Cheney, Zinni, and Mironov

It seems that a comment from &to=http://english.people.com.cn/' target=_blank>People’s Dailywebsite has indirectly solved the enigma of Sergey Mironov’s demarche, when Russia’s speaker of the Federation Council refused to have a meeting with Yasser Arafat.

I would like to remind here that the comment, which has been recently published on PRAVDA.Ru site, was about Dick Cheney’s current tour on eleven Arab countries. The author of the comment said that the goal of the tour was an attempt to set up the anti-Iraq alliance in the Middle East in order to overthrow Saddam Hussein afterwards. It was said that it was not an easy goal to achieve, since the whole Arab and Muslim world was indignant about USA’s pro-Israeli position as far as the Palestinian crisis is concerned.

Apparently, Washington realizes that Cheney’s mission is a very hard one, that is why US envoy Anthony Zinni is going to the Middle East too for improving America's image. Zinni’s “official” goal is to stand up for the Palestinians.

The observes are wondering, why the speaker of Russia’s Federation Council listened to only one of the feuding parties, although Mironov was going to become familiar with the situation over there. Maybe that was the main thing? To ignore Palestine? That gesture could show that neither Palestinians, nor Arabs could have any other defender, but Uncle Sam. Mironov played for that version, he was playing up to Cheney and Zinni’s duet.

Here is the combination: the USA temporarily surrenders Sharon (but Sharon and all Israeli extremists will get a very good compensation in the future), temporarily wins the benevolence of the Arab world, and drives Iraq into the dead end.

So far there are two factors, which prevent from the success of this combination. First of all, the Palestinians are unable to believe either Israel, or the US. Second of all, there is China in the picture. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue gave it to understand yesterday that there was a super-power in the up-to-date world, which was sympathizing with the Palestinians. As she said, China was deeply shocked with the constant incursion of the Israeli troops in the Palestinian districts.

Andrey Krushinsky PRAVDA.Ru Beijing China

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov