I have hope that war with Iran will not happen. For the simple reason that Iran is already to strong to attack. I suppose it is possible for Israel to attack Iran, even though the Israeli generals must know that it would be a doomed enterprise. Much like the Japanese generals who launched the first strike on Pearl Harbor even though they knew it would bring ruin to Japan. Optimism may make no more sense than pessimism, but I still have hope there won't be another war.
Iran now has all the power that they have been seeking for so long. They have tough friends, in Russia and China. Israel may have advanced military hardware, but it is not enough. They are vulnerable to oil supply disruption. I don't know what the state of their finances are, but with America and Britain both as close to bankruptcy as they are, how can Israel go to war? Israel has always relied on US and British financial backing (credit) and energy supplies.
In the 1980s Russia had a lot of highly advanced military hardware. When they went broke, they were not able to use it, and it didn't do them any good. Britain went into WWI when it was technically bankrupt, although few knew it. They were only able to fight because they had the US to bankroll them, and supply fuel.
Now it is Russia, China, and Iran that have lots of cash and fuel supplies. No matter who wins the initial skirmish, they will eventually prevail. The Central Asian nations, Kyrgystan and Kazakhstan, etc, also have critical energy resources and are strategically important. Russia, China, and Iran are building a huge integrated pipeline network, for both oil and gas, and it crosses all over Central Asia. It feeds China, and Europe, and soon India. These nations' futures are linked and they will support each other. Europe, including Britain, is now utterly dependent on Russian natural gas, and Russia can cut this supply line, as Putin recently demonstrated. All energy importing nations are counting on receiving a slice of the Kazakh oil pie (although there is clearly not enough to go around). So, I believe no European nation can support a US/Israeli attack on Iran. India is waiting in line, hoping to receive Iranian and Kazakh oil and gas. They won't support the US. Australia is having fiscal pressures of its own, similar to the balance of trade problems, and real estate bubble problems that the US has. They have made important energy deals to supply liquified natural gas to China. Australia will not support us. South America will not support us either, gloat is more likely.
As for Israel, I do think they are in trouble, and they won't be able to fight their way out of it. For that matter, Taiwan is also in trouble. We will not be able to defend them either when China finally comes to retrieve her “stray province”. The world is changing. People should deal, not fight.
3 comments:
Jaw-Jaw! Not war-war!
Yesterday I was reading some news on Iran and saw that both China and Russia had publically said they would not support a UN Chapter 7 resolution because resolutions under chapter 7 are enforceable, and that's what Bolton wants. They very explicitly said that trying to arrange sancions or other conditions under chapter 7 was a path toward war.
I think Rice and Bolton are isolated now, not Iran. You are right that the alliance of China and Russia would definitely prevail against us in the long run, as well as the combined rage of the entire Muslim population worldwide. It's ironic that we create our own isolation in trying to isolate Iran.
Now we are the new outlaw nation, the new outcasts and terrorists. If we try to bomb Iran preemptively and unilaterally, we will be turned upon worldwide by all means -- tourism, dollar dumping, oil nationlism, and terrorist attacks. As Mike Ruppert said recently, "The world is betting on Iran."
Regarding Israel, I think some in Congress are more emboldened to challenge AIPAC's pressure because of the stature of the scholars Mearsheimer and Walt and because of the very conservative facts regarding the Israel lobby they published in March. That was such an influential event, and at last people felt they could actually talk freely when the subject of our support for Israel came into discussion. We still have a long way to go, and Israeli influence is by no means any weaker in this nation, but the consciousness of how misaligned the strategic interests of the two countries are has now come to be better understood. We cannot keep acting as an army for Israel without bankrupting our nation and destroying any vestiges of idealism for what needs to be done now for our own country.
This is so true! The sad part about it is (especially) Bush's economic policies, and the last 4 president's, are the ones who gave China and Russia the economics to challenge our military domain, and challenge the US for world resources. Quite frankly we probably wouldn't even need to be at war in Iraq right now for oil if it weren't for our trade deficits.
If we didn't have such huge trade deficits to keep our war machine going at $350 billion a year, and now to keep the Iraq war going, then there wouldn't be a China to worry about. What were our leaders thinking? Does anyone here think that China, or any nation for that matter, will ever have much of a trade deficit with the US in the future? That money we sent overseas is gone.
Friedman, the man who said it's a good exchange to trade paper notes for goods. I bet he never envisioned the likes of a computer that deflates at such a rapid pace. That dollar, at almost any value is worth more than a heap of junk that now pollutes many a land fill.
When we're riding bikes and Asians are riding cars, Americans will get it then -- sourly but surely!
Americans don't know what poor is. They think it's a guy living on the streets. It's not. It's really when the government itself can't function properly, where human rights are routinely broken because there's no mony to spend on such things.
That's real poverty. I hope we never see those days. But it looks like we're heading there.
The evidence is here. Look at New Orleans? It's like a third world country. Mexicans are working for really cheap labor in order to somehow keep inflation down, which fools people into a false economy. State's are selling their toll roads, their lotteries and other valuables to private institutions. Banks are now (12/27/07) selling themselves to SWFs. The list can go on, but it's all too depressing.
ron_o
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