By Herman Tiu Laurel

The World has just witnessed and trembled before the terrible prospect of global war triggered by the U.S. assassination of the Iranian military official and hero of many wars defending the people of Iran, Gen. Qassem Sulaimani the vanquisher of ISIS.

Along with Gen. Soleimani in the same murder spree of the American drone strike was the Iraqi government militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis who helped the fight against and defeat of the ISIS.

Evolving Motive but “Absolutely Unlawful”

The motive for the criminal assassination is being described by even the American and Western media as “the evolving U.S. justification for killing Iran’s top general”, Trump and his officials unable to pinpoint the exact threat Soleimani and al-Muhandis posed.

UN Rapporteur on extra-judicial killings Agnés Callamard chimed in diplomatically saying targeted killings “violate international human rights law…” Twenty-five other people were killed alongside Soleimani which the UN Rapporteur said was “absolutely” unlawful.

The E.U. as well has insulated itself from the U.S. murder and even Israeli PM Netanyahu is recorded saying to his cabinet “The killing of Soleimani is a U.S. event, not an Israeli event, and we should stay out of it.”

So what exactly was the reason, the evolving motive” for the assassination? No one, apparently even Trump himself, has been able to say for sure. Most speculate it was Trump’s election and impeachment desperation move, other say Pompeo’s “rapture”.

Praying for WWIII – Rapture

On June 28, 2015 at Summit Church in Wichita, Kansas, Pompeo delivered a speech at a “God and Country Rally” on good and evil, apocalyptically declared, ““We will continue to fight these battles… It is a never-ending struggle … until the Rapture. Be part of it. Be in the fight.”

Sarah Posner’s piece “The Evangelicals Who Pray for War With Iran” reports that Pompeo and Pence (vice president) were the top officials pushing Trump to kill Suleimani, following the evangelicals’ belief WWIII would bring about Rapture, the Armageddon and Jesus’ return.

Is the world in the grips of madmen who are aching to bring on the global nuclear war? Various consciences of history have paraphrased that immortal phrase, “Whom the gods would destroy they firsts make mad … with power.” That clearly described the American power wielders today.

The Unipolar “New American Century”

The 1991 fall of the USSR ushered in the Uni-Polar World on the World stage, and U.S. neocons went to work on a global domination plan called “Project for a New American Century” (PNAC)  turning triumph into arrogance, hubris and now Nero-esque global pyromania.

In 2001 the PNAC went into action with “the new Pearl Harbor” justifying a global war, demolishing the World Trade Center, collect insurance and blame Osama bin Laden, Taliban/Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein who ironically hated Al Qaeda (but truth never matters) and declaring war over nonexistent WMDs.

With total control of the global media platforms the U.S. power wielders could foist any virtual reality show on the unsuspecting World and be believed. Contrarian media sprung up only in 2005 with Russia Today and CCTV came to prominence early 2010s.

Permanent War Era

Fast forwarding to January 11, 2020 after an Iranian retaliatory missile attack on two Iraqi basis housing U.S. troops and assets Trump relents and relative peace returns to the World, but with the sporadic fits of insanity in U.S. geopolitical actions one can never tell when the next fit will come.

Many are blaming the latest global crisis on Trump alone, but the narrative of the Uni-Polar era really points to all American presidents after 1991, intoxicated with unlimited power pursuing war as a matter of U.S. national policy.

President George Herbert Walker Bush waged Iraq War I, President Bill Clinton bombed Yugoslavia, George Bush Jr. started what Gen. Wesley Clark called “war on 7 countries in 5 years” and Obama bombed Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq and Syria.

Pivot to Asia

Obama in 2011 expanded war horizon announcing the Pivot to Asia, moving 60% of American military forces to face China which with astounding speed erected formidable defenses apparently halted the pivot expressed by U.S. Asst.-Secretary Susan Thornton in 2017.

“On the issue of pivot, rebalance, et cetera, that was a word that was used to describe the Asia policy in the last (Obama) administration… you can probably expect that this administration will have its own formulation…” Thornton said.

China’s Prophetic Vision

For the past decade I have closely followed China’s efforts towards building the concepts and structures for a new world that avoids the pitfalls of the Uni-Polar; that is, a Multi-Polar world where major countries sit as peers around a table charting the course of the human race.

The relation of politics and economic is also clearly expressed, best in the Chinese saying often heard from Chinese officials “To get rich, build a road” which has been incarnated in physical and financial terms in the Belt and Road Initiative and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

These concepts started to congeal into real world project in the first decade of the 21^st Century while the U.S. started waging its “7 wars in 7 countries”. The BRICS with Brazil, Russia, India, South Africa was kicked off in 2009 and serves as a seminal model for the Multi-Polar world.

The Belt and Road for Prosperity and Peace

The Belt and Road Initiative was kicked off in 2013 growing to a land, maritime and digital linkage of 138 countries by 2019 with investments into several trillions in infrastructure, transport and energy.

To top off China’s vision of a continuing and permanent world of prosperity and peace is China’s opening of it 1.4-billion consumer economy to the World with the promises of priming the global economy with $ 40-trillions imports of goods and service in the next 15 years.

New political paradigms have been set forth by China’s leadership, such as the New Model of Major Country relations eschewing “zero sum” games based on purely national interest but on mutual interest, non-conflict and non-confrontation, dialogue and Win-Win results.

U.S. names China as “Strategic Competitor”

For a while the U.S. accepted this proposition from China, until in 2017 the U.S. declared China as a “strategic competitor” and a year later began the “trade war” and threatened “decoupling” China from its economy and pressing its traditional allies to do the same – without much success.

Several analysts and writers have asked this question, “Who is the real target in the attack on Iran’s hero Qassem Suleimani”. Ann Lee, adjunct professor at New York University and Pace University say China is the real target.

Likewise, Emanuel Scimia, an independent journalist and foreign affairs analyst writing on the SCMP, who says the US-Iran conflict would be bad news for Beijing as it undermines Beijing’s Belt and Road development in the Middle East.

Trump’s Kill mode

But the most telling version is from Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi that he had signed an agreement with China to finish infrastructure and electricity projects the U.S. had refused to complete without a pledge of getting 50% of all Iraqi oil revenues:

“Trump called me to ask me to reject this agreement. When I refused, he threatened to unleash huge demonstrations against me that would end my premiership… I received a new call from Trump threatening to kill both me and the Minister of Defense if we kept on talking about this ‘third party’.”

The target came to be Suleimani for what was likely the combination of purposes. The report of Adil Abdul-Mahdi’s dilemma with Trump was by Federico Pieraccini writing in the Strategic Culture Foundation, an independent freelance writer in international affairs, conflicts and strategies.

Multi-Polar World

The vision for a Multi-Polar world and a peaceful, prosperous Win-Win global economy for all, threatens to be aborted by exploding global conflicts the American psychos are sowing. China has massive investments in the Middle East since 2014 amounting to $124-billion and a $ 400-billion long term investment plan with Iran.

China’s response to the heightened tension in the Iraq-Iran theater is to call for restraint on the part of all parties engage in the conflict. It’s perspective is summed up in Li Chengwen, China’s Ambassador to the China-Arab States Cooperation forum statement:

“The root problems in the Middle East lie in development and the only solution is also development.” Development builds prosperity and peace, but that clearly is not the obsession of the American psychos fixated on domination and more domination.

The Choice: Psycho’s of America or Prophets of Boom and Bloom

While China has called its vision for the World “Community of Shared Future for Mankind” of all the peoples of the World cooperating and building prosperity, we can only hear America’s “America First” and I imagine a whispered “… and Only”. Ever since the U.S. declaration of China as a “strategic competitor” the real challenge to all the nations of the World is a choice to be made. Which vision of the World’s future do we choose? The vision of American psychos to a World permanently at war, or China’s prophets of boom and bloom of our World Civilization.

(Next: China’s Vision for Prosperity and Peace)