America left behind: The world integrates the Dallas coup into its narratives of post-WWII

[Paul Rigby]

Who's in Control? Obama or the generals?

Finian Cunningham (born 1963) has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. Originally from Belfast, Ireland, he is a Master's graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. For over 20 years he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organizations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. Now a freelance journalist based in East Africa, his columns appear on RT, Sputnik, Strategic Culture Foundation and Press TV.

Published time: 16 Nov, 2015 14:39
Edited time: 16 Nov, 2015 19:41

https://www.rt.com/op-edge/322307-us-oba...g20-putin/

What we may be seeing in US policy is competing agendas. The diplomatic track appears to be favored by the White House and State Department as a more efficacious way of achieving regime change against the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad. But the Pentagon, and specifically the CIA, has its own militarist schemes, even if that means providing weapons to terror groups with much greater fire power and risking a proxy war with Russia.

The upshot is that US foreign policy is dangerously all over the place because of competing power players within Washington. The disturbing conclusion is that the American president and his State Department are simply not in control. It's like watching a driver of an articulated truck whose grip on the wheel has no steering.

A deep, darker state within the official state is by no means a new concept to describe American government and its foreign policy. More than 50 years ago, President John F. Kennedy was so perplexed by CIA covert operations undermining him on Cuba and Vietnam that he declared he would "smash it into a thousand pieces." That intention probably cost Kennedy his life at the hands of the deep state and its military-industrial complex.

Today, it is very doubtful that any American politician would have the courage or conviction to pull rank on the military-industrial complex. The latter appears to be more assertive and belligerent than ever, as can be seen from the seemingly irrational contradictions of US foreign policy on Russia and Syria. And that unaccountable power-play makes for a highly dangerous dynamic.

Washington often proclaims that it is "protecting the world". The truth is that the world needs protecting from the US whose foreign policies are increasingly reckless and beyond any democratic control.