Regime Hygiene.
Tehran's aim is to goad and provoke the powerless propaganda of ElBaredi and the IAEA and its feckless sponsor the UN Security Council plus Germany (P5 + 1), and the plan is perfectly in place for a winter of POTUS blame-shifting, finger-pointing and pomposity. Tehran uses this confrontation to deepens its grip on the Iranian national mania for pride of place, for supremacy, even if it comes at the hands of usurpers, liars, billies and sadists such as the Ahmandinejad coup cronies. The Supreme leader is sickly and failing, and his successor is likely a reload brute, Yazdi, who commands the savage obedience of the murderous IRGC. All this regime hygiene is best handled behind closed doors and without student whiners parading in the street, and so the noise about the nukes provides wonderful media screening. That is the chief use of the IAEA. The secondary use is to frighten the opposition in the Gulf, such as the House of Saud and the Arab princelings.
Yemen Proxy War.
Note that the news tape running below the Reuters video of the Iranian TV broadcast of the Majlis includes English subtitles about Yemen. One of them mentions Houthis. This is a Shia sect living in North Yemen that is now at war both with the South Yemen government and the Saudi National Guard. More importantly, the Houthis are clients of Tehran and receive arms and Al Quds force aid from the IRGC. North Yemen civil war is a proxy war between Tehran and Riyadh. Advantage to the aggressor, that is, the Houthis. The whole of the Arab peninsula is watching the contest to know where to put the bets. Now with the Dubai World bank run, the whole Gulf is watching Riyadh to see if it will back up the deprived Yemen central government and backstop Abu Dhabi's potentate problems. Michael Vlahos, author, "Fighting Identity," and I have been studying the brittle House of Saud on-air for some weeks and know believe this is a significant moment. The National Guard is loyal to the king until and if the frustration of an insurgency war wears down the lines of control. The bank run cannot be contained. But most specially the Tehran regime is boasting about its successes with the Houthis on state TV. Military instability in the Gulf now matched by financial instability. Who is loyal to a monarch when you are not paid?
Nukes.
POTUS and the P5 + 1 will stall the game through the winter. Tehran will provoke and taunt. The fact remains that Tehran is a nuke power already and a deal of this is show-boating to captive public opinion at home (Washington, Tehran, Berlin etc). Riyadh is the new breaking point. The money is not enough to pay for the debts when and if that bank run drains the princes. The quote Friday was that a $3.5 Billion Islamic Bond, a sukuk, which was worth 110 cents on the dollar on Wednesday 25, and was worth 57 cents on the dollar on Friday 27 close. What will it open trading Monday 30 in Asia? Bank run. No one is safe. The White House is particularly uninformed about this crisis. TARP for the Gulf? Comment by Geithner? POTUS speaks in support of Abu Dhabi? Silence.
Mr, Batchelor, it is nice to see that your show is back on the air during the weekdays. Your program is second to none. Every night you cover a wide range of subjects. As oppose to most of the other radio shows that just keep talking about the same subject matter all day long. Congratulations!
Only by listening to the John Batchelor Show can we hope to understand how the geopolitical plates connect. The idea of proxy wars fought by client actors is not something the MSM is very good at conveying. For them, the automatic hand-off is invariably back to America in order to prove their point that everything is America's fault - or, to be more precise, everything is the fault of America's Republican administrations.
Even though this template cracks time and time again from persistent misuse, the MSM will not give it up. They are as if enslaved, consumed by the notion of guilt which, they pompously feel, only they have the power to adjudicate. As they lack both the knowledge and the power to see beyond themselves, they keep harping on the same straw dog, not realizing that no one can realistically assert with certainty the innocence of anyone; that every man must testify to the crimes of all others; that cowering before midgets solves nothing – for the only real sin is the sin of surviving in a world where everyone else is doomed.
http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/
Unlike the breathy, moist-palmed Neocons, on those rare occasions when I bother to think of the Deviish Iranian military and its truly awesome $7.31 billion dollar military budget, I am ">*filled with inertia*.
Devilis, I meant Devilish. Well, okay, not really *meant* meant.
Most excellent to have the John Batchelor Show back on weekday evenings! It is truly appointment radio. Kenneth Stevens makes the valid point that America should not be unduly worrried, much less overawed, by Iran with its comparatively puny $7.31 billion military budget. However, we may also be sure that this figure does not tell the whole story, to say the least, as closed regimes like Tehran notoriously cook their books in ways and to an extent that would make Bernie Madoff blush. For example, I bet that Iran's nuclear expenditure is not part of its military budget as it is ostensibly for "peaceful purposes." Then there's what must be the vast sums spent on support for terrorist and guerrilla proxies and clients, not to mention Syria and Lebanon, apparently through the IRGC and Al Quds, outfits not known for their transparency, financial or otherwise. Still, Kenneth's basic point is well taken. If there is anything about Tehran that makes me even slightly "breathy" or "moist-palmed" it is the regime's demonstrated ability to make effective use of the resources they do have by thinking and acting rings around every American administration since 1979. The current Obama train-wreck will only make matters even worse with a toxic combination of groveling and frittering away our advantages by sinking deeper into the Afghanistan quagmire and leaving nuclear power to the Iranians while we play with windmills.
>closed regimes like Tehran notoriously cook their books in ways and to an extent that would make Bernie Madoff blush
Funny you should mention Madoff. A friend recently told me how her sixty-year-old aunt, now rigid with Parkinson's disease, made the mistake of trusting him with the bulk of her divorce settlement, and now, as a result, she'll have to spend her final years watching paint peel off the walls of some ghastly government-run "facility" that Dickens might write about were he among us today.
The amount of money that Bernie Madoff stole was seven times greater than Iran's military budget. The notion that Iran could ever present any real threat to America is just a ploy to distract the gullible among us. Guys like Madoff are the real menace to our way of life.
The world would be a better place if politicians heeded the sound advice of Derek and Clive.
The blame shifting continues. It’s circular and vicious. Bush is to blame for everything. We’ll be hearing more of it tonight, I’m sure. It’s the only thing that’s actually worked so far – why give it up now? It started with Bush being responsible for 9/11; for Katrina; for Iraq; Afghanistan; for failing to get bin Laden (above); for the economy. I’ve even heard someone say that Bush suppressed climate change data.
Bush was the evil genius who single-handedly brought America to its knees; or, the hapless incompetent of whom it is said that the mere sight of his cowboy hat caused the sun to blush and plunge the entire globe into an irredeemable void.
Sorry, I don’t buy it. I don’t think the majority of the American people buy it either. There’s only so much truth that can be stretched before it snaps back and takes out the eye of the strongman.
I’m willing to bet that if elections were held today, Obama’s team would lose hands down to Bush-Cheney. But that’s neither here nor there. Come to think of it, where are those Bush memoirs? Don’t tell me no publisher dares touch it. But, I wouldn’t be surprised.
The war isn’t in Afghanistan; it’s here. It’s raging deep within every American heart. In a sense, the whole Afghanistan thing tonight is blame-shifting subterfuge. Afghanistan is the rock that is and has always been. It is the crucible that tests our own mettle. We are the ones precariously balanced on the cusp of change. We voted for the knife edge openly. We coveted it; courted it; prayed for it. We’ve already drawn blood. “Be careful what you wish for…”
If Obama calls for more troops tonight, he will do so simply to point out that Michael Moore is not the one conducting foreign policy. If he wimps out, he’ll give the conservatives more blood to write his epithet. Before tonight Obama has been in the position of the girl who claims to be ‘a little bit pregnant’ (specifically with respect to Afghanistan). Tonight he will have to say whether he plans for an abortion or not. We’ve set it up so that, either way he decides, he loses. Slick as he is, he may ultimately attempt to sidestep the issue and hand-off the baby to Bush. Will it work?
http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/
My entry above is posted under the wrong heading. My bad. Please excuse.