William Engdahl is an award-winning geopolitical analyst and strategic risk consultant whose internationally best-selling books have been translated into thirteen foreign languages. He has lectured as Visiting Professor at Beijing University of Chemical Technology and delivers talks and private seminars around the world on subjects of current importance from economics to oil geopolitics to agribusiness. A widely discussed analyst of current political and economic developments, his provocative articles and analyses have appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines and well-known international websites. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization in Montreal and member of the editorial board of Eurasia magazine. Based in Frankfurt, Germany he may be reached via his website www.williamengdahl.com

William Engdahl is an award-winning geopolitical analyst and strategic risk consultant whose internationally best-selling books have been translated into thirteen foreign languages. He has lectured as Visiting Professor at Beijing University of Chemical Technology and delivers talks and private seminars around the world on subjects of current importance from economics to oil geopolitics to agribusiness. A widely discussed analyst of current political and economic developments, his provocative articles and analyses have appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines and well-known international websites. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization in Montreal and member of the editorial board of Eurasia magazine. Based in Frankfurt, Germany he may be reached via his website www.williamengdahl.com

Edward Snowden is a ‘red herring’ and the ‘childish’ cancelation by Obama of a meeting with Putin in September is of little significance as the US president has little to offer Russia, William Engdahl a geopolitical analyst, told RT.

The real issues of missile defense, Syria and Iran will remain unresolved because of a policy pursued by Washington of full spectrum dominance, where the sole super power the US seeks to dictate military, economic and financial terms to the entire world, Engdahl added.

RT:The Russian deputy foreign minister didn’t have a particularly productive discussion with the US Secretary of State in Brussels. Are there any indications that the same talks that are happening today will be any different?

William Enghdal: I doubt it rather seriously. The decision by President Obama to cancel the meeting with Putin before the G20 meeting is really an indication of a lack of strategy on the part of Obama rather than the putting down of Russia. The background to that is the fact that there are not only fundamental differences between the two sides, the United States government in Washington has been trying since the end of the Cold War to dismantle Russia, quite simply, with missile defense, with the plundering of their economy through using the IMF and shock therapy in the ’90s.

Now that Obama is back in the presidency they are finding a far more difficult negotiating partner over questions like Syria, over issues like the missile defense and others. Snowden, I think is a red herring, simply an excuse that is very convenient to use at this point.

RT:You are saying that if a consensus is reached on some of the issues that will be discussed that might off set the brewing tension over Edward Snowden?

WE: No, I am not saying that at all. I don’t think there will be any consensus reached between Russia and Washington on the issue of missile defense, because Washington is determined to encircle Russia with its missile defense, which is an offensive strategy, not a defensive one, by the way. It is a nuclear first strike preparation strategy. That is something that Russia understandably is not exactly overjoyed about. The issue of Syria is nonnegotiable; in terms of what the US is trying to put into power in Syria, similar to what they tried in Egypt and failed, that is a Muslim Brotherhood controlled regime that would allow Qatar to control pipeline flows into Europe and not Iran among other things.

There is not a basis of agreement on these fundamental questions. Snowden is not, as I say, the issue. The issue is this fundamental disagreement and Washington is not prepared to change its agenda and openly and honestly negotiate and resolve these differences, therefore Obama is using this childish maneuver of cancelling the meeting because of Snowden.

RT:OK I want to go back to Syria. About Syria, the peace conference keeps getting postponed. We know that the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov wanted it to come up as soon as possible. Is he likely to achieve a breakthrough at this meeting on that subject?

WE: I don’t see it, unless Washington is prepared to literally pullback all of its attack dogs inside Syria that they have run through Turkey using Al-Qaeda and these other groups; that they pertain to not want to allow to get any weapons, but of course they know they’re getting the weapons. Until that is done and all sides’ foreign elements pull out of Syria and allow the Syrians to resolve their own issues by themselves in the elections next year don’t think any peace conference is going to take place. The Syrian ‘opposition’ is a Muslim Brotherhood externally controlled opposition that has no roots inside the Syrian society in terms of a majority.

RT:Obama said that Russia sometimes has this Cold War mentality, but isn’t he also perpetuating and provoking that by not wanting to sit down with Putin and have that one-on-one with him when he comes in September?

WE: That is the laughable irony about this. If I were president Putin I would break open a nice bottle of champagne and celebrate the fact that he doesn’t have to go through this ordeal of another photo opp with Obama who has nothing to offer Russia in any serious way. Obama’s statement on the Tonight Show about the Russians somehow occasionally reverting to the Cold War mentality as if they were cured alcoholics who would go on a drinking binge from time to time is really not only insulting, it reflects the mentality in Washington.

This is not serious statesmanship. The point is Washington has an agenda, which I talk about in my book Full Spectrum Dominance to extend NATO across the globe and use that as a global police force for the sole superpower and the Cold War didn’t end in 1991, when the Soviet Union and the Warsaw pact dissolved. Washington for its side has continued the Cold War. In fact you can say it’s a Hot War right now. The battle is being fought by proxies, by surrogates.

The battle over Syria is part of the Hot War between a coalition of countries of which Russia and China are critical factors that are resisting that one country dictates the term in military and other senses - economic and financial - to the entire world. I think that is a very unhealthy, one-sided or lop-sided state of affairs. That’s what the real issue is between Washington and the Putin administration.





The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.