In the unlikely event that anyone is feeling short-changed in the matter of reading material I strongly recommend they Google for the text or summaries of Putin’s four hour Valdai speech.

Here they will see firm insistence by Russia of its SMO terms (Istanbul+ ) certainly involving Ukraine’s complete detachment from NATO and possibly from the EU, in the sense not of some artificial formula of the pseudo-clever kind that passes for diplomacy in the neoliberalized West, but that is hard and guaranteed. Something that sets Europe firmly against reckless hankering for a suicidal nuclear war.

This clearly a moment of opening which will require of Trump a very smart and, from an orthodox neoliberal view, independent and intelligent response. We simply don’t know whether the incoming team will be capable of this. The outgoing team has failed in this and in most other respects, miserably.

For Russia I entertain some concern that Putin, despite himself, will be succored despite his careful attentions into the Gorbachev trap of naive goodwill towards a West that no longer exists, that probably existed only for a brief nano-second, but is a new West that is already imploding but which does not seem to know that. I am not at all sure what a non-threatening rump Ukraine could possibly look like, even with regime change in Kiev.

I was relieved to hear Putin finally and necessarily giving voice to the positive continuities between Russia and the Soviet Union, of which one has been its stance against capitalist colonization and neocolonial expropriation.

I now take a very brief moment of celebration at the collapse of a sickened, hypocritical and pro-genocidal, pro-war, elitist Democratic orthodoxy before I have a chance to turn my face towards whatever comparable odiousness its victorious opponents will now set before us.

Peace.

For West Asia the success of Donald Trump in the US presidential election theoretically signifies more intensive US support for an expansion of Israeli borders. This in turn however implicates the US in an ever more dangerous conflict in which not only Iran is drawn but also, and in a way that is not good for Israel, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey not to mention Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Egypt.

The election of Trump, furthermore, may finally convey to Iran the message that restraint does not work for Iran, that it must now strike.

Not least because of the seriousness of the political crisis in Tel Aviv which weakens Israel in this moment. Gallant has been fired over tensions with Netanyahu over the mobilization of Orthodox Jews, Israel’s continuing responsibility for the hostages still held by Hamas, and charges and investigations by Shin Bet concerning Netanyahu’s implementation in effect of a “let it happen” policy on October 7 2023 (I would argue this should be understood as a “make it happen” policy) and of mishandling of classified intelligence. Meanwhile Malaysia plans to propose to the UN that Israel should be expelled. There could be an embarrassing measure of support for that proposition.

Considerable controversy continues to swirl over the issue of whether Israel did or did not inflict significant damage on Iran on October 26. I trust the voices of Crooke, Ritter, Macgregor, McGovern and Johnson more than I trust Israeli claims or those of the Pentagon. Iran is a technologically advanced entity, a country of 100 million people with powerful alliances and major historical grievances with the rules-based order. Its enemies do not seem to understand that.