EDITORIAL

THE LEAKED DARROCH CABLES

Brits’ Plot for a U.S. War with Iran May Backfire to Finish British Empire

by Harley Schlanger

[Print version of this editorial]

July 12—Cables sent from British Ambassador to Washington, Sir Kim Darroch, to the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which were leaked to the U.K. Daily Mail and published July 7, show that while Darroch was wining and dining associates of President Donald Trump, he was working on a strategy to contain Trump, or remove him from office. When viewed together with the discredited anti-Trump dossier compiled by former MI6 operative Christopher Steele, which was used by Obama intelligence officials to justify a regime-change coup against him, the deployment of British oligarchic circles against Trump—and against his efforts to break decisively with the dangerous adherence to British geopolitics—becomes unmistakably clear: These were features of a desperate campaign to keep the United States engaged in wars around the globe, wars directed for the benefit of a collapsing British Empire.

At the same time, the exposure of these operations provides the basis for putting an end to the direction of U.S. policy by those oligarchic financial circles. As author Rowan Scarborough usefully points out in a July 9 article in the Washington Times, even before the Darroch cables were leaked, “President Trump was deeply suspicious of the British government’s role in investigating him and his allies about Russian interference in the 2016 election,” as indicated by his tweets about the Steele dossier. Scarborough adds that the release of this second British anti-Trump “dossier” has deepened “the President’s suspicions about the U.S.-U.K. special relationship.” With American statesman Lyndon LaRouche’s long-standing polemics against the British Empire, and its continuing commitment to use the U.S. as the “brawn” directed by the “brains” of City of London imperialists being now so publicly validated, there is no longer any excuse for Americans to blindly enforce the dictates of this degenerate, immoral gang of genocidalists.

But it also must be understood that mankind has now entered a dangerous transitional moment, defined by the collapse of the Old Paradigm associated with the City of London and its Wall Street neocon/neo-liberal allies, and the emergence of a New Paradigm, centered around the ambitious global infrastructure policies of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), one which is open to participation by the United States under President Trump. Helga Zepp-LaRouche pointed out that it can be an “extremely dangerous” situation when the power of the British Empire is threatened, as “the British always like to have a ‘splendid little war’ when they don’t get their way.” The British role in provoking Iran, while at the same time goading Trump to strike against Iran, as demonstrated in the Darroch cables, is a prime example of this danger.

Darroch and the Cables

Darroch was appointed Ambassador to the United States in January 2016, after a career that combined intelligence and diplomacy, with an emphasis on Europe and the Middle East. He served as European Union advisor to Prime Minister Tony Blair from 2004 to 2007. From 2007 until 2011, he was Blair’s Ambassador to the European Union. From 2012 until September 2015, he was the National Security Advisor to Prime Minister David Cameron. During the Blair and Cameron governments, the British steered the Bush and Obama administrations into regime change wars in the Middle East (Iraq, Libya, and Syria) and Ukraine. For his service, Darroch received the title “Sir” when the Queen knighted him as a Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George, and made him a Commander of the British Empire.

While the cables released thus far include little from his first year in Washington, one comment submitted by Darroch shortly after Trump’s victory in the November 2016 election provides a preview of what was to come. In that message, he refers to Trump’s “inexperience,” as he is “above all an outsider and unknown quantity.” As such, Darroch advises that he will “surely evolve and particularly, be open to outside influence if pitched right. . . . We should be well placed to do this.”

Early on, Darroch reports that he believes that the British-concocted narrative of Russiagate is true, writing that on the matter of Trump-Russia collusion, “The worst cannot be ruled out,” as Trump may be indebted to the “dodgy Russians.” On key policy matters, he says it is likely that Trump “will do or say things we oppose.” Among potential points of contention, he refers to Trump’s denunciations of the World Trade Organization, stating that he is “tearing up existing trade details.” Another matter dear to the British is Trump’s rejection of the Green nonsense of man-made climate change, about which Darroch reports that President Trump is likely to “undermine international action on climate change.”

Darroch’s cables provide an ongoing psychological profile of Trump and his administration, as part of the British effort to define a strategy which is “pitched right” to contain the American President.

He described Trump as “incompetent,” and as “radiating insecurity.” The White House, he wrote, is “uniquely dysfunctional” and Trump’s presidency could “crash and burn,” and that “we could be at the beginning of a downward spiral . . . that leads to disgrace and downfall.” Trump’s administration is unlikely to become “more normal; less dysfunctional; less unpredictable; less faction riven; less diplomatically clumsy and inept.”

However, Darroch continued—relying on Hollywood imagery to make his point more dramatic—in spite of these weaknesses, Trump may nevertheless “emerge from the flames, battered but intact, like [Arnold] Schwarzenegger in the final scenes of the Terminator. . . . Do not write him off.”

As Trump seems to have “emerge[d] from the flames,” not defeated by Russiagate, the British cables increasingly take up the question of how to manipulate the administration to stick to the special relationship. Darroch notes that the President spends his evenings phoning his friends outside the administration, “seeking reinforcement or a different take.” The British Ambassador referred to those who have his ear as “Trump Whisperers,” whom he boasts have been “cultivated” by the British. Referring to these assets, he writes that “we have spent years building the relationships; they are the gatekeepers . . . the individuals we rely upon to ensure the U.K. voice is heard in the West Wing.”

For this to succeed, he wrote, “It’s important to ‘flood the zone’: you want as many as possible of those who Trump consults to give him the same answer. So we need to be creative in using all the channels available to us through our relationships with his Cabinet, the White House staff, and our contacts among his outside friends.” Among those being “cultivated” were former White House Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly and John Bolton, the war hawk now serving as Trump’s National Security Advisor.

A ‘Splendid Little War’ Against Iran

This strategy is being applied to get President Trump to go to war against Iran, a favorite target of both Bolton and the British. After the President refused at the last minute to authorize a strike against Iran on June 21, Darroch wrote that Trump’s Iran policy is “incoherent, chaotic.” Trump, he believes, was not “fully onboard” with an attack on Iran, likely out of concern that such an action would violate his 2016 campaign pledge against new wars. However, the British Ambassador writes, hopefully, Trump is now “surrounded by a more hawkish group of advisers. . . . Just one more Iranian attack somewhere in the region could trigger yet another Trump U-turn,” forcing him to deploy military attacks against Iran.

Two weeks after sending this cable, British Royal Marines boarded and impounded an Iranian oil tanker, and towed it to port in the British colony of Gibraltar, an action hailed by Bolton. An Iranian official responded by saying that if the British did not release the tanker, Iran would seize a British tanker. On July 10, the British accused Iran of trying to seize a British tanker moving through the Strait of Hormuz. While this has not yet escalated, it provides yet another example of British recklessness, in pursuit of entangling the United States in another “splendid little war.”

Useful Idiots

On July 10, following a series of tweets by President Trump, in which he refers to Darroch as “wacky” and a “very stupid guy,” and states that the United States will “no longer deal with him,” the British Ambassador resigned. The British press was filled with quotes from U.K. government officials praising Darroch, but expressing concern that the incident threatens the “special relationship,” which Darroch had recently said had been reaffirmed, following Trump’s visit to London. Typical of these comments is that of Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, one of the two Tory candidates vying to replace Prime Minister Theresa May. Hunt praised Darroch as exhibiting “an unswerving devotion to upholding the interests of the United Kingdom, in the best tradition of British diplomacy.” Indeed, in the tradition of continuing the efforts of his predecessors, such as Foreign Minister Palmerston, who backed the Confederacy in 1861, to subvert the anti-imperial tradition of the American revolution and Constitution!

While such British response is to be expected, Americans should take note of comments from several U.S. officials who wish to see Trump entangle the U.S. in another war. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who has defended Trump during Russiagate, turned on the President on the Darroch affair. Darroch “got a raw deal from the press,” Graham stated; he “did an outstanding job,” and he is “sorry to see” him resign. These sentiments were seconded by Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, who was Hillary Clinton’s running-mate in 2016. Instead of focusing on Darroch’s dirty operations against the U.S., Kaine blasted Trump, saying: “What this President does is he fights with our allies, and he cozies up to dictators all around the world.” Richard Haas, the President of the Council of Foreign Relations, which was established to support the special relationship, chimed in, saying Darroch “did nothing wrong.”

When combined with the still unraveling details of the illegal use of the lying Steele dossier to run a coup against President Trump, the Darroch cables shine a bright spotlight on the true intent of the British. Their view of an alliance with the United States is to use American military power to enforce British geopolitical doctrines, especially against the emergence of the new, inherently pro-American Eurasian alliance for economic development. Were Trump to follow his instincts, and bring the United States onboard the worldwide Belt and Road Initiative, the days of the domination of British imperial geopolitics—using wars and coups to enforce a Pax Britannica—would be ended, giving way to a new era of peaceful cooperation. That certainly is a prospect much desired by most of the world’s population.