Video: http://www.kremlin.ru/eng/sdocs/vappears.shtml Transcript: http://www.kremlin.ru/eng/text/speeches/2009/07/02/1002_type207221_218843.shtml
The upcoming Obama-Medvedev summit is rich in historical ironies. To explain why, let me tell you a little story -- a story which has the singular virtue of being true.
Once upon a time, a pragmatic, charismatic and media-savvy reformer from a neo-Imperial heartland unexpectedly rose to the highest office of a superpower. This reformer had to deal with the fallout of a lost war in Afghanistan, and wanted to change the symbols -- but not the substance -- of a declining Empire. This reformer became a worldwide sensation, a beacon of hope for change.
No, I'm not talking about Obama, I'm talking about Mikhail Gorbachev. Back in November 1985, Gorbachev met with the titular head of the US Empire in Geneva, namely Reagan, the event which marked the beginning of end of the Cold War. Gorbachev got nowhere with the old reptile, and the rest, as they say, is neoliberal history.
Fast forward twenty-four years. Now it's the turn of the US Empire to bleed itself to death in the cities of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan. But what's different is the counter-player: Medvedev is not just a national politician, he is also the symbolic envoy of the multipolar world, a.k.a. the united front of Bearzilla, Asiazilla and Bolivarzilla.
In just ten years, the semi-periphery has constructed the mightiest developmental states in human history. Its time has finally come.
-- DRR