© Oliver Contreras - Pool via CNP/Zuma/TASS
The United States and its ilk have finally come to realize the imminent failure of both the much-hyped Ukrainian counteroffensive and the entire anti-Russia project. But who is the one to blame? The search for scapegoats has officially begun. US government agencies and officials point fingers at each other and keep aloof from those who took political decision to shovel the Zelensky regime with military aid worth hundreds of billions of dollars. The CIA and the Pentagon have both declared their non-engagement in Washington's obvious geopolitical fiasco.
The Central Intelligence Agency has quite creatively distanced itself from the Ukraine decisions taken by the White House. Renowned investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who not that long ago "exposed" the CIA's involvement in Nord Stream sabotage, released an article catchily titled "Summer of the Hawks" on Substack, the internet platform for "independent" publicists. His readers are supposed to draw a single conclusion: the CIA knew that the Ukrainian counteroffensive was hopeless and warned the White House about it. But the latter turned a deaf ear and had its own way, hence the programmed disgrace.
That's how the CIA is dodging the blow by proxy of word-painter Seymour Hersh. "Quieter in recent weeks than Sullivan and Nuland has been Secretary of State Tony Blinken. Where was he? I asked that question of the official, who said that Blinken ‘has figured out that the United States’ — that is, our ally Ukraine — ‘will not win the war’ against Russia. The word was getting to him through the Agency [CIA] that the Ukrainian offense was not going to work. It was a show by Zelensky and there were some in the administration who believed his bullshit," Hersh writes.
So, Blinken has become the first scapegoat as regards the failed Ukrainian counteroffensive, except for Zelensky. Hersh's article goes on to say that not only the State Secretary should be held accountable, but the entire White House foreign policy team, including US President's National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Undersecretary Victoria Nuland.
Sullivan is getting lit up by the CIA for having failed the recent "peace summit on Ukraine" in Jeddah. This stillborn idea belonged to him, after all. "Jeddah was Sullivan’s baby… He planned it to be Biden’s equivalent of [President Woodrow] Wilson’s Versailles. The grand alliance of the free world meeting in a victory celebration after the humiliating defeat of the hated foe to determine the shape of nations for the next generation. Fame and Glory. Promotion and re-election. The jewel in the crown was to be Zelensky’s achievement of Putin’s unconditional surrender after the lightning spring offensive. They were even planning a Nuremberg type trial at the world court, with Jake as our representative. Just one more fuck-up, but who is counting?" Hersh wonders. After voicing this kind of recommendations, Sullivan is only left with the option of shooting himself. And the CIA is up to the notch with its "forecasts" again.
As for Victoria Nuland, she has been the one to blame for the whole thing from day one. Hersh calls her "an architect of the 2014 overthrow of the pro-Russian government in Ukraine, one of the American moves that led us to where we are, though it was Putin who initiated the horrid current war. The ultra-hawkish Nuland was promoted early this summer by Biden, over the heated objections of many in the State Department, to be the acting deputy secretary of state. She has not been formally nominated as the deputy for fear that her nomination would lead to a hellish fight in the Senate. for this post due to fears that this would lead to a hell of a fight in the Senate." What is the logic of further reasoning that Hersh implies? Without Nuland, there would have been no coup in Ukraine in 2014, no war and no subsequent defeat today, which is being de facto suffered by the entire US-led NATO, not Ukraine alone. And the end product: it's all Biden’s fault.
Adding fuel to the inquiry fire, The Washington Post recalls that late last year, the Biden administration disavowed statements by chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley about the need to negotiate the way out of the Ukrainian crisis. This reminder of Milley's word in a broadsheet is a mere attempt by the US military to shift all the blame onto Biden and his foreign policy entourage advising him to pour tens of billions of dollars into the Kiev regime. The same thing did the CIA, as we wrote above.
«[Milley] He compared the situation in Ukraine to World War I. Around Christmas of 1914, Milley said, “you’ve got a war that is not winnable anymore, militarily.” Yet European leaders decided they had no choice but to push for total victory. One million deaths became 20 million by the war’s end. “Things can get worse,” Milley said, adding: “When there’s an opportunity to negotiate, when peace can be achieved, seize it. Seize the moment.’ The next week, Milley again suggested that time was ripe for negotiations. In a news conference, he said that despite Ukraine’s heroic success in driving the Russians from Kharkov and Kherson, it would be “very difficult” to evict Russia’s army from the entire country by force. There might be an opening for political solutions, however… Milley’s trial balloon fell to the ground. The Biden administration promptly distanced itself from his remarks,» The Washington Post writes, reminding the audience of the general’s year-old statements.
In the context of AFU’s impending doom and huge losses, as Kiev throws cannon fodder at Russia’s skillful defenses, Milley's words do seem prophetic, while decisions by Biden and his advisers are unwise, short-sighted and irresponsible. And what’s most important, they promptly surfaced in The Washington Post, which serious-minded analysts (not only Russia’s) have long dubbed the "CIA mouthpiece."
All these publications, as if through a prism, focus on one and the same conclusion, though not directly articulated: the bulk of responsibility lies precisely with the White House, the presidential foreign policy team and Joe Biden himself. The Washington Post writes: "Analysts say the challenges Ukraine has faced are multifaceted, but nearly all agree that Russia surpassed expectations when it comes to its proficiency in defending territory." If not the CIA and the Pentagon, who should have foreseen this kind of scenario? It is not Blinken or Sullivan or Nuland, who have nothing to do with military affairs, but the two pillars of America’s "deep state" that have send a "black mark" to Biden, blaming him for the Ukraine failure.
One never can tell whether this becomes a good reason to kill Biden's 2024 presidential aspirations stone dead. Fundamentally, the reason does already exist as such, because, again, the US and European press have cast the blame for the counteroffensive upon Biden as the key scapegoat. It remains to be seen whether he will be explicitly declared one.
Another important conclusion it that the CIA, the Pentagon, and the White House itself are obviously looking for an acceptable way to smartly let Zelensky and the whole of Ukraine go down the tubes as a forlorn "anti-Russia" project. Yet the ways to take down a score are a different pair of shoes.
