I know there are some people here who can speak more to the wider implications of the civil war here. It's a very interesting (and scary) situation. We are providing at least oversight of the Saudi-led Sunni war effort against the Iranian-backed Shia, at the same time that we're providing airstrikes in support of the Iranian-backed Shia militias trying to dislodge ISIS from Tikrit. Anyway for those who don't know, this is the second time in half a century that Yemen has been the site of a proxy war. Previously it had been largely a cold war conflict, pitting the semi-secular socialist vision of Nasser and his progeny against a Western and Saudi-backed royalist faction. This time the sides are more clearly delineated as Sunni and Shia. But the implications for the US are significant. Our ostensible allies in one conflict are our adversaries in the other, and the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend. Troubling times.
Very true. But they have instituted some quasi democratic institutions and are blessed with an educated and fairly cosmopolitan middle class which seems to have a fondness for those institutions. They are more likely than any other arab state IMO to eventually become a truly democratic country. The Mullahs have the upper hand now but remember what they replaced and how happy people were to be out from under the old regime. Each new generation in Iran will have less memory of the shah and less reason to accept the abuse of the religious nuts running the country now.
I believe the "history" of nationhood in Saudi Arabia goes back about 2 generations and less than 100 years to Ibn Saud, a tribal leader who first united the area under his family's rule. And ethnically the Saudis are arabs whose history crosses all national lines (albeit only briefly in Persia/Iran) in the middle east. In fact, many moslem arabs have always believed in a pan-arab unity which should transcend national borders.
As for stability we'll see what happens when the Saudis finally transition to the next generation of rulers (themselves in their 60s) and has to face decisions about joining the 21st century or continuing to support the medieval wahabi sect which runs everything not owned by the Saud family there.
For better or worse, the Cold War provided some stability. Both superpowers had their proxies and client states but the it also helped contain the Suni/Shia rivalry. Prior to the fall of the Shah in 1979, out side of Israel the United States two main partners were Saudi Arabia and Iran. Why? Fear of the Soviet threat. If I remember correctly the Saudis and Iranians even cooperated in aiding the Sultan of Oman in suppressing the Dhofari rebellion in Oman.
Secondly, we see a collapse of regional strongmen who were able to keep things under raps. Starting with the Arab Spring and going back we've seen the ouster of Mubarak in Egypt, Saddam in Iraq, the death of Asad senior in Syria, the ouster of the Shah in Iran, the collapse of Lebanon. You get the picture.
In the abscense of these support structures there has also been a greater willingness of states to cultivate extremists and try to harness them for political purposes. In many cases trying to ride this tiger has backfired.
Im a little suprised about the lack of understanding the history here. There were many secular nationalist movements for decades on the middle east. The us crushed them violently. We have prefferes uktra religious monarchs to protect our interests and now we are seeing blowback.
For better or worse, the Cold War provided some stability. Both superpowers had their proxies and client states but the it also helped contain the Suni/Shia rivalry. Prior to the fall of the Shah in 1979, out side of Israel the United States two main partners were Saudi Arabia and Iran. Why? Fear of the Soviet threat. If I remember correctly the Saudis and Iranians even cooperated in aiding the Sultan of Oman in suppressing the Dhofari rebellion in Oman.
Secondly, we see a collapse of regional strongmen who were able to keep things under raps. Starting with the Arab Spring and going back we've seen the ouster of Mubarak in Egypt, Saddam in Iraq, the death of Asad senior in Syria, the ouster of the Shah in Iran, the collapse of Lebanon. You get the picture.
In the abscense of these support structures there has also been a greater willingness of states to cultivate extremists and try to harness them for political purposes. In many cases trying to ride this tiger has backfired.
while the shiites seem to tend to use religion as a basis for the usual crass patronage scams.
(a wild guess- never been over there, mayhe someone better informed can comment)
so- if the 'true believer sunnis' really believe that nonsense they spew about us, would that be scarier? the greater threat?
OR, would their faith based approach offer you some hope due to its marginally better aspect of sincerity? at least they have some faith and a core belief system?
conversely, would the shiites be better prospects to 'come in from the cold', in that they appear to use religion as more of a system of engineering the rackets,
offering the west an opportunity to replace one racket with another?
It has been said that the Iranians, at least in the big cities, share some of our attitudes, more so than the, say saudis do.
I have no idea here.
Im a little suprised about the lack of understanding the history here. There were many secular nationalist movements for decades on the middle east. The us crushed them violently. We have prefferes uktra religious monarchs to protect our interests and now we are seeing blowback.
The original sin of Mossadeq. Who was hated by the clergy and whose overthrow was widely, if quietly, applauded. Radical secular socialism was not violently crushed much of anywhere in the Muslim world save for Mossadeq's ouster, and despite what Kermit Roosevelt liked to brag that was not an exclusively Western or American initiative. By the time we "crushed" Saddam he was a tinpot dictator who embraced the Koran when it suited him.
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Yet despite the strong ethnic and nation-like history (I agree) there seems to be a real divide between the mullahs and a majority of the people. It's just that the Revolutionary Guard and basij did a more thorough job of supressing it since 2009 than other countries in the region.
Very true. But they have instituted some quasi democratic institutions and are blessed with an educated and fairly cosmopolitan middle class which seems to have a fondness for those institutions. They are more likely than any other arab state IMO to eventually become a truly democratic country. The Mullahs have the upper hand now but remember what they replaced and how happy people were to be out from under the old regime. Each new generation in Iran will have less memory of the shah and less reason to accept the abuse of the religious nuts running the country now.
They might have initially been happy to be rid of the old regime, but the Revolutionary Guards and the basij have been as repressive as Savak (IMHO). But for the unifying effect of the Iran-Iraq war with respect to national identity, I doubt post-1979 were ever the good old days when compared to the Shah.
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To whar reb said. But still atability for us equals repression for them.
Im a little suprised about the lack of understanding the history here. There were many secular nationalist movements for decades on the middle east. The us crushed them violently. We have prefferes uktra religious monarchs to protect our interests and now we are seeing blowback.
The original sin of Mossadeq. Who was hated by the clergy and whose overthrow was widely, if quietly, applauded. Radical secular socialism was not violently crushed much of anywhere in the Muslim world save for Mossadeq's ouster, and despite what Kermit Roosevelt liked to brag that was not an exclusively Western or American initiative. By the time we "crushed" Saddam he was a tinpot dictator who embraced the Koran when it suited him.
Saddam often cracked down on the Iraqi Communist Party which was always a stumbling block in Soviet-Iraqi relations
We are providing at least oversight of the Saudi-led Sunni war effort against the Iranian-backed Shia, at the same time that we're providing airstrikes in support of the Iranian-backed Shia militias trying to dislodge ISIS from Tikrit.
The airstrikes that the US has provided in the past 36 hours was on express condition that the Shiite militias leave the theater in Tikrit. This has led those militias to quit the theater unless the US airstrikes stop, because the militias want control.
Yet, the Iraqi forces, which the US airstrikes are ostensibly supporting (instead of the militias, which were making headway vs. ISIS), represent a government that is essentially an Iranian client state, thanks to GWB. It is even more convoluted than Stewart described, and, yes, for sure, Obama is in way over his head and his advisers look as inept as he. Keep your head down and let them murder each other in the name of their gods.
On top of it all, the GOP wants to tank the talks and make war on Iran. That should go doubly well as its war on Iraq, a much weaker adversary.
sheesh
You do know that as signee to the nuclear non proliferation treaty that Iran has a legal right to develop nuclear engery for civilian purposes. The CIA and Mossad both just realeased a ereport saying they see no evdience of Iran pursing nuclear technology and in fact described their military posture as "wholly defensive" and that they continuie to be among the lowest spending military;s in the region despite their size.
So, I dont understand what youa re criticizing as no deal is yet to happen. Iran has also cooperated heavily with us in tracking down numerous terrorist groups, aside from their actual fighting against ISIS.
I truly with all my heart beleive if you actually read some peer reviewed non partisan wrtings on Iran you would find them to be, as many others have said, the most stable non Israeli country in the region.
Not to diminish from their internal repression, which while it pales in comparison to our allies in the region, is still worth condemnation.
In Bahrain, he supported the Saudi intervetnion which killed a bunch of secular college kids fighting for democracy.
Saudi Araia, or course, crushed their own version without a peep.
In Egpyt he supported Mubarak to the very last moment and is now essetnially supporting a new mubarak in Sisi.
Obama in my view is following basically the same foregin policy as Bush with just a little tighter trigger to make decisiosn. Im not sayin one is better then the other.
Without the US invovlemnt the region would be a volatile place. But at this point there is no doubt we make things more voloatile and increase the risks against us.
Our treatment of Israel? Obama has stood by and supported Israel every step up the way. Militarily, diplomatically, economically.
Dont confuse a minor squabble as anything more then that.
Israeli-US relations go far beyond merely a few arguments over whether bibi should have came here.
However, I think your reading of the seeds sown is Iraq by the invasion are perceptive and accurate.
This is utter garbage, no offense, and a blatant falsification that may have been arugable up until 10 years ago when the documetnation came out on the period.
Read our itnernal documents on tehnational security archive and you will see that we were the main reason nationalism failed and fundamentalism won out.
Our goal is to control, not profit from, the oil from the region. Nothing will stand in that way and both Obama and Bush have continied that policy.
So will our next presidnet.
But for very different reasons I do not think discussions with Iran should be about their nuclear ability...that's myopia in what should be a larger weave. I think we are way off in our thinking about Iran
That said....as it relates to what we should have done and should do now regarding ISIS and Syria and Yemen and all the periphery outside of Turkey, iran, Saudi and Eygpt....once past the ten years...is follow the advice of Senator Aiken
his advice should be one each of us uses in personal, business and many relationships...much less hope our nation follows:
Asked on live TV at the worse time of a nation truly divided 50/50 and swamped with complexities and quagmire ..."What strategy should we pursue in Vietnam?"
Answer: "Declare victory and get out"
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In the last 15 year has been a colossal disaster. We have sacrificed stability in favor of revolutionary transformation and are dumbfounded when we cannot control the forces we unleash. The Bush and Obama administrations are two sides of the same coin. Both have shelved a realist foreign policy in favor of an ideologically driven one. Bush sought revolutionary change through the US military, Obama through his irresponsible support for the Arab spring and the false promise of democratization. These are the consequences.
The idea that Obama supported the Arab spring is a myth.
In Bahrain, he supported the Saudi intervetnion which killed a bunch of secular college kids fighting for democracy.
Saudi Araia, or course, crushed their own version without a peep.
In Egpyt he supported Mubarak to the very last moment and is now essetnially supporting a new mubarak in Sisi.
Obama in my view is following basically the same foregin policy as Bush with just a little tighter trigger to make decisiosn. Im not sayin one is better then the other.
Without the US invovlemnt the region would be a volatile place. But at this point there is no doubt we make things more voloatile and increase the risks against us.
So sure of yourself yet so wrong!
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The whole issue has been insane.
Obama, who I supported in two election, is totally out of his element.
Less than 2 years ago, he wanted to bomb Assad and essentially help ISIS in the process. Now he has Kerry saying we should talk to Assad (and his masters, Iran) to defeat ISIS.
His principal ally in the region, Israel, has fought 3+ ground conflicts during the term of his presidency that were instigated by proxies of Iran (Hezbollah and Hamas) in which hundreds of Israelis and others (including US citizens) have been killed, including by tens of thousands of rockets that in many cases of the longer range ones were actually manufactured in Iran.
We just signed a long-term weapons deal with Saudi Arabia, Iran's chief rival (notwithstanding Israel) in the region, and pretty much the only use Saudi Arabia has for those weapons is to fight Iran or Iran's proxies.
We're sitting down and negotiating an agreement by which it sounds like the target is for Iran to only be 5-6 months away from a nuke, if all goes *perfectly* as planned and gets monitored perfectly. So probably the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world (maybe the only 'official' state sponsor of terrorism) and a rival of several allies and 'allies' in the region is going to have sanctions lifted by promising to only keep itself 6 months away from having a nuke - which means assuming they don't cheat that at all they can wait for a time that the US is just unwilling or unable to step in right away and stop them and go forward with a nuke. It should say something that France thinks this is a bad deal.
That, of course, will make Saudi Arabia, Egypt and others seriously consider their own needs for nuclear armament (as they should) in response.
Sorry for the rant, but this all goes to say that if you don't really know what you're doing, and I think Obama has decisively demonstrated he doesn't, it's better to stay out completely and let the locals who know how to deal with it better take care of it (or let them kill each other trying).
israel is at war because they are annexing another groups territory in violation of international law and none of those wars were instigates by any other then israel.
Alot of the other things you said i agree with
Israel was invaded by a 7 nation army the day after it was formed, by UN treaty, after the British Mandate in Palestine expired.
These Arab Nations, her hneighbors, were and are determined to wiper her off the map, they said so.
When you talk about "Occupied territorries," you refer to the land taken in the 67 war, a war that occurred when these same Arab nations, who were preparing for war AGAIN reaffirmed that a state of war existed between them and Israel, and again affirmed their committment to het imminent and immediate destruction.
When you appeal to force of arms, and swear oaths unto your god vowing the destruction of your self proclaimed enemy, and then get your fucking ass handed to you by said enemy, that'sa on you, not them, and if you lose, it's not their responsibility to give you your shit back, especially when it leaves you witha 25 mile wide nation in the middle that any asshole with a tank can bisect and destroy in half an hour.So pleas,e spare me the crocodile tears for the occupied territories of Jordan and egypt that lost land to Israel, the same Jordan and Egypt who made peace with Israel and came to terms with the results of this war long long ago.
So you are then what, crying about the Golan heights, from where they use to like to fire random rockets into Israel? The Israelis need to give that back to Syria? That's the issue? When you say Occupied territory, just remember whose territory it was that got occupied. Land of Egypt, Jordan and Syria who declared war on Israel, repeatedly, and lost.
I assure you the Egyptians are fine with the Israelis administering the headache that is Gaza, and the Jordanians long ago waged their own war agaisnt the Palestinians and black septemberists, and both nations ultimately exiled and rejected these palestinian refygees, so, no, they don't REALLY have a problem with Israel being saddled with that bag of snakes we call the Palestinian people. AS if there was ever a nation calld Palestine, or a people called palestinian, which there never was.Unless you're referring to Caananites and Phillistines, but I'm pretty sure they are long gone.
The people who live there now are either those who left, willingly, under the partition,or are their descendants, or are those who initiated war against Israel repeatedly, and their descendants.Either way they are committed to Israels detructions, and commit constant and incessant acts of violence against Israel, and remain sworn to her destruction, and are those who appealed to force of asrms in the first place and refused to accept the legal internationally agreed upon UN resolution creating 2 states, and so, when that happens, then one party is bound to have none. the blood is on the hands of th Palestininians, this troublesome and quarrelsome people, whose lands egypt and Jordan were ultimately more than happy to be rid of.It is they who initiated these wars and this conflict, and it is at their feet that responsibility for this mess lies.
Don't Blame Israel for being victorious.They didn't start this mess. The palestinians did.If they wanted a nation, they should have accepted it when they world handed them one, and Israel accepted it.
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In comment 12206121 TJ said:
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Iran has a strong ethnic and nation-like history going back pretty much continuously for a couple thousand years.
Lots not to like about the current regime but get used to the idea that they will be the strongest and most stable moslem entity in the middle east for the foreseeable future. And nothing they do or support is really any worse in the long run than the things our arab allies do or support.
Our "allies" have supported terrorist groups comparable to Hamas/Hezbollah? Or the Assad regime which used chemical weapons on its own citizens?
Absolutely. The Saudi rulers are really only concerned with keeping [i]themselves[/] out of the terrorist crosshairs. They've never had any qualms about terrorists who attack others until it became politically convenient to start rooting out al qaeda after 911 made the US mad.They oppress any of their own citizens who are not members of the royal family. They prop up the wahhabi nutcases. They funnel money to Hamas - although not nearly as much as Iran does. And who do you think runs the madrassas in Pakistan that created the Taliban? Most of Al Qaeda's early funding came from private Saudi citizens and some from goverrnmental organizations.
There is no moral reason to choose one moslem middle east country over another. It's strictly a matter of who can do us the most practical good. And I'm beginning to believe in the long run that means the Iranians.
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the exact same thing could be said about the saudis, who ultimatley where part of the same caliphate, and then the same ottoman empire, going back to islams founding, and both were occupied by the british, who left both countries at the same time. Ultimately Iran had a revolution the saudi arabia didn't, so they may win the tiebreaker there for least stable betweem the 2 of them over the long haul.The saudis have Mecca and more oil. The Iranians have nukes, very soon, anyway.
I believe the "history" of nationhood in Saudi Arabia goes back about 2 generations and less than 100 years to Ibn Saud, a tribal leader who first united the area under his family's rule. And ethnically the Saudis are arabs whose history crosses all national lines (albeit only briefly in Persia/Iran) in the middle east. In fact, many moslem arabs have always believed in a pan-arab unity which should transcend national borders.
As for stability we'll see what happens when the Saudis finally transition to the next generation of rulers (themselves in their 60s) and has to face decisions about joining the 21st century or continuing to support the medieval wahabi sect which runs everything not owned by the Saud family there.
The House of Saud has been around awhile, the First Saudi State, the Second Saudi State, and the modern nation of Saudi Arabia. The First Saudi State marked the expansion of Wahhabism.both Iran and saudi arabia never exusted as seperate nations from the caliphate until after WWI.You want to make the point that Iran is marginally more stable than Saudi Arabia at the moment, OK, i'll agree with that. the idea that the current Iranian govt has deeper roots or more long lasting ties to history I don't agree with
As an aside, I don't know if you are aware, maybe you are, but the "Arab people" as a people, as a genetic entity, originate in Yemen.Not Saudi Arabia.
For better or worse, the Cold War provided some stability. Both superpowers had their proxies and client states but the it also helped contain the Suni/Shia rivalry. Prior to the fall of the Shah in 1979, out side of Israel the United States two main partners were Saudi Arabia and Iran. Why? Fear of the Soviet threat. If I remember correctly the Saudis and Iranians even cooperated in aiding the Sultan of Oman in suppressing the Dhofari rebellion in Oman.
Secondly, we see a collapse of regional strongmen who were able to keep things under raps. Starting with the Arab Spring and going back we've seen the ouster of Mubarak in Egypt, Saddam in Iraq, the death of Asad senior in Syria, the ouster of the Shah in Iran, the collapse of Lebanon. You get the picture.
In the abscense of these support structures there has also been a greater willingness of states to cultivate extremists and try to harness them for political purposes. In many cases trying to ride this tiger has backfired.
Im a little suprised about the lack of understanding the history here. There were many secular nationalist movements for decades on the middle east. The us crushed them violently. We have prefferes uktra religious monarchs to protect our interests and now we are seeing blowback.
My concern is that the flip flops of the current Administration vis à vis Iraq, ISIS, Syria, and the militias, only play to the long term strengthening of Russian allying itself with Iran: this is a geopolitical strategem that plays to their strengths and a stranglehold on energy supply to the West (Europe), thus opening the door to further undermining of Europe's "independence".
Coming back to Iran, it is a stable culture and society that, regrettably, is ruled by the Mullahs, who demonize Israel. We here in the US demonize each other (Dems and GOP can hardly talk to each other in dialogues that are constructive for our body politic), so it's easy to demonize foreign states, Sadaam's, the Mullahs, etc. For stability's sake, I think we have to look at the larger picture in the ME with Iran at its core; of course, Bush's war has served it very well, and we must deal with those consequences. Go to war against Iran? Hardly; this would just bury us yet again and elevate Putin and the Mullahs. There is ZERO chance of any positive outcome, and likely a very high chance of very adverse outcomes, very long-term. Russia and Iran have alternated between alliances and competitors, and will again. We must keep that in mind.
Iran (and Russia) are the big boys there now, and they are there, on the ground. As several of us above have posted, the torturous contradictions in current US policy must have us appear as a very untrustworthy, treacherous ally. So, Greg's post on Richard Engel's comment must be taken seriously. We continue to undermine our own long-term interests in the region, hello Mr. Aiken.
It is time for a radical re-thinking and beginning a serious effort to not just project our power through drones and airstrikes but for serious dialogues with the few stable powers that remain, Israel, Iran, Russia, and the mercurial Turks. I think the chances of this occurring are next to nil. Our foreign policy in the ME has, for the most part, been one of aggression, invasion, and destruction in the name of achieving virtue and improvement of the societies affected by them. It is little wonder that, if and when SA weakens or falls, the cupboard will be bare.
as far as Bush doing Iran a favor, yes, yes he did.Iran has played it;'s hand magnificently, and better than many realize. Most don't remember, or overlook that the "dissident" Iraqis opposed to Saddam, who originally gave us the intelligence on WMDs in Iraq, was in fact, a double agent in the employ of Iran. That's right, the Iranians deliberately fed us false info on WMDS and an Iraqi nuke program that didn't exist.Why they did that I think has become abundantly clear.The U.S. has busied itself with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for the last 14 years as Iranian research into Nuclear weapons has gone along basically unimpeded. Once the U.S. spent it's political capital on Iraq and Afghanistan, there is none left for any real concerted effort agaisnt Iran, not to mention a federal debt closing on 20 trillion and a public with no appetite for war after taking close to 50,000 total casualties between those 2 conflicts.They continue, as does Putin, to play chess while we play checkers.
You make plenty of salient points and I'm not trying to be dismissive, but to compare us to them is to me an undeserved moral equivalence. Iran is the largest state sponsor of terror in the world. It pulls strings (rather ineptly) in Syria, Iraq and Southern Lebanon, with particular input among Palestinian factions and increased influence in Yemen. On a weekly basis the highest echelons of its leadership lead thousands of people in chanting "Death to America" and burning our flags, and they have almost uninterrupted for thirty-five years. Whether we've had Republicans or Democrats in the White House, whether they've had Khatami or Ahmadinejad at the "helm," their internal posture toward us has changed little.
None of us are going to sniff a time where humans are willing to sacrifice everything they know because it will be "betterer" for "all of us".
Wake me in about 2 thousand years. Until then, go Giants!
the misdirecting narrative to the prols (orwell) style
similarly as the castro's in cuba probably still knock us verbally,
or (people I know well, or run into at a bookstore, might rhetorically point out our historic national sins at a rate out of keeping with context and the truth of history. or. i.e. too often to indicate that they actually care about or know about our history)..
all because it makes the internal conversation and narrative more convenient for them
the old 'oh, look over there (hand in your pocket)'
trick
in the short run as they work those rackets.
so, it can change.
whereas, with the wahhabbis, they may either believe it, or really, really hate freedom.
First, some caveats:
This is not a post for people who:
- view the situation in any less than one hundred year blocks
- wish to be fearful or panglossian
- cant discuss any subject without assuming the other guy is criticizing Israel as a concept or their political party
- dont understand economic forces
- don’t really understand Iranian history or Iran
- Don’t understand the point of good foreign policy is to insure stability and social justice for the most people in their own country
- Refuse to understand that better but not perfect is better then current and not perfect
To also be clear, I am not a member of any political party and basically think the last few Presidents have been disasters for the majority of the country.
Nor is this a post for those who wish the world would be the way they wish it was. Moral lectures do not apply. Blaming the US is sometimes an important insight and often a disorder of the simple minded.
And lastly….I am always stunned at the levels of fear about other nations and their capabilities. Its amazing that we have more economic power and military power than the next ten nations combined and spend like drunken sailors to keep it that way…only to have a fear based foreign policy and most of our citizens live and think from a deep fear based perspective. And I am stunned at the inability of others to see other nations (especially isolated, complex, low education and poor countries with turbulent history) as composed of factions and people and actions they cannot control or force compliance. Most nations I know are composed of a capital city and a couple of privledged families and warlords and too few police and too few educators and no concept of treating the mental disorders amongst them.
I also do not put much stock in what people inside nations say. We say stuff all the time. Largely for domestic consumption. Largely as a sop to equally sloppy fearful people. Everyday someone in every nation in the world can find something some US official said that could be harmful to them.
What people in nations say and what nations do are different and always will be. I also think most nations run by consensus amongst their elites…not by whatever nominal kind of government they tell their citizens they are. Do they largely keep the main aspects of their treaties? Do they largely honor contract law and pay back? Do they try to preserve order over chaos? Are their main strategic interests clear? Do they stay out of direct conflict over less then their strategic interests? Do they surprise attack anyone as a nation? Do they not exercise enough control over their fringe people?
And guess which country is amongst those who cannot claim to adhere to most of that list? Try the USA for starters. Meddles by proxy all over the world. Keeps most treaties. Says all kinds of shit. Its not perfect world…its better than it was. That’s all we can do. Better than right now.
Nor does nuclear power mean that much to me….the main nations whose people have spread nuclear knowledge are the US and Israel. In truth only the US actually on their own developed a nuclear weapon and how to precisely deliver it….only the US. It was leaked or taught by citizens of this nation from inception to now. truth. A nuclear power has to be bought into the stable of nations who interact with each other in pursuit of a more stable world. That’s far more realistic and doable than kidding ourselves that it wont spread. Two people can keep a secret if one is dead. Other than that it gets out.
That said, to me the three guideposts of thinking about what to do are:
1) Stability and therefore less chaos is always the most moral way to proceed in human affairs for stability reduces the uncertainty and risk of ordinary people …freeing them to make more decisions about their lives for the benefit of their children. Where to live, which career, is college worth it, what home can we afford, a new car this year or next…all decisions which steer a life are much easier to make and make work when economic basics are closer to stable.
Over the past few decades certainty of oil supply is even more important than in the seventies when oil supply disruptions bought the nation and the middle class to its knees and did so for the 15 years afterwards. Why? Because the worlds aquifers are shrinking and the concentration of places where food, chemicals, medicine, and electricity are made …so steady transport is more important …not less important to the world. If oil was radically unavailable to the world the numbers of people who would perish is greater and the number of places that would be inhabitable are smaller…true even in this nation over the last 50 years.
Oil company profits are irrelevant metrics in this discussion….ordinary people suffer in uncertainty and lives are smaller and choices less.
Stable is full of distasteful compromises. But all over the completely not interconnected world of 5000 years ago…evidence from human remains reveals that 35% of people died of violent wounds by age 40. Do the math…35% of the people you love would die suddenly and from a violent attack or accident. In the still horrible last century of most intertwined global system less then 2% of humans died violently at an average age of 65.
2) The Bank of England and its predecessor banking houses of the Hanseatic League is the entity with the most successful foreign policy. Its successor surrogate extension is the US central banking (Fed plus majors plus investment community…not trading…investment community) system. As long as you participate in free trade and keep shipping lanes clear and are ruled by contract law so promises to reciprocate are likely….you are more stable and in the world system. Right now Russia, Iran, N Korea are non system players. Since 1848 Germany and Japan tried to not play in the BOE system. Saddam did as well. The BOE did business with all form of governments. And encouraged pressure even to the world war level to all forms of government if they promoted chaos to the system. Enemies ( the new USA become friends and friends enemies (Germany) over this basic rule…you are acceptably within the system and play by the rules or you create too much chaos for the system to be stable.
Its not an accident that their location for many years was between the Parliament and the Admiralty. Truth be told it’s the 500 year old foreign policy of the Western World.
3) The most important and bold and long reaching and strategically brilliant foreign policy moves of the last century were pulled off by the detestable Richard Nixon.
A) He shifted the monetary policy of the world from a currency based on gold to one based on petrodollars
B) He suddenly broke out of a very very bad position for the US and took China out of the non BOE system and a future where an intertwined Russian Oil and Chinese economic interconnectivity would turn us into the outsider vassal state. And to execute his master stroke …he had one if the unsung great Americans of the last 75 year…George Bush be in charge of the slogging details of weaving the economic interconnections between our world and theirs.
Imagine for a minute the value of Russian oil and mineral and water resources sitting next to China…and the riches of Chinese food and imitation ability interconnected with Russia in one nuclear economic engine. Yes our relations with China are fraught with frenemy concerns…that we talk with them about. But consider the alternative. Are we better off forty years down the road from Nixon turning the worlds power structure inside out? By leaps and bounds….we would be so much poorer a nation by now it is not funny.
C) Now lets dial back and remember:
- China was nuclear in 1965.
- China was loaded with radicals.
- China exported revolution and chaos.
- China was and is never going to be an ally or a friend.
- China was loaded with fierce idealogues. And also pragmatists who wanted more economic stability and thought long term about their people. And was in the midst of an important generational power turnover. (remember Lin Pao?)
- And had detestable factions. We forget that the Cultural Revolution launched in 1966 was still going on led by the Centuries and maybe the worlds most ruthless and successful radical leftist revolutionary and uncompromising Marxist.
- …Mao. You know the guy who called us white devils and revanchist running dog destroyers of the worlds people? The guy who purged even the shadows of non revolutionary thinking and yet met Nixon on the steps and said in his first words: “ I believe our old friend Chiang Khai shek would not approve”
The world is different now. Not every American President appreciated or had the vision to steer the potential of Nixons radical bold stroke. Carter could not stomach that Nixon had done something for America…moralistic prig. Reagan paid no attention but had a pragmatist Bush and Schultz to keep it going. First Bush sponsored greater connectivity in his time…and the time of best common relations…but had to deal with the timing of turnover in the Party elite. Clinton was taken to the cleaners by anyone with money who knew how to flatter him…and the Chinese were out of control by second Bush. The current guy is a lazy mess imho.
But our relations with China are now a matter of puts and calls on the issues between us. And their relations with Russia are far far less then they were or could be….we broke that killer alliance to our way of life…more precisely…that nut job Nixon did. He was corrupt and dishonest. And very very smart and visionary in some ways.
Now armed with some background thoughts lets look at playing rounds of chess in the ME….
The only four stable nations who long term contain elements of size, factions who have reasons to want stability and latent economic value are: Egypt, Saudi, Turkey and Iran. None of them will ever be friends of ours. None.
IMHO too many idiots in the US and Israel assume they and we are better off with destabilized weakened nations in the ME. Such minor league Metternichs and BOE port sipping dynastic players do not get it….England kept Europe from one continental power for centuries….by favoring the second and third nations to the detriment of the top continental power….but the operative word was that they favored actual powers…coherent stable nations who one could both defeat and also flip and work with…so they could be weaved into the stable interconnected economic tapestry.
To me the least stable nation of those four is Saudi. A family of 5000 that has a huge social co opting payment system to keep the huge Shia population that sits on the actual fields (one of the most destabilizing factors in the world is the Shia population that lives on top of the fields pipelines and downstream processing facilities of Saudi Arabia.
To me Egypt is the poorest and will be for a long time.
So that leaves our half western factions in Turkey and one other possible nation who has a new generation of successors to the business and economic interests of the Revolutionary Guards who literally control most of the economic activity of the nation.
Iran has always been factionalized and migratory across economic interests (the Mullahs considered Mossedeq and the Pahlevis as economic players and ideologues (Iran not Russia had the worlds largest Communist Party and had four of its regions split off and join Russia).
There is a lot of evidence that the Mullahs having thrown out Mossedeq, wiped out the Tudeh and overthrown the Pahlevis have woven the Guards into the economic life to co opt a new economic interest centric force within Iran.
Iran is loaded with changes since the mullahs representing villages and neighborhoods started to go after power in response to royal repression and the rise of communism in the 1920’s. much of its youth and urban population is cowed by the mullahs use of street thugs (a practice along with assassination squads of the Iranian mullahs since the 1920s and the way they threw out Mossedegh and threw the minor western players under the bus for the consumption of its own population).
Iran is afraid. It sees itself as surrounded by hostility…not only from the majority Sunni (88% of all Muslims) but by Russia and the US.
Iran is feeling the squeeze of the sanctions. Iran made a major attempt to raise external capital ($300B per year) for needed infrastructure and oil gas industry investments. It got 12B followed by 10B. This is where I fear the myopia of the current “thinkers”.
The real primary goal is weaving the next generation and “moderates” them back into the stable non chaos producing interconnected world…and doing so before Saudi and Pakistan collapse…the two most important nations which will internally combust in the next 25 years.
Can it be done? I don’t know. It wont be by these clowns.
But rather than see a world in which Iran is an implacable enemy forever….id stay flexible and not put all our eggs in a view that says “Saudi” good ( Like Pakistan to me there is no there there) and Iran bad. Long term…Id see if we could unleash irans oil and cool off from the Peninsula if I could.
And I definitely would have a plausible counterweight strategy to keep Saudi in line and force them to crack down on their chaos producers. Right now we don’t.
Some combination of reducing our footprint and the possibility of improving our connection with Iran should confront every meeting of the House of Saud. They are both weak, domestically oppressive and take us for granted…that’s the biggest threat to our way of life. Imho.
Why are they not stepping up to the issues over there?
The current powers that be. And a desire for peace....The current fire is right below them.
I assume non of them will ever be noble. None will do our bidding.
All of them will call us names for decades.
i just think we are aimless and myopic. And too close to Saudi.
And to me...moving Iran into the world best keeps a low boil and a steady flow ( the world gets a fraction of Iran or Iraq potential oil and gas ).
Imho we have 100 years of needing black gold and water.
The necessity of dealing with Iran is less obvious. I understand your long-term prognosis of Saudi and it may or may not be correct, but I posit that it is entirely possible that the shove that does Saudi in emanates from Tehran, intentionally or otherwise. What is ISIS if not a disease that metastasized from "JV" to varsity thanks to the ineptitude of two of Tehran's clients? Iranian as a regional "pillar" might be a force for stability, as it once was, but its adventurism is destabilizing. Shia ascendancy in the Arab world has produced, and will continue to produce, violent reaction, including terrorism and instability. If this deal gives Tehran a freer hand I don't see it as Nixon going to China in the pantheon of foreign policy decisions, I see it more as Harold Wilson renouncing commitments east of Aden.