The following was written and originally published by the FresnoZionist.
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Who would have thought that the twelfth anniversary of 9/11, when America was attacked by the barbarians of the Middle East, would mark our full-scale retreat from that region?
We certainly haven’t done very well for ourselves or our friends there since then.
Thanks to a dysfunctional political system, we ended up with two of the worst presidents in American history, one incompetent and the other — how else can I put it? — anti-American.
It took us almost ten years to kill the seventh-century fanatic that murdered 3000 Americans. We engaged in an extended, expensive and mostly unnecessary conflict in Iraq, while Iran was allowed to develop nuclear weapons. We sent our troops to risk their lives for undefined objectives. We helped our enemies like Erdoğan, the Muslim Brotherhood and the PLO, and hurt our allies, like Israel. We totally misread the so-called “Arab Spring.”
We did not support the Iranian opposition when young people were shot down in the streets in 2009-10. We took the side of Turkey in the Mavi Marmara incident of 2010, forcing Israel to end its economic warfare against Hamas. We helped depose Mubarak and then supported the radical Muslim Brotherhood as his replacement. We have forced Israel into a destructive ‘peace process’ and encouraged the PLO’s unrealistic demands.
But for sheer bumbling, nothing matches our response to Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons. President Obama threatened to take action, explained in excruciating detail the “unbelievably small” attack that he planned, which would nevertheless not be a “pinprick,” delayed for several weeks while waiting for Congress to advise him (although as of yesterday he “hadn’t decided” if he would take its advice). Finally, he handed off the initiative to Russia’s Vladimir Putin, probably guaranteeing that Assad will stay in power.
“Big deal,” you say. “Syria will continue to be a mess and we won’t get stuck in it.” Not exactly. Actions have consequences. Putin now understands that the US will not interfere with anything he wants to do in the Middle East, including build an alliance with our greatest enemies:
Russia will supply Iran with a modified version of the vaunted S-300 anti-aircraft system as well as build a new nuclear reactor for the Ayatollah’s regime, the Russian daily Kommersant business newspaper reported Wednesday.
The report comes hot on the heels of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s diplomatic proposal to place Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles under international supervision and thus avoid a U.S. strike on Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces. Kommersant reported that the deal between Moscow and Tehran was formulated as part of Russia and Iran’s “commonality of views on the situation in Syria."The S-300 is considered a game-changer, which will make any attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities much more difficult. Israel and the US had pressured Putin to hold off on delivering the system. Now he is sending Iran a system that will be “even better than the ones Iran originally bought.” The only bright side of this is that it may accelerate the timetable of an Israeli strike — we certainly can’t expect Obama to do it!
We can also assume that Obama’s weakness will encourage Iran. I have argued before that nothing less than a credible threat of force could induce Iran to abandon its nuclear program. But if Obama is not prepared to take a much less serious action against the far less dangerous Assad regime, what can we expect toward Iran?
Iran will not give up “one iota” of its nuclear rights, Iranian President Hasan Rouhani said in a speech to clerics, the Iranian Mehr news agency reported on Tuesday.The US is steaming full speed out of the Middle East. The Syria debacle will likely be noted by future historians as the point at which the US decided that it would no longer try to influence matters there, and when the Russians seized the opportunity to take the reins.
Rouhani’s comments were made as Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton prepared to meet in New York later this month to discuss Tehran’s nuclear program. …
While the West considers Rouhani to be moderate, his recent statements on Iran’s nuclear program have caused concern, as the rhetoric is similar to that of his predecessor in office, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
"To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness." - Oscar Wilde
ReplyDeleteMeaning I think, that as they pile up, calamities start to look intentional. If we strip away all the Sarah McLaughlin sad puppy videos and music from 'Syria' as a cause and look at Syria as a thing itself, we may not be so alarmed. It's true that the US has already created the conditions in the region such that Syria the thing itself poses no immediate strategic threat or interest to the US. The high minded sounds about Sarin and phosgene are, after all, just that. Tyrants have really never STOPPED using chemical weapons when it suited them and 'we' in the west did nothing before. In fact with mushy possible exception of Kosovo the west hasn't stepped in to limit, end or shorten the prosecution of any genocide, massacre, ethnic cleansing or pogrom anywhere. We like to make sad sounds but in the end throw up our hands, have a bake sale and tsk tsk about how THOSE people are. White western post colonialism is, at its core, as patronizing and racist as the bad people it purports to fight and in some ways worse than that the Big White Pith Helmet Bwana it's ashamed of. Perhaps we need to look at all of this in terms of the west never doing thing one about anything for anyone.
I would add that the US created the first atom bombs with pencil and paper, the most rudimentary electronic pre-computers, in 3 years using a bunch of Hungarians and Germans who barely spoke English and who many abandoned the program before it was completed because Germany had already been defeated. It can't be that hard to do. I know it's not.
ReplyDeleteEven the DPRK was able to cobble together a nuke or two possibly 3 using cast off Pakistani technology (most of that stolen or illegally purchased elsewhere) coupled to a primitive and unsafe Communist Chinese plutonium breeder reactor where it might blow up and kill everyone, but so what.
Historically, South Africa built 6-9 bombs on their own, crude little things. Entirely indigenously and entirely in secret using a tried and true design so simple it didn't need to be tested and the intended delivery mode was to literally push it out the back of an old Canberra bomber.
Meanwhile other countries of varying degrees of stability or insanity have tried and then abandoned their own programs including Argentina, Brazil, Libya, Iraq, Egypt and possibly Romania, Nigeria, Burma and Indonesia.
To say nothing of the nascent capability of South Korea, Taiwan and Japan which 'easily' could but choose not to.
Yesterday the nutters and freaks had a field day with the SIPRI report that Israel 'may' have 80 warheads and the ready ability to throw together another 35. Whether this is true or not is a mystery. SIPRI historically has a good record with recording weapons purchases after the fact though how they would pull these conclusions together now is unknown. Wiki has printed the 80 number as the lower limit for years now, without any knowledge of how they get that quantity. So who knows, it could be 80 or it could be lower. The loons who claim "At least 400" I think are just making it up. The expense of such a thing would be absurd and what would they need 400 or more for? In any case though the probability it's some number >10 or 20 or 30 is quite high. Bottom line - throw enough engineering, chemistry, physics, people and money at it and it gets done. It always gets done.
So whether it's this year or next or Iran is already over the precipice today we can safely say that when it suits Iran to announce they are a nuclear state, they will do that. Iran will in fact be a nuclear state sooner than later. It will be bordering on other nuclear states not just Israel. Russia, China, Pakistan, India will all have to jigger their strategic outlook. Indeed this may something to do with why the French today are a bit more anxious to hit Syria than the Brits are. The French are a year or two closer to being under Iran's IRBM range than the UK is. Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria almost certainly are in range now.
So give all this, all this basic fundamental common sense reality of it, one needs to ask oneself if Obama isn't concerned very much and the most he can muster is shaking his tiny fist at the sky and making half hearted threats to weak states who happily ignore him, then what? If actual mass murders, pogroms and genocides don't rouse him to action (and one could argue the efficacy of doing so, whether it's our duty or not), why would anyone think that mere threats to incur even more massive genocides would rouse him? No I think you have to conclude that Obama sees this unrolling as the following: wait for Iran to go nuclear, and then when they do Iran will be in a wonderful position to protect their own interests by finally coming to the bargaining table with Obama. And when they do, Obama will declare it a great victory for his diplomatic genius and the righteousness of his beliefs. Neglecting to mention that it was all of this which lead Iran to develop atomic weapons in the first place will be forgotten or ignored.