Neocons Losing? What's Coming?

I missed this yesterday, having mostly skimmed Seymour Hersh’s latest substack—which I actually linked with regard to the Dem desperation to sideline Zhou sooner rather than later:

Fear and Loathing on Air Force One

Tom Luongo picked up on the important news in the second half of the article:

Tom Luongo (Head Sneetch)

@TFL1728

[Ben Wallace’s] political career is over. Nuland got blocked from taking over Wendy Sherman's job.... The neocons are getting routed. Thank the gods.

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Politics UK

@PolitlcsUK

| BREAKING: Ben Wallace is considering RESIGNING as defence secretary in the autumn reshuffle [@thetimes]

8:34 AM · Jul 15, 2023

Hersh’s substack gets into some interesting detail regarding the declining standing of Neocons in the US Deep State. Hersh attributes his information to “an official with direct knowledge of the transaction” that provided desperately needed credit to Turkey from the IMF. Someone high up in State, Treasury, NSC, CIA?

Hersh goes into the incompetence and “primitive thinking” of Jake Sullivan, Zhou’s National Security Adviser. The important point here, IMO, is that this evaluation—which is surely known to Russian intel—cuts Sullivan off at the knees as far as serious negotiating with Russia or China is concerned. According to the “informed official”, the Neocon led Zhou regime is flailing. The Neocons are still committed to the war on Russia, but are opposed—with increasing effectiveness—by the rest of the Deep State. As for Zhou, “Biden’s principal issue in the war is that he’s screwed,” and so he looks for cosmetic fixes that fool nobody, not in Russia and not in the West.

The official then continues:

the real worry will come later this summer, perhaps as early as August, when the Russians, having easily weathered the Ukraine assault, will counter-strike with a major offensive.

Problem:

We knew more about the German army in Normandy in World War II than we know about the Russian army in Ukraine.”

Then Hersh moves on to further stresses appearing in the Zhou regime:

Undersecretary of State for Policy Victoria Nuland has been “blocked” —a word used by one Democratic Party insider—from being promoted to replace the much respected Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman. Nuland’s anti-Russian politics and rhetoric matches the tone and point of view of Biden and Secretary of State Tony Blinken.

The wording here, to me, strongly suggests that the pressure that led to Nuland being blocked came from outside the innermost foreign policy circles of the Zhou regime—from the Pentagon, from the Intel Community.

The rest of the substack is concerned with the ambitions of CIA Director William Burns. Now, the significance of Burns angling for a higher position—whether in the last days of the Zhou regime or in a new Dem regime—is that he is apparently the only US official that the Russians and Chinese are willing to have serious discussions with. He was, of course, as ambassador to Russia, the author of the famous diplomatic cable titled, Nyet means nyet—a warning that Putin was deadly serious about the no Ukraine in NATO redline. Burns’ new prominence—he has been used to initiate contacts with China (and Russia?), when contacts with Blinken and Austin were simply rejected. Is Burns being advanced by the Deep State as a possible negotiator with Russia? Hersh’s sources suggest that Burns’ speech in the UK on July 1 was part of his audition for a bigger role.

Now, Burns speech contained lots of the usual propagandistic boilerplate for true believers:

Bill Burns … trumpeted his love for Biden and his intense dislike of all things Russian, including Putin, ... the notion that … “Putin’s war already has been a strategic failure for Russia—its military weaknesses laid bare; its economy badly damaged for years to come; its future as a junior partner and economic colony of China being shaped by Putin’s mistakes; its revanchist ambitions blunted by a NATO which has only grown bigger and stronger.”

Nevertheless, Burns also cited his time as ambassador to Russia under Dubya. Burns’ ambition isn’t necessarily great news for US foreign policy, but it is at least an improvement when viewed from the standpoint of the declining influence of the crazed Neocons. Thus, Hersh’s source—this time, a “highly respected intelligence official”—dismissed Burns’ high praise for Zhou as simply the price of ambition, at this juncture:

Biden, who is not revered throughout the CIA, as many presidents have not been, was cited repeatedly during his speech. The highly respected intelligence official explained Burns’s glowing words by telling me, cryptically, that all was in flux throughout the Biden national security bureaucracy. “Yes. Yes,” he said in a message. “Big shuffle. Big power struggle. Biden oblivious. All the ants fighting for the crumbs of a dying administration. Advised all the professionals inside to shelter in place. Wait and see the color of the smoke from the Vatican Chancellery. Explain Burns’ Kool-Aid remarks in the UK.”

I was told that Burns’s speech was essentially a job application in a future government, or perhaps in the one at hand, for secretary of state. … “He realized that he was going down the [d]rain, professionally, while  at the Agency.”

Again, my assumption is that the Russians are well aware that regime change is coming in the collective West—in multiple European countries, and in the US. Informed military analysts suggest total Ukrainian collapse as early as September. Who knows? But clearly it is to Russia’s benefit at this point to await political developments and pressures in the West that will advance Russia’s own interests.