""Worth starting another thread on this particular point**
So the arrest of the 15 UK military people seems to have resulted in not just one but both of the Russians and the Chinese being finally smoked out. Thanking Red Fury for the link:
Accepting the translation (don’t the Russians just release this stuff in English), the USA’s most important energy supplier says the USA can’t acquire the worlds third largest energy resouce. I suppose that’s just the market speaking.
But now we have the Iranians and Saudi’s making out, and one of the USA’s string and cellotape alliances under pressure . . . Plenty of geo-political and even historic points to thnk about here as new alliances create new circumstances:
Maybe the most significant are (a) that the clock may finally have slipped past midnight on this particular empire and power (in all sense) shifts east, and (b) that as (what was once) Iraq slips though the USA’s fingers, the USA becomes increasingly economically vulnerable, and the Russians have just pointed that out to them. Naughty, naughty!
Big day for Planet Earth, bigger day for USA/UK.plc, maybe ?
Well, I mostly agree with your analysis, just one thing you’ve failed to mention that’s been on my mind a lot lately. Namely, that as BushCo crumbles in Iraq – and all over the MENA region really – they simply keep doing what they’ve been doing so far. And that’s ignoring reality – as one of the top-echelon aides once famously said:
Thus I am afraid that they’ll be willing to keep pushing the ante and go out with a bang rather than a whimper. I’m talking nukes here and as you saw in the preceding thread, there are already plenty of people casually contemplating said option. Sends shivers down my spine that there are people like that out there. And what’s worse, many of them at the helm of the American state-ship.
Reminds me of what Einstein once said: “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
Guess those in favor of going nuclear fail to realize that the other side has nukes as well. I mean, you don’t need much mental acuity to interpret what the “hidden” meaning behind Putin and Hu Jintao’s warning is. Or do you?
Aargh! Back to reading tea leaves it is. Interesting although highly dangerous times we live in.
I suppose in historic terms, Iraq represents the first time this empire resorted to direct military conquest on such a grand scale and to such blatant ends.
I agree that, generally speaking, the second time it becomes easier, and as most would now acknowledge, there are ‘issues’ with that ground forces approach, unless you can utilise third party forces (but the UN woke up to that a very long time ago). But there are also restrictions on what the USA can do, as folks can turn the energy tap off pretty quickly; if Wall Street collapses, so do Governments.
Fwiw, I wonder if the key point today is that the Russians and Chinese together have told the USA to back off, in public, and on an issue the USA has an awful lot invested in; as in eggs, basket, one - this is top tier global policy affecting long term national security, not, say, some local dispute in Asia.
I’m not aware the USA has been told to put its cock away before, at least not in public, or on such a fundamental, national security issue ?
I’m still wondering where you got the idea that Russia is the U.S.'s “most important energy supplier”.
Russia is not, for example, a significant crude oil exporter to America. It’s not even in the top 15 among nations exporting crude to the U.S. If you look at total petroleum exports to America, Russia doesn’t even match up to the Virgin Islands.
Neither is China an energy supplier to the U.S. And China’s economy would appear to be more dependent on the U.S. than vice versa.
Of course there are other geopolitical considerations besides energy.
Speaking of which, I heard that China is set to surpass the U.S. this year in carbon emissions.
I for one welcome our impending new global warming overlords.
As others have said, Russia isn’t the most important energy supplier to the US…or even in the top 10. I doubt the reason that Russia would have a problem with the US initiating military action against Iran (short of all out invasion, which is about as unlikely as you can get) is because they don’t want us to aquire it. The reasons are similar to why Russia and China didn’t want the US to initiate military action against Iraq…namely its not in their best interest, since they get all kinds of goodies out of their relationship with those countries.
There simply aren’t enough rolley eyes out there for this, er, interesting statement. Why THIS would be an indication that the sun has finally set on the US ‘empire’ I have no idea…nor how its an indication that Russia and China have picked up the banner for a more glorious day. Neither have happened…nor are these purely self interest generated statements from China or Russia indications of it.
:dubious: How have we become increasingly ECONOMICALLY vulnerable? What is your indication of that? Do you have some data on the slow down of the US economy wrt others? What are you using as a metric to make this statement?
Lets say that Iraq goes completely tits up and we are forced to bolt with our tail between our legs…and then Iraq becomes Afghanistan post Soviet invasion. Worst case scenerio. How does this effect the US economically exactly? Geopolitically we’ll take a huge hit, no doubt…but how do we become economically vulnerable?
Yeah, those evil Americans are finally on the run…and the world will be saved by the Chinese and the Russians.
Yep fair point, I refer to “supplier” when I’m actually rattling on about shifting empires. Not bright.
Okay, let me reference USA out-flanked in Eurasia Energy Politics?. It’s a long piece from last summer but covers the ground we’re seeing in play, literally, today (imo). Here’s an opening line:
What I’m looking at is the largest game of all, really; signs and signals that, having lost the first round - the Cold War, Russia is shaping up for round two, and this time it’s bringing a friend.
Well, the Cold War was a conflict in which American and Soviet forces could never engage directly, no more than the kings can ever meet on a chessboard. They could only fight one another’s allies. Assuming the rules of Cold War II are the same – and they should be, since the U.S., Russia and China still have nuclear arsenals – then we can invade Iran without fear of military retaliation from Russia or China. All they’ll do is demand economic sanctions from the UN, and not get them. Or impose trade embargoes – but the Chinese economy would be too badly disrupted by that.
I wouldn’t be so sure that they are going allow BushCo to steal the second and third largest oil reserves from right under their collective noses. In fact, I highly doubt the rest of the world is going to sit idly-bye while Bush (again) butchers countless thousands of innocents from on up high. Which is really the only way the US can attack Iran under current circumstances.
As for the Chinese economy, you have a humongous trade deficit with them. What happens if they decide to cash all their US assets and take them elsewhere?
Say, xt, did you happen to type that with your American flag pin on your lapel?
How would this by-extension war be that much different from the Vietnam war?
Speaking in the hypothetical situation that the US decided that the chips are on the table and full-scale military action is the way to go, would they not merely discredit the sitting government, raise insurrections and then go in and support those ‘resistance fighters’? A supported coup d’etat, in many ways, but not officially an American invasion, like Iraq is. Could China and Russia answer in any other way but going in and doing the very same thing, except backing the sitting government?
What would stop this becoming a USA vs China/Russia war hosted on foreign soil?
I’m not all that bright, I acknowledge that, but I can’t see why China and Russia couldn’t reply with the same coin.
Those “resistance fighters” are not nearly strong enough to overthrow the government. They control no territory. They’re limited to occasional guerrilla raids (see this thread). It’s not like it was in Afghanistan in 2001.
Actually, for such a self-deprecating character, you seem to have nailed it right on the head. Because that’s precisely what this dullard has been intimating as well. A proxy war in Iran with the mushroom-cloud of nuclear weapons hanging over it. I mean, just read the quote in the OP. I wouldn’t hang my hat on them being empty warnings.
Don’t know…did you type again with your “I hate America!” and the GW Bush wearing a Nazi uniform button again? Or did you finally break down and just get it tatooed on your bottom like you always wanted too??
Not wearing my American stick pin either (in fact, I don’t think I have such a beast)…nor did I see my post you were apparently responding to as particularly rah rah! America. I though it was more, I don’t know, grounded in that reality stuff. YMMV of course Red.
I’ll go on a tangent here; I don’t necessarily believe in the following bullshit, but please, see if it has any merit:
**Brain Glutton:**I’m not saying it would be anything but a see-through sham, thin as a reed - an excuse. And I don’t think the size of the local Iranian resistance is any matter - it can easily be inflated in the public’s mind, 'cause that is what matters.
'Cause once the forces are on the ground, it could probably be the biggest us vs. them in the history of warfare. The US against Iran (and by extension) Russia and China - all the foes with whom the US has never ‘reconciled their differences’ (i.e. assimilated or beaten). Who could back down from that? More precisely, which Presidential candidate on the ballots would?
The media tech in me coldly salivates at the propaganda opportunities in this campaign.
Yeah, those evil Americans are finally on the run…and the world will be saved by the Chinese and the Russians.
