There seems no longer any attempt, or semblance, of seeking diplomacy by Washington. Sanctions and aggression are wielded with reckless abandon. Russia, China, and even America’s own supposed European allies are subject to sanctions by Washington in a high-handed dismissal of any mutual dialogue to resolve alleged grievances.
US President Donald Trump has evolved a certain shrill maximalist attitude in international relations. It can be coined thus: my way or no way.
One recent example is the imposition of sanctions on Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. That indicates the US cutting off any possibility of a negotiated de-escalation of tensions in the Persian Gulf.
Iran’s Zarif revealed this week that when he was on a diplomatic visit to the US last month he was told by officials that he was expected at the White House for a meeting with President Trump. If Zarif baulked at the “offer” then he would be put on a sanctions list, he was allegedly informed. The Iranian top diplomat declined under the circumstances of apparent coercion, only to find that he was indeed later slapped with sanctions. What kind of American diplomacy is that? Sounds like a mafia-type offer not to refuse.
This heavy-handed approach to “diplomacy” suggests that there is in fact no diplomacy emanating from Washington. President Trump tweeted last week that his administration was “running out of options” in dealing with Iran over mounting tensions in the Persian Gulf. It seems the White House is “offering” faux attempts for negotiation, while all the while mounting military options to strike at Iran.
Another example of failed diplomacy is the resignation this week of US ambassador to Russia, John Huntsman. He quit his post partly out of frustration over the futility of his diplomatic duty to facilitate bilateral dialogue with Moscow. Huntsman’s job became untenable due to the manic anti-Russian animus now embedded in Washington, whereby any attempted dialogue would be portrayed as some kind of “treasonous act”.
Still another example of US repudiation of diplomacy is Trump’s executive order this week to impose a total trade embargo on Venezuela. The South American country is effectively being starved into submission to accept Washington’s demand that elected President Nicolas Maduro stand down, according to US dictate, in order to allow a US-backed dubious opposition politician take the reins of power in Caracas.
These examples, among many more, demonstrate that Washington has no intention of seeking diplomatic discourse with other nations, and is fully intent on issuing dictates – or else; in order to achieve its geopolitical aims.
The appalling and dangerous thing is that Washington is operating on a basis of zero-sum ultimatum. The premises for its dictates are invariably unsubstantiated or irrational. Russia is treated like a pariah state over outlandish allegations of interference in US elections; Iran is treated like a pariah state over hollow claims about Iranian aggression; Venezuela is treated like a pariah state over allegations against an elected president. China is vilified over claims it is a “currency manipulator”. Europe is allegedly “taking advantage” of US trade terms. And so on, and so on. It is tyranny run amok.
The standard of international law and norms of diplomacy are being trashed in the most willful and wanton ways, purely on the basis of American whim and self-serving agenda for domination.
This is an extremely dangerous global situation whereby American political bias, and irrational bias to boot, is being made the standard instead of principles of international law and sovereignty of nations. There is absolutely no diplomacy. Only the writ of American demands for obeisance to Washington’s irrational dictate to satisfy its demands for hegemony.
There seems no other way to describe the present global lawlessness of American presumed power and self-righteousness other than to call it a form of rogue-state fascism on steroids.
When diplomacy, negotiations, dialogue and respect for sovereignty are so utterly disrespected by Washington – whose only response is sanctions and military aggression – then we should know that the present description of American power is not hyperbole. It is a lamentable description of reality whereby American diplomacy is no longer extant. It is becoming way past the possibility of conducting normal relations with this paranoid, lawless rogue regime. A nuclear rogue state, too, capable of destroying the planet on a whim or paranoid rush to its sick brain.
Can American citizens rein in such an errant, irrational regime? Time will tell. But one thing seems for sure, world peace is continually endangered by the regime in Washington which is operating in its own realm of fantasy and criminal megalomania.
Of course US diplomacy is an utter failure. Because in the twisted warmongering megalomania of Washington, diplomacy seems to have become totally irrelevant. Is that not fascism?
