Seymour Hersh interview in New Left Review

Seymour Hersh:

The longer-term outlook for Ukraine was always bleak – partly because it’s still an extremely corrupt country where Western aid is often misused. So I think Biden had a tactical interest in destroying the pipeline, because this would prevent Germany from changing its mind when the going got tough and withdrawing its support for Ukraine. If there was a cold spell in November or December, that could’ve halted the Ukrainian counter-offensive and put pressure on Germany to lower gas prices by opening up the line. So that might have been one of the administration’s most immediate fears.

But there’s also a long history of American hostility towards this pipeline, stretching back to Bush and Cheney, who saw it as a strategic weapon that Russia could use to keep Germany and Western Europe from supporting NATO. Biden’s thinking was very much in line with this. Now, I don’t know if he wants a war with Russia. I don’t know if he wants a war with China. I don’t know what he wants. But it’s scary as hell, because maybe he doesn’t even know.

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The US is still sending liquefied natural gas to its European allies, but is charging three to four times more for it. So the president’s basically made a toss, you know, between severing the Germany–Russia link and losing political support for America and some of the states we most value. That would give any rational person in the intelligence community pause for thought.