By Nirmal P. Acharya
“If you’re not at the table in the international system, you’re going to be on the menu,” US Secretary of State Blinken said recently at the Munich Security Conference.
It is clear that Nepal, like all countries, is eager to sit at the Blinken table. So how can Nepal sit at this table and eat with Americans without being on the menu?
To this, the American answer is, if you follow the American baton, you will be at the table, or you will be on the menu.
Therefore, our nation’s politicians met overnight and raised their hands to pass the MCC before the deadline announced by the US. Now, we wait for the US to put Nepal at the Blinken table.
However, I personally don’t think Nepal will make it to the Blinken table. Look at the example of Ukraine. Ukraine is clearly taking orders from the US, but is it sitting at the Blinken table? Two years into the war, Ukraine has halved its population, lost a fifth of its territory, and is losing more. Ukraine was clearly on the Blinken menu.
Consider the case of Iran. Iran did not circle the baton of the US, but confronted the US for decades. Blinken is clearly determined to put Iran on his menu. Has Blinken done that so far? On the contrary, the current military campaigns by Iranian-backed Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen show that Iran is firmly at the table.
It seems like “the ugly American” mindset is on full display here. I didn’t really believe he actually said that until I heard it, exposing the policy of US hegemony for all to see in one sentence. The truth just came out of Blinken, the US has always treated the rest of the world as “on the menu”.
Is MCC putting Nepal on the Blinken table or bringing Nepal onto the Blinken menu? Let’s wait and watch because it’s clear that 99% of all countries seem to be on the US menu and not on the table.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect People’s Review’s editorial stance.
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