Red alert! The Russians are coming! by Pepe Escobar

[Jefferson23]

Hollywood executives and Washington policymakers are suckers for Russophobia. Considering the appalling level of political discourse in both these capitals of mass entertainment, certainly one cannot expect their "opinion leaders" to have read Professor Paul Kennedy's recent expose of European history packaged as a crash course to Americans about the inevitable downsizing of the US in the emerging, multipolar new world order.

SNIP* For its part, Washington Russophobia usually emerges as a US-built Iron Curtain in reverse, which according to the Pentagon's full spectrum dominance doctrine rules that US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military bases will encircle Russia from the Baltic to the Caucasus and Central Asia.

So what's the Russian response? In both Afghanistan and Iran, it carries the mark of the good chess player; discreet, silent, getting down to business, and aiming to hit the jackpot.

All jihads lead to Sheberghan:

In Afghanistan, the leadership in Moscow always knew this was all about the US and NATO trying to establish a new hegemony in Central Asia - full spectrum dominance all over again. But then Moscow found out - following the Chinese example of investing US$3 billion in mines south of Kabul - that the best of possible worlds would be to make money while the West got bogged down in a winless quagmire. Call it the Shanghai Cooperation Organization way of running rings around NATO.

in full: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LH27Df02.html