Out of all the hot topics in international life over recent times, there are most likely two that vie with each other for primacy: COVID-19 and Trump.

The website Worldometers.info reports that in one year of the pandemic, more than 2 million people have already passed away because of COVID-19.

Now the United States is experiencing a severe outbreak of the coronavirus infection: the average daily mortality rate in the country has exceeded 3,000 people. However, it is expected that the situation will become even more exacerbated, and due to that the holidays, hospitals, and doctors are preparing for an influx of patients, which is only increasing, as a consequence of the holidays. In this situation, American medical workers who served in the military recall their missions to Iraq and the horrors of the war there, reports ABC News.

As the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic has shown, American capitalism no longer serves most Americans. At the same time, the well-educated elite live longer and more prosperous lives, while less educated Americans (and that is two-thirds of the population!) die at younger ages, and experience hardships physically, economically, and socially, Project Syndicate emphasizes.

The COVID-19 pandemic has depleted the capacity of medical centers, in particular in Los Angeles County, where they have decided not to hospitalize people if their chances of survival are low. Los Angeles ambulance crews were even advised to limit the quantities of supplemental oxygen that they provide to patients with the coronavirus to save money, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing the local authorities.

Besides the overall significant losses incurred by the American economy during the pandemic, passenger traffic in the New York subway has decreased by 70%, leading to losses of 3.4 billion USD, writes Die Welt The city’s subway administration stated that every second subway line is under the threat of being shut down. For comparison, during the financial crisis of 2008, the metro incurred losses that amounted to 400 million USD. The pandemic hit all economic spheres in New York, and across the United States as a whole. New York’s budget is sorely lacking in funds, so the authorities have to cut costs on everything.

“The pandemic entails a stronger, more universal shock than the 2008 financial crisis and September 11, 2001, which only gave a good scare to part of the world. For the first time, all of humanity fears that same thing – and at the same time! It seems to me that there have been massive clashes and trauma, whose long-term consequences could be enormous,” said Hubert Vedrine, who used to be France’s foreign minister from 1997 to 2002 and is the head of a geostrategic consulting company, in an interview with Le Figaro.

The charity organization Save the Children has called for assistance to return children from poor countries back to schools that have been closed due to the pandemic – otherwise these children risk becoming a lost generation. Children who are not currently attending school could become future doctors, scientists, or drivers. According to estimates from this NGO, reopening schools for 136 million of these children would cost 300 EUR per student, and the total cost would be 50 billion USD.

The coronavirus pandemic disrupted the previous trajectory the course of world development was taking, paving the way for radical change and ushering in remote work, distance learning, and an explosive growth in online commerce. In 2019, for example, it was believed that only by 2050 China would become impervious to the United States, and that in 2035 China’s GDP would equal that in the United States in absolute terms. But even by the end of 2020 it had become clear that China’s GDP would equal the United States’ much earlier (possibly by 2025-2028), and would become impervious to it by 2030.

However, according to the conclusion reached by many inhabitants on the planet, not only has the coronavirus pandemic wreaked havoc on the previous trajectory taken by world development, but so did the “Trump presidency”, which was a terrifying tornado that passed through not only the United States, but throughout the world.

The assessment given by Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth was that Donald Trump’s presidency has been a disaster for human rights. As HRW experts report, the list of humanitarian violations that the organization charges the outgoing American president with is very extensive. According to this organization, at home the American president has neglected his duty to provide protection to people fleeing violence and danger, and his policies have destroyed refugee families, and separated children from their parents. Donald Trump is also accused of helping reinforce right-wing radicals in the United States, inciting hatred against minorities while disregarding the incidents of systematic racism on the part of the police, which specifically resulted in incidents such as the death of African-American George Floyd, and other similar cases that have led to the largest protests against racism in the United States over the past few decades. Moreover, besides the blame for the deaths of more than 300,000 Americans from COVID-19 (which is 1.82% of the country’s population, and more than the losses suffered by the United States during WWII), fundamental inequality manifested itself through the fault of Trump during this pandemic, and black people and members of other minorities have been affected by this.

Even the US Department of Defense has been hit by the “Trump tornado”. As Politico points out, the Pentagon has faced a rise in extremism in its ranks, accompanied in particular by the growing popularity of ideas concerning the supremacy of the white race. In this regard, the Department of Defense is currently trying to understand how acute this problem has become specifically during the years of Trump’s presidency. This issue has been especially high on the agenda following recent reports that former military personnel were involved in the January 6 riots on Capitol Hill.

“Donald Trump has committed a series of actions that hit international institutions and America itself, but it will not be possible to simply hit the rewind button and return everything to the state before Trump,” believes international diplomat and expert Lakhdar Brahimi. For example, the fact that he announced the US withdrawal from the WHO in the midst of a pandemic, breaking the “nuclear deal” with Iran, and recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. To date, only one disarmament treaty remains between Russia and the United States: he signed off on many sanctions imposed on Russia, withdrew from the ABM Treaty, the Treaty on Open Skies, and the INF Treaty – and was apparently ready to withdraw from the START Treaty. In brief, to find at least something positive for the Russian Federation during the Trump presidency is, to put it mildly, a difficult task. Through the fault of Donald Trump, today the United States has strained relations with China, the UN, and according to Brahimi nowadays it can no longer manage conflicts, or help resolve them – and many of its mechanisms no longer function.

Ultimately, America is divided now, and President Biden will not be able to reassemble it over the next four years, nor will he be able to raise from the dead the more the than 300,000 Americans who have already died from COVID-19, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of civilians in the Middle East that have perished owing to prolonged armed aggression that Trump never did put a halt to.

Valery Kulikov, political expert, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Although Donald Trump had previously assured everyone that all the talk about his plans for a third presidential term was just a joke, on the eve of the elections, not for the first time he voiced this idea. At the same time, he emphasized that, given the way he was treated during his presidency, after his re-election, he was entitled to have four more years in the White House.

However, no matter how hard Donald Trump clings to his chair in the Oval Office, he will still have to leave. And neither his high publicly declared self-esteem nor even attempts to nominate him as a possible Nobel Laureate will help him to linger.

A year ago, in response to an editorial in Christianity Today calling for removing the president from power, Donald Trump called the magazine “a left-wing rag” and said: “I have done more for Christianity than Jesus.” However, this year, speaking to his supporters in North Carolina on October 16, President Trump revealed who he considers more famous than himself. “The other day, someone told me: “You are the most famous person in the world.” I answered: “No, not me.” I was asked: “Who is more famous?” I said: “Jesus Christ,” quoted the American president’s words on his Twitter journalist Aaron Rupar, having published a video from Trump’s election rally.

On October 26, 2020, American artist David Datuna depicted Donald Trump as a “saint” with an empty book in his hands that appeared in downtown Manhattan. As conceived by its author, the picture shows that the politician, in reality, does not defend any ideas. “The work demonstrates the duality of reality and puts it in the foreground. The reality is unusual: we have a self-proclaimed saint who preaches “nothing,” each day pulling us deeper and deeper into his selfish emptiness of the golden calf. It’s time to turn this page,” said the artist himself about this picture.

The Independent noted that Trump also compared himself with human rights activist Martin Luther King to praise his socio-economic achievements.

To please Trump in his dreams of world fame, the Norwegians nominated him for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize. More precisely, this was done by the Norwegian MP, chairman of the Norwegian delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, Christian Tybring-Jedde. It is noteworthy that in 2018, the Progress Party of Norway already tried to nominate Trump for this world award “for his contribution to solving the problem of nuclear disarmament on the Korean Peninsula.” Still, something did not come together (or rather, final nuclear disarmament did not happen there), and therefore Prime Minister of Ethiopia received the award. In 2020, the Norwegians again offered to present Trump with the prize, this time for “having achieved an agreement on the normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.” Trump’s national security adviser Robert O’Brien faithfully echoed the same idea.

However, Fox News very lucidly explained why the Nobel Peace Prize would go to the well-known comic book character Alf rather than Trump.

Well, what do other politicians and the media think of Trump? – Here are just a few of them:

The Egyptian outlet Sasapost, for example, in contrast to the merits of the US President expressed by the Norwegian MP, points to the four most dangerous decisions of Trump, which may not in the best way change the future of the unstable Middle East in decades to come:

• the assassination of Soleimani – the second person in power in Iran;
• withdrawal from the nuclear agreement with Iran;
• rejection of the Kurds – America’s best friends in Syria;
• “Jerusalem is the capital of Israel,” calling it one of the most dangerous decisions, adding that Donald Trump took many other fatal steps that shook the world.

The American magazine The Atlantic drew particular attention to the scandal that erupted in the United States about the growing hostility of national military towards Trump caused by his repeated disparaging comments about military personnel’s mental abilities and requests that seriously injured veterans should not participate in military parades. Especially outraged the military circles and their many relatives were by Trump’s words that the Americans who died in the war are “losers” and “fools”!

Therefore, hardly surprising is MSNBC’s assessment of Donald Trump’s activities: during his four years in office, he proved himself to be a global expert on destruction, he pulled out of several international agreements, many of which were in the primary interests of the United States.

The former head of the White House, Barack Obama, made a similar assessment by stressing in a published interview with the Spanish newspaper El Pais that Donald Trump had caused severe damage to the United States and the rest of the world.

In unison with him, in an interview with Die Zeit, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier expressed his conviction that the departure of the head of the White House, Donald Trump, is a “happy event” for Europe. “Now it will be possible to stop the further erosion of multilateralism and the weakening of international organizations … And, speaking openly, I do not think NATO would have survived another four years of Trump.”

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani expressed his satisfaction with US President Donald Trump’s defeat in the presidential election, saying on November 25: “Praise be to Allah that the Americans and the whole world got rid of Trump.”

And Joe Biden, in an exclusive interview with the New York Times, said that he was proud of not letting Trump stay in the White House for another four years. He calls Trump’s epoch “ugly.”

The American publication TIME, evaluating Trump’s activities, expressed that he could go to jail for his sins when he is no longer President.

And the Japanese Newsweek, answering the question: What awaits Trump after the defeat – a pardon, arrest, or maybe emigration? Notes that the Democrats will probably sue him. You can blame him in many ways. Trump may even have to emigrate.

At the same time, ABC News adds that although Trump did not escape all legal problems during his presidency, his immunity served as a good shield for him. However, having lost his post with a defeat in the elections, the businessman will be forced to face a new reality and a whole series of existing lawsuits and investigations, which he will have to deal with as an ordinary citizen.

At this point, The Independent recalls Donald Trump’s statements a couple of weeks before the election that he could move to another country in case of defeat. Indeed, this can be not only Scotland or Canada, but even Russia, China, or North Korea, with whose leaders, according to the US President himself, “he has many things in common.”

But it is unlikely that Trump will be made welcome with open arms, as he “annoyed” so many. And it is not for nothing that Berlin’s Madame Tussauds museum has already rearranged the figure of US President Donald Trump into a copy of a dumpster, thereby expressing the majority opinion about this 45th US President and his inglorious “reign.”

Vladimir Odintsov, political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

During his presidency, the current boss of the White House has repeatedly, actively tried to play the “war card” to gain support for his policies – and not only from the American military, but also from the nation’s general public subjected to stepped up propaganda from the government and Hollywood about the alleged existence of “super fighters” and “super weapons” in the United States. However, this game by Donald Trump ran its course, and without any clear successes for him.

Right up to the infamous presidential elections on November 3, he actively demonstrated his concern for the American armed forces, brushing aside various (and, of course, justified) criticisms from opponents due to the US Army’s declining combat capability over the past three years, and it lagging, in terms of developing new types of weapons, behind Russia, a country that not only has surpassed America in the hypersonics race, but has also come very close to developing a weapon capable of intercepting hypersonic missiles.

One month ago, during a speech to supporters in Wisconsin, Donald Trump was even forced to announce that the United States had invested USD 2.5 trillion in its Armed Forces, hoping to win “thunderous applause”. However, he did not get that, since everyone today already grasps that this astronomical amount of money was spent not on caring for US armed forces veterans, who do not receive sufficient medicines or the care that they need in social institutions and hospitals, but on increasingly enriching the elite in the US military-industrial complex.

As far as the “super weapon” that Donald Trump periodically boasted of in his speeches goes, giving publicity to a “super bomb” or a “super-duper rocket”, one should at least remember the “mother of all bombs” actively touted by him: the GBU-43 / B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB), which was first deployed by the US on April 13, 2017 in combat in Afghanistan. As it turned out, its effect was by no means as “rousing” as the boss of the White House would have liked. Despite its very impressive declared characteristics (the weight of the bomb is 9.5 tons, the force of the explosion reaches 11 tons TNT equivalent, and destruction occurs at a distance of up to 1.5 kilometers from the epicenter), according to a statement from Afghanistan’s Ministry of Defense using this “super bomb” worth USD 17 million killed only 30 (!) militants from the DAESH terrorist group (banned in the Russian Federation – ed.). That means the cost of destroying each of the militants was USD 566 thousand!  If each fighter received USD 10,000 per year, i.e. five times more than the national average income, he would be able to live comfortably (by Afghan standards) for more than 50 years, and would not be involved in spreading any kind of terror. In other words, if US helicopters simply flew over Afghanistan and scattered USD 17 million over its villages then the effect could be more impressive than intimidating mountain goats in the Hindu Kush valleys.

Under these conditions, and realizing that the crowning twist in his presidential powers has arrived anyway, Donald Trump urgently began to play another card – reducing the number of American troops abroad under the humane pretext of “ending the armed conflicts in which the US participates”. And now, Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, who took the position after Mark Esper recently resigned, announced the Trump administration’s intent to reduce the American military contingent in Afghanistan and Iraq to 2,500 soldiers by mid-January, when the inauguration of the country’s new president is scheduled. According to the plan, by January 15, 2021, the number of US troops in Iraq will have decrease from 3,000 to 2,500, and in Afghanistan from more than 4,500 to 2,500.

Back in October, Donald Trump wrote on Twitter that such plans are very popular with a significant portion of Americans, who want to “bring their guys home” and not get involved in any new wars in the Middle East, and by virtue of this he promised that the remaining American service personnel in Afghanistan would return home by Christmas. Some American media outlets, responding to this news from the White House, noted that “if the information is true, then Trump will indeed go down in history as one of the most peace-loving presidents”.

However, according to Reuters US President Donald Trump, during his remaining two months in the White House, also decided to withdraw almost all American troops from Somalia, drawing on the example of cutting the American contingent in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is worth reiterating that currently there are about 700 American service personnel in Somalia assisting the local authorities in suppressing the extremist group Al-Shabaab (banned in the Russian Federation – Ed.)., which has ties to the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization (banned in Russia – Ed.). However, Colonel Ahmed Abdullahi Sheikh, who served as commander of the Somali Danab special forces for three years (until 2019), told Reuters that such a move could undermine the credibility of the United States in the region.

Along with this, the obvious agony of the American military tossing to and fro began between two hotbeds: Syria and Iraq. The Syrian news agency SANA reported that on November 18 a convoy of American troops, which consisted of 60 trucks carrying military equipment and weapons, was headed from Syria to Iraq through the Al Waleed border crossing (one of the three official border checkpoints between the two Arab republics) in eastern Syria. Along with that, it should be noted that in every recent month information has arrived from the region about movement by the US military in the opposite direction, from Iraq to Syria, taking into account the Pentagon’s earlier decision to reduce the US presence in Iraqi territory. And at the end of September, the Turkish news agency Anadolu reported that US Armed Forces continued to reinforce their bases in northeastern Syria, redeploying additional armored vehicles and military cargo shipments from northern Iraq.

But Trump has recently been trying to demonstrate his desire to reduce the US military contingent not only in the Middle East, but also in Europe, forcing “European allies” to pay more for their security.  For example, as of September, according to the Pentagon 63,800 US military service personnel were located in Europe. If reservists and civil servants are added to this number, the American contingent in Europe totals more than 80,000 people. In July, the White House announced that 6,400 American troops would return to the United States from Germany, and several thousand more would be relocated elsewhere in Europe, with some of them heading further east, closer to Russia.

According to American media, citing Joe Biden’s team, the Democrat does not plan to comment on the decision made by the Trump administration to reduce the number of American soldiers abroad, and is clearly counting on being able to re-examine that decision.

Vladimir Danilov, political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The upcoming US presidential election is yielding a series of books designed to analyze how Donald Trump has performed and, more often than not, put forth a rationale why everything went wrong during his tenure. The book Rage occupies a notable place among those; the author is Robert “Bob” Woodward, who is an American cult journalist and an associate editor at The Washington Post.

The cornerstone for the book was comprised of both 18 interviews that Woodward had with Trump from December 2019 to July 2020 and other sources. In particular, Woodward managed to get his hands on 27 letters that Kim and Trump exchanged (25 of which were never released to the public), and which he quotes copiously.

Analyzing this correspondence, Woodward notes that the language used by both leaders does not seem like what is traditionally used in diplomacy, and more resembles “a declaration of personal loyalty that the Knights of the Round Table would utter.”

For example, on June 15, 2018, three days after they met in Singapore, Trump writes that “the media outlets did a fantastic job for you and North Korea”. In response, on July 6 Kim writes: “This significant first meeting with Your Excellency, and the joint statement we signed together in Singapore 24 days ago, really marked the start of a meaningful journey”.

On September 6, 2018, Kim starts talking about the specifics: “We are ready to take further significant steps, one at a time, in stages, such as completely shutting down the Nuclear Weapons Institute, or the satellite launch area, and irreversibly closing our nuclear material production facility.”.

On December 25, Kim writes that he cannot “forget that historical moment when I had the opportunity to firmly squeeze Your Excellency’s hand in that beautiful, sacred place, while the whole world was watching us with great interest”, as well as “I am very humbled by the opportunity to establish a wonderful relationship with an individual such as Your Excellency”. However, he does get down to business quickly: 2019 is approaching, we have to meet, and it will be “a historical meeting, like a scene from a science fiction film”; people are already working, and it is necessary to definitively determine the meeting place for working negotiations. Kim Jong-un hopes that “Your Excellency will once again demonstrate a high level of resolve, and excellent leadership qualities, for the sake of achieving results during the second summit” and “the objectives set by Your Excellency will result in enviable fruitfulness”.

And, even though the summit in Hanoi was not successful, both sides still bowed and scraped before each other. On March 22, 2019, Trump writes to Kim: “Thank you again for making such a long journey to Hanoi. As I told you when we parted ways, you are my friend, and always will be”.

On June 10, Kim writes “a letter of verbose flattery”: “Just as during the short time we spent together a year ago in Singapore, every minute we shared 103 days ago in Hanoi was a jubilation that left precious memories… I am convinced that our strong and special friendship will become that magical force which will unfetter progress in relations between the DPRK and the United States, and will clear all the obstacles for us on the way to achieving our joint goals”. “I assure Your Excellency that my respect for you will never wane”.

However, in this author’s opinion, flattery is not as important as the passage that states “without new approaches and the needed resolve, the prospects for solving problems will only diminish” and “sooner or later, one fine day, to give our mutual trust yet another chance, we will sit down together and turn our grand intentions into reality”.

In response, on June 12, 2019 Trump writes: “Only you and I, working together, can solve the problems between our two countries and end nearly 70 years of hostilities, bringing an era of prosperity to the Korean Peninsula that will exceed our highest expectations – and you will be the one in charge”.

After the June 2019 summit at the DMZ on June 30, 2019, the parties exchanged several more letters – and then, on August 5, Kim expresses outrage over the joint US-South Korean military exercises. “I thought that these provocative joint field training exercises would be either canceled or postponed until the start of working-level negotiation between our countries, where we will continue discussing important issues… I am clearly offended, and do not want to hide this feeling from you. I am truly deeply offended.”

Woodward believes that the US President fell for crude flattery and the fact that he was called Your Excellency, noting that Trump often called Kim’s letters beautiful, although in response to similar accusations made by John Bolton, Trump explained that he was just being sarcastic.

But we are more interested in what new things we can learn about the underlying reasons for some actions. First, it seems that this author’s assumption is correct that Trump understood that the nuclear issue of the Korean Peninsula cannot be solved, but can be handled by putting the process of exacerbation on hold.  For example, Woodward describes how US officials, including senior intelligence officials, have warned that North Korea is unlikely to ever give up its nuclear weapons, and that Trump’s approach may wind up being ineffective. Trump, however, told Woodward that he is filled to the brim with resolve to stay this course, and that the CIA has no clue how to communicate with Pyongyang.

But, at the same time, Trump states that for the North Korean leader nuclear weapons are the same thing as a house that he cherishes, and therefore will not sell.   And that during the summits he “did not give anything away”.  And that if North Korea resumes its long-range missile tests then it will face “big problems. Big, big problems. Bigger than anybody’s ever had before”.

Second, it confirms the speculation that in 2017 the United States came very close to a war with North Korea. “Much closer than anyone would know. Much closer”. Furthermore, to counter a possible attack by North Korea, the United States considered the possibility of “using up to 80 nuclear weapons against the North”.

That last retort even prompted a comment from the presidential administration that the United States cannot use military force on the Korean Peninsula without consent from Seoul, and the use of nuclear weapons is not stipulated in the operational plan (OPLAN 5027), which describes the actions allies would take in the event North Korea invaded the South.

Along with that, according to Trump Kim Jong-un told him that he believes that war with the US is unavoidable, and is completely ready for it. It goes without saying that Trump emphasizes how if President Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton were in power, war would have already started, and for the fact that it did not happen he highlights his “excellent” relationship with Kim.

The DPRK leader made a huge impression on him, and allegedly was so sincere with him that he spoke in detail about the execution of his uncle, Jang Song-thaek. It turns out that Jang was beheaded, and his body was on display on the steps of a building used by high-ranking North Korean officials.

Third, Woodward notes that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un never once, directly or indirectly, raised the issue of withdrawing American troops stationed in South Korea, even though he was very upset by the joint field training exercises:  “Even less do I like the fact that the US military is engaging in these paranoid and hypersensitive actions with the South Korean people”.

Based on this, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, according to Woodward, came to the conclusion that the North may actually want US troops to remain in South Korea to help keep China in check.

The description of why the summit in Hanoi failed is also interesting. Trump is not as much heaping blame on Bolton as he is claiming that he said that closing down the Yongbyon Nuclear Science and Weapons Research Center was insufficient, asking Kim Jong-un to go for closing the “big deal”. Kim was supposedly ready to eliminate one of his nuclear facilities, but he had five.  However, the North Korean side refused to make any further concessions, which was the reason for Trump’s statement that it was “unwilling to negotiate”.

Naturally, this book is not only about the DPRK. Woodward reproaches Trump for “not feeling responsible for the anger and pain” experienced by black Americans, and for not believing there is systemic racism in America. He is surprised at Trump’s train of thought about a new US nuclear weapons system that nobody in the world has ever heard of, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping. He quotes the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner: “the most dangerous people around the president are arrogant idiots.”

He described how some senior administration officials contemplated resigning, and how US Defense Secretary James Mattis went to the Washington National Cathedral to pray for the country’s future under Trump as commander-in-chief, even going to bed in his uniform to prepare for a possible emergency. According to Woodward’s book, Mattis once told then-Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats that Trump was dangerous, and unfit to be the president, and there might be a time when “we have to take collective action”. Also, Mattis allegedly told Coats that the president “does not have a moral compass”, and Coats agreed: Trump does not know the difference between truth and lies.

But let us recap the “Korean section”. On one hand, Woodward does believe that Trump conceded too much to Kim, postponing and then wrapping up the joint US-South Korea field training exercises, which have long angered the North, and giving Kim the international status and legitimacy that the North Korean regime has long craved. And it is no coincidence that almost every article in the South Korean media devoted to the book has ended with the rejoinder that “North Korea has not yet returned to the negotiating table with the United States”, or that “the negotiations, as before, have come to a dead end”.

On the other hand, although in 2017 many were convinced that a person like Trump would immediately start to wage war, it was the  interaction between the US President and the North Korean leader that prevented the escalation of tension.

“We didn’t have a war, and you […] have to give him his due” – that assessment is clearly praise, given that it comes from an author who believes that Trump is not the right person to serve as the country’s president.

Konstantin Asmolov, Ph.D. in History, leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of the Far East at the Russian Academy of Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

According to CNN,  “the coronavirus emergency is fast transforming into one of the gravest political and societal challenges of the modern age” but US leaders “are only just beginning to understand the gargantuan task before them.” The pandemic will be a much bigger test for USA’s economy and health system than predicted earlier on. And although the American leadership has seemingly understood the seriousness of the situation, they have yet to take sufficient measures. CNN has reported that President Donald Trump, “who has fractured truth and carved deep political divides over a turbulent three years in office, now faces one of the most profound challenges of any recent Oval Office holder.”

US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, currently “battling to save the economy”, has already painted “a dire picture of what could happen if Congress does not act.” A GOP Senate source has informed CNN that Steven Mnuchin told senators “the unemployment rate could rocket up to 20%.” And “such a nightmare scenario would approach” that of the Great Depression, “and far outpace the jobless number after the 2008 financial crisis, which peaked at 9.9%,” the CNN article has stated.

According to data from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center (which reports the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases based on information provided by federal and local authorities), on 20 March, in the United States, there were more than 13,100 coronavirus cases (that doubled practically every two days) and at least 176 deaths as a result of the infection. Governor of California Gavin Newsom has said that forecasts indicated approximately 56% of California’s residents, i.e. 25.5 million people, would be infected with the novel coronavirus in 8 weeks “without mitigation efforts.”

The relations between the United States and its European allies had been tense even before the crisis sparked by the pandemic began. According to the Global Times, USA’s unilateral decision to close its borders to Europeans served only to exacerbate these tensions, and these measures, taken by Donald Trump to fight the outbreak, have “apparently irritated Europe” and pushed it to cooperate with China. The Global Times has reported that Washington initially misled its allies into believing “the virus originated in China.” “Given Trump’s early passive attitude toward epidemic prevention efforts, the possibility that the US is the source of the European epidemic should not be ruled out,” the article has stated.

It is important to remember that American military personnel face the risk of infection at US military facilities overseas. “There have been confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the US military base in South Korea, which has since been closed,” writes the Global Times. The author of the story has also stated that the current coronavirus crisis in Europe poses a substantial risk to the health of people, including U.S. servicemen, in the region, and that “a large-scale virus outbreak” at U.S. military bases worldwide “would have a huge impact on U.S. global hegemony and could accelerate alienation between the U.S. and Europe.”

Le Monde has reported that the coronavirus has finally turned off the lights in US cities, such as New York. According to the French newspaper, streets of the Big Apple, always teeming with people, are now empty as bars, restaurants and financial centers have gradually closed their doors to the public. The mayor of the city has ordered kindergartens and schools to shut down. The article says that “the chic districts of Manhattan are deserted, the richest having” fled to their second homes in the countryside (after all, they have had such back-up plans for quite some time). Broadway has “gone dark” for at least a month. Only the poor, often African Americans, remain in the streets trying to sell souvenirs to non-existent tourists.

US political commentators, such as Jimmy Dore, have indignantly pointed out that until the coronavirus pandemic started in the country, US politicians in California, for instance, had not been worried about the plight of thousands of poor people living in the streets of their states. Since the homeless are particularly vulnerable at present, only now are measures being taken to find accommodation for them to prevent the spread of the virus, which is further evidence of the nation’s moral bankruptcy.

In the current climate, the number of people wishing to purchase fire arms has soared. According to The Guardian, “fears of possible social unrest amid the coronavirus crisis are prompting some Americans to turn to firearms as a form of self-protection.” The article states that “in Washington state and California, locations of early outbreaks of the virus, gun sales increased acutely propelled by Asian Americans fearful that they could face xenophobic and racist violence against their families given that the original source of coronavirus was China.” When asked why the spike was happening, Larry Hyatt, an owner of one of the largest gun shops in the USA, said: “Financial meltdown, pandemic, crime, politics … you throw it all into the pot, and you have one hell of a mess.”

As discussions about actions taken by the United States during the current coronavirus pandemic continue, some commentators have pointed out that as the world is trying its best to stop the spread of COVID-19, the United States has no intention of paying the World Health Organization (WHO) the money it is meant to contribute. According to the article, the USA has not even paid half of what it was supposed for year 2019 to WHO, and Washington’s expected contributions for 2020 exceed $120 million. This limits the World Health Organization’s capabilities to support world-wide efforts to fight the pandemic during this critical period. As a result, the author thinks the “superpower” is not only in financial but in moral debt to the global community.

There is more and more talk about the possibility that the coronavirus pandemic will give free rein to US President Donald Trump’s authoritarian tendencies. According to Le Journal de Montréal, the American leader, in a quest for more power, could “declare a state of emergency” and then postpone the 2020 presidential election. In the opinion of the author, such a possibility is all the more plausible because, until now, Donald Trump’s “management of the coronavirus crisis has revealed his serious intellectual, decision-making and emotional deficiencies.” “His lies and his disclaimers of responsibility for the chaos in which the coronavirus plunged the country are not believed by anyone,” and “the tent is about to fall on the sinister circus of Donald Trump and his band of sad clowns,” the article states. The story in Le Journal de Montréal postulates that “the coronavirus is an existential threat to his presidency … unless he finds a way to use it.” And “it is to be feared that the pandemic will catalyze Trump’s authoritarian impulses and lead him to declare a state of emergency.”

Vladimir Odintsov, expert politologist, exclusively for the online magazine ‘New Eastern Outlook’.

An unfriendly relationship between Tehran and Moscow in the past years was to the benefit of the United States because Iran was the only deterrent that prevented Russia from getting a foothold in the Middle East, which would have threatened U.S. interests in the region. However, recently the Russian Federation and the Islamic Republic of Iran have fostered closer ties in Syria. And as a result, not only did Russia increase its presence in the region but also, together with Iran, began pushing the USA out of there. Hence, Washington made a decision to crush Iran once and for all, as the latter had become a direct threat to the security of Israel (a U.S. stronghold in the Middle East).

Several years ago, the United States seriously considered attacking Iran even without any attempts by American politicians to put together some sort of a coalition to do so. While planning the onslaught without any “outside” help, the USA relied on the superiority of its the military and technological spheres, especially on that of its air force.

However, after the drone attack on Saudi Aramco facilities in September, the confrontation between the United States and Iran entered another stage. Although Yemeni Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for the strike and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed Tehran for the attack, President of the United States Donald Trump chose a more cautious stance. He stated that, aside from armed conflict, there were a number of other ways of exerting pressure on Iran. “There are many options. And there’s the ultimate option, and there are options that are a lot less than that,” the U.S. President told journalists in California in September. “I’m saying “the ultimate option,” meaning go in — war. No, I’m not talking about — I’m not talking about that ultimate option. No,” he added.

The Pentagon also expressed its opposition to the latest military adventure for obvious reasons. After all, it will not be the politicians from the banks of the Potomac River who will then have to extricate the United States from a bloody mess that well known forces in the USA, Israel and, last but not least, Saudi Arabia so wish to create. It is very clear to its leadership that in recent years Iran has managed to reequip its forces with quality armaments, thereby significantly increasing its military capabilities. The nation has been particularly successful at designing its own surface-to-air missile systems (SAMs), and has also become an undisputed leader in the unmanned aerial vehicle sector. Russia has helped Iran improve its defense capabilities by, among other means, supplying it with S-300 PMU2 SAMs. As a result, Iran’s ability to defend its airspace has increased significantly. And in the opinion of a number of foreign military experts, any aggressors that attempt to strike against Iran may incur serious losses. And as many of us know, any American casualties are completely unacceptable for the U.S. army, and particularly for its air force. According to the World Military Strength Rankings, Iran is number 14, that is, above Pakistan, Israel, North Korea, Australia and Canada, and, in the last two years, it has moved up seven places. In addition, the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy (NEDAJA) is in fourth place in the world based on its might. It has 398 combatant ships, including 34 submarines, thus its capabilities are only somewhat less than those of the United States Navy.

This is why Donald Trump’s current stance is radically different from that in 2017, when he (less than 3 months into his presidency) ordered air strikes against Syria only 2 days after chemical attacks, allegedly ordered by Bashar Assad, and deliberately staged events organized by paid provocateurs from the White Helmets.

The fact that Donald Trump has changed his position on Iran may also stem from the decision taken by the President (who is usually impulsive) to exercise more caution on account of the start of the presidential election campaign. While promoting his “America First” policy (which had already helped him win in 2016), Donald Trump wrote in his Twitter feed that the Unites States ought to end its “stupid endless wars” in Syria and send the troops back home. He has also expressed similar views about other conflicts that the USA had initiated. The President has stressed that the war in Iraq was a waste of money; that it was high time the U.S. forces were withdrawn from Afghanistan, and that other nations needed to compensate Washington for the expenditures associated with stationing its troops abroad, from South Korea to Germany.

In the last few days, the U.S. President has had a similar anti-war epiphany with regards to Iran, despite continued attempts to ramp up tensions between the United States and Iran and even calls for armed retaliation by Israel, Saudi Arabia and Donald Trump’s closest circle in Washington. Undoubtedly, the latter includes, first and foremost, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Vice President Mike Pence, the Senior Advisor to the U.S. President and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as well as a number of leaders in the Middle Eastern region (including Benjamin Netanyahu, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud, and Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Crown Prince of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi), who are all desperately trying to get Donald Trump to fall into the Iranian trap.

And up until now, such calls had been heeded by the American ruling elite with its aggressive and expansionist policy based not so much on the instinct of self-preservation and the need to overcome the threat posed by Iran, but more on the desire to completely dominate all of Eurasia (where 75% of the global population reside and most of world’s riches are located). And as a result of U.S military adventures there, formerly powerful armed forces of Iraq, Libya and a number of other nations in the region had been destroyed, with only one substantial army remaining (i.e. in Iran) that is capable of putting up some resistance to the United States.

This is why, in the current climate, Donald Trump has indicated that he does not support an armed conflict against Iran with its unpredictable consequences. Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani even stated that the U.S. President had proposed lifting all the sanctions against Iran during his meetings with European leaders on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly session in New York. And during the October hearing of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook said that the United States was prepared to hold negotiations with Iran and meet with representatives of its leadership without any pre-conditions.

Following Washington’s lead, Saudi Arabia began to pivot towards Iran. During an interview with the Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA) at the beginning of October, Iranian Government Spokesman Ali Rabiei confirmed that Iran’s leadership had received a message from Riyadh, and tactfully added that Tehran would welcome Saudi Arabia’s overtures towards peace. And at the end of September, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud surprised Americans by talking about Iran and its allies without any signs of aggression and even, at times, in a friendly manner during an interview with the CBS network.

And while Saudi Arabia is searching for intermediaries who could pass on a request to start peace negotiations to Iran, the Arab Emirates (a neighbor, a friend and an ally to the Kingdom) is re-establishing communication channels with the Mullah’s regime behind the scenes. Egyptian media outlet NoonPost has reported about the secret visits by UAE Sheikhs to Tehran and murky deals concluded there.

So Iran really is not Afghanistan, Iraq or Libya. Hence fittingly, Prime Minister of Pakistan, taking Iran’s military might into account, recently expressed his doubts about whether the West fully comprehended the consequences of the conflict with Iran or not, and issued a stark warning that there would not be a repeat of the “Iraqi scenario” there. It is, therefore, highly risky to start a war against the Islamic Republic of Iran even for the United States.

Vladimir Platov, an expert on the Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

It is well known that on the night of 14 September some drones attacked two of the largest Saudi facilities: one of them is an enormous oil processing site in Abqaiq (with a capacity of 7 million barrels per day), and the other the Khurais oil field with deposits of 20.1 billion barrels of oil, according to experts. An official spokesperson for the state company Saudi Aramco stated that the strike had reduced Saudi’s oil generating capacity by 5.7 million barrels per day. This accounts for 58% of all the oil produced by the Kingdom and approximately 6% of the global supply. Petroleum producers have noted that this is the first breakdown of this scale in the 70-year history of oil production in this country. Afterwards, a group of Yemeni insurgents (Houthis from the Shia Ansar Allah movement) claimed responsibility for the attack.

This incident signals the start of a whole new chapter (a fairly ominous one) for the Persian Gulf region. First of all, Houthis proved not only to Saudi Arabia but the entire world that they are capable of a successful military response against the Saudis, who initiated the bloody war against their neighbors. Violence that civilians in Yemen have experienced has increased to unprecedented levels, and as Lise Grande, the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Yemen, has written in her Twitter feed such a situation is untenable. She also condemned yet another air strike conducted by the Arab Coalition, headed by Saudi Arabia, in the Yemeni governorate of Hajjah, which resulted in the death of 12 people, including 6 children, on 12 August. According to Lise Grande, 320,000 people have been killed and approximately 3,000,000 have been displaced as a result of the conflict in Yemen. “We must put an end to this tragedy. It is heart-breaking that during Eid Al-Adha, families are mourning the death of their loved ones instead of celebrating together in peace,” wrote the UN Coordinator on Twitter.

In response to Saudi Arabia’s barbaric actions, which Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud personally spearheads, Houthis from the Ansar Allah movement, who had claimed responsibility for the drone attack on 14 September, threatened the Saudis with another strike. “We warn companies and foreigners not to be present in the facilities that were hit in the strikes because they are still within range and may be targeted at any moment,” said Yahya Saria, a spokesperson for the Houthi movement, to the Al Masirah TV channel. “We assure the Saudi regime that our long arm can reach any place we choose and at the time of our choosing,” he added and also warned Saudi Arabia to stop the aggression and the blockade against Yemen.

The Saudi economy has also suffered a severe blow, since it is yet unclear when Riyadh will again be able to export enough oil to its regular customers, who have already incurred financial losses because of the attack. Besides, the expectation that Saudi Arabia would always deliver required amounts of oil faltered. Moreover, shares of Kingdom’s giant Saudi Aramco have declined in value, and some of them are being prepared for a sell-off. In such a climate, the price of “black gold” immediately skyrocketed on the global oil market that has already begun running amok.

Incidentally, as is typical, the increase in oil prices has benefitted the United States and Donald Trump, personally, who authorized the release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve amounting to 648 million barrels (for sale on the world market at the increased price).

Unsurprisingly, there were immediate comments and accusations from Washington. At first Donald Trump, and then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is now alone after the departure of John Bolton, blamed not the Houthi rebels but Iran as usual for the attack. Based on photographic evidence that only Americans know about, a statement was then issued saying that Tehran had launched 20 drones followed by a missile strike against Saudi oil facilities. Washington’s “writers” appeared to have composed this chilling crime story, seemingly inspired by works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie.

However, in truth Washington’s officials conveniently forgot to mention that “modern” American missiles installed at the Saudi oil sites had for some reason been unable to defend the facilities against mere drones. After all, during a recent visit by Donald Trump to Riyadh, not only had Saudi Arabia quickly signed $100 billion worth of agreements but also promised to make $300 billion purchases in the near future. As it turns out, these were not modern weapons but useless junk that Donald Trump personally sells to ignorant “savages”.

President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin aptly addressed this issue at a joint conference at the end of the trilateral summit focusing on the conflict resolution in Syria, held in Ankara. He said: “As for assisting Saudi Arabia, it is also written in the Quran that violence of any kind is illegitimate except when protecting one’s people. In order to protect them and the country, we are ready to provide the necessary assistance to Saudi Arabia. All the political leaders of Saudi Arabia have to do is take a wise decision, as Iran did by buying the S-300 missile system, and as President Erdogan did when he bought Russia’s latest S-400 Triumph anti-aircraft system. They would offer reliable protection for any Saudi infrastructure facilities.”

Incidentally, the newly minted Crusaders, i.e. the USA, ought to take Russia’s stance on these issues into consideration. This would be especially timely right now, as “Donald Trump & Co.” (sure on the brink of bankruptcy) is planning to dispatch with Iran under any pretext whatsoever and causing continuous deterioration of the situation in the Persian Gulf region. It is quite obvious that the reason for accusations against Iran stems from the need to maintain pressure against this nation, which continues with its diplomatic efforts that include dialogue with European allies of the USA. Politicians have noticed another noteworthy aspect to this story. The White House seems intent to demonstrate, in particular to its Congress, that even after the departure of chief hawk John Bolton the foreign policy course of the current U.S. administration has not become dovish, especially in relation to Iran.

Accordingly, if we know who is behind the attack on Saudi oil facilities, we can then say: “Is it not a good idea to find out who ordered it?”. If we were to use the ancient tenet “Who benefits from this?” as a springboard, a conclusion can be drawn that Donald Trumps is the biggest beneficiary of all of these events. After all, U.S. elections are coming up soon and he needs a “win”, and there is nothing that would work better for him than the “Iran card”, on which a lot of propaganda dollars have been spent. Increased prices of “black gold” will allow U.S. oil producers to cover their costs of extracting shale oil, and will then encourage them to jointly vote for Donald Trump. Moreover, Saudi Arabia’s inability to maintain oil supplies at former levels will enable the United States to challenge it on the global markets. And the worsening situation in the Persian Gulf region will allow Washington to continue selling its outdated weaponry in even larger amounts to its Arab followers. Finally, the United States will be able to continue criticizing Iran by blaming them not only for the current events but also for any future escalations in tensions, which we are sure to witness.

Viktor Mikhin, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”

A number of American media outlets have stated that U.S. President Donald Trump’s standing is not as good as it could be at present. The latest opinion polls conducted in the United States show that his approval rating reached its lowest levels, and that he could be beaten by any of the four Democratic presidential candidates during the upcoming election in a year’s time. There is an opinion that analyses and plans for formulating a foreign policy were in many cases inadequate, which has caused greater concern among Republicans about the presidential election next year.

Donald Trump started his presidency with a visit to Saudi Arabia, where he signed contracts worth as much as $100 billion, and made Saudis promise to buy American arms for another $300 billion. Then, however, U.S. President’s policies failed on a number of occasions on the global arena.

Washington’s plans to crush the Russian economy with the aid of sanctions did not bear fruit, and, as a result, the whole world is currently laughing at them. Even Donald Trump himself has fully grasped the failure of such a policy and suggested inviting Russia back into the G7, which would transform this elite summit into a G8.

In addition, nothing worked with regards to China either although Donald Trump initiated a trade and economic war against this nation. Any financial gains apparently made by the United States were cancelled out by China’s increased tariffs on American goods.

And what of the DPRK, a country that the American President threatened to wipe off the face of the Earth? Currently, Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, is suddenly regarded as (based on the statements made by Donald Trump himself) a great leader who one could do business with.

Very little has gone right for Donald Trump with respect to the Islamic Republic of Iran after the United States pointedly and inexplicably withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement on Iran’s nuclear program while at the same time demanding (purely for sport) that Tehran fulfill all the obligations in accordance with this agreement. It is worth reminding our readers that the JCPOA delicately balances interests, obligations and compromises of many nations, which is why it cannot be subdivided into separate sections (for instance, with one binding and another nonbinding part).

Undoubtedly, Donald Trump is a fortunate business man, however, this is clearly not enough to run an enormous nation. The U.S. President did not even express any interest in whether or not sanctions (first imposed against Iran 40 years ago in 1979), which he places great hopes on, had borne any fruit before. At the time the USA first announced sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran, the world power seized all of Iran’s assets, including bank deposits, gold and other property in the amount of $12 billion.  In 1987, U.S. President Ronald Reagan imposed new sanctions against Iran. However, when they failed to yield desirable results in Washington’s eyes, in 1995, the sanctions were once again expanded to include foreign companies that collaborated with Iran.  After the United States withdrew from the agreement on the nuclear program on 8 May 2018, the unilateral sanctions against Iran yet again tightened.

Aside from unilateral, unlawful and inhumane sanctions the USA imposed against the Islamic Republic of Iran, Washington has pressured other world nations to put an embargo on Iranian exports. This in itself is a clear example of economic terrorism against the people of Iran.

However, despite the harsh sanctions, over this entire period, Iran has achieved a lot of success in all the spheres, including the military one (i.e. by creating its own weapons on par with their American counterparts).

It would be interesting to know how Washington intends to engage with Iran, with its history and diplomatic endeavors spanning thousands of years, and which was a Great Empire at the time when inhabitants of America walked around wearing animal hides. Does Donald Trump really think that all he needs to do is shake his finger at Iran and impose yet another set of barbaric sanctions against this nation for Iranians to simply cave?

It is quite obvious that Donald Trump is trying to use all the means at his disposal to make Tehran breach the non-proliferation treaty, and thereby undermine its collaboration with the IAEA (the International Atomic Energy Agency) in order to then have the motive to intervene by military means (something that is condemned in the strongest of terms by the international community and that will threaten the stability of the entire region). Many career diplomats have pointed out the resilience of their Iranian counterparts, and their strict adherence to international laws that govern the sphere of non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Russian diplomats, just as many foreign experts and professionals, believe that Iran’s rational behavior would be duly appreciated by all the other signatories of the agreement.

President of Iran Hassan Rouhani clearly expressed his opinion on the possibility of renewing negotiations with Washington. Having highlighted that Iran’s strategy is grounded in resistance from within and effective diplomacy, Hassan Rouhani stated that Tehran had never aimed to engage in bilateral negotiations with the USA. He said that numerous proposals to this effect had been made, but Iran had thus far rejected them. Hassan Rouhani affirmed that without resistance from within and effective diplomacy Iran’s path would be hard.

Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Foreign Affairs Minister of Iran, stated that Iran would “further lower its commitments under the deal” if Europeans failed to protect Iran’s economy from barbaric sanctions imposed on the nation by the United States after the unceremonious withdrawal from the agreement by the Trump administration. After all, in accordance with the JCPOA, Iran agreed to limit its nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of financial and economic sanctions. The Iranian Minister stated “It is meaningless to continue unilateral commitments to the deal if we don’t enjoy its benefits as promised by the deal’s European parties”. He also ruled out the possibility of renegotiating the JCPOA, and noted that it was perfectly clear for Tehran that it would be impossible to open a Pandora’s box and then close it once again.

With the upcoming presidential election drawing near, Donald Trump really needs to at least achieve some success with regards to Iran. However, it is entirely up to Tehran to act at this point, thanks to Mohammad Javad Zarif’s “iron hand in a velvet glove”. And in the meantime, Iran’s Foreign Affairs Minister continues to give Donald Trump, the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, master classes in diplomacy.

It would be interesting to see what Donald Trump, who appears to have only the threat of force (which, by the way, the USA currently does not have and is unlikely to have in the future) left in his arsenal, does next with regards to Iran. But the election continues to draw near and something needs to be done. And even now, the Iranian noose around Donald Trump’s neck continues to tighten.

Viktor Mikhin, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”

The key element of the current system of international political, economic and military relations is the ability of the US and Iran to keep the conflict between the two countries from degenerating into direct military confrontation.

Until recently, the Donald Trump Administration had strongly opposed easing sanctions against Iran, instead imposing, somewhat furiously, even more sanctions on that country. In early September alone the US Government introduced economic measures against the country’s space program. The US State Department Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook announced that the US would deal with the so-called Oil for Terror Network, a group of individuals and organizations through which the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is engaged in the illegal, from the American point of view, sale of hydrocarbons.

Iran has recently taken additional steps to cancel the nuclear deal concluded by Tehran with a number of world powers in 2015 by pumping gaseous uranium into more advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges. At the same time, Tehran pointed out that in a situation where both the US and the European participants in the nuclear deal cannot guarantee lifting sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran as per the agreed plan, Iran would be no longer bound by this international agreement on the nuclear energy research restrictions. Moreover Iran emphasized its technical capabilities for enriching uranium to 20% and above. A number of analysts are even confident that Iran will be able to achieve a level of enrichment close to 90% for weapon-grade uranium.

It should be noted that these measures on the part of Iran had been expected for several days. Tehran promised earlier that it would give up parts of its nuclear deal obligations every 60 days until the European powers found a way to compensate Iran for the economic damage from the US sanctions imposed by the US President Donald Trump’s Administration as part of its policy of exerting maximum pressure on Tehran. In July, Iran already exceeded the limits on the uranium reserves envisaged by the deal, and it unilaterally raised the limit on fuel enrichment from 3.67 to 4.5%. Nonetheless, the country has not yet officially withdrawn from the nuclear deal, unlike the United States.

However, President Trump’s decision to dismiss his National Security Advisor, John Bolton, because of strong disagreements with him on many issues, undoubtedly gives hope that the US-Iranian conflict can be mitigated in the near future.

The New York Times alleges Bolton believed his primary goal was to prevent the conclusion of agreements with America’s enemies. And, against this backdrop, the conflict with Iran, according to the former national security advisor’s entourage, was largely related to the position of John Bolton, for whom Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal with, and the restoration of the US sanctions against, Tehran were the main achievements of his 18-month-long activity in the White House.

Trump himself once said, half in jest, that “if it was up to John, we’d be in four wars now.” And in this regard, the US President clearly meant the possibility of developments unfavorable for the world not only on the Iranian issue, but also on the possible reconciliation with North Korea due to Bolton’s strong condemnation of North Korean missile tests as a violation of the UN Resolutions and his refusal to join Trump when the US President met with the North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un in the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas. It was Bolton’s policy as a Washington hawk to influence the US President regarding the White House action against the regime of Nicolas Maduro, providing the US support for the Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó in every way. Bolton’s negative stance on negotiations with the Taliban and his call on President Trump not to make an agreement with the radical Islamic movement, combating which thousands of US soldiers died in Afghanistan, proved important as well: it resulted in Trump’s refusal to try and reach a peace agreement with them.

The 70-year-old John Bolton is considered one of the heavy-weights of the American conservative foreign policy establishment, adhering to a deep skepticism about international treaties, disbelieving in the effectiveness of international organizations and being confident that military power is an essential component of the US foreign policy. However, these principles of John Bolton often not only contradicted President Trump’s position, but also undermined several of his initiatives to find a peaceful solution to certain conflicts.

It is not surprising therefore that a significant number of the US media responded positively to the removal of the irreconcilable hawk from a key position in the White House, since, as many are emphasizing, he was pushing Trump away from peace and diplomacy.

Amidst these developments, the possibility of personal negotiations between the leaders of the United States and Iran to resolve the conflict and ease the anti-Iranian sanctions regime has become increasingly encouraging over the recent days. The most suitable option is to meet face-to-face on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly at the end of September. Still, Washington is emphasizing that whether negotiations will take place or not will largely depends on the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Anyway, what can be discussed and what mutual agreement may be reached in the event of a personal meeting between the two leaders remains questionable.

We must keep in mind that Iran’s position reads as follows: when will the US return to the Joint Comprehensive Action Plan, or simply put, to the nuclear deal? Only then, according to Tehran, can we talk about something else. It is one thing to agree to limit a nuclear program that has never actually pursued the goal of obtaining nuclear weapons. It is a completely different thing though when it comes to surrendering one’s influence and missile power. Iran will hardly go for it.

Valery Kulikov, expert politologist, exclusively for the online magazine ‘New Eastern Outlook’.

The US-Iranian front has recently seen lightning speed developments that keep spreading over an ever increasing number of regions, Presidents and Prime Ministers of many countries, as well as the leaders of various institutions, foundations and companies. International media provide various kinds of comment, articles, essays, hypotheses and forecasts that have literally flooded newspapers, magazines, radio and TV. Everyman can hardly cope with this information overdose and finds it difficult to make anything out in the subtleties of the foreign policy the White House is carrying out at the moment where rules can hardly be found.

Let us try to get at least a general idea of what is going on in the Persian Gulf. Let us begin with outlining the basics of Donald Trump’s policy. In the course of his electoral campaign, he provided a clear picture of his stance on Iran that secured at least several dozens of thousands of votes for him: the deal ex-president Barack Obama had made with the Iranian ayatollahs did not prove very expedient for the American people, which is why he would put an end to it and then, as soon as Tehran finds itself kneeling, he would make a new deal which would be fully advantageous for the US.

Donald Trump kept the first part of his promise and, with pomp and circumstance, abandoned the international nuclear deal with Tehran, which by the way had been signed not only by the US, but also by a number of European countries. However, he encountered a minor problem: how does one get Tehran to make a new deal on the conditions the US wants? And it was here that Mr. Trump failed to take one fact into consideration: Iran is a sovereign state, a member state of many international organizations. The Iranians are entitled to have their own pride, dignity and love of freedom which prevents them from appeasing the whims of such an inconsistent President and acquiescing to the US requests.

In this case, Donald Trump, minding the coming elections and a possible decline of his prestige, cannot break his promises. What is he to do? As is his habit, the President began by imposing unlawful sanctions on the Iranians trying to smother them with famine and the deficit of basic medicine and cutting-edge medical equipment. And after he failed, he resorted to the threats of using force as he kept sending more troops to the region. At the same time, aided by his Arab allies, he organized a number of provocations, such as tanker explosions in the Persian Gulf and in the Gulf of Oman. Finally, a state-of-the-art drone and a reconnaissance plane were sent to Iran’s air domain. It is clear that, having deliberately sent its troops to death (as the White House expected the Iranian antiaircraft to shoot them down), Washington D.C. was going to use this terrible and bloody provocation against Iran. The loss of the 35 reconnaissance plane crew members would have shaken the whole American nation and provided Donald Trump with a lawful pretext to launch any kind of attack on Iran, including a possible nuclear strike. The verisimilitude of such deliberation is proved by the fact that the US President did indeed order to attack Iran, but later cancelled the order.

As for the possible death of millions of civilians, the agents provocateurs failed to take it into consideration, as they had done before. It would suffice to remember the atomic bombing of the civilians of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the wide use of internationally outlawed chemicals (defoliants) in the whole territory of Vietnam, the use of depleted uranium shell heads in Iraq, the use of chemical weapons against the civilians of Al-Fallujah (Iraq) who dared to oppose the US occupants, 70% of whom were Iraqi women raped by the US fighters for democracy. This list can go on forever if we mention numerous other instances that took place in many countries of Latin America, Africa, Asia and Europe where the US conquerors left their traces.

Any sane person reading these lines would surely ask themselves: how is all this possible in our modern age? Is it some wild version of the Middle Ages when women used to be burnt at the stake, when rack and other instruments of torture were used to make a person captured by the Holy Inquisition confess that he was indeed a devil worshipper, a sorcerer, etc. However, if one knows a thing or two about the history of the US that finds itself in the backyard of the global civilization and moral development, it comes as no surprise.

The Mayflower ship that pulled in to the American shore on November 21, 1620 brought some 102 Pilgrims who later founded a new colony that later became the United States of America. However, the descendants of those Pilgrims account for less than 1% of the country’s population. And who were the others? At the time, European states trying to purge their lands of criminals would send convicts of all kinds to the American colony: murderers, thugs, rapists, thieves and other crooks.

One cannot help feeling that certain US establishment officials inherited these ill genetic qualities of their forefathers, which proceeded to shape their personalities and behaviour. This explains the urge to intimidate the rest of the world, to sack, to unlawfully capture other people’s property, and if they fail, then to destroy these others, just as their forefathers did with the Indian population, the lawful owner of the American land. Do you think they are ashamed of the instance when blankets contaminated with chickenpox were given to the Indians which resulted in the deaths of men, women and children? No, they are not only reluctant to pay compensation to their descendants, but also designing biological and other kinds of deadly weapons that would serve to kill millions of innocent lives.

True, for the moment, the White House is trying to show small concessions to Iran by conducting some kind of secret talks that are allegedly underway in the Oman Sultanate and Kuwait. Just like those medieval plunderers who, after failing to vanquish the guards of a rich caravan, would retreat to the desert with new forays in mind.

But why not have open talks, rather than secret ones, if they do not serve some malignant purpose?

The US call for parley are a ruse to make our country lay down her arms, said ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran and the Islamic Revolution. “Talks are a ruse to get what they want. They say: lay down your arms so that I could treat you any which way I like. Is that talks?” said Khamenei. At the same time, the Iranian leader emphasised that the US authorities treat the Iranians unfairly by imposing harsh sanctions against them.

Are talks feasible? Not at the moment. However, Donald Trump has to hurry, the elections are due soon and he must be very successful in order to make a strong impression on the electorate. As for Iran, it has seen decades of barbaric sanctions since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, so if it has to tolerate them a bit longer, it will, but it would hardly ever bow and scrape before Washington DC.

Viktor Mikhin, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”