Much like a stopped clock, Tony Blair is right once every couple decades.

The world, Blair said, was at a turning point in history comparable with the end of World War Two or the collapse of the Soviet Union: but this time the West is clearly not in the ascendant.

"We are coming to the end of Western political and economic dominance," Blair said in a lecture entitled "After Ukraine, What Lessons Now for Western Leadership?" according to a text of the speech to a forum supporting the alliance between the United States and Europe at Ditchley Park west of London.

"The world is going to be at least bi-polar and possibly multi-polar," Blair said. "The biggest geo-political change of this century will come from China not Russia."

Agreeing with anything Tony Blair has to say leaves me feeling troubled and slightly dirty. But when he speaks the truth, if only by accident, then it needs to be acknowledged.
Russia simply has too small of an economy, and too many enemies, to become a new political/economic power. However, it can and probably will become an important partner with China. This new realignment will begin around the same time that the Ukraine crisis ends.

While the coming economic crisis in Europe, partly caused by Russia turning off the natural gas taps, will likely caused a break in the EU, NATO will likely see itself break even earlier.

The senator told the Greek news agency that the United States would sell military equipment to those who share its values, “not just for financial gain,” and listed a number of problems on which Ankara should change its behavior and attitude. Among them are the issue of acquiring Russia’s S-400 system, flights over the Greek islands, Turkey’s close relations with Russia, and human rights violations, including the imprisonment of journalists and lawyers.

Menendez added that the list of outstanding issues is long, and they must be resolved in order to achieve the sale and modernization of the F-16 jets, but he had not yet seen the readiness of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to take any of these steps, the news agency reported.

I love it when we lecture other nations about "values", like "human rights" or "war crimes", and then we tell them they have "problems with their behavior".
As hard as it is to believe, I really do think that these politicians and pundits don't recognize the hypocrisy of these statements.

The United States is opposed to a possible military operation by Turkey in northern Syria, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East Dana Stroul said.

“We strongly oppose any Turkish operation into northern Syria and have made clear our objections to Turkey specifically because ISIS [Islamic State terror group, banned in Russia] is going to take advantage of that campaign and not to mention the humanitarian impact,” Stroul said on Wednesday.

Ah yes. We are very worried about the "humanitarian impact" in Syria. A nation in which we have funded and armed head-chopping jihadists for over a decade, that we are illegally occupying a third of the nation in order to steal it's resources, and are now conducting a brutal economic blockade of energy, food and medicine.
After killing probably millions of people in the region over the last 30 years, we are suddenly concerned about the people there.

“The sale of American advanced fighter jets to Turkey will not incentivize Erdoğan to suddenly transform into a good ally,” Pallone said. “More likely these weapons will lead to further death and destruction in the region.”

It makes me wonder how much longer Turkey will want to be part of NATO, when it's a second-class member? India, which isn't part of NATO or an organization like NATO, gets treated better than Turkey.

On Thursday, the US House of Representatives passed a legislative amendment to the National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA) by voice vote. The amendment paves the way for an India-specific waiver against the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) sanctions -- a tough law that authorises the US government to impose sanctions on countries that purchase major defence hardware from Russia.

CAATSA became a sticking point in the India-US ties after New Delhi inked a deal to secure the S-400 missile defence system from Russia. The US had been mulling whether to apply or waive CAATSA sanctions on India over the Russian deal, especially after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine this year.

That's the exact same weapon system that we are punishing Turkey for buying. What makes it OK for India that isn't OK for Turkey? Money.

"Naturally this is a requirement which the United States wants. It would be curious if they were to give a waiver if the other country was going on expanding its relationship with Russia. So India, for its own reasons, is diversifying from somewhere like 70 per cent to get to 58-60 per cent dependence on Russia and also increasing its purchases of US weaponry. So I think this is in tune with the requirements of the waiver probation," Sarna said.