Before I begin, I have an announcement: The L Comment is 1 year old today!! This blog is my 5th try at blogging and this is the first one to bear fruit. I want to thank all the readers of this blog for reading!! This blog has accomplished my main goal of having civilized political discourse with people from many political persuasions. And may I say, the kind of dialogue has FAR exceeded expectations. You guys are awesome, and I thank you very much for coming back for more debates!
Onto the news of the day, it seems Iran has come clean with a new
nuclear facility being built. Now if Bush said Iran was developing a nuclear program and not Iraq, we’d have to re-evaluate history because he’d be right. I’m not surprised by this, and I doubt anyone in Washington is either, because all the candidates of the election brought up this possibility during the 2008 campaign. Furthermore, we already knew about one facility and its location, information that Obama has shared with Russia and China to get them on board to place sanctions on Iran.
From the same CNN article linked above, this passage is key:
"It is not at all surprising that Iran would want this news to come out now," Ingram said. "It strengthens their hand."
The fact that Iran has proactively informed the world helps Iran diplomatically in conducting nuclear negotiations, Ingram said, adding that to characterize this second facility as a covert operation is misleading. The Iranians have yet to start production at Qom and are revealing it before that happens.
"It will be seen as an indication that they are willing to play by the rules, and this will make it more difficult to persuade them to abandon enrichment," Ingram said.I’m not a doomsday conspiracy theorist by any means, but we have to read between the lines here. Iran’s aggressive approach has failed every single time they’ve tried it. Now with the US, China, and Russia in the fledgling stages of a alliance here, Iran is backed against the corner. Typically when the enemy is backed against a corner, they fight harder than ever before. As Muhammad Ali proved, the rope-a-dope strategy works pretty well…
This is how I see this playing out. Iran pretends to cooperate. They follow all the rules, abide by the sanctions, and the world let’s go of the leash a bit. Meanwhile, in a cave somewhere, weapons are being developed. Now if they attack, their target will likely be Israel. If this happens, we have to defend our allies. If our relations hold up, we’ll have Russia and China, as well as England, France, and Canada as allied nations. Iran will have Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq as allies. That’s going be a really tough fight.
This development has made me revisit my previous post. Afghanistan is no longer about the Taliban. If this impending war happens, Afghanistan is going to be a very important piece. The equivalent of the center squares of a chess board. Having Afghanistan as an ally gives the US Allies a strong position on the battlefield. If the Taliban take over the region, a war with the Middle East will prove to be very difficult. Thus, in light of this story, I think it may not be a bad idea to fight the Afghan war because all of a sudden, we have a very good reason for winning that war. The objective is simple: eradicate the Taliban.
I hope to God that I’m wrong and this is all gross over analysis. However, if I’m right, or even 50% right, it is very possible the 2,000 year struggle in the Middle East may be over in my lifetime. WWIII may very well be called Jihad for real, perhaps Crusade II. The main advantage would be that this war is against countries, not ideology. There are parameters for victory and failure and its nation vs. nation, rather than nation vs. terrorism.
6 comments: on "Episode 78: Sanction This: Political Chess Games"
I haven't thought as deeply about this as you yet TL. If I may add what I see from my perspective regarding President Obama's foreign policy. Until now, we had no help from Russia or China regarding Iran. Now they are on our side.
Perhaaps it is because they see Iran as a threat. Perhaps it is because they see President Obama as actually going after the real threats and finally decided to join in. Who knows. I'm just happy right now that Russia and China are now willing to join the effort against nuclear proliferation. I hope China finally decides to help do something about North Korea as well.
First off, it is far fetched to believe that Russia and China would be on our side in a war with Iran. There also is no chance that Saudi Arabia would side with Iran (the divide between Sunni and Shia is too great for that to happen).
Afghanistan could be a launching site for a war but never an ally. You cannot be an ally with a failed state and as far as a launching site goes since the country is landlocked its impossible to use due to supply reasons.
Basically, Russia got the missle shield dropped which really is no big deal because with our subs and our warships we have more than enough missles to defend ourselves against any attack by short range or mid range missles.
But to the Russians it looks like a win and their economy is tanking...so most likely we will see tougher sanctions and China will use North Korea to slip around the sanctions.
Its a cat and mouse game until the current mullahs die and the Iranians can modernize their government to better match to feelings of the people.
Plan for 5 years...
North Korea will change for the better once Kim dies...which shouldn't be long...
All the Chinese and Russians want is to bleed us dry by keeping us pinned down and tied up in a bunch of different places around the world with our expensive military....
That way the Chinese end up taking over the world without firing a shot...
Russia would like the same thing but their country is so corrupt and such a basket case they cannot capitalize on anything...
So, don't worry about WWIII but you might want to brush up on your Chinese...
tL - Tao stole my thunder a bit. Although, I'm not totally convinced of the outcome.
Saudi Arabia doesn't want a nuclear Iran. Don't forget that the Saudi's supported the US twice in Iraq. A nuclear Iran likely means a nuclear Syria and Palestine...maybe Lebenon. This puts the control of the Middle East in Iran's hands, when Egypt and Saudi Arabia have traditionally had the most influence. That's not something these countries will be willing to just turn over.
Russia and China will never send troops into battle under the flag of an Western sponsored conflict. These two countries are in it for their own influence...only. Tao nailed it. It's not that Iran, N Korea, Venezuala are allies so much as they are distractions that the US has to spend time and reasources dealing with. Why? Because the US doesn't have the resolve to enter into a war with Iran or N Korea, let alone Russia and China. So long as Russia and China work through rogue nations, the US seems content on dealing with the rogue nations to prove that we are manly instead of dealing with the true threats.
We might see sanctions on Iran, but that is all that it will amount to. I also wouldn't count on France and England supplying troops and if they do, they'll be sitting on the beach a long way off sipping pina coladas. They will be there for show, not battle.
Tao is also right on about China and yes, I've seriously considered learning mandarine chinese just in case.
However, I'm not convinced you'll find a friendlier Iran/N Korea after the dictators are gone. Not all revolutions of freedom will be able to acheive it's goals peacefully. I don't see Iran changing anytime soon unless the people are willing to take up arms or the use of oil goes away (maybe someday). A friendly N Korea is even more unlikely. The people of that country support their tyrants. Why would N Korea change when they get such attention being aggressors.
Russia and China hindered us on the UN Security Council regarding Iran. They are amenable to us now. I never said either of them would join us in an attack. And I've blogged plenty about the continuation of the proxy cold war through us being bogged down while China and Russia laugh.
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