Guest Post by Pepe Escobar
The failed coup in Brazil is the latest CIA stunt, just as the country is forging stronger ties with the east.
A former US intelligence official has confirmed that the shambolic Maidan remix staged in Brasilia on 8 January was a CIA operation, and linked it to the recent attempts at color revolution in Iran.
On Sunday, alleged supporters of former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro stormed Brazil’s Congress, Supreme Court, and presidential palace, bypassing flimsy security barricades, climbing on roofs, smashing windows, destroying public property including precious paintings, while calling for a military coup as part of a regime change scheme targeting elected President Luis Inacio “Lula” da Silva.
According to the US source, the reason for staging the operation – which bears visible signs of hasty planning – now, is that Brazil is set to reassert itself in global geopolitics alongside fellow BRICS states Russia, India, and China.
That suggests CIA planners are avid readers of Credit Suisse strategist Zoltan Pozsar, formerly of the New York Fed. In his ground-breaking 27 December report titled War and Commodity Encumbrance, Pozsar states that “the multipolar world order is being built not by G7 heads of state but by the ‘G7 of the East’ (the BRICS heads of state), which is a G5 really but because of ‘BRICSpansion’, I took the liberty to round up.”
He refers here to reports that Algeria, Argentina, Iran have already applied to join the BRICS – or rather its expanded version “BRICS+” – with further interest expressed by Saudi Arabia, Turkiye, Egypt, Afghanistan, and Indonesia.
The US source drew a parallel between the CIA’s Maidan in Brazil and a series of recent street demonstrations in Iran instrumentalized by the agency as part of a new color revolution drive: “These CIA operations in Brazil and Iran parallel the operation in Venezuela in 2002 that was highly successful at the start as rioters managed to seize Hugo Chavez.”
Enter the “G7 of the East”
Straussian neo-cons placed at the top of the CIA, irrespective of their political affiliation, are livid that the “G7 of the East” – as in the BRICS+ configuration of the near future – are fast moving out of the US dollar orbit.
Straussian John Bolton – who has just publicized his interest in running for the US presidency – is now demanding the ouster of Turkey from NATO as the Global South realigns rapidly within new multipolar institutions.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his new Chinese counterpart Qin Gang have just announced the merging of the China-driven Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Russia-driven Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU). This means that the largest 21st century trade/connectivity/development project – the Chinese New Silk Roads – is now even more complex, and keeps expanding.
That sets the stage for the introduction, already being designed at various levels, of a new international trading currency aimed at supplanting then replacing the US dollar. Apart from an internal debate among the BRICS, one of the key vectors is the discussion team set up between the EAEU and China. When concluded, these deliberations will be presented to BRI-EAEU partner nations and of course the expanded BRICS+.
Lula at the helm in Brazil, in what is now his third non-successive presidential term, will offer a tremendous boost to BRICS+, In the 2000s, side by side with Russian President Putin and former Chinese President Hu Jintao, Lula was a key conceptualizer of a deeper role for BRICS, including trade in their own currencies.
BRICS as “the new G7 of the East,” as defined by Pozsar, is beyond anathema – as much for Straussian neo-cons as for neoliberal.
The US is being slowly but surely expelled from wider Eurasia by concerted actions of the Russia-China strategic partnership.
Ukraine is a black hole – where NATO faces a humiliation that will make Afghanistan look like Alice in Wonderland. A feeble EU being forced by Washington to de-industrialize and buy US Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) at absurdly high cost has no essential resources for the Empire to plunder.
Geoeconomically, that leaves the US-denominated “Western Hemisphere,” especially immense energy-rich Venezuela as the key target. And geopolitically, the key regional actor is Brazil.
The Straussian neo-con play is to pull all stops to prevent Chinese and Russian trade expansion and political influence in Latin America, which Washington – irrespective of international law and the concept of sovereignty, continues to call “our backyard.” In times where neoliberalism is so “inclusive” that Zionists wear swastikas, the Monroe Doctrine is back, on steroids.
All about the ‘strategy of tension’
Clues for Maidan in Brazil can be obtained, for instance, at the US Army Cyber Command at Fort Gordon, where it’s no secret the CIA deployed hundreds of assets across Brazil ahead of the recent presidential election – faithful to the “strategy of tension” playbook.
CIA chatter was intercepted at Fort Gordon since mid-2022. The main theme then was the imposition of the widespread narrative that ‘Lula could only win by cheating.’
A key target of the CIA operation was to discredit by all means the Brazilian electoral process, paving the way for a prepackaged narrative that is now unraveling: a defeated Bolsonaro fleeing Brazil and seeking refuge at former US president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago mansion. Bolsonaro, advised by Steve Bannon, did flee Brazil, skipping Lula’s inauguration, but because he’s terrified he may be facing the slammer sooner rather than later. And by the way, he is in Orlando, not Mar-a-Lago.
The icing on the stale Maidan cake was what happened this past Sunday: fabricating a 8 January in Brasilia mirroring the events of 6 January, 2021 in Washington, and of course imprinting the Bolsonaro-Trump link on people’s minds.
The amateurish nature of 8 January in Brasilia suggests CIA planners got lost in their own plot. The whole farce had to be anticipated because of Pozsar’s report, which everyone-who-matters has read across the New York-Beltway axis.
What is clear, is that for some factions of the powerful US establishment, getting rid of Trump at all costs is even more crucial than crippling Brazil’s role in BRICS+.
When it comes to the internal factors of Maidan in Brazil, borrowing from novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez, everything walks and talks like the Chronicle of a Coup Foretold. It is impossible that the security apparatus around Lula could not have foreseen these events, especially considering the tsunami of signs on social networks.
So there must have been a concerted effort to act softly – without any preventive big sticks – while just emitting the usual neoliberal babble.
After all, Lula’s cabinet is a mess, with ministers constantly clashing and some members supporting Bolsonaro even a few months ago. Lula calls it a “national unity government,” but it is more like a tawdry patchwork job.
Brazilian analyst Quantum Bird, a globally respected physics scholar who has returned home after a long stint in NATO lands, notes how there are “too many actors in play and too many antagonistic interests. Among Lula’s ministers, we find Bolsonarists, neoliberal-rentiers, climate interventionism converts, identity politics practitioners and a vast fauna of political neophytes and social climbers, all well aligned with Washington’s imperial interests.”
CIA-stoked ‘militants’ on the prowl
One plausible scenario is that powerful sectors of the Brazilian military – at the service of the usual Straussian neo-con think tanks, plus global finance capital – could not really pull off a real coup, considering massive popular rejection, and had to settle at best for a “soft” farce. That illustrates just how much this self-aggrandizing and highly corrupt military faction is isolated from Brazilian society.
What is deeply worrying, as Quantum Bird notes, is that the unanimity in condemning 8 January from all quarters, while no one took responsibility, “shows how Lula navigates virtually alone in a shallow sea infested by sharpened corals and hungry sharks.”
Lula’s position, he adds, “decreeing a federal intervention all by himself, without strong faces of his own government or relevant authorities, shows an improvised, disorganized and amateurish reaction.”
And all that, once again, after CIA-stoked “militants” had been organizing the “protests” openly on social media for days.
The same old CIA playbook though remains at work. It still boggles the mind how easy it is to subvert Brazil, one of the natural leaders of the Global South. Attempted old school coups cum regime change/color revolution scripts will keep being played – remember Kazakhstan in early 2021, and Iran only a few months ago.
As much as the self-aggrandizing faction of the Brazilian military may believe they control the nation, if Lula’s significant masses hit the streets in full force against the 8 January farce, the army’s impotence will be graphically imprinted. And since this is a CIA operation, the handlers will order their tropical military vassals to behave like ostriches.
The future, unfortunately, is ominous. The US establishment will not allow Brazil, the BRICS economy with the best potential after China, to be back in business with full force and in synch with the Russia-China strategic partnership.
Straussian neo-cons and neoliberals, certified geopolitical jackals and hyenas, will get even more ferocious as the “G7 of the East,” Brazil included, moves to end the suzerainty of the US dollar as imperial control of the world vanishes.
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I’m sure the massive, deep water oil deposits sitting in Brazilian waters won’t have anything to do with political ambitions either. Kinda like Venezuela
Because they can.
Abolish the state.
I am certain no foreign intelligence agency was involved in Brazil’s election. It’s not like it is Spy vs Spy out there. /s
Kind of makes you wonder about their possible involvement in Jan 6 ….
Moneyquote.
The venal .gov mercenary/whores of Brazil are asserting themselves. The people are along for the car chase, bound and gagged in the trunk.
I think at this point, we can drop the S from BRICS.
Keep the S. They’re going to swap South Africa for Saudi Arabia.
Ridiculous”theory”. Bolsonaro and the People Who supported him ( and Still support) are the only reliable antiglobalist political force in Brazil. January 8 was an expression of despair of People Who were tired of watching the break of our constitution.
This brazilian movement is formed by persons who are against the “liberal globalists” who are in power in Washington, but also against the hegemonic claims of eurasian dictators in China and Índia.
Dear Mr Escobar: the fact that Biden and Washington falcons are treacherous does not turn venezueian, cuban, Nnicaraguan and (now) brazilian dictators into freedom lovers. Particularly because of their nefarious allies.
We are watching the begining of a dictatorship in Brazil
I am liking your post as there was no logic to this article. Your post has logic, and the best lines are:
Dear Mr Escobar: the fact that Biden and Washington falcons are treacherous does not turn Venezuelan, Cuban, Nicaraguan and (now) Brazilian dictators into freedom lovers. Escobar’s main point of CIA involvement may be right as they have their hands in all things evil.
That’s cute.
What stage of dictatorship is the US currently in, for comparison?
Saxo’s 2023 Outrageous Predictions: The War Economy
8. OPEC+ and Chindia walk out of the IMF, agree to trade with new reserve asset
Recognising the ongoing weaponisation of the USD by the US government, non-US allied countries move to leave the USD and the IMF to create an international clearing union (ICU) and a new reserve asset, the Bancor (currency code KEY)
While less than a fifth of international trade is destined for the US, over a third of international trade is invoiced in USD and nearly 60 percent of global foreign exchange reserves are USD. The ban on transactions with Russian sovereign entities in February 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent shockwaves across countries not allied militarily with the US as the magnitude of the ban far exceeded sanctions on Iran, Venezuela and other countries in recent decades. These countries wonder whether their US assets—and even EUR, JPY and GBP assets—could be subjected to freeze orders imposed by the US Treasury and other US allies overnight…
Rather, a natural solution for China and its many trading partners, particularly energy and other commodities exporters, would be to find a new non-national currency reserve asset upon which to trade…leaders from OPEC+ countries, mainland China, Hong Kong, India, Brazil, Pakistan, Central Asia countries, and tens of African Union countries gather to establish an ICU based on a new accounting unit and reserve asset: the Bancor (currency code KEY)…The new KEY is indexed to a basket of traded commodities with crude oil having the largest weight. The currencies of member countries are backed by the KEY at fixed exchange rates and are adjusted according to relative current account shifts among member countries. All the ICU member countries of the newly created monetary union withdraw from the IMF. Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong end their currency pegs to the USD.
Market impact: Non-aligned central banks vastly cut their USD reserves, US Treasury yields soar and the USD falls 25 percent versus a basket of currencies trading with the new KEY asset.
https://www.home.saxo/content/commentaries/pressrelease/saxo-2023-outrageous-predictions-the-war-economy-06122022
This is sad. Lula has the backing of Mr. Bidens administration. It was not a CIA staged coup. It would have had the backing of the army if it was. Also Lula backing is all concentrated in one province in Brazil. Lula will very much be a WEF politician. Not a man of the people.
To me this was the money quote:
As with many things lately, it speaks again to whether we want a multipolar world or not. We are teetering on the balance of a US-run global empire, vs. multi-axis alignments. All the maneuverings feel like a giant stinking pile, from Brazil to Taiwan to Ukraine to Africa, with the CIA in the middle of it all.
And again I am left with the uncomfortable question, who is the enemy? I simply do not trust ‘our side’ to run the show until we are internally cleansed. If there is not a righteousness at the core, such as a restored constitution, free speech, and free elections, then all we can claim to be is a heavily militarized control apparatus over humanity.
We are in a spot that reminds me of Isaiah 9:16, when the Lord’s anger was on Israel: “Those who guide this people mislead them, and those who are guided are led astray.” It wasn’t by chance. The Lord had cut the people off and given them over to malign influences. The fog of the information war.
Soon the entire world will have turned its back on the USA, its sociopathic ruling class, and its febrile, ignorant populace.
The average American won’t be able to leave his country without being hounded and shamed from all quarters.
That’s a hot take, pepe, you stupid nigger.
When all the evidence points to the Biden admin helping them rig it for Lula who clearly has the same level of popular support Biden has.
Utter bullshite.
It’s absurd to think the US government would oppose a socialist/communist government in favor of one not so oriented.
i think sometimes pepe is on the mark, and sometimes he’s blinded by a decades-obsolete left versus right dichotomay, and even worse by his ‘US/US deep state == right’ and ‘russia = left’ identifications. this is a seriously unrealistic appraisal of the way things are in recent decades and leads to some malfunctioning conclusions. hell, the CIA is much more likely to have supported lula AGAINST bolsonaro than the other way around! bolsonaro likewise would certainly be much more of a friend of the _idealized_ america that is still the common impression in the third world, but _today’s_ american deep state/power machine is entirely an _enemy_ of traditional america itself, and likewise considers bolsonaro to be a southern hemisphere trump and hates him dogmatically!
failing to understand this, sorry, but pepe’s conclusions go wide of the mark.