Hysteria And Delusion

The signs of this hysteria and delusion among today's US "elites" are all over the country. Nowhere it is more apparent than in US media, including the so called "scholarly" and "professional" magazines dealing with foreign affairs and geopolitics. Late Samuel Huntington was one of the founders of the Foreign Policy magazine, which for years demonstrated a complete lack of expertise on pretty much any serious Russia-related issue but after Crimea's return back home, to Russia, in 2014 this magazine has become a panopticon of BS-pushers, hack-produced "opinion" pieces and, in general, became an openly Russophobic rag which continues to defend indefensible.

It is my long standing contention, which I can back up with facts, that US "diplomacy" today is nothing more than a collection of badly educated and uncultured people who are brainwashed with American "exceptionalism" and most of whom are not really diplomats but have degrees in political "science"--that is have no systematic knowledge of the world around them. As the review of the book by real US diplomat, James Bruno, states:

Our foreign policy is in the hands of the clueless, the self-serving and the politically corrupt. Read this book first. Then fill out papers to emigrate. The author provides a first-hand view from inside the belly of the beast of the U.S. foreign policy establishment. His insights are so spot-on that government censors have blocked out whole sections of text. The Foreign Circus will have you alternatively laughing and shaking your head. And when you read tomorrow's headlines, you'll have a better appreciation why Washington screws up.

Enter the latest opus in Foreign Policy (and Hudson Institute) by yet another hysterical and delusional hack, Peter Rough. His piece has a very promising title: The Best Way to Defeat the Islamic State and Succeed in Syria? Push Back on Putin. The whole piece is a testimony to the depth of the both, yes, hysteria and delusion of American "exceptionalists" when forced to face the reality. I will allow the readers of my blog to make their own conclusions but... But who is Peter Rough? Here is what his biography tells us:

Peter Rough is a Fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., where he researches a wide range of national security issues. Currently, he is co-leading two in-depth studies: one that examines Iran’s challenge to the American-led regional order in the Middle East and another that investigates U.S. extended deterrence in the second nuclear age. Until recently, he helped edit Hudson's journal, Current Trends in Islamist Ideology. Prior to joining Hudson, Rough collaborated with Leila Fawaz on a social history of World War I in the Middle East, A Land of Aching Hearts, published by Harvard University Press in fall 2014. A former Associate Director in the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives, he also served as Director of Research in the Office of George W. Bush, assisting the former president with his memoir, Decision Points. Rough has completed stints as a Policy Analyst at the U.S. Agency for International Development, where he served also as staff briefer to Administrator Henrietta Fore, and as an advisor to U.S. Army Special Operations Command, where he analyzed Unconventional Warfare doctrine for the Commanding General’s Strategic Initiatives Group. In 2012, he was responsible for U.S.-Russia bilateral relations as a member of the Romney for President Russia Working Group. In 2016, he served as a member of the Rubio for President Middle East Working Group. Rough began his career at the Republican National Committee specializing in political research. A proud native of Des Moines, Iowa, he holds a Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, from The George Washington University and a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, where he was a Cabot Corporation Scholar.
He is a native German speaker.


Isn't it a biography of a classic US humanities "educated" hack who knows everything a little bit and nothing at all? Here it is--a perfect embodiment, a portrait, of a current US faux-intellectual "elite" who not only fvcked the surrounding world up to the point of bringing it to the brink of the WW III, but screwed own country, that is US, so badly and have a stunning track record of utter failures in anything they apply their pathetic "skills" to, that the only thing which is left for them is to try to create a make-belief world where their supposed "expertise" is in demand. Evidently Rough (and his publishers), who are totally oblivious to the facts on the ground in Syria, missed the point at which they, accidentally, dropped their mask of "expertise" and "objectivity" and are openly suggesting support for Al Qaeda (and ISIS). This, of course, is apart from open lies which are in the foundation of current (and past) US Administrations' such as this:

If the president is rejecting Kerry’s counsel, the secretary of state should resign. Assad now ranks as perhaps the worst killer since Pol Pot brutalized Cambodia in the 1970s while Putin has revealed himself as an insatiable revisionist intent on exploiting American weakness. Far better for Kerry to exit the stage in a burst of honor than vainly travel the world like a modern-day Falstaff perpetually humiliated by Putin. It is past time for the U.S to end the diplomatic track and impose meaningful costs on Russia, Iran, and Assad. The future of the region and the defeat of the Islamic State depend on it.
 Come to think about it, if I were Peter Rough (or Foreign Policy editor) I would "exit the stage in a burst of honor", but sadly, meanings of such words as honor, integrity and academic honesty are unknown to likes of Rough and these "experts" will continue for now to poison the air with their hysteria, delusions and lies until are smashed by the inevitable march of history or not prosecuted at the war crimes tribunal where many of them truly belong. Unless, of course, they follow the example of their ideological father, Dr. Goebbels, and commit a suicide. Or start facing reality as, once respected by me (not anymore), Nicholas Gvozdev tries to do.

Last year, the calculation of Saudi Arabia—and by extension of the United States—was that Russia could not sustain its more assertive position in the Middle East (and other parts of the world) in light of declining energy prices, and that unsheathing the oil weapon would curb Kremlin ambitions. This was wrong. Today, it is Saudi Arabia that has begun to search for ways to firm up oil prices while Rosneft—Russia’s state oil company—declares that it has no need for capping production. Syria has not proven to be the quagmire that President Obama said it would be for Moscow. The Russia-Turkey partnership now seems to be back on track while Ankara’s ties with Washington worsen. While the Trans-Pacific Partnership, America’s signature economic initiative for Asia, is on political life support, Chinese president Xi Jinping will travel to the BRICS summit in Goa later this week to unveil ambitious proposals for free trade arrangements that bypass the West.

And while I may agree with this "Strategy" professor from Naval War College in this, his closing remarks still have me questioning his degree of the touch with the reality.

As an observer of U.S. policy, I can’t say for certain where the United States might be prepared to compromise and where it would stand firm. But U.S. leaders have to make these calls based on their assessment of U.S. values and interests combined with costs America is willing to pay. But U.S. policy will be on a firming footing once there is a salutary realization that, when it comes to the Kremlin, there are no risk-free options.
 
US policy cannot be on a "firming footing" anymore because the utter bankruptcy of US foreign policy institutions (and concepts) coupled with militant incompetency of its "think-tankdom" and so called "expert communities" is a fait accompli and what US needs is not "firming footing" for yet another military and political disaster and defeat, but a complete renewal of its political and academic elites--not complicit in creation of global chaos and bloodshed. This painful but necessary and long overdue, for national survival, process of beating addiction to perceived hegemony may start with electing Donald Trump to Oval Office. There is no guarantee that he will pursue policies which do serve real American national interests but there is a chance. The alternative to Trump leaves no chance at all and will see delusional people like Peter Rough setting US on the final approach to national suicide and with it, possibly, to a global one too. We still have a choice.

NOTE: I am still struggling with the formatting of this text, I will update links later.