1) Nations have no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests.
2) Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
3) Nations are not moral agents.

Brzezinski under President Carter (as confessed to Le Monde) engineered a situation in Afghanistan that led the USSR into a forced error of invading Afghanistan, which became its Vietnam. Reagan with his star wars forced foolish Brezhnev to increase defense spending to bankrupt the economically tottering Soviet Union. Naive and trusting Gorbachev with a rudimentary moral compass went in for glasnost and perestroika which led to the USSR dissolution. The last straw that broke the camel's back was not a guilty conscience for the oppression of eastern Europe or the Central Asian 'Stans', but the limited resources which he was unwilling to spend for the benefit of the Poles, Hungarians, Czechoslovaks, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Kyrghyz, Azerbaijanis, Armenians, Georgians, Turkmen or Baltics. British withdrawal from colonial India was due to the same reasons rather than Gandhi's agitation.

Gorbachev foolishly believed that America would keep its promise of not extending NATO beyond Germany's borders. The US under Clinton reneged on it and literally manipulated Russia into bankruptcy by free market economic advice and manipulation with the help of greedy oligarchs, corrupt communist apparatchiks and an incompetent and perpetually inebriated Yeltsin. Russia's military became so dysfunctional that it could not even win a war against tiny breakaway Chechnya. The Russian population and its economy were so destitute that workers could not get a paycheck and retirees pension payments. The oligarchs and collaborating officials moved hundreds of billions of dollars out of the country and stashed them in secret bank accounts while the country borrowed from the IMF, the West's Trojan horse and defaulted on its debt. These same tricks had been used by the US in Latin America for years and in Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand a few months earlier to allow foreigners to buy up cheaply, national assets on a fire sale.

Deng of China saw all this and that is why even today the Chinese leadership prevents political freedom and sent tanks into Tiananmen square in 1989. Putin with his love for his country and a wounded pride, used all means at his disposal to reclaim Russian energy assets by fair means and foul, before the oligarchs sold out to the Western oil and gas companies to forever lose the only valuable chip left to Russia. He knew that Russia could regain its economic and military status by the earnings from its energy sales to Europe, Japan and China, as they all were to a great degree dependent on it for their economies and well being. He tried to reassure Germany that he could be a reliable source of gas and oil at stable prices and proposed a peaceful partnership with Europe. 

Dumb Bush Jr. And his Darth Vader vice president, intoxicated by the heady propaganda brew of the neo-cons were dreaming of full spectrum world dominance and used the 9-11 terrorist attack to put their nefarious plans into action. The war against terror was used as a pretext to allow Russia to agree to US over-flights to supply Afghanistan, install US airbases in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrghyzstan. The National Endowment for Democracy, a conduit for CIA money, other NGOs and sundry agents masquerading as diplomats were used to promote regime change by coups in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrghyzstan (rose, orange and tulip revolutions). Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Baltic Republics were offered EU and NATO memberships despite the promise to Gorbachev and Yugoslavia was dismembered when the stupid and xenophobic Milosevic provided the opportunity by his genocidal policies. Iraq was attacked to capture its oil. Madeline Halfbright, Secretary of State publicly stated, when confronted about the death of over half a million Iraqi children due to sanctions denying the country medicines, that it was a small price to pay for achieving US objectives of controlling Saddam.

Using the flimsy excuse of countering non-existent Iranian nuclear missiles, the US wanted to induct Georgia and Ukraine into NATO and post ABMs in Poland and the Czech Republic despite the majority of the populations of those countries being opposed to the idea. Putin made a conciliatory gesture of putting ABMs in Azerbaijan, right next to Iran, but Bush turned it down. Putin naturally stopped the sale of oil and gas at subsidized rates to Ukraine and former Soviet Republics and threatened aiming nuclear missiles at countries hosting US ABMs. ABMs are not defensive but offensive weapons, as they allow the US to carry out a preemptive first nuclear strike consistent with its 2002 National Security Doctrine, while being able to neutralize sparse surviving second strike nuclear missiles by the ABMs in Poland, Czech Republic, Alaska (and Ukraine and Georgia when they join NATO and allow ABMs on their soil).

Georgia was utilized as a transit for Azeri oil bypassing Russia. The huge Bondsteel US base in Kosovo and the recognition of its independence, bypassing the UN and over Russia's objections, is also for a future pipeline. The arming of Georgia and tacit encouragement of the insane suicidal military attack by Georgia's unstable President Saakashvili on South Ossetia, was probably a probe to see how Russia responds and ended in catastrophe for Georgia, alienation of Russia and egg on the face of the US. The US threatens Russia, but the threats are sheer empty boasting. Russia is flush with money. It holds half a trillion dollars that it can dump on the market to sink the dollar. It can live without joining the WTO. It has retaliated by cutting US meat imports and threatens to reduce oil and gas sales sending shivers down Europe's spine and keeping energy prices high to the detriment of the US, Europe, Japan, China, India and the rest of the oil poor world. The US media have conveniently lied about Russia attacking Georgia first as they have lied about the SCO countries China and the Stans giving Russia cold shoulder. The truth is exactly the opposite. One has to read other internet sources likewww.counterpunch.org,  www.antiwar.com and www.atimes.com to get the truth. The US is trying to encircle Russia with missiles and ABMs on its borders. Its interest in India is to do the same with China.

As far as the nuclear deal and India and Pakistan are concerned, the US has clear plans. India's economy is doing well and it is a major regional power with nuclear weapons which hasn't signed the NPT and CTBT. America wants to cap and reduce India's nuclear arms. The US wants intrusive inspections to monitor and reduce the production of Indian nuclear weapons. It wants to ban further testing by India whose last detonations in 1998 were not successful for a thermonuclear weapon. It also wants to profit by selling nuclear plants which it can threaten to take back, if India doesn't toe its line in foreign policy. In return it is unwilling to provide reprocessing technology and insists on delaying India's current reprocessing capability by insisting on a building a new facility to US specifications and subject to its intrusive inspections, causing a delay of five years. The US idea was to bring India into the NPT and CTBT by the back door and with even more stringent restrictions.

India's reigning puppet Manmohan Singh is a simple man with limited knowledge and no independent thinking. Yet he is so egotistical, that he stated that if the nuclear deal did not go through it would reflect on his honor. Someone needs to inform the ignoramus that his job is the well being of the country and if he is stupid enough to negotiate a nuclear deal detrimental to India's future and about which he has no clue, without the input from his scientists and security experts, while listening only to his sycophants and vested interests, he has already lost his honor which was of no importance anyway. He has refused to reveal details of the deal to the parliament or the press, prevaricated on the details and misrepresented, if not lied. The US has repeatedly corrected him on the Hyde Act and the 123 agreement. It promised to help him get a clean waiver from the NSG, but probably had a premeditated plan to use Norway, Sweden, Ireland, Austria and New Zealand to put even more onerous restrictions on India. The US is banking on Manmohan Singh's ignorance, stupidity and egotism to sign any deal with all restrictions so as not to become the laughing stock of India and the world, after his party's bribery, corruption, cajoling and unconstitutional methods to win a parliamentary vote. One is led to the conclusion that Manmohan Singh is so densely simple that he is best described as a SIMPLETON.

The US needs Pakistan as a transit way to occupy Afghanistan in the hope of controlling Central Asian energy resources. The Taliban have now started attacking the US supply convoys from Karachi to Kabul to starve the US troops of ammunition and essential supplies. The other related reason for cuddling up to Pakistan is to prevent it from being a sanctuary for Taliban for cross border attacks in Afghanistan. Musharraf went along with that and became so unpopular that he had to resign. It also led to the beginning of a civil war in Pakistan between the militants and the army. With Mr. Ten Percent Zardari as the new president, this war will intensify if the army goes along. General Kayani may choose to opt out which will embolden the Islamic militancy or wholeheartedly pursue the war which will markedly increase the unrest. America's other major concern will then become paramount'to prevent the Pakistani nuclear weapons from falling into the hands of the terrorists. India has nothing to lose from either scenario and nothing to gain from dealing with the corrupt, weak and unreliable Zardari government. India should proceed with the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline. Afghanistan will become a narco-state because Karzai is incompetent, beholden to warlords and narco-traffickers and his police and officials are corrupt. These alienate the population already incensed at indiscriminate US aerial bombing of civilians.

Finally, it is in the best interests of the US to make peace with Iran and bring it back into the Western fold by limited and closely supervised uranium enrichment without weapons capability. By this Europe will get an alternative source of oil and gas and it will not be hostage to Russian energy supply. Central Asian energy will find an easy and safe outlet through the Persian Gulf where the US already has a fleet. This could be via new pipelines through Iran or for swap of oil and gas from the Caspian for Iran's internal needs, freeing Iran's production in Khuzistan totally for export. Continued US hostility towards Iran may now tempt Russia to bind tightly with Iran by supplying its military needs and using the Russian veto against further UN sanctions. This will even further weaken the US positions in Afghanistan and Iraq, both tottering on the precipice of disastrous withdrawal and retreat in defeat like Vietnam. Unfortunately the US, Pakistan and India are led by mixtures of ignorant fools, corrupt crooks or insane fanatic ideologues.