TEHRAN - A former U.S. Senate candidate says that the recent crisis in Ukraine is due to America’s wrong policies since the end of the Cold War.

“The latest developments in Ukraine are largely the fault of the United States since the end of the Cold War,” Mark Dankof tells the Tehran Times. 

“The false assurances given to Gorbachev after the fall of the Berlin Wall that the United States and NATO would never expand eastward or recruit ex-Soviet Republics to join NATO in exchange for Gorbachev agreeing to a peaceful reuniting of Germany were broken,” Dankof argues.

 “This fact, the illegitimate NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999 commissioned by Bill Clinton, and the Obama-Hillary Clinton-Victoria Nuland-Joe Biden coup d’état of February 2014 which overthrew the legitimately elected government of Ukraine in Kyiv, have led to everything that has happened since,” he adds.

Following is the text of the interview:

Q: How do you see the latest developments in Ukraine?

A: I will say to all of my friends in Tehran at the outset that my views on developments in Ukraine and the Russian-Ukrainian conflict can best be understood in the context of what I cover in my recent publication of "Mark Dankof's Open Letter to the Russian People:

Growing Older but Wiser in the Mythologies of the American Empire." The Open Letter has been translated into Russian by a bi-lingual expert and professional translator. It is my hope that it might also appear in Persian, as it has absolute relevance to the United States Government's foreign policy toward Iran after Operation Ajax in 1953 and then the Islamic Revolution of 1978-79. Perhaps all of the news agencies in your country would undertake this project together as a gift from me to all of my friends there.

“NATO is no longer understood by any reasonable person as a defensive alliance against the old Soviet Union in a bygone era."The latest developments in Ukraine are largely the fault of the United States since the end of the Cold War. The false assurances given to Gorbachev after the fall of the Berlin Wall that the United States and NATO would never expand eastward or recruit ex-Soviet Republics to join NATO in exchange for Gorbachev agreeing to a peaceful reuniting of Germany were broken. This fact, the illegitimate NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999 commissioned by Bill Clinton, and the Obama-Hillary Clinton-Victoria Nuland-Joe Biden coup d’état of February 2014 which overthrew the legitimately elected government of Ukraine in Kyiv, have led to everything that has happened since.

John Kennedy forced the Soviet Union in October of 1962 to remove their IRBMs and MRBM from Cuba. At that time, most of the world understood that Khrushchev had placed these nuclear weapons in America's backyard.

The irony is that it is now the United States that is guilty of playing around in Mr. Putin's backyard in Ukraine, and in the deployment of NATO and its military assets in the Baltics and ever closer to Russian borders in Europe. NATO is no longer understood by any reasonable person as a defensive alliance against the old Soviet Union in a bygone era, not to be deployed or used "one inch east of the Elbe River." It is an offensive alliance and one which has no other purpose in today's world. It should have been disbanded at the end of the Soviet era, and permanently mothballed. 

U.S. Senator Robert Taft of Ohio warned the American people of the dangers of joining NATO in 1953. His prophetic missal was ignored. The results decades later are obvious. 

Q: Why do Western powers refuse to be engaged in the Ukraine crisis in terms of military?

A: These Western powers know that this would mean a direct military confrontation with Russia. They would lose badly in that situation. Their respective domestic populations might also awaken to the risks such lunacies would expose them to.

 I also believe the American/UK NATO Zio-Plan is to draw Russia into a prolonged and draining conflict in Ukraine, similar to what happened to the old Soviet Union per Zbigniew Brzezinski's machinations in the Carter era, or what happened to the United States in that country (Afghanistan) after Bush II's ill-advised invasion of that country in 2001. This Machiavellian plan is augmented with pouring millions of weapons into Ukraine, thousands of foreign mercenaries, and deploying draconian international economic sanctions against Russia.

Q: How could the recent escalation affect the global economy and energy supply?

A: Clearly the turbulence is already impacting the global economy, oil, and natural gas prices being a part of this. No one knows how far any of this could go, as the American and EU imposers of these sanctions are making the false assumption that Mr. Putin has no cards of economic retaliation of his own to play if he so decides. There is yet another global power presently silent that could suddenly blindside these Zionists and Globalist policy wonks in the United States and the West when they least expect it: China.

Q: Do you think Russia and China are going to change the world order by showing that the U.S. is unable to support its allies?

A: Yes. I believe the attempt to impose a global New World Order with the Zio-Elites of the United States and Europe at the helm will fail. The American Empire's $32 trillion dollar debt, its humiliation in Afghanistan, its domestic political divides and turbulences, the ongoing quagmires of the Middle East (West Asia), its pathetic military performances since its last victory in 1945 despite the most bloated defense budgets seen anywhere in history, and the ongoing incompetence of its national leadership over decades, all weigh heavily in the favor of Russia and China in establishing an international order that will begin a slow but seismic shift away from the Anglo-American-Zionist power center established after 1945.

The key to the final demise of the American Empire is an open secret: the end of the American Petrodollar as the reserve currency globally. BRICS bears watching closely. The demise of the Petrodollar destroys the real Evil Empire. Destroy that, and the global military expeditions are also finished. No money, no manpower. The game will be over. In the United States, perhaps the death of the American Empire might bless my once great nation with a return to the Old American Republic. One can always hope and dream. 

Q: After Russia alleged that there was a "biological research facility" in Ukraine, the U.S. government’s Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland testified before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. U.S. Senator Marco Rubio noted in the hearing session that there were ‘Russian propaganda’ reports claiming the discovery of a plot by Ukrainians to release biological weapons, with coordination from NATO. It seems that Russia's claim has come out true. What are the implications of such cooperation between NATO and Ukraine to develop biological weapons?

A: Nuland and Rubio are but two of the most exposed Zio-Liars in the American government. The existence of American biological warfare labs in Ukraine has indeed been confirmed.

The exposure of the existence of this nefarious program is enough all on its own, to justify the Russian invasion.

Zelensky's public proclamations about getting nuclear weapons installed in Ukraine were the last straw for Mr. Putin and the Russians. I have no doubt that Zelensky's irresponsible statements of his intentions removed any doubt in Mr. Putin's mind of the necessity of employing Russian military forces. In his shoes, I would have done exactly the same thing. I truly believe he had no other responsible choice.

Let us return in conclusion to John Kennedy in October of 1962. Thankfully, skillful leadership and both front and back-channel diplomacy resolved the crisis without a catastrophic military conflict.

But make no mistake. Failure on the part of the Soviet Union and Khrushchev to remove the nuclear missiles in Cuba in America's backyard would have guaranteed massive airstrikes led by USAF General Curtis LeMay's bombers and the implementation of OP-PLAN 316: a massive American conventional invasion of Cuba and the removal of Castro.

Fast forward to 2022. The United States is now the transgressor in Russia's backyard.

Put clearly and simply, I believe Putin had to commission the invasion of the Donbass. He had no choice. But I believe he and his military leadership is going to have no choice but to occupy every inch of Ukraine and occupy it indefinitely. Failure to do so will leave the western part of Ukraine and Kyiv itself as a playpen for American and NATO machinations there, using Zelensky or another Zio-Puppet as their public face for CNN and Wolf Blitzer to interview every night ad nauseum.

I conclude as follows: Defense Minister General Sergei Shoigu and the omnipresent Igor Strelkov undoubtedly have or will have their own OP-PLAN 316. My advice to them: Use it. And let Zelensky get himself a change of underwear in Poland if he isn't already there, or in Tel Aviv.