THE past week has seen the celebration of the anniversary from January 1945 of the liberation of the

Auschwitz death camp by Soviet forces. The casual reader of the speech given by United States vice-
president Mike Pence could be forgiven for not realising that the liberation was carried out by Soviet
forces. Although a relatively trivial slur by the United States Vice President it was symptomatic of a
wider tendency in the United States perception of world events.
The liberation of Auschwitz was followed four months later by the final defeat of Nazi Germany and the
end of the European phase of the world war. Many thought and hoped that it marked the end of an old
discredited era and the beginning of a brave new world. This optimism was manifested in the founding
of the United Nations. Many saw that development as commencing a new era with the scourge of war
that could be, if not abolished, at least severely limited.
That optimism was exemplified in the United Nations Charter, one of the most important provisions of
which was a severe limitation on the circumstances in which a country could take military action
against another country. Essentially, a country could take military action either in self-defence, or with
the imprimatur of the United Nations Security Council.
The Security Council itself reflected the geopolitical realities of 1945, with its five permanent members
being the five victorious powers of World War Two, namely, the United States, the Soviet Union, Great
Britain, France and China. Whatever justification there may have been for those five permanent
members in 1945 has not stood the test of time.
China’s seat on the Security Council was held by the Chiang Kai Shek government. Although that
government was defeated in the Chinese Civil War that ended in 1949 with the Nationalists fleeing to
Formosa (modern day Taiwan) they continued to hold China’s seat on the Security Council for a further
26 years. This manifest absurdity was finally ended in 1971.
Today, France and the United Kingdom retain their seats on the Security Council although the logical
basis for doing so has long since dissipated. Germany and Japan are both vastly greater economic
powers than France and the United Kingdom and in their respective regions have more economic and
political influence than that of the two nominal victors.
The greatest failure of the United Nations Security Council however, has been its inability to actually
give effect to the provisions of Article 2 (3) and (4) of the United Nations Charter and prevent one of its
members, the United States, from engaging in almost continuous warfare in the 75 years since the
United Nations Charter was formulated and ratified by its founding members.
The history of that relentless warfare by the United States has been well documented and won’t be
repeated here. In the early years of the United Nations, the United States’ overwhelming military
strength meant that there was little the rest of the world could do to enforce constraint and adherence
to the fundamental United Nations principle of the peaceful resolution of disputes.
Although the Soviet Union was the dominant power in its region of influence, relentless propaganda to
the contrary by the West notwithstanding, the Soviet Union never exercised real power outside its
geographical framework.
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, and with China still relatively weak, it seemed that the United
States had achieved its ambition of global dominance. They certainly behaved as if they did. If a week
is a long time in politics, the passage of two decades must seem like an eternity, but if there is one
outstanding geopolitical feature of the past two decades, it is that all of the West’s assumptions in
2000 have by 2020 turned to ashes. This is not to say that those assumptions have been discarded, or
that the western powers have adjusted their behaviour significantly to reflect the new realities.
On the contrary, at least in the case of the United States, the world has witnessed what may fairly be
described as a doubling down on their view of the world and aggressive behaviour to match. Trump
personifies that aggression and ‘America first’ ideology, but he is far from alone.
The new century began with a United States lead Western invasion of Afghanistan. That history is well
documented. Suffice to say here that the ostensible reason for the invasion, Afghanistan’s alleged
responsibility for the attacks on New York and Washington in September 2001 remains one of the
great lies and the result one of the great war crimes of the 21st century.
Eighteen+ years later the United States and some of its allies are still there, still bombing civilians, and
still lying about their true motives: a foothold on the border of China and the former Soviet ‘stans’;
control of the immensely lucrative heroin trade; and access to several rare minerals. The United States
may indeed leave Afghanistan, as Trump professes to believe, but it will not be voluntarily.
The exact same pattern was repeated in 2003 when again the United States and its allies attacked
Iraq, this time for alleged possession of ‘weapons of mass destruction.” When that lie was rapidly
exposed there was no apology, no withdrawal, and no compensation paid.
Again, more than 16 years later, those invading forces are still there. Earlier in January of this year the
Iraqi parliament unanimously passed a resolution demanding the withdrawal of all foreign troops. The
demand was simply ignored by occupying forces such as the United States, United Kingdom and
Australia. Nothing speaks more clearly than the arrogant disregard for the Iraqi national sovereignty
then this utter refusal to leave a country when demanded to do so by its sovereign government. It is
reported that when the Iraqi Prime Minister raised the issue with United States Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo, the latter simply laughed.
The Americans similarly refused to leave Iraq’s neighbour Syria, that they invaded in complete
defiance of international law and remain unwelcome and uninvited. It is no coincidence that the area
of Iraq that the United States continues to occupy is the oil producing region. They not only occupy
that region, they are processing the oil extracted, selling it, and keeping the proceeds. There could be
fewer clearer examples of brazen theft and contempt for international law. Again, United States
actions bear no resemblance either to the United Nations Charter or their own hypocritical professed
belief in ‘the rules based international order.’
The Australian government has for the most part kept an embarrassed silence about the Iraqi demand
to leave. Their professed reason for being there, to train Iraqi troops hardly survives the most
elementary of tests: how can one stay to “help” someone who manifestly wishes you to be gone?
The American campaign against Iran, active since at least 1979 when the Islamic revolution overthrew
their man in Tehran, the Shah, shows no sign of abating. There is now very good evidence that the
Ukrainian plane that was shot down by Iranian air defence, was the victim of a deliberate jamming of
the plane’s electronic system that identified it as a civilian aircraft.
The Iranians obviously had no motive to do so. The disaster occurred within hours of the successful
Iranian retaliation on US targets in Iraq in response to the assassination of the Iranian’s military chief
(and eight other victims) who was on a diplomatic mission at the time (and carrying a diplomatic
passport). The full story of this tragedy is yet to be heard. Trump has backed away from his initial
claim of no United States casualties from the Iranian attack to an acknowledgement of severe injuries
including psychological effects on several dozen United States military personnel.
The furore over the shooting down of the Ukrainian plane (with most of the victims Iranian, also
significant) has tended to obscure the significance of what was arguably the more significant
geopolitical move, the joint Chinese, Iranian, Russian naval exercises in waters proximate to Iranian
territory.
Iran is becoming an increasingly important component of several major geopolitical and trade related
moves by China, India and Russia. The significance of these developments is consistently under-
reported in the western media, in particular in the United States and Australia, both of which countries
have declined to participate in what is undoubtably the major geopolitical innovation of the 21st
century to date.
Indeed, it is a measure of Australia’s adherence to the United States view of the world that it should
refuse to participate in these great projects (unlike 160 other world countries) and which involve
Australia’s major trading partners.
All of these 21st century developments signify at least one major fact. The western domination of the
world, including trade, economic development and coming to an end. A failure to recognise that reality
and taking steps to oppose, undermine, and in many cases actively sabotage that development, only
delays the inevitable.
The terrible risk for the world is that the failing and flailing empires of the past will try to resist that
inevitable development. In doing so they threaten the very future of the planet.
 
New Eastern Outlook, January 29. James O’Neill is an Australia-based barrister at law.