By Edmond Y. Azadian
During the conference of Berlin in 1878, when the destiny of the “Sick Man of Europe” (The Ottoman Empire) was at stake with the plight of its subject nations hanging in the balance, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the promoter of the “iron and blood” policy, is reported to have said: “I do not exchange the bones of a dead Pomeranian soldier with the entire Eastern Question.” As a statesman, Bismarck’s insensitivity towards the misery of the masses is not a unique phenomenon; it is prevalent to this day. At present it is even worse; people’s democratic rights are being used as pretexts to induce tragedy and misery in the lives of the very nations in whose names wars are being waged and lofty principals are enunciated at the highest forums of world politics.
With the collapse of the Soviet empire, the strategic balance of the bi-polar world shifted towards the West. The US policy makers were quick in forestalling the formation of the United States of Europe, which could provide a balancing act to unilateral US policies and self-interest.
Of course, there is no love-lost with the demise of the Soviet Union, especially as many constituent nationalities emerged to shape their own policies and destinies. Armenia was among them.
Globally speaking, the balance of power was lost and a uni-polar world dominance spelled disaster for most of the regions of the world, especially the Middle East.
A group of unelected government functionaries were able to hijack US foreign policy to use for their own ends, whose beneficiary was certainly not the United States. The cabal of neo-cons, hiding behind the most cynical politician of the time, namely Vice President Dick Cheney, the real power broker at the White House, engaged the country in reckless wars, wasting billions of dollars and wrecking the economy of the country in the process. The US was left as the most powerful nation in the world, but rather than taking pride in that unchallenged power, the neo-cons converted it into a sword of arrogance, wielding it irresponsibly around the world. The motto of the day was the creation of a new world order. A few years into that policy the world is in shambles and the US is in no better shape.