End of two decades of Moscow and Washington cooperation

End of two decades of Moscow and Washington cooperation

End of two decades of Moscow and Washington cooperation

The end of two decades of Moscow and Washington cooperation marks the separation of Russia and the United States in the fight against terrorism, starting from the events of September 11, 2001 in the United States, the hostage crisis in the Moscow theater, and the Beslan school siege in northern Ossetia in 2002 and 2004, until the announcement by Anatoly Antonov, the Russian ambassador to the United States, regarding the end of cooperation and interaction between the two sides in the fight against terrorism, only 22 years have passed.

Kremlin authorities, both during these 22 years and when Russia warned about the transfer of ISIS leaders from Syria, Libya, and other parts of West Asia under the protective umbrella of US support to Afghanistan, should have known that terrorism and the claim of fighting it are merely a card in the hands of White House officials.

The ISIS, which once served as an excuse for the United States to intervene in Syria, has now turned into a punitive tool against Russia to remind them that Russia’s intervention policy in Syria has been a strategic mistake. The day Putin set foot in Syria, he should have known that American terrorism would punish him. Of course, this move is not designed solely for the US to play with international politics and public opinion worldwide, but its partners and allies also have the opportunity to benefit from it for their own interests.

It was just a few months ago that Benjamin Netanyahu, under the pretext of defending Hamas from the extreme right-wing’s encroachment on Palestinian interests, launched the ‘Temple Storm’ campaign to transform Hamas into an existential threat and exploit it to provoke global public opinion, especially in the West, while adhering to the policy of securityization.

In the second phase of the same design, after maneuvering on the mentioned keyword, the next Western slogan was introduced to conceal the crimes of the child-killing army of the Israeli regime. Even if we consider the report from the Russian Federal Security Service regarding the connection of the terrorists of the Moscow concert hall incident with Ukraine, we can conclude that it is now Ukraine’s turn to play with the ISIS card.

Of course, this issue is just one example of the recent contradictions in the US foreign policy in the international arena. If we want, we can list the contradictory actions of the US in the world, like Bernie Sanders’ recent remarks in Foreign Affairs magazine, such as sending three million Americans to Vietnam during the presidencies of Johnson and Nixon to defend an anti-communist dictator in the Vietnam War based on the domino theory, which resulted in the deaths of three million Vietnamese and 58,000 American soldiers.

Support for military coups in Iran, Guatemala, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Chile, and other countries, all of which supported their authoritarian regimes that brutally suppressed their own people, intensified corruption, violence, and poverty, arming some of the world’s most dangerous tyrants, according to Sanders, from the United Arab Emirates to Saudi Arabia, by Donald Trump with Washington’s self-interested and selectively concerned views on human rights, causing Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy where there is no pretense of democracy.

Citizens have no right to object to women being treated as second-class citizens. The immigrant population in Saudi Arabia is often forced into modern-day slavery, and recently reports of mass killings of hundreds of Ethiopian migrants by Saudi forces have been released. Supporting Israel’s army with billions of dollars, which has resulted in the deaths of over 32,000 innocent people in Gaza, are just some examples of America’s contradictory policies in the world.

Washington’s misguided policies and strategies cannot be attributed solely to one party or one person; rather, both major parties in the United States have consistent yet different strategies. Politicians in both parties, dating back to the Cold War era, have resorted to fear-mongering and blatant lies to entangle the United States in disastrous and unwinnable military conflicts in the soil of other countries.

Ultimately, despite enduring immense casualties and spending exorbitant amounts in wars that should never have been waged, the United States suffered defeat. As a result, this country severely damaged its credibility both domestically and internationally, undermining its claimed values. Therefore, the very foundation of these deceitful claimed values is what Antonov explicitly points out as the Russian president who, in 2001, extended a helping hand towards Americans and declared readiness to fight terrorism. Today, it is not our fault that all these relationships in the realm of counterterrorism have been destroyed.