(05) : US and Russia Closer to Nuclear War Than Ever | News | teleSUR English

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Analyst: US and Russia Closer to Nuclear War Than Ever

Escalating tensions between the United States and Russia has resurrected a Cold War rivalry and the world is perhaps closer to a global–possibly nuclear–conflagration than at any time since the end of the second World War, the Mexican political analyst Alfredo Jalife told teleSur English in an interview this week. 

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Much as the proxy wars fought throughout the developing world during the height of the Cold War, Syria is now the chessboard over which the world powers state each other down, Jalife said.  Under the premise of fighting extremism, Washington has backed a loose coalition of rebel militias while Moscow, along with Iran and Lebanon, back the government of Bashar al-Assad. 

With voters in the U.S. preparing to choose a new president next month, Jalife said that it is Hillary Clinton who is the more combustible of the two candidates, particularly when it comes to Russia. 

"The hostility of Hillary Clinton against Russian President Vladimir Putin can result in two scenarios: a nuclear war or her humiliation before a power that does not respond to her interests and that surrender to her desires," he said in a telephone interview. It does not appear, however, that Clinton realizes this inevitability, Jalife said. 

Moscow has been accused by Western politicians and media of committing war crimes in Syria and Russia has accused the United States and its allies of supporting terrorist groups such as the Islamic State. Neither, Jalife said, will claim responsibility for its role in raining mortar shells on civilians in Syria. 

"The Obama administration and its allies have turned the Syrian war into a moral war and have used the western media to spread the message of the horrors in Syria, blaming the government of Al-Assad and Russia for it," he said. "That's very hypocritical. I mean, none can actually cast the first stone and say that he is free from blame," Jalife says.

Russia began its air campaign against rebel militias a year ago, while the Western-sponsored rebels have been fighting since 2011.

"The extremism in the Middle East is funded by the West and its regional allies and they are travesties of geopolitics because they can change their actions in accordance to what their masters want."

Jalife ads that something that Media does not report is the popular power of those presidents of the powers as well as their agreements with regional partners.

"Vladimir Putin has  the support of most of Russians while the U.S. is facing a political AND economic crisis with Mephistopheles and Lucifer running for the presidency," he said, referring to Clinton and her demagogic GOP rival, Donald Trump.

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"She shows that hostile attitude towards Russia," he said. "She is used to treating third-world countries badly but does not realize that she's actually dealing with a nuclear power and a very important country which also has the other superpower (China) at its side," says Jalife. He added that it is Obama's antagonism of both countries that has led to the geopolitical marriage between Moscow and Beijing.

While the U.S. is configuring its leadership and policy, Russia is growing militarily, expanding its relations like the gas pipeline deal with Turkey that has put tensions over Syria behind. The Kremlin is also reopening its military bases in Syria, beginning with the port city of Tartus.