-establishment of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Russia, with the phone call between Putin and Trump and then diplomatic meetings between several of their associates. What are your thoughts on how that’s going so far?

Bhadrakumar: I suppose I can see, in the limited time that President Trump has been in the Oval Office—he’s in the second month into his Presidency. My feeling is that much ground has been covered, though it’s too early to say what the future trajectory is going to be, because there are very many variables in the situation. The Russian-American relations have a long history. If you go back to the time of President Eisenhower, there were very high hopes at that time that he and Nikita Khrushchev might work out an understanding for peaceful coexistence. But you know how abruptly it ended. On both sides, there are forces, as far as I can see, who may not be happy with what is happening today. But I trust President Trump to be assertive in his second term. He has a wealth of experience from his first term and would have held a perspective on why he couldn’t achieve what he had wanted, in foreign policy, how he got constrained. How he couldn’t proceed with that. I see traces of that already, the way he’s going about his second Presidency. So I expect him to be assertive.

But a new factor has come in, which is this, that unlike in the Soviet times, the Soviet period, where the variables actually were with regard to the United States primarily, but here it is also with regard to the United States and transatlantic allies. It’s a new factor. Britain apart, I think the other European powers were quite inclined to get on with the U.S.S.R., especially Germany, The gas pipelines were set up in the ’60s, early ’70s, despite reservations from the United States.

So there is now a kind of role reversal here. The United States is pushing for this cooperation with Russia, and from the statements in Moscow, I have come to a feeling that there is a level of transparency already existing in the dialogue, backchannel dialogue communications that are going on between the two sides. President Putin’s remarks last Thursday while addressing the Collegium of the FSB, which is the collegium of the top officials in foreign intelligence. He was optimistic, actually. I have never seen in the recent years such a ray of hope that he was holding out. Of course, he cautioned at the end, and he did so rightly, that there are forces who may be working to undermine this process, and therefore utmost vigilance is required. He was telling the Russian intelligence apparatus—we saw evidence of it already in the subsequent couple of days, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, the dramatic events in the Oval Office when Zelenskyy came to Washington. then the meeting of 18 countries hosted by the U.K., including Zelenskyy, and their determination to pursue their own pathway in Ukraine, no matter the dialogue between Russia and the United States. I find also that the American media are playing a very negative role.

The mainstream media—there are other voices, voices of reason. But I cannot understand, I cannot comprehend why there should be such a fear about dialogue. I saw an interview given by the Secretary of State [Marco Rubio], where he asked this, very directly, forthright, “what is wrong with dialogue? You engage even your adversaries in dialogue. Why should you be terrified about it?” But that is the way it is. The discourses in the U.S. are going on.

We don’t know much about the discourses in Russia. I don’t think it will be coming out into the open, as assertive in the way that it is being asserted in the European capitals and in the United States. There are hardliners there, also. But I think the Russians are more in control of the situation. And if Trump persists with this trajectory, I think there is a strong likelihood that it can gather momentum. Let us see how far the normalization of diplomatic relations go. The resumption of activities of the embassies, which is very important, because a sustained conversation, dialogue, is only possible if the embassies are functioning full throttle. It’s not simply a matter of consular services and so on. It’s a matter of vital importance at this time that both countries are able to optimally perform on the diplomatic track.

Billington: Do you have an opinion on the Russian Ambassador who has been appointed?

Bhadrakumar: The Russians, I think, have chosen a thoroughbred professional, with very deep experience in handling North America, North American matters [Ambassador Alexander Darchiev]. They proposed the name quite a bit earlier, about a couple of months back, and they were waiting for the agreement from the American side. And when the representatives met in Istanbul, the officials of the two sides last week, the agreement was formally conveyed to the Russian side. He’s a very solid professional diplomat, and is in a position to roll up his sleeves and work from day one, once he arrives there. And I can understand that they have a lot of work to do, because they were denied any opportunity to communicate with the American public, at the people-to-people level. And that is very important, because a nonsensical narrative is there in America. All kinds of things. It’s almost like when George Orwell wrote about matters, that he could have been referring to a situation like in the Western world today. A kind of contrarian view is blocked—it’s absolutely censorship—even American writers and thinkers, their point of view is not coming through. And a lot of people were actually writing to me and asking me whether I could communicate to them some Russian commentaries. Even the Russian point of view was not available to the American public. So reaching out to the American public will be a top priority for the new Ambassador. I’m sure about that.

Billington: Let me ask you about the opposition to this process. I was quite impressed by the fact that you referred to both Obama and Joe Biden, you used the phrase that they were guilty of “wanton acts of motiveless, malignity and hubris.” Now, that’s quite a phrase. But what I’m interested in, is to what extent you think there is a British hand behind those policies, and in general, those of the so-called “Deep State.”

Bhadrakumar: Oh, there’s no doubt about it. It’s not to what extent—it’s an all-pervasive influence. The British influence on American policy—and often I think from the American side, they were led to believe—and Britain has the skill to get the Americans to believe—that it is their own policy! But it is scripted and it is thought through first in London and handed over. It’s almost like leading from the rear. This has been a consistent characteristic of British diplomacy. For Britain, the entire stature that it has in the world depends on its indispensability for the American policies and American foreign policy strategy. And therefore, you can see the centrality of it in the British side of things. America is a global power. There are many countries which are willing to work with it. But in the case of Britain, it’s not like that. It’s an obsessive thought. And this was very evident in the last week—the panic that is there. It’s going to be a very major negative factor in the coming weeks and months because the British intelligence has a stranglehold on the regime in Kyiv. And now France also joined there. I saw a commentary by CNN earlier today discussing the possibility of the ouster of Zelenskyy. We are getting into very sensitive issues now, and British intelligence is doing a lot of havoc. Most of these acts of terrorism on Russian soil were actually planned by British intelligence. And the Russians knew that also—the missile attacks, targets inside Russia, assassination plots, such other things. Since yesterday, there has been talk that Ukrainian intelligence might have been involved in the second failed assassination attempt on President Trump, candidate Trump, during the campaign. This is something which was articulated by top senior Ukrainian politicians even at that time, that this is all a doing of these people. But who trained the Ukrainian intelligence? Ukrainian intelligence is completely in the hands of MI6, and, therefore, Britain’s influence is not at all a positive factor in the situation today. It’s one of the single biggest negative factors, Britain’s capacity to be a spoiler.

Billington: We met Mr. Starmer’s visit to Washington this past week with a major flier, a four-page piece which basically called for an end to the “Special Relationship” between the U.S. and the U.K. It reviewed the several hundred years-long role of the British in undermining the efforts of the American Founding Fathers, and then the intervention into the War of 1812, as well as in the Civil War, trying to disrupt and destroy the United States as a sovereign nation, and then trying to subvert it, when they failed to do it militarily. And the subversion is what you’ve just described. It’s basically their ability to—I like the way you put it, to convince Americans that these policies are their own, when they actually come directly from British Intelligence. So, of course, Mr. Starmer went back, acting as if it was a successful trip. But I think it was a failed trip. And then he embraced Zelenskyy and sponsored this meeting at 10 Downing Street, which also failed to achieve anything significant, especially since Europe itself is now crumbling economically and falling apart in terms of any kind of unity within the EU or within NATO even for that matter. So where do you see Europe going at this point?

Bhadrakumar: Even Britain’s capacity to fill in if the United States drifts away, doesn’t have a role any longer in the Ukraine war, as it has had during the Biden Presidency. Britain has no capacity to fill in. It has a standing army of around 60,000 soldiers. I read somewhere recently that its entire inventory of battle tanks works out to a mighty total of 25 tanks. So what kind of peacekeeping role can it perform in Ukraine? Within a week they will become victims of the meatgrinder. It has been a war of attrition. I don’t think that Europe can play a significant role, except if it realizes the wrong trajectory that it took in 2022, and played a happily subaltern role. Whatever Biden wanted, they did, and they have paid a very heavy price as a result of it. Germany is the biggest example. As I told you, I have lived in Russia, and have seen the kind of relationship that Germany had with Russia. Very frankly, Putin was discussing Germany as the next superpower. And where is it today? Putin has stated publicly. There were some thousands of German companies that were operating there, and Germany’s export industry was very heavily dependent on the energy supplies from Russia. Putin once disclosed that the energy, the gas supplies, were given at subsidized prices to Germany.

The Russians knew that it was a subsidized price, and the Germans bought a lot of it and sold it in the European market at marked up prices. And the Russians knew that also! So you see such a close relationship was there.

Now, the entire production relations in the German economy is totally derelict. The export industry is not going to be competitive with the kind of prices they have to pay for importing gas and oil from outside. So I do not think that the new government that is coming into power in Germany after the recent elections to the Bundestag—I have lived in Germany. I know the potency of the constituency which rooted for the transatlantic relationship. But, today, the new Chancellor-designate, if he makes it as a CDU leader, he has spoken against the United States and he has spoken about a future for Europe that does not count on solidarity with the U.S., that does not count on support from the U.S. and so on.

But I don’t think this is the final word, because Germany is in very serious trouble. From that high pedestal where it was four years, five years back, as more than half a superpower already. The economy is in recession, very deep recession.

I saw the Financial Times had a report three days, four days back, that already there is a talk about an American role in repairing the Nord Stream pipeline. I don’t know if you have heard about it or not—the pipeline which Biden had destroyed. If that comes, then it’s a very interesting proposition. Russia has abundant supplies and massive quantities of gas and oil can flow from there again. An American company managing that transaction on the ground, and the German economy again reviving, with plentiful gas supplies from Russia. So I don’t think Germany is going to be comfortable with the kind of trajectory that Britain and France are promoting. Italy is also, from what I see from odd statements here and there, one can always discern there that Italy is also very uncomfortable with this. What are the other countries which can play a role in replacing the United States, to mentor Zelenskyy and his people there? So I don’t think the Europeans are on the right track, I think they are on a very wrong track. And if you see the known unknown, there is also a factor there—that is, that a lot of it is a power struggle. There has been a power struggle in Kyiv. And if and when this comes out—people were holding back Zelenskyy’s rival camp, you know, holding back because they were nervous that any kind of effort to replace him would not have support from the United States.

But now, if the United States just cuts him loose and goes its own way, and says, “you manage,” then those forces will come up. And I don’t think the British intelligence can control that kind of a situation, because Russia has—I’ve lived in that country, I’ve traveled in Ukraine, and Russia knows that country like the back of its hand. Russia has its eyes and ears open there, even while the war is going on. If changes of that kind do take place, and I can only hope—I have written that also—that it doesn’t take a violent turn. But if that kind of a change takes place, then how does Europe address the situation, an emergency situation like that?

Whereas I think that both Putin and Trump are comfortably placed. They can build up the bilateral relationship between Russia and the United States. And I think Trump’s line, his political line, is a very smart one. It’s based on smart thinking, that there is nothing to lose and everything to gain. So it’s a matter of sitting out, and that at some point some other side will give way. This is the way I see it.

Billington: Let me go back to the U.S. You said in another one of your reports that I read that it was, in your words, that “it’s immaterial that the Trump administration is packed with pro-Israel figures and hardliners on China, for it is Trump that will be calling the shots.” What is your basis for that judgment?

Bhadrakumar: I’ll tell you. I never believed in this “Russia collusion” thesis, hypothesis, during Trump’s first term. I don’t know, Mike, whether you have seen a paper which I have in my collection, a one-page advertisement, a full-page advertisement in the New York Times, a paid advertisement by a young man in his 30s by the name of Donald Trump. I don’t know if you’ve seen it. Dated 1980 or ’81, when President Reagan was elected. You know what he had written there? We both have passed through that stage in life. And I’m sure you’ll agree with me that at that time, when you were in your mid-30s, you know what you’re talking about, in your adulthood. Now, he has written there, strongly arguing, that this kind of a collision course with the Soviet Union is unwarranted, that Russia is not an enemy country, and peaceful coexistence is possible, and arms control is a necessity. It’s an imperative need, arms control. And he offered his own services. This young, obscure businessman from New York offered his own services to be an envoy, a presidential envoy, to work on this. I think you know, the Democrats have done a great injustice by caricaturing this man. He’s a man of convictions. I was stunned when I read it, that he could have written this when he was in his 30s, you know, mid-30s.

And what he is saying today, it occurs to me, are almost exactly the same thing. No change in that. I can only conclude as an outsider who doesn’t have an emotional reaction towards him, that he is a rational thinker, and also that what he is saying is based on convictions. Putin said the other day that Trump is a “very transparent person.” Putin said it, and Putin said that it’s very difficult to be like that. Putin said it, but that’s what it is. So this camp of liberals, globalists, the neocons in the American setup, who provided the political cover for the Deep State, they have done a great injustice to the political discourses in the U.S. And they were singularly responsible for creating all these kinds of things—Ukraine, the expansion of NATO, starting from that time, from Bill Clinton’s time. All these are legacies of those people, that camp, and now they are hell-bent, despite the mandate—a powerful mandate that a person has got—and he didn’t rig the election. He has a genuine mandate and a very strong mandate. And nonetheless, they are not giving up. They are trying to undermine it. What is it?

Billington: What’s your view of Putin in light of what you’ve said about Trump and Putin?

Bhadrakumar: What I tell you may surprise you, Mike. Putin in my assessment was a “Westernist” in the sense, that someone who believed that Russia’s interests are best served by having a very strong relationship with the Western world and a mutually beneficial relationship with the Western world, but with certain guardrails. Putin’s problem is also this, that Putin is a trained professional intelligence officer. He has said openly that he saw the evidence that the United States helped the insurgents in Chechnya. He leveled this allegation publicly, and the Americans failed to respond. He volunteered even that he could produce good evidence to show that there was direct involvement by American intelligence in the war in Chechnya. Despite that, he was willing to work for a stable, predictable, mutually beneficial relationship, because he was convinced that it is important for Russia’s own development, in terms of technology, in terms of trade, in terms of the standard of living of the Russian people, all that taken into account. So if he is replaced, it is going to be a tremendous loss of opportunity, actually, for the United States. While he is there, therefore, what I am recommending is that the Trump administration should make the fullest use of it, this period, and to go ahead, because you have an interlocutor in Moscow, a very powerful interlocutor in Moscow who can get almost any kind of decision taken there. He is not a dictatorial man. There is a collegial spirit in the Kremlin, and they are all people who are known to him, who formed the National Security Council—the present day Politburo. He can carry them along. Therefore, this period should not be wasted, because, you may not have a person of this kind of stature, experience, who has handled so many presidents across the Atlantic, and, who is innately, intrinsically open to having a relationship with the West. I think that his assignment in Germany was a very formative experience for him. He is a fluent German speaker, so all this could be working to the advantage of Trump.

It will be somewhat audacious on my part to say this, but I have a feeling that Trump means what he says, that Putin can be an interlocutor for him. He believes in it, that there can be a partnership possible.

Billington: Russia and India have had a long, very close relationship, maybe with some troubles here and there. But in both cases, relations between India and China, and between Russia and China, are extremely important in the current volatile situation that the world is in. What is your view about this three-way relationship between Russia, China and India, the three key countries in this new BRICS alliance and the leadership of the Global South?

Bhadrakumar: The troubled relationship with China is working to the disadvantage of India, especially in the present day times, because China is a huge reality, geopolitical reality, and it’s an immediate neighbor. Not having a conversation with China—the kind of line that India adopted in the most recent years, I think, was a very flawed policy. My personal opinion about it is that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, India could have taken a route like what Yeltsin took vis-à-vis China: China-Russia reconciliation. Russian Federation reconciliation came after China began to know that Russia has strategic autonomy. If India also had behaved that way—the U.S.-India relationship has been a very big handicap for India. There’s a contradiction there. The relationship with the United States is extremely consequential for India. And as far as the Indian elite is concerned, this is an indispensable relationship for India, and therefore in the post-Cold War era, right from the 1990s, India pursued a policy which was almost, one can say, U.S. centric. But one template of it was that the United States gave an impression to India, and sections of Indian opinion also came to believe that the United States is looking at India as a counterweight to China.

I don’t think the United States had any illusions about India’s weaknesses, and that India could never be a counterweight to China, because there’s such a disparity in the comprehensive national power of the two countries. But a section of the Indian elite believed that. Then, of course, the United States was an interested party, to kind of invidiously fuel the China-India tensions, mutual suspicions and so on. This became a very negative factor in China-India relations, because for China, any kind of tendency on the part of the Indians to align with the United States—though, of course, China has a very good awareness that in the final analysis, India will follow an independent foreign policy. And India cannot in any way be regarded as an ally of the United States working against China. Chinese commentators openly write about it, but they had their own anxieties and concerns as the U.S.-Indian relationship began to gather momentum. It’s a very strong relationship. There is a bipartisan consensus in the United States.

India is one of the few countries, perhaps, which can make a very smooth transition from the Biden Presidency to the Trump Presidency, and without any kind of hiccups. Even close allies of the United States, as we have seen in Europe or Japan or Australia, have problems in coming to terms with the Trump Presidency, but we don’t have anything of that kind in India.

So you see, India is very well placed that way. But this has been a negative factor. But now, having said that, let me also add a caveat here, that I think that the Trump Presidency will be good for India, because Trump has no reason, in fact, to act as a spoiler in the India-Russia relationship, which is very vital for India. Biden tried it, but that is not a worry that India has anymore. And similarly, Trump also, I don’t think he will work to fuel the tensions between India and China. Not openly, but even in a quiet way. I don’t think he will do that. So India, speaking that way for the first time, is in a position to pursue its relationship with Russia. And if the Russian-American relations improve, and there is going to be content in the relationship, especially on the economic side and so on, India may even try to get a share of it, may like to join that, because here the Indian’s focus is ultimately in terms of access to technology, trade, and the issues of development. There you see the predicament, which is this, that India doesn’t have a strong manufacturing industry. India’s growth is primarily in terms of the services sector. Infrastructure is developing. Infrastructure development is picking up momentum, but it’s a long way to go. So in these areas, United States cannot help India. It is the Chinese experience which will be relevant for India. I’ve been strongly advocating that no matter the differences with China, India must tap into China’s rise and create synergy for India’s development.

The border problem has to be set aside, Mike, what is often not understood is that this is not a territorial dispute between India and China. Why is it intractable? It is intractable because this is about the creation of a border where no border existed, either on paper or in political reality! So there are vast vacant spaces in the Himalayas, where no one is in a position to claim that this has been part of India. So both sides are having their own claims, and it’s a question of agreeing to create a border.

You can imagine how difficult it is. And as now the countries have picked up momentum as regional powers, national prestige always comes into play, public opinion comes into play. So it’s going to be very difficult. India has to have a leadership which understands this, that the border dispute is not going to be settled easily, and it may take a long time. But meanwhile, mutual confidence and, in terms of India’s self-interest, it is useful to have a strong relationship with China.

One more point I need to mention is this, that in the final analysis, the fact remains that there are common interests for India and China as rising powers in today’s international order. They both are staking claim to have a voice at the decision making level in the international financial institutions, for example. They have a common interest in that. So they are both ambitious about their role in the coming decades, well into the 21st century. The Chinese commentary is often right about this, that if we work together, it has a multiplier effect, and that can be a game changer for both. But if you do not work together, then both are losing.

Billington: I’d like to ask you to address the situation in the Middle East, but I’d like to approach it through Iran. I think you were Ambassador in Iran, or you worked in Iran.

Bhadrakumar: Well, Yes, I have. I have a long experience in Iran, right from the time of the Islamic Revolution. Yes, I mentioned to you my postings at headquarters, I handled only Iran-Pakistan-Afghanistan. I had no other charge. It’s a very important division in the Indian Foreign Ministry. All very key relationships.

Billington: But I think you’ve mentioned in other writings that you’re confident that Trump will not be drawn into Netanyahu’s effort to have a U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. What do you think about Iran’s role today, not just in the Middle East, but their role internationally?

Bhadrakumar: Iran is on the cusp of change. Although there are, I know, people in the U.S. who understand this, but the old stereotyped notions are still dominating in the U.S. I went to Iran as an observer during the 2024 presidential election. I met people whom I have known from earlier times —for a long time, I interacted with them and talked with them, and I came away distinctly with an impression that Iran is going to change, and since then there is much evidence pointing in that direction. The problem here is that, just as we spoke about Britain, a similar kind of a pernicious influence is there from Israel. Israel will not allow a kind of normalization, which would have been useful for both the United States and Iran. But in my opinion, there again, we could see some interesting changes. The bottom line there is, I think, Trump is genuinely averse to wars, especially getting involved in wars, deploying the United States forces in a war in an outside country to defend another country’s interests. So if that holds good through this next four year period, what is the way that it can develop if there is no war? Naturally, the United States will not decouple from Israel. Israel is hugely influential in the United States in terms of media, Congress, the political elite, think tanks and so on. So that will not change, the so-called Israel lobby—that relationship will continue. But, I have a feeling that at some point, if it has not already taken place during Netanyahu’s visit to the U.S., I think Trump will convey to him, someone will get them to understand that if they embark on something of an adventurous policy towards Iran, in terms of a conflict, then don’t count on him to step in and fight for Israel, fight Iran, for its interests. You see, a thing which is difficult for the Americans to understand is also this, that I have no doubt in my mind that Iranians are not interested in a nuclear weapon. And however much they try to say this, what option has been left to them in terms of when it comes to their enrichment? The United States pulled out of the JCPOA. Iran had fulfilled its obligations fully. Nonetheless, the United States did not deliver. Then it tore up the agreement and said that it will go for a “maximum pressure” policy. Sanctions remained. None of the sanctions were lifted.

So what is it that one could expect the Iranians to do? They went back to the drawing board and their enrichment continued. And they have now come up to a point that they are a threshold state. Now, still, I don’t think that they will go for—and it’s not a question of thinking. I know the Iranian mind on this. They do not think that nuclear weapons gives them any additional deterrent capability. So they have developed their deterrent capability in other directions. We both can agree that that capability is very credible today, in terms of their missile capabilities and so on. A war means it will be to the detriment of Israel, which is a much smaller country ultimately. And unless the United States came into it, it’s a much smaller country. And I think Israel will be completely destroyed if there is a confrontation, military confrontation. And I feel that Netanyahu is also ultimately a realist, and he should be knowing this. But the rest is a matter of rhetoric and grandstanding that is straining at the leash to go for a war and so on. But I don’t think it will happen because he knows it. He knows that Iran’s capabilities are today at such a level that there will be no winners in such a war, and Israel will be destroyed in the process.

Besides, I think that Trump definitely would have conveyed this to Netanyahu, if not directly then through others. Witkoff was there two or three times, he would have conveyed that: “Look, do not do anything.” And much of Trump’s own grandstanding with regard to the “Riviera of the Middle East” and so on in Gaza, I think it’s a matter of publicly posturing that the American backing for Israel is very solid. But that has its limitations. That cannot be logically taken to mean that the United States will align with Israel to fight a war against Iran. My understanding, after conversing with very influential people in Tehran during my last visit in June, is this: that they also do not think that there is going to be a war between the United States and Iran. Of course, the Iranians were all along contemptuous about the Israeli threats to attack because they know that Israel doesn’t have that capability without the United States. When you add up these tendencies, which are there for us to see, if you rationally look at the situation without Pride and Prejudice, then what is the result that you get out of it? That Iran can make an interlocutor for the United States.

And in the present situation, a new factor has also come in there, that the old American strategy of creating an anti-Iran front in that region, with Israeli participation in it, to isolate Iran, that is not going to work. You know, the Iran-Saudi rapprochement brokered by China has brought about a sea change in the regional climate, so much so that, it is doubtful if any of these countries would want to be seen as siding with Israel or the United States in the event of a war with Iran.

The third thing is this, that there is a Saudi factor. Saudi Arabia is also undergoing profound changes. And we must see that. It continues to be an important ally of the United States. That is because it is playing its diplomatic cards very carefully. But it has diversified its relationships, and it has a very strong relationship today with Russia. It began with the creation of this brilliant idea of OPEC-Plus, where they have aligned to influence the world market conditions, oil market conditions. And with China, they have a strong relationship again.

So you see Saudi Arabia, today, is a very different Saudi Arabia. The most important thing about the Saudi approach to life now in regional politics is this: that the traditional attitude of using the militant Islamist jihadi forces as a geopolitical tool, they have ended that, they are not in that business anymore. Now, this is a sea change. This has brought about a sea change in the situation in the Middle East. And this young man, the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is genuinely a modernizer. I know there’s a lot of demonizing going on about him in the U.S., in the Biden period. But I think that he is a modernizer. And he is, like the Iranians actually, what is happening, that they are now moving in the same direction, giving primacy to economic growth and development. Iran also has a serious problem, an economic crisis. So they want to move also in the direction of greater trade, greater regional cooperation and so on. So what does it mean? This means that there are no takers in that region, if you want to pursue an inimical strategy towards Iran, be it the United States or Israel. If they want to do that, they are on their own.

This was not at all the case in all these decades that we have passed through. So all this creates a very favorable setting. But let’s see, I have a feeling that there will be an engagement between Trump with Iran at some point, sooner rather than later. He’s only been there for a little more than a month. But this can happen. Maybe this can happen. That will be a very historic development in the Middle East situation.

You see, ultimately, your people do not understand that this is a self-made man, Trump. I am looking at it as an outsider. I’ve never met him nor have I ever talked to him or anything like that. But he is a self-made man, and such people, self-made men, are hugely ambitious. When they have made it big, they become hugely ambitious about their own legacy. This is particularly an American strain. He will be looking at these issues as legacy issues. Russia, Iran and so on. Now you may laugh at it. I can already see a smile on your face. But you know, the fact of the matter is that what he is doing is nothing really short of a revolution. Like Vladimir Lenin said, you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.

Billington: We’ve reached our one hour. But if you don’t mind I’d like to ask you one further issue? And that is our Oasis Plan. I don’t know if you’ve looked at this, but this is a plan that Lyndon LaRouche authored way back in the 1970s, which was based on the idea that the real problem in the Middle East, that if there was going to be peace, there had to be a concrete development policy which would address the water crisis, as well as the energy and transportation and basic infrastructure. The Oasis Plan is a very ambitious idea of building canals, of building nuclear desalination in order to create huge quantities of fresh water from seawater, and other kinds of infrastructure development, not just for Gaza, but for the whole region, extending out into Iraq and Iran and so forth. I’m wondering what your view of that is? We’re trying to intersect this policy debate now, as powerfully as we can, into the discussions that are taking place, because of the Gaza crisis.

Bhadrakumar: I think Trump would be interested in this. Logically, Trump would be interested in this. The United States has a handicap. Why is it said that its influence is steadily draining, is losing its capacity in the region? It’s a paradox, but Iran is actually America’s natural ally in that region. The Iranian elite is, again, distinctly pro-Western, and that country is performing today much below its optimal level. It has a huge population, massive land mass and powerful agriculture, a well-developed agriculture base. If only it is allowed to bring out its LNG and gas to the world market, it has a huge reserve. So you see it can be of use and all these things become possible. But so long as that doesn’t happen—how do you realize these dreams?—they will remain on paper. Because I don’t think any country there has got the kind of intellectual resources, absorption capacity for technology, and the national will and purpose in this way that Iran has. Trump will certainly be attracted towards this if an engagement takes place. I strongly suggest that you should promote an engagement, a constructive engagement between the United States and Iran. And this would be in some ways, I tell you, this would be even, I would say, as significant as the normalization of the Russian-American relationship. It will be in America’s interests.

Billington: Very interesting. And thank you very much. I appreciate your taking the time. Your views on these things are very stimulating and insightful, and I think it will lead to further discussion, within our organization and with our associates around the world. I thank you. Do you have any final words you’d like to say?

Bhadrakumar: Mike, I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. I have a sneaking suspicion that we are probably on the same page, in the sense that you know you are. I didn’t expect that you would be so receptive to these thoughts, which I projected. So what does it mean? It means that there are thoughtful people in the U.S., who understand these things. And I think, therefore, you should use your influence to work on some of these areas. And the Trump Presidency, take it as a golden opportunity. And do not be misled by your own people there, your own think tanks and media, mainstream media and so on. He’s opened a gateway, a pathway, through which, if the country can travel, it will be transformed phenomenally. I had never thought that this slogan of Make America Great Again, that it is anything but a pipe dream. But now I am beginning to feel that if he proceeds—I saw this morning, for example, the press conference by Trump announcing the $100 billion investment to make chips in Arizona from Taiwan. How often did you see these kinds of things during the Biden Presidency? So he is working overtime and he has a hugely ambitious agenda. Please do not handicap him by creating the kind of digressions and distractions, and so on, as it happened during his first Presidency. This is the essence of democracy, that when someone has earned a legitimate mandate from the people—and what a mandate it is, such a strong mandate from the people, the American people—he got. Then he should be allowed to govern because the people are going to get an opportunity after four years to go on the same path, or take some other path, which is what democracy is about. A peaceful transfer of power is no longer possible in your country. I find it extremely frustrating.

Billington: It’s like what many people are now saying about Europe, I think it was Vance who said the problem in Europe is not Russia or China—it’s that they no longer believe in the voice of their own people, that there’s no democracy anymore. And he pointed to Romania and the AfD.

Bhadrakumar: And I’m telling you, this is the problem in Europe—you hit the nail on the head. And this is also the problem in the United States. You see, this has to be like these people who are systematically undermining, decrying Trump. They should understand that to behave like adults and let the process of governance continue, discuss a policy but in objective terms, but leave it at that. Everything is not about winning elections. So now you see the plate is like this, that unless he is humbled and he is destroyed, the other side cannot hope to have a revival. It’s a zero sum mentality.

Billington: Yes, exactly. The win-win idea, the idea of mutual collaboration and the respect of the other, from the Peace of Westphalia, is totally missing in this “unipolar” world mentality.

Bhadrakumar: Let me thank you. And I wish you all success in your endeavors. You know, you have had a very eventful life and you aspired for things which were not even humanly possible. So you had such dreams in your life. I admire you, and therefore I feel greatly privileged that you spent this one hour with me alone in a conversation.

Billington: Yes. Thank you very much. [mob]

March 6—Appearing before the British House of Commons March 3, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer boasted how British diplomacy, with the help their pet poodle, French President Emmanual Macron, had helped keep the Atlantic alliance firmly behind NATO’s sock-puppet dictator of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his losing war against the “Russian hordes” of President Vladimir Putin. He bragged at how he had walked Zelenskyy back from the brink, after his arrogant and petulant behavior had gotten him thrown out of the White House Feb. 28 and sent him limping and beaten across the ocean to London, where Starmer had assembled European leaders to embrace him and continue their support for his losing war.

Starmer told the Commons that he and French President Macron had calmed the waters, especially calming the President Donald Trump down, who he assured all who would listen, was not going to retaliate against Zelenskyy’s for his behavior and allow him to contiue fighting the Russians with American arms. But the Labour Lord had totally misread the President. Trump was not going to be dictated to by a man “who has no cards to play” and was not going to tolerate Zelenskyy or anyone else, including Starmer, “gambling with World War III.”

No sooner had Starmer given his assurances that Trump would not act, then the President kicked him in his “Special Relationship” and announced that the U.S. had suspended all military aid to the Ukraine, and Trump’s team let it be known that the suspension would continue until Zelenskyy shows that he is ready to sit down with Putin, under Trump’s supervision and mediation, and work out first, a total halt to the fighting, and then a permanent end to the war, in a peace deal that the U.S. would guarantee and Europe would help supervise. (Then, Trump doubled down on this and ended all intelligence sharing with Ukraine, a move which limits its use of spohisticated weapons systems andcuts into the effectiveness of its war effort. Zelensky called the move "petty.")

The “Special Relationship,” the term used to describe the cooperation between the United States and the UK since the end of World War II on shared policy objectives and covert operations to secure those objectives, died Feb. 12, when Trump and Putin talked over a secure internet connection and discussed how they would jointly work out a plan to end the fighting in the Ukraine, without interference from NATO or the European powers, including the UK and their sock-puppet dictator in Ukraine. Zelenskyy would be brought to the table when conditions were ripe, but he would dictate nothing. The Brits were not informed in advance about this meeting, representing a total break in the unstated protocols of the special relationship.

The events of the last days reinforce the fact that the Special Relationship is a dead letter. “Trump never told Starmer that he was cutting Zelenskyy’s arms shipments,” said a source. “Sleepy Joe Biden and his crew, including NATO whore Vice President Kamala Harris, would have consulted and maybe would have been talked out of doing anything. That’s over. London and the British Empire is not a superpower like China, Russia, or the United States.

Trump intends to build a new world order of peace and prosperity based on a guarantee of peace from the nuclear superpowers, with minor powers having policy say on strategic matters, not ‘gambling with World War III’ in some new version of the RAND-created Risk board game. If the former is how Trump sees the world, then the Brits are going to pivot toward Europe, which they will not dominate as in the “good old days” of Empires, but they will orchestrate, as they were doing this weekend.”

The Brits and Macron, who had helped orchestrate the White House blowup by giving Zelenskyy some rotten advice that said he could challenge Trump, now told their sock-puppet that he needed to show contrition and told him to say he was ready for negotiations with Putin. They also got him to agree to a strange ceasefire—in the air and on the sea, but not on land where most of the killing and dying is taking place, an idea backed by the Brits and Europeans.

In his speech to a Joint Session of Congress, broadcast to the American people March 4, Trump read from a letter to him from Zelenskyy that appeared identical to an X post that said all the things the Brits and the French were telling him to say. Trump reiterated his commitment to end this war which was provoked by NATO, and the Brits and their allies in the Biden Administration, which "should never have happened," as her repeatedly says, but the President did not say he would renew the flow of American arms to Ukraine. Instead, he said that America had already given plenty, that this was Europe’s war, and that from now on they had to pay for it.

“Trump is changing the world and moving it out of the control institutions like NATO and the British Empire,” said the source. “He does not precisely know where it is going to wind up. But in his mind, it is never going to go back. Trump is committed to set up what some people call a new strategic architecture, one that does not play games of chicken risking nuclear war. He wants peace, and I have been told he has promised the ailing Pope Francis that there will be a ceasefire in Ukraine by Easter Sunday (April 20)—that’s what he wants, and he doesn’t give a damn what London or Paris wants.”

 March 4—With the Butcher of Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, openly declaring his desire to renew his bloodletting slaughter in Gaza, sources say that the Trump administration has demanded that he delay anti-Palestinian actions for several days to allow Special Envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, a chance to renew the ceasefire and launch serious negotiations on Phase II of the deal, which should have been already well underway had it not be for Bibi’s sabotage. 

Witkoff, who has not been able to devote his full attention to Southwest Asia, as he has been working for Trump to secure a ceasefire in Ukraine, had come up with the framework of a plan, which was submitted to both Hamas and Israel. It calls upon Hamas to release half the remaining live and dead hostages at its start, and the rest when a plan for Phase II of the deal and beyond is hammered out by negotiation. 

Bibi, realizing that the wording in the framework plan was too unspecific to be accepted by Hamas, immediately announced that Israel would accept it. Hamas, as most observers thought, did reject the announced framework as too vague and not giving Hamas enough in exchange for the loss of their main bargaining chip—the remaining hostages. 

While the media has played up Hamas’ rejection, and Bibi’s response of cutting off all humanitarian aid shipments to Gaza that were a stipulated part of the agreement signed by Hamas and Israel in December—an agreement brokered by Witkoff—the reality is that it was Israel that immediately violated its terms when Phase I ended March 1, by announcing its refusal to withdraw its forces from the Philadelphi Corridor, along the border between Gaza and Egypt, as mandated by the signed agreement.

"The headlines about the state of the negotiations on Sunday quoted Netanyahu's office: U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff presented a plan for extending the cease-fire that Israel accepted and Hamas rejected'," writes analyst Amos Harel in Haaretz March 3 "A more accurate headline would have been that Israel is violating the hostage deal. It isn't withdrawing from the Philadelphi corridor along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, it rescinded its commitment to end the fighting and it isn't willing to begin the deal's second phase."

Bibi has ordered the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), badly depleted in manpower and suffering from a collapse in morale after its bloody war Gaza, and emerging bloody affair on the West Bank, to prepare for a new “ferocious” offensive in Gaza were Hamas to continue in its rejection. “We intend to open the gates of hell,” said Bibi’s lunatic racist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who says he stayed in the government to make sure that the war with Hamas will restart and that they will be “exterminated.” 

“As insane and delusional as the Ukrainian leadership is,” said a source, “they cannot compare to this. Witkoff now has to plunge back into this sea of insanity and work out a deal, before the bloodshed begins again.” This and other sources report that he has already sent out feelers to Hamas through the Egyptian and Qatari negotiators, to see what would make them more comfortable. He has told them that they must be prepared to release all the hostages, in only one or two steps. That’s what his boss [Trump] wants. He believes that he can force Bibi to accept placing this in the context of an agreement by Israel to permanently end the war, even as the terms of what a post-war Gaza would look like are negotiated.

“So, Witkoff intends to force the Israelis to accept that declaration as well as a physical withdrawal of all IDF forces. But first, to get everyone back to the table, there would be an agreement to the two-stage hostage release deal. Witkoff has spoken to Trump and has his agreement to get tough with Bibi. Despite the statements that we [the U.S.] will let Bibi do what he thinks is necessary for Israel, Trump and Witkoff will demand that he make the return of the hostages his top priority. And this Bibi cannot do without risking the collapse of his government. The reality is that Trump does not give a damn about Bibi’s political future. Trump wants to end the war and the killing, and to give Israelis and Palestinians their lives back, without both being prisoner to the gods of war.” 

To make all this work, to move on to Phase II and III of the signed deal, Witkoff is going to have to deal with the future of Hamas. They cannot be allowed to rule Gaza under any circumstances. Sources say that Witkoff wants Hamas fighters to be given a chance to lay down their arms and leave Gaza. At the same time, some of its political people, if they leave Hamas and renounce violence could have a role to play in Gaza’s future. “Bibi says no to this,” said a source. “But he knows not all of Hamas agreed to the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel. Something needs to be worked out on this.” 

Witkoff may be counting on help coming from strange places. The Iranians provide the money to sustain Hamas (at least that portion of funds that were not given to them by Bibi, as a bulwark against the Palestinian Authority running Gaza); what if that spigot gets shut off? That could force the split desired with the armed wing going to other organizations, etc. Sources say that the matter has been brought up through backchannels both to the Iranians and their “friends”: the Russians.

Witkoff is expected to fly to Southwest Asia later this week—and he has every intention of getting the agreement back on track. It will not be easy.

Writes commentator Chain Levinson in Haaretz March 2: “Netanyahu is making huge efforts to sabotage any chance of pursuing the deal, to Finance Minister Smotrich’s satisfaction. The administration’s attention has shifted to Russia-Ukraine, and Netanyahu is doing quite well right now…. The only person who can do something about this is Steve Witkoff. The undiplomatic U.S. Special Envoy is preoccupied with Russia-Ukraine affairs, and the Middle East is eluding him. He keeps on postponing a visit here. Now he’s supposed to be coming toward the end of the week. If he doesn’t go into Netanyahu’s office, shove him against the wall and tell him, “Enough! as far as Netanyahu and Smotrich are concerned, there is no first stage, no second stage, and that’s that.” 

If Bibi, under pressure from Smotrich, moves to restart the war, he may SOON face an angry mob, led by the families of the hostages and the mothers of the IDF soldiers who were asked to participate in his orgy of killing, but also including much of Israel’s population.

Writes Yossi Verter in Haaretz Feb. 28: “The implementation of Stage 1 and the dramatic change it has brought in Israeli public opinion will soon collide with the coalition’s abuse of the victims and its efforts to tank the deal. The anger will erupt. The great majority of Israelis will not agree to leaving the remaining hostages in Gaza and resuming the war for political reasons. Many of them, certainly the hostages’ families, may escalate their fight in ways we haven’t yet seen.” 

Hundreds of Israelis took part in the funeral of Itzhak Elgarat, taken hostage by Hamas and whose body was returned to Israel last week. Elgarat's brother, Danny, a prominent figure in the hostage protests, said during the eulogy that the family did everything in its power to return him home alive: "We failed. We did not do enough. Netanyahu defeated us and you did not return from captivity. The enemy who caused your death is not who kidnapped you, but rather who abandoned you… You are laid to rest in a grave dug by the prime minister."

March 3—NATO’s sock puppet dictator of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, having been exposed by President Donald Trump as the ungrateful punk he is and literally thrown out of the White House Feb. 28, rushed March 2 to London and into the open arms of an adoring European mis-leadership, under firm direction of UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer. The British leader had assembled his fellow NATO members and others to offer support for extending NATO’s losing war against Russia in Ukraine using Ukrainian bodies, and to demand that they play a role in determining the shape of a peace plan, the control of which remains in the hands of Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, his partner in this effort.

Whatever else emerges in the days ahead, sources observed that the so-called “Special Relationship” between the United States and the United Kingdom, which has dominated post-World War II policy for what was once called the Western Alliance, is a dead letter. On most matters, with rare exception, the U.S. and the Brits shared intelligence and special operations and conspired to achieve a result in the interests of the Anglo-Americans. In that way NATO can be seen as the military arm of this alliance, which gave it broader breath, and worldwide power projection well beyond Europe.

The Brits have always prided themselves on their skill in manipulating their much larger and more powerful ally, while allowiing the Americans to take credit for carrying out what was, in fact, the British Empire’s policy, selling the world on the false idea the British Empire had faded away, as all Empires eventually do, while at the same time creating the myth of the rise of something that has never existed—the American Empire. Now, their pundits talk about the inevitable and current decline of the American Empire, with Donald Trump the symbol of its current boorish state. But behind these words, the Brits still thought themselves in control.

And then Feb. 12 happened, and it occurred without even an advance notice to London that it would: Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, spoke and declared themselves, and no one else, responsible for ending NATO’s war in Ukraine, which Putin had been provoked to launch by NATO and its puppet Zelenskyy.

Sources report that this is no token move; rather, it represents a rejection of the policies of the Special Relationship, and the NATO bloc, or more precisely it was a declaration that policy was not going to flow through the normal Atlanticist channels. Trump had chosen to make policy with his fellow superpower, and not work through the Brits, or NATO, or Europe. What’s more—Trump blamed the Brits, NATO, and Europe for a war he said, “should never have happened.” Trump expects the European countries to play a role in the peace—but only on terms determined by him and Putin. Europe would be consulted, but not as before.

Both French President Emmanual Macron and Starmer preceded Zelensky to the White House to see Trump, and both were told the same thing: You will play a role in the peace-keeping force, but I [Trump] will broker a peace deal for Ukraine with Putin, and I do not need your help or interference. Trump reportedly told Starmer that the UK, while an important nation, is a minor power, whose military is somewhat of a joke, and who has benefited from the world thinking that your policy is our policy. That is not really true, now, is it? the President asked. “You can spin this all you want,” said an intelligence source. “But Trump told this guy, the Special Relationship is over. Sic transit gloria mundi, baby.”

What this and other sources are saying is that Britain is making a pivot, away from the U.S. and toward Europe, and will seek to play that bloc, which it will orchestrate rather than dominate, against what it perceives is a dangerous collaboration between Trump’s USA and Putin’s Russia, and in the future, with China’s Xi Jinping.

Meanwhile, they will try to play on whatever sympathies they can find in Trump for the British way of life. That’s why they are pushing, at the invite of King Charles, for an unprecedented second state visit for a non-royal leader.

Sources report that the Brits and the French deliberately steered NATO’s sock puppet into his disaster in the White House. “Zelenskyy spoke with Macron and Starmer before his meeting on Friday,” said a source. “Macron told him that he should get a better deal, and Starmer led him to believe that Trump, who wanted to get the Ukrainian dictator to agree in principle to the idea of ceasefire, could and should be reasoned with on this matter. That was precisely the wrong advice, based on what they knew Trump was thinking. That Macron! He is a real snake. He, like Starmer, not only wanted to slow down the momentum toward a deal, but he wanted to blow up the rare earth/minerals deal since he has a French minister and some private companies working on a deal for France. Trump did not know this, but he knows it now.”

Right before the meeting with Trump, Zelenskyy was sent to a meeting of adoring Democratic Senators, led by Chris Murphy (D-Conn), who pumped him up to do battle for Ukraine and “the West,” against “Putin agent,” Trump. “So, Zelenskyy went into his meeting all jacked up, like he was a fairytale knight going into battle with a dragon.” said the source. “Now it is fairly well known that Zelenskyy is also a fan of the white powder [cocaine]. He might have had that up his nose as well. And the meeting took place with predictable results—if you knew the set-up.”

“Zelenskyy should not have gone to the White House,” the source indicated. “Both [Trump’s Special Envoy to the Ukraine Gen. Keith] Kellogg and [Special Envoy to the Middle East and to all trouble spots Steve] Witkoff advised,'Don’t go now. Wait until we are ready to discuss the ceasefire and guarantees. But he was pushed by Starmer, who said that Trump needs to be given a dose of reality, and also by the British agent that runs his Presidential office Andriy Yermak. And it doesn’t take much to get this guy to run to the limelight. What an ego this punk [Zelenskyy] has! So, this was all a set up to cut into the momentum for peace.

“And then Starmer had the meeting set up in London that would give Zelenskyy a hero’s welcome,” the source said. “Sure, they were officially saying “You need to work things out with Trump,” but they really told him, “Good job. You stood up to the thug-in-Chief.” And Starmer even had it worked out for Zelenskyy to go talk to that dumbo-eared moron, King Charles III who called the Ukrainian a man who history would say great things about. What we are witnessing is Zelenskyy being handed off from the Biden-NATO crowd to the Brits. He met with the King, while appearing to be wearing the same all black outfit that he wore for the Trump meeting, and which many people found disrespectful. Charles just smiled—and smiled some more.

“The word from London,” the source said, “is that the Brits and the French along with Z-man are working up the terms of a ceasefire, with guarantees, that they will present to Trump, to get them a seat at the table. Trump will embrace it—if Putin finds it acceptable. Trump does not intend to let anything break the momentum toward peace. " {The ceasefire they proposed is a half-ass thing that does not stop all the fighting, only the air attacks on Ukrainan targets; it is hard to take such a proposal seriously, and it is certainly not what Trump has in mind.)

It should also be noted that after the meeting with Trump, as he was heading to London, Zelenskyy did post a tweet on his X account praising Trump and America for their support for Ukraine and thanked them for standing with Ukraine. "He does not seem to get that Trump is more concerned about his calling Putin a liar and untrustworthy, as the President tries to put these two men in the same room to secure an end to NATO’s senseless slaughter," observed the source.. "Instead, Zelenskyy keeps talking about fighting on until victory, while also claiming he wants 'peace.'|”

Feb. 27—British geopolitical strategy to prevent peace with Russia at all costs depends on the demonization of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and roping the U.S. into backing the British intention of marching off to war against Russia. Both elements were present in a statement by U.K. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, issued Feb. 25 and in a speech to the House of Commons, in which he announced an accelerated plan to increase military spending to 3% of GDP while justifying it as necessary against that intractable enemy of Britain, Russia. Both statements were delivered two days before Starmer is set to fly off to Washington to meet with President Donald Trump today.

Topmost on Starmer’s agenda is to try to salvage the U.S.-U.K. special relationship, which has been at the heart of the unipolar world order since the demise of Franklin Roosevelt. Starmer is also desperate to make sure that real peace does not break out in Ukraine.

“Putin’s aggression does not stop in Ukraine,” said the Labour fool rpresenting the bloodiest empire in modern history. "Russian spy ships menace our waters. Russian planes enter our airspace. Russian cyber-attacks hit our NHS. And just seven years ago—there was a Russian chemical weapons attack, in broad daylight. On the streets of Salisbury. We can’t hide from this.

“I know people have felt the impact of this conflict through rising bills and prices,” Starmer went on. “But unless Ukraine is properly protected from Putin then Europe will only become more unstable—and that will hurt us even more. Furthermore, the great lesson of our history is that tyrants like Putin only respond to strength.”

As for what Britain will do about it, “We will keep our manifesto commitment to spend 2.5% of our GDP on defense,” Starmer said. “But in light of the grave threats we face, we will bring that target forward so we meet it in 2027. That is an increase of £13.4 billion year on year compared to where we are today. And we will go further…. We will also set a clear ambition for Defense spending to rise to 3% of GDP in the next Parliament.”

But it’s not just a military buildup. It’s also a jobs program. “We will make sure this investment maximizes British jobs, British growth, British skills and British innovation,” he said.

And initially, at least, the military buildup will be paid for by a reduction in British foreign aid from 0.5% of GDP to 0.3%.

Aside from repeating all of the foregoing in his Commons speech, Starmer also argued that the U.S. is key to British strategy. “We must reject any false choice between our allies, between one side of the Atlantic or the other,” he said. “That is against our history—country and party—because it is against our fundamental national interest. The U.S. is our most important bilateral alliance. It straddles everything from nuclear technology, to NATO, to Five Eyes, AUKUS and beyond.”

Therefore, when Starmer comes to Washington tomorrow to meet Trump, “I will be clear. I want this relationship to go from strength to strength.” 

Feb. 24—Why is it in our national security interest that President Donald Trump act now to curtail the “special relationship” that presently exists between British Imperial and Commonwealth intelligence services, and the United States military and military-intelligence agencies? This week’s visit Feb. 27 by British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to Washington, D.C., undertaken in the vain hope of re-enlisting America as the financial and logistical “backstop” for further fruitless European posturing in an already-lost war in Ukraine, is the proper time to pose to the American people this question: What exact benefit does the United States gain from its so-called “special relationship” with Great Britain? Put more positively, should a swift, solemn end be brought to the British-U.S. “special relationship,” in preparation for the upcoming celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States’ Declaration of Independence?

It is time—past time—to recommit the United States to the original purpose of its 1776–1783 American Revolution. That purpose was, as it was clearly re-stated by President Franklin Roosevelt during World War Two to an apoplectic Winston Churchill, to remove the foot of Portuguese, Dutch, Belgian, French, and British colonialism from the throat of people all over the world. Instead, the United States, founded on principles that were the opposite of those of the British empire, has, especially in the “unipolar era” from 1990 until now, been acting against the interests of the American people, and the American Revolution itself. It has been engaged in no-win wars and overthrowing governments—always in the name of democracy—but in reality, on behalf of an international financial elite, a trans-Atlantic “War Party,” a criminal syndicate operating under the code-name, “NATO.” Starmer visits Washington this week on behalf of that mission of war, and nothing else.

This is not to suggest that there are no sound, and even essential reasons for the U.S. to maintain open and extensive connections to many intelligence services worldwide, including those of Great Britain. But it is to state categorically, however, that the interests of the British Empire are not those of the United States Republic. The differences are clearly illustrated by this passage from the Feb. 20 editorial pages of London’s The Economist, “How Europe Must Respond as Trump and Putin Smash the Post- War Order.”

“Europe’s worst nightmare is bigger than Ukraine. Mr. Trump intends to rehabilitate Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, ditching a long-standing policy to isolate him. Without any obvious geopolitical benefit to America, he is angling to restore diplomatic relations. He may soon be feted at a glitzy summit.”

The Economist’s writers and their City of London sponsors know the real reason for the Feb. 12 Trump-Putin phone call, and it wasn’t Ukraine. Russia and the United States are the two most lethally-armed nations in human history, controlling fully 90% of the planet’s nuclear and thermonuclear weapons. These two “adversaries” have just reversed—barely reversed—a downward spiral into civilization-ending total warfare—atomic, biological, and chemical. The two-months, from late November 2024, through Jan. 20, 2025, was as or more dangerous than the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Many Americans fail to realize, or in some cases prefer not to know, how close the world came to World War Three during the late-November launching of long-range missiles by NATO, using its proxy, Ukraine, to attack the territory of pre-2014 Russia.

The subsequent U.S.-Russia meetings Feb. 18 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia of delegations led by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and American Secretary of State Marco Rubio, were the first serious talks between the world’s two thermonuclear giants in more than two years. When, before, had such a breakdown in diplomacy between Russia and the United States ever been the case, even at the height of the Cold War? Since 1945’s dropping of two atomic bombs, it has been self-evident that any breakdown in diplomacy between or among any nuclear weapons nations is suicidal. That breakdown will inevitably result in thermonuclear war by miscalculation or otherwise, at one point or another.

Do the lunatics of Europe wish that war? Whatever is in their minds, what is clear is that they want the United States in the forefront of such a war, to continue to foot the bill, in money, matériel, and if necessary, in personnel. Today’s inferior leadership of Europe’s shrunken-head nations, however, destroyed by the European Union’s failed globalist schemes, including their “green” policies for industry and agriculture over the past three decades-plus, is so decadent that they are incapable of waging the very war they blood-thirstily call for. Britain’s Starmer, France’s Macron, and the EU nations know they are, on the one hand, incapable of sustaining the present no-win-war of Ukraine against Russia without the United States. They are also so snidely condescending that they deeply resent even having to ask “the American deplorables” for assistance.

It is not only in the interest of the United States, but in the interest of humanity as a whole, that the Trump-Putin Feb. 12 initiative succeed, as it is beginning to do. There was no reason for Zelenskyy, for any other European leader or country, or any other nation whatsoever “to be at the table” in Riyadh. In October of 1962, though the world was involved, it was Kennedy-Khrushchev’s relationship that counted. Might the same financial and oligarchical forces that opposed what President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev did to stop World War III, be opposing the Trump-Putin normalization of relations today? Why would the prestigious magazine, The Economist, and City of London policy-formulators that use it to brief the bureaucracy of the Anglo-American intelligence establishment as to what to do next, be so apoplectic as to declare that Feb. 12 represents, as one columnist put it, “the end of days?”

The first sentences of The Economist article reveal a deep, and probably irreconcilable difference with the present Trump Administration on war, and stopping it: “The past week has been the bleakest in Europe since the fall of the Iron Curtain. Ukraine is being sold out, Russia is being rehabilitated, and, under Donald Trump, America can no longer be counted on to come to Europe’s aid in wartime.” Europe, the article seems to state, intends to, despite having neither the manufacturing capability, energy resources, weapons production or military personnel, “support Ukraine fighting and winning for democracy.” That means the United States has to be Ukraine’s guarantor—but the United States is going in the opposite direction. The British policy establishment, instead wants war. Why is war—which is no answer—their only answer?

The 'Great Game'

The continuation of NATO after 1991 was necessary to continue the British policy known as the “Great Game.” Most people—unlike Zbigniew Brzezinski, Henry Kissinger, or Tony Blinken—still find the concept of real war as a “game” to be alien, and even disgusting, even despite decades of video war games being used to desensitize younger generations to killing and warfare. But this is not the case with the "War Party.” They seem to derive an erotic satisfaction, as well as financial and geopolitical benefit from killing. In Oct. 2008, at a meeting in Bishkek, U.S. Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, Tatiana Gfoeller, found herself in a testy confrontation with the infamous Prince Andrew, when she protested against the idea that Great Game politics should be the template for policy in Central Asia:

“Prince Andrew then turned to regional politics. He stated baldly that ‘the United Kingdom, Western Europe (and by extension you Americans, too) were now back in the thick of playing the Great Game.’ More animated than ever, he stated cockily: ‘And this time we aim to win!’”

British figures like Sir Alfred Milner, Halford Mackinder, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, and earlier ones like Lord Palmerston and Benjamin Disraeli were 19th and early 20th century “master players” of the Great Game. They wanted to conquer what they referred to as “the Eurasian Heartland,” for world power. Russia must be disintegrated for that to become a reality.

But the Great Game is not just an idea from the past. The U.S. government’s Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), also known as the Helsinki Commission, held a live-streamed seminar June 23, 2022, called “Decolonizing Russia: A Moral and Strategic Imperative,” which advocated the piece-by-piece dismemberment of Russia, breaking it into ten (or more) regions.

Former American Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, in a speech delivered to London’s Chatham House on May 10, 1982, admitted:

“In my period in office, the British played a seminal part in certain American bilateral negotiations with the Soviet Union—indeed, they helped draft the key document. In my White House incarnation then, I kept the British Foreign Office better informed and more closely engaged than I did the American State Department—a practice which, with all affection for things British, I would not recommend be made permanent. But it was symptomatic....”

Kissinger was a willing part of the British Great Game.

The idea—the truth—that the United States involvement in wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, North-West Pakistan, and even into Africa (Somalia, Uganda, Niger), has all been in service, not of the American people, but of the Great Game, engineered by the neocon forces in the Republican and Democratic Parties, using Sept. 11 as a pretext, is very bitter. But that realization must catalyze a full cleanout and reorganization of our intelligence capabilities, starting with ending the special relationship with the British intelligence agencies. They have practiced a corrupt policy, and corrupted Americans into assisting them to do that which is against everything we fought the American Revolution for.

In December of 2018, during the first Trump Administration, Great Britain’s House of Lords issued a report, “UK Foreign Policy in a Shifting World Order.” In paragraphs 37–39, that report states:

“The U.S. Administration has taken a number of high profile unilateral foreign policy decisions that are contrary to the interests of the United Kingdom.... However, the difficulty the UK and its allies have faced in trying to influence the U.S. demonstrates the challenge of working with the administration. How damaging this will be to what has hitherto been the UK’s most important international relationship will depend on whether the current approach is an enduring trend. Should President Trump win a second term, or a similar Administration succeed him, the damage to UK-U.S. relations will be longer lasting; and the Government will need to place less reliance on reaching a common U.S.-UK approach to the main issues of the day than has often been the case in the past.”

So, how can the United States, moving to create peace around the world, afford to trust, or even to continue the “special relationship?” And what is it that the House of Lords actually fears, not only from the “out of control” Trump Administration, but the American people?

The Real American System

The American Revolution’s system of economy, designed by Revolutionary War officer Alexander Hamilton was an anti-colonial system, designed to replace slavery and subsistence agriculture with mining, manufacturing, and machine-powered agriculture. Hamilton’s was not the outlook of Britain’s Adam Smith, nor of the Royal Africa Company’s John Locke. Hamilton was a protégé of Benjamin Franklin’s American Revolutionary faction. Since those days of Hamilton’s American economic revolution, which consolidated our victory on the battlefield against the British Empire, it has been the failure to study his four Treasury reports, on Manufacturing, Public Credit, a National Bank, and the Constitutionality of the National Bank, and the work of those American System economists who followed, that has caused us great confusion.

Most Americans today, for example, do not believe what Hamilton and his best friend, Gouverneur Morris, the man who drafted the United States Constitution and authored its Preamble clause, knew—that an economy can be both just, as well as profitable, from the standpoint of real physical output.

Lyndon LaRouche’s Four Laws, involving re-regulating the banking system by returning to Glass-Steagall regulations; re-establishing the credit functions of a National Bank of the United States; issuing emergency federal public credit only for productive physical economic activity (such as high speed rail, water projects, etc.); and creating a science driver to transform the throughput of industry, by increasing what is called “energy flux-density,” are an efficient re-statement of Hamilton’s intent. (LaRouche’s Four Laws are perfect for catalyzing a discussion about how American principles of economic development, not British methods of imperial subjugation, could define a new American foreign policy that starts with economic development to end war, whether in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Libya, etc.)

Keir Starmer’s campaign to perpetuate war, should not only be rejected, along with the British-American “special relationship.” In its place, let us deliberate directly with the citizens of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, to end the drive to war. In her “Urgent Appeal by Citizens and Institutions from all over the world, including the U.S., to the (next) President of the United States!” issued in 2023, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute, wrote:

“Since Russia and the U.S. presently have 90% of all [the world’s] nuclear weapons directed against each other, which could destroy the world many times over, it is a question of urgent concern for every human being on Earth, that we must find a way out. The solution must be on a plane which overcomes geopolitics and takes the standpoint of the interest of the one humanity. We therefore express our hope that the President of the U.S. finds the greatness in herself or himself to adopt the viewpoint which was expressed by JFK in his historic American University speech.”

In honor of the first successful anti-colonial revolution in history, we, the people of the United States, declare: KEIR STARMER, GO HOME!!

The following two boxes accompany the above article:

Holes In a British ‘Nuclear Umbrella’

British elites are so war-mad, that some among them have even proposed a British or Anglo-French “nuclear umbrella” over Europe, to replace the American nuclear backstop that they now expect to lose. The Economist, the leading mouthpiece of the City of London, demanded in a recent issue that the UK and France “use their nuclear weapons to shield the continent” in the event that the U.S. under Trump makes a deal with Russia, and “abandons” Europe. Also, The Telegraph reported Feb. 22 on how the UK should develop its own arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons to save Europe from Russia’s war machine—the way that NATO nuclear weapons were positioned against massed Soviet tank formations during the Cold War!

One problem: Britain wouldn’t even have a nuclear arsenal without the U.S. Yes, the British do have some capabilities in their fleet of four Vanguard Class nuclear ballistic missile submarines, and in their nuclear weapons laboratory at Aldermaston, but even those depend on agreements signed with the U.S. The 1958 Mutual Defense Agreement provides for the sharing of nuclear warhead design information and technologies, while the 1962 Polaris Sales Agreement allows the UK to “rent” submarine-launched ballistic missiles from the U.S. for use in British submarines. According to publicly available information, the information exchange highly favors the UK, perhaps as much as 80-20, so, were the British to undertake the development of tactical nuclear warheads, technical data from the U.S. would likely be crucial.

‘Mr. President, What I Meant to Say Was....’

The present British Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary, and Ambassador to the United States have each made these statements about the President of the United States in the recent past. So, what should our “special relationship” to them be?

Peter Mandelson, Ambassador to the United States: “An American president who is little short of a white nationalist and racist.” (2019)

David Lammy, Foreign Secretary: “Trump is not only a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathizing sociopath. He is also a profound threat to the international order that has been the foundation of Western progress for so long.” (2018)

Keir Starmer, Prime Minister: “Donald Trump’s approach is to stoke division, to pitch one group against another, and that’s not leadership—it’s the opposite of what any country needs.” (2020)

Feb. 28—Several intelligence sources say that they believe that the security threat against President Donlad Trump is at the highest level ever, as the President takes more aggressive stances against the NATO war machine and seeks to end the wars in Southwest Asia and Ukraine.

These sources say that Trump does not really face a threat against his life from Iran or similar sources, and certainly not from President Vladimir Putin’s Russia or from President Xi Jinping’s China. Instead, they say that threat comes from NATO, and its assets inside the United States military-intelligence complex, which effectively runs an international assassination bureau, the which was responsible for the “hits” on President John F. Kennedy, his brother Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and other leaders over the last more than 75 years.

“Trump is now NATO’s ‘Public Enemy No. 1,’ working in collaboration with Putin to end NATO’s war against Russia using Ukrainian proxies,” said a source who had accurately forecast the assassination attempt against Trump last summer in Pennsylvania, weeks before it happened. “They failed to prevent him from becoming president and now they face him in the form of their worst nightmare. Trump sees NATO policy as a greater threat to the United States than Russia. He has even publicly said that Ukraine with NATO encouragement had started the war by deliberately provoking the Russians. And despite the attempts of the NATO ass-kissers in the press to ridicule this charge, he has refused to back down.

“I know several people who regard [Vice President JD] Vance’s Feb. 14 speech at the Munich Security Conference as a declaration of war against NATO,” said the source. “The problem for NATO is that Trump can’t be backed down. Once he gets it in his mind to do something, he does it, no matter how many people with authority tell him he can’t do it. And he has it in his mind to change the whole process of post-war international relations, in which blocs like NATO played prominent roles. Trump sees things pairwise and is taking America back to acting as a great power, working with its peers—Russia and China—to keep the world out of wars and on a path of peace and prosperity. In so doing, he has blown down the whole NATO house of cards. Russia and China are not the threats to Europe. As Vance told them in Munich, the biggest threat to Europe is the European countries themselves with their unwillingness to change.

Such statements put Trump in NATO’s crosshairs,” the source warned. “So the risk to him is off the charts. That means there is a strong likelihood that they will put out orders for a hit, if those orders have not gone out already. Trump’s people are aware of the threat. More people should pick up on this and spread the word: If there is a hit on our President, we are coming for NATO and its assets.”

Feb. 28—When NATO’s sock-puppet dictator of the Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrives in Washington today, he will meet with a determined President Donald Trump who will force him to agree to end NATO’s bloody war in Ukraine on his terms. Sources report that there could be an agreement in principle between Russia and Ukraine by the beginning of March that would end the fighting and define terms of a peace deal.

These sources say that Trump will congratulate Zelenskyy for agreeing to a massive investment plan in which the U.S. will provide more than $50 billion to develop the mining of rare-earth metals and other minerals for the benefit of Ukraine and the United States, which will have access to those minerals. The profits from sales will be placed in an investment fund, administered jointly by the two countries, which will go toward rebuilding that war-ravaged nation. The two leaders will sign the first part of the agreement, while the creation of the fund must await legislative approval in both countries.

But, the agreement, whose final form was reportedly worked out by Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Special Envoy to the Middle East and to all trouble spots, does not contain any specific U.S. security guarantees as Zelenskyy has demanded. Instead, that security guarantee will come as part of the larger agreement that will end the fighting, sources report, the which agreement could take shape as soon as the end of this month.

“Zelenskyy has met with various European leaders this month as they travelled to Kyiv on the three-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of the Ukraine,” said a source. “What he encountered were a bunch of impotent ravers who have no cards to play on his behalf against Trump. They told him that they would try to soften Trump’s approach to a peace settlement, but no one would say that they would succeed in doing that. In fact, [French President Emmanual] Macron told him that Trump does not really believe that Europe should tell him what to do about anything and that it was NATO that caused the war in the first place, by deliberately provoking Russia. Trump has figured out that NATO and the Biden Administration wanted this war, thinking that they could isolate and destroy Russia. Trump told Macron that NATO and Biden were crazy fools that endangered the whole world. He was not going to play by their rules.

“So, Zelenskyy has no protection from Europe,” the source continued. “The world changed Feb. 12, when Trump called [Russian President] Vladimir Putin. That marked the end of the control of the world by supranational geopolitical blocs, like NATO, and a return to great power diplomacy in which the three great nuclear powers, China, Russia, and the U.S., will agree to not fight each other, but instead work cooperatively to secure peace and prosperity for themselves and the rest of the world. That’s how Trump sees things on the issue of war and peace. The three powers will act as 'policemen' and seek to end wars and conflicts. There will still be competition on economic and other matters, but there will also be cooperation where possible. It is a bold concept for creating a new paradigm, which Trump sees as leading to a scale-down of military spending by the great powers and new nuclear arms and other treaties.”

This and other sources say that Trump intends to push Zelenskyy hard on agreeing to the key initial component of his Ukraine peace plan: a full stop ceasefire, that would come into effect no later than Easter (April 20) and perhaps before that, if the details can be worked out with Putin, who has already agreed to the idea in principle. Zelenskyy has resisted the idea, claiming that it will just give the Russians a chance to resupply and create the ability to launch new offensives. Trump intends to explain that Putin wants to end the slaughter that has claimed a total of more than a million lives on both sides, and that he is committed resolving outstanding issues through negotiation. The President will tell Zelenskyy that he will personally guarantee the ceasefire, and that it will lead to a permanent end to hostilities.

There is an apparent dispute between Trump and the Russians on whether there will be a European peacekeeping force to maintain the ceasefire. Zelenskyy and European leaders such as Macron and British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer have demanded such a force, but Russian spokesmen, such as Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov have rejected it. Trump, however, says that he has discussed this with Putin, and he will agree to its creation.

"This European, but non-NATO force has always been part of the Trump peace plan," said the source. "And it will be part of the final agreement. Trump will offer this as a concession to the Europeans and Zelenskyy, that he extracted from Putin. The Russian objections are staged to make the concession seem greater. Putin knows that there is going to have to be some peacekeepers, and that they will be European. 

Sources say that Trump will have to give Zelenskyy something more than the peacekeepers to show that he is not being forced to eat Trump’s deal, which will end any hope of Ukraine joining NATO and which will cease the arming of Ukraine with any offensive weapons They say that Trump will agree to ease off on his demand for immediate new elections, the which have been delayed for more than nine months by Zelenskyy’s martial law decree; he will also promise to continue arms shipments approved by Biden until the deal is finalized,which shipments were halted at the beginning of this month.

It was on the advice of Witkoff and Trump’s Special Envoy to Ukraine and Russia, Gen. Keith Kellogg, that Trump agreed to meet with Zelenskyy ahead of a meeting with Putin.

Zelenskyy immediately jumped on this opportunity, telling the media that it was “very important” that he would be meeting first with Trump, before Putin.

“Trump, under advice from Witkoff and Kellogg has decided not to try to oust Zelenskyy and will instead try to work with him,” said the source. “Zelenskyy was furious when the U.S. sided with Russia in voting against a United Nations General Assembly resolution sponsored by Ukraine which blamed Russia for starting the war. But he was told by Kellogg that the sands had shifted and that he had better find a way to work with Trump. Witkoff, the hard cop in these matters, was more blunt in getting agreement on the minerals/rare earth deal: ‘It would be better for you and the Ukraine to work with us, instead of finding another way that avoids Trump. There is no such way.’”

Before his meeting with Trump yesterday, the source was asked what British Prime Minister Starmer might face from the President. Of late, Starmer has been raving about the “Russian threat to Europe” and the “need for the British to assume a greater role in leading Europe against Putin and the Russians.” Starmer’s main goal appears to be to try to save the so-called Special Relationship between Britain the United States by which the Anglo-American elite has dominated policy in what was called the “Western Alliance” since the death of President Franklin Roosevelt in 1945.

“The Special Relationship ended Feb. 12,” said the source. “The Brits were not informed in advance of Trump’s call to Putin, which was only one of many exchanges between the two, and the first to be publicly acknowledged. Trump held the Queen in high regard, and likes Prince William, but has no love for any other Brit, especially from Starmer’s Labor Party, which sent people to help Democrat Kamala Harris in the last election. The Brits have made the wrong choice in putting in power a government more suited to work with Harris than Trump. He will be polite and formal, but Trump is not going to be sharing with the Brits information on what he is doing, unless it serves his purpose. Starmer is being given a mission impossible. If it goes really badly, the British/NATO Establishment might have to choose a different course of action.

“When they don’t get what they want,” warned the source, “they eliminate the problem. Literally. The danger level for a Trump assassination must be very high right now. NATO and Brits have assets inside the U.S. military-intelligence complex who could collaborate in such an operation. Trump’s people have to be aware of the risk.” 

Feb. 27—The Russian journalist Pavel Zarubin interviewed President Vladimir Putin at some length on Feb. 24. The following are excerpts, by machine translation from the Kremlin site: Note: The [English is now posted to the President’s website, with slightly different translation.

On Ukraine: Zarubin asked if Trump was playing into Russia’s hands on the Ukraine matter, as some in the West say. Putin: "I believe that this is absolutely not the case. I have my own point of view on this matter, it is the opposite of what you have just stated…. Because in reality it doesn’t matter how many percent he [Zelenskyy] has—four or whatever. What’s important is that his rating, according to our data—they are objective—is exactly two times less than that of his possible closest political rival. This is Mr. Zaluzhny, the former commander of the Ukrainian armed forces, who was exiled to London—his rating is exactly twice as high….

“Among other things, the current [U.S.] President has declared that he wants to achieve peace—and by the way, so do we—and as quickly as possible. And the current head of the regime is standing in the way of achieving this goal. That is where the position of the President of the United States comes from, as I see it.”

On Trump’s Approach: Zarubin asked if Trump acts “on the basis of emotions?” Putin said: “Of course not.” Question: “Do Europeans even understand, in your opinion, the essence of the current situation around Ukraine?” Putin: "You should ask them. Judging by the way they act, it seems to me that they do not really understand. But that is not even the point. The point is that, unlike the new President of the United States, the political leaders of European countries are connected with the current regime, they are engaged….

“Unlike them, the current President of the United States, the new President, the newly elected President—he has his hands free, he is free from these shackles that do not allow him to move forward and work towards resolving the conflict, and in his character, probably—he acts straightforwardly and without any particular embarrassment. He is in a unique position: he does not simply say what he thinks, but he says what he wants. Well, this is the privilege of the leader of one of the large, great powers.”

On the Riyadh talks: "I saw the reaction to our telephone conversation with the U.S. President, and I saw the reaction to the high-level meeting in Riyadh. It is, indeed, emotional and devoid of any practical meaning. Why? Because in order to resolve complex and even acute issues, including on the Ukrainian track, both Russia and the United States must take the first step."

“What does it consist of? This first step should be devoted to increasing the level of trust between the two states. This is what we did in Riyadh, this is what the nearest, perhaps other high-level contacts will be devoted to. Without this, it is impossible to resolve any issue, including such a complex, acute issue as the Ukrainian crisis.

“But what do the Europeans have to do with this? This concerns bilateral Russian American relations. Why do we need them here? What will they do here?”

On the role of the BRICS: “I want to emphasize we respect the position of our friends from BRICS, who created a group of supporters of peace. Today I just spoke with the Chairman of the People’s Republic of China, and we also discussed this. He informed me that the Friends of Peace group in New York will meet again soon and will discuss this. We not only welcome, we are grateful to all our partners who raise these issues, who strive to achieve peace. What am I saying? Not only Europeans, but also other countries have the right and can participate, and we respect this.”

On Russia and the U.S. cutting defense budgets: Zarubin mentioned that Trump “said that he wants to propose to you and the head of China to cut defense budgets in half. How do you like this idea?” Putin: “I cannot comment on how the People’s Republic of China will react to this. There were various approaches from the American side regarding strategic offensive weapons and other very serious issues. Therefore, this is a matter for the People’s Republic of China. But we could come to an agreement with the United States, we are not against it. I think the idea is good: the United States would reduce by 50%, and we would reduce by 50%, and the People’s Republic of China would then join in if it wants. We think the proposal is good, and we are ready to discuss it.”