Thursday, July 28, 2022

The Animus and Hatred of Russia Is Beyond All Rational Explanation

Editor's note: The editor in chief of The Atlantic is the Judaic Jeffrey Goldberg who published a interview he had with Biden's National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. The Neocons and by connection certain Jews within the American political elite despise Russia. These people hate Russia so much that their hatred and animus towards Russia is now so irrational it is psychotic. These Neocons, many Jews, Jake Sullivan and his cohort the Judaic Anthony Blinken's hatred of Russia are completely out of proportion to the realities and circumstances happening in Ukraine. Their arrogance and hubris is defined by this Atlantic interview by Goldberg. The Atlantic's Goldberg served in the Israeli IDF and now that Russia is calling the line in Syria with Israel, Goldberg's animus against Russia is being ramped up significantly. Contrary to Sullivan and Blinken's expectation that Russia would collapse under their weapon of economic sanctions including stealing $300 billion in Russian assets (and Russia still finds money to prosecute their "special operation" in Ukraine), Russia dispelled that nonsense beginning on 24 February 2022. What these people including congressional members think is that the more the Russian military destroys US weapon systems sent to Ukraine the more the US can manufacture. Contrary to Sullivan suggesting "Putin's war has gone wrong," the Russian military are grinding the Ukraine military down to the last man standing and they are doing it on the cheap with only an estimated 10 percent of Russian forces. Also be aware as this Atlantic article is read, Taiwan is a big distraction
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Source: The Atlantic

A Russian Defeat in Ukraine Could Save Taiwan

In a wide-ranging conversation, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan talks about how Putin's invasion has gone wrong, a fraught meeting with the Saudi crown prince, and the upcoming anniversary of the Afghanistan withdrawal.

By Jeffrey Goldberg | JULY 25, 2022


About the author: Jeffrey Goldberg is the editor in chief of The Atlantic and a recipient of the National Magazine Award for Reporting. He is the author of Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror.

Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden's national security adviser, told me at the Aspen Security Forum on Friday that he worries China may be learning the wrong lessons from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Many people assume that China, observing Russia's inability to conquer Ukraine, might be newly hesitant to invade Taiwan: "Hey, maybe we should completely rethink this" is the thought that Sullivan hopes enters Chinese minds. "But the thinking could also be How do we do it better than [Russia] if we had to do it?" Sullivan said.

It is both Sullivan's job and his natural inclination to worry, but in our conversation, he did note that Russia’s inability to have its way in Ukraine has been enormously consequential for the West. "Russia was not able to achieve the basic strategic objectives that President [Vladimir] Putin set out, which were to seize the capital city of Kyiv and to end Ukraine as a going concern," he said. "And instead the Ukrainians won the battle of Kyiv. They beat Russia back from Kharkiv. They stopped Russia from being able to make a bum's rush to Odessa. And they essentially stymied the Russian effort to get beyond a swath of territory in the south and east of the country. And now we're in a circumstance in which Russia is facing significant difficulties constituting the kind of force necessary for them to achieve their objectives."

Our conversation at the security forum, a three-and-a-half-day Burning Man for the national-security set, sponsored by the Aspen Security Group, was held before an audience that included three former national security advisers—Condoleezza Rice, Stephen Hadley, and Tom Donilon. Sullivan could not have found this particularly relaxing, but he provided thought-provoking answers about subjects as varied as strategic ambiguity and American exceptionalism, and parried questions about the hardest subjects he confronts, including the Taliban's victory in Afghanistan and U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia. On Afghanistan, he said, in advance of the first anniversary next month of the American withdrawal, "It had to come to an end."

What follows is a transcript of our conversation, edited by me for concision and clarity:

Jeffrey Goldberg: Let's talk about the Middle East trip, specifically about the most controversial aspect of this trip, the meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. President Biden called him a pariah earlier, and now he went to meet him. Was it a mistake to call him a pariah?

Jake Sullivan: I think what's interesting about the way that this has been covered is that time seemed to stop between this debate comment made in October of 2019, and the president traveling to Saudi Arabia in July of 2022. A lot happened in between.

When President Biden came into office, he made a fundamental strategic judgment that we were going to recalibrate, but not rupture, our relationship with Saudi Arabia. And so this wasn't a decision that he made in the weeks leading up to this trip. This is a decision he made by taking a sober look at the world as we saw it coming into office. And yes, that means reversing the prior administration's blank-check policy. It did mean cutting off offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia and really pushing hard to help get what is now a fragile but extended truce, the longest period of peace that we've seen in Yemen in seven years. A year ago, we were talking about Yemen as the worst humanitarian catastrophe on the planet, with thousands of civilians dying from violence and starvation. And now we have had three, going on four, months of fragile, but real, cessation of hostilities. And he also said all along that he was going to ensure that human rights would be a critical part of the agenda. And right at the top of the meeting with the crown prince, he raised the issue—both the direct issue of Jamal Khashoggi and his brutal and grisly murder and the broader issue of human rights as well. He let the crown prince know exactly where America stood.

Goldberg: But the Saudis have already been denying what took place in the meeting. Why did they deny what the president said vis-à-vis Khashoggi?

Sullivan: Well, I would characterize it a little bit differently. The Saudi ambassador was quoted saying Joe Biden raised the issue. He raised it up top. He was direct about it. The Saudis made no bones about that fact. Actually, they also put out what the crown prince's response was with respect to how he raised a series of issues related to U.S. foreign policy over the past few years. So I don't really accept the premise of the question.

And I think if you look at our major strategic objectives in the Middle East relative to stability and peace—whether it's to do with Yemen, or Iraq's integration into the region, or Israel's integration into the region, whether it's to do with the free flow of energy and sufficient energy supplies to protect the global economy, whether it's to do with these countries betting on the United States, and not another outside power, when it comes to the future of technology and 5G—you go down the list, and the actual outcomes of this meeting were not just a bunch of words. There are real commitments for us to work together on these issues, but I'm not going to tell an unalloyed positive story about it, because we do have real and deep concerns that the president expressed to the crown prince directly about actions both past and present.

Goldberg: Are you confident now that MBS won’t do this again? Won't go after critics, dissidents, the way he went after Khashoggi?

Sullivan: You know, the night that President Biden did his extended meeting with King Salman, first, and then the crown prince, he actually came out and did a press conference … and in the question-and-answer session, he was asked this exact question. He was asked, "Can you promise us that this won't happen again?" And the president—it's worth looking at his response. It was very human. It was very direct. It was very Joe Biden. He said, "Of course, I can't make a promise about what someone else is going to do. I can only make a promise about what the United States is going to do. And I made clear, in no uncertain terms, what would transpire in the event that anything like this happened again." I can't characterize my level of confidence about what another country will choose to do in the future.

Goldberg: Because I'm a masochist, I'll try one more time. You have direct exposure to very fascinating world leaders. We'll talk about some others as well. I'm asking what you think about MBS. Do you think that he is the unstable, authoritarian, thin-skinned dictator that The Washington Post and others well beyond The Washington Post believe, or do you think he's capable of growth? We're trying to understand this because this guy could be running Saudi Arabia for 50 years.

Sullivan: So I will say that I have made it a point to reserve my personal opinions about other world leaders. That is something that shouldn't factor into U.S. foreign policy in a significant way. And so I'm afraid that I'll keep my own counsel in terms of answering that question. Sorry.

Please go to The Atlantic to read more of this interview.
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