Did you hear the one about the Rabbi and the Saudi King....

As a student of geopolitics....I know, I know...*yawn*....I'm always intrigued by what's happening in that hellhole formerly known as the Mideast.  It seems those people just aren't happy unless they're fighting someone, and right now they must be feeling absolutely blissful.

Now Iranian Ayatollah What'shisname has announced that if economic sanctions against his country aren't lifted completely and immediately as soon as the recent nuclear arms treaty is implemented in June, the deal is off.  Big surprise, huh?  It's just one big stall after another.  Always has been their MO, and probably always will be.

Oh dear, what shall we do?

My advice: nothing.

The Saudi Arabians have long been among the most vociferous critics of Israel.  They have gone out of their way to support those front line countries who have vowed to wipe Israel off the map, and they have sent vast sums of $$$ to terrorist groups who are trying to do just that.

The Saudis are also bitter enemies with Iran.  Iran is Shia, while Saudi Arabia is Sunni.  (FYI, Islam is 80% Sunni, 20% Shia.)  Right now Saudi Arabia is scared shitless of Iran's growing power and their overt moves to expand their sphere of influence throughout the Mideast.

Meanwhile, in the Israeli mind, the Holocaust was just yesterday.  They are (legitimately IMO) obsessed with seeing to it that any external threat to them be stopped in its tracks, proactively if need be.  They have often been criticized for being a little heavy handed (true), but still, their paranoia is not without cause.

Now imagine this:  Saudi Arabia is heavily involved in the Yemeni civil war to their south.  Israel sees any softening of resolve to keep Iran nuclear weapon-less as something they cannot accept.  They will settle for nothing less than Iran's nuclear ambitions being gutted.

It wouldn't be be a stretch to imagine a temporary unholy alliance between Saudi Arabia and Israel to kick Iran in the 'nads.  It wouldn't be too difficult for a massive Israeli strike package to slip through Jordanian airspace (perhaps even with their unofficial support), then use Saudi airspace to refuel and penetrate deep into Iran to do the deed.

With Saudi Arabia embroiled in Yemen far to the south, they would have a perfect excuse for claiming they were caught totally unaware.  "Plausible deniability" they call it.  *wink, wink*

Israel could aerial-refuel their strike aircraft en route as they ingressed and egressed Iran, essential as an unrefueled flight to Iran and back directly from Israel is beyond their capability.  And if anyone knows where the Iranians have dispersed their essential research sites, it's the Israelis.

Israel could cripple or destroy Iran's nuclear program, and Saudi Arabia could set back their old foe for years, maybe decades, just by "looking the other way".  Win/win.

Of course, Israel would have to watch for a Saudi double cross as they were returning from their strike and desperately needing to refuel over northern Saudi airspace, but it's a chance they just might take.

The West of course would stomp and holler (very insincerely) in condemnation of Israel, as would the Muslim world (except 80% would be secretly chuckling), but nothing would come of it except a few resolutions from the UN, which Israel would immediately drop straight into their overflowing File 13.

So I say let's just sit back and let the Mideast take care of the Mideast.  This geopolitical junkie will be watching intently.

S

Point / Counterpoint

The West, led by the United States, as well as Israel and most of the UN, are dead set against Iran developing nuclear weapons.  Of course we are.  Iran's leaders don't seem to think the way we in the West do.  They see sacrificing a few million of their own people in a counter-strike in order to wipe out Israel a fair trade.  Their idea of "national pride" is near suicidal.  The same goes for North Korea.

But what right do we have in telling them they can't pursue a nuclear program?  How can one sovereign nation, or group of nations, tell another sovereign nation what they can do internally?  As long as they don't use their nukes against others, shouldn't that be their right to have them?

It would be like the OPEC nations prohibiting the US from pursuing hydraulic fracturing to recover more domestic oil.  Of course it would be against their national interests for us to do so, but they don't have the right to prohibit us from doing it.

Seems to me we are just throwing international law out the window here.  That said, this is one area where I think Civil Disobedience is justified.

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The US and Europe are also all bent out of shape over Russia's incursion into Ukraine and their annexation of the Crimean peninsula.  It just seems like a land grab, much like what Nazi Germany did when they took over Austria and Czechoslovakia prior to WWII.  That's how we see it at least.

But the Russian psyche is much different than ours.  They have a long memory and remember how they have been invaded repeatedly from the west.  That's why after WWII they set up all their Commie proxies....E Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungry, etc....between Western Europe (read: NATO) and themselves.  

If the West attacked again, they could devastate those proxy countries before they reached The Motherland.  At least that was their plan.  Now with many of their former Warsaw Pact allies (?) actually part of NATO, and right on their border at that, they are super antsy. 

When Russia saw the overt courtship going on between the West and Ukraine, they no doubt saw full-fledged European Union and NATO membership for Ukraine on the horizon.  Their already tightly wound paranoia snapped.  I think we were a bit too "bull-in-a-china-closet"-ish.  Now it's gonna be difficult if not impossible to get that genie back into the bottle. 

As I see it, here's our dilemma:  We need to punish and marginalize Russia for their actions without actually pushing them over the edge (letting the Russian Federation dissolve).  

Remember what happened the last time we took down evil (Iraq, Libya, and soon Syria)?  What we got was dramatically more dangerous than what we dismantled. Of course we (the West) could collectively take Russia down, but would that necessarily be a smart thing to do?

S

So who died and made the UN King?

Here's something I just don't understand:  The United States along with much of the rest of the world is all up in arms because Iran and North Korea* are developing nuclear weapons.  I certainly understand why we don't want them to have nuclear tipped spears....the leadership of both countries are f__king nut cases.  OK, that might be unfair.  They might be totally rational and just have sinister regional ambitions.  I dunno.

Here's where I get lost....the world is hammering them because they have ignored a UN mandate that they cease pursuing their nuclear ambitions.  Since when does the UN have the right to unilaterally tell a sovereign nation what they can and cannot do?  

If the UN votes to tell the United States they must stop pursing the production of oil and natural gas via hydraulic fracturing, for example, because the rapid increase in worldwide oil/gas supply this would cause would upset the decades-old energy-producing status quo, would we be obligated to just say, "OK, whatever you say UN.  We'll stop.  You da boss,"?

If we didn't would the world be justified in saying they would boycott everything American, and if any country didn't support their boycott they would be in some way punished, too?  

I understand this particular scenario can't happen as long as the US has a UN Security Council veto, but still it bothers me that this international body with a....let's face it....rather lackluster record can just dictate what they will and won't allow.  Who died and made them King?  Any time they actually do anything it's the US that does 90% of it.  They write checks, then expects the US to cash them.

I would much prefer to see a multinational network of economic inter-dependency as the "carrot" one country or group of countries could use to get an errant state back in line vs a unilateral edict from the UN.  "Sugar catches more flies than vinegar."

Don't you think military conflict between the US and China is greatly reduced now that we do so much business with each other?  Why would you want to blow up your biggest customer?

Counterpoint anyone?

S

*N. Korea just today had another successful underground nuclear test.