"The Baghdad Summit is scheduled to take place on April 20th with several Middle Eastern countries set to participate in this conference organized by Iraq.
The list of countries participating in the Baghdad Summit are as followed: Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, and Syria." AMN and Reuters
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Unless I am seriously mistaken, this meeting is a major setback for the John Bolton view of "the direction" of history in the ME. These countries are supposed to be obeying Bolton's rules of international order in which peoples and governments are easily manipulated through intimidation and/or bribes to line up neatly into blocs that are on one side stooges of the US and on the other implacable and deadly enemies who must be pursued across all the world's oceans until they "spout black blood and roll fin out." They can then be added to the US controlled blocs.
Perhaps I have missed something here but these folks do not appear to be playing their assigned roles. pl
Peace might break out despite Bolton’s best efforts to create war and misery, and to lie continuously in service of unjust dominion.
Good to see that the Mustache-of-Idiocy’s manure cloud has once again been seen through. Why would Trump hire this donkey? Who first brought him to Trump’s attention and nominated him to be NSC Advisor?
I have a good personal story to tell about Bolton.
Over a decade-plus ago my dad saw an ophthalmologist in Bethesda, Maryland (Dr. Gerald Rogell), who is now retired and living in Maine. Rogell at the time was a neighbor of John Bolton. My dad told me that one day Rogell’s wife was in the office and chatting with my dad. My dad asked her about Bolton. She rolled her eyes and told my dad a story to illustrate what a POS Bolton is. She said that when her children (girls) were young, 9 and 11, they would mow Bolton’s lawn for him for $20. On one occasion Bolton asked the 11-year old if she’d mow the lawn. She agreed. But before she could get to it something came up and she handed the job off to her younger sister to do. The younger sister mowed the lawn and swept up all the grass. She then went to Bolton to get paid and Bolton told her, “No, I’m not paying you, I had made the offer to your sister, not you.” Bolton never paid.
That’s awful.
Using such legalistic nonsense with a child is plain wrong. He is a damaged man.
I have seen reports over the last few days that Egypt has pulled out of Bolton’s Middle East Strategic Alliance, the so-called Arab NATO which is supposed to be aimed at Iran. Add that to Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi’s insistence on playing an independent role in the region as a mediator (without which Iraq will probably never be rebuilt after 40 years of US instigated wars) and you just might have the seeds of a new, higher order beginning to appear in Southwest Asia, one where the peoples of the region insist on determining their own futures. perhaps this’ll could be the beginning of the end of the neo-cons.
Dear Colonel,
Not just in the middle east, also with North Korea, the one potential FP success of the Trump negotiating style (bluster and fade) looks sabotaged by the Bolton/Pompeo axis.
https://tinyurl.com/y4oadgdy
Can add lame-ass efforts in Venezuela (i.e., the Venezuela military would flip based on awe-spiring US threats and mr. random guy, Guaido’s, hair style).
Given the recent Skirpal revelations (fake ducks and fake ill children), it seems that torpedoing Trump’s initiatives has no downside. Never expected that “Your Fired” President Trump would be so weak.
Of course this moves from your point a few times on SST that the skills to win the presidency in our money-drenched electoral system do not translate to the international (realpolitik) arena. Specifically, countries have interests that are not for sale at any price.
The mantra-of-the-moment seems to be “WWPBD” — What would Pete Buttegieg do? He appears to have been drenched with Chicago-Pritzker money.
Linda Feltman of Christian Science Monitor said this morning that (paraphrasing) “Biden has not yet secured enough donor-money to be in the top tier of candidates.”
“We the Donor-class, in order to form a union more perfectly to our liking . . .”