Sanctions are biting, and they could go nuclear!, but not quite yet, until they hired idiots to kill the Saudi Ambassador!, while still cowering in our beds, so there’s no reason to make the DOD budget anything more than an object lesson in stupidity, let alone justification.
Gorilla returns to the blog with a few insights from the outer limits on issues that won’t matter at all in 2012:
The Know Nothing Party’s Presidential and Vice Presidential Nominees: Whoever they are, they will lose the general election.
The US defense budget: Could easily be cut by 30-50%, but it’s a middle class jobs program, so it will remain, like ag subsidies, a symbol of what politicians will never touch in any serious way.
The Arab League: No, they won’t solve Syria, or any other Middle Eastern problem, because they never have.
Middle East peace: See The Arab League.
North Korea: Another dictator, another year of irrelevance.
Iranian noisemaking: They’re more concerned with consolidating their influence in Baghdad and Kabul. Cutting off the country’s main source of revenue is not on the agenda of the craziest of mullahs.
Unemployment: the great non-issue of 2008-12 continues to be ignored.
Russia: The KGB will continue running the place until Russians decide to be more like Syrians, and Russians won’t.
Gorilla says: “Pick your own issue, pretend it’s important, do nothing to address it, and you’ll be a viable non-issue expert in no time!”
We aren’t willing to sit down and do a deal, we aren’t threatened in any way by Iran, yet here we are, ready to launch another utterly pointless war!
The Israelis are clearly preparing for airstrikes, and the result will be yet another decade of Middle East carnage and stalemate, accompanied by increasing US isolation and the prospect that the Iranians may decide to launch whatever they have at Israel and Saudi Arabia.
What we should be doing is increasing vastly the price of fossil fuels at home, to make alternative energy economically viable and make the Middle East as much of an afterthought as Africa.
Gorilla says: “Stupidity is not the only strategy, but that’s what we keep getting!”
All nonsense: read Juan Cole.
Iran terror plots in America!
Killing the Saudi Ambassador to the US? Who the hell is he? Who cares? Wake me when they actually blow up the oil fields, that’s all the Middle East is about!
Blowing up buildings in DC? That’s been done, too, and tonight’s “man hit by Metro in Rosslyn, chaos ensues” shows just how little our Homeland Security dollars have purchased.
What are the real distractions being buried here?
1) The Iraqi and Iranian governments’ support for the Syrian butcher.
2) The Saudi government’s support for the butcher in Bahrain.
3) The Justice Department’s battle with the semi-criminal Issa over which US gun dealer sales we’re subsidizing on behalf of Mexican drug cartels.
4) The likelihood that the woeful jobs programs won’t get through either the Senate or the House, no matter how you slice it.
5) The Occupy Wall Street crowd, who make no sense except when they point out how even less sense our leaders make.
6) The Eurozone kick the can, which is still alive and barely kickin’ down Bratislava way.
Gorilla says: “Take your pick, add a few more, what’s on offer is absolutely nothing but contempt and cowardice by and for one and all!”
The real test of Middle Eastern protest movements will come in two countries: Iran and Saudi Arabia.
In Iran, there’s clearly an opposition movement, but it has not been willing or able to risk the thousands of deaths that would be necessary to topple the regime. Unlike Egypt, there’s no supposedly neutral side that remains above politics within the government structure: it’s all clerical all the time.
In Saudi Arabia, the regime survives primarily because it has the resources to buy opponents off and uses religious fervor as a safety valve to continue repression. Islamic extremism so far doesn’t extend to blowing up the Saudi oil fields, which would be a far more devastating act for the West than any other form of “terrorism”.
Gorilla says: “If the houses of Saud and Khomeini collapse, then you’d have a real revolution!”
Particularly when the sanctioning country allows exceptions that are only and all about one thing: money.
It’s the sort of complete hypocrisy that we’ve come to expect from a country that subsidizes both sides in wars against terror, drugs, and poverty.
What we should be doing is engaging directly with countries like Iran and North Korea.
Sanctions may make us feel good today, but encouraging democracy and freer trade will make the world safer in the long run.
Gorilla says: “The Ag man cometh, bearing gifts for one and all!”
How to stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb?
Since it’s clear that no one in the West wants a war with Iran (other than genuinely certifiable Know Nothings like John McCain), and no one outside the West thinks sanctions will make any difference, the easiest way to halt Iranian progress is through plausible deniability.
Gorilla says: “Talk is cheap, assassination is cheaper!”
No problem, Israel, Iran’s at least a year away from nuclear weapons capability!!!
So, no need to launch yet another pointless war in a region we would treat like Africa but for one thing: oil.
Meanwhile, the Israelis and Palestinians have agreed to talk directly, even though neither side is serious about peace.
It’s all very frustrating, because direct bilateral talks with Iran are clearly the quickest way to getting the US out of the mess we’ve created.
Gorilla says: “When talks are on the same timeline as nuclear dashing, we’ll have something to say!”
With Iran, now ready to negotiate on the nuclear issue?
With the announcements by Russia and China that they don’t support further EU-style sanctions, it’s clear that eventually negotiations and a deal are both the only way forward and the only thing on the horizon.
The stumbling block will be the US, which doesn’t seem able to take yes for an answer.
It’s an election year, so the Administration doesn’t want to be seen as “weak” on Iran.
On the other hand, getting to a bilateral deal would go a long way towards reducing tensions in the region, particularly with the ongoing morass in Afghanistan and the unserious talks about talks between the Israelis and Palestinians.
Gorilla says: “They’ll all be talking turkey in 6 months or less!”
