The greatest danger is that decadent states tend to not accept this
decadence and cause disasters, without, preferentially, opting for hara-kiri.
Contents
Introducing the clowns
An erratic, chaotic
pecking
Persian
Gulf - many attackers for one target
Where
are the threats?
========== ##### ==========
Introducing the clowns
More
than 2,000 years ago the first triumvirate was formed in Rome, with Julius
Caesar, Pompey (the Great) and a certain Crassus who had as his fixation the
conquest the Parthian empire, and ended up dying in that war. Rome never
achieved that conquest and it was the enlightened Emperor Hadrian's who, much
later, established the peace, after having made a cost-benefit analysis of that
ongoing war.
In the decadent American empire of today, a
triumvirate[1]
also dominates, a pinchbeck one, with another Pompey
(big and fat), a Bolton well suited for the role of Crassus, due to the unwisdom
that caused him to be on the shelf for many years and, saving the worst for
last, Trump, who is lightyears away from being a Julius Caesar. The danger is
that decadent states tend not to accept that decadence and cause disasters, not
opting, preferentially, for hara-kiri.
An erratic, chaotic pecking
In the ups and downs of the already chronic political crisis in the
Persian Gulf there are several contending fields, with less or more political
moderation, with various levels of integration and contributions to that
crisis. The Middle East is now in the shop-window, after sanctions against
China and an attempt to sell, at sales prices, a certain Guaidó, in an action
in which any
threat will follow any threat. A bedbug, is bouncing, bloodthirsty.
Despite
its geographical and cultural distance from the Middle East’s peoples, the
United States constitute the only massive presence[2], the most relevant piece
in the political and, above all military, global chess, within a frantic
performance begun in 1990.
This
ensues, in historical terms, from the US perverted slant for the salvation of
others, when they found themselves free and above the European
eighteenth-century confusions. That
view, however, did not include any respect for Native Americans, which were slaughtered,
or for the enslaved blacks. From it, then, follows, in part, the fact that the
US continues to this day to assume an alleged right to intervene in the
problems that exist or keep emerging in the Gulf region, as well as in the
China Sea, even preparing to create a military base in a wildlife sanctuary
called the Galapagos Islands, to prevent iguanas from damaging US interests and
the "free world".
In
the wake of World War II they benefited, initially, from the end of the European
colonial empires, from the strategic retreat of the major European powers, from
the establishment of the neoliberal model, from the dismemberment of the
Eastern Bloc, from the technologies that have developed the globalization of
markets, mostly the financial ones, as well as from the traditional
subordination of the Latin American "backyard", which is
reconstituting itself today. As setbacks, one can mention the defeat in
Vietnam, as in the rest of Indochina, the Iranian humiliation in 1979, the
emergence in force of China as a defiant power, the greater autonomy of Asian
countries, the chaos provoked by the military
interventions in the Middle East or in the Mediterranean, in addition to
Russia's return as a potentially challenging powerand, furthermore, in a close
strategic relationship with China; which, to the misfortune of US messianic
drive, came to coincide with the financial system's debacle of 2008, which was based
on Ponzi pyramids.
As
adequate symbols of this decline one can considered G W Bush or Trump – whose
material wealth contrasts with the lack of intellectual preparation, as has
been seen recently in the succession of threats and smiles of Trump, regarding
North Korea, China, the EU, Venezuela, Mexico ... to iguanas, as mentioned
before ... This quest for a return to hegemony is often disastrous,
increasingly difficult, and increasingly contested, and is based on certain
vectors:
·
Political control of the production and
distribution of hydrocarbons in the Middle East and Venezuela whose
transactions, mainly in dollars, are a way of maintaining a high external debt
on the part of the USA and provide viability to the export of shale oil made
in the USA;
·
The Middle East, in particular the Arab
monarchies are, along with the NATO
countries, the major purchasers of the US arms industry production; a
"good" war or a mere threat of war, encourages the sultans to order
weapons[3];
·
The attempt to affect or condition the
supply of hydrocarbons to China, India and the entire Far East, or of
boycotting the import of Venezuelan oil, freezing that country’s capital or
boycotting its supply of essential goods to its population;
·
Impotence regarding the Euro-Asian
energy integration, as well as the commercial integration channel with the same
geographical scope (and including Africa), known as the Silk Road. The fall of
Latin American "left" regimes emerges as a way for the US to compensate
for difficulties in other geographies and to restore their order in the
"backyard".
Persian
Gulf - many attackers for one target
Returning
to the Middle
East, the US display their strategic assertion difficulties, after the
flops of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, the Yemeni stalemate, and having seen Turkey
– the second most populous NATO member – buy arms from rival Russia. In this
context, and pressed by the panicked Zionist fortress, the US is trying to
attack the region's most populous country, Iran – one of the three oldest and
most consolidated political entities on the planet, together with Egypt and
China.
In
the Middle East scenario several sets can be considered ... even when they have
only one element:
1. The Zionist entity appears in this context as the American fortress,
with a strategic initiative mediatized and inserted into the US one, from which
it’s political, financial and military existence depends. It has, however,
sufficient influence (via Jared Kushner[4]) to
drive the Trump administration to insane acts – Jerusalem as a Zionist capital
and the annexation of Syrian Golan territory – with the tacit acceptance of the
Arab sultans.
It should be noted that in the Zionist-occupied Palestine a racist
regime is in place in which Jews (?) keep under sword and fire an
"inferior" race, the Palestinians, in a practice similar to that of
the South African apartheid or the
Nazi Germany.
It should also be noted that the Zionist entity has about 200 atomic bombs – initially built with French support – outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The latter was signed by Iran some fifty years ago, the country having no
nuclear weapons; and even its use
for the production of energy is subject to control by the International Energy
Agency, after validation by nuclear powers such as Russia, Great Britain,
China, France or Germany, after the US withdrawal from that agreement, on
Trump’s initiative, to justify his current warlike drift in the Gulf.
2 – The Arab monarchies, led by Saudi Arabia of the media-savy Mohammed
bin Salman (MbS), having failed to use ISIS to change the regime in Syria and with
little influence in Iraq, play their hands in two planes. One, in Yemen, to
nullify the power of the northern tribes - the Huti - zaidites, close to
Shiism; and, above all, to control the eastern bank of the Strait of Bab
el-Mandeb[5] a strategic
20-km-wide passage linking the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea, to the north of
which lies the Suez Canal ... with Europe "in sight". The other goal
of MbS is to try to take down Iran, its great rival in the region, for which it
will have to forcibly rely on the United States. Finally, let us note that
there is not a total unity between the set of kings, emirs and sultans, as the
Qatari monarch is ostracized by his colleagues, since it has an old connection
to Iran and, on top of it, having Turkey as an ally, he feels safe from
muscular interventions by MbS and his confreres.
Salvador Dali – El Jinete
de la Muerte
3 – Iran is a "problem" that the United States
have been trying to solve since the fall of the Shah in 1979, when the country
ceased to be an American vassal. US support for the repressive monarchist
regime has led to the occupation of the US embassy by students who have taken
hostage their staff, in a process that ended only in 1981. The disastrous
military rescue attempt (a few years after the defeat in Vietnam) heightened in
the US a sense of humiliation that propitiated Reagan's victory in that year's
presidential election. The arrival of Reagan constituted an essential pillar
for the reinforcement of the neoliberalism, that was already being applied in
the Great Britain by the baroness Thatcher; Reagan was a sort of announcing
angel for the frets that followed him, George W Bush and Trump.
Image painted on the wall of the former US embassy in
Teheran
The US
placed an order with Saddam Hussein to wage a war against Iran in which he
would seize the Kuzistan oil territory as a reward, if he would be able to overthrow
the Iranian regime. This war provoked a million dead, consolidated the regime
but weakened Iraq, causing Saddam to invade the rich Kuwait to face the debts incurred
due to the war; and he did it without worrying to obtain assurance from the
American sovereignty, not to mention that the United States is the guardian of
the Gulf oil monarchies, successor to the British who invented them, after the
discovery of oil under the desert sands.
This was
followed by two Western interventions in Iraq, led by the United States,
resulting in the fall and subsequent execution of Saddam, new sufferings for
the Iraqi people, and the transition of former military to Daesh/ISIS, whose
mission would be the creation of a caliphate (!) that would join together
Kurdish, Syrian and Iraqi territories. For the US, what was important in that
conjuncture was the sale of weapons (paid by Qataris and Saudis) for the fall
of Assad, which, if it happened, would later weaken Lebanon, providing the
Zionist regime with a quiet border to the north and causing joy to the Sunni
monarchies for seeing Syrian Alawites and Lebanese Shiites in disgrace and with
Iran in greater isolation.
As can be
seen, there is today a Shia (and related) axis that goes from Iran to the
Mediterranean, where the US and its European cadets have lost positions,
including in those losses the good graces of Turkey, a NATO partner.
Also, with regard to Iran, this country has observer status with the SCO
– Shanghai Cooperation Organization and
close relations with its members, mainly Russia and China (a strong presence of
Chinese cadres is noticeable in Teheran hotels), but also with India and
Pakistan. As far as is known, Trump's step back (pressed by Pompeo and Bolton)
15 minutes before an attack on Iran – following the downing of the American
drone (20/6) – was not due to a humanitarian impulse from Trump, in view of
the projected death of 150 people; rather, the cause would lie in Russia
communicating that they would be on Iran’s side in the event of any aggression.
4 – Turkey, a NATO country with a unique strategic position, with
influence in Europe, and in the Black, Aegean and Mediterranean seas, the
Middle East and Central Asia, has been distancing itself from the USA and even
threatened the Arab monarchies in case of intervention in Qatar. On the other
hand, Turkey, despite its usual position against Kurdish autonomy, has been
active in northern Syria with the mediation of Russia, which has in Turkey – a
NATO country – an armaments buyer; and has a friendly relationship with Iran,
unlike the Arab countries that were included in the Ottoman Empire during four
centuries.
5 - The USA are the only case, among those present in
the Gulf area, of a global role player and that, despite their own and growing
weaknesses, in comparative terms with other powers, arrogantly claims the right
to threaten, intervene, issue warnings and opinions, even about the internal
affairs of other countries, as seen recently in Britain where Trump has
announced, without any detail, a gigantic plan to support the country once
Brexit materialized ... as a performance bonus.
For a simplified picture of the US decay, see the recent dynamics:
|
|
2017
|
2000
|
2017
|
2000
|
|
|
Large
Exporters ( % of world
total)
|
Large
Importers ( % of world
total)
|
||
|
Germany, Spain, France, the
Netherlands and Italy
|
19.0
|
21.9
|
24.3
|
29.6
|
|
China
|
15.0
|
5.7
|
9.5
|
3.0
|
|
USA
|
7.7
|
12.0
|
13.0
|
19.0
|
|
External Deficit / Surplus
|
China
|
USA
|
||
|
Millions of $
|
896500
|
391400
|
- 863900
|
- 434000
|
This is compounded by the regular issuing of sanctions and threats against
Canada, Mexico, the EU, China, Venezuela, North Korea and Iran, in addition to
the already chronic case of Cuba and others that ... nobody remembers anymore; in addition to seeking to sow military bases a little about everywhere, the
last being the Galapagos Islands – a wildlife sanctuary – and which may
have already obtained the agreement of the Ecuadorian backyard butler, a
certain Lenin Moreno.
Salvador
Dali - The Great Masturbator
Where
are the threats?
We
are going to present several indicators on the countries that are actors on the
Gulf crisis, so that their differences in forces can be assessed. Some will be
economic indicators and others have an eminently military content; and we have
added data for Portugal, for comparison purposes.
Economic
indicators
|
Iran
|
|
United Arab Emirates
|
Oman
|
Kuwait
|
A. Saudi
|
Israel
|
Qatar
|
Bahrain
|
USA
|
|
Portugal
|
|
Population
(millions)
|
|||||||||||
|
83.0
|
|
9.7
|
3.5
|
2.9
|
33.1
|
8.4
|
2.4
|
1.4
|
329.3
|
|
10.4
|
|
GDP per capita ($) 2017 World Bank
|
|||||||||||
|
5470
|
|
39441
|
20224
|
41423
|
20747
|
42056
|
69554
|
25309
|
59172
|
|
21087
|
|
Foreign debt
(% GDP)
|
|||||||||||
|
1.8
|
|
62.1
|
65.4
|
39.3
|
29.9
|
25.1
|
100.5
|
147.2
|
91.9
|
|
204.7
|
|
External debt
per capita ($)
|
|||||||||||
|
96
|
|
24495
|
13220
|
16290
|
6196
|
10555
|
69917
|
37250
|
54388
|
|
43173
|
|
Foreign Debt /
Gold and Foreign Exchange Reserves
|
|||||||||||
|
0.1
|
|
2.5
|
2.9
|
1.4
|
0.4
|
0.8
|
11.2
|
22.2
|
145.3
|
|
17.2
|
|
Military
expenditure per capita ($)
|
|||||||||||
|
76
|
|
1482.0
|
1918.6
|
1793.1
|
2114.8
|
2333.3
|
804.2
|
521.4
|
2174.3
|
|
365.4
|
In
demographic terms, Iran far outnumbers the population of its antagonists from
the other side of the Gulf, including that of the Zionist entity, which
includes several million "Israeli Arabs" or Ethiopian, second-class,
segregated citizens, because the Zionists are eminently racists and fear the
effects of their fellow citizens connecting with those living outside
Zionist-held borders. In the Gulf monarchies there are millions of immigrants
from Africa or Asia (with emphasis on the Philippines) conscribed to their
spaces and being denied family reunification. In the spasms that regularly
pop-up in this region, the United States is the great balance-breaker, taking
into account its military and economic power. We did not include in the above table
data on Jordan because it is only a weak monarchy, another British creation from
the end of World War I, with a strong Palestinian population and dependent upon
foreign financing from neighbouring oil monarchies.
Iran’s
GDP per capita is significantly lower than that of the other antagonists that,
as a rule, have an indicator higher than that of the European Portugal, as is
also the case with the United States. The inequalities’ levels are enormous
within each country. However, anyone who knows Iran will know that Tehran has
12 million people, receives daily 4 million workers living outside, has an
intense traffic, a high degree of self-sufficiency and people sport a dignified
look, the swarms of beggars that are common in other places of the Islamic
world being nowhere to be seen. However, the regime decided to build a
luxurious, pharaonic space to contain the body of the ... founder Khomeini.
Unlike
Iran, which is one of the three oldest political entities on the planet – along
with China and Egypt – recently created entities abound among the Arab
monarchies, former possessions and British protectorates that the discovery of
oil has greatly inflated, well beyond tribal leaders, merchants, horse and
camel breeders, and that the various empires that have succeeded each other in
the Middle East have never coveted. The Saud family, for example, had to wait
until the 1930s to, with Western help, establish a kingdom, thereby abandoning
the traditional practice of assaulting caravans. Qatar was a Persian territory
for centuries, Bahrain made a living off oyster harvesting, and Oman is the
only case with a presence in history because it was a maritime power in the
western Indian Ocean for a few centuries having created, for example, Zanzibar.
Given
that Portugal is on the European debt podium, all the capitation indicators are
negligible, except in Bahrain which no longer has oil reserves. The irrelevance
of Iran's external debt in the context of the GDP is noticeable, which has
consequences in capitation, Qatar and the US presenting themselves as true
champions in this indicator.
The
comparison of gold and foreign exchange reserves with the external debt shows
great inequalities. The external debt of the USA is equal to 145.3 times the value
of the country's monetary reserves, which, combined with its huge trade
deficit, is only admissible for political reasons, anchored in its military
supremacy spread throughout the planet, avoiding, in a completely artificial
way, that the dollar be considered as something without any value. Among the
remaining countries, all with indicators substantially lower than the US,
Bahrain and Portugal stand out – for the worst reasons in terms of solvency –
and Iran as well as Saudi Arabia, for diametrically opposed reasons.
Finally,
before addressing the military indicators, the enormous expenditures of the
Gulf countries are visible, being comparatively more modest in the cases of
Bahrain and Qatar; those being clearly superior to the (already exaggerated) Portuguese
military expenditures. Military expenditures per inhabitant are particularly
high in the US and Saudi Arabia, surpassed only by the Zionist fortress; and,
contrastingly, they are comparatively much lower in Iran. The question of Portuguese
military spending which, given the geographical environment, are very high
as we have already mentioned years ago, and justified only by membership in NATO,
poses itself, as a draining channel for armament made in the USA, as an
overriding reason for sending troops to places where Portugal has no strategic
or commercial interest and also, because "it is necessary" to keep a
high number of "desk
generals". In this frivolous context of military spending,
understanding the reality in the Gulf will be sharpened by knowing that Saudi
Arabia's military budget is 23 times greater than Portugal’s.
Military
indicators
|
Iran
|
|
United Arab
Emirates
|
Oman
|
Kuwait
|
Saudi A.
|
Israel
|
Qatar
|
Bahrain
|
USA
|
|
Portugal
|
|
Active military
per 1000 inhabitants
|
|||||||||||
|
6
|
|
6.6
|
12.1
|
5.3
|
6.9
|
20.2
|
5.0
|
5.9
|
3.9
|
|
2.9
|
|
Air Force
(No.)
|
|||||||||||
|
509
|
|
541
|
175
|
85
|
848
|
595
|
100
|
107
|
13398
|
|
87
|
|
Battle tanks
(nº)
|
|||||||||||
|
1634
|
|
510
|
117
|
567
|
1062
|
2760
|
95
|
180
|
6287
|
|
186
|
|
Armoured vehicles
(No.)
|
|||||||||||
|
2345
|
|
5936
|
735
|
715
|
11100
|
6541
|
465
|
850
|
39223
|
|
700
|
|
Rocket launchers
(No.)
|
|||||||||||
|
1900
|
|
72
|
12
|
27
|
122
|
150
|
17
|
17
|
1056
|
|
0
|
|
Warships (No.)
|
|||||||||||
|
398
|
|
75
|
16
|
38
|
55
|
65
|
80
|
39
|
415
|
|
41
|
Regarding
the number of military personnel per thousand inhabitants there is a clear
highlight for the Zionist entity, about five times that of the United States
that is intent on being able to intervene across the globe. In the other countries
of the region the indicators have close values, excluding Oman.
In
Portugal, the indicator should be lower, although it is understandably lower
than those recorded in the Gulf region. In Spain, a few years ago, there was
one officer with the rank of general for every 186 soldiers; in Portugal that
number is reduced to 131.
In
the air force area, without going into details about its composition and
modernity, and beyond the special case of the USA, Saudi Arabia stands out, the
Zionist entity, the Emirates and Iran emerging on a second plane. Kuwait,
despite the small size of its population and of its territory, shows an air
force quantitatively similar to the Portuguese one.
Being
a global power, the US relies heavily on the air force and less on battle
tanks, needed in conventional ground combat. As wars, today, tend to be very
asymmetrical, the use of tanks against guerrilla forces or in urban settings is
not the most appropriate. In this type of weapon, its number stands out among
the Zionists, fearful of conventional attacks or, possibly, to be used in deep
penetrations into the territory of the bordering countries. Both Iran and Saudi
Arabia have vast territories where tanks can be of use. More strange is the
number of these war machines in territories as small as those of Kuwait
(perhaps still fearful of a new Iraqi invasion ...) Qatar or Bahrain. The
latter is a small island state (780 km2 spread over 35 islands) and
has a number of vehicles similar to Portugal, which is much larger and has a long
land border. The sultans are very insightful; they will certainly know how to
use such a fleet of tanks in such a small island territory...
In
the case of the armoured vehicles, lighter than the tanks, their number among
the Saudis (a little less than 1/3 of the Americans) but with a population
almost forty times lower is also curious; another staggering indicator is that
of the Zionist fortress, with a vehicle armed for every two square kilometres,
and which cannot all be used simultaneously so as to not generate... traffic
jams. Once again, we see the asymmetries in the appropriations of these
vehicles, with similar numbers for such unequal territories, as in the cases of
Kuwait or of the insular Bahrain, when compared with Portugal.
Regarding
the rocket launchers – a highly mobile weapon used, for example, in Gaza
against Zionist targets – Iran is better equipped than the US itself, which of
course do not expect to be attacked in a conventional war. And that justifies saying
that "the Iranian air defence system is extremely powerful" and that
the United States would face "an enemy that, despite being militarily
weaker (...), has a capacity for retaliation and to cause tremendous damage
"(declarations by Carlos Branco, major-general, reserve). And this is in
addition to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz[6], in the case of a
war, with incalculable implications to the global economy.
Note
that the other countries in the Gulf area have comparatively few rocket
launchers for the simple reason that they do not expect to be attacked. At the
light of this logic, we can see the reason for Portugal not having rocket
launchers.
As
for the size of the navies – all the countries considered have a sea border –
the largest is the Iranian navy, despite Saudi Arabia and Oman also having long
coastlines. In terms of units, the Iranian navy has a size close to that of the
US, but its profiles are very different; in one case it is a fleet for coast
surveillance and in the other it is a powerful fleet, present in every ocean.
Thus, for example, the United States has 24 aircraft carriers and, among the
other Near and Middle East countries, only Egypt has this type of ship, and
then only 2 units.
What is the solution for the Middle East? Some general
ideas:
- All conflict mediations must pass through the UN
- Removal from the region of foreign military bases and any other type of military intervention
- Channelling the monetary reserves and wealth held by the oligarchies to vast plans aimed at the generation of well-being for the population
- Substantial reduction of existing military assets, particularly with the renunciation to the possession of nuclear weapons
- Enactment of a Palestinian, democratic and multi-denominational state, following the extinction of the apartheid regime set up by the Zionists
This and other texts at:
[1] For the place of
supplemental triumvir we bet in the interim secretary of defense, a certain
Mark Esper, a brilliant mind who announced that countries should
prepare for Russian missile attacks.
Esper expects that everyone will dig a shelter in their yard.
[2] Russia has, since a few years, maintained two military bases in northern
Syria (Tartus and Latakia), with very limited military intervention capacity
within the region known as the Near and Middle East.
[3] Very recently, the US sold $ 8,000 M (more than twice the Portuguese
defense budget) of armament to the Gulf’s sultans, even without Congressional
endorsement. The businessman Trump does not tie himself to ... bureaucracies
... On the other hand, Turkey, whenever it wants to buy arms from Russia, is facing
retaliation and threats from the United States; and the same Trump has been threatening India with sanctions due to
its $ 5000 M purchase of S-400 missiles to Russia, thus revealing its function of
salesman of the American military-industrial complex.
[4]
Kushner and his ideological brother Netanyahou drew up a plan to create
a Palestinian state that is, in fact, a name change for the current Bantustan, and
where it is foreseen the building of heavy infrastructures, for the pleasure of
the top companies of the concrete area. The plan is so unreal in its sectarianism
that it makes one want to laugh ...
[5] On the other side of
the Bab el Mandeb, in Djibouti, there are deployed military bases from the USA,
China, Japan and France where German and Spanish military are welcomed as
guests: on a ground where the world's highest density of military bases occurs,
they fraternize.
[6] 76% of the oil headed for China, Japan, South Korea,
and India, and 25% of the global liquefied gas trade passes through the Strait
of Hormuz.
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