"There are countless horrible things happening all over the world and horrible people prospering, but we must never allow them to disturb our equanimity or deflect us from our sacred duty to sabotage and annoy them whenever possible." -Auberon Waugh
What Spengler didn't mention is that the U.S. has a President that won a Nobel Peace Prize "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." He will step in, and save the day.
That is, if he gets another four years, and flexibility.
Yes, I agree that war in the Middle East is inevitable. What I'm afraid of is that it will spread beyond that. For instance, China and Japan, India and Pakistan, who the hell knows else? And whether we like it or not, we'll be right in the thick of it.
That war would have broken out long ago, but for Israel and the USA. If you look at history, the powers controlling Iran, Turkey, and Egypt, so long as they were independent of each other, were usually at war with each other. Egypt constantly tries to move north into the Levant (most recently in the 1830s and 40s). Iran tries to move west. The power ruling Anatolia tries to move south and east, against the other two. These are very ancient patterns. Egyptian northward moves go back at least to the New Kingdom, if not the Middle Kingdom, 3500 to 4000 years ago. When Iran slapped down Erdogan's attempt to make nice with them, you could see the pattern reeemerging.
Israel blocks Egyptian movement north. The former influence of the USA on Turkey and Iran prevented those states from reasserting their old goals. Since the Iranian Revolution, the Mullahs have been moving west as much as they can. Now that Turkey is pulling away from the US, we will likely see the resurgence of Anatolian expansion.
But for Israel, Egypt would have surged north after the British withdrawal from the region, sparking off a huge intra-Muslim war. But for the US Iran would have attempted to take over Iraq (often in history ruled by Iran), sparking a huge intra-Muslim war. But for the US, Turkey would have been in a position to seize the areas the Turks coveted after they lost their empire, Mosul especially, as they did the region around Antioch from Syria,sparking a huge intra-Muslim war. The tinder has been there a long time, Islamists are lighting the matches to set the fire.
If they can ever actually destroy Israel, the thieves falling out over the spoils (aasuming Israel's nukes don't wipe them out) will likely produce such a war. It will also destroy the Palestinian Arabs as a people, since they will be of no more use to the other Muslims. Because inter-Arab country wars are mostly exercises in the competitive massacre of civilians, the Palestinians will either flee or be killed by one side or the other, so no more Palestinians. The Palis should be careful what they wish for.
Rebecca, it's a fair bet that Europe will be involved. Either as a target of convenience (got all those infidels to kill, dude!), or sucked in by one of the combatants (Turkey is a member of NATO. Unfortunately).
Russia will likely try to minimize that. Iran is a good customer, and Europe is buying energy from Putin now. A nuke or two would cause problems with his cash flow.
India and Pakistan would go to war if not for China and the US.....but mostly China. That would go nuclear in a heartbeat, probably started by the Pakis.
China....maybe not directly. They have a lot of internal problems with their economy; weapon sales would help that, of course. But direct involvement would be unhealthy in terms of their gross national product.
Just hope WE don't get involved. This is one war we want to be on the sidelines of. It's bad enough we have a lot of troops there as it is.
What Spengler didn't mention is that the U.S. has a President that won a Nobel Peace Prize "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." He will step in, and save the day.
ReplyDeleteThat is, if he gets another four years, and flexibility.
Whether he knows it or not, Obama is striving for that all-out Middle East war. And I'm pretty sure he's going to get it.
ReplyDeleteAs we all will.
Yes, I agree that war in the Middle East is inevitable. What I'm afraid of is that it will spread beyond that. For instance, China and Japan, India and Pakistan, who the hell knows else? And whether we like it or not, we'll be right in the thick of it.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Obama, you incompetent piece of dreck.
Drill Here. Drill Now.
ReplyDeleteThat war would have broken out long ago, but for Israel and the USA. If you look at history, the powers controlling Iran, Turkey, and Egypt, so long as they were independent of each other, were usually at war with each other. Egypt constantly tries to move north into the Levant (most recently in the 1830s and 40s). Iran tries to move west. The power ruling Anatolia tries to move south and east, against the other two. These are very ancient patterns. Egyptian northward moves go back at least to the New Kingdom, if not the Middle Kingdom, 3500 to 4000 years ago. When Iran slapped down Erdogan's attempt to make nice with them, you could see the pattern reeemerging.
ReplyDeleteIsrael blocks Egyptian movement north. The former influence of the USA on Turkey and Iran prevented those states from reasserting their old goals. Since the Iranian Revolution, the Mullahs have been moving west as much as they can. Now that Turkey is pulling away from the US, we will likely see the resurgence of Anatolian expansion.
But for Israel, Egypt would have surged north after the British withdrawal from the region, sparking off a huge intra-Muslim war. But for the US Iran would have attempted to take over Iraq (often in history ruled by Iran), sparking a huge intra-Muslim war. But for the US, Turkey would have been in a position to seize the areas the Turks coveted after they lost their empire, Mosul especially, as they did the region around Antioch from Syria,sparking a huge intra-Muslim war. The tinder has been there a long time, Islamists are lighting the matches to set the fire.
If they can ever actually destroy Israel, the thieves falling out over the spoils (aasuming Israel's nukes don't wipe them out) will likely produce such a war. It will also destroy the Palestinian Arabs as a people, since they will be of no more use to the other Muslims. Because inter-Arab country wars are mostly exercises in the competitive massacre of civilians, the Palestinians will either flee or be killed by one side or the other, so no more Palestinians. The Palis should be careful what they wish for.
Rebecca, it's a fair bet that Europe will be involved. Either as a target of convenience (got all those infidels to kill, dude!), or sucked in by one of the combatants (Turkey is a member of NATO. Unfortunately).
ReplyDeleteRussia will likely try to minimize that. Iran is a good customer, and Europe is buying energy from Putin now. A nuke or two would cause problems with his cash flow.
India and Pakistan would go to war if not for China and the US.....but mostly China. That would go nuclear in a heartbeat, probably started by the Pakis.
China....maybe not directly. They have a lot of internal problems with their economy; weapon sales would help that, of course. But direct involvement would be unhealthy in terms of their gross national product.
Just hope WE don't get involved. This is one war we want to be on the sidelines of. It's bad enough we have a lot of troops there as it is.
"Peace is the ideal we infer from the fact that there have been occasional lulls between wars."
ReplyDelete