Iran can expect the usual suspects to campaign for the rights of anyone, like China’s downtrodden Uyghur head choppers, who can upset their applecart.
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Even though it is 16 years since the Brookings Institute published their infamous Which path to Persia: Options for a new American policy towards Iran paper and a full 24 years since, in the wake of Jolani’s 9/11 Twin Towers’ attack, General Wesley Clark told us that the Pentagon had planned to destroy seven countries in five years on their path to Persia, Iran is still standing.
But, though Iran is still standing, neither that nor its formidable array of defence weaponry guarantee it will stand forever, as Israel and the United States, together with their Gulf State poodles, are both fixated on destroying it as part of their long standing hegemonic goals.
Although Russia and, to a pitiably lesser event, China, underwrite Iran’s security, neither of those guarantees are cast in stone. Not, of course, that that would make much practical difference. As Israel and the United States, together with their fake treaties and their fake agreements, are fixated on Iran’s destruction, the question is can they prevail or can Iran infinitely deter them?
But that very question is built on the alarming premise of ceding to Israel and the United States the option of eternal escalation dominance and denying it to Iran, who never shut up about never having been involved in foreign scraps since Moses was skinny dipping in the Nile.
Though the Iranians might well be the most peace-loving group of people to ever walk God’s earth since Jesus and the Buddha were in short pants, that is immaterial. The Yanks and their Israeli mates are hell bent on destroying them and that is that. Here, by way of illustration, is a very eloquent Arab Muslim bemoaning the fate of Gaza, the complicity of the Gulf States and the avarice of POTUS Trump and his chums. Although she makes much the same points I made in my recent article on the Gulf State autocracies, she offers no solutions beyond, perhaps, wailing for the dead.
Speaking of the dead, travel back in time to the November 3, 1867 Battle of Mentana, when the Pope’s armies routed Garibaldi’s mercenaries, and Pope Pius 1X could confidently declare that his Zouaves would ensure that Rome would never fall to the Sardinian barbarians. But that was the last battle the Pope’s army ever won as the 1870 Franco Prussian war forced Napoleon 111 to evacuate his troops from Rome and thereby leave the Eternal City to the mercy of Garibaldi’s red shirts, who soon overran it and made it their capital.
Although the battle of Mentana might seem very distant from the concerns of Iran’s High Command, the fact that the Pope and Napoleon had both glass jaws should not be. And ditto with the fall of the Syrian Arab Republic, the partial emasculation of Hezbollah and the ongoing Gazan turkey shoot. The collapse of the Syrian Arab Republic shows that even the strongest buffalo can only take so many spear shots before it keels over. Hezbollah’s entire pager saga, together with the damage Israeli spy (and well known Shia spiritual singer) Mohammad Hadi Saleh, did, is one of many cautionary tales for Iran and, as for the Gaza turkey shoot, what can be said that has not yet been said?
Gaza is becoming a clear victory for Israel and the fact that its stormtroopers have so far been unable to locate any of the October 7th 2023 hostages is not only neither here nor there but it can, in no way, be taken as a testament to Hamas’ intelligence, of its fighting prowess or of anything else. Gaza stands as clear, unadulterated testimony to what the enemies of the United States and Israel can expect. It is no different and no less disgusting than what America’s own Indians suffered or the treatment the Palestinians of the 15 May Nakba 1948 got. In as much as Gaza proves anything, it only reinforces the truism that might makes America right, and that Iran best sit up and pay attention to the tempest coming its way.
Going forward, Iran can expect the usual suspects to campaign for the rights of anyone, like China’s downtrodden Uyghur head choppers, who can upset their applecart. If they care to read Tolstoy’s War and Peace, they should know that there is no shortage of Iranians, just as there was then no shortage of useless Tsarist sycophants, willing to kiss Trump’s ass and that the MEK and similar moderate rebel cut throats can be made infinitely more lethal, just as the Americans made their Syrian and Iraqi partners in crime so much more dangerous.
On the more metaphysical plane, they can salute Pope Pius 1X’s soldiers, who fought for faith, loyalty and tradition, even as those noble traits were dying on the vine in Europe, and, when they ask themselves what relevance that has to modern Iran, they need think not only of the Arab woman cited above and the awful fate of the heroic Syrian Arab Army but also of the type 11 error they and their deterministic camp followers continually make.
Not only do we know that Iran has a formidable array of defensive weapons and that its doomsday position is to pull the Gulf States and Israel down around their collective ears but Iran’s enemies have also known all that for decades and have planned accordingly. Brent Crude is now below 65US$/barrel and, if it reaches POTUS Trump’s $50 US target, how will that affect Iran, and whatever further Azeri and Pakistani shenanigans it might face? Best ask the CIA, rather than me, as they work full time factoring such contingencies into their ongoing war plans.
Although I have published at least three articles on NATO’s leveraging of Iranian women, Iran is caught between the horns of giving their women more freedom and giving them less, and of being further damned in NATO’s eyes no matter which path to Persian women they take. Although there will be plenty proffering plastic advice on that, just as there will be plenty of plastic Admiral Yamamotos and wooden Erwin Rommels to feed their armed forces similarly worthless gruel, my watchword, from having looked at their trading figures, is for them to diplomatically row away from the rocks but keep their powder dry and their mouths shut. Not the best of advice perhaps but much better than telling them that they are as invincible as were Pope Pius IX’s forces when they marched in triumph away from Mentana on the evening of November 3, 1867.
