US rulers risking major wars to retain dominance – historian

Press TV has conducted an interview with Webster Griffin Tarpley, a historian and lecturer, from Washington, about a speech made by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei concerning the US foreign policy.

Press TV: How do you interpret the leader’s comments of the US in terms of their dividing countries into three groups: 1) obedient; 2) do not obey and should not be tolerated; and 3) disobedient ones?

Our guest Frederick Petersen said ‘obedient’ would be equal to ‘allies’ and disobedient would be equal to ‘aggressors.’

But first your reaction to the leader’s comments in terms of the US dividing countries into three groups.

Tarpley: I think the analysis offered by the leader Mr. Khamenei has much to recommend.

We can situate it in the following way: we’re coming to the end of a period of about one quarter century of unipolar United States domination of the world; and this has more or less gone together with the weakness then collapse of the Soviet Union and the impotence of the government in Moscow during the 1990s and in the first decade of this century.

But now things have changed.

To guide our thinking about this, we can go back to the 19th century there was a period of British world domination between about 1848 and 1871, which was punctuated by a similar kind of aggression – the British were attacking Russia, China, India, the United States, Mexico... on and on.

So, the danger we have is that as the period of absolute or unipolar domination subsides we risk major wars because the mentality of the US ruling elite is in some ways apocalyptic, it’s a kind of... ‘The Twilight of the Gods’, you see it with people like Kerry or Nuland or Samantha Power or Miss Rice or any number of others and therefore I think his analysis very interesting.

I would first of all... on the first group – Saudi Arabia, this is of course broadly speaking, correct. In other words Saudi Arabia is one of the pillars of US domination in the Middle East; and also financially.

However, what we’ve had in the last year is a period where Prince Bandar has been demanding that the United States wage war against Syria and at least a faction around Obama seems to be very reluctant to do that.

If we get into the second group – the Europeans, we find something of the same thing: Fabius and Hollande of France are in some ways bigger warmongers certainly than Obama.

And then when we get to the third group, I would say that it is beneficial for the world to have ‘opposition’. In other words it is not a healthy situation for example if the United States neo-Cons or the United States’ responsibility to protect humanitarian bomber-types like Samantha Power – It’s not good for them to see no opposition to what they’re doing.

So I think there’s actually a benefit from having people like Putin or the Iranian government or others around; and China could fit into this. There’s got to be some kind of a barrier or counter weight or a push back against these really crazy excesses that we see here in Washington. It’s a kind of ‘a ruling class gone mad’ and the only thing that seems to deter them is counterforce.

Press TV: Military coups; supporting seditionists; provoking people to come out ino the streets; opposing elections; and causing rifts were among the measures they took or tried to take - Iran’s leader in reaction to the US. And I’m giving in reaction to Frederick Petersen’s comments and US policy in Ukraine?

Tarpley: Absolutely. Just to deal with Ukraine first... We have to remember here that what happened here was a fascist coup d’état in Kiev, organized by NATO with CIA, National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House and all the rest of them contributing to this.

It was an absolutely, I think, lunatic provocation of Russia – knowing the sensibilities of Russia; knowing that Russia has been invaded through this land corridor by the Swedes, by the French, by the Germans, by Poland even if you back far enough.

Secondly that this has this Nazi coloration knowing the sensitivity, which I share, of Russia to this kind of ideology – people like (Dmitry) Yarosh and the Svoboda Party are on the European Fascist List.

And similarly, the question of a warm water port - over many centuries the desire of Moscow to have an ice-free warm water port. The idea that NATO cold go in and send in leading politicians to make incendiary speeches and then somehow Russia would do nothing.

Look at what the United States did for example to Cuba – you get an idea of the sensitivity that big powers have to nearby areas. It’s simply not the case that the United States is somehow committed to support and defend any lunatic excess of this clique that’s running Ukraine.

But now let’s also look a little bit further away... In the US ruling class there’s a general fear off Russia. The imperialist mind is reluctant to mix it up with Russia because of these very large thermo-nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles, which ultimately seem to be the language which they find clearest.

However, we do have this group around Anne-Marie Slaughter, which says you can’t counter-attack Putin in Ukraine, but you can do so in Syria. Bomb Syria you can humiliate and defeat Putin.

Now I think what the Iranian Leader is saying is somehow that when she says Syria this also includes Iran. In other words, I think he’s responding to some kind of war danger, which has appeared on the horizon.

Maybe this is not evident in the outside world, but the mood of the Washington elite is that they’re looking for a way to fight back from a position of some weakness; and above all that they’re afraid of Russia.

And it’s easier to tell people, let’s attack Syria - Syria is seen here as a relatively weak state, but ultimately it could be that Iran is their true target and they see Syria is a way to wage war against Iran.

So, I think this is a very serious speech and it doesn’t just come out of the blue. Probably in some days or weeks we’ll get a better idea of what this speech is responding to.

Press TV: This question to you... You’ve got to options here and it doesn’t seem like the US wants to take the option that doesn’t require force.

And this is the case of the voting that’s taking place today; over 72 percent of Syrians came out to vote. Out of the 15 million, 11 million of them and this could be a point where this crisis could end, but obviously the countries supporting the insurgents don’t want this to happen do they?

Tarpley: If I could just comment on this... the news I think we ought to pay attention to, to put this speech into context, the reports in the last 24 hours is that a new and unpredicted difficulty has arisen in the P5+1 talks – So the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany – this is the Iranian nuclear question.

Now... it ought to be obvious to everyday that a nation state if it wants to be independent in the 21st century must master the full nuclear fuel cycle - that includes centrifuges, enrichment, all the rest - in order to have a full-set economy and be truly independent and pursue economic development for one’s own people, this is all indispensable.

Any attempt to take this away it seems to me is a crime against humanity in the highest order. Now... the new P5+1 position is that Iran has to demolish essentially most or all of it.