FROM EIR DAILY ALERT
Russia Aware of U.K.’s Intense Hostility to Trump-Putin Summit
July 2, 2018 (EIRNS)—More than outbursts in London press, the strong opposition of British officialdom to President Donald Trump meeting with President Vladimir Putin, is quite formal, and Russian leadership is aware London is the primary opponent.
CNN’s Fareed Zakaria went to London to get distilled fury against the summit in an interview with David Cameron’s former Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne and Tony Blair’s public spokesman Alastair Campbell.
Osborne said, of the summit being held,
“It makes the U.S. a less reliable partner for Western countries like my own.... Trump’s unprecedented approach to Russia has stirred discord among European leaders who want to isolate Putin.”
And
“There are new rising powers like, of course, China and a more resurgent Russia. The one thing I’d say is Trump’s not doing anything to counter those forces; he is accelerating them.”
This straightforward statement that Trump blocks London’s anti-Russia policy, was contrasted with Campbell’s hysterical attacks. Campbell was part of Blair’s 2003 propaganda team responsible for “sexing up” the report on Iraq’s weaponry, turning it into the infamous “weapons of mass destruction,” that legitimized the Iraq War.
Russia’s RT ran a July 1 interview with former diplomat and military expert Alexander Bartosh. He stated his view that the “Russian threat” is now all the U.K. has in Europe, post Brexit; it uses it to sell military and intelligence expertise in Europe, and will “lose the market.” But, Bartosh says,
“The common belief that America and Britain are such great friends isn’t really justified, as there are many in the U.S. who support tougher and more pragmatic relations with the U.K.”
RT also published British journalist Neil Clark’s op-ed, “Putin-Trump Summit Should Be Welcomed, not Feared” on July 2. Clark described how shocked Margaret Thatcher was by the 1985-86 Reagan-Gorbachev summits. He quotes her having written later:
“My own reaction when I heard how far the Americans had been prepared to go [to eliminate nuclear weapons in 10 years for a mutual SDI], was as if there had been an earthquake beneath my feet.... Somehow I had to get the Americans back onto the firm ground of a credible policy of nuclear deterrence. I arranged to fly to the United States to see President Reagan.”
She got him to reaffirm U.S. strategic modernization, inclusive of Britain’s nuclear Trident fleet.
