Bin Salman and Putin make fun of Biden
Biden displaced by the two "pariahs" (Putin and bin Salman) who influence global geopolitical dynamics. Riccardo Ruggeri's Cameo
Despite being new to politics (I'm only interested in the language of politics, not the leaders), I confess that I was very struck when Joe Biden branded both Mohamad Bin Salam and Vladimir Putin as "pariahs". The reasons for using the word "pariah" were impeccable and absolutely acceptable to all respectable people: the assassination-massacre of a Washington Post journalist and the invasion of Ukraine characterized them as criminals, to be eliminated from the political scene.
However, since these are two heavyweights, I asked myself: will this America, this Biden , have the strength? The word "pariah" in politics is a rare term, because it has no return, even for the image and survival of those who pronounce it. One of the two. Either the two pariahs physically disappear from the scene of world politics, and then you are the winner, but if they remain in power the loser could be you. In foreign policy, words are stones, with the risk of a boomerang always around the corner.
In political and moral terms, Joe Biden 's sentence was equivalent to a permanent stigma, later certified by a sentence from the Criminal Court of The Hague against Vladimir Putin . This is a curious Tribunal, because it is not recognized by the dominant countries, for example by three members of the UN Security Council, the United States, China, Russia (sic!) nor by Saudi Arabia, Israel and many others. Days, weeks, months, years passed (I remember that the Jamal Khashoggi case dates back to 2018!) and nothing happened. The health of one did not worsen as hoped, the double we were talking about was later discovered to be him masquerading as a double. On the other hand, the presence of the other became increasingly dominant and cumbersome. We had the latest confirmation with the decision of 119 countries to entrust the 2030 Universal Exhibition to them, without even a shred of balloting. Just 17 voted for Rome: we didn't even have the votes of all 27, France in first of all. Embarrassing!
I followed the events of the two "pariahs" only in the Swiss press, which chose a discreet stance, including their recent meeting in Riyadh, to talk about business and geopolitics, and reach an agreement. If I had to choose one word that summarizes the position of the Swiss press on this issue, and on these leaderships, it is "embarrassment". In fact, Western leaderships now move, even in foreign and military policy, with a very short-term outlook, if we want to use a managerial term, from a budgetary perspective. The Russian, Chinese and Islamic leaderships are instead calibrated on the long term of sophisticated strategies.
In terms of business, Russia and Saudi Arabia, recognized leaders of OPEC, have decided, to keep prices high, a voluntary cut in extraction of 2.2 million barrels/day, of which 1.5 million are their responsibility two. Embarrassing!
– Read also: I'll explain who between the US and China pushes more for cooperation and not for competition
The same newspapers then take up the prestigious US newspaper " Politico " which explains what happened after the decision of the 2022 G7 members to impose, against the opinion of non-embedded experts , the legendary "Price Cap" on oil. It simply failed, because the market realized that the Russian economy had well absorbed the blows of Western sanctions, thanks also to the refusal of most countries in the world to follow the Europeans on this path. Which is proving to be suicidal in economic terms.
The management of sanctions, and the obvious "triangulations" that are at their core, is a job for experienced professionals, not for educated amateurs. Why? It's pure dynamite, you make a wrong move and it actually backfires on you, in a devastating way. Then there was the failure of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, therefore the "tiredness" of European citizens who, living in the real world and not in the restricted traffic zones, know that the costs of the war are exclusively theirs to bear. And so the mandatory ceiling of the "Price Cap" of Russian Urals oil set at $60 has today been swept away, and is easily sold on the market at over $70/barrel (Word from Politico ). Embarrassing.
In terms of geopolitics, the meeting between the two “pariahs” even led them to apply for a role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (sic!). In fact, both have real political-economic counterparts to offer to the three contenders: Palestine-Hamas/Jiad/Hezbollah-Israel, unlike us Europeans and in the absence of the Americans under elections. Swiss newspapers underlined that after the meeting of the two, the third historical "pariah", Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi , flew to Moscow to complete the "political triangulation" of the masters of energy and, I fear, of Middle Eastern politics. If this were the case, Israel, to get out of the quagmire into which Hamas has driven it, will have to negotiate with them. Embarrassing.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/bin-salman-e-putin-fanno-marameo-a-biden/ on Fri, 08 Dec 2023 08:16:39 +0000.