We can, in fact, now expect more extreme reactions because it is now far from clear that the USA and Israel are going to win the conflicts they have started in Iran, Lebanon and elsewhere simultaneously. The economic impacts are already severe, and when people in the USA realise that their energy costs are going to rise significantly, the backlash is going to be extreme, particularly given Trump’s promise not to engage in more overseas conflicts.
So it is not just the risk of major financial meltdown that is now worrying me, although that is very real. What worries me at least as much is the possibility that these extremists, when cornered and when at risk of being shown up as the illegal international facilitators of war crimes, will react even more severely and release yet more mayhem, including through the use of nuclear weapons, a possibility that cannot now be ruled out.
Apparently Trump’s going to drop an A Bomb on The Hague so they cannot indict him.
Gamecock can translate commie dick Murphy:
“I still hate Trump.”
Gasoline price has jumped here (US). Cost me about an extra 10 bucks when I filled up the GT350R yesterday. I was a bit surprised, as I think most of our gas is sourced domestically. But then pricing is affected by global market. Funny, commie press never said anything about Biden’s extreme high gas prices.
Spud says we shouldn’t stop murderous dictators from creating nuclear weapons because our gas prices will go up.
If the Islamic Republic is overthrown, or at least credibly commits to destroying its nuclear program and allowing proper verification, then sanctions will be lifted and Iran will be allowed to reintegrate with the global economy. Which would shift oil prices permanently downwards.
That could happen quite quickly if the oil infrastructure is left standing – it doesn’t seem to be a targeting priority at the moment. If chances of regime change before operations wind down start to look thin, they might get wiped out as a parting shot to at least ensure future Iranian clandestine nuclear research has less funding available. But hopefully it doesn’t come to that.
Agreed.
4D underwater chess move – do a Nixon Goes To China with Russia.
Russia’s allies in Venezuela and Iran are humiliated, China couldn’t help and Russia has bitten off more than it can chew with their bullshit forever war in Ukraine.
Russian weakness relative to China grows by the day. 30 years ago, the Chinese were dependent on Russian fighter jets, radars and other high tech. Now the Chinks are pumping out several hundreds of brand new domestic stealth jets using Chinese engines and avionics – and they’re superior to Russia. The Rooskies can’t even produce the Su-57 in realistic quantities.
If Putin keeps going down this path, he’s Xi’s bitch and the Golden Horde will control Russia.
So, try another Sino-Soviet split, this time from the Russian side. Peel away China’s most important ally. Make all that lovely Russian oil and gas, rare earths and other stuff available to the West. Strategically, China will be surrounded – no longer able to rely on their northern flank, no longer able to focus on the South China Sea exclusively. The West will be strengthened with a massive wave of prosperity.
Yarp, it’s a pipe dream. But why not? Better than killing each other.
One caveat: reports that Russia is supplying intel to Iran are probably false, fabricated by the commie press. Russia may have little to do with Iran today.
Quite possible all their main contacts in Iran are dead – last week the Russians said they had lost contact with Tehran.
Russia’s capacity to provide valuable intelligence to Iran is likely extremely limited. I don’t think they’re in Syria anymore, they don’t have anything that compares to American technology. The Gulf is abuzz with US carrier battle groups and all their special spooky electronic warfare kit.
Venezuela and Iran should be a Come to Jesus moment for the BRICS. The American giant looked moribund and ineffectual under Sleepy Joe, but now they’re BACK, baby! And they’ve demonstrated technical mastery of modern warfare to the extent I expect Chinee and Rus generals are sweating.
What’s the best way to “defeat” Russia? Make them our friend instead of China’s friend. Forget NATO expansion into meme statelets such as Cyprus – do something much bolder and extend the Western co-prosperity sphere to Vladivostok.
Russia + Germany secures Europe – militarily and economically – for generations to come. Russia + Germany+ Europe + the USA is an unbeatable combo that would put China’s global ambitions to bed.
Deal of the century, right there. If there’s imagination, courage, and a will to escape the Thucydedian pattern? Just a thought, eh?
It requires sanity from too many people of doubtful sanity.
You have the EU to reckon with there, Steve.
Feature, not bug. The EU is the enemy of Western civilisation in general, and white people in particular. They need to be humbled.
Lol, how about we just let them defeat (without quotes) themselves in their chewy “bullshit forever war in Ukraine”?
I take my hat off to you, Steve. Whatever world events throw up as disasters and opportunities, we can rely on you to rationalise it down to “let Russia win”.
PJF – did a Russian shag your missus or something? Your raging dislike of an entire nationality that hasn’t actually done anything to us is strange. Especially when you seem to love Little Russia so much. Here’s a handy hint: Russians and Ukrainians are not much different.
Lol, how about we just let them defeat (without quotes) themselves in their chewy “bullshit forever war in Ukraine”?
Because, lol. Forever wars aren’t a plan. We don’t want a war in Europe. The war in Ukraine needs to end someday, why not today? Why does Mykola have to become a cripple, just because you personally hate Putin? Putin doesn’t even know who you are.
Yes, I think it would be a good thing if we could get along with a massive country with thousands of nuclear warheads. I don’t think it’s a good thing that we’re on the hook to keep feeding billions of pounds into the Ukraine binfire after 4 years of this shit.
Hope that helps x
Is you wife Putin’s mistress’s BFF or something?
I’m not raging, Steve, I’m laughing. You’re the one who earnestly dragged your “let’s let Russia win” crack-pipedream into a perfectly good thread about Iran. Sorry mate, I’m gonna mock your shameless opportunism. Not much time to play, but you have fun.
Is you wife Putin’s mistress’s BFF or something?
No she’s of Polish descent. I don’t think they like Russia. Personally, I always got along well with Russians, Ukrainians and Serbs, and I dislike seeing white men being slaughtered.
I’m not raging, Steve, I’m laughing.
Yes, a good time was had by all.
You’re the one who earnestly dragged your “let’s let Russia win” crack-pipedream into a perfectly good thread about Iran. Sorry mate, I’m gonna mock your shameless opportunism. Not much time to play, but you have fun.
I keep hoping for some substance from you on this topic, but you have nothing to bring to the table except snide misrepresentations and bizarre claims that not murdering every last man is “Letting X win!” But you’re laughing, for sure.
Sad.
Countries don’t have friends. What they have are interests. Not nearly enough people in the world remember this.
Is it in the USA’s interest to have good relations with Russia? What are the benefits and what are the costs?
Countries don’t have friends
Yes but brevitas est. Pendantus non est.
Is it in the USA’s interest to have good relations with Russia?
They used to think so. Installed a red phone and everything.
What are the benefits and what are the costs?
The benefits: if the Russo-Chinese partnership can be disrupted, it weakens China significantly. (See: maps)
It also strengthens the defence of Europe, allowing the US to concentrate elsewhere.
It also means that instead of turning Germany into Liverpool circa 1985, but with millions of Muslims, we might be able to save the economic engine of Europe. A functioning European economy is preferential to being allied with impoverished charity cases. Rising tide, all boats.
And it means no more Ukrainians have to die in ditches. The nightmare can be over for Ukraine. That’s a humanitarian win, and hopefully nobody is so cynical as to think Ukrainian lives are expendable.
The costs: some Daily Telegraph columnists will be miffed.
Steve
Like the Chinese, Russians think in centuries; Westerners are short-termists. And Russia despises the West for military, religious and ideological reasons that go back centuries.
Historically, Russia’s hostility toward the West is rooted in a sequence of major foreign invasions – by Poland, Sweden, Napoleonic France, Germany etc – deep-seated religious and ideological differences – the Great Schism of 1054, and resistance to Western liberalism (classic and social) – and modern geopolitical competition.
This long history has resulted in a siege mentality where Russia views the West as a threat to its sovereignty and unique identity. So deep strategic partnership with Russia is impossible and cooperation limited.
Ahem.
https://archive.ph/WVlS6
I would like to confirm our unwavering support for Tehran and solidarity with our Iranian people.
– Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulates the new Ayatollah.
The mystery is, Steve, why the US ruling class spent decades encouraging Russia into China’s arms. Apparently thinking isn’t one of their strengths.
They thought they could break Russia up into easily digestible statelets. The hubris of the 90’s was incredible, remember how optimistic we used to be about the future? We were supposed to be living in the Star Trek TNG future, not the African planet where Tasha Yar had to fight some black lady in lycra.
US Democrats were chummy with Russia for decades, until 2016, when they concocted the strange Trump is a Russian agent meme.
I think the US culture is more aligned with Russia than with EU. EU has embraced suicidal empathy.
I see that meme as being projection.
I seem to recall Saint Obama (PBUH) mocking the republican presidential candidate’s warning that Russia was still potentially dangerous – “the ’80s called and want their foreign policy back” or something like that. Then Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State and her famous mistranslated “Reset Button” with the Russians. Then Obama on a hot mic telling some Russian pol or other that he’d have more flexibility after the election. So yeah – Russia wasn’t a big bogeyman until after Trump won the presidential election.
Thanks for the examples.
Agree, mostly. Russia has bigger problems with minorities than UK and Europe.
Muslims on southern flank, central Asia. Chinese in Russian far east, which they only annexed when Chinese empire collapsed a century ago.
But I’m not in favour of letting them join NATO. They can sort their own shit out when it hits the fan in a decade or two.
Yuge problems. There’s massive internal Muslim migration to western Russia. Putin is going around kissing Korans, because he needs Chechen cannon fodder. They’re also planning to let millions of Jeets in, and we all know where that leads. Russians are starting to get as alarmed as Brits and Europeans are.
NATO – absolutely No Russian. We should downgrade NATO anyway, it’s no longer the best tool for holding together a Western alliance and our mulish insistence on handing nuclear war guarantees to North Macedonia and co. hasn’t made us more secure. We should think outside the NATO shaped box.
Commerce, greed, filthy lucre, and the potential for wealthy Russians to get back to spending their cash in London and Berlin is a very nice carrot. Stop the war in Ukraine, and start rebuilding. The Russians can’t be happy that they’re still fighting in Ukraine after 4 years – a face saving detente might be possible now.
Cash, cash will bring us together
Again
That’s the Ukraine position. Immediate unconditional ceasefire. Fighting stops where it is. Putin won’t do it for personal existential reasons.
Sure, “let Russia win” works fine for them too. If we can throw in a nice bridgehead across the Dnieper (kherson Oblast) that’ll be lovely.
The Ukraine position is “let’s have a ceasefire so we can rearm and have another go at attacking you in Donetsk and Kursk maybe”
Shocking that the Russian government hasn’t gone for this.
The game of international politichess is getting quite amusing. Putin can easily say that he’s with Iran because it costs him nothing. He thinks that the Pentagon might think he might get involved, and will slow down armaments shipments to Ukraine. It’s a fairly transparent bluff.
If Russia collapses or fragments (and it’s a medium-sized if) China will have the opportunity to take its Eastern lands. And who shall stop them? Anyhow China is probably unbothered by the prospect of their sometime ally being weaker. Or gone.
China will be shitting BRICs if they ever look in danger of being cut off from Russian resources.
They no longer need their technology, but they are in desperate need of their raw materials and hydrocarbons.
If China needs Russian resources they can buy what they want. And if Russia refuses to sell, China has over 9x the population, better technology, and hasn’t been drained of fighting men by an unwinnable war. They could just walk in and take what they wanted.
To be fair there’s a MAD problem if the Chinese government launches a full frontal assault on those parts of Russia the tsars grabbed off China in the past. But a “spontaneous” uprising of the “Siberian People’s Liberation Front” or whatever would not be beyond their wit if they felt the need. If it’s just about the Russian government refusing to sell to China because they now inexplicably want to be in western governments’ good books, then I imagine it would be more straightforward to just arrange a change of government in Moscow. Very serious amounts of money would be on the table and I’m sure there’s plenty of securocrats or military high-ups who’d be willing to reverse such a stupendous error of governance.
I 100% guarantee that people in the Trump admin have been putting thought into this idea so it’s not completely otherworldly. But aside from the issue of getting Europeans on board (which would be critical to the idea’s success since they’re the ones who would provide the lucre not the USA), I don’t think the idea of prying Russia from China is realistic when you look at things from Moscow’s perspective.
Dumping your old mates like the ayatollahs and Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un to get in with a bunch of hand-wringing human-rights-quoting Europeans is quite a change of bedfellows if you don’t plan any change of behaviour or perspective yourself. As you say the incentive is cash – Europeans to buy Russian fossil fuels, all other Russian exports being essentially inconsequential. (Americans aren’t really in the market since they are big exporters of such resources anyway.) And don’t me wrong, Russia would love to flog stuff to the Europeans. The Chinese will otherwise keep screwing them on price knowing there’s no other major buyer, especially for natural gas (pipelines are great but they limit who you can sell to and hence your leverage – Russia is investing in LNG exports too but that’s not where the volume is).
But this whole argument also works in reverse. Why would Russia want to get tied in with Europe? They’d rather keep selling to all parties and play them off – if the Chinese are willing to pay more, tell the Europeans they’ll need to pay more too. Gets worse when you consider the future direction of demand – Europe’s headlong rush to decarbonise may be mad but in 10-20 years all that added solar and wind capacity is going to cut their gas consumption. As for coal, another major Russian export, forget it. The trend for Chinese consumption is going to remain on the up for a good while longer.
So in this sense “prying” Russia from China seems unrealistic. Less dependent, yes. Aligned with the West instead, to the point where they’re “on our side” if push came to shove? I can’t see it – what do we have to offer, really? It’s not like we know the secret cure to the demographic crunch. (Ironically, getting wealthier seems to suppress fertility so a deal that makes Russia richer could even make this problem worse.) European leaders paying homage to their new Russian friends might bring a bit of prestige, rich Russians like travelling round Europe unsanctioned and having western luxury goods in their department stores, but what’s that worth really?
Ultimately, on the really big issues, it’s not obvious how much we have to concede or how far down the alignment route we can go. We aren’t going to start buying Russian military exports. We aren’t going to do military R&D joint ventures. And while it’s true Russia faces some threats that mean it may value Western support in the not too distant future – and in the long run, their Chinese friends do have a longstanding territorial claim over chunks of territory the Tsars grabbed China long ago – we would be mad to flog them our best kit. On another security issue of importance to Russia, western legal systems make it hard to send back opposition and separatist figures who seek asylum here, even if our politicians were open to it. On past form, it’s safe to bet Moscow will keep sending teams to terminate those of particular value. Not ideal for relations.
Even after a peace deal in Ukraine there are big differences in perspective and desires. Russia would like a sphere of influence recognised, at least implicitly, over much of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Ultimately people around Putin would like more territorial acquisitions – the official government celebrations for the annexations of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in Moscow also publicly called for the annexations of Mykolaiv, Kharkiv and (especially, but most ambitiously) Odesa. Nationalist dreamers have also been upfront about the need, eventually, to reacquire Kyiv given its historic role as the centre of the Rus. In the less distant future, Russia is likely to annex South Ossetia and Abkhazia, perhaps sooner rather than later given the recent construction work there. The status of Transnistria and Gagauzia will be flashpoints as Moldova approaches EU accession (or potentially Romanian annexation). European trade and relations with the Caucasus is also picking up, which will bring a new set of friction points.
Those aren’t unmanageable issues, just as human rights considerations are often safely parked away when resource deals get done, but there are a lot of them and it’s not likely European (or American) leaders are going to give Moscow carte blanche to do whatever it wants and we’ll just look away. After all, western states see their own interests to pursue in places Russia regards as its back yard. So fundamentally Russia and the West will be nowhere near true alignment if the place is governed by anyone like the current lot. And if it were ever to be governed by namby-pamby democratic liberal types who might have a Weltanschauung more conducive to true alignment, given the history of the place I wouldn’t want to bet on how long they last.
I mentioned it was a pipe dream, so difficult to disagree with you. But you know what they say about what happens when we don’t try. Better than deliberately driving them closer to China whilst cutting ourselves off from their resources?
But NB they wanted to be our partners from the end of the Cold War until 2008. It’s a majority white, predominantly Christian country straddling Europe and Asia. The West was their natural first choice.
Europe’s headlong rush to decarbonise may be mad but in 10-20 years all that added solar and wind capacity is going to cut their gas consumption.
I doubt it will work out that way. Net Zero is an albatross that Europe can’t afford to keep wearing as a necklace. It’s not as if the financial pain will go away once we build another 5 million windmills – the sustainment costs are unsustainable. If they continue on the current trajectory, in 20 years the EU won’t exist and neither will France, Germany or the United Kingdom.
But people will always need oil and gas. If not for heating the house, for affordable power to industry and feedstock for the chemical industry. Hydrocarbons will never not be valuable.
If you’re adamant that lucre is the means to hold Russia’s attention then China is their better bet. I’m obviously not saying hydrocarbons are worthless but by far their biggest use is being burned for energy. And no matter how silly it may be, Europe burns much less of it than it used to – at least on sunny/windy days – and that extra solar/wind capacity rollout, coupled with the decline in heavy industry, means they’ll be burning even less in 10 years. Russia’s coal exports have become worthless to a lot of western countries because we have destroyed the power stations that can burn it.
Even if Net Zero skeptics sweep European elections over the next few years, they’re not going to uproot what’s in the ground (the owners may take a big hit or even a wipeout if subsidies are slashed, but the marginal costs of generation are minimal once installed so there’s no point decommissioning what’s there). Time frames may get stretched – that’s what I’m expecting at least, similar to what’s happened to the idea of compulsory electric cars – but we’re not going back to the generating mix of the 2000s. On the other hand China’s thirst for gas, oil and coal is going to grow even further despite a large renewables push of their own – their demand is rising faster than they can roll out solar farms.
But dollars or euros aside, I think Theo has a point about Russian hostility to the west being cultural too. The belief Russia is a unique civilisation that bridges Europe and Asia, but belongs to neither, is deep-set. If you read Dostoevsky his contempt for western culture and values is fierce, particularly for the Catholic Poles and the liberals of western Europe. Plus ça change…
Did Russia ever really want to “partner” with the West? They certainly wanted trade and investment. The wealthy wanted to be able to party over here and send their kids for an education. But I don’t think they really wanted to westernise.
Poland and the Baltics wanted to join the EU and NATO – and they did. If Russia had seriously wanted to, the path was there. Would have been hard to swallow them financially and would have meant an even bigger say at the table than Germany, but Russia isn’t quite poor or populous enough that it would have been insurmountable. At the very least Russia could have achieved EEA membership, which would have been a substantial boost for their economy, and a Partnership for Peace type arrangement with NATO.
But despite making noises, successive governments didn’t show any signs of really wanting to do it. The Balts and Poles accepted the yoke of Brussels (and to a lesser extent Washington) because of the promises of prosperity, security and shared values. The Russian elite preferred to do things their way, even if meant being landed with the rather pathetic Eurasian Economic Community (their knockoff mini-EU for the Russian sphere of influence).
They didn’t really want to cede sovereignty and be buried under piles of Brussels bureaucracy – who can blame them? They knew Russian agriculture would be a nightmare for CAP but that CAP would have been an even bigger nightmare for Russian agriculture. They didn’t want the natural consequences of freer trade and integration with international markets, especially ones that take action against national subsidies, which is that even greater swathes of inefficient Soviet era industry would have been shuttered. They didn’t want a serious crackdown on the corruption they were all getting rich from. They didn’t want a free(ish) press that could expose them, a liberal multiparty democracy that might topple them, an independent judicial system which could threaten them. They didn’t want to stop bossing around countries in their near abroad. They didn’t want to have to align with an Atlanticist perspective on events further afield.
In short, they wanted the goodies from the West but not the graft of becoming westernised. On a national spiritual level it would have meant becoming something alien. On a more practical level, those at the top would have had to give up a lot of control by shifting away from a system that served them well because it had been built around them – a risk and sacrifice it seems they were unwilling to take. Shame really, many of them would have got gloriously rich from it. But the way they saw it, why take a chance?
I’ve seen Iran described as a civilised nation hijacked by a mafia. Sounds about right to me. The nasty hard theocratic men need dislodging, which means killing, and this will take some time. Meanwhile geography means Iran can throttle the world’s supply of Middle Eastern oil. So, we have bit of race on.
I’m not sure you can smash the IRGC mafia with nukes. They probably wouldn’t be your first choice for destroying nuclear installations, either. Rather too much collateral damage in both instances. So relax, Ritchie.
But you cannot allow a millenarian death cult nuclear weapons which they will use to “remove the obstacles to the Mahdi’s return”. The cost of that, globally, will be rather more than oil at $200 per barrel.
I’ve seen Iran described as a civilised nation hijacked by a mafia.
The West needs to realize that is the goal of Islam worldwide.
“A moderate Muslim is one who can wait til later to kill you.”
Your reference to the IRGC, Norman. That’s something I’ve not seen addressed. How does aerial bombardment – no matter how precise and impressive – deal with well over 100,000 presumably dispersed men?
I can see that killing large numbers of officers and materiel might do the trick but, so far, the IRGC seems to be the great imponderable in all this. I get the impression that, like cockroaches in a nuclear blast, they’re just lying low.
As is, to be fair having had its fingers badly and recently burned, the Iranian people.
Having said which, I know bugger all about it.
The bombing is intended to clear the way for an uprising. Fingers crossed!
I found this interesting and well-argued, D:
https://archive.ph/dtt57
It’s certain the Yids have considered this problem in depth for 47 years, and have a realistic idea of what is involved. They don’t tend to start fights they can’t win, will be making quite clear to the USA what “winning” means to them, and that this time they won’t stop until they have, simply because they can’t afford not to. The oil price, LNG bottleneck and their ramifications are problems, but not insurmountable. Above all, the UK’s LNG problem is certainly not Israel’s worry.
Some Kurdish groups do seem to have cold feet about getting stuck in then potentially cut loose if there’s a deal. So not everyone’s super confident, at least about what the endgame will be.
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-889210
And given the current UK government’s outright hostility to Israel and jews in general, the Yids are going to give even less of a shit about the UK’s LNG stockpile problems.
You can make a big dent in them by destroying their barracks, stores, training facilities, armouries, fuel depots (see the recent attack), vehicles, senior officers’ homes (which will certainly be known), and groups of them when they show themselves.
At some point the opposition will take heart, and realise you’re serious, and then the IRGC will switch from hunters to hunted.
Is the plan.
I assume.
If they follow what Hamas did in response to Israeli air power, a lot of IRGC will be redeployed to temporary bases inside schools and hospitals. Still able to threaten the civilian population, harder to locate, and terrible PR to bomb them. There are some reports from inside Iran of them starting to do that but I don’t know how widespread it is. There’s a decent chance of a critical mass of IRGC making it through the conflict unfortunately.
Almost right, because
What worries me is the possibility that these Islamic extremists, when cornered and when at risk of losing, will react even more severely and release yet more terrorist mayhem, including through the use of nuclear weapons, a possibility that cannot be ruled out.
But the risk of such gets greater as they continue to develop their nuclear program, so maybe better to crush them now rather than wait another couple of years?