By James Petras
10.16.2018
Introduction
In recent weeks the White House has embraced the contemporary version of the world’s most murderous regimes. President Trump has embraced the Saudi Arabian “Prince of Death” Mohammad bin Salman who has graduated from chopping hands and heads in public plazas to dismembering bodies in overseas consulates – the case of Jamal Khashoggi.
The White House warmly greeted the electoral success of Brazilian Presidential
candidate Jair Bolsonaro, ardent champion of torturers, military dictators, death squads
and free marketers.
President Trump grovels, grunts and glories before Israel, as his spiritual guide
Benjamin Netanyahu celebrates the Sabbath with the weekly murders and maiming of
hundreds of unarmed Palestinians, especially youngsters.
These are President Trump’s ‘natural allies’. They share his values and interests
while each retains their particular method of disposing of the cadavers of adversaries and
dissenters.
We will proceed to discuss the larger political-economic context in which the trio
of monsters operate. We will analyze the benefits and advantages which lead President Trump to ignore and even praise, actions which violate America’s democratic values and
sensibilities.
In conclusion, we will examine the consequences and risks which result from
Trump’s embrace of the trio.
The Context for Trump’s Tripler Alliance
President Trump’s intimate ties with the world’s most unsavory regimes flows
from several strategic interests. In the case of Saudi Arabia, it includes military bases;
the financing of international mercenaries and terrorists; multi-billion-dollar arms sales;
oil profits; and covert alliances with Israel against Iran, Syria and Yemen.
In order to secure these Saudi assets, the White House is more than willing to
assume certain socio-political costs.
The US eagerly sells weapons and provides advisers to Saudi’s genocidal
invasion, murder and starvation of millions of Yeminis. The White House alliance
against Yemen has few monetary rewards or political advantages as well as negative
propaganda value.
However, with few other client states in the region, Washington makes do with
Prince Salman ‘the salami slicer’.
The US ignores Saudi financing of Islamic terrorists against US allies in Asia (the
Philippines) and Afghanistan as well as rival thugs in Syria and Libya.
Alas when a pro-US collaborator like Washington Post journalist and US resident
Jamal Khashoggi was assassinated, President Trump was forced to adopt the pretense of
an investigation in order to distance from the Riyadh mafia.He subsequently exonerated
butcher boy bin Salman: he invented a flagrant lie-blaming ‘rogue elements’in charge of
the interrogation,—read torture.
President Trump celebrated the electoral victory of Brazilian neo-liberal fascist
Jair Bolsonaro because he checks all the right boxes: he promises to slash economic
regulations and corporate taxes for multi-national corporations. He is an ardent ally of
Washington’s economic war against Venezuela and Cuba. He promises to arm right
wing death squads and militarize the police. He pledges to be a loyal follower of US war
policies abroad.
However, Bolsonaro cannot support Trump’s trade war especially against China
which is the market for almost forty percent of Brazil’s agro-exports. This is especially
the case since agro-business bosses are Bolsonaro’s principal economic and
congressional supporters.
Given Washington’s limited influence in the rest of Latin America, Brazil’s neo
liberal fascist regime acts as Trump’s principal ally.
Israel is the White House’s mentor and chief of operations in the Middle East, as
well as a strategic military ally .
Under the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel has seized
and colonized most of the West Bank and militarily occupied the rest of Palestine; jailed and tortured tens of thousands of political dissidents; surrounded and starved over a
million Gaza residents; imposed ethno-religious conditions for citizenship in Israel,
denying basic rights for over 20% of the Arab residents of the self-styled ‘jewish state’.
Netanyahu has bombed hundreds of Syrian cities, towns, airports and bases in
support of ISIS terrorists and Western mercenaries. Israel intervenes in US elections,
buys Congressional votes and secures White House recognition of Jerusalem as the
capital of the jewish state.
Zionists in North America and Great Britain act as a ‘fifth column’ securing
unanimous favorable mass media coverage of its apartheid policies.
Prime Minister Netanyahu secures unconditional US financial and political
support and the most advanced weaponry.
In exchange Washington considers itself privileged to serve as foot solders for
Israeli targeted wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen and Somalia . . . Israel collaborates
with the US in defending Saudi Arabia , Egypt and Jordan. Netanyahu and his Zionist
allies in the White House succeeded in reversing the nuclear agreement with Iran and
imposing new and harsher economic sanctions.
Israel has its own agenda :it defies President Trump’s sanctions policies against
Russia and its trade war with China.
Israel eagerly engages in the sales of arms and high-tech innovations to Beijing.
Beyond the Criminal Trio
The Trump regime’s alliance with Saudi Arabia, Israel and Brazil is not despite
but because of their criminal behavior. The three states have a demonstrated record of
full compliance and active engagement in every ongoing US war.
Bolsonaro, Netanyahu and bin Salman serve as role models for other national
leaders allied with Washington’s quest for world domination.
The problem is that the trio is insufficient in bolstering Washington’s drive to
“Make the Empire Strong”. As pointed earlier, the trio are not completely in compliance
with Trump’s trade wars; Saudi works with Russia in fixing oil prices. Israel and Brazil
cuts deals with Beijing.
Clearly Washington pursues other allies and clients.
In Asia, the White House targets China by promoting ethnic separatism. It
encourages Uighurs to split from China by encouraging Islamic terrorism and linguistic
propaganda. President Trump backs Taiwan via military sales and diplomatic
agreements. Washington intervenes in Hong Kong by promoting pro-separatist
politicians and media propaganda backing ‘independence’.
Washington has launched a strategy of military encirclement and a trade war
against China .The White House rounded-up Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the
Philippines and South Korea to provide military bases which target China. Nevertheless,
up to the present the US has no allies in its trade war. All of Trump’s so-called Asian
‘allies’ defy his economic sanctions policies.
The countries depend on and pursue trade with and investments from China.
While all pay diplomatic lip service and provide military bases, all defer on the crucial
issues of joining US military exercises off China’s coast and boycotting Beijing.
US efforts to sanction Russia into submission is offset by ongoing oil and gas
agreements between Russia , Germany and other EU countries. US traditional
bootlickers like Britain and Poland carry little political weight.
More important US sanctions policy has led to a long-term, large-scale strategic
economic and military alliance between Moscow and Beijing.
Moreover Trump’s alliance with the ‘torture trio’ has provoked domestic
divisions. Saudi Arabia’s murder of a US resident-journalist has provoked business
boycotts and Congressional calls for reprisal. Brazil’s fascism has evoked liberal
criticism of Trump’s eulogy of Brazilia’s death squad democracy
President Trump’s domestic electoral opposition has successfully mobilized the
mass media, which could facilitate a congressional majority and an effective mass
opposition to his Pluto-populist (populist in rhetoric, plutocrat in practice) version of
empire building.
Conclusion
The US empire building project is built on bluster, bombs and trade wars.
Moreover, its closest and most criminal allies and clients cannot always be relied upon.
Even the stock market fiesta is coming to a close. Moreover, the time of successful
sanctions is passing. The wild-eyed UN rants are evoking laughter and embarrassment.
The economy is heading into crises and not only became of rising interest rates.
Tax cuts are one shot deals – profits are taken and pocketed.
President Trump in retreat will discover that there are no permanent allies only
permanent interests.
Today the White House stands alone without allies who will share and defend his
unipolar empire. The mass of humanity requires a break with the policies of wars and
sanctions. To rebuild America will require the construction, from the ground-up, of a
powerful popular movement not beholden to Wall Street or war industries. A first step is
to break with both parties at home and the triple alliance abroad.
