Let’s review what Russia-gate was all about.

And no, it wasn’t about Russia interfering in our precious democracy.

It was in response to Russian actions in the Middle-East and in the Ukraine that thwarted US plans for domination. Indeed, Russia remains the single biggest resistance nation to US hegemony. The US markets itself as an upholder of rules-based liberal democratic values, even though it consistently flouts international law, wages imperialist wars of aggression, imprisons journalists, crushes dissent and uses propaganda just as much as any totalitarian regime. The only difference is that it does so in a way that enables its supporters to ignore what’s actually happening.

Russia-gate is simply projection. Depicting the Russians as the nexus of evil allows liberals to pretend that the US maintains and upholds the rule-based liberal order. Let’s face it, after decrying Bush’s foreign policies for 8 years, liberals turned around and acquiesced to Obama’s foreign policies of empire which were largely indistinguishable. It was drone strikes instead of invasions, and coups rather than occupations, but Obama hit the sweet spot for liberals with his mixed-race, suave, sophisticated style and all the right credentials–Columbia University, Harvard Law School, and constitutional law professor. That conservatives believed that Obama was a Kenyon, Muslim, Socialist only added to the irony.

And, while the quest for supremacy is bi-partisan, since Obama Democrats have become the more warlike political party. And, of course, Trump’s election sent this bellicosity into orbit.

To make sense of this it’s important to understand some history. What we’ve seen since the fall of the Soviet Union is a long series of proxy wars, where the US uses it’s terrorist proxies to undermine and overthrow undesirable regimes. Russia has watched all of this and learned some hard lessons about the US’s concern for human rights and democracy. Since coming to power, Vladimir Putin has reoriented Russian foreign policy back to its traditional role of deterrence. Russia has been reluctant to engage but decisive when it does. Moscow didn’t want to see Syria overrun by Sunni terrorists–the US’s favorite proxy–so they intervened in 2015 to ensure that Bashar Assad remained in power. Syria is Russia’s one single stronghold in the Middle East, and deemed indispensable.

The Saker, a White Russian military and political analyst says that the neocon plan was to “overthrow Assad and replace him with their Sunni terrorist proxies–al Qaeda, al Nusra, ISIS, etc.” 

Doing this would achieve the following goals:

1. Bring down a strong secular Arab state along with its political structure, armed forces, and security services.
2. Create total chaos and horror in Syria justifying the creation of a “security zone” by Israel not only in the Golan but further north.
3. Trigger a civil war in Lebanon by unleashing the Takfiri crazies against Hezbollah.
4. Let the Takfiris and Hezbollah bleed each other to death, then create a “security zone,” but this time in Lebanon.
5. Prevent the creation of a Shia axis Iran-Iraq-Syria-Lebanon.
6. Break up Syria along ethnic and religious lines.
7. Create a Kurdistan which could then be used against Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran.
8. Make it possible for Israel to become the uncontested power broker in the Middle-East and force the KSA, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, and all others to have to go to Israel for any gas or oil pipeline project.
9. Gradually isolate, threaten, subvert, and eventually attack Iran with a broad regional coalition of forces.
10. Eliminate all centers of Shia power in the Middle-East.

Now this entire plan has collapsed due to the very high effectiveness of an informal but yet formidable alliance between Russia, Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah.

To say the US national security state was unhappy would be an understatement. Not only that but they’ve reacted with horror to Trump’s surprise election victory and concomitant  talk of easing tensions with Russia.

Does Russia-gate make more sense now?

And, this brings us to the historical projection I alluded to earlier. The Cold War has been described in glowing terms as the US containment of the USSR leading to a glorious triumph of liberal values, but the recent history of US foreign policies would seem to belie this account. I’ve said this before but the evidence grows by the day that it was the Soviets who were deterring us.

Like Russia-gate, it’s more projection to avoid having to face some unpleasant truths about the warlike nature of our bi-partisan foreign policy.

The reason I keep pointing out all the flaws and disinformation in Russia-gate is that this time the national security state’s propaganda campaign was so audacious and clumsy–where the U.S.’s own signature wrongdoings were displaced onto its chief rival, while simultaneously driving liberals into a war frenzy–that it became visible. For any of us paying attention, Russia-gate is like the scene in the Wizard of Oz, where Toto pulls back the curtain and exposes the wizard as the old crank he’s always been.

Update: More evidence that Russia-gate is all projection.

“Bottom line: Russiagate is going up in smoke.  The claim that Russian military intelligence fed thousands of emails to WikiLeaks doesn’t stand up to scrutiny while Mueller is not only unable to a prove a connection between the Internet Research Agency and the Kremlin but is barred from even discussing it, according to Friedrich’s ruling, without risking a charge of contempt.  After 22 months of investigating the ins and outs of Russian interference, Mueller seems to have finally come up dry.”