 We are watching mapping fault lines on news click and today we're going to be talking about the aftermath of the September 11 attacks as we know very horrific and tragic incident to place in 2001 on that day attacks on the World Trade Center the pentagon buildings close to 3,000 Americans died on that day. But what happened in the aftermath really changed the world. We are with us for people guys and we're going to be discussing all of this. Praveer thank you so much for joining us. So I think one of the first questions that many of us now think about when we think of September 11 is also of course the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq that followed but also a trail of destruction that took place in the coming years for which this incident was used as a justification this incident was used as the reason. So could you maybe maybe take us through in hindsight what was the thinking that animated the United States and its allies are on that point of time how did a tragedy like this turn into an opportunity or a reason for this kind of global offensives. You know, this is what set off what is called the war on terror. Okay, the global war on terror, as it has been called, and it gave the United States a handle to overcome its internal opposition to war that had sprung up after the Vietnam war in which there's a strong peace movement and there's a strong opinion that the United States of no business, sending its troops overseas to control other countries, or the politics of other countries, though it didn't stop us from also having bases all over the world, or intervening, particularly in the sphere that they have always controlled under the monotony. So essentially the Americans and the Caribbean which they did intervene at different points of time, but it did mean that against the liberation wars, or against wars which took place which you take in place in Africa or in Asia, their ability to intervene was a lot less. And even in the Americas, particularly after what we now know were the death squads and all the military coups that had taken place, there was increasingly less appetite for it, particularly because those policies were also facing resistance in different parts of the world. Now that is the aftermath in which you have the setting that the US doesn't find any strategic competition post 1991 or so when the Soviet Union collapses and the socialist bloc becomes relatively far weaker with only a few countries left. So given that that it had what it considered as the now the sole hegemonic power in the world, and then they could wield much more ability to change other countries internal structures, they were still inhibited by the fact that the United States within the population within was not willing for an aggressive foreign policy and policy of interventions, which is what the, what we call the New York cons, and which I think a jazz in one of our shows called the loony right, what was thought to be the loony right before it becomes normalized. The normalization of the loony right really takes place post 911, where the United States, thinking now that they have been humiliated in this fashion, that they have been struck at home, something never happened. So Pearl Harbor is considered a strike in the United States, it's actually closer to Japan than it is to the United States if you look at the distances between the West Coast and Pearl Harbor and Pearl Harbor in Japan. Given that this is the first time really that the homeland was struck and this never happened to the United States not in the last 100, 150, 200 years. So this for them was what was thought to be something which will be utilized to really bring back the imperial vision, which a lot of the New York cons had, and they thought of the global war and terror as the peg, they could hang this larger new imperialist new imperial vision as a slow so so global hegemon and remake the world as they want it and remaking the world did not involve democracy and all of these things as they were claiming, but remaking the world to control the resources of the world, and the fig leaf if you will, for the outside world was global war and terror, but internally, it was 911 which was the trigger, which changed this entire change, and I think after 20 years we see the fall of that kind of hegemonic ambition doesn't mean that things are going to change immediately, but I think that's a big watershed moment that we now see. Interesting you mentioned that probably because I think sometime ago we were talking about General Wesley Clark, who in a little bit later talked about how he was talking to a military officer in 2001. And they already had plans for not only going into Iraq after Afghanistan, but into a host of other countries as well now this includes Somalia, Sudan, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and of course Libya. And we do see that in the following years, many of these strategic aims were achieved by the US causing untold, uncounted destruction, difficult to calculate the amount of catastrophe that has happened over that. It was definitely not just any kind of knee jerk reaction to 911 or something like that, but a very well thought out plan. There's a very interesting peg that you are getting here, which is that General Wesley Clark describes a set of countries which are on the list of which countries which have to be remade. So if you look at that. Yes, in all of these countries, the state has either collapsed, or a serious civil war is going on in these cases, if you take for instance the one which have really collapsed as a state, Libya Somalia come to mind. These two countries have collapsed. You have also Iraq, which was almost in the state of collapse. It came back because essentially, the Iranians did support the government at that time supported by the United States. The United States was still there in Iraq to drive out what was almost the takeover or even Baghdad by the Al Qaeda forces. So on Islamic State in Iraq and Levant as it was called, or Syria as it is called. So various names which have been floated for these organizations. So this, it just came back from almost extinction. Syria is still a civil war going on, though the government has, Assad's government has asserted its control over most of the country. And even now there are enclaves which they don't control some part of it to Turkey control some part of it the United States allies control, like the Kurdish forces, and some part of it even now, the NATO powers control, though it's a small pocket. These are states which have either faced serious civil war, or collapse, and Lebanon as we know today, its currency has almost completely collapsed. And essentially these are all targets of the Wesley, what Wesley Clark talked about. And there's also the Kissinger, they say supports to the Iraq war when he was asked that you know it had nothing to do with Afghanistan, the 911. Even if you trace it to Afghanistan, the bin Laden was not Afghanistan from Afghanistan, and the people who attacked in the 911, or large parts of it were Saudis. This was not simply Afghanistan, it was also Hamburg and it was also United States. So if you see all of that, why was Iraq attacked and Kissinger, and why did Kissinger support the attack on Iraq. Because Afghanistan was not enough to give us the imperial allowance so to say, we needed something more. And Iraq was a big enough target, and it could then let us remake entire West Asia is essentially the sense you get from Kissinger statement. And he let's face it, he was the architect of foreign policy, Brzezinski and Kissinger probably are the two major intellectual, shall we say voices of war in the United States, who in that sense provide the overarching reasons for how United States behaved or entered these these phases. So you get the expansion of war phase, which Kissinger was talking about which Wesley Clark was scared about, which all of it is that you have a military expansion of the United States. Now there are various arguments why it happened, but most likely the imperial ambitions of the United States have been dented by the Vietnam War, and the military industrial complex is a one driver, but there were other drivers of a revanchist United States taking over its anointed role, Manifest destiny as I keep on saying, and this is an extension to be of the settler colonial ethos, which has governed the formation of the United States, that now they have the whole world to play with, particularly after so many months collapse they don't really have a competition, and they can remake it the way they want, and West Asia for them appeared something that they could do. They talk about democracy as we know, Saudi Arabia is not exactly a democracy, neither is Qatar nor was United Arab Emirates in which all of these places NATO has bases in the West, obviously has enormous amount of sales of it arms, and the underpin the dollar with the oil economy, and Carter doctrine had already said, West Asia's oil is a strategic interest of the United States, anybody who wants to compete there will have to basically face the United States military. Now, given all of that, it is clear that remaking West Asia was not in the interest of democracy as it is, but it's an alliance with a certain kind of Islamic forces if you will Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and Qatar being some of them, but also the fact that quote unquote nationalist forces like Syria, like even Hezbollah in Lebanon, who asked argue for the independence of Lebanon, and of course in Iraq itself, the nationalist forces, let's not forget Saddam was somebody they used against Iran, but he was secular. So he was not if we're arguing for war and terror, how do you target Saddam in that sense. I mean, Saddam was not a likable person, we all know that, and people who fought against Saddam, then also said, look, we're not in favor of Saddam, we spot him right from the beginning, but this is not the way to go for it. So why did they do it? I think it's clear that it was a part of the imperial ambitions to remake the world starting with West Asia. And as we know from Brzezinski doctrine, Central Asia was also their secondary target. And of course, Iran was one of the prime targets they had because I saw in West Asia, Iran is an important strategic player, and they wanted to destroy that as well. So if we look at it, it doesn't make sense to think of it as a war and terror. It was something else which was there, but it is not simply militarization and so on, it was also a conceit that they had they could remake the world, which they have failed. And I think that brings me to the most important lesson. We have to learn from this, I don't know whether the United States will. There is a destructive power. The US is still extremely powerful. They could smash Afghanistan within a week, 10 days. They could smash Iraq within three weeks. All of that is true. It's ability to remake or run a imperial empire, which for instance the Western European colonial powers did for a couple of hundred years. That capability is not there today. And I don't think the world or the people at large will accept such colonial domination again. And this is where the weakness lies. The strength of the imperial power in terms military terms is destructive power is enormous. The ability to construct a society around its military power does not exist anymore. And Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, all of that are proofs that you can destroy countries, but you cannot really run them. The imperial power then with just military force can only decay. It cannot do what it needs to do, which is a massive wealth from these countries, and then build itself on these wealth that they have looted from other countries to get wealth. You have to have functioning countries. What it leaves is no functioning country. And I think that's the biggest lesson. The United States has to learn from its 20 years of what is called misadventures, but really imperial adventures in other countries. Okay, let's take a look now at the present and maybe to some extent even at the future because, like you said, a lot of these imperial ambitions are right now. They seem to be in some state of collapse we saw the withdrawal of Afghanistan. We know that they have the Americans have committed to leaving Iraq soon, Russia and China playing an important role in Central and West Asia. The Americans not having too much of a safer instance in Syria and the resolution there. So we do see that in many of these regions, Americans are not really left as major players anymore or like you said they have destructive potential at best. And at the same time, we also know that there is this whole pivot to the East. There's a lot of thought being put into how to counter China which they've identified as a key element, a key arrival in the coming years. So keeping all this in mind, how do we see the continuation of this Imperial legend or this Imperial drive so to speak. Well, I think the fact that there is the talk of a Biden doctrine is also trying to grope towards a new understanding of what United States drone could be. I think the limitations of Imperial power and military power, they have come to realize partially within, if you talk about the Biden doctrine within the Biden doctrine. This is they're not going to give up either the 800 basis that possess, they're not going to give up also having coups in different parts of the world. There still is a playground for the United States and using different countries as client states to intervene. So and that those new colonial ambitions, particularly for resources will continue till you build strong resistance on the ground, and build strong sense of national identities, and Africa has been the most difficult one, because they were not built on past continuities, they were just lines as you go drawn up on the continent by different imperial colonial powers. So therefore nation building, unlike all other places have been relatively more difficult in Africa, precisely because the communities are split from in one country or the other. There is no clear boundaries of communities language identities and the geographical boundaries to the colonial powers colonial powers drew up. So the nation making being difficult, but nation breaking is still much more easy. And that's the face which still seems to be going on in Africa. I don't think the United States of Imperial past bother too much as long as you can loot the resources of Africa, then what happens to Africans is not a major, you know, preoccupation shall be say, with the United States or its allies. The real play for them is going to be Latin America, Europe, and of course the biggest one, Asia, and in that Eurasia is very much in play, which United States would like to call in the Pacific. As we have always discussed Eurasia are people in the Pacific is ocean. So when you talk of in the Pacific you really talk about how to control land from the oceans. And unfortunately, it's the people you have to control and controlling military in the oceans is not going to be good enough. And Biden's talks with Xi Jinping recently does show that there is some at least understanding that you have if you have to run the world you cannot do it by hectoring or lecturing the Chinese government officials, which is what the first thing was all about when they met in Alaska. So I think that realization has come that yes climate change is important you have to talk to China. If you want peace in Afghanistan, you cannot neglect the fact that China is a player. If you want to talk about what are the possibilities in Eurasia, European Union trade, then yes, you need to also talk to China you cannot do it with just trying to isolate and I think increasing the realization I hope also the Indian state will be that the fact that you have competition and even conflict on certain issues like for instance, India had with China on its borders, Northern borders should not preclude you from engaging with other issues, including Afghanistan, for example, as well as an economy on which there are conflicts as well as shared problems. So all of this I think Biden is now trying to work out, is there a way of engaging and competing. Is there a way of talking to China on climate change and fighting chip wars or trade wars, and how much do we have to mitigate the trade wars in order to at least be able to establish a working relationship, say on climate change when we have common interest. The model of hectoring and dictating both to Russia and China in the give up with the model competition and conflict resolution, if that happens, I think it is not a big step forward, but certainly step forward by thinking that we can beat everybody with the stick and Russia and China are just what I call revisionist powers, and we are the only global power, if they can leave that framework and say, we need not what is was being was being talked about the international, what is it called the rule based international order, which will be established with G seven past, and you know they don't even look at themselves, these are all sector colonial or x colonial past, they don't realize how the world looks at them, that if these are the powers who looted the world for the last 300 400 years, are going to tell us what the rules of the game are, then maybe we are playing a different game. So instead of that if you come to really international law and United Nations and other platforms which have been established, I think we'll take a step forward. But will they do that, will they continue with some people have predicted that the United States is on the verge of losing its global hegemony, and is going to only from hence onwards, is going to weaken, but nevertheless given its destructive potential, the fall of the US Empire could be as brutal and as violent as a fall of the Roman Empire, we'll have to hope that does not happen, because after all we do have today, as you know, nuclear bombs, ability to, you know, erase the entire civilization in a matter of minutes. So given all of that, I hope it's better sense will be prevailing on the United States elite as well, that they do not take the position after us the deluge. So I think that is where we are at at the moment. And I hope the US administration and the European Union, the, as I said the sector colonial powers and the old colonial past can come together to get a better sense of the world that they seem to have right. Thank you so much for being for talking to us. That's all your time for today will be tracking many of these issues in the coming weeks and months on mapping fault lines. Until then, keep watching news click.