By Anna Varfolomeeva
BEIJING— (October 11 —M4relay) — The union between Venezuela, Iran and Russia (VIRus) was created to destabilize the world, an American Scholar Sean H Goforth wrote in a paper published by the Foreign Policy Association. Goforth further opined that the VIRus is threatening the United States and the Western World Order.
Pointing out that a recognition of the supposed threats posed by the union of Venezuela, Iran and Russia is needed, Goforth who is Professor of world politics and international political economy at Coastal Carolina University said the US should learn from past mistakes and avoid a hard-line path similar to the one that resulted from branding the ‘Axis of Evil’.
“The Virus is a political pact that bolsters military capacity and extends diplomatic co-operation to magnify regional influence. Russia yearns to renew its superpower status, becoming once more a key variable in any international calculus,” he wrote.
This is an example of lingering Cold War fears that dominate Washington’s thinking, a lame attempt to create a marketing term to encapsulate these ideas that do not even work very well What he failed to point out is that just as Russia yearns to return to superpower status, America is yearning to maintain its superpower status – and is clearly losing it.
“The slow move by many countries to drop the dollar as a reserve currency is the clearest manifestation of America’s waning power,” Ben Aris wrote in his article titled, Virus: Venezuela, Iran and Russia alliance, for Russia Now.
In July the first bilateral trade deal between Venezuela and Ecuador was conducted using the new trading currency, the Sucre, instead of the US dollar. Paying with the Sucre will let the countries to avoid the transaction costs that are inevitable when using dollars on the international markets. With this new currency, the trading system will become more stable and less dependent on the world economic conditions. Russia and China are also planning to conduct all the trade transactions in each other’s currencies.
“This isn’t the building of an economic-military alliance that will one day invade the US, but part of the transition from the unipolar world dominated by the US since the end of the Second World War towards a multipolar world where the fast growing countries are allying to promote each other’s interests in the face of American bullying,” Aris noticed.
In November 2001, Noam Chomsky, an American linguist, philosopher and political activist, gave a lecture on ‘Militarism, Democracy and People’s Right to Information’ at a public forum convened by the National Campaign for the People’s Right to Information. He noted that during the Cold War period the White House explained its foreign politics and a huge military budget but said that “the Russians are coming.”
But in March 1990 it was that the Russians clearly were not on their way. Later on they needed massive intervention forces, mostly poised at the Middle East. They had “to protect what’s called the ‘defense industrial base’ – that’s a euphemism that means high-tech industry.” The only difference was the reasons. It turned out that the reasons Americans needed all this was not because the Russians were threatening them, but because of the ‘technological sophistication of Third World powers.’ And now it is exactly the same as before.
Walter Isaacson, the former CNN and Time magazine chief for the BBG was to combat the public diplomacy efforts of America’s “enemies,” which he identifies as Iran, Venezuela, Russia, and China, according to the Foreign Policy report.
Isaacson was giving a speech at the 60th anniversary celebration for Radio Free Europe, which he credited as contributing to the end of the Cold War. “We can’t allow ourselves to be out-communicated by our enemies,” he said. “You’ve got Russia. Today, Iran’s Press TV, Venezuela’s TeleSUR, and of course, China is launching an international broadcasting 24-hour news channel with correspondents around the world [and has] reportedly set aside six to ten billion [dollars] — we’ve to go to Capitol Hill with that number — to expand their overseas media operations,” Isaacson said.
According to Josh Rogin, the author of the article New BBG chide wants more money to combat “enemies” such as China and Russia, Isaacson e-mailed to The Cable “to apologize for the remark, while saying that the “enemies” he was referring to were in Afghanistan, not the several countries he mentioned.
“I of course did not mean to refer to, nor do I consider, that Russia, China, and the other countries or news services are enemies of the U.S., and I’m sorry if I gave that impression,” he said.
Eliciting fears of a union – the VIRus is tantamount to denying the rights of sovereign nations to dictate their own destinies. Venezuela, Iran and Russia need to be better understood.