The Pentagon makes a tour around the world

Today, Ash Carter, the head of the Pentagon will arrive in Italy. On behalf of the outgoing Obama administration, he is making a “tour of the world to thank US troops stationed in Asia, the Middle East and Europe and to meet important partners and allies”.

The tour kicked off on 3 December in California where Carter delivered the closing remarks to the “Reagan Forum”, that bestowed upon him the prize for “Peace through Force”.

Then Carter went to Japan, where he inspected US troops and met the Defense Minister, Inada. Japan, which contributes 1.6 billion dollars per year to the stay of 50,000 US soldiers on its territory, is particularly important as an advanced base of US missile systems lined up against China for “defensive aims” and, the Pentagon specifies, is an ally capable of defending other countries that may be attacked”.

From Japan, Carter flew to India, which is now the second [largest] buyer in the world (after Saudi Arabia) of US arms: a result of Washington’s strategy which aims at weakening India’s relations with Russia, threatening the Brics group, attacked at the same time through an “institutional” coup in Brazil.

The head of the Pentagon then proceeded to Bahrain, where he participated in the “Dialogue of Manama” organized by the International Institute of Strategic Studies, an influential British think tank financed by the Emirates with more than 38 million dollars. Speaking on the “logic of the American strategy in the Middle East”, Carter brought home the point that this region is home to more than 58,000 US soldiers, more than 5,000 of which are on the ground in Iraq and Syria, “not only to tackle terrorists such as members of Isis, but also to protect our interests and those of our allies” (which is why the US and the Gulf monarchies, as has been amply documented, have secretly supported Isis, functional to their strategy in Syria and Iraq). The accusation that Carter levelled against Russia is that it has not fought Isis in Syria but simply “inflamed the civil war and prolonged the suffering of the Syrian people”. He then went on to say, since “Iran continues to line up missiles”, the United States, together with the other allies, is constructing a “regional missile defence”, which includes a powerful radar in Qatar, Thaad missiles in Emirates and other missile systems (which actually are not for self-defense, but for aggression, given that the same launching pipes can be used for missiles for attack, including nuclear ones.

From Bahrain, Carter made his way to Israel, where yesterday he participated with the Defense Minister Lieberman at the ceremony [marking] the arrival of the first two F-35 fighters for the Israeli Air Force, symbol of the increasingly close partnership with the USA, “which reached unprecedented levels following the 10 year agreement for assistance signed last September”.

From Israel, the Head of the Pentagon will arrive today in Italy for a two day visit to US troops which have been stationed here with the mission – declares an official document – of “supporting US operations and their coalition on a global scale, including deterring Russian aggression in Eastern Europe and strengthening Nato’s southern flank”.

The global tour, which will conclude in London on 15 December with a meeting of the “anti-Isis coalition”, has a very specific political aim: to reaffirm on the eve of the delivery, the Obama Administration’s strategy, which the Democrat, Clinton, should have pursued, so that the fronts of tension and war at the South and the East might remain alive. This is the legacy that Obama, the Democrat, leaves to the Republican Trump.

At least Trump has the merit of not being awarded the Noble Prize for Peace.