US foreign policy may be driven by a burning desire to achieve global dominance. What does Cyprus stand to gain from such designs? What if Cyprus is selected as the next victim in Washington’s geopolitical games in the Eastern Mediterranean? There are serious doubts about how beneficial this game is for the Cypriot people. What do we stand to gain as the West assigns to our troubled island the role of the bulwark of its ambitions in the region?

Modern history abounds of sad examples in which Washington’s interference in foreign countries turned out a nasty affair. One of the most recent striking example is Ukraine. For five years, President Poroshenko served with ardent zeal the interests of the White House, dashing his own people’s hopes for a better future. He fulfilled his personal task in full: during this period his income increased manifold. Rampant corruption and profiteering have been the main characteristics of his term in power.  This sorry state of affairs in the ex-Soviet country continued unpunished by his Western protectors. However, his days were counted: the Ukrainian people casting their vote stopped him short. Poroshenko (hence the US protégé in Ukraine) – received less than a quarter of the total votes – three times less votes than Zelensky’s, the winner artist, in the second round of presidential elections held last weekend.

Whether Poroshenko’s quarter of the votes corresponds to the true level of popular support for him is still a controversial question. The civil and religious war unleashed by the US protégé, the utterly destroyed economy, the poverty and despair of the Ukrainian people do not come as nearly as close to a complete list of Poroshenko’s “achievements” with his pro-American team.

It is always easier to destroy than to build and develop what has already been achieved. Washington offers a path that seems easier and light-hearted. It is naive to believe that Americans care about the welfare of the Cypriot people. Taking into account the experience of Ukraine and other countries, it is easy to guess what to expect from an imposed American friendship. A number of actions of the Cypriot government can hardly be called constructive in terms of their compliance with the interests of the people. This is the only way to explain the visits of our leadership to some Western countries at the time Cypriot people celebrate national holidays and honour the memory of the heroes who gave their lives in the fight for independence from the colonial yoke of the current Western partners.

Turkey and the UK, both staunch NATO members control, in aggregate, two fifths of the island’s territory. Is this undeniable fact to be ignored? Is it the aim for which our people fought in the middle of the last century? Are we putting a noose on our neck and meekly wait for the command of the neo-colonial master? Oddly enough, sometimes it seems that the noose is already thrown around the neck of some of our leaders. It is difficult to explain the rumors about the negative decision of the Cypriot leadership for Russian warships participation in the multinational search and rescue exercise scheduled for the end of May in Cyprus’ waters.

The invitation to Moscow to participate was issued. The Cypriot side with genuine satisfaction accepted the consent of the Russians to take part. Then, all of a sudden, only a week later, Lefkosia changes her mind offering a far-fetched pretext. Undoubtedly, such an inconsiderate decision deals a serious blow to the integrity, competence and professionalism of our leadership. Would it be far-fetched to infer the Cypriot government deliberately descends to this humiliation for the sake of serving American ambitions? This sad incident militates against the declared multi-dimensional foreign policy concept of the Cypriot government. Probably for someone in charge in Lefkosia it is more important to be praised by this or that Senator or the new US ambassador.

Would the common Cypriot in the street trust this mono-dimensional West-oriented foreign policy or a more balanced multi-dimensional one, through which neither Moscow, nor any other pole of power, is ignored? With the lessons of recent history in their minds, we would argue that Cypriot people undoubtedly favour a more balanced approach in our foreign relations passing the message that we are masters of ourselves.

Από την σκοπιά της Λευκωσίας – αν όχι και της Αθήνας – εύλογα τίθεται το εξής ερώτημα: θα είχε πρόβλημα ο Ρώσος ή ο Αμερικανός Πρόεδρος με την Λευκωσία ως φιλοξενούσα πρωτεύουσα για πραγματοποίηση της πρώτης τους συνάντησης; Η απάντηση είναι ουδέν πρόβλημα: η Κυπριακή Δημοκρατία είναι ακόμη πιο ουδέτερη κι διπλά αποδεκτή από Μόσχα και Ουάσιγκτον μιας και είναι κράτος μέλος της ΕΕ αλλά όχι του ΝΑΤΟ. Η τελευταία ιδιότητα, η συμμετοχή δηλαδή στην Βορειοατλαντική Συμμαχία, ενίοτε ενοχλεί την Μόσχα, αν και παρατηρούμε ότι στην περίπτωση της Λιουμπλιάνα ο Πούτιν ασμένως έσπευσε να δηλώσει ότι δεν έχει αντίρρηση.

Πριν προλάβω να βάλω την πέννα στο χαρτί για να προτείνω την Λευκωσία για την συνάντηση κορυφής Τραμπ-Πούτιν ξεσπά η αχρείαστη ψυχοφθόρα και ζημιογόνα διαμάχη για θέματα της συγχρόνου ιστορίας μας αυτονόητα και αυταπόδεικτα: η έγκριση της Βουλής και του ΠτΔ για την ενημέρωση (Ν.Β. όχι την επισταμένη έρευνα και εμβριθή μελέτη) μιας καθόλα ιστορικής στιγμής της νεότερης Κύπρου: του Ενωτικού Δημοψηφίσματος του 1950. Γιατί ένα απλό θέμα προσφοράς στοιχειώδους ιστορικής γνώσης προς τους εφήβους μας να χρειάζεται ψήφισμα της Βουλής και προεδρική υπογραφή για να εφαρμοστεί; Ποιος ο λόγος ύπαρξης τότε του Υπουργείου Παιδείας; (Ο γράφων έχει εδώ και εικοσαετία αναλύσει αποδεσμευμένες Βρετανικές εκθέσεις επί του θέματος του Δημοψηφίσματος 1950. Δέστε σχετική ανάλυση με τίτλο: Το Ενωτικό Δημοψήφισμα 1950 με Βρετανικά Μάτια: Γνήσια Βούληση του Κυπριακού Λαού http://www.inter-security-forum.org). Φυσικά η υπερβολική αντίδραση του ΤΚ ηγέτη και η αποχώρηση του από την αίθουσα των συνομιλιών κρίνεται ανάξια σχολιασμού.

Το κεφαλαιώδες ερώτημα που τίθεται είναι τι είδους κράτος είμαστε και πώς στεκόμαστε στη διεθνή σκακιέρα; Αυτομειωνόμαστε και υποπίπτουμε σε διεθνή ανυποληψία ενόσω αναλωνόμαστε στα αυτονόητα και στα αυταπόδεικτα αντί να έχομε την προσοχή μας στραμμένη στη επίρρωση του κύρους της Κυπριακής Δημοκρατίας ως κράτους Ευρωπαϊκού, παράγοντα σταθερότητας στην ταραγμένη μας περιοχή, κράτους διατηρούντος άριστες σχέσεις με τις δυο υπερδυνάμεις όπως και με όλους τους γείτονες πλην βεβαίως της κατοχικής Ισλαμο-Φασιστικής Τουρκίας.

Από πού κι ως πού ο ΠτΔ να αναλώνεται σε πεντασέλιδες εξηγήσεις προς συγκράτηση του αφηνιασμένου Ακιντζί, άθλιου υποχείριου της φασιστικής Άγκυρας του νέο-σουλτάνου Ερντογάν, αντί να αναλαμβάνει ωραίες και λαμπρές διεθνείς πρωτοβουλίες όπως η προαναφερθείσα μιας και διατηρεί προς πίστη του άριστες σχέσεις τόσο με την Ουάσιγκτον όσο και με την Μόσχα; Κύριε Αναστασιάδη όρθωσε διεθνές ανάστημα όπως σού αξίζει, πάψε να αυτοϋποβαθμίζεσαι σε Κοινοτάρχη, πάψε να ρυμουλκήσε από τα Τουρκικά καμώματα και πάρε τον δρόμο τον λαμπρόν της σύζευξης των δύο υπερδυνάμεων στον αγώνα κατά των επί των θυρών ημών Δυνάμεων του Σκότους του Ισλαμικού Κράτους και των προστατών τους συμπεριλαμβανομένης της κατοχικής Τουρκίας. Αυτό επιτάσσει η ιστορική στιγμή!

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte declared that Ukraine will “never” join the EU. According to Amsterdam, Kiev today needs to establish good relations with the EU and Russia. It is clear that after the April 6 referendum the Dutch society does not support the idea of Ukraine’s accession to the EU.

Kiev’s foreign policy is built on claiming that Russia is the aggressor. This idea helps Ukraine’s government to cover the flourishing iniquity and corruption in the country. Kiev just promises to bring the country to European standards. The Ukrainian mass media quote the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ statement that the Ukraine will not stop its integration into the EU. Kiev takes out European loans with no intention to ever pay them back. This is how the Ukrainian leadership acts in the framework of “European integration”. It is obvious that new insolvent state within the EU will cause new economic difficulties.

In an ill-conceived attempt to promote European values, Kiev increases the gap between the government and the Ukrainian society. For example, the majority of citizens reject the idea of LGBT support, but the country’s leaders persistently promote it. It is obvious that this is one of the issues that cause rising tensions in the Ukraine.

Moreover, Ukraine has an official conflict zone – two unrecognized republics of Donbass – which declared independence from Kiev. The country’s leadership has started military actions against its own citizens, bashfully calling them “anti-terrorist operations”; at the same time it declares that the Ukraine is at war with Russia.

Witnessing all of Ukraine’s problems, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte concluded that this country “should never join the EU”. It is worth noting that, unlike the European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who promised Kiev to join the EU “in twenty years,” Rutte used the word “never”. It is obvious that the Dutch Prime Minister expressed the attitude of the majority of his country’s citizens.

Moreover, no one should forget that the Ukraine and the EU’s rapprochement could affect negatively EU – Moscow relations. Neither Europe, nor Moscow wishes it to happen, no one but Ukraine. Anti-Russian sanctions have already undermined relations between Moscow and European countries, which resulted in economic losses on both sides. Today, Europe has a choice – either Russia or Ukraine. Apparently, the choice will be made not in favor of the latter.

Obviously, the citizens of the Netherlands are not interested in Ukraine’s joining the EU due to the fact that this would entail negative consequences for the whole Europe.

Saudi Arabia’s quest for security in the last three decades have seen a primary confrontation with the rising power of Iran and its regional allies in Lebanon and Syria and the attempt to contain Iranian hegemonic ambitions in the Persian Gulf. The second and equally important Saudi concern has been a resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, while a more immediate concern in the last three years was the Syrian civil war as one of the conclusive chapters of the so-called Arab Spring that had seen the rise of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt and the defenestration of President Mubarak’s regime. He had been a steady reassurance for Saudi security, however when the Arab Spring began, the Saudi perception of Washington’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood and the humiliation of President Mubarak in Egypt rankled Saudi leadership.

The Election of a new president in Iran, Hassan Rouhani, and American and European diplomatic opening toward Tehran regarding the Ayatollahs quest for nuclear weapons had alarmed the Saudis to the extent that their top leadership had even approached the Israelis to encourage a preemptive attack on Iranian nuclear installations. The opening with Iran was taking place as the Syrian civil war saw an emboldened Iran protecting Assad’s regime against an opposition that had been aided and abetted by the Sunni world principally Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. By March of 2014 however, it seemed as if Iranian military advisors and Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon had been able to stop the Sunni and Islamist radical attempt to seize Damascus. The Saudi support for the Sunni opposition to Assad’s rule derived from the close alliance of Damascus with Tehran which had basically become an example of Iran creating client states and rulers in the Levant as its power expanded even in Iraq as Tehran came to increasingly influence Iraqi politics due to its Shiite connection to the new government in Baghdad.

The civil wars in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, and Iranian contribution to instability in Bahrain created critical and strategic concerns in Riyadh to the extent that American reassurance was sorely needed and in fact Obama promised not to agree to a nuclear deal with Tehran if the deal did not put a stop to Iranian nuclear ambitions. It has often been forgotten that regardless of Iranian claims for a peaceful pursuit of nuclear power, the Ayatollahs were busy building long range ballistic missiles that could carry nuclear warheads and certainly were not to be equipped for just conventional warheads. In the months following the opening between Washington and Tehran, Iran began a charm offensive in the Gulf in trying to reassure members of the Gulf Cooperation Council of its peaceful intentions, this is while vitriolic denunciations of the Zionist entity and calls for the destruction of the state of Israel were routine pronouncements by the Ayatollahs in seeking support from Radical Shiite fundamentalists within Iran itself.

Saudi’s foreign policies should be understood in terms of not only immediate regional threats, but of domestic developments that range from demands for increasing political participation by the Saudi population, increasing social freedoms for women, and economic policies to favor the replacement of foreign workers by Saudi nationals, a policy that had yet to bear any fruits. Riyad was also confronted by the presence of a Shiite minority in the eastern regions where Saudi oil extraction was concentrated and where Saudi fundamentalist Wahabi doctrine perceived Shiites as pagan and heretics.

There was a second front that challenged the Saudi leadership but has not received and does not receive much academic focus, and that is political violence and instability in Yemen where Shiite groups in the north and al-Qaeda radical sympathizers in the South challenge the government in Sa’ana. In fact, Yemen had seen also an Arab spring chapter where the long lasting president, Ali Abdullah Saleh had been forced to resign in November of 2011. Yemen’s exploding population and unemployment were certainly not conducive to political stability in southern Arabia as the Ayatollahs in Tehran were fishing for challenges to Saudi power by supporting Iranian leaning minorities in Yemen, principally the Houthis an offshoot of Shiism. Thus, Saudi Arabia saw itself surrounded by Persian sympathizers whose religious beliefs were considered anathema by the Wahabi establishment that considered itself and Saudi Arabia the purest example of what Islam is supposed to be.

Meanwhile, the American Secretary of State, John Kerry, as he was trying to deal with Moscow and the European Union, was trying to negotiate again the restart of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations for a two state solution, one that could have diffused one of the historic problems of the Middle East and had been a catalyst for rationalizing the failures of the political systems of the area.

Saudi ruler’s legitimacy derives principally by their claim on protecting Mecca and Medina as the sacred sites of Islam. In this quest, any challenge to Wahabi legitimacy by Shiite powers is a mortal danger to the monarchical establishment in Riyadh. Thus, Iran is the main security dilemma in the international relations of Saudi Arabia. On the other hand, the profound antipathy and objection to the reality of an Israeli state and Zionism have been part and parcel of the Saudi political, popular, and populist worldview in buttressing a political, national, and religious identity held together by enormous oil revenues, American security guarantees, and religious inspired social and political repression in domestic politics.

President Obama reassured Saudi rulers after his short visit that America’s commitment to security in the area was not going to decrease. In fact, by the end of 2013, the United States had agreed to provide Saudi Arabia and the Emirates with over 10 billion dollars worth of new weapons to counter Iranian security threats that were being compounded by Saudi quarrels with Qatar that was being denounced for its support of radical Islamists and Turkey that were perceived by Riyadh as being a threat to Saudi ambitions.

The Saudi rulers were thus confronted by the hegemonic aspirations of Erdogan’s regime, Persian-Shiite imperialist ambitions, and radical Sunni Islamist groups that were and are challenging every regime in the Arab world. Washington had thus come to reassure Riyadh that the United States was there. The Syrian crisis was seen more and more as a victory for Iran, thus confronting Saudi Arabia and some of her allies with ever-greater anxiety of Iran’s attempt to gain hegemony in the Gulf and the Fertile Crescent. One of the main pillars of the Saudi foreign and defense policy is the Gulf Cooperation Council, however by the time of Obama’s visit, Qatar and Kuwait were not in tune with the perspectives of the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, and of course Saudi Arabia. Obama’s visit was part of the configuration of American diplomacy as Washington attempted to move from the Middle East to the Far East in confronting trade and security in the most dynamic area of the international system with a rising China challenging Japan and other Asian countries.