Com­ment: On the heels of Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s appar­ent diplo­mat­ic rap­proche­ment with Russ­ian pres­i­dent Medvedev, in which progress on var­i­ous mat­ters appears to have been achieved, a “Russ­ian spy scan­dal” has dom­i­nat­ed recent head­lines.

“Spy Scan­dal Casts Shad­ow on Oba­ma-Medvedev ‘Burg­er Diplo­ma­cy’ ” by Ria Novosti; Eura­sia Review; 6/29/2010.

Com­ment: In FTR #706, we exam­ined John Lof­tus’ con­tention that there are two CIA’s–one Demo­c­ra­t­ic that serves the inter­ests of the Unit­ed States and one Repub­li­can, which serves the inter­ests of the trans-nation­al cor­po­ra­tions.

Is the “Repub­li­can CIA” work­ing to poi­son rela­tions between the two coun­tries, there­by weak­en­ing Oba­ma’s admin­is­tra­tion?

The inci­dent brings to mind the U‑2 inci­dent of 1960, in which the CIA’s appar­ent­ly delib­er­ate sab­o­tage of a U‑2 spy plane deep-sixed a pro­posed sum­mit con­fer­ence between Pres­i­dent Eisen­how­er and Pre­mier Khr­uschev of the U.S.S.R. (This was dis­cussed in Part I of “The Guns of Novem­ber.”)

Also inter­est­ing to con­tem­plate in this con­text is a Decem­ber 2009 pro-jihadist con­fer­ence in Geor­gia, held with appar­ent U.S. sup­port, dis­cussed in FTR #710. Part of the rap­proche­ment achieved between Medvedev and Oba­ma con­cerned Amer­i­ca’s place­ment of a jihadist ter­rortist on the inter­na­tion­al ter­ror watch list, as desired and request­ed by Rus­sia.

“Oba­ma, Medvedev Meet, Rus­sia Pleased with U.S. Chechen Move”; World Bul­letin; 6/25/2010.

Excerpt: . . . .Mean­while, The Unit­ed States on Wednes­day said it had list­ed [sic]  Chechen insur­gent leader as a “ter­ror­ist”, a step that is like­ly to please the Krem­lin on the eve of talks between Oba­ma and Medvedev.

The State Depart­ment said the list­ing, approved by Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Clin­ton, would help to stem the flow of funds to Chechen insur­gent leader Doku Umarov, who styles him­self the “Emir of the Cau­ca­sus Emi­rate.”

“The des­ig­na­tion of Umarov is in direct response to the threats posed to Unit­ed States and Rus­sia,” Daniel Ben­jamin, the Depart­ment of State’s Coor­di­na­tor for Coun­tert­er­ror­ism, said in a state­ment.

One of the most pop­u­lous regions in the main­ly Mus­lim north Cau­ca­sus, Chech­nya which declared inde­pen­den­cy after the col­lapse of the Sovi­et Union in 1991 but was attacked by Russ­ian forces in two wars since the mid-1990s. Still low-lev­el insur­gency con­tin­ues in Mus­lim states. . . .

Com­ment: Did this move run counter to the wish­es of a pro-Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, pro-jihadist ele­ment asso­ci­at­ed with transna­tion­al petro­le­um com­pa­nies? Are they, in turn, seek­ing to sep­a­rate the Cau­cau­sian and Cen­tral Asian fos­sil fuel resources from Rus­sia? Will it serve the inter­ests of the Under­ground Reich, seek­ing to man­i­fest tra­di­tion­al Ger­man Ost­poli­tik, while exac­er­bat­ing ten­sions between the U.S. and Rus­sia? Will it serve the inter­ests of the GOP, by weak­en­ing Oba­ma’s for­eign pol­i­cy?

With the strange tim­ing of the sur­fac­ing of this Russ­ian spy­ing scan­dal, are we see­ing ‘U‑2, II”?