SOTT EXCLUSIVE: US jumping for joy over South Stream pipeline closure

© AP Photo/ Gerry Broome

Shouldn't he be dead by now? John McCain.

Anyone who takes the time to fully understand the reasons why Russia cancelled the South Stream pipeline project and then listens to the US response to the news can only conclude that the US government has lost all touch with reality.

US National Security Adviser Susan Rice said on Tuesday:

"The news that Russia has pulled back from its South Stream pipeline to southern Europe... is indicative of the mounting cost that Russia is paying for its behavior," Rice said. "As a result, a major project, which had been championed by Putin and the Russian government, is now not likely to materialize."

"When you look at where the Russian economy is, it has suffered over the last year substantially as a result of sanctions and also as a result of declining oil prices and the combination is pretty powerful."

President Obama also crowed on Wednesday:

[Obama] doubted Russian President Vladimir Putin will change course until politics catch up with the rough economic situation in Russia.

Obama said Putin has promoted a nationalist, backward-looking approach to Russian policy that scares neighbors and hurts Moscow's economy.

Have mercy! The only way Obama and Rice could have come up with that conclusion is if they were somehow mistaking themselves for Putin and US foreign policy for Russian foreign policy. We can almost hear these two earnestly tell the EU: "Don't worry this is going to hurt Russia more than it will hurt you. So man up!" Meanwhile, EU bureaucrats must be 'sweating bricks' at the projected loss of billions for EU economies as a result of the death of South Stream. But what can they do? It is almost certain that they are being blackmailed by the USA, courtesy of the NSA and its pathological voyeurism. This isn't going to end well.

Two ranking senators also showed their pleasure with the canceled project.

Bob Corker, of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said:

"I will say the overall abandonment of the larger pipeline certainly was a setback to Putin and his interests in the region."

The new chairman of the Armed Services Committee, John McCain, also piped in and was pleased with the Russian decision to cancel South Stream.

"It's a big setback for Vladimir."

McCain was giddy with excitement that the US would certainly step up to the plate and provide Europe with all its natural gas needs:

"I think we can do it before then," McCain stated when asked about US projections becoming a significant exporter nation before 2020. "We can do it a lot quicker than that," he added.

McCain further told Sputnik that he is satisfied with Bulgaria's decision not to allow the construction of the proposed South Stream pipeline project. "I'm just glad our friends in Europe cancelled the pipeline that was going to go through Europe," he said.

In a Tuesday press release, McCain stated that his personal efforts to urge the Bulgarian government to look toward Europe to secure its energy interests and refrain from working with Russia, "were successful" and "culminated with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's decision to forgo the pipeline project entirely."

Yup, McCain personally shut down the South Stream project. Now he is going to frack the hell out of the US.

The fact that the Bulgarian government listened to McCain and bowed to US manipulation is not going down well in Bulgaria, where ordinary Bulgarians will pay the cost of higher gas prices and the loss of another mega investment in Bulgaria. And that is quite apart from the yearly loss of €400 million in transit fees.

So will the EU pay more for natural gas from America that will not arrive until 2020 or will it come to its senses and stop prostrating itself before "American Exceptionalism" and start considering their ow interests?

Stay tuned for the next move on the grand chessboard.

William Barbe

William joined the SOTT news team in 2014. A 30-year veteran of the semiconductor industry, in 2007 he began being interested and paying more attention to world events and living a healthier lifestyle. Hobbies and interests include hiking, photography and reading non-fiction books on history, economics, psychology, science, unexplained anomalies and politics.