If the British Empire was built on the playing fields of Eton, United States world hegemony gets its training in Hollywood studios and advertising agencies. Selling your product, or yourself, by looking sincere is a cultivated American art. Current top US leaders are expert practitioners.

In the space of a few days, Samantha Power, John Kerry, and Barack Obama all turned in war-winning performances.

Three Deadly US Blows to Hopes of Peace In Syria

Last August 8, on that serious think tank the Charlie Rose show, former acting CIA director Michael Morell said that US policy in Syria should be to make Iran and Russia "pay a price". Russians and Iranians should be killed "covertly, so you don't tell the world about it", he said. Morell proposed that US forces begin bombing Syrian government installations, in order to "scare Assad". Probably angling for a good job next year, he is on record supporting Hillary Clinton as a "highly qualified commander in chief" and a "strong proponent of a more aggressive approach" in Syria.

Act I – An Act of War

Then, on Saturday, September 17, the US Air Force did exactly what that CIA insider had called for. In sustained air strikes, four US jets bombed a key Syrian Army position that had been defending the town of Deir ez-Zor from ISIS/Daech fighters. More than sixty Syrian soldiers were killed and over a hundred wounded. Daech forces immediately took advantage of the strikes to overrun the government position. In effect, the US Air Force acted as air cover for the Islamic fanatics US to advance against the legitimate army of Syria.

This was not only a violation of the cease-fire painstakingly worked out by Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry. It was an open military aggression by the United States on the territory of a sovereign state.

The Russians immediately called an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council to respond to this deadly violation of the truce supposedly intended to facilitate peace negotiations and humanitarian aid. When Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin took the floor to speak, his American counterpart, Samantha Power, draped in her long red mane, walked out to give a press conference that clearly illustrated the difference between Russian and US diplomacy.

Churkin, like Lavrov a few days later, cited facts and analysed the situation rationally. Samantha Power put on a show of evasion and insults.

Why all the fuss? was her opening theme. After all, we halted the attack when we were informed that "it was possible we might be hitting Syrian regime personnel and vehicles", she stated, adding that "if" we did so, "that was not our intention". That should settle the question; who could believe that the United States might deliberately attack the regime their politicians have been saying "must go"?

The best defense is offensive, and Power can be most offensive:

"Even by Russia's standards, tonight's stunt – replete with moralism and grandstanding is uniquely cynical and hypocritical", she declared.

Samantha Power, that conniving arriviste whose carefully constructed career has been built on moralism, grandstanding, cynicism and hypocrisy, had all the nerve in the world to turn these epithets against the prime target of her own habitual moralism, grandstanding, cynicism and hypocrisy.

If the air strikes hadn't been enough to destroy Russian confidence in dealing with the United States, Samantha Power's contemptuous reaction was sure to do the trick.