Here’s a very perceptive look at the current fun and games in Iran, and the U.S. strategy behind them:
This isn’t one war, but two.
There is a regional chessboard, on which Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the other Gulf states all play. Iran’s proxies, its drones and ballistic missiles, its nuclear ambitions, its funding of Hezbollah and the Houthis. All of that belongs primarily to this smaller game. Israel has always understood this board. So have the Saudis. So has everyone in the neighbourhood.
But there is a second chessboard, vastly larger, on which the United States and China are the primary players. On this board, the central question of the next 30 years is being worked out: whether the American-led global order survives, or whether China displaces it. Every American foreign policy decision, from the pivot to Asia to the tariff wars to the posture in the Pacific, is ultimately a move on this board.
America is in this fight because of China. Specifically, it is about dismantling the most significant Chinese forward base outside of East Asia.
Read the whole thing, I beg you, because it shows that far from being a silly cowboy playing with a loaded gun, Trump’s grasp of global strategy is so far removed from that of his political opponents (and even of most of his nominal political allies in the West) that it defies belief.
We often joke about Trump playing four-dimensional chess while his opponents are stuck to a chessboard. The above article shows exactly how that 4-D chess game actually works.
I am very impressed that this appeared in the normally-silly Daily Mail. As far as I can tell, not one American news publication has come close to this succinct analysis, instead busying themselves with the minutiae of the campaign.
Still not convinced.
The US should become at least 90% self sufficient.
Seal all borders.
Expel all non-citizens.
Mow it’s own yard, make it’s own food.
Be capable of touching any spot on the earth remotely and violently.
We are very close to that, just have to work a little harder on #3.
A. FANTASTIC analysis. I’m surprised it came from a “news”paper that is literally half like People or US magazine, but it terrific. I’ve read parts of it elsewhere, of course, but that is the most comprehensive explication of the situation and strategy involved I’ve yet seen.
B. Ghostsniper’s goals are laudable, and I share all of them — but they are wholly unrelated to the situation in the Middle East. It’s the old “two things can be true at the same time” idea. The objectives and strategy in the Middle East can be correct and proper while ghostsniper’s list is also desirable.
In a somewhat (very tangentially) related side note, I’ve become less and less of a fan of Chris Muir of daybydaycartoon. While he is intelligent and often incisive, he’s stupidly in the “this is all Israel’s fault, and we have to stop being led around by the nose” camp. He’s long exhibited an anti-Semitic bent. If he truly believes that, he’s not as bright as I thought he was.
Tucker Carlson is pretty bright, too, but amazingly stupid in things like this. Chris Muir has become a guy who can draw nice tits, in my book. Get’s much right about America and our predicament, but he’s just not that smart thinking beyond our own borders.
I think that’s a common thread with many folks like that. The “focus on things at home and stop worrying about stuff outside our borders” kind of isolationism is exceedingly myopic. This article lays out that our actions in Iran are very much in the “America First” vein.
I read an article yesterday stating that there is a ChiCom surveillance ship in the mideast that is sending targeting data to the Iranians. The Russians are sending data to the Iranians as well. I sure hope that we can learn how to make the ChiCom equipment useless either by jamming them or sending the ChiComs the wrong data so that the Iranian missles blow up the ChiCom ships
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“presumably expects Japan and Taiwan and South Korea to play a similar role in the fighting.”
If I understand it correctly, Japanese PM Takaichi cited an Article in the UN Charter which allows for military deployment in “collective defense”. She said the Japanese Constitution doesn’t allow the Japanese military to be deployed outside Japan, but the UN Charter does, and her government would invoke that provision to come to the defense of Taiwan if China were to invade. Many Japanese were horrified.
The Chinese were *extremely* pissed. In their tradition of diplomacy with Japan, nobody is supposed to mention a “scenario”. You can make any vague statement you like about military readiness, but if you mention a “scenario” everybody has to start fueling the jets. Chinese diplomats sputtered something to the effect of “the head that sticks out will be cut off”.
PM Takaichi replied that Japan did not alter its position. That was a few weeks back.