China’s riding the up escalator; America the down one. There’s nothing inevitable about it, but America at this point is guided by a coterie whose heads are stuck unusually far up their asses. From Ted Snider at libertarianinstitute.org:
In recent weeks, the world has been vibrating with multipolarity in ways barely picked up by the mainstream news.
Iran is a regional power that pursues a foreign policy that defies U.S. hegemony and refuses to get in line with the American vision of a unipolar world. Punishing that defiance is the key U.S. strategy for maintaining hegemony in the region, including coalition with Saudi Arabia.
The Saudis abandoned that coalition in March with the Chinese-brokered agreement to resume diplomatic relations with Iran and the June announcement that Iran had reopened their embassy in Riyadh.
They took a further step back from that coalition when they demurred the U.S. invitation to join the anti-Iran Abraham Accords. In June, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken travelled to Saudi Arabia for talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that would include a focus on normalizing Saudi-Israeli relations and the accompanying opposition to Iran. At a press conference with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, Blinken stressed the U.S. intent to forge Saudi-Israel normalization against Iran. But, when questioned by a reporter, the Saudi Foreign Minister contradicted Blinken, saying instead that “without finding a pathway to peace for the Palestinian people, without addressing that challenge, any normalization will have limited benefits.”
