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The Metaphysics to Our Present Global Anguish
The Metaphysics to Our Present Global Anguish
James Jatras, a former US diplomat poses a highly pertinent question in his piece Lenin Updated: Firstly, he says, President Trump meets with President Putin and appears to make some progress in easing bilateral tensions. “Immediately all hell breaks loose: Trump is called a traitor. The ‘sanctions bill from hell’ is introduced in the Senate, and Trump is forced onto the defensive”.
Next, Senator Rand Paul goes to meet with Putin in Moscow, Jatras notes. Paul hands over a letter from the US President proposing moderate steps towards détente. Rand Paul then meets with, and invites Russian Senators to Washington, to continue the dialogue: “Immediately all hell breaks loose. Paul is called a traitor. The state Department ‘finds’ the Russians guilty of using illegal chemical weapons (in UK) … and imposes sanctions. Trump is forced even more on the defensive.”
Clearly, from the very outset, Trump has been “perceived by the globalist neo-liberal order as a mortal danger to the system which has enriched them” Jatras observes. The big question that Jatras poses in the wake of these events, is how could such collective hysteria have blossomed in to such visceral hostility, that parts of the ‘Anglo’ establishment are ready to intensify hostilities toward Russia – even to the point of risking “a catastrophic, uncontainable [nuclear] conflict”. How is it that the élite’s passion ‘to save globalism’ is so completely overwhelming that it demands their risking human extinction? Jatras suggests that we are dealing here with hugely powerful psychic impulses.
Jatras answers by evoking the zeitgeist of Lenin, when, in 1915, he made his infamous turn towards civil war inside Russia. That is, a war versus ‘Russia’ – in and of itself – its history, its culture, its religion, and its intellectual and political legacy.
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In Monsters We Trust: US Mainstream Media No Friend of the American People
In Monsters We Trust: US Mainstream Media No Friend of the American People
Over the course of his turbulent presidency, Donald Trump has accused various media companies, with special attention reserved for CNN, as being purveyors of ‘fake news.’ In one early-morning Tweet last year, he slammed the “FAKE NEWS media” as the “enemy of the people.”
This week, over 300 US newspapers ran editorials on the same day – an event in itself that points to some high degree of collusion and groupthink – denouncing Trump’s insensitive portrayal of them, as if the notion that journalists were not in the same sleaze league as lawyers, politicians and professional con artists never crossed anyone’s mind before. Even the peace-loving Mahatma Gandhi recommended “equality for everyone except reporters and photographers.”
But is the MSM really an “enemy of the people?”
First, it cannot be denied that the US media, taken in all its wholesomeness, has been overwhelmingly consistent in its ‘style’ of reporting on Donald Trump, the 45th POTUS. And by consistent I mean unprecedentedly critical, misleading and outright aggressive in its guerilla coverage of him. If one is not convinced by the gloom-and-doom Trump stories featured daily in the Yahoo News feed, then a study by the Media Research Center (MRC) should do the job. From January 1 through April 30, evening news coverage of the US leader – courtesy of ABC, CBS and NBC – were 90 percent negative, which is pretty much the same incredible average revealed by MRC one year earlier.
The study looked at every one of the 1,065 network evening news stories about Trump and his administration during the first four months of 2018. Total negative news time devoted to Trump: 1,774 minutes, or about one-third of all evening news airtime. That’s pretty much the definition of a circle jerk.
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The Baltic States Never Stop Their War Preparations Against Russia
The Baltic States Never Stop Their War Preparations Against Russia
The hue and cry over the possibility of a Russian attack on the Baltic states has grown all out of proportion. NATO is using its “Russian boogeyman” campaign to boost its military presence in the region. With Moscow accused of harboring evil plans, a robust military infrastructure is emerging in the immediate proximity of Russia’s borders. The US footprint is huge. Whatever Russia does (such as deploying its forces or conducting military exercises), it is presented by the Western media as a demonstration of hostile intent, while NATO’s highly provocative behavior is kept out of the spotlight. Any nation would be concerned over war preparations on its doorstep that are being conducted by an unfriendly alliance. Anyone who is impartial would confirm that Moscow’s concern is more than justified.
The US Defense Department’s 2019 fiscal budget became law on Aug. 13. It allocates $6.5 billion for the European Defense Initiative (EDI), $2 billion more than the previous fiscal budget, and nearly double the $3.4 billion the military received in fiscal 2017. The increase is evidence of the focus on building up a robust military force to threaten Russia. Infrastructure improvements in the Baltic states and Poland are a high priority.
According to the Lithuanian Defense Ministry, the updates to the Lithuanian armed forces’ Kazlų Rūda training ground, in the district of Marijampolė, to get it up to NATO standards, are almost complete. The facility will be used to train air crews and controllers. This is a joint project with the United States, funded through the European Reassurance Initiative. American B-52 strategic bombers have already dropped dummy munitions there. The firing range was part of the NATO Saber Strike exercise that was held in June. US National Guard soldiers are there to prepare Kazlų Rūda for another exercise.
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US Sanctions Foster Emergence of Multipolar World
US Sanctions Foster Emergence of Multipolar World
Russia, Iran, China, and now Turkey are in the same boat, as all have become the target of US sanctions. But none of those nations has bowed under the pressure. Russia had foreseen the developments in advance and took timely measures to protect itself. The Turkish national currency, the lira, is plummeting now that Washington has introduced sanctions as well as tariffs on steel and aluminum, in an attempt to compel Ankara to turn over a detained American pastor. Turkish President Erdogan said it was time for Turkey to seek “new friends,” and Turkey is planning to issue yuan-denominated bonds to diversify its foreign borrowing instruments. On Aug. 11, President Erdogan said Turkey was ready to begin using local currencies in its trade with Russia, China, Iran, Ukraine, and the EU nations of the eurozone.
The recent BRICS summit reaffirmed Ankara’s commitment to the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) that is geared toward de-dollarizing its member states’ economies, and the agreement to quickly launch a Local Currency Bond Fund gives that policy teeth. Turkey has also expressed its desire to join BRICS.
Ankara is gradually moving toward membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). It has been accepted as a dialog partner of that organization. Last year Turkey became a dialog partner with ASEAN. On Aug. 1, the first ASEAN-Turkey Trilateral Ministerial Meeting was held in Singapore, bringing together Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, ASEAN Secretary General Dato Lim Jock Hoi, and Singaporean Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, who is serving as the 2018 ASEAN term chairman. The event took place under the auspices of the 51st ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting that attracted foreign ministers and top diplomats from 30 countries.
Ankara is mulling over a free-trade area (FTA) agreement with the Eurasian Union. This cooperation between Ankara and the EAEU has a promising future.
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The Deal: Smelling a Rat, Arabs Sense a Coming Humiliation
The Deal: Smelling a Rat, Arabs Sense a Coming Humiliation
“The Iran sanctions have officially been cast. These are the most biting sanctions ever imposed, and in November they ratchet up to yet another level. I am asking for WORLD PEACE, nothing less!”
What on earth does this tweet from President Trump – “I am asking for World Peace” – mean? It does not at all gel with NY businessman pragmatism: that he wants to diss Obama; or, that he wants to implode Iran in order to recover US energy dominance; or, that with Iran’s implosion, the hitherto obstructed path, would thus be cleared for all Sunni Arab states desirous of normalising and trading with Israel – so to do.
But the extravagant capitalisation of WORLD PEACE implies that Trump has some wider vision, behind this new American ‘war of choice’ on Iran. ‘WORLD PEACE’: It strongly suggests Trump leading us toward a definite destiny: not just for America, but for all humanity (‘no less’). It is an apocalyptic vision. (i.e. an event that implies something not bad, but rather that the implosion of Revolutionary Iran, somehow will bring human Salvation).
The conviction that the crimes and follies of the past can be left behind in some all-encompassing transformation of human life is a secular reincarnation of early Christian beliefs. The very idea of ‘an event’ which transforms humanity and leads to ‘Salvation’ owes to religious conviction – in this case the Jewish apocalyptic current (of which Jesus was an adherent) that was assimilated into early Christianity.
Is this religious eruption Trump’s own? Or, did he absorb it from Ivanka’s conversion to Orthodox Judaism; or, has it emerged out from Trump and Pence’s Evangelical base?
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The End of the US Unipolar Moment Is Irreversible
The End of the US Unipolar Moment Is Irreversible
The past weeks have shown how part of the American establishment is weighing the pros and cons of the Trump administration’s strategies around the world. I have a strong feeling that in the coming weeks we will see the destabilizing effects of American politics, especially towards its closest allies.
A disastrous flip of events appears to be on its way, in case Trump were to lose the November midterm elections (the House and Senate elections). If this were to happen, the Trump administration would probably exploit the Russia gate conspiracy claiming that Moscow had now acted in favour of Democrats. Trump could argue that Moscow was disappointed by the lack of progress in softening US sanctions against Russia; indeed, by Trump’s measures against Russia (expulsions, sanctions, property seizures) and its allies (China, Iran and Syria).
Trump would not hesitate to claim Russian interference in the midterms to aid the Democrats, citing intelligence reports. He would say that Russia aims to create chaos in the US by placing roadblocks in the way of attempts to “Make America Great Again” and handing the House and Senate to the Democrats. He would use the electoral defeat to blame his accusers of getting aid from Russia. In doing so, he would be accelerating the implosion of his administration in an all-out war with the establishment. The mainstream media would dismiss Trump’s accusations against the Democrats of collusion with Russia as a conspiracy theory of an unravelling presidency. All this, summed up, would lead to the Democrats having majority in both houses, easily proceeding to the impeachment of Trump.
Italy is piggybacking on the US, operating side by side with Washington to expand its role in North Africa, especially in Libya. However, Rome will have to offer something in return to please Trump.
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Energy Diplomacy and Security in the Age of Shale Gas Revolution
Energy Diplomacy and Security in the Age of Shale Gas Revolution
Importance of energy security
Energy today seems like the very essence of international politics. No overview of current world affairs is meaningful without an examination of the role played by energy. Energy producers, energy consumers, and energy transporters in any country become more important in accordance with the role they play. The study of world affairs requires an understanding of global energy dynamics. What happens above the ground, under the ground, or among nations contributes to the definition of peace and coexistence in various regions of the planet. By addressing questions of availability and the acquisition of energy we paint a complete picture of the situation throughout the world. When inquiries about energy have not been answered, nothing has been fully answered.
There are issues that need to be explored in relation to energy and its importance to world affairs. We can sketch out some of them, starting with the importance of the issues of security.
These are: Security from energy shortages, security from events above the ground, the security of energy transportation, security from financial turmoil, and European energy security.
1. Security from inadequate energy
It is of crucial importance for every sovereign nation to have guaranteed supplies of energy. Some are blessed with the ability to produce enough energy (oil or gas) supplies to satisfy their needs and export to others. These countries, apart from being energy sufficient, are also quite wealthy due to their ample resources. They do however face problems of their own. The availability of natural resources leads nations to serious economic problems. The inflow of foreign currency raises exchange rates, making any domestic products very expensive — thus hurting exports while imports become cheap and very attractive. In this way domestic industry suffers and consumers turn to foreign imported goods.
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Russia’s Foresight Stands It in Good Stead
Russia’s Foresight Stands It in Good Stead
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, the famous French diplomat who served as foreign minister for Napoleon, said “The art of statesmanship is to foresee the inevitable and to expedite its occurrence.”
Moscow realized that the US would continue its efforts to strangle Russia economically to make countermeasures inevitable. The Russian government expedited the occurrence by taking steps to lessen the dependence on Washington, including selling off US treasury bills. The ability to foresee the worst scenario and take timely measures to prevent it pays off.
The recent events show Moscow did the right thing at the right time. Just a few months ago, it got rid of US dollars to increase gold reserves. It has taken measures to become almost immune to Western sanctions with no fiscal deficit, a solid current account balance, and very little debt.
On August 2, a bill was introduced in the US Senate to impose “crushing” sanctions on Moscow to include restrictions on new Russian sovereign debt transactions, energy and oil projects and Russian uranium imports, and new sanctions on political figures and businessmen. One package follows another to no avail as the country is well prepared for it with no “soft underbelly” left. There are more steps planned over Russia’s alleged violations of sanctions against North Korea. The vicious circle is unstoppable but the impact has been minimized.
The US has recently imposed sanctions of Turkish top officials. The well-calculated move not only damaged the bilateral relationship but also made the Turkish lira plunge to an all-time low. The currency has fallen by over 40 percent since 2016.
Meanwhile, the US is preparing new sanctions to hit its NATO ally, including what the administration calls “large sanctions’ or “designation packages” to assault Turkey’s economy dependent on foreign investments.
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Two Knockout Blows to US Imperialism: De-Dollarization and Hypersonic Weapons
Two Knockout Blows to US Imperialism: De-Dollarization and Hypersonic Weapons
In the current multipolar world in which we live, economic and military factors are decisive in guaranteeing countries their sovereignty. Russia and China seem to be taking this very seriously, committed to the de-dollarization of their economies and the accelerated development of hypersonic weapons.
The transition phase we are going through, passing from a unipolar global order to a multipolar one, calls for careful observation. It is important to analyze the actions taken by two world powers, China and Russia, in defending and consolidating their sovereignty over the long term. Observing decisions taken by these two countries in recent years, we can discern a twofold strategy. One is economic, the other purely military. In both cases we observe strong cooperation between Moscow and Beijing. The merit of this alliance is paradoxically attributed to the attitude of various US administrations, from George Bush Senior through to Obama. The special relationship between Moscow and Beijing has been forged by a shared experience of Washington’s pressure over the last 25 years. Their shared mission now seems to be to contain the US’s declining imperial power and to shepherd the world from a unipolar world order, with Washington at the center of international relations, to a multipolar world order, with at least three global powers playing a major role in international relations.
The Sino-Russian strategy has shown itself over the last two decades to consist of two parts: economic clout on the one hand, and military strength on the other, the latter to ward off reckless American behavior. Both Eurasian powers have their respective strengths and weaknesses in this regard. If Russia’s economy can hardly be compared to China’s, China plays second fiddle to Russia’s conventional and nuclear deterrents, and is quite some way behind Moscow in terms of hypersonic weapons. The cooperation between Moscow and Beijing aims to synergize their respective strengths.
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The Greek Disaster: State Inertia and the Market Economy
The Greek Disaster: State Inertia and the Market Economy
What happened in Attica, close to Athens, is without precedent. An ordinary fire, like the ones that occur in this area almost every other summer, met up with a terrible, sudden wind that turned it into real galloping inferno. The tragic result was 87 dead Greek citizens and more than 20 still missing. Huge questions loom on the horizon and only very limited answers are forthcoming. Are some of the lessons from this tragedy related to the wider geopolitical and political-economic questions?
Public-sector clientelism is leading to disastrous inefficiency
Why do tragedies like these occur in social environments with firmly entrenched clientelist political systems and in political entities that operate on the periphery of major, bureaucratic, modern empires? Sweden saw huge uncontrolled fires this summer. However, there was no loss of life or major disasters that befell the urban centers. In Portugal last year — and very recently in Greece — scores of people died, mainly due to the inability of the state machinery to efficiently deal with the problem. The major difference between these examples is the quality of the civil service. In Greece and Portugal there is no real ethics in the public administration, which frequently fails to meet any vigorous efficiency test .
In public bureaucracies that sprout favoritism the way trees grow branches, it is very difficult to design long-term plans to handle critical and life-threatening situations. Likewise, the political system lacks the prerequisites to draw upon informed societies that are trained to be cooperative and disciplined when there is a need for coordination. When clientelism dictates and forms the essence of the political culture, this culminates in fractured societies that are infected with spreading islands of lawlessness and limited possibilities for administrative coherence.
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A Deeper Exploration of the Supremacist Origin of Our Common Culture
A Deeper Exploration of the Supremacist Origin of Our Common Culture
The AP headlined on July 27th “#MeToo reaches Vatican as nuns denounce abuse from priests” and reported that the Vatican has continued to tolerate rape by its priests, and: Revelations that a prominent US cardinal sexually abused and harassed his adult seminarians have exposed an egregious abuse of power that has shocked Catholics on both sides of the Atlantic. But the Vatican has long been aware of its heterosexual equivalent — the sexual abuse of nuns by priests and bishops — and done little to stop it, an Associated Press analysis has found.
More people receive their morality from the Roman Catholic Church than from any other (or from any scientific basis); and, so, it is remarkable that this sort of exploitation is allowed to continue on, for decade after decade, and the pews not to be emptied-out by these and other ongoing church-scandals. However, if those congregants will then go to different denominations, will the results be any different? Many, if not most, faiths (especially the most conservative ones) have been revealed to be equally exploitative and tolerant of exploitation. Obviously, the problem here isn’t only the Roman Catholic Church. It goes far deeper than that. Throwing stones from glass houses against glass houses can’t help anyone but will only make things worse for everybody. The problem here is the supremacist culture, which exists everywhere, and which oppresses everywhere.
It is reflected in the politics of every nation; and it is especially reflected in the essentially lawless “Wild West” that constitutes the relations between nations — the field where wars and mass-killing, and military invasions and occupations, occur and are accepted by the perpetrator-countries, the invading and occupying nations, as if there were some sort of ‘right’ to perpetrate such things, for example, as was the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 on the part of the invading and occupying nations.
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Western Collapse… Scapegoating Trump & Putin
Western Collapse… Scapegoating Trump & Putin
Former US President Barack Obama was in South Africa last week for the centennial anniversary marking the birth of the late Nelson Mandela. Obama delivered a speech warning about encroaching authoritarianism among nations and the “rise of strongman politics”.
Coming on the heels of the summit in Helsinki between Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, media reports assumed that Obama was taking a swipe at these two leaders for supposed growing authoritarianism.
Obama’s casting of the “strongman” as a foreboding enemy to democracy is a variant of the supposed threat of “populism” that Western political establishments also seem concerned about.
Trump, Putin, Turkey’s Erdogan, Italy’s Salvini, Victor Orban in Hungary and Sebastian Kurz in Austria, among many others, are all lumped together as “strongman politics”, “populists” or “authoritarians”.
Here we are not trying to defend the above-mentioned political leaders or to make out that they are all virtuous democrats.
The point rather is to debunk the false narrative that there is some kind of dichotomy in modern politics between those who, on one hand, are supposedly virtuous, liberal, democratic, multilateralists, and on the other hand, the supposedly sinister “strongman”, “authoritarian”, or “populist”.
In Obama’s pompous depiction of world political trends, people like him are supposedly the epitome of a civilized, democratic legacy that is now under threat from Neo-fascists who are darkly rising to destroy an otherwise happy world order. That world order, it is presumed, was up to now guided by the magnificence of American political leadership. In short, the “Pax Americana” that prevailed for nearly seven decades following the Second World War.
Following the Helsinki summit, the Western media went full-tilt in hysterics and hyperbole. Trump was assailed for “embracing a dictator” while repudiating Western democratic allies.
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The Madness Gripping Washington
The Madness Gripping Washington
The United States and Israel have been threatening Iran for something like twenty years, using the pretext that it was developing a nuclear weapon initially, but also more recently declaring that Tehran has become a threat to the entire Middle East. Both contentions are essentially lies, concocted by an Israel and Saudi Arabia that would prefer to have Iran removed as a possible impediment to their own ambitions. And they would like the United States to do the removing.
Iran is the hottest of all hot spots in the American view, but the tendency of the White House to threaten first before engaging in negotiations has meant that most nations have come to see the United States as the greatest threat to peace worldwide. In a recent interview, Russian President Vladimir Putin observed how the U.S. believes it can intervene militarily anywhere in the world because it is “spreading democracy,” a justification that no one believes in any event as the results of recent crusades in Afghanistan, Syria and Libya have been less that encouraging. Putin commented that Washington should treat all other nations with respect and it will then get respect – and cooperation – in return.
The track record of the Trump White House is not encouraging. It has twice launched barrages of cruise missiles against targets in Syria based on fabricated or incomplete intelligence suggesting that the government in Damascus had used chemical weapons against its own people. It also uniquely added juvenile humiliation to the American diplomatic arsenal, with Trump describing North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as a “rocket man” before going off into a rhapsody about how the nuclear arsenal button accessible to Trump was “bigger and more powerful” than that available to Pyongyang.
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America’s Derangement Syndrome a Danger to World Peace
America’s Derangement Syndrome a Danger to World Peace
It is significant that Presidents Putin and Trump have both spoken out against “haters” among America’s political establishment who would rather see conflict between Russia and the United States instead of a normalization of bilateral relations.
Following their landmark, successful summit this week in Helsinki, Putin and Trump separately made public comments deploring the hostile hysterical reaction emanating from broad sections of the US political establishment and its dutiful, controlled news media.
Speaking in Moscow to his diplomatic corps, President Putin warned that there were “powerful forces” within the US which are ready to sacrifice the interests of their country and indeed the interests of world peace in order to pursue selfish ambitions.
For his part, Trump also slammed opponents in the US who “hated” to see him having a good meeting with Putin. “They would rather see a major confrontation with Russia, even if that could lead to war,” said the American president.
That’s it in a nutshell. Rather than welcoming the opening of a cordial dialogue between the US and Russia, the American political establishment seems to desire the deepening of already dangerous tensions between the world’s two nuclear superpowers. If that’s not deranged, then what is?
Significantly, the hostile reaction was overwhelmingly on the American side. Russians, by and large, welcomed the long-overdue summit between Trump and Putin, and the potential beginning of a new spirit of dialogue and partnership on a range of urgent global problems. Problems including arms control, nuclear proliferation, and working out political settlement to conflicts in the Middle East, Ukraine and the Korea Peninsula.
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The Saudi and American Way
The Saudi and American Way
The U.S.-Saudi-UAE “Operation Restoring Hope” has become their plan to bomb the food-supply route that the residents in the Shiite Houthi area of Yemen rely upon in order to receive food, and thereby for the U.S.-Saudi-UAE alliance to win their war against the Houthis — who are Shiites — and to take full control over Yemen, by forcing this Houthi population to either surrender to the Sauds’ strict Sunni rule, or else starve to death. Saudi Arabia, on occasion, bombs its own Shia areas; so, doing it in its neighbor Yemen is no stretch for them. However, the Shiites inside Saudi Arabia aren’t also being starved to death. Starving Shiites to death is something new for Saudi Arabia’s troops. And, therefore, the troops who have this assignment, seem to be, perhaps, squeamish about it; but, in any case, they evidently need some ‘moral’ guidance, in order to do it.
On July 10th, the owner of Saudi Arabia, the royal Saud family (by means of the Crown Prince), issued a proclamation providing absolution in advance for any bloodshed, torture, rape, or anything else, that their troops perpetrate in their “Operation Restoring Hope.” Now, whatever the troops of Saudi Arabia do, to conquer Yemen, has been officially approved in advance. These soldiers won’t need to fear any repercussions against themselves. Whatever they do, is officially okay — it’s been authorized in advance.
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Salman al-Saud — who will inherit ownership of Saudi Arabia when the current King Salman al-Saud dies — issued the July 10th decree, and this decree will be presented here, in full.
For some reason, which the decree doesn’t state, this decree was viewed by Prince Salman to be necessary, in order for the U.S.-Saudi-UAE alliance to carry “Operation Restoring Hope” to a successful completion — victory. (“Restoring Hope” to the victors.)
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