Our Friday News Analysis | How Do You Love Your Enemies? Have None! (Part 11)

Service members and equipment of Russia’s private military company Wagner Group are seen on a street in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, on June 24, 2023. © Sergey Pivovarov / Sputnik

FOR A HOT MINUTE, PRIGOZHIN WAS THE PINUP FOR WESTERN REGIME CHANGE ENTHUSIASTS

Even as last weekend’s mutiny failed to live up to their wishful thinking, commentators kept harping on about imminent chaos in Russia

By Rachel Marsden – Columnist and Political Analyst
HomeWorld News
29 June 2023

Western figures who have long dreamed of Russian regime change saw an open window with the Wagner mutiny and a prime opportunity to toss their credibility out.

They couldn’t stop grafting their disaster porn fantasies onto the events, even as facts and reality distanced themselves from all the wishful thinking.

Who cares that Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin had said that his beef was with Russian military leadership – Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu and chief of the general staff, Valery Gerasimov, about whom he previously complained for insufficient ammunition and support? Or that his armed march towards Moscow was for “justice” for his men, who he said had done the heavy lifting in the grueling months-long Artyomovsk (Bakhmut) battle, leading to an eventual Russian victory.

So what if Prigozhin explicitly denied that he was mounting a coup and hadn’t evoked Russian President Vladimir Putin as his target? This whole drama, viewed from here in Moscow, where people continued to go about their daily lives as usual, just seemed like a tiff between siblings, one of whom was hell-bent on getting Daddy Putin’s attention by tossing his toys out of the pram – at Rostov-on-Don and Moscow.

Putin struck a deal to send the tantrum boy to Belarus, where the Russian President said his Wagner comrades could join him. This conveniently places them all closer to Kyiv than they ever were to Moscow on their march – and right as the Russian tactical nukes are set to arrive, too.

However, regime change proponents don’t seem interested in these facts or analyses. Instead, they can’t stop dreaming of chaos since they used Prigozhin to project their anti-Putin fantasies – like he’s Pamela Anderson and they’re teenage boys in the 90s. And let’s just say that some of their musings are…out there.

Asked the Center for European Policy Analysis’ Edward Lucas on BBC radio:

               “Do we worry about Russia falling into the arms of China?

               Is there going to be disintegration?

               Will it go full-on fascist? Will we have a long period of confusion and chaos?

               Will they use their nuclear weapons as a bargaining chip to try and get things?”

Woah, slow your roll there. The babushkas who feed the pigeons at the local park are planning lunch tomorrow. They haven’t yet received your memo that perhaps they should consider adopting the fascist ideology against which their country has actively fought in its biggest historical battles.

As for Russia “falling into the arms of China,” – they’re just buddies and aren’t really into that kind of thing. Maybe it’s time for a cold shower?

Lucas didn’t stop there, either. In the wake of Putin’s non-demise, the expert has since doubled down, looking right past Putin to a “post-Putin junta” with “a weak central government battling powerful criminal warlords.”

In reality, the same kind of regional figures, separatist minorities, and corporate heavyweights he evokes constantly wrestle for power in every country with any resources or energy worth arguing about.

He could just as quickly be talking about France or the US. So why do few such experts ever do so, even though life in inflation-hit Western Europe is far more taxing than in Moscow? And I say that as someone who pings back and forth between both.

               “Putin faces a historic threat to absolute grip on power in Russia,” read a Bloomberg headline.

You’d think they’d see these events as proof that the Russian President delegates and trusts his subordinates regarding the Russian constitution. And as proponents of democracy, which, as we know, can sometimes be a bit messy, why aren’t they celebrating this event as proof of Putin’s exercise of it rather than lamenting that the authoritarianism, which has long and erroneously attributed to him, risks eroding?

               “Russia cannot function without a strong hand at the wheel, and this president’s hand has been fatally weakened,” according to the Financial Times.

Oh, now Russia needs authoritarianism – which Putin is suddenly unable to provide despite the many years of Western critics accusing him of being too heavy-handed? Which is it? Pick a lane.

Gideon Rachman said in the Financial Times that embarrassment would do Putin in.

               “Even if the Russian leader prevails in the immediate battle against Wagner, it is hard to believe that Putin can ultimately survive this humiliation,” he wrote, making it sound like the Wagner march resulted in Putin getting a wedgie in front of the entire school.

               “Putin’s regime survives, for the moment,” according to the Journal de Montréal, citing the Kremlin’s desire to give an “impression of normalcy.”

Putin can’t even competently defuse a crisis without being accused of faking it.

Yeah, it would have been so much better if he had just let things spin out of control, as they did in Washington on January 6, 2021, during the breach of Congress amid the Capitol Hill riots, because that’s how indisputable normalcy is conveyed to the world – lest you be accused of hiding chaos.

But at least walking back Putin’s imminent demise is better than clinging to the notion and running with it, as others insisted on doing, oblivious to the facts on the ground.

US Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who never met a US regime change effort that he didn’t like, mused on Twitter during the unrest:

               “As internal strife and chaos occur inside of Russia, may the outcome eventually be: The Russian people freed from corrupt, autocratic war criminal dictators like Putin.”

Does this self-styled proponent of democracy care at all about the fact that the Russian people democratically elected the leader he wants to see deposed?

While cheering for what amounts to a terrorist act – the unlawful ousting of an elected president – Graham implied, without any hint of irony, that those who did the deed he was praying for would be dismissed as terrorists and unworthy of serving.

Putin should be “replaced not by a terrorist organization like the Wagner Group, but true Russian patriots who want to establish freedom and integrate Russia into the world,” he said.

               “Our hope is freedom for the long-suffering people of Russia,” added the Senator.

Does it ever occur to these folks that their cheerleading or projecting of Russia’s Putin-free future typically involve scenarios that, first and foremost, represent flagrant violations of Russian citizens’ democratic will?

Somehow that minor detail always seems to escape their analysis.

Other articles by Rachel Marsden, columnist, political strategist, and host of independently produced talk shows in French and English.

What is the Side of the Story that is Not Yet Decisive? Edited by Abraham A. van Kempen.

OPINION | Killing Two Birds with One Stone

Profound Insights from My Source in Iran (SIR)

SIR    How are you, Abraham? How is your family?

AvK    Thanks for asking, SIR. We’re hanging in there. What’s on your mind?

SIR    What’s happening in Russia -- Yevgeny Prigozhin pitted against President Vladimir Putin – doesn’t add up.

AvK    Tell me!

SIR    I think Mr. Putin is killing two birds with one stone.

AvK    SIR, what in Russia doesn’t add up?

SIR    Abraham, those two guys – Vladimir Putin and Yevgeny Priogozhin are friends. They go back for years. Priogozhin is a trusted friend. President Putin trusts him to organize and head a state-approved military force. Think that through! Would President Putin entrust an army of mercenaries, a battalion of 25,000 troops, to one who is untrustworthy? Would Hitler condone a mercenary brigade in his Wehrmacht?

AvK    Profound, SIR! Are you suggesting this drama is contrived, something like one that’s presented as a Greek tragedy, but it’s more like a Greek comedy, and everyone is the fool?

SIR    You sure have a way with words. YES!

AvK    OK! Tell me more! There are two birds killed with just one stone. Which birds? And the stone that kills is the stone the weapon? I’m not sure if I follow. Explain, please!

SIR    The two birds! Bird one is the West’s obsession and illusion that Russia, like pre-revolutionary Iran, Iraq, former Yugoslavia, Libya, etc., is crumbling from the inside. That, at best, President Putin will be dethroned, if not executed, by forces within Russia that favor the West.

AvK    The other bird?

SIR    Several Russians, some wealthy and influential Russians, want to cave into the West. They want to see President Putin and his generals dead in the water, just like the reign of terror immediately after the mullahs took over my country. They slaughtered thousands of Iran’s elites.

AvK    Am I getting the drift of your notions? I mean, they’re suppositions. Don’t you have proof?

SIR    We know that many Russian dissidents gravitated toward Priogozhin and hailed him as Russia’s new hero. Russia’s state media even heralded the shocking news that half the Russian military will serve under Priogozhin, thus ensnaring even more dissidents to support Priogozhin confidently.

Avk    And heads will roll. Those are the headlines coming from Moscow.

SIR    Yes, Abraham, in one sweep, the Kremlin smoked out the dissidents intending to snuff them out unless they pledge allegiance to Mother Russia, President Putin’s Mother Russia, not the Russia to be reshaped by the West.

AvK    So, what about the West’s obsession to annihilate Russia from within?

SIR    President Putin signaled to the West that nothing and no one would stop Russia’s course. The military and 80 percent of the Russian population in 11 time zones and, especially, 80 percent of the Ukrainians of Russian descent living in the Donbas have pledged their allegiance to President Putin and his Administration.

AvK    My goodness! Why did the Shah, Reza Pahlavi, flee Iran in 1979?

SIR    Everything happened too fast. The West demonized the Shah as a megalomaniac for openers like Vladimir Putin, Saddam Hussein, Omar Khadafi, and so many others. They succeeded in sowing seeds of unrest and dissent. The people of Iran started to despise the Shah. Iranians began to believe that the mullahs would bring them back into harmony with God. We thought that the mullahs would stay out of politics. Instead, the Ayatollah became Iran’s first spiritual supreme leader, and Iran transformed into a theocracy, preceded by a blood bath that killed the Shah’s former supporters.

AvK    Are you suggesting that Europe and the United States installed the mullahs in Iran?

SIR    France flew in the Mullahs in a chartered Air France DC-10. Remember, France protected the mullahs for 14 years after the Shah expelled them from Iran.

AvK    What about the US?

SIR    The US had no say in the matter. But, as usual, the Iranians blamed the US for Westernizing the Iranian people. A long and complicated story.

AvK    What a mouthful, SIR. Thank you for sharing.

WHAT WAS FRANCE'S ROLE IN THE 1979 IRANIAN REVOLUTION? AL JAZEERA ENGLISH

Click Here to Watch the Video (2 minutes, 39 seconds)

In 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran from exile in France. Paris had hoped that Khomeini would bring democracy to Iran in 1979, but relations have soured.

Still, French President Emmanuel Macron supports dialogue with Tehran in the face of US hostility after the US unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal.

France’s involvement in the Iranian revolution was complex, as has been the relationship since then.

Al Jazeera's Natacha Butler examines France’s role in Iran's Islamic Revolution.

A RARE LOOK INSIDE IRAN, 40 YEARS AFTER THE ISLAMIC REVOLUTION

Click Here to Watch the Video (17 minutes, 04 seconds)

LIFE IN IRAN BEFORE AND AFTER THE ISLAMIC REVOLUTION | 5 DIFFERENCES IN 15 MINUTES

Click Here to Watch the Video (14 minutes, 15 seconds)

PRIGOZHIN’S FOLLY

The Russian ‘revolt’ that wasn’t, strengthens Putin’s hand

By Seymour Hersh
29 June 2023

Yevgeny Prigozhin, chief of the mercenary Wagner Group, in a video he released last weekend.

The Biden administration had a glorious few days last weekend. The ongoing disaster in Ukraine slipped from the headlines to be replaced by the “revolt,” as a New York Times headline put it, of Yevgeny Prigozhin, chief of the mercenary Wagner Group.

The focus slipped from Ukraine’s failing counter-offensive to Prigozhin’s threat to Putin’s control. As one headline in the Times put it, “Revolt Raises Searing Question: Could Putin Lose Power?” Washington Post columnist David Ignatius said, “Putin looked into the abyss Saturday—and blinked.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken—the administration’s go-to wartime flack, who weeks ago spoke proudly of his commitment not to seek a ceasefire in Ukraine—appeared on CBS’s Face the Nation with his version of reality: “Sixteen months ago, Russian forces were . . . thinking they would erase Ukraine from the map as an independent country,” Blinken said. “Now, over the weekend, they’ve had to defend Moscow, Russia’s capital, against mercenaries of Putin’s own making. . . . It was a direct challenge to Putin’s authority. . . . It shows real cracks.”

Blinken, unchallenged by his interviewer, Margaret Brennan, as he knew he would not be—why else would he appear on the show?—went on to suggest that the defection of the crazed Wagner leader would be a boon for Ukraine’s forces whose slaughter by Russian troops was ongoing as he spoke. “To the extent that it presents a real distraction for Putin, and for Russian authorities, that they have to look at—sort of mind their rear as they’re trying to deal with the counter-offensive in Ukraine, I think that creates even greater openings for the Ukrainians to do well on the ground.”

At this point, was Blinken speaking for Joe Biden? Are we to understand that this is what the man in charge believes?

We now know that the chronically unstable Prigozhin’s revolt fizzled out within a day as he fled to Belarus with a no-prosecution guarantee, and his mercenary army was mingled into the Russian military. There was no march on Moscow nor a significant threat to Putin’s rule.

Pity the Washington columnists and national security correspondents who seem to rely heavily on official backgrounders with White House and State Department officials. Given the published results of such briefings, those officials seem unable to look at the reality of the past few weeks or the total disaster that has befallen the Ukraine military’s counter-offensive.

So, below is a look at what is going on that was provided to me by a knowledgeable source in the American intelligence community:

“I thought I might clear some of the smoke. First and most importantly, Putin is now in a much stronger position. We realized as early as January of 2023 that a showdown between the generals, backed by Putin, and Prigo, backed by ultra-nationalist extremists, was inevitable. The age-old conflict between the ‘special’ warfighters and a large, slow, clumsy, unimaginative regular army! The army always wins because they own the peripheral assets that make victory, either offensive or defensive, possible.

Most importantly, they control logistics. Special forces see themselves as the premier offensive asset. When the strategy is offensive, the big army tolerates their hubris and public chest thumping because SF is willing to take risks and pay a high price. Successful offense requires a significant expenditure of men and equipment. Successful defense, on the other hand, requires husbanding these assets.

“Wagner members were the spearhead of the original Russian Ukraine offensive. They were the ‘little green men.’ When the offensive grew into an all-out attack by the regular army, Wagner continued to assist but reluctantly had to take a back seat in the period of instability and readjustment that followed. Prigo, no shy violet, took the initiative to grow his forces and stabilize his sector.

“The regular army welcomed the help. Prigo and Wagner, as special forces, took the limelight and the credit for stopping the hated Ukrainians. The press gobbled it up. Meanwhile, the big army and Putin slowly changed their strategy from offensive conquest of greater Ukraine to the defense of what they already had. Prigo refused to accept the change and continued on the offensive against Bakhmut. Therein lies the rub. Rather than create a public crisis and court-martial of the asshole [Prigozhin], Moscow simply withheld the resources and let Prigo use up his human resources and firepower reserves, dooming him to a stand-down. He is, after all, no matter how cunning financially, an ex-hot dog cart owner with no political or military accomplishments.

“We never heard that three months ago, Wagner was cycled out of the Bakhmut front and sent to an abandoned barracks north of Rostov-on-Don [in southern Russia] for demobilization. The heavy equipment was mainly redistributed, and the force was reduced to about 8,000, 2,000 of which left for Rostov escorted by local police.

“Putin fully backed the army who let Prigo make a fool of himself and now disappear into ignominy. All without raising a sweat militarily or causing Putin to face a political standoff with the fundamentalists, who were ardent Prigo admirers. Pretty shrewd.”

There is an enormous gap between how the American intelligence community professionals assess the situation and what the White House and the supine Washington press project to the public by uncritically reproducing the statements of Blinken and his hawkish cohorts.

The current battlefield statistics shared with me suggest that the Biden administration’s overall foreign policy may be at risk in Ukraine. They also raise questions about the involvement of the NATO alliance, which has been providing the Ukrainian forces with training and weapons for the current lagging counter-offensive. I learned that in the first two weeks of the operation, the Ukraine military seized only 44 square miles of territory previously held by the Russian army, much of it open land. In contrast, Russia now controls 40,000 square miles of Ukrainian territory. I have been told that Ukrainian forces have not significantly fought through the Russian defenses in the past ten days. They have recovered only two more square miles of Russian-seized territory. At that pace, one informed official said, waggishly, it would take Zelensky’s military 117 years to rid the country of Russian occupation.

Recently, the Washington press seems to be slowly coming to grips with the enormity of the disaster. Still, there is no public evidence that President Biden and his senior aides in the White House and State Department aides understand the situation.

Putin now has within his grasp total control, or close to it, of the four Ukrainian oblasts—Donetsk, Kherson, Lubansk, and Zaporizhzhia—that he publicly annexed on September 30, 2022, seven months after he began the war. Assuming no miracle exists on the battlefield, the next step will be up to Putin. He could simply stop where he is and see if the White House will accept the military reality and whether a ceasefire will be sought, with formal end-of-war talks initiated. There will be a presidential election next April in Ukraine, and the Russian leader may stay put and wait for that—if it takes place. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has said there will be no elections while the country is under martial law.

Biden’s political problems, in terms of next year’s presidential election, are acute—and obvious. On June 20, the Washington Post published an article based on a Gallup poll under the headline “Biden Shouldn’t Be as Unpopular as Trump—but He Is.” The report accompanying the poll by Perry Bacon, Jr., said that Biden has “almost universal support within his party, virtually none from the opposition party and terrible numbers among independents.” Biden, like previous Democratic presidents, Bacon wrote, struggles “to connect with younger and less engaged voters.” Bacon had nothing to say about Biden’s support for the Ukraine war because the poll asked no questions about the administration’s foreign policy.

The looming disaster in Ukraine, and its political implications, should be a wake-up call for those Democratic members of Congress who support the president but disagree with his willingness to throw many billions of good money after bad in Ukraine in the hope of a miracle that will not arrive. Democratic support for the war is another example of the party’s growing disengagement from the working class. Their children have been fighting the wars of the recent past and maybe fighting in any future war. These voters have turned away in increasing numbers as the Democrats move closer to the intellectual and moneyed classes.

If there is any doubt about the continuing seismic shift in current politics, I recommend a good dose of Thomas Frank, the acclaimed author of the 2004 best-seller What’s the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America, a book that explained why that state’s voters turned away from the Democratic party and voted against their economic interests. Frank did it again in 2016 in his book Listen, Liberal: Or, Whatever Happened to the Party of the People? In an afterword to the paperback edition, he depicted how Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party repeated—make that amplified—the mistakes made in Kansas en route to losing a sure-thing election to Donald Trump.

It may be prudent for Joe Biden to talk straight about the war and its various problems for America—and to explain why the estimated more than $150 billion that his administration has put up thus far turned out to be a horrible investment.

Our special edition on Iran and China includes A Tehran political scientist explaining Iran’s strategic shift to China; an analysis and data on the five phases of their pivotal trade relationship; a timeline analyzing the four phases of military ties; why the Islamic Republic is increasingly reliant on the People’s Republic; and the news digest.

Iran & China: An Iranian View
Iran’s policy elite believes China is a rising power, while they think Russia and Europe are declining powers. Most believe the United States is still uniquely positioned as the only global power. The general perception in Tehran is that China will be a critical player globally and in Iran’s region.

Iran & China: A Trade Lifeline
Since the early 21st century, the centerpiece of relations between Tehran and Beijing has been economic, primarily based on oil and consumer goods trade. China bought Iran’s oil to fuel industrialization, selling machinery, electronics, and appliances to Iran to expand its global marketplace. The relationship, however, has been lopsided.

Iran & China: Military Ties
Since its 1979 revolution, Iran’s military ties with China have evolved through four phases. Tehran depended on Beijing as its primary source of weaponry during the eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s. China welcomed the hard currency that, in turn, allowed it to develop new weapons systems. Arms transfers plummeted after the war ended in 1988. Iranian imports of major Chinese military equipment increased again in the 1990s but then petered out and have never recovered.

Iran's Increasing Reliance on China
Iran has increasingly relied on China to survive existential crises, including diplomatic isolation, regional tensions, and a shaky economy. In March 2023, China—Iran’s largest trade partner—brokered an agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia to restore diplomatic ties seven years after severing relations. The deal reflected Beijing’s growing influence and interest in Iran.

News Digest: Week of June 26
During the week of June 26, the European Union sanctioned seven Iranians for human rights abuses, a Russian warship docked at Iran's Anzali port on the Caspian Sea, and Israel seized millions of dollars in cryptocurrency assets linked to Hezbollah and the Revolutionary Guards. 

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The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of the Building the Bridge Foundation, The Hague.