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Iran, Russia and the Real World Obama Cannot Change
I have a frequent nightmare: In the year 2011, with the full support and complicity of their shadow ally, Russia, the Islamofascist regime in Tehran announces that they have developed a deliverable nuclear weapon(s). That any attempt by any nation to dismantle their program through military force or draconian economic sanctions will be viewed as an overt act of war. That they will view any such act of war as justification enough to deploy a nuclear weapon against Israel…regardless of what nation is behind the initial response.
They will cite classic anti-Semitic mantra, such as the myth that international Jewry controls the Western powers, etc. as their reasoning for labeling Israel the chief culprit by default. More to the point, when push comes to shove they know that President Obama harbors no love of the Jewish state (as his harsh treatment of Netanyahu shows) and will have no stomach for a war to protect it.
[Meanwhile the Russians let it be known through diplomatic back-channels that relations between Tehran and Moscow have recently thawed and any retaliatory military strike against Iran for its actions against Israel could be viewed as an attack on Russia.]
The West, assuming it is even motivated to respond at all, is now put in a precarious position for a now-nuclear Iran looms over the Strait of Hormuz like a Colussus. This narrow sea lane is by far the world’s most important oil chokepoint due to its daily flow of 16.5-17 million barrels, or roughly 40 percent of all seaborne oils (20 th percent of oil traded worldwide). At its narrowest point the channel is only 21 miles wide.
Now Obama will have a choice to make. Will he commit the US Navy to keep the strait open, call the Russian bluff and risk a world war? Or will he back down and seek a “diplomatic” solution. Regardless, even temporarily closing off the Persian Gulf would cause an economically devastating spike in the price of oil and a sympathy rally in all commodities.
This would be just fine for the commodity-rich Russia. With 79 billion barrels of proven reserves they hover above a vast reservoir of untapped crude oil. And let us not overlook natural gas. In fact, according to the EIA, Russia holds the world’s largest natural gas reserves, with 1,680 trillion cubic feet (Tcf), which is nearly twice the reserves in the next largest country which is, guess who, Iran. In 2006 Russia was not only the world’s largest natural gas producer (23.2 Tcf), but also the world’s largest exporter (6.6 Tcf). Russian government forecasts expect gas production to total 31.1 Tcf by 2030. Europe is highly dependent on Russian natural gas through the state-controlled Transneft pipelines they could close with the turn of a nozzle. The EU imports almost half of its natural gas and 30 percent of its oil from Russia. Eastern Europe consumes even higher percentages of Russian gas.
[As my dream moves along, I envision too that as a precursor to Iran’s announcement we see a sustained rally in oil futures before the eventual spike as Tehran will have given their new friends an ample heads-up allowing the barons of Moscow to go long futures as a hedge against what is coming and even profit from the appreciation should their cash business be temporarily dislocated from supply disruptions.]
The fact is the Russians have a vested interest in a nuclear Iran. It is good for business and certainly will greatly diminish the power and influence of the already hard-pressed USA. So even as Russian president Dmitry Medvedev offers lip-service to “limited” sanctions to an ever more bewildered Obama foreign policy team, the true powers in Russia—Putin and the band of hybrid statist/capitalist billionaire oligarchs—will never support effective economic measures that will hurt Iran enough to curb its nuclear ambitions. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” is the old saying. And the Russians certainly do not look to as us partners…at best competitors, at worst impediments to their desires for expansion that date back into the dimmest past of the ancient tsars. Self-interest is the guiding principle among European nation-states. It always has been and always will be—“rock star” president notwithstanding.
[Meanwhile, as my nightmare unfolds, in another sea channel, the Chinese—who already have strong economic ties with Iran—coincidentally decide to launch a repeat of their bellicose 1996 naval exercises in the Formosa Strait almost within sight of the Taiwanese coast. What will the USA do? How will we treat this act of aggression half way across the world committed by the nation whose military might is formidable and even more prickly, holds much of our national debt and the value of our currency in a death grip?]
The America of my dream is thus weak and quite vulnerable. But this premonition need not come to pass. The first step towards thwarting this one potential future is for the Obama administration to do a re-“reset” in foreign relations and get a grip on who are our friends, who are our enemies, and start treating each accordingly. If Obama truly believes his own rhetoric that a nuclear Iran is “unacceptable” then he must see that we have with Israel a common and imperative goal to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. If that means that he must give Israel tacit approval for a military strike with a quiet assurance that we will have their back regardless of what inevitable “condemnation” resolution come downs the UN pipeline then so be it. This is real world stuff here and the future of millions could be at stake. Hyperbole? Part of being a leader is having the capacity to imagine the unimaginable. 9/11 gave us a clue what a few hard-core Islamic zealots with box-cutters and no scruples can do. Just imagine this crowd with a nuke. Again, “unacceptable” means just that: we cannot accept it.
What Obama must accept is that our interests and those of much of the world are not aligned on this matter…either economically or politically. And thus must he find in himself the same “courage” that he conjured up to push through an unpopular healthcare bill at home because he, ahem, knew best, and this time do what is best for the world, whether that world knows it or not.
The fact is that the notion of a “global community” is a myth. Nations are what nations are. And a clue as to how they will conduct their affairs can usually be discerned by picking up a history book and thumbing through a page or two.
Iran is the geopolitical illustration of Newton’s first law of motion which offers that an object in motion will stay in motion on the same course until acted upon. It seems that in his desire to turn inward and create an economic utopia within our borders, Barack Obama is unwilling to accept that the world outside remains a very hazardous place. And there are many in that world who view the imminent decline of American power not as a symbol of a newfound global harmony, but rather an opportunity for mischief. If he stays on his relentless course of statism at home and post-American dogma abroad, Mr. Obama will end up irrevocably weakening this nation with unsustainable domestic activism and an utter misapprehension about the rough and tumble neighborhood in which his happy-faced diplomats are trying to navigate. He may very well get a new world order, that “change” of which he spoke so forcefully in his campaign. But I think the reality will not be so pleasant as his fantasy optimism would have him “hope.”
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Hezbollah has perhaps the best trained and most effective infantry on earth, The US special forces studying them think so.
A quote from a 16 year old Kornet operator who found his years of Playstation operation was perfect practice for the Kornets controls. "We hunted them like birds."
"I love fantasy films where Israel saves the USA from the evil Arabs."
Example? Or are these films in your head?
What we see out here in reality is a glut of Hollywood fictions where arabs are not involved, or when they are they are always revealed to be patsies of some eeeevil whities of some description. See 24 seasons 1-7, or the film adaptation of the The Sum of All Fears. Hollywood knows better than to film the "fantasy films" you are fantasizing the existence of. Most of their income from these comes from international sales. Their market is global, and even in the domestic market about half of the population are not named Skeeter or Daisy Duke, and do not live in flyover cuntry.
I think the moron means brilliant in the context of the usual drivel spewed forth from the Heritage Foundation and AIPAC.
Is this the first time there's been a post from the Heritage Foundation on 0hedge? And some clown's wet dream.
At least my wet dreams cover the following subjects:
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"Goat herders?" That's simply a bald-faced lie and demonstrates on its face that you have no interest in the truth.
The militants who attacked the Israeli armor column were hardened Hizbollah fighters who were aided and equipped by arms from Iran and specifically trained to ambush Israeli armor.
They have guns of their own, Anarchist, and their own PR people as well. You do a great "Baghdad Bob" impression, but they hardly need your help by acting as their apologist and writing them off as "goat herders."
"Hardened Hizbollah Fighters"
That is laughable on it's face. Getting a few days training once in a while does not make a civilian a soldier. A Hizbollah "Fighter" in sourthern Lebanon is a Goat Herder and farmer when the Israelis aren't bombing or invading. There is no industry to employ them.
Hizbollah has no tanks, planes, artillery, aircraft, helicopters and no navy yet it crushed an armoured column of Merkava Tanks supported by fighter bombers, Cobra attack helicopters, pilotless drones, 155mm artillery and real time data from both Israeli and US satellites.
Hizbollah won the engagement due to their willingness to die by the hundreds attacking the armour column with outdated anti-tank missles. The Israelis being more used to killing unarmed women and children, ran like the pussies they are. This is in contrast to US troops who would have gotten out of their vehicles and taken on the enemy regardless of the initial losses. US troops would have used the overwhelming fire power that all modern armies can level against insurgents.
I know exactly zip about the entire issue, but your description reminds me of the Minutemen and the other fighters in the "colonies" who fought against the British.
True. Inflammatory, but true.
The Israeli armed forces have been resting upon their laurels, and S Lebanon was the proof.
But I Would argue that they were demonstrably "hardened" (willing to die, by your own words), if only due to circumstances.
Your post begs the question; what the hell was an Israeli armored column doing in S Lebanon...if not to steal a river that belongs to Lebanon?
...and, Hizbollah did kick the Israelis azzes in that little dust up. If the Israelis had no superiority in air power they probably would tone down their land grabs in the region, eh?
"Reality is that a few dozen goat herders in south Lebanon destroyed an Israeli armor column."
...and now the Lebanese economy is booming because they are fully employed rebuilding all the infrastructure that Israeli aircraft bombed.
Perhaps that is the answer to the US unemployment problem? Get Canada to bomb hell out of all our infrastructure? You know...the broken window fallacy? Since we do no long term planning and have no budget and the census worker gig is winding down, why not go for some more short term employment via a good saturation bombing by Canadians?
You're talking about Bastiat's "broken missile launcher fallacy" ?
Snidley, Re Saturation Bombing by Canadians
I just heard that the Canadian Gov't has ordered all Canadian Geese to fly over Washington....
"the myth that international Jewry controls the Western powers"
stopped reading after that little tidbit.
http://www.iamthewitness.com/
And here I thought we were being ruled by a magic negro.
You mean the Mulatto Messiah..?
Puff-Diddley-Daddy the Magic Negro to be exact.
Typical Neo Nazi propaganda website. Would make Joseph Goebbels proud!
Anti Semetic crap. Spam you- IslamoFacist Website.
Wow, skeeter, thanks for taking a few minutes off from your cross-burning to post this link...
Maybe it's just a coincidence, huh?
Greenspan, Summers, Geithner, Bernanke, Blankfein, Madoff, Scheinberg, greenberg, Orszag, Kagan, Cohen, Wolfowitz, Kristol, Fuld, Friedman, Gensler, and on and on and on and on...
None are blind.....
True, consider all these non jews in power,
Hayward, Hank Paulson, Jamie Dimon, Ken Lewis, Kenneth Lay, Warren Buffet, Bernard Ebbers (worldcom), Andrew Cassano (AIG), Charles Prince, George Bush, Dick Cheney, Chief Justice John Roberts, Donald Rumsfeld, Commander General Petraeus, Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Alan Mulally (Ford), John Mack (MS), John Thain, Stan O'Neal (ML), James Cayne (Bear Stearns), Obama, et. al.
wait a minnute,
List 1 controls most of the money and law
List 1 has senior advisers in all fields
List 2 has elected officials and obeying military
QED
All those years of Hebrew school before my Bar Mitzvah and I never once had a class in world domination or satanic worship. Must have been a second rate school, I guess.
IK<
With all the Anti Semites on this site( a lot ), you get a +1000,for hangin' in.
was the talmud part of the curriculum?
http://www.talmudunmasked.com/chapter8.htm
That class is only open to the "important" Jews. The little folks such as yourself need not be concerned, and only need to concern yourselves with a fanatic support of Israel and all her policies, using the label of anti-Semite to it's fullest to shut down any and all opposition.
Most Jews in the US have little affinity toward Israel much less Zionism.
The fundamentalist Christians are the main drivers of this nonesense through their belief in the Rapture, the second coming of Christ, and the writings in the Book of Revelation in the Bible.
Yeah Won't believe in any God until I get my new weekly edition of Apple iPhone 48000!
Now go read more bullexcreta below
+10,000
+10,000
Pure,
While your correct on the US Jews (mostly left wingers, and vote Democratic), from the rest of your post, I am curious as to what your interpretation of what a Fundamentalist, an Evangelical, or a Christian is?.
That's certainly been my experience as well.
great website ... thanks
yep...he sure as fuck jumped the shark early on into this little tidbit of paranoid bullshit. but should we really be surprised? it is, after all, the 4th of July...The Mardi Gras of Patriotic crazies.
"When stupidity is considered patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent." ~ Isaac Asimov ~
Classic retort... I hereby flag you... +1 Unjunked.
Excellent article.
Don't waste time trying to decide who our friends are.
Remember the Grizzly is alone and has no friends.
This article is a neocon plant.
France has nuclear weapons. Why not Iran?
Thank god, a commentator with some perpective.
Iran having nukes will STABILISE the middle east. it will stop israel acting like a total jerk.
I'm fascinated by this american presumption that it is entitled to rule the world. why cant Iran control the straits of hormuz? after all, it is its territory? You think its unfair for Iran to control it? I don't see america handing the panama canal back to an independant panama. The double standards require moronic levels of logical inconsistency here.
Then there's the presumption that Iran's leaders are suicdally fanatic. Assholes with boxcutters are significantly different creatures to persian polititians - who incidentally have not invaded another country for something like 200 years (Iraq-Iran war of the 80's was instigated by Saddam). Why would the ruling class of a proud, independant and increasingly prosperous nation be so suicidal as to directly attack Israel with one puny nuke in the full knowledge that the response would be to render formerly mountainous Iran a radioactive plataue. It requires considerable cultral ignorance to presume them to be so insane with allah's will that they would throw away a game that they are actually winning (in diplomatic terms) through tact and patience.
QED.
Perfect for the 4th of July.
For once the weather is forecast to be clear and sunny without the fog, so that we cannot see the fireworks which we can no longer afford.
So I shall pop some corn, steam some lobster and melt a huge bowl of butter in which to hand dunk the offending indulgences before blissful consumption as I peruse the ensuing diatribes.
You guys hash this out. I'm clicking on the "Find your Russian Beauty" ad at the top of the page. Gives ZH a little revenue while I waste a little time taking a peek at the pulchritude Russia has to offer.
ya naughty litle raccoon! Happy Re-public day!
Best suggestion I've read to date... I spent some time working in eastern europe...
What rubbish!!
I personally do not dispute Israel's right to exist, do not care about the Palestinian Question, or who is right or wrong. For me it is quite simple: Israel is a fact of life in the ME, has the right to exist enforced by US military might, and will not disappear tomorrow. Israel is a hegemonic power determined to expand its borders and eliminate potential threats such as Iran. Iran would gladly destroy Israel to avoid a pre-emptive strike, but will not do so knowing that all 75 million Iranians will be sent to Allah courtesy of the 400 Israeli Nukes. The Russians could eliminate Israel, at the price of losing over 75% of their population, and being destroyed forever as a global power. Whatever is left of Russia will likely be occupied by their neighbours, once the radiation levels drop, in the year 2 Billion or so.
In summary, nothing will change other than the constant threat of war will be used to expand military budgets and maintain tight control over the populace via the never ending terror alerts. My fantasy would be Iranians, Russians and Israeli's hugging each other as brothers. I can only dream.
I disagree. It is a geopotitical fact that Israel is a tiny sliver of land. Russia takes up half a continent as does, more or less, Iran. That means Isreal has ZERO margin for error. One nuke could take out Isreal. One (1).
So war is inevitable. War is the norm in Middle East. Since Iran has hardened their facilities with Russian assistance to render a conventional strike pretty much useless... Israel with use low-megaton missiles launched from subs already in place. That will end Iran's program for 50 years. It will happen within 6-12 months... with Saudi Arabia's blessing.
Nobody will fuck with Israel after that day. Russia is just a dysfunctional, AIDS-riddled Paper Tiger blackmailing EU for now. The Germans, no doubt, have has enough and will start a nuclear arms build-up any day.
Dear DeeDeeTwo
I respect your views but beg to differ....
1. Nuclear attacks can take many forms, including suicide planes loaded to bear with 'dirty' radioactive materials. Wiping out Iran will do little good to a small country poisoned by radiation.
2. There are other forms of attack, including biological. If there is any constant in history, it is revenge and retaliation in the name of justified, historical grievances. 50 years in this context means little to the Persians, whose recorded history is exceeded in length only by the Chinese.
3. Saudi Arabia is most certainly worried that Iran will retaliate if they are seen as supporting the zionists. Further, any overt support by the Saudi regime will be destabilizing and dangerous to the governing powers. Most of the population of Saudi Arabia would rejoice to see Israel destroyed.
4. I have no love for Russia but they are far from a paper tiger, and the EU does not want destabilization on their eastern frontier. They have enough nproblems without having to contend with millions of refugees and the possibility of russian nukes falling into the 'wrong' hands. Germany in particular needs natural resources and Russia needs technological goods.
Satan, the SS 18 the Russians made Minutemen obsolete with, will throw 10 1 megaton warheads. Now that would remove Israel from the map.
Do you think the US would retaliate if that happens after Israel nukes Iran? I don't.
RS:
+ 100
You are probably quite correct. It is not beyond the realm of possibilitythat Putin, Nentanyahu and Ahmadinejad have it all worked out.
Keep their populations (and the Obumbling amateur in the White House) focused elsewhere while, through ever-escalating but never-defined "threats" all three keep their populations cowed and docile while they line their pockets.
And, as part of the mix, they will also call on their "Dear Friend and Brother" Hugo Chavez - rapidly creating a "North Korea on the Caribbean" - to step things up with, say, an invasion of Colombia and Panama. He'll be only too happy to oblige.
And broad hints will be dropped to the Chinese (wink-wink) that perhaps now is the time for the Anschluss with Taiwan.
And there won't be anything we can do about any of it.
KrvtKpt, laughing swordfish
DKM Trading Division
Economies are so intertwined now, no real big deal here. Taiwan has north of $US 90BB investment in East China, (two year old recollection). Shanghai-Taipei direct shuttle is almost like Chicago-DC shuttle. There is family, there is business, then there is politics.
Don't mix. But do look up Thomas P.M. Barnett. He's a happy talk long time horizon, Obama supporter. Sometimes, he's smart (his Ph.D is NOT in econ).
http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/
- Ned
OT here, but I have a question out of my area of expertise. Does anyone here know how the predicted massive solar flares will effect nukes and weapons control systems? I know a lot of satellites and such will be rendered useless. It is bad enough how it will effect our electrical grid systems, etc. in the civilian arena.
Ballistic missiles located underground or undersea, and warheads stored in faraday cages, would be unaffected in an EMP strike, which is a much worse case than solar flares. Many systems abord aircraft would be vulnerable, of course, to the point where they could not fly in many cases. A lot of the Israeli warheads presumably are deliverable only as gravity bombs or cruise missiles launched from aircraft?