Career diplomat Jeffrey Feltman was at the center of the Arab Spring protests. Now, the Biden administration has appointed the same Arab Spring orchestrator as the Special Envoy to the Horn of Africa
By Sanbeer Singh Ranhotra
The United States of America – a beacon of democracy and liberty, is a nation, which has historically never shied away from pushing countries across the world into war, carpet bombing them, and violently effectuating regime-change campaigns. So, for anyone who thinks that the war in Afghanistan is over and that U.S. troops withdrawing from the war-torn country is a sign of Democratic President Joe Biden looking to end needless conflicts around the world – they’ve got it entirely wrong. With Joe Biden at the helm of affairs, the United States’ priorities have simply changed.
The U.S. is withdrawing from Afghanistan because another war zone is being ripened by Joe Biden and his coterie of warmongers. We are talking about the strategically located Horn of Africa here. Countries of the Horn of Africa, namely Ethiopia, Somaliland, Somalia, Sudan, Djibouti, and Eritrea suddenly find themselves in the midst of heated conflicts and tensions, either domestically, or with each other. At the heart of the inevitable devastation which is bound to descend upon the Horn of Africa is the unending want of Democrats for wars, which keeps the military-industrial complex in America flush with cash.
Did you know, according to a 2010 top secret Obama Presidential Study Directive-11 (PDS-11), the White House, then occupied by Barack Obama, was backing the secret fundamentalist Islamic Muslim Brotherhood paramilitary sect across the Middle East? There was only one goal – unleashing a reign of terror that would drastically impact the entire world. Coincidentally, this was the same time when the Arab Spring struck, and protests rocked all Arab capitals in the Middle East.
Not many remember the fact that President Barack Obama had triggered the initiation of the Arab Spring protests. After the former president’s famous Cairo speech in 2009, in which he talked about a “new beginning” for U.S. foreign policy in the region, many expected that he would help install democracy once the protests started. The protestors believed the U.S. would aid them openly in their endeavor to topple regimes. However, it did not, leading to many uprisings failing. Those who succeeded too, have left the entire country in shambles.
One man was at the center of the Arab Spring protests. Career diplomat Jeffrey Feltman, according to reports, organized the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri in 2005. He organized a UN commission that suggested Syria’s Bashar al-Assad was involved with the crime, part of a U.S. plan to split Lebanon from the protection of Syria. Feltman then organized the Cedar Revolution, demanding Syrian military and security forces leave Lebanon. Feltman advanced the Obama-Clinton Arab Spring across the Middle East from Cairo to Tripoli and beyond.
Under Hilary Clinton, the then Secretary of State, Feltman was the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs. As part of the Arab Spring protests, the Obama-Clinton duo aimed to topple Bashar al-Assad in Syria and turn the country into rubble with support from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. Russian intervention in Syria in 2015, however, reduced all such devious plans to dust.
Now, the Biden administration has appointed the same Arab Spring orchestrator – Jeffrey Feltman as the Special Envoy to the Horn of Africa. Feltman is said to be close to the CIA, and his appointment to the Horn of Africa suggests a big war is about to descend upon the volatile region. The Horn of Africa is a gateway to major world shipping flows via the Red Sea and the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean.
Ethiopia has taken center stage as the focus of the world shifts to the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia is currently facing a rebellion in its northernmost region of Tigray. The rebellion is led by a group called the TPLF. The Biden administration claims that Ethiopia’s forces and officials are committing human rights violations in Tigray, and therefore, the U.S. must get involved with a ‘humanitarian intervention’.
Ethiopia is an assertive country, and it is close to both Russia and China – which is the case with most countries in the Horn. Meanwhile, Iran too has its interests in the Horn of Africa and wants to have a significant influence over Somalia and other countries so as to secure Yemen in the event that Tehran is able to decisively win the ongoing war between Saudi Arabia and Houthis there.
Similarly, the U.S. also wants to have a presence all across the Horn of Africa – with an eye on Yemen and also to dominate the Bab-el Mandeb Strait. The Bab-el Mandeb Strait ultimately connects the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea and ensures access to Arab countries. This makes Ethiopia a vital location. The U.S. wants to establish its presence in Ethiopia, and address growing Russian and Chinese presence in the region. Presently, Russia and Sudan are re-negotiating a Russian naval base deal in the country.
Therefore, in the name of “humanitarian intervention,” the Biden administration seems all set to send in U.S. boots on the ground, and push another decent country into the mouth of a prolonged war. It so happens that the U.S. wants to dominate the Horn of Africa, but also shares bad relations with countries located therein. It’s not like the Biden administration will one fine day simply walk into the region and tell the countries that the U.S. has arrived to teach them democracy. The African nations will simply kick the U.S. out.
The USA shares a strained relationship with Sudan. The Bill Clinton administration in the U.S. had got the African country bombed in 1998. Subsequently, the U.S. had imposed punitive sanctions on Sudan, which were lifted by Donald Trump last year. In Somalia, the situation is only worse for the U.S. The United States’ ‘war on terror’ against Somalia starting in September 2001 embittered the U.S.-Somalia ties. The U.S. aligned with a group of warlords to counter the influence of jihadist groups in Somalia. Ultimately, the U.S. alliance with warlords was defeated by Somalian jihadists.
So, the Biden administration is creating a scenario where it can justify invading the Horn of Africa, and for which Democrats and warmongering liberals will favorably cheer. There is simply no other way, except intense war and bloodshed, that the Biden administration can hope to achieve its goals in the region. Countries in the region are intensely pro-Russia. Protesters in Ethiopia and Mali have been found waving Russian flags. In Ethiopia, waving Russian flags has become a symbol of anger against the U.S. ‘meddling’ in the East African country’s internal affairs.
For the Biden administration, pushing an entire region into a spate of unending violence serves two purposes. One, the Horn of Africa – which is emerging as a geopolitically vital region gets dominated by the U.S. Second, the Biden administration hopes to neutralize the growing influence of Russia, China, and Iran in the region. And third, with the Horn in Africa under its hand, the U.S. can also begin with its plans for Yemen – which are hardly peaceful.
In 2010, it was the Middle East. Ten years later, it is now the Horn of Africa. Democrats’ thirst for war has hardly taken a hit, and its puppeteers in the American deep state are drooling over the prospect of Joe Biden initiating a brand-new conflict, which will help them make truckloads of cash.
Sanbeer Singh Ranhotra
।। Political Enthusiast ।।Compulsively Opinionated ।। Aspiring Journalist ।।
ਮਨ ਨੀਵਾਂ ਮੱਤ ਉੱਚੀ ।।
