Russia, the SCO and international terrorism

By Rostislav Ishchenko and machine translated with small edits and fixes.  Original link:  https://ukraina.ru/20220916/1038819286.html

The SCO summit held in Samarkand was not only marked by Iran’s admission to the organization, but was also accompanied by regular US tantrums. In the end, Washington said that they see their strategic goal in “undocking” the economies of Central Asian countries from the Russian one. At the start of the summit, the US Senate once again discussed the prospects of declaring Russia a state sponsor of terrorism.

In principle, according to the” division of labor ” between the US authorities, such a decision should be made by the State Department. But we have repeatedly witnessed the use of Congress by American hawks in order to legislate decisions that cannot be promoted in the usual way – through the executive authorities.

It should be noted that the American political system is extremely eclectic. Encroachment on the prerogatives of a neighboring branch of government, or even usurpation of its powers, is not unusual for the United States. For example, George W. Bush, who wanted to overthrow Saddam Hussein, but did not have enough votes in Congress for the war, announced that he was conducting a special operation in Iraq to prevent the local regime from creating bacteriological weapons of mass destruction. Only Congress has the right to declare war, but the president is not limited to conducting a military operation of any scale with the most decisive goals, unless it is called a war.

In turn, the Democratic majority of Congress regularly imposed a legislative ban on President Trump’s use of his constitutional powers in order to prevent him from radically changing domestic and foreign policy. In addition, there is also the Supreme Court, which, based on “newly discovered circumstances”, and in fact in connection with another change in the balance of power within the court itself, can review and re-evaluate the constitutionality of the same acts of the administration and Congress almost indefinitely.

This year, the Democrats tried to introduce know-how: since the majority in the Supreme Court does not support their idea of the right to free abortion, and there is no reason to believe that in the near future one of the judges will die and it will be possible to change the balance of power by appointing a new one, radical Democrats began to promote the idea if the judge of the Supreme Court is retrograde and does not keep up with the times, then his opinion, as well as the opinion of the entire court, could not be taken into account at all.

The US administration declares that it is impossible to declare Russia a country sponsor of terrorism, since this will entail an irreversible increase in the stakes in the global game, with the complete cessation of contacts between two opposing groups of states, American law requires a complete blockade not only of the “sponsor of terrorism” itself, but also of any country that maintains normal relations with it. In the case of Russia, this means that the US will have to lock itself out of two-thirds of the planet.

I think that the administration will not resist the radicals for a long time. First, on the eve of congressional by-elections, Democrats need high-profile “victory” initiatives to attract the attention of the radical-patriotic electorate. Secondly, such an approach (destroying the fabric of international relations, destroying clear rules of the game) is immanent in the American policy of recent decades.

Since Russia, followed by China, began to defend its interests more confidently and consistently, using the mechanisms of various international organizations, the United States has adopted the concept that only those international structures in which the United States dominates indefinitely have the right to continue to exist. Where Washington’s hands are short, America prefers to destroy, replacing the power of law with the right of force. The calculation is based on the military-political and financial-economic advantage of the West. And although this advantage is becoming more ephemeral every day, the United States is not abandoning its strategy of destroying the system of international law.

In recent months, they have already reached the UN. Non-issuance of visas to Russian diplomats (including the delegation headed by the Foreign Minister) has become chronic. It is not difficult to guess that sooner or later Moscow will lose the opportunity to participate in the work of the UN since it simply will not have any diplomats accredited in this organization. This is a gross violation of the obligations of the United States as the host country of the United Nations.

Of course, Russia can exist both outside the UN and without the UN, but the UN cannot exist without Russia (a nuclear, energy and resource superpower). But, as we have already said, not having the strength to cope with the entire international community as a whole, the United States is trying to completely destroy the system of international law based on the UN and the organizations of the UN system, in order to deal with each state separately in an atomized world.

We cannot prevent the destruction of the system of international law. It is already disabled and mostly destroyed or paralyzed. But Russia and its allies are in a position to start building a new system of international law, which will be joined by the rest of humanity (if it is destined to survive) as a result of the victory of Russia and China in the ongoing Third World War.

Let me remind you that the UN emerged from the original military bloc: the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition called themselves United Nations. In the final stages of the war, when it became clear that the Axis powers were losing, the United Nations announced its intention to create an organization whose main task would be to prevent wars, mediate for peace, and fight unprovoked aggression. It was stated that those states that would declare war on the Axis countries would be able to join this organization when it was created, as a result of which the end of 1944 – the beginning of 1945 was the moment of a mass declaration of war between Germany and Japan.

Now the same bloc is forming around the formally non-military (but encouraging military cooperation of its members) Shanghai Cooperation Organization. This structure, originally created by Russia and China to combat American penetration into Central Asia and to protect common interests in the region, is now moving beyond the Eurasian continent, gradually taking on a global character.

In the event that the United Nations is eliminated by the Americans, Russia and China already have their own alternative structure with similar tasks and powers, but free from the destructive influence of the United States and its allies. The SCO is attractive, and the waiting list for admission to it has already stretched for years. Moscow and Beijing currently have a decisive influence on the progress of this line. Moreover, the SCO exists only as a joint Russian-Chinese project. Neither Beijing without Moscow, nor Moscow without Beijing will pull it out.

Everyone needs order and rules of the game. Even the United States in the future, when its inability to dominate becomes apparent to the American elites themselves, will need a clear system of international law that eliminates unpleasant surprises. Russia and China have the opportunity to create such a system much earlier than their political opponents can oppose it with anything remotely similar. In other words, Moscow and Beijing may soon put their financial, economic, and military-political dominance in the world on a legal basis.