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WB: War by Tantrum
Billmon:
One can have some sympathy for the Israelis, who love life and don’t want to die (although that hasn’t stopped them from killing a lot of Lebanese and Palestinian civilians) but considering the stakes, a little more aggressiveness on the ground, against an enemy who can shoot back, seems to be necessary. Unless that is, the Israelis really do want a cease fire sooner rather than later, in which case the psychological and political map of the Middle East has just been completely redrawn.
War by Tantrum
Logically, all Israel can gain by making southern Lebanon a free fire zone is to reduce Hezbollah’s fighting infrastructure in that region for a while.
Which cannot buy but a bit of time before it all has to be done over again. Like clover, Hezbollah grows faster and taller after you cut it back.
No, there’s much more at play here; these are early moves in the Great Game. This foolish little war is stagecraft to make it clearly necessary for America to attack Iran. That’s the goal, about three moves ahead. Israel is just sacrificing a few pawns right now to clear the way forward.
Here’s the gambit.
The American neocons need weakened or compliant states across the Middle East — or else they fail at their Empire, and China becomes ascendant. The way to get weakened or compliant states is to buy them, threaten them, and when necessary attack them.
After bribes and threats fail, go in and blow up every bridge, road, power plant, airport, dam, school, government building, hospital, TV station, ambulance and nursery. Break their kneecaps — and then either leave their nation and populace staggering on while you do as you please in the regiion, or help them to establish a compliant puppet government that just loves you to bits and doesn’t shoot at you too much. Ship in food, paint some schools, and let freedom ring the cash register.
Hey, it’s nuthin’ personal. Just a bit of oil business, capice?
So, let’s walk it backward — the end goal is a shattered or compliant Iran. To get Iran to ‘attack’ Israel-America in some way is the neocon’s Holy Grail right now, since they cannot get Americans to go along with another oil war unless it’s revenge for “another Pearl-Harbor type event.”
Iran has to do something belligerent, has to be driven to attack Americans or threaten oil shipments or some such event. After that, the gloves can come off. Condi can draw her pistol and use it.
Provoking Iran to strike at Israel or America or at Western civilization in general requires seriously bugging them by knocking out their strategic proxies right in their own backyard, the most prominent of which are Syria and Hezbollah.
That means reducing Hezbollah’s turf and fighting infrastructure — southern Lebanon. If necessary, that means attacking infrastructure in Syria, whose sovereignty Iran has sworn to defend.
Both are obviously losing moves to Israel, except insofar as they succeed in starting a war between Iran and America, which Iran can only lose. That makes these early Israeli moves good investments.
Provoking Iran to strike out, or to openly assist and defend their proxies, requires Israel’s participation in a losing local war, fought for the sole purpose of starting a larger war which will greatly benefit Israel.
An Iranian war.
Will Iran take the bait? Absolutely — since the American neocons and Israel absolutely will keep provoking until Iran does strike out. The American Empire is at stake, is at a crossroads with Tehran. America cannot give up on Empire, and yet America cannot dominate the Middle East with Iran intact.
As John Gotti would say, “We gotta whack ’em!”
There will be some incident, some incident that will do, and Mister Bush will give a speech saying America “clearly has no choice” but to take out Iran for the safety of mothers and babies everywhere.
This gambit is falling apart as it proceeds, so I do not think the speech will wait until the end of August.
Posted by: Antifa | Jul 25 2006 9:41 utc | 12
After reading Antifa’s post, I don’t see how “whacking Iran” does anything but accelerate current developments, effectively removing “Petrodollars” from the dictionary, if you will. Consider:
At the recent G-8 summit, for example, the leaders of Russia, China and India held a separate trilateral summit of their own. Afterwards, Chinese President Hu Jianto declared there was great potential for the three countries to co-operate in economic development, energy, science and technology.
These countries are moving beyond the point where they will follow the U.S. or G-8 lead. Instead, they are drafting their own agenda for the future, pointing to a much different global economy and geopolitical structure in the years ahead.
What was notable about the G-8 leaders’ summit in St. Petersburg was that it could only deal with its key issues when it met, through its so-called Outreach, with the New World leaders of China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa. It was here, for example, that agreement was reached for a serious effort to complete global trade talks this year.
Earlier this year, the leaders of the Shanghai Co-operation Organization — China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan — met in Shanghai to discuss co-operation on measures to fight crime and terrorism, but they also dealt with economic development and energy. India, Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan sent observers.
In another development, the current edition of The McKinsey Quarterly reports how Middle East oil producers are employing a growing share of their petrodollars to develop new ties with Asia. Rather than recycling all those dollars through Western banks, these oil-rich countries are investing an increasing proportion in the long-term growth of Asia.
As the McKinsey article reported, “Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, used a recent state visit to Pakistan to announce a multibillion-dollar package of infrastructure, property, and other investments.
Prominent Saudi investors led by Prince Alwaleed bin Talal are paying $2 billion (U.S.) for a stake in China’s second-largest state-owned bank. Bahrain’s Gulf Finance House wants to invest up to $1 billion in Singapore’s financial, health, tourism, and leisure industries.”
Earlier this year, a telecommunications group from the United Arab Emirates paid $2.6 billion for a controlling share of Pakistan Telecommunications.
At the same time, Asian countries are looking to cash in on the huge infrastructure and other needs of the oil- and cash-rich countries of the Middle East. The gulf states are expected to invest at least $500 billion over the next five years in electricity, highways, telecommunications and water, as well as agriculture, education, health care, and information technology.
In Dubai, a group of Chinese companies has established a mini-city, ChinaMex Mart, to distribute Chinese products, and the big Korean companies are busy there as well.
There are several reasons negotiations for a new World Trade Organization agreement, the Doha round, has stalled. But one is that the new economic players will no longer play by the old world rules, which had meant accepting an agreement imposed by the United States and Europe.
As Martin Jacques, a research fellow at the Asia Research Centre in the London School of Economics argues, with China’s 2001 entry into the WTO, along with the growing power of India, the election of a strong Brazilian president, and the decision of South Africa to join with them, “the developing countries have begun to acquire a powerful voice, substantial bargaining presence, and a self-confidence in their ability to resist Western and Japanese pressures.”
So the future global trading system will have to be one that reflects their interests as well.
Another indication of the shift in world power is that the International Monetary Fund is in the process of realigning its voting power to better reflect the emerging 21st century. Countries such as China, South Korea, Mexico and Turkey, as well as the Africa, should gain a larger share of votes while Europe, the United States, Canada and Japan will be expected to lose voting power.link
Posted by: jj | Jul 25 2006 16:33 utc | 20
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