Obama’s Visit to Athens: The Last Dance of the Swamp Monsters

The visit to Athens by the outgoing American President Barack Obama on November 15th-16th was planned on the certainty that it was going to take place after the victory of Hillary Clinton. It was also planned that his keynote speech was supposed to be delivered at one of the world’s best known locations for the practice of democracy. Obama was to deliver a major public speech from the actual location of the Pnyx, a rocky hill opposite Acropolis where Athenian citizens used to assemble and listen to their political leaders fifteen centuries ago.

But none of the above turned out right. The Republican Donald Trump will enter the White House in January and Obama did not deliver his keynote speech in Athens where it was originally planned. The choice of Pnyx had to be canceled at the last moment “due to security reasons.” Instead, Obama delivered his speech in Athen’s opera in front of a limited audience. It is said that Pnyx means a “place of assembly” but Pnyx (pronunciation: p’niks), is a modified form of P(ho(e)nyx, the bird which symbolizes rebirth from the ashes, a new rise.

The plan was for Obama to address the world after Hillary Clinton’s victory from the central place of “Dark Athens” and its leaders, announcing the new victory and the rise of their plan to take over the planet completely. But, this victory plan failed. However, is his political agenda during the farewell tour to Europe such nonsense as it is seems to be? No, because he gave the last orders to his puppets on how to make more mess and chaos in this part of the world in order to leave a more complicated legacy for the newly elected president, Donald Trump.

Obama is the first US president to visit Athens in 17 years and only the fourth president to visit Greece in the nearly 200 years since the US’ founding as a modern state.

Addressing reporters after talks with Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, Obama rejected the idea that he should feel any responsibility for Trump’s victory, instead expressing the firm conviction that his two terms’ policies had improved people’s lives and seen their incomes grow.

In the same style, Obama announced that he will advocate for Greek debt relief from Europe and an end to austerity as the only measure to help the Greek people to see improvements in their daily lives. He spent a large part of his first day in Athens defending his administration’s tenure and emphasizing that Washington’s special alliance with its NATO partners would not end overnight when Trump takes over.

Obama demanded that leaders become newly attuned to their citizens grievances, calling for a "course correction" on globalization, which has left populations afraid of an uncertain future. Acknowledging the anger and fear reflected in Trump’s surprise win, he warned against the rise of divisive politics with the global ascent of what he described as coarse nationalism and tribalism, apparently thinking that “after them the flood” is coming.

Obama came to Athens with the Cyprus question high on his political agenda. He tried to convince the Greek authorities that it is the right moment to resolve the issue with Turkey. In contrast, this is the best way to burden Turkey with one more hot issue and to intensify the tensions in the region.

But the most interesting point is that just a few days before Obama’s visit to Athens, the American Heritage Foundation published a text stressing that the two vital topics in Athens would be Russia and Macedonia. On his only trip to Greece, President Obama would raise several critical issues, including Greek support for the Russian navy and its blocking of NATO expansion to Macedonia. The authors said that this is the right moment for Obama “to pressure Greece to vote for renewed sanctions. In December, the EU will vote on extending its economic sanctions against Russia. This matter is decided by unanimity, meaning that a single EU country can force the conclusion, or at least the watering down, of sanctions. The President should encourage Greece to do the right thing and support sanctions renewal in December; to object to Russian war ships in Greek ports. While Crimea remains illegally occupied and Russia continues its support for Syrian dictator Assad,President Obama must be crystal clear that Greek support for the Russian navy is unbecoming of a NATO ally. He should encourage Athens to follow Spain’s recent example and cancel future visits by the Russian navy; to make the case for Macedonia. Greece’s pertinacious opposition over the name issue, coupled with the illegality of its position under international law, has jeopardized NATO’s open-door policy. The U.S. should encourage Greece to allow Macedonia to join NATO under the terms of the 1995 interim accord”.

It is a bit too late for Obama to “help” Macedonia be inducted into NATO. More likely, it is possible that Greece will create new tensions with Macedonia in the months ahead, especially taking into account that the general elections are due to be held on December 11th, 2016, and that the two years of hybrid war by the “swamp’s monsters” against Macedonia elected government have not yielded the desired results

In short, Obama’s last paean in Athens shows clearly what the “swamp’s actors” have on their dark agenda and whom they want to oppose so severely.