All Change in the Middle East?

[Paladin]

South Africa ended its nuclear development programme in 1989, and the dismantling of its nuclear weapons capability was complete by 1994. Iran has complied with the stipulations of the Joint Comperehensive Plan of Action, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency continue to enter the county to monitor Iran's compliance with the JCOP. Compare South Africa and Iran, with Israel, which continunes to deny it even has a nuclear weapons capability, and the US support for nuclear development in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Iran
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-53922717

South Africa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_...ss_destruction

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-q...-idUSKCN1R120L

Let me know when the kool-aid you're drinking runs out.

[Stavros]

Let me know when the kool-aid you're drinking runs out.

When you engage with the facts you may change your mind, and one hopes that you do.

[Stavros]

Here we are again. In a documentary made after the withdrawal of British forces from Iraq, Tony Blair justified his involvement in that war with this claim: 'I took the view that we needed to remake the Middle East', as if 100 years of history had meant nothing, though in fairness, he was as ignorant of the region then as he has always been.

Thus last month at the UN Netanyahu declared Israel intends to remake the Middle East, but at least he made it clear that this is a military solution to problems, even though their origin is political.

The link below outlines what Netanyahu might mean when he refers to 'strategic change' which in summary means removing any and all threats to the security of Israel, whether it is from Palestinians, or Iran or Iran-backed groups in the region. There is a logic to this in military terms, but that doesn't mean the military solution does what it says on the box if Israel's wider ambitions are taken into account, viz the concept of 'Eretz Israel' that is the declared mission of Netanyahu's party, which he doesn't elaborate on much these days though the Settler movement is clear what it means.

HAMAS is not just a military organization, neither is Hizbollah in Lebanon -they can be, and to some extent have been weakened, though they are still capable of lobbing rockets into Israel, and it remains to be seen if small cells or individuals in HAMAS and Islamic Jihad in the Gaza District will find their way into Israel and do some bad things there -absolute security is a nonsense in Israel, though I feel Netanyahu's 'bring it on' attitude to such violence if it happens will merely justify some excessive response by the IDF or Mossad.

Again, Hizbollah is more than a military organization, it has social networks and MPs in the Lebanese Parliament, but yes it has been weakened. It is also the case that over a million Lebanese citizens are now homeless, as if it was their fault.

Thus the confrontation with Iran, which Yoav Gallant is justifying, begs the question: what for? The US has warned against Israel striking certain targets -Iran's petroleum resources, for example, while it has been argued only US bombs can reach the deep underground nuclear sites Iran has. Does Israel want regime change in Iran? Saudi Arabia does, the US does, and so do a lot of Iranians.

But regime change in Iran cannot be achieved with any better results than regime change in Iraq -does Israel intend to create so much homelessness and chaos in Iran that the regime there has to spend all its money and energy on internal struggles at the expense of its clients elsewhere in the region? John Bolton regularly advocated bombing Iran, and the US might even have done so if Trump had not chickened out of a response after the Iranian attacks on US troops in Iraq. Trump's natural cowardice when he was in office might become aggression if he wins this year, but who knows?

Israel is in the danger of strategic overreach, currently involved in direct operations in the Gaza District, Lebanon, Syria, Iran and to a lesser extent in Yemen. The US can do nothing to restrain Israel, in part because it supports these military operations, even as it look in despair at the human cost, frozen in its reaction whose only meaningful response would be to cut off financial and military aid, even if only to force some change in Israel's activities.

So, is Israel now the Supreme Power in the Middle East? It appears to be so, with the Palestinians looking increasingly like the Lakota, Algonquin, Apache and Iroquois of North America who were decimated and destroyed by European settlers. A settler fanatic told the Irish reporter for Channel 4 news, when they observed Gaza from a vantage point in Israel and he was asked what should happen to the Palestinians -they should leave for Ireland and the UK.

Should the US agree to take in every Palestinian from the Gaza District and the West Bank -say, 4 million? And why not?

But does this, in the long term, guarantee Israel's security? Does it in fact change the Middle East? Agreements between Israel and the unelected Governments of the Arabian Peninsula mask an obvious fact: Israelis don't trust the Arabs, Arabs don't trust the Israelis. HAMAS did all it can to make Palestinians hate Israelis, and in turn Israelis have done all they can to make their citizens hate Arabs: the cause of peace is further apart today than it was when Allenby walked through the Jaffa Gate in November 1917 to claim Palestine for the King and Empire.

Nothing has changed. And Netanyahu can't change it either, he has guaranteed it can not. And for all their rhetoric, neither Trump nor, if she becomes President, can Harris. But who will speak for the millions made homeless from Lebanon in the North to the Yemen in the South?

What does Netanyahu mean when talking about changing the strategic reality of the Middle East? – Middle East Monitor

Middle East crisis live: ‘After we attack Iran, everyone will understand your preparations,’ Israeli defence minister tells troops

[Paladin]

Well,,, hamas made some statement right after the election that they wanted to "end the war in
Gaza Now", I'm not sure exactly what they meant by that. I guess we will see, but the pasy 4 years with a spinless US administration from the dolt of a pres on down has emboldened AND enriched iran and all of their proxies, which is why we the current mess. Under the Trump admin, iran was down to about 100,000 bbls of oil exported per day, but since biden-harris basically offloaded all the sanctions on iran, that number shot up to 2,500,000 bbls / day. Where do you think all that money went??? It certainly did NOT go to the iranian people.

BTW, 4 years ago I was referring to Sauidi Arabia, not South Africa.

[Stavros]

Well,,, hamas made some statement right after the election that they wanted to "end the war in
Gaza Now", I'm not sure exactly what they meant by that. I guess we will see, but the pasy 4 years with a spinless US administration from the dolt of a pres on down has emboldened AND enriched iran and all of their proxies, which is why we the current mess. Under the Trump admin, iran was down to about 100,000 bbls of oil exported per day, but since biden-harris basically offloaded all the sanctions on iran, that number shot up to 2,500,000 bbls / day. Where do you think all that money went??? It certainly did NOT go to the iranian people.

BTW, 4 years ago I was referring to Sauidi Arabia, not South Africa.

I don't know where you are getting your figures from but you can find them in the links below which show that while the sanctions Trump imposed on Iran did have a significant impact on production and exports, it was not as low as 100,000 bbls a day.

The key point is that Trump's sanctions did not work. The aim was not just to hurt Iran and reduce if not halt its subsidies to Yemen, Syria and Lebanon, but to effect regime change through economic collapse. That Trump worsened the quality of life for most Iranians did not help the US cause at all, merely strengthened the supporters of Ayatollah Khamene'i and the acceleration of the nuclear developments that were both more controlled and observed by the IAEA as per the Joint Agreement that was sponsored by the Obama Administration.

The Biden Administration has tried a different track -easing the pressure on the economy, mostly through a revival of production and exports, in order to engage diplomatically which in theory was Trump's posture -squeeze them until they crawl to you to talk- but whatever the success or failure has been, and Iran has a reforming President again, the rogue operation by HAMAS on October 7th 2023 has changed the parameters of the policy, if there still is one.

Trump authorized the assassination of Qasim Suleimani, and in retaliation US troops based in Iraq were killed, but while John Bolton wanted to use this as a justification for direct attacks on Iran, President Trump got scared and backed down, being a natural coward, though it is doubtful that such a strike would have had any political impact other than to shore up the Ayatollahs, thus the opposite of long term US intentions.

My view is that there was a disconnect between the political leadership of HAMAS in Qatar, and the militants on the ground in Gaza where Israel's policy for years -as with the West Bank- has been to make life so miserable the people will just leave. It was like the outbreak of the Intifada in 1988 which took Arafat and the PLO in Tunis by surprise, though Fateh in particular moved rapidly to control the protests on the West Bank. Sinwar, detached from the palaces of the Gulf, and not even having direct communications with militants elsewhere, notably in Syria and Iraq, made the foolish assumption that Israel's retaliation, always excessive and illegal in international law, would produce a reaction similar to the 1973 War when OPEC seized control of production and pricing of oil, imposed a boycott on sales and sent the global economy into a tailspin.

It was never going to happen again, least of all with Mohammed bin Salman consumed by two things: spending billions on the internal development of Saudi Arabia to make it a tourist destination; and working (covertly) with Israel, not against it, to undermine and at some point neutralize the influence of Shi'a Islam on the region. Thus, HAMAS is fighting alone, and has been fighting a war it cannot win, but which Israel cannot win either, rather like the IRA and the British fighting each other until the point came when the only thing they had not done was sit down and talk, as also was the case with the PLO and Israel.

Netanyahu is not about to enter face to face talks with HAMAS, and the 'General's Plan' for Gaza that will partition the District is already in motion, though the end-game for what is now an uninhabitable land is the expulsion of every Palestinian, but where to nobody knows, and it seems, few care.

Trump is not about to ride in on a white horse and change the game, and bring peace to the Middle East. His primary concern is to make as much money as he can, from the investments he and the Kushner family have in Israel, to the sweetheart deals he thinks he can make with the Saudis.

The one game changer that has also not happened, is the anger of the average Arab at what Israel is doing -there is an outside chance of some assassination here or there attempting to destabilize Dubai, or Qatar or maybe even Saudi Arabia, but there is little sign of it yet.

Thus Israel reigns supreme in the Middle East, it can, and it will bomb at will, make millions homeless, and when the time comes to rebuild Gaza and Lebanon, the American tax payer will foot the bill.

Links on Iran's oil industry
Iran Oil Reserves, Production and Consumption Statistics - Worldometer

Analysis of Iranian Oil Sales Under President Trump vs. President Biden | UANI

The impact of Trump on Iran
Six charts that show how hard US sanctions have hit Iran - BBC News

[Paladin]

None of the wars and other terrorist acts undertaken in the past 4 years would have happened in Trump was still the president. I'm just glad that the chicoms didn't go after Taiwan, although in their long view, they probably correctly decided that they don't / didn't need to.

[Stavros]

None of the wars and other terrorist acts undertaken in the past 4 years would have happened in Trump was still the president. I'm just glad that the chicoms didn't go after Taiwan, although in their long view, they probably correctly decided that they don't / didn't need to.

This not a serious comment. Israel and the Palestinians have been engaged in a conflict for the best part of 100 years. Trump did absolutely nothing to change the situation, I don't know if he ever even mentioned Palestinians. But he did endorse Israel's illegal annexation of the 'Golan Heights' -the UN made the acquisition of territory by force illegal, not that Trump (or Putin) care about the law. We could put together a list of all the violence that took place when Trump was President, but what would it prove? He is a transactional man, he only does things if he can see them benefit him, either politically or financially. It could thus be said that before Trump Tony Blair led the so-called 'Quartet of Nations' seeking an end to the siege of Gaze -he did nothing. Trump was there for 4 years, he did nothing, and yet when HAMAS attacked Israel in 2023 it was the start of something, or rather, an extension of the conflict that has been going on for years -with Netanyahu's approval, given that he (and HAMAS) rejected the 1993 treaty.

How many wars did the US get involved in when Jimmy Carter was President?

[Paladin]

It's been more like 1200 years.

Israel has occupied the Golan Heights since 1967. Where have you been?

Trump didn't "do nothing". There were no massive attacks like the one on Oct 7 2023 while Trump was in office, additional countries recognized Israel's right to exist, and KSA was moving (slowly) along the same path. I detect more than a little antisemitism on your part.

If the UN is so concerned by forceful annexation, why didn't they do something about the Crimea???

[Stavros]

It's been more like 1200 years.

Israel has occupied the Golan Heights since 1967. Where have you been?

Trump didn't "do nothing". There were no massive attacks like the one on Oct 7 2023 while Trump was in office, additional countries recognized Israel's right to exist, and KSA was moving (slowly) along the same path. I detect more than a little antisemitism on your part.

If the UN is so concerned by forceful annexation, why didn't they do something about the Crimea???

If by my reference to Israel and the Palestinians you mean Jews and Arabs, it makes no sense to refer to 1200 years, not knowing where this figure comes from. If you knew more about the history of the Middle East - and you know less than I do- you would not make such a comment, or you could cite the occasions during Ottoman rule when Jews and Arabs were at war with each other. Good luck on that one.

Trump did nothing to end the siege of Gaza, a statement so obvious I don't understand your response. Do you think during Trump's tenure there were no violent incidents between Israelis and Palestinians as a direct consequence of Trump's policy ? What happened when Trump decided to move the US Embassy from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem?

Terror attacks tripled after Trump Jerusalem recognition, Shin Bet stats show | The Times of Israel

Trump Jerusalem move sparks Israeli-Palestinian clashes - BBC News

Israel attacks Gaza again amid continued tensions over Trump plan | Donald Trump News | Al Jazeera

The UN made the acquisition of territory by force illegal. There have been multiple occasions when this law has been broken. If you have even the slightest understanding of politics and international law you will know why there have been actions to reverse the acquisition or none at all.

For example, the 1947 Partition Plan for Palestine was rejected by the Arabs (for good reasons) and accepted by the Jewish Agency, which then participated in a war as a result of which they occupied more land than the Plan had awarded to the Jews, violating the very Plan they agreed to, indeed on this basis it could be argued that the Declaration of the State of Israel in 1948 was a violation of international law. The response which saw Jordan occupy the West Bank was also illegal, but hey, since when did anyone think Palestinians should rule themselves?

Partition at the time was a favoured option, as happened, with disastrous result when East and West Pakistan were severed from India.

Just one more obvious example: when Iraq invaded Kuwait, the UN Security Council put together a 'Coalition of the Willing' which included Syria and Saudi Arabia, who paid for the whole shebang. The law was clear: the acquisition of territory by force was illegal, and steps were taken to reverse it, and to punish the aggressor.
When the Foreign Secretary of the UK, Douglas Hurd was asked why the 'international community' went to war to reverse Iraq's act but not against Israel for its violations of international law, he replied 'because there was a Security Council resolution'. Again, if you know how international relations work you will understand why Israel could seize territory from Syria and nothing was done, whereas Israel's illegal occupations of the Sinai after the Suez War, and its occupation of Southern Lebanon after the 1982 were both reversed.

The so-called 'Abraham Accords' were a nothing -the Gulf States merely formalized what already existed, with the shameful addition that the Trump and Kushner families both had, and have financial investments in Israel, thus making this a deal that was more in the interests of the Family than the USA. It is a matter of conjecture if the Oct 7 events and the massive attack on Gaza by Israel leads Saudi Arabia any closer to recognition of Israel, not least because MBS has described Israel's war on Gaza as 'Genocide'.

[Paladin]

Every arab / muslim nation in the world (except probably Indonesia) declared war on Israel in 1948, and sever are still at war with Israel and want it to be wiped off the map. Israel still handed them their collective asses.

Suez war - do you mean 1956? Sure, after Egypt nationalized the Suez canal and blocked it, it was the UK and France that invaded, Israel just covered their flank. It wasn't very well thought out, but it did result in the downfall of nassar, which was a good thing.