Former Leading CIA Official Graham Fuller Sees Nord Stream Terror as America’s Swan Song

Feb. 16, 2023, 2022 (EIRNS)—Former CIA officer Graham Fuller, who was vice-chair of the National Intelligence Council at CIA for long-term forecasting, wrote an analysis on his blog two days ago on  the Seymour Hersh revelations on the U.S. bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines. Excerpts:

“The disturbing and detailed reportage by a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh on Washington’s sabotage of the Russian Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany now provides new perspective on the momentous series of geopolitical trends that began with the war in Ukraine....

“The stunning recent and detailed reportage of direct American sabotage of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline represents a major geostrategic watershed in two senses: First, the implications of Washington’s act of war with disastrous economic impact upon Europe will not subside easily. But more importantly this event has demonstrated America’s successful cowing of any public commentary on the event—across U.S. media but more-so across all European media itself, including in the most economically victimized state—Germany. We observe stunning, nearly inexplicable silence over this major international event.

“And Russia has gotten the message—American policies and statements have deeply reinforced Russia’s long-standing belief that the West is implacably hostile to any Russian role in the West—going back to the bitter and irrevocable split of Christendom between Rome and the Eastern Orthodox Church in 1054. That was later followed up by two devastating European invasions of Russia (Napoleon and Hitler)....

“The rise of a new Great Wall that blocks off Russia from Western Europe is one of the most striking outcomes of this war: European officialdom seems to have cast in its lot, perhaps reluctantly but irrevocably, with the American strategic goals in the world. Those goals now even speak of creating a new ‘NATO Pacific’ designed to challenge Chinese power economically and strategically in China’s own backyard—at great potential economic cost to Europe.

“But for all this demonstration of Washington’s hold over Europe, it is also striking to note how the great majority of the world has indeed not gone along with U.S. strategic ambitions to weaken and humble Russia or to impose Washington’s own geopolitical architecture on most of the rest of the world. Broadly speaking Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa do not perceive their strategic interests as aligning with Washington’s. Apart from some lip service criticism of Russia, few states including large segments of Asia and India itself have imposed any meaningful sanctions against Russia. More vividly, we see the emergence of new non-western alliances such as the BRICS ... with many other major states lining up to include Turkiye, Iran and Saudi Arabia. These states of the Global South are also developing plans for new international reserve currency designed to undercut the ability of Washington to dictate international policy through U.S. dollar-based sanctions.

“A new Eurasia is rising, driven by the bold and geopolitically visionary Chinese Belt and Road Initiative. But just what is this new Eurasia now? With a new Great Wall between Russia and the West, where now is the ‘Euro’ in Eur-asia? Europe ceases to be even at the tail end of ‘Eurasia,’ potentially cut off physically from the Belt and Road that runs through Russia and much of the Global South. Europe may have to find its way strategically and economically elsewhere in the world. For Washington that’s just fine; the U.S. will consistently seek to constrain ties of other countries with Russia or China....

“Indeed America itself seems sadly to have lost any kind of positive vision in how to deal with the rest of the world. The essence of American foreign policy now is almost entirely negative: block Russia, block China, and prevent their development and expansion of their international reach. This does not present a very inviting menu of positive policy options for most of the rest of the world—a world that seeks to avoid costly involvement in Western wars, and to pursue their own economic development. They show signs now of visceral negative reactions to the perpetuation of Western ex-colonial powers seeking to impose their own stale geopolitical and economic agendas on the rest of the world.

“This is the reality of the outcome of the war in Ukraine. Washington seems determined to pursue its increasingly illusory goal of maintaining international hegemony, now packaged in spurious claims of supporting ‘democracy versus authoritarianism.’ Not many buyers there. How long will the U.S. continue to flail in endless foreign wars to desperately prove to itself and the world that it is still Number One?”