Powerful countries are alarmed by the threats against Russia as they see themselves as potential future targets.
Seyed Mohammad Marandi
Seyed Mohammad Marandi is professor of North American Studies and dean of the Faculty of World Studies at the University of Tehran.
Al-Jazeera - 20 May 2014
At the Fourth Summit of the Conference on Interaction and
Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) that opens May 20 in
Shanghai, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani will meet with both Chinese
President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Among other
things, the summit will underscore how rising non-Western powers are
playing ever more prominent roles on the global stage. However, Western
elites remain stuck in a time warp, wherein the United States and its
European partners are the imperial masters of all they survey.
In this regard, it is an interesting coincidence how mainstream
Western media outlets consistently produce narratives that are almost
indistinguishable from official government statements regarding
countries and leaders with dissimilar worldviews from their Western
counterparts. For instance, we repeatedly hear about the democratically
elected "dictators" in Venezuela, yet we are assured that friendly
dictators are "moderate reformers".
Another fascinating coincidence is that Western human rights
organisations pursue initiatives and policies closely aligned with those
of their own governments. When the US accused the Syrian government of
using chemical weapons against its own people - notwithstanding
noteworthy evidence to the contrary and despite the fact that it was fine as far as Washington was concerned when former Iraqi president Saddam Hossein attacked Iran
with chemical weapons - some human rights advocates stood shoulder to
shoulder with President Barack Obama in advocating "shock and awe" in
Damascus for humanitarian purposes.
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