Date: Tuesday, 18 February 2025
https://ericzuesse.substack.com/p/how-to-decide-whether-the-riyadh
https://theduran.com/how-to-decide-whether-the-riyadh-talks-on-ukraine-succeeded
How to Decide Whether the Riyadh Talks on Ukraine Succeeded or Failed
17 February 2025, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s top foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov, are heading to Riyadh Saudi Arabia to negotiate with Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, regarding whether or not the two sides are sufficiently close in their aims so that a personal (private) meeting between Putin and Trump would likely result in an agreement between them — in which case there will be such a private meeting; but, otherwise, there won’t be, and that would mean this meeting in Riyadh would have turned out to have been premature, a failure.
The ONLY reason for holding the present meeting is to find out whether a meeting between Trump and Putin would be able to succeed (produce an agreement) at this present stage, or not. This meeting between advisors would not be happening unless both Trump and Putin think that a subsequent meeting between those two leaders would likely be able to produce an agreement.
Alexander Mercouris, the person whom I consider perhaps the most astute public analyst of international relations (especially international diplomacy), has said that Steve Witkoff “will be playing, I suspect, the leading role” on the Trump team. Witkoff created the Gaza ceasefire deal, and then he arranged the coming meeting in Riyadh. If he is ALSO going to be the chief person on Trump’s team at this meeting, then I would expect the meeting to succeed. If he won’t be, then I would expect it to fail (because Mike Waltz is an extreme neocon, especially regarding China, and Marco Rubio is only slightly less so — but it seems that both of those neocons sold-out to Trump in order to join his team, and thus might no longer be favoring a neocon line).
So, if this Riyadh meeting succeeds, then it will probably indicate that Trump has indeed gotten the Republican Party to reverse itself on neoconservatism (advocacy for expanding the American empire) at least as regards its now ending its long-term aim of America conquering Russia. (They would then blame the Democratic Party for neoconservatism and especially for having caused the war in Ukraine.) But otherwise, failure of this meeting will mean that Trump is locked-in to neoconservatism; in which case, I would expect his Presidency — at least as regards international relations — to turn out disastrously (no better than Biden’s). Inasmuch as Waltz’s neoconservatism focuses its hatred especially against China, that would probably mean there will be a U.S. war against China (regardless of whether Trump will reach an agreement with Putin).
However, in either case, the success or failure of this meeting will probably display whether or not in international relations, Trump’s presidency itself might succeed (avoid being neoconservative in any respect — an unlikely, though, as-of-yet, not totally impossible outcome for his Presidency).
Other than Mercouris, perhaps the best public analyst of international relations (especially regarding military geostrategy) that I know of, is Douglas Macgregor, and on February 16th he gave a stellar 46-minute interview that covered and integrated everything — Ukraine, Israel, Palestine, Iran, China, Russia, America, and more — titled “ISRAEL & IRAN: Why The Conflict Will Lead to WW3, UKRAINE War Decided | Douglas MacGregor”. I had hoped in 2024 that Macgregor would enter the U.S. Presidential contest, and this interview shows why I consider him to be the person best qualified to be America’s President — the person likeliest to make a great President. Anyway, he discussed in this interview how Russia and China would likely respond if Trump decides to take the neocon path against Palestinians, Iran, Russia, and/or China. In each scenario he discusses, he explains why he thinks that the U.S. regime would fail unless he totally avoids neoconservatism. The question is: Does Trump know that the neocon — the U.S.-supremacist — path wouldn’t be good, even for the United States itself? We don’t YET know whether he knows this. The outcome of the Riyadh meeting will give us a big clue to the answer to that question.
However, if this meeting in Riyadh fails, then the likelihood that he is intent upon the neocon path will be a near certainty. And, then, the world will probably be in for a very rough ride during his second term.
PS: If you like this article, please email it to all your friends or otherwise let others know about it. None of the U.S.-and-allied ‘news’-media will likely publish it (nor link to it, since doing that might also hurt them with Google or etc.). I am not asking for money, but I am asking my readers to spread my articles far and wide, because I specialize in documenting what the Deep State is constantly hiding — what the ‘news’-media ignore if they can, and deny if they must. This is, in fact, today’s samizdat.
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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.
