16 October 2006
In a recent interview with the Netzeitung, Mikhail Gorbachev, former chief of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union stated that the role of the U.S., the acclaimed world superpower, must change.
Mikhail Gorbachev voiced unprecedented criticism of the U.S.; saying:
“Our American friends suffer today from a malady worse than AIDS. I would call this illness ‘the Winner's Complex,’ noting U.S. failing policies.
Gorbachev, the last President of the USSR and Nobel Peace Prize Winner, described the U.S. as being unable to cure itself from its Cold War mentality, and thus its role in world politics is starting to diminish, while Russia, China, Brazil, Europe, India and Japan are becoming stronger.
Gorbachev cited North Korea, which had been sanctioned by the UN Security Council after having announced it had successfully completed a nuclear test, as an example. He said that only China and Russia were in a position to handle Pyongyang.
“North Korea is a good example. Only China and Russia could deal with Pyongyang while Washington should has to depend more on itself and to get used to its decreased importance in the sphere of international relations”.
"The Americans will have to understand that in future they will have to cooperate and make decisions jointly, instead of just always wanting to give orders," Gorbachev said.
The UN resolution, sponsored by Washington, demands the reclusive communist nation abandon its nuclear weapons program, and ordered all countries to prevent North Korea from importing or exporting any material that could be used in producing weapons of mass destruction or ballistic missiles.
N. Koreas rejected the resolution.
"I am not of the view that we stand moments before a direct atomic threat," he said, attributing the current tense situation in S. Asia to the double standard pursued by Western nations that possess nuclear weapons.
The fomer leader also accused the U.S. as well as other major powers of failing to make the world a better place after the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989.
"At that point, the West focused more on its geopolitical interests," Gorbachev said, adding that Western countries had been more interested in the "unbridled burst of globalization" that followed the Cold War than in enhancing the global political climate.
The U.S. has so far failed to liberate itself from the strategy it had employed during the Cold War, he further stated.
"They cannot break loose of their old European politics, which they continued after the Cold War. They wanted to completely call the shots in Western Europe. And the Americans won't abandon this old claim."
Following the fall of [Berlin], Gorbachev said, "The West mostly pursued its own geopolitical interests. With worldwide trade it exploited what spontaneous, uncontrolled globalization made possible."
"The U.S. will certainly have a role to play in the future. But no longer the same role - a smaller role. There will be a strengthened and united Europe. And there will also be large states like Russia, China, India, Japan and Brazil, who will all contribute equally to progress in the world. There will therefore be new centers of power. So the Americans must understand that it is necessary to decide matters cooperatively and act as partners, instead of just issuing command in every case," he added.
"The policy of the Americans' regarding the European Union and the post-Soviet region fills some of us with amazement and disappointment. One must say to the Americans quite clearly,"
“There are not only the interests of the United States at stake, but the legitimate interests of the European Union, where half a billion human beings live, and who must be permitted to democratically decide their own fate in their own way."
Former Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev came to Iceland last week in relation to the 20th anniversary of his historic meeting with former U.S. President Ronald Reagan.
on 12 October 1986, a summit was held in Höfdi House in Reykjavík. At the occasion, the world leaders reached positive conclusions in discussing disarmament, Gorbachev told the Icelandic media, adding that he regrets the fall of the Soviet Union and that the end of the Cold War had made Washington more arrogant.
But now, he stressed, even Americans have come to understand that one nation is not capable of ruling the entire world.
Al Jazeera, 15.10.2006
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by M.S. Karlen, Editor, CDAC (Comprehensive Dialogue among Civilizations, Geneva)
29 August 2023
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by Robert David English
29 October 2022
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The New York Times, May 2, 2019
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