When the White House decided at short notice on Wednesday to send Secretary of State Antony Blinken to New York the next morning, those involved were aware of how high the bar would be set.

When things get hot in international crises, Washington likes to choose the stage of the UN Security Council.

It is not always primarily about emphasizing the importance of international law and multilateralism.

At the East River, the main struggle is for opinion leadership in the world public arena.

Majid Sattar

Political correspondent for North America based in Washington.

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"Let me ask a simple question: Ambassador Zorin, do you deny that the USSR has deployed and continues to deploy medium-range missiles in Cuba?

Yes or no - don't wait for the translation!

Yes or no?” The speech by Adlai Stevenson, John F. Kennedy's UN ambassador, in New York in 1962 is remembered by many Americans – if only because Hollywood filmed the Cuban Missile Crisis several times as a nerve drama and heroic play during the Cold War.

The appearance, in which Stevenson ultimately convicted Nikita Khrushchev of lying on the basis of aerial photos showing the missiles stationed on the island, is at the same time the yardstick for the evidence in the Security Council.

Blinken was aware that this can also be torn apart when he presented his government's view of the Russian escalation in the Ukraine crisis.

He knows some are questioning "our information," he said.

They are referring to an earlier case in which intelligence findings “were not confirmed in the end”.

Blinken didn't need to pursue the case any further.

Everyone knew what was meant: Colin Powell's appearance before the Security Council in 2003, in which he presented intelligence about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that later turned out to be false.

But Blinken now turned the tables: He wanted to make it clear that he wasn't here to start a war, but to prevent one.

Opportunity to speak of a "propaganda campaign".

The fact that Washington's motivation today differs from that of the past only partially solves the credibility problem.

Blinken had previously used the stage to do what the administration has been doing for weeks: He unfolded scenarios of Moscow's hybrid warfare, referring to information that the intelligence services had previously released: "We don't know exactly how the represent things”, but the world can expect the following development: Russia is planning a pretext for an attack.

The subterfuge could be a fabricated violent incident for which Moscow blames Kiev, or an outrageous accusation leveled against the Ukrainian government, an alleged terrorist attack in Russia, the discovery of a mass grave that is not

a staged drone attack or a simulated or even real chemical weapons attack.

Moscow could portray such incidents as ethnic cleansing or genocide.

Theatrically staged crisis meetings of the highest Russian authorities could follow, after which it would be declared that Russian citizens or ethnic Russians in Ukraine had to be defended.

All of this could happen in the next few days – it has been said for days.

The fact that Washington itself emphasizes that it does not know exactly which scenario Moscow might choose gives the other side an opportunity to speak of a "propaganda campaign".

The American side cannot provide any evidence, as otherwise it would endanger its informers in the Russian security apparatus.

The disclosure of secret service information is risky enough for them even without evidence.

Washington can get over Moscow's accusations.

It is more difficult to dispel doubts in one's own public.

After all, at best, you are dealing with a prevention dilemma.

Jake Sullivan, the National Security Adviser, recently stressed that Russia will not be able to surprise the world.

The goal is to prevent war.

If Vladimir Putin ultimately decides not to invade, American skeptics from the left and right in the West could argue that Washington was trying to talk things into conflict.

The Biden government is already trying to counteract this: the left-liberal media are saying that if there is no invasion, this is a success for the administration.

On the other side, for example at Fox News, it is already being spread that Russia is only an issue because Biden can distract attention from inflation, increased crime and the migration crisis.