FEBRUARY 4, 2012 8:23PM

Syria and a Warning Shot Across Iranian Bow from Putin?

Rate: 2 Flag

There's a lot of talk now about taking out Iran, and we may have no choice as Americans in that if Israel goes ahead and does that anyway, but, it has always been the case that Russian reaction is a matter of Great Power War or peace, at least potentially.

That is also the case with China, and it is fair to say that the U.N. Security Council vote on Syria was a shot across our Iranian bow so to speak as to needing to have an offer on the table to throw Iran under the bus should it come down to that.

With the Chinese, the value of their Treasury holdings is central, suggesting a budget compromise as important in this process, independent of its economic necessity. Fortunately, the President's own Simpson-Bowles agreement is there for the taking.

For the Putin, who is at the center of this, guarantees that Russian interests in weapons sales and influence in the aftermath, as in Iraq and has been the case with Libya would be the best tactic to alleviate Russian concerns about American actions constituting a "revolutionary" or "hegemonic" approach to power in the Middle East.

As for Iran itself, offering to trade a more robust inspections regime for WMD in return for reasonable economic (refinerie), political (security guarantees), and social (protection of Shia religious interests in American Sunni allies) is the best set of carrots, and the best hope for avoiding sticks, sticks that again if used, always bear the risk of Russo-Chinese intervention, although having understood that risk, given American interests in the region, it should be clear to Russia and China that a nuclear armed Iran, and support thereof, would have as they say "potentially awesome consequences."

finis

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Why the hell does China care? They have entered these "hostile" countries while we have been their hostile aggressors, and bought and secured oil futures for the next 50 years, all at a quarter of the price that we spent on our wars to do the same, except, we have secured absolutely ZERO energy resource futures in the process.

China doesn't give a shit about anyone (in this particular manner) except N. Korea (because they have no choice but to care) and the USA, because if anyone is likely to pop in and fuck up all the goodwill that they've (literally) bought themselves in the region, it's us, not Iran and not Russia.


Also, we don't have Sunni allies in the region, we have monarch allies in the region. For all the "securing democracy around the world" BS that we so often hear about US foreign policy, how many recognized allies do we have in the region (and, I would argue that Turkey is quickly becoming less than an ally, though not necessarily an aggressor), and how many of those allies are ruled by a king, prince or emir? Answer - nearly all of them (the exceptions I know of are Israel, obviously, Egypt and the aforementioned Turkey. The rest are all monarchies or emirates.

We love tyranny these days. If Iran is as bad as we make them out to be (still, as far as I know, they have never been the aggressors in any war in which they have participated), we should be on them like stink on shit. Irrationally aggressive, tyrannical assholes are our kinds of people. Hell, let's get the Shah and Achma-i-can't-spell-his-name-ajad over for poker night. I'll bring nachos.
MalcolmXY
February 04, 2012 09:42 PM
We have Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia as allies, all Sunni, like the GCC rulers, and Syria's conflict has a large de facto Sunni-Shia element because of the Allawi situation.
Don Rich
February 05, 2012 01:50 PM
The Iranian thing may soon be out of our hands anyway; if Israel goes, they're not likely to inform us beforehand. Remember Osirak?
nanatehay
February 06, 2012 12:25 AM
huh? Afghanistan and Pakistan are our allies? I'm pretty sure we're conducting a useless war in one of those countries, and the other one charged us $5 million to get a CIA operative out of the death penalty, and is talking about aggressive action against us all the time (Getting Pakistan to choose the Muslim world or the Western world and quit straddling the fence was one of bin Laden's stated objectives from 9/11...check that one off as a success).

The last one is a monarchy, and the source of all the worst terrorists we face.

Here is the actual list of our allies (though, again, I would argue that Saudi Arabia hasn't been our ally in a long-ass time, and Pakistan is about to no longer be one...)

The United States has seven major non-NATO allies in the Greater Middle East region. These allies are Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Kuwait, Pakistan, and Morocco
MalcolmXY
February 06, 2012 03:19 AM
Pakistan is an ally, if a really weird one, because we are better friends with India, but, we do try to keep them from nuking each other. All relationships have elements of cooperation and competition, save for a very, very few, like the U.S. and probably North Korea. Even Iran we work with sometimes. Hi Nana.
Don Rich
February 06, 2012 10:31 AM
yes, but we usually don't execute multiple drone strikes in...say...England or France. We are doing that in Pakistan...we are, in essence, at war with them nearly as much as we are with Afghanistan.

I don't know why they aren't threatening to nuke us...we're lucky they hate India so much, frankly.
MalcolmXY
February 06, 2012 12:10 PM
The thing is, Malcolm, we're executing the drone strikes on Pakistan with their tacit permission and, often, their active cooperation, said cooperation being expressed by oddities such as the fact that some of the drones operate from bases sited ijn Pakistan itself and by them supplying us with intelligence on certain targets. We blow up some compound in Waziristan and the Pakistanis scream "That's a violation of our sovereignty!" in public while privately whimpering "Thank you sir may I have another." As Don said, it's a weird kind of alliance.
nanatehay
February 06, 2012 12:33 PM
There are often such alliances Nana, as arguments inside the gates rather often attract allies from outside the gate, so to speak.
Don Rich
February 06, 2012 01:16 PM
Yeah, I'm with you both on the duplicity of their (and our) governments, but we are now using these drones (which still, per Obama, don't exist, since they remain classified) to target civilians.

The civilians typically have ties to the real targets, but we're actively and knowingly targeting civilians for death in a country with which we have some half-ass, loose alliance.

This is an act of war, and even worse, isn't indiscriminately (because, the people around the civilians we target have no relation to anyone else, other than living nearby) killing civilians what terrorists do?

So, um...we torture, we assassinate, and we set off bombs, albeit remote controlled flying ones, somewhat randomly where we know only civilians are going to be killed.

Isn't this the thing of which we are all supposed to be so frightened? WTF are we doing in Pakistan again? Who is there who is of any strategic or defensive importance that needs to die again?

We are exactly the thing we claim to be the antithesis of, and Pakistan is the epicenter of the change (apparently, by killing friends and relatives, we lure out the real target and kill them, and many others, when the funeral is held. Shit...even the Romans had a little fucking respect for the dead and didn't pull shit like that. We are Hitler all rapped up in a bin Laden. I just can't believe people are OK with it...I know the Pakistanis won't be for much longer)
MalcolmXY
February 06, 2012 01:31 PM